A/N: So I was looking through my old fanfics and I stumbled across one that held a lot of my beliefs and a lot of 'me' in it. The only problem being a young freshman is that you really don't have many tools to express yourself fully, at least I didn't. So here I am two years later, as a junior, trying to figure out what I wanted to say, what I intend to say, and what I think it all means. After all, art is about human expression and sending a message. Literature, even in the lowest esteemed form of fan fiction can reflect things abut the author that may be subtle at first. I challenge you all to look at your favorite works and try to see if there are any qualities of that piece that are comparable to the author. I bet you'll find some. In any case this fanfic is based off the song "Kokoro" by Kagamine Rin and Len. I highly recommend you all listen to it as it is a wonderful piece of music that most Vocaloid fans should enjoy.
tl;dr: I'm rewritting a fanfic from my freshman year. Kokoro. Listen to it. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: I dont own anything but the laptop I wrote this on. Keep an open mind. Take from this what you want.
What is the heart? Some of you, weary of the spiritual beliefs some may impose on you or who are maybe just innately drawn to the realistic side of things, may answer with something along the lines of,
"The heart is an organ within most organisms that pumps blood throughout the body in order to sustain life." However, those of you who believe in something beyond themselves and look at the world in a more sentiment way may answer with,
"The heart is the source of our emotion. It allows us to feel sympathy, compassion, and love, all of which are needed to sustain our lives." It is thought that ancient Egyptians believed that the heart was the holding place of one's memories as well as the source of their emotions. No matter what your beliefs or answers may be, the conflicts that have arisen in this world as a result of debate over what exactly "the heart" is have brought upon bloodshed and violence. At the same time, it is through our wonder and curiosity that we search for the meaning we long for. Could it be that humanity's innate curiosity contributes to their innate imperfection? There are questions, long remained, unanswered through centuries of attempts by religion and science. We humans look through scopes of realistic and spiritual qualities to find our meaning in either the material world or in an ascended world. Perhaps it is here that conflict is born, and maybe when those questions are all answered, conflict will be no more.
A courtroom full of hushed whispers is suddenly silenced by the sound of a gavel pounding three times. Silence befalls the entire room, and all eyes focus on either the judge, or the young boy who sits in the stand before him, looking down to hide his face. The courtroom is lighted by many candles spread few and far all around. This makes it so the crowds in the stands have very little light that is clear enough to distinct faces and details of the people being tried but a couple things are clear about this boy. He is slumped over in exhaustion and his head is held down in shame so that no one may see him. Some wonder what exactly he has done and others know only parts of the story. Nevertheless, everyone waits in anticipation for what the Judge has to say, anxious of what his verdict might be. After he has the full attention of every eye and ear in his court, he gives a hardy cough to clear his throat and looks down on the young boy in the stand. With his throat clear and a determined look on his face he begins,
"Kagakusha Len, in accordance with the Crown of Ronsou's agreement with the Church's mandated teachings, my jurisdiction in the ruling of your special case will be handed over to the head Bishop, Shisai Kaito. The court will now allow him to ascend to the Judge's seat to make the final verdict." Conversation and clamor broke out in the crowds, all in whispers and hushed voices. It was a very rare thing to see the Judge relinquish his power over to the church, even just temporarily. From the sounds of the people who filled the room, many were surprised but some exclaimed agreement in the decision. As the judge stepped from his seat, another man took his place. He had blue hair and wore a cloak that that drooped around his body loosely. It was all held together on his upper chest by a thick lace tying into a knot with a crucifix hanging from it, looking much like a necklace. As he took his seat where the judge once did, he placed his Bible down on the podium in front of him. Next to where he placed it, was a manila folder containing all the case papers for the crime the blonde haired boy committed. As he heard the name of the person who would be handling his case, the blonde haired boy looked up, shocked.
"Oh great" he thought to himself, "Another lecture from him is all I need, and in front of everyone in town too! Agh I'm so done with him and the crap that comes out of his mouth. I just hope he leaves it...no…her alone and lets me off with a warning…I can always sneak out and continue my research…" The young boy put his head back down once again, still exhausted from the lack of sleep and everything he had been through that led up to him being there. While Shisai Kaito reviews Len's case, the lab coated boy thinks back to all the other times that man had given him trouble.
In a small classroom located next to a giant Cathedral, the head Bishop finishes teaching the day's math lesson and moves onto the next subject. As Kaito gets his teaching materials ready, along with his assistant and wife, Shisai Miku. The children in the classroom all wait patiently, except for one student. He sat slouched in his desk with his arms crossed on the table, creating a cushion for his forehead. Sometime during the lecture he had fallen asleep. One of the kids, a girl around his age, notices this and raises her hand to tattle on the boy,
"Misses Shisaaaai, Len fell asleep again..." The teacher's assistant turned around from helping her husband get organized and simply put on a wide smile.
"Oh…that's okay." Miku patted young Len's sleepy head while talking to the rest of the students,
"If everyone was as smart and got straight A's like him, we could all take a little nap. Let him rest just a bit, ok?" The young girl next to him sat back down and pouted, a little jealous of the prodigy she sat next to. Every kid in the class thought something was strange about Len, as he never really played with any of them, got the highest grades, and always was in the library reading books. As Kaito finished getting his supplies ready, he walked back to the front of the classroom and on his way, stopped by the sleeping boy.
"Yes class, when one gets perfect marks and is an excellent student in every subject, lots of success and rest is in store for them." Kaito began rolling up a thin stack of paper and continued sternly,
"However, there is one subject that you are in fact failing, right, Mr. Prodigy?" He wacked Len with the paper and Len sprang up, sitting upright in his desk with a stream of saliva hanging from his mouth.
"Mmm mm wha-?" The blonde woke from his slumber in a daze as to what was going on. The teacher/bishop continued walking to the whiteboard at the front of the classroom and began his lecture on religion. Len loathed this part of the day. Kaito would never let him talk or discuss and had his much more tolerable wife not been there, Len would probably get the paddle every time he spoke out. He tried his best to stay awake during the lecture that was being given. Miku began drawing clouds on the whiteboard with a marker. They weren't very detailed but one could tell that they were fluffy and some kids quickly associated them with heaven. Their inferences were confirmed when she drew a big bearded man dressed in white standing atop those clouds. After his assistant was done, the teacher began talking, pointing at the whiteboard for reference,
"Now class, I'm sure you all recognize the image depicted by Mrs. Shisai. This is what our human minds have constructed God and his dwelling to look like. His older appearance gives us the idea that he has been around long before us and is a very wise being. His immediate domain on top of the clouds and in the sky signifies that his level of existence is ascended and beyond the reach of man. However, this is all based off of human perception. Our minds have imaged God to look like this but in reality, it could not be any further from the truth-"
"So then, does that mean God is something omnipresent? Is he more like a force that connects all of us or empowers us? Are we all just like a tiny bit of God?" Len cut him off, eager to express his ideas and thoughts on what the teacher just said.
"Very good!" Miku exclaims, clapping her hands, surprised yet again at the young boy's cognitive and critical thinking skills. Her husband however feels very differently about his sudden outburst.
"Silence, Len! Raise your hand if you wish to speak but do not talk out of turn! This is your last warning" Kaito shouts in his direction.
"B-but I-" Len stutters.
"That's it! Wait outside the classroom, we'll deal with a punishment for you after class!" Kaito stormed at the once eager young boy. Scared and startled, Len briskly walks outside the classroom but sits close enough to the door so he could hear the rest of the lecture. He could only half listen given his current situation. He'd always preferred science to religion because in that class, there were never any questions for him. Everything was set in stone and he felt he could understand everything the world had to offer through that medium. Religion however was completely different however. There were so many questions and things he wanted to talk and share about but never got the chance to. After school was over, all the kids stormed from the classroom, ignoring Len, much to his pleasure. He never liked to be looked down upon, like his teacher repeatedly had a habit of doing. After the last kid was gone and he was the only one left near the class, he heard Mr. and Mrs. Shisai arguing.
"You really need to lighten up on the boy, he's only 11 years old and stellar in our class! Plus, we designed our religion course to be about expressing one's self and finding God in their own way and that's clearly what he was trying to do!" Miku defended the young boy who was eavesdropping on them.
"Dearest, you don't understand. That child needs to learn discipline and respect. I get that his parents aren't around anymore to teach him that, I'm trying my very best but nothing gets through to him!" Kaito argued back, insisting that Len was the problem and not him.
"Don't you dare even mention his parents! You have no idea what he's been through, carrying the burden of someone who has contributed so much to this kingdom. One day he will become a great scientist, just like his late mother was, may she rest in peace!" With that, Miku walked away from her husband and outside to see Len. However, once she had opened the door, he found that he was long gone, with a trail of tears giving away his direction. She looked back at the bishop inside the classroom.
"See what you've done now?" She yelled as she ran off in search of the boy.
Ever since that incident and the hearing of his dead mother's work in the fields of medicine and biogenetics, he devoted his life to continuing her work. What she left behind however was something groundbreaking and a challenge even to the growing prodigy. He would spend years researching in secret for something that may hold the answers to the meaning of life itself. On some occasions he would discover things that he needed to reveal to the public however. In continuing his mother's research, he managed to find a cure for the common cold, inhibitors for three types of malignant cancers, and most astonishingly to everyone around him, he managed to create artificial organs. Though not completely approved by the church, people in need gracefully accepted what they thought was his gift to humanity. Others however saw him playing in God's domain, claiming that the creation of artificial tissues was a mockery of creationism. This made him a highly controversial figure but in any case, he picked up his predecessor's work where she left off and succeeded. He could never share his or his mother's complete findings however. Even the laboratory his mother worked in outside of the kingdom's walls remained secret to all but him. If anyone found out about what he was working on, the punishment would be severe.
Len now found himself back in the courtroom, six years later. His flashback and train of thought was broken by the slamming of the gavel by Shisai Kaito, the man who would finally reveal to him what they were punishing him for and what said punishment would be. After reviewing Len's case file, the bishop looks rather disgusted. The look on his face has definitely changed since he got up there and despite the poor lighting in the court, the crowds can read a very distinct scowl on his face towards the young scientist. Len saw the look on his face and knew something was wrong. He would not be getting a slap on the wrist this time. The blonde boy looked up and made eye contact with the blue haired man. The court was deadly silent as the head bishop, Shisai Kaito, began the final verdict.
"Kagakusha Len, you are being tried for heresy." Kaito stated. Len looked up in shock but remained silent for fear that his punishment might be worse if he burst out in court. Kaito continued on with an explanation of his crime.
"To replicate organs in order to help those in need is one thing. To replicate an entire human being is a mockery of God's work and a crime against humanity." The scientist internally freaked out as he heard Kaito say this.
"How the hell did anyone find out?! And for that matter, who told the church?!" Len asked himself. His mouth was now wide open in shock. The crowd around him erupted with noise. Shouts calling him genius were few, but they were all drowned out by the name, heretic. Kaito slammed the gavel into the podium three times once more and after what seemed like an hour of trying to get the crowds to calm down, he finally regained control of the Court to finish the verdict.
"Order! Order! I will have order!...Kagakusha Len, for the crime of heresy in the highest degree possible, I banish you to exile immediately! You are to leave by tomorrow night or face the sentence you should have gotten had the court not considered your previous good deeds. This court session is now over." He slammed the gavel and the room once again erupted while Len was being cuffed.