I don't own Angel Beats or any related parties in anyway.

Forgive me for any grammar or spelling mistakes, it's hard to catch them all.

Side note: I will be using the Japanese tradition of using first or last names to resemble closeness, but I won't be adding honorifics mainly because I'm not 100% sure how they all work. The only Japanese I've been exposed to is anime, forgive me.

Walking to Unfulfilled Ambitions

I was shooting at cans to train my accuracy, because I decided that I should at least try to help the SSS in the fight against Otonashi. My hand was much steadier, but that was probably because I wasn't shooting at a human being. As I posed for my next shot, I heard a gunshot come from my right. Before I could react, my gun was shot out of my hand, but it fell on the floor unbroken. I heard a small thud come from the same area, so I looked over to find Nanami and Riku.

"Nanami, you could have just killed him there."

"Yeah, but you shouldn't have hit me with your sword. You know it hurts. I didn't have anything better to train on at the moment. It's not like he would have died."

"I would have died. I just would have come back a few minutes later." I grabbed my gun from the ground and walked over to the other two. "Where are you two going?"

"We just found each other wandering around and wanted to talk; so nowhere in particular, although Nanami now wants to go have fun somewhere. You know how she is; always bored."

"Yeah. Oh yeah, Riku, did Ayaka tell you about the computer yet?"

"Oh! Thanks for reminding me. She told me that if I ran into you, I should tell you to go up to discuss the findings."

I looked over at Nanami who still had a bored expression on her face, but I saw a slight twinkle in her eye that began to worry me. "Hey Nanami, what are you thinking about?"

"You."

"Don't make it sound like you love me."

"Kouhei, go on a date with me."

"Eh! What? We just met each other a few days ago! I can't do something like that!" I looked away from her in embarrassment, but she still just looked at me with a bored expression.

"Why?"

"Kouhei, are you taking Nanami seriously? She'll do a lot of random stuff to amuse herself."

"…I'm going to go see Ayaka now. Bye." I jogged away from them and ran up the stairs to get out of their sight. I knew that I shouldn't have taken Nanami seriously, but I couldn't help but to do so. Before I entered the SSS room, I decided to grab a can of coffee from a vending machine. I put in the money, but when the can hit the bottom of the machine, I heard a few footsteps approach from behind me.

"Hey Kouhei! Canned coffee here is the best, isn't it?"

I turned around to meet Otonashi's smiling face. "Otonashi. I've wanted to talk to you for a little bit now. Are you free?"

"I told you, if you want to find me, I'll probably be on the roof. There or the student council room. Are you free though; you seemed in a bit of a hurry?"

"I wanted to talk to you alone, not surrounded by the rest of the student council, and I couldn't find you on the roof. You're right though, I have to go see Ayaka. Can you meet me on the roof in maybe half an hour?"

"Sure. Helping my peers is my job, right?" I opened up the coffee and took a gulp. It was very bitter. It also happened to be very cold, which wasn't exactly what I wanted during the time in autumn. I offered it to Otonashi, so he took it and drank it down quickly. He didn't seem to be bothered by the taste or temperature. I looked at him one last time before I turned and ran up the stairs. The image was burnt into my head though. His demeanor was powerful, but not in the same way as Daiki. Otonashi came off as a teacher to me, while Daiki was more of a leader in a revolution, which was quite accurate. What made me more curious were his facial expressions. He always appeared calm, but he also gave out an aura of pain. He usually was smiling, but I knew he felt sad. He seemed to appear as everything he wasn't. Lost in my thought, I reached the door to the SSS room. I opened the door to see Ayaka taking another nap.

"Ayaka, are you awake?" She didn't stir, so I decided to rap on the door with my knuckles, but she gave off no signs. I walked over to her, cleared a small portion of the rubble beside her and sat down. I put my arm behind the chair and surveyed the room. Not much changed since the last time I came. I saw the computer was open. I sat down on the principal's chair and looked at the document on hand. There was a simple list of seemingly strange operations. "Operation Monster Stream, Operation Tornado, Angel's Assault Operation, Guild Descent Operation. Hmm, there's even one in fine print. What is this…Operation High Tension Syndrome. Weird names." I heard the door open again, so I looked up from the computer screen and saw Nanami standing there. "Kouhei, are you cheating on me with Ayaka?"

"I'm not even dating you in the first place, so I couldn't even if I wanted to."

"You're not going to steal a kiss from her either?"

"What type of person do you take me to be?"

"A gay person, apparently."

"I'm really not gay. Do you have to be in a relationship to not seem homosexual in this world?" She didn't respond, but rather walked up to where Ayaka was sleeping. She sat down where I cleared the rubble and started to sing a lullaby. I smiled at them. Doesn't Nanami know that you sing people to sleep, not while they're asleep? I didn't stop her because I found that the whole scene was surprisingly cute to watch. When Nanami finally finished, she walked next to me and looked at the computer screen. She took the laptop away from me and fumbled a bit with the machine until a new document was open. We read it together; the title was "Angel". As we read through, it was about what the first SSS discovered about Angel. It talked about her blank personality, resistance to pain, skills, and downfall. It ended with, "After we got her to fail her tests, Angel's position as Student Council President was evoked. Soon afterwards, Otonashi-" then it just ended. I looked over at Nanami who actually seemed genuinely excited for this. She responded to my glance with, "Kouhei! It just ends with Angel doing something! What do you think he did? Maybe he massacred the whole SSS at that moment so they couldn't write anymore!"

"Yeah, maybe." No, that can't be it. Throughout the whole document, Angel has just been Angel. Why would it randomly reference Angel as Otonashi? He was a whole separate entity. I remembered what he said about how Angel and Student Council President weren't always his titles. Who is this Angel? And why does this Angel seem so similar to Otonashi?

"Why are you here anyways? You were looking for something fun to do, right?"

"Riku told me how there was new information about the SSS in this room. It sparked my interest. That's all."

I stared at her for a few seconds, but I realized that that was an answer that could be expected of Nanami. "Alright then. Got any more interesting information to pull out of that?"

"Let's see." Her hands flew on the keyboard, and soon after, a new document popped up. The title was "Angel Player".

Angel Player appears to be the source of Angel's mysterious powers. Personally, I'm not too sure what to think of this, but I've concluded that this means her powers aren't God given. Although there is the chance that God gave Angel the Angel Player, it is quite minimal due to how disturbingly easy it was to hack into it and the fact that it had a manual. The manual was written in English, so no one I brought could read it, but it means that Angel probably knows English. She has no use of it, saying everyone in her society uses Japanese, so it raises the question of what her purpose is.

The Angel Player itself seems to grant a variety of powers. The most obvious ones that The SSS and I have encountered were probably Hand Sonic and Overdrive. Although Hand Sonic simply summons blades, Overdrive can give Angel superhuman strength, speed, and reactions. Personally, I find the second much more dangerous. There were several others, but the one that I would like to keep note of here was Harmonics. It appears as though Angel has given herself the ability to create clones. Although I have yet to notice Angel use it, I find this quite hazardous to everyone.

I stopped reading there to ask Nanami a few questions. "Nanami, didn't Otonashi say Hand Sonic before the two blades came from his arms? Do you think Otonashi can use these other two skills too?"

"I believe that he already uses overdrive. You could tell that my reactions were fast, but his were just on a completely new level. His ease in fighting could be due to super strength, and he runs abnormally fast for a human. I'm not too sure about Harmonics though. There's never been a report of two Angels at once, but we can't rule the possibility out."

"I see." I remembered my promise to him, so I quickly blurted out, "Nanami, I have somewhere to be. Take care of Ayaka, alright?" I began to walk out, but then Ayaka finally stirred. "Oh, Kouhei. I didn't know you were here. You didn't do anything to me while I was asleep, did you?"

"Why am I immediately questioned instead of Nanami? She'd probably do something weird to amuse herself."

"Ayaka! Kouhei was terrible! I had to stop him from practically raping you in your sleep!"

"No, I didn't do anything. Nanami, why are you such a bully?"

"No one believes me."

"And no one finds that surprising with how bad of a liar you are."

I shook my head and walked up to the roof. Otonashi was standing there. "Yo, Kouhei, what did you want to talk about?"

"Mainly you and your past. Do you keep track of what happens in the SSS?"

"Not anymore, I did with the first SSS."

"What was the first SSS to you?"

"A group of really strange people. Really strange, but really nice too."

"Do the names Yurippe or Noda mean anything to you?"

"How did you find those names?"

"I found them on an engraving on a halberd in the SSS room."

"I see. Can you keep this a secret from the current SSS?"

"Why?"

"It's just better if you did. I'll trust you. They were members of the first SSS. Yurippe was the leader and co-founder with Hinata, the guy I told you about earlier. They weren't co-leaders like Hamano and Inoue though. Only Yurripe was a leader; she was the best leader I've ever seen though. She also was a pretty great fighter. She could stand in hand-to-hand combat with the last Angel. Your Riku wouldn't even have a chance. Noda was just some member who had a hopeless crush on Yurippe. He always carried that halberd around and tried to protect Yurippe. I didn't take him seriously; I doubt anyone did actually."

"Otonashi, you seem to know the original SSS pretty well, yet you don't know us too well apparently. You figured out a few of our names, but not really. I feel like the most logical conclusion would be that you were part of the SSS at some point in time. Is that true?"

"Why does that matter? I'm fighting the SSS; do you think I would fight an organization I was part of?"

"True that. I just thought that it was possible."

"Do possibilities matter when you're looking for the truth?"

"All truths are a possibility; they just happen to be the correct possibility."

"You're starting to sound like Inoue."

"I'll take that as a compliment." We stood there looking at the scenery again. It had only been around a week since the last talk we had here, but I felt as though a lot was changing. The leaves were starting to become noticeable shades of orange, red, and brown. I looked over at the setting sun, but Otonashi was standing right in front of it. "Kouhei, if you don't have anything to talk about, I have to go do stuff for the student council."

"Ahh, sorry. I got lost in thought for a moment there. Umm…when you fought Nanami, you said something like "Hand Sonic", and then two blades came out of your arms. I found some information which told me that you can probably do other things with that. Angel Player, I believe it's called."

"Yes, I currently have possession of Angel Player. The last Angel taught me how to use it, but I never actually used it until you guys started attacking me. At first, I was annoyed, but then I realized that it was only natural. I understand your side perfectly."

"That may be hard to fight against. The last one is more of a request. Tell me about the last Angel."

Otonashi clearly looked startled, but instead of talking, he glanced at his watch. "I need to go back to the student council room."

"Yeah, go for it." As Otonashi left, I began to think for myself. So he's avoiding the topic. That or maybe he really just needs to go back, but I doubt it. Hmm…Otonashi has to be a human. He wasn't always an Angel, and the old SSS recognized his existence. Why is he still here though? Was he a helper to Angel? Or was he a human who sided with the Angel of that time instead of the SSS? I can't figure him out.

I went to my room and fell on my bed. I knew there was probably more information on the original SSS that I could find out if I went back to the meeting room, but I wasn't up for that. I slowly dozed off and started to dream. I found myself sitting in the SSS room. Strangely enough, I didn't recognize anyone there. I looked around some more, and realized I did recognize somebody. There appeared to be a younger version of Otonashi there. I didn't see him though; I just knew he was there. I tried to look around for him, but I couldn't find him. I scratched my head, and a lock of hair fell onto my eyes. My hair wasn't the regular black color and it was longer than usual. I looked at a showcase on the side of the room, but I was really looking at my reflection on the glass. I was Otonashi. I unconsciously directed my attention to a girl with purple hair who appeared to be the leader. The leader, is this the Yurippe that Otonashi talked about? If so, he said that Noda always carried around the halberd. Before I started to look around, I heard the girl say, "Ok everyone! We're here to talk about how to fight Angel. Shoot out some suggestions! Now!"

A guy around my age quickly stood up and shouted, "Yurippe! I propose that we all rush her at once to defeat her!" He flipped his short, purple hair to appear cool and continued with, "and if she dares to attack you, I'll protect you with this very halberd." He grabbed the very familiar halberd and spun it around his head. I noticed movement from the corner of my eye and looked over. I saw a girl whose lower face was wrapped with something that looked like a scarf. After looking for a second, I was able to see that she didn't even have a face, but rather a blank place where the face should have been. It looked scary, but I didn't feel scared at all. I was just curious. She pulled out a throwing knife and threw it at the halberd. "How shallow-minded." As the knife made contact, the halberd spun out of control and hit Noda in the back of the head. He fell over unconscious, so I looked around to see who would help. No one even made a move to help him, but even more importantly, I saw that there were few people with faces. The leader had one, the unconscious guy had one, some laughing kid who was sitting on the sofa had one, and I had one. The girl in the front continued with, "Denied, Noda."

The scene was clear, but the sounds started to become blurry. I randomly heard Ayaka shout, "Kouhei! Get down!" I looked up into Ayaka's eyes and attempted to duck. My body wouldn't respond though. I saw my own body in between my eyes and Ayaka. She pointed two guns at me and exclaimed, "Angel! Die!" I felt the pain of two bullets, but I couldn't tell where they hit. I saw Ayaka keep shooting, but I felt nothing. I heard voices though. Many voices were going through my head. It sounded like Otonashi, but I knew that it wasn't. They all said, "Stop! I am not your enemy!"

I closed my eyes and shouted at the top of my lungs, "Stop! I am not your enemy!" When I opened my eyes, I saw Nanami and Daiki. Their weapons were on the ground. I saw Daiki look away, as if he lost at some competition and was pouting. Nanami ran up and embraced me. I just felt surprised.

I heard knocking. I looked around and raised a gun. Everything started fading all of a sudden. I woke up and saw Jordan at the door. "Hey, Kouhei. There's a meeting. You know where to go." I got up and looked down the hall. I saw Jordan's back walking towards the main building. How did he know where I lived? I started to change into street clothing, because I didn't particularly like the SSS uniform. As I changed, I thought about what I saw in the dream. It was already becoming fuzzy, but I remembered some parts. Weird dream. A dream's a dream though. There isn't any actual symbolism or meaning to dreams, are there? I walked out the door, but before I left the dormitory, I realized the situations I was in. I came to the conclusion that I shouldn't trust the dreams, but they would give me another view of the battles.

I walked outside and came across Riku. "Riku! You heading to the room too?"

"Yeah, but you were invited? Daiki and Ayaka only invite the people that are needed for the operation. You're new; I guess they see some potential in you."

"Potential? Who knows? Operation?"

"Ahh, your first one. We just do things as a team, normally to fight Angel, but we have other goals sometimes."

I remembered the first document I saw. "Do the operations have names?"

"Yeah, we repeat a lot of them."

"Which one are we doing this time?"

"Ayaka found some new operations, apparently from the computer."

Riku and I opened the door. Daiki, Ayaka, and Ryouta were in the room. I looked around and remembered that Jordan left before me. "Hey, where's Jordan?"

Daiki opened his mouth, but Ayaka noticed and quickly started talking to avoid Daiki's string of questions. "He went to find the other two people we want for this operation."

"Who?"

"Nanami and Mariko. Do you know Mariko?"

"No, who's that?"

"You'll meet her."

"Alright Ayaka, but what are we going to do?" Jordan walked into the door followed by Nanami. Ayaka praised Jordan, hugged Nanami, and asked, "Jordan, where's Mariko?"

Nanami answered for Jordan by saying, "She's already at the site. What was it? Operation Monster Stream, right?" I heard the name and recognized it from the document that Nanami and I saw. I remembered that Ayaka was the leader in planning, so I directed my question at her. "Ayaka, this is an operation that the original SSS did. What is it and why are we doing it?"

"Kouhei! You read it?! That's top-secret information! You might accidentally spill it to a NPC who gives it to Otonashi who might use the information to kill us all!"

"Do you really not trust me at all? And we can't die anyways."

"No, it's ok! I'm going to explain it now!" she exclaimed with a really happy smile. Everyone laughed or at least smiled at Ayaka's random outburst, everyone except Nanami. Ayaka noticed before saying, "Nanami, before I explain, you have to at least smile too!" Everyone just stood there staring at Nanami. "Amuse me and I'll smile."

"My randomness isn't enough to amuse you!?"

"No, I've seen enough of it."

"I don't know what else to do though! And I can't explain until she smiles!"

Daiki stepped in, but instead of helping Ayaka, he simply asked, "Why must her happiness affect your ability in explanation?"

"It just does!"

"It may, but I command that you explain the reasoning behind it."

I noticed that Ayaka was getting jumpy, so I stopped the argument by responding to Nanami. "Nanami, I'll take you up on that date." What I expected happened. Nanami jumped up in a surprised manner with a smile. "Now I can do anything I want with you!"

"I'm just kidding. You smiled though, so Ayaka, what is this operation and why are we doing it?"

Nanami looked at me with longing eyes that almost broke me down. I compromised with her by promising to spend some time with her for the coming week.

Ayaka continued with, "Anyways, we're doing some operation that sounded super cool! Operation Monster Stream!" She started to walk out the room, but I grabbed her from behind and turned her around. "Ayaka, as I asked before, what is Operation Monster Stream and why are we doing it?"

"Oh, you want me to explain? Umm…do you know how to fish?"

"It's not too hard, why?"

"We're just going fishing."

"Normally I'd scream or something, but this whole world is crazy, so alright. Why are we doing it?"

"Maybe we'll learn something about the original SSS if we do their operations! We can be all cool and original like them! Then we can defeat Angel like them!" Ayaka, I would hate to break it to you, but there's no proof that they ever succeeded, in fact, they probably failed from what I heard from Otonashi. "Alright, so it's you, Daiki, Riku, Jordan, Ryouta, Nanami, this Mariko girl, and me? Why us?"

"Daiki and I are leaders, Riku apparently likes to fish, you and Ryouta can swim, in case something bad happens, Nanami has really good reactions, and you'll understand why Mariko when you see."

"Ryouta and me because we're swimmers. It's a stream, what bad things could possibly happen? And what about Jordan?"

"It is called monster stream! Maybe there's a giant fish in there that could throw everyone in the air and eat us all! We bring Jordan everywhere, trying to get up to open up, because he's always so lonely and mean! I believe that he's really nice though!" Jordan looked away, almost bashful, at the statement.

"Yeah, sure. Whatever, let's go."

Outside the room, Otonashi was eavesdropping. When he realized everyone was leaving, he leaped out the window and did a perfect roll onto the ground. He started to talk to himself, "A giant fish that could throw everyone in the air and eat us all. You'd be surprised how accurate that was, Ayaka. I want to watch this though; maybe I should set up a video camera in Wakahiko's tent to see what happens. It's been nostalgic watching Kouhei."

The crew was walking down the path to the river, but everyone seemed a little tense. I saw that in the front, Daiki was striding with his hand on his Uzi, while Ayaka had her hands pressed to her skirt. I saw that she was easily able to reach for her gun, and I noticed that she actually had one on each leg. Another dual wielder. Nanami with two knives, Ayaka with two guns, and me with one blade and one sword. Riku and Jordan are both really good swordsmen. And Otonashi can still fend us off; who is that guy? "Why's everyone so tense?" I asked.

Riku answered me. "This is our first time on this operation. There might be traps like the huge mallet in front of the room."

"And what can reaching for out guns do about that?"

"Nothing at all. We're just naturally tense at something like this."

"Do we even have fishing rods and the such?" We all stopped walking. Nanami flashed a smile and everyone started laughing. After a minute, Riku came back to his senses and repeated, "really, do we have equipment to go fishing? Or do we have to make it out of the dirt?"

When I heard that, I had no idea what he meant. I understood that we could possibly get bait from the dirt, but fishing rods? That seemed strange. Most people don't bury fishing rods in the ground. "What do you mean by 'out of the dirt'?"

"We quite literally mean that we're going to take dirt and make fishing rods. Do you know about guild?"

"Guild? Never heard of them."

"Think about this. To the eyes of a third party, this is a normal school except for the fact that there are no other buildings anywhere besides the school and its facilities. No factories, no shops, nothing. Where in school are we getting guns and swords and other types of equipment from?"

"A metal working class?"

"That's a lot of weapons for one class. It's a branch of the SSS called The Guild, by far the largest branch. It's practically a huge manufacturing industry underneath the surface. They mainly make weapons, but we can get other things from them, like fishing rods in this case."

"I see, but how do we send them the message?"

"That's the problem. Ryouta's the fastest runner, unless you're faster. I heard you're a faster swimmer than him. That's ridiculous."

Ryouta looked over before stating, "I refuse to go to guild. You haven't even sent a message to disarm the traps."

I heard him say disarm the traps and wondered if we could disarm the password-door-mallet-thing. Riku answered Ryouta with, "True that. Alright then. I doubt any of us can make fishing poles out of dirt, but we can make spears."

"We're going to hunt using spears?"

"Actually, Mariko might be able to make fishing poles. Let's not bet on it though." We were still inching on slowly, wary of any traps that might ambush the group before we made it to the river.

Otonashi was sprinting over with a video camera that he borrowed from a club. He knew that he wouldn't have to return it because NPC's didn't really care, but he told himself that he would anyways. He knew that the SSS was moving slowly in case of traps, but he already went down this path before, so he knew it was safe. He kept up his fast pace just in case though. He wasn't using overdrive, so Otonashi started to become a little tired, so he looked down as he ran. Not before long, he ran into somebody. Otonashi was surprised to see an NPC uniform as he looked up thinking that an NPC would have no reason to go this far from campus. When he saw the face, Otonashi knew why though. "Sakune, perfect. Do you mind if I set this video camera up in your tent?"

"No. Just don't move anything, Prez. Why though? Did you hear that some girls were gonna go bathe in the river?" He winked as he delivered the last statement, but kept on walking.

"You really are a pervert."

"Naa, it's just how I greet people." As started to sprint towards the stream again, Wakahiko trudged the road back to campus.

"Kouhei! This is tiring. I'm one of the two leaders, so I'm important, and I need to conserve strength! You should carry me, Kouhei! It's such a long walk for me, but you're in shape and you need to become more athletic for swimming, so you should carry me Kouhei!"

"Last time you said I should become more athletic to protect you, right? You're just using me to your advantage, aren't you? Hell with it, I'm not even surprised. I'm sorry, Ayaka. I don't particularly want to carry you right now."

"Riku! This is tiring. I'm one of the two leaders, so I'm important, and I need to conserve strength! You should carry me, Riku! It's such a long walk for me, but you're in shape and yo-"

Riku already realized that she was going to repeat her speech to Kouhei, so he just stopped her there. He picked her up princess style. He then proceeded to drop her. "Oh, I'm sorry Ayaka, apparently I wasn't ready."

"Riku! That hurt! I might get injured, and then we might be ambushed by Angel! I won't be able to help everyone!"

"Why would anyone, especially Angel be here?"

Before Ayaka could respond to Riku's question, Nanami pointed towards the distance and simply stated, "There." Everyone looked where she was pointing, and we saw a figure walking. He was walking up the path that we were walking down, so we assumed he was coming from the stream. He looked unscathed, but was wearing a NPC uniform, so I figured out that there weren't any traps down the path. The group would have walked past him, but suddenly, Daiki stopped and turned to him. "What are you doing?"

"Excuse me? I'm walking back to campus."

"Where are you coming from?"

"The stream that's next to our school."

"Why were you there?"

"I decided to visit; there's no harm done, right?"

Jordan talked for the first time the whole walk by asking, "Are you human?"

"Of course I'm human! Everyone here's human, right?"

Seemingly ignoring the NPC, Jordan turned to us and said, "He's probably an NPC. A human would realize that the people here are strange. He is the student council secretary, but that doesn't mean anything."

"Excuse me, what's an NPC? Why does that describe me while human doesn't?" Everyone was still looking at Jordan, so he was completely ignored, but I doubt he was unheard. Riku and Ryouta simply nodded at Jordan to show agreement. Nanami just said, "Yeah," while Ayaka jumped up in down in agreement while praising Jordan's ability of deduction. I noticed that Daiki didn't even respond. I quickly started deducting possibilities. This guy's walking back from the stream with no good reason besides visiting. I see no reason why a NPC would go down there, but it's not anything superbly unordinary either, so it may be possible. I looked back at the stranger as everyone else kept walking. His hair's brown and is tied up in a ponytail, which isn't anything too strange either. He was wearing one black, leather glove, but it's still nothing weird. Student council vice president. The only thing amiss is that he's coming from the stream, which is a strange place, but there's no reason he can't come. I guess he's a NPC, but something doesn't seem right.

Author's note

Thank you to 0time and JaxDaxPeaceMaker for the ideas of Wakahiko and Jordan respectively.

And sorry for that mysterious reviewer, but that person was a bit extreme for me :P

3 chapters done, somewhere around 17000 words, and I'm finally gonna start making something happen next chapter. Introductions suck. I'm pretty much good with character ideas, but feel free to send more if you'd like.

School, projects, my life, or lack thereof, so I can't promise any dates for next chapter. I'm starting to write other things too, but nothing big yet.

Thanks for reading, and on to next time.