Editing Kara no Kyoukai:Chapter02 01

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I decide to take a walk tonight again. It's because it's pretty cool for being at the end of the summer and it feels like autumn is coming.

"Ojou-sama, please come home early tonight."

Akitaka, my servant, says so while I am putting on my shoes at the entrance. How uninteresting. Ignoring his monotonous vioce, I go out the entrance.

Going past the garden, I walk through the gate. Once I exit the mansion, there is no streetlight outside. Only darkness surrounds me. A deep night without any sound. The date is about to change from August 31 to September 1. There is a slight wind, and the bamboos around the mansion make a rustling sound. ... As if to give me a bad image in my head. A walk in this kind of silence is the only thing I, Shiki, like to do.

As the night gets deeper, so does the darkness. I think I walk through the empty town because I want to be alone. Or is it because I want to think I'm alone? ... Either way, it's a stupid question. It's impossible for me to be alone in this world.

... Going off the main street, I walk into a small alley.

I will be turning sixteen this year. If you say it in school terms, I am a first year in an ordinary private high school. No matter where I go for school, I have to remain at the mansion in the future. Then my education has no meaning. I decided to go there since I thought it was more efficient to go to a nearby school and reduce my transportation time. But maybe that turned out to be a mistake.

... The alley is darker than the main street. Only one streetlight flickers nervously.

Someone's face suddenly pops into my mind and I clinch my teeth. I feel restless lately, even during one of these walks. It's because I remember out of nowhere about that guy from time to time.

... Even in high school, my environment didn't change. No matter what grade they are in, people do not come near me. I don't exactly know why but I think I show too much of how I think in my attitude. I don't like people. I could not like them since I was a child. I even do not like myself because unfortunately, I am a human too. That's why I cannot be nice to people when they talk to me. ... It's not that I detest them, but that's how the people around me thought. The word spread across campus quickly and within a month, nobody tried to communicate with me. I like a quiet environment too, so I have won an ideal environment.

But the ideal was not perfect. There is one student in my class that treats me, Ryohgi Shiki, as a friend. That guy with a last name like a French poet was a nuisance to me. A real nuisance indeed.

... I saw a person under a streetlight far away.

'' ''---What a thing for me. I remembered that guy's smile.

... That person's behavior was suspicious. 

'' ''---Thinking back to it later, why did I...

... I followed the person for some reason. 

'' ''---Why did I feel such a surge of violent excitement?

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Deep in the back alley, it was an another world. The dead end functioned as a room more than as a road. This thin road surrounded by the walls of the buildings must be an area without sunlight even during the daytime. In this blind spot of town, a homeless guy should be living there. But not anymore. On the surrounding walls are brand new paint. This small alley is filled with something wet. The rotten smell of trash you usually smell in here is contaminated by an even stronger smell.

The sea of blood is around me. What appeared to be red paint is actually human blood. The blood is still flowing and filling up the alley. The smell is from this red liquid. In middle of it all is a human corpse. I can't see its expression. It seems his arms and legs were cut off and he looks more like a sprinkler showering out blood.

This place is not normal. Even the black of the night is covered with the redness of the blood.

'' ''---------In it all, Shiki is smiling. The sleeves of the light blue kimono is red. Kneeling down and touching the blood flowing on the ground, Shiki streaks it across her lips. The blood drips down her lips and her body shakes from rapture. That is the first lipstick Shiki has ever put on.