Battle Royale

Megumi Eto's throat was slashed like sliced watermelon. A sickle was planted in Yoji Kuramoto's head. Sakura Ogawa's head was split open like an overripe fruit. Only half of Yoshimi Yahagi's head existed. An axe was planted in Tatsumichi Oki's head, his face cracked down the middle, left and right out of alignment like a split peanut. Kyoichi Motobuchi's stomach looked like a sausage-factory trash bin. Tadakatsu Hatagami's face was completely crushed and covered in blood. Hirono Shimizu's face was swollen black, and her sea-slug-sized tongue dangled out from the side of her wide open mouth. The body of The Third Man, Shinji Mimura, was covered with bullets.

Basically, everyone...was dead.

Something caught Shuya's eye. Shogo Kawada—that standoffish transfer student with the bad reputation—had deep stab wounds all over his chest. His eyes were half-open and looking down at the floor... they were out of focus.

Shuya took a deep breath and looked over at Noriko Nakagawa's seat. It was right behind Yoshitoki's, so he could have noticed earlier. For some reason though, it felt as if his classmates' seats were swirling around with the corpses. He finally managed to locate Noriko.

She was still sprawled on top of her desk. Shuya ran to her and held her up.

THUD. Her head fell off. Leaving behind her body, it landed with a thud on the floor and rolled around in a pool of blood...and then looked up at Shuya. With eyes full of resentment. I thought you said you would save me, Shuya. But I ended up dying. I really loved you, too. I really did.

His eyes glued to Noriko's face, Shuya held his head and opened his mouth. He felt he was going crazy.

He could tell a scream was welling up inside.

Suddenly, he saw something white.

As he became physically aware that his body was in fact horizontal, his vision came into focus, and Shuya finally realized it was the ceiling. On the left side he saw a fluorescent light.

Someone gently touched his chest.

He realized how heavy he was breathing. His eyes followed the hand up to the arm, the arm up to the shoulder, and finally discerned a sailor-suit figure with braided hair— female class representative Yukie Utsumi (Female Student No. 2), smiling warmly.

"Looks like you're up. What a relief," she said.

14 students remaining

59

Shuya tried getting up, but the pain all over his body immediately assaulted him, and he fell back. He realized then he was lying on a soft bed with fresh sheets.

Yukie gently touched Shuya's chest again, then lifted the puffy blanket up to his neck. "Don't exert yourself. You're injured pretty badly....You seemed to be having a bad nightmare. Do you feel okay?"

Shuya wasn't able to respond coherently. Instead he surveyed the room. It was small. There was cheap fabric wallpaper on the left wall, and on the right behind Yukie was another bed, but besides that there wasn't much else. There was a door near the foot of the bed, but it was closed. The wooden frame gave it an old look. There seemed to be a window above his head letting in a dull light which illuminated the room. Given how dull the light was it seemed cloudy outside. But...where was he?

"I don't get it," Shuya said. He realized he could speak now. "I don't remember checking into a hotel with the student representative."

He was still in a half daze, but Yukie gave a sigh of relief. Then her full lips erupted into a soft chuckle. "You would say that, wouldn't you? I'm so relieved you're all right though." Looking at Shuya, she added, "You were out for quite some time. Let see...it's been," she looked down at her watch on her left wrist, "about thirteen hours."

Thirteen hours? Thirteen hours. Thirteen hours ago I was—

Shuya's eyes opened wide. His memory and the present locked in. He was fully awake now.

There was something he needed to find out. Right away.

"What about Noriko, Noriko Nakagawa? And Shogo Kawada?"

Shuya said this and took a deep breath. Were they still alive?

Yukie gave him a funny look and then said, "I think Noriko...and Shogo are still alive. We just heard the afternoon announcement but their names weren't announced."

Shuya let out a deep breath. Noriko and Shogo had managed to escape. Kazuo had chased after him and ended up losing Noriko and Shogo. Kazuo was—

Shuya then looked up at Yukie.

"Kazuo. It's Kazuo!" His voice was half panicking. "Where are we? Are you alone here? We have to be careful!"

Yukie gently touched Shuya's right hand, which was sticking out from under his blanket. "Calm down." Then she asked, "Did Kazuo do this to you?"

Shuya nodded. "He's the one who's been attacking us. He's totally up for this."

"Really..." Yukie nodded and continued, "We're safe here. They're six of us here, not including you. Everyone else is keeping watch, so don't worry. They're all close friends of mine."

Shuya raised his brow. Six?

"Who?"