Intermission

I wanted to sock someone. It didn’t matter who it was, but it’s better if it’s someone that I don’t have to feel guilty about. I chose this bully who hanged out at the arcade. When he loses to someone in a game, he would get pissed and took the opponent to the back alley to beat him up. That was a perfect place for me as well, because I wouldn’t get in trouble.

“I don’t like weak people” The girl I confessed to said that. I probably am a weak person, I never fought anyone in my life. So in order to overcome my weakness. I decided to sock someone. I’ve lived for 17 years, and that’s like the only thing I never done.

So I lured him out. I beat him in a game so many times. When I got out of the arcade, he pulled me into this back alley. But the instant he looked back at me, I punched his face. Raising a weird sound, the guy fell on the floor and stopped moving. “What?” I couldn’t believe it. He died just like that. I didn’t know people died so easily. No, it’s not my fault. I don’t want to get caught by the police! I need to hide this body before anyone sees it. But how? Bury it? Burn it? But people would eventually find out. It’s impossible to completely dispose of a dead body. If it was in the middle of a forest or mountain, animals would eat it on their own but… Eat it? Oh, I just need to eat it. But the human body is so big, I can’t eat this much in one night. I’ll try drinking his blood first. I spit out. I can’t drink something like this. What should I do? I killed someone. I can’t hide his body. I killed someone. My life is over.

“Why don’t you finish drinking it?” I heard a man’s voice from behind. A man in a black shroud was standing there. He told me I wasn’t normal when I thought of eating this dead body… I was special. “Yes, you’re not normal, if you’re broken… be completely broken” I finished eating the dead body. “One hour, not bad. But that is also your limit. That’s all you can do by just knowing your origin. The origin needs to be completely awakened to take a shape. As things are right now, you’re a just crazy person who ate a person and that’ll be the end of it. But that’s not what you wish for, is it? A power of a superior being. A special ability that surpasses other. Don’t you want that?” I answer yes in my vacant mind. “Understood, you’re the first one” The man raises his right arm.

But I asks him one question. “Who are you?” The man dressed in a black shroud answers uninterested.
“Sorcerer… Araya Souren”
The sorcerer asks my name.
“Lio, is it? So close, only a letter apart from being a Leo.”

Prologue
Only the frozen breath contained heat and we were both watching our heartbeat about to get cut off.
That’s how the memories that were too important are only remaining as a regret that it’s disappearing
For example the rain. Raining like mist after school.
For example the sunset. The scenery of school as if it’s burning.
For example the snow. The white night when we first met, and the black umbrella.
I was satisfied, just by you being here, and laughing together. Even though I was anxious, I was able to feel comfortable.
I was happy, just by you being here, and walking together. Even though I wasn’t there, I was able to be together.
For a brief moment. I stood there because the sun showing from the tree leaves felt warm.
But you laughed saying that we can be here again.
…..I wanted someone to tell me those words.
——That was really like the resemblance of the dream like days.

Synopsis

殺人考察(2) …not nothing heart

Murder Speculation 2

The killer from two years ago is back. Serial homicides are occurring in town again, and Shiki was going out at night by herself. Mikiya still believed she wasn’t the killer and tries to find the real killer. What happened three years ago was that Shiki hesitated to kill Mikiya. Then Araya appeared and helped Mikiya escape saying it’s too early to destroy “it”. But Mikiya didn’t want to leave her. He waited for her after Araya left. When she found Mikiya again, she sliced him, but only shallowly. He started running, she went after him. He stopped and she sliced him again. Shiki was crying out like a child saying, “It pains me to be with you, you show me something that I can’t get and I become unstable. That’s why I need to kill you!” They chased after each other repeatedly, and at the end, Shiki jumped in front of a car saying, “If I can’t get rid of you, then I have to get rid of myself.”

The real killer was Shirazumi Lio, Mikiya’s senior that left his high school. He has blond mid length hair, and wore a red jacket and a black skirt. That silhouette looked just like Shiki, so people were mistaking him as her. Mikiya questions him why he’s doing it, and Lio tells him something inside of him is telling him to do it. Araya has awakened his “origin” and he couldn’t stop it. Mikiya wants to help him, but Lio refuses saying he don’t want to hurt him. He runs away.

Shiki was also searching for the killer and hasn’t gone back home for a few days. She finally found someone who was out of alignment that is worthy to kill. She has her last conversation with Mikiya over the phone. She says she wants to kill Lio because she’s a killer that finds pleasure in killing. Mikiya denies that saying that she knows how painful killing someone is because she has been killing her other destructive personality all her life. It might be true she was born to be a killer, but because she has been able to suppress it all her life, she should be able to keep on suppressing it. And he knows she’s a kind person. But Shiki answers, how do you know that! That’s why I hate you. and hangs up. But it was pretty obvious that she didn’t want Mikiya to get involved. Shiki’s grandfather once told her when he was about to die after killing so many people, that people will only be able to kill one person in their life time. In other words, the person won’t be able to carry the burden of more than one person’s life and still be able to live as a human being because a person’s life is too heavy.

Shiki finally finds Lio’s hideout. Lio had a hidden garden of drugs he was selling to people. He was hoping this drug will awaken crazy people like himself. Shiki was ready to kill him, but at the last moment she hesitates. She thought of the words of Mikiya, “I won’t forgive you if you kill him” She is then captured by Lio. Mikiya goes to save her by himself. He tries to convince Lio to realize that he’s an helpless killer already. But Lio slices his head in anger. Mikiya drops dead on the floor. He thought Mikiya was the only person who would understand him, but no. That only person is Shiki, a killer just like him. He walks off to where Shiki is tied up. But Shiki had already got out of the handcuffs by breaking the bone on her thumb. Lio tells her to fight him, but Shiki was uninterested in such thing already. She wanted to go back to where Mikiya was. But Lio tells her he already took him. He tosses her knife that is drenched with blood. She pauses.

(translation!)
—Ahh…
At such a close place. In such a short amount of time.
I lost him.
“….Idiot. That’s why I told you to stay at Tohko’s place. You even died in a stupid way.”
‘ I won’t forgive you if you kill him, Shiki—’
The man who held me back, was killed by the animal he tried to protect.
…….I wonder why
He was mine.
The only person who was allowed to kill him was me.
“——For sure”
I pick up my knife.
I stand up, holding it with both hands.
While facing down, I stand still putting the blade along my chest.
I spoke without raising my head.
“—-All right, let’s do it”
Without looking at my opponent, looking down.
There’s no need to look up.
Because I couldn’t see that animal anymore.
“—-You said you won’t forgive me, didn’t you? You’re right, we are similar in that way, Shirazumi”
The animal dashes at me.
I ignore it, still looking down.
The opponent I’m fighting can be left for later.
Right now—–I just want to hold it tightly.
While his warmth still remains on this knife.

Shirazumi Lio’s body jumps up.
She didn’t move, even confronting the enemy that is coming right at her.
The animal’s nail tears the flesh of the arm.
Even when the blood dripped and the enemy went passed her, she was still looking down.
Her hands were embracing the knife gently.
Importantly, Very importantly like an irreplaceable treasure.
The heat that it remembered is fading away.
Like my body heat and the warmth of the skin when we touched each other.
Like my heart that I thought I didn’t have, and my heart that he believed in.
Blood is dripping, and wounded, the body keeps on getting colder.
But I didn’t feel much pain.
Because I knew something much more painful.
….Getting hit by the cold rain, we kept on chasing each other.
——Only the frozen breath contained heaat and we were both watching our heartbeat that was about to get cut off.
Another flesh was torn off.
The enemy was playing with me as he was a hunter who cornered his prey.
He quickly ran passes me, and shreds my flesh as he went passed me.
…..It still doesn’t stop raining outside.
When I thought about it, I was already content with something not worth mentioning
——For example the rain. Raining like mmist after school, I was listening to your whistles.
A third strike, I was cut on my legs.
Making a splashing noise, the concrete gets wet.
The claws that reached the bones stained my leg and the floor with blood, and it pained me just to stand.
….Yes I had difficulty breathing just by standing there.
But I think there were sometime when we were able to smile at each other.
Because Shiki liked you.
——For example the sunset. The scenery of school as if it’s burning. We were talking with each other.
The enemy’s power was getting even stronger. His speed and accuracy was beyond of that of a beast.
Opposed to that, I was a junk. My heart frozen, my body will soon stop moving too.
Even then, I couldn’t be helped because I was finding that fact amusing.
My arm still moves so I’ll kill him for sure the next time he comes near me.
——I was satisfied, just by you being hhere, and laughing together.
He runs at me for the 4th time.
He is aiming for the right arm.
Even though I knew that, I couldn’t move.
….Because killing someone was wrong
——I was happy, just by you being here,, and walking together
I feel dizzy from losing too much blood.
My body will fall right away.
Even then, I’m protecting his words.
…..I can’t kill Shirazumi Lio.
Even if he died, his words are alive within me.
….I want to protect that warmth forever.
——For a brief moment. I stood there beecause the sun showing from the tree leaves felt warm.
But I was happy.
About you who treated me normally.
You’re not suppose to kill someone, I was happy that he spoke to me seriously.
I won’t say it out loud but.
You were a lot prettier than me, as if it’s a miracle.
——You laughed saying that we can be heere again.
The fifth claw approaches.
That is probably my end.
The enemy will surely go for my throat.
That is more than enough, for I will die by just standing here,
——-I wanted someone to tell me those wwords.
….Death is approaching.
When I look back, there were so many happy things that makes me smile.
Only a year of the past, and half a year till now.
Time flew by so fast, and I couldn’t even grasp it. But I appreciate it. It was unbelievably satisfying.
The boring high school years that never changed.
Resemblance of the peaceful days without any commotion.
——Those days were really like a dream..
Thank you. But I’m sorry.
….I look up and perceive his death.
I know I will lose it.
The things that you believed for me, and me who you said you liked.
Even knowing that, I decided to kill him.
Even if all of myself till now disappears, and no one will be besides me.
Even then—–I won’t forgive this guy who killed you——.

—-She gazes at the enemy who is running towards her.
Then the rest was easy.
Vividly like a swan that flies off from the water surface
The end came instantly.
(translation end)

Shiki kills Lio just like that, but she forfeits trying to save herself because Mikiya isn’t there anymore. However, Mikiya was alive! He just got his left eyes slashed deeply. When he drags his body to where Shiki is lying, he was just happy to know that she was alive. But Shiki was out of it because she couldn’t keep the promise and killed someone. Mikiya once said that he will help carry her burdens, so she won’t be lonely. He embraces her saying “Shiki, I will never forgive (let you leave) my side”. It was raining outside.

They were helped out of the scene by the police and were hospitalized for a few weeks. When they recovered, they went home together holding their hands.

Prologue
The day of thick mist is inside a forest.
Smell of green and voice of insects.
Walking to a far away place. Walking far into the place.
At a grass field without a sun. I met pretty children.
It’s almost lunch time so I need to go home.
“There’s no need to go home. This place is everlasting.”
The children start singing. But I wonder what’s eternity?
“That’s something that remains forever” “And that’s something that never changes”
Chorus of Cradles. Grass hill lit by the stars.
The mist melts like milk, and the road returning home disappears.
I don’t know what eternity is. I need to hurry up and go home.
My house is far away. My house is in the distant.
Smell of green and voice of insects.
The day of thick mist is inside a forest.
I probably won’t be able to go home forever.

Synopsis

忘却録音 Fairy Tale

Oblivion Recording

Kokuto Azaka was asked to investigate a weird incident at her school by Tohko. Two girls in a particular class started arguing and at the end they cut each other with a knife. For some reason the teacher didn’t report this incident and the school didn’t know that it happened till two weeks later. What’s puzzling is that this teacher acted like he forgot what happened. This teacher was a respectable person who shouldn’t try to hide anything. The reason of the students’ argument was also weird. The students were revealed of their childhood secrets that even they forgot about by mails sent from someone. They were suspicious of each other and at the end they cut each other. At this school, there were also stories of students witnessing fairies. The rumor is that the fairies are making people forgetful and returning the memories of the students.

Azaka’s school was a renowned private all girls school. Outsiders aren’t allowed to go in, so that’s why Tohko asked her to do this job. Azaka had entered this school for a personal reason. She loved her brother, not as a sister, but as a person. She believed it was difficult for him to love her as a woman if they were living together so she decided to distant herself by living away from him. Things were progressing according to plan as she grew up being separated from him, but it was ruined by the appearance of Ryogi Shiki. This must be her worst day because Shiki followed her to school. She needed an “eye” who can see fairies in case they existed, and so Tohko had Shiki, who had her special eyes, go with her, disguised as a potential transfer student. Wearing their school uniforms that looked like a cassock, Shiki and Azaka were complaining to each other as they walked through the hallway of the school. The school was in winter break, but there were still a lot of students who stayed at their dorms. First they met the current teacher of the class, Kurogiri Satsuki. The reason he is “current” is because the previous teacher, Hayama Hideo disappeared after a fire accident at this school. There was one girl, Tachibana Kaori, who got trapped and died at the time. Knowing his ill personality, people assumed he fled from the responsibility since the fire started from his class.  In contrast, Kurosaki Satsuki was an honest teacher who everyone looked up to. When Azaka questioned with him, he was a good willed person with a smile, except that he really forgot what happened during the incident and he was worried. When they were leaving his room, they bumped into Ouji Misaya, a popular senior among the students. After they got out to the garden, Shiki sensed something from the old school building and ran off. Azaka tried to go after her, but someone called her from behind. While Shiki was walking along the old building, she was thinking about herself. Maybe it was because she filled up her hollow memory with her experiences over the past months, she doesn’t feel as empty as when she just awoke from the coma. Just then, she felt a sting from behind her neck and smashed something small that turned into a slimy liquid. When she returned to where Azaka was, Azaka asked her a weird question. “Oh, Shiki, you’re not going?” She just met the mastermind of the fairies and got her memories erased…

Next morning, Azaka questions the students from that class. They were all irritated and seemed to be hiding something. Azaka visits the faculty’s office hoping to find something. She finds a file of Hayama Hideo.  The previous teacher was missing, he didn’t quit by himself. Just then, Kurosaki Satsuki came in to the office. Azaka asks him if he believed in the rumored fairies, but realized what an embarrassing question she’s asking. He explains there are many fairy stories around the world. Most of them are just altered stories of actual people who are helpful or play tricks. In the worst case of tricks, they would switch babies of gifted families. When she left the office, she visited the classrooms that were burned down in the previous incident. There she meets Ouji Misaya and remembers she is the one who spoke to her yesterday. Misaya already knew everything about her by taking her memory, that Azaka knew sorcery and came to investigate the incident. Misaya says she learned sorcery to avenge her lower classman, Kaori because she was forced to kill herself by her classmates. She also says Kurogiri Satsuki was her brother who got separated when she read his memory. She says Azaka can be her friend because they both loved their brother. Azaka tells her if she can bring back her memory when she started liking her brother, she’ll help her. But a lost memory is only a record, she can only bring back memories, she said. Azaka was ready to fight her, but instead she got knocked out when Misaya surprised her with a fairy that looked like Hayama Hideo.

Shiki was still sleeping in Azaka’s dorm room. She was waken up by a call from Mikiya. When she finds that he had called for Azaka, she was irritated. She couldn’t come up with anything to say, so she asks him to research the background of the two teachers, Kurogiri Satsuki and Hayama Hideo. He says okay and in return suggests her to research Tachibana Kaori’s life at school.

Azaka in her slumber is thinking about how special she wanted to be and how she ended up liking an ordinary person like her brother. She needed to bring back to her memory why she started liking him, so she can apologize to him. Shiki wakes her up and tells her what Mikiya suggested to do. They find out Kaori had a certain health issue and that must be the reason she killed herself. She was pregnant. Azaka suspects Hayama Hideo might have been the one who made her pregnant, being the only male teacher at school at the time. The class knew that and picked on her forcing her to suicide. But there was something that didn’t feel right. Just then, she receives a call. “Hello, Shiki?” Azaka was irritated when Mikiya said that. He found out the backgrounds of the two teachers. The fact is that Hayama Hideo was taking the girls out of school and having them have relationships for money. The school was confining their students, so the girls wanted to go out themselves. But Kaori didn’t want to. She resisted till the end, and she got impregnated when she did. The girls didn’t’ want the school to know that they were doing such things, so she was picked on and as a result killed herself in the fire. Azaka says that was a wrong choice, an escape from reality, but Mikiya says that was a painful decision. Kaori was a Christian. Christians don’t suicide. She must have had the deepest struggle, and thought that sacrificing herself will be a way to save the souls of her guilty classmates. Azaka understood that this was Misaya’s intentions. She was trying to force the girls in the class to kill themselves.

Shiki was in Azaka’s room waiting for her return. She kills a fairy that was trying to attack her by throwing a knife to the ceiling. She goes out to the hall way and goes after Misaya who was running away. She must have thought she was Azaka. When she went into the chapel, a man with a dry smile was standing there.

Because she was only told to investigate the truth of the incident and now that she knew what’s going on, Azaka was about to get ready to leave the school. But Mikiya stops her saying I have the file for Kurosaki Satsuki. She was uninterested, but Mikiya said that it might not be unrelated. Satsuki was born in England, he was smart child but one day he was put out as an adopted child. The problem was that when he was 10, he lost his ability to remember things. But soon he recovered and entered college when he was 14, graduated with a degree of linguistics. He became a teacher and transferred among a number of schools. The strange fact is that there were students who killed themselves in every school that he went to. Azaka puts down the phone and thought of who was the one who taught sorcery to Misaya.

Kokuto was lying in the office when Touko came home. She flipped through the file of the teachers that Mikiya researched on, and froze at the picture of Kurosaki Satsuki. “god’s Words.” She couldn’t believe the sorcerer who the Association is searching for frantically is teaching high school. Also known as the Master of Babel, he is the only sorcerer who is able to speak the “Unified Language” that existed in the mythological age. It is a language that is spoken to the plane of the world that we stand on and not to people themselves. There is no concept that can’t be communicated, surpassing the barriers of cultures, and everything he says has a forceful meaning. For that reason, he is the ultimate hypnotist. He could also read the memories of people from the records in that plane, even if that person forgot it. Mikiya is worried that if he’s that powerful, then Shiki and Azaka might be in danger. But Tohko says he doesn’t need to worry, “god’s Word” has no ability to hurt others. He’s just a pursuer of “eternity”.

Shiki was standing against Kurosaki Satsuki at the chapel. Satsuki tells Shiki that he isn’t the one who was using the fairies, but he is probably the one she was looking for. She sensed him as her enemy, but couldn’t motivate herself to kill him. His personality reminded her of Mikiya. Satsuki goes on and says that he’s just returning people’s lost past. He is trying to keep people eternal by having them record everything they experienced the way it is. He asks if Shiki wanted her lost memory back, but she refuses. Shiki realizes this person was just similar to Mikiya, but completely different. She finds out he was called by Araya to come here. Although Araya’s gone now, Satsuki’s job was probably to defeat Shiki. Accepting him as her real enemy, Shiki dashes to him to kill him. But when he says the words, “You won’t be able to see me”, he disappeared and she sliced the air. But she was fast enough to kill one of his arm. She tried concentrating on just seeing his lines of death but that was prevented by the words, “You won’t be able to see here” Her vision was engulfed by darkness. Satsuki says he’ll grant her wish by returning her lost memory. Shiki cries out no, but she couldn’t do anything about it.

After she hanged up on Mikiya, Azaka went to see Satsuki. He was in his room with a hanging arm. She automatically knew who did that to him. She questioned him and he was indeed the person who was ultimately responsible for Kaori’s suicide, taught Misaya her sorcery, and was collecting and returning the lost memory of people. However, there wasn’t any reason for him to do these things. When these people came to see him, he just told and gave them what they wanted the most. He originally studied sorcery in order to retrieve his lost memory. But eventually he found out that he didn’t lose them, his brain had a disorder. So in return, he was trying to search for his past in other people’s memory. Returning people’s memory was just a courtesy he was doing. But not everyone wants that and if they knew, a lot of people would want him dead. Satsuki was kidnapped by fairies when he was a child and he was cursed since that time. When he noticed, all the fairies were dead and his hands were stained with blood. When he returned home in that messed up shape, his parents wouldn’t consider him their child anymore. Since that day, he lost his ability to recognize his memory. Not being able to recognize his memory means that even if he has a memory, he is unable to know that his memory is true. The only way he was able to communicate with people was that he recorded everything by words, and matching those words with the real world. For example, he is meeting Azaka right now by recording Azaka’s physical appearance by words, match it with his previous record which is also a data of words, and finally knows it’s her. If even one thing was different, he wouldn’t know that it’s her. Azaka realizes why he’s different from Mikiya. Satsuki isn’t looking at anyone. A person doesn’t exist here, just a book. When Kaori and Misaya came to ask for his help, he could only give them an answer that they had themselves.  He will just act like a mirror and wouldn’t think with them. Ending up doing what they had in their mind from the beginning, they are having their wish granted, in a way.  Hoping he still has some human emotions left, she asks him who Misaya is to him. But he only answered, “Ouji Misaya is Ouji Misaya, is there anything wrong?” He tells her that Misaya gathered the people in the class at the old building and trying to set a fire. She needs to hurry if she wants to stop it. Azaka hurries to the scene, but she didn’t notice that those last words were something out of his own feelings.

When Azaka gets there, all the students were lying unconscious and she could smell gasoline. Ouji Misaya was making the girls kill themselves just like how Kaori did. The first one that wakes up would try to kill all of them since they were irritated towards each other. Misaya was standing above the staircase. Azaka tries to convince her by telling her that she was just hypnotized by Satsuki. She talked to Satsuki because she must have accidentally killed Hideo. He isn’t her brother, he just took the fact that she wanted a brother and returned it as fact. The fairies aren’t her own power, he was just making the fairies follow her. Misaya wouldn’t accept that so Azaka had to scare her with her fire sorcery. Misaya fell on her knees powerlessly and accepted the truth. Satsuki was a mysterious person who attracted her and though he would help her. But she soon found out he wasn’t a pretty person like she first thought. But she couldn’t accept that. She should have never talked to Satsuki in the first place. Azaka thought Misaya was just like herself. There are important feelings that loses its importance once it comes out of our mouth. There are some feelings that are better off to not be put into words.

In her dream, Azaka remembers the time she first liked Mikiya. It was long time ago when an old neighbor who was close to their family passed away. Azaka cried, but when she looked up to Mikiya, he was holding back his tears. When she asked her why isn’t he crying, he said he couldn’t, even if he wants to. She understood what he meant. Crying is a special behavior. It’s a representation of sadness that transmits to other people. If he cried now, he would make others even more sad. Because he was a person who didn’t want to make anyone suffer in any way, he couldn’t cry, even if this old man was someone he’s been taking care of ever since the old man’s family passed away. Being able to be nice to everyone also means he is lonely. Since then, he has been Azaka’s important person.

When Azaka got out of her school, Mikiya was waiting for her. He said he’ll do something special for her, since he couldn’t get to see her on New Years (He was seeing Shiki). When she was excited about what she should ask him, he said which do you like better, Western or Japanese food? He was taking her out to eat. She couldn’t believe he was actually thinking a girl will be happy with a meal, but was convinced that this is her brother that he liked.

When Kurosaki Satsuki returned to his room, he was stabbed by a student. He gently told the girl to leave. The student was scared by the fact that he was kind even to the person who was killing him and fled. This girl looked like a person in his record, but her hair style was different. For that reason, he never knew who actually killed him. Locking himself in his room, he tried to think of something interesting. He thought of before he was born. If he wasn’t born, his world had been so much peaceful. Satsuki was laughing. He felt that he was laughing for the first time in his life.  It’s later revealed that he really had a sister.  Whether Misaya was his sister or not,  is a mystery “forever”

Shiki was walking with Mikiya. The fragments of memories that she recovered was making her feel anxious. But she was able to forget about it when she was with him. It was her first time going out at night with someone else.