nealuchi | a reality that you can see and feel

Title: a reality that you can see and feel
Fandom: Bungou to Alchemist
Character(s): Naoya
Pairing(s): None
Genre: Angst
Word Count: 419
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Referenced suicide
Summary: "I don't believe anything unless I see it with my very own eyes!" Or, Shiga Naoya on the afterlife.
Notes:

Naoya doesn’t believe in anything unless he sees it for himself.

As far as religion goes, this has put him into an uncertain spot. Faith, by definition, requires someone to believe in something that can’t be proven or seen. When Naoya was young he dabbled in Christianity - at the end of his life, he was content not to know what was waiting for him.

Even if he’d tried to speculate, he wouldn’t have guessed being summoned as a spirit fortysome years in the future.

Naoya believes in the things he sees - it would be ridiculous to deny them. Spirits exist, because he is one, and monsters inside books exist, because he’s gotten nasty bruises from them. Alchemy exists, because he had to have gotten here somehow.

But he isn’t ‘the’ Shiga Naoya. He’s seen another author dissolve into nothing, and another version of them called again with no memories of their time in the library. He’s a collection of memories attached to a book, but what afterlife greeted the ‘real’ him, he can’t say.

He’s capable of simple deductions, however.

Those here who were unable to rest in life - Takiji, who died young after years of fear of being captured - will not be able to have a peaceful afterlife. When the library has no more need of the writers, they will no longer remain in this world.

Those who miss their wives, their children - Chuuya, who mourns his children with every bottle of sake - will never see them again, not unless their wives and children had strong enough legacies to attach to their own books.

Whether hell and heaven exist is irrelevant, because none of them will ever be able to see them. If another copy of them has moved on to a better place, that means nothing for the version of them that’s here.

If suicide is a sin, that means this Akutagawa and Arishima will never be punished for reaching their limits. It’s not all bad.

As hard as he fights for the preservation of literature, Naoya can’t whole-heartedly wish the Taints gone. Not for his own sake, but for those he cares for in the library. These people are real to him. He’s laughed with Musha, comforted Arishima, given Ton rides on his back. They deserve as much time on this earth as they can get, and for that to happen, they need a reason to be kept.

If that makes him a hypocrite, fighting the Taints without wishing for total victory, then so be it.