Lio Shirazumi

**Lio Shirazumi** is a villain from *Kara no Kyoukai*, first appearing briefly in the second chapter, and later appearing again as the main antagonist in the seventh chapter.

## Personality

Lio was originally a socially withdrawn, sympathetic, charming, and quiet individual. He had befriended Mikiya Kokuto and initially had a crush on Shiki Ryougi. When his love for Shiki turned into an obsession he began to stalk her, taking photographs as well as recording her activities using a video camera. Aside from this, he keeps a personal diary and is depicted as an amateur artist, having sketched portraits of Shiki. Lio developed an inferiority-complex as he internalized Shiki's given reason for rejecting him, in which Shiki claimed that she dislikes "weak people". Lio's motivation for initially wanting to confront the infamous school bully in a fight was based on his misguided perception that he can only prove his worth as a "weak" person based on a real fist-fight. Upon realizing that he had killed his schoolmate, Lio instantly became distressed as he feared the responsibility of his crime.

Despite his introverted, self-examining, and introspective nature, Lio is actually very tightfisted and manipulative, having nearly convinced Shiki that she was the true killer of the 1995 murders. After awakening his origin, Lio developed a superiority-complex, albeit prompted by Araya's words of praise. He subconsciously recognizes his guilt as a murderer, but chooses to live in denial. As such, whenever he killed someone he blamed his origin as the cause of his actions as well as the fact that he is supposedly insane and psychopathic to begin with. Despite his claims of insanity, Lio only became insane based on how his willful experiences affected his mentality, as opposed to Shiki who was truly "insane" since birth.

Recognizing himself as the only "special being", Lio grew frightened of his solitude, deciding that he would only be content if he sought out and created companions of his own. With Shiki being the girl he always loved and Mikiya being what he considers to be his only true friend, Lio interchanges between wanting to convert either Shiki or Mikiya to his side either as a murderous and unsympathetic killer or as a "special being". Despite his preference in recruiting either Shiki or Mikiya, he is not above recruiting other teenagers, as he slowly grew desperate in seeking out a companion. It is eventually revealed that his goal of creating murderous companions is prompted by his desire to share the burden of having a guilty mind. His carelessness in regards to his life and his risk-taking behavior can be attributed to his subconscious fear of living with a guilty mind, though this does not mean he harbors any suicidal tendencies as he simply relishes in tempting his fate in battle.

Lio's desire to devour Shiki is not inherent of his personality as it is derived from his origin of "consumption". This provides a pseudo-split personality on his part as Lio is depicted as switching between different moods from being feral to suddenly becoming calm and collected. In this regard, his obsession towards Shiki manifested into a desire to devour her, glorifying her as his "special" meal. It was only near the end before his final battle that he begins to doubt his need for companions as he deduced that a special being is only "special" if it were truly alone, though this thought process could be attributed to his sanity breaking down after Mikiya's "death". His original personality had been described to completely fade away after he had finally realized the guilt of his crimes when he "killed" Mikiya. During his final battle with Shiki, Lio's mental state becomes primarily dominated by his carnivorous instincts due to his origin of "consumption" slowly taking over his mind, meaning that he had truly intended to kill and devour Shiki during their final fight.