Battle Royale

Shuya felt a little uncomfortable. He'd just begun to get the idea of how babies were made.

"Having a kid? Hey, you're still a kid. That's dirty stuff. You know I heard that that's—"

That was when Shuya finally remembered Yoshitoki was born as a result of an illicit affair and that neither of his parents wanted him. Startled, he held back what he was about to say.

Yoshitoki was staring at the log between his thighs. Then he mumbled, "My parents weren't like that."

Shuya suddenly felt really bad for him.

"H-hey, Yoshi—" He looked up at Shuya and said somewhat forcefully, "So I-I just don't know. Loving someone. I don't feel like I can trust that sort of thing."

Shuya continued pushing with his legs, but he had no choice but to stare back at Yoshitoki. He felt as if he were being addressed in a language from another planet. At the same time, it sounded like a dreadful prophecy.

"I think—"

His hands by his waist, Shuya gripped the corners of the table covered with the vinyl tablecloth. Shogo continued smoking, squinting his eyes.

"I think Yoshitoki was a lot more mature at that point already. I was just a silly kid. And ever since then, Yoshitoki, even since we entered junior high, and I fell for someone," this was Kazumi Shintani, "he never brought it up. That kind of worried me." Another gurgling sound.

"But then one day he told me he liked Noriko. I acted like ' it wasn't a big deal...but I was so happy for him. And that was, that was..."

Shuya looked away from Shogo. He knew he was about to cry.

Once he managed to hold back his tears, he said without looking at Shogo and continued, "That was only two months ago."

Shogo remained silent.

Shuya looked at Shogo again.

"So you see, I have to protect Noriko to the very end."

After staring back at Shuya for a while, Shogo only said, "I see," and rubbed out his cigarette out against the tablecloth.

"Don't tell Noriko. I'll tell her about Yoshitoki once we've gotten out of this game."

Shogo nodded and replied, "All right."

22 students remaining

43

Five hours had passed since the Macintosh PowerBook 150's connection to the internet had been cut off with a warning beep. Shinji Mimura scrolled through a document in one of the windows on the display monitor of the 150 that was now reduced to a word processor.

He'd worked on the phone, checked the connections, and rebooted over and over but the gray monitor responded with the same message. Finally, after disconnecting all the modem and phone cords, he came to the conclusion his cell phone had completely broke down. Without a phone line he couldn't even access his home computer. And of course, calling all the girls he'd ever gone with and sobbing over how he was, "About to die, but I loved you the most," was out of the question. He still believed he could get to the bottom of this and considered taking apart his cell phone—but then stopped.

A chill ran down his spine.

It was obvious now why he wasn't able to dial in anymore. The government had managed to locate the line test number used by the DTT technician, the number used for the special phone with the counterfeit "Second ROM" he'd painstakingly built. They'd cut off all connections including this one. The question was...how had they managed to do this? His hacking had been flawless. He knew that much.

The only way he could imagine the government discovering his hacking was through some method outside their computer's internal security system, their warning system, and other manual monitoring systems. And now that they knew—

The moment Shinji realized what it was, his hand went for the collar around his neck.

Now that the government knew, it wouldn't be all that surprising if the bomb went off, would it? They probably wouldn't spare Yutaka either.

Thanks to this realization, the government-supplied water and bread they had for lunch tasted even worse.

After Yutaka saw Shinji turn off the laptop, he asked for an explanation. Shinji only replied, "It's no good. I don't know why, but it's not working. Maybe the phone's broken."

Ever since then Yutaka's mood became gloomy, and he slouched back to the way he'd been earlier that morning. Other than the occasional gunshots and brief exchanges it remained silent. Shinji's great escape plan that mesmerized Yutaka had completely fallen apart.

But—

I'll still make them regret they didn't kill me right away. No matter what.

He thought a little, then dug into his pants pocket and pulled out an old pocketknife he carried around with him ever since he was a kid. There was a small tube tied to the keyring on the knife. Shinji examined the scratched up tube.

His uncle had given him the knife a long time ago. And the tube was, that's right, like the earring on his left ear, another memento from his uncle. Like Shinji, his uncle had kept it chained to a small knife and always carried it around.