Kara no Kyoukai

Volume 2, Part V: Chapter 14

I recall the day I came across the scene of carnage.

I walked upon the earth of that scarred and solitary place, and my feet tread not on pebbles but on the fragments of bones. The wind carried on it the inescapable stench of death, seemingly threatening to cover the world entire.

It was a time of great upheaval and conflict, when men yet took to arms in the press of swords and pike, and when they knew the face of death by looking into an opponent’s eyes. War followed everywhere one went, and everywhere it left a trail of men, cruelly discarded. And ever the proof of the freedom of the strong harrying the weak was visible to all who still had eyes to see.

It was no longer a question of who killed whom, or if the battle was just; only a problem of who died, and whether someone bore witness to final breath. Where I heard battle was joined, I followed. Where insurrection brewed, my feet carried me. Sometimes, I arrived when the battle was yet fresh, sometimes when the struggle was long concluded. But always, the same result: the reaper’s work in droves.

It comes for us all no matter how much a father lends a shout of surrender to heaven, or how much a mother cries for her son, or how much that son dies smiling even as it expires from hunger. It steals into our private rooms, when candles are snuffed and the shadows grow larger, rendering the struggle of virtuous men meaningless.

And though I knew all of this, my travels continued. Yet all I saw bid my memory to ever return to that scene of carnage. They couldn’t be saved. Men cannot be saved, though their prayers to supernal beings would say otherwise. For man is a creature not meant to be saved but to end, hiding the dread of the past with the despair of the now. And in realizing this, I awakened to my own uselessness.

I cannot save any man, for I too am a man. But if that is what is fated, then perhaps I may be admitted, at least, to record death, to craft a morbid history of observance that suggests the cycle of souls. I would make a proof of lives ended and suffered.

And so my chronicle of death began.

The man wakes to a drop of water, then the sound of hissing steam. Sōren Alaya stands up silently, feeling dazed as if waking from a dream.

“I did not know I still saw dreams. A remnant from the past, dear though it is,” the mage confides to himself. But he is not alone. Around him, in a fashion, are the “residents” of the apartment building, and closer beside him is a jar shaped glass container, sealed and held near like a prize. It is filled with a liquid, and floating peacefully within is a single head, eyes shut in the manner of sleep. Tōko Aozaki’s head.

The sound of rising vapor pierces the silence yet again. The only light in the room emanates from the flat iron surface placed in the center of the room, its red hot glow warding the shadows away in its vicinity.

The mage has nothing to do now but wait. Both Shiki Ryōgi and Tōko Aozaki have been taken care of, their bodies destroyed or—in the case of Shiki—rendered immovable until such time that it serves its purpose. No one is left in any capable position to threaten him. So he waits.

“Alaya!” Announcing his presence, the red coated mage calls out to him as he enters the room unbidden. “Why do you delay here? You can’t slacken when there are things yet left to attend to.”

“It is finished, Cornelius. There is no need to ransack Aozaki’s sanctum. And though I have released Tomoe Enjō, he will not pose trouble to us. Learn to recognize these things and accept them.”

“Granted on both counts. But the question of Shiki Ryōgi still remains. You’ve only rendered her unconscious, correct? If she wakes up, she will obviously try to escape. We don’t have time to deal for such an eventuality when it happens, so maybe it would be wise to watch over her?”

“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.”

Cornelius looks on Alaya’s consistently troubled face with a look of dissatisfaction. “Fine. I will take your word for it. I don’t even care about the Ryōgi girl anyway. I took your offer for different reasons, if you will remember.” His glance wanders to the glass canister placed on the table beside Alaya. “This isn’t what you promised, Alaya. You said I would be the one to kill Aozaki, or was that a lie?”

“You missed your chance and you have paid for it. I had no choice but to strike her down.”

“Strike her down? Don’t make me laugh. I know better than you the nature of those canisters. That thing yet lives. Perhaps a soft spot still exists beneath that hardened exterior of yours, eh?”

Cornelius’ question only elicits a low hum from Alaya which he cannot determine as a sign of assent or disagreement. Both of them know, however, that Tōko Aozaki is, in a sense, still alive. Her brain, at any rate. It is only unable to speak or to think. If that can be called a state of living, then it is them who recognize it as such.

“Looks like I’m not the only one that missed his chance,” he insinuates. “Remember the Collegium, Alaya. She was the Wild Red, or so people called her in fear in the past. Always the fox, ever cunning. If anyone would have plans designed to be set in motion even beyond the grave, it would be her. We should kill her.”

“What a fool you are to even utter that title of disrespect against her, Cornelius.”

“Wh…what?” The red coated mage’s words falter. Alaya ignores the momentary lapse and takes the glass canister beside him in hand, extending it towards Cornelius. “Take it and go, if it will satisfy our promise. I care not what perversions you desire to visit upon it.” He hands it to the mage without reservation. Cornelius takes the overlarge canister with both hands, his eyes seemingly lost in the great gift being offered to him and his face barely able to hold back a wide grin.

“And I will gladly take it. So you do not care what I do with it, correct?” “Do as you will. For indeed, you have already written your own fate.” Alaya’s silent but heavy words fall on deaf ears. Cornelius is positively overtaken with glee as he starts to walk out of the room, satisfaction coloring the sound of his every step.