Young Writers Society

"Really?" he seems a little surprised. "It's not a very common name."

Raiden slid over to Kyou and patted his back in what he hoped was a comforting manner. He didn't seem to be taking the information very well.
"I know I'm insensitive but that was just harsh," he thought, referring in his mind to how Li He had spilled the beans.

It didn't make sense though. Nowhere in BnHA was there even a hint of a Kyou in class 1-A. If he were in 1-B it'd be more understandable. Raiden barely remembered half the people from 1-B. As Raiden patted Kyou's back, he tried to piece together the clues, but it didn't seem to be working.

Kyou being in 1-A just made no sense!

Then it clicked.

Kyou was an OC. For a fanfiction, or something similar, at least. Raiden froze as the realisation hit him. He was literally touching a character someone had dreamt up.

The real question was if everyone here was the same - him included.

Kyou, though he couldn't have possibly known that Raiden had come to a similar conclusion, was hit by a startling realization. Raiden seemed like himself - a dedicated anime fan, who, if possible, would easily remember the characters. Even a minor character would ring a bell. If Raiden didn't recognize him or his name, it left one option: he wasn't a part of the anime. He could only be from some fan creation. He was an original character; he was never part of the story Raiden knew.

Color began to return to his face. If that was the case, then he was alright with it. It wasn't what he had expected to learn when he got up that morning, but it wasn't a bad turn of events. He could roll with that. Being someone's character meant he had a purpose in the story. He would get his own character arc and development, and he would achieve his dreams. Fanfiction writers rarely created characters for tragedies - at least, that was the case with the ones he had read.

"...If Kyou is a character, how do we know we're not characters?" Zion nervously asked.

"...If Kyou is a character, and doesn't realize he's a character, how do we know we aren't characters?" Cornyx says, realization dawning on him.

"We don't."
Raiden ran a hand through his hair. Would he be an actual person? Someone from the world where all fictional characters - like Kyou for example - were made?

That's a mistake, Kyou isn't fictional. He's standing right there. From someone else's perspective Kyou might be fictional, but to Raiden, Kyou was as real as the hair on his head. If, of course, that was real too.

But he came from the world where someone had created BnHA, surely that's the "real" world? Unless...his creator just...made it that way. Raiden looked up to the ceiling
"If you're there, what the heck are you doing, creator?" he thought, his brow furrowing. If he was a 'fictional' character, then there'd have to be an author or a creator of him, right? In that case, assuming he is a fictional character, why was he here? Why him - heck, why any of them specifically?

"Well, I never said being a character was a bad thing, or made us fake people," said Li He. "I've got part of me that thinks I am one, too, what with all the crazy things I've gone through. Imagine all the amazing adventures in store if we are."

"I think I'd prefer a normal life," Cornyx answers softly. "At any rate, could that explain why we're here?"

"This is exactly that would send Jane-" Thomas began before glancing at Jane- who was staring at a wall as if it would somehow give her answers. "Into an existential crisis." He finished weakly, knowing that she had already found herself in that pit of obsessive thought over concepts that made her question her view of reality.

He also knew that she loved every moment of it. She loved to question every facet of reality, especially the afterlife- for those that did not remain on Earth as ghosts.

Raiden looked over at Jane
"...I think I might be having one too,"

Zion let out a breath of air. One wasn't supposed to question how it was possible for a sentient shadow in the first place, and they supposed that their creator, if they were truly fictional, hadn't put as much thought into something like that as they could have.

"It is disheartening," they said, "to think that all of the horrible things that happened in our pasts were meant to further our stories."

Kyou looked over at Zion. "But doesn't that mean things will get better?"

"What do you mean?"

He thought for a moment. "The past builds up to what we have now, and what our futures will be. If there was something terrible in our pasts, I think it's because something good is in our futures."

"Or it's one of those ones where the main character dies in the end," Cornyx points out. "There's no way to know."

"The main character always dies, the audience just doesn't always get to see it." Jane murmured.

"Or, you could look at it as though the character never dies, they're always alive in the minds of the audience." Thomas said with a smile.

"Yeah, and my dog isn't dead because I remember her." Jane responded, sass lacing her words.

"...Well, uh, if it were one of those stories where the main character dies first, then, who's the main character?" Raiden asked, trying to change the topic from the loss of a doggo to something else.

Kyou shrugged. "I'm not really sure. I think we've established that I'm not a main character of an anime, so I'm most likely a fanfiction character. I think the attention would probably be on me. But everyone else? I have no idea."

Zion sighed, and conveyed their dejection with a surprising amount of expression for a sentient shadow that didn't have a face. "Even if we are characters, it still doesn't explain why we all ended up here. Our stories don't make sense together, do they? I could possibly explain all of you in terms of my world, with the exception of Kyou. But I doubt you could do the same with me."

"It's like one of those weird fanfiction mash-ups, where people take different characters from different worlds, and don't really care whether or not they work together." Jane smiled.

"They just do it for fun..." Thomas thought out loud.