Battle Royale

We have confirmed evidence of an intrusion into the central government operations system. The intrusion was undetected on the date of its occurrence. March 12. We are currently investigating any additional evidence of re-entry.

The suspect's possible identity, purpose and any possible information leaks are also being investigated, but because the suspect's computer skills were highly advanced, we anticipate a significant delay in producing the suspect's profile.

The Central Authority Secretariat

Special Task Force Defense Supervisor and the Battle Experiment Division of the Special Defense Army were informed that data from Program No. 68 may have been corrupted, and as a result we immediately considered the postponement of Program No. 12 for 1997.

However, because preparations for No. 12 are complete, and because there is no indication that the above data has been leaked into the civilian popula­tion, we have concluded the program should proceed as scheduled. However, we will be considering rescheduling future programs following No. 12, as well as implementing design changes in "Guadalcanal."

As the supervisor in charge of executing the experiment, you, supervisor of Program No. 12 are to proceed with extreme caution.

Furthermore, this infiltration incident is classified top secret information and is to be treated as such.

Part 1 Start Game 42 students remaining

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As the bus entered the prefectural capital of Takamatsu, garden suburbs transformed into city streets of multicolored neon, headlights of oncoming cars, and checkered lights of office buildings. A group of well dressed men and women stood talking to each other in front of a street side restaurant while they waited for a taxi. Tired, squatting youths smoked in the clean parking lot of a convenience store. A worker on his bicycle waited for the lights to change at the crossing. It was chilly for a May evening, so the man had put on his worn out jacket. Along with these other drifting impressions, the worker disappeared behind the bus window, swallowed by the low engine rumble. The digital display above the bus driver's head changed to 8:57.

Shuya Nanahara (Male Student No. 15, Third Year Class B, Shiroiwa Junior High School, Shiroiwa Town, Kagawa Prefecture) had been staring outside, leaning over Yoshitoki Kuninobu (Male Student No. 7), who had the window seat. As Yoshitoki dug through his bag, Shuya stared at his own right foot, which was sticking out in the aisle, and stretched out his Keds sneakers with his toes. It used to be that Keds weren't hard to find, but now they were extremely rare. The canvas of Shuya's shoes were torn on the right heel, and the stray threads stuck out like cat's whiskers. The shoe company was American, but the shoes themselves were made in Colombia. At present, 1997, the Republic of Greater East Asia hardly suffered from a shortage of goods. In fact it was rich with commodities, but imports were hard to come by lately. Well, it was only to be expected in a country with an official policy of isolationism. Besides, America—both the government and the textbooks called them "the American Imperialists"—was an enemy state.

From the back of the bus, Shuya watched his forty-one classmates, who were illuminated by dull fluorescent lights fixed in dingy ceiling panels. They were all in the same class from last year. They were all still excited and chatting away, since hardly an hour had passed since their departure from their hometown of Shiroiwa. Spending the first night of a study trip on a bus seemed a little cheap. Worse yet, it felt like they were going on a forced march. But everyone would calm down once the bus crossed the Seto Bridge and got on the Sanyo Highway and headed towards their destination, the island of Kyushu.

The loud students at the front who were sitting around their teacher Mr. Hayashida were girls: Yukie Utsumi (Female Student No. 2), the class representative who looked good with braided hair; Haruka Tanizawa (Female Student No. 12), her volleyball teammate who was exceptionally tall; Izumi Kanai (Female Student No. 5), the preppy whose father was a town representative; Satomi Noda (Female Student No. 17), the model student who wore wire-rimmed glasses which suited her calm, intelligent face; and Chisato Matsui (Female Student No. 19), who was always quiet and withdrawn. They were the mainstream girls. You could call them "the neutrals." Girls tended to form cliques, but there weren't any particular groups that stuck out in Shiroiwa Junior High School's Third Year Class B, so categorizing them didn't seem right. If there was a group, it was the rebel or—to put it more bluntly—the delinquent group led by Mitsuko Souma (Female Student No. 11). Hirono Shimizu (Female Student No. 10) and Yoshimi Yahagi (Female Student No. 21) rounded out that bunch. Shuya couldn't see them from where he was sitting.