Time: after episode 2, before episode 5

Characters: Otonashi, Yuri

The night was quiet. It was late and everyone was heading back to their respective dorms after another successful Operation Tornado. With his stomach filled and mood lightened, Otonashi made his way to the principal's office, humming a tune from Girldemo's concert. He twirled his gun in his hand as he walked, flipping it this way and that without a conscious thought. The last operation had left him short on bullets; he hoped Yuri would have some to spare, and since he didn't know where else to find her other than their headquarters, he had come here instead of the girls' dorms.

"There is no God, Buddha, or Angel," Otonashi muttered as he reached for the door. A second later he heard the metallic clang! of a trap door sliding open and he let out a shout as a gigantic hammer began swinging towards his face. Caught off guard but somewhat prepared for this scenario, he pressed himself against the wall and crouched down, narrowly avoiding the brutal pendulum and the surefire death it brought along with it. He sat frozen until the thing stopped swinging.

"Damn it!" he shouted as he pulled himself to his feet. "I told you the stupid password!" he complained to the motionless hammer. He grabbed the doorknob and prepared to storm in and report the malfunctioning trap—and its idiotic creator—to Yuri.

Locked?

He tried the door again, keeping a weary eye on the hammer in case it decided to jump off its track and pummel him for being an incompetent moron. This was the only safe place in the school. Why was it locked?

"Yurippe usually locks the place up at night. She's paranoid about Angel or even the teachers breaking in and reclaiming it."

Otonashi scowled as he recalled Hinata's words. Man, she's a stubborn leader. What with the giant dysfunctional hammer and all, there was no way any kind of NPC would even try to approach this area. Angel…was admittedly a valid threat, but come on. The Battlefront took her on every day. It couldn't be that hard to chase away such a tiny girl from such a useless office.

He sighed and knocked twice on the door. "Yuri? You in there?"

No answer.

"All right, no one's home," he said, crouching down to the keyhole. "Which means it's time to pick the lock!" He pulled out a couple of paperclips and bent them as he remembered Hinata doing when they broke into Angel's dorm. It took a while, but then with a jiggle and a near-silent pop, the lock sprang open. "Aha," he smiled. With one last look at the giant hammer, Otonashi slid into the room and closed the door.

The room was almost completely dark. The only light came from a laptop sitting on the principal's desk, facing him. A little icon of the SSS spun in the center of the screen, the words "briefing manager" under it in thin print. The place looked a lot bigger with the absence of the usual members, and it took Otonashi a good minute before he noticed the dark shape on one of the couches. He gave a start at the sudden presence.

"Yu…Yuri?" he asked tentatively. There was no response. He crept closer, tiptoeing around the table and towards the couch. It was definitely her, all right. And she was fast asleep. She was still in full uniform with her hat perched at an awkward angle. One gun was clutched loosely in her hand while the other rested on her stomach, rising and falling with her even breathing.

"S-she sleeps with her guns, huh?" Otonashi muttered to himself, edging away. "That's a step up from a knife under the pillow, but I guess it fits her style." He looked around the room for possible ammo-storage areas. There really wasn't much to search; the only things that didn't fit in with the principal's-office-décor were the multiple closed laptops on either side of the main desk and the sleeping girl with dual guns. He crept over to the principal's desk and slid open a drawer.

He blinked. "This is…wow," was all he could say. The drawer was entirely filled with ammo of every kind, packed in like sardines with little to no organization. He opened another one to find the same thing, this one with a few grenades rolling around the bottom. He felt a muscle near his eye twitch. "Man, these guys take fighting seriously, don't they?"

The bottom right drawer had the correct ammo for his gun, and he took an extra set in case of an emergency. He slid the magazine into his gun and pocketed it, feeling satisfied with his snooping. He snuck back around the desk and prepared to exit.

Without warning the gun slipped from Yuri's grip and thunked to the floor, making him jump a foot into the air. With his blood pounding in his ears, Otonashi slowly turned around. Is she…awake?

No. She was still sleeping.

Breathing out a deep sigh of relief, he relaxed his shoulders and rubbed his temples. He walked back over to Yuri, picked up the gun she had dropped, and placed it on the table. For a good measure, he took the other one off her stomach and put it with its partner. She didn't move an inch. Her mouth was set in a scowl and her eyes were shut a little too tight for it to be relaxing.

Otonashi bent down to her level and watched her for a moment. "You can't even loosen up in your sleep, can you?" he asked rhetorically. He took the white beret off her head and put it next to the guns. With some difficulty, he carefully pulled off her shoes and lined them up next to the couch. And finally, he shrugged out of his uniform jacket and draped it across her body like a blanket. "Wouldn't want to catch a cold, would you, O fearless leader?" he laughed, rising slowly. He gave the room and its only occupant one last look before closing the door.

The night was a little chilly when he stepped outside, but Otonashi had never felt better. He stretched his arms and yawned as he walked back to his dorm, wondering what kind of crazy plan was in store for the Battlefront tomorrow.