Battle Royale '03
Part One
Notes: This is based off the book/movie/manga Battle Royale. The book and manga are available in America, I've read the book twice and read the first volume of manga once. (I haven't seen the movie due to the fact that I am too poor to get a region-free DVD player.) For anyone who's not in the know about Battle Royale, it takes place in a modern Japan ruled under a dictator, and the dictator thinks that sending one class of 3rd year junior high students (that's high school freshman to Americans) from each prefecture in Japan to a deserted place (like an island which has been evacuated, a crumbling old jail or a mountain with fences around it), then arming them with randomly selected weapons and collars that will explode if you try to escape, then telling everyone to kill their classmates in a sick game of musical chairs is a great idea.
The book is hugely long because it deals with 41 classmates and how they interact, so each "part" of this fic will contain many smaller chapters, which are numbered. It's because I don't want to torture you guys or myself with a bunch of tiny little parts. This fic takes place in the same place the book does, which is Okishima Island in the Seto Inland Sea. If I had a scanner I'd scan in the map of it from my book copy, alas I don't so I will describe the place here.
Okishima is shaped like an oval on its side and divided into 10 gridded sections (A1-A10, B1-B10, et al). At the northernmost tip (sections A8 and A9), there is a cliff. Square C-10 (on the southeastern coast of the island) is a lighthouse. Square E-9 is a "tourist association" building. Square G-9 is a clinic. Square G-8 is a general store. Square H-9 is a harbor. Squares H-8 and I-8 are houses. Square G-7 is a school. The entire southern tip of the island is a beach. Square H-3 is a mountain, as well as Squares C-7 and C-8. Square C-4 is a Shinto shrine. That's about all the important features, aside from some hills and rocks, which can be expected on an island.
Also remember: There are guard boats out in the water in the north, west, east and south of the island, so they can see you if you try to swim away or take a boat. Not like it would matter, because they took away all the boats. The kids are required to wear collars around their necks that pinpoint their locations and send it back to a computer inside the school building so everyone can monitor them. Should the kids try to step inside a forbidden square, the collars will explode. Should a kid try to take it off, the collar will explode.
WARNING: Everyone in this fic has a dirty mouth.
-Class List-
For added fun, follow along and check off the names of every student that dies once they bite the dust!
Class 3-A, Kitagawa Jr. High School, Kobe
Males: Females:
1 Masao Suzuki 1 Shizuka Arai
2 Kazuo Hanagata 2 Tomoko Daidouji
3 Takashi Hirai 3 Kanako Niimura
4 Shinji Asaba 4 Junko Mizuboshi
5 Toru Niimura 5 Naomi Fujisaki
6 Daisuke Kirishima 6 Suzuko Harada
7 Sho Satsuki 7 Sayaka Ichiki
8 Akito Kanzaki 8 Tetsuko Matsutani
9 Kiyoharu Moritaka 9 Shuko Inada
10 Kaoru Sengakuji 10 Miki Aizawa
11 Shinya Misao 11 Asuka Nishima
12 Junji Mitagawa 12 Nanako Shizawa
13 Shojiro Umeboshi 13 Fujiko Sasei
14 Toshiya Wakabayashi 14 Minami Shimada
15 Kazuhiko Yamatani 15 Sakura Yanagi
Mmmkay here we GO!
Chapter 1
'A study trip. If it gets me away from home, I'm in.' A bus full of weary 14-and 15-year-old students was headed down a seemingly endless highway, away from Kobe, away from home. 30 of them, 16 dressed in black button-down coats and black pants and 14 of them dressed in navy blue sailor-style blazers with matching navy pleated skirts. Wait a minute, 16? Aren't there 15 girls and 15 boys in the class? Enter Shizuka Arai (Female Student No. 1), sitting next to Shinji Asaba (Male Student No. 4), who was busy chatting with Sayaka Ichiki (Female Student No. 7), his girlfriend. Shizuka looked out of the bus window, her dyed red hair descending around her shoulders and accenting the black of her school coat. 'I wonder what kind of dorky shit they're going to make us do this trip. Can't top last year's, though.'
In the front of the bus, Miki Aizawa (Female Student No. 10, also the class representative) and Asuka Nishima (Female Student No. 11) sat trying to chat with the bus driver, who would simply point with a fat finger to the yellowing notice to please not talk with the driver.
In the back of the bus, Shojiro Umeboshi (Male Student No. 13) was sitting with his group of, well, gang members. They all wore exactly the same stoic "I don't give a fuck" expression, even the two gang girls. Then, Daisuke Kirishima (Male Student No. 6) wondered silently why he, or even Shojiro, went on this trip. It's a study trip, a school trip, and school is full of lamers anyway. Sometimes Shojiro's plans could be rather strange.
"Hey Kiyoharu?" asked Masao Suzuki (Male Student No. 1) to his friend Kiyoharu Moritaka (Male Student No. 9). "Who do you have a crush on?"
"Why are you asking me that? That's a stupid question. I don't want to answer that." Kiyoharu pouted. The mischievous grin on Masao's face grew larger and larger.
"I'll tell you who I've got a crush on if you tell me who you've got a crush on," he offered.
"Fine, fine." Kiyoharu shifted in his seat. "Spill it."
"I think Mizuboshi's kind of cute."
"Junko (Female Student No. 4)? The cross-country runner?"
"That's the one. She has nice legs, huh? Now, who's yours?" Kiyoharu paused to think. Most of the girls avoided him. Now he was beginning to wonder why. Why did the girls give him the cold shoulder?
"I don't have one."
"Kiyoharu! Come on! You have to have one!"
"No, I don't."
"Stop lying, man, I can tell you are."
"Masao, the girls avoid me. I don't know why, but they do. No girl would ever like me."
"Fine, fine, be that way."
"How long is it till we get there anyway?" Tomoko Daidouji (Female Student No. 2) asked from behind a manga magazine. She wasn't talking to anyone in particular, just anyone who would happen to hear her. Unfortunately she had a very quiet voice and nobody heard her over the racket everyone else was making by having to talk over everyone else. "Fine..."
'This is getting boring,' Shizuka noted, tossing back her hair. 'I need some coffee.' She paused and then felt her eyes beginning to droop. 'Hey...I'm not that tired, am I? Wait a second...' She looked up towards the bus driver and noted he had on a gas mask. 'Gas mask? Why come we don't get no gas mask? Ish not fair. I need a gashk mashk...feelin' kinda dizzhy...whass Sengakuji tryin ta do?' Her eyes drooping, she looked over at Kaoru Sengakuji (Male Student No. 10), who was trying to break open the bus window with his fist. 'Hee. Kaoru so shilly, dem windows are plexiglash. Can't break em. I go sleep now.' Her eyes shut all the way and she slumped down in her seat, as did everyone else on the bus except for the driver. Even Kaoru gave up and slumped down into his seat in a deep sleep.
---
"Good morning, everyone!" The students all began to awake, their heads rising slowly from their desks.
Desks?!
The thirty kids were arranged in exactly the numerical seating order they had back at Kitagawa, but this was not Kitagawa Jr. High. First of all, Kitagawa had linoleum flooring while this room just had wooden flooring. Second of all, nobody remembered those motivational posters. Third of all, nobody remembered sheets of metal nailed over the windows. Fourth of all, who the hell was that standing at the lectern that would usually be occupied by Ms. Otani, their real teacher?
'I don't remember Ms. Otani getting a sex-change operation,' Shizuka mused to herself, snickering. This man was short, kind of chunky and wore a brown suit that looked like he had stepped out of the year 1974. His salt-and-pepper short hair framed his fat face, which made him look unusually like a pig. 'Oink oink...We must have a sub or something. What day is it?' Shizuka looked down at her watch. 'Friday? 2:38am? It's too early. How come I feel so awake? It was 9:30pm last time I checked, that's only 5 hours of sleep. I feel awake as ever...' She looked over to see Miki looking around, confused, at her friends. In fact, everyone was looking around, confused, so Shizuka hopped on the bandwagon.
"Once again, good morning. The gas worked perfectly, I should tell someone that this 5-hour stuff is much better than the old way. My name is Hirohiko Toyama. Just call me Mr. Toyama." Mr. Toyama wrote the kanji characters for his name on the old green chalkboard. "You are all probably wondering what's going on, right? What happened to the study trip? This is your study trip, children. Congratulations! You have been selected to participate in the 2003 Program!"
Miki screamed. Everyone went into panic mode.
2
The Program was crafted by the Dictator who was in power back in the 40s. He made a speech that every first-year junior high student was required to study concerning why he instated the Program, but everyone forgot it after they were required to study it. Basically it was a sick version of musical chairs and all the winner got for seeing his or her classmates die and probably killing a few by him or herself was a meager lifetime pension and a paper signed by the Dictator. It wasn't rare for Shizuka to see a classmate crying and then the classmate citing a sibling or relative having been in the Program. But eventually their tears slowed down and then stopped. Time healed everything, especially deaths. Shizuka instead concentrated on a particularly large scuff on the toe of her black Chuck Taylors. Since Chuck Taylors were made in America, they were outlawed in Japan due to Japan and America being enemies. But that didn't mean you couldn't buy Chuck Taylors off the black market, which was frequented by high school kids who were sick of just the propagandistic bullshit that was everywhere.
"Where are we, I bet you're asking? You're on Okishima Island." Mr. Toyama pulled a map of Okishima out of the ceiling and pointed to it. "Namely, at the school. Now you have to leave here so you can play the game. Notice the collars?" The students all raised cautious hands up to their necks and felt the cold touch of metal against their warm skin. "Yes yes yes, the surveillance collars. They tell me where you are at all times. Should you try to enter a forbidden zone after it becomes forbidden, it'll blow your head off. Should you try to escape by swimming, I will personally alert one of the guard ships to fire their whole arsenal at you. Should you try to take the collar off yourself, it'll blow your head off. Any questions?"
Kanako Niimura (Female Student No. 3) raised her hand.
"What about Ms. Otani?"
"Yuriko Otani..." Mr. Toyama licked his lips in a strangely scary way. "She was much opposed to her class being in the Program. So...well..." He looked to the side. "I had to set her straight."
"What did you do to her?!" Kanako screamed. Mr. Toyama silently motioned to three identical soldiers, who went out in the hall and brought in a large black bag with a zipper running down the middle of it. Some parts of the bag seemed lumpier than others. Some students were starting to put the puzzle pieces together and others hadn't quite figured it out yet. The soldiers set the bag down on the teachers' desk and unzipped it to reveal Yuriko Otani, dead. There was a singular bullet wound in her forehead, which meant that the back of her head, where the bullet would exit, was probably a goopy mess. The soldiers only unzipped the bag to reveal her face, which was probably good for the class as a whole, even though they began shrieking, groaning, feeling nauseous and panicking even more.
"So I raped her and killed her. Sorry." Mr. Toyama shrugged it off.
"You goddamn bastard, I'm going to fucking kill you!!" Kazuo Hanagata (Male Student No. 2) screamed, standing up from his desk.
"A threat, Mr. Hanagata?" Mr. Toyama asked.
"You're damn right it's a threat!"
"Take him out," Mr. Toyama asked the soldiers. The middle one saluted and took out his shotgun, then aimed it at Kazuo's head and fired. The bullet ripped through Kazuo's forehead and he immediately fell to the ground, dead, falling too close to Tomoko's foot for her to handle. She gasped, her face turning white as a ghost.
"If any more children want to end up like Mr. Hanagata here, just stand up and say so." Mr. Toyama looked around as every child in the room bit his or her tongue. "Perfect. An obedient class, that's exactly what I like. All right. I'm going to take a name out of this hat and that will be the first person called. I'll issue to that lucky person a day pack containing a randomly selected weapon, some food and water, a map and a compass. Then they will leave the school. I'll wait 2 minutes, then call the next person on the roll call. And so on and so on until everyone has been called. Now, 30 minutes after the last person leaves, this will become the first forbidden zone of the game. Square G-7, kids, remember that. Oh, one last thing. Take out the pencil and paper you'll find in your desk, then write 'We will kill one another' ten times on it. Once you are done, turn over your paper and I will begin roll call."
Shizuka looked in her desk and took out the paper and generic pencil that was in it. 'We will kill one another? How lame.' Reluctantly she put pencil to paper and began to form the character for "we". She could smell the blood from Kazuo's corpse wafting through the air. 'Disgusting...The poor guy. I hope he died happy. He's in a better place now, right? I never knew Hanagata very well, but...Oh, it's too awful.' She turned back to writing the phrase over and over on her paper. Shizuka was known for being a fast writer, so she was done quickly. Right after she turned over her paper everyone else seemed to finish at exactly the same moment.
"Everyone done? Perfect. Let us begin. And the first person is...Male Student No 11, Shinya Misao!"
Shinya stood up from his desk and slowly walked towards the front. He was an otaku, not accustomed to much strenuous physical activity, and was obviously nervous about being the first to go. He picked up his day pack and exited, then everyone heard the staccato beat of his feet running down the hall. Shizuka scribbled down a message on her paper that said Wait For Me, then passed it on to Junko while nobody was looking. The roll call proceeded in numerical order (after Shinya came Female Student No. 11 Asuka Nishima, then Male Student No. 12 Junji Mitagawa, et al), everyone taking their packs, taking one last look at the class and then leaving. Shizuka decided to look at her weapon in the hall when it was her turn to leave.
'Hm...an Uzi. This could come in very handy.' She could hold it with one hand. 'One-handed. How nice! I could actually do well in this game.' She placed the Uzi in her pocket instead of back in her bag, then headed out and was greeted by the stench of blood yet again.
29 students remaining
3
Minami Shimada (Female Student No. 14) lay dead on the ground, a bullet wound in her chest. A puddle of blood was beginning to form around the wound, accented by the full moonlight. Shizuka paused by the corpse and wondered exactly who killed Minami. She was out in the open and decided to take up Minami's day pack. There had to be a weapon in there, right? Shizuka opened Minami's day pack. A police-grade revolver. 'Hey hey! Some bullets, too! This is good, Shizuka!' She was happy for a moment until she saw a small red bead of light moving up her legs. 'Beam of light?! That's NEVER good!' She rolled over, shielding herself with Minami's day pack as she heard the explosion of a bullet leaving the chamber of a gun that was not hers. At the last moment she hopped away from the bullet, feeling its warmth as it passed by her legs. 'What the fuck?!' She looked up to see Shinya standing on the roof of the one-story school, holding a sniper rifle with laser-guided targeting.
"Fucking bitch!! Die!!" Shinya screamed, firing again. Shizuka ducked behind a tree and then aimed Minami's revolver, shooting and hoping it would hit. It did. Shinya toppled over, dead. Shizuka's eyes widened and she looked down at Minami's revolver, which was still warm from shooting. 'My first kill? I might be doing a lot of this...' Instead she sat down to wait for Junko to appear. Junko was Shizuka's closest friend, so she decided to trust Junko and only Junko during this game.
Every person who exited the school would pause by Minami's corpse, then sigh and head on. Finally Shizuka saw Junko exit the building.
"Junko!" she hissed. "Junko! Over here!" Shizuka waved a hand and Junko came towards it. "There ya go. What'll we do now?"
"Fucking run for it, what do you expect?" Junko began to run and Shizuka followed. Junko was much faster than Shizuka, however, due to the fact that Junko was a cross-country runner.
"Junko! Wait up!"
"Shut up, we're just going to get away from here, this is where everyone is. Come on!" The two were headed for the houses, unfortunately so were a few other people who would only kill if someone came into the house they were hiding in. Fortunately there were about 80 houses, so there was a very small chance of anyone actually stepping into someone else's house.
"Junko! My side hurts from running!"
"Too bad!"
"Junko...!!"
"Shut up and run!"
'Must be on her period...' Shizuka thought, feeling her day pack hit her side over and over again and hitting a bruise that was already there. Finally she saw some houses and Junko began to slow down.
"So we're gonna hide here?"
"At least for a little while. Regroup. Figure out what we're going to do." Junko took out her issued weapon, which turned out to be a nunchaku, and broke the window of the first house she saw with it. She looked inside, then nodded and snuck in through the window. Shizuka took a moment to gather her breath before following Junko in.
"Whoa, these people are rich," Junko commented, looking around. "We could definitely make home base here."
"That's too risky," Shizuka said as she tried out the sink. No water came out of the faucet. "No water?"
"No electricity, either." Junko flipped a lightswitch. "They marooned us real good, didn't they?"
"I'm just wondering how they can still do this. Hasn't some other country realized this shit isn't kosher? That letting hardly teenagers kill each other isn't cool?"
"Obviously not, this has been going on since the 1940s."
"Ssh. Listen, it's beginning to rain." Shizuka looked out the now broken window to see rain beginning to fall.
27 students remaining
4
Shojiro told his entire crew to meet him at the Shinto shrine as soon as they could reach it. He himself was one of the first to be called, so he was almost all the way there. Suddenly, he heard footsteps behind them, then heavy breathing. He kept his finger on the trigger of his machine gun and whirled around to see Sakura Yanagi (Female Student No. 15) standing there trying to breathe.
"Sakura?"
"I followed--you--here," she said, pausing for breath every so often. Sakura and Tetsuko Matsutani (Female Student No. 8) were the only two girls in Shojiro's group. Sakura was very attractive, with long shiny black hair and, well, a well-developed figure for a 15-year-old. She had hiked up her skirt a bit so she could run and was obviously flaunting herself for Shojiro. "So...we're going to all stick together, right?"
"Yes, I suppose you could call it that." Shojiro shook a lock of hair from his face.
"Great! They gave me a .45, is that a good weapon?"
"Yes, I suppose." 'Dammit, Sakura, you ruined my plan. It was going to be the Umeboshi Special--you trust me but I betray you with a fucking bullet to the head. But you're beautiful. I can't kill you...'
"Shojiro? Is something wrong? You seem...just out there."
"Sakura, do you want to help me out with something?"
"Yes!" Sakura smiled at Shojiro.
"Perfect." Shojiro took out a 100-yen coin. "If it comes up heads I won't play this game, if it comes up tails I will play this game." He flipped the coin and looked at where it landed. "I have horrid eyesight, can you see what that is for me?"
"Of course!" Sakura squinted at the coin. "It's tails."
"Then the plan can proceed."
"What plan?"
"I'm summoning everyone to the Shinto shrine so I can...so I can kill them." He watched Sakura begin to back away. "But I won't kill you, Sakura."
"Why? I'm part of your group, aren't I?"
"Right, but..." Shojiro hesitated. Was he going to break his cold, emotionless exterior to tell Sakura how he felt about her? "But we could kill them together." Sakura grinned from ear to ear.
---
Tomoko, Naomi Fujisaki (Female Student No. 5) and Shuko Inada (Female Student No. 9) were running for their lives. They had crossed the path of Toru Niimura (Male Student No. 5), who was now dead-set on slaughtering all three of them. Sadly he only had hand grenades, so he had to corner them somehow. He saw a thick grove of trees coming up and got ready to pull the pin on a grenade as the trio stopped and noted they were cornered in. Then they turned right as the grenade hit the ground and exploded, tearing through their eardrums and killing them instantly. Toru stepped out from behind a tree and began to rummage around in their day packs, gathering Tomoko's whip (a whip?!), Naomi's shotgun and Shuko's throwing stars.
24 students remaining
5
Shojiro and Sakura sat on a bench at the Shinto shrine, awaiting the arrival of Toru, Daisuke, Akito, Junji and Tetsuko. Both held their guns in their laps and both were silent. Uncomfortably silent, to be precise. And Sakura wanted to end it. She scooted the smallest bit closer to Shojiro, which he didn't notice. She scooted even closer to him and he still didn't notice. A small bell tolled in the wind and the rain fell not lightly or heavily but just in the middle. Finally she turned to him.
"Shojiro?" she asked. "Um, I kinda have something to say."
"Yeah?"
"I...I know I have a past that usually makes guys afraid of me...you know, the whole...everything, but I stopped doing that and I'm trying to just go with one guy." She paused and bit her lip. "I want to be with you." As she went in for the kiss, she heard a rustle in the bushes nearby and Akito Kanzaki (Male Student No. 8) stepped out.
"Akito! You're the first to arrive," Shojiro said, putting on his poker face. "Little story for you. Sakura knows this one. I flipped a coin to see if I'd bring you guys here so we could team up and fight against Toyama or if I'd bring you guys here and pump you full of bullets because I want to play the game. Well, it came up tails." He aimed his machine gun and shot Akito. "I'm playing. Sorry, you lose." Sakura began to giggle madly as she looked upon Akito's fresh corpse. His longish black hair was becoming matted with his own blood and it didn't look becoming on him. Then she turned back to Shojiro.
"I was serious about what I said." She moved in for the kiss once again and was once again interrupted by the arrival of Junji Mitagawa (Male Student No. 12). She turned to face Junji and raised her .45.
"You interrupted me! I was going to kiss Shojiro and you interrupted me!"
"Shojiro? What's going on?" Junji asked, holding his sword. (Junji was on the kendo team so he was good with swords.)
"I flipped a coin to see if I was going to play the game or not and...well, I am. Sakura, would you do the honors for me?"
"Of course." Sakura held her gun level, which took both her hands, and shot Junji twice. She blew the stream of smoke away from the gun and turned to Shojiro once more, this time actually kissing him. She had kissed many a man before, but this one had something in it that the others didn't. It had actual feeling. Shojiro began to run his hand through Sakura's hair and Sakura wrapped her arms around his waist as they kissed with actual feeling until they had to pull away because they couldn't breathe anymore. The rain kept falling as the two smiled at each other, a gang guy and his gang girl. How sweet.
22 students remaining
6
"Toru?" Kanako asked as she stepped over Naomi's corpse. She had seen her brother go by here, now where did he go off to? "Toru?" Sure, Kanako could trust her friends Fujiko Sasei (Female Student No. 13) and Tomoko (who was now dead, damn), but right now she wanted to be with her brother. "Toru, where are you?" Although Toru was a part of Shojiro's group and therefore usually acted like he didn't care about anything, he really did have a soft spot for his sister Kanako. They were, after all, fraternal twins. Toru was born first so he would become the protective older brother to dear Kanako, telling her about the newest threats to his group and telling her whom and where to stay away from. She really wanted to be with him so that she could be safe. She heard a stick crack in half. "Toru?" And raised her switchblade, her provided weapon.
"Kanako?" Toru's familiar voice asked.
"Toru!" Kanako ran to her brother and hugged him tightly.
"I'm going to go see Shojiro," Toru said bitterly.
"Can I come?" Kanako asked. Toru paused. "Pleeeease? I'm so afraid of being alone, Toru. Tomoko's dead and I don't know where Fujiko is, I'm just so glad I found you..."
"Fine, fine, you can come too."
"Yeah! You're awesome, Toru!" Kanako said, squeezing Toru a bit too tightly.
"Kanako, I think you're cutting off my circulation..."
"Sorry." Kanako let go of Toru. "So, where does Shojiro want you to go to?"
"The Shinto shrine. It's north of here. See? We're in square E-4. It's not too long to the shrine, thankfully."
"Do you think this rain is going to stop?" Kanako looked up.
"Who knows? It's not like we could go in a house and see for ourselves, there's no electricity."
"You're serious?"
"Nope, none at all."
"I'm scared, Toru. I don't want to die." Kanako held Toru's hand like she used to whenever they were crossing streets as small children.
"I won't let you die, Kanako," Toru replied. "I promise."
22 students remaining
7
Nanako Shizawa (Female Student No. 12), Fujiko and Asuka were all headed towards the northern mountain. Miki sent them all notes telling them to meet her there, then they would plan their course of action.
"Yeah, they gave me these quill things," Nanako said to the amazed Fujiko and Asuka as she took out a small leather pouch containing ten small knives. Their blades were no thicker than a single porcupine quill and were as long as a normal pencil. "What about you two?"
"I got hand grenades," Fujiko reported, shrugging. "Not excellent but not bad."
"I heard an explosion a while back," Asuka suddenly said. "It sounded like a grenade. Did you kill someone?"
"No. I still have all my grenades. What about you, Asuka? What did you get?"
"This." Asuka took out a shotgun just like the ones used in shooting galleries at carnivals. "It's heavy."
"Wow, a shotgun! Asuka, your weapon rocks!" Nanako said, amazed by Asuka's weapon. "Much better than these quill things! Don't you agree, Fujiko?"
"It's all about timing," Asuka commented, shrugging. "Let's just get to the mountain. Miki doesn't like tardiness."
22 students remaining
8
Tetsuko Matsutani (Female Student No. 8) was headed for the shrine. She was hoping Junji would be there so she could at least see him. 'If only I still had my virginity,' she lamented silently as she ran. 'I'd give it up to Junji. I'm going to die eventually, right? I might as well go out with a bang, if you know what I mean.' She snickered and then checked to make sure her sheathed double-bladed knife was still tucked securely into her skirt. At first she was kind of confused as to how it operated, but then realized that there was a damn cushion on it for you to put your hand on so you wouldn't stab yourself on either blade. Then she became concerned with wielding it properly by practicing on some trees. She had managed to slash Suzuko Harada (Female Student No. 6)'s leg as she walked by, but then saw Suzuko's ball and chain (mace?) and got away. Now all she wanted to do was see Junji. She saw the torii gates of the shrine up ahead and began to run faster, propelled maybe by her devotion to Junji.
She saw the bench that Shojiro and Sakura were sitting on.
"Shojiro! Sakura! It's me, Tetsuko!" she shouted as she got closer, then stopped right in front of Junji. "Jun...Junji? Dead?"
"That's right," Sakura said in a strange deep voice.
"What's going on here? Did Akito kill him? And then turn the gun on himself?" Tetsuko was alarmed. Junji's blood was starting to stain the sole of her shoe.
"We killed him," Shojiro replied.
"WHAT?!" Tetsuko unsheathed her knife. "I'm going to kill you both!"
"Wrong answer," Sakura answered, once again leveling her gun and shooting Tetsuko. The .45 bullet tore through her cerebral cortex and Tetsuko died with her last thought being about Junji. Her corpse fell on top of Junji's, her knife falling nearby.
"Now we only need Daisuke to come," Sakura reported. "This is fun!"
21 students remaining
Part One
Notes: This is based off the book/movie/manga Battle Royale. The book and manga are available in America, I've read the book twice and read the first volume of manga once. (I haven't seen the movie due to the fact that I am too poor to get a region-free DVD player.) For anyone who's not in the know about Battle Royale, it takes place in a modern Japan ruled under a dictator, and the dictator thinks that sending one class of 3rd year junior high students (that's high school freshman to Americans) from each prefecture in Japan to a deserted place (like an island which has been evacuated, a crumbling old jail or a mountain with fences around it), then arming them with randomly selected weapons and collars that will explode if you try to escape, then telling everyone to kill their classmates in a sick game of musical chairs is a great idea.
The book is hugely long because it deals with 41 classmates and how they interact, so each "part" of this fic will contain many smaller chapters, which are numbered. It's because I don't want to torture you guys or myself with a bunch of tiny little parts. This fic takes place in the same place the book does, which is Okishima Island in the Seto Inland Sea. If I had a scanner I'd scan in the map of it from my book copy, alas I don't so I will describe the place here.
Okishima is shaped like an oval on its side and divided into 10 gridded sections (A1-A10, B1-B10, et al). At the northernmost tip (sections A8 and A9), there is a cliff. Square C-10 (on the southeastern coast of the island) is a lighthouse. Square E-9 is a "tourist association" building. Square G-9 is a clinic. Square G-8 is a general store. Square H-9 is a harbor. Squares H-8 and I-8 are houses. Square G-7 is a school. The entire southern tip of the island is a beach. Square H-3 is a mountain, as well as Squares C-7 and C-8. Square C-4 is a Shinto shrine. That's about all the important features, aside from some hills and rocks, which can be expected on an island.
Also remember: There are guard boats out in the water in the north, west, east and south of the island, so they can see you if you try to swim away or take a boat. Not like it would matter, because they took away all the boats. The kids are required to wear collars around their necks that pinpoint their locations and send it back to a computer inside the school building so everyone can monitor them. Should the kids try to step inside a forbidden square, the collars will explode. Should a kid try to take it off, the collar will explode.
WARNING: Everyone in this fic has a dirty mouth.
-Class List-
For added fun, follow along and check off the names of every student that dies once they bite the dust!
Class 3-A, Kitagawa Jr. High School, Kobe
Males: Females:
1 Masao Suzuki 1 Shizuka Arai
2 Kazuo Hanagata 2 Tomoko Daidouji
3 Takashi Hirai 3 Kanako Niimura
4 Shinji Asaba 4 Junko Mizuboshi
5 Toru Niimura 5 Naomi Fujisaki
6 Daisuke Kirishima 6 Suzuko Harada
7 Sho Satsuki 7 Sayaka Ichiki
8 Akito Kanzaki 8 Tetsuko Matsutani
9 Kiyoharu Moritaka 9 Shuko Inada
10 Kaoru Sengakuji 10 Miki Aizawa
11 Shinya Misao 11 Asuka Nishima
12 Junji Mitagawa 12 Nanako Shizawa
13 Shojiro Umeboshi 13 Fujiko Sasei
14 Toshiya Wakabayashi 14 Minami Shimada
15 Kazuhiko Yamatani 15 Sakura Yanagi
Mmmkay here we GO!
Chapter 1
'A study trip. If it gets me away from home, I'm in.' A bus full of weary 14-and 15-year-old students was headed down a seemingly endless highway, away from Kobe, away from home. 30 of them, 16 dressed in black button-down coats and black pants and 14 of them dressed in navy blue sailor-style blazers with matching navy pleated skirts. Wait a minute, 16? Aren't there 15 girls and 15 boys in the class? Enter Shizuka Arai (Female Student No. 1), sitting next to Shinji Asaba (Male Student No. 4), who was busy chatting with Sayaka Ichiki (Female Student No. 7), his girlfriend. Shizuka looked out of the bus window, her dyed red hair descending around her shoulders and accenting the black of her school coat. 'I wonder what kind of dorky shit they're going to make us do this trip. Can't top last year's, though.'
In the front of the bus, Miki Aizawa (Female Student No. 10, also the class representative) and Asuka Nishima (Female Student No. 11) sat trying to chat with the bus driver, who would simply point with a fat finger to the yellowing notice to please not talk with the driver.
In the back of the bus, Shojiro Umeboshi (Male Student No. 13) was sitting with his group of, well, gang members. They all wore exactly the same stoic "I don't give a fuck" expression, even the two gang girls. Then, Daisuke Kirishima (Male Student No. 6) wondered silently why he, or even Shojiro, went on this trip. It's a study trip, a school trip, and school is full of lamers anyway. Sometimes Shojiro's plans could be rather strange.
"Hey Kiyoharu?" asked Masao Suzuki (Male Student No. 1) to his friend Kiyoharu Moritaka (Male Student No. 9). "Who do you have a crush on?"
"Why are you asking me that? That's a stupid question. I don't want to answer that." Kiyoharu pouted. The mischievous grin on Masao's face grew larger and larger.
"I'll tell you who I've got a crush on if you tell me who you've got a crush on," he offered.
"Fine, fine." Kiyoharu shifted in his seat. "Spill it."
"I think Mizuboshi's kind of cute."
"Junko (Female Student No. 4)? The cross-country runner?"
"That's the one. She has nice legs, huh? Now, who's yours?" Kiyoharu paused to think. Most of the girls avoided him. Now he was beginning to wonder why. Why did the girls give him the cold shoulder?
"I don't have one."
"Kiyoharu! Come on! You have to have one!"
"No, I don't."
"Stop lying, man, I can tell you are."
"Masao, the girls avoid me. I don't know why, but they do. No girl would ever like me."
"Fine, fine, be that way."
"How long is it till we get there anyway?" Tomoko Daidouji (Female Student No. 2) asked from behind a manga magazine. She wasn't talking to anyone in particular, just anyone who would happen to hear her. Unfortunately she had a very quiet voice and nobody heard her over the racket everyone else was making by having to talk over everyone else. "Fine..."
'This is getting boring,' Shizuka noted, tossing back her hair. 'I need some coffee.' She paused and then felt her eyes beginning to droop. 'Hey...I'm not that tired, am I? Wait a second...' She looked up towards the bus driver and noted he had on a gas mask. 'Gas mask? Why come we don't get no gas mask? Ish not fair. I need a gashk mashk...feelin' kinda dizzhy...whass Sengakuji tryin ta do?' Her eyes drooping, she looked over at Kaoru Sengakuji (Male Student No. 10), who was trying to break open the bus window with his fist. 'Hee. Kaoru so shilly, dem windows are plexiglash. Can't break em. I go sleep now.' Her eyes shut all the way and she slumped down in her seat, as did everyone else on the bus except for the driver. Even Kaoru gave up and slumped down into his seat in a deep sleep.
---
"Good morning, everyone!" The students all began to awake, their heads rising slowly from their desks.
Desks?!
The thirty kids were arranged in exactly the numerical seating order they had back at Kitagawa, but this was not Kitagawa Jr. High. First of all, Kitagawa had linoleum flooring while this room just had wooden flooring. Second of all, nobody remembered those motivational posters. Third of all, nobody remembered sheets of metal nailed over the windows. Fourth of all, who the hell was that standing at the lectern that would usually be occupied by Ms. Otani, their real teacher?
'I don't remember Ms. Otani getting a sex-change operation,' Shizuka mused to herself, snickering. This man was short, kind of chunky and wore a brown suit that looked like he had stepped out of the year 1974. His salt-and-pepper short hair framed his fat face, which made him look unusually like a pig. 'Oink oink...We must have a sub or something. What day is it?' Shizuka looked down at her watch. 'Friday? 2:38am? It's too early. How come I feel so awake? It was 9:30pm last time I checked, that's only 5 hours of sleep. I feel awake as ever...' She looked over to see Miki looking around, confused, at her friends. In fact, everyone was looking around, confused, so Shizuka hopped on the bandwagon.
"Once again, good morning. The gas worked perfectly, I should tell someone that this 5-hour stuff is much better than the old way. My name is Hirohiko Toyama. Just call me Mr. Toyama." Mr. Toyama wrote the kanji characters for his name on the old green chalkboard. "You are all probably wondering what's going on, right? What happened to the study trip? This is your study trip, children. Congratulations! You have been selected to participate in the 2003 Program!"
Miki screamed. Everyone went into panic mode.
2
The Program was crafted by the Dictator who was in power back in the 40s. He made a speech that every first-year junior high student was required to study concerning why he instated the Program, but everyone forgot it after they were required to study it. Basically it was a sick version of musical chairs and all the winner got for seeing his or her classmates die and probably killing a few by him or herself was a meager lifetime pension and a paper signed by the Dictator. It wasn't rare for Shizuka to see a classmate crying and then the classmate citing a sibling or relative having been in the Program. But eventually their tears slowed down and then stopped. Time healed everything, especially deaths. Shizuka instead concentrated on a particularly large scuff on the toe of her black Chuck Taylors. Since Chuck Taylors were made in America, they were outlawed in Japan due to Japan and America being enemies. But that didn't mean you couldn't buy Chuck Taylors off the black market, which was frequented by high school kids who were sick of just the propagandistic bullshit that was everywhere.
"Where are we, I bet you're asking? You're on Okishima Island." Mr. Toyama pulled a map of Okishima out of the ceiling and pointed to it. "Namely, at the school. Now you have to leave here so you can play the game. Notice the collars?" The students all raised cautious hands up to their necks and felt the cold touch of metal against their warm skin. "Yes yes yes, the surveillance collars. They tell me where you are at all times. Should you try to enter a forbidden zone after it becomes forbidden, it'll blow your head off. Should you try to escape by swimming, I will personally alert one of the guard ships to fire their whole arsenal at you. Should you try to take the collar off yourself, it'll blow your head off. Any questions?"
Kanako Niimura (Female Student No. 3) raised her hand.
"What about Ms. Otani?"
"Yuriko Otani..." Mr. Toyama licked his lips in a strangely scary way. "She was much opposed to her class being in the Program. So...well..." He looked to the side. "I had to set her straight."
"What did you do to her?!" Kanako screamed. Mr. Toyama silently motioned to three identical soldiers, who went out in the hall and brought in a large black bag with a zipper running down the middle of it. Some parts of the bag seemed lumpier than others. Some students were starting to put the puzzle pieces together and others hadn't quite figured it out yet. The soldiers set the bag down on the teachers' desk and unzipped it to reveal Yuriko Otani, dead. There was a singular bullet wound in her forehead, which meant that the back of her head, where the bullet would exit, was probably a goopy mess. The soldiers only unzipped the bag to reveal her face, which was probably good for the class as a whole, even though they began shrieking, groaning, feeling nauseous and panicking even more.
"So I raped her and killed her. Sorry." Mr. Toyama shrugged it off.
"You goddamn bastard, I'm going to fucking kill you!!" Kazuo Hanagata (Male Student No. 2) screamed, standing up from his desk.
"A threat, Mr. Hanagata?" Mr. Toyama asked.
"You're damn right it's a threat!"
"Take him out," Mr. Toyama asked the soldiers. The middle one saluted and took out his shotgun, then aimed it at Kazuo's head and fired. The bullet ripped through Kazuo's forehead and he immediately fell to the ground, dead, falling too close to Tomoko's foot for her to handle. She gasped, her face turning white as a ghost.
"If any more children want to end up like Mr. Hanagata here, just stand up and say so." Mr. Toyama looked around as every child in the room bit his or her tongue. "Perfect. An obedient class, that's exactly what I like. All right. I'm going to take a name out of this hat and that will be the first person called. I'll issue to that lucky person a day pack containing a randomly selected weapon, some food and water, a map and a compass. Then they will leave the school. I'll wait 2 minutes, then call the next person on the roll call. And so on and so on until everyone has been called. Now, 30 minutes after the last person leaves, this will become the first forbidden zone of the game. Square G-7, kids, remember that. Oh, one last thing. Take out the pencil and paper you'll find in your desk, then write 'We will kill one another' ten times on it. Once you are done, turn over your paper and I will begin roll call."
Shizuka looked in her desk and took out the paper and generic pencil that was in it. 'We will kill one another? How lame.' Reluctantly she put pencil to paper and began to form the character for "we". She could smell the blood from Kazuo's corpse wafting through the air. 'Disgusting...The poor guy. I hope he died happy. He's in a better place now, right? I never knew Hanagata very well, but...Oh, it's too awful.' She turned back to writing the phrase over and over on her paper. Shizuka was known for being a fast writer, so she was done quickly. Right after she turned over her paper everyone else seemed to finish at exactly the same moment.
"Everyone done? Perfect. Let us begin. And the first person is...Male Student No 11, Shinya Misao!"
Shinya stood up from his desk and slowly walked towards the front. He was an otaku, not accustomed to much strenuous physical activity, and was obviously nervous about being the first to go. He picked up his day pack and exited, then everyone heard the staccato beat of his feet running down the hall. Shizuka scribbled down a message on her paper that said Wait For Me, then passed it on to Junko while nobody was looking. The roll call proceeded in numerical order (after Shinya came Female Student No. 11 Asuka Nishima, then Male Student No. 12 Junji Mitagawa, et al), everyone taking their packs, taking one last look at the class and then leaving. Shizuka decided to look at her weapon in the hall when it was her turn to leave.
'Hm...an Uzi. This could come in very handy.' She could hold it with one hand. 'One-handed. How nice! I could actually do well in this game.' She placed the Uzi in her pocket instead of back in her bag, then headed out and was greeted by the stench of blood yet again.
29 students remaining
3
Minami Shimada (Female Student No. 14) lay dead on the ground, a bullet wound in her chest. A puddle of blood was beginning to form around the wound, accented by the full moonlight. Shizuka paused by the corpse and wondered exactly who killed Minami. She was out in the open and decided to take up Minami's day pack. There had to be a weapon in there, right? Shizuka opened Minami's day pack. A police-grade revolver. 'Hey hey! Some bullets, too! This is good, Shizuka!' She was happy for a moment until she saw a small red bead of light moving up her legs. 'Beam of light?! That's NEVER good!' She rolled over, shielding herself with Minami's day pack as she heard the explosion of a bullet leaving the chamber of a gun that was not hers. At the last moment she hopped away from the bullet, feeling its warmth as it passed by her legs. 'What the fuck?!' She looked up to see Shinya standing on the roof of the one-story school, holding a sniper rifle with laser-guided targeting.
"Fucking bitch!! Die!!" Shinya screamed, firing again. Shizuka ducked behind a tree and then aimed Minami's revolver, shooting and hoping it would hit. It did. Shinya toppled over, dead. Shizuka's eyes widened and she looked down at Minami's revolver, which was still warm from shooting. 'My first kill? I might be doing a lot of this...' Instead she sat down to wait for Junko to appear. Junko was Shizuka's closest friend, so she decided to trust Junko and only Junko during this game.
Every person who exited the school would pause by Minami's corpse, then sigh and head on. Finally Shizuka saw Junko exit the building.
"Junko!" she hissed. "Junko! Over here!" Shizuka waved a hand and Junko came towards it. "There ya go. What'll we do now?"
"Fucking run for it, what do you expect?" Junko began to run and Shizuka followed. Junko was much faster than Shizuka, however, due to the fact that Junko was a cross-country runner.
"Junko! Wait up!"
"Shut up, we're just going to get away from here, this is where everyone is. Come on!" The two were headed for the houses, unfortunately so were a few other people who would only kill if someone came into the house they were hiding in. Fortunately there were about 80 houses, so there was a very small chance of anyone actually stepping into someone else's house.
"Junko! My side hurts from running!"
"Too bad!"
"Junko...!!"
"Shut up and run!"
'Must be on her period...' Shizuka thought, feeling her day pack hit her side over and over again and hitting a bruise that was already there. Finally she saw some houses and Junko began to slow down.
"So we're gonna hide here?"
"At least for a little while. Regroup. Figure out what we're going to do." Junko took out her issued weapon, which turned out to be a nunchaku, and broke the window of the first house she saw with it. She looked inside, then nodded and snuck in through the window. Shizuka took a moment to gather her breath before following Junko in.
"Whoa, these people are rich," Junko commented, looking around. "We could definitely make home base here."
"That's too risky," Shizuka said as she tried out the sink. No water came out of the faucet. "No water?"
"No electricity, either." Junko flipped a lightswitch. "They marooned us real good, didn't they?"
"I'm just wondering how they can still do this. Hasn't some other country realized this shit isn't kosher? That letting hardly teenagers kill each other isn't cool?"
"Obviously not, this has been going on since the 1940s."
"Ssh. Listen, it's beginning to rain." Shizuka looked out the now broken window to see rain beginning to fall.
27 students remaining
4
Shojiro told his entire crew to meet him at the Shinto shrine as soon as they could reach it. He himself was one of the first to be called, so he was almost all the way there. Suddenly, he heard footsteps behind them, then heavy breathing. He kept his finger on the trigger of his machine gun and whirled around to see Sakura Yanagi (Female Student No. 15) standing there trying to breathe.
"Sakura?"
"I followed--you--here," she said, pausing for breath every so often. Sakura and Tetsuko Matsutani (Female Student No. 8) were the only two girls in Shojiro's group. Sakura was very attractive, with long shiny black hair and, well, a well-developed figure for a 15-year-old. She had hiked up her skirt a bit so she could run and was obviously flaunting herself for Shojiro. "So...we're going to all stick together, right?"
"Yes, I suppose you could call it that." Shojiro shook a lock of hair from his face.
"Great! They gave me a .45, is that a good weapon?"
"Yes, I suppose." 'Dammit, Sakura, you ruined my plan. It was going to be the Umeboshi Special--you trust me but I betray you with a fucking bullet to the head. But you're beautiful. I can't kill you...'
"Shojiro? Is something wrong? You seem...just out there."
"Sakura, do you want to help me out with something?"
"Yes!" Sakura smiled at Shojiro.
"Perfect." Shojiro took out a 100-yen coin. "If it comes up heads I won't play this game, if it comes up tails I will play this game." He flipped the coin and looked at where it landed. "I have horrid eyesight, can you see what that is for me?"
"Of course!" Sakura squinted at the coin. "It's tails."
"Then the plan can proceed."
"What plan?"
"I'm summoning everyone to the Shinto shrine so I can...so I can kill them." He watched Sakura begin to back away. "But I won't kill you, Sakura."
"Why? I'm part of your group, aren't I?"
"Right, but..." Shojiro hesitated. Was he going to break his cold, emotionless exterior to tell Sakura how he felt about her? "But we could kill them together." Sakura grinned from ear to ear.
---
Tomoko, Naomi Fujisaki (Female Student No. 5) and Shuko Inada (Female Student No. 9) were running for their lives. They had crossed the path of Toru Niimura (Male Student No. 5), who was now dead-set on slaughtering all three of them. Sadly he only had hand grenades, so he had to corner them somehow. He saw a thick grove of trees coming up and got ready to pull the pin on a grenade as the trio stopped and noted they were cornered in. Then they turned right as the grenade hit the ground and exploded, tearing through their eardrums and killing them instantly. Toru stepped out from behind a tree and began to rummage around in their day packs, gathering Tomoko's whip (a whip?!), Naomi's shotgun and Shuko's throwing stars.
24 students remaining
5
Shojiro and Sakura sat on a bench at the Shinto shrine, awaiting the arrival of Toru, Daisuke, Akito, Junji and Tetsuko. Both held their guns in their laps and both were silent. Uncomfortably silent, to be precise. And Sakura wanted to end it. She scooted the smallest bit closer to Shojiro, which he didn't notice. She scooted even closer to him and he still didn't notice. A small bell tolled in the wind and the rain fell not lightly or heavily but just in the middle. Finally she turned to him.
"Shojiro?" she asked. "Um, I kinda have something to say."
"Yeah?"
"I...I know I have a past that usually makes guys afraid of me...you know, the whole...everything, but I stopped doing that and I'm trying to just go with one guy." She paused and bit her lip. "I want to be with you." As she went in for the kiss, she heard a rustle in the bushes nearby and Akito Kanzaki (Male Student No. 8) stepped out.
"Akito! You're the first to arrive," Shojiro said, putting on his poker face. "Little story for you. Sakura knows this one. I flipped a coin to see if I'd bring you guys here so we could team up and fight against Toyama or if I'd bring you guys here and pump you full of bullets because I want to play the game. Well, it came up tails." He aimed his machine gun and shot Akito. "I'm playing. Sorry, you lose." Sakura began to giggle madly as she looked upon Akito's fresh corpse. His longish black hair was becoming matted with his own blood and it didn't look becoming on him. Then she turned back to Shojiro.
"I was serious about what I said." She moved in for the kiss once again and was once again interrupted by the arrival of Junji Mitagawa (Male Student No. 12). She turned to face Junji and raised her .45.
"You interrupted me! I was going to kiss Shojiro and you interrupted me!"
"Shojiro? What's going on?" Junji asked, holding his sword. (Junji was on the kendo team so he was good with swords.)
"I flipped a coin to see if I was going to play the game or not and...well, I am. Sakura, would you do the honors for me?"
"Of course." Sakura held her gun level, which took both her hands, and shot Junji twice. She blew the stream of smoke away from the gun and turned to Shojiro once more, this time actually kissing him. She had kissed many a man before, but this one had something in it that the others didn't. It had actual feeling. Shojiro began to run his hand through Sakura's hair and Sakura wrapped her arms around his waist as they kissed with actual feeling until they had to pull away because they couldn't breathe anymore. The rain kept falling as the two smiled at each other, a gang guy and his gang girl. How sweet.
22 students remaining
6
"Toru?" Kanako asked as she stepped over Naomi's corpse. She had seen her brother go by here, now where did he go off to? "Toru?" Sure, Kanako could trust her friends Fujiko Sasei (Female Student No. 13) and Tomoko (who was now dead, damn), but right now she wanted to be with her brother. "Toru, where are you?" Although Toru was a part of Shojiro's group and therefore usually acted like he didn't care about anything, he really did have a soft spot for his sister Kanako. They were, after all, fraternal twins. Toru was born first so he would become the protective older brother to dear Kanako, telling her about the newest threats to his group and telling her whom and where to stay away from. She really wanted to be with him so that she could be safe. She heard a stick crack in half. "Toru?" And raised her switchblade, her provided weapon.
"Kanako?" Toru's familiar voice asked.
"Toru!" Kanako ran to her brother and hugged him tightly.
"I'm going to go see Shojiro," Toru said bitterly.
"Can I come?" Kanako asked. Toru paused. "Pleeeease? I'm so afraid of being alone, Toru. Tomoko's dead and I don't know where Fujiko is, I'm just so glad I found you..."
"Fine, fine, you can come too."
"Yeah! You're awesome, Toru!" Kanako said, squeezing Toru a bit too tightly.
"Kanako, I think you're cutting off my circulation..."
"Sorry." Kanako let go of Toru. "So, where does Shojiro want you to go to?"
"The Shinto shrine. It's north of here. See? We're in square E-4. It's not too long to the shrine, thankfully."
"Do you think this rain is going to stop?" Kanako looked up.
"Who knows? It's not like we could go in a house and see for ourselves, there's no electricity."
"You're serious?"
"Nope, none at all."
"I'm scared, Toru. I don't want to die." Kanako held Toru's hand like she used to whenever they were crossing streets as small children.
"I won't let you die, Kanako," Toru replied. "I promise."
22 students remaining
7
Nanako Shizawa (Female Student No. 12), Fujiko and Asuka were all headed towards the northern mountain. Miki sent them all notes telling them to meet her there, then they would plan their course of action.
"Yeah, they gave me these quill things," Nanako said to the amazed Fujiko and Asuka as she took out a small leather pouch containing ten small knives. Their blades were no thicker than a single porcupine quill and were as long as a normal pencil. "What about you two?"
"I got hand grenades," Fujiko reported, shrugging. "Not excellent but not bad."
"I heard an explosion a while back," Asuka suddenly said. "It sounded like a grenade. Did you kill someone?"
"No. I still have all my grenades. What about you, Asuka? What did you get?"
"This." Asuka took out a shotgun just like the ones used in shooting galleries at carnivals. "It's heavy."
"Wow, a shotgun! Asuka, your weapon rocks!" Nanako said, amazed by Asuka's weapon. "Much better than these quill things! Don't you agree, Fujiko?"
"It's all about timing," Asuka commented, shrugging. "Let's just get to the mountain. Miki doesn't like tardiness."
22 students remaining
8
Tetsuko Matsutani (Female Student No. 8) was headed for the shrine. She was hoping Junji would be there so she could at least see him. 'If only I still had my virginity,' she lamented silently as she ran. 'I'd give it up to Junji. I'm going to die eventually, right? I might as well go out with a bang, if you know what I mean.' She snickered and then checked to make sure her sheathed double-bladed knife was still tucked securely into her skirt. At first she was kind of confused as to how it operated, but then realized that there was a damn cushion on it for you to put your hand on so you wouldn't stab yourself on either blade. Then she became concerned with wielding it properly by practicing on some trees. She had managed to slash Suzuko Harada (Female Student No. 6)'s leg as she walked by, but then saw Suzuko's ball and chain (mace?) and got away. Now all she wanted to do was see Junji. She saw the torii gates of the shrine up ahead and began to run faster, propelled maybe by her devotion to Junji.
She saw the bench that Shojiro and Sakura were sitting on.
"Shojiro! Sakura! It's me, Tetsuko!" she shouted as she got closer, then stopped right in front of Junji. "Jun...Junji? Dead?"
"That's right," Sakura said in a strange deep voice.
"What's going on here? Did Akito kill him? And then turn the gun on himself?" Tetsuko was alarmed. Junji's blood was starting to stain the sole of her shoe.
"We killed him," Shojiro replied.
"WHAT?!" Tetsuko unsheathed her knife. "I'm going to kill you both!"
"Wrong answer," Sakura answered, once again leveling her gun and shooting Tetsuko. The .45 bullet tore through her cerebral cortex and Tetsuko died with her last thought being about Junji. Her corpse fell on top of Junji's, her knife falling nearby.
"Now we only need Daisuke to come," Sakura reported. "This is fun!"
21 students remaining