The Empty Box and Zeroth Maria
Book 1: Chapter 9

Is that why?

Why? Why what? I don’t understand. I can’t make sense of my emotions. But the warmth is still draining away from my body. Rapidly. The temperature of my chilly flesh will drop to zero. It’ll freeze and freeze, agonizingly, until I can’t move a muscle.

“My name is Aya Otonashi. Pleased to meet you.”

The “transfer student” blushed and smiled slightly, as if she really were a transfer student.

“……What…?”

I didn’t understand.

No, actually, I did.

“I am just as firmly trapped here as the rest of you. If I decide to stop remembering and give up, I’ll go through all of this over and over with no meaning just like everyone else. It would be as simple as spilling a cup of water balanced on top of my head.”

A voice I’m sure I’ve heard before repeats these words like a refrain.

I look at the girl on the podium. I examine her features, trying to make sure she’s real. She can’t be anything but real, even though there’s no way she could be, either.

Is she Aya Otonashi?

That’s impossible. She’d never give up, not even if all her efforts over these twenty-thousand-plus transfers turned out to be pointless, not even if she realized that the culprit she had been pursuing for so long wasn’t, in fact, me. She’d never give up! Never!

This isn’t like her at all.

Fully half of the class has been rejected. Nobody notices, though, as the class continues to barrage her with questions. Her replies are curt, but she’s answering all the same, with none of her usual disdain.

She’s just like a regular transfer student.

This scene shouldn’t exist in reality. It’s a fictitious event, a lie. All of it is a lie. So does that mean Aya Otonashi is a lie, too?

That’s…

That’s…

“Unacceptable.”

Someone else might think so, but I won’t allow it.

I won’t let Aya Otonashi become a fake.

“…Is something wrong, Hoshino?”

Why is my teacher asking me this?

Probably because I’ve suddenly leaped to my feet.

I quickly glance back at Mogi for a second. All eyes in the classroom are on me, including hers. Her face is as blank as ever, though, so there’s no telling what she’s thinking.

If you ask her opinion on my behavior, I can guarantee she won’t have an answer for you. We’ve been in the classroom together for a long time, but that’s the extent of our relationship.

The only chance for us to become more than just classmates would arrive tomorrow.

So, yeah—there’s no Mogi here.

No one is here.

That’s why…nothing matters.

Any classmates who would forget my strange behavior—I’ve cut them out.

I only have eyes for Otonashi. I walk up to the platform where she stands. What I’m about to do now is something I would normally never do, on the same level as confessing my feelings to Mogi.

I stop directly in front of Otonashi.

Unperturbed, she regards me with a serious expression, as if she’s sizing me up. It’s like she’s seeing me for the first time, and it’s infuriating.

“Hey, Hoshino! What are you doing?”

Mr. Kokubo sounds calm, but I can tell my behavior is disturbing him. My classmates are all muttering similar things.

I ignore everything and drop to one knee before the girl I used to think was my enemy. I lower my head and extend my hand to her.

“What is this about?” she asks.

Her tone is so polite. She would normally never speak to me this way.

“Your escort has arrived.”

If this is how it’s going to be, then I have no choice but to play the part.

“…Wh-what did you say?”

“Your escort has arrived, Princess Maria. It is I, Hathaway, the one who has sworn to betray everything, to turn all and sundry against him as he stands alone in your defense.”

Oddly enough, the hubbub around us fades. That makes sense. If I’m going to bring Otonashi back, I have to make her see that nothing around us exists. So this situation is easy to understand.

My head still bowed, I wait for Aya Otonashi to take my hand and beckon me to my feet. I wait for her to make me dance upon her palm.

But none of that happens.

Aya Otonashi’s hand never takes mine.

Instead, a loudclonk fills my head with a dull ringing, and I fall to the side.

“…What a creep.”

My head was lowered, so I have no idea what caused the impact. I finally understand what happened when I look up at Otonashi from the floor. Her right knee gave me a good whack to the side of the head.

Yeah, okay. That makes sense. I must’ve been dreaming to think Otonashi would ever reach out to me.

“Heh…”

If she truly is Aya Otonashi, beyond a shadow of a doubt,then she would never extend her hand or show me the slightest inkling of kindness.

“Heh, heh-heh-heh…”

Otonashi is laughing, as if unable to hold in her amusement at the situation any longer. I don’t think I’ve seen anything like this once in the twenty thousand times we’ve repeated all this.

I’m still laid out, and my head still hurts, but I can feel the tension in my face relax along with my mind.

“You certainly took your time, my beloved Hathaway. How dare you make a maiden such as me, whose only virtue is to faithfully await your arrival by the window, who is so delicate that she has never held anything heavier than a spoon, wait for so long? I never thought in these 27,753 times that I would be thrust into the battlefield alone.”

Otonashi stoops down and reaches toward me.

She grasps my wrist as I start to stand and yanks me to my feet.

Yeah, this feels right.

This is the Aya Otonashi I know.

“…My strength is greater than ever before, thanks to you.”

Otonashi’s eyes widen, as if that caught her off guard. The corners of her mouth twitch upward again.

“Well, your skill with words has certainly improved, Hathaway!”

Keeping her grip on my wrist, she leads me from the classroom.

She pulls me away, ignoring homeroom, the teacher, the students— ignoring everything that I cut out and cast aside.

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.