Battle Royale '03
Part Six
37
Nanako ran south towards the general store. She didn't even care what she ran into on the way, even though she tripped over an exposed tree root and she probably sprained or broke her ankle. She just wanted to make sure Suzuko didn't come after her first.
"But why, Suzuko?" she asked the darkness as she ran. "I never would've expected you to turn on us. It just doesn't seem right." She checked her leather patch, 9 knives left. "Then again, nothing seems right in this game anymore..."
Suzuko, meanwhile, was hot on Fujiko's trail. Well, okay, she wasn't hot on anyone's trail, considering she couldn't see where they ran off to anyway, but little did she know that Fujiko went east, towards the lighthouse. She had no idea that Asuka went north, Fujiko went west and Nanako went south. She just picked one of the directions and ran in it. Easy enough, right? Her day pack bounced up and down on her shoulder as she went, listening for anything that sounded even remotely like a person running. It was going to be a while because Nanako got an obvious head start, but Suzuko was going to catch all of them.
And then her mace would be caked in blood, of course.
12 students remaining
38
The crackling noise was now becoming more of an annoyance than anything else.
"Hey everyone, just a few things to report. First off, the forbidden zones. At 1am, H-6. At 3am, E-1 and at 5am, I-6. We only have one new death to report and that is Female Student No. 10, Miki Aizawa. Only 12 of you guys left now, the numbers are steadily dwindling, but still good luck to all of you!"
"Toyama," Shizuka whispered angrily, still half-asleep. She awoke with her neck aching and looked around. "So it's midnight? It doesn't feel like midnight."
"It is," a drowsy Kiyoharu answered.
"It's so stupid that he's still encouraging us, like 'yeah you can do it', but I don't want to. I know I killed Shinya, I'm still somewhat guilty over that but I guess it had to be done, right?" Shizuka looked away from Kiyoharu, who was still sitting in that uncomfortable chair next to her bed.
"You killed him?"
"Yeah...he was going to kill me if I didn't do something."
"How many shots did it take?"
"Just one. And I think I fired five when Shojiro was in the house."
"So you've fired six bullets?"
"I think so..."
"Do you want me to reload your gun for you?"
"I'm feeling better, I'll do it myself. I actually feel a bit warmer, I shed a few of my blankets while I was asleep." Shizuka rose from her bed and turned on the lantern once more, giving her enough light to put more bullets in her gun. It was surprisingly easy, easier than she thought it would be. She snapped the gun shut and then pointed it like she was aiming it. She then laughed and put the safety back on. "I was just joking, I would never ever EVER shoot you."
"Are you still tired?"
"Yeah...I'm probably going back to sleep. Are you comfortable in that chair?" She turned off the lantern and climbed back into her bed.
"It doesn't matter as long as I know you're safe."
Shizuka fell asleep quickly, but kept her gun by her just in case.
12 students remaining
39
Kanako was still asleep at 1am. This worried Toru because he feared that they wouldn't be able to move freely under the guise of darkness. Instead of waking his sister, though, he just sat and let her sleep.
"It's so boring up here," he mused to nobody unless Kanako was awake. "Absolutely nothing to do and no Shojiro to kill. He hasn't come around here for a while." He still had a few hand grenades left. If he could hit Shojiro with one and keep him so that he couldn't move, then he could blow him up. As for Sakura, he was sure Kanako could figure something out. Kanako was half dangling off the side of the bed, her long and slightly wavy black hair also dangling. Toru pushed her back onto the bed and she awoke for just a moment, then went right back to sleep.
Outside the general store, Nanako was pausing to take a rest and decided to dive inside the store and hide behind the counter. She did just that.
'You're brilliant, Nanako, there's no way Suzuko can find you here. It's too dark to see almost anything. I swear there was a puddle in the store, maybe some rain just came in.' She sat behind the counter hugging her knees and shivering. It was cold...well, it was November, what exactly did you expect? This wasn't some kind of tropical paradise. Well, the propagandist textbooks tried to pass off Japan as one during the summer, but it was more like a humid hell. At least to her...
Suzuko was meticulously checking the areas where she thought someone could hide, getting no results every time. She was getting a bit annoyed. Didn't they know they had a very small chance of survival anyway? She knew very well that she would be the one who was going home alive, not anyone else. Why not just remove their pain now, right? She could do that. It all added up, at least in her head.
She came upon the general store and sniffed the air. It smelled of blood which was now congealing and starting to majorly stink. She waved the air and walked inside with her mace shouldered.
"Is anyone in here?" she asked in her sweet voice, walking around very slowly.
'Just hide...be very quiet...she won't find you..." Nanako hugged her knees tighter and sucked in her stomach as Suzuko walked around the store.
"Oh yeah, the counter, completely forgot to check there," Suzuko said aloud. Nanako's heart began to beat faster and faster as she touched her leather knife pouch. Was it possible to open it without making a sound? She tried.
Nope.
The little snap opened with the tiniest click sound. She heard Suzuko's feet clicking as she turned towards Nanako and walked forward, kicking the air until she felt something there instead of just air. It turned out to be Nanako's leg. Suzuko unsheathed her mace right as Nanako took a knife and shoved it right into Suzuko's calf, then twisted it around a few times. Suzuko growled much like an angered dog would as Nanako twisted the knife, then drove her mace right down into Nanako's skull. That's right, bitch, suffer. Nanako began to grunt as she twisted that knife until Suzuko could feel her grip loosening on the knife as her whole body went limp like a ragdoll's. Suzuko then extracted the spiked ball from Nanako's now smashed skull and left her body there.
11 students remaining
40
"I heard something," Toru whispered to Kanako. He gathered Sayaka's katana and went downstairs, hearing Kanako following behind, presumably with that scary whip. She also had a normal brightness flashlight which she turned on before Suzuko had a chance to hide behind anything.
"Harada?" they asked in unison. Kanako connected bloody mace to smashed skull of Nanako Shizawa pretty quickly and screamed, unlooping the whip and beginning to smack it around on the ground uncontrollably.
"Calm down, Kanako, it's going to be all right." Toru took out the remaining blowdarts from one of his pockets. "Remember these?" Suzuko took the chance while Kanako was distracted to twirl her mace around and chop off some of the whip with it, leaving a frayed end instead of a nice tip. Kanako gasped as she found that the nice smacking tip of her whip was discarded on the floor. Toru looked around for the bamboo launcher and then realized he left it upstairs, so he went to get it, leaving Kanako and Suzuko alone.
"What happened?" Kanako asked.
"I killed Shizawa," Suzuko replied like it was nothing. What'd you do today? Oh, nothing. Just killed someone. "She was annoying me."
"Are you going to kill me too?" Kanako asked, horrified. Suzuko was very proficient at swinging that mace around, she noticed.
"I want to win." Suzuko smiled her devious grin as Toru returned with the bamboo launcher. He placed it in his mouth and was about to load it when Suzuko swung her mace around and lopped off almost all of the launcher, except for a small nub hanging out of his mouth which was too small for the dart anyway. Toru looked at the nub, then shrugged and Kanako began to whip Suzuko again, hitting the same area in her leg that Tetsuko slashed. Suzuko gasped and slumped onto the floor.
"Toru! Now!" Toru nodded and placed a blowdart in his hand like a normal dart, then threw it like a normal dart. It hit Suzuko in the arm, but she simply took it out, clenching her teeth just a bit. It didn't hurt at all. She tossed it aside as the needle snapped, then tried to hop back up. Damn, Nanako's knife was still in there. She took that out, too, causing a fountain of blood to open up and start spurting. Kanako noticed Nanako's corpse was staring at her. Suzuko didn't even bother to close her eyes...Toru took out the katana, but Suzuko wrapped her mace chain around it and tugged it from his hand. She stepped on it and then made a 'come and get it' face. Kanako was getting frustrated. She whipped like a maniac, breaking things on the walls but only slightly injuring Suzuko.
"Go get the throwing stars!" Kanako shouted to Toru, who began to go up the stairs again as...
TUK.
One of Nanako's knives went soaring through the air and hit Kanako in the neck. A small bit of the tip was sticking out of the front of her neck.
"Toru..." she sputtered, falling forward. Toru put her head in his lap and looked over her. "I won't make it."
"No, Kanako, don't say that."
"I'm...sorry I couldn't be a better fighter. I...suppose this is...goodbye." Kanako put her cold hand in Toru's as her breathing slowed down and eventually stopped. Her shiny black hair cascaded around her body, making a haunting corpse. Toru bit his lip to stop the tears that were coming and placed Kanako on the ground, closing her eyes and crossing her hands across her chest. He stood up from doing this respect to the dead and then dropped the blowdarts.
"Kill me," he commanded Suzuko. "Come on, kill me. I doubted I was going to survive even this long. Go on, you know you want to." Suzuko lunged forward with a "graaaah!!" and stuck her mace into his jugular.
'Kanako, wait for me. I'm coming, too. We can be together and even see Grandma again. Won't it be nice? Maybe the afterlife will be better than this life,' Toru thought as he felt the pain leaving his body. Suzuko removed her mace once again and Toru fell down next to Kanako, both of them suffering fatal wounds to their necks.
Suzuko simply looked at their corpses, then began to take their weapons.
9 students remaining
41
"Nn? Shojiro?" Sakura asked, waking up on an old itchy couch in a building she had never seen before. She looked around from side to side, not able to see much of anything since it was obviously still dark. She looked at her watch. It was just past 4 am. She looked around again. "Shojiro?"
"I'm over here." Shojiro was sitting on a loveseat on the other side of the room.
"Where are we?"
"The tourist association. You were pretty much asleep when we got here, so I just put you on that couch. Nothing to it." Shojiro looked away like it wasn't anything. "It's almost 4 am. Announcements'll be on in two hours. We were down to 12 kids at midnight. Miki got killed."
"Aizawa?" Sakura asked, shocked.
"Yup. So, according to my list, these are the ones still alive: Suzuki, both Niimuras, Moritaka, obviously myself, Arai, Harada, Nishima, Shizawa, Sasei and you."
"So, when the sun comes up, if it is coming up, do you want to go out and eradicate the rest of them?"
"You'd better believe it!"
'And then I'll eradicate you,' Sakura added to herself. The special capsule in her day pack was a cyanide capsule, which could be opened up and poured into any kind of drink or food. 'I'll kill them all, then serve you some Yanagi family tea with a special ingredient for lunch. You'll die and I'll win. It couldn't be any easier.'
Little did Sakura know that Shojiro found the cyanide capsule and was planning exactly the same thing, except that of course Sakura would be served the tea (and die). He saw the evil grin spreading across Sakura's face.
'Heh. What little you know. I cut off my emotions long ago, in fact I wasn't actually born with any. Aren't I a good actor, Sakura? You'll find out for certain with my kiss of death tea later on today.'
They both thought 'sucker' at the same time.
"Um...so...should we wait until after the 6 am announcement to get out of here?" Sakura asked, standing up from the itchy couch.
"I think we should, the announcement will most likely wake everyone else up. The numbers are dwindling quickly," he added in his most deadpan voice.
"I'll say." Sakura didn't want to admit that she was somewhat scared, but knew that with that machine gun and her skills (being a gang girl, she knew a lot about hand-to-hand unarmed combat as well as armed combat) that nobody else stood a ghost of a chance.
9 students remaining
42
Asuka was on the northern shore, which was much more rocky than the southern one. To her right was a cliff, which was in a forbidden zone. To her left a short walk away was the Shinto shrine, also in a forbidden zone. Basically, she could only go south but was deathly afraid to, just in case Suzuko was still waiting on the mountain. She was also puzzled as to why Suzuko would suddenly betray her friends like that. One image stuck in Asuka's head. Right as she awoke she saw Suzuko brutalizing Miki with her mace and saw the ends of her long, braided hair covered in blood. It was a haunting sight. She had her shotgun at the ready, even loaded and with the safety off, just in case Suzuko suddenly came for her.
She sat on a rock and looked out at the sea. It was still raining steadily, so the sea was grey, not a nice shining blue like it usually would be. It was also cold. Asuka dug around in her day pack but found no relief for the cold. Of course she had her long-sleeved blouse on, but it was made of lightweight cotton and therefore didn't retain much heat. Shivering, she hugged her knees just like Nanako had done in the general shop.
Of course Asuka didn't know this.
Asuka looked on her wrist, looking at the friendship bracelets that she had. One was pink and red. That one was from Nanako. The next was different shades of blue, from Suzuko. After that was a pink and purple one, from Miki. There was a green one from Fujiko and a purple and yellow one from Sayaka. They all were over at Sayaka's house one weekend for a sleepover and stayed up late making friendship bracelets and chatting. Now it all seemed so trivial. She undid the knot on the blue bracelet and glared at it as if Suzuko were really wrapped around her wrist. With a heaving sound, she chucked the bracelet out into the churning sea as far as it would go and watched as a wave swallowed it up.
She dangled her legs off of the rock. Having played soccer for as long as she could remember, she fancied herself very good at the game and it showed in her toned, tanned legs. She was about to have to use those legs...
Suzuko was tired. After having traced down Nanako and killed her, she decided to go north to the northern coast and take a breather, passing by the lighthouse first. Suzuko wasn't stupid, she knew someone would probably be hiding in there. First she kicked the door to the lighthouse itself open and looked inside, smelling the musty smell of old wood. There were spiralling steps leading up to the control panel of the light. Suzuko poked back outside, picked up a pebble and threw it at one of the walls, hoping the sound would scare anyone in there out. She heard no staccato running beat, though, but to be safe she ran up the stairs and into the control room. She surveyed the control room, then sighed and ran back down the stairs and back out the door, which was slamming against the side of the building every so often. The wind was picking up...Suzuko's skirt flittered in the wind, as well as the chains on her mace. She also had the whip, the blowdarts, the knives and Miki's gun in her day pack, so Suzuko was happy. She knew nobody stood a chance.
Next to the lighthouse was a house, obviously built for the people who ran the lighthouse. Bingo. Suzuko ran to the door and kicked it open, hearing it slam against the wall of the foyer. Fujiko was hidden in a child's bedroom, decorated with pictures of cute cartoon animals. She heard the sound of the door slamming against the wall and looked for somewhere to hide. She opened the closet door, which was like an automatic door except you obviously pulled it open yourself. Unfortunately for her, the wheels on the track needed to be oiled and they squeaked as she slid open the door just far enough for her body to hide in. She was only issued a few grenades. Grenades? Honestly. Why didn't she get a gun?
Suzuko walked around the house, which wasn't very big on the inside either. She peeked in the living room. Nothing. She peeked in the kitchen. Nothing. She looked in the master bedroom. Still nothing. Then she came upon the child's bedroom, with a sign reading Yumiko on the door. She opened the door very slowly, holding the chain of her mace so it wouldn't make any noise. First Suzuko looked under the bed, then behind a pile of toys, then by a chest of drawers, then came upon the closet. Instead of opening it using her mace she opened it like any normal person would and saw Fujiko crammed in there amongst some clothes.
"Ah, Fujiko," Suzuko said like a teacher who was about to lecture a child. Fujiko noted that there was blood in Suzuko's long braids and it was starting to smell very rancid. "I don't want to kill you."
"You...you don't?"
"No! I've always trusted in your strength. Come with me." Timidly Fujiko left the closet and followed Suzuko out of the house and up the stairs to the control panel. Suzuko noted a door on the left side and kicked it open to find that there was a lookout porch, wrapped around the giant light (which, of course, was not lit). "Look, look over there." Suzuko pointed to a clump of lights on the mainland. "See? That's Kobe."
"Wow...we look like we're so close to Kobe, don't we?" Fujiko asked. The wind picked up. Suzuko's hair blew around like two small whips, accidentally hitting Fujiko on her shoulder. Fujiko's long hair, on the other hand, almost stabbed Suzuko in the eye. Fujiko leaned out against the guardrail on the porch while Suzuko stepped behind her.
'Fool, you were always so easily misled. Prepare to die.' Suzuko had already turned off the safety on the gun. She placed the cold metal against the back of Fujiko's head, right in the dimple before the nape, and fired.
Fujiko was thrown forward with the force and her body plummeted three stories, landing on the ground and making the sickening cracking noise of bones breaking on impact. Her arms were thrown out at strange angles which couldn't be accomplished by normally functioning bones and her legs were almost spread-eagle. A tiny pool of blood was forming underneath her neck, becoming diluted a small bit by the rainwater.
"Don't trust everyone," Suzuko mused to the dead Fujiko. "Because sometimes, your friends can turn out to be the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing." Suzuko put the safety back on her gun, then chucked it back in her day pack and went down the stairs again.
8 students remaining
Part Six
37
Nanako ran south towards the general store. She didn't even care what she ran into on the way, even though she tripped over an exposed tree root and she probably sprained or broke her ankle. She just wanted to make sure Suzuko didn't come after her first.
"But why, Suzuko?" she asked the darkness as she ran. "I never would've expected you to turn on us. It just doesn't seem right." She checked her leather patch, 9 knives left. "Then again, nothing seems right in this game anymore..."
Suzuko, meanwhile, was hot on Fujiko's trail. Well, okay, she wasn't hot on anyone's trail, considering she couldn't see where they ran off to anyway, but little did she know that Fujiko went east, towards the lighthouse. She had no idea that Asuka went north, Fujiko went west and Nanako went south. She just picked one of the directions and ran in it. Easy enough, right? Her day pack bounced up and down on her shoulder as she went, listening for anything that sounded even remotely like a person running. It was going to be a while because Nanako got an obvious head start, but Suzuko was going to catch all of them.
And then her mace would be caked in blood, of course.
12 students remaining
38
The crackling noise was now becoming more of an annoyance than anything else.
"Hey everyone, just a few things to report. First off, the forbidden zones. At 1am, H-6. At 3am, E-1 and at 5am, I-6. We only have one new death to report and that is Female Student No. 10, Miki Aizawa. Only 12 of you guys left now, the numbers are steadily dwindling, but still good luck to all of you!"
"Toyama," Shizuka whispered angrily, still half-asleep. She awoke with her neck aching and looked around. "So it's midnight? It doesn't feel like midnight."
"It is," a drowsy Kiyoharu answered.
"It's so stupid that he's still encouraging us, like 'yeah you can do it', but I don't want to. I know I killed Shinya, I'm still somewhat guilty over that but I guess it had to be done, right?" Shizuka looked away from Kiyoharu, who was still sitting in that uncomfortable chair next to her bed.
"You killed him?"
"Yeah...he was going to kill me if I didn't do something."
"How many shots did it take?"
"Just one. And I think I fired five when Shojiro was in the house."
"So you've fired six bullets?"
"I think so..."
"Do you want me to reload your gun for you?"
"I'm feeling better, I'll do it myself. I actually feel a bit warmer, I shed a few of my blankets while I was asleep." Shizuka rose from her bed and turned on the lantern once more, giving her enough light to put more bullets in her gun. It was surprisingly easy, easier than she thought it would be. She snapped the gun shut and then pointed it like she was aiming it. She then laughed and put the safety back on. "I was just joking, I would never ever EVER shoot you."
"Are you still tired?"
"Yeah...I'm probably going back to sleep. Are you comfortable in that chair?" She turned off the lantern and climbed back into her bed.
"It doesn't matter as long as I know you're safe."
Shizuka fell asleep quickly, but kept her gun by her just in case.
12 students remaining
39
Kanako was still asleep at 1am. This worried Toru because he feared that they wouldn't be able to move freely under the guise of darkness. Instead of waking his sister, though, he just sat and let her sleep.
"It's so boring up here," he mused to nobody unless Kanako was awake. "Absolutely nothing to do and no Shojiro to kill. He hasn't come around here for a while." He still had a few hand grenades left. If he could hit Shojiro with one and keep him so that he couldn't move, then he could blow him up. As for Sakura, he was sure Kanako could figure something out. Kanako was half dangling off the side of the bed, her long and slightly wavy black hair also dangling. Toru pushed her back onto the bed and she awoke for just a moment, then went right back to sleep.
Outside the general store, Nanako was pausing to take a rest and decided to dive inside the store and hide behind the counter. She did just that.
'You're brilliant, Nanako, there's no way Suzuko can find you here. It's too dark to see almost anything. I swear there was a puddle in the store, maybe some rain just came in.' She sat behind the counter hugging her knees and shivering. It was cold...well, it was November, what exactly did you expect? This wasn't some kind of tropical paradise. Well, the propagandist textbooks tried to pass off Japan as one during the summer, but it was more like a humid hell. At least to her...
Suzuko was meticulously checking the areas where she thought someone could hide, getting no results every time. She was getting a bit annoyed. Didn't they know they had a very small chance of survival anyway? She knew very well that she would be the one who was going home alive, not anyone else. Why not just remove their pain now, right? She could do that. It all added up, at least in her head.
She came upon the general store and sniffed the air. It smelled of blood which was now congealing and starting to majorly stink. She waved the air and walked inside with her mace shouldered.
"Is anyone in here?" she asked in her sweet voice, walking around very slowly.
'Just hide...be very quiet...she won't find you..." Nanako hugged her knees tighter and sucked in her stomach as Suzuko walked around the store.
"Oh yeah, the counter, completely forgot to check there," Suzuko said aloud. Nanako's heart began to beat faster and faster as she touched her leather knife pouch. Was it possible to open it without making a sound? She tried.
Nope.
The little snap opened with the tiniest click sound. She heard Suzuko's feet clicking as she turned towards Nanako and walked forward, kicking the air until she felt something there instead of just air. It turned out to be Nanako's leg. Suzuko unsheathed her mace right as Nanako took a knife and shoved it right into Suzuko's calf, then twisted it around a few times. Suzuko growled much like an angered dog would as Nanako twisted the knife, then drove her mace right down into Nanako's skull. That's right, bitch, suffer. Nanako began to grunt as she twisted that knife until Suzuko could feel her grip loosening on the knife as her whole body went limp like a ragdoll's. Suzuko then extracted the spiked ball from Nanako's now smashed skull and left her body there.
11 students remaining
40
"I heard something," Toru whispered to Kanako. He gathered Sayaka's katana and went downstairs, hearing Kanako following behind, presumably with that scary whip. She also had a normal brightness flashlight which she turned on before Suzuko had a chance to hide behind anything.
"Harada?" they asked in unison. Kanako connected bloody mace to smashed skull of Nanako Shizawa pretty quickly and screamed, unlooping the whip and beginning to smack it around on the ground uncontrollably.
"Calm down, Kanako, it's going to be all right." Toru took out the remaining blowdarts from one of his pockets. "Remember these?" Suzuko took the chance while Kanako was distracted to twirl her mace around and chop off some of the whip with it, leaving a frayed end instead of a nice tip. Kanako gasped as she found that the nice smacking tip of her whip was discarded on the floor. Toru looked around for the bamboo launcher and then realized he left it upstairs, so he went to get it, leaving Kanako and Suzuko alone.
"What happened?" Kanako asked.
"I killed Shizawa," Suzuko replied like it was nothing. What'd you do today? Oh, nothing. Just killed someone. "She was annoying me."
"Are you going to kill me too?" Kanako asked, horrified. Suzuko was very proficient at swinging that mace around, she noticed.
"I want to win." Suzuko smiled her devious grin as Toru returned with the bamboo launcher. He placed it in his mouth and was about to load it when Suzuko swung her mace around and lopped off almost all of the launcher, except for a small nub hanging out of his mouth which was too small for the dart anyway. Toru looked at the nub, then shrugged and Kanako began to whip Suzuko again, hitting the same area in her leg that Tetsuko slashed. Suzuko gasped and slumped onto the floor.
"Toru! Now!" Toru nodded and placed a blowdart in his hand like a normal dart, then threw it like a normal dart. It hit Suzuko in the arm, but she simply took it out, clenching her teeth just a bit. It didn't hurt at all. She tossed it aside as the needle snapped, then tried to hop back up. Damn, Nanako's knife was still in there. She took that out, too, causing a fountain of blood to open up and start spurting. Kanako noticed Nanako's corpse was staring at her. Suzuko didn't even bother to close her eyes...Toru took out the katana, but Suzuko wrapped her mace chain around it and tugged it from his hand. She stepped on it and then made a 'come and get it' face. Kanako was getting frustrated. She whipped like a maniac, breaking things on the walls but only slightly injuring Suzuko.
"Go get the throwing stars!" Kanako shouted to Toru, who began to go up the stairs again as...
TUK.
One of Nanako's knives went soaring through the air and hit Kanako in the neck. A small bit of the tip was sticking out of the front of her neck.
"Toru..." she sputtered, falling forward. Toru put her head in his lap and looked over her. "I won't make it."
"No, Kanako, don't say that."
"I'm...sorry I couldn't be a better fighter. I...suppose this is...goodbye." Kanako put her cold hand in Toru's as her breathing slowed down and eventually stopped. Her shiny black hair cascaded around her body, making a haunting corpse. Toru bit his lip to stop the tears that were coming and placed Kanako on the ground, closing her eyes and crossing her hands across her chest. He stood up from doing this respect to the dead and then dropped the blowdarts.
"Kill me," he commanded Suzuko. "Come on, kill me. I doubted I was going to survive even this long. Go on, you know you want to." Suzuko lunged forward with a "graaaah!!" and stuck her mace into his jugular.
'Kanako, wait for me. I'm coming, too. We can be together and even see Grandma again. Won't it be nice? Maybe the afterlife will be better than this life,' Toru thought as he felt the pain leaving his body. Suzuko removed her mace once again and Toru fell down next to Kanako, both of them suffering fatal wounds to their necks.
Suzuko simply looked at their corpses, then began to take their weapons.
9 students remaining
41
"Nn? Shojiro?" Sakura asked, waking up on an old itchy couch in a building she had never seen before. She looked around from side to side, not able to see much of anything since it was obviously still dark. She looked at her watch. It was just past 4 am. She looked around again. "Shojiro?"
"I'm over here." Shojiro was sitting on a loveseat on the other side of the room.
"Where are we?"
"The tourist association. You were pretty much asleep when we got here, so I just put you on that couch. Nothing to it." Shojiro looked away like it wasn't anything. "It's almost 4 am. Announcements'll be on in two hours. We were down to 12 kids at midnight. Miki got killed."
"Aizawa?" Sakura asked, shocked.
"Yup. So, according to my list, these are the ones still alive: Suzuki, both Niimuras, Moritaka, obviously myself, Arai, Harada, Nishima, Shizawa, Sasei and you."
"So, when the sun comes up, if it is coming up, do you want to go out and eradicate the rest of them?"
"You'd better believe it!"
'And then I'll eradicate you,' Sakura added to herself. The special capsule in her day pack was a cyanide capsule, which could be opened up and poured into any kind of drink or food. 'I'll kill them all, then serve you some Yanagi family tea with a special ingredient for lunch. You'll die and I'll win. It couldn't be any easier.'
Little did Sakura know that Shojiro found the cyanide capsule and was planning exactly the same thing, except that of course Sakura would be served the tea (and die). He saw the evil grin spreading across Sakura's face.
'Heh. What little you know. I cut off my emotions long ago, in fact I wasn't actually born with any. Aren't I a good actor, Sakura? You'll find out for certain with my kiss of death tea later on today.'
They both thought 'sucker' at the same time.
"Um...so...should we wait until after the 6 am announcement to get out of here?" Sakura asked, standing up from the itchy couch.
"I think we should, the announcement will most likely wake everyone else up. The numbers are dwindling quickly," he added in his most deadpan voice.
"I'll say." Sakura didn't want to admit that she was somewhat scared, but knew that with that machine gun and her skills (being a gang girl, she knew a lot about hand-to-hand unarmed combat as well as armed combat) that nobody else stood a ghost of a chance.
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42
Asuka was on the northern shore, which was much more rocky than the southern one. To her right was a cliff, which was in a forbidden zone. To her left a short walk away was the Shinto shrine, also in a forbidden zone. Basically, she could only go south but was deathly afraid to, just in case Suzuko was still waiting on the mountain. She was also puzzled as to why Suzuko would suddenly betray her friends like that. One image stuck in Asuka's head. Right as she awoke she saw Suzuko brutalizing Miki with her mace and saw the ends of her long, braided hair covered in blood. It was a haunting sight. She had her shotgun at the ready, even loaded and with the safety off, just in case Suzuko suddenly came for her.
She sat on a rock and looked out at the sea. It was still raining steadily, so the sea was grey, not a nice shining blue like it usually would be. It was also cold. Asuka dug around in her day pack but found no relief for the cold. Of course she had her long-sleeved blouse on, but it was made of lightweight cotton and therefore didn't retain much heat. Shivering, she hugged her knees just like Nanako had done in the general shop.
Of course Asuka didn't know this.
Asuka looked on her wrist, looking at the friendship bracelets that she had. One was pink and red. That one was from Nanako. The next was different shades of blue, from Suzuko. After that was a pink and purple one, from Miki. There was a green one from Fujiko and a purple and yellow one from Sayaka. They all were over at Sayaka's house one weekend for a sleepover and stayed up late making friendship bracelets and chatting. Now it all seemed so trivial. She undid the knot on the blue bracelet and glared at it as if Suzuko were really wrapped around her wrist. With a heaving sound, she chucked the bracelet out into the churning sea as far as it would go and watched as a wave swallowed it up.
She dangled her legs off of the rock. Having played soccer for as long as she could remember, she fancied herself very good at the game and it showed in her toned, tanned legs. She was about to have to use those legs...
Suzuko was tired. After having traced down Nanako and killed her, she decided to go north to the northern coast and take a breather, passing by the lighthouse first. Suzuko wasn't stupid, she knew someone would probably be hiding in there. First she kicked the door to the lighthouse itself open and looked inside, smelling the musty smell of old wood. There were spiralling steps leading up to the control panel of the light. Suzuko poked back outside, picked up a pebble and threw it at one of the walls, hoping the sound would scare anyone in there out. She heard no staccato running beat, though, but to be safe she ran up the stairs and into the control room. She surveyed the control room, then sighed and ran back down the stairs and back out the door, which was slamming against the side of the building every so often. The wind was picking up...Suzuko's skirt flittered in the wind, as well as the chains on her mace. She also had the whip, the blowdarts, the knives and Miki's gun in her day pack, so Suzuko was happy. She knew nobody stood a chance.
Next to the lighthouse was a house, obviously built for the people who ran the lighthouse. Bingo. Suzuko ran to the door and kicked it open, hearing it slam against the wall of the foyer. Fujiko was hidden in a child's bedroom, decorated with pictures of cute cartoon animals. She heard the sound of the door slamming against the wall and looked for somewhere to hide. She opened the closet door, which was like an automatic door except you obviously pulled it open yourself. Unfortunately for her, the wheels on the track needed to be oiled and they squeaked as she slid open the door just far enough for her body to hide in. She was only issued a few grenades. Grenades? Honestly. Why didn't she get a gun?
Suzuko walked around the house, which wasn't very big on the inside either. She peeked in the living room. Nothing. She peeked in the kitchen. Nothing. She looked in the master bedroom. Still nothing. Then she came upon the child's bedroom, with a sign reading Yumiko on the door. She opened the door very slowly, holding the chain of her mace so it wouldn't make any noise. First Suzuko looked under the bed, then behind a pile of toys, then by a chest of drawers, then came upon the closet. Instead of opening it using her mace she opened it like any normal person would and saw Fujiko crammed in there amongst some clothes.
"Ah, Fujiko," Suzuko said like a teacher who was about to lecture a child. Fujiko noted that there was blood in Suzuko's long braids and it was starting to smell very rancid. "I don't want to kill you."
"You...you don't?"
"No! I've always trusted in your strength. Come with me." Timidly Fujiko left the closet and followed Suzuko out of the house and up the stairs to the control panel. Suzuko noted a door on the left side and kicked it open to find that there was a lookout porch, wrapped around the giant light (which, of course, was not lit). "Look, look over there." Suzuko pointed to a clump of lights on the mainland. "See? That's Kobe."
"Wow...we look like we're so close to Kobe, don't we?" Fujiko asked. The wind picked up. Suzuko's hair blew around like two small whips, accidentally hitting Fujiko on her shoulder. Fujiko's long hair, on the other hand, almost stabbed Suzuko in the eye. Fujiko leaned out against the guardrail on the porch while Suzuko stepped behind her.
'Fool, you were always so easily misled. Prepare to die.' Suzuko had already turned off the safety on the gun. She placed the cold metal against the back of Fujiko's head, right in the dimple before the nape, and fired.
Fujiko was thrown forward with the force and her body plummeted three stories, landing on the ground and making the sickening cracking noise of bones breaking on impact. Her arms were thrown out at strange angles which couldn't be accomplished by normally functioning bones and her legs were almost spread-eagle. A tiny pool of blood was forming underneath her neck, becoming diluted a small bit by the rainwater.
"Don't trust everyone," Suzuko mused to the dead Fujiko. "Because sometimes, your friends can turn out to be the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing." Suzuko put the safety back on her gun, then chucked it back in her day pack and went down the stairs again.
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