Published at 26th of March 2019 12:07 am

Volume 6, Part 5

◇◇◇ Kazuki Hoshino - 09/11 FRI 22:31 ◇◇◇

Mogi-san isn't able to roll her wheelchair on her own yet.

That means she didn't come here by herself, and she wasn't the person who said "found you."

"Heh, haha! Lucky me!"

An innocent looking girl is pushing Mogi-san's wheelchair.

But that impression of innocence only lasts for a split second. Originally inspired by my fleeting glance at her plainly bobbed black hair and neat blue sailor uniform, once I look her in the eye, that false facade is blown away.

We're in an empty alley. Under the glare of a street lamp, her eyes are glittering so strongly that one could almost believe that they've lost their ability to reflect light properly. Her eyes look like aluminum foil constructs.

Those eyes are abnormal.

"Found y-o-u. Kazuki Hoshino, Kazuki Hoshino, Kazuki Hoshino!" she says in a lively fashion as she spins around. Suddenly, she stops and scowls at me with lips pressed tightly together. "Master Daiya's enemy."

I instinctively realize that she is one of the fanatics that Yuuri-san mentioned.

"Mogi-san... what's going on...?"

Mogi-san's face is chalk-white. She is still in her pajamas; she was probably kidnapped by that fanatic.

"S-She just turned up and abducted me without a word...I was really scared...but I can't defend myself..."

Right, she can't fight back in her current condition. This girl—no, Daiya—has definitely resorted to dirty tactics.

"I had no idea what was going on. Before I knew it she had taken me out of the hospital, and then she took away my cell phone and called you, Hoshino-kun. Only then did I realize why she carried me off."

"My cell rang roughly at the same time as when we were found...which means that we just happened to be nearby..."

We happen to be near the hospital right now. It's unfortunate that Daiya's minion found us so quickly, but I guess I would have picked up when Mogi-san called anyway. It was only a matter of time until this aluminum-eyed girl would have found us.

The girl starts stroking Mogi-san's hands and begins to speak once more:

"I'm breaking them."

"Huh?"

Because those words didn't seem to match the situation at all, I have no idea what she's talking about.

"I'm breaking her fingers. You know, this girl's. Sorry."

Mogi-san's eyes widen, and she looks up at the girl.

Taken by surprise, I try asking some obvious questions to play for time.

"W-Why would you do that?"

"Um...because I was [ordered] to. By Master Daiya."

"Wait a sec!" Haruaki stops passively watching and steps in. "What good will that do?"

"What good? As I said, this was an [order]."

"That's not what I'm talking about! What's your aim? Daiya Oomine wants to demand something from Kazuki Hoshino, right?!"

"Ah, right. Exactly! I was told to force Kazuki Hoshino to enter some kind of 'Wish-Crushing Cinema'!" the girl answers as though she doesn't care at all about her actual objective.

As a fanatical believer in Daiya, she probably doesn't care about the means or ultimate ends of what he tells her to do. She just blindly executes her [orders] with zero sense of priority.

"Do you feel nothing when you look at Kasumi? How can you be cool with this?" Haruaki reproaches her, visibly pressured by her statements.

After hearing what he has to say, the girl leans over Mogi-san and tilts her head forward at a right angle, looking at her face from an upside-down perspective. Mogi-san utters a little shriek as a face suddenly appears before her.

"I'm sorry for her," the girl admits, much to our surprise. "But I'm more pitiable."

"W-What?!"

The girl raises her head and whispers, "I'm infected with AIDS, you know? I'm going to die in the near future. Mm, I'm so pitiable." But her tone stays indifferent throughout. "So? She's also pitiable, and what of it?"

Nothing matters. To that girl, Mogi-san's being "pitiable" is just another thing that doesn't matter.

The one exception is her belief in Daiya.

She's insane.

Haruaki is left at a complete loss, overawed by her insanity.

I'm convinced that this girl will break Mogi-san's fingers one by one without batting an eye. Without feeling anything, without thinking about what she's doing.

I look at the girl and,

"............Hah..."

I can't suppress a sigh, followed by a laugh.

"Whoa whoa!"

—What's wrong, Daiya?

Are you okay with this, Daiya? What happened to your hatred of mindless people? Isn't this girl the very textbook example of a mindless fool?

"What's so funny...?" the girl asks as she glares at me with her aluminum foil eyes.

Are such eyes scary?

Not to me.

Quite the opposite, actually: thanks to them I can perceive her as just an obstacle.

They let me perceive her as a meaningless obstacle to which rules don't apply.

Becoming thoughtless, blind and obedient, and abandoning all independent thought—"Eh? Ah!"—also creates lots of openings.

The girl lets out a startled gasp when I suddenly rush toward her. However, her lack of independent thought keeps her from reacting properly.

I jump behind her and strangle her with both hands.

"Ah, gh!"

She lets go of the wheelchair in surprise.

"Haruaki!"

Despite being thunderstruck by my sudden action, Haruaki follows my lead. He quickly grabs the wheelchair and drags it out of range.

As she coughs away, I grab her collar and forcibly push her to the ground, without releasing her for a single second.

Her eyes have lost their aluminum foil-like glimmer and are now just wide open. Her panic is clearly visible.

But so what?

You can go feed that panic to a dog or whatever.

"You know, fanaticism is all well and good, but..."

I hold my right hand above her, pause, and then thrust it into her chest like a sword.

"GHA!"

"You also need will and resolve."

I take out one of the mass-produced copies of the 'Shadow of Sin and Punishment'.

"Ah..."

The girl looks at the object that I'm holding; a coarse 'box' that looks like a black soybean.

"S-Stop! M-My link! My link to Master Daiya is breaking off!" she screams desperately.

I sneer.

"Such a thing never existed! Just be quiet, will you?"

I don't need to hold back against people that stand between me and Maria.

Crush.

—Plopp.

It was laughably fragile; like squashing a pill-bug.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

The girl faints, just like Iroha-san did when I crushed her 'box'.

"......Hah."

What an empty feeling.

I did something that I was capable of doing. That's all.

I stand up and wipe some of the dust off my clothing while looking down at the girl. Suddenly, I notice that Haruaki is still staring at me all wide-eyed.

"...What's wrong, Haruaki?"

"...Aah, um...I was just surprised by what you just did."

"Aah, now I'm able to remove 'boxes' and crush them."

"O-Oh, I see..."

Despite my explanation, however, he still seems uneasy.

"...? Is there something else?"

"Ah, yeah. Um...you sure don't hold back, do you?"

"Hold back? Why should I? That girl was about to break Mogi-san's fingers, wasn't she? She wouldn't have hesitated, and you know that, don't you?"

"Y-Yeah. What you did was, yeah, correct."

Correct.

Yes, correct.

And that makes me wonder why Haruaki's so unsettled.

Anyway, Mogi-san is my priority right now. I crouch down and smile at her.

"Are you okay?"

"T-Thank you."

Even though I speak to her gently, she seems to be just as unsettled as Haruaki is.

"......"

...Okay, I'll admit it. My behavior was a bit strange.

While I silently try to justify my actions, seeking to convince myself that there was no room for any restraint, I gaze at her and notice something.

"Mm? Mogi-san? Is there something hidden in your left breast pocket?"

"Uh," she utters as she averts her gaze.

What's with that reaction?

What...? Before I can get any further, Haruaki pats my back.

"We're in trouble, Hoshii! That scream freaked out the neighbors!"

I look around and notice that the entryway light of a nearby house has turned on, accompanied by raised voices.

Of course. Maybe there's not much traffic around here, but it's not completely desolate like the underpass where I dealt with Iroha-san. That makes me realize once again just how reckless the aluminum foil girl was, trying to commit a crime in such a place.

"What should we do? I don't want to lose time here having to explain what happened!"

"Although I'm concerned about her, we need to take off. Let's at least lean her against a wall; if we leave her lying on the ground, they might think that we assaulted her. I guess the police will take care of her."

I nod, and we proceed per Haruaki's suggestion.

✵

After hurrying off, we head toward the dorm where Kokone is hiding.

However, we have a problem. Mogi-san.

She doesn't know about the current state of affairs. But I can't just tell her about the 'boxes' and get her involved.

On the other hand, we can't drop her off at the hospital, either, because Daiya might give another [order] that targets her.

Should we partially explain what's going on? And is it okay to involve her even though she can't even move on her own?

"Mogi-san, what do you want to do now?" That question escapes my lips, as I'm unable to come to a decision on my own. Yet, I know that she's incapable of making an informed decision when she's so completely in the dark.

Haruaki continues to push her wheelchair, and Mogi-san remains silent for a few seconds. She finally replies in an uneasy manner:

"What would...work best for you?"

That sounds like a perfectly legit question, but something bothers me.

What she's saying simply isn't natural. Wouldn't you normally ask what's going on first, or act all confused?

"I'm sorry, Mogi-san!"

"Eh? Ah!"

That thing she's hiding keeps bothering me.

I thrust my hand into her jacket and feel something hard. She turns bright red and offers some slight resistance, either due to panic or embarrassment from my touch. But she resists so weakly that I easily take that hard object away from her.

It turns out to be—

"A stun gun...?"

Why? Why is Mogi-san carrying such a weapon? Did she really have the time to secretly pick up a stun gun when she was abducted by that fanatic? Why would she even have a stun gun lying around in her hospital room, anyway?

The most reasonable answer would be:

Mogi-san prepared the stun gun in advance.

In other words.

She knew that she would be attacked by one of Daiya's fanatics.

"......"

Moreover, I noticed something when I touched her.

Something that's easy to notice now that I've obtained the 'Empty Box'.

—Mogi-san is an 'owner'.

—Mogi-san is a [servant].

If she knew that she would be attacked, why didn't she use the stun gun right away? Who was this stun gun meant to be used on?

What kind of [order] did Daiya give her?

If he gave her an [order], who would the target be...?

"I didn't want to say it," Mogi-san whispers. "I didn't want to say that I regained my memories of the 'boxes'. Because—"

She weakly squeezes my sleeve.

"Because I also remembered that I gave up on you."

"Eh?"

I totally didn't expect that.

I thought that as a [servant], she was [ordered] to attack me, but now that I think about it, Daiya wouldn't bother using Mogi-san so inefficiently.

Then the reason she seems so uncomfortable is...

"I recalled what happened within the 'Rejecting Classroom'," she says sadly.

...because she didn't want me to know that her memories of those days of despair have returned.

"But I've almost completely forgotten about the details, probably because my memory was already pretty mangled and disordered when I was inside that 'box'."

That was a real stroke of luck. If her memories had returned completely, she might not even be able to talk to me.

"But I must have caused you and Otonashi-san a lot of trouble. I somehow know that. And there's something else I remember."

She lets go of my arm.

With the brightest smile she can muster, she says:

"You clearly rejected me."

Right.

Our romantic relationship ended then, once and for all.

It ended.

I spent a lifetime to end it.

That decision is absolute and must not be revoked.

And yet I was so heartless as to keep a picture of her beaming smile on my cell phone. That was a mistake. I didn't properly stay the course.

"But that doesn't change anything, Hoshino-kun. You have been and will remain my source of hope."

Mogi-san seems very cheerful as she speaks to me.

She can accept that? Well, that's still not an excuse for me to avoid saying anything; I owe her so much more and she deserves to hear me say it.

But it's Mogi-san who lets me off the hook.

"Mm, but right now we shouldn't be talking about me, correct?"

"Well, but—"

"Oomine-kun is planning to make Otonashi-san lose her memory!"

"——!"

The things I wanted to say to Mogi-san are all blown away.

I'm really sorry, but she's right—I have a new top priority right now.

After all, Maria losing her memory would be—a fatal blow.

My goal is not simply destroying Maria's 'Flawed Bliss'—it's persuading her to abandon her 'box' of her own accord.

But there's obviously no way to persuade her if she loses her memory. In Maria's eyes, I would be reduced to just another stranger. Given her iron will, it'll be hard enough for me to convince her as she is now—god forbid I end up trying to do it as a stranger to her.

Letting her lose her memories of me is equivalent to losing all hope.

But how would they do that? ...No, it's easy enough, isn't it? They just have to use the 'Flawed Bliss' on someone. Maria mentioned that she could erase her memory using that method.

"Tch, Daiya...!"

Not bad! No matter how tightly he's cornered, he still manages to hit me in my one soft spot!

"Mogi-san," I address her as I grind my teeth, left with no choice but to collect more information. "How did you learn about that?"

"You have already noticed that I'm in possession of a 'Shadow of Sin and Punishment', right?"

"Yeah."

"I received an [order] earlier."

"What did it say?"

"I was told to prepare for an attack by a [servant]. And I was told to get in touch with you."

In other words, that stun gun really was meant to defend her against that girl, after all. She probably refrained from using it right away because the girl stole her cell phone and because she knew that the girl would try to establish contact with me.

"You wanted to get in touch with me to tell me about Daiya's plan to erase Maria's memory, right?"

"Right!"

Okay, got that. I have, but...

"But hold on, why would Daiya do that? Why would he want me to find out about his plans?"

"Eh?"

Mogi-san's reaction makes it all clear.

Right. Of course he wouldn't do that.

That [order] comes—from a different [master].

But there should only be one person apart from Daiya who has the power of a [master], namely, Iroha-san. I doubt he would entrust anyone else with that power. Besides, Iroha-san said that she was the only other [master].

"But—"

But there is one person who Iroha-san might have secretly given that power to. Someone she trusts, someone sensible enough to stop her when it came down to crunch-time.

The name of that person is—

"Yuuri-san."

Surprise shows on Mogi-san's face.

"...What?"

I was pretty confident that my reasoning was spot on, but it seems like I got the wrong idea.

"Looks like...I was wrong?"

"You're not!"

"Hm?"

"Why do you address me by my last name even though you use Yanagi-san's first name when you talk to her?"

"......"

Huh?

"You're bothered by that?"

"I-I am!" she complains while blushing.

As it seems, I was wrong about being wrong.

"...Um..."

Anyway, the originator of Mogi-san's [order] was Yuuri-san, after all. She wanted to communicate what happened inside the 'Cinema' to me by using Mogi-san.

That proves that I was right to send Yuuri-san to Daiya.

However.

Sending her there also created a problem: Daiya might use Yuuri-san to erase Maria's memories of me.

"Hoshii, what next? The situation has taken quite a turn. Hiding like I suggested before is pointless, right?"

I nod.

"I don't think we can avoid Daiya's threats by hiding anymore."

"Yeah."

"And his [orders] are likely to become more extreme. He can even use the media, after all."

Haruaki falls silent, perhaps thinking back to the woman who appeared as a 'Dog Human' on TV.

"His fanatics are also dangerous, although we were able to fight off that aluminum foil girl without too much trouble. I really didn't think that they believed so blindly in him! I'm afraid that they might attack us even without being [ordered] to, once they learn that Daiya is about to lose his power."

"Ugh, then what are we gonna do?"

There's only one solution.

"I have to enter the 'Wish-Crushing Cinema'."

I would have preferred to just wait it out, of course.

However, I will enter the 'Cinema'.

That means that I'm going to use the 'Empty Box' to destroy his 'Shadow'. In other words, I'm going to use my power to crush 'boxes' before Maria's very eyes.

I didn't want to demonstrate that power to her.

I mean, is it possible to persuade her to choose to abandon her 'box' when she knows that I could easily crush it? That's like an attempt to persuade that comes with coercion and threats; like holding a knife and telling someone "cut yourself with a knife please. Oh, but I certainly won't do anything to you!"

I know that Maria has permanently abandoned me, but doing that will further aggravate the situation.

That said, I have no other choice.

If I sat on my hands by staying here in the real world, and Maria lost her memory because of Yuuri-san, my defeat would be absolute and irreversible.

I gaze at the palms of my hands.

They're completely normal hands, and smaller than Haruaki's.

But the haughty power of crushing 'wishes' dwells within them.

"With these hands, I will defeat Daiya," I say as I clench my fists.

Haruaki has been watching me and nods slightly at this juncture. "I see, you're going to Daiyan."

After he speaks, he gazes into the distance, thinking—or wavering—about something.

"I have a request," he says as he fixes his determined gaze upon me. "Take me and Kiri with you."

He bows his head.

No, he goes even further. He gets on his knees and prostrates himself before me.

"H-Haruaki..."

"Please!" he shouts as he presses his forehead against the ground. "I want to save Daiyan, and if anyone can do that, it's Kiri. Their relationship is as broken as it gets. They torment each other, I know. But still...but still I think that she is the only one who can save him." He raises his head, eyes slightly wet. "I want to help them so that they can live with each other! Even if things end poorly, I want to see things through to the end, no matter what it takes."

The seriousness of his request is evident.

However, I hesitate to respond.

I'm considering the disadvantages that would accrue if I bring them with me. Maria is and will be my top priority.

I'm disgusted by my cold-heartedness, but then again, I'm Maria's 'Knight'.

"Hoshino-kun..."

At first, I thought Mogi-san was about to reproach me.

But something's weird; she has turned pale.

"...What's wrong?"

"I just, I just got a message from from Yuuri-san," Mogi-san continues. "Otonashi-san has become a [servant]."

scene 4: Piercing at Fifteen 2/3

11. PARK - DAYTIME The camera focuses on a baseball field within a spacious park. The sound of children at play echoes in the background, but no one is in the vicinity of DAIYA and KOKONE. Raven-haired DAIYA is standing on the pitcher's mound, while KOKONE is perched on home base, her back against a wall. She is wearing her glasses. The scenic view to the rear of the park is illuminated by gleaming fields of golden wheat. DAIYA Here we go! DAIYA throws a ball in a gentle arc to make it easy for KOKONE to catch. Visibly tense, KOKONE readies herself and holds out her glove. The ball bounces off her glove and rolls away. She hurriedly picks it up and tries to return the ball, but her throw does not quite reach DAIYA. This cycle repeats several times. DAIYA You totally suck! DAIYA laughs heartily while retrieving a ball that has flown completely off course. KOKONE Uuh! I'm sorry! KOKONE somehow manages to catch the ball by holding out her glove with both hands, but she fails again when she tries to return it to DAIYA. KOKONE Daiya...isn't playing catch with me boring? DAIYA Well, I can't get any real practice in like this, that's for sure. He picks up the ball that comes rolling toward him. DAIYA But that's cool! KOKONE But I can't throw far enough...and my pitches always go astray... KOKONE throws the ball off to the side once again, and DAIYA chases after it. DAIYA You can throw them wherever you want! He bends down and picks it up. DAIYA I'll pick up every single one. DAIYA smiles, and he means what he says. Nevertheless, KOKONE does not want to depend on him forever, so she runs up to him to get some tips on how to play properly. KOKONE listens carefully as DAIYA explains things like throwing techniques and proper stance. He somehow seems to be enjoying it. KOKONE Okay, here I go! KOKONE throws a few balls; her form has improved a tiny bit. As time passes, she gradually improves. KOKONE Go! The ball flies directly toward DAIYA's glove. DAIYA You did it. DAIYA smiles. KOKONE I did it. KOKONE smiles.

12. PARK - A WINTER NIGHT DAIYA's hair is dyed and his right ear is pierced. He is fiercely flinging a baseball against a concrete wall. Every time the ball bounces, it makes a loud thumping sound. There is no one catching his throws; he's all alone. The fields of wheat have been scythed bare. DAIYA ...Hah...hah... He winds up and pitches. Because he's put far too much reckless strength into that throw, the ball flies high, right into the fence above the wall, and gets stuck. He cannot retrieve the ball. DAIYA stands there silently, scowling at the baseball. KOKONE (MONOLOGUE) Purity is KOKONE (MONOLOGUE) beautiful KOKONE (MONOLOGUE) fragile KOKONE (MONOLOGUE) and irreplaceable.

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