Chapter 207: The Garden of Sinners Episode 5: Paradox Spiral! (Part 5)
"Just who is this Tomoe Enjou guy? Did he really kill his own parents?"
"But when the police arrived at his house, his father was still alive."
"Whatever the case, there's definitely something messed up about his family."
"Yeah, but Enjou himself seems totally normal."
"Maybe that's just a mask he's wearing?"
"…"
Whispers and speculation filled the air.
Whether it was the lively patrons at the southern territory TV Tavern or the scholarly mages of the Imperial Mage Academy, confusion was universal. No one quite understood what the story was even trying to build itself upon this time.
But the moment Ryougi Shiki appeared, all of that uncertainty faded into the background. Because in the end, all the audience really wanted was to see the gallant heroine take the stage and show off her overwhelming presence.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The scene on-screen began to shift rapidly, switching to a series of flashbacks that outlined the fractured life of Tomoe Enjou.
Back in high school, Enjou had been a renowned track and field sprinter—undefeated throughout middle school, admired by all for his raw talent. A natural prodigy.
But even he eventually gave up running.
His family had never been well-off. His father had been unemployed since Enjou was in elementary school, and his mother—despite her noble upbringing—had severed ties with her family to marry his father. Their home wasn't so much a place of love as it was a slow, inevitable collapse. A ruin waiting to happen.
From middle school onward, Enjou had worked part-time jobs using a fake age just to pay for his education, clinging to the hope that if he just endured, something better would come.
But then came the event that shattered everything—his father, unlicensed and drunk, killed someone in a car accident.
And so began the nightmare.
The destruction of his family. The vanishing of daily life. The rumors that surrounded him like fog. A never-ending spiral of misery.
When Enjou woke from one of those endless nightmares, he found himself once again in Ryougi Shiki's room. Right as he stirred, the girl named Shiki walked back in through the door.
"…Oh? You're here again today. What are you doing, sitting in the dark like that?"
She didn't seem the least bit concerned about whether or not he might've killed someone, and that made Enjou uneasy. He couldn't help but ask:
"Hey… you. Are you dangerous?"
"Dangerous? You're calling me dangerous? That's a good one!"
"…Huh?"
"Hahaha. Yeah, well… around here, there's no one more dangerous than me."
She said it like it was nothing at all. And just like that, they drifted into a completely disjointed conversation—nothing they said to each other really lined up.
And so, Enjou ended up staying in Shiki's room, almost like he'd been unofficially adopted. A ghost with nowhere else to go, finding the one place in the world that wouldn't push him away.
What followed was a bizarre sequence of scenes, depicting their strange cohabitation.
Shiki's eccentric behavior stood in sharp contrast to Enjou's timid and careful demeanor. Anyone watching could sense how suffocating daily life must've been for him… but to Enjou, who'd become more phantom than human, that cramped little room was the only sanctuary left to him.
Then, one night…
As usual, Enjou lay curled up in a corner of Shiki's room.
Suddenly, the door creaked open. Expecting to greet her, he stood and stepped toward the hallway—only for a flash of steel to sweep across his neck in a blinding instant. Blood splattered across the walls.
Haa… Haa…
Panting, Enjou snapped back to reality. Shiki had already returned to the room. What he had just experienced… was only a hallucination, conjured by an overwhelming, killing intent.
"…Not even you are good enough."
Shiki murmured, slumping down on the bed as if disappointed. Her voice soft and almost fragile.
"I went out to kill someone just now."
"…"
"But I couldn't do it. I couldn't find anyone worth killing today either. When I saw you in the hallway, I thought maybe… But no. Killing you would be pointless too."
"…For a second there, I thought you were really going to kill me."
"I want to feel alive. I need something real. But just killing for no reason doesn't give me that. Walking through the night with no destination—it's like being a ghost. Sooner or later, I'll start killing just to fill the emptiness."
Her voice trembled with a vulnerability she never showed anyone. Even a girl like Ryougi Shiki—who always seemed so unshakable—carried a kind of sorrow that no ordinary person could ever understand.
Despite everything, Tomoe Enjou still held onto the faint hope that—maybe—he could help her somehow.
But after spending just a little time with her, he realized something painfully obvious.
He didn't have that power.
And more importantly… he didn't have the right.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The film's pacing remained slow and measured. So far, it had focused on building the episode's central characters—Ryougi Shiki and Tomoe Enjou—through scattered glimpses and indirect storytelling.
For viewers already familiar with earlier installments of The Garden of Sinners, Shiki's peculiar personality was old news. Her actions—however unorthodox—were consistent with who she was.
But for the nobles in the audience who hadn't seen the previous parts, confusion and criticism came swiftly:
"What is with this Ryougi girl? She takes in some guy who might've killed someone, and then she goes on and on about killing people herself. Is she mentally unstable or something?"
"What a bizarre character. I still don't get what she's supposed to be."
"Hmph, this is what you get from lowbrow entertainment—pointless mystique with no real substance. I doubt anything exciting is going to happen later either."
"Exactly. With a story this shallow, any one of our troupe's playwrights could've written something better in their sleep. If we made a movie, it would be a hundred—no, a thousand times better than this nonsense!"
"Right? The fact that trash like this actually has an audience… just proves how tasteless commoners truly are. Pathetic…"
"..."
Their voices dripped with arrogance, a chorus of smug derision.
Now that the The Garden of Sinners plot had entered a quieter, more introspective phase, the nobles grew bolder in their mockery—eager to stomp the film into the ground so they could elevate their own "refined" tastes in contrast.
But Edward merely responded with a bored, indifferent smile.
He'd seen this exact scene before—countless times, in fact—back when he used to browse the internet in his previous life. No matter the work, no matter how profound or moving, there were always movie critics—self-proclaimed experts with too much time and too little humility—ready to tear it apart from their cozy armchairs.
The thing was, at the end of the day, haters were just haters.
Hand them the pen and the stage, and they'd crumble faster than a wet paper script.
Online, most trolls at least knew they weren't all that talented. They'd confine their self-important rants to comment sections and forums, never daring to create something themselves.
But the nobles in this world?
They hadn't even realized how unskilled they truly were.
And that made Edward all the more excited. He couldn't wait to see what would happen when these blowhards actually tried to make a movie of their own—and had to release it for the world to see.
Now that would be something truly… "spectacular."
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[1] https://www.patreon.com/collection/162522?view=condensed
[2] https://www.patreon.com/posts/creating-anime-140083067
[3] https://www.patreon.com/posts/138667623?collection=162522
[4] https://www.patreon.com/collection/162522?view=condensed