Kara no Kyoukai:Chapter04 04

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As the usual morning check-up ended, I realised that it was now the 20th. Which meant that it has now been seven days since I woke up. My body has also recovered without a hitch, so I am going to be released tomorrow. The bandages over my two eyes, I will also be able to take them off tomorrow morning.

Seven days... a week.

I haven't gained much during this period of time.

I've lost so many things that I'm not even sure what I've lost.

My parents, Akitaka, they are probably the same as they were before. But to me, they feel like different people. The fading away of all that once surrounded me is something that can't be helped, since the one called Ryougi Shiki has changed.

I touch the bandage covering my eyes.

The only thing I gained in exchange for everything I have lost is this.

I, who experienced 「death」for two years while still alive. My body has changed so that I can now view such formless concepts.

The first thing I saw upon waking up from the coma was not the surprised nurse running towards me... it was the line wrapping around her throat. People, walls, even the air itself... there are incredibly fine lines visible on everything. Those lines were always moving and irregular. But I suffered from an obsession with the idea that death would spread out at any moment from those individual concepts and pull me in. I saw a hallucination in which the approaching nurse crumbled into pieces starting from the line in her neck.

When I understood what those lines were --- I crushed my two eyes with my own hands.

My hands hadn't moved in two years and just clenching them brought on agonizing pain, but I still moved my arms. Luckily or unluckily, my arms were still weak and I was stopped by the doctors in the process of destroying my eyes. They decided that it was just a sudden impulse brought on by the turbidity of my mind and weren't particularly interested in why I had tried to crush my eyes.

"Are my eyes --- going to recover soon?"

I don't want that. That kind of world, I never want to see it again.

A world where nothing exists. While I was 「there」, I was content and at peace.

--- I can't believe it now. Remembering that world after I woke up I thought about it and there couldn't be anything more pathetic than that world. That darkness, even if it was just a nightmare I dreamt up during my sleep --- I can't stand the thought of falling into that place again.

And, these two eyes of mine that are connected to that place.

I bring my fingertips to my eyes.

After that, all that's left is to stab my eyes with those fingertips as cleanly as if I was swinging a bamboo sword.

"Just a second, hold up. You give up too quickly."

Suddenly a noise.

I turn my senses towards the door.

The thing that is there is --- what is it?

Without a sound the someone comes closer, coming right up to the bed where I'm reposed.

"Is it the 'mystic eyes of death perception'? It's too wasteful to destroy that, Shiki. Especially seeing as anything you can see will be seen even if you ruin your eyes. You see, a curse is something that comes back if you throw it away."

"Are you --- human?"

My question provokes a reaction which sounds like somebody trying not to laugh.

Whoosh, I hear the sound of a lighter being flicked and a flame springing out.

"I'm a sorceress. I came here to teach you how to use those eyes of yours."

That familiar female voice... This someone is without a doubt the counsellor.

"What do you mean, how to use these eyes...?"

"Well, it will only be a little better than now, but I suppose it's better than nothing. Your mystic eyes that can conceive another's death by just looking are the first since the time of the Celtic gods. Erasing them is too wasteful."

It's called Balor. The lady adds some incomprehensible words.

"Mystic eyes are normally the result of you bringing about some kind of augmentation effect for your eyes through spiritual surgery. But in your case, I think they came about naturally. An ability you originally had was brought to the fore by the accident. By the sounds of it, it seemed that the child called Shiki was always seeing to the heart of everything."

... She talks as if she knows.

Actually, as she said, Shiki had always been gazing at a far-off location. I think that even while looking at a person, she saw not the exterior, but that person's core.

Although Shiki herself wasn't aware of it.

"Well, you see, that was definitely a control mechanism Shiki used unconsciously. You shouldn't try to look at exteriors.

Every object has flaws. The fancy of wishing everything could be taken apart and remade only exists because there's no such thing as a perfect object.

Your eyes can see those flaws, as if they were a microscope. Your spiritual sight is too strong. You can see those lines that are invisible to us, and that brain of yours that was in contact with death for so long can even understand what they are. In conclusion, you can see death. Not only see it, but you can even touch it. A living organism's lines of death will keep changing position as long as it's alive. The ability to see those lines clearly, there's not much difference between that and mystic eyes that can kill with a look. If you must stab those eyes, I will receive them instead. I will pay you any price you name."

"... Did you say I will be able to see this even if my eyes can't see? In that case, there's no reason for me to stab them."

"Well, yes. You can't lead a normal life anyway. Leave your agonizing at that, Ryougi Shiki. Open your eyes a bit. You are originally a human of my kind. If you are --- abandon any dreams you have of living like everyone else."

"---."

... That one sentence, in some ways it was conclusive.

But I felt as if I shouldn't accept it for some reason.

I reply with the strongest rebuttal I can manage at this time.

"Something as pitiful as an urge to live on --- I don't have any such thing."

"Heh. Is that because you've emptied your mind? But you don't want to die, do you? Because you've seen that world. Since you've reached a state of realization that not even a Keter can reach, you gorged brat.

Do you understand? Your problem's simple. Okay, you've revived as another person. So what? It's just that SHIKI isn't here. I guess since you and SHIKI were definitely a set, his absence alone would mean that you are a whole different person. Even if you are the very embodiment of Shiki, I understand that you are different from before.

But what I'm saying is that that's as far as it goes.

Right now you are desperately rejecting death while you have no will to live. You have no reason to live on, but you fear the thing called death. Life or death - unable to choose either side you are walking a tightrope on the boundary of the two. I suppose it's enough to empty your mind."

"... You keep chattering away as if you know everything..."

I glare at the woman. At that moment --- without a hint of doubt, my eyes which should be blind catch sight of the woman's outline and black lines.

「death」coils out towards me from the woman's lines.

"Did you see it? It's because there are flaws that they move with just that much contact. In the eyes of the idle spirits here, your body is the perfect vessel. If you don't wake up you are going to be dragged away and killed."

By that talk of being dragged away and killed, does she mean that white smoke?

But that doesn't come around here anymore.

"Idle spirits are nothing more than a part of the soul left behind after death. They don't have a will, so they just wander around. But as they are parts, they keep grouping together to form a whole until they become a ghost. They don't have a will, but basic desires remain. Things like 'I want to return to my former self', or 'I want a human body'.

A hospital has a lot of idle spirits. They form drifting ghosts and look for a body they can inhabit. Since they are so weak, normal people can't feel them or even come into contact with them. Formless spirits only follow people with paranormal abilities who can perceive them. Sorcerers who make a living out of talking to ghosts protect their egos with a shell, so it's very rare for them to be taken down by a drifting ghost.

On the other hand --- they will probably latch onto a person with an empty heart, say you for example, pretty easily."

There is a hint of contempt in her voice as she speaks.

So, was that why that smoke came to me? If that was the case, why didn't it possess me? If it had tried to become my kernel, I wouldn't have resisted.

"--- Pathetic. Even the rune's protection is meaningless like this. That's it - as expected, this doesn't suit you. Just do as you will after this."

After speaking so venomously the lady distanced herself from the bed.

Just before she shut the door to the room, that lady left behind one last remark.

"But you know, did SHIKI really die for nothing, Ryougi Shiki?"

I couldn't reply to that.

Really --- that lady only touches the subjects I am avoiding and leaves them behind like thorns.

◇

It's night.

Darkness surrounds me. Tonight there isn't even the sound of anyone walking through the corridors.

In the midst of that night which was peaceful as a silent lake deep within a mountain range, I was recalling my conversation with that lady.

No, just that last undeniable question.

For what reason did SHIKI die in Shiki's stead? SHIKI isn't here to reply.

--- SHIKI, who is no longer here.

Exactly why did he disappear?

What did he disappear in exchange for?

SHIKI, who liked to dream.

He was always asleep. But on that night of the rain, he abandoned even that action and died.

The self I can no longer meet, the self I could never meet in the first place.

SHIKI, who was always myself.

My consciousness settles down.

In an attempt to reach the conclusion he reached I look back through my memories.

Creak, the door to the room opens.

Following that slow footsteps approach me.

Is it a nurse? No, the time is already past midnight.

If it's a visitor, if could only be ---

At that moment a human hand wraps around my neck.

The cold hand squeezes as if to break my neck just like that.

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