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Empty Boundaries: Volume III The Garden of Sinners by Kinoko Nasu (奈須 きのこ) Stories by Kinoko Nasu Novels Empty Boundaries (空の境界) Series Volume I: Panorama, The First Homicide Inquiry, Lingering Pain Volume II: A Hallow, Paradox Spiral Volume III: Records in Oblivion, The Second Homicide Inquiry Decoration Disorder Disconnection Series Junk the Eater HandS Angel Notes Mage’s Night (魔法使いの夜) Ice Flowers (氷の花) Visual Novels Tsukihime (月姫) Series Tsukihime (月姫) Kagetsu Tōya (歌月十夜) Fate/stay night Series Fate/stay night Fate/hollow ataraxia Video games Melty Blood PUBLISHING HISTORY Self-published by the author in hardcover on December 2001. Kōdansha hardcover edition published August 2004. Kōdansha mass market paperback edition published on January 2008. Cover art and internal art by Takashi Takeuchi (武内 崇) Translation by “Cokesakto” This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the prodcut of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental. Empty Boundaries: Volume III Part VI: Records in Oblivion/ page 2 Part VII: The Second Homicide Inquiry/ page 126 Empty Boundaries/ page 221 Part VI: Records in Oblivion Beyond the briar’s thorns there once was a deep forest, wrapped in fog. From it wafted the smell of green and the tiny whispers of insects. And deep into it, I passed. And further still did I walk. Until I chanced upon a knoll untouched by our sun, where I found myself in the company of children. And finally I did come to my senses, and realizing the lateness of the hour, resolved to press home. “But you needn’t go home. For here, your eternity awaits.” The forest children began to sing. And I wondered what eternity was. “It is when you linger.” “It is when you are unchanging.” The chorus of cradles recited in melancholy unison. Starlight shone quietly on the grass of the mound. The fog flowed together like purest milk behind me. And over my shoulder, the path home had been lost. I know little of this eternity. I try to hurry home. To a home far from this place. A home far from the children and the forest. And wrapped in the smell of green and the tiny whispers of insects, Inside the deep forest, wrapped in fog beyond the briar’s thorns, They denied me home for an eternity. 4 • KINOKO NASU Records in Oblivion - I December this year was less cold than I had anticipated, but was still enough to bring a white cloud of breath with every whisper. Nevertheless, yesterday was its final day, and with it, the final day of the year. Today is a new year, my sixteenth one. Surely, for many people around the world today, they are greeting each other in a warm “Happy New Year,” treasur- ing the one chance in a year they can share the warmth and sense of new opportunity with other people. Not for me, though. In fact, New Year to me has become the time of the year where I want to chide myself for my stupidity, a time when the pillows in my room are in danger of my desire to hurl them against the wall and stomp on them to vent; a time where I just want to will the rest of the day away. Sadly, human hearts and memory are not such convenient things. And so it is with a certain glumness of spirit that I hurry and make my preparations to go to Miss Tōko’s office. Though I belong to a thoroughly pedestrian household, my family still Insists that I dress in a kimono for the first shrine visit of the New Year. Indeed, they’ve already lain it out for me in my bed. Still, I’ve never been one for the traditional clothing, so I ignore it and head out of my room to go downstairs. “Oh, Azaka dear, are you going out?” my mother asks as I climb down the stairs “Yes. Just going to meet someone who I owe a favor to. I’ll be home before dark,” I say with my best smile as I depart from the Kokutō resi- dence—my household. The sky of the early afternoon day is filled with clouds, and not too friendly ones, it seems. Still, I think for a while that it reflects my mood perfectly, and just that little bit of acknowledgement (by the world no less!) eases my steps just a bit. I didn’t always hate this particular time of the year. There was a time when, just like any other person, I actually looked forward to it. But it was in 1996, exactly three years ago from this day, when that changed; my thir- teenth New Year when I went back to my real home for the holidays. The story truly starts with me, Azaka Kokutō, and the weak constitution that my body was cursed with. I’ve never had any high grades in PE, and everyone could tell the Tōkyō air was bad for my continued health. And so / RECORDS IN OBLIVION - I • 5 with that reason, the family packed me away to live with my uncle in the countryside when I was only ten years old. Since then, I only came home during summer and winter breaks, but even then I couldn’t stand to go back. My uncle treated me like his own adopted daughter, and raised me away from my family. I preferred to keep it that way—even past the point where my constitution eventually improved to become normal and render the entire arrangement moot—for my own reasons. For you see, I have a brother, Mikiya Kokutō. And I love him. To clarify, this is not, as you might be suspecting, the familial love be- tween close siblings, but the romantic sort of love between a boy and a girl. Of course, one might suspect that a ten year old elementary school girl might be mistaken, and it would not be wrong to assume such a con- clusion. But I was no idiot, even back then, and I knew better than most exactly what sort of affection I was entertaining. And though I can accept my assumption of my possession of higher than average intelligence as a comfortable lie I can tell myself, I cannot accept that my feelings for Mikiya are anything other than real. Once I even harbored childish thoughts of somehow spiriting him away from other people, never to let another see him. Though my feelings have since taken on a more sensible form, my fondness for Mikiya never wavered. I’ve known from the start that this was a feeling never to be voiced, so as I grew older, I only waited, biding my time for a chance. Even my retreat to the countryside was all part of my elaborate plan to separate myself from Mikiya, all for the sake of building in him a propensity to see in me something else, something other than being his little sister. I don’t care what it says in the family registry. I left that behind long ago, and I’ll only truly come back after Mikiya’s forgotten me as a sister completely. Until then, though, I’d spend my days like a lady of manners. After all, I know exactly what Mikiya likes, so this was a fairly simple process. It was a plan so perfect even I have to marvel at its genius. But then of course, a meddler had to make her goddamned appearance. Pardon my words. It was three years ago, back in my junior high school days when I first explored the notions of love. It was the winter holidays, and I went back to the house when, of all the stupidest things to do, Mikiya brought home a classmate of his. It was clear for anyone to see that he and this woman named Shiki Ryōgi were dating. And when I saw this, I had the curious and not altogether pleasant feeling of having baked yourself a lovely cake, only for it to be beset by the desperate and hungry the mo- ment you look away. The thought that my brother, who always seemed so aloof before, would now be dating a girl, had never entered my wildest 6 • KINOKO NASU imaginings. I mean, think about it. He’d never even so much as looked that way at any woman before, let alone had a relationship with one! I think I spent the next few days after that in a complete daze, sleep- walking maybe, until I finally came back to the countryside. It was not long after that when, still in distress over what to do about the girl, I got wind of the traffic accident and coma that befell Shiki Ryōgi. And so Mikiya was alone once again. I must confess that when Mikiya told me the news by letter as I sipped my tea on the terrace of my uncle’s house, that I sympa- thized with the poor girl. Even though I only met her once, I remember her laughing heartily at what Mikiya had to say, her attitude full of energy. But I would be lying if I didn’t say that I felt some measure of relief. No girl of idle interest like Shiki would ever catch Mikiya’s eye again. All I need do was graduate high school with recognition, and get myself into a sufficiently reputable university. Only a few more steps; a few more years—perhaps eight—until the notion of my sibling relationship with Mikiya was severed.

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