Hello everyone! ^ ^ This is my first fanfiction I've ever written, so please bear with me. I apologize if there are long waits between chapters because I get writer's block a lot, and I am also a student and have my studies to do. Anyways, here's the first chapter.
Takui
Disclaimer: I don't own Angel Beats!
Warning: This story takes place after the light novel, Angel Beats!: Track Zero, and before the anime, so Otonashi, T.K., Matsushita, and other members of the SSS won't be present.
Chapter 1
In the world of the dead,
Where students go to school,
And an Angel closely watches over us,
I stand, suffer, and fight with my friends,
To rebel,
Against God.
I see prickly green trees with dark, rough bark that surrounds a gigantic school, with the sounds of students going through their daily activities pervading through the misty air.
I lie silently on a warm and gritty surface, staring up emotionlessly at the white clouds which float slowly and gently through the clear blue sky. My thoughts wander aimlessly through my mind until a rough voice barks into my ear.
"Kouno! What do you think you're doing, lying there in the middle of our baseball practice?"
A furious boy whom I had never seen before with narrow eyes and a muscular build tapped his baseball bat on the sandy ground impatiently.
"Go back to your dorm if you have nothing to do," says a short blond boy while he throws a hard baseball up into the air.
"Where am I…?"
Dorm? What dorm? What was going on? Why did I randomly wake up in a place where I had never seen before, with strangers who pretended that they knew me?
"Don't pretend to be oblivious, Kouno," growls the tall boy harshly. "Get off our field!"
Alarmed, I stand up quickly, and dash off the baseball field in a hurry. What was that about? As I brush the dirt off my sleeves, I realize that I'm wearing something weird. A girl's school uniform? When did I get changed into that? I don't even go to this eccentric school.
There's only one thing I have to do now – to find a telephone booth or something so I can call someone to get me out of this extremely creepy place.
Suddenly, I stop dead in my tracks with my mind racing. Who would I call and what numbers would I dial? My parents… who were my parents again?
I clutch at my head in despair. How could I forget my own parents' names? What kind of child was I?
Think, think, I tell myself desperately. Try to remember.
I sit down on a nearby bench with an enormous headache. The only thing I can recall is the lighthearted, smiling face of a boy.
A few minutes later, with my head buried in my hands, a sharp voice interrupts my agonized daydreams.
"Class is starting, so you better be on your way."
I look up and see a girl with silvery hair standing in front of me.
Kouno… The boys from the baseball field called me that too. Is that my name? I wonder dazedly.
I stand up rapidly as the girl begins to walk away. "Class?" I query, following her curiously. "But, you see, I don't go to this school. This might sound weird, but I don't know how I even got here and where I'm from. I'm thinking I might've hit my head or something, but can you tell me how to get out of this place?"
The girl stops so suddenly I almost bump into her. She turns and stares at me cautiously with her bright yellow eyes. I expect her to tell me some long explanation, but all she says is this.
"You can't."
I hesitate uncertainly before saying, "Excuse me?"
Now the girl is facing me completely. She only reaches up to my eyes. Her long hair sparkles in the sunlight and glides in the wind before she opens her mouth to tell me the unthinkable.
"This is the afterlife."
"I'm… dead?" The words blurt out of my mouth.
The girl nods briefly, and turns away from me. "People who have lived a hard life come here so they can fulfill their regrets that they've had in life and move on. If you go to class, you may find happiness by living a satisfying life here in this world."
This time, I don't follow her.
"Just tell me what you want me to do," I sigh, now clearly frustrated. "I don't have time for riddles."
"It's not a riddle," the girl says, beginning to walk away from me again. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have my duties as the student council president."
Anger abruptly builds up within me and I shout, "What's with all of you people? I'm not dead!"
To proof it, I pinch myself in the arm as hard as I can. "Ow!" I winched. "See? That hurts!"
"Guard Skill: Hand Sonic."
"What?"
All of a sudden, with surprising speed and agility, the girls darts towards me and gets ready to plunge a long shiny blade that appeared from nowhere into my heart.
I close my eyes, waiting for the end, but apparently that wasn't necessary.
When I didn't feel the excruciating pain of the cool sword press into my skin, I open my eyes again and see a girl with purplish-reddish hair leap over me and battle the other girl who had just tried to kill me with a short retractable knife.
Sparks flash as metal clanged against metal and before I could even begin to worry about the girl's safety, she rushes over, and grabs me by my shirt and roughly tosses me into the bushes by the school.
"Care to join the SSS?" the girl asks casually, after making sure the silvery haired girl was gone, like we had known each other forever. "We're short on recruits."
"The – what?"
Then, unexpectedly, a blue haired boy jumps down from an open window above us and lands smoothly on the ground like an agile cat. "Huh? Who's that, Yurippe?"
"Our newest recruit!"
"I didn't say I would join!" I start to protest.
"Hey," the boy whispers in my ear. "Never go against Yurippe's orders, or you might get a pair of chopsticks in your eyes."
"I heard that!" the girl shouts, and she punches the boy so hard in his face that he falls over and blood squirts out from his nose.
I kneel down next to the boy and become very aware and cautious of the girl.
"Er, are you okay?" I ask tentatively.
The boy waves my concerns aside. "Don't worry; I'm used to it. She does this to me all the time. Like kicking me off the roof…"
"She kicks you off the roof…?" I gasp in horror and amazement.
The girl frowns, with her hands on her hips. "I'm not the villain here. He deserves it! Besides, he won't die."
"He won't…" Those words slowly begin to make sense in my mind. "Wait. What do you mean, 'he won't die'?"
The girl scoffs. "Isn't it obvious? You're in the afterlife!"
I stand up abruptly and point an accusing finger at the feisty girl. "That's what that other girl said too! I'm not dead!"
The girl stares at me. "Oh yeah. You're a newbie, aren't you? That's what everyone says when they get here. You just have to accept things as they are. You're dead!"
And with that, she points a gun at my head and pulls the trigger.
I wake up in a hospital bed with tan curtains and white tables around me. My mind quickly goes over what just happened. I woke up in a strange place with strange people who pretended that they knew me, a girl with white hair tried to kill me with a sword and another girl really did kill me with a gun.
I suddenly sit up. How could I still be alive after that ordeal? Unless I actually was…
"See, you are dead," says a familiar voice. "This is the afterlife, and you can't die."
And there's the girl who shot me, standing next to the curtains with the boy from earlier, a shorter boy with brown hair, a tall guy with long black hair, a purple haired boy carrying what looked like a halberd, and finally a long dark haired girl wearing a black scarf and wielding two knifes in her hands.
"I'm Yuri," says the girl, holding out her hand.
I hesitate before shaking Yuri's hand. After all, she did kill me before.
"I'm… Kouno," I respond.
The others introduce themselves as Hinata, Ooyama, Chaa, Noda, and Shiina.
"Kouno-san, do you have a first name?" the boy called Ooyama asks politely.
I close my eyes, trying hard to remember. Finally, minutes later, I open them.
"Sa… Sa-yu-ri."
That word doesn't feel strange on my tongue at all. That's when I know I've remembered it correctly.
"My name's Sayuri Kouno," I say.
Yuri smiles for the first time since I've met her. "Well, Sayuri-san, this is the Shinda Sekai Sensen, where we rebel against God!"
Well, here you go. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this chapter...
Anyways, thanks for reading! Any reviews are awesome at this point. :)
