Chapter 28: Tragedy and Succession

Kyouko had finally flatlined.

Ozaki turned the ECG to prevent anyone from finding out that she died, and put bags of ice around her to slow possible decomposition.

"I'm sorry. In the end, I am this kind of person."

Somewhere else:

Yuki was being held captive by Nightmare, as a slave.

Nightmare, "From this day forward, you serve me." He consumed the soul of his latest victims, Tokujiro, and Sadaichi Tamo, at the same time.

A demonic samurai, Yoshimitsu, had just captured Satoko after she informed the rest of the staff at the Ozaki Clinic that Yuki was missing. She was shocked to see her being held captive.

Yoshimitsu, "Move!"

Night Time:

Atsushi was drinking a beer on the perch on his house, after his father punched him in the face, again. It was a direct result of his grandmother complaining about him smoking.

"That damn old hag!"

After crushing his can, he noticed a woman in yellow walking down the street, towards the liquor store.

She was a beauty.

"Good evening!"

He liked what he was seeing.

"This village sure closes up for the night early, huh? It's still early...but I don't see anyone on the street."

Atsushi gulped.

"Th-They're all cowards! They said they're afraid of the dark."

"But you aren't, huh? You're bold, aren't you?"

"Of course!"

"Would you be my conversation partner?"

"Why don't you come up here? The stairs are in the back."

"Is it okay?"

"Sure."

"Thank you."

Tanaka Residence:

Megumi was unsure how she was going to inform her friend, Kaori, about her father dying.

"My presence, alone, will make her freak out. But...I have to try."

Inside,

Kaori woke up in bed by instinct alone. Something was very wrong.

"Who's there?"

"It's me."

"M...Megumi!"

"Listen to me, Kaori. Your father...Your father is dead."

Kaori She was right outside the window, sulking.

"I'm sorry, Kaori." The shiki was in tears. "I told him to leave with you...but...someone else must've cancelled it out."

"What?!"

"Kaori, get out of here, as soon as possible."

Kaori did what Megumi feared she would; she freaked out.

"Akira! Akira!"

Her little brother woke up out of bed, but was alarmed by what she shouted out next.

"Megumi is...outside the window!"

He rushed to his sister's room.

"Kaori!"

She turned around.

"She said Dad died!"

He ran downstairs to check their parents' bedroom; their father wasn't there.

"He's not here! Where'd he go?!"

Kaori caught up to him.

"I'll go check the bathroom!"

Their mother woke up.

"What's going on?"

Akira, "Kaori!"

Sure enough, their father was on the floor—he wasn't moving.

Kaori, "Dad! Dad!"

Akira, "Dad!"

Outside the window, a leg covered in dark armor moved away.

They both instantly realized, "Nightmare!"

Mrs. Tanaka, "What's the fuss?"

Akira, "Mom...Dad's dead."

She simply sighed in disbelief.

"There's no way he is, is he?"

She spotted the business card for Ebuchi Clinic in between her husband's left foot and right leg.

Mrs. Tanaka immediately called the Clinic.

"Hello. This is Ebuchi Clinic."

"Uhm, I'm sorry to call you this late. My name is Tanaka."

"Oh, are you Mr. Yoshikazu Tanaka's family? Did something possibly happen to him?"

"Uhm...He collapsed.

"I'll be right over."

He hung up. And then, his voice was already outside the door.

"Hello!"

"What? That was quick."

At the door...

"My name is Ebuchi. May I come in?"

Ozaki Clinic:

Dr. Ozaki was recording his experiments on his deceased wife. He was determined to find the weakness of the shiki.

"October fourteenth, 10:36 P.M. From this point forward, I will record everything that happens. Kyouko Ozaki, death confirmed October tenth. Cause of death was chronic blood loss. And then, this evening, at 7:18 P.M."

He showed the charts to the camera.

"...It was slight, but nevertheless, the ECG showed a response in brain activity..."

He lifted her arm.

"When you hold her arm, it shows that the rigor mortis has dissipated. Even keeping the body at a lower temperature, it doesn't normally dissipate this fast. The hyperstasis under the arm is also getting lighter."

He put her arm down and pulled open her eyelids.

"Lifting up the eyelids, I can see that the cornea is clear. After forty-eight hours after death, a human's cornea begins to cloud up, covering the pupil, but the pupil can be seen clearly now."

He closed the eye, grabbed a syringe, and moved towards her right side.

"Next, I shall draw blood through the catheter from the artery."

He took the sample out of the light to find something bizarre.

"When the blackish blood is sheltered from the light...bright red, thread-like liquid can be seen mixed together."

He took the sample to analyze it.

"Let's look at it from the microscope."

He noticed something else bizarre, at four hundred times actual size.

"The red blood cells are disentigrating. But small, red granules can be seen in the vermeil colored parts."

He stepped away from the microscope.

"The aforementioned statement is proof that the body is not completely dead. Extremely slowly, it is undergoing a change...different from how a normal body decomposes."

"October fifteenth, 5:42 A.M. As dawn approaches, the ECG shows signs of brain activity. The haze in the cornea is also becoming transparent. At the same time, the rigidity from the rigor mortis is totally gone. The hypostasis has disappeared, returning the skin to its original pallor. Even then, there's still no pulse or respiration. Blood pressure is also zero. Kyouko is definitely still a corpse."

Yamairi:

Another Daywalker, Yoshie Kurahashi, was giving orders to the shiki in the area, "Now, go to bed already!" when Megumi came up to her.

"Yoshie..."

"Hm?"

"I wanna ask you something."

"What's the matter?"

"Hasn't Natsuno risen up yet?"

Yoshie tried to put the news on her gently.

"Well..."

"I heard that his body was being carried out of the house this morning. Where did he go?"

"I don't know. If it was in the morning, that means they didn't use our funeral home. His father is from a big city. So it may be only natural."

"Then I have to go find him."

"Megumi, in big cities, they don't bury corpses. They cremate them."

This was devastating for Megumi.

"Oh no! Then...Natsuno is..."

The Shiki fell to the ground, in tears.

"No!"

Masao walked up to them.

"Was Natsuno cremated?" He had a disturbing grin on his face. Megumi was infuriated by his tone. "Cremated means he was burnt to ashes, huh? Then that means he definitely won't rise?"

"Don't be ridiculous!"

"Huh?"

Megumi picked up a rock, and threw it into Masao's face.

"Why did a loser like you rise up while Natsuno was cremated?! Take his place and die now!"

She held him by his shirt collar, jack-slapped him—"Th-That's too cruel, Shimizu!"—and dropped him.

"Shut up! If Natsuno had become one of us, he would've become a senior member right away...which is totally different from you, who can't even properly kill people!"

"Girls sure do like guys like Natsuno—who are stupid and act cool—don't they?"

She high-kicked him into the air.

"Shimizu's gonna kill me."

Yoshie, "Now, now. You'll live a long time. You'll eventually find a better guy. Besides, you might be put in the big-city unit."

Megumi, "I don't wanna be part of the big-city unit now. Not without him."

Ozaki Clinic:

Ozaki opened the blinds of the window. However, Kyouko's skin was starting to react horribly.

"Her skin is...!"

It was, literally, burning. He put her on a gurney, and rushed her to a darker room.

There, not only did it stop burning, but the damage was also disappearing, and the skin returned back to the way it was.

"So this is what shiki are like..."

Later,

After he finished a phone call to Yasuyo, he began experimenting.

"17:06. I'm going to obtain another blood sample from her."

He inserted the syringe into her arm. When he pulled it back out, after obtaining a blood sample, the point quickly disappeared.

"The puncture hole from the needle closes quickly. It completely heals within a few minutes."

He shook the sample in a test tube.

"The blood is transfiguring, too."

He put the tube with others, and did various things to it.

"Even when the obtained blood is left alone, it neither coagulates nor separates. It showed no reaction to various chemicals, either. However, it's slowly changing its color to dark red."

He, intentionally, pricked his finger with a scalpel, and dropped a single drop of his own blood into the sample. Something astonishing happened before his very eyes. And then, Kyouko woke up, and she was clearly scared.

"How are you feeling?"

She couldn't answer.

"19:09. Kyouko woke up. Don't worry. I'll put you to sleep right away."

However, he found that anesthetics had no effect on her.

"The anesthesia doesn't work. Thiopental, ketamine, pentazocine, and morphine don't work, either."

She finally said actual words.

"T-Toshio...Toshio..."

He ended up taping her mouth. Then, he injected another chemical.

"I'm going to try injecting agrichemical."

It didn't work. However, Ozaki tried a new approach; Religious items.

First, bells.

"It seems that clear metallic sounds like the tinkle of bells scares her in general."

Second, the statue he borrowed from an altar.

"She clearly reacts to the Buddha statue from our family Buddhist altar, too. Her brain might've transfigured in a way that makes her afraid of certain diagrams and sounds. Incantations are effective. With this, we can probably evade their attacks much of the time. The question is...How do you stop a shiki?"

Ozaki tried numerous things.

Incisions,

"The incision closes immediately. Not a single trace remains."

Vein cutting,

"I cut open the antecubital area, exposed the median cubital vein and cut it open. Then, the bleeding stopped as if the vein shut off somewhere. The incision closes, too. It's even hard to injure her with ordinary methods."

Brain damage,

"What revived first was her brain. What if I destroy her brain...I guess it's no use. All that's left is to cut off the blood...Either by cutting off her head or destroying an area where the aorta and venae cavae are concentrated."

He got out a mallet and a wooden stake, and aimed at her heart.

"If this doesn't work, then there's no longer..."

He hammered the stake into her heart.

Outside:

Seishin rang the doorbell.

"Is that you, Seishin?"

"Yeah. I brought Connor with me."

"The window of my room is open, so come in from there. I'm in the operating room."

When the two entered the operating room, they discovered the grisly site inside; The room was drenched in blood. At the center, Ozaki was holding a mallet, and Kyouko was laying on the operating table, dead as a door nail—there was a wooden stake in her chest.

Connor, "What the hell did you do?!"

Ozaki, "Good timing. Help me clean this up."

I forgot to mention which forms Nightmare is taking.

Form 1: Soul Calibur II

Form 2: Soul Calibur V

Form 3: Soul Calibur III

And finally, Form 4: Soul Calibur IV and V opening cinematic.

Now then, as you can tell, things are getting dark. Very dark.

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