Here is chapter two! Also I would like to say that I am starting to watch the Japanese versions of Angel Beats! and Wolf's Rain, so the terminology I use might change slightly later on.
I would like to add more random babbling that relates to the way I wrote the story. First of all I will not write yaoi, my writing may seem to you at times that it is going on a path to TsumeXToboe, but that is not the intention. Not only because it would probably suck due to my inexperience and yaoi writing and romance writing in general, but also because I do not think of Toboe and Tsume's bond like that. To me the bond between them is like a best friend relationship a plus father-son relationship plus a big brother-little brother relationship. Also I am sorry If all the POV changes are confusing. If it is, just say so in a comment and I will change it to just one or two POVs per chapter.
I thought I should let you know who all is part of Operation Vacuum. Hinata, Noda, Takamatsu, TK, Ooyama, Fujimaki, and Shiina are the participants. Yuri is exempt because she is the leader, plus she is the one who is changing the password. Matsushida is technically exempt because he was out training when Yuri was doing the mission breifing, Yusa is exempt because she is busy keeping Yuri in the know, and the GirlDeMo members are exempt because they are busy writing songs and practicing.
Sorry for all the babble, now for the chapter, after Kanade does the disclaimer.
Kanade: XanimegrrlX does not own Angel Beats! or Wolf's Rain. She does however own...*frowns at script*...her laptop, this story's concept, her imagination, and her...I refuse to say that.
Me: C'mon say it so that we can get to the chapter.
Kanade:...*scowls*...her crossbow, which she uses to shoot non-reviewers. And so without further adieu, here's chapter two
Me: =3 you're a poet and you don't even know it!
Kanade:...What?
Me: adieu, two, they ryme. You can make a rhyme anytime!
Kanade: I thought you wanted to let your viewers read chapter two.
Me: Oh right! Sorry for the long author's note, and here's the chapter. Seriously this time, no joking. Here it is.
Hige POV
We had been following Noda for a few minutes. We had gone out of the building, which was a cafeteria according to the sign, and had entered a larger, four story building through a side-door type entrance. As we were going up another flight of stairs I noticed a familiar scent.
"Blue, do you smell that?" I asked.
"Yeah, the scent of lunar flowers. Do you think Cheza died?" she replied.
"I dunno, probably. I mean that is her scent, no doubt about it," I said.
"What are you guys talking about?" asked Noda as he turned to face us, his ax almost chopping off my nose in the process.
"Nothing you would know about," replied Blue. Noda snorted and continued walking. He stopped in front of a door. The unmistakable scent of lunar flowers was coming from this room. We were about to walk forward when we noticed that Noda stood frozen, his hand in the action of twisting the doorknob. His face instantly paled.
"Shi-," he was interrupted by a giant hammer. He was sent flying out the fourth-story window, and we heard a sickening crunch as his body came into contact with the ground. Blue and I were shocked. We had just watched somebody get killed by a death-trap. 'Is this what Noda had meant by fight or be obliterated?'
"What the HELL?! Is he DEAD?" I shouted.
Yuri POV
I walked to the window to check who it was, and I was not surprised when I saw Noda laying on the ground. I chuckled to myself. 'You'd think that he would learn after the first five times.'
I was taken from my thoughts by somebody, whose voice I did not recognize, shouting, "What the HELL?! Is he DEAD?"
I walked over and opened the door to see a boy with light brownish-orange hair, amber eyes, and what looked like a collar around his neck, and a girl with black hair, tanned skin, and bright blue eyes. They had been staring at the window, but they quickly turned to face me. They looked like they had just seen a ghost, so I guess they didn't know that you couldn't die in the afterlife.
"Don't worry about that idiot," I said, "This is the afterlife, so you can't die here. He'll be okay a few hours." They seemed to visibly relax.
Then a voice behind me said, "Hige, Blue, this one is happy to see you!" The two looked relieved, and they were about to try to enter HQ.
"Stop you idiots!" I shouted, "Do you want to get hit by that hammer too? You can't enter without saying the password!"
"Well what is the password?" the girl asked. I hesitated to tell them, but I decided to trust them because Noda was probably bringing them as recruits. 'Plus they seem to know Cheza, so maybe they can explain the whole "plant" thing she mentioned earlier.' I thought
"It's 'I know that god can bleed'," I said. They repeated the password and entered unscathed. As soon as they entered they turned to Cheza.
"So you died too Cheza?" the boy asked.
"Yes, this one passed," she replied
"What happened after we died? Did Darcia win or..." the girl left the rest of her question hanging. 'Who's Darcia?' I thought to myself.
"This one went to the place where paradise was to be opened while Kiba and Tsume fought Darcia. Darcia and Kiba came, but Tsume didn't. This one thinks that he died. Darcia tried to enter the lake, but was destroyed. This one then became the seeds of paradise, and gave the world life. Kiba was badly wounded after so much fighting, and this one does not know if he survived and is in paradise now or not." The two strangers seemed to understand what she was saying, but the rest of us were thoroughly confused.
"Oh, I see," said the girl.
"So Tsume died. Maybe we will see him here too," said the boy "By the way, where is here?" he asked while turning to us.
"Oh, so now we exist!" I exclaimed. "We should be the ones asking questions. For example, what were you guys talking about?"
"Calm down Yuri-ppe," said Hinata. "They were just wondering what happened to their friends after they died, and it sounds like their friends died as well, so take it easy on them." I decided it would be easier if I just explained the afterlife and who we were, but after that I would be the one asking questions.
"Fine. Okay, listen up you two! I'm only going to say this once, and if we recruit your friends I expect you to be the ones who explain it to them, so pay attention," I said.
I was about to continue, but I heard a small voice on the other side of the door say, "I know that god can bleed."
Tsume POV
'Why isn't he turning around?' I thought as I neared Toboe, 'Does he hate me because I wasn't there when that noble shot him?' I winced at the thought. I finally got close enough and grabbed his arm and forced him to turn around.
"Ack! Who are you?" asked a boy who wasn't Toboe, "Let me go!" I quickly released his arm and stepped back.
Boy POV
The large and scary man stared at me as if I had three heads. He muttered gruffly, "Thought you were someone else," and started to walk away. 'That is definitely not NPC behavior, he must be a human!'
"Wait!" I exclaimed while grabbing the first thing I could, which happened to be his pony tail. The hair pulling must have gotten his attention because he turned toward me with a harsh glare. For half an instant I thought he looked like a giant wolf with his hackles raised, but that must have been my frightened mind imagining things.
"You little RUNT!" he shouted, "What is your prob-" he stopped and turned around suddenly, obviously distracted by something. I was half tempted to sneak away, but Yuri-ppe would be angry with me if I let such a strong fighter get obliterated or turn into an NPC.
Toboe POV
My head snapped up when I thought I heard somebody calling my name.
"Toboe!" A voice that could only be Tsume's shouted in the distance. I stood up instantly and started running. It was coming from the front of the big building. When I rounded the corner I saw Tsume. He was facing a boy whose hair was similar in color and length to mine. 'He must have thought that that boy was me!' I was too happy to hold my human form as I ran toward the two.
"Tsume!" I shouted in wolfspeak as I ran through the dissipating crowd, "Tsume! Turn around!" He turned around. He couldn't see me through all the people, but they quickly parted to get out of my way and I got to Tsume in no time.
Tsume POV
The crowd split for me to see him just as he jumped toward me. I was knocked over and the runt started licking my face. I was very glad that he had dropped the human illusion because if not this could have looked very...awkward. Needless to say I was happy to see the runt.
"Tsume I'm so happy to see you! Where are the others? Did you beat Darcia? Is this paradise?" The runt kept babbling and would not shut up.
"No," I said. He stopped licking my face, "You died. And you're here, so I must be dead as well." Toboe sat there staring at me.
We were pulled back to reality when a girl's voice said, "Pets are not allowed on school grounds." I heard a gun clicking. The other runt had a gun! But he was pointing it at the girl, not us, which was sort of relieving.
"Run!" he shouted, "Get out of here!" Toboe obeyed the kid's instructions and I followed. I looked back when I heard gunshots. The kid was shooting at the white haired girl. At least I thought she was a girl, but she had a sword coming out of her arm, which she was using to deflect the discharged bullets. I ran even harder and got ahead of Toboe. I grabbed him and quickly rounded the corner of the building.
"Human form. Now," I said to Toboe, and he obliged. "I think we should be okay if we stay here. That girl was after a 'pet', not a human."
"Okay Tsume!" the runt replied in a tone that was way too happy for this situation.
Angel POV
The sword wielding one had joined the red head and they were both shooting at me. I ran up to them and slashed their legs as I dashed past. I rounded the corner of the school and my eyes were met by the sight of two boys, the one who had been with the dog, and a younger looking boy who, if he hadn't been wearing the male uniform, I would have thought to be a girl.
"Where did the dog go?" I asked the older one. They both got a strange look in their eyes when I said dog, but I disregarded it.
"It ran off into the forest," the older one replied while gesturing to his left.
"Oh," I said sadly. I turned around and walked away slowly. "I just wanted to pet it," I murmured to myself.
Fujimaki POV
"Ouch that hurts!" exclaimed Ooyama as he tried to stand up and pursue Angel.
"We got off lucky," I said, "She could have easily chopped our legs off or even killed us! By the way what did you do to make Angel attack you?"
"I found a human, well he found me. I guess he thought I was someone he knew. Then this huge dog showed up, and angel Appeared and said that pets aren't allowed on school grounds. I told them to run while I tried to slow Angel down," explained Ooyama
"So we should go see if that punk and his dog are still alive," I said. Ooyama nodded in agreement and we set off at our slow, painful, limping pace after a few minutes both of our wounds had healed enough to walk normally. We went around the corner and saw Angel walking away from two boys.
"What happened?" asked Ooyama.
"The dog ran away," said the larger punk, "And I found the person I was looking for." he added, gesturing to the smaller boy.
"Oh, so you thought I was him!" exclaimed Ooyama, "I'm sorry for that mix up." I then noticed that the little punk did look a bit like Ooyama.
"Hey Ooyama. There's two of them, one or each of us." I said, "If we get them we can complete Yuri-ppe's mission." When I said that the two strangers tensed up.
"And what do you mean by that?" growled the larger punk.
"Calm down," said Ooyama, "We aren't going to attack you or anything, we just need to recruit you guys."
"Recruit us for what?" asked the little punk.
"The Afterlife Battlefront, you punks!" I exclaimed, "Either you join us or be obliterated by Angel!" The two boys looked at each other.
"I don't want to be obliterated," said the little punk.
"And maybe if we follow them we can find the others," said the big punk.
"You mean the others died too?" asked the little punk sadly.
"Yeah, Hige and Blue did at least, but I'm not sure about Cheza and Kiba," said the big punk. I was getting tired of hearing them talk about their past lives.
"Would you punks just hurry up and come with us already!" I exclaimed.
"Sure, We'll join," said the big punk.
Oh! That's good!" said Ooyama, his voice full of relief, "By the way I'm Ooyama."
"Name's Fujimaki punks," I said.
"I'm Toboe!" said the little punk, "And this is Tsume," He continued gesturing to the big punk.
"So I guess that we should take you guys to headquarters now," said Ooyama as he scratched the back of his head. And with that we went into the school. When we reached the room that used to be the principal's office Ooyama said the password and we entered the room
Toboe POV
I knew before we had even walked inside the HQ that Blue, Hige, and Cheza were there. My nose had picked up their scents as we were walking down the hall. The first one to greet us was Hige.
"So Toboe, you're here too," he said. His expression was both happy and sad as he came up and patted me on the shoulder. Blue's expression was similar to Hige's as she walked toward me.
"Thanks for protecting Pops," she said as she hugged me. Cheza came over and petted me on the head.
"Oh hey Tsume!" said Hige as if he just noticed Tsume's existence, "Cheza said that you probably died. So even you aren't invincible."
"Well Porky, I seem to remember living longer than you," retorted Tsume.
"Hey that's a low blow," laughed Hige. "Besides I have somebody I had to protect," he continued as he gently put his arm around Blue's shoulders. Tsume made no response. It was unintentional, but I could tell that Hige's comment had hurt Tsume. I decided to change the subject.
"So why is Cheza here anyway?" I asked.
"This one had to sacrifice her body to restore life to the world and create paradise," replied Cheza.
"Oh, so Kiba's the only one who might still be aliv-" I said before being interrupted.
"Could you idiots stop all the reminiscing!?" shouted a girl with shoulder length purple hair, "I'm trying to run an anti-Angel operation here; we don't have all the time in the world! You came here to learn about the afterlife and our battle with Angel so shut up and let me explain!" The five of us were silent. I sat down on a nearby chair and gave her every ounce of my attention. "First of all, everyone who brought somebody today listen up! I will explain this to them, but If you want them to count for Operation Vacuum you must train them and give any additional explanations yourself, understand?"
"Okay!" said Ooyama
"You got it Yuri-ppe," said a guy with purple hair and a large ax who had come in while we were talking.
"Sure thing," said Fujimaki.
"You guys are so stupid," said a dark girl in the corner.
"Now you five," she said while gesturing to us, "listen up! You probably have already figured out that you're dead and that this is the afterlife. As far as we know this school is a place for people who have had bad lives to let go of their past life so that they can move on and dissapear. However, so as long as you continue fighting you can continue to exist. We are the SSS, a group of people fighting the reign of the student body president, Angel. Our ultimate goal is to find God and make him pay for giving us such unjust lives. Of course if you don't want to join us you can go get obliterated by Angel, any questions?"
"Yeah, what is a school?" I asked. She, and all the other strangers in the room stared at me for a very long time before bursting out into laughter.
"Hahaha, good one!," the girl said, "You almost made me think that you were serious!" I was very confused by her reaction, and as were Tsume, Hige, Cheza, and Blue. "So what is your choice?" she asked. The five of us gathered together to talk it over.
Hinata POV
'I'm in trouble. I doubt there are many humans left in the school. If I don't find somebody...' I shivered at the thought. 'Wait! Noda found two people! Maybe I can convince him to let me borrow one' I looked over to Noda and saw he was talking to TK, who had entered the HQ while Yuri-ppe was explaining to the new recruits. As I walked toward them I heard the tail end if their conversation.
"-can't really handle both, so I was wondering if maybe you would take over training one of them" said Noda.
"Sweeeeet man! Got a little protegee," sang/said TK. I could not believe it. TK got a person before I did. 'Oh yeah! Yuri-ppe found somebody, and she is exempt from the operation. Knowing her she probably won't want to train somebody so...' I turned toward Yuri-ppe and saw that she was talking to Shiina.
"It sounds stupid, but being hit with a hammer sounds stupider. I'll do it." said Shiina. I felt so betrayed.
Then I heard a deep voice behind me say "We'll join."
A few minutes ago, Hige POV
"So should we join them or not?" I asked.
"I think it's a good idea," said Blue
"Me too," said Toboe.
"I don't see why not," said Tsume.
"This one does not mind," said Cheza.
"So it's unanimous, we're joining them," I said. "Now we just have one more thing to discuss. If Kiba did survive and is in paradise right now, who will take over as leader of the pack?" I asked. Almost instantly everyone besides Cheza was looking at Tsume.
"No," said Tsume.
"Why not?" I asked.
"You are the oldest," said Blue.
"And you survived the longest, besides Cheza and Kiba, so that means you're the strongest," added Toboe.
"Well I don't want to be in charge of a group of useless idiots," said Tsume, "Hige why don't you be Alpha? I mean you and Blue are mates, so that would fit the traditional pack dynamic better."
"Well our pack is far from traditional," I said, "Plus I don't have a dominating personality like you do."
"I will pretend that that was a compliment," grumbled Tsume.
"Then it's official! Until Kiba shows up, if he does show up that is, Tsume is the pack Alpha. And as the Alpha it is your job to speak for the pack, so tell them that we decided to join," I said. Tsume muttered something under his breath, and I thought I heard the words "kill" and "Porky".
"We'll join," said Tsume in a voice loud enough to be heard by Yuri-ppe, who was obviously the leader.
"Terrific! Now introduce yourselves," said the girl. Tsume was the first to speak, obviously he knew that introductions a were part of his newly acquired and unwanted duties.
"I am Tsume," he said. "the runt is Toboe, the one who is stuffing his face half the time is Hige, Hige's...girlfriend is Blue, and the one who calls herself 'this one' is Cheza," he continued while gesturing to each of us as he said our names.
"Okay, now for our introductions. The guy with the ax is Noda, Takamatsu is the guy with glasses who enjoys pretending to be smart, the one with the sword is Fujimaki, Ooyama is the redhead, and his only outstanding feature is that he has none, the girl over there that keeps saying 'This is so stupid.' is Shiina, the guy over there who is constantly dancing is TK, this idiot over here is Hinata, and I am the leader, Yuri." said Yuri as she gestured to everyone in turn.
"But you can call her Yuri-ppe, we all do," added Hinata. Yuri quickly hit him on the head.
Please ignore the idiot," said Yuri, "Moving on, for clarification purposes who is in charge of who?" the purple-haired girl asked the other people in the room.
I'm in charge of Toboe, and Fujimaki is in charge of Tsume," said Ooyama.
"I'm in charge of Hige, and I'm letting TK take care of Blue." said Noda 'Great, I get crazy ax guy.' I thought to myself.
"And Shiina will take care of Cheza," said Yuri. The five of us looked at our assigned caretakers. Toboe looked like he didn't mind, Tsume looked like he wouldn't have been happy no matter who was assigned to him, Cheza looked like she was off in her own world, Blue looked skeptical, and I was doubting Noda's mental stability.
I then heard a muffled "No wait! Stop!" from the other side of the door.
Kiba POV
After a few hours of following Matsushida we exited the forest. I could see one large building and a few smaller ones. We entered the large building and went straight to the top floor. As we were walking along the hallway my nose was met with five very familiar scents. I ran past Matsushida and followed my nose to the source of the scents. They were coming from a door marked "Principal's Office". I didn't know what a principal was, but offices were places we usually avoided. 'Have they been captured? I need to help them! I thought.
"No wait! Stop!" shouted Matsushida. I ignored him and shoved the door open. The first thing I noticed was that all five of them looked safe and unharmed.
"Hey Kiba!" shouted Hige. Cheza looked happy to see me, Tsume looked relieved, and the other three looked happy at first and then suddenly sad. A girl with purple hair who was sitting behind a desk did a facepalm.
I could not see anything else because a huge pain exploded in the right half of my ribcage. I didn't know what had happened, but I was suddenly flying through a large window. I had cuts all over my body, and the blood streaming out of them looked a little bit like ribbons as I started to fall to the ground, which was forty feet below me. I managed to land on my feet but I then collapsed due to the pain in my chest.
'Am I...dying'? I thought as darkness started to obscure my vision.
Okay so if you're wondering why Blue and Hige are sad to see Toboe it's because they thought he deserved to go to a better place, and likewise Toboe, Hige, and Blue are sad to see Kiba because it means that none of them ended up in paradise. Also, in this story Ooyama has longer hair, like he grew it out throughout Heaven's Door/Track Zero and cut it right before episode 1, so that's why everyone thinks that Ooyama and Toboe look similar from behind.
I will be holding chapter three hostage untill I get one, count 'em: ONE, review, favorite, or follow on this story. Plus you should want to review because reviewers get a cookie!