The Empty Box and Zeroth Maria
Book 5: Chapter 5

Daiya Oomine 09/11 FRI 4:13 PM

Now, then.

This is an unforeseen development, but let’s put together what we know.

Let’s check the current situation.

I’m being held in a movie theater.

It’s a red theater, so clean that even the air seems especially clearer—which also makes the place feel cold and oppressive.

That’s where I am.

“……”

I think back on how this came to pass.

I had begun working with Shindo to take over the school.

She had asked whether that was really necessary. True, there is no strategic advantage to putting the school under our control and using it as a base. However, it is absolutely necessary psychologically. I still have yet to rid myself of my weakness, so I need this to be my ritual to renounce and break with normal life.

I will defeat Otonashi, who can likely sense Boxes; defeat Kazuki Hoshino, the one who stands in opposition to Boxes; and bid farewell to Kokone Kirino, the symbol of my own normal life. I need a ritual to do this. I’ve even decided on the order for it. The 999th person will be Maria Otonashi, the 1,000th will be Kazuki Hoshino, and the 1,001st person will be Kokone Kirino.

Once that’s finished, I plan to mass-produce dog-people.

Then, I will be able to transform the world with my Box.

Our takeover of the school had gone without a hitch so far. Things were proceeding smoothly, but that was also why something seemed off.

Otonashi and Kazu knew I’m an owner, so it was strange that they hadn’t taken action yet. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find them blocking my way the moment I returned to school, and really, that should have been their natural reaction.

But neither one did anything of the sort.

I saw them both at school, but all they did was watch me from afar. Kazu ignored me. Otonashi seemed to have her eye on me, but she didn’t actually do anything. It’s possible Kazu told her not to.

He didn’t finally intervene until I made Yuri Yanagi my 998th Subject.

“Took you long enough.”

We were in the library after school.

I had just subjugated Yuri Yanagi in broad daylight without any concern for the eyes of others. Shindo had the library on lockdown, and at that point, all the students there were Subjects, too, so we had no reason to worry.

Kazu gave Yanagi a look of sympathy as she suffered under her sin of murder thanks to Crime, Punishment, and the Shadow of Crime, and then he fixed me with a glare.

He had been hiding in the library. I didn’t expect to find him alone, but I guess it made sense when I thought about it.

Kazu wasn’t relying on Otonashi anymore. What’s more, he didn’t intend to allow her to interact with or come under the effect of any Boxes. I don’t know how he was able to deceive her, but that’s why she hadn’t been able to act.

“Daiya.” Kazu called my name and smiled. “I’m assuming you’ve prepared yourself?”

I couldn’t hide my surprise at seeing his smile.

After all, the bewitching expression was just like O’s.

As I fell into thought, wondering about the significance of this, he quickly came up alongside me.

Kazuki Hoshino whispered, in the honeyed, gentle voice of one trying to sweet-talk a girl:

“It’s time for you to break.”

It must have happened the moment I heard those words. I was in the theater, with no way of knowing how I got there.

It was a strange phenomenon. I caught on to it right away. I was inside a Box.

But whose?

“…It can’t be.”

Speaking from the circumstances, it would be simple to infer who. I should already have considered such a possibility, too.

But I just couldn’t accept it all that easily.

After all, he despised Boxes with everything he had. You could see it most clearly in how he harbored such hatred for O, who was nothing short of fascinating for the rest of us.

Still, would he really go so far as to obtain a Box for the sole purpose of opposing me?

“No…”

That’s not right, is it?

He didn’t do it to oppose me.

He did it to protect Maria Otonashi—by crushing my Box.

That’s why Kazuki Hoshino used one himself.

And thus, he banished me into this movie theater.

The theater is one of those cinema complexes with multiple screens. I’m sure the reason it resembles the one in the shopping mall nearby is because Kazuki is the owner.

I search for an exit, although I know it’s most likely no use. Doesn’t seem like there are any. The stainless red carpeted corridor stretches on in a continual curve. I imagine if I looked at the plans, the passage would make a perfect circle. There are entrances to theaters spaced at equal intervals, four in total. All their interiors are identical in every way, from the space to the size of the screens and the number of seats.

And they’re all devoid of people.

I reach a conclusion.

I’m trapped inside this movie theater Box.

Having processed the situation, I think things over again.

What exactly is this Box? What’s going to happen next?

I glance at the video billboard in front of me. The name and showtime for each film is written on the screen.

Theater 1 Breaking of Close Ties (4:30 PM – 6:00 PM)

Theater 2 A 60.5-Foot Gulf (6:30 PM – 8:00 PM)

Theater 3 Repeat, Reset, Reset (8:30 PM – 10:00 PM)

Theater 4 15 Years Old and Earrings (10:30 PM – 12:00 AM)

Each film lasts for an hour and a half. There are thirty-minute intermissions between them. Another movie starts precisely two hours after the previous one began. The end of the last film will coincide exactly with the end of today, September 11.

Should I take this to mean I’m supposed to watch them all?

I check my watch. 4:24 PM. I pull out my phone to check the time there (no reception, as it turns out, so I can’t communicate with the outside world), and it’s the same. The video billboard also shows the same thing. Still, this is the inside of a Box. There’s no guarantee time works the same here as in the outside world.

Regardless, there’s no denying that the first movie, Breaking of Close Ties, will start according to the time displayed here.

“……”

What should I do?

It’s highly probable that watching the movies will cause everything to proceed as Kazu intends.

But if I don’t watch them, I still won’t know what he’s after. If I can’t pin down a counterstrategy because I don’t know what to do, I could be playing into his hands even more.

Should I watch them and get a grasp of the situation? Or should I ignore them and resist this Box?

In the end, though, it turns out all that thinking was for nothing.

I’m sitting in front of a screen.

I’ve teleported yet again. I sigh at the cheesy paranormal cliché.

I immediately look around me. I’m not tied down. If I decide I don’t need to watch the upcoming movie, then I can get up from my seat.

However, I don’t feel like doing that at all.

This lethargy has nothing to do with my will. It’s probably— No, it’s undeniably the power of the Box.

I start by trying to resist whatever force is keeping me in this chair. Guess I’m not completely immobile. I can stand up. But that alone makes me extremely fatigued, as if I’m in the throes of a high fever. I can’t keep it up for long. My willpower won’t last.

As exhaustion weighs me down, I look around me.

……

What’s going on here?

There are people.

And not just one or two. I don’t know where they came from, but there are about as many people sitting in the chairs as you would expect in a theater on a weekday night.

Haruaki’s here, too.

And Koudai Kamiuchi, who’s supposed to be dead.

Not all of them have connections to me, though. Some of the faces I recognize, though I can’t put a name to them, and some are completely unfamiliar.

Why is Kamiuchi here? Why did he choose these people? If he wanted to collect people I know, then why have people who are barely connected to me?

The entire audience is expressionless, almost like they’re wearing masks of their own faces. It’s possible they aren’t physically here. Like props or something. I’m taken aback at the weirdness for a moment, but it’s a bit heavy-handed. If anything, the excessive presentation is a reassuring reminder that this is the work of a Box.

I continue my observations, trying to discover the relationship among these dolls.

And then, I find it.

“What the hell is that?” I yelp.

There’s something in the seat on the right edge of the very last row… No, maybe that isn’t the right way to put it. It isn’t that something is there, but more that it’s the only place something isn’t.

In that seat is a human-shaped pitch-black hole.

The darkness is absolute.

It’s not a shadow, but a void.

If I had to call it anything—I’d call it an “abyss.”

I frown instinctively at the strangeness of it, lose my stamina to stave off the fatigue, and plop back down.

“……!!”

It’s then that I finally notice her and wonder how I could have been so out of it.

She’s sitting right next to me.

“…Rino.”

Miyuki Karino.

The ex-girlfriend of the one I killed, Koudai Kamiuchi.

My friend since childhood, one year younger than me, who lived in the neighborhood.

An old friend I will never speak to again.

“Urgh…”

Like the other props populating the theater, Rino is blank-faced and unresponsive. She’s the only one I can’t explain away as a prop, though. Just having her sitting next to me reminds me of who I once was.

I hear a buzzer announcing the beginning of the movie as I futilely try to process my emotions.

Almost on conditioned reflex, I turn my eyes to the screen.

It’s a fairly unremarkable hotel.

The instant I see the building, I immediately know what happened there; I wonder if it’s because the one involved is next to me.

A group of sleazy-looking men are closing in on a middle school–aged Rino. Her face white, she dashes into the bathroom, pulls out her mobile phone, and enters a text with trembling fingers.

She sends it to me.

The scene cuts to a boy with black hair, his notebooks spread on a desk at his home.

It’s me, back in middle school.

My phone tells me I got a message, and I pick up my phone and open it. The text Rino just sent me is displayed.

Yeah, I remember what happened back then.

At first, I was bewildered and couldn’t quite believe the message on the screen. Rino had always been fond of pranks, and as innocent as I was at that time, I couldn’t imagine anyone I knew being involved in a crime like that. I believed I lived far removed from that world. Those murders on TV were mere stories from some far-off land that would never leave the screen.

“This has to be a joke. If this is all true, then…”

The me on the screen mutters as he calls Rino.

“Hello, Rino?”

“D-Dai, h-help…”

A man’s voice can be heard behind Rino’s tense plea.

“Hey! Who’re you on the phone with?!”

Crash! Glass shatters. Rino screams.

The phone call is cut off.

At last, I finally understand the situation Rino was facing. The reality sinks in that my thoughtless call had put Rino in even greater danger. Fighting desperately to control my panic, the me on the screen dials 110 immediately.

I can hardly stand to watch any of it, and that’s when I finally look at the “Miyuki Karino” sitting next to me.

Needless to say, her face is blank.

But even that appears like some wordless plea to me.

At last, it dawns on me—the common thread linking all the people here in this theater.

They’re all cast members. Haruaki and Kamiuchi both appear in the film. Yeah—if I look closely, I can see the men who assaulted Rino are here, too.

And the leads are Rino and myself.

Rino next to me is dressed in a school uniform I’ve never seen before. It’s probably the standard outfit of the high school she attends.

…Oh, so she actually made it to high school, huh?

When I became a high schooler and began living on my own, I cut off all the people I knew from middle school, aside from Haruaki and Kiri. I haven’t had any contact with Rino, of course, or even my own parents. That’s why I had no idea Rino had been able to continue her education even after that incident.

As I realize this, my gaze moves away from Rino.

The theater is filled entirely with things I don’t want to look at.

But this Box won’t permit me to look away. Its power is working to prevent that very thing.

So my gaze naturally returns to the screen, even though it’s the last thing I want to see.

Rino is thrashing around in tears on a bed.

Each scene makes me want to cry out in anguish.

This isn’t a movie. It’s simply the past.

My past, from Rino’s perspective.

She was abandoned at that hotel, it was too late when Haruaki and I went to save her, and everything started to fall apart after that—and all of it is just something that really happened.

This is—

Oh—

It’s a screening of my sins.

The moment I realize this, guilt sweeps over me.

My Crime, Punishment, and the Shadow of Crime threatens to escape my control.

“Ugh!”

I see. So this is your strategy, eh, Kazu?

You want to make me self-destruct.

If you toss me into a theater playing my past and put me face-to-face with my own crimes, then I’ll collapse under the weight. From the outset, Crime, Punishment, and the Shadow of Crime was all I could handle. There’s no need to take any risks when you’re destroying someone who’s already unstable to begin with. All he needed to do from the get-go was slip near me on the tightrope and give me a little shove on the back.

The many shadows of crime within me are raging. They constantly long for me to break. They’re salivating in anticipation as they wait for me to tumble into the abyss. If their meal falls down to them, they want to gobble me up, down to my very bones, and swallow me.

Damn, what the hell? It’s my ability! They’re all a bunch of stupid pets who can’t figure out which one of us is the owner.

I can see Rino in my periphery as I press down on my temples in pain.

Rino, who should have no expression on her face, is staring at me, unblinking.

Quietly…

…wordlessly…

…she watches me.

“…What?” I ask, though I know I won’t get a response.

“…………………………”

Rino silently stares, unblinking.

I understand. This is a prop for the Box’s show.

Even so, the words leave my mouth before I can stop them. I can’t keep them in.

“You wanna tell me you hate me or something?”

“……………………………………………………”

Rino silently stares, unblinking.

“Yeah, of course you do. But you wanna know how I really feel? I think I shouldn’t have gone to help you at all back then. I shouldn’t have been nice to you. I think you should’ve just killed yourself in shock when those disgusting men raped you.”

“………………………………………………………………………………”

Rino silently stares, unblinking.

“That’s right. Why the hell are you still alive? How dare you keep on living! Was that not enough to teach you that someone like you should be ashamed to be alive?”

“……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ”

Rino—

No, everyone in the theater silently stares, unblinking.

Reproachfully.

“You need to stop…”

None of them started talking—not Rino or anyone else.

It’s merely a line spoken by the person on the screen.

“Stop justifying your own actions by thinking other people deserve to be hurt.”

Middle school–era Rino is saying this to me, back when I still had black hair.

The scene cuts to Rino coloring over a photograph with a red pen.

“Die, die, die, Kokone Kirino!”

The Kokone Kirino in the photo is covered in red, almost like blood, once Rino is through with her.

“—”

I nearly whimper, but I just barely manage to stop myself.

But the abyss in the seat has suddenly drawn the slightest bit closer to me.

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