Battle Royale '03
Part Seven
43
The clock struck 6 am and once again, the mysterious speakers crackled. Toyama had taken to putting one of the most annoying beeping sounds right before his announcement, so it woke up everyone on the island (and maybe even a few people on Megijima, too).
"Good morning everyone! First, of course, are the new forbidden zones: D-8 at 7 am, C-6 at 9 am and B-7 at 11 am. Now, the deaths, and there are actually some this time. For the males, No. 5 Toru Niimura. For the females, No. 3 Kanako Niimura, No. 12 Nanako Shizawa and No. 13 Fujiko Sasei, bringing the total number of deaths to 22 and the total number of people still alive to 8." Instead of putting a cheesy inspirational slogan at the end of his message, Toyama ended it there.
The beeping, of course, awoke Shizuka from a nice, peaceful sleep. The loud sound had also started her heart racing and she couldn't make it stop. It was like someone kept pounding it with a sledgehammer...She sat up out of bed and looked around. That's right, they were still in the clinic. She smelled something cooking over in the kitchen and got up out of bed to go investigate.
Masao and Junko awoke, both of them having slept in the living room on two different futons. Kiyoharu had been awake for a while, seeing as he was an insomniac and usually only got about four hours of sleep anyway. He was the one cooking, making some pancakes using a "just add water" mix and some of the bottled water he got from the general store. He was only using as much water as minimally possible, seeing as they were running low on the supply he got from the store. He'd have to look into alternate water supply...wasn't there a well around here somewhere?
Shizuka staggered into the kitchen. She was most definitely not a morning person and was barely used to being summoned at 6 am.
"'Morning," she muttered. "Whatchu doin'?"
"Didn't sleep well, so decided to make some breakfast," Kiyoharu replied.
"Cool, cool. When's it gon' be ready?"
"Really soon. Go see if Masao and Junko are awake."
"Mmmkay."
"Nnngh," Junko said as she awoke. "I was sleeping good, too," she added, looking over at Masao. He was also good at karate, he and Takashi even had the same color belt. One could tell he was good at the sport, as his arms and legs were toned. Junko was glad she also played a sport, because she believed it gave her a better chance...
"You're awake too?" Masao asked.
"Yeah. Damn announcements. Did you actually hear them?"
"No, I didn't. I bet Kiyoharu did, though, we could just ask him." Masao sat up. He had thrown off his school coat in the night and Junko was trying her very best not to gawk. (Of course it was hard not to, it was almost like he was flaunting himself for her!)
"I smell pancakes," Junko observed. She looked at Masao and he looked at her.
"Kiyoharu," they said in unison. She sat up from her futon as well and noticed that Masao was checking her out, too. She simply brushed it off and got up, feeling hungry all of a sudden. "Hey, Kiyoharu, did you hear the announcements?"
"Yeah, both the Niimuras, Shizawa and Sasei died."
"BOTH the Niimuras? Maybe they died together?" Junko suggested.
"Could be." Kiyoharu used a borrowed spatula to flip the pancake. Shizuka was sitting at the table, slumped over a two-day-old newspaper. She looked melancholy as she scanned the paper. "All I know is that there are only eight of us left."
"EIGHT?!" Junko screamed in disbelief.
"Quiet, Junko," Shizuka grumbled.
"Eight? Only eight?"
"Yeah, it's been..." Kiyoharu consulted his watch. "Almost an entire day since this started."
"Time flies when your classmates are dying," Shizuka muttered.
"What's our course of action today?" Masao asked as Shizuka stood up and got four plates.
"Stay here as long as possible. Shizuka's still healing," Kiyoharu replied.
"Yeah, I noticed the color's beginning to come back to her cheeks," Masao pointed out.
"I'm surprised we haven't been attacked too much yet," Junko piped up. "I've only needed to use my nunchaku once." She had them in her day pack. Well, at least she knew where they were.
"Nunchaku?" Masao asked. "Hey, wanna trade weapons?"
"I thought you'd never ask," Junko replied, smiling just a bit.
8 students remaining
44
Asuka was still on the northern shore. She only slept for about thirty minutes and that was incredibly uncomfortable because of the rocks she used as a "bed". She was awake for the announcements and then realized that, aside from Suzuko, she was the only one of her group that was still alive. It all seemed so strange. Just three days ago, they were planning to go to the mall on Friday night, see a movie, maybe flirt around...Now most of them were dead. She watched the waves go in and out, bringing in and out chilly air. It was still raining.
Suzuko napped in the house attached to the lighthouse for a few hours, then rose with the morning announcements (as did everyone else still alive on the island). Checking her student list, she crossed off everyone who was dead.
"Only seven more people left to kill," Suzuko muttered aloud to nobody. "Hm, Sakura and Shojiro might not be as easy to kill, but maybe if I side with them and then betray them...I could be closer to winning." She chewed on her pencil, which was a terrible habit of hers, then stood up from the bed (the master bed, of course, sleeping by a corpse wasn't her forte) and exited the house. It was still raining.
"What direction should I go in?" She wished for someone to play jan-ken-pon against to get a definite answer, but instead settled on randomly picking a direction. She picked north. Using the provided cheap, 100-yen tin compass, she pointed herself north and then began to walk, checking the compass to make sure she was still going the right way. She could hear the sound of the waves getting closer and closer and could also hear the sound of someone singing. Suzuko paused.
'Who has a voice like that?' She listened for a few seconds, then came the epiphany. 'ASUKA!!!' Suzuko began to run towards Asuka, mace out, ready to throw it out at any moment. Asuka heard the footsteps and turned, holding her shotgun. Sadly, she had no idea how to use it, so she sat there jamming the trigger and waiting for something to happen. She gasped when Suzuko got close enough to swing and her thoughts quickly ceased when the mace was jammed into her forehead. Suzuko put her foot on Asuka's chest and heaved to pull the mace out, then kicked Asuka forward and watched as her body descended off of the rocks and was presumably swept away in the waves. Unfortunately, Asuka's hand was still firm on the gun when she was kicked, so now a valuable shotgun was floating around in the choppy Seto Inland Sea.
'Oh well, you win some, you lose some, right? Asuka learned that the hard way.' Suzuko sneered towards the water and looked through Asuka's day pack, finding an unopened bottle of water. Suzuko quickly ripped it open and drank half of it. Killing made her thirsty.
7 students remaining
45
Sakura's feet tapped on the white stairs that led you up to the third level at Kitagawa Jr. High. She was running late to class again and was desperately hoping that their algebra teacher Mr. Fujiwara wouldn't notice. She rolled up her skirt and tossed back her hair right outside the door to class 3-A and then opened it to see Mr. Fujiwara teaching as normal. She nodded to him and then looked at the class...and gasped. Everyone was in their normal seating arrangement except...well, they didn't look so good. Kazuo Hanagata was sitting as normal, except his skin was snow white and there was a small red circle on his forehead. Tomoko Daidouji was nothing but a red pulp. Takashi Hirai had no head. Kanako Niimura's throat had a gaping slit in it. Shinji Asaba's right wrist had a small red hole in it and the back of his white school shirt was soaked in blood. Toru Niimura had red holes all over one side of his neck. Naomi Fujisaki was also a red pulp. Daisuke Kirishima was also headless. Sho Satsuki had a circle on his throat. Sayaka Ichiki's wrists were slashed. Akito Kanzaki's school shirt was completely red around his stomach. Tetsuko Matsutani had a bullet hole in her forehead. Shuko Inada was the other red pulp. Kaoru Sengakuji had ten bullet holes in him, mostly on his torso. The side of Miki Aizawa's school uniform was a strange brown from the bloodred mixing with navy blue. Shinya Misao's school shirt had a circle of blood around the heart. Asuka Nishima's forehead was dotted just like Toru's neck. Junji Mitagawa had two bullet holes in his chest, one next to the other. Nanako Shizawa's skull was smashed. Fujiko Sasei looked like a doll whose limbs had been interchanged, sporting a bullet hole in her nape. Two blowdarts were jutting out of Toshiya Wakabayashi's neck. Minami Shimada was shot in the chest and that area of her blouse was also brown. Kazuhiko Yamatani sported a bullet hole in his stomach.
Sakura stood back in shock, gasping. They were all dead?! Masao sat quietly, listening to a black market American punk CD. Shizuka brushed back her hair, then went back to reading her dog-eared illegally translated copy of "1984" (banned in Japan, of course). Junko was probably writing a note to Shizuka at her desk. Suzuko had her feet up on her desk and she was filing her nails. Kiyoharu also had his feet up on his desk and was also listening to a black market CD (probably The Clash, which was his favorite band ever). And finally, Shojiro was quiet. Too quiet. He produced from his bookbag a Thermos, twisted it open and poured the cup part full of green tea.
"Hey, Sakura," he said, offering Sakura the tea. Sakura stepped back from Shojiro and tried to run out of the classroom, but found the doors were shut. She turned back to the class and found herself staring down Masao's nunchaku, Shizuka's Uzi, Junko's axe, Suzuko's mace, Kiyoharu's pistol and Shojiro's machine gun (as well as the tea).
"Hey, Sakura," the six of them said in unison. "We're going to kill you."
"No!!" Sakura screamed, trying to open the door in vain. She heard the sound of six chairs being pushed back and the thumping sounds of six pairs of feet heading towards her. "Noooooo!!!!" she screamed again, then she heard that horrid rat-tat-tat sound...
Then she woke up.
She was still asleep on that itchy old couch. She was panting for air, she was sweating and her heart was beating in her throat. She looked around, wishing that she was back at home.
"Hey, Sakura, are you all right?" Shojiro asked.
"Um...yeah...I suppose I am. I had a bad dream." Sakura wiped her forehead. "But I'm all right now."
"I made some lunch, would you like some?" He was luring her into his trap.
"Yeah! I'm really hungry!"
"Great. You don't mind just plain cold sandwiches, do you?" Shojiro stood up and made sure that little test tube was still in the hidden pocket of his school coat, where he also kept his switchblade. He felt the cold glass and made for the corner where he had two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on two paper plates. He opened up the test tube, carefully poured the cyanide tablet into his hand and precisely pulled it open, then putting it all in the peanut butter of one of the sandwiches. Then he folded back some of the plate to distinguish it from the other one and brought them to Sakura, handing her the one with the folded plate. She thanked him quietly and bit into the sandwich. Shojiro watched, intrigued, to see how fast-acting the cyanide was. Sakura was eating the sandwich as if it was the first thing she had in a long time, like weeks, quickly finishing it off. She swallowed the last bite and noticed Shojiro had only touched his sandwich once.
"What did you do to it?" Sakura asked, panicking.
"Oh, nothing," Shojiro replied. He smiled deviously as Sakura made a horrible choking sound, then she went for her neck to show she was choking.
"Shojiro..." she sputtered. "Help..."
"No can do."
"I--I'm dying--Shojiro--I l-loved you..." Sakura coughed a huge hacking cough, then her eyes rolled back into her head and she slumped back onto the couch, lifeless.
"Sorry, Sakura, unlike you, I wasn't born with the need for such cumbersome emotions as love. While I'll admit you were pretty...and a good fuck, too...there was no love in that relationship. Never was, and obviously never will be." Shojiro sighed and kept on eating his sandwich, every so often casting a glance at the dead Sakura.
6 students remaining
46
Shizuka checked her watch. It was 8:35am. She looked out the window, still raining and gray and cold, of course. She looked over at Masao.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm messing with that Palm Pilot thing Kiyoharu got." Masao wielded a small black stylus and was drawing on the screen. "It shows the location of everyone, but the only flaws are that..."
"I know what the flaws are," Shizuka said, interrupting. "Oh, sorry, I interrupted you."
"No, it's all right, Kiyoharu explained it some time ago." Masao fiddled around with the options on the Palm Pilot. "I'm trying to get it to filter out dead people."
"Hand it to me," Shizuka commanded.
"What'll you do?"
"I can do this stuff. If I knew more about these damn collars..." She tugged on her collar, which hurt. "Then I could disable them, I'd disable all of ours and swim back to Kobe." She sat down by Masao and took over the Palm Pilot. "Right here, asshat, all you have to do is enter a 3-number password. That's TOO easy. You just know the password's written on the back of the goddamn thing." She turned it over and looked. There was a barcode and a 9-digit serial number, 345-762-190, then a small peach chrysanthemum, the official government logo. "We'll just try 345 first." Shizuka keyed in 345 and got an error. "Now we'll try 762." Another error. "Now we'll try 190." Yet another error. "Now for a scrambled version...like 534." She tried many different combinations, becoming increasingly angered at the machine for not cooperating with her. Finally the right password was found with 019. "Okay, here's who's left. There are four stars concentrated in the same building. That's us. Up there by the cliff is a lonely star, as well as one above this building. That's the tourist association, right?" Masao nodded. "All right, the only two risks are those two. If you want to try to find out who they are, be my guest." Shizuka handed the Palm Pilot back to Masao and lay down on the loveseat she was sitting on.
"Look what I found!" Junko shouted cheerfully, returning from the kitchen with a set of large butcher knives and a small pistol. "This, the pistol, was with these, the knives. Someone's ready for an intruder, huh?" She placed the newfound weapons in her day pack. "Hey, where's Kiyoharu?"
"Yeah, where'd he go to?" Masao asked, looking around. Shizuka, automatically assuming the worst, rose from her loveseat and began to run into each room, looking for Kiyoharu. She found an open door and looked inside, finding a set of dusty stairs. She looked up, then drew her gun and silently climbed the stairs. The stairs opened up into an enclosed sunroom of sorts, plastic sheets protecting the room from the rain. Kiyoharu was there, spread out across two chairs, headphones on. Shizuka whirled around, holding out her gun, then pocketed it once more and tapped on her own ears. Kiyoharu reached inside his school coat and then took off his headphones.
"What are you doing up here? You could get killed!" Shizuka scolded like a mother would to her child.
"I just wanted some quiet."
"I don't want you to want quiet, quiet will get you killed! Come back down here with us. At least then I'll know you're alive." Shizuka noticed that Kiyoharu looked shocked. "Oh...did I...shock you? I'm sorry. I just...want to know where you are, that's all." Oh dammit, here comes those tears again. "Or...at least I could stay up here and we could die together. We're going to die sooner or later anyway, right?"
"Don't say that, Shizuka," Kiyoharu said comfortingly, standing up from his chairs and walking over to Shizuka. "It's all going to be all right. I'm here." He held Shizuka and ran a hand through her somewhat tangled (from sleep) hair. "I'm sorry I scared you, I'll come back downstairs right now. I just wanted some quiet to listen to a CD."
"You brought your CD player?" Sniffle.
"Of course! You honestly think I'd pack it and all of my illegal CDs in a suitcase that could be searched by the school? That's utter blasphemy." Kiyoharu put the headphones in one of the pockets of his school coat.
"I don't know why I asked that." Shizuka pulled away and unbuttoned her own school coat. She had a secret pocket sewn in and dug around in that pocket, then removed her copy of "1984". "I brought 1984. You know...just in case we weren't actually playing fatal musical chairs on this trip. What were you listening to?"
"The Clash's London Calling. It's a great album....it transcends words. Joe Strummer was a genius."
"When we get out of here...will you tell me more about what you listen to?"
"Of course I will." Kiyoharu smiled and took Shizuka's hand in his own. "Come on, let's go downstairs. Masao and Junko are probably worried sick."
6 students remaining
47
Suzuko was alone. For once in her life, she was completely alone. Nothing but the wind, sea and rain to talk to, and none of those three were very good conversationalists. She had literally killed everyone she'd seen since the early morning. Was there anyone left? Was she the winner? 'No,' she thought, looking around. 'It can't be. If I was the winner, wouldn't they tell me? Or at least disable the forbidden zones or something?' She looked around. 'Is there even anyone still left on this island? It seems almost pointless to ask.' Taking up her mace once more, she left the northern shore to go look around, making sure to X out all the forbidden zones she knew of so far on her map so she wouldn't wander into any of them by mistake. 'No, Suzuko, don't go left, you'll get your head blown off and you won't even be the winner. Obviously there are still a few more people to lay rest to, or else there would be some kind of signal as to my winning. I guess I've just got to go hunt down everyone that's still alive.'
She set off for the south, all alone.
6 students remaining
48
Shojiro stared at Sakura's corpse for about an hour. It was all he could do. Without any electricity there was no way to watch TV or go on the Greater East Asia Intranet, which was the Republic's shitty excuse for the Internet. Of course, anything American was blocked (although there were, of course, ways to get around that), which pissed off every kid born in the 80s who knew there was something else out there but the only glances into the culture of that somewhere else were the grainy cheaply bootlegged CDs and books that the black market was swarming with.
He recollected memories of times gone by instead. Most of them involved Sakura, whose corpse was still sitting before him. He remembered walking down the main streets of Kobe, surrounded by Toru, Daisuke, Junji, Akito, Tetsuko and Sakura. Even though they were still dressed in their school uniforms, they were feared and revered by most Kobe junior high students and even a few high school students, too, which was a definite accomplishment. Usually if it was a Friday night, they were going to alley fights against rival gang members. The seven of them would stand all in a row, whatever weapons they had held out for all to see. It was unfair to pit someone with a gun against someone with only their bare hands, so any unmatched fighters were ushered off to the side. The whole proceedings went on kind of like the samurai battles of old times, with a lot of dramatic circling around one another, weapons out, ready to strike but never knowing when. Every so often, one or the other would lash out. The other one would either dodge or sustain injuries. This would go on until they were finished or someone was in the hospital.
The gang girls, and every gang had them, would sit on the sidelines with one another and chat, always ready to jump in and defend any of the gang boys from their respective gangs. Dating or bedding guys from different gangs was frowned upon (author: just like in West Side Story, but I digress...), although the girls did chat endlessly about whom they thought was cute and who wasn't. Sometimes, the gangs would do more normal things like see a movie, but most of the gang members were sworn enemies with the type who hung out at the mall.
'What was that line from that song? "Kills the people he once saved." It all seems so oddly true now. How many times did I save, for example, Mitagawa's ass? And how did he repay me? By doing all my dirty work, of course. Didn't even have to sully my hands in those vulgar activities." Shojiro snorted and smiled, then looked over Sakura's corpse once more. 'Wonder where her pistol is. I could use another weapon.' Then he got up and began to paw around in Sakura's day pack.
6 students remaining
49
"It's 11:55 am on Saturday, November 22, 2003. I'm going to leave this diary in a conspicuous place so if I die someone could publish it and I could be famous...but also dead." Junko scribbled in her diary, which was just a plain notebook. "I'm part of the Program for Kitagawa Jr. High School, Kobe, Japan. What is the Program, you might ask? It is a government-sanctioned program wherein a class of students is marooned somewhere and told to kill each other." Junko chewed on her pencil. "That's the basic gist of it. Right now we are waiting for the noontime announcements to tell us who's died since the last announcements. At last announcements, all but eight people were dead. This game is so fucking crazy. If it hasn't already been outlawed by the time someone gets this manuscript, will someone please pass legislation to make it illegal? Our birth rate is declining rapidly because of it. Soon we'll have no 15-year-olds left in this country at all." Junko tentatively closed her notebook and stared at the ceiling.
"Suspense is boring, isn't it?" asked Shizuka from behind 1984. To this she got silent nods of agreement. Why doesn't that crazy bastard Toyama tell us what we need to know when it happens?"
"Life isn't that convenient," Masao replied, waving his nunchaku around, bored. Kiyoharu opened a window so they could hear the announcements better and then the shrill beeping noise echoed over the mostly empty island.
"Hi everyone! Well, it's noon on Saturday, how is everyone? Mostly dead, but I digress. Here are the forbidden zones, and I'm going to give an extra one because I feel nice right now. At 1 pm, A-7; at 3 pm, F-6; at 5 pm, I-6 and at 7 pm, D-8. All right, now for the part you've all been waiting for...the deaths! Well, only girls have died since 6 am, and those two girls are No. 11 Asuka Nishima and No. 15 Sakura Yanagi, bringing the living student population to a whopping six people. You guys are doing well, and it's the final stretch of the game, fight as hard as you can!"
Shizuka screamed and threw down her book in rage (marking her page first, of course).
"GODDAMN ASSHOLE!" she screamed, glaring at the direction she suspected the broadcast to come from. "There's only six of us left and he's praising us?! Oh MAN does he make me sick!" Shizuka went off on a tangent, making sure to damn everyone in the government, but especially Toyama, to hell.
"Uh-oh, Shizuka's enraged again..." Junko commented, sighing a little.
6 students remaining
Part Seven
43
The clock struck 6 am and once again, the mysterious speakers crackled. Toyama had taken to putting one of the most annoying beeping sounds right before his announcement, so it woke up everyone on the island (and maybe even a few people on Megijima, too).
"Good morning everyone! First, of course, are the new forbidden zones: D-8 at 7 am, C-6 at 9 am and B-7 at 11 am. Now, the deaths, and there are actually some this time. For the males, No. 5 Toru Niimura. For the females, No. 3 Kanako Niimura, No. 12 Nanako Shizawa and No. 13 Fujiko Sasei, bringing the total number of deaths to 22 and the total number of people still alive to 8." Instead of putting a cheesy inspirational slogan at the end of his message, Toyama ended it there.
The beeping, of course, awoke Shizuka from a nice, peaceful sleep. The loud sound had also started her heart racing and she couldn't make it stop. It was like someone kept pounding it with a sledgehammer...She sat up out of bed and looked around. That's right, they were still in the clinic. She smelled something cooking over in the kitchen and got up out of bed to go investigate.
Masao and Junko awoke, both of them having slept in the living room on two different futons. Kiyoharu had been awake for a while, seeing as he was an insomniac and usually only got about four hours of sleep anyway. He was the one cooking, making some pancakes using a "just add water" mix and some of the bottled water he got from the general store. He was only using as much water as minimally possible, seeing as they were running low on the supply he got from the store. He'd have to look into alternate water supply...wasn't there a well around here somewhere?
Shizuka staggered into the kitchen. She was most definitely not a morning person and was barely used to being summoned at 6 am.
"'Morning," she muttered. "Whatchu doin'?"
"Didn't sleep well, so decided to make some breakfast," Kiyoharu replied.
"Cool, cool. When's it gon' be ready?"
"Really soon. Go see if Masao and Junko are awake."
"Mmmkay."
"Nnngh," Junko said as she awoke. "I was sleeping good, too," she added, looking over at Masao. He was also good at karate, he and Takashi even had the same color belt. One could tell he was good at the sport, as his arms and legs were toned. Junko was glad she also played a sport, because she believed it gave her a better chance...
"You're awake too?" Masao asked.
"Yeah. Damn announcements. Did you actually hear them?"
"No, I didn't. I bet Kiyoharu did, though, we could just ask him." Masao sat up. He had thrown off his school coat in the night and Junko was trying her very best not to gawk. (Of course it was hard not to, it was almost like he was flaunting himself for her!)
"I smell pancakes," Junko observed. She looked at Masao and he looked at her.
"Kiyoharu," they said in unison. She sat up from her futon as well and noticed that Masao was checking her out, too. She simply brushed it off and got up, feeling hungry all of a sudden. "Hey, Kiyoharu, did you hear the announcements?"
"Yeah, both the Niimuras, Shizawa and Sasei died."
"BOTH the Niimuras? Maybe they died together?" Junko suggested.
"Could be." Kiyoharu used a borrowed spatula to flip the pancake. Shizuka was sitting at the table, slumped over a two-day-old newspaper. She looked melancholy as she scanned the paper. "All I know is that there are only eight of us left."
"EIGHT?!" Junko screamed in disbelief.
"Quiet, Junko," Shizuka grumbled.
"Eight? Only eight?"
"Yeah, it's been..." Kiyoharu consulted his watch. "Almost an entire day since this started."
"Time flies when your classmates are dying," Shizuka muttered.
"What's our course of action today?" Masao asked as Shizuka stood up and got four plates.
"Stay here as long as possible. Shizuka's still healing," Kiyoharu replied.
"Yeah, I noticed the color's beginning to come back to her cheeks," Masao pointed out.
"I'm surprised we haven't been attacked too much yet," Junko piped up. "I've only needed to use my nunchaku once." She had them in her day pack. Well, at least she knew where they were.
"Nunchaku?" Masao asked. "Hey, wanna trade weapons?"
"I thought you'd never ask," Junko replied, smiling just a bit.
8 students remaining
44
Asuka was still on the northern shore. She only slept for about thirty minutes and that was incredibly uncomfortable because of the rocks she used as a "bed". She was awake for the announcements and then realized that, aside from Suzuko, she was the only one of her group that was still alive. It all seemed so strange. Just three days ago, they were planning to go to the mall on Friday night, see a movie, maybe flirt around...Now most of them were dead. She watched the waves go in and out, bringing in and out chilly air. It was still raining.
Suzuko napped in the house attached to the lighthouse for a few hours, then rose with the morning announcements (as did everyone else still alive on the island). Checking her student list, she crossed off everyone who was dead.
"Only seven more people left to kill," Suzuko muttered aloud to nobody. "Hm, Sakura and Shojiro might not be as easy to kill, but maybe if I side with them and then betray them...I could be closer to winning." She chewed on her pencil, which was a terrible habit of hers, then stood up from the bed (the master bed, of course, sleeping by a corpse wasn't her forte) and exited the house. It was still raining.
"What direction should I go in?" She wished for someone to play jan-ken-pon against to get a definite answer, but instead settled on randomly picking a direction. She picked north. Using the provided cheap, 100-yen tin compass, she pointed herself north and then began to walk, checking the compass to make sure she was still going the right way. She could hear the sound of the waves getting closer and closer and could also hear the sound of someone singing. Suzuko paused.
'Who has a voice like that?' She listened for a few seconds, then came the epiphany. 'ASUKA!!!' Suzuko began to run towards Asuka, mace out, ready to throw it out at any moment. Asuka heard the footsteps and turned, holding her shotgun. Sadly, she had no idea how to use it, so she sat there jamming the trigger and waiting for something to happen. She gasped when Suzuko got close enough to swing and her thoughts quickly ceased when the mace was jammed into her forehead. Suzuko put her foot on Asuka's chest and heaved to pull the mace out, then kicked Asuka forward and watched as her body descended off of the rocks and was presumably swept away in the waves. Unfortunately, Asuka's hand was still firm on the gun when she was kicked, so now a valuable shotgun was floating around in the choppy Seto Inland Sea.
'Oh well, you win some, you lose some, right? Asuka learned that the hard way.' Suzuko sneered towards the water and looked through Asuka's day pack, finding an unopened bottle of water. Suzuko quickly ripped it open and drank half of it. Killing made her thirsty.
7 students remaining
45
Sakura's feet tapped on the white stairs that led you up to the third level at Kitagawa Jr. High. She was running late to class again and was desperately hoping that their algebra teacher Mr. Fujiwara wouldn't notice. She rolled up her skirt and tossed back her hair right outside the door to class 3-A and then opened it to see Mr. Fujiwara teaching as normal. She nodded to him and then looked at the class...and gasped. Everyone was in their normal seating arrangement except...well, they didn't look so good. Kazuo Hanagata was sitting as normal, except his skin was snow white and there was a small red circle on his forehead. Tomoko Daidouji was nothing but a red pulp. Takashi Hirai had no head. Kanako Niimura's throat had a gaping slit in it. Shinji Asaba's right wrist had a small red hole in it and the back of his white school shirt was soaked in blood. Toru Niimura had red holes all over one side of his neck. Naomi Fujisaki was also a red pulp. Daisuke Kirishima was also headless. Sho Satsuki had a circle on his throat. Sayaka Ichiki's wrists were slashed. Akito Kanzaki's school shirt was completely red around his stomach. Tetsuko Matsutani had a bullet hole in her forehead. Shuko Inada was the other red pulp. Kaoru Sengakuji had ten bullet holes in him, mostly on his torso. The side of Miki Aizawa's school uniform was a strange brown from the bloodred mixing with navy blue. Shinya Misao's school shirt had a circle of blood around the heart. Asuka Nishima's forehead was dotted just like Toru's neck. Junji Mitagawa had two bullet holes in his chest, one next to the other. Nanako Shizawa's skull was smashed. Fujiko Sasei looked like a doll whose limbs had been interchanged, sporting a bullet hole in her nape. Two blowdarts were jutting out of Toshiya Wakabayashi's neck. Minami Shimada was shot in the chest and that area of her blouse was also brown. Kazuhiko Yamatani sported a bullet hole in his stomach.
Sakura stood back in shock, gasping. They were all dead?! Masao sat quietly, listening to a black market American punk CD. Shizuka brushed back her hair, then went back to reading her dog-eared illegally translated copy of "1984" (banned in Japan, of course). Junko was probably writing a note to Shizuka at her desk. Suzuko had her feet up on her desk and she was filing her nails. Kiyoharu also had his feet up on his desk and was also listening to a black market CD (probably The Clash, which was his favorite band ever). And finally, Shojiro was quiet. Too quiet. He produced from his bookbag a Thermos, twisted it open and poured the cup part full of green tea.
"Hey, Sakura," he said, offering Sakura the tea. Sakura stepped back from Shojiro and tried to run out of the classroom, but found the doors were shut. She turned back to the class and found herself staring down Masao's nunchaku, Shizuka's Uzi, Junko's axe, Suzuko's mace, Kiyoharu's pistol and Shojiro's machine gun (as well as the tea).
"Hey, Sakura," the six of them said in unison. "We're going to kill you."
"No!!" Sakura screamed, trying to open the door in vain. She heard the sound of six chairs being pushed back and the thumping sounds of six pairs of feet heading towards her. "Noooooo!!!!" she screamed again, then she heard that horrid rat-tat-tat sound...
Then she woke up.
She was still asleep on that itchy old couch. She was panting for air, she was sweating and her heart was beating in her throat. She looked around, wishing that she was back at home.
"Hey, Sakura, are you all right?" Shojiro asked.
"Um...yeah...I suppose I am. I had a bad dream." Sakura wiped her forehead. "But I'm all right now."
"I made some lunch, would you like some?" He was luring her into his trap.
"Yeah! I'm really hungry!"
"Great. You don't mind just plain cold sandwiches, do you?" Shojiro stood up and made sure that little test tube was still in the hidden pocket of his school coat, where he also kept his switchblade. He felt the cold glass and made for the corner where he had two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on two paper plates. He opened up the test tube, carefully poured the cyanide tablet into his hand and precisely pulled it open, then putting it all in the peanut butter of one of the sandwiches. Then he folded back some of the plate to distinguish it from the other one and brought them to Sakura, handing her the one with the folded plate. She thanked him quietly and bit into the sandwich. Shojiro watched, intrigued, to see how fast-acting the cyanide was. Sakura was eating the sandwich as if it was the first thing she had in a long time, like weeks, quickly finishing it off. She swallowed the last bite and noticed Shojiro had only touched his sandwich once.
"What did you do to it?" Sakura asked, panicking.
"Oh, nothing," Shojiro replied. He smiled deviously as Sakura made a horrible choking sound, then she went for her neck to show she was choking.
"Shojiro..." she sputtered. "Help..."
"No can do."
"I--I'm dying--Shojiro--I l-loved you..." Sakura coughed a huge hacking cough, then her eyes rolled back into her head and she slumped back onto the couch, lifeless.
"Sorry, Sakura, unlike you, I wasn't born with the need for such cumbersome emotions as love. While I'll admit you were pretty...and a good fuck, too...there was no love in that relationship. Never was, and obviously never will be." Shojiro sighed and kept on eating his sandwich, every so often casting a glance at the dead Sakura.
6 students remaining
46
Shizuka checked her watch. It was 8:35am. She looked out the window, still raining and gray and cold, of course. She looked over at Masao.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm messing with that Palm Pilot thing Kiyoharu got." Masao wielded a small black stylus and was drawing on the screen. "It shows the location of everyone, but the only flaws are that..."
"I know what the flaws are," Shizuka said, interrupting. "Oh, sorry, I interrupted you."
"No, it's all right, Kiyoharu explained it some time ago." Masao fiddled around with the options on the Palm Pilot. "I'm trying to get it to filter out dead people."
"Hand it to me," Shizuka commanded.
"What'll you do?"
"I can do this stuff. If I knew more about these damn collars..." She tugged on her collar, which hurt. "Then I could disable them, I'd disable all of ours and swim back to Kobe." She sat down by Masao and took over the Palm Pilot. "Right here, asshat, all you have to do is enter a 3-number password. That's TOO easy. You just know the password's written on the back of the goddamn thing." She turned it over and looked. There was a barcode and a 9-digit serial number, 345-762-190, then a small peach chrysanthemum, the official government logo. "We'll just try 345 first." Shizuka keyed in 345 and got an error. "Now we'll try 762." Another error. "Now we'll try 190." Yet another error. "Now for a scrambled version...like 534." She tried many different combinations, becoming increasingly angered at the machine for not cooperating with her. Finally the right password was found with 019. "Okay, here's who's left. There are four stars concentrated in the same building. That's us. Up there by the cliff is a lonely star, as well as one above this building. That's the tourist association, right?" Masao nodded. "All right, the only two risks are those two. If you want to try to find out who they are, be my guest." Shizuka handed the Palm Pilot back to Masao and lay down on the loveseat she was sitting on.
"Look what I found!" Junko shouted cheerfully, returning from the kitchen with a set of large butcher knives and a small pistol. "This, the pistol, was with these, the knives. Someone's ready for an intruder, huh?" She placed the newfound weapons in her day pack. "Hey, where's Kiyoharu?"
"Yeah, where'd he go to?" Masao asked, looking around. Shizuka, automatically assuming the worst, rose from her loveseat and began to run into each room, looking for Kiyoharu. She found an open door and looked inside, finding a set of dusty stairs. She looked up, then drew her gun and silently climbed the stairs. The stairs opened up into an enclosed sunroom of sorts, plastic sheets protecting the room from the rain. Kiyoharu was there, spread out across two chairs, headphones on. Shizuka whirled around, holding out her gun, then pocketed it once more and tapped on her own ears. Kiyoharu reached inside his school coat and then took off his headphones.
"What are you doing up here? You could get killed!" Shizuka scolded like a mother would to her child.
"I just wanted some quiet."
"I don't want you to want quiet, quiet will get you killed! Come back down here with us. At least then I'll know you're alive." Shizuka noticed that Kiyoharu looked shocked. "Oh...did I...shock you? I'm sorry. I just...want to know where you are, that's all." Oh dammit, here comes those tears again. "Or...at least I could stay up here and we could die together. We're going to die sooner or later anyway, right?"
"Don't say that, Shizuka," Kiyoharu said comfortingly, standing up from his chairs and walking over to Shizuka. "It's all going to be all right. I'm here." He held Shizuka and ran a hand through her somewhat tangled (from sleep) hair. "I'm sorry I scared you, I'll come back downstairs right now. I just wanted some quiet to listen to a CD."
"You brought your CD player?" Sniffle.
"Of course! You honestly think I'd pack it and all of my illegal CDs in a suitcase that could be searched by the school? That's utter blasphemy." Kiyoharu put the headphones in one of the pockets of his school coat.
"I don't know why I asked that." Shizuka pulled away and unbuttoned her own school coat. She had a secret pocket sewn in and dug around in that pocket, then removed her copy of "1984". "I brought 1984. You know...just in case we weren't actually playing fatal musical chairs on this trip. What were you listening to?"
"The Clash's London Calling. It's a great album....it transcends words. Joe Strummer was a genius."
"When we get out of here...will you tell me more about what you listen to?"
"Of course I will." Kiyoharu smiled and took Shizuka's hand in his own. "Come on, let's go downstairs. Masao and Junko are probably worried sick."
6 students remaining
47
Suzuko was alone. For once in her life, she was completely alone. Nothing but the wind, sea and rain to talk to, and none of those three were very good conversationalists. She had literally killed everyone she'd seen since the early morning. Was there anyone left? Was she the winner? 'No,' she thought, looking around. 'It can't be. If I was the winner, wouldn't they tell me? Or at least disable the forbidden zones or something?' She looked around. 'Is there even anyone still left on this island? It seems almost pointless to ask.' Taking up her mace once more, she left the northern shore to go look around, making sure to X out all the forbidden zones she knew of so far on her map so she wouldn't wander into any of them by mistake. 'No, Suzuko, don't go left, you'll get your head blown off and you won't even be the winner. Obviously there are still a few more people to lay rest to, or else there would be some kind of signal as to my winning. I guess I've just got to go hunt down everyone that's still alive.'
She set off for the south, all alone.
6 students remaining
48
Shojiro stared at Sakura's corpse for about an hour. It was all he could do. Without any electricity there was no way to watch TV or go on the Greater East Asia Intranet, which was the Republic's shitty excuse for the Internet. Of course, anything American was blocked (although there were, of course, ways to get around that), which pissed off every kid born in the 80s who knew there was something else out there but the only glances into the culture of that somewhere else were the grainy cheaply bootlegged CDs and books that the black market was swarming with.
He recollected memories of times gone by instead. Most of them involved Sakura, whose corpse was still sitting before him. He remembered walking down the main streets of Kobe, surrounded by Toru, Daisuke, Junji, Akito, Tetsuko and Sakura. Even though they were still dressed in their school uniforms, they were feared and revered by most Kobe junior high students and even a few high school students, too, which was a definite accomplishment. Usually if it was a Friday night, they were going to alley fights against rival gang members. The seven of them would stand all in a row, whatever weapons they had held out for all to see. It was unfair to pit someone with a gun against someone with only their bare hands, so any unmatched fighters were ushered off to the side. The whole proceedings went on kind of like the samurai battles of old times, with a lot of dramatic circling around one another, weapons out, ready to strike but never knowing when. Every so often, one or the other would lash out. The other one would either dodge or sustain injuries. This would go on until they were finished or someone was in the hospital.
The gang girls, and every gang had them, would sit on the sidelines with one another and chat, always ready to jump in and defend any of the gang boys from their respective gangs. Dating or bedding guys from different gangs was frowned upon (author: just like in West Side Story, but I digress...), although the girls did chat endlessly about whom they thought was cute and who wasn't. Sometimes, the gangs would do more normal things like see a movie, but most of the gang members were sworn enemies with the type who hung out at the mall.
'What was that line from that song? "Kills the people he once saved." It all seems so oddly true now. How many times did I save, for example, Mitagawa's ass? And how did he repay me? By doing all my dirty work, of course. Didn't even have to sully my hands in those vulgar activities." Shojiro snorted and smiled, then looked over Sakura's corpse once more. 'Wonder where her pistol is. I could use another weapon.' Then he got up and began to paw around in Sakura's day pack.
6 students remaining
49
"It's 11:55 am on Saturday, November 22, 2003. I'm going to leave this diary in a conspicuous place so if I die someone could publish it and I could be famous...but also dead." Junko scribbled in her diary, which was just a plain notebook. "I'm part of the Program for Kitagawa Jr. High School, Kobe, Japan. What is the Program, you might ask? It is a government-sanctioned program wherein a class of students is marooned somewhere and told to kill each other." Junko chewed on her pencil. "That's the basic gist of it. Right now we are waiting for the noontime announcements to tell us who's died since the last announcements. At last announcements, all but eight people were dead. This game is so fucking crazy. If it hasn't already been outlawed by the time someone gets this manuscript, will someone please pass legislation to make it illegal? Our birth rate is declining rapidly because of it. Soon we'll have no 15-year-olds left in this country at all." Junko tentatively closed her notebook and stared at the ceiling.
"Suspense is boring, isn't it?" asked Shizuka from behind 1984. To this she got silent nods of agreement. Why doesn't that crazy bastard Toyama tell us what we need to know when it happens?"
"Life isn't that convenient," Masao replied, waving his nunchaku around, bored. Kiyoharu opened a window so they could hear the announcements better and then the shrill beeping noise echoed over the mostly empty island.
"Hi everyone! Well, it's noon on Saturday, how is everyone? Mostly dead, but I digress. Here are the forbidden zones, and I'm going to give an extra one because I feel nice right now. At 1 pm, A-7; at 3 pm, F-6; at 5 pm, I-6 and at 7 pm, D-8. All right, now for the part you've all been waiting for...the deaths! Well, only girls have died since 6 am, and those two girls are No. 11 Asuka Nishima and No. 15 Sakura Yanagi, bringing the living student population to a whopping six people. You guys are doing well, and it's the final stretch of the game, fight as hard as you can!"
Shizuka screamed and threw down her book in rage (marking her page first, of course).
"GODDAMN ASSHOLE!" she screamed, glaring at the direction she suspected the broadcast to come from. "There's only six of us left and he's praising us?! Oh MAN does he make me sick!" Shizuka went off on a tangent, making sure to damn everyone in the government, but especially Toyama, to hell.
"Uh-oh, Shizuka's enraged again..." Junko commented, sighing a little.
6 students remaining