Battle Royale

Shogo shouted as he started backing up the truck. He steered the wheel, backed the truck towards Kazuo, and then turned it around. The passenger's seat door was there for Shuya. Noriko opened the door.

The rattling exploded as Shuya reached out his right hand to get in. This time though, it was accompanied by a hammering sound. A hole formed in front in the truck's narrow cabin ceiling and the exiting bullet tore through the windshield from inside right in front of Shogo. Shuya leaned against the truck—he knew where Kazuo was now—pointed the Uzi upward and fired away. The shadow slipped away into the bushes surrounding the houses up in the side of the mountain. Kazuo had made his way up there.

Without a second to lose, Shuya leaped into the passenger's seat. Shogo pulled the car out. The truck slid out onto the unpaved entrance road. The machine gun rattled, shredding the hose of the washer on the rack. It thrashed in the air like a snake, fell off the car, and vanished behind them.

The gunfire ceased.

"Are you all right, Noriko?" Shuya asked.

In between Shuya and Shogo, Noriko tilted her face, covered in red, and nodded. "Yes." But her body was still tense. She still held onto the Browning. Shuya put the Uzi in his right hand between his thighs, pulled out a bandanna from his pocket, and wiped her face. Blood came pouring out of the wound, and her pink flesh showed underneath. A simple operation wasn't enough to remove the scar from this wound. To do this to a girl...

"Damn it," Shuya looked over at Shogo, who steered the wheel. "He already knew where we were a while ago. That's how he knew about our escape route."

But Shogo shook his head, saying, "No." As he quickly shifted gears to weave his way through the winding road, he said, "He couldn't have known for sure. He only figured it out at the very end. Otherwise, he would have shown up before Sakamochi's announcement. We would have come out welcoming him, thinking it was Hiroki, and then he would have easily finished us off. He didn't know where we were, so during the breaks between the bird calls he planted that wire to bide his time. He probably planted that wire in other spots too."

Shuya then thought, I see. That might have been true. To bide his time. But that was what ended up severely injuring Noriko. He said, "Noriko, show me your right hand."

Noriko then finally let go of her gun (its grip was also covered in blood) and gave Shuya her hand. It seemed small and frail, but there was a sharp tear running down between her middle and ring finger. The palm of her hand was covered with a web of blood in the pattern of the textured pistol grip. He surmised, the wire must have cut her face first and then as she fell, it must have torn through her hand she put forward as she fell. The wound might have been much more severe if the gun hadn't been in her hand.

Shuya wanted to wrap a bandanna, but realized he couldn't use his left hand.

Noriko said, "I'm okay. I'll do it." She took the bandanna from Shuya, flapped it, and spread it out, and then wrapped it around her right hand. She folded the edges and tied it up.

Then she held the Browning again.

Beyond the bullet-ridden front windshield the view suddenly opened up. The truck was descending the mountain. Under the sunset, the flat field widened between the mountainous woods.

Shuya realized something urgent and said, "Shogo. We're heading into a forbidden zone—"

"Don't worry. I know what I'm doing." Shogo answered as he looked ahead. "Did you hear? The forbidden zones are B=9 after 7 p.m., E=10 after 9 p.m., and F=4 after 11 p.m. Add those to the map."

Shuya remembered too. He pulled out the worn out map from his pocket, spread it out on his thighs, and marked off the areas while the truck shook.

The truck descended and passed by houses. It entered a road equally wide, but paved this time. The southern mountain was visible beyond the row of fields. On the right was a low hill. On the left approximately two hundred meters away was a residential house (it seemed to be in a forbidden zone). There were two more ahead slightly to its left. And then beyond were scattered houses leading up to the residential area on the island's eastern shore. In front of that region there was the field, now hidden in the shade of the low hill, where they first encountered Kazuo. One more hill over was the school, which was also hidden from view.

Shogo slowed the truck down and continued forward. And now the wide longitudinal road crossing the island was right there in front of them.

They passed through the fields and came onto the road. Shogo turned the wheel and turned it again. He stopped the truck in the middle of the road, its engine idling. Shogo then lunged at the cracked front windshield with his fist and knocked the entire window out onto the front of the truck. The glass made a shattering sound.