Amber: Mother Mary, I'm like..so in the zone right now. I may actually have Chapter 7 by Friday.
Saren: (waves a lil flag)
Kit: Yatta! Yatta!
Amber: (waves the ramune around) Kampai!
Disclaimers:
I don't own Battle Royal, Furuba, or Azumanga Daioh.
Hiro had curled up under a ledge to avoid becoming completely drenched during the night. Groggily, he crawled out ito the dim, pale blue morning light and away from the warm, but damp moss he'd sleept in. As soon as he stood up straight there was a knife with a very ornate handle pressed to his throat. He looked easily up the arm at the face of his attacker.
"You're the girl who shot Tohru." he said with faint awe.
Motoko stared him down with severe and slightly crazed eyes that made Hiro think of Rin back at home. She took away his bag, depositing it by her foot before she took her dagger away from his throat.
"You're free to go." she said, turning her back on him. "I'd rather not kill any of Yuki's relatives."
"You want to kill Tohru don't you?"
"I do. And I will. And if you get in my way, I'll kill you too."
Hiro walked around to her front and extended his hand.
"I hope you get her."
Motoko stared at his hand for a moment until she finally took it with a smile.
"My name is Motoko. What's your name kid?"
"I'm Hiro Sohma. Say, could I help you out in finding her? I'd like to be there when she dies."
"Oh really? Well then, lets see your weapon and you can lead the way."
His weapon was not interesting, just a flare gun with smoke and fire flare ammo. He felt a bit embarassed that he had such a wimpy weapon while Motoko had a dagger and her stolen arsenal. However, it served for the better as he quickly formed a plan it his mind.
"What time is it, do you know?"
"They haven't made the danger zone announcements yet if that what you're worried about."
"Good, that's exactly what I wanted to hear."
He showed fiendish excitement as he dug out a map.
"Look here." he said pointing to the map zones which were vertically labelled with letters and horizontally labeled with numbers. "It's a tiny island. The zone grid is only 4 x 4 and each zone is only two miles. That means the island itself is only 8 miles from end to end. Now. We're right here on the borderline between C1 and C2. Yuki, Kyo, and Momiji are probably inside the D1 zone. Which means Tohru, her friends, and Kisa are probably on the more northern side of C1. Depending on the way the available zones change for today, there's only a certain number of ways they can go. If they found a place with some decent resources, they probably wont want to go too far from it. Counting on that, we can track them for today."
"I like the way you think Hiro-kun. Alright then, we'll wait. If we find them, I'll toss a smoke grenade at them and kill Tohru in the confusion."
"Sounds goo to me. For now, lets start heading up north, since we know for certain they're somewhere in that direction."
Motoko nodded, grinning hugely as she returned Hiro's bag and started toward the B1 zone with him, their maps and markers ready close to hand for the coming announcement, and their arms linked as they practically skipped together like old friends.
Yomi was the one on the dawn watch when the announcement came sharply at 6 am on the nose. She'd been waiting and had her marker and map out and ready, like some expert journalist.
"Goodmorning everyone. Hope you had a pleasant night. Here are the danger zones for today, you have 30 minutes to pack up your things and make yourself scarce before those little collars of yours start going off. To help you know whether you're in or out of a danger zone, your collars will give off vibrations until you cross the border into a safe zone. Here we go.
B1...
D1...
A3...
A4...
E4...
We'll be back in another 12 hours with the death toll and the new danger zones. Have fun."
By the time Yomi got done making all the marks and putting her marker away, there was a strong buzz around her neck that made her jump and caused everyone in bed to wake up with a start. Sakaki was at the door with Kagura, staring in at Yomi. They had awakened at first light to patrol the building and now they held conference with her.
"Well Yomi," Sakaki started. "What do you make of it?"
"They systematically made every place someone was occupying a danger zone. Tohru said her friends had been going sligght to the left of them right? That meant they were going to the southeast. That's who's in D1. Since that's a danger zone, they'll probably head north looking for Tohru."
"We can't endanger ourselves too though." Kagura protested. "I already know you're thinking maybe we could go down to C1 with Tohru, but someone shot her remember? We could endanger everyone by going with her."
"Hmm... That's true, but shouldn't we want to at least stay relatively close to her as an advantage just because of Hana-san?"
"Yeah. It's not garunteed we can have her help if anything happens to Tohru and mostly I just want that protective wing over Chiyo and Osaka. They never did anything to anyone, they deserve to get out of here in one piece."
"Good point... Alright then."
Kagura looked at all the awake teens, peering with scared and lost faces at her and the others, and felt a wave of pity sweep her. There will only be 2 winners..she thought to herself, but she sighed and let the thought pass. They'd simply try to live in peace until then and if two people who wanted to live really badly came for their hides.. they'd probably fight, but that was then and if. This was a now and a must.
"We will go with Tohru to C1. Sakaki and I will try to keep lookout for the girl who shot Tohru or the people who were trying to follow your group to keep an eye on you. Hopefull we will do this with the aid of Hana-san. We have 30 minutes to pack up and get the hell out of this zone. We're closer to the B1 zone so we're going almost the two full miles. The average person walks at 4 miles per hour but we have children and a wounded girl so we will be half-running until we're safe. We want to avoid cutting it close, because if we cut it close they might just stop the clock before the timer rings."
She had gone off on a bit of a tangent on that last sentence, but everyone knew with a grim certainty what is was she was saying and they began to move with all due haste, packing up. Hana left the room and just as everyone was getting into line to move out she came back with a large plastic bottle of penicilin, a jug of sterilized water, some medical cloth, and large medical bandages. Arisa split the responsibilty and the weight with Hana and then the line was still and waiting.
Yomi checked her watch. It was already 6:07.
"We have 23 minutes to get out of B1. That will probably be 10 minutes by the time we get out of the building. Do you understand what happens if we dont make it?"
Everyone gave a quiet nod. There was no further discussion as the three girls who had taken up leadership hefted their own bags and left the room at a half jog that even Chiyo kept up with in fear for her life. When they got outside they moved in less strict ranks, each finding a quick light pace that was both comfortable to their stride and quck enough to keep them with the herd.
Arisa was holding up the rear next to Tohru and Hana. She found herself thinking about the rare occasions she'd seen Hana run. She couldn't rmember many. At the moment Hana was holding a powerful stride that made her earrings bounce and her hair flare out like a banner of war. She was not giving Tohru the mother hen look she had in the hospital, she was looking out and about and Arisa realized that Hana had gone from being worried to being protective.
Great for them, bad for everyone else her waves didn't recognize.
Kyo had been up well before Yuki and he had predicted what the danger zones were going to be. That had been lucky and it had given him plenty of time to try and get Yuki moving. Death threats that didn't include a gun in the face were not enough to wake the rat prince. However, for the show of kindness Yuki had performed last night, Kyo half carried Yuki, occasionally having to dodge wild half-asleep swings. Just as the announcements actually went off Yuki was starting to come awake. The buzz around his neck eventually jarred his thought process into overflow and he was immediately up, confused and stumbling a bit.
"Wha..? Where are we? What happened to the cave? Why's this collar thing buzzing?"
"They announced the danger zones. We're heading up to C1. I think that's where we'll be able to find Tohru if she's looking for us too."
Yuki nodded slowly.
"Ok.. Alright. God, I feel like I woke up from a nightmare into a whole new one...Whats this damn thing buzzing for?"
"We have about 15 minutes left to hike our asses out of this zone."
"...Oh."
Kagura sat against the wall in the exact same position she had been in since yesterday night. Hatsuharu had left her behind after their collars had been buzzing for 15 minutes.
He'd trid to carry her, but she wouldn't have it. As she'd stared at him, pleading to be left alone he suddenly understood what she was asking of him, and he didn't deny her wish. Her nerve had been broken with Aya's body. She wanted to die and escape the melee, and it woud not been him who prolonged her misery.
He'd run, knowing he didn't have much time left, and deciding to head west where Tohru and the others had gone. On his way, he met and left Akito and Hatori who were also heading for Tohru. They decided to travel in as few groups as possible and Hatsuharu left them again. He had not heard Akito's snickering.
Thus was the official start of the Battle Royale. Just about everyone was heading west, on a course that would eventually lead them all to the column 1 zones, where the party would have started, lasted, and once again died down by the setting of the sun later on that day.
Amber: Yeah I kinda didn't feel like making drawn out wake up scenes.Save that for the thurough people.
Saren: It's because you prefer making drawn out torture scenes.
Amber: There are people who dont?
Kit: Kit cries tears of blood for the cosmic clash due to occur in the next chapter ;;
Amber: It's ok. I know there's a billion bad ways it can end, but I've already singled it down to one. Feel better that way.
Kit: That doesn't help! I don't know which bad way things are gonna end! Waaah!
Saren: (slaps tape over loud Kitsune mouth and gives a thumbs up) You have silence. You review and we give you happy end. Maybe.
