Kara no Kyoukai movie 4 recap

March 1996 - The Hollow Shrine

Shiki has been injured and is now in a coma... it shows a visualization of her accessing the "root" and learning to see death. Mikiya somehow meets Aozaki for the first time during this... Mikiya says she's different than she seemed like on the phone..

I'm switching my personality depending on how I view things.

Shiki is naked and is seeing hallucinations of her own body while floating in this endless void... suddenly she wakes up. She looks around and sees lines on everything... Touches a flower and kills it...

Mikiya and Toko comes to see Shiki, but only Toko is allowed to see her for some reason... Some nurses are saying something about how Toko is now in charge of this girl who Araya used to be in charge of... Shiki now has a blindfold on, I guess because she's still freaked out by her eyes. This is Aozaki Toko's first time meeting Shiki... She introduces herself as a sorcerer... Shiki says she has no need for one of those.

That's right... a sorcerer can't fill the whole in your chest. The only ones who can fill it are normal people... You've already realized that you're alone now, right?

Shiki is surprised about how much Toko knows...

That night, Shiki gets visited by some trippy looking figure that seems to be made up of the "Death" that only Shiki can see... it tries to go inside Shiki's body.

Was that just a hallucination or something? Next, Shiki is thinking to herself...

It's so beautiful here. It's so happy... but humans are so alone.

That woman who calls herself my councilor visited me every day. I realized that I had become dependent on my conversations with her.

Toko:

I see... So it's not that SHIKI-kun didn't have initiative over the body, but it's just that he didn't use it...
The two of you exist at the same time, each having their own experiences and will. And yet, the actions you take are the same. There isn't any other case of such a complex and bizarre dual personality.

Toko starts to wonder why SHIKI always sleeps, if they are essentially the same personality. Meanwhile Shiki is thinking about Mikiya... "His name is the only name I can't remember..."

Toko is talking to Mikiya about her...

She probably doesn't even have a sense that she's alive... but there will come a time when she'll realize that she's Shiki.

There's no reason for SHIKI to have disappeared. Because you, Shiki-san, would have disappeared instead if he didn't do anything. So why did he wish for himself to disappear?

Shiki tells Toko she wants her to bring in some scissors so she can cut her hair... Toko isn't allowed to bring them because Shiki was connected to those murders, and when she suggests bringing in a hair stylist,

Shiki says I don't even want to think about someone else touching my hair.

Finally, the doctors say Shiki can leave the hospital starting tomorrow, and that they'll take the bandage off her eyes then... Shiki is afraid of seeing those lines again and doesn't want to take it off... She starts to consider pulling her eyes out, but Toko shows up to stop her. After she learns about Shiki's "Mystic eyes of death perception" she tells her it'd be a waste to lose them.

First of all, even if you poke your eyes out, you'd still see what you're meant to see.

She says she wants to teach Shiki how to use those eyes...

All things have flaws. Nothing is perfect, so everything has a desire to break down and rebuild from scratch. The accident two years ago caused your eyes to be able to recognize such flaws.

Shiki says she has no will to live...

I can understand your discomfort after losing SHIKI and reviving as a different person. But that's all there is to it. Even though you have no will to live, you say that you don't want to die. You don't have a reason to live, but you say you're scared of death. You can't choose between life or death, and you're balancing yourself on the boundary...
See? You're bothered by contact like that because you show an opening. You're a top quality container for the stray thoughts drifting around this hospital. They'll possess and kill you if you don't wake up.

Oh shit that speech was amazing

Toko gives up on her, and says

Rune protection is useless like this. Do whatever you want now... But did SHIKI-kun really die for nothing, Ryougi Shiki?

Later, Shiki gets attacked by some zombie monster... it says the same thing that spirit from before said... "I'm going in."

But now suddenly Shiki is out of the hospital, blindfold off, wearing just an overcoat, looking dead inside... and Mikiya comes up to her, just starts singing softly beside her like he did before (except before he was just humming).

It goes back to the scene of Shiki being attacked while this singing is going on...

Did SHIKI-kun really die for nothing?

Shiki:

No, of course not. Because death is so lonely and worthless. Death is so dark and ominous. Death is more scary than anything else. I'll do anything but fall there!

Shiki throws the zombie off and jumps out the window to get away from it.
Toko:

I put a boundary around your room so spirits couldn't attack you, but a spirit possessed a body to get in.

Toko tries to attack it, but her spells aren't powerful enough to kill the walking dead.

You can't do anything either. A dead person is already dead, so you can't kill it. Let's run away.

But Shiki knows that it doesn't matter if it's dead. If it's animated, it can be killed. She takes the bandage off her eyes...

I'll kill it, no matter what it is.

Toko throws Shiki her knife... and as the zombie is coming towards her, she says "this is in the way", and cuts her hair short... The corpse dies and the spirit escapes, but then the spirit possesses Shiki and is about to kill her... Toko: "That idiot... she forgot to finish the job."

Shiki:

You won't get away now... I'll kill the weak me. I won't give you Ryougi Shiki!

She stabs herself in the chest to get rid of all the spirits that invaded her... The true Shiki... This girl who can see the true form of death... For someone like that, something as scary as a living corpse is nothing compared to what she sees... She has killed the demons inside her that made her into a worthless coward, and was reborn as an unstoppable killing machine.

Toko offers Shiki a job in exchange for teaching her how to use her eyes...

I just lost my familiar, so I wanted someone who would do things for me.

I see. Can I kill people doing that?

Yes, of course.

Shiki says she'll do it... "I don't have any other intentions, anyway."... then faints...

No other intentions, huh... To be hollow means you can be filled without limit, right? You lucky bastard.

I totally get the title now... Shiki lost her own memory, but not the memory of her other self, SHIKI, who died... Toko kept referring to Shiki's "Temple" that only she can build... Right now she is hollow, and has a whole new "her" to create... Hollow Shrine.

Shiki had the same thoughts about Kokuto back then too... "Why is he protecting me?"... confused as to why his trust in her doesn't change no matter what she does...

What did he recieve in exchange? What did he try to protect by disappearing? It's probably to protect his own dream. His dream to live happy. He left me a deep loneliness.

Suddenly Shiki hears another voice in her head... the voice of SHIKI saying the name of the person she forgot the name of... and she wakes up to that person's voice.

Do you know who I am, Shiki?

Shiki doesn't say anything, but thinks to herself

Yeah, I do.. That you were the only one waiting for me. That you were the only one protecting me.

Ahh... so there are things that won't disappear.

The "next episode" prelude actually preludes the first 3 episodes... showing Araya visiting that girl in a hospital and giving her a 2nd body... and showing him giving that painless girl what she wants.

I'll heal the abnormality in your body.

Finally this character introduces himself as a mage to the guy from the 3rd movie...

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