Story Materials[]
Kara no Kyoukai (TL: cokesakto) Generally considered to be bad. More reasons go here later.
Kara no Kyoukai (TL: Alyeris) Better translation but half complete.
Side Materials[]
Miscellaneous Corrections[]
Snippets of parts that haven't been completely translated yet by Alyeris, but have been mistranslated by coke. Some people have made corrections.
Book 5, about Mobius Strip[]
Japanese:
そちらの杞憂もいらぬ。アレはマンションの一室に幽閉したのではない。空間と空間を繋げた無限の中に放りこ んだのだ。この歪んだ異界を作り 上げた第一の目的は、閉じられた輪を生み出すコト。いかなる手段、いかなる衝撃をもってしても無限の闇から は抜け出せない。いずれ両儀式が目覚めたとして も、アレにはどうする事もできぬ。監視などは不要だ。そも、あの傷では起き上がる事さえ困難だろう。目覚め たとしても体は満足に動くまい
Coke's translation:
“Baseless fear and nothing more. She is not simply confined to a room, free to wander. I have contained her in the space between spaces, a pocket realm within the structure. That is what the Art I wove her is designed to perform, after all. That besides, her body is weak, and even if she regained her consciousness, she can expend only little effort to escape. She will not run./
Food's correction:
"It's not necessary for you to worry senselessly. She was not imprisoned in an apartment room; she was placed in the infinity that connects space. The primary purpose of creating this twisted realm was to produce a sealed circle (i.e. the Mobius Strip). It is a boundless darkness that cannot be escaped no matter what method, what power. Even if Ryougi Shiki is awake, she cannot do anything. You do not need to watch her, as it will be difficult for her to even get up with the wounds she has sustained. Even if she awoke, she still could not move her body.”
Book 5, about infinity and 「 」[]
Japanese:
閉ざされた空間、マンションの壁と壁の間にもうけた異界の中で目を覚ました彼女は、その腕でありえない空間 の、ありえない壁を斬ったのだ。
無限は、「 」ではない。無限を無限たらしめるには有限を定めなくてはいけないのだ。有限がなければ無限 など存在しない。物事には果てがあるから、無限という事柄が観測される。両儀式は放りこまれた無限の中で、 ありえない有限を視つけだして断ち切った。
だが無論、無限の中には有限などない。存在しないものは斬れないが故に、あの檻は脱出が不可能なのである 。 しかし――有限がなければ、無限はないのだ。有限の壁が無かったにせよ有ったにせよ、両儀式の前にはそん な果てのない世界など意味をなさない。
有限が本当になければ、それは無限などではなく「 」であり。有限を内包しているのなら、式はそれを視つ けだして断ち切ってしまう。
……絶対の筈の黒い穴は、この相手にだけはただの狭い暗室にすぎなかったのだと、魔術師は
Coke's translation:
What is “ ” is antonymic to infinity. The concept of infinity is twinned with the concept of a finite existence. It is this finite existence, this end of all things that Shiki Ryōgi observes with her Arcane Eyes, and the same end that she cuts to make entropy act quickly, almost immediately. The prison she was contained in was made to be infinite, an inconceivable non-Euclidean space. But there is no true infinity. Only ends, driven by processes both mechanical and mystical. The only denial of the end that exists is the true nothingness of “ ”. To this girl, the space was nothing more than a room with its door unbarred and unguarded. It shames Alaya to admit it as such./
Food's correction:
Infinity is not “ ”. In order to render infinity, one must define limits. Without limits, infinity does not exist. Infinity can be observed because objects possess limits. Ryougi Shiki was immersed in infinity, but found the non-existent limit and severed it.
Of course, limits do not exist within infinity, thus one cannot sever something that does not exist. As a result, escaping from this prison is impossible.
However -- - without limits, infinity does not exist. Regardless if a finite wall existed, an limitless world is meaningless before Ryougi Shiki.
If there is no limit, then it is not infinity, but “ ”. If limits exist, then Rougi would find it and cut away everything.
…. What is supposed to be an absolute black hole, to an opponent such as Ryougi Shiki is merely a confined dark cell. The magus felt ashamed of himself.
Book 5, about the Counter Force[]
"Both translations contain errors and 'liberties'. BT is still more literal relative to coke. There are also some clues that he used BT as a reference because they make the same mistake."
Japanese:
―――そうかもしれない。 抑止力というのはね、我々にとって最大の味方でもあり、同時に最大の敵でもある“方向の修復 者”を指す。 私達人間は死にたくない。平和でいたい。 私達のいる星だって死にたくない。長生きしたい。 抑止力というのはそれだ。霊長という群体の誰もが持つ統一された意識、自分達の世を存続させ たいという願望。我を取り外してヒトという種の本能にある方向性が収束し、カタチになったもの 。それが抑止 力とよばれる カウンターガーディアン。
そうだな、例えばａという優れた人間が世界征服を行なったとしよう。彼は正義の人で、その統治は理想的で あったとする。人間が人間として見た道徳性の限りでね。
しかしａの行動がひとりの人間としてではなく、霊長全体の視点から見て悪、つまり滅びの要因 となる場合、 抑止力は具現する。
コレは霊長の世を存続させた い、というａさえ含めた人類の無意識下の集合体だ。人類を守る為 に人類を拘束するこの存在は、誰も知らないうちに現れ、誰にも観測される事なくａを消滅させる 。人々の無意 識下の渦が作 り上げた代表者は、やはり無意識であるが故に意識されない。
とはいっても、何もカタチのな い意識が呪いになってａを殺す訳ではない。抑止力は、たいてい媒体となりう る人間に宿り、敵となるａを駆逐する。媒体になった人間はａを倒す為だけの能力を持つが、それ 以上の能力は 与えられない。ａにとって代わる事ができないようにね。
抑止力という霊長全体の意志を受けとめられる受信者、そういった特殊なチャンネルを持つ人間 というのは稀 に存在する。歴史は、これを英雄と呼んでもてはやすんだ。
だが近代になってこの呼び名は 使われないな。文明が発達して、人間が自分達自身を滅ぼすなんて事は簡単に なってしまった。どこぞの企業の会長が全財力を傾けてアマゾンの森林の伐採量を増やせば、一年 後にも地球は 終わる。ほら、いつでもどこでも地球のピンチだろ？ 抑止力に衝き動かされて誰も知らないうち に世界を救っ ている、なんて輩はごまんといるんだ。英雄は一世代に一人だけ。世界を救う、なんて程度の事じ ゃあ現代では 英雄とは呼ばれない。
また、このａが人間の手におえない場合、抑止力は自然現象となってａもろとも周囲を消滅させ る。大昔、ど こぞの大陸が沈んだのもこいつの仕業さ。
こう話すと人類の守護者そのものなんだが、こいつには人間としての感情がない。時には万人を 幸せにすると いう行為の前に立ち塞がる事もある。
厄介なのは、こいつが結局人間そのものの代表者だという事だ。我々がそれを認識できなくても 、抑止力は最 強の霊長なんだ。過去幾度となく、ある実験に挑戦した魔術師達の前にはコレが現れ、魔術師達は ことごとく斬殺された」
Mewarmo's translation
"------Perhaps so. You see, the Deterrent is that "restorer of direction" which is both our greatest ally, and our greatest enemy.
We humans don't want to die. We want to live in peace.
The planet we live on also doesn't want to die. It wants to live a long life.
That's what the Deterrent is; it's the collective wish of the entire dominant species -- humanity -- to preserve its own existence. The fundamental instinct of the human self, coalesced and given form. That would be the "Counter Guardian" that we call the Deterrent.
For example, let's assume an extraordinary person A has conquered the world. Person A may be a just ruler with a benevolent rule. At least within the terms of common human morality.
But, in the case that Person A's actions are viewed as evil by not an individual but the entire human consciousness -- in other words, an extinction-level threat -- the Deterrent will take effect.
This is the unconscious desire of all of humankind, Person A included, to preserve its own existence. In order to protect humanity, this self-policing entity will manifest itself without anyone's knowledge and, unobserved, annihilate Person A. As a representative entity born in the swirl of the human subconscious, it acts without conscious will of its own.
That said, the formless consciousness does not manifest as some curse that kills Person A. The Deterrent usually channels through nearby humans who will act to exterminate Person A. This human medium is only granted just enough power to defeat Person A, so that it cannot become a threat that replaces person A.
The people that are able to receive the entire will of humanity -- who have the right "channels", so to speak -- are rare. Human history has glorified them as heroes.
But such titles are no longer used in modern times. Civilization has advanced to the point that humanity could easily destroy itself. If a certain company president funneled all of his corporate assets into expanding logging in the Amazon rainforest, the world would end in a year. See, the world is in trouble everywhere and all the time. And whether we know it or not, the Deterrent is constantly at work; in fact it's pushing a lot of friends out there working to save it all the time. There is one hero per generation. Something like saving the world is no longer enough for someone to be called a Hero.
Also, in the case that A cannot be stopped by human hands, the Deterrent will manifest itself as a natural phenomenon and destroy A, as well as the entire surrounding area. This was responsible for sinking that continent long ago.
I make it sound like humanity's guardian, but you should know it has no human emotion. At times, it has prevented things from happening that would have brought happiness to all humankind.
The problem is, in the end, it's still a representative of humanity. Even if you or I can't recognize it as such, the Deterrent is the ultimate form of our dominance as a species. Time and time again, it has appeared before magi performing their experiments, and slaughtered them all."
Book 5, Araya before the fight[]
Japanese:
- 臙条巴だったものを破壊した後、魔術師は何をするでもなく廊下に留まっていた。 頃合いが近い。昨日まで使用していた体から予備である今の体に移って半日。ようやくこの肉体の隅々にまで 意識が通じるようになった。
荒耶宗蓮は、どこぞの人形師のように自分とまったく同じモノを用意しておいて死んだわけではない。彼は未 だ死というものを経験していないのだ。 肉体は長い年月の果てに幾度か朽ち果てたが、そのたびに意識だけを継続して今まで生き長らえてきた。荒耶 宗蓮はあくまで一人。この肉体が滅びれば、次こそ逃げ場はない。事は、慎重に行なわなければな らなかった。
だが、もはや待つまでもない。荒耶宗蓮という魂が持つ意志が、この何代目かの肉体を完全に支配下においた 。肉体を動かす魔術回路の配線は爪先までおよび、魔術師はようやくこの仮初めの肉体を本物の肉体へと昇華し たのだ。
魔術師は本来の目的を果たすべく行動を開始する。
けれどその前に、彼はマンション内における異変を感じ取った。
「――――敗れたか、アルバ」
感情なく呟いて、魔術師はその双眸を閉じた。 明かりのない廊下の中、深い海の底に潜るように、荒耶は自身を昏睡させた。
McJon's translation:
The magus stood motionless in the hallway after destroying that thing called Enjou Tomoe.
It was almost time. Half a day had passed since he switched from the body he was using up until yesterday to the spare he was using now, and his consciousness finally permeated every cell of it. Of course, Araya Souren had not prepared identical bodies in advance in case he died, like some kind of puppet master. In fact, he has never experienced death at all.
Though his body has rotted and crumbled to dust from age several times, his consciousness alone survived unbroken. Araya Souren has remained a solitary existence through to the bitter end. Therefore, there was no refuge to flee to should his current body be ruined. He would have to act carefully.
However, there was no longer any reason to wait. The will of the soul called Araya Souren had much experience bringing physical bodies under its control. Already the magic circuits, the wiring that moves his physical form, reached as far as his fingers and toes. The process was complete. The magus' temporary body had been completely sublimated into the real thing. And so, in order to accomplish his original goal, the magus began to move.
But, before that, he sensed something amiss within the apartment building.
"---Were you defeated, Alba?"
Muttering disinterestedly, the magus shut his eyes. Inside the dark hallway, as if sinking into a fathomless sea, Araya fell into a trance.
Book 5, Araya vs Shiki Round 2[]
Coke's translation:
A flash, then Shiki’s eyes open.
Alaya channels his mana into his outstretched hand, his motivating force in this fight not the confidence which infused him in previous conflicts, but instead the rare, almost foreign emotion that gripped him since he saw Shiki walking the lobby: the emotion of dread. Which is why he feels he must kill her here, now.
“SHUKU!” he roars angrily, clenching his hand into a fist, defining a space around Shiki that he would crush. The lag between the lorica and the weaving of the spell is so small as to be nonexistent, and one casting of it should be enough to dispose of the girl.
But Shiki is fast, anticipating his spell. In a flash the sword is raised high above her head, the speed blindingly fast. With the swiftness with which she raised her sword, she lets it fly downward in a vicious slash. The spell manifests only for a moment, but Shiki kills it, just as surely as the ringing sound of her blade cutting air seems to cancel out Alaya’s booming voice.
The mage attempts to repeat the spell. He need only open his palm again, and then close it. But it is too slow for him to react properly. He hasn’t even spoken, hasn’t even entered the spell’s weaving in his mind, when Shiki displaces from her position. She shifts the sword to her side at waist level—a side stance that allows for wide swings—and sprints to her target. Before the fight, Alaya considered the loss of one ward to be acceptable, thinking to take Shiki with the second. But now her blinding advance eliminates two of the wards in quick succession; two steps forward and two slashes swung gracefully from both flanks. And still she advances. She has just closed the previously six meter gap into zero. One more step, one more breath, timed with one more strike to end the game.
The sword comes from Alaya’s right flank, and he sees the blade flow in a diagonal cut. Her speed almost seems to make time flow in discrete events rather than arbitrary measurements of seconds. The attack is similar to her previous two blows, and its telegraphed nature allows Alaya to dodge it by jumping back deeper into the hallway, widening the distance between the two. A brief pause as the mage studies his opponent with a glance.
From Shiki’s lips, a single, straight line of fresh blood runs from mouth to chin. But Alaya knows she has taken no blow yet. Then it must be yesterday’s wound. The broken ribs, the internal organ damage. Still in their fragile healing state, they must have been reopened, and even walking forces blood from her throat. She is clearly injured, and yet she dances with such single-mindedness. Alaya lets the right arm rest at his side.
That is, until he realizes there is no more arm. From the top of his shoulder all the way to his right chest, the clear traces of a clean strike can be seen, and on the floor lies his missing arm. His manipulation of space made the backstep he performed faster than any normal human, yet Shiki was still able to cut him with a strike so perfect that even the owner of the arm never noticed it until after the fact.
“What manner of creature—” Alaya leaves the question unfinished. Unmindful of the injury, he focuses on his enemy. The strike could have been fatal. If his third ward had not been present, the slash would have dealt him a blow that would no doubt cut him in two. But it had instead slowed down Shiki’s strike enough to save him. But Alaya is instead simultaneously fascinated by Shiki’s complete difference from the night of their first duel. Is it anger from what he did to Enjō? No, surely not. He narrows his gaze at the girl in the white kimono.
Suddenly, she straightens herself and recovers a hand from the grip of the sword, releasing her tensed stance, suddenly turning back into the girl of last night. The recovered hand cups her mouth, and she coughs twice. The hand drips regurgitated blood. If she did not have to fight such severe wounds, Alaya ponders, she would give me no respite.
“You change with the weapon you hold,” the black-coated mage observes in astonishment. It is the reason she seems so different. Her extensive training in the dance of the sword changes her, forcing her into an almost trance-like state. Her mind compartmentalizes much like, as Alaya suspects, the past warriors did by training their mind to shape their bodies as a weapon. The fight was killing and survival, outside it was normalcy. “Hmph. A form of autohypnosis, as mages do when working the Art,” he mutters, his voice struggling to hold back the pain from his right arm. Shiki shrugs. “Whatever you wanna call it, I guess.”
Alaya curses his own dismissal of her sudden shift in demeanor. When she opened her eyes; that’s when it must have occurred. To think the Ryōgi dynasty would still teach such vulgar disciplines. He knew too that Shiki bridging the space between them in what almost seemed like one step was no coincidence. Her movement, the sway of her sword, her attention, all focused and refined to make her a deadly living weapon, and she was the only one who knew about it. He had thought her tools to be only the Arcane Eyes of Death Perception and her knife, but in truth, her skill with the sword is far greater.
“You have fooled me, Shiki Ryōgi. I had thought you had revealed all you could about your skill in combat when you danced with Fujino Asagami. But I see you have this one last trick.” Shiki shakes her head slowly in reply. Whether it is an affirmative or a disparaging negative, Alaya can’t say. “And so we meet properly at last,” he shouts as he pressed down on the gaping wound of his former right arm.
The girl in the white kimono reveals a smile, the first truly gentle smile she has performed; a smile that signals the end. Returning to her original hard posture, she runs toward Alaya like a loosed arrow. He knows that Shiki can read him now, knows what to expect, and so he won’t be able to dodge this next strike. But he won’t allow her to press the advantage so easily, not here in his sanctum. He gambles his chances on meeting Shiki’s advance. He steps forward, and shouts.
“DakatsU!” In time with this, Alaya raises his left arm in an attempt to block Shiki’s attack. He hopes that the sarira—the sacred remains of devout masters—embedded within, will ward away most of the damage the slash will inflict. Even she will not easily be able to see the lines of entropy. Shiki’s sword impacts his arm, and in an instant, Alaya can see that the blow has been checked.
As soon as he realizes this, he wastes no time in his next move. He animates his severed arm with an improvised working of the Art, making the arm move toward Shiki with unnatural speed. It slithers along the floor until, when it nears Shiki, it springs up and grabs her by the throat, pressing hard and choking her. Shiki drops her guard at the move she couldn’t anticipate, and Alaya presses the advantage he has momentarily gained. He retreats one step to pull back the left arm that warded off Shiki’s previous attack, and extends it again with open palm right in front of Shiki.
“Shuku!” He clenches his fist, and tightens space yet again. Shiki feels her body crumpling with a compelling force seeming to come from all places at once, and an audible grunt of pain finally escapes her lips. The leather jacket is torn away, and she is forced away from where she stood, Alaya having manipulated the space to compress to a size far smaller than it appeared to be.
At first, Shiki actually looks like she will fall hard to the floor from the attack, but she catches her footing just in time. Quickly, she redoubles her attack, the corridor funneling her into a singular path directly toward Alaya again and again. For a moment, she seems to disappear from Alaya’s sight, but she has only bent low and run fast toward him, getting under his guard more quickly than he can react. The sword moves in a blur, and it instantly strikes Alaya right in his center of mass.
The mage can feel his accumulated life ebbing away for only a fleeting instant. “Fool!” shouts Alaya as he attempts to deliver a kick towards Shiki’s midsection to ward her away. It’s an move easy to see, and so Shiki handily dodges it by jumping widely to the side, but the blade slides out of its shallow cut as she moves.
Alaya now understands. If I want to stop her, the structure will have to go with it! The mage opens his left hand to crush space for the third time. Having gained some distance from the jump, Shiki easily sees the spell coming. A quick but violent slash prevents it from manifesting any further around her. But after the slash, she stands stock still. Alaya has completely vanished, black greatcoat and all.
Nothing I can do about whatever magic he uses to move around, thinks Shiki. If he wants to run, I’ll let him run. She runs to the edge of the hallway, with the view of the outside, and puts a hand on the railing as she casts her eyes below to find her target.
But he’s not gonna get away this time. Without hesitation, Shiki leaps over the edge.
Away from Shiki, Alaya begins to crush the building itself. It might damage Shiki’s body, the same body he planned on using, but as long as he can still restore it to some semblance of a human function, then let its shape be damned. Even if the skull is shattered and the gray matter scattered, it can be replaced. What matters to him is that the body not expire completely until he works upon it, so that he can tap the soul connected to the spiral of origin. The loss of his arm and the stab on his chest are nothing compared to the ultimate goal, the ars magna to which he has struggled toward these many years. As long as he reaches the spiral of origin, where everything begins and ends, all is well. What he must do remains the same, only delayed now.
This seems to be the only option now to prevent a stalemate between us, Alaya thinks. Had I only killed her outright, it would not have come to this. Still, it has come, and I must close this chapter of her life. Weaving the Art and relocating him through space, Alaya has placed himself in the garden outside the building, which as far as he is concerned, feels like stepping out of his own body. He sees the greenery that surrounds the building often, but it has been so long since he has set foot in it. Though a part of the grounds, the dominating will of his subjective reality that strengthened him so much inside has little effect here. After he emerges from his relocation, he wastes no time. He looks up and extends his remaining arm skyward to point to the very top of the cylindrical structure, opening his palm.
The next thing he knows, a vicious cut goes straight down and through his left shoulder.
“Shiki…Ryōgi,” he manages to gurgle out with difficulty as he looks up at the night sky. “You damned…fool of a woman.” He coughs, and blood emerges red and blooming from his mouth. Not given a chance to land on either himself or Shiki, the droplets of blood are carried away on the wind only a few feet away, but now a distance he can no longer traverse. “All this…impossible.”
Alaya had emerged in the grounds outside the building, looked up at the structure to work his spell, only to meet the fleeting sight of Shiki Ryōgi falling rapidly from the tenth floor. Which means there was little interval between the mage’s weaving of his relocation spell, and the girl’s thoughtless descent from the highest floor of the building. What confidence possessed her at that moment, he will never know. He suspects he would never be able to know. How could Shiki have known that he would appear in the grounds outside? And even given this, who would even think to jump off and think they would land safely? To aim and hit a lone man from that height at that nearly uncontrolled fall is an act that has gone well past recklessness and into the realm of some miraculous foresight. As if she’d known.
And yet she did it. Without Alaya not having even completed the spell, having not even manifested in the garden yet, she jumped and did it. And at almost the exact same time as he appeared, he was struck by Shiki’s blow. The arm that he had extended upward very quickly became an improvised shield, but it was not enough to stop the slash from landing in his left shoulder, reaching all the way to his abdomen. Even the arcane shield that the sarira in his arm had afforded him was not enough to stop the sheer force of it.
As for Shiki, she is unconscious and still, standing but leaning on the blade inside Alaya’s body. Ironically, for all the defenses Alaya put up—his arm, the protection of the sarira, and the last ward that he had managed to erect at the last moment—Shiki broke through all of them and they served only to cushion her fall. Without them, the fall would have been fatal at worst, or aggravated her internal damage and killed her eventually at best. Another miracle.
Her grip on the sword is tight as rigor mortis. Alaya’s brow clouds his already anguished face as he looks upon the unconscious Shiki. “You were prepared to risk it all on one gamble to kill me. No, if not through this, than through another way, surely. You could kill me. Perhaps it was no risk at all. It is a poor sight to see Sōren Alaya defeated by a neophyte such as you.” His words this time finally ring without his previous posturing.
Alaya’s left arm is virtually severed, and the right is long gone. The mage, still standing, kicks the unconscious Shiki away, striking her chest. Her body flies away from him and a few feet deeper into the grounds. But Shiki continues to cling tightly to the sword hilt, even as it is still embedded in the mage’s body. So the blade, having also been weakened by the impact of the fall, is now forced into two: one half remaining embedded in Alaya’s body, and the other half in Shiki’s possession. And with that, the four hundred years of its history come to an end.
Shiki, now collapsed on the garden soil, remains unmoving. Looking at her with displeasure, he mutters. “You lie there finally wearing the look of a girl your age.” The mage, too, is unmoving as his face grows dark. The last bit of his energy has been expended in kicking Shiki away, and now he can’t do anything. For he feels that the slash has struck more than just the body: one of his lines of death must have been cut. “Through that appearance, I know we will never do battle again.”
The mage dispels the ward that is already fading fast, and whispers to himself in a sort of prayer. “My origin is known to me. It is quiescence. Those whose origin is awakened returns soon to the spiral.”
Arai's correction:
Shiki opened both eyes fiercely.
The magus funneled power into his protruded arm.
At this moment,
Araya instictively felt, not from his will to fight, but simply purely that Shiki must be killed.
"Shuku!" Araya's roar was a demonic arm crushing space without pause. With eyes glaring at the space around Shiki, he crushed the entire scenery.
The moment he screamed and his arm clenched, Shiki's defeat was certain.
But.
Araya became witness to it.
The extraordinary feat of the girl, moving after his scream, then acting faster than his scream.
Both arms, holding the katana, came up, at a speed fast enough to be mistaken for a flash. The katana raised high was then swung down with swiftness even greater.
The scream Shuku was cut in half by the sound of the slashing blade.
The spatial distortion that should have crushed Shiki was killed before her.
The magus once again focused power into his arm.
He only opened the palm of his hand and clenched it. But just doing that, however was too slow in the face of Ryougi Shiki's sprint.
Araya, having no time to say anything or to even think, received it. . Ryougi Shiki burst forth.
She ran, still in the stance she was when she slashed the distortion, to attack the magus.
Before she stepped forward, Ryougi Shiki swiped the katana in a horizontal line.
The barriers the magus was relying on dispersed.
So as long as it was only the outermost one, he had in fact, been prepared for it to be killed by one attack. If she came close, he had planned to use the time Shiki spent killing the second one to end the battle.
But, she, with just one swing, simultaneously obliterated the two outer barriers within range, then took one step forward.
If her sword swung at godlike speed, how fast was her movement?
Ryougi Shiki with only one step covered a space of four meters.
Her body flowed. The one step she walked was at the same time a step to repeat her deadly slashes. It almost even seemed as if with her unbelievably fast body, time wasn't so much as being stopped but rewound.
The slash came at him.
The magus leapt back.
Ryougi Shiki looked at the magus, still in the stance of swinging the katana. A stream of fresh blood dripped from her lips. She had not received any injuries. It was simply just her wounds from last night opening. With several ribs and organs damaged, blood regurgitated out from her mouth by her merely walking.
Bearing wounds so grave, she still performs her slashing dance.
The right arm of the leaping magus fell. No, not his arm. His arm, from the top of the shoulder down diagonally into the chest, fell to the floor of the hallway.
The magus, Araya Souren - possessing the physical prowess to dodge even a speeding bullet after it was fired - leapt back after he had been completely cut, while not realizing he had been.
"Who are you?" The magus didn't spare a look at the damage and looked at the person standing frozen ahead of him.
That attack just now indeed would have brought him a fatal wound. Had Shiki's second slash killed not two, but three of his barriers, Araya's body would have been cleaved in two from the torso.
The magus's closest one, his first barrier, Fugu, prevented that. Its protection faintly slowed her advance, sparing him a fatal wound.
No, what should be surprising wasn't this.
Shiki was completely different from what she was last night.
Did anger over Enjou Tomoe's death allow her to exert power greater than normal? No, it definitely shouldn't be that.
The magus glared at the girl in the white kimono.
Ryougi Shiki corrected her stance, returning her grip on the katana from two hands to one. Just by doing that, the girl returned to the girl from yesterday.
Coughing, blood dripped from her mouth. Had yesterday's injuries not been there, she would have slashed at the magus without rest and may have decapitated him.
"...? A difference based on the weapon?" Araya was astonished.
The reason Shiki became like a different person was none other than from a method of controlling battle will, trained to the extreme.
A long, long, time ago. Samurai had been said to accept killing and be killed naturally the moment their swords were drawn. This wasn't because of an emotional state as a warrior. The instant they gripped the handle, they would awaken.
Their bodies transform into ones existing only for killing, their brains turn into ones moving only for survival.
This wasn't beyond the level of bracing oneself before a match. By drawing their katana, the functions of their brain switched. They were not switching their body to one suited for battle. Their brain was remaking their bodies into one fit for combat.
By doing so, the muscles work in a way that should not be used by living beings, and the veins change the circulation route of the blood, prevent them from even breathing. ... Yes, human functions useless in battle are completely ejected as they are transformed into a part meant for war.
"That stance. So you transformed yourself by autosuggestion. I'm surprised." The woman in the kimono answered, yes, to the muttering of the pained magus.
The true identity of the fear that ran down Araya the moment Shiki opened her eyes was this. The magus cursed his ignorance. To think that there was a clan that this skill had been passed down to the current age.
Araya knew well that to the swordsmen in the past of the old schools, a distance of 3 ken (5 meters) was the equivalent of zero. Probably, the Shiki of earlier could even cover a space of 5 ken/nine meters with one step.
No one had known her true form. He had assumed that Ryougi Shiki's fighting style was by her mystic eyes and knife. But the truth was this. This woman is meant to be a killer using a katana. Compared to how she is know, her normal self cannot even match up to her.
"......You had me deceived. Then you were only pretending to be serious in your battle with Asagami Fujino?" Ryougi Shiki answered no, shaking her head to the words of the magus.
Whatever the weapon, I am always serious, her cold eyes told him.
The magus saw her gaze and realized.
What did this woman say just now? What is the weapon that is here? When did she stop being Shiki?
"I see......We finally meet...!"
The magus held his remaining left arm which bore a wound too enormous to be called a wound and roared.
The woman in the white kimono, Ryougi Shiki, smiled with a smile that couldn't be any more feminine, then began to slash at the magus.
Araya didn't have the means to avoid it.
But, even so, this place was his body. A defeat here was impossible for Araya Souren.
Even if it meant destroying the entire mansion, he must obtain the current Ryougi Shiki..
Staking his chances of victory, the magus moved forward.
"Dakatsu.....!" The magus' voice reverberated.
He blocked Ryougi Shiki's katana with his remaining left arm. The left arm embedded with the Sarira was still in good condition in his body. Even Ryougi Shiki cannot easily cut the protection of a saint.
His severed right arm leapt up by itself at the same time. The arm slid on the floor like a snake and jumped towards Ryougi Shiki's throat.
".....!"
His arm was a vice clenching Ryougi Shiki's throat.
Using that brief opportunity, the magus backed up further and thrust his left arm.
Shuku, he said, compressing the space with the palm of his hand.
Impact besieged Ryougi Shiki's body with force that could crush all the bones in her body from all directions.
She uttered a dying groan.
The red jumper was shredded and the girl in the white kimono fell to the floor.
No, she was going to fall to the floor.
- Ryougi Shiki disappeared simply. But Shiki didn't want to let him escape.
She should have been definitely been unconscious, but her white body jumped up.
She had only been looking at the death of Araya Souren's body.
The katana was swung.
It struck the center of the magus' chest.
The magus felt his life being sucked away and reviled the feeling.
"Fool!"
Araya at the same time, in disbelief, kicked Shiki.
It had been a middle kick, striking her stomach with his heel, like a spear.
But Shiki jumped back, avoiding it.
The katana came out and it was then that Araya realized.
To stop her, he....
"So I must destroy my entire world!"
The magus' left arm opened.
This was the third spatial compression. Shiki cut it away with her katana and stood astonished.
- The magus, with his black coat, was disappearing.
Shiki didn't think of stopping him.
What theories was the magus using to escape and how could she stop him? Shiki didn't bother to think of little things like that.
If he wanted to run away, he's free to do as he wants. Shiki placed her hand on the railing in the hall.
"....But, I won't let you get away."
She then jumped outside.
Araya chose to compress the mansion itself.
Ryougi Shiki's body will be crushed but he didn't care about how she would appear. It was sufficient for her body to remain intact enough to support human vital activity. Her head wasn't necessary in the first place. Her cranium may be crushed and her brain fluids splashed out, but that part will only be replaced by own head. What was important was her body. Only her body connected to the root.
With one arm lost and the center of his body impaled, his body won't last even a few hours. As long as can reach the beginning of everything, he won't need a body. What was important was that until then, his soul and Ryougi Shiki's body would be intact. His plan had reached the worst possible scenario that he could have conceived of, but in the end, what had to be done was the same. The only change was that insurance in the event of failure was completely gone.
......Either way, if he couldn't reach it with this method, he was at a loss at what to do.
Araya thought.
It was his own weakness in fearing failure that had been his greatest enemy. Had he killed Ryougi Shiki in the beginning, he wouldn't have been pushed this far.
However so, this is where the curtains fall.
The magus slipped from the mansion that was his body, to the garden.
The grass garden around the mansion was within his barrier but not a part of the mansion. Even if the mansion is destroyed, the garden won't be affected.
The magus suddenly appeared at the garden, and without wasting time after his spatial shift, struck out his remaining arm.
He looked up at the night sky and opened the palm of his hand so as to crush the circular tower.
But at that instant, his body was slashed from the shoulder down.
At that instant, his body was slashed from the shoulder down.
"Ryougi.....Shiki."
The magus, looking up at the sky, murmured.
"You....."
Red blood splashed out from the magus' mouth.
The powder-like blood didn't drip to the ground nor spill on to Ryougi Shiki's face, but scattered with the wind.
"....Impossible."
Unbelievable, he had said.
It was natural for him to. Because, when the magus appeared at the garden and looked up at the sky, what was there was Ryougi Shiki, falling down from the tenth floor.
The woman he was fighting - at the instant the magus had connected space from the mansion to the garden and moved - had jumped without hesitation from the hallway of the 10th floor.
He couldn't comprehend what certitude she had that made her do this. It was incomprehensible.
Even if one foresaw that he would appear in the garden, what person would consider jumping down from the tenth floor?
This went beyond recklessness and into what was called a miracle.
She leapt off the tenth floor to fall into just one human? What made this any more different than dropping a single needle from the tenth floor striking it?
But she still, without pausing, jumped off. The magus' form still remained on the 10th floor, but she had jumped off to get to Araya Souren at the garden when he hadn't yet existed there.
Thus, the magus was cut the moment he appeared.
He immediately used his arm, protruded to crush the mansion, as a shield, but the entire arm was sliced as he was cut in two from the shoulder to the waist. Despite the protection of the Sarira in his left arm, it seems it couldn't withstand a slash containing the impact of a crash from 10 floors.
Shiki's body was stopped without hitting the ground.
Ironically, one of the magus' barriers of stillness remained.
Stuck on it, Shiki didn't receive the impact of crashing to the ground. Of course, the pressure of falling from of falling more than 40 meters must have worsened her injuries even further.
Shiki still faced downwards.
The sword in her hands cut into the magus' body and wouldn't leave him.
Araya didn't change his definitely agonized expression and furrowed his brows in aggravation.
"......You knew if you caught me there would be collision with the ground. No, that's incorrect. Even if that wasn't the case, you would have done the same. What a disgrace. Araya Souren will not be defeated to a whelp like you."
This wasn't false pride, but how he truly felt..
His left arm was cut from the shoulder and his right arm was long gone.
The still magus kicked Shiki up.
The kick, as if it was one that might punch through the sky while standing, hit Shiki in the chest.
She was knocked away to the garden.
Even so, Shiki didn't let go of the katana, and the blade itself was deeply in the magus' body.
The katana broke in two from the blade and five hundred years of history ended.
Shiki remained motionless on the garden.
He looked at her, now completely unconscious, and murmured vilely.
"It's when you're like that you seem to be a girl your age."
The magus didn't move.
The color of his agonized face worsened more.
It was right before the magus, but he couldn't move.
The slash he had just received had finished him off beyond repair.
It was a preposterous strike, but at the same time, it couldn't have been a better strike.
He had to admit that he had to be destroyed upon receiving such a strike.
"To think that this would end in a straight double knockout." Had that been what caused this?
Thinking about his body that couldn't reach the goal when it was right before it, and the barrier that had stopped Shiki's falling body, Araya muttered to himself.
Those who awaken to their origin are bound by their origin. I see. My impulse was Stillness" The magus said this, not to anyone, but in irony.