Yes, I know I should be doing something with that current disaster that is Enlightened Glowy-ness. But this came into my head a few days ago, and I'm sure I'm not going to be able to sleep properly until I've written it. This is the result of reading too many stories where the characters die at the end, and having too much free thinking time at work.
Disclaimer - Unfortunately, Reno and Tseng don't belong to me, nor does any other aspect of Final Fantasy VII. I'm just borrowing them for a while. I promise I'll give them back. Eventually...
Spirituality And Butterflies
"What happens when you die?"
The question caught him completely unawares, and he paused in his steps, his hand still hovering above the door handle. He had just been leaving the room, the call of duty meaning that he couldn't spend the entire day visiting the injured member of his team. He would have liked to however, since the young man had seemed bored and restless alone in the room, not to mention somewhat preoccupied. Hearing the red-head's plans for vengeance against Avalanche had been interesting to say the least, but somewhat disturbing. Tseng had always known Reno to have a very vivid and graphic imagination, but even so...
He turned, fixing his dark gaze on the young man that lay in the hospital bed, half-asleep with the painkillers coursing through his system. All in all, 'what happens when you die?' was the kind of question he didn't want to hear coming from the mouth of a fellow Turk, especially one usually so cheerful and easy-going. Just what had prompted the sudden question, breaking away from the less than lucid schemes of terrorist destruction, was something Tseng wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know. He knew he had to talk this through with Reno however; the red-head very rarely asked such things, and only ever when he genuinely needed some help while he worked out his own answers.
"Why do you ask?" the Turk leader asked after a moment, remaining standing by the door of the private room, keeping it closed for the sake of privacy. This was the very exclusive wing of the hospital, the one used solely by high-ranking Shinra employees and executives, and primarily by the Turks for reasons that were best not mentioned to anyone outside of their ranks. Even so, despite the fact that there were very few others here, especially at this hour, the dark haired man didn't feel this discussion should be overheard; his red-headed comrade had clearly been thinking, and that usually was not a good sign.
"I guess I was just thinking about stuff. Being stuck here doesn't give me much else to do," Reno responded, and Tseng was certain he could hear the slight slur in the young man's words. Undoubtedly there was more than just simple pain as a reason to keep the injured Turk sedated; always inclined to be restless, it was likely Reno would be unable to rest unless sleep was forced upon him, and if he was awake, he would make it his duty to annoy the doctors until they let him leave.
"Well..." Tseng started, pausing for a moment to choose his wording carefully. Everyone had their own views on what happened to a person when they died. He had thought that Reno's beliefs extended as far as what happened to the body; from the point of view of a Turk, that was all they ever needed to worry about. Bodies were typically disposed of, and likely consumed by various forms of life in the soil, or else sent to the science department for autopsy or experimentation. Or both. It was difficult to tell sometimes.
"I don't mean the physical stuff," the other Turk said, as if sensing the reason for his superior's hesitation. "I know what happens to bodies when they die. They go all gooey and mushy and smelly, and sometimes Hojo turns them into weird things. I meant like... the other stuff."
"The soul?" he asked, before continuing. "Everyone has their own beliefs, but most form along the lines that when we die, our soul, or spirit energy, returns to the Planet, rejoining the Lifestream. That spirit energy eventually becomes the soul of another being, so in effect we are reborn as another being when we die."
There was a moment or so as Reno absorbed this, a frown crossing his features as he tried to understand what Tseng was talking about. "So... our souls just get re-used for someone else to live?"
"Or something, but yes, that is the essence of it," Tseng replied, moving away from the door now and taking a seat on the chair by the bed, feeling a little concerned at the slightly perplexed yet worried look in the other man's eyes.
"Then my soul is just spirit energy that used to be someone else's? Or something else's? I could've been like a tree or a... a butterfly in a previous life. How come we don't remember that stuff then, if it's the same spirit energy?"
Forcing himself not to smile at the concept of Reno having been a butterfly in a former existence, Tseng shook his head, beginning not to like the direction this conversation was taking. He could see that his colleague really had been thinking, and genuinely was trying to work his head around his own spirituality. He could also see that he could well end up with one very depressed Turk; considering these kind of things did have the effect that it made a man unwilling to kill.
But then, perhaps the red-head had cause to think these things through; he'd just come through the nearest he'd ever come to dying in his entire life, and his injuries had been severe enough to made it doubtful he would survive. To the point where Tseng had been forced to acquire another Turk; better to get a head start on training, since it had seemed very likely Reno would die from the wounds inflicted by the rebel group during the incident with the Sector Seven Plate, or at the very least never recover enough from the injuries to ever be a useful Turk again.
Somehow, however, the red-head had surprised them all, including the doctors, by not only failing to die, but starting to make the journey to a full recovery, although it seemed it would be a very long road. At the very least, he wouldn't be able to return to work for a clear month or two, and even then not be at full strength for a while after that. There was no doubt that Reno's general tenacity to life and strength of will would cause him to surprise them again however.
Which left just whatever issues he was facing regarding the nature of life, death and spirituality.
Tseng knew he himself had dealt with such issues long ago, and had been perfectly comfortable with that. He had coldly and calmly accepted the fact that while in the course of his work he was interfering with the flow of the Lifestream, causing deaths sooner than they should naturally occur, in the grand scheme of things it made little difference. Things lived, and things died. Humans by their very nature interrupted life and death in the endless struggle to control their surroundings. They chose who lived and who died, and so in comparison to the entirety of humanity, the actions of a few Turks was nothing.
The thought could be furthered that by causing death, they were aiding in the birth of new life, although this seemed just a little arrogant to become something Tseng added to his rather simple, yet logical beliefs. Death was a fact of life, and what happened to the spirit beyond the grave was something that he had speculated on, accepted, and then disregarded. Shinra was not the place for religion, and such things he'd left behind with his family in Wutai.
Reno was staring at him however, as if expecting a further answer, and so Tseng paused for a further moment, trying to find the right words to answer this without causing any further damage to the other Turk's emotional state. "We don't remember because when our spirit returns to the Planet, it joins the rest of the Lifestream and is no longer individual or unique. In the same way that our bodies are consumed, the matter within them being re-used but no longer part of us, our spirit energy also is re-used."
"So everything that's... well, me just disappears? My spirit energy is just another resource?" Reno asked, giving his superior a deeply questioning look, as if this part especially was very important.
That this is what it came down to, Tseng wasn't surprised. Reno was so fiercely individual, and admittedly somewhat self-centred, that his primary concern would be what happened to him, and thus the very core of what made him who he was. "You could say that. There haven't been many studies into how much of a being's personality and soul remains in the spirit energy once it returns to the Lifestream. There are so many people in the world it would be impossible to tell."
"So like I might have been one seriously scary but cool butterfly? If the stuff that's me stays with my spirit energy?" Reno asked, seeming unable to resist a grin. Perhaps he wasn't taking this as seriously as Tseng had first surmised. Again with the butterfly references though, and he wondered if that was perhaps something to do with the painkillers and sedatives the red-head was on, or if it was something else entirely. The thought of a butterfly with Reno's attitude towards life was a strange one, but somewhat amusing. And rather scary, for that matter.
"Quite possibly. I do seem to remember being followed by a very persistent butterfly when I was young. It seemed to be mocking me, and so I squashed it, if I remember correctly," the Turk leader said, his tone of voice flat, as if stating mission orders. Of course, the story was untrue, but Tseng was well aware of how to play along with Reno's overactive imagination in order to both distract him and make him feel better. And letting him think Tseng had killed him in a former life would cause him to cease worrying about what would happen to his soul when he died.
"You... you squashed it? That might have been me you know," Reno said, frowning at Tseng. "At least it explains why I'm here though. I have to avenge my own death by driving you nuts." Evidently the red-head was quite happy to believe he'd once been a butterfly, but had been squashed by a young Tseng, and his purpose in life was to seek vengeance by being irritating. Strangely enough, that seemed a somewhat appropriate set of beliefs for someone like Reno.
"Why a butterfly though?" he asked, speaking the thought aloud. It was a valid question however; why had Reno chosen a butterfly?
"I dunno. I guess I kinda like 'em. They're sorta pretty, and completely and totally pointless. I mean, what do butterflies actually do? They just fly around all day with those huge enormous great wings, and they kinda look a bit silly too. Like maybe they're hiding something, and that innocent fluttery look is just an act. Really the butterflies are preparing to take over the world," came the response from the red-headed Turk, and again Tseng had to wonder how much of this was the drugs speaking, and how much was just... Reno.
"I think," Tseng replied, weighing his words carefully, "That you may very well be correct, and it's a good thing that you are no longer a butterfly." He had to flow with it and just indulge Reno's imagination. The red-head always had a knack of figuring out his problems eventually, usually by coming out with something incredibly silly, but undoubtedly filled with a rather strange logic. Tseng was never quite sure if Reno was highly intelligent, or quite stupid. He was inclined towards believing the former.
"Yeah, otherwise you humans wouldn't have a chance against the supreme butterfly armies," Reno answered, before breaking into a laugh. "I bet you're glad we don't get butterflies in Midgar, aren't you?"
"Definitely. The Mako pollution would undoubtedly make them stronger, and impossible to squash," the older Turk stated simply. This was perfect proof of the fact that it was near impossible for the younger man to become depressed, or at the very least stay depressed for any length of time.
"Hey, you can't squash the butterflies!" Reno objected, trying to glare disapprovingly at Tseng, but since he was still laughing, such a feat was impossible to achieve.
"Alright, I promise there will be no squashing of butterflies within the Turks," Tseng said, sounding perfectly serious. Sometimes Reno could be just plain weird, and again he just had to flow with it. The chances of the Turks ever having any hostile contact with butterflies was minimal however, and so the red-head's strange 'religion' would never become an issue. It was healthy for everyone to have a sense of their own spirituality after all, and this one was odd, but unquestionably in fitting with Reno's nature.
"Okay, that's cool," the red-head said, and he stopped laughing, becoming more serious again as another thought occurred. "Isn't Mako from the Lifestream?" he asked after a moment, evidently thinking back to Tseng's comment regarding Mako pollution.
"That's right, yes," the Turk leader responded with an affirmative nod.
"So Mako is spirit energy?" Reno asked, sounding very serious and rather thoughtful, proving once again that behind the silly and often just outright weird comments, there was a powerful mind at work. Yes, Reno was definitely of the highly intelligent variety of people, although he covered it well. And Tseng could almost see where the red-head was going with this.
"Yes, Mako is spirit energy," he confirmed, studying his colleague thoughtfully.
"Maybe those tree-huggers have the right of it then? Maybe we shouldn't be burning Mako for electricity?" Reno asked, and then pausing for a moment. "But then... the thingies of physics say you can't destroy energy, only transfer it. So spirit energy is transferred to electricity, which becomes heat and light and stuff like that. So what happens to it then? It can't just vanish."
"I believe you are referring to the laws of physics. Many would say they don't apply where spirit energy is concerned," Tseng responded. "However, if they do not apply to spirit energy--"
"Then how come Shinra can turn spirit energy into electricity?" Reno interrupted him, finishing Tseng's sentence for him.
"Exactly. If spirit energy can be converted into electricity, there must be a way to convert electricity into spirit energy, logically speaking," the Turk leader said, although half remembering Hojo mentioning that conversions of energy would either require or release energy, and so returning the energy into its original form of Mako would require a lot of energy. To those without much scientific training, such as the Turks, it was a little too complex to understand, and Tseng had written it off as one of the many things in the company that he couldn't comprehend, and didn't need to know about.
"So basically, these Avalanche people are just talking out of their asses 'coz they're angry at Shinra for their shitty lives?" Reno asked, evidently also inclined to give up understanding the scientific side of the usage of spirit energy.
"That would appear to be the gist of it, yes," Tseng replied.
"Well, if you see 'em before I'm back on duty, tell 'em I'm gonna show them just how shitty their lives can get. Unless the butterflies get them first," Reno said with a grin, once again abandoning the serious side of the conversation in favour of his typical light-hearted comments. Clearly, he'd been unable to resist the butterfly comment either.
"Of course," Tseng answered with a nod, deciding that the part about the butterflies could be omitted. While he understood such comments were simply part of Reno's personality, others might think it strange, and a sense of Turk pride told Tseng that he didn't want the terrorists having reason to consider the Turks possibly insane.
"Get some sleep Reno. The more you rest, the sooner you're back at work," he said after a moment, noting that the sedatives were taking effect, and the red-head looked decidedly sleepy, although also very cheerful. A definite improvement on the state he'd been in before the question that had prompted this entire conversation.
"Yeah... then me and the butterflies are gonna kick ass," Reno responded, yawning as he shifted position in the bed, and then closing his eyes.
Tseng allowed himself a soft chuckle, before departing the room, sparing a glance back at the now sleeping Turk before closing the door. He wasn't sure if he'd helped Reno, or if the red-head had simply helped himself, merely bouncing his thoughts off his superior. Either way, the Turk leader was content with the result; he never had to worry about Reno's state of mind for very long. Minds like that were by nature far too happy and optimistic to become depressed, and in some ways Tseng was jealous of this. It had taken him far more time and effort to understand the nature of his own beliefs.
Spirituality and butterflies. What a mixture.