The next morning, the moment Shirou opened his eyes, he saw Fujino Asagami sitting on the sofa, studying his face.
"Ah, you're awake... Good morning, Shirou-kun."
"Good morning. It's already this late? I'll go make breakfast right now... You must be hungry."
"Please let me help too."
A firm light shone in Fujino's red eyes.
Shirou did not think much of it and accepted her request, so the two of them went to the kitchen.
As Shirou put on his apron, Fujino tilted her head and murmured, "Should I buy an apron too?"
That almost sounds like she's planning to stay here long-term, Shirou thought.
Last night, Shirou and Fujino had agreed that he would cure her analgesia and teach her how to control her Mystic Eyes.
However, it had already been late at the time, so Shirou decided to wait until the next day to deal with it.
In truth, Shirou was not especially confident either. He planned to find time during the day to call in an outside consultant (Touko Aozaki) for help, and discuss Shiki Ryougi's situation with her while he was at it.
"Fujino-san... aren't you going back to school during the day?"
"It's fine. We're on vacation right now... Shirou-kun, what color apron do you think would suit me?"
As far as Shirou knew, even during Golden Week, all students at Reien Girl's Academy were required to stay on campus... Was she really going to be okay?
Under the girl's expectant gaze, Shirou said, "An apron... How about purple?"
"All right, then I'll buy a purple one."
"That's just my personal opinion. Shouldn't it depend on what you like, Fujino-san?"
"No, Shirou-kun's opinion matters more." The girl clenched her small fist and said it with a determined expression.
"..."
Shirou stole a glance at the girl beside him, who was humming some unknown tune. Somehow, she seemed much brighter than yesterday...
Yesterday, she had given off such a gloomy impression... Was that just his imagination?
After finishing breakfast with Fujino, Shirou prepared to leave the office.
Fujino saw him all the way downstairs.
"Well then, I'll leave the place in your care."
"Hehe... This feels a little like a newlywed wife seeing her husband off to work."
A chill suddenly ran down Shirou's back. "...I-Is that so? By the way, Fujino-san, I may be back a little late today."
Fujino Asagami nodded obediently. "That's all right. I'll be waiting for you the whole time, Shirou-kun."
The girl smiled.
On her doll-like, tranquil face, her deep red pupils shimmered with an alluring light.
...
...
Today marked the seventh day since Shiki Ryougi awoke from her sleep.
Her body was recovering smoothly, and she was scheduled to be discharged tomorrow.
The thought that the bandages over her eyes would be removed tomorrow morning made Shiki Ryougi reach up and touch them.
Now, she understood. During those two years of sleep, she had been in constant, living contact with death, and her body had changed into one capable of seeing the concept of "death."
When the girl awoke from her coma, the first thing that entered her sight was not the nurse hurrying to her bedside, but a black line crossing the nurse's neck.
On human bodies, on walls, even in the air.
She could see ominous, flowing lines. Those blurred lines shifted unpredictably, yet they were always clearly present somewhere on each object, as if the compulsion of "death" might seep out of them at any moment and bind her.
Shiki Ryougi hallucinated. She saw the nurse speaking to her split apart from the horizontal line across her neck.
Then, the girl tried to crush her own eyes with her hands.
Whether it was fortune or misfortune, she had only just awakened and was terribly weak, so a doctor rushed in and stopped her before she could destroy her eyeballs.
No... thinking back on it now, it was clearly misfortune.
Shiki Ryougi gritted her teeth. "My eyes... are they about to recover?"
She did not want to witness that world again.
She could not endure it any longer. If this continued, she would definitely go insane.
Shiki Ryougi aimed her fingertips at her eyes.
If she had to face that kind of thing every waking moment, she would rather never see anything again.
Just as she was about to stab down.
"I ran into a girl on my way home yesterday."
A voice suddenly sounded, and Shiki Ryougi instinctively turned toward the door.
Although she could not see, she recognized the owner of that voice.
It was that suspicious young therapist, Shirou.
The red-haired boy walked over to Shiki Ryougi's bedside and sat down as usual.
"At the time, that girl was being harassed by a few thugs. Since she was an underclassman from the same school as someone I know, I stepped in and dealt with them."
"Are you here to brag about saving a damsel in distress?"
Shiki Ryougi clicked her tongue in displeasure, and Shirou answered with a smile.
"Not at all. That part isn't important. What matters is that I realized the girl I saved was a little special."
"She seems to have been born with a pair of unusual eyes... eyes capable of turning objects within her field of vision into flat surfaces."
"No matter what it is, to her eyes, it looks like something 'drawn on paper'..."
"And then, well, it feels as if she can simply pick up that sheet of paper and twist it into a ball."
Shirou took Shiki Ryougi's wrist and placed a cold metal object in her hand.
The girl frowned, and after touching it with her fingers, she realized it was a bent soup spoon.
After a brief silence, Shiki Ryougi asked, "And then? What happened to that girl?"
"When she was four, she lost that special vision... Her father removed her abnormal ability by feeding her painkillers over a long period of time... dulling her senses."
"And now, that girl can no longer feel pain at all."
"Hmph."
Shiki Ryougi snorted. "Isn't that a good thing?"
That girl... her experience is the complete opposite of mine, the girl thought.
She herself was an abnormality created by human hands, while that girl had been an abnormality taken away by human hands.
Shiki Ryougi felt a slight jealousy toward that girl.
It was only an inability to feel pain. At least she was still a normal person... wasn't she?
"No. If only such a convenient thing really existed."
Shirou said, "Even if your senses are dulled... no, even if you gouge out your eyes, what you can 'see' can still be 'seen.'"
"A so-called Curse is something that returns on its own no matter how hard you try to throw it away."
"That girl asked me to cure her analgesia... She said she'd truly had enough."
"She's fine with going back to being abnormal?" Shiki Ryougi asked in shock.
"'That is the real me.' That's what she said."
Shiki Ryougi was left speechless.
Shirou glanced at her, then began telling her what he had just heard over the phone.
"Shiki, in our world, those eyes of yours are called the 'Mystic Eyes of Death Perception.'
"As the name suggests, they're a phantom set of Mystic Eyes that can make an opponent's fate, their death, take concrete form through sight alone."
"They were even higher in rank than the Gorgon of Greek mythology. The last one to possess those eyes was Balor, the evil god of Celtic mythology."
Shirou added that explanation, but Shiki Ryougi did not seem to understand.
"Mystic Eyes usually refer to the result of spiritual surgery performed on one's own eyeballs, adding special effects to one's vision. But your eyes formed naturally."
"You already had that aptitude to begin with. That's why, after experiencing death, you obtained the 'Mystic Eyes of Death Perception.'"
"I asked your family about you. Apparently, even before this, you had the ability to see through to the core of things."
"...You talk like you understand everything." Shiki Ryougi clicked her tongue.
"So those eyes aren't some disaster that fell on you from nowhere. They're part of the fate you already carried."
After Shirou said that, Shiki Ryougi asked, "...You said that even if I lost my eyes, I'd still be able to 'see' those lines. In that case, there's no reason for me to destroy them."
"That's right. You can't live the life of a normal person."
Shirou stated it coldly. "Shiki, it's time you faced reality. Stop dreaming about an ordinary life."
"..."
Shiki Ryougi bit her lip in frustration.
"Think carefully about what you want to do."
Shirou rose from his chair. "Oh, right. My employer is very interested in your eyes... If you still want to gouge them out, you might as well sell them to her. She's willing to pay this much."
As he spoke, Shirou spread the fingers of his right hand in a "five."
"I can't see how many fingers you're holding up."
After Shirou left, Shiki Ryougi sat on the hospital bed, cursing under her breath.
But that was a lie. Even with her eyes covered in bandages, she could faintly make out the outline of the boy's fingers.
...Five hundred million dollars.
...
...
By evening, Shiki Ryougi was lying in bed, her thoughts in complete disorder.
SHIKI, her eyes... All those tangled thoughts kept her from sleeping.
Just then, the door to the hospital room opened, followed by the sound of slow footsteps.
A nurse? No... This feeling...
A pair of hands seized the girl by the throat.
Cold palms began to tighten, trying to snap her neck outright.
Only when a person truly faces death can they know what they really feel.
I don't want to die!
That thought filled Shiki Ryougi's mind.
Because death was so lonely and so worthless.
Death was so dark it made her skin crawl.
Death was more terrifying than anything else.
"I refuse."
Shiki Ryougi gathered every bit of strength she had and struggled against the attacker gripping her neck.
The attacker was not human.
Those cold, stiff fingers made her think of zombies from the movies.
In that case, ordinary methods definitely would not kill it.
She quickly came up with a plan.
She deliberately fled toward the window, opened it, tangled herself together with the corpse, and plunged from the window several floors above the ground.
In the instant they fell, Shiki Ryougi grabbed the corpse by the collarbone, threw it beneath her, and used it as a cushion.
As the corpse slammed heavily into the ground, the girl kicked off horizontally.
After rolling and taking an impact that left her limbs numb, Shiki Ryougi barely managed to land, avoiding death by falling.
The corpse was not dead either. She could hear its footsteps slowly moving toward her.
"Haa... Haa... Haa..."
They said the best way to deal with a shut-in was to stop feeding them.
The same logic applied now. Only when she truly faced death did Shiki Ryougi understand how foolish all her philosophical thoughts about life and death had been.
I want to live.
The girl tore the bandages from her face.
There was no trace of her earlier uncertainty on her poised, dignified face. With eyes blooming in iridescent color, she stared straight at the monster.
"No matter what, I want to live."
...
...
"Are you a cat?"
The boy's voice sounded from behind Shiki Ryougi.
"Shirou, why are you here?"
She turned her head. What the hell, he really was just a kid after all.
During their idle conversations over the past few days, Shiki Ryougi had more than once mistaken Shirou for an older man.
Now that she could see him, at least on the outside, he really did look like a middle school student.
Shirou said, "My employer told me to come keep an eye on you tonight. She said it should be about time for the critical moment."
"I see. As expected of a hospital, there are fresh corpses available."
"Since they can't invade as a spiritual body, those things switched to brute force instead."
"They attached stray thoughts to a corpse, intending to kill you and transform you into their new vessel."
Shiki Ryougi frowned. "In the end, this is all because of that weird stone of yours, isn't it?"
Shirou shrugged. "Take it up with Touko if you have complaints."
"Is that so... Never mind. Shirou, did you bring the scissors I asked for?"
"Ah, they still refused. Because of your record, the hospital staff won't allow you to have any blades."
"How useless. Then you figure something out."
"Hmm. I didn't bring scissors, but..."
Dazzling green light like lightning coiled around Shirou's right palm, illuminating the empty lot in the dead of night.
"..."
Shiki Ryougi's eyes widened.
This was the first time she had personally witnessed supernatural Mystery, magecraft.
"Catch!"
Shirou threw the projected dagger to Shiki Ryougi.
The moment the girl gripped the dagger, she flew toward the zombie like a gale.
She leapt into the air and drove her knee into the zombie's face. Then she used the momentum to climb higher, raising the dagger that flashed with a cold gleam.
"Remember to aim for the main body!" Shirou reminded her.
Shiki Ryougi's intuition was even better than he had expected.
"..."
The zombie, struggling desperately a moment before, stopped moving the instant the blade pierced it.
The descending dagger had not targeted the corpse itself. It had directly killed the spirit hidden inside.
"Beautifully done. You've got a talent for killing, Shiki."
Shiki Ryougi flicked the dagger with a flourish, then turned to look at the boy applauding beside her.
"Teach me how to use these eyes."
"Of course."
Shiki Ryougi gave him a speechless look.
"...You really are a hopelessly good person."
After saying that, she lost consciousness and collapsed toward the hard concrete ground.
Shirou rushed forward and caught her in his arms.
"Since I'm the one who brought you into this side of the world, of course I'm the one who has to take responsibility until the end..."
Shirou said this as he looked at Shiki Ryougi's peaceful sleeping face.
...
...
The girl sank once more into the depths of her consciousness.
In the past, the other "me," SHIKI, would have come out to greet her.
But he was gone now, vanished forever.
"..."
As expected... it was still hard to get used to being alone again.
But for some reason...
The endless loneliness that had filled her chest lately had, just for tonight, eased a little.
Thinking that, Shiki Ryougi rested against Shirou's back and fell deeply asleep.