Disclaimer: Even if I say it in red text, it wouldn't make it true.
She died smiling. Maki "Maki" Ano died smiling.
It wasn't like she wanted to die, but it just so happened to come at the exact moment she'd pinpointed her father and her mother with Zearth's life force sensing ability. It just so happened to come at the exact moment her mother gave birth to her baby brother.
So even though she would never get to physically see him or hold him, she'd shared a moment with him unlike any anyone could share with their siblings ever. And so she died smiling.
Then she couldn't see the shining lights anymore and returned to the cockpit, except her body was slumped over on the ground and the others – even Ushiro – were looking away, all somber. And Komo – her best friend, Takami Komoda – was crying.
"Komo..." She reached at hand to her friend, she started to walk toward her.
A sudden voice stopped and shook her. "She can't hear you now."
Startled by the sudden person – she didn't recognize that voice, and no one else could get into the cockpit so how could a voice she didn't recognize talk to her? – Maki yelped and turned around, searching for the source-
-and she found a young woman, who had wild yet tame black hair and very very pale skin and a black t-shirt and jeans and some kind of odd necklace. The back of her mind deduced she was like a character from an anime or manga, but the front of her mind chided those childish thoughts – she was dead, she had to be serious.
"Ehhhh? Who-?" Maki sputtered and stared but didn't need an answer, did she? This woman had to be who she thought she was because it was the only thing that made sense, or did it?
A small laugh – not a malicious one by far, but a simple, amused chuckle – broke from the woman's lips, and she reached up a hand to cover her mouth, though Maki still caught the little smile and in turn, despite the crying that surrounded her, she smiled.
The woman reached out a hand – a greeting. "I'm Death."
Oh, so she'd been right.
Maki looked at it for a moment and, upon deducing it wasn't going to morph into a fanged-beast and eat her, shook it.
All at once, Death started pulling her away from the others, from the center of the cockpit. Wait, was it time already? No, Maki wasn't ready for that yet!
"Don't worry," Death soothed. That seemed odd. Really odd. "I'm not taking you to rest yet. We just have to make a detour."
"Detour?" Maki echoed. She took a look back at the cockpit. This whole event – of Death appearing and greeting the dead girl – took place in only seconds, for she then heard Kirie's murmurings of "I can't do it.. I don't think I can fight..." and even Kana who had buried her head in Kanji's torso looked at him, the others trying to find the words to convince him otherwise-
-Death's hand squeezed Maki's. "Leave this world to them, now. You've done your part."
If she could breathe, Maki knew the air would have caught in her throat as she turned away from her living friends and blocked out their words. "...You said something about a detour?"
"Only if you want to," Death added with a nod. "If not, we can go straight away."
Never did it occur to Maki to ask where this detour would take them. Or maybe it did, but she decided against asking it.
"O-...okay." Her free hand shook a little. "Let's go."
Amazing. The calm just spread through her body, from her heart outward, and yet her hand refused to be quelled. Her voice box stayed utterly still – probably because, she supposed, she couldn't breathe anymore. Could it even vibrate? Or was that not how it worked? Was she getting it wrong again?
Don't worry about stupid stuff, she thought before the Zearth cockpit – still full of shock and crying, Captain Tanaka kneeling with a hand on Komo's shoulder and the others (most of them, Ushiro still looked indifferent, or did he?) staring at Kirie - dissolved away in a bright light-
-and a hospital room melted into its place.
Her mother was still screaming, her father holding her hand and breathing even deeper than she was in the exercises.
"Whoa, wait," Maki gasped, turning to Death. "I thought it was over, why's she still-"
Death held up a hand to stop her questions. "You saw your baby brother's soul being born. Not his physical body. Your mother's just finishing the process."
This did calm her down quite a bit. She made a conscious effort not to look at her mother's lower half, now that she fully realized her baby brother wasn't quite out yet.
And then Death's hand was out of hers, and Maki turned to see a very, very small shape gathered in her arms. Maki didn't need to ask who that was. "Do you want to hold him?" Death's question didn't need an answer.
As Maki took her baby brother into her shaking arms, she could have sworn she saw a shine in Death's eyes - like a sense of familiarity, a sense that she had seen this before, almost in a way - but that was only something she would reflect on later, something she would wonder about long after the hospital room and the soul of her baby brother nestled in the crook of her arms.
The baby's eyes were closed, but he reached up a small pudgy hand toward her, like he could see. He could see her, like she could see him back before. Another moment that no other siblings could ever have. So absolutely comfortable against her, in a way that no one else could ever experience.
"What's his name?" Maki asked, though she couldn't quite realize she'd spoken. "D-dad isn't going to name him Xabutongle, is he?"
Death laughed. That didn't seem odd anymore. "No. He doesn't have a name yet." She didn't let Maki ask her question. "...But it's going to be Kazuki. Kazuki Ano."
How she was able to cry, Maki never figured out. There were some things, it seemed, that spirits could still do outside their physical bodies. She still smiled, though. As her tears fell on Kazuki's little dark tuft of hair, she smiled, so brightly and widely, so much that she was sure if any of her friends could have currently tapped into Zearth, they would see her before anyone else, because at this moment, it didn't matter that she was dead.
With her brother, she was alive.
"...Maki." Death's hand rested on her shoulder and she was aware of her mother's screams and a nurse telling her to push just one more time. "It's time for him to meet his mom and dad."
Maki held him so tightly but still gently. "I hope," she whispered, "that I don't see you again for a very, very long time. Then we can talk. About your friends. About your life. About everything I won't be able to see. We can talk. Forever."
She handed Kazuki back to Death, and he seemed to reach out to her, which almost made it impossible to give him up. They belonged to different worlds now, though, and Maki had to remember that. Death handled him with the care of a mother. She brushed a hand over his cheek, walked over to the hospital bed, and laid him on his mother's stomach.
And then he was gone and then there was crying, so much crying, and a relieved sigh, and a nurse's congratulatory words.
And Maki had to tell Death that she had to leave right then, because she couldn't stay there when her father inevitably would ask someone to bring Maki in to meet her little brother.
"Let's go now," Death murmured, and Maki pretended the hand on her shoulder was her mother's as the lights grew bright again.