The Empty Box and Zeroth Maria
Book 6: Chapter 14

Kazuki Hoshino 09/24 THU 12:25 PM

The school day is once again going to end before I exchange a single word with anyone, it seems.

Lunch break. I stretch and look out the window. The weather is fine, and the gentle sunlight is pouring into the classroom. I hear there’s a typhoon coming tomorrow, though.

An unexpected pain runs across the back of my right hand. The wound has closed, but it still twinges when I remember it.

When I remove the bandages, the scar still runs straight along my hand.

Each time I see it, I think:

The things I’ve done won’t go away.

I faintly sigh as I scan all the empty seats in the classroom.

Kokone is still in the hospital. Her life isn’t in danger, but that doesn’t mean her injury is insignificant. What’s worse, she’s now going to have a scar on her abdomen, too, as well as the symbol on her back.

Mogi is still in the hospital as before. Though she doesn’t appear any different on the surface, I get the feeling she’s a little more distant with me.

As for Yuri, her involvement in this put a burden on her that might have been too much. She’s been staying home from school a lot recently, including today. Though she does appear to enjoy speaking with me, it hurts me to see how obviously down she is.

Iroha refuses to see me. According to Yuri, she claims she’s fine and there’s no need to worry about her, but it’s possible she’s saying that just to put me at ease.

I haven’t spoken with Haruaki once since it ended.

I leave the classroom.

I suddenly don’t feel like going to my afternoon classes. Spending time in this empty classroom is just agonizing any way I think about it.

I head to the shoe cupboard. In the hallway, I pass by a few girls and overhear them mention “dog-people” in their conversation.

Dog-people.

In the end, the dog-people never became a worldwide phenomenon. All the former dog-people recovered their memories at once, which led society to accept that the situation had been mostly resolved. Without the mystique, the incident fell out of the news cycle, and the talk shows that had once featured the dog-people day after day quickly found new fodder from the affair between a mainstream idol group and an entrepreneur.

That’s how powerful of an incident it was. I’m sure most people haven’t completely forgotten about the dog-people. But the topic now feels distinctly in the past.

The dog-people have run their course as a subject of conversation.

That’s how things are now. At the very least, the dog-people didn’t prompt anyone to deeply ponder their morality. Pretty much no one talks about them online anymore. The Internet is flooded with all kinds of news every day. Right now, the biggest talking point is a manga writer who said some nasty things to a fan. This led to more people yelling at one another, and now it’s a full-blown shitstorm. Someone even got arrested for sending a death threat to the author. It makes me cringe a bit to think that this is on the same level as what Daiya caused.

All that said, I don’t think Daiya’s actions were meaningless. There are probably people out there who are still thinking about the issues he brought up. But he would have needed to keep it up if he wanted to hold the attention of society. The fact is that news has an expiration date.

I arrive at the shoe cupboard. No one reprimands me or stops me as I switch from my indoor shoes to my leather ones.

In the schoolyard, I spot people playing basketball and catch.

Even in a school as full of Subjects as this one, daily life rolls on with little or no change. The Subjects have all lost their memories of the Box. I’m sure there are some individuals among them who were greatly affected. But even that doesn’t appear to have had any influence on the normal day-to-day of school.

“……”

Why is that?

Seeing it puts me in a little bit of a bad mood. Even though I stopped Daiya’s plans, even though this is exactly what I wanted, the fact that nothing has changed doesn’t really make me happy.

I mean, if that’s the case, then what are any of us even capable of?

If Daiya can step forward alone with the resolve to let his goals destroy him, and still nothing changes, what does that say about the rest of us? What does it say about our daily lives that they go on just the same regardless of whether one of us is seriously injured or leaves school or just vanishes?

…No, that viewpoint is too similar to Daiya’s.

If anything, that’s exactly why I have faith in normality. I have faith that, if normal life is able to correct so many extreme changes, I can save Maria by pulling her into it.

The reason I’m getting all sentimental is because I am Daiya’s friend, even though he might say otherwise now. I just want him to get something for his efforts.

“Daiya…”

Daiya has disappeared again.

I met with him only once after everything, when he came to school after he had officially withdrawn. His hair was black, and he had removed his earrings. I mustered up the courage to speak with him, but all he did was give me a little smile without actually having a conversation.

I have no idea what he intends to do from here on out.

Leaving school, I ride the train and arrive at the five-story apartment building I’m so used to visiting. I’ve never pressed any buttons in this elevator except for the ones for the first and fourth floors, and I probably won’t have a reason to press any others. As always, I punch the button for the fourth floor and head to the door of room 403.

Inserting my copy of the key, I open the door.

Before me is a completely bare room.

No one is here.

Kicking off my shoes, I make myself at home in this empty apartment once again. There’s no trace of Maria’s presence anywhere, though.

Anywhere.

I could handle the lack of furniture or decorations. There wasn’t much of anything in here to begin with, after all.

But there’s one little thing that’s more than I can stand—it doesn’t smell like peppermint.

It was basically Maria’s scent to me, and now it’s gone.

That makes reality sink in that, whether I like it or not, Maria will not be returning to this apartment.

“Maria…”

She’s gone.

After she finished treating Kokone that day, Maria vanished. I don’t recall turning my attention away from her, which means Maria had most likely been waiting for a chance to slip away from me. I went searching right away, but I could find neither hide nor hair of her.

Though she is apparently still enrolled in school, I don’t think she’ll be coming back. That’s why she cleared out the apartment.

She probably doesn’t plan on seeing me ever again.

Sure, I intend to take Maria back. Of course. I should be able to.

But—I can’t.

Just finding Maria gone ends my search before it begins.

“...Ah, ahhh!”

I’m having trouble breathing. It feels as if all the oxygen in my body has been sucked out. I want to see her; I desperately want to see her; my chest is burning. Tears well up in my eyes. The pain is enough to make them spill over, though whether they’re born of sadness or frustration, I couldn’t say.

And then I think something.

“I won’t let her.”

I won’t let her leave me.

I will track down Maria, no matter what I have to do. No matter what I have to do. If I have to kill everyone in the world, then I will.

I take out the bottle of peppermint-scented oil from my bag. I bought it on the way home from school. I walk around dripping it here and there on the floor. The familiar scent spreads, but it’s not a relief at all. It’s still not enough. Leaving a few drops won’t be enough for the smell to wash over me.

Just…let…me…breathe.

“Haah…ah, haah!”

Maria.

The original Maria, before she obtained a Box. The Maria she’s never let me see, new and untouched.

—The zeroth Maria.

Where are you?

If you are inside Aya Otonashi, then I’ll pull you out, even if I have to tear off her skin.

—Click.

Out of nowhere comes the sound of the door opening.

I panic. I don’t need to say I’m trespassing. I’m even putting down scented oil as if I own the place. If it’s someone from the company that manages these apartments, I’m in big trouble.

But I realize my worries are unfounded when I see who appears behind the door.

No, I wasn’t nearly worried enough.

The situation just got even worse.

It can’t get any worse, in fact.

“O.”

She presents herself in the form of the woman who somehow resembles Maria.

We’ve run into each other several times. We’ve even had relatively mundane encounters that weren’t connected to anything major. This time, the implications are different from before.

O has unmistakably arrived here as my enemy.

She is here to take me down.

“Have you made your preparations?” she asks with her characteristic creepy smile.

—For what?

I ask for clarification, and O obliges.

“To say your good-byes to this world.”

Daiya Oomine 09/24 THU 10:45 AM

I may have lost Crime, Punishment, and the Shadow of Crime, but I haven’t forgotten anything about Boxes. I don’t know the reason, but I think it may have something to do with how I knew they existed even before I got one of my own.

I walk the streets of Shinjuku. It’s crowded. The number of people is annoying, but it doesn’t make me dizzy anymore. I don’t see any crimes when I step on shadows. I know that the sludge-like corruption lurks beneath the skin of the people strolling the packed sidewalks, but they don’t appear to me like squirming bags of filth.

They’re just people.

I try to brush my earrings, then remember I don’t have anything in my ear and smile ruefully.

I suddenly drop to my knees in the middle of the street. I stretch my back and give a snappy bow with my head to the ground, like a karate student to a teacher.

It’s a weird thing to do, from anyone’s point of view.

Okay.

I raise my head. While there are several people giving me odd looks, for the most part everyone simply passes me by and tries not to get involved. That’s all that happens when I’m the only one acting strangely. That’s all I am now that I’ve lost the ability to manipulate the masses.

I don’t have the power to make anything happen anymore.

“……Heh-heh.”

I’m fine with that.

The people flow by without interacting with me.

Yeah, that’s how it is.

The world has become a group of people who have nothing to do with me.

It’s incredibly freeing.

But—

Someone suddenly taps me on the shoulder as I wade through the throngs.

I turn around, wondering who it could be.

“Oh, it’s you.”

When I see who it is, my expression turns tense. To be honest, it’s someone I had hoped not to see.

“What could you possibly want from me now?”

Her eyes go wide at my rather rude reply, and she makes a desperate appeal. She’s so worked up and all over the place, I can hardly make heads or tails of what she’s saying. Listening patiently, I finally get the gist of it: She wants me to behave like a god again and set the world straight.

“You want me to lead you again? You know that’s not going to happen. I don’t have power anymore… You don’t care? Sorry, I don’t get that… Okay, let me say it loud and clear. I have no desire to do anything of the sort ever again, and I have no intention of doing it, either.”

That doesn’t satisfy her, though. She’s still fervently pleading with me. Pretty persistent for someone with no memory of the Box.

“Responsibility? Yeah, sure. I plan on turning myself in once Kokone’s condition stabilizes. Killing Koudai Kamiuchi isn’t a crime I can just sweep aside, after all… What? That’s not what you’re talking about? Okay, then what do you mean by responsibility? …My responsibility for leading you? I’m telling you—you’re free to go. Isn’t that enough? ……Huh? That’s not true at all. Your life does not belong to me. It never has. It’s always been yours, not mine.”

Not even that gets her to back off.

“Give me a break here. Don’t expect anything else from me. I’m just a high schooler—heck, I’m not even that. I’m just a failure of a person who couldn’t even handle high school. Yeah. I’m human.”

She persists with her desperate entreaty.

Guide me, she begs, help me.

What does she want from me?

I turn my back, realizing that any further conversation is pointless.

“Live however you want from now on.”

I won’t have anything to do with her ever again.

On that point, I’ve made my intentions clear.

I have completely renounced every last bit of my former power.

Then my back is hot, almost burning.

“Huh?”

My strength suddenly gives out, and I drop to my knees.

As my knees hit the ground, the blood draining out of me stains them red.

Spitting blood from my mouth, I look up at the one who stabbed me, and I realize. I’d been talking with this girl for a bit now, but I hadn’t recognized her at all. Talking with her was like talking with a virtual image.

Now that it’s come to this, I can finally take in what she looks like.

She had to stab me to make me acknowledge her existence.

“You’re human? Please don’t treat me like I’m stupid.” This girl with empty eyes stands over me and says, “You are a god.”

This middle schooler with a bob lowers a large kitchen knife. She rubs the blood over her face like makeup.

“If you aren’t a god, then how am I supposed to live? You should be held accountable. You should be held accountable until the very end.”

Screams arise from the busy thoroughfare as people notice what is happening.

“I won’t let you.”

She smiles through her welling tears.

“I won’t let you be human again.”

With that, the girl runs off, bumping into several people along the crowded street.

Before long, I can’t even see her back anymore. But I’m sure the guilt of what she’s done will track her down in no time. She’ll come up against an overwhelming impasse. The kind world, the just world, will not protect her. That’s how our world is.

I might have tried to play at being a god, but I couldn’t guide anyone in the right way. This is what it gets me.

“......Ha.”

Blood spills out of my mouth again.

“......Ha-ha.”

This is my reward for my efforts, isn’t it? Pitiful. I can’t help a wry laugh.

But when I give it some thought, this really is what I get. Why did I think I should feel so free without undergoing any sort of punishment? Did I really believe the things I had done would go away completely?

Even without my powers, I’m still attacking and under attack.

This is reaping what I’ve sown. I had always imagined my eventual downfall. In a sense, this is just the arrival of a conclusion I foresaw for myself.

And yet.

Knowing that I brought this on myself doesn’t change anything.

“……Don’t…make me…laugh.”

I’m filled with regret.

I don’t want to be destroyed anymore. I don’t want to meet this end. Those desires are gone now, yet this is my end just because I once set the wheels in motion?

There was never any going back for me? …Shut up. What am I supposed to do? I can’t believe how much—

“………I…don’t want…to die.”

The blood trickling from my mouth makes the words almost inaudible.

I’m in pain. It hurts. It hurts. I’m in so much pain.

I want to live.

Kokone.

Kokone, I want to see you.

Once blind, I’ve finally seen the light and come to understand the truth. I don’t need to do anything. I could even be a burden. I just want to stay by your side. I’ve realized that’s what I want, and what I have to do… And now, even after this revelation…

My wish will be crushed just like that?

Don’t be stupid.

Fighting back the pain, I rise unsteadily to my feet.

I can’t let myself lose so easily. I can’t die. There should be a police box nearby. I’ll try to make it there.

No one on those busy streets offers to help the bleeding boy. Each and every one of them simply steers clear of me without trying to help. Everyone remains as apathetic as ever in the world I couldn’t change.

Is this something else I’m reaping for my trouble?

I try to laugh, but I can’t. Simply put, I’m at the end of my rope. My legs are turning to jelly. My consciousness is fading away. The world is spinning.

Then it ends.

I collapse in a pathetic, motionless heap.

Something occurs to me.

If there was someone to help me out of this, they would be the definition of hope.

That’s what I think.