The Empty Box and Zeroth Maria
Book 6: Chapter 15

“Are you okay, Oomine?!”

I pick him up and cradle him.

“……Aya?”

He whispers one word, then closes his eyes.

My gray jacket is stained a dark red in no time at all. His wound is worse than Kirino’s was, and unlike back then, I don’t have any first aid implements.

Before long, I know I can’t save him.

It’s no coincidence that I was able to hurry to Daiya in his moment of need. With nowhere else to go, I had been following him. It didn’t mean anything more than that. Oomine had once given me the opportunity to do away with the “misbegotten” part of my Misbegotten Happiness, so I’d been trailing him in the hope that maybe I would find the same chance again. Chances were slim to none, but I couldn’t give up.

When Oomine faintly gasps “You really did come” with faint breaths, I get the impression that maybe he knew what I was doing.

But I doubt that’s the case. Oomine once attempted to entrust his power to me. I may have lost Crime, Punishment, and the Shadow of Crime, but I believe I still embody hope for him.

“Hold on, I’ll call an ambulance. You have to try and stay conscious until then.” I offer him something, knowing it may be no use. He opens and closes his mouth, enduring the pain.

“Use……on me.”

“What? What’re you trying to say?”

Summoning the last of his strength, he tells me what he wants—the one method that could save him.

“Use the Misbegotten Happiness on me.”

Erasing my memories of Kazuki Hoshino.

That’s what using the Misbegotten Happiness on Oomine would mean.

No, I’m not okay with the idea. That hasn’t changed, even if he has. I spent a whole lifetime with him; he has power over my heart no matter what I have to say about it.—And power is what it is. Kazuki haunts all the more human portions of my heart. He’s scattered everywhere, so I can’t be rid of him.

If I forget Kazu, I won’t be myself anymore. I’d become a sort of doppelgänger of myself, just with the same body and purpose.

Discarding myself.

That is terrifying.

I can’t believe this… How did I neglect this problem until it came to this? Why didn’t I get away from Kazuki from the beginning?

Was I lazy, relaxing into the comfort of his presence? Was I enjoying life at the expense of my mission?

No.

I shake my head internally. My connection with Kazuki is not so frail. It wasn’t something I could overcome by just holding on to the right attitude. This may be a strange way of putting it, but my deepening ties to him were unavoidable. There is nothing that could have been done as long as the Rejecting Classroom existed.

I accept it.

The bond between Kazuki and me is absolute.

It’s a precious connection born of necessity.

And now I will destroy it.

“......!”

…Don’t be afraid, I’ve said so many times.

But if that’s true—

—I can’t help but wonder.

Is there any meaning to the “me” who vanishes over and over? She’s destined to be lost—so can you say she really exists?

What am “I”?

But the me who is thinking about these things is suddenly amused.

“……Heh-heh.”

What’s the point of going over all this with myself now?

“I”—am a Box.

A Box with no meaning beyond granting the wishes of others.

And here, right before my eyes, is someone who wishes for the Misbegotten Happiness.

I smile at Oomine.

“Okay, I’ll use the Misbegotten Happiness.”

No hesitation. I’m a Box; I shouldn’t have doubts.

“Please.”

Oomine reaches out with a blood-drenched hand for my cheek. The weak touch of his fingers tells me that this is nearly it for him.

“I don’t want to die.”

A thought suddenly comes to me.

There was once a girl trapped within a looping world who had a similar wish. She couldn’t fully believe she wouldn’t die, and that was the result.

Oomine is a realist, so I’m sure he won’t be able to ignore his own fate.

Meaning that even if I do use the Misbegotten Happiness, the outcome will be—

I decide not to entertain that thought any further.

If someone asks to be saved, then my only course is to meet that request.

I press Oomine’s bloody hand against my chest.

And then I—disappear.

Disappear.

Disappear.

I sink to the bottom of the ocean. It’s pitch-black there, and I can’t see a thing. Not even my own hands. I can’t even be sure of my own form. It’s cold, and my body turns numb as it freezes over. I can’t tell where I am. I may be the oceanic abyss itself.

I can hear distant laughter. Lots of laughing voices. They don’t have anything to do with me, though. Plus, their joy is fake.

No one can see themselves here, so there’s no need for pretense. The water pressure has pressed out the softer parts of me, leaving me in a state I can never let anyone else see. It’s my weak self. The girl I used to be. But there’s no one here anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.

The world is far away.

I am farther away than anyone.

But an unexpected light appears to me in my solitude. It’s harsh and intense, like a spotlight catching a criminal. My eyes narrow against the glare.

Then she reveals herself.

I say the name of the girl who appears.

“O.”

I notice something immediately, though.

She’s different. No, she is undoubtedly O, but not the same. This form of hers. This girl with the bewitching smile, she’s—

“Aya…my sister.”

And then my eyes are opened.

How my Box works. How the Misbegotten Happiness remains a failure. How my own actions serve no purpose. How everything I’ve done until now was just swimming around lost in the pitch-black ocean depths. How my memories have left me ignorant.

I understand everything.

So what about me? What have I been doing all this for?

“Maria.” She says my name. “You remember my wish, right?”

“Of course I do.”

It’s the only way I can atone.

The one thing I can do for my beloved sister.

There was something Aya always used to say, and she says it again now. “I want to make other people happy.”

“Okay.” All I can do is nod in agreement.

“Will you keep making my wish come true?”

“Yes,” I reply, and Aya answers with a charming smile.

Overjoyed, I try to smile along with her. My head is frozen, though, so I can’t tell if I’m really succeeding.

“As you do, you will probably keep wandering. What is flawed and incomplete will remain flawed, but you will never stop pursuing perfection. You will continue to forget yourself in your search for a correct answer that doesn’t exist.”

“Maybe so…”

“But that’s what you wanted.”

“What do you mean? What I wanted?”

“To continually seek out the ideal—that is your wish.” She smiles. I always loved that smile. “If you become whole, then you will realize that Aya Otonashi doesn’t exist within you.”

“Oh, I see.”

So what I’m doing, really, is—

“...Anyway.”

I do know one thing.

I won’t stop, even though what I do may be meaningless in the end, as meaningless as swimming around down here in the depths of the sea.

That’s right; I—

“There’s no one who can stop me.”

I then come to my senses. I’m sitting on my knees in the middle of a busy street in Shinjuku. My posture suggests I have been holding someone, but there’s no one in my arms.

I glance down and see that I’m covered in blood. I don’t know why. Surprisingly, I’m not shocked or frightened.

I don’t remember anything. But I do know what happened to me.

I used the Misbegotten Happiness.

There’s a gulf in my head. It’s vast, too large to fill in. A pit so massive that I might start shaking if I look directly at it.

Yes, I have lost it.

Once again, I’ve become something other than myself.

I rise unsteadily to my feet. My body feels strangely light, causing me to stagger. I see myself reflected in a shop window. My face looks awful, as if I’m bearing the misery of the whole world, and I’m so gaunt that I appear completely helpless. I guess this is what I amount to when I forget my resolve.

Deciding to go somewhere else, I realize I have no place to go.

With no memories of my family, no memories of my friends, I have no mooring.

As I stand completely still, a busy-looking man who seems like an office worker bumps into me. He glances at me when I stagger, and he clicks his tongue, then quickly hurries off.

—Where am I?

—Who am I?

I feel as if I’m at the very bottom of the ocean.

“         ”

I suddenly get the feeling someone is calling out to me.

The way they address me brings warmth to my heart. It’s so familiar. For a moment, it feels as though asking who it is would be a ridiculous thing to do.

I turn around.

But the people on the street are paying no attention to me, so there doesn’t seem to be anyone who would have called out to me like that.

“         ”

There it is again.

A voice that moves my heart.

But I realize something. While I feel as if I can hear the voice, I can’t tell what it’s saying.

“What…?” I touch my cheek. “Why am I crying?”

I don’t understand.

I’m sure, though, that whatever this is was important to the girl I once was.

It has nothing to do with me anymore, but maybe it was something I shouldn’t have lost.

Yes, but still.

It doesn’t matter to me anymore.

I wipe away my tears. No more come to replace them.

I haven’t forgotten my purpose. Granting the wishes of other people—that is what’s important to me. Nothing else. I have to put aside what my former self once cherished.

No, I already have.

Now then, it’s time to find O again.

“……Huh?”

What did I just think?

I try to pull it back, but nothing comes to me. I can’t recall what I was thinking just now. I get the feeling it doesn’t really matter, though.

I will keep wandering, and that’s all.

And so I forget O’s true nature yet again.

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