I.

"We're in the Program!?"

Takuma Aoi (Male Student No. 1), the new star of Shikanotoride's Rugby Team, sat agasp in the seat of the unknown desk he awoke in. His eye's bulged in the typical way they did when he was angry, and his mouth curled up into his equally familiar scowl. The screams from behind were enough to snap Takuma out of his initial panic and now all that remained was a hateful rage toward the man behind the podium, the man he once regarded as a teacher and his coach.

His classmates voices rose up in a confused and angry outburst but Mr. Takeuchi said nothing. Instead, he paced back and forth at the front of the classroom and nonchalantly pulled a gun out from the inside of his leather jacket. The classmates shouts were muted by a unified gasp of horror and then to silence. As he continued to pace, Mr. Takeuchi reached into his pocket with his other hand and removed a rather large pill bottle. With his thumb, he popped the lid of the bottle off and swallowed a rather large mouthful of pills. Are you trying to overdose? He gasped out as if he had quenched a thirst, and snapped the lid closed again.

Physically, it was still clearly their so-so teacher, Mr. Takeuchi. A sleepy, laze-a-bout type of teacher that typically left the kids up to their own devices as long as they didn't get too rowdy. He was a key figure in the rugby teams success and so Takuma carried a respect for him in that way. However, this was not the same man standing before him claiming his name, his face was now severe as if he had been punched in the gut and his hair looked wet from the hair gel pulling it back. He walked along the front row of desks and met the eyes of the 42 students sitting in them. Takuma wanted to turn and look back at the rest of his classroom but some part of him urged him not to look away from his teacher. Is anybody hurt? Are we all here? Without turning around he could still see the six students sitting in the front row alongside him.

Takuma was sitting at the farthest to the left of the front row and beside him was Nao Asakura (Female Student No. 1), one of the co-managers of Shikanotoride's Rugby Team and a close friend of Takuma's. Beside Nao, Takuma could see the faces of some of his other students.

First, there was Naoki Jo (Male Student No. 8), who was the second in command to Ryo Kurosawa (Male Student No. 4) in their neighbourhood gang, Schwarz Katz, a pro-government street gang from the area. Sitting next to Naoki was Risa Shindo (Female Student No. 8), the nice class president, who Takuma could also hear sobbing softly from his desk.

Shintaro Makimura (Male Student No. 15) sat beside Risa. Shintaro was a popular student, primarily due to his star status among the schools rugby team (which seemed to have been the schools only real achievement), but also due to his friendly personality. He also led the group of friends Takuma and Nao hung around with. He was dating Asuka Motomura (Female Student No. 18), though they had a loud fight before they boarded the bus and chose not to sit together.

The last student, was barely visible but he easily recognized the blond tuffs of hair poking out from the desk closest to the door. Kazumi Fukuda (Female Student No. 15), the boss of a group of delinquent girls with tanned skin and the only other person in their class to have dyed their hair like his.

The two fatigue-clad Special Defence soldiers beside Mr. Takeuchi, holstered their automatic pistols and began to organize the papers Mr. Takeuchi had read from. The first soldier was a macho looking man in his 40's (earlier identified as Mr. Takahashi) and beside him was a much younger soldier (Mr. Kawamura), who looked like he could have passed as a teenager. Mr. Takahashi approached Mr. Takeuchi with two pieces of white paper and a large marker, which he took. He then approached the white board at the front of the classroom.

"Well. As always, the rules are to kill all your classmates. That's it. Sounds easy, right? However, as a special present for giving Shikanotoride's such a prized Rugby team, this program will also be a team event!" He broke into a hysterical looking grin and tapped on Risa and Naoki's desks. "That means Female Student No. 8 and Male Student No. 8 can both survive if they are the last two remaining!"

Takuma and Nao quickly turned to each other. Nao was also Student No. 1 so that meant she would be his partner. That was okay with him, not many of his other students shared their number with a close friend so it would make it easier to trust one another.

"Teacher?" Ai Yazawa (Female Student No. 20) raised her hand and stood up from her seat in the back. "We don't have any male student with our numbers. Are we on our own?" She was referring to the other three girls beside and behind her.
Mr. Takeuchi pointed to Ai and then to Hibiki Yano (Female Student No. 21), "Whom ever you are seating beside will be your partner. So, you will be partnered with Ms. Yano. As well, Kana Yuki (Female Student No. 22) will be paired with Eri Yoshiyama (Female Student No. 23), Understand?"

Ai slumped back into her seat and made eye contact with her friend, and fellow delinquent, Kazumi in the front row before giving an annoyed look at Hibiki, whose eyes were swollen from crying.

With the marker he got from the macho looking soldier, Mr. Takeuchi began to draw a rough diagram of a diagonally shaped island which he then crossed off with several lines vertically and horizontally creating a sloppily made grid. From the top to bottom he labeled them A through L and from left to right 1 through 12.

"We are on an island that has been abandoned for a couple of years now, it has a rough circumference of about 5 kilometres. There are some buildings to hide in but don't be expecting any sort of supplies lingering about, they're likely to be expired at this point. You are free to go anywhere on the island you choose. However, once every six hours I'll announce some zones that you are forbidden. If you or your partner enter a forbidden zone, both of the collars you're wearing will explode!"

Until now, Takuma hadn't even realized he had been fitted with a collar but now that Mr. Takeuchi had pointed it out, it felt incredibly tight around his neck. He gently pulled on it but Mr. Takeuchi was quick to stop him.

"If you pull on them, they'll also explode." Takuma quickly released his grip. "Otherwise they shouldn't give you any trouble. Just make sure you're playing for real because they will all explode if no one dies in 24 hours. The reasoning for this is to keep you moving and to make sure that you're watching out for your team-mates. In our Government, we watch out for one another. Right?"

Takuma held the urge to spit in his face, but he eventually moved on. It was at this point that Takuma finally made eye contact with Shintaro four desks down. Something about him was unrecognisable, his face was wet with tears and his lips quivered in pain. Takuma tried to send him a sort of silent signal with his hands.

You and I, we'll team up. Ok?

But Shintaro shook his head sadly in response and turned back to the front of the class.

"You and your classmates will be released every two minutes by class number. The exit to the school is directly to the left of this classroom, so it'll be very easy to find. Just make sure you don't lurk around the school because it will be our first Forbidden zone. Remember K-2. That's this zones coördinates. OK?" Still, none of the class spoke which Takuma found odd.

I thought we were a bunch of delinquents, guys!?

"As with any Program, the starting number will be randomized. Shall we see where we will begin today?"

Mr. Kawamura approached from the side and handed Mr. Takeuchi an envelope. For a moment the two paused as they made eye contact with one another but Kawamura soon retreated back to his place. Though his expression was hard, the soldiers eyes had a softness to him that was probably the source of his youthful appearance. Mr. Takeuchi opened the envelope and removed another sheet of white paper, unfolded it and read it alloud to the class.

"Number 15. So that's Shintaro Makimura and Kazumi Fukuda." For a moment, the entire class turned to face the two students at the far right of the front row. Kazumi looked around, panicked.
"Let get a nice big here, okay!?" Kazumi stumbled out of her chair.
"Here!" She muttered, but Shintaro stayed put and refused to move. Mr. Takeuchi took notice and stepped up to his desk, kneeling down and looking at him at eye level.
"Shintaro. It's time for you to play this game. You like games, don't you?" He taunted,
"I'm not standing. I won't be participating." Takeuchi was not amused.
"Do you not care for your partners well-being?"

Shintaro paused for a moment and hesitently look up to meet Kazumi's eyes. Her overly made up face had become smudged from crying making it look like tribal marks. She was the 'boss' of the delinquint girls and not somebody Shintaro socialized with at all, it would have deserved a laugh had it not involved a life or death situation.

"Come on Shintaro, just go. Don't cause a scene. We can figure it out later!" Asuka stood up from her desk and slammed her fists hard against her desk, "Please. Just go!"

Kazumi shrugged and approached the soldiers, with the large rack of supply bags behind them, they handed her the bag just as a loud echoing pop erupted through the classroom. It took Takuma a few moments to process what had happened but from the dark red liquid and chipped matter splattered over Risa's desk, it had been clear.

"KYAAAAAA!"

Shintaro's body snapped backwards cracking his head open against the desk behind his. The chair slid forward sliding out from under Shintaro's assigned desk and dropping him hard against the floor. The chair, along with Shintaro's backpack, stopped at Mr. Takahashi's leg who still held out his smoking gun. The bullet had gone through Shintaro and torn the backpack in the process, causing it's contents to spill out in front of the class. Among the contents was a Rugby Ball. The ball had been a symbol of their friendship, signed by the members of the rugby team though the names were now smudged by the blood of its deceased captain.

Takuma's face relaxed for the first time since he'd awoken, not out of choice but from a numb sense of shock. For a moment it felt as though he had dreamed it and had only now realized, but his sense of smell had become overwhelmingly strong and quickly rushed him back into reality. The voices of his classmates screams echoed and blurred into a hazy void, until another loud popping sound erupted into the classroom silencing them all again.
He initially assumed Asuka had been shot too for leaving her seat, but when he turned he saw that everyone was looking wide eyed toward the front of the class which had now been coated with a fresh splash of the same dark red liquid that had covered Risa's desk. Kazumi Fukuda's corpse shuttered as it somehow maintained it's balance. Her collar had exploded. As her head fell backwards it began to rip at the torn skin from her neck but her knees buckled and she fell forward, snapping her head back into place and slapping across the hard tile with a wet clap.
"I guess I probably should have made it more clear when I said this was a team game now. Protecting your team mate is an absolute must. If your team mate dies, your collar explodes."

Asuka, now covered in her recently deceased boyfriends blood, slowly stepped backwards the three seats to her desk and sat back down. Her eyes were glued to the corpse of her boyfriend, she was silent now.

"Now, let's try this again, Student No. 16. Kiyoshi Minamoto and Shiho Matsuki. I don't think we'll have any protests this time, right?"

40 Students Remaining