"W-wait... that name... how do you know it...?"
"If a maid can't remember the name of the master she served, then she has no right to call herself a maid, does she?"
Tojo forced a smile as she answered, and K's face began to drain of all color.
"That's impossible... You must've picked that up somewhere... Why the hell are you going this far just to deceive me?"
"No, I'm not deceiving you. Absolutely not."
"Then... you know why I'm 'Kirigiri' K too, right? Huh?"
"......."
"See? You don't know, do you? Don't give me that crap about not remembering. If you know my surname, then you should know the story behind it too—"
"...Kyoko Kirigiri. The person most precious to you... and the one who gave a surname to someone who had none."
"...!!!"
"Was I wrong?"
As Tojo quietly met K's eyes, K began trembling all over again.
"Th-then... really... this insane, impossible thing... it's true?"
"Yes. It's true."
"Then the reason you made me the blackened was..."
"...To get you out of this place alive."
With a bitter smile, Tojo began to explain.
"The moment you return to the dorms, I'll begin cleaning up the aftermath."
"...Cleaning up?"
"I'll erase the traces of the trapdoor and any evidence that you came here, then recover the thread and wire connecting this place to the gym."
"Then... Hoshi was in the gym...?"
"Yes. He was in the gym."
"Ha, then sorry, but your plan already failed."
"...What do you mean by that?"
When Tojo asked, K answered with visible relief.
"Mukuro and Gonta were fighting there. Maybe Gonta was too bug-crazy to notice anything, but there's no way someone like Mukuro would've failed to stop Hoshi from being murdered."
"...Is that so?"
"Yeah. Mukuro definitely stopped Hoshi from dying. I don't trust her completely, but I do trust her reflexes."
"No. That's incorrect."
"What's incorrect?"
"Hoshi-kun... was hiding inside the tank holding the piranhas for tomorrow's magic show."
Seeing K go blank with shock, Tojo continued.
"I removed the lid from the tank and set it in at an angle, creating a separate space from the piranhas. Hoshi-kun entered that space, and then..."
"Wait..."
"...when the trapdoor activated, a hidden hammer tied to thread would strike Hoshi-kun in the head... At the same time, the switch opening the tank would trigger, beginning a countdown, and several dozen seconds later, Hoshi-kun and the piranhas would fall together into the large tank below..."
"Hold on..."
"...To everyone else, I would confess that Hoshi-kun had stayed late helping me rehearse, and that when the piranhas were released into the tank, I accidentally shoved him, causing the incident. As for the hammer lodged in his head, if I pulled it out using the thread—"
"Wait!! Something's wrong with that!!"
Tojo, who had been speaking without pause, stopped when K desperately cut in, then asked gently,
"Yes? What is?"
"You said you knocked Hoshi out, right? But... if an unconscious person got put in that tank, do you really think he wouldn't wake up?"
"....."
"No—even if he did wake up, he would've drowned with his whole body tied up. So Hoshi would've already died by drowning—"
"I anticipated that, so I adjusted the water level on Hoshi-kun's side. He wouldn't have drowned."
"But... there's still the chance Hoshi woke up and screamed..."
"That wasn't a problem either. Hoshi-kun was... already awake."
"What!?"
As K stared at her in renewed disbelief, Tojo spoke with eerie calm.
"He was cooperating with me from the very beginning."
"...!!"
"You know it too, don't you? Hoshi-kun had no attachment to life."
"D-don't tell me..."
"Yes. Hoshi-kun accepted my persuasion and joined my plan to get you out of here alive. In other words... he chose to sacrifice himself."
"W-why!?"
"Because I showed him my Motive Video. And my desperation as well..."
"H-Hoshi... never got to see his own Motive Video...?"
"...I don't know that for certain. But until the very end, he had no hope for life, and no purpose in it either."
"...."
"So please... don't drown in guilt. I'll bear all the sin myself."
Even after Tojo finished, K remained silent. Then, at last, he turned and started walking somewhere.
"Where are you going?"
"...To check on Hoshi."
"You can't. If someone else sees you, they might grow suspicious."
"Even so, I need to see it with my own eyes."
"There's no need for that—"
"Everything you've said so far... in the end, it's all just your claim, isn't it...? So... until I see it myself... I can't believe it."
"...If you insist, then I'll accompany you."
"....."
Right after that, K left the research lab with dead, hollow eyes, and Tojo quietly followed behind him.
.
.
.
.
.
"...Hey. Let me ask you one thing."
"Yes?"
I had been walking in silence toward the gym, but when I suddenly stopped and spoke, Tojo halted as well and listened intently.
"Why is my life... more important than yours, than Hoshi's, than every other kid here?"
"...Because you are the only one who can change the future of the world."
"What?"
When I asked, Tojo answered with a bitter smile.
"Japan is currently facing a catastrophic crisis because of an 'unprecedented event.' I can't clearly remember what it was... but it was something so enormous that if it wasn't stopped, every citizen in Japan would be endangered."
"Wait, what are you talking about?"
"As the [Ultimate Maid], I became the shadow prime minister of the Japanese government and tried somehow to contain the situation... but in the end, the government collapsed, and I was forced to flee. I don't remember who was chasing me either... but it may have been the [Ultimate Hunt]."
"[Ultimate Hunt]..."
"Anyway, after days of being hunted like that... one day, you saved me."
"I did...?"
I could only stare at her, dumbfounded, and Tojo continued with a sorrowful smile.
"You counseled me when I had been completely ruined by a life on the run... and you offered me the chance to serve as your personal maid. At the time, you held a high-ranking position in an extremely influential organization."
"What organization?"
"I'm sorry. My memory is too unstable. I only barely managed to recall your existence at all. The one thing I know for certain is that it was an organization several times more powerful than the fallen Japanese government."
"..."
"As your dedicated maid... officially, your closest secretary... I watched the world gradually stabilize. But... inside that organization, there was an unknown threat lurking."
"A threat...?"
"Yes. A threat that would plunge Japan... no, the future of the entire world into darkness... and once you noticed it, you began fighting that force."
"So... that's why you did all this? To save someone like me?"
"Yes. Of course, there were others who followed your will as well... but the only one with the power to change the future was you. I don't even know what that power is, but every time I look at you, that certainty blazes through my mind."
"....."
When I fell silent, Tojo continued in a low voice.
"You are not someone meant to die here. Saving you is the same as saving the world. And for that... I can become the villain without hesitation."
"...Tojo."
"Of course... even if it had nothing to do with saving the world, I still would've repaid the debt I owe you for saving me."
As she said that, Tojo was quietly crying. Not the fake tears from before, but a single line of grief drawn straight from the heart.
"So... please live. And as for what happened here... please forget me."
After hearing everything she had to say, I was left utterly speechless.
'What the hell... am I supposed to do?'
Honestly, I wanted to think selfishly. I didn't want to die either. Dying before I'd even recovered all my memories... wasn't that unbearably unfair?
And according to the Motive Video, I have a wife and children too. Twins, no less. And those twins are in some kind of danger.
In a situation like this, if someone offered to build a murder trick for you, who wouldn't be tempted? If I followed what she said, it would probably become a perfect trick.
From the moment she confessed to the others, the game would be over anyway.
So in a situation like this... I should've been able to rationalize it. I should've been able to think selfishly.
But...
'I just can't. Why...?'
For some reason, my thoughts refused to go in that direction.
Maybe it was because the students of Saishu Academy, who I'd grown attached to before I even realized it, kept flashing through my mind.
I could vividly picture how they'd react when the trial ended and I was exposed as the true culprit. And every time I imagined that scene, my chest tightened and my head began to pound.
Apparently, it wasn't just simple attachment anymore. Before I knew it, I'd come to treasure all of them.
That's why, until just a little while ago, I had been planning to confess.
Of course, my wife and children still haunted me to the very end... but even for their sake, how could I choose to save only myself by sacrificing seventeen others?
Even if I survived that way, could I ever face my wife and children without shame? And could I really live on while forgetting what I'd done?
That was why I'd steeled myself to confess.
I had committed murder exactly the way the Mastermind wanted, so I wouldn't have gone against their wishes. That meant my children should still be safe for now, and Kyoko Kirigiri outside would surely be moving frantically as well.
'But... the future of the entire world depends on my life...?'
If that was true, then the equation changed completely.
If I had to weigh seventeen lives against the future of the whole world... then of course the scale would tip toward the future of the world.
Thanks to that, I was half in a panic now. I wanted Tojo's words to be lies, desperately so... but she knew my name, she knew who Kyoko Kirigiri was, she made me the blackened, and above all... those tears just now felt strangely familiar in a way the earlier ones hadn't.
'What... am I supposed to do...?'
No matter how I thought about it, this was too cruel a decision for a seventeen-year-old high school student to make. No—even without that label, it was too cruel for any one person.
Should I choose the seventeen students in front of me, the ones I'd gone beyond merely liking and had unconsciously come to cherish, all of them with bright futures ahead of them? Or should I choose the future of the world—a future that, if Tojo wasn't lying, couldn't even be compared to those seventeen lives?
"...We've arrived at the gym, Kirigiri-san."
".....!"
Lost in those thoughts, I had somehow reached the gym before I realized it.
"Now see the truth with your own eyes... and survive. For my sake as well."
"Tojo, I... I can't. I can't choose."
"....."
"What am I even supposed to do...? In something this absurd... what can someone like me, just some amnesiac, possibly do...?"
"Kirigiri-san."
"Tojo... it's not too late, so tell me this is all a lie... stop joking around now... okay?"
"K-san."
"How am I supposed to trust only your words and abandon the seventeen people right in front of me...? I can't... But if what you're saying is true... then if the future of the world collapses because I gave up... then what kind of choice am I supposed to—!"
"K."
In the end, the pressure crushed me, and I spiraled fully into panic. Tojo embraced me once more, then whispered through trembling tears,
"Please keep moving forward. A radiant future awaits you there."
After holding me like that for a moment, Tojo finally let go and walked toward the gym doors.
"You understand, don't you?"
"A radiant future..."
Then she opened the door and said,
"...Master."
As I quietly watched her, I began to think.
'...Can that really be called radiant?'
Could a future that demanded sacrifice no matter which path I chose really be called radiant at all?
Creeeak...
No—before that, could it even be called a future?
"Now please, see it with your own eyes..."
Right. Now that I thought about it... it wasn't radiant, and it wasn't a future either.
"The truth..."
There was only despair.
""Ah!?""
Tojo, who had opened the door with calm resolve, and I, who had been sinking into despair, both cried out at the exact same time when we saw the scene inside the gym.
Because instead of the horrific sight we'd expected, there stood Mukuro, drenched from head to toe and holding a hammer, Gonta just as soaked, and Hoshi as well.
"I-I'm sorry...! I didn't mean to break it...! There was this hammer up there, so I was only trying to threaten Gonta with it... but then... before I knew it...!"
"Gonta... sorry... Gonta didn't mean to ruin magic show... If Hoshi was hiding there, then it must have been amazing magic show... What do now..."
Just as they said, the giant tank had been shattered to pieces, turning the surrounding area into a flooded mess.
"Well, well... Tojo..."
And thanks to that, Hoshi—sitting alone among the piranhas flopping helplessly across the floor—noticed us and spoke with the serene expression of someone who had reached total enlightenment.
"...Operation failed."