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Urashima Kotetsu doesn’t believe in God.
Those who have faith in a higher power make sense to him. After all, he had heard that it is human nature to try to explain the unexplainable, and faith is really good for coming up with answers to big questions.
This god has some explaining of his own to do.
As he sits in a pew within the small chapel tucked onto a stray corner of the citadel’s grounds, Urashima thinks about all the questions he has that only God holds the answers to. Urashima peers up at the crucifix on the wall. It makes his heart ache, but not in the way a believer’s would.
What more could they have possibly done for you?
Thirty-seven thousand people had gathered together, an unimaginable congregation whose mere presence threatened the local lords. Adults and children alike had taken up arms against trained soldiers. Adults and children alike had been cut down defending their Blessed Sacrament. They’d fought back. This was taken as a justification for the slaughter on the part of the opposing armies.
How does that line go? “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
All that’s left of any of those thirty-seven thousand is dust. In the end, no higher power had intervened.
Urashima likes to remember the way it all began. People united under a common cause, enthusiastic about the message the three of them had been spreading. Unity is always a beautiful sight to behold. He may know better now, but at the time, he’d liked their message. Their watchword had excited everyone. They all joyously fell in with his—with Amakusa Shirou’s—cause whenever it was invoked.
Why would you make people suffer without a guarantee of reward?
The sunlight catches in the rose window above the altar. A thousand colored points of light dance on the row of empty pews just in front of where Urashima sits. He reaches out, bathing his fingertips in the light.
Life is ephemeral. Suffering in this world means exaltation in the next. Anything done in the name of God is worthy of praise, even at the cost of one’s own life.
“Paraíso.” The word weighs heavy on Urashima’s tongue. It tastes of smoke and iron. He doesn’t find any joy in it anymore. He knows what it means, now, after all. Tens of thousands of people had been promised a paradise, if only they’d lay down their lives for God.
God, who didn’t lift a finger in the end. He watched it all happen. He let it play out the way that it did. Tens of thousands punished, throwing themselves into the fray because they’d been told Paraíso awaited. Frankly, Urashima doesn’t believe the reward could possibly be worth all that had happened. Had there even been one? He isn’t sure he believes that, either.
Thirty-seven thousand lives had been sacrificed in vain.
Why do you allow so much bloodshed in your name?
He knows those he led aren’t unique in the grand scheme of things. The things a person believes in are, he thinks, probably the single greatest reason for conflict.
As a sword, he should probably be more comfortable with that. As a Touken Danshi, he knows why he isn’t anymore.
Too many had fallen, civilians and soldiers together, regardless of their side.
Urashima never believed in the same things as the people he led. He pretended to be Amakusa Shirou because it was convenient, and because he had been told that Tsurumaru Kuninaga was worth listening to.
He liked having conversations with everyone, though. Sometimes it had made his head hurt when they talked about lofty concepts he wasn’t sure about. The younger ones were a lot more simplistic in how they’d thought about it. It had been fun hearing their thoughts, even if Urashima was privately sure he didn’t agree with the way they thought the world worked.
Sometimes he wishes he’d pushed back. He doesn’t think the children had fully grasped what was happening until it was too late. They’d thought it was right to have to fight, even at such a young age. War was temporary, God’s favor was forever.
Urashima doesn’t think any of them had been able to conceptualize how long “forever” could be.
He watches the dust swirling in the air, and recalls something else he’d heard before. “His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.”
There is nothing to show for any of the conflict. His memories, the memories of the others who’d been on the mission, and a few anecdotes in history books are all that remain, really.
The overarching story remains, while the individuals faded away. There was only one key player, one mastermind, who even now lives to tell the tale.
Urashima stands from the pew. This conversation has no end. Paraíso doesn’t exist. God would continue to sit back and watch even in the face of another Shimabara. Urashima has to do better next time on his own.
Do you know that what you’ve done is indefensible?
He knows he’s never going to get an answer. After all, Urashima Kotetsu doesn’t believe in God.