The first thing I felt was pain. A burning, throbbing pain down below. I didn't know where below was, in the darkness there was no up, down, no left or right.

". . . okay . . . investig- . . . Hey. . . coming to!- . . . "

Then I heard a clamor of sound, as if silence had been my entire world all this time. It burst in on my hearing, assaulting my groggy mind with all sorts of sensations.

"Really did it this time. . . crap, she's . . . stop . . . oh, there she goes again. . . "

A stream of light filtered past the dark, pushing away the ebbing tides of unconsiousness. I was finally aware of more sensations, though the pain continued to persist. I clenched a fist I forgot I had. I opened my eyes.

Beep! Bleep!

The first thing I saw was a guy's face. Hinata, I recognized him, almost immediately. I squinted against the blinding light. The guy's expression broke into a satisfied grin, mouthing something I couldn't understand, before his face disappeared. I surrendered myself to the pains that wracked my body. I closed my eyes.

When next they opened, I found myself staring into a pair of pupils, cerulean, holding in them a cold necessity but enclosing a matronly warmth that felt reassuring. I opened my mouth and found them welded shut by layers of dried spit. It tasted unpleasant, though I managed to let out a weak sound. It bordered on a pained, pathetic groan.

"Ssh, you don't have to talk. Just rest, for now," that person said briskly. The face disappeared again, but now I felt strong enough to resist the pull to close my eyes and began to move my body. My neck muscles screamed at me as they strained and stretched, until I was finally able to raise my head and look around the room.

Beep! Bleep! There were wires running from the top of my head to a strange machine on the bedside. Looking past that, I realized that I was in the world's school infirmary. A bunch of people in Front uniforms were huddled around something a few beds away. I caught a glimpse of Yuri walking towards the group and the latter standing at attention before I looked away.

"Nice to see you finally up, Otonashi," Hinata grinned from the other side, his gunshot wound absent and body whole.

"Hinata, are you alright?" were the first words I managed to croak out after a shocked silence.

"Hey, are you sure those're the first words you should be asking?" he said bemusedly. "I mean, how kind of a guy are you? You're the one with the more critical injuries here. I survived with barely a scratch."

"Critical injuries?" I wondered.

"Yeah," he peered at me. "When I came to from that 'trial' of yours, the first thing I saw was a bloodbath," he murmured. "And you were at the center of it. All those hacked pieces. . . "

I gulped. I didn't know I'd ended up in such a state. But still, I still hadn't the faintest idea what had happened to me. I echoed that last thought out loud. Hinata glanced at the other bed uncomfortably, before nodding. "Most unnerving scene I ever saw in this world, man. I think it was the most unnerving thing in my entire existence even. I swear, I could be having nightmares from now on. . . " At this point, Hinata broke down into shivers that sent the same sensations rushing up my spine.

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic, you wuss," came Yuri's voice from near me. I nearly jumped from the covers. Yuri scrutinized me closely, as if I were a terminally ill patient. Well, in a way I was. "You were able to talk; that means your voicebox is fine. After that," she placed a hand on my right cheek and turned my head toward the left. My skin sizzled from her cold fingers. I let out a sigh when she withdrew her hand. "Didn't feel any pain? " she asked. I shook my head. "I forgot to ask: how about when you talk, do you feel any pain?" I shook my head again. She took in a deep breath. "So your neck muscles have been regenerated fully, and the nerves have been reconnected without a hitch. That's the most important thing," she emphasized, nodding to herself. "I guess we can remove this now." She plucked the wires that were attached to my scalp.

"Um, if I could ask," I ventured. She pressed some buttons on the machine before nodding at Hinata, who quickly stood and walked away. "What exactly happened. . . ?"

She went over to sit down where Hinata had and crossed her arms somberly. She considered me with those cold, warm eyes for a long moment. She lowered her gaze to the ground then back to me again. "You were beheaded," she said bluntly.

I gulped, feeling a surge of dread rising through my stomach. It was almost like feeling Angel's blade in my chest, though with a much greater fear. It was instinctual, what any man should feel were he normal, were he still living.

"Yes, that's what happened." she repeated, staring at me. I didn't know what she must be seeing in my face, as roiling emotions of shock, incredulousness and denial showed on it in succession. She waited patiently, while I grasped unconsciously at the place where I thought my neck had been severed. I felt no marks or scars, thank God. I wouldn't know what I would do if there had been marks to remind me of my latest fate. I hadn't even remembered my mortal end.

"Hah. . ." I chuckled weakly. "Such an outrageous thing. . . "

"Well, I'm glad you're okay enough to be able to process that."

I glanced over at the other bed, it had had a screen drawn over it, with some of the other regular members leaving the room while the others stayed to loiter, that halberd-using idiot included. I didn't particularly like the way he kept polishing his blade while looking at me. I glared at him before looking turning away. I dimly remembered humiliating the self-proclaimed strongman.

"So how'd this happen?" Yuri asked after a long, pregnant pause.

"How should I know?" I replied. "I don't even know what killed me back then."

"It's a blue moon if Shiina decides to just attack fellow allies without provocation." Yuri looked past me to the other bed, and as I followed it, a realization then hit me.

"That was Shiina? . . . But why did she attack me? I don't remember challenging her to a fight to the death. For that matter," I pointed to the screened bed. "Is she the one lying there?"

"Yes, she's suffered some injuries too."

"But, why?" I didn't understand the situation at all. So Shiina was the one who attacked me, but she ended up getting injured anyway?

"As to why she attacked you, that remains a mystery. Shiina never told us what possessed her to do that, because she. . . " she gestured to the bed again. I cocked my head in confusion, she what?

"Um, who was the one who injured her then?" It was hard to imagine anyone or anything being able to injure the untouchable ninja, save for Angel, and I know the latter doesn't just attack without provocation herself. Except for our first meeting. . .

"Let me just start from the beginning, as far as I know, and as far as Hinata-kun and Noda-kun has reported to me. When Hinata-kun recovered from being shot – I won't ask why, since he seemed fine with it – he saw-"

A bloodbath, as I recalled Hinata saying. A literal bloodbath with me at the center. And it seemed Shiina had been there too, but I was missing something. Then who attacked Shiina? Was it another enemy that the Front hadn't been aware of? Was it that weird disciplinary girl?

Come to think of it, I'd totally forgotten about that NPC. I wonder if she still has a grudge. . .

"- And then, after carrying you back here, they called the rest of the Front, but then Shiina started to say something, her sword had been drawn as if for battle. In the next moment she was down on the ground, and blood was spouting all over the place."

"Huh?" As my mind was still in a daze, it took a while to fully comprehend that. Shiina . . . committed suicide?

Yuri nodded dourly, then crossed her legs in front of her. I waited for her to continue, but Hinata's voice was the one who rejoined, from my other side. It was like they had just switched places from before.

"Yeah, that was really crazy. You should see what the corridor outside is like, all that blood. . . That's what the others are cleaning up right now."

"Why aren't you cleaning it?"

"Oh, we drew lots." What a jolly way to clean up a tragic scene, you. "Well, I did clean up that mess back there," he answered my accusing stare hastily. "Anyway, Shiina spouted stuff about being shamed, and being reckless and foolish, you know how she is, and the next thing we knew, we got another bloody scene."

I always figured that Shiina took things way seriously, from the way she acted in the aftermath of the Guild Operation to that baseball game. But to go the lengths of suicide?

"Well she did recover quickly. By the time she came to, the rest of the guys had come back here and we'd brought Yuri up to date." The two shared a look. "Well, she came to, but then she took one look at your recovering body and dashed outside. She committed seppukku again, unbelievable." Hinata shook her head wryly, and Yuri's expression remained neutral, only gazing at me.

"She threatened to do it again on the fourth time she recovered-" Fourth time? She killed herself that many times? "-but Yuri talked her out of it, saying her behavior would shame the Front. She calmed down, but we would advise you not to let her do it again were she to face you. I have a hunch she's gonna do it again when she apologizes."

"Apologizes?" I asked.

". . . to you! You're the one whom she attacked. Geez, have you got your head screwed in tight yet?"

I let the situation sink in. It was admittedly too much to take in after waking up from another death. Though questions flitted in from my mind, buzzing inside it like flies. It was like my mind was trying to tell me something. Why did Shiina attack me in the first place?

Unconsciously, my hand dipped into my breast pocket. Puzzled, I looked down when I touched something soft. I stared at Hinata, a memory finally dawning in on me, as I pulled out for both of them to see, the feather.