Battle Royale

Her body temperature, which he sensed from her hands and through the shoulder area of the sailor suit, felt abnormally high, as if she were nursing a chick underneath her clothes. Shuya brushed off the hair on her forehead and felt her forehead.

It was incredibly hot. The cold sweat on her forehead drenched the palm of his hand.

Panicking, he turned to Shogo.

"She's got a fever! Shogo!"

"I'm...fine," Noriko said weakly.

Shogo put down the can of coffee and got up. He exchanged positions with Shuya and touched her forehead. He rubbed his chin and then held her wrist. He seemed to be taking her pulse as he checked his wristwatch.

"I'm sorry about this," he said as he put the fingers of his right hand to her lips and had her open her mouth. Then he pressed the skin under her eyes downward and looked under her lower eyelids.

"You must feel cold."

Narrowing her eyes, Noriko nodded, "Yeah...a little..."

"How is she?" Shuya asked nervously. He'd been holding his breath.

"Just give me your coat," Shogo said as he removed his own school coat. Shuya quickly removed his too and gave it to Shogo. Shogo carefully wrapped the two coats around Noriko's body.

"Bread. I need the jam and water too," Shogo instructed, and Shuya swiftly snatched the bread and water he'd offered to Noriko as well as the jam left on top of Shogo's day pack. Shogo hastily dipped the bread into the jar, covering it with red jam. He offered it to Noriko.

"You have to eat this, Noriko."

"I know...but..."

"Just eat it. Even a little will help," Shogo's insisted. Noriko hesitantly took the bread and nibbled on the bread a couple times. She made an effort to swallow it. Then she returned the rest of the bread to Shogo.

"No more, huh?"

Noriko barely shook her head. Even shaking her head seemed to exhaust her.

Shogo wanted her to eat more, but then he set the bread aside and once again pulled out the small pouch of medicine from his pocket.

"It's cold medicine," he said and gave her a capsule that was different from the pain reliever he'd given her before. Noriko nodded. With Shogo's help she managed to swallow it down with water from the bottle. Water came streaming from her mouth, but Shogo gently wiped it away.

"Okay, now lie down."

Noriko nodded obediently and lay down on the grass, still wrapped up in the two coats.

"What's going on, Shogo? Is she gonna be right?" Shuya asked.

Shogo shook his head. "I don't know for sure yet. It may just be a fever. But she might be infected from the wound."

"What..."

With Noriko lying down, Shuya looked down at the bandanna bandage wrapped around her right calf.

"But...I thought we cleaned out her wound."

Shogo shook his head again. "She moved around the woods a lot after she was shot, right? She might have been infected before we treated her."

Shuya stared at Shogo for a while and then knelt down beside Noriko. He reached his hand out to Noriko's forehead.

"Noriko..."

Noriko opened her eyes. She smiled feebly.

"I'm all right...I'm just a little tired. Don't worry."

But her breathing hardly indicated she was all right.

Shuya looked over at Shogo again. He restrained himself from sounding overly agitated and said, "Shogo. We can't stay here. We have to move. We should at least find a house where she can get warm—"

Shogo cut him off, "Just hold on. Let's just wait and see for now." He tightly wrapped the makeshift blanket-coats around Noriko's body.

"But..."

"It's too dangerous for us to move. I told you."

Noriko faintly opened her eyes. She looked over at Shuya and said, "I'm so sorry...Shuya..." Then she said to Shogo, "I'm sorry," and closed her eyes.

Shuya's lips tightened as he looked down at Noriko's pale face.

25 students remaining

37

Takako Chigusa (Female Student No. 13) stuck her head out from under the shadow of a tree trunk. She was halfway up the eastern side of the island's southern mountain. According to the map she was somewhere near the border between H=4 and H=5. There was a grove full of trees that grew shorter as she headed up the mountain.

Takako gripped her weapon, an ice pick, and looked back.

The house she'd been hiding inside was obscured by trees and no longer visible. It was decrepit and overrun by tall grass and seemed like it'd been abandoned even before the island had been evacuated. She remembered something like a chicken shack was connected to the main building. Now she couldn't even see the rusty tin roof. How far had she come? Two hundred meters? One hundred meters? Takako was the girls' track team's best short-distance sprinter (she held the prefect's all-time second-place junior-high record for the 200-meter), so she had a good sense of running distances, but she wasn't sure now—mainly because of the hills and bushes, not to mention the tension she was feeling.