Prologue: A Reaper's Remnants

'Another meal, another friggin' milkshake through a straw,' Ragna the Bloodedge thought to himself in annoyance as he laid on his recovery bed in a white hospital gown.

It had been two weeks since that final battle with the Master Unit, two weeks since he'd finally killed Izanami and the revived Terumi. Ragna's last battle was by far the hardest he'd ever faced, but even he was surprised it was taking this long to heal up. Part of the reason laid in Ragna's own power, as he'd poured every bit of energy that the BlazBlue had into his final surge of strength. The result was a power boost above his wildest dreams, but the backlash once that was done had nearly torn his entire body to shreds. He'd be in tiny pieces right now if the BlazBlue hadn't taken the brunt of the damage, causing it to shatter and destroy itself.

Maybe that was part of the reason, Ragna had thought. Whenever he'd gotten hurt in his crusade against the Librarium he'd just waited a few hours and the BlazBlue could heal practically everything up. Now that it was gone, Ragna was left with a shattered body and a far inferior healing factor. This meant he'd had to rely on certain people for help... and by people he meant Sector Seven.

It ticked him off to no end to be put in Kokonoe's care, especially after what had happened when Celica had expired, but at this point he really didn't have a choice. If he decided to throw away the consideration Kokonoe had given him when she'd brought him here, however little it might have been, he knew that he'd feel the full fury of Sector Seven's new board of directors. Long story short, don't piss off Kokonoe or be subject to vivisection and other experiments, those were his only options.

'Man I wish I could actually walk,' Ragna moaned to himself as he finished the last of his 'full nutrients' shake. The only times Ragna was ever allowed to get out of bed was when he needed to use the bathroom and even that was hellish. Kokonoe had set up a sort of handrail for him to use to get himself to the bathroom when need be (not saying who needed to changed his pads before that), but with weak legs and only a single arm to use, Ragna was having to endure a lengthy venture to the porcelain throne every time he wanted to take a dump. At the very least he still could use his right eye (which was still red) without difficulty, but that was more of a minor detail.

'Aw, screw the bed arrest!' Ragna thought to himself as he forced himself to rise. He slowly got on the guard rail and started to walk out of his room. 'Damn, there's an high level Ars Magus seal on the door, but even without the BlazBlue I think I can do this much.' Even his weakened state Ragna managed to dispel the Ars Magus that would've held him in his prison, but the effort drained him even further. By the time he was walking down the halls he was already sweating and needed to use the wall for support. 'Damn it, how could I have gotten this weak?!' He then noticed a shadow looming over him. 'Shit...'

Meanwhile

Makoto was walking down the halls of sector seven, getting ready to enjoy her mid day break. After the war, the Librarium was undergoing several changes with its policy and a new Imperator leading it so Makoto had wanted to be a part of those changes. Since she was known to have worked with Kokonoe in the past, she was currently acting as an NOL representative for Sector Seven. The work wasn't bad and the pay that went back to her family was much more than she'd been making originally, but her co-workers now consisted of scientist farts that thought she was just a stupid beast and old people who were even more racist.

The few friends she did have here consisted of a ten foot tall cyborg nice-guy, a doctor with oversized breasts who was lamenting a dead pile of sludge, and a pink haired half cat with sass that could teach teen stars a thing or two and an addiction to lollipops... well, they were still her friends.

As Makoto walked along one of the less busy halls and turned a corner she bumped into Eric, one of head scientists in the Sector who answered only to the board. He was a tall middle aged man with a bored expression on his face, whiskers, and grey hair. Out of all the people who pissed her off in her new job, this guy was definitely in the top five. True, she'd tried to be friendly when they'd first met, but this guy just refused to accept her as a person instead of a freak of nature.

"Out of the way, mutant," he said to Makoto gruffly before shoving past her, dragging a wheeled stretcher with a cover over it. Makoto glared daggers at the man though he couldn't see it. As Eric began walking towards the main labs, she noticed the vague outline of white hair protruding from underneath the covers.

'Wait a minute...' Before Eric could take notice or even react, she jabbed her fist out and immediately grabbed the covers off of the stretcher. What lay beneath was none other than the body of the Grim Reaper. "W-What is this?"

"Give that back!" Eric shouted as he forcefully grabbed the cloth from her. "You're interfering with official Sector Seven business. If you don't want me to report you to the superiors I suggest you leave."

"Like hell!" Makoto shouted. "Tell me what's going on! I saw Ragna's body with my own eyes and he was dead! Worse than this even!"

"Why should I tell you?" Eric said as he laid the cover over Ragna's limp body. "I'm sick of you Beastkin thinking that you can even talk to us just because some bestiality bred bitch is-!"

"Choose your next words carefully Eric, I'm right here." Eric's expression turned from cold and demanding to fearful and cowardly in heartbeat as he slowly turned to face Kokonoe. While almost everyone in Sector Seven hated her, everyone also feared her with her prowess in science. Kokonoe made her way over to the stretcher and looked down on Ragna's covered body. "What the hell were you planning on doing to my patient? He's still on recovery for god's sake!"

"Then keep a closer eye on him," Eric said, gathering up his courage for a steeled gaze at Kokonoe. "He was walking down the hallway when I say him." As he turned to leave, he glared back at the two Beastkin for a moment. "I'll be sure to let our superiors know the situation Kokonoe, how long do you think you can afford to stall?"

Kokonoe rolled her eyes as Clark left. "Makoto, I need you to guide Ragna's stretcher and help me bring him back to his room before more of the jackasses show up." Seeing the outburst that was about to come from Makoto, Kokonoe decided she'd explain. "Look, I'll explain everything later, but we need to get Ragna back to his room. The fewer people that see him, the better."

"A-All right," Makoto sighed as she pushed the stretcher and followed closely behind Kokonoe. After going a short ways down the hallway, they came to what was apparently Ragna's room and shut the door behind them.

"Idiot," Kokonoe hissed to herself as she glared at Ragna's limp body. "I knew I should've put up a better spell to keep him inside." She closed the door and set up another seal using magic before taking a closer look at Ragna's head. "Not seeing any signs of a concussion, so he was probably put under a 'knockout' Ars. Alright Makoto, help me move him back into his bed."

Makoto nodded as the two lifted Ragna and placed him back on his recovery bed, their patient not moving in the slightest. Once that was done, Makoto looked expectantly to the professor.

"Alright, alright, I'm getting to the explanation!" Kokonoe said, hating to feel rushed. "Alright, so what do you remember about the final battle?"

"I was only there for the cleanup," Makoto told Kokonoe. "Before that I was with Noel and Tsubaki trying to capture Relius Clover, but we both know that he managed to get away... But last time I saw Ragna he..."

It wasn't a pretty memory for any of them. When Makoto had seen Ragna after the final battle, she'd been certain she was looking at his corpse. His right arm had been completely destroyed, his limbs were all bent at awkward angles, and almost all of his flesh had been viciously torn off so he'd looked more like a skeleton with a few shreds of meat on it.

"That was pretty ugly sure, but the fact that I didn't know at the time was that the asshole was still breathing." Kokonoe sighed as she took her lollipop stick out of her mouth and threw it in a nearby trash can. "Somehow with almost all of his vital organs destroyed, his heart in critical condition, AND his brain in pieces, Ragna was still alive."

"So you've been healing his body in secret this whole time?" Makoto asked. The Beastkin had seen Noel react to Ragna's supposedly dead body and it hadn't been pretty. Even after the hours it took to calm her down, Noel wouldn't stop sobbing with how unfair it's been that he'd had to die after helping her so much. Makoto didn't really know Ragna that well, but at the very least she shared Noel's sentiment. Currently Noel was with Kagura in the NOL, trying to pick up the pieces after it's change in leaders and keep their minds off of what'd happened.

"Secrecy's been hard to stretch these past few days," Kokonoe told Makoto. "I couldn't afford to bring Ragna back in my lab back in Ikaruga since it didn't have the tech needed, so I needed to use the lab here."

"Does the Board know that he's here?"

"Oh they know alright, in fact they want to keep him here," Kokonoe said with obvious irk. "They want to know how strong his abilities are, mainly his impressive regeneration rate. I told them that he'd lost it when the BlazBlue had shattered and the only reason he's alive now is the leftover biomaterial I had from Lambda and the medical nanomachines I'm putting into his milkshakes."

"Well, he seems to be doing pretty well," Makoto said, looking at Ragna who was still passed out on the bed. "It looks like he'd be back to full in no time."

"That the problem!" Kokonoe yelled. "He's regenerating way too fast! I ran out of biomaterial when I made Ragna's left arm and the nanomachines are actually there to cancel out Ragna's healing factor!"

"You're keeping him here on purpose? Why not just let him regenerate back to full and let him break out? Even with one arm I'm sure he could still kick ass!"

"Then he'd just be a wanted man again," Kokonoe told Makoto with a sad look in her eyes. "The NOL council has't specifically said that Ragna's going to be charged with war crimes yet, and we can still attempt to absolve him from his days as a rebel, but if he breaks out now he's going to have the world on his heels all over again. Besides, I'm still in the middle of making his replacement arm. We can hold off until then."

"Alright..." It wasn't what Makoto wanted to here. She still knew that Noel blamed herself for what happened to Ragna, and that she'd continue to blame herself until word got out that he was now alive, but if she needed to wait a little for both their sakes, she'd do what she had to. "Hey, do you mind if I stay here for a little bit? I want to make sure he's okay after just losing conscious."

Kokonoe was about to tell Makoto off and explain that Ragna couldn't possibly die from just that, but she decided if she just listened to her this once, she'd at least have less of an outburst later.

"Alright, the seal's going to lock the door shut after you leave, so don't try to get back inside." Kokonoe opened the door to leave. "And Makoto? What I just said stays between us. I don't want Ragna to find out, he'll just get pissed."

"You got it," Makoto assured as the Grimalkin left. Makoto sat in a small chair next to Ragna's bed for a moment before he slowly opened his eyes. "Hey."

"Hey," Ragna said in return with little emotion in his voice. "Makoto, right? Noel's friend?"

"Yeah, that's me," Makoto told him. "So how are you feeling?"

Ragna let out a deep breath before answering.

"Pissed."

Author Note: I don't own BlazBlue.

Well that chapter came out MUCH later than I was expecting. I was wondering how to start this off and I decided a few recovery chapters would be a pretty good start.

If you still want to read my original story, I've reported it as 'Version Zero.' I have a few idea's for a small concluding chapter, so be on the lookout for that.

Lastly, to those of you who voted for the college AU, I've decided that I'll include a College chapter every five chapter, just so that everyone gets what they want.

Until next time, Ciao!