Battle Royale

He kept on pulling the trigger until he used up all his bullets. With every shot Kazuo's body flinched.

When the gun's breechblock held up, the eighth shell fell onto the floor with a clink, rolled, and then clicked against another shell.

He could feel Kazuo's right arm and the rest of his body slowly going limp. His slicked-back hair and the rest of his head fell forward. Once Hiroki let go, Kazuo's body would slide against corner of the table and fall onto the floor.

But right now Hiroki stood still facing Kazuo as if dancing a strange dance, panting, his chest heaving.

I won.

He won against the Kazuo Kiriyama. The Kazuo Kiriyama whose athletic prowess was probably superior to Shinji Mimura or Shuya Nanahara's, who'd never lost a fight as far as he knew. He'd defeated him.

I defeated—

Suddenly a sharp pain pierced the right side of Hiroki's stomach. He groaned, gasped...then opened his eyes wide.

Kazuo was looking up at Hiroki. And in his left hand...was a knife digging into Hiroki's stomach.

Hiroki slowly shifted his eyes from this hand over to Kazuo's face. Kazuo stared back with eyes that were as always beautiful and cold.

How...could he still be alive?

Of course it was because Kazuo Kiriyama was wearing Toshinori Oda's bulletproof vest, but Hiroki couldn't have known, and right now there wasn't much point trying to figure this out.

Kazuo twisted the knife and Hiroki moaned. His left hand's grip on Kazuo's right wrist was loosening.

Oh no, this is not good...at all.

But Hiroki managed to squeeze some strength out into his arm. He swung down his right hand that was still holding the emptied gun.

His bent right elbow struck Kazuo's lower chin.

Kazuo flew back and slid across the white table covered with blood. The blood stain that resembled the Republic of Greater East Asia's national flag now looked more like the stripes of the American flag. Simultaneously, the knife in Hiroki's stomach, after tearing off approximately thirty grams of Hiroki's flesh, was torn out. Blood came bursting out. Hiroki gasped, but immediately turned on his heel and ran to the door leading out to the hall.

Right as he was entering it he heard gunfire, and the door frame cracked open. Kazuo didn't have any time to pick up the guns scattered on the floor. So he must have had a fourth gun (probably attached under his pants, tied to his ankle or something).

Hiroki ran, ignoring the gunfire.

He leaped over the scattered pile of chairs and desks. Right before he emerged outside he heard that all-too-familiar machine gun fire, but the shots missed him because he was crouched over.

The sky was cloudy enough to expect rain, but for some reason it looked bright to him.

Hiroki ran as fast as he could into the grove beyond the gate where the light truck was parked. He left behind a trail of red spots on the white sand.

He heard the machine gun rattle again, but by then he'd leaped into the grove.

Of course he couldn't afford to rest now.

8 students remaining

66

It began to drizzle. Rain washed over the bushes covering the island, and in the dim light a dark sheen fell through the drops of water and thick clouds.

Shuya slowly wove his way through the bushes. The area to his right was open and offered him a view of the sea, which was dull gray behind the white curtain of rain.

He now wore his shirt, school coat, and sneakers, which he found in the room where Yukie's group was. Raindrops falling off tree branches dripped onto his coat. He had the Uzi slung over his shoulder, his right hand on the grip, and kept the CZ75 tucked in front. The Browning and the bullets he'd collected were inside the day pack on his shoulder.

Shuya left the lighthouse immediately, and as he'd expected fifteen minutes later, right when he began collecting wood to build a fire on a cliff near the northern tip of the island, he heard gunfire coming from the lighthouse. Despite the fact that the massacre of Yukie's group had occurred inside the lighthouse, he surmised at least two students had arrived upon hearing the shots and ended up fighting.

After some hesitation, Shuya started heading back to the lighthouse. It sounded like the all-too-familiar gunfire of Kazuo Kiriyama's machine gun. He doubted

Noriko and Shogo would go out of their way to follow the gunfire, but there weren't too many students left. Supposing one was Kazuo, there was a good chance the other was Hiroki Sugimura. Of course, it also could have been Mitsuko Souma.

But the gunfire ceased immediately. Shuya stopped. He decided not to return to the lighthouse after all. Even if he went back, there wouldn't be anyone there. Or at best there might be another corpse in addition to the bodies of Yukie's group.

It began raining when Shuya had finished preparing two fires on the cliff rock. He found a lighter in the lighthouse, but it was difficult to get the fire going because of the rain.