Battle Royale

To his left Shinji saw a small storage shack at the end of the property, and further on up was the school, and above it, as if it were embracing it, the cliff. There were some trees right by a two-story house in front of the school. They were planning on tying the rope to the tallest tree there. They had secured the wire near the farm's waterway immediately left of the tree. So the wire went by the school and directly up into the center of the mountain, where the overlooking rock was, covering an amazing distance of three hundred meters.

I can't believe I came up with this plan. I wonder though, whether that wire will really lift the rope up to the mountain without getting cut?

Shinji took a breath and then after considering it, he decided to say something. It wouldn't matter whether they heard him say this.

"Yutaka."

Yutaka looked up at Shinji. "What?"

"We might die. Are you prepared for that?"

For a moment Yutaka fell silent. But then he answered immediately, "Yeah, I'm ready."

"Okay."

Shinji gripped the handle of the gas can again and was about to form a smile...

...that froze when he saw something in the corner of his eye.

Someone's head emerged from the farm east of the parking lot.

"Yutaka!"

Shinji grabbed Yutaka's arm and ran back behind the sliding door into the slate-walled farm coop building. Yutaka teetered for a moment, partially due to the heavy rope, but managed to follow him. By the time they were crouched over behind the sliding door, Shinji already had his gun aimed at the figure.

The figure shrieked, "D-don't shoot! Shinji! Please don't shoot! It's me! Keita!"

Shinji realized it was Keita Iijima (Male Student No. 2). Keita, relatively speaking, was friendly and got along with Shinji and Yutaka (after all they'd been classmates since their first year), but Shinji wasn't relieved someone was joining them. No, he felt like this meant trouble. That's when he realized he hadn't given much thought to the possibility of others joining them until now. Damn, why now!

"It's Keita, Shinji. Come on, it's Keita."

Shinji thought Yutaka's excited voice sounded a little inappropriate.

Keita slowly stood up and proceeded toward the farm coop premises. He held his day pack in his left hand and what looked like a kitchen knife in his right. He spoke cautiously.

"I saw the light."

Shinji clenched his teeth. It must have come from the flashlight he'd used just that one time to find the pulley. Shinji chided himself, how could he have screwed up like that, rushing to use that flashlight?

Keita continued, "So I came here and saw that it was you guys...what are you doing? What were you carrying? Rope? Let me...let me join you guys."

Knowing how their conversations were monitored, Yutaka knit his brow and looked over at Shinji, his eyes opened wide, realizing how Shinji hadn't lowered his gun.

"Sh-Shinji, what's going on?"

Shinji moved his open right hand and signaled Yutaka not to move forward. "Yutaka. Don't move."

"Hey," Keita said. His voice was shaking. "Why are you pointing that at me?"

Shinji took a deep breath and said to Keita, "Don't move." He could tell Yutaka was getting tense.

Keita Iijima's pitiful face was visible in the moonlight as he took a step forward.

"Why? Why won't you let me? Have you forgotten who I am, Shinji? Let me join you guys."

Shinji cocked his gun with a click. Keita Iijima stopped. They still had plenty of distance, seven or eight meters.

"Don't come near us," Shinji slowly repeated. "I can't let you join."

Yutaka whined right beside him, "Why, Shinji? We can trust Keita."

Shinji shook his head. Then he thought, that's right, there's something you don't know about us, Yutaka. It wasn't a big deal. In fact it was a trivial incident. It happened during their second year near the end of the term in March. Shinji went to Takamatsu to see a movie (there was no movie theater in Shiroiwa) with Keita Iijima. Yutaka was supposed to go too, but he had a cold that day.

That was how Shinji encountered three tough-looking high school students in a back alley off the main street near the shopping arcade. Shinji and Keita had already seen the movie, and once they were done checking out the book and record stores (Shinji bought imported computer books. They were lucky finds. Even though they were technical books, the government strictly prohibited books from the West so they were difficult to come by), they were heading over to the train station when Keita realized he'd forgot to buy a comic book and went back to the bookstore alone.

"Hey, you got any dough?" one of the high school students asked. This guy was at least ten centimeters taller than Shinji, who at 1,72 meters was short for a basketball player.