Chapter 3
A myriad of screens lit up the control room, game masters watching as the twenty-two remaining tributes spread out far and wide. Most of them stayed in small groups, not wanting to face the dangers of the course alone. Searching through bushes, wading in streams, or picking berries, all of them were gathering food while the fighting slowed down. The blond boy, Kida Masaomi, was unwittingly getting closer to another tribute while looking for something to hunt.
"These stupid berries aren't going to be good enough," he grumbled. "Give me meat, any day. I wouldn't say no to meeting a hot chick, either, now that I'm thinking about things I want." Leaves rustled above him, and he looked up momentarily. "Well, at least I know we've got some squirrels. Knowing the Capital, they're probably poisonous freaks of nature, though." Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out a slingshot. "Poisonous or not, it's worth a try!" He bent down and grabbed a rock, then pulled back the rubber, aiming towards the squirrel and closed an eye in concentration. He let go.
Thwack. The stone bounced off a branch, and he ducked as it narrowly missed his head on the way down. The squirrel scampered higher in the tree. "Yeah, you go ahead and run, little guy. Next time, I'm gonna get your head!"
"Masaomi?"
Masaomi jumped at the voice, and turned to see Ryuugamine Mikado walking toward him, hands in pockets.
"Is that really you?"
He grinned, holding up three fingers. "I'll give you three options. One: Kida Masaomi." He put down a finger. "Two: Kida Masaomi." He put down another. "And three: Kida Masaomi." He put down the last finger.
A huge smile broke across Mikado's face. "It really is you! And your jokes are just as awful as ever!"
"Hey, that's cruel!" He crossed his arms. "I'm a perfectly amusing person, and I'll have you know that the ladies love my jokes."
"Sure they do." He rolled his eyes. "How long has it been since I last saw you, anyway?"
"Let's see, I got transferred to District 6 when we were eight…"
"And we're fifteen now, so that would be… seven years? Wow, it's been quite a while! I'm glad we got to meet up again. I mean, it would have been better under different circumstances, obviously…"
"Hey, like I always say, you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth."
"Do you really say that that often?"
"Well, I've said it at least once, now. That's gotta count for something. Hey, you don't happen to have any food, do you?"
"Actually, I do. You can have some, if you want." He began rummaging around in his small bag.
Slapping his friend on the back, Masaomi smiled, "You're the best, Mikado!"
"Dotachin!" Erika jumped out from behind her boulder to throw her arms around a muscular-looking boy who was wearing a cloth hat.
"I told you not to call me that!" He frowned.
"I can't help it, Dotachin," she continued hugging him, "I'm just so excited that we all ended up in the games together!"
"Besides," Walker emerged from his hiding place, "if we've been calling you Dotachin for ten years, there's no way we're going to change now. We've set a historical precedent that can only be broken if one of us suddenly acts completely out of character."
"And if there's one thing we'll never be, it's out of character."
"I get that," he rolled his eyes, "but how hard is it to say 'Kadota,' or even 'Kyohei'? My actual name isn't that bad!"
"Sorry, but Dotachin just fits you better," replied Walker.
"Do you guys want to find a camping spot or something?" Erika suggested. "It's going to be nightfall in a couple of hours, so we'll want somewhere protected from the elements."
"I saw a cave on the path here," said Kadota. "Do you guys want to try it?"
"Sure!"
They began walking down the path, and Walker asked, "Since there are still twenty-two tributes alive, do you think it's time to break out the pyrotechnics?"
Kasuka, a stoic brunet boy, walked quietly beside a girl with shoulder-length brown hair. "Do you think we'll win the games?" he asked, expressionless.
"Why wouldn't we?" replied Ruri.
"I know that you could kill most of the tributes without breaking a sweat, but I know you can't kill my brother."
She thought about a minute. "That's true."
"If it comes down to a fight between you and my brother, I would be very sad." His facial expression still didn't change, but he leaned closer to her. "I love my brother, of course, but I don't want to lose you."
"I don't want to lose you, either, Kasuka." She shook her head and leaned closer to him in return. "Why do you care about me, anyway? Do you remember the first time we met?"
"It's difficult to forget someone who tries to murder me the minute they wake up in my house. It's only happened on a handful of occasions."
"But you didn't tell me why you care about me."
"People who know me don't usually associate me with caring, or any emotions at all. I don't feel strongly about most things, and I almost never show the few feelings I have. Aside from my roles, caring and love are foreign to me, besides the love I have for my brother. I'm sure you already know all that. The day you tried to kill me," he closed his eyes, "it made me… feel something. You still make me feel something."
"Is it a… good something?"
"I think so. I may have to think on it more, but I know I would be devastated if I lost you."
"You think too much."
"Would you like me to stop?" He suddenly tilted his head and kissed her.
A twig snapped.
Kasuka and Ruri separated and whipped around (Ruri looked quite annoyed at this turn of events, but Kasuka looked unfazed, as usual), facing the tall boy who had crept up behind them. "I'm sorry, but you need to die," Kasuka stated.
Ruri grabbed the kid's forearms, and he shrieked, staring at the blood now dripping down his skin. Kasuka grabbed him from behind, and Ruri went for his neck. Suddenly, they dropped him, limp, to the ground.
A cannon went off.
The body of a kid known as Egor was taken up into a hovercraft.
The game masters sat back in their chairs.
"Well, that was unexpected."
"I like the whole 'killer lovebirds' vibe they have going for them."
"Still, there've only been three deaths so far. That's pretty unusual. Something still feels off."
"Yeah, but it's been getting better."
"Not right now. It seems like it's slowing down," one of them said.
"Yeah, besides those two going haywire on Egor, there isn't any fighting going on."
"It must be time for us to get involved, then. What are you thinking, maybe an avalanche of rocks?"
"I'm always a fan of the forest fire, myself."
"Wait!" another man said, holding up a hand. "Orihara's on the move. Something's definitely going to happen."
"Shizuo's moving, too."
"Alright, let's see where this ends up before we start anything. We wouldn't want to interrupt something interesting."
Shizuo tore through branches and brambles, sprinting over boulders and up and down steep inclines. "Kasuka!" he shouted. "Kasuka! Can you hear me? KASUKA!" He stopped, panting slightly, and looked around himself. "Where are you, Kasuka? I'm on your side, I promise! KASUKA!" The sun was beginning to set, and the shadows were long and dark underneath the tree branches. Squinting into the growing dimness, Shizuo tried again. "KASUKA!"
"Aw, now would you look at that?" Izaya stepped out from behind a tree, twirling once. "The scary monster's trying to look out for his little brother. How sweet." He spun to the side as a tree trunk was tossed at his face. "Looks like someone's a little angry today. How unusual!"
"WHY ARE YOU IN MY LINE OF SIGHT, FLEA?"
"Statistically, speaking, since we're both in the Hunger Games, and this arena is only so big, we were bound to come across one another eventually. Maybe not this soon, but it would have happened sometime, I'm sure."
"DON'T GIVE ME THAT CRAP; YOU'RE TRYING TO GET IN MY WAY!" He hefted a boulder in the air, dirt and moss crumbling to the ground around him. "DIE!"
As the boulder came hurtling in his direction, Izaya simply jumped into the air, pushing off the boulder as it flew by. "I think we need to work on your aim, Shizu-chan."
"You need to work on DYING FASTER!"
Izaya skipped closer to him, zigzagging around the assorted projectiles that were meant for his head. "In all honesty, I'm not trying to hurt you, Shizu-chan."
"LIKE I'D BELIEVE YOU! You separated me and my brother. There's NO WAY I'm going to trust you, IZAYA!"
"Oh, don't say that; I'm sure we can find some way…" He started walking in a circle around the blond, and the taller boy turned around to keep him within his line of sight.
The game masters watched as Izaya's back moved directly in front of the camera that was watching them from above.
Shizuo's booming voice crackled over the speakers. "NOT IN A MILLION YEARS, FLEA!" They watched as he grabbed a large log and lobbed it in Izaya's direction. Izaya sprinted out of the way, but the log crashed directly into the camera. The picture fizzled, flashed once, then went black.
"Do we have any other cameras in the area?" The man stood up, frantically searching the screens for a view of the two boys.
"Here's one!" An intern brought up a long-distance view of the fight. A small Izaya could still be seen skipping around in circles, and Shizuo was still throwing impossibly heavy objects at random. "I've got a visual, at least. It looks like we're too far away for sound, though."
"We can't hear them." The man narrowed his eyes. "This doesn't feel right."
"If I may say so," said another man, "nothing about these games has felt right."
"Come ooon, Shizu-chan." Another large branch grazed Izaya's ear. "I have a plan, but you need to listen to me."
"Give me ONE GOOD REASON why I should listen to you!"
"Alright, then." He skipped around until he was standing directly behind Shizuo and leaned forward. "Because you're the only one who can win the games, Shizu-chan, and because I know you're the only one who doesn't want to."
With a log suspended in the air, Shizuo paused.
"Sure, you're a tough guy, and a scary guy, and a monster," he ignored the growling and continued, "but I know you don't really like death. If you could get over your freakish temper and insane strength, you wouldn't hurt anyone. Above all, you would never want your baby brother to die. Am I right so far?"
"So WHAT if you're right? There's nothing we can do about it; it's the Hunger Games, after all."
"What if there was? That's a rhetorical question, by the way, in case you didn't catch it."
"And let me guess: YOU have a master plan."
Smiling innocently, Izaya replied, "But of course! Are you ready to hear it?"
The blond continued growling.
"It doesn't just save you and your brother, either. It saves everyone." Izaya waited for his words to sink in, hoping that the boy would see reason.
After what look like a raging internal battle, Shizuo finally sighed and dropped the log he was holding in defeat. "Oh, why not, fl-"
"No, no, no! Pick that up again!" A look of fear flashed across Izaya's face, a look that was supremely out of place.
"Why?"
"Just do it!"
With a look of confusion, Shizuo hefted the log onto his shoulder again. "Everything okay, flea?"
"Right now, the game masters can see us, but not hear us."
"How?"
"I had you knock out a camera for me earlier, so the best they've got is a long distance shot."
"Should've known, I guess."
"If they see you stop trying to kill me, they'll know something's definitely up, and they'll try to kill us both. In other words, I've got limited time, so questions are not encouraged at this moment. Here's the point: this year, if you don't kill anyone, no one will kill you. But, since no one dying would alert the game masters to my plan and make them take us all out with a natural disaster, we're faking it. I talked to all the tributes before the games started, and they're all in on it."
"So the cannons….?"
"Three cannons, only one death. And don't look at me like that; it was her own fault. There's no way I can force a girl to commit suicide."
Shizuo just glared at him.
"Okay, so maybe I can, but the fact of the matter is, she died because she was too much of a wimp to go along with the plan. She's the only one who's actually going to die. Now, throw that log at me; I know you're dying to."
The blond whipped the log in the Izaya's general direction, and the other boy easily dodged.
"Thanks for that. Gotta keep it interesting for our audience."
"I just see one problem with your brilliant plan, Izaya. If everyone's pretending to kill everyone else, how do you know someone's not killing people for real?"
"First of all, I thought we agreed on no questions, Shizu-chan."
"I never agreed to ANYTHING!"
"Fine, fine, have it your way. The answer is the numbers. I cut a number into the inner forearm of every one of the tributes with my flick blade the night before the games. You've just got to keep track of how many tributes have died. If, say, five tributes are 'dead,' and you see someone who's number six, then you have full liberties to fake their murder and remove their tracker right before you do it. I went over the order with most of the tributes before the games started, so the numbers are just a backup. If someone dies out of order, then everyone will know the deal's off, and chaos will break out. Of course, no one's going to want to break the deal, since you've got a 100% chance of living my way, and only about a 4% chance of living through the actual Hunger Games."
"What number am I?"
"Twenty-three. And I'm twenty-four. Are you in?"
"And you're guaranteeing my brother's survival?"
"Absolutely. No one dies if no one kills."
"That's the longest I've ever seen Shizuo go without throwing something."
"That Orihara kid seems to be talking to him."
"I don't like it." The leader, Shiki, stood up. "I don't like it at all." He watched Izaya continue to flit around the screen. "That's it; I want them out of there. Aozaki, it's time for a disaster."
"Avalanche, sir?"
He bit his lip in thought. "No. We'll wait on that one for a bit. How about a small scale forest fire?"
"Yes, sir!"
I never ever ever ever write romance, so apologies for the whole Kasuka/Ruri mess I attempted. Other than that (or you can rag on me for that if you really want to; bring it on), any thoughts/comments? Enjoying yourself so far? I'm having a riot, and we're nowhere close to being finished. *evil grin*
~JW
