First of all I want to thank nazebaka for reviewing and following! Your review really encouraged me, and I'm sorry that I didn't update sooner. Please take this plate of lemon bars as a token of my appreciation!
In case you want to know, it took a long time to update because my brother said he wanted to be my beta reader, but he kept putting off his job. I finally got fed up with it and did the editing myself. To make up for the long wait and short chapter the next chapter will be super long!
There aren't anymore clarifications, YAY!
Disclaimer: I do not own Angel Beats! or Wolf's Rain. Never have, never will.
Kiba POV
I was gathering the courage to sample the strange-looking food that was in front of me. According to my "meal ticket" it was called "curry". 'Well I guess if it's inedible I can feed it to the bottomless pit,' I thought as I glanced to my left. Right next to me was Cheza, next to her was Hige. He was talking to Blue, who was sitting across from him. I was thinking about convincing Hige to trade meals with me when suddenly a hot-pink haired girl sat in the empty seat to my right.
She turned to me, no to all six of us and said, "You guys must be new here. This place is kind of confusing, so if you have any questions feel free to ask Yui-nyan!" We all stared at this strange character.
"And who is Yuinyan?" growled Tsume, who was sitting across from me.
She smiled, pointed to herself, and said, "Me! I'm Yui. Nyan!" When she said the "nyan" part of her name she made a strange gesture where she put her hands on the sides of her head and clenched them into fists. I could see that everyone else was as baffled by her actions as I was. She just sat there as if she was expecting a response. Toboe was the first to decide to say something to the girl, who I was starting to suspect had rabies.
"Well Yuinyan, I think we're good for now, but If we ever have questions we'll be sure to ask you," he said from his seat between Tsume and Blue.
She stood up suddenly and said in a cheery voice, "Okay! Well, bye!" She then walked, or rather skipped, away to sit at a different table. I think most of us sighed in relief, glad that the rabid girl was gone. I looked at Cheza and saw that her water glass was empty, so I handed mine to her. She smiled and drank it.
"This one is neither hungry, nor thirsty," she said, "This one wants to go to sleep now." I looked down at my untouched "curry" and handed it to Hige. He made a little sound of gratitude before diving into the food.
"Spicy!" he exclaimed as he desperately grabbed for his water. We laughed at the porky wolf's antics, and even Tsume let out a little chuckle.
Once the laughter subsided I said, "I'm taking Cheza back to the dorms. When you finish meet us in C-17 so that we can have a meeting." They acknowledged what I said and I led Cheza out of the "Cafeteria".
Toboe POV
So far the meeting had been pretty uneventful. We had come to the conclusion that it would be a good idea for all of us to always keep our windows open, as a secondary means of transportation. We had also basically decided to keep our being wolves a secret and fight with the SSS to avoid being obliterated.
"What about that Yusa girl?" I asked. Everyone was silent.
"She knows something. I'm not sure how much but, she knows something. We will have to be extremely cautious in our dealings with her," said Kiba.
"Why can't we just tell them what we are?" I asked.
"Because they would probably try to shoot us," replied Hige with a shrug.
"But we don't know that!" I exclaimed, "These people seem different. It's like they came from a different universe. Think about it! We don't know what a "school" is, but all of these people act like it's common knowledge, and that's not the only thing that's different about them either."
"I understand what you're saying, Toboe, but it's better to not tell them than it is to end up being hunted by them," said Kiba.
"And besides, we have already appeared to them as humans, and I doubt that where they're from it is considered normal for wolves to have the ability to look like humans," added Hige. I nodded. They were right, but I still didn't like lying to the humans all the time.
"Are we done now?" asked Blue, "because I would like to get some sleep."
"We're done," said Kiba.
"Finally! I think I'm going to go for a little run." said Tsume as he stood up. He walked over to the open window and jumped out. I heard him hit the ground outside.
"We're going to our room," said Hige. Kiba walked out the door, and Hige followed. After the door closed I was hit by a realization.
"I'm locked out, Tsume was the one who had the key." I said sadly.
"Then just jump out of the window, you did leave yours open right?" said Blue.
"Yeah but..." I didn't finish my sentence. I looked out the window to my room. It looked pretty far away, and a diagonal jump like that sounded difficult. 'I could first go up to Kiba and Hige's room, and then over to Tsume and my room, but then Hige would probably tease me for not being able to make it in one go.' That decided it for me. I was going to have to make it in two jumps. I climbed onto the windowsill and launched myself upward and to the left. My paws were in contact with the other building for less than a quarter of a second before I kicked off again. I was headed straight for the window to room D-19. I landed on the windowsill.
My paw slipped, and I went crashing to the ground.
'Just my luck, I get the jump right, but trip and end up on the ground!' I thought grumpily as I tried to shake the dust out of my fur. My human form was still on, so to a passerby it would look like I was brushing off the dirt. I was still grumbling to myself when I heard music coming from above me. Using my superior hearing I deduced that the sound was being made by a guitar, and that it was coming from D-21, the room next to mine. I decided to investigate further, and started wall-jumping my way up the building.
Guitarist POV
I had decided to take advantage of my room mate being gone on a food run and was trying to figure out the next few measures of the secret song I was writing. Suddenly I heard a crashing sound coming from the open window. I looked over and saw a small person laying in a heap on the floor.
I tried to keep my surprise to myself, but a small, "Eek!" escaped my lips. The stranger quickly sat upright and faced me.
"Oh! I'm sorry I scared you!" said the person. I decided that it was a boy because it was wearing the male SSS uniform.
"Why did you...? How did you...? Who are you? I mean, you must be an Afterlife Battlefront member because of the uniform, but I've never seen you," I said in a startled manner that was rather unlike me.
"I just got recruited today, so that's why you don't know me." said the boy.
"And why are you here?" I asked. The shock was finally wearing off.
The kid looked at the ground, like he was deciding how to explain it to me and finally said, "I got locked out of my dorm. I was trying to get in by climbing through the window when I heard music coming from here, so I came to investigate...Tsume always says that I'm too curious for my own good."
"You were climbing up four stories to get into your room? Wouldn't it have been easier to go to Yusa and ask for a new key?" I asked incredulously. He looked at me like the idea had never occurred to him. Then he suddenly looked scared.
"Yusa's creepy," he simply stated. I stared at him, and after a long, uncomfortable silence he asked, "So what were you playing?"
"A song that I'm writing," I replied.
"Can I hear it?" he asked.
"Well, it's kinda a secret song. I haven't even showed it to my room mate," I said. He looked disappointed and sad, so I went on to say, "I don't think it's all that great, but if you really want to hear it I guess I can play it for you." He looked like he would explode from happiness.
I don't know why I decided to trust him. Maybe it was because he looked like a harmless child, and maybe it was because he didn't know what GirlDeMo was like, what I was supposed to be like. I think I trusted him because of his eyes. His eyes looked full of a deep sorrow, hidden by a smile and laughter. Eyes that had shed more tears than what should be possible for one his age.
I started to play the untitled song. I had only written the first verse because I was stuck on how the chorus would sound. Even so I played what I had written with all of my heart.
Toboe POV
I sat, awestruck. The song had so much emotion that I almost wanted to howl for her pain. "That's it?" I asked sadly once she stopped playing.
"I don't know how to continue it," said the girl, "I just don't know how to express the idea I want to get across."
"Can I give you a suggestion?" I asked. She nodded. 'I want to tell her to let it out by howling, but that would sound weird to her, and I don't want her to be suspicious,' I thought. "Well...how do I put it? Your song makes it feel like you're crying quietly in the corner of a room or something," I noticed she looked a little shocked at my insight, "And I think that for the chorus you should contrast that by...well not screaming exactly, but being loud." She looked confused, so I continued by quietly adding, "like how a wolf howls to vent it's sadness." She looked like she suddenly understood.
"I see now! I think that my heart was already telling me that that's how I should write it, and I was just afraid of messing it up, but if you think the same thing then it must be right," she said happily. I put my arms behind my head and grinned. "I'm going to try writing the chorus again," she said. I nodded and after a few seconds she said, "You can leave now."
"Oh, well do you think I could hang out here? I kinda want to see what it's like to write a song," I said.
She sighed and said, "I guess it's okay. Oh by the way my name's Iwasawa, what's yours?"
"Toboe!" I said. She nodded slightly, picked up the guitar, and started alternating between strumming quietly and humming under her breath. After a few minutes I heard a noise coming down the hallway. I could tell that it was in front of D-17, and it wasn't the footsteps of anyone I knew. "Someone's coming down the hallway," I stated, but I'm not sure why I felt the need to announce it.
"Shit. My room mate," she hissed. I could tell by the look on her face that her room mate would not be amused by my presence, so I walked over to the window.
"Bye Iwasawa," I said as I stepped up onto the windowsill.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Leaving, but I'll probably see you later. We are next-door neighbors after all!" and with that I jumped outward. I heard her moving toward the window, but I was already hidden by the curtain of night. I bounced off the school building and landed on the windowsill to D-19. I heard Iwasawa shout my name, but I gave no reply. She stopped calling for me quickly, probably because her room mate had entered the room. I turned around and came face-to-face with Tsume.
"Did I miss out on something?" he asked. I decided to just be mostly honest with him, minus the fact that I messed up on the jump to our room.
"I heard some music coming from the room next to ours, so I went to see what it was, and there was this nice girl playing a guitar, and I helped her with one of her songs," I briefly explained. When I said "nice girl" I could tell that Tsume was thinking about Lyra and how I had said that she was "nice", but I quickly pushed the thoughts of Lyra to the back of my mind.
Eventually he scoffed and said, "you really do love mingling with humans." I would have protested, but I was too tired, so I grumbled something about being sleepy and I jumped up onto the top bunk, using the ladder wasn't an option. He turned off the light and I heard him get into bed as well. As I drifted into sleep I thought something like 'So I really am dead. I wonder what I should do with my second chance at life. I think I want to figure out what that voice I heard when I first woke up was.'
Blue POV
My sleep was dreamless, and the morning was uneventful. Kiba had gotten up and gathered all six of us and we went to the "cafeteria" to get breakfast. Toboe seemed to be searching for somebody in the room when Hinata came up to us and asked Kiba, "You ready for your first operation?"
"What is it?" He said.
"It's called Operation Monster Stream, but the name makes it sound scarier than it actually is," he replied.
"What are we doing in this operation?" asked Tsume in his usual growl.
"It's really just fishing, we won't even have any encounters with Angel," he said, "When you're done eating come to our table, we're planning on going to the river right after breakfast because according to Yurippe we have a more important operation this evening and we she wants to finish Monster Stream quickly." We nodded as a group and he walked back to his table.
We left the "cafeteria" empty-handed, which confused me because I was sure that humans needed special equipment to fish.
As we were walking I caught TK's attention and asked him, "Don't we need supplies to fish?"
"No fear," he said while dancing to imaginary music, "There's a maniac."
'I wish I had a partner that spoke normally. TK and Cheza should be partners because they both speak some form of nonsense.' I thought.
Thankfully Oyama heard the exchange and said to me. "One of the members of the guild, that's the underground organization where we get our guns and ammo from by the way, loves fishing, so whenever we do Operation Monster Stream he brings a cart of supplies to the surface. He's so good at fishing that he's called a fishing maniac. His name's Saitou." I was glad that my questions had been answered, and I felt a little jealous of Toboe for having such a normal partner.
We were walking along the bank of a river, and as we rounded a corner the cart Oyama had spoken of came into view. Most of the SSS members went to grab gear when Yuri stood in front of the cart, and got ready to announce something.
"As you all know we are performing Operation Monster Stream. We are pressed for time, so we only have until 12:00 for everyone to fill their baskets. Anyone who does not fill a basket will not be given tickets after the next Operation Tornado, so I suggest you catch a lot of fish. Operation: START!"
PLEASE READ THIS!
In this story I am planning on having all the Angel Beats! characters share their memories with at least one of the wolves. However, I doubt that I will be able to think of stories for everyone, so that's where you come in! If you have any ideas for a character's backstory tell me in a review or PM and your idea will most likely become part of this story! It doesn't need to be a super-detailed account of the person's life (though it could be if you wanted to), it just needs to be enough to get my own imagination flowing. All ideas are welcome and appreciated.
On a side note, if you want to you may specify which dessert you want as a reward for reviewing. I will not be able to give it to you, but it's the thought that counts!
Also, Shiina is the only person who I have already thought up a story for. Everyone else is free game, except for Yuri, Yui, and Iwasawa because I will not make their stories different from the ones that were shown in the anime.