Heads-up: AU-ish, pairings (primarily Riko/Hyuuga), and OCs.
A/N: Try something totally new here. Bare with me.

prologue.

The thing about death is that you know it's going to come, but at the same time, you're left clueless about it. Death is just a thought pushed in the back of your mind. It's left for those rare days where your morality is put into question by something like a deep conversation, faith, spirituality, or even a near-death experience.

Then you don't think about it again because, hell, you've got a life to live. You're too busy. You've got no time to think about things like death. It's funny, because you haven't got a damn clue about how little time you actually have.

So you live your life, but you don't really life at all. You just kind of sit there, learning how to survive in this godawful thing humans call a society. It takes years and years to properly learn how to be a decent member of society, but you gotta do it because what's humanity without society? So the most worrisome thing to you isn't dying, but it's that fourth period test that holds the key to you doing well in Biology and boosting up your average. Or ensuring that your team wins their very first tournament.

So, of course you're taken by surprise when death finally comes knocking. It's early morning. You're walking to school, thoughts occupied by this life of yours. You've got a game today. Your team is nervous, and hell, you're the coach and you're nervous. Light goes red. The little walking man flashes. You cross the street. Then some stupid drunk driver hits you and you're dead. Your last fleeting thought is something lame like, I thought drunk drivers only came out in the night?

Then there's that cliche blinding light and you get this sensation of being ripped out of your seat and being sucked into a different one. You open your eyes. You see the clear morning skies. You sit up. You scream. Some woman screams. The man next to her screams. A child screams. Everyone's screaming because a man just hit you with a car, then ran over you with that same shitty car - a stinking Chevy of all cars - and turns into the next street corner. Your blood is everywhere. People are frantically calling for the police and checking to see if you're alright. You aren't.

You sit there. You stop screaming. Instead, you cry because, shit, you're Aida Riko, you're only seventeen, you've got a big game, and you're supposed to be at school meeting with up your team to go to it. Then you're supposed to go out for ice cream with some girlfriends. But no, you're just sitting in the middle of some street with screaming and crying people all while staring down at your dead body.

You cry harder.