Battle Royale

Mitsuko tucked in her chin. She looked up at Hiroki and formed a smile. While it sent chills down his spine, it was precisely then that Mitsuko looked even more beautiful.

Ha, she faintly laughed. "I thought she died instantly," she said.

Hiroki didn't respond and kept pointing the gun at her.

Still sitting, Mitsuko pinched the edge of her skirt with her left thumb and index finger, pulling it back slowly, once again revealing those enticing legs.

Hiroki looked up.

"How about it? If you help me, you can do what you like with me. I'm not bad, you know."

Hiroki remained frozen, holding the gun. He examined her face.

"I guess not," Mitsuko said. She said lightly, "Of course not. I mean I'd kill you the moment you let down your guard. Besides, how could you sleep with the girl who killed your girlfriend—"

"She's not my girlfriend."

Mitsuko looked at Hiroki.

Hiroki continued, "But she was my best friend."

"Oh really?" Mitsuko raised her brow. Then she asked, "Why won't you shoot me then? Is it because you're some kind of feminist? Can't shoot women?"

Her supremely confident face was still beautiful. It was totally different from Takako's, who, that's right, had the graceful beauty of a war goddess in Greek or Roman myth. Here we had a teenage sorceress. She's charming, innocent, angelic, yet completely frigid. Under the moonlight, her eyes were like gleaming ice. Hiroki felt dizzy.

"How..." He could tell his voice was hoarse. "How could you kill someone so easily?"

"You fool," Mitsuko said. She sounded as if she could care less about the gun pointed at her forehead. "Those are the rules."

Hiroki squinted and shook his head. "Not everyone's playing by them."

Mitsuko tilted her head again. Then she said, still smiling warmly, "Hiroki." It sounded so plain and friendly, the way a girl who ended up sitting next to her crush would call him, looking for some topic to bring up before homeroom began.

"You're probably a good person, Hiroki," she said.

Hiroki didn't understand and knit his brows. His mouth might have been open.

Mitsuko continued, lightly, as she were singing, "Good people are good. In some respects. But even those good people can turn bad. Or maybe they end up being good their entire lives. Maybe you're one of those people."

Mitsuko looked away from Hiroki and then shook her head.

"No, that's beside the point. I just decided to take instead of being taken. It's not a question of good or bad, wrong or right. It's just what I want to do."

Hiroki's lips trembled. They were twitching uncontrollably.

"...why though?"

Mitsuko smiled again. "I don't know. But if I have to come up with some explanation. Well, for starters..." She looked into Hiroki's eyes and then said, "I was raped when I was nine years old. Three guys taking turns, three times each, oh, wait, one of them might have done it four times. One of you did it. Although they were middle-aged men. I was just a skinny kid back then, my chest was flat, and my legs were like sticks, but that's what they wanted. And when I started screaming that only excited them more. So even now when I'm with perverted men like that I still pretend to cry."

Hiroki stood frozen as he stared at Mitsuko who'd just revealed so much but continued wearing her pleasant smile. He was shocked by this devastating story.

It was—

Hiroki might have been on the verge of saying something. But before he could, a silver light flashed out of Mitsuko's hands. Hiroki realized Mitsuko had managed to reach behind her back with her right hand, but by then the double-bladed diver's knife (this used to be Megumi Eto's weapon) was already planted in his right shoulder. Hiroki let out a groan, and although he still held the gun, he staggered back in pain.

Mitsuko instantly got up, ran past Hiroki, and into the woods behind him.

Hiroki quickly looked back and caught a glimpse of her...as she vanished into the dark.

He knew if he didn't kill Mitsuko Souma now then Kayoko Kotohiki might be the next one to fall into her trap. But Hiroki couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead, he pressed his left hand against his right shoulder where the blood from the knife wound began to soak through his school coat. He stared into the dark where Mitsuko had disappeared.

Of course...Mitsuko might have made up that story to stall him. But Hiroki couldn't buy that. Mitsuko told him the truth. And he'd only heard... part of it. Hiroki had been puzzled over how a third-year junior high school girl his age could be so merciless. It turned out she had acquired the psyche of a grown adult a long time ago. A twisted adult's, no, maybe it was more accurate to say a twisted child's psyche?

The blood oozed down his sleeve then down the Colt .45 and began dripping from the tip in a thin line, landing onto a pile of moldy leaves by his feet without a sound.

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