─We will wait for your return, Shiki-san.
─Shiki-san, try to take care of your mouth.
─Nii-san, we will have your dinner ready for when you arrive.
The three new girls who live with me said goodbye to me at some point on the way home.
I was thinking of going shopping, so I gave my backpack to Akiha to carry for me... as Touko-san doesn't seem to be able to go and I equally doubt that he would have done it anyway. I got her used to being lazy with everything that has to do with home.
I could go home to see if Aoko-san has already arrived, but there are priorities above all else. Besides that now we have Kohaku-san and Hisui-san, so it is not a big problem for me to deduce that dinner is going to be very good.
The truth is, I want to forget what happened at lunchtime, that was a terrible experience that was etched both in my memory and in my language. It hurts just to talk. Maybe it was a very bad idea to do that.
Luckily Ciel can recover from any injury no matter how insignificant it may be, she shouldn't be worried about being hoarse from the curry.
Well.
It turns out that after shopping.
I don't have much to do after that. So as I go through one of the many intersections, I look around for something that catches my attention.
The sky was darkening and the evening clouds showed that this was going to be a rainy night.
While I was wasting my time looking at the essential number of passersby who do not see what is happening around them. Each person who walks here is the protagonist of their own story, living their lives the way they want to do it and when they want to do it.
Following that same one-way perspective, these people just end each day of their daily life.
To a certain extent of what concerns me to mention about humanity in general, I can say.
Unequivocally. That this is a lonely thing.
I'm starting to have... some misplaced thoughts. I don't understand the reason for these, they just came to me.
I reach with my fingers, my chest. I play there, remembering what is under my clothes at a specific point.
A horrible scar is lodged there. A scar that proves the accident in which I was involved eight whole years ago.
With the shopping bags in one hand, I take a sigh and try to calm these thoughts.
─I guess... I should go home... Akiha and the others must be waiting for me.
But just then, when I was about to turn to go back all the way home. I couldn't believe what my eyes were looking at.
In the midst of so many people, of the multitude of people of whom I was saying silly and insignificant things within my melancholy without cause or effect, for the smallest and smallest fraction of a second, I could only focus on a single person.
----Throb.
She is a woman who seems foreign. She has gold hair and a pair of glowing red pupils that contrast with her hair.
I feel my heart speed up to her.
She wears a set of clothes that perfectly matches her beautiful figure. A white sweater, a skirt and high black stockings. I lose all meaning of everything else when I see it.
She is beautiful.
----Throb.
I feel my vision blur for a moment. And all around me turns into a hellish stage, with lines dancing on everything and everyone.
Each person, each building, each existence without equivocal perception acquires lines and points.
Lines and dots fly around me, I feel my eyes burn. My veins kick in. My pulse keeps racing. Every drop of my blood boils with emotion. All at the same time, it's giving me a hard-to-understand signal.
What is this...?
----Throb.
I do not understand.
I've never felt like this...
And all... just because I know that the person walking there, that girl in the white sweater... just because I know that she is beautiful.
I lose all sense of reason.
My consciousness rises, and falls.
----Throb.
My breathing is beginning to be difficult. My throat stiffens. Sign that I am in pain.
That's how it is.
Pain runs through every inch of my being, but even that is not enough to bring me back to my senses.
Every second that passes.
Every damn second, it feels like my mind is being ripped apart from the inside. And all of my pain receptors are receiving that horrendous amount of pain at the same time.
----THROB.
─Ah... ah...! ─. I am not able to bear it and like an animal, incomprehensible words come out of my mouth.
I can not think.
I am unable to think.
It is at that very moment.
As small as it is...
In a single oversight... Shiki Tohno loses any ability to think with her head. Just because she is herself, she guides my instincts, carrying adrenaline and cortisol around my entire body while she asks me for just one thing.
A single word repeats itself in my head, like a broken record.
The one that I see. The one that that beauty. That pretty girl. So small. So fragile. So beautiful that she makes me go crazy.
I had made a decision.
Coldly.
Shiki Tohno decided...
─... gah... hah... hah... ─. Gasps and more gasps.
I feel like I'm sick.
I can't breathe.
Every single breath, no matter how small.
It hurt.
For some reason I seem to have forgotten how to breathe. Since it is difficult for me at the level of a newborn.
Only...
I have to follow her. Move my feet. Move along.
Pursue her. Catch her. And talk to her.
My previously frozen feet, which seemed glued to the street, begin to move again. I drop shopping, I don't need it where I go.
I was able to easily get rid of my inhibitions.
My breath is ragged, like that of a wild beast.
I move my whole body for one purpose.
Follow that girl.
─Hah... ugh... gah... hah...
The girl walks slowly.
I go step by step, following that silhouette with the greatest of care.
It feels so natural to me that I surprise myself.
She doesn't even know that I'm following her.
I have to follow her.
If he ran right now, he could catch up with her and ask for her name. I can do it. She is within my reach.
But...
Ha... ha... haha ...
----Ask for her name?
What the fuck am I saying? That is stupid and very implausible.
No one can hear my thoughts, so...
Who am I kidding?
From the moment I saw her, she knew it. Every inch of my body knows it and responds to my desire.
There is only one thing I want to do. And clearly, asking her name is not.
... I know, but at the same time I don't know.
It is contradictory how all this is unfolding today. But I don't think I'll be able to hold on for long.
─...
My throat gets hot and dry.
It is difficult to breathe.
I can not do it.
And that?
This is completely natural, it is biological. I just saw an excellent woman, so beautiful and incomparable to all those I know, it would be impossible not to get excited.
The memory of a certain red light comes to my head... but I am not able to focus on that right now.
Stop it? Ask for her name?
Hahaha! Don't make me laugh, Shiki Tohno!
That's nonsense coming from myself...
As I chase her step by step, I put my hands in my pockets. I feel there, a belonging that I have carried with me since last night.
I received it the night before from my father, he said he wanted me to keep it. It is a cold piece of metal that has been there since the night before. I only opened it yesterday to see if it worked and of course its functionality is perfect.
─... heh heh...
A laugh escapes my lips.
This is indeed timely.
All the tools to "execute" my wish are present----
He let her keep walking.
So I create some distance between us.
That way I can make her not notice, or that the people around us suspect my intentions.
I can't imagine the face I'm making right now. It sure is horrible.
We are perfect strangers. She is someone I have never seen in my entire life. But even so, I was drawn to it.
That is why I must do my best to make everything I am doing look as natural as possible.
Some time passed. And she walked into an apartment complex.
I stay outside, to inspect the territory. The girl in white, who still hasn't realized that I've been chasing her all this time, walks in there without the least of all worries.
In silence, I watch and memorize.
Take the elevator, where she stops on the sixth floor.
I look around and see the mailbox on the first floor of the building.
There are five mailboxes for the sixth floor...
A wide choice that splits everything into a 20% probability. But that doesn't seem to be a problem...
I touch one of them at random, and it was as if a chill sensation ran from my head to the tips of my toes.
I can smell it. Feel the fragrance of it.
In the course of time that I was following the girl, I was able to memorize her scent. I can not go wrong.
Her room is number three, located on the sixth floor.
I walk, noticing that the receptionist is not here, and get on the elevator. Once there, I hit the button with the number six.
I'm excited. Every tiny part of me recognizes it. I am about to fulfill my wish.
Holding my grip with all I have, the knife in my pocket as the elevator goes up.
She is very close. So close that I can feel it.
I just have to wait for this stupid elevator to get me to the sixth floor to do it. To---- her...
Shit. Just thinking about it makes me feel euphoric. My whole body feels like a sexual organ right now.
I get off the elevator.
I can see that the sixth floor hallway is completely empty.
Every time the conditions are improving.
I have to move----
Fast!
I arrive right in front of room number three.
Each of my magic circuits begins to emanate a tremendous amount of [Magic Energy] straight into my eyes. While my body responds to every impulse. As my breathing gets heavier The further I get away from my crimson yearning.
The [Mystic Eyes Killers] become useless. Lines and dots overlap even on top of the lenses themselves, which was, until now, the only place you were not supposed to be able to see them.
But...
I can't do everything perfectly if these lenses are in my way. The lines and dots repeatedly disappear, producing nausea that turns my stomach.
----You must promise me that, Shiki.
----Never. Never. For nothing in the world. If you love me... please, Shiki. Never cut or inconsiderately cross those lines or points you are looking at.
A long time ago.
My crimson longing told me those words.
But at this very moment, where I find myself breathing like the most intimidating of all the animals on this earth, I can't think of her voice or her face.
None of that comes to mind.
Carefully, I remove my glasses. Everything that was getting in the way of my current path.
By seeing more clearly and without interruptions the lines and points that seem to throb on their own...
I don't recognize myself.
What am I trying to do to a stranger.
I do not understand.
A little light of sanity illuminates my head...
What does Shiki Tohno want---- to do to that girl?
I do not know.
But.
Due to its small amount, that light is turned off and lost in the void of my vision.
I hit the bell.
─Yes----?
I can hear the voice behind the door. A beautiful voice like a bell.
The door opens a little.
In that short interval of time, all my muscles came together to work on this joint task.
Thus, I slip inside.
─Eh---
The girl's voice echoes in confusion.
She just barely said something.
No.
She tried to say something.
But before she could.
With deadly precision. I cut her to pieces even before she could make a sound.
The instant I made my way through the door, I mutter:
─Time Alter... Double... Accel.
My perception of time is greatly altered. To a higher degree than anything I have done before. As if every magic circuit in my body has expanded to the point of producing so much more sorcery.
The blood around me, dance in slow motion.
I can see the confusion in the girl increase with every millisecond, and before she knows it...
Traversing.
Cutting up.
Drilling.
Nailing.
Stabbing.
I trace the knife through the lines of it as many times as I can, as fast as the blade of my knife moves and the enchantment ends----
Me. Completely and unilaterally.
The "murderer".
Each of the cuts made on these same lines is divided into seventeen different pieces.
Through the neck, behind the head, from the right eye to the lips, right forearm, right arm, right ring finger, left elbow, left thumb, left middle finger, left breast, from the rib to the heart, from the stomach to abdomen in two places, left groin, left thigh, left leg, left toe, all of them and each of them.
It was too fast.
It only lasted a second.
As fleeting as the blink of an eye. An almost instantaneous movement.
In a complete instant... I "disassemble" it into seventeen chunks of meat.
─Huh...?
In my ears, I get to reach an incredibly silly voice.
Silly, and insignificant.
So stupid I doubt it came from my own throat.
Suddenly. I feel dizzy.
I see.
I observe.
I analyze.
Chunks of the girl... no, of what she once was a whole girl, lie in front of me. Under my feet.
Red blood stains every corner of the hardwood floor.
It is a suffocating metallic smell of blood.
I made the cuts using the [Mystic Eyes of Death Perception], so these are very clean, for that very reason is that her guts are not scattered anywhere.
As in some abstract painting by Picasso or Van Gogh, the blood is spread all over the floor.
That is so weird.
There is nothing in this room. Nothing apart from the chunks of the girl scattered around.
...
─... what...
In the middle of this sea of blood.
I regain my senses.
Seeing the sea of blood painted like a barbarism at my feet, I realize that it is not only on the floor.
It is in my hands. Even in the depth of my nails. It is also in my uniform. The blood splattered enough to reach my uniform.
But above all.
I didn't want to admit...
She... she is she, s-dead...
Those words coming out of my mouth are enough to send all my calm to hell.
The knife in my hands, above all else, is what contains the evidence of this brutality that I did with someone I did not know.
Of course she's dead.
It's obvious
Even I can't be wrong about that.
I drew on the lines of it. Cutting her body down to nothing recognizable. She, she... she wouldn't be human if she'd been able to survive something like that.
Nothing has been able to survive when I cut it using the lines, the same applies to Ryougi-san...
Because. There is no mistake in saying that I killed her.
─Why... what...?
To be honest. There was absolutely nothing that I had to ask.
The mate.
Using my own hands, I killed that girl.
I killed someone who did nothing to me, someone I didn't even know to this day.
But still, the insecurity continued...
─Did I... kill her...?
My hands were shaking.
She was not able to recognize myself.
I wasn't looking like Shiki Tohno right now.
But doubt may still prevail.
I may not have killed her.
There is no reason or valid motive for him to do such a thing. There absolutely isn't. I could not. I could never.
It has to be a mistake.
I don't make those mistakes.
But even if I deny it.
Blood spreads across the floor.
Slowly, that dark red ink slides down my feet.
─Ah-!
But it was too late.
The thick blood, the moment I lift my foot, forms a red thread between the pool of blood on the floor and my shoe.
All this...
That color.
That smell.
That appearance.
That sound.
The liquid I hate the most in the whole world, it keeps flowing.
And because?
----Because I cut it into pieces.
─It wasn't me...
Was not me.
This is a mistake.
I couldn't have done this, ever!
A mistake.
Only that can be.
It can't be anything but a mistake!
As I tremble with fear.
I search in my head for an excuse for all this... Shiki...
Shiki Tohno---!
Me...
This, this... this is... is... is... is...
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1. This is a bad dream.
[This choice will take you to Volume 3]
[Blocked for now]
2. This is definitely about it. A reality carved by my own hands.
[This choice will allow you to follow the course of Volume 1]
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