Hello again readers. This chapter will explain Okazaki's past. Most fans of Clannad will already know most of this, but there are some important things that happen in this chapter and I encourage you to read. This chapter in particular was very difficult for me to write. Constant revisions and edits trying to capture the emotions of three major events from Clannad that are described here. Even more difficult trying to make my original characters react to these events. So please enjoy the fruit of my labor and leave a review while your at it! I want to make this series as great as possible.

Chapter 4

"Fuko!" Okazaki screamed as he say up, quickly, as if waking from a nightmare. He looked around wondering where he was.

He was in the infirmary that he had first woken up in after his first encounter with Otonashi. But, this time, the beds were all filled with other people yet to awaken from their slumber after being "killed" by Otonashi.

"I see that you're awake now."

He turned to where the voice was coming from and saw Ellie walking towards him. She looked really pissed.

"You will tell me exactly what the hell happened two nights ago," she ordered. "Gale believes that we will lose all but a couple of what few members we have left from this incident, and if the last time this happened is any indicator, then I believe him. We need to know."

"Did you say two nights?" he asked her. "I was out cold for two whole nights?"

"No surprise," she replied, crossing her arms, obviously agitated. "Angel used his Meteorite Strike. That is the most powerful attack we have encountered."

"Well, what exactly is Meteorite Strike?" He couldn't imagine one single person having such incredible power all to himself. "Is it a missile or something like that?"

"We don't have the slightest clue," she replied. "It completely wipes us out before we can do anything against it, let alone gather information on it." She walked up to the side of his bed and rested her arms on the mattress. "Now, enough with the questions. We need to know what you did, and now. Tell me everything."

Okazaki relaxed and laid back on his bed. He sighed and remained silent for a few moments.

"Fuko," he said.

"Fuko?' she couldn't have hidden her surprise. She obviously wasn't expecting someone's name to come up in this conversation. She wanted answers, not people. "So what, were you guys fighting over a girl or something?

Okazaki chuckled. "Fuko was the one who stopped Otonashi from setting off another Meteorite Strike. I saw her scream for him to stop and just before I passed out, she turned to me and smiled. Such a warm, familiar smile." He started to cry. Not sobbing, but full on crying.

The fact that this girl had stopped Angel had startled Ellie, but what surprised her the most was Okazaki crying. To see a grown man crying so hard all of a sudden isn't something you see everyday. She looked around, hoping no one was awake to hear or see this, and turned back to Okazaki, patting his back to try and calm him down. "It's okay now, calm down." She continued to comfort him until his sobbing had stopped.

"Are you calmed down now?" she asked him.

Okazaki nodded.

"Okay, please tell me what happened."

"Yes, but could you please let me tell you about my life first?"

She nodded, with a comforting, motherly look on her face. A look with which Okazaki was unfamiliar.

So he told her.

He told her of his father who treated him more as a stranger than a son. The fight where he injured his shoulder and couldn't continue his only passion and dream of playing basketball. How he spent his entirety of high school in a meaningless loop of existence.

He told her of Nagisa. How he had met her. How she was standing at the bottom of a hill, too afraid to climb it. How she said that she loved the school but everything had changed. How he had helped her get the drama club back up. His love confession to her after the cultural festival. He thought his life was finally turning around for the better. He married Nagisa a year and a half after he graduated. They were even going to have a child.

But Nagisa had never been in great health. While giving birth to their daughter, the strain was too much for her body without a doctor there to support her with medical treatment. The doctor had no way to get to their house, nor them to a hospital, as a snowstorm had completely covered the streets. She gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Nagisa, on the other hand, didn't make it. She died moments after seen her new baby's face.

He told her of how he had regressed back into his original, meaningless loop of depressed life he had called existence. For five years he went to work, headed to the bar and got wasted, went home and slept. The same miserable and pitiful routine, every day, for five whole years. To his daughter, he never acted as a father. He rarely even saw her. She lived with her grandparents. Nagisa's parents. He treated his daughter worse than his father had treated him years earlier.

Then one day, Sanae and Akio, his mother-in-law and father-in-law, invited him to a vacation and his work told him to go, too. He arrived at their house only to find it empty with a note saying that they wouldn't be able to make it and he should just go without them. He decided to just go home, but when he turned around he saw his daughter, Ushio, standing there. He knew that he could not leave her alone, so he decided to stay for the night and watch her.

But they didn't return the next day. Ushio kept asking him if "Grandma and Grandpa were coming back to take them on a trip." He felt sorry for her and after seeing a father take his children to the pool, he decided to take her on the trip without her grandparents.

Throughout the entire trip, no matter what had happened she never cried. But she had to use the restroom often. When Okazaki asked her why, she replied "Because Grandma told me that the only place I'm aloud to cry is the bathroom."

Okazaki felt almost nothing at such a depressing statement from such a young child.

They stayed at a hotel located in a small rural area famous for its sunflower fields. Ushio loved it. She ran around, having so much fun playing with the new toy that Okazaki had bought for her at the train station on the way here. It was a toy robot. Okazaki didn't really put any thought into it, as it was definitely not a toy that you would expect a young girl to have, but she loved it. He couldn't figure out why.

Later, though, she had accidentally lost the toy in the sunflower fields. Okazaki told her that he would get her another one but she refused. He sighed and said how she was stubborn just like her mother, which caused painful memories to return so to get them out of his mind, he continued looking for the toy.

He sat down under the shade of a tree after a while for a break, when he felt an old memory return. He could not place it. It flashed through his head and he told his daughter he would return in little bit. He followed the path that he felt he remembered and met someone.

It was his grandmother.

She told him that those memories were of him and his father coming to visit her after Okazaki's mom had died. He had come here to pledge his life to raising his child, no matter what the cost.

She told him how his father wasn't the greatest person as a man, but as a father, he hadn't done that bad a job.

Okazaki couldn't deny it.

His memories returned of when he was a child. His father was always working, just trying to keep their house and food on the table. And whenever he had any spare money he would always use it to buy his son some candy or a toy. Whatever he could afford. He never spent it on himself.

But eventually, the stress from abusive bosses, raising a child alone, and never having enough money to support his family got to him. He started looking for something, anything, that could relieve his pain. The things he found were alcohol and gambling. Their lives went downhill from there, but his father still tried his best. He gave it his all.

Okazaki had to agree that his father was a much better one than what he had always believed. And he was a much better father than Okazaki was to Ushio.

With these thoughts still fresh in his mind, he returned to his daughter.

She was still looking for the toy.

He went down into the fields and continued to search for it with her. After an hour he told her that they needed to go and that he promised to get her a new one.

But she insisted that, that was the one she wanted. No other ones.

Okazaki asked her why and this is what she said.

"Because," she said, "that was the first present you ever gave me. Daddy."

That was the very first time his daughter had ever called him "daddy." Okazaki broke down on the spot. He told Ushio how sorry he was for leaving her alone for the past five years and that from now on he would be a great daddy to her.

She ran up to him and gave him a huge hug. She was bawling her eyes out, crying non-stop the whole time.

"It's okay, Ushio." he told her while hugging her. "You don't have to cry anymore."

"B-but…" she stammered through the tears falling down her face, "Grandma told me th-that the only place I'm aloud to cry is in the bathroom." She continued to cry even harder. "And in Daddy's arms."

Upon hearing this, Okazaki started to cry along with his daughter, holding her tighter and tighter than ever before. He sat there, along with his daughter, crying out all the pent up tears and sorrows that had built up over the past five years. Father and daughter together, let their emotions spill out to each other.

They returned home to find Sanae and Akio waiting for them.

"Thank you," he told them. "Thank you so much."

They only smiled and nodded. All this was obviously their plan from the very start.

For the next few months, Okazaki finally acted as a father. He loved his daughter with everything he had. He even did menial little things like take her to school in the mornings.

There was a girl that would come over to play with Ushio. She was the same age as Okazaki, but had more of a high school girl's mentality as she was in a coma since her freshman year. This girl was the sister of Nagisa's old art teacher in her Freshman year.

This girl's name was Fuko.

Fuko Ibuki.

Fuko would come to play with Ushio, and Okazaki became the father he should have always been to his daughter.

Everything was perfect.

But fate had a horrible tract record with Okazaki.

Ushio inherited her mother's illness and became sick. For the longest time, she remained bedridden. She must have known that her time was up, even at such a young age, that each and every day, she would beg her father to go on a trip to the Sunflower Fields. She wanted to see her favorite place once more before she died.

She never said that she knew she was going to die, but now, it was obvious.

Okazaki tried to carry her to the train station in the middle of winter. He just couldn't say now, for deep down in his heart he knew, that even if he had made her stay home, it would have ended the same way. His mind denied the truth. Only now did he realize what his heart had already known. His heart governed his judgment that day.

She died in his arms in the middle of a winter filled street.

After that, he again regressed into his meaningless, depressed lifestyle. He started drinking and gambling again.

One night, he was completely drunk and on his way home, he crossed the street. And was hit head on by a speeding truck.

That is how Okazaki ended up in this world. The memories of Fuko and the memories of his death had returned to him.

Ellie was silent. She had heard many tragic stories of people's lives. The reasons that they had ended up in this world for those who could not accept their lives. She started to cry. Tears streamed from her eyes to her chin. She wiped them away with her sleeve. Of all the stories of people's horrible lives, this man's was the most heart wrenching she had ever heard.

She bent forward and hugged Okazaki. A big, great hug meant to comfort the shattered heart of a poor, lost soul.

"I'm so sorry," she told him. It came out as a stammer as she was crying. Okazaki started to cry along with her, pitying himself over his own life.

"I'm so sorry for the way we treated you," she said. "I knew you must have had something, but what you just told me was… something I could never imagine."

Okazaki smiled in gratitude. "It doesn't matter. You cant be blamed for you knew nothing."

Suddenly, though, realization hit Ellie like a hammer. "Fuko?" she quickly asked. "Didn't you say the name of the person who stopped Angel was named Fuko?"

"I did." he replied. "It was her. No mistaking that face or that smile."

Ellie felt even worse that he had to learn that someone he was close to when he was alive had turned out to be an enemy.

"But there is more to her than I have told you so far."

She looked up at his face, which was deathly serious at the time.

"I knew her before all that," he said. "Nagisa and I helped her get her sister married to her fiancee."

"What?"

Okazaki then delved into another story.

He told her that while trying to start up the drama club back in high school, he was looking for possible members to join. He went into one of the rooms and found a strange girl carving a star out of wood. Her hand was injured because the knife she was using was broken.

He tried to talk to her but the moment he spoke up, she ran away and hid in the corner from him, obviously suspicious.

He was eventually able to get the broken knife away from her.

She was a very strange girl that would do all kinds of weird things. Like pretending to play basketball just as buildup for a high-five. She would do all kinds of these weird things.

He and Nagisa eventually started spending time with her. They helped her carve her stars, which are actually starfish. She was making them in place of invitations to her sister's wedding. She wanted the entire school to celebrate the happiest day of her sister's life.

Then one day, they found out that she had no home. She said she couldn't go home. So she started staying with Nagisa and her family.

There were also rumors going around the school, at the time, that the ghost of a girl who was killed in a car accident was wandering through the school, handing people things. Nagisa started to suspect that the ghost girl was actually Fuko.

Okazaki and Nagisa befriended Kouko Ibuki, Fuko's sister, and learned that her sister was in the hospital in a coma from a car accident. They couldn't believe it. So they made a plan to reunite Fuko and Kouko at the school's Founder's Festival.

On the day of the festival, they had the two of them meet.

Kouko couldn't see her. Fuko stood in between Nagisa and Okizaki but her sister only saw the two of them. She did not see Fuko.

If was all the proof they needed. Fuko was actually the soul of the girl in a coma. The affections of Fuko separated her soul from her body while she was in a coma so she could continue to help with her sister's wedding.

But they found out that Kouko was going to cancel the wedding, for she believed that why should she have happiness when her sister was in a coma, unable to achieve happiness of her own. When the reason her sister was unhappy, was her fault. At least, that is what she believed.

They were able to convince her otherwise and the wedding was planned to happen at the school that she loved so dearly.

Fuko, Nagisa, Okazaki, even Sunohara, and Nagisa's parents, worked around the clock making more and more starfish to invite more students to the wedding.

But one day, they learned from Kouko that Fuko's condition was worsening. They soon noticed that students were beginning to ignore Fuko as if she didn't exist. Others that had been given starfish and those who remembered being with her on multiple occasions started forgetting her. Even Sunohara. The people closest to her were still able to remember her and see her, but slowly more and more of them started to forget. Many still had faint memories of the happiness they all had with her and their hearts were torn apart. Okazaki and Nagisa were panicked. Everyone was forgetting Fuko. And if everyone else were forgetting her.

Then, eventually, so would they.

Then, everyone forgot her.

But, on the day before the wedding, while talking with one of their teachers, asking what a marriage sign was doing at the school, the teacher reminded them of her. Of Fuko.

The next day was the wedding. Okazaki and Nagisa were still the only ones who remembered and could still see Fuko. No one else even remembered the wedding.

Then, upon leaving the ceremony, outside the school was flooded with hundreds of students cheering on the newly married couple. They all remembered the wedding. No one remembered Fuko, but they all at least remembered the wedding.

Fuko started to tell them of how happy she was. How happy she was to be able to spend time with friends that she had never had. She knew happiness that she had never known before, because of them.

Okazaki and Nagisa both started to cry. Happy for Kouko and happy for Fuko. When Kouko came up to him and asked why he was crying, he told Kouko of a girl. A girl who worked so hard for this day. Lived, only for this day. A girl who wanted nothing more than for this day to happen. He told her this story with tears streaming from his eyes.

And that was when it happened.

Fuko became visible. Visible to everyone, including her sister.

She thanked her sister. She told her that she would always be happy if her sister was. She came up to her, a beautiful, white glow emanating from her being. A girl pure of heart and soul. She gave her sister a hug and thanked her for finding her own happiness and not holding herself back for her sake.

Then. She faded from existence. Fuko was lost from everyone's memories. Forever.

Okazaki's face was solemn and saddened while Ellie's was wide with astonishment. The story she had just heard was even more absurd then the one they were living now. At least, since their lives now had become the norm, that is how it seemed.

"And now that you know my life," said Okazaki, "I shall tell you what happened with Otonashi."

He told her all about how he knew so much of the First Generation. Everything that Otonashi had said, Okazaki told her faultlessly. He described the entire event in perfect detail. He omitted nothing. He even included his thought that maybe, just maybe, Otonashi was the one remaining member of the First Generation.

At first Ellie thought he was mad, but the more that she thought about it, the more that it made perfect sense to her.

She told Okazaki to get some rest and left the infirmary.

She stood outside the door and said in a whisper, "Did you all have fun eavesdropping?"

Sitting next to the wall, completely depressed, were the members of the Battlefront that Okazaki had already known. They sat there with such solemn faces, obvious of how sorry they felt of Okazaki. They hated their behavior to him before. They could tell that he honestly meant everything that they had heard. And they had heard it all. Even the angry Cory and violent Tsubaki had tear streaks on their faces.

"Do you feel that we can trust him now?" she asked them all.

They all simultaneously replied, "Yes." Their hearts were melted at Okazaki's story, yet they did not pity him for he was a very strong person for being able to live through such agony.

From now on, they would greatly respect him. He was now one of their beloved allies.

And starting tomorrow, they would have a new mission.