Kara no Kyoukai:Chapter02 01

／1

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

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

Akitaka, my servant, says while I am putting on my shoes at the entrance. How uninteresting. Ignoring his monotonous voice, I head out of the entrance.

Trudging past the garden, I continue through the gate. Once I exit the mansion, there are no streetlights; only darkness surrounds me. A deep darkness without any sound. The date is about to change from August 31 to September 1. The bamboo around the mansion rustles in the light wind, as if to frighten me. 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.

...Walking away from the the main street, I enter a small alley.

I will be turning sixteen this year. In school terms, I am a first year in an ordinary private high school. But, no matter where I go for school, I will have to remain at the mansion in the future, thus my education seems almost meaningless. I had decided upon that school simply because it was nearby: a short commute was clearly the most efficient option. Perhaps 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 clench my teeth. I feel restless lately, even during one of these walks. It's because, out of nowhere, I remember that guy from time to time.

...Even in high school, my environment didn't change. No matter what grade they were in, people did not come near me. I don't exactly know why - maybe because I tend to wear my heart on a sleeve. I don't like people. I have not been able to like them since I was a child. I even dislike myself because, unfortunately, I am a person too. That's why I cannot be nice to people when they talk to me... It's not that I detested them, but that's what 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 had ended up in an ideal situation.

But the ideal was not to last. There was one student in my class that treated 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 strange thing for me, I remembered that guy's smile.

... hat person's behavior was suspicious.

---Thinking back on 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 is another world. The dead end serves more as an enclosed room than a road - this narrow backstreet, engulfed by the walls of buildings, must be an area devoid of sunlight even during the daytime. I half expect to see a homeless guy, living in here in the town's blind spot, but it is not so. Fresh paint coats the surrounding walls, and this small alley is lined with something wet. The rancid smell of trash usually present in here is masked by an ever more overwhelming stench.

The sea of blood roils around me. What appeared to be red paint is in fact human blood; flowing and filling up the alley. The smell is from this red liquid. In middle of it all is a man's corpse. I can't see his expression. It seems his arms and legs have been cut off and he looks more like a sprinkler spitting up a shower of blood.

This place is not normal. Even the blackness of the night is stained with the redness of blood.

---------Amidst it all, Shiki is smiling. The sleeves of her light blue kimono are tainted 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 trembles in ecstasy. This is the first lipstick that Shiki has ever worn.