Who?
Shiki Ryougi was once a relatively healthy individual with a sort of genetic-curse dissociative identity disorder. Like quite a few other members of her family, she had two personalities - a feminine one (Shiki) and a masculine one (SHIKI). Unlike most of her family, she didn't go insane or commit suicide. Two years after a traffic accident sent her in a coma, she woke up and found that her masculine personality had disappeared - dead. In place of her personality she received a strong disassociation with her past memories as well as the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. She likes wearing kimonos and also is a little more than fond of murder (and has a natural desire to kill). She wields a 7-inch long knife (Overlooking the Scenary, Panorama 2, Page 26) but is actually more skilled with the Katana.
Mind
Shiki is broken, and not just in the power sense. Mentally she lost memories, her connection to those memories, and a personality. Her unique situation of growing up with a potentially insanity-inducing second personality and an innate desire to murder have hardened her uniquely.
- Finds meaning in life through murder
“I went out to kill.”
Unable to form any sort of appropriate response to her, I only nod my head to acknowledge what she said. She seems to take it as a sign to continue.
“Useless. I couldn’t find anyone I wanted to kill. When I opened the door and you were there, I thought that you could satisfy me for a time, but you couldn’t. Killing you would’ve been meaningless.”
“I honest to God thought you were going to kill me right then and there,” I reply hesitantly but truthfully.
“I want to feel like I’m alive. But I know a simple murder has no meaning. It’s why I drift aimlessly at the late hours, trying to find a reason to live. It’s almost like being a ghost. One day…I just know I’m going to kill someone for no reason.”
- Volume 2, Paradox Spiral, Page 72
- Understands the motivations of a homicide with the only the crime scene report
“Well, about that incident last night—“ Tōko starts saying.
“I don’t need to hear any more on that. I get it, for the most part.”
“That so? Crime scene description only, and you can already read this girl? Sharp one, aren’t we?” Tōko looks at Shiki with eyes laden with meaning. Tōko has only described the details of the crime scene to Shiki, and yet Shiki understands that the girl’s story is writ large all over that vivid scene: proof, if anything, of her natural intuition when it comes to these matters. Tōko knew she’d understand; they come from the same dirty side of the world, after all.
- Volume 1, Remaining Sense of Pain, Page 102
- Identifies deception of killing intent
“Are…you okay? You look kind of—“, I involuntarily say. She answers only by looking in my direction. The way her eyes pass over me feels as if she’s looking at something beyond me, like I was just an insect on the ground to be ignored. My gut tells me she’s dangerous, and my mind itches again. My reasoning tells me that there’s no way a girl like her could do anything like what happened to the victims in that underground bar, and the itch recedes.
- Volume 1, Remaining Sense of Pain, Page 110My attention drifts back to the girl Azaka was with at Ahnenerbe. I’m still mostly groping in the dark with the brand-new capabilities of my Eyes, so I ended up accidentally seeing her lines— the traces of death that ran over all things—when I looked straight at her. That was careless, even for me. She looked normal enough, very much like your average stuck up rich kid. But she was hiding blood in her past; of that much I’m sure. Her eyes told her story well enough: hers was a liminal existence, tied by one fragile string to one side of her life, and being pulled like a metal to a magnet to the other, as if she belongs there. I mean, fuck, of all people, I should know the feeling.
We read each other like two predators back there, and my gut tells me she’s the one, but I can’t entirely be sure. I don’t see, or at least I don’t yet see, a reason for her being someone who enjoys murder as much as I do. But then, since when did killers in this town start needing a reason to enjoy killing?
- Volume 1, Remaining Sense of Pain, Page 117
- Calls out a person's change in thinking
“You’re the one that said you thought I was going to kill you.” Her voice is a cold sing-song tune that latches itself onto the nape of my neck, tracing a chokingly smooth line around it, and for a moment, I am forced to wonder if the person lying behind me is truly human. “See? You’re thinking it again..."
- Volume 2, Paradox Spiral, Page 73
- Within moments of receiving a telekinetic attack, understands the nature of the attack and retreats to advantageous terrain
In that brief clash on the bridge, Shiki had already read Fujino’s spell, and withdrew to a place where she could have a fighting chance.
- Volume 1, Remaining Sense of Pain, Page 147
- After Souren manages to evade an attack from her, she is now able to read how he is going to dodge
The girl in the white kimono reveals a smile, the first truly gentle smile she has performed; a smile that signals the end. Returning to her original hard posture, she runs toward Alaya like a loosed arrow. He knows that Shiki can read him now, knows what to expect, and so he won’t be able to dodge this next strike.
- Volume 2, Paradox Spiral, Page 219
You can fly. When the woman points her finger at me, I hear a voice intruding in my consciousness; perhaps hers, were she able to speak. It buries itself inside, digging in, and telling me I can fly. The mental assault makes me lose balance for a moment, but with only one step I regain composure. Overhead, the woman hesitates. Now I see.
You must fly. She tries again, this time stronger, more assertive. It is met with similar resistance. And then, finally, finally, my Eyes look at her.
- Volume 1, Overlooking the Scenary, Page 27
- Gradually increases resistance to it to the point of being completely unaffected
I can fly. I can fly. I loved the sky since I was a child. I flew yesterday too. I can fly higher today. Freely. Peacefully. Smiling. I have to go quickly. To where? To the sky? To freedom? Let’s escape from reality! Yearn for the sky! Fight gravity. Be restless enough not to stay in one place. Fly unconsciously.
Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go.
GO!
“You gotta be fucking kidding, right?”
I raise my free left hand. The mental suggestion doesn’t work. I don’t even lose my balance anymore.
- Volume 1, Overlooking the Scenary, Panorama 2, Page 27
The woman’s expression changes. She tries her last, vain hope of controlling me, trying her best to put as much power into her suggestion.
FALL!
And again, I disregard it completely. With all the firmness in my voice I can muster, I answer her back.
“You fall.” - Volume 1, Overlooking the Scenery, Page 28
- Uses stealth and terrain to her advantage
It only takes her a leap and a moment’s sprint to recede back into the shadows that concealed her well only seconds ago. A good opponent: she knows when to retreat.
- Volume 1, Remaining Sense of Pain, Page 147
- Her instincts, while not precognition, allow her to make a prediction of the future
“The hell? If you can know even without a reason, then that’s not seeing the future. Isn’t that just instinct?”
Even I can do that, said Employee’s Friend A, and Aozaki Touko smiled bitterly at her.
“Don’t group others with the likes of you, Shiki. What you have is a sixth sense that can reel in the future just by hearing and imagining, whereas precognition has both foundation and proof.
- Future Gospel\2
Eyes
I was in a traffic accident two years ago, and because of that I spent those last two years in a coma. After waking from that coma, I began to…see things that weren’t there before. Tōko would say that what I’m doing isn’t so much “sight” as it is “perception.” In other words, it seems my senses have “awakened” to a higher level of perception, but it’s all technical magical gobbledygook that I couldn’t care less to understand.
- Volume 1, Overlooking the Scenery, Chapter 2, Page 8
- She's also able to perceive normally invisible stuff without form:
Passing by it some days ago, I happened to see a spectral figure in that looked quite human. If Azaka saw it too, then it must mean it’s real.
My second sight, the ability to see these types of events, has its roots (as much as one can point out a definitive origin to this weirdness, at least) in one event, a point in time that feels simultaneously distant and recent.
- Volume 1, Overlooking the Scenery, Page 8
- She sees "lines of death"
And then, finally, finally, my Eyes look at her. And there they are. One on each leg, one on her back, a little one in her left chest. I can see the lines, separating her body into little sections. The one in her chest is likely the best target. Hitting that’d mean instant death. This woman could be some sort of image, some delusion, or a ghost. But in the end it doesn’t matter. Because with my Eyes, even gods can die.
- Volume 1, Overlooking the Scenery, Page 27
- Shiki Ryougi at the beginning expresses a desire to get rid of them
In the dark, I brush the bandages wrapped around my eyes lightly with a finger. It won’t be long now until my eyesight recovers. There remains one thing to do before that happens, however: to destroy my eyes; this time, with no room for error.
Without sight, I cannot see them, but it’s only a matter of time before they are revealed again. If having sight means to keep seeing those…things that must not be seen, then the choice is obvious. It’s much, much more preferable to never see the world than to ever see those things again. Still, maybe there is some other way. It’s the last resort until I can find some other means to live.
- But even if her eyes were destroyed, she would still see the end of existence
“Arcane Eyes of Death Perception, huh? Destroying that’d be a huge waste, Shiki. In the first place, even if you destroy it, reality will still make you see what you were meant to see. Curses come home to roost too.”
- Volume 2, The Hollow Shrine, Page 29
- Later on, even while blind, she still can see the lines of death
The mental block he induced in my mind still presses down on me, and makes it difficult to focus the spell of my Eyes. I try to bring it to bear. If I can’t see him, then maybe I can see his lines of death.
“But you cannot win against me.” The voice enters my mind unbidden. But it’s useless. I’ve seen the lines of death, right in front of me.
“Found you, bastard,” I spit out. I close as fast as I can, before the advantage is lost, not planning on letting him get away.
- Volume 3, Oblivion Recorder, Page 91
A related protagonist in the same narrative universe (also named Shiki) with a less powerful version uses special glasses to block out seeing the end of existence. The human mind was not meant to see such things, and it will wear him down until the mental stress causes his brain to burst.
Unlike him or her first experience with it, she grows used to it and is able to use them without apparent strain or damage.
Sees... something else on Souren Araya.
Though Shiki hides it quite well, she is in fact quite worried when she realizes that her Arcane Eyes of Death Perception finds a line on everything…except the man; no trace of the lines of death, the mark of entropic finality that everything and everyone carried, and she could will into vision any time she wished.
Shiki focuses on the man, just as Tōko taught her, trying to envision the lines harder than she’d ever willed before. Though her mind strains and groans at the force of will, for a moment she finally sees…something else. Square in the man’s chest is a mark, a line swirling outwards like a child’s drawing to form what seems like a hollow, empty hole.
- Volume 2, Paradox Spiral, Page 133
Nature of Lines
“There’s a flaw for everything in the world,” says Shiki. “Air, intent, and even time. Humans need not even be said. If there’s a beginning for everything, then there’s also an end. My Eyes see that end, the death of everything. And once I see that death, all anything needs is a single, light push, that sends it barreling off into entropy. Magic, just like yours.” With those sinister Eyes, Shiki glares at Fujino. “That’s why, if there really was a God, he would fall just as easily against me.”
- Volume 1, Remaining Sense of Pain, Page 150
- Wounds do not regenerate:
“This? Shiki Ryōgi again, if you haven’t already guessed. I expected it to start healing in short order, but so far that hasn’t happened. I suppose it’s the nature of her spell of death. A wound will heal, but this arm is now truly ‘dead.’ Alaya did say to me that life in its true and pure form was the domain of sorcery beyond him.”
-Volume 3, Murder Speculation (Part 2), Page 169
- Stabs have absolutely no physical resistance
With the impact of steel lightning on my chest, I awaken. It was a staggering attack, one that proved how strong my opponent was, if one can drive through a person’s chest that easily. But it wasn’t a strike born out of anger, or desperation. A singular thrust delivered with no wasted energy, one that would slide easily in between bone and sinew.
- Volume 1, Overlooking the Scenary, Page 29
- If the target has an exceptionally large weight of existence (lived a long time) then it takes longer for non-existence to erase them.
—Her enemy isn’t dead yet.
“Fuck! Why—” she shouts, though only finishes in her thoughts. Why? Why aren’t you dead? The mage maintains his characteristic dour face, with the notable exception of his eyes, gleaming with satisfaction. If eyes could smile, his are certainly doing so.
“I have lived for two hundred years on this Earth, and not even the Arcane Eyes of Death Perception will lay that span low so instantly. Entropy already acts on me, faster than you might know, but if that is the price that must be paid to capture you, then it will be so.”
- Volume 2, Paradox Spiral, Page 140
Other properties
- Killing Kirie Fujou's ghostly double existence will eventually kill Kirie as well.
“You’re a strange one, aren’t you? If my heart had really been cut, then we wouldn’t be able to talk like this, would we?”
“Quite right. I was only confirming.” I see. She was a friend of the person who stabbed me after all, perhaps trying to tie up loose ends on the battle that took place in the rooftop. “But it won’t be long until it affects you as well. Shiki’s Eyes are potent, perhaps even beyond what that child knows. The sympathetic connection between your double existences means that the spell will reach you in time. There are a few inquiries I need to make, which is why I’m here.” She means the “other” me when she mentions the double existence, I’d imagine.
- Volume 1, Overlooking the Scenery, Page 30
- If it had been her direct consciousness, she would have completely died
“I see,” she replies after I compose myself. “You projected your consciousness in the sky. But if that was your consciousness, then you should truly be dead, since Shiki killed your ‘ghost’ consciousness.”
[...]
“Answer me. Was that truly you in the Fujō Tower?” she asks with a tone of curiosity laced with the forcefulness that has never left her voice since she came inside the room.
“It…wasn’t. I only stare at the sky, while she exists in it. That other me turned its back on me. Self abandons self.”
- Overlooking the Scenery, Page 32
- While having her skull crushed, she finally is able to force herself to see lines of death on Souren Araya.. This is despite Souren's sacred Budhist Sarira from a guy who was in a weird state in-between live and death (or something).
“I will not die,” he continues, “for I have awakened to my origin of quiescence. It rules me. How would you kill what is already at rest?” Shiki’s eyes dart around frantically, making use of the minute field of vision still afforded her by trying to find anything…just one of the lines of death on his body, however faint. Desperately trying to will away both the cold fear moving within her, as well as the pain of the continuous pressure applied to her face, she searches for an opening. But before that happens, the mage comes to a conclusion. “I would take your body. But perhaps I do not need the head.” Suddenly, Alaya channels a decisive, crushing force through his hand. Shiki can hear the groan of her skull and jaw starting to break. Her eyes widen as she looks and looks. There! Faint, but it is there in his right arm. Acting fast, Shiki pours all of her remaining strength to cutting that line, and it works. The arm is cut.
- Volume 2, Paradox Spiral, Page 139
- Souren believes that with enough time, she'll be able to even see the lines on his left hand (which contain the Sarira).
“It is possible I underestimated those Eyes. The scene you made in the hospital should have given me all the information I needed. Entropy. Whether something is alive or dead makes no difference if those Eyes and the lines act on entropy. Even for someone of my origin, something still binds me to back to the spiral. And I wonder…how long until you even see the lines on my left hand, and it becomes vulnerable?” Seemingly paying no mind to his severed arm, he continues. “Those Eyes are wasted and a liability on you. You will be restrained before I can destroy them.”
- Volume 2, Paradox Spiral, Page 139
Notable Things she has Stabbed and/or Sliced
- Stabs a ghost girl with exquisite style (This is just as weird as it sounds, because she is completely intangible)
As she comes toward me, I plunge the knife deep into her chest, as naturally as I do stabbing a fruit, and so exquisitely performed that it gives even the victim pause for admiration. The knife runs from front to back, clean through her.
She doesn’t bleed. Unable to move from the shock of being stabbed straight through, she convulses just once. With only a nudge and a slight movement of my right arm, I fling away the useless “corpse”, and the incorporeal body slips through the fence without a sound into the shining city below. Her hair still lies motionless, and her dress embraces the darkness, a white flower sinking to the bottom of the ocean.
And with that, I depart from the roof, the ghosts still floating in the air behind me.
- Volume 1, Overlooking the Scenery, Page 28In truth, I’ve actually been thinking that as well. This woman keeps saying the name Shiki, who I assume to be my assailant. How was that person able to stab me? The me floating in the Fujō Tower can’t touch anything, but also cannot be affected in turn. Yet this Shiki slashed me as if that was my real body.
- Volume 1, Overlooking the Scenery, Page 32
- Able to see invisible, formless, telekinetic attacks after witnessing it a few times
“Things without form are difficult to see,” Shiki begins to say. “But thanks to you firing that spell all over the place too much, I can finally see it. Your spell’s nimbus is a spiral of green and red. Really quite beautiful, if I do say so myself.”
“You’re insane to come out of hiding like that,” Fujino says. She wastes no time, immediately focusing her will on working the spell. Her vision begins to distort. She wills one axis of rotation each for Shiki’s head and legs, and bends. Like cheap cloth, Shiki’s body is torn apart into so many bits and pieces.
Or at least, it was supposed to be.
Before any such damage could be dealt, Shiki raises her right arm, and with a single slash, excises Fujino’s “distortion.” The points of rotation Fujino had created are warded away by the knife, dying as easily as any living being.
- Volume 1, Remaining Sense of Pain, Page 150
Bend! Bend! Bend! Bend!
With each repetition, a new manifestation of the spell appears in the air in front of Shiki, but she dispels it each time with a swing of her knife, and each time the pain in Fujino’s stomach is pushed further and further to its limit.
- Volume 1, Remaining Sense of Pain, Page 150
- Sees and kills disease in a body
So I said to myself, ‘what the hell, why don’t I just kill her disease while I’m here’. So I saw the lines on her disease, cut ‘em, and here we are. If you hurry and get a hospital on the line, she still might make it.”
- Volume 1, Remaining Sense of Pain, Page 160
- Sees the death of the air
Death: Maybe it’s a time and a place. But it’s also a concept, formless and shapeless. I lived through it, and now I can literally see it. When I opened my eyes for the first time in two years, the first thing I took notice of wasn’t the nurse who rushed to my side in astonishment. It was a line, running across her throat. It only took a moment for me to see the rest: a line in every person, in every wall, even in the air itself, all of them across everything I could see. They were never still, always flowing and slithering in accursed serenity.
- Volume 2, The Hollowed Shrine, Page 28
- Sees lines on an undead corpse, and cuts it with her finger
She sees everything now. She sees the corpse and how it raises a hand to strike her as she approaches. Shiki is only barely able to duck under it. Most especially now, she sees the lines, no longer as threatening as before, but inviting, throbbing and pulsating to an invisible rhythm. She sees the lines on the corpse, and with one hand traces one of their number, stretching from right shoulder to left hip. Though her hand seems to slip easily into the line, the attack costs her a broken finger, a minor inconvenience compared to the injury dealt to Shiki’s enemy, who is now cut in half.
Like a puppet being cut from its strings, the thing collapses in a heap, its one arm the only part of it still able to move, grasping Shiki’s leg like a writhing insect. Without mercy, Shiki quickly stomps on it with her foot.
- Sees and kills the spirits trying to possess her without doing any damage to herself
At once, it beats a hasty retreat…not away, but into Shiki’s body. She falls to her knees as if in a trance. In the moment that Shiki lost herself to the ecstasy of murder, it is then that they make their move to possess her, when the sense of self is weakened.
...
“Now there’s nowhere for you to run,” she speaks to no one but herself. Shiki directs the spellbound sight of her Arcane Eyes inward to see the death of the spectral thing that plagued her, willing and weaving her magic to kill it and only it. Believing only that she won’t be injured from what she was about to do, she gathers her strength.
“I’ll kill the weak part of me. And you will never have Shiki Ryōgi ever again.”
She presses the knife downwards, the blade sliding smoothly through flesh.
The few seconds that pass before she moves again carry the air of a ritual, and when she does move, she withdraws the knife from her chest. No blood runs from her breast, nor are there any traces of it on the blade. But she feels the phantom pain of that knife all the same. She takes a swing at the air, violently, as if to remove the invisible taint of the spirits on the blade, and then speaks to the mage.
- Volume 2, The Hollow Shrine, Page 36
- What are Wards/Bounded Fields?
“Wards are nifty little spells centering around controlling a slice of space. Some mages like to conjure up actual physical walls, but others are a bit more subtle, veiling a place to induce a mental urging on anyone that doesn’t know or have business with the mage to go away. Best part? People never notice it. To them, it’s just some gut feeling that they should stay away. The perfect spell to hide the fact that this place is the sanctum of the best mage this side of Tokyo,” she said with a flutter of her hand, the boy reading no irony into what she said.
- Volume 2, The Hollowed Shrine, Page 23
At that, Shiki takes her knife and plunges the knife downwards to the ground, striking fugu, the outermost circle of Alaya’s quickly approaching protective wards, whereupon it fades and disappears, “killed” by Shiki. “A foolish observation,” the mage says in rebuke, but even so, he quickens his steps. But this time, having reduced Alaya’s barriers to two, Shiki is ready. And the mage hadn’t considered that totality to which Shiki’s Arcane Eyes can apply. To think that it could even kill something formless and lifeless like a ward formed by the Art is something beyond even his most pessimistic predictions.
- Volume 2, Paradox Spiral, Page 139
- Kills a pocket dimension to free herself
“Yes. True. Perfect weaving, for any mage’s spell. But think back, Alaya. What if your assumption itself was wrong? You isolated Shiki not in a room in this building, but within the building itself, didn’t you? A spell bordering on sorcery that cuts her off from regular space, trapping her in a lemniscate space, rendering anyone incapable of escaping. A prison that won’t break no matter which weapon one uses. It’s a finely woven pattern for one versed in the arcanum of the wards such as you. You think you have trapped her, and your guard slackens. But you see, Alaya, it is no proof against her. We mages might be an abhorrence of reality, a paradox on the pattern of the world, but Shiki is a reaper for beings as uncommon as us. Even now, she works against you!”
...
Without form, Alaya thought the space would keep her safe from anything that would extract her physically. But the Arcane Eyes that Shiki Ryōgi holds grants her power over that formlessness as well. And so, Alaya realizes too late.
“Now is your blunder obvious, Alaya? It might actually have been better for you to trap Shiki in a concrete cell. Matter with form takes its toll harder on her when she weaves entropy, and is the reason she uses a weapon. Though I doubt even a material prison would have kept her for long. But your flimsy cage is not so solid. You treated her as you would a mage, but now your oversight is costing you, as she now tears it apart tooth and nail slowly but with the ease of shredding meat. And soon, you will be witness to her escape!”
...
It has been severed, he thinks in protestation, unbelieving. But he is now face to face with the truth of the matter. For he senses the place, somewhere in this building, where something has just torn its way free. It is the closed space he’d constructed, now destroyed in a single unwavering stroke.
- Volume 2, Paradox Spiral, Page 212
- Sees and kills the pre-determined future, this also kills the ability for the guy to see the future (as well as his eye).
Within an instant.
He pressed the button on the remote control.
At nearly the same time. As though cleaving the air, Ryougi Shiki’s knife flashed.One second later.
Ryougi Shiki, her body taking the full force of the 2mm corundum shrapnel, yet still retaining her human form, was, at her wit’s end, instantly killed.
One second later.
Kuramitsu Merca’s sight of the future, as though his eye was directly bisected in a diagonal line, was split in two and extinguished.
“Ah – ?!”
He held down on his right eye in agony.
Ryougi Shiki continued at her own pace without a hurry, walking towards the large wagon.
“Wha, w-why – ?!”
A sudden blackout. Unreasonably intense pain. A mysterious phenomenon. Bewildered, the bomber clicked the switch on his remote control again and again as though his life depended on it.
But the explosives did not respond. Was there a problem with the signal? A mismatch? Or did the remote malfunction? No, that was all impossible. He weighed together reality to make sure those things did not occur. Not a single thing changed in the future prepared by the bomber. However – ignoring all of this, the gunpowder coincidentally refused to detonate.
- Future Gospel4/4
- Explanation: Predictions of the future that can be changed (either through people trying to change the future or by sheer random unforseen luck) cannot be killed that way. Predictions of the future that are 100% guaranteed to occur and cannot be changed can be killed.
Combat
- Describing her fighting style
“How about you, Ryōgi? You must have studied aikidō or something.” “Just a passing interest in aikidō, actually. I’ve only been really serious with one style that I’ve been into ever since I was a spoiled brat.”
“Since you were a kid? No wonder you could plant a roundhouse in the back of a running guy’s head. I’m guessing that’s not all there is to your style, though.” Though I only intended it to be a casual statement, Ryōgi takes my last sentence to think on seriously.
“Kind of. It’s sort of a style of my own. The key to it is the mindset. You rethink everything about yourself. Your breathing, your footwork, your perspective, how you think—even the way you move your muscles changes, and it’s almost like becoming someone else. All of it is honed towards taking down your enemy as economically as possible. I mean, I suppose all martial arts touch on it to some extent, but I guess we…I mean, I took it too far.”
- Volume 2, Paradox Spiral, Page 70
- Even when she misses her slash due to sudden blindness, she still severs Satsuki Kurogiri's arm
The next thing I know, I see neither hide nor hair of Satsuki Kurogiri, and my knife swings only at empty air.
“What the—” I swing my head around, left then right then behind me. The chapel is empty save for me, and my senses, mundane or otherwise, fail to find my target.
He was right in front of me. But now he’s gone. But unbidden there comes a voice.
“Close. Very close. I do so hate people who interrupt other people before they’re done talking. That attack claimed an arm from me. Ah, it is no wonder now how Alaya was defeated. You are truly an excellent killer.”
- Volume 3, Oblivion Recorder, Page 91
Bursts very quickly to kill through some ghosts
Does a backflipping, spinning attack
Throws her knife very quickly to hit a point of death and kill a ghost
Moving from ghost to ghost, killing each one
Jumping very high into the air and stabbing a ghost-girl
Gracefully kills four enemies without stopping
But that’s Ryōgi’s cue to meet his steps and dispatch him easily with one stab of the knife. A second later, another one—wait, no, three—no, four people pile inside the room, clearly with the same intent, but Ryōgi wastes no time. Moving towards them, she slashes and stabs with a dancer’s grace, reminding me of the spectacle on the night we first met, now made deadlier with the knife in her hand. In a few moments, it is over, and the entrance to the living room is soon covered with four corpses. She grabs my hand and urges me to go.
- Volume 2, Paradox Spiral, Page 131
Watching her from here, I can finally come to grips with how overwhelmingly skilled she is. The movements of her enemies aren’t dulled or delayed, but violent and human-like when they press their assault.
But it isn’t enough to deal with Ryōgi, who dives and spins through the press of people, her movements almost too fast to follow. Each slash, each stab, each swing of the knife that cuts through bone, muscle, and sinew makes her look less like a girl, and more a force of nature, a white-clad reaper mowing down a path back to the central lobby.
- Volume 2, Paradox Spiral, Page 132
Frees herself from being grappled and takes out more enemies
Dodges a thrown Fire Extinguisher and what appears to be a refrigerator
Parrying attacks from a golf club with her knife
Context: Lio is absurdly quick, acrobatic, and has good reflexes. I mean jeez, look at this guy
Parries knife attacks from an enemy moving too fast to reliably track
And even to Shiki’s trained eyes, the man moved much too fast for Shiki to reliably track.
And as soon as the distance between them was nearing a close, his pattern of movement changed. With a potent force, his legs folded and he jumped, all of it happening so fast that it seemed like an explosion of strength. And suddenly he was in the air, knife held pointed, then thrust with frightening accuracy at Shiki’s head.
A tiny glint in the darkness, and a moment later, the keening sound of steel upon steel. Another instant with a grating noise, as the murderer’s blade makes contact with Shiki’s own cross-guard. And in that instant, as both knives embraced each other like brothers, both combatant’s glances fell to each other’s eyes. Shiki, with narrowed eyes of hostility, and the murderer’s, with widened eyes replete with joy, and then the moment was quickly over.
- Volume 3, Murder Speculation (Part 2), Page 160
Blocks an attack from him launching at high speeds
Gets her knife to Lio's throat
While he was distracted, she cuts his arm off faster than he can react.
“Tell me—,” Shiki said menacingly. Her Eyes glow unlike before, blue and rich with the power of magic. She rushed toward the man, her movement so fast, and the man so distracted by his own revelry, that he never saw her. “—who’s going to kill who, now?”
My enemy is coming, reckless and complacent in victory. It will be an easy thing to kill him. I shift my feet slightly. The floor is water. And I need to be light as a swan upon it. Then the end will be mercifully quick. There it is. Shirazumi’s one arm is extended, and upon it dances one of the lines of death. I let him come close, close enough to smell him. And when his arm is almost upon my neck, I swing the knife that lies just below it upward, sweeping the arm and casting it aside effortlessly as it loses strength and dies. No time to spare. I shift just to his left, bringing my knife arm around and down in a wide swing at the line on his left leg, killing it. He begins to stumble as he loses the balance on his dead leg. Then his right leg in one swift motion. Then, in the moment that he is still in the air, I plunge the blade deep into his chest in one clean and solid stroke, finally pushing him to the ground.
“SHUKU!” he roars angrily, clenching his hand into a fist, defining a space around Shiki that he would crush. The lag between the lorica and the weaving of the spell is so small as to be nonexistent, and one casting of it should be enough to dispose of the girl.
But Shiki is fast, anticipating his spell. In a flash the sword is raised high above her head, the speed blindingly fast. With the swiftness with which she raised her sword, she lets it fly downward in a vicious slash. The spell manifests only for a moment, but Shiki kills it, just as surely as the ringing sound of her blade cutting air seems to cancel out Alaya’s booming voice.
- Volume 2, Paradox Spiral, Page 217
Sprints and destroys two wards before Souren can open and close his hand
The mage attempts to repeat the spell. He need only open his palm again, and then close it. But it is too slow for him to react properly. He hasn’t even spoken, hasn’t even entered the spell’s weaving in his mind, when Shiki displaces from her position. She shifts the sword to her side at waist level—a side stance that allows for wide swings—and sprints to her target. Before the fight, Alaya considered the loss of one ward to be acceptable, thinking to take Shiki with the second. But now her blinding advance eliminates two of the wards in quick succession; two steps forward and two slashes swung gracefully from both flanks. And still she advances. She has just closed the previously six meter gap into zero. One more step, one more breath, timed with one more strike to end the game.
- Volume 2, Paradox Spiral, Page 217
- So fast that it appears that time flows as discrete events, rather than measured seconds
The sword comes from Alaya’s right flank, and he sees the blade flow in a diagonal cut. Her speed almost seems to make time flow in discrete events rather than arbitrary measurements of seconds.
- Volume 2, Paradox Spiral, Page 217
Alaya lets the right arm rest at his side.
That is, until he realizes there is no more arm. From the top of his shoulder all the way to his right chest, the clear traces of a clean strike can be seen, and on the floor lies his missing arm. His manipulation of space made the backstep he performed faster than any normal human, yet Shiki was still able to cut him with a strike so perfect that even the owner of the arm never noticed it until after the fact.
- Volume 2, Paradox Spiral, Page 218
Cuts a disembodied arm into pieces before it touches the ground
Appears to disappear from sight when she bent low and ran to attack
For a moment, she seems to disappear from Alaya’s sight, but she has only bent low and run fast toward him, getting under his guard more quickly than he can react. The sword moves in a blur, and it instantly strikes Alaya right in his center of mass.
- Volume 2, Paradox Spiral, Page 219
Submitted March 08, 2015 at 02:55PM by Aquason http://ift.tt/1Hgfbtj respectthreads
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