The Empty Box and Zeroth Maria
Book 3: Chapter 16

Day 6 <B> The Common Area

We reach the sixth day without any major developments.

As Daiya had planned, we revealed everyone’s Classes and even collected all the knives, bringing Kingdom Royale to a halt. Despite this, the other three remain on the fence about Boxes no matter how much we explain to them, so we’re stuck when it comes to identifying the owner… And the time limit is approaching fast.

I head from my room to the common area. By this point, I’m completely used to the warping phenomenon that occurs when I go into a new room and don’t think anything of it.

A room that is whiter than any naturally occurring shade.

…But whatever. As long as I’m the Revolutionary and Daiya is the Sorcerer, Kingdom Royale will never start.

“Kazuki.”

As she spots me, Yuri marches swiftly up to me with a little grin on her face.

“Huh? Did something good happen?”

As I say this, Yuri mutters “Huh?” in a small voice and tilts her head, as if she wasn’t aware of what she was doing. Watching us from the corner of her eye, Iroha chimes in.

“Yuri’s just happy to see you for the first time in a day. She’s really grown fond of you.”

By her tone, it’s hard to tell whether she’s joking or serious. Yuri’s face blushes a deep red.

“I-Iroha! Quit talking about me like I’m some sort of puppy!”

I imagine Yuri with a dog’s tail, wagging as she comes up to me.

“Ha!”

Oh man, that’s a great image!

“Wh-why did you laugh just now, Kazuki?!”

She puffs out her cheeks… I’ve got to find a way to pass off that laugh as something else.

All the same—I really have grown used to talking to these two.

Ever since the second day, we’ve all made an effort to actively talk to one another to build trust. I’ve had Private Meetings with everyone. Even Daiya has been cooperative, so the strategy has proven effective.

At the very least, I can no longer imagine any one of us killing someone else.

“…Kazuki, as punishment for laughing, you have to choose me…for a Private Meeting during <C>,” Yuri says for some reason, her puffed-out cheeks turning slightly red.

“Fine, but how is that punishment?”

“…Huh? …Um, w-well, it just is! …Probably!” Yuri says, flapping her arms with gusto. It’s kinda funny.

“Huh?”

Maria, who has been eyeing Yuri, comes over, scratching her head irritably.

“…Huh? What’s up, Maria?”

For whatever reason, Maria stays silent, unwilling to open her mouth.

“…To put it this way…you’ve already had Private Meetings with Yanagi four times, correct?”

“Huh?”

“If you go again today, that’ll make it five. I wouldn’t be surprised if the others see that as you focusing on one person. Having Private Meetings with a specific person five times may endanger the sense of cooperation we’ve worked so hard to build among the six of us.”

“…Um? So you’re saying I shouldn’t have a Private Meeting with Yuri; is that right?”

“I’m not saying just with Yuri. I’m saying it’s dangerous to be perceived as favoring a specific person.”

“…Aren’t you overthinking it a bit?”

“You’ve only had Private Meetings with me three times.”

I feel like I’m missing something…

“Otonashi’s jealous. How cute,” Iroha says with an amused look on her face.

“…Don’t get started with that stupid, baseless conjecture. I’m just warning Kazuki about his behavior.”

“You’re really desperate.”

“…You aren’t listening to me.”

“Maria, are you jealous?” I ask.

Thud!

“O-ow!”

She kicked me in the shin really hard!

“Sigh…”

Kamiuchi, who was watching this exchange and fiddling with his portable device, jumps in disgustedly. “Aw man, I’m so jealous here. I kinda just wish you’d curl up and die, Hoshino.”

“Huh? What’s to be jealous of…? I just got kicked.”

“…What’re you playing dumb for? Is that what they call the confidence of the victor?”

When I tilt my head, Kamiuchi lets out a sigh and goes back to messing around with his device.

Despite how it may seem, Kamiuchi and I have gotten pretty used to each other, too. I wasn’t sure how things would go the first time I saw that violent side of him, but in speaking with him, I’ve found him to be surprisingly easy to talk to.

“Huh? Ah, I get it.”

Kamiuchi sets his device on the table and stands up.

“What’s up?”

“Oh, I was just going back over some past statements and I reached a conclusion.”

Kamiuchi walks over to where Daiya is sitting and pats him on the shoulder. Daiya scowls, as if he’s annoyed by the overly familiar treatment. This has been happening pretty reliably between these two the last few days.

“Daiya. I’m gonna believe you, about the Box, I mean.”

Startled, I ask, “Huh? Really, Kamiuchi?”

“There’s no reason to lie, right? …I mean, at this point it doesn’t really matter whether I believe you. With us running short on time, I have to pick one or the other. There aren’t any other answers besides the Box, so I don’t really have any choice.”

Now that he mentions it, Maria did say they wouldn’t have any choice but to trust us once time grew short.

“So what was it we needed to do again? I’m pretty sure you said this situation would be fixed if we smash the Box. If that’s the case, let’s just do this.”

With that, Kamiuchi lifts his button-down shirt.

“Let’s kill Daiya here.”

“—Huh?”

But there wasn’t enough time.

There wasn’t time for me to comprehend what he meant.

Before I can even think, he brings down the     —

And he kills Daiya.

“……Ah…”

……Huh? What is this…?

Though I can explain what happened, my ability to understand it is far slower.

Kamiuchi slashed Daiya’s neck open. Blood sprays from his neck, and he falls silent with his eyes still open. And then—he dies. I can tell that much. But while I can recognize the facts as facts, I cannot assign any meaning to them.

That’s why I just stand there, dumbfounded.

Kamiuchi’s shirt is now bright red, and his face is wet and crimson with the sticky spray of blood. In his hands is a knife, which he should not have. It’s one of the combat weapons we supposedly collected from everyone.

“That’s funny,” Kamiuchi mutters as he plays with the knife he had concealed underneath his belt. “Wasn’t everything supposed to be fixed once the owner dies? And wasn’t the owner Daiya here?”

He looks at Maria.

“Hey, that was the story, right, Maricchi?”

Maria is stunned, her eyes wide.

Kamiuchi keeps talking, as if he was never really looking for a response to begin with.

“Maybe it’s just that Daiya isn’t dead yet? Okay, let’s try this.”

And with that—

—he plunges the knife into Daiya’s neck again.

Blood flows everywhere.

The impact knocks Daiya’s body forward, and his head slams into the table with a loud bang. Red liquid spreads across the table.

“Ah…”

Yuri shrieks and falls on her backside.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”

Kamiuchi looks at her, and his cheeks soften in a smile.

“Your scream is so cute, Yuri… But he sure looks dead to me. Guess that means all that stuff Maricchi said about Boxes in the beginning was either a mistake or BS, huh? Oh, I think I did choose to believe in Boxes, didn’t I? Guess I should just assume that Daiya here was a miss.”

Kamiuchi says a “miss.”

I don’t get what he means right away. But before long, I do.

“Maricchi.”

The murderer asks his question:

“Who should I try next?”

He’s asking who’ll be a “hit.”

By chance, I notice the hand gripping the knife is shaking.

At first, I think maybe it’s in fear of what he has just done. I understand once I see his face, though.

His hand is shaking with excitement.

Ahhh—what a mistake I had made. How did I ever expect to get along with a murderer like this?

He’s just been waiting for the right time to unleash the violent nature he’s kept hidden away.

Kingdom Royale is a game of killing and deception.

We were unable to stop it. Daiya’s experiment was a failure, with the price being his life.

Kingdom Royale started that very first day.

“Why do you…still have a knife?” I ask as I stare at the knife with Daiya’s blood still dripping from it.

“Is that really your first question? …Fine, I’ll humor you. Yuri gave me plenty of openings when I went to her room for a Private Meeting, so I took one. That’s all.”

“…Huh? So it’s…my…fault…?”

Yuri looks up and turns her wide eyes on Kamiuchi. The murderer smiles at Yuri, then speaks.

“You gotta be more careful.”

“Ah…”

She’s rendered speechless, and her tears overflow.

“So, Maricchi, who’s next? …Hey, she’s still frozen. Don’t you think you’re overreacting a bit? Whatever, I still think your naïveté is damn adorable.”

Kamiuchi gazes at the blood-soaked knife as he offers his meaningless compliment.

“…I’ve decided,” he says, walking up to me. “Maybe I’ll go with Hoshino here, since he’s just making me green with envy. I want him dead anyway.”

He picks me, in the same tone someone would choose their lunch from a menu.

But in his eyes, there is genuine malicious intent.

I lock up when I see the bloody knife in his hands. It’s the same weapon that killed Daiya.

The murderer comes closer.

“Wait.”

Kamiuchi stops easily at Maria’s voice. “What is it, Maricchi?”

She speaks to the boy with a lust for blood in his eyes.

“I’m an owner.”

Kamiuchi narrows his eyes at her words.

“I’m saying you should kill me, not Kazuki.”

He seems to have grasped her meaning. He smirks, seemingly by reflex. “Ha-ha, are you saying you want to take his place and save his life? You’re really something.”

“I’m simply stating the truth,” Maria says, glaring at him.

Kamiuchi quickly strides up to her, still holding the knife. Maria raises both of her hands, all but declaring she has no intention of fighting back.

“M-Maria…”

She smiles at me as I call out her name. Seeing the kindness in her face, I’m certain of something.

Maria didn’t say that because she has some sort of plan. She really is just prepared to die in my place.

“I’m impressed with you, Maricchi. I never thought I’d meet someone who honestly values the lives of others over their own. They say love’s one hell of a drug; maybe they’re onto something. This is true love if I’ve ever seen it.”

Maria smiles icily. “Is that so? Well, I’m glad you’re impressed.”

“Are you really okay with dying just to help Hoshino?”

“Yeah.”

Kamiuchi sighs at Maria’s direct, unhesitant response. “Well, damn. This love of yours is just too beautiful. Okay, fine. It’s not like I want to be the bad guy; I’m just trying get out of here as quick as I can. But I’m not gonna be some cheap-ass villain who just goes ‘If that’s how you want it, then die’ and slices you up. So I’m letting you both off the hook.”

Koudai Kamiuchi runs his hands through Maria’s hair intimately as he continues:

“You just have to sleep with me, Maricchi.”

He presses the knife to her throat with his right hand.

“……”

Maria’s face twists with loathing. She glares at Koudai Kamiuchi, then slaps away the hand stroking her hair, even though she’s at knifepoint.

“……Shut the hell up. I’d rather die than give my body over to you.”

“Ooh, so mean. There are plenty of girls out there lining up to get with me, you know. So you aren’t going to accept the offer?”

“Of course not!!”

“All righty, then.”

He gives up that easily—or so it seems.

“I’ll take Yuri instead.”

As if that would ever happen.

He said it with a smile, but his eyes are cold and full of lust; realizing he isn’t joking in the slightest, Yuri turns as white as a sheet.

“N-no—!!”

“It doesn’t matter if you say no, Yuri, my dear. Maricchi turned me down. Oh, but I like you better anyway, so I’m totally cool with it.”

“I—I could never do that…”

“Okay, then I’ll kill both Maricchi and Hoshino.”

All Yuri can do is blanch another shade whiter in the face of this inhuman statement.

“If you don’t want to have the deaths of these two hanging over your head because you told me no, then you should just go along with it.”

Yuri slowly turns back and looks at me. Tears stream from her eyes. She can’t speak, but her gaze tells me what she wants to say.

“—Please don’t betray me.”

…Yeah, I see it now. This is the situation Yuri was afraid of from day one. And I made a promise. I promised I wouldn’t betray Yanagi again.

But even so, if I try to save Yuri now, then Maria will—

“…Stop.”

The one who speaks up in a small voice is Maria, not me.

A grin spreads across Koudai Kamiuchi’s face as he hears this.

“Hmm? If you’ve decided you want to play nice with me, then I guess that’s okay.”

I’m sure she knew he would say this.

Maria bites down hard on her lip, so hard that blood begins flowing from it. She looks away from me—and then says it clearly.

“………Yeah, you’ll have to make do with me.”

…What…

…What are you saying, Maria?

“Huh? Are you serious?”

Koudai Kamiuchi’s eyes are huge.

“……Heh…heh-heh, ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

That resolve—

She would rather die than do this, and yet Maria has the resolve to do it, all to save Yuri… Koudai Kamiuchi points at her and laughs.

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Seriously? I can get why you’d do anything to save your lover boy Hoshino. But you’d really do that for someone like Yuri after only a few days with her? Ah-ha-ha, that is too funny!”

“……What’s so funny about it?”

“I mean, talk about culture shock! What the hell kinda values do you have? Putting others before yourself like that is just twisted, if you ask me! Do you really think there’s something beautiful in doing that?!”

I’ll admit that I can’t really relate to Maria’s stance on this, either. She neglects her own needs to a fault and occasionally even scoffs at me for caring about her. I can’t really say her attitude is entirely about living for others.

But…

…even if that stance is a bit mistaken—

—there is no way I can let someone like him mock it.

“The suffering of others bothers you more than your own? Well then, I take back what I just said. I won’t let you take her place. I’m gonna have my way with Yuri no matter what you do.”

“…What…are you saying, you bastard?! What’s the meaning in that?!”

“It’s just more fun.”

Even Maria is speechless. Koudai Kamiuchi laughs contemptuously at her shock.

He’s toying with her. He’s decided her bravery is pathetic, and he’s entertaining himself by watching her.

I can’t allow this to happen. I’ll never allow Koudai Kamiuchi to get away with demeaning Maria’s pride like this… I won’t allow it, but—

I won’t allow it, but why—?

“Ugh…uh…uuuuuuu…”

The sound of Yuri’s sobs fills the room. Maria is being held at knifepoint.

Why can’t I do anything about it?

“You guys still don’t wanna die, right?”

None of us respond, so Koudai Kamiuchi lays it out.

“All right then, from now on, all of you are my slaves.”