Shiki Kills Lio

"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.

The knife stands upright like a cairn marker, piercing right through to the heart. Shirazumi coughs only once, and it is over. The face he donned in death is one of astonishment, as if he was more concerned at how quickly he had died than the fact that he had died at all."

- Volume 3, Murder Investigation Part 2, Page 210