Battle Royale (10 page)

Mitsuru made him the leader of his gang, which continued to stir up trouble. Mitsuru only wondered once whether it was right to get Kazuo involved. Kazuo strictly prohibited (he never said so, but that was the vibe he gave off) Mitsuru and the others from visiting his house (in fact it was a mansion), so Mitsuru had no way of telling whether Kazuo's parents were aware of their son's activities. He was concerned his gang might be a bad influence on Kazuo, who was so obviously well bred. After thinking about it a lot, Mitsuru finally shared his concerns with Kazuo.

But Kazuo only said, "I don't care. This is fun too." Mitsuru decided it was all right then.

And so, he and Kazuo had been through a lot together. The king and his loyal advisor.

Even though they were now in an extreme situation, this was why, while killing other classmates was possible, it was out of the question when it came to the members of the Kiriyama Family. After all, Kazuo himself had passed them notes. Mitsuru was certain Kazuo had already planned out a strategy to deal with this situation. He'd outwit Sakamochi, and then escape. If he really wanted to, Kazuo Kiriyama could take on the entire government, no prob.

These were Mitsuru's thoughts as he left the school and walked approximately twenty-five minutes southward. He saw only one person the whole time. The figure who vanished into the residential area southeast of the school was probably Yoji Kuramoto (Male Student No. 8). That made Mitsuru nervous, of course. He'd already encountered the corpses of Mayumi Tendo and Yoshio Akamatsu lying outside the school when he left. The game was well on its way.

Mitsuru's priority was to get to the place assigned by Kazuo as soon as possible. The others were irrelevant. What mattered was how his group would escape from here.

As he moved south, Mitsuru became increasingly tense as any shelter he could hide behind grew sparse.

Underneath his school uniform, his entire body was drenched in cold sweat. Sweat oozed out of his short, permed hair and dripped down his forehead.

A little bit further ahead the coast curved right and left, and somewhere in the middle of this curve a rugged reef extended eastward from the hill and sank into the ocean like a buried dinosaur only revealing its back. The reef was much taller than Mitsuru, blocking his vision beyond it. Glancing at the sea, he saw islands and other small lights that indicated a larger piece of land beyond the dark, vast, horizontal expanse of water. This had to be an island in the Seto Inland Sea. That much was certain.

Once he surveyed the area, Mitsuru crossed the border between beach and woods. Exposing himself under moonlight, he walked toward the reef. He clung to the steep rock and began climbing. The rock was cold and smooth and with his right hand holding a gun and his bags strapped around his shoulders it wasn't an easy climb. After the climb, he found the reef was approximately three meters wide, and the beach spread out beyond the rocks. As he prepared to climb down the other side of the reef, a voice all of a sudden addressed him: "Mitsuru." Mitsuru almost jumped. He turned around and raised his pistol.

He sighed with relief. Then he lowered his gun.

Kazuo Kiriyama was in the shadow of a bulging boulder. He was sitting on a protruding rock. "Boss…"

Mitsuru said with relief.

But…

Mitsuru noticed three lumps lying at Kazuo's feet.

His eyes squinted in the dark… but then they immediately widened.

The lumps were humans.

The one facing up, glaring at the sky, was Ryuhei Sasagawa (Male Student No. 10). The one lying on his side, scrunched up, was Hiroshi Kuronaga (Male Student No. 9). It was undoubtedly them, the other members of the Kiriyama Family. The third one was wearing a sailor suit uniform, and because she was face down it was hard to tell, but she looked like Izumi Kanai (Female Student No. 5). And…there was a puddle under their bodies. It looked black, but Mitsuru knew of course what it was. If the sun were shining on them now, the color of this puddle would have been identical to the color of the national flag of the Republic of Greater East Asia—crimson red.

Completely confused, Mitsuru began to shiver. What was…what was this?…

"This is the southern tip." Under his slicked-back hair, the perpetually calm eyes of Kazuo looked up at Mitsuru. He wore his coat over his shoulders like a boxer draped in his robe after a fight.

"Wh-wh-wh-what—" Mitsuru's trembling jaw made his voice shake. "What's going on here—"

"You mean this?" Kazuo nudged Ryuhei Sasagawa's body with the tip of his plain (but nice) straight-tip leather shoe. Ryuhei's right elbow, which had been resting on his chest, traced an arc and splashed into the puddle. His pinkie and ring finger disappeared into the puddle.

"They all tried to kill me. Kuronaga and Sasagawa…both. So I…killed them."

That can't be…

Mitsuru couldn't believe it. Hiroshi Kuronaga was a nobody who tagged along with the group, so he was all the more loyal to Kazuo. Ryuhei Sasagawa was more arrogant, always putting up a front (sometimes it got to be a hassle to stop him from picking on Yoshio Akamatsu), but Ryuhei had been extremely grateful ever since Kazuo pulled some strings to stop the cops from arresting his younger brother for stealing. These two would have never betrayed Kazuo....

Mitsuru caught a whiff in the air. It was blood. The smell of blood. The odor was far more intense than the smell of Yoshitoki Kuninobu's blood back in the classroom. The difference was in the quantity. There was enough blood splashed around here to fill a bathtub.

Crushed by the smell, Mitsuru's trembling chin dropped. Come to think of it…it was impossible to know what someone's true thoughts were. Maybe Hiroshi and Ryuhei were so afraid of being killed that they went nuts. In other words, they just couldn't deal with the pressure. They showed up here at the assigned location, but they tried to ambush Kazuo.

But…Mitsuru's eyes were glued to the other corpse. Izumi Kanai, who was lying face down, was a cute, petite girl. She was the daughter of a town official (of course in this kind of ultra-centralized, bureaucratized society, being a town official or council person was just an honorary post without any influence), and although she wasn't in the same league as Kazuo she probably came from one of the five richest families in town. She wasn't stuck up at all, though, and Mitsuru thought she was kind of cute. Of course, given how different their backgrounds were, he wasn't stupid enough to get hung up over her.

And now she was—

Mitsuru somehow managed to say something. "S-so boss, Izumi… how about…"

Kazuo's calm, cold eyes stared at him. Intimidated by the look he gave him, Mitsuru searched for an answer on his own. "So I-Izumi tried to kill you…too?"

Kazuo nodded.

"She just happened to be here."

Mitsuru hesitated, but then forced himself to believe what he said. Well, maybe it was possible. I mean, that's what the boss said. He spat out, "I-I'm all right. I would never think of killing my boss. Th-this game is bullshit. We're going to take on Sakamochi and those bastards from the Special Defense Forces, right? I'm totally up for it—"

Of course they couldn't approach the school now, because it was a forbidden zone. That's what Sakamochi said. But knowing Kazuo, Mitsuru was sure Kazuo had already come up with a plan.

He stopped speaking. He noticed Kazuo was shaking his head. Mitsuru moved his tongue, which had now turned gooey, and continued, "Then we're escaping? All right then, we'll find a boat—"

Kazuo said, "Listen." Mitsuru stopped again.

Kazuo went on, "I'm fine either way."

Although Mitsuru clearly heard him, he kept on blinking. He didn't understand what Kazuo meant. He tried to read Kazuo's thoughts from the expression in his eyes, but they just calmly shone in the shadow over his face.

"Wh-what do you mean, you're fine either way?"

Kazuo lifted and pointed his chin at the night sky, as if he were stretching out his neck. The moon shone brightly and cast a gloomy shadow on Kazuo's well-defined face. He kept this pose and said, "I sometimes lose track of what's right and wrong."

Mitsuru was even more confused. That was when an entirely different thought occurred to him.

Something was missing.

And then he realized what it was.

The Kiriyama Family consisted of Mitsuru, and Ryuhei and Hiroshi, whose bodies were lying there, plus Sho Tsukioka, who was missing. He'd left before Mitsuru. So then why…

Of course Sho Tsukioka might have lost his way. Or he might have been killed by someone else.

But…Mitsuru felt the truth was more ominous than that.

Kazuo went on, "Like now. I just don't know." The sight of Kazuo going on like this seemed, strangely enough, sad.

"Anyway." Kazuo looked back at Mitsuru. Then, as if he were following a musical score that had suddenly switched to
allegro
, he began speaking rapidly, as if it were beyond his control.

"I came here. Izumi was here. Izumi tried to escape. I held her back."

Mitsuru held his breath.

"That's when I tossed a coin. If it came up heads I'd take on Sakamochi and—"

Mitsuru finally understood, before Kazuo finished talking.

No…it can't be…

He didn't want to believe it. It was unbelievable. Kazuo was the king and he was his loyal advisor. It was supposed to be about absolute, eternal loyalty and service. That's right— even Kazuo's hairstyle. Right around the time Mitsuru's broken fingers healed up, he'd been the one who insisted on it to Kazuo. "It looks good. You look so bad, boss." Kazuo kept the hairstyle after that. It was a silly little detail, but for Mitsuru it symbolized how close they were.

But…Mitsuru finally realized, maybe it was too much of a hassle for Kazuo to change his hairstyle. He might have been too preoccupied with other stuff to fuss over his hair. Then there were other things he realized. Mitsuru had firmly believed his relationship with Kazuo centered around a sacred team spirit, when in fact Kazuo might have just been in it for kicks or just "just"—that's right, just an experience, just an experience to be had, no feelings attached to it whatsoever. Kazuo himself had once said, "This is fun too."

All of a sudden the one thing that had disturbed Mitsuru from early on returned with full force. Mitsuru thought it wasn't such a big deal, so he'd done his best to ignore it all this time: Kazuo Kiriyama never smiled.

Mitsuru's next thought might have been touching on the truth: and it always seemed like a lot was going on in his head. Which was probably the case. But maybe there's something incredibly dark going on in Kazuo's mind, something so dark it's beyond my imagination? Maybe it isn't even something dark, maybe it's just an absence, a kind of black hole—

And maybe Sho Tsukioka had already sensed this about Kazuo.

Mitsuru had no more time to think. He was completely focused on his index finger (that's right, one of the fingers broken that fateful day) on the trigger of the Walther PPK in his right hand.

A sea breeze blew in, mixed in with the odor rising from the puddle of blood. The waves kept crashing in.

The Walther PPK in Mitsuru's hand quivered slightly— but the school coat draped over Kazuo's back was already moving by then.

There was a mildly pleasant rattling sound. Sure, it was different, but something about the pulse of 950

bullets ignited every minute resembled the tapping of an old manual typewriter you'd find in an antique store. Izumi Kanai, Ryuhei Sasagawa, and Hiroshi Kuronaga were all stabbed, so these were the first gunshots to echo through the island since the game began.

Mitsuru was still standing. He couldn't see under his school uniform very clearly, but there were four finger-sized holes running from his chest down to his stomach. His back for some reason had two large can-sized holes. His right hand holding the Walther PPK was trembling by his waist. His eyes were staring up towards the North Star. But given how bright the moon was tonight, the star probably wasn't visible.

Kazuo held a crude lump of metal resembling a tin dessert box with a handle. It was an Ingram M10

submachine gun. He said, "If the coin came up tails, I decided I'd take part in the game."

As if he'd been anticipating these words, Mitsuru crashed forward. As he fell, his head hit the rock and bounced back up five centimeters only once.

Kazuo Kiriyama sat still for a while. Then he got up and approached Mitsuru Numai's corpse. He gently touched the bullet ridden body with his left hand, as if checking for something.

This was no emotional response. He didn't feel anything, no guilt, no grief, no pity—not a single emotion.

He simply wanted to know how a human body reacted after it was shot. No, he merely thought, "It might not be such a bad idea to know."

He removed his hand and touched his left temple—to be more accurate, a little further behind his temple.

Any stranger would have thought he was merely straightening out his hair.

But that wasn't it. He did it because of a strange feeling he had—not pain, not an itch, but something elusive and infrequent, occurring only several times a year, when he'd reflexively touch the spot which, along with the feeling, became quite familiar to Kazuo.

Kazuo's "parents" had provided him with a special education. But in spite of learning what there was to know about the world at such a young age, Kazuo himself had no idea what caused this feeling. It was inevitable. Any trace of the damage had almost completely disappeared by the time he was old enough to recognize himself in the mirror. In other words, he knew nothing: the fact that he'd almost died from a freak accident which caused the damage when he was still inside his mother's womb, of course, the fact that his mother was killed by the accident, the conversation his father and a highly reputed doctor had concerning the splinter digging into his skull right before his birth, the fact that neither his father nor the doctor who boasted the operation was a success knew that the splinter had gouged out a cluster of very fine nerve cells. Every one of these facts were from another time. The doctor died from liver failure, the father, or more accurately, "his real father," also died from complications. So there was no one left to share these facts with Kazuo.