Author's Notes: General apologies for taking longer than a week with these – therefore, double the update?

Disclaimer: Own Bokurano and Sandman, I do not.

What disturbed Daiichi "Daichi" Yamura was how fast it went. One moment he was alive and looking at his friends, wondering where his body would go after he died and then –

–and then everything ended and he watched himself collapse, the others looking on in horror and sadness. Most cried – not Ushiro, but Daichi didn't expect him to – and then a small, broken voice murmured, "I've been called, it's me, it's me," and Daichi almost didn't want to register that it was Nakama – kind, caring, if slightly withdrawn, Nakama – who was next to fight and kill and die.

"I know it hurts."

Daichi saw her before his brain registered it – she'd been there the whole time, actually, but he was focused on them instead – and took her in and understood who she was with a calm, resolved air.

She stood next to him, Death did, observing the somber cockpit. "But you can't do anything more for them."

Somehow the hidden meaning seemed so clear now. "Did they make it? My brother and sisters?" Daichi spent his fight protecting the amusement park he and Futaba and Santa and Yoshi would have visited together, had he not died. He hoped they would understand, never lose hope that he would return, even though he wouldn't.

Death looked at him, a curious gleam in her eyes. "Do you want to see them?"

Daichi swallowed. "Is that allowed?"

The gothic woman just glanced down at her open hand. "Go on – take it. Let's see."

He didn't waste a moment and his grieving friends dissolved. Before him his three siblings slept peacefully on the evacuation bus, his uncle and aunt and cousins talking in soft whispers that he could decipher though he could not hear. 'And Daiichi? What about Daiichi?' 'He left, he just gave them to me and left.' 'But he'll be okay, right? He'll come back?'

The lump in his throat nearly choked him. He wanted to reach out a hand to put on his uncle's shoulder, to tell him to take good care of Futaba and Santa and Yoshi, to thank him again for all he'd done for them after his father disappeared.

But of course. He couldn't. He knew that.

"Don't worry." He almost forgot Death was there. She gave him a sad yet hopeful smile. "I won't see them for a long time. You protected them."

Somber eyes drifting away from his siblings, Daichi asked, "Can I go now?" He sounded more vulnerable than he had in years, than he'd let himself sound in years. Now he could be a child again, the right his father robbed of him.

"Of course." Death held out her hand again and as Daichi took it, he knew this time he wouldn't be taken to any place he'd seen before.