I'm Shenji, what are you doing?

At night.

The surroundings were so dark that even the footsteps walking down the corridor could not be heard today.

In a night that was as calm as a lake standing in a deep mountain, Liang Xiang recalled his conversation with the woman who claimed to be a speech therapist.

No, to be precise, it’s just the last sentence.

"Why did Orihui die instead of Shiki?"

The person who answered this question is no longer here.

Ori is no longer here. Why did he disappear? What is the exchange for, and why should it disappear?

Unlike Shiki who dominates her body most of the time, Ori likes to dream and always falls asleep doing so. However, he liked to dream, but he gave up the act of dreaming and died on that rainy night.

The self that will never be seen again, the self that can never be seen from the beginning. The person named Zhi is his true self...

The consciousness of style is getting blurred.

I want to reach the conclusion that Zhi has reached, but I am just tracing back memories.

The door to the ward opened.

Dull, slow footsteps gradually approached.

Is it a nurse? No, it's past midnight.

If it's a visitor, that's——

At that moment, human hands wrapped around Shiki's neck. The cold palms gradually increased their strength as if they were trying to break the neck bones.

"ah."

The pressure on the neck made Shi gasp.

If you can't breathe, your throat will be strangled. If this continues, the stranglehold on your neck will break before you can't breathe anymore.

Shiki stared at each other with invisible eyes.

...not...human.

No, the shape is human. However, the human being who was pressing on her and holding her neck was probably no longer alive.

The dead man, driven by unknown power, attacks Shiki on the bed.

The force on the neck was endless. Although Shiki grabbed the opponent's hands to resist, the difference in strength was clear at a glance.

Wait, isn't this exactly what you want?

Shiki stopped struggling with difficulty breathing and his face turned red.

It's not bad to be killed like this, but there is no point in living. It's painful to have the feeling of not being alive but still exist, it's better to just disappear.

Strength increased.

In fact, not a few seconds passed, time seemed to become very slow, flowing slowly like rubber.

The deceased's neck was in a strangulation style, with no body temperature, and his wood-like fingers sank into his throat.

There is no mercy for this kind of murder, and there is no will from the beginning.

The skin on the neck was split. The blood shed is the most conclusive evidence that he is still alive.

Die...die like Zhi...throw away life.

Throw it away? This word brings back the consciousness of Shiki.

Suddenly a question arose.

After all, did he die happily?

Yes, he shouldn't think that.

Whatever the reason, was there really any consciousness in it?

Probably not, to seek death.

Because... death is obviously so lonely and worthless.

Death is obviously so dark and disgusting.

Death is obviously more frightening than anything else.

"sorry."

Instantly, Shiki's body was filled with vitality.

Grab the deceased's wrist with both hands and kick the victim in the abdomen with one foot from below.

"I feel disgusted just by the thought of falling to that place...!"

Kicking hard at the piece of flesh, the dead man's hands, covered in skin and blood, left his neck.

Shi climbed up from the bed.

The deceased immediately pounced on Shiki.

In the lightless ward, the living and the dead struggled together.

The body of the deceased was that of an adult man, two heads taller than Shiki. No matter how hard he tried, Shiki was still at a disadvantage.

Both hands were grabbed, and Shi kept retreating. In the narrow room, he quickly hit the wall.

The moment she hit the wall, Shi was prepared, and she consciously turned her back towards the window where she could escape.

This strategy was made at the very beginning of the battle.

The problem is - this is on the third floor, almost ten meters above the ground.

"Do not hesitate."

Saying this to himself, Shi let go of the hands that were holding the deceased.

The deceased stretched his hand towards her neck. Quicker than that, she opened the window with her free hand. Just like that, the two people entangled themselves and fell outside.

The moment it fell.

Shi grabbed the dead man's collarbone and threw it down. Now the deceased is facing the ground, with his body on top. Soon the ground was in sight.

The blindfolded Shiki jumped up without hesitation. Even though she couldn't see it, her intuition was still accurate.

The deceased's body was knocked down in the flower bed in front of the ward building, while Shi's body jumped out horizontally before landing and slid to the atrium a considerable distance away.

Amid the splashing dust, the girl in a hospital gown landed on all fours. Even though she landed with a skill she had never achieved before, Shiki's limbs were still paralyzed by the pressure of gravity.

The night was still so quiet, as if nothing happened.

Shi lay on the cold, hard ground, motionless, just feeling the pain coming from his throat.

"Ah...I'm still alive."

And...the deceased is not dead yet.

Since you don’t want to die, what you should do is clear – kill before you are killed.

Just thinking about it made the emptiness in my chest disappear. At the same time, all kinds of emotions gradually faded away.

"what the hell."

Mumbling alone, Shiki figured it out.

The answer is obviously that simple. I am really a fool for worrying about it for so long.

At this moment, another familiar voice came from behind Shiki.

"Scare me, are you a cat?"

Shiki didn't look back, desperately enduring the impact of landing.

"It's you, why are you here?"

Regarding Shiki's question, the life consultant who calls himself a magician answered in a bored tone.

"Because I have to monitor you, I think something is about to happen, so let's try my luck - Hey, there is no time to rest. After all, it is a hospital, but we can still find useful corpses. Those guys can only rely on the spirit Only when the body enters something tangible can the power be exerted, so I plan to use the corpse to kill you and then possess you."

"Whether that one or this one, you have to arrange the chess pieces."

Shiki said while still lying prone on the ground. There, the previous confusion was as traceless as dust.

"Oh, you already know. Well, this is indeed my mistake. Although I made a barrier to prevent the spirit body from entering, it borrowed a body in order to bypass the barrier. Generally speaking, those guys should There is no such wisdom.”

Orange laughed happily.

"Then you should think of a solution quickly."

"clear."

With a snap, Orange snapped his fingers, and the flames of the cigarette carved words in the air.

The words overlap with the body of the deceased like a projector.

The distant place formed by a straight line alone, the magic seal in the distant world, the circuit calling for the seal was activated, and suddenly - the body of the deceased who fell on the ground started to burn.

"It seems that the power of pure Fluen is not enough." Cheng Zi said to himself.

The deceased, surrounded by flames, slowly stood up. For some reason, even though its legs were broken, it was still able to walk. It seemed to be able to control its legs with just its muscles, and it staggered towards Shiki.

The flames disappeared after a while.

"Hey...you liar."

"Don't get excited. It's difficult to completely destroy a human body. For living people, burning the heart can solve the problem. But it doesn't work for the dead, because they are already dead, so it doesn't matter whether they lose their hands or their heads. As for the pistol It's impossible to wipe out human beings with this level of violence, you know? If you want to stop it, you can only prepare firepower on the scale of a crematorium, or call in an exorcism expert... Really, why hasn't that guy come yet? It's so easy for him to destroy something like this."

"Anyway, you just can't do it."

Cheng Zi's speech seemed to have been greatly traumatized.

"You can't do it either. Because the deceased is already dead, I can't kill him. Unfortunately, although I can kill people with the weapons I have on hand, I can't make people disappear. It's better to take the best approach here."

Orange stepped back, but Shiki didn't move.

It wasn't because I broke my foot after falling from the third floor.

She just smiled mockingly.

"No matter if it's dead or not, since you can move the body, it means it's still 'alive'. As long as it's alive -"

He stood up from his prone position, the posture of a carnivore bending his back to attack his prey.

She touched her throat.

The blood was flowing, the skin was cracked, and the traces of being strangled still remained.

But still alive.

That kind of feeling makes people feel trance-like.

"——No matter what it is, I will kill it for you!"

Gently, he untied the bandage covering his eyes. In the darkness, the evil eye of death is there.

Slender feet touched the ground.

In response to the running style, the deceased stretched out his arms.

Like a piece of paper, Shiki tore the deceased apart with one hand.

With a slash from the right shoulder, her hand came out from the left waist, and the finger bones were twisted into several pieces, but in exchange, she suffered dozens of times the damage of the deceased.

The deceased fell to the ground as if the thread of control had been cut off. Even so, only his left wrist seemed to be wrapped with silk thread, and the deceased who fell to the ground grabbed Shiki's ankle.

That wrist was crushed by Shiki without hesitation.

"It's just a collection of 'death', get away from me."

Shi sneered.

alive. Before, I just deceived my heart. Only now can I feel the real feeling of being alive very clearly.

"Mode!"

Orange called the girl's name and threw something at her.

It was a short sword that was entirely silver and had no decoration.

Shi pulled out the short knife stuck on the ground and looked down at the dead man who was unable to move like a mantis.

Just like that, she stabbed the deceased in the throat with a short knife.

The deceased trembled for a moment and then stopped moving.

but--

"Idiot, if you want to kill me, stab the main body!"

Even faster than Orange's rebuke, a change occurred.

The moment Shiki stabbed the corpse, a piece of mist flew out from the corpse. The mist desperately disappeared into Shiki's body like it was escaping.

"..." Shi fell to his knees on the ground.

Previously unable to possess Shiki due to her consciousness, they invaded her body while she was forgetting herself due to the sense of exaltation she gained from killing someone.

"You're not thorough enough, you idiot."

Orange ran over.

However, Shiki's body made a gesture.

That meant don't get close, so Orange stopped.

Shiki's body held the short sword with both hands and pointed the tip of the sword towards his chest. With a strong will, he regained his empty eyes.

His teeth bit his lip firmly.

The tip of the knife touched his chest.

Her will and body are so oppressive that the undead have nowhere to go.

"There's no way to escape this way."

Not to anyone, just to myself.

Shiki looked directly at the foreign object moving inside him, and it was Shiki's body that was penetrated. However, it was just killing debris that shouldn't exist, and Shiki was sure that it would never hurt himself.

So she poured strength into her hands.

"I want to kill the cowardly me. I will never hand over the two rituals to you."

The short knife slid into her chest.