Kara no Kyoukai:Chapter04 05

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"Ah ---."

The pressure on her neck makes Shiki cry out in pain.

I can't breathe. My throat is getting crushed. At this rate my neck is going to be twisted off before I have any problems breathing.

Shiki stares at the opponent with her unseeing eyes.

... It's not --- a human.

No, the body is that of a human, but the person who is choking the life out of her is already dead. A corpse is moving by itself and attacking Shiki who is on the bed.

The pressure on her neck does not ease.

Shiki resists, holding the attacker's arms with both hands but the difference in strength is obvious.

More than anything --- wasn't this what she wanted?

"---."

Shiki stops breathing and removes her hands from the corpse's arm.

If I'm going to be killed like this it's okay, so just give up. After all there's no meaning to my life. To exist when you cannot even feel that you are alive, there can be no greater agony than that.

To just disappear is natural providence, even a thought like that comes into my mind.

My strength is slipping away.

Although only a few seconds would have flowed past the time seems to pass very slowly. It stretches like a rubber band.

The corpse squeezes down on Shiki's throat. Heatless fingers that feel as if they are made of wood dig into her neck.

This murder has no feeling to it, and from the start there was no sign of a will behind it either.

The flesh of my neck tears.

The flow of blood is proof that I'm alive.

By dying --- dying like SHIKI --- I am throwing that away.

... Throwing it away? That phrase makes Shiki regain consciousness.

A sudden question forms.

Would he have died so willingly.

... That's right, I hadn't thought of that.

Whatever the reason, would his will have been completely behind his decision?

There's no way he would have wanted to die.

--- Death is such a lonely and worthless thing.

Death is such a black and unpleasant thing.

Death, would have been scarier than anything else --- !

"--- No."

All of a sudden Shiki's body is vitalised.

Grabbing the corpse's neck with both hands she pushes the opponent's belly with one foot from her squashed position and ---

"I don't want to fall into that place again --- !"

--- Kicks the lump of meat with all her might.

Slip, slipping from the bloody flesh the corpse's hands come off Shiki's neck.

Shiki gets off the bed.

The corpse leaps at Shiki straight away and the two get tangled up in the lightless hospital room.

The corpse's body is that of an adult human, two heads bigger than Shiki. No matter how she struggles Shiki is pushed back. With both arms trapped Shiki slowly pulls back. It's a small hospital room so she soon reaches the wall. Whack, the moment she touched the wall Shiki made up her mind.

She voluntarily fled so that there would be a window behind her.

She calculated how she would fall back.

The problem --- how many floors up it is.

"--- Don't hesitate."

Scolding herself she removes the arms that were holding the corpse back.

The corpse stretches its hands towards her neck, but faster than that --- she opened the window with her freed hands and the two fell out as if they were getting tangled up.

◇

The instant I begin to fall.

I grab the corpse's head and reverse who is above and who is below.

(spin - SoundFX), after the arrangement changed so that the corpse was on the ground side and I was on top riding it, I jumped by sense alone.

The ground already seems to be right in front of my nose.

The corpse's body gets hurled against the ground, and I was jumping horizontal to the ground before my body could roll over.

(Ururu - SoundFX), scattering the dirt of the hospital lawn I land with both arms and legs.

The corpse fell on the hospital flower beds --- and it happened that I slipped and fell on the lawn which is a fair distance from there.

I had just executed a miraculous fall, the likes of which I hadn't done once in the dojo --- but the weight of that great height of three floors was paralyzing my body.

Around me are only the trees of the garden and the silent night, where not a sound can be heard even when it's like this.

My body doesn't move and I can only feel the pain in my neck.

Ahhhh --- I'm still alive.

And --- That corpse hasn't died yet.

If I don't want to die it's obvious as to what I need to do.

Kill before you are killed. Just by thinking that the emptiness in my heart disappears. At the same time a lot of feelings are unlocked.

"Really, what is this." I grumble.

Through this sort of thing I open my eyes.

Yes --- the me that was brooding for so long seems like an idiot.

When the answer is so simple.

◇

"How surprising. Are you a cat?"

The voice comes from right behind Shiki.

Without turning to look Shiki was valiantly enduring the shock of the landing.

"You? Why are you at a place like this?"

The self-titled magus/counsellor answers Shiki's question as if it wasn't important.

"Because I was keeping watch. I was standing guard thinking they would come around tonight or so. See, you don't have any time to rest. A hospital definitely has some strong corpses. They can't get into a live body so they decided to show their abilities. After infecting a corpse they were going to make you theirs after killing you."

"Whatever's going on, it's all the fault of that weird rock you gave me."

Shiki talks as she leans against the ground. In her words there's not even a hint of the hesitation she has shown until now.

"Oh, you knew? Well, yes. This is definitely my mistake. I placed a ward around the room so spirits couldn't get in, but I never expected they would go and obtain a body in order to break it. Normally they don't have that sort of intelligence."

Hahaha, the magus laughs as if she's amused.

"Really? In that case you do something."

"Okay."

Tock, and the magus lifts her finger.

How would it have looked to the Shiki who couldn't see?

The magus writes in the air with her cigarette flame. The writing is reflected on the corpse as if it were being projected.

The far-off country composed only of straight lines, the engraved sorcery of a far-off world. The circuit called Rune moves and in an instant --- the body of the corpse lying collapsed on the ground begins to burn.

"--- it's too weak with just the F in the air." The magus mumbles.

The flame covered corpse slowly stands up.

Somehow moving with two completely broken legs the corpse drags itself towards Shiki as if moving by muscle power alone.

The flames soon go out.

"Oi --- you charlatan."

"Don't shout like that. It's very difficult to destroy something the size of a human. A living person is finished if you just burn the heart, but you can't do that with the living dead. They are dead so it doesn't matter whether they lose a head of an arm. You realize that you can't get rid of a human itself with something that has the firepower of a gun right? To stop that thing you would have to bring the firepower of a crematorium --- or a monk of high moral integrity."

"That's enough showing off. Whatever the problem I think it's too much for you to handle."

It seemed that Shiki's comment severely hurt the magus's self-respect.

"It's too much for you to handle as well. A corpse is already dead so you can't kill it. Coincidentally, while you can kill a person with what you have you can't get rid of them. Let's run away for now."

The magus retreats.

But Shiki doesn't move.

It's not that the descent from the third floor broke her leg.

She is, just smiling.

"Whether it's dead or whatever, that corpse is 'alive'. In that case ---."

She gets up from her leaning position.

That was similar to the bent-back posture of a predator leaping at its prey.

Shhhk, she touches her neck. Blood is still flowing. The flesh is torn. There is a mark where she was strangled --- but she is still alive.

And that was an ecstatic sensation.

"--- Whatever it is, I'm going to kill it."

Shrrrg, she unwraps the bandages covering her eyes.

In the darkness the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception are awakened.

Two delicate legs kick the ground.

The corpse reaches out with its arms at Shiki who is rushing towards it.

Narrowly slipping past it she rips apart the corpse with one hand as if she is feeling for the line visible to her eyes.

Shiki's nails pass through in an even cut from the right shoulder to the left hip.

Thanks to that her fingerbone broke but the corpse's wound was much greater.

(collapse -SoundFX), because the strings controlling it have been cut the corpse falls to the ground. One arm though apparently still has strings attached and the corpse which has slowly crawled over to her grabs Shiki's ankle.

Shiki doesn't hesitate and grinds that arm under her foot.

"A dead body shouldn't appear before me," said Shiki and laughed silently.

I'm alive.

It's like my state of mind until now was a lie, to think that I can so clearly feel that I'm alive...

"Shiki!

Calling Shiki loudly the magus throws something towards her.

One undecorated silver-coloured knife.

Shiki grabs the knife which stuck in the ground and looks at the still moving corpse as if it were a wart. And just like that, she stabs the corpse's neck with the knife.

The corpse quickly stops moving --- but then.

"Idiot, if you are going to stab it stab the main body itself!"

The disastrous result appeared faster than the magus's scolding.

As soon as Shiki stabbed the corpse --- smoke popped out of the dead body. Becoming desperate as if it wants to run away the smoke disappears into Shiki's body.

"---,"

(collapse-SoundFX), Shiki's knees limply hit the ground.

Unable to infect her till now because she was conscious, the spirits take advantage of the instant when Shiki loses her sense of self due to the excitement of killing and invade her body.

"You fumbled the finish idiot."

The magus comes running over. But Shiki's body stops that with one hand.

Don't come, at this signal the magus stops and stands still.

Shiki's body grabs the hilt of the knife with both hands and points the blade at her own chest.

The blank eyes regain their strong resolve.

Lips shut tight, she bites down on her teeth.

The tip of the knife touches her chest.

Her will and her body --- they have not been taken over by something so weak as a wandering spirit.

"Now I won't lose you."

Her mumbling isn't directed at anyone else, it's directed at herself. Shiki perceives the death of the thing crawling around inside her.

What is being stabbed is Ryougi Shiki's body. But, that only kills that collective entity that cannot exist. Shiki is confident that she will not receive a wound.

And so she gathered her strength.

"I am killing the weak me."

To something like you --- I will not hand over Ryougi Shiki.

The knife slides easily into her chest.

◇

She pulls out the silver-coloured knife.

No blood flows. She only has the pain to tell her that she has stabbed her chest.

Shing, Shiki swings the knife as if she is shaking the dirty soul of the blade.

"Hey, you said it. That you would teach me the way to use these eyes."

Her way of speaking now begins to settle into a pattern. The magus nods her head in satisfaction at this change.

"There are conditions, but I'll teach you how to use your death perception. In return help me with my work. I just lost the one I bossed around so I need a new pair of feet and hands right now."

Shiki doesn't even turn around to face the magus and quietly says, "So that's how it is".

"If I do that can I kill people?"

It's an utterance to make even the magus shiver.

"Ahhh, of course."

"In that case I will do it. Use me as you will. Since I didn't have any objectives apart from that anyway."

Shiki with her melancholic voice, she slowly sinks to the ground. Maybe because of her exhaustion from the recent events --- or maybe because of her violent act of stabbing her own chest.

The magus picks up her body and gazes at her sleeping face. A face too ambiguous to call it sleep --- a frozen face as if she is dead.

The sorceress who gazes upon that face for a long while. Before long she mumbles some words.

"You say you don't have any objectives? That's tragic, you know, you are still confused."

Shiki's peaceful appearance.

The sorceress talks as if she resents it.

"The fact that you are empty means that you can fill that emptiness with as much as you want. You happy person, where's a better future than that?"

Mumbling something like that the magus clicks her tongue.

Because she is embarrassed at herself for saying such sincere words.

... When they were things she had forgotten for such a long time.

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