Kara no Kyoukai:Chapter05 010

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The man was waiting at the end of the black corridor.

Standing in a way as to block off the one narrow path to the central lobby.

This man in a black coat rejects even the moonlight, appearing to my eyes as a shadow deeper than the night.

Without any thoughts this dark-coloured man watches as the white girl dispatches the mansion's residents.

She must have felt those eyes upon her, because as soon as she killed the last resident charging her Ryougi stopped her feet.

The girl --- Shiki, only became aware of this man's existence after coming this close. The distance between them is not even five metres. She herself can't believe that she didn't perceive an "enemy" until he got so close to her.

No --- that wasn't all. She can't feel this man's presence although she is looking right at him, that fact steals away all of the composure she had maintained till then.

"... This is an amusing turn of events. If all had gone according to plan this meeting should have come after this side was completed."

Heavy, the mage speaks with a voice that sounds like it could bring a listener to their knees.

One step, the man comes forward.

Shiki didn't respond to his trivial and hugely vulnerable advance.

Although she knows that the man in front of her is an 'enemy', and that he wishes to kill both her and Enjoh, she can't make herself rush in as usual.

--- This bastard, I can't see him... !

Hiding her inner surprise, Shiki coldly looked the man over.

The death she could see on people if she merely wished to, this man doesn't have any.

If you felt along a human's body there were lines that put an end to the part they belonged to if they were cut. Whether those were the seams of life, or a weakness in the bonds between the molecules, Shiki didn't know. It just was that she could see them.

Without exception everyone she had seen until now had possessed those 'lines of death'.

But, upon this man, those lines were too faint.

Strongly, harder than she had ever done before, Shiki glares at the man. Her brain may have overheated, because she observed the opponent till a portion of her consciousness went white, only then could she see it.

... In the centre of his body, she can see a hole in the middle of his chest.

The line went round and round like a child's doodling, tracing a circle at the same place. The result was what looked like a hole.

"--- I know you, you bastard."

Shiki knows this opponent who has such an uncanny lifeforce.

... She remembers.

The distant memory that the Shiki of today cannot remember.

A fragment of the events from that rain occluded night of two years ago.

The man replies.

"That's right. In fact it's been two years since we met like this."

A heavy voice that almost seizes the listener's brain.

The man leisurely put a hand to the temple of his head. There, on the side of his head, a straight scar that stretches left from his forehead. The deep wound Ryougi Shiki inflicted, two years ago.

"You are ---."

"Araya Soren. The one who kills Shiki."

Without batting an eyelash, the mage makes that declaration.

The man's coat really did look like that of a mage.

Hanging down from his shoulders, the black cloth is similar to the cape of a wizard in a fairytale.

Beneath that cape, one of the man's arms stretched out. Slowly, as if to take hold of Shiki's distant neck.

Shiki widens the gap between her legs as she takes a stance. Even the knife she had held in one hand until now is clenched in both hands.

"How vulgar. What meaning is there to this mansion?"

In order to control her nervousness, and maybe --- the fear she was experiencing for the first time in her life, Shiki shouted.

The mage replies. As if to indicate that Shiki has the right to ask that.

"There's no grand reason. However you look at it, it's my personal desire."

"Then is the repetition your hobby too?"

Twitch, Shiki glares at the man with eyes full of hostility.

Repetition --- like that Enjoh family, the paranormal phenomenon where they die at night and come back to life in the morning.

"It not effective but.

I have created a world within which a day is completed. However it can't become a Yangyi just because life and death are next to each other. If it isn't the life and death of the same people, it is lacking as a place to sacrifice you. It's incomplete as a spiral where you come to life after you die. If the condition is for them to be incompatible while mixing with each other, there's no solution but to connect the two. Therefore, in the Yin I prepared their corpses, and in the Yang I prepared their daily lives."

"Ha, then this side is the corpse storage, and that side is their daily life? You are sure taking a lot of care with useless things, there's no meaning to something like that."

"--- I believe I already said that there was meaning.

And then the man spotted the youth standing like a block of wood behind Shiki.

Enjoh Tomoe is still frozen after hearing the name Araya Soren.

"Yes, nothing like a reason exists. Even from the beginning it's impossible for a human to exist with two attributes at once. The dead and the living cannot exist together. In this paradoxical world there is no meaning that an individual can grasp."

The mage returns his gaze from the boy to the girl.

As if he was saying that someone like Enjoh Tomoe had no meaning.

"This is just an experiment. I wanted to find out if a human could indeed meet an end other than their own. A human must die. But for every human there is only a foreordained death. The death that one person meets, there is only one kind.

One who dies in a fire will die by fire no matter what form their death takes, and one who is murdered by their family is murdered by their family no matter how hard they struggle. Even if they confront the first death and run away from it, the second, and the third death will come only through the foreordained method.

This limited death, we call it our lifespan.

A human has even his way of dying decided for him. However if you were to repeat the same end a couple of thousand times, even that spiral would develop errors. It doesn't matter if the error is a trivial one. Just being unlucky enough to be hit by a car on the way home from work is sufficient.

--- but. As of now the result is the same. It appears that one's destiny does not change with only around two hundred repetitions."

The man speaks dispassionately, as if the matter was insignificant.

With just that --- Shiki intuitively felt that she had to kill this man here and now.

She doesn't know by what method, or what process the man has come to do this sort of thing.

All she knows, the one certain thing, is that the man is making Enjoh Tomoe's family kill each other every day, for an experiment that he himself doesn't care about ---.

"For that you are making them suffer the same death... the same final day, over and over again? By preparing a morning that begins with the same conditions and a family that lives with the same conditions? So is the only family that dies at night the Enjoh family?"

"If that was the case there wouldn't be any meaning to this twisted dimension. All the families who were called to this place had already collapsed. Relationships that were already mangled arrive easily at their final destination if you just remove some personal space. A road to an end that takes decades is nothing but self-mortification. These people merely reached the end they would eventually have reached in less than one month."

... Not a boast, not a lamentation, it's just a mage's soliloquy.

Shiki narrows her black eyes and peers at the black man.

"... In the end you are saying that you broke the brakes and egged them on. Without doubt, this building has stress piled inside it. Everywhere you go it's warped. The floor is slanted everywhere like some ocean so you lose your sense of balance, and because of the use of lighting and paints that put a burden on the eyes you become tired without even noticing it. To make people so crazy without even using any sorcerous effects, you are a very good architect, you."

"Sorry. I handed the designing of this place to Aozaki. If you wish to congratulate someone you should congratulate her."

The man comes one step closer.

It seems that the time to talk is over.

Shiki decided to aim for the man's neck --- and lastly asked the question that had really been on her mind.

"Araya. Why do you try to kill me?"

The man doesn't respond.

Instead, he says something strange.

"Neither Fujoh Kirie nor Asagami Fujino were effective."

"--- What?"

Shiki swallows her words upon hearing those unexpected names.

Piercing that opening --- the man steps goes forward one more step.

"Unable to live without being close to death, Fujoh Kirie was someone similar yet different to you."

... Fujoh Kirie who had been confined to a bed with a disease that meant she could die at any moment. A woman who had only been able to feel that she was alive through death. A human who had only been able to feel that they were alive through death. ... An ability possessor with one mind and two bodies.

And.

Ryougi Shiki, who could only realise the fact she was alive by approaching death and defying it. ... An ability possessor with two minds and one body.

"Then there was Asagami Fujino who could only find joy by coming into contact with death, again someone similar yet different to you."

... Asagami Fujino, she who had no sense of pain and so could not accept feelings from the outside world. A girl who could only find pleasure in the extreme act of killing a person. A human who could only feel that they were alive by observing the pain her victims went through as she killed them, and the sense of superiority that brought. ... The scion of an old bloodline that sealed off the abilities they were born with through physical means.

And.

Ryougi Shiki who could only feel herself and others by coming into contact with death and trying to kill each other. ... The scion of an old bloodline that artificially developed their abilities.

"When death came near she chose death, and you chose life."

Throwing your lives before yourselves she enjoyed killing, and you enjoyed trying to kill each other.

You would have felt it. That those girls were comrades, yet murderers whose natures conflicted with Ryougi Shiki."

Shocked to the core, Shiki --- was watching the approaching darkness as it talked to her.

Watching, was all she could do.

"I failed 2 years ago. That person was too different. What was needed were those who had diverged from the same 'origin'.

That's right. Be happy, Ryougi Shiki. Those two were sacrifices that I prepared for you."

The man's voice is excited like that of someone who cannot hold in their laughter. But his expression doesn't change. Unchanged, the face of a philosopher who is full of troubles.

"There's still one more piece left to play, but Aozaki has noticed so I suppose there is no helping it. Enjoh Tomoe was an unexpected fortune. Since from a place where my will had no power, you came here by your own volition."

"You bastard ---."

Shiki puts strength into the two hands holding the knife.

The man stops, and points towards the space behind her.

What is there is, only the piled remains of those she dispatched.

That, overwhelming materialization of sin and darkness.

"Nothingness is itself your murder impulse, your origin.

--- Look upon that darkness. And remember your name."

An order tinged with sorcerous suggestion echoes through the corridor.

With her mind being stolen by that Shiki desperately shook her head and shouted.

"---(Source of evil)... !"

Shouting like she was spitting that out, Shiki leaped towards the mage. With the speed of an arrow let loose from a drawn back bow, and with the speed and murderous intent of a wild beast.

• • • 
      

There was only about 3 metres separating the two.

Shiki and the mage, confronting each other in that narrow corridor, there is nowhere to run. Something like retreat --- neither of them are even considering the option.

Shiki's body comes ricocheting off.

With this distance it doesn't even take a few seconds to approach the enemy. She quickly stabbed at the bastard's chest with the knife.

The white kimono flows in the darkness.

Before that, the mage intoned.

"Cripple."

The air changes.

Shiki's body suddenly stops.

"Adamantine."

Piercing the air with one hand, the mage shouts while facing Shiki.

Shiki found a line coming up from the floor.

"Malignance."

All movement is being cut off around the mage.

Shiki saw it.

The three circular shapes stretching out from under the black man's feet.

--- Her body, was heavy... ?

The three circles that protected the mage, they resembled a diagram displaying the orbital path of a star. Three thin and long circles are overlapping each other as they rise up from the floor to the air.

As soon as she stepped over the outermost line of that circle, Shiki's body lost all of its momentum. Like a jeopardised butterfly caught a spider's web.

"That body, I Araya Soren will be taking it."

The mage moves.

If Shiki left an afterimage of a white kimono in the darkness of the night as she ran, the man melted into the night as he approached his prey.

A demon-like speed that didn't even let you grasp the process of him approaching.

He stops, next to the immobile Shiki the mage's black coat flaps in the air.

Shiki was unable to respond to the mage's unfelt approach. She had been looking --- she had been looking at the man advance towards her, but she can't perceive that the man is standing right next to her ---.

A cold sweat runs down her back.

Only now, she barely understands that her 'enemy' is a true monster.

The mage stretches out his left hand.

He stretches out a vice-like palm, open as if to crush Shiki's face.

"Get ... Away... From me!"

The chilling feeling that beats upon her back, it has the effect of reviving her from her frozen state.

At the moment the tips of the mage's fingers touch her face, Shiki twisted her head as if recoiling from them. Just like that she shifts her body to the side and stabs the mage's arm with her knife.

Tung, the knife made a dull noise as it severed the mage's left wrist.

"(insert here)."

The mage pronounces.

The knife blade definitely passed through the mage's wrist, but it doesn't fall from the arm.

The edge passed through it cleanly as if cutting a turnip, but the mage's hand doesn't even have a wound upon it.

"(insert here - sutra?)."

His right hand moves.

The right hand that he pushed forward in anticipation of Shiki's movements after she escaped his left hand, it has a solid grasp upon her.

Grabbing the girl's face with one hand, the mage lifts Shiki's body into the air. Even if Shiki was a girl he looked like a ghost or a monster as he lifted up a human with one arm.

"Ah ---."

Shiki's voice was shaking.

There is no awareness in that moan-like sound.

All that can be felt from this man's hand is a crushing despair. That lanced through her flesh to reach her brain, and from there it rode down her spine to invade her whole body.

For the first time in her life.

She knew, that she would die here, just like this.

"--- Still inexperienced. I've embedded a Buddha's remains in this left hand. There are no places where you can easily kill it, not even with the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. A simple act like cutting it, Araya Soren will not be hurt by such things."

The mage squeezes hard with the hand grasping the girl's face as he speaks.

Shiki doesn't reply.

The pressure on her face is so strong that she doesn't even have any energy to talk.

... This man's hand, it was a machine designed to grab a human's head and crush it. There was no way to remove the five fingers embedded in her face by force. If she was to rashly shake her body and retaliate, this machine would ruthlessly crush her head.

The mage's discourse continues.

"As a reference, I do not die. My origin is 'suspension'. Someone who has woken to their origin becomes ruled by that origin itself. Someone who has already stopped - how can you kill him?"

Shiki doesn't reply.

She threw away all her emotions, and bent all her energies to finding those faint lines upon the man's body.

Ignoring both the paralysing despair running riot in her body and the pain crushing her face, she tries to find that one breach.

But before she could.

The mage looked over the girl he was holding in the air, and made a decision.

"--- That's right. The face is useless."

An emotionless voice. The mage puts strength into his arm for the first time.

Crackle, the sound of bone breaking can be heard.

In that instant ---

The right arm that attempted to pulverise the face of the girl called Ryougi Shiki, this time it really does get cut off.

"--- Mmm."

The mage retreats a bit.

Having cut off the mage's arm at the elbow while still in that floating position, Shiki pulled off the hand clinging to her face and quickly pulled back.

Thwock. The black arm falls to the floor.

Narrowly escaping to a place untouched by the triple circle around the mage, Shiki kneels with one leg on the floor.

Whether it was because of the pain from having her face squeezed, or because she had focused her awareness to look for the mage's faint lines of death. Shiki's breathing is ragged as she looks at the floor she is kneeling upon.

The distance between the two, once again it has widened.

"... Indeed, I was foolish. I should have had all the proof I needed after the events at the hospital. Whether it is dead or alive, if it moves you cut off the root of that motion. That is your ability. Even if I am a stopped organism, as long I exist like this there is a thread that permits my existence. If that is cut I would definitely die. The unique exception is this left arm, but even that can't be hidden forever. No matter which saint's bone it is as long as it functions there will always be a cause for that movement."

Ignoring the severed arm the mage talks on.

"As expected I don't need those eyes. As a component of Ryougi Shiki they are too dangerous. But before I destroy them --- I may need to anesthetise you."

Maintaining the three fold wards the mage came forward one step.

Shiki keeps staring at that triple circle.

"... It is unfortunate, but you should have given up just now."

Shiki says that with the knife reversed in her grip.

"I know wards too. At a testing ground you lay out a ward to prevent a woman from entering holy ground. There are stories of how women who enter turn to stone, but a ward is only a boundary. The inside of the circle isn't the ward. That boundary is a sorcerous wall that stops others.

In that case --- if the line disappears, that power is lost."

And with that she planted her knife in the floor.

Out of the three circles the mage possessed, she had just 'killed' the outermost circle.

"--- Ignorance."

In an anxious manner the mage came forward.

Another step, even though he approaches Shiki there is no change in Shiki.

... The man's talismans have just shrunk from three to two.

The mage clicks his tongue in exasperation. He hadn't considered the possibility that Shiki's Mystic Eyes of Death Perception would be so powerful. To think that she could kill a concept like a ward which had no form, or life, that kind of absolute power ---.

Having lost cripple, the circumference of the triple wards that ruled over outside invaders of the boundary, the mage starts running to kill Shiki.

"There are still two left."

"--- Even that, is too slow."

Still in that crouched position, Shiki puts her hand behind her.

Inside the belt that tightens the kimono is the second knife.

As soon as she pulled the knife out to the side from her belt, she immediately threw it at the mage.

The knife blade penetrates the two-fold ward.

Like a stone skimming the water the knife bounced twice off the top of the circle, and flew towards the mage's forehead. At the speed of a bullet.

"---?!"

The mage nimbly evades. The knife nicks the edge of his ear and disappears into the corridor, and the ear which had appeared to have evaded the attack has been carved off. Flesh, blood, broken bone. Brain fluid leaks out of the wound.

"--- Ugh."

The mage lets out a groan.

Faster than that however --- he felt an impact that skewered his body.

Thud, and a white darkness lands upon the mage's body.

By the time the mage grasped that this was Shiki, who had charged straight at him after throwing the knife, the outcome of the fight had already been decided.

Driving into his body shoulder first, Shiki's single blow had the same force as a cannon shell. Just that alone would have broken a few bones, but Shiki is clenching a silver knife in her hands.

The knife is perfectly penetrating the centre of the mage's chest.

"Ug --- gh."

The mage coughs out blood. His blood was a sand-like powder.

When Shiki removed the knife she straight away thrusts it towards the mage's neck. With all the strength in her two hands. The fight has already been decided, but she is desperately trying to deliver another critical blow.

Because ---

"You don't know when to resign yourself to your fate. At that rate you will wander in hell, Shiki."

--- Her foe isn't yet dead.

"Goddamnit, why... !"

Shiki shouts as if casting a spell. Why --- why don't you die.

Upon the mage's unmoving face that shows no emotion, just his eyes are bright with mirth.

"I realise that spot is my weakness. But just that is not enough. Even if it's the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, you cannot instantly kill this two hundred year old life of mine. This body will die one day, but I was prepared for this happening. It's quite fitting that the price I pay for capturing Ryougi is my death."

The mage's left hand comes racing in.

... The outcome of the fight had already been decided.

His tightly clenched fist drives into Shiki's stomach.

Receiving a blow that could break through a large tree, Shiki's body rises up into the air. With just that one attack Shiki spews out just as much blood as the mage who has had his chest and neck stabbed.

With a grating noise, her insides and the bones that were protecting them break.

"---."

Shiki faints. No matter how great a physique she had, her body is still that of a young girl. Even if half the power had been held back, there was no way she could withstand Araya's attack which could break concrete walls.

Grabbing hold of her belly with one hand the mage lifts the girl up, and throws her at the mansion wall.

It was a brutal action that looked like it should break every bone in Shiki's body, but that too turned into an unnatural event. ... Having been thrown onto the wall Shiki's body was sucked in as if she was sinking into water.

Only when the mansion wall had finishing gulping Shiki down, did the mage lower his arm.

... Shiki's knife is still buried in his neck, and his eyes hold none of the oppressive light they showed until now.

Although a long time goes by without anything happening the black coat does not budge.

That's only to be expected if anything is.

The mage's body, is totally dead.