Battle Royale

Shuya groaned as he began losing his balance, but he kept on running. He ran into a row of tall trees and made his way up the slope. The rattling resumed and this time his left arm reflexively flinched up. He realized he'd been shot right above his elbow.

But he still ran. He continued east—hey, yo, that's a forbidden zone—and moved north. More rattling. A thin tree to his right crackled and burst into matchstick-sized splinters.

More rattling. This time he wasn't hit. Or maybe he was. He couldn't tell anymore. He only knew he was being chased. At least he was buying time for Noriko and Shogo.

He made his way through the trees and vegetation, climbed a hill, and then descended it. He couldn't even afford to worry that there might be someone else hiding in the dark, waiting to attack him. He had no idea how far he'd gotten. He wasn't even sure which direction he was running. Sometimes it seemed like he could hear—sometimes it seemed like he couldn't—the rattling sound. He couldn't tell maybe because his hearing had been impaired by that explosion. In any case now was not the time to be relieved. Farther. He had to get farther.

Suddenly Shuya slipped. He'd somehow reached a cliff, and all of a sudden realized that the slope just dropped off. Just as he'd done when fighting Tatsumichi Oki, he tumbled down the steep slope.

He landed with a thud. He was no longer holding the SIG-Sauer. And as he tried to stand up...

He realized he couldn't. He wondered, in a daze, am I delirious from blood loss? Or...did I hit my head?

Impossible. I'm not injured so badly I can't stand up....I have to get back to Noriko and Shogo—I have to protect Noriko, I promised Noriko...

As he tried to get up though, he fell forward... ...and lost consciousness.

20 students remaining

51

It was almost pitch dark, but beside the dimly moonlit window Shinji tossed the item in his hand once again onto the floor. The sound of it hitting the floor was muffled by the thick folded blanket, but there was a popping sound along with a ring.

Shinji immediately picked it up off the floor and then tucked the small plastic item inside the blanket. The sound stopped.

"Come on, let's go," Yutaka said. He'd been watching over Shinji, but Shinji signaled him to calm down. He repeated the test again.

Pop, zing. It made the same sounds. Shinji picked it up, and it stopped.

Was it all right? But if this malfunctioned, then all the careful preparations they'd made would come to nothing. One more try—

"We have to hurry...," Yutaka said again, and Shinji's face was about to flush with anger—but he managed to suppress it. Although he wasn't entirely satisfied he said, "All right," and concluded his test. He unhooked the lead wire connecting the battery and mini-motor which was used for the test and began peeling off the plastic tape attaching the motor unit to the battery.

Shuya and Yutaka were back at the "Northern Takamatsu Agricultural Cooperative Association, Okishima Island Branch."

Along with the school and harbor fishery coop, it might have been one of the largest buildings on the island. The space, unlit of course and enveloped in darkness, was the size of a basketball court, and there was farming equipment strewn all over the area, including a tractor and combine harvester. There was also a light truck with a missing wheel lifted on a jack, probably to be repaired. Then in the corner were piles of sacks of various kinds of fertilizer. (And hazardous ammonium nitrate was further beyond them, stored in a large cabinet with a provisional lock that Shinji had busted open.) The slate walls were at least five meters high, and there was an upper floor attached along the north wall where more fertilizer, insecticide, and other supplies had been stored. On the opposite, or east, wall was a steel staircase diagonally descending from the second floor, and underneath the stairs was a large sliding warehouse door. Next to this sliding door, in front of the stairs in the southeast corner, was an officelike space made up of partition walls. Beyond its open door he could make out office equipment, including the outlines of a desk and fax machine.

Setting the wire across sector G=7 where the school was turned out to be a hassle. First, Shinji tied the end of the wire to the tip of a tall tree behind the rock they'd climbed on. Then he took the other end and began walking between the trees, but then a gust in the upper region of the sky acted up, so guiding the garbage-bag balloons proved to be difficult. There were at least ten occasions where he had to climb up a tree to loosen the wire. On top of that, given how the enemy could be anywhere in the dark, he had to worry about Yutaka, so the endeavor ended up exhausting him.