explosivecombat | 022. [Text]

022. [Text]

With matters of one's heart and soul so close in mind, due to the recent holiday and all the romantic connotations therein, I ask that you forgive the possibly morbid nature of the question I have for you tonight:

The state or condition of one's soul is often brought into question when their deeds are brought to light or held up for scrutiny; the concept of the damned and those destined for salvation aren't new concepts by far. However, I have to ask what that means for all of you - do you accept your soul as existing only as a metaphysical concept, a matter of faith, something unproven and intangible? Or is it something undeniable where you come from, not a matter of faith but rather proven to exist? Does it fail to exist for you at all?

Or, perhaps, is it something else entirely - something that was rendered from one of the above options into another?

I suppose I should apologize for such heavy subject matter; I imagine some will find it rude to attempt to quantify such a thing. However, it's been something I've had reason to consider lately, so no apology is forthcoming.

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Both, I suppose. As far as my world goes, the soul isn't something used to weigh one's deeds - that's more along the lines of a conscience, I think. They're separate principles. The soul itself contains everything you are; your life-force, so to speak.

Dealing with them directly involves something...similar to what you're describing, I think; souls are tangible things to be understood and, in some instances, touched and physically manipulated - though I wouldn't say flinging them at people would get you very far.

The family I'm talking about... they can crawl inside someone else's body if they want to and have the training and either control from a distance or go through memories. They can be freely given as well but...

It's hardly the only shinobi clan where I'm from that has something like that. So yes, there is definitely the soul, as a thing that everyone has. Just like there is spirit and physical, there is soul removed from that too. It's... When I died it was a big deal. I gave my eye to someone with the expectation that my spirit would stay bound to him through that and I ended up here instead.

I'm not sure if part of me stayed there. It's possible, I'm not the same exact person I was before I came here after all. My abilities were stripped from me, what made me unique... But just like there is a spirit there are those things that gather them, and the Shinigami are a real thing as well, seeable, touchable, and indisputably a force in the world.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have no room for doubt because it's something I know. As for where being what you are will get you... What you do in life, as I was taught, has no bearing on where you go. Good people can do horrible things, and horrible people could do good things, and none of it matters because the only one you have to sort out once you get there is yourself. No one will tell you if you're good or bad, you have to decide for yourself and go from there when you're ready.

I'm missing out on that for now, but it might still happen, some day, so better to sort myself out that I'm happy with what I see when I look back, right?

[...well, he understood about...30% of that, maybe, the rest looked like pure wharrgarbl. But let's pick out some of the more important bits first and worry about the wharrgarbl later, shall we?]

There's a being in my world that's capable of something similar to that. Controlling one physically from the inside, I mean. It's unsettling to watch, but it's interesting in practice.

You're making me wonder, however, as to exactly where you're talking about going. Some sort of afterlife, or something else entirely...?

Yep! Not really sure on the details, but considering what I've heard about a jutsu that got made before I was born that could call back the souls of the dead? Nobody knows how it works, it was slapped with forbidden pretty fast, with good reason I guess, but it's pretty hefty proof for the entire 'the soul isn't gone' concept. What I know of it meant that the person was definitely the person, whatever they were like before, unresolved issues, everything.

Then again, considering there are seals that would let one barter a soul directly with a shinigami, they have to do something as well in regard to the soul, too. I don't know how those work either though. I never got that far in learning seals myself, but sensei would have known.

Either way, if someone can be called back from somewhere after they die, they have to go somewhere in the first place.

Ah, that's where we differ in terms of our understanding of this, I believe - where I'm from, you can't call them back after a certain point. There are rituals that can be done to prevent the soul from leaving the mortal world in the first place, but they either have to be done immediately, or they're a forbidden practice that kills the body in the process of extracting the soul.

No one is really certain whether there's an afterlife or not, as a result. It's possible there isn't; it's possible that there is but once one crosses the threshold, there's no returning. I have my own beliefs on the matter, but I can't say with any sort of certainty or authority; it's a bit of a moot point for me anyway.

I don't know that your world has an afterlife. It might not. Somehow I can't really see only this world or that world actually having one though. That seems... wrong. Broken.

It might just be that that world, for you, is further away and thus a lot harder to reach. In mine we have much more intimate interaction with death itself and we have a direct contact on things from other dimensional places anyway, which would make a difference too about our ability to reach out for those that have gone ahead.

Still, one thing that is known and accepted is that even if there is a way, you just don't do it. It's better that way.

No, I understand, as meddling in the realm of the dead is something we don't do ourselves - at least, we don't if we have any common sense. A few have tried; it never ends the way they want it to, and it's another thing that falls under the classification of a forbidden practice.

I personally don't believe in an afterlife, per se, but I don't think death is necessarily the end, either.

I don't know what exactly is after, for the soul, but I do know people don't just... end. That is a fact, for me. The details though? I think you'll find so many people fighting over details from all the different places that people come from.

The details, I think, are what's up to individual belief as far as I'm concerned. As such, it matters very little to me what others think. Should they want to tell me here, then I'll listen, certainly, because I did ask. However, that doesn't mean that my beliefs will change to match theirs, as that would be a massive lack of conviction on my part.

No joke right? People should believe in the things that are important to them, but that shouldn't stop someone from realizing that the angle they're looking at their important thing might be a little... off. Something like the afterlife though? Unless someone has been there and back, then they shouldn't say, because all they're doing is trying to talk themselves into it more than whoever they're talking to.

From what I understand, you haven't seen that afterlife yourself, correct? You mentioned your death - you were brought here immediately afterwards?

Yep, totally got stolen. I know I died, half my body was completely crushed, but once everything stopped... I woke up here. I wasn't eager to be done, sure, but here is both like a second chance and like being cheated too.

That seems to be the case for most who were brought here after death, actually - they were brought either just before they died, or immediately after blacking out and before the afterlife. I don't know that anyone's actually seen it, period, come to think of it.

Makes a guy wonder if maybe this place isn't trying to be a deliberate waystation of sorts, what with the whole 'you can't die anymore' thing it seems to have going on. I have no idea what kind of limits that has though, I admit, the guy who told me was pretty uncomfortable about it.

Is that so? I've heard a fair amount about that myself; what have you heard?

Just that it's not sticky. I gotta admit I haven't really had the chance to throw it out there and see just what the consequences are if I get mortally wounded, but hey, it's made training the pokemon simpler. You got details?

From what I've heard, we won't die if someone else murders us. Suicides don't work, regardless of how successful the attempt actually was. I'm fairly sure accidental death won't be permanent, either, though I'd need to get that verified.

In the event that we die here, or sustain fatal injuries, apparently we awaken in a Pokémon Center some hours later. Whatever killed us will be healed. However, if you received secondary, non-fatal injuries - broken bones, for example - those won't be healed and will take the usual amount of time to recover.

I haven't died here myself, but I've spoken to those who have - people that have no reason to lie about such things, no less. I can attest to non-fatal injuries taking a while to heal, however; I took some damage to my spine a while back, and it still gives me trouble from time to time.

This is going to be terrible. I have no idea how civilian healing rates work you see. Where I'm from a shinobi like me can expect a broken bone to mend in a couple weeks if no medics get to it. I've heard that civilians can get laid up for months like that?

No, I see what you mean - we have alchemy-assisted healing, where I'm from, and I've recovered from injuries that should be fatal in a matter of hours as a result. But yes, such injuries can take weeks or months to heal; I didn't have the time to wait, hence my physical condition isn't quite what it should be. It's not a hindrance most of the time for me, but you are right in that it takes quite some time for things to mend up properly.

Well, I just have to hope that I'm not suddenly fragile then because no way am I going to reel in and be super cautious or anything. That's just not how I do things and my cousin seems to be the reckless kind.

The guy is one of the types from my family who is more heart than head. I mean, people think I'm like that too but... If you never think, your heart is gonna end up in some bad places, yeah?

I wouldn't know; I'm not in the practice of allowing my heart to wander.

However, I suppose it depends on what abilities were stripped from you before. It sounds as though some sort of accelerated healing was present, however, and you certainly won't have that; anything this place considers above that of your average civilian is nullified, as I'm sure you've noticed.

Yeaaah, can't breathe fire, can't walk up walls, can't cast people into a jutsu where they think they're a pretty pretty princess. Hell, I can't even run from tree properly anymore and I learned to do that when I was like, nine.

My speed is about the same, thankfully, I guess being so in shape worked in my favor, and my strength too. I was on the low end of the shinobi strength scale see and reflexes... I lost a Lot but... not everything. I think I'd just curl up and cry if I couldn't catch things people were flinging at me anymore you know?

Impressive skills, I must admit, and I find myself in a similar situation.

Although I am somewhat curious about this..."pretty, pretty princess" whatnot, as that isn't something I've heard of before.

Eh heh heh. So. That. See, that's me abusing something we have called genjutsu. Basically you impose yourself over someone else's perceptions and make them believe that something is going on that isn't actually happening. Someone did one on me once when I was a kid that made me think everything was a couple inches closer than it actually was. Ended up falling down two flights of stairs.

After that I really studied up on it and experimented until I could get the most vicious of my cousins to painfully embarrass themselves before figuring out how to get out of the jutsu. I had to be really careful and layer the shit out of it so the basic breaks wouldn't work though. It was pretty much the only one I could do though.

I was still trying to learn to be able to do it without a hell of a lot of time being wasted while I did when I died though. Most people would say I was crap at it since it wasn't combat viable yet.

So it's more or less power over illusions, then. Attacking the mind rather than the body.