The Empty Box and Zeroth Maria
Book 1: Chapter 21

“So what did you and Kasumi talk about, Hosshi?”

A huge grin on his face, Haruaki gives me a little poke in the chest as he approaches me after school.

“Did she have a confession for you, perhaps?”

“Yeah… Uh, I mean, no…”

She did confess she was actually Aya Otonashi, so he’s right, in a way.

“You’re being evasive! I don’t buy it! Wait, don’t tell me you’re serious?! You lucky bastard! Kasumi’s even cuter than usual these days, too!”

Oh, right.

Seeing Haruaki having such a good time with this, I realize what I have to do.

Finding Maria again is reassuring, but now that Kasumi Mogi, the actual owner of the Box, has disappeared to who-knows-where, I have no idea how to proceed from here.

I remember what Haruaki once said to Maria. It seems like so long ago that I’m not sure I’m remembering word for word, though.

Yeah, I have to make sure I get Haruaki’s help in this.

“Hey, is it okay if we pick up from where we left off earlier?” The shift is a little sudden, so Haruaki gives me a blank look at first, but then he nods with a smile. “So I was saying I figured out what to do next, right? I’ll pick up from there.”

I look Haruaki in the eyes and make my defiant declaration.

“I’m going to take down the Rejecting Classroom.”

His eyes widen at the force in my voice.

“Uh… I’m pretty sure I told you that, in the Rejecting Classroom, we would live on with no harm done as long as we were oblivious.”

“You did. But I can’t do it. I can’t ignore the idea that we could be trapped inside an endlessly looping world where it’s impossible to progress even a single step forward.”

“Why?”

“Because the truth is…I already know we are.”

It’s possible I could have lived out my days here trouble-free as long as I forgot about the Rejecting Classroom.

But I already know. I know that our lives here are all one huge lie.

There’s no way I can ignore that.

Maybe it’s selfish, but I feel it’s not only the right thing to do, but also the only thing I can do.

“…I don’t really get why, but you must have a good reason if you’re sticking to your guns like this, right?”

The puzzlement in Haruaki’s query is sincere.

A reason…? Why exactly am I clinging so fiercely to the normalcy of my daily life? I give it some thought. There’s no denying that my attachment to the mundaneness of my existence probably borders on the abnormal.

Haruaki mutters, “It’s like it’s a matter of life and death to you.”

Yeah, that’s it. He hit it right on the nose. The reason couldn’t be any simpler.

“It has to do with the reason why we live.”

Haruaki’s eyes widen, as if he didn’t expect that sort of answer.

“The reason we live? And what is that? What do you mean?”

“I can’t really explain it… Okay, say you had a test you didn’t study for at all but still managed to ace. You wouldn’t be that happy, would you? It wouldn’t be the same as studying your brains out for a good score and then succeeding, right?”

“Sure. I know the things you have to work for are more important than the ones you get with little or no effort, even though the actual value might be the same.”

“I believe that’s what life is—that process of pursuing something. I don’t think it’s crazy at all. Everyone dies someday. The end result isalways death. That’s why going after the results alone is so scary to me.”

“All people do die someday, that’s true.”

“If the place where we are now is that Rejecting Classroom where everything becomes null and void, I can’t allow things to stay as they are. No way. I have to stay in the normal world if I’m going to protect the reason I live. That’s why I despise the existence of these Boxes that run against normal life.”

Haruaki listens to my full-on rant as if it’s the most interesting thing in the world.

Maybe I didn’t need to say all of that. After all, Haruaki would most likely offer his help unconditionally either way.

“So how about it? Will you help me?”

My friend’s thumb shoots up without a moment’s hesitation.

✵

At Haruaki’s suggestion, I ask Daiya and Kokone to hear me out and join us in our cause. The five of us are gathered around the bed in a room at the same ritzy hotel Maria and I went to before.

We lay out the situation to Kokone and Daiya.

I thought Maria might consider it a waste of time to explain everything to the others, but other than adding a few things here and there, she generally refrains from interrupting. Maybe she’s hoping to hear a fresh perspective on our dilemma.

“Let’s see… So Kasumi isn’t actually Kasumi. She’s someone named Aya Otonashi, and the real Kasumi is the ‘owner’ who made this ‘Rejecting Classroom,’ only now no one knows where she went, so Kazu here is asking us all to come up with a battle plan… It doesn’t make any sense! How am I supposed to understand any of that?”

Kokone flops down sideways on the bed.

“Ahh, this is super comfy!” she says.

“Nobody asked what you thought of the mattress.”

“I know that!” She lashes out at my little jest.

Even though she’s playing around, I’m pretty sure her mind is actually hard at work thinking about what she’s just heard.

“I have a few questions…” Daiya cuts in to the conversation. “If we are inside the Rejecting Classroom, then the accident you claim is unavoidable should happen like it always does, right?”

“Most likely.”

Maria is the first to respond.

Uh, is Daiya actually taking this seriously?

“What’s with that stupid look on your face, Kazu? You some fish in a pond flapping its mouth trying to get some food?”

“Uh, no, it’s just that I’m surprised you believed what we told you about the Rejecting Classroom so easily.”

“You think I believe that crap?” Daiya angrily spits out the words.

“Uh… Wha…?”

“I thought maybe you were the only one who lost your mind, but now even Mogi is talking crazy. There may be some extenuating circumstances driving you to do all this, but it’s too much of a pain to think of what those could be. So I’m taking your story of the Rejecting Classroom at face value and putting my doubts on hold for now.”

I take that to be Daiya’s long-winded way of saying he’s gonna help.

Haruaki has something to add.

“So, Daiyan. You said the accident might take place as always. What then?”

“Yeah, so if the accident occurs just as before, who will be the victim if Mogi isn’t here anymore?”

“I…think it might be me, since I’ve been forced into her position in all this. The natural conclusion is that I will end up taking on her role in the accident, too.”

Haruaki asks a question. “Was it always Kasumi who was struck?”

“No. Sometimes the people who tried to save Mogi would get hit, too. There was me, Kazuki, and even you when you tried to save me after I saved Mogi. That last one happened not just once but several hundred times.”

“Whoa! Really? That number doesn’t even seem possible. Oh, wait, never mind. I’m sure the same person in the same situation would take the same action in most cases.”

“What’s more, in nearly every instance at the start of the day, you told me how much you loved me,” said Maria with an exasperated look on her face.

“I put my body on the line for the woman I loved? Awesome! I didn’t know I was so cool!”

“To be perfectly honest, you were a bit of a nuisance.”

“H-how could you…?”

“Try putting yourself in my shoes. How awful would you feel if you had to witness someone who had fallen in love with you die in your place? Your actions brought the arrogance of my quest to obtain the Box into sharp relief. Nothing else came so close to breaking my heart.”

“Hmm…”

Haruaki scowls.

He looks like he still doesn’t think his actions were entirely wrong, so I doubt he’s sorry.

“By the way, how many times did I tell you I loved you?”

“Exactly three thousand.”

“I didn’t know I was so passionate…”

“That also means you got turned down three thousand times! That must be a new world record! But don’t worry, Haru; there’s something kinda cute about being such a loser!”

“Shut up, Kiri!!”

Those two crack me up.

“Mogi—no…I’ll call you Otonashi for now. So, Otonashi, why do you think Mogi went to the site of the accident each time even though she knew what was going to happen there?” Daiya asks.

Maria’s brows knit as she responds.

“The rules of the Rejecting Classroom most likely forced her to do so. I’m sure you’ve already figured this out, Oomine, but I tried to prevent the accident countless times.”

“There’s no reason to think she was okay with being run down by a truck when this all started. It’s easier to assume things just worked out that way for her in the end. I still wouldn’t choose to let myself get hit, though.”

“Hey, why are you guys talking about the accident? I thought we couldn’t solve any of this unless we find Kasumi.”

Kokone tilts her head as she returns to the conversation. Daiya looks annoyed as he glances in her direction.

“Will someone please shut off the human noise generator?”

“Ha-ha-ha. Too bad you weren’t the one who got splattered by that truck twenty thousand times, Daiya.”

“Let me ask you, then, Kiri. How exactly do you propose we go about finding Mogi?”

“Well…I don’t know. What, do you have some great idea, Daiya?”

“No.”

“Huh. And to think you go around riding your high horse and calling me a noise generator. Hey, I know—why don’t you change your last name to Highhorse? Daiya Highhorse. Wow, it’s a perfect fit!”

“I’m not the only one without any ideas. None of the others know what to do either. Am I wrong?”

Haruaki and I look at each other. Yeah, he pretty much has it right. With that out of the way, Daiya plunges straight into his argument.

“What this illustrates is why we need to explore other avenues to solving this situation. I focused on the truck accident because it’s clearly something of note within the cycle of repetition. This is clearly a logical deduction. I’m pretty sure even the human BS generator over there can understand that.”

“Grr…”

Kokone grits her teeth in frustration at Daiya’s jab.

“At any rate, stopping the accident could create a new development. It’s worth giving it a shot, if there might be something there. That’s what you want to say, right, Daiyan?” Haruaki sums up the argument.

Daiya nods. “Correct. But there’s no point if the accident can’t be stopped.”

“No,” Maria disagrees. “It might still be worth trying. There was a limit to what I could do working alone, but with this many people, we just might be able to put a stop to it.”

“Will it matter if we have more people? If you multiply anything by zero, you’re still gonna get zero. That’s what it means to be impossible, right?” retorted Daiya.

“I understand what you’re getting at, but I still see a few possibilities there. For one thing, the conditions now are different than they were before. I am Aya Otonashi, not Mogi, so the probability could now be something other than zero. If that’s the case, then bringing more people onboard and bumping up our chances isn’t a mistake, at the very least.”

Daiya crosses his arms in thought for a moment before giving a slight nod and saying, “You may be right.”

“All right! Now we know where to start! Let’s stop that truck! Any objections?”

No one voices any dissent with Haruaki’s roundup.

I think we might be onto something here.