After the Empty Box: Echoes of Maria and the Whereabouts of the Everyday - A Heart Breaking, a Name Fading

The rain had long since stopped. Heavy clouds hung low over the sky above Minase City, and not a single star was visible. The grounds of Minase Prefectural High School lay sunk in the depths of a spring-break night, every window dark and sealed. Only one place broke the darkness—the classroom at the far end of the second floor, Class 2-3, leaking a faint, pale blue glow. The wall clock's face glowed eerily in the dark. Its hands were frozen at 3:42 a.m., the second hand utterly motionless. No—not motionless. It was refusing to move. Behind the clock, wedged into the gap between the casing and the wall, a single scrap of old paper pulsed—thump, thump—like something alive. "I want to stop time." Those words wavered across the paper's surface like ink dissolving in water. Hoshino Kazuki stood facing the clock. His short black hair was a mess, and his dark brown eyes were bloodshot. The small old scar above his left eyebrow stood out white in the pale light. His lips were dry, his throat raw and stinging. How many times had he reached for that clock only to be thrown back, reached again and been thrown back again—and each time, he felt something inside himself being scraped away. (Not yet.) Kazuki raised his trembling right hand. His fingertips crept toward the glass of the clock face. A few more centimeters. A few more millimeters. "Kazuki." A low, quiet voice came from beside him. It was Otonashi Saya. She was holding his left hand. No—she had been holding it all along. Her hand was cold as ice. But within that coldness, and only there, flowed the power of the Hand of Silence that anchored his memories. Saya let her silver hair, which fell to her waist, stream carelessly, and fixed her pale, ice-blue eyes on Kazuki's profile. A faint sheen of sweat stood on her forehead. "The outline of your memories is fading again. Don't push yourself." "...If I don't push myself, what am I supposed to do?" Kazuki answered in a voice wrung out of him. It was hoarse. For hours he had fought in this classroom to protect the name of a single girl. Kirino Kokone. A girl bright and meddlesome, who cared about her friends more than anyone. That name was now on the verge of vanishing from Kazuki's mind. His fingertip touched the glass. In that instant— A sharp crack rang through the classroom. Kazuki's right hand was flung back by an unseen force. A searing numbness shot through his entire arm, down to the marrow. From fingertip to wrist, wrist to elbow, elbow to shoulder, then up his neck—a pain like electric current pierced into the depths of his skull. "Ghh, agh—!" Kazuki dropped to his knees without thinking, cradling his right hand. His fingers twitched and spasmed against his will. (Damn it... again.) The clock's remains kept rejecting his hand. The wish "I want to stop time" that dwelled in that scrap of paper rejected Kazuki's very existence. Every time he touched it, part of his memory blurred and nearly vanished. "Kazuki, stop. That's enough." For the first time, impatience colored Saya's voice. She tightened her grip on his left hand. She was raising the output of the Hand of Silence. From her cold fingertips flowed a power like a membrane that wrapped his memories from within. But that membrane was slowly losing ground to the corroding force radiating from the clock's remains. "Saya... not yet. Not yet." Kazuki gritted his teeth and stood. His legs shook. His vision doubled and blurred. The clock face swayed, overlapping two, three times. (I have to get Kokone back.) He tried to call Kokone's smile to mind. 'I've decided I'm going to cheer on Kazuki and Maria's love!' That's right. That bright voice. Those big amber eyes. That habit of pressing both hands together in front of her chest. (...Huh?) Kazuki froze. He couldn't remember Kokone's face. No—it wasn't that he couldn't remember. The outline was blurring. The chestnut semi-long hair, the big eyes, the left wrist with its swinging braided bracelet—all of it receded into fog, growing hazy and indistinct. "Kokone..." Kazuki spoke her name. "Kokone, Kokone, Kokone..." He repeated it over and over. If he called her name, the memories would return. He believed that. But with every repetition, the sound of that name grew a little fainter, a little thinner. "Ko... kone...?" A meaningless sound slipped from Kazuki's lips. (No. That's wrong. Her name is Kirino, Kokone. Kirino Kokone. That's right, there's no mistake.) Kazuki desperately tried to hold his memories together. But like sand spilling between his fingers, they poured out without end. "Kazuki!" Saya seized both his shoulders. "Your memories are in danger. Any further, and you yourself will disappear." Her voice was urgent. A single drop of sweat ran down her forehead. The power of the Hand of Silence was nearing its limit. Even without holding his hand, he could tell the membrane protecting his memories was growing thin and brittle. "...But Kokone—" "If you disappear, who will bring Kokone back?" For the first time, Saya raised her voice. "If you disappear, who will remember her name? Who will be able to recall her smile? Only you. You're the last one left." Kazuki couldn't answer. Saya was right. He was the only person in the world who still remembered Kokone. If he disappeared, Kokone would truly become someone who had never existed from the start. Remembered by no one, recorded nowhere, existing nowhere in the world. (That, I can't allow.) Kazuki knelt before the clock. The cold of the floor crept up through his knees. The clock's remains went on pulsing—thump, thump—as before. Its beat was just slightly faster than his own heart. As if mocking his suffering. "...I can still do this." Kazuki reached his trembling hand toward the clock once more. His fingertip touched the glass. This time, he wasn't thrown back. But something far more terrifying happened. The clock's glass slowly drew his fingertip in. His finger sank into the clock face. Cold. Painful. No—even the pain was receding into the distance. (My memories are blurring.) Inside Kazuki's head, something snapped. Kokone's smile. Kokone's voice. Kokone's name. All of them lost their color at once. "Kokone... Kokone...!" Kazuki shouted. But he couldn't tell whether he was even hearing his own cry. His vision clouded white, the ceiling spun, the floor tilted. The sensation of his body faded away. (No... don't forget... don't forget Kokone...) Kazuki fought desperately to stay conscious. But against the power of the clock's remains, that effort was far too powerless. 2:00 a.m. At last, Kazuki collapsed before the clock. His body wouldn't move. He couldn't move a single finger. It was as if his body were made of lead. Only his consciousness drifted, floating like something bobbing on the surface of water. (Ah... so this is the end.) Kazuki thought dimly. That was when it happened. The classroom door opened without a sound. From the darkness of the hallway, a girl slipped into the room. Silver hair. Ice-blue eyes. Her straight hair, falling to her waist, faintly reflected the light in the darkness. A small silver earring on her left ear glinted. It was Otonashi Maria. For a while she stood over Kazuki, who lay collapsed in the center of the classroom, looking down at him with an expressionless face. Those ice-like eyes, unreadable, held his small reflection. "...What are you doing?" Maria's voice was cold and quiet. Kazuki tried to lift his head. But his neck wouldn't move. Only Maria's feet were visible at the edge of his vision. "...Isn't it obvious?" Kazuki answered in a hoarse voice. "Why do you fight to that extent?" Maria didn't answer his question; she repeated her own. Kazuki tried to smile, just a little. He couldn't tell whether it worked. "I just... want to protect the everyday." His voice was feeble, on the verge of fading away. "I don't want anything special. Just peaceful days... that's all I want." Maria said nothing. What was moving beneath that expressionless face, Kazuki couldn't tell. But for just an instant, deep in Maria's ice-like eyes, something seemed to waver. (...What was that just now?) Unable to look Maria straight in the face, Kazuki still sensed that change. For a single moment, Maria's expression twisted. As if, deep in some distant memory, something were answering a call. As if something she couldn't understand had seized the depths of her heart. But it lasted only an instant. Maria's face returned at once to its blankness, and she turned her back on him. Her silver hair swayed softly. "...You fool." She murmured it over her shoulder. Her voice was cold. But behind that coldness, just barely, something else seemed to be mixed in. (...That voice just now—) Kazuki stared at Maria's back. But Maria didn't turn around. She vanished through the classroom door just like that. Silence returned to the classroom. Only the clock's remains went on pulsing eerily—thump, thump. "Kokone..." Still collapsed on the floor, Kazuki called her name. "Kokone... Kokone...!" Tears spilled over. They wouldn't stop. His vision blurred and swam with them. (Kokone... I don't want to forget your name.) Kazuki wished it from the bottom of his heart. But the more he wished, the more the sound of that name faded. "Ko... kone... kone..." Again a meaningless sound slipped from his lips. (No. That's wrong. Kirino, Kokone. Kirino Kokone. That's right. There's no mistake. There's no mistake, and yet...) Kazuki pressed his forehead against the floor. The cold touch of it clung to his tear-wet cheek. (I'm scared.) For the first time in his life, Kazuki felt fear from the depths of his heart. (I'm scared of my memories disappearing. Scared of forgetting Kokone. Scared that she'll truly become someone who never existed.) Kazuki's body began to tremble. He was shaking with fear. His teeth chattered, clicking audibly. (Someone... help me...) Kazuki screamed it in his heart. That was when it happened. A single passage surfaced in his mind. 'I didn't want to break you. I was only afraid of being broken.' A line from an old notebook he'd found in Maria's room. Words left behind by Maria before she lost her memories. (...That's right.) Kazuki caught his breath. (Maria was the same.) He remembered Maria. Maria, who had lost her memories. The girl who had lost everything—her name, her past, even her own emotions—from the time she was imprisoned as the Maria of Zero. (Maria was afraid of her existence vanishing, too.) Kazuki repeated the line from her notebook over and over in his mind. 'I was only afraid of being broken.' (Those words were her true feelings, hidden behind a declaration of war. She didn't want to break me. She was afraid of being broken herself.) At last, Kazuki understood. What he had truly wanted to protect wasn't only Kokone's existence. It was Maria's fear itself. The fundamental terror of losing one's memories, of one's existence vanishing, of no longer being oneself. (I had been turning my eyes away from that fear.) Kazuki slowly lifted his tear-streaked face. Saya was beside him. She was still holding his left hand. With the power of the Hand of Silence, she was still protecting his memories. Her face was pale, marked deeply with exhaustion. But her eyes alone looked straight at him. "Saya..." Kazuki called her name in a trembling voice. "On my own... I can't do it." For the first time, Kazuki put his own weakness into words. "I'm weak. Not strong enough to fight alone. I can't even protect Kokone's name. My memories, my existence—I'm about to lose everything." His voice shook with tears. "Please, Saya. Don't leave me alone." For an instant, Saya's eyes widened as if in surprise. But soon a quiet light settled in them. She gripped his left hand back, hard, hard. "That's why I'm here." Saya's voice was quiet. But in it was a de

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Episode 5

Name: After the Empty Box: Echoes of Maria and the Whereabouts of the Everyday
Author: Novelia

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