From the start, Shiki’s life was devoid of genuine affection. She was raised to be a successor, not as a daughter. The only semblance of love she received came from SHIKI, the other self inside her. While SHIKI’s love was profound and unparalleled, it was also a double-edged sword. It made Shiki acutely aware of how incapable humans were of such unconditional love, further alienating her from them. The murderous impulses she believed came from SHIKI only deepened her isolation. To her, the only person who cared for her was also a source of great danger, making her fear that any semblance of normalcy or connection would eventually be tainted by violence. These impulses made her see humanity as inherently flawed and distasteful. She hated the idea of being a slave to these primal urges, which she thought would make her even worse than the humans she despised.Adding to her misery was her grandfather’s doctrine, which instilled in her a bleak outlook: kill, and you’ll end up alone and despised. Which only made Shiki feel even more doomed. Shiki spent her life training to become something she didn't care about, surrounded by people she saw as unworthy of her time. The one bright spot in her life was SHIKI, but even that was overshadowed by the inevitable reality that her moments of happiness were fleeting and doomed to end in isolation.
Then came Mikiya, a symbol of stability and normalcy that seemed almost miraculous to Shiki. For a while, he represented everything she had ever dreamed of, someone who made her emptiness feel meaningful. But Mikiya's presence also disrupted the uneasy balance with SHIKI. Shiki knew that eventually, she would lose control and that SHIKI would destroy Mikiya, which led her to distance herself from him, believing it would be less cruel to be away from something beautiful that she couldn’t protect. Resigned to her fate, Shiki found Mikiya’s unwavering faith in her both crushing and oddly hopeful. His belief, despite everything, was like a cruel joke, offering a fleeting illusion of a dream she thought was forever out of reach.As her emotional state deteriorated, Shiki contemplated ending Mikiya's life herself to protect him from the destruction she feared would come from SHIKI. But the unexpected intervention by Araya Souren, who saved Mikiya, gave Shiki a brief moment of clarity. Unable to reconcile her own feelings and her failure to protect Mikiya, Shiki resolved that if she couldn’t make him disappear, her only remaining choice was to end her own life. This resolution triggered a series of events that left her in a coma for two years, drifting in Akasha, a desolate void where she was left to confront nothingness and death.Waking up to find SHIKI gone, the one being who had truly loved her, was devastating. On top of that, her memories were fragmented, and the Shiki Ryougi she remembered felt like a distant stranger. The void within her only grew deeper, and the discovery of her Mystic Eyes of Death Perception revealed a world teetering on the brink of oblivion. They showed her that the Death she experienced those 2 years was actually always around the corner, and that all things are but one step away from fading away. This insight was overwhelming, pushing her to the brink of destroying her own eyes in a desperate attempt to escape her existential dread.
Yet, even in her darkest moments, Mikiya’s unwavering presence was a beacon of consistency. As she struggled with her lingering impulses and her identity, she found solace in Mikiya's constancy and the reminder from Touko that SHIKI had died for a reason, to give her a chance to fulfill their dream. Driven by this realisation, Shiki chose to honor SHIKI’s memory by trying to make something meaningful out of her life and build an identity of her own free from the torments of the past, even as she feared her own impulses would ultimately ruin everything. After meeting Lio and seeing a twisted reflection of herself in him, Shiki begins to doubt her ability to control her impulses. This leads her to consider abandoning her hope for a normal life with Mikiya. However, Shiki’s belief that she would lose control of her murder impulses after killing a normal person was proven incorrect. This misconception is challenged when she, believing Mikiya to be dead, kills Lio, a person who, despite his madness, still possesses a normal part of himself. After committing this act, Shiki discovers that Mikiya is alive and realizes she can control her murderous urges even after killing someone within the bounds of normalcy.
Ultimately, Shiki's final revelation is that as long as Mikiya is alive, her entire world, she can suppress her urges for mindless massacres and maintain a normal life with him. She learns that committing murder for what she deems a valid reason will not necessarily lead her to succumb to mindless violence. This realization also disproves her grandfather's deluded philosophy that killing even once would inevitably lead to further violence.
The hug with Mikiya at the end of Shiki’s journey is profoundly powerful, perhaps the first real embrace she’s ever known. It symbolizes not just the end of her trials but the fulfillment of a dream that had seemed forever out of reach. The ending of Kara no Kyoukai is a testament to Shiki’s endurance and her deserving of the love and happiness she ultimately finds. By the end, Shiki realizes that as long as Mikiya is with her, she can consistently suppress her murderous urges. Even if she were to kill for reasons she considers valid, that experience alone will not cause her to fall into mindless violence. Her commitment to a normal life with Mikiya outweighs her innate impulses, proving that her love for him is strong enough to maintain her control and reject the path of senseless violence.
And yet I'm supposed to believe that Ryougi would suddenly return to her family, whom she had little regard for, and comply with their expectations? It's even harder to believe that she would then succumb to typical human instincts (When her entire story is fighting these urges or instincts mind you. With those common in humans being one of the reasons she hates people) and decide to have a daughter. Given Shiki’s and Mikiya’s natures, both of which seem to reject such conventional desires. This development feels out of character. Shiki is deeply aware of humanity’s flaws and her own fundamental differences from them. Her primary attachment is to Mikiya, who represents the only source of meaning and connection in her life. So why would she bring a child into the world, knowing that this new life might inherit the very traits she despises? The prospect of their daughter potentially suffering a grim fate or growing up to cause suffering herself is also troubling, especially considering the likelihood of her inheriting the Ryougi family’s dual personality trait. This could mean she’d end up as conflicted and miserable as Shiki’s grandfather, unable to balance her darker impulses without the Origin of Nothingness that Shiki herself possesses.
It's perplexing to think that Shiki and Mikiya would genuinely desire a child, as this contradicts both their worldviews and inherent natures. Shiki harbors a deep-seated hatred for humanity, and her very essence is tied to rejection and destruction. While she can resist these impulses for Mikiya’s sake, doing so already demands immense willpower. Creating life, a complete reversal of her origin, would be an even greater stretch. Moreover, having a daughter would mean bringing a new human into the world, a prospect that seems at odds with Shiki’s disdain for the average human being. This child could either be like those Shiki despises or inherit the Ryougi’s dual personality trait, which brought Shiki immense suffering throughout her life.
As for Mikiya, his character is centered around neutrality and stability, to the point where his desire for normalcy is almost abnormal. He has no interest in anything beyond a simple, content life, even going so far as to refuse Void Shiki's wish-granting because he was already satisfied with what he had. For someone like Mikiya, having a child and becoming deeply entwined with the Ryougi family's complexities represents a drastic change he wouldn’t naturally seek. Lastly, Mana, who resembles Azaka in her competitive desire to "beat" Shiki and win over Mikiya, disrupts the peaceful life Shiki and Mikiya worked so hard to achieve throughout the novel.
The core issue with the modern interpretation of Shiki and Mikiya’s relationship stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of their characters. Their bond isn't meant to reflect humanity’s ability to forge connections despite adversity or to embrace human struggles, no, that's a twisted view to fit with Modern TM's and Nasu's agenda to spread humanist propaganda and promote progress over all else, including happiness. Instead, they are portrayed as outliers, individuals with fundamentally different mindsets from the average person. Mikiya is an exception, content with a simple, stable life, while Shiki's emptiness finds solace in this rare connection. The narrative of Kara no Kyoukai emphasizes that their strength lies in their unique natures and the way they complement each other, not in conforming to traditional human experiences or expectations.Thus, the notion of disrupting their peace with a child or deeply involving themselves with the Ryougi family contradicts the core themes of the story. Shiki’s journey is about finding meaning and stability in her own way, not about embracing or replicating human norms and struggles. Nasu's claim in an interview that she lacks “strength of mind” or that her later depictions in Mirai Fukuin and especially GO is a distortion of what makes her story compelling and unique. A complete character assassination. a misstep that doesn’t align with the core themes of Kara no Kyoukai, which focus on individuals who are fundamentally different from the norm and find meaning in their unique ways. This is why MF is objectively a contradiction to the story and not canon.
