Battle Royale (14 page)

"AIEEEE!"

Kyoichi screamed like an animal as he suddenly realized what had happened. Shuya thought he would fall to his knees.

But he didn't. The representative instead ran for his arm. He pried the gun loose from his right hand with his left hand. Like a one-man baton relay. Great. Shuya once again felt like he was watching a bad horror flick. Or better yet, reading a bad horror novel.

Damn, this was bad.

"Stop it!" Shogo shouted, but Kyoichi refused and pointed his gun at Shogo.

Shogo shot again. Kyoichi's body bent over into a triangle shape, with his waist pointing out like a long jumper, but blown backwards. He landed feet first, and as if in time-lapse photography the next moment he was falling on the ground face up. He sank into the overgrown grass and remained still.

Shuya scrambled to his feet.

He could see Kyoichi's body between the blades of grass. There was a gaping hole in the stomach of the school coat, and the contents inside looked like a trash bin in a sausage factory.

Shogo hardly paid any attention to the corpse and quickly approached Shuya with his shotgun. He pumped the shotgun again and ejected the empty shell.

Shuya was overwhelmed by the quick succession of events and the horrific deaths of Tatsumichi and Kyoichi, but he managed to say between heavy breaths, "Hold on, I'm—"

Shogo stopped behind Kyoichi's body and said, "Don't move. Drop your weapon." Shuya finally realized he was still holding the hatchet.

He did as he was told. The blood-drenched hatchet fell to the ground with a thud.

That was when Noriko appeared, standing where the trail nose dived. Dragging her leg, she had made her way through the thicket, following Tatsumichi and Shuya after they tumbled down the slope. (Shuya then realized that less than a minute had elapsed since his confrontation with Tatsumichi Oki.) She'd turned pale from the gunfire, but now she was holding her breath at the sight of the sprawled out corpses of Tatsumichi and Kyoichi while Shogo and Shuya faced each other.

Shogo immediately noticed Noriko and pointed his shotgun at her. Noriko's body stiffened. "Stop it!"

Shuya shouted. "Noriko is with me! We don't want to fight at all!"

Shogo turned slowly to Shuya. He had a strange, blank look.

Shuya shouted at Noriko, "Noriko! Shogo saved me. Shogo isn't an enemy!"

Shogo looked at Noriko and then returned his gaze to Shuya. Then he lowered the muzzle.

After remaining frozen for a while, Noriko raised her hand to indicate her hands were empty, then nearly slid down the steep trail. She staggered, dragging her right leg, and as she drew herself up next to Shuya they both looked at Shogo.

Shogo stared back at them as if they were a pair of Armadillo twins. Shuya noticed that the stubble on his cheek and chin had grown a little.

"First, let me explain," Shogo finally said, "I had no choice but to shoot Kyoichi. You understand?"

Looking over at Kyoichi's body, Shuya considered Shogo's words and realized that maybe, maybe the representative had totally lost control. He might have seen me beat Tatsumichi Oki and gotten the wrong impression. Noriko wasn't around so it would have been natural.

As Shogo said, Shuya had no right to fault Shogo for his actions. If Shogo didn't kill Kyoichi, then Kyoichi would have killed Shuya. After all—he had also killed someone. Tatsumichi Oki.

He looked back at Shogo.

"Yeah, I know. Thanks. You saved me."

Shogo shrugged. "I was just trying to stop Kyoichi, but I guess I ended up doing that as well."

Adrenaline was still rushing through his body, but Shuya managed to blurt out, "I'm so glad. I'm so relieved we've met someone else who's normal."

In fact Shuya was surprised. Back in the classroom he thought if anyone was going to play the game it'd be Shogo. But not only was he not playing along, he'd managed to save Shuya's life.

Shogo stared at them for a while, as if he were thinking through something. Then he said, "So you two are together?"

Shuya raised his brow. "That's what I said."

Then Shogo asked, "Why are you two together?"

Shuya and Noriko looked at each other. Then they looked at Shogo. Shuya was in the middle of saying,

"What do you mean…" but then stopped as Noriko asked the same question, but she stopped in mid-sentence too, realizing Shuya was asking the same thing. Shuya and Noriko looked at each other again. Shuya thought Noriko was giving him the green light to speak first, but then as soon as he began speaking, his words overlapped with hers, "That's because…" Once again Shuya and Noriko exchanged glances. They ended up facing Shogo without saying a word.

A quick grin ran across Shogo's face. If he was smiling, it was the first time Shuya had ever seen him smile.

Shogo said, "All right, all right. In any case, we have to hide out. We don't want to be standing out here in the open."

29 students remaining

18

Yuko Sakaki (Female Student No. 9) was wading through the thicket. It was dangerous for her to run so recklessly, but she had to escape. That was her priority.

She played back the scene she had just witnessed in her head. The incident she saw from the bushes.

Tatsumichi Oki's head split wide open. Shuya Nanahara yanking out the hatchet from his head.

She was horrified. Shuya Nanahara had killed Tatsumichi Oki. He did it flawlessly.

Until Shuya pulled out the hatchet from Tatsumichi's head, Yuko was so transfixed she couldn't take her eyes off the scene. But as soon as she saw the red on the hatchet, fear took over. She grabbed her day pack and held her mouth shut because it would have shrieked on its own. Tears welled up in her eyes.

The sound of gunfire followed behind her, but she could hardly hear it given the state she was in.

29 students remaining

19

After Shuya and Noriko returned to the thicket where they'd settled last night and picked up their bags, Shogo remarked their view was no good here. Shuya thought he'd been thorough choosing this location, but Shogo seemed abnormally adept in this environment, so they did as he said and moved towards the mountain. The dirty cat was gone.

"Hold on. I'm going to find Kyoichi's and Tatsumichi's bags."

Shogo left them in the nearby shrubs. Noriko sat down to rest, and Shuya sat next to her. He was holding the revolver (Smith & Wesson .38 Chief's Special) Shogo had given him after retrieving it from Kyoichi's body. It made him feel uncomfortable, and he didn't want to carry it— he'd seen that grotesque one-man baton hand off—but he managed to hold it.

"Shuya, here."

She held out a pink band-aid. She must have found it in the day pack Tatsumichi Oki's hatchet had torn through. Shuya touched his right ear with his left hand. The bleeding seemed to have stopped, but he felt a stinging pain.

"Hold still." Noriko drew near him and opened the band-aid seal.

As she carefully wrapped it around his earlobe, she said, "I wonder why so many of us came here. Five students, if we include Shogo and us."

Shuya looked back at Noriko. The thought didn't even occur to him thanks to all those action scenes, but she was right.

He shook his head.

"I don't know. We came here to get as far away as possible, right? We avoided climbing the hill and avoided the shore, where there's too much visibility. Maybe we were all thinking the same thing and ended up at the same place, thinking we'd be safe here, including the representative— and Tatsumichi."

The moment he mentioned Tatsumichi, he felt a nauseous pain in his stomach again. His face split down the middle, left and right out of alignment like a peanut. And this corpse was lying right nearby. Ladies and gentlemen, the magnificent Peanut Man....

Along with the nausea, Shuya's thoughts which had been numbed by the adrenaline rush of fighting finally grew clearer and the sensation of numbness finally subsided. He was coming back to his senses.

"Shuya. You're pale. Are you okay?" Noriko asked, but Shuya couldn't respond. A shiver ran through his body, and he began to tremble. His body shook as if it were vibrating. His teeth chattered uncontrollably as if dancing a crazy tap dance.

"What's wrong?" Noriko put her hand on his shoulder.

Shuya answered, his teeth still chattering, "I'm scared."

Shuya twisted his neck to the left and looked at Noriko. She glanced back at him with a look of concern.

"I'm scared. I'm scared shitless. I just killed someone."

Noriko looked into Shuya's eyes for a while, then she cautiously moved her injured right leg and sat diagonally in front of Shuya with her knees bent. Then she gently opened her arms and wrapped them around Shuya's shoulders. Her cheek touched his trembling cheeks. He felt her warmth, and his nostrils which had been overwhelmed with the smell of blood could detect a slight whiff of something like cologne or shampoo.

Shuya was surprised, but he was grateful for the comforting warmth and smell and sat still, hugging his knees.

It reminded him of the time his mother hugged him as a child before she died. As he looked at the collar of Noriko's sailor suit, he had a fleeting image of his mother. She spoke clearly, always so full of energy.

Even as a child he thought she was a stylish mother. Her face, oh man, looked a lot like Kazumi Shintani's. She was always exchanging smiles with his father who, with his mustache, didn't seem like your typical salaryman. (Wrapped in her arms, he would hear her say, "Your father works in law and helps people in trouble. It's a very important job in this country.") Some day I'm going to marry someone like my mom and then I'll be smiling all the time the way Mom and Dad are. Their smiles made him feel that way.

The trembling gradually subsided and disappeared.

"Are you all right?" Noriko asked.

"I think so. Thanks."

Noriko slowly let him go.

After a while, Shuya said, "You smell nice."

Noriko smiled bashfully. "Oh God, I didn't take a bath yesterday."

"No, you really do smell nice."

A smile flashed across Noriko's face again, when the bushes rustled. Shuya shielded her with his left arm and held the Smith & Wesson.

"Don't shoot. It's me."

Parting the thick bushes, Shogo entered. Shuya lowered the gun.

Shogo carried two day packs along with the shotgun slung over his shoulder on a sling. He took out a small cardboard box and tossed it over to Shuya.

He caught it in mid-air and opened it. The golden bottoms of bullets in neat rows. Five bullets were missing like cavities.

"Bullets for your gun. Load it," Shogo said, then put his shotgun by his side and pulled at some worn out fishing wire. He pulled at one end tightly and Shuya saw how the wire went straight into the deep end of the bushes. Shogo then took out a small knife from his pocket and snapped the blade out of its handle.

Shogo's supplied weapon was a shotgun, so, Shuya figured, the knife he must have brought on his own.

Shogo made a notch with the knife into a nearby tree trunk no thicker than a can of Coke. Then he fit the taught wire snugly into the notch and cut off the excess. He tied the remaining wire around the tree trunk in the same manner.

"What are you doing?" Shuya asked.

"This?" Shogo put away his knife and answered, "You might call it a primitive alarm system. We're at the center. The wire runs around us in a circle with a twenty meter radius. The wire's doubled. The moment it catches someone, this will be pulled and fall from the tree. Don't worry, the intruder won't even notice.

It'll provide us with a warning."

"Where did you find that wire?"

Shogo tilted his head slightly.

"There was a little general supply store. I wanted to get my hands on some things, so that was my first destination. That's where I found it."

Shuya looked astonished. Of course. No matter how small this island was there had to be at least one supply store. But the thought never even crossed his mind. Of course it wouldn't have been possible for him to wander around given how he had to look after Noriko.

Shogo sat down where he could face both Shuya and Noriko. He began sorting through a day pack that belonged either to Tatsumichi or Kyoichi. Taking out a bottle of water and some bread rolls, he said,

"How about some breakfast?"

Still hugging his knees, Shuya shook his head. He had no appetite whatsoever.

"What's wrong? You feel nauseous from killing Tatsumichi?"

Shogo examined Shuya's face and said casually, "Don't let it get to you. Let's say each person kills one person. The game's like a tournament. It's forty-two, no, forty students, so if you kill five or six, then you'll be the winner. Four or five more, that's all you'll need."

Shuya knew he was joking, but no, it was all the more offensive because he was joking. He glared at Shogo.

Sensing Shuya's anger, Shogo drew back.

"Sorry man, I was just kidding."

Shuya asked in a hostile tone, "So you don't feel nauseous? Or did you already kill someone before Kyoichi?"

Shogo merely shrugged.

"Well, this time, it was my first."

It was a strange way to put it, Shuya thought, but he had no idea what was so odd about it. He felt confused. If Shogo was the rumored delinquent he was said to be then he might be bold in a way Shuya could never be.

Shuya shook his head and changed the subject. "You know, there's something I don't get."

Shogo raised his brow. The ugly scar above his left brow moved with it. "What's that?"

"The representative… Kyoichi…"

"Hey." Shogo pointed his chin up at him to cut him off. "I thought you understood. I didn't have any choice. Are you saying I should have let him kill me? I'm not Jesus Christ, okay? Besides, I can't be resurrected, although I've never tried it out...."

"No, that's not what I meant."

As Shuya continued, he wondered whether Shogo was kidding again. Was Shogo Kawada the joking type?

"I think the reason Kyoichi tried to shoot me was that he saw me kill…Tatsumichi up close. I killed Tatsumichi. And that was because he attacked me—"