DAY ONE ; 9:00 A.M.

Kiyotaka Ishimaru was exhausted. He had stopped in a shrine – C4, if he were to consult his map, and, after making sure that there was nobody around, sat down. His legs were shaking. His torso was a bit heavy, but that was because of his weapon.

To be honest, he had been quite relieved when he opened his bag and saw the Kevlar Vest inside. He would not have to kill any of his classmates. He suspected that he would not be able to kill any of his classmates. And now he could not even accidentally kill a classmate, unless he were to accidentally suffocate them by wrapping the material around their mouth and nose.

But that would be very hard to do accidentally.

There had been one announced death so far. Ishimaru could not believe that it was on purpose. He could not believe that his classmates would kill each other. It was… it was absolutely preposterous!

He heard swearing and ducked out of sight, peering around the side of the shrine. It was Mondo Oowada, with what looked like a katana in one hand. Ishimaru licked his lips. All he had to do was wait it out. Oowada would go soon enough. He had to go. Oowada was quite possibly Ishimaru's least favorite person in his class, and if Oowada saw him… especially if he had a real weapon and not just a bulletproof vest…

A bulletproof vest would do nothing if Oowada cut his head off.

But Oowada didn't leave. He sat down and took a long drink of his water. Ishimaru wanted to tell him that he should conserve water, as he did not know when he was going to get some next, but he held himself back. Perhaps Oowada was just resting.

Perhaps he could leave. But his map was in his bag, and it would be too noisy if he were to take it out. He did not want to accidentally run into a danger zone. So he would wait. It couldn't be too long before-

There was someone up there. Someone creeping along like a cat up in the trees. Blonde hair. Small.

He wasn't totally sure who it was, but he was sure that he needed to warn Oowada.

"Oowada-kun!" he hissed, edging out from his hiding spot. Oowada whirled around, water bottle still at his lips. "There is somebody coming!"

"Holy shit, what the hell – where the fuck did you come from?"

"The shrine," Ishimaru said. "My weapon was a bulletproof vest. Please listen to me Oowada-kun! We need to go!"

"Who is it?"

"I don't know! The person is small and blonde!"

"Saionji?" Oowada guessed. "Fuck. I. Even if you're a stuck-up prick, you're probably telling the truth."

"Why would I not tell the truth?"

"Exactly," Oowada sighed. He stood up, making a show of stretching and slinging his pack over his shoulder. "C'mon, hall monitor."

"Alright, Oowada-kun," Ishimaru said, sending a nervous look back toward where he had seen the person. He hoped that they did not have a gun. He had heard a few gunshots, and he thought that people with guns would most definitely be the most dangerous. He hoped that the blonde person had a blade. "Is that a katana?"

"This shit? Yeah," Oowada said. He tossed it to Ishimaru. "You want it? I can probably do better with my fists."

Ishimaru nodded.

"So, you gonna be any use?" Oowada asked as they got farther away from the shrine. Ishimaru had brought out his map to navigate, holding the pen in his mouth. "Or you just a skinny little hall monitor?"

"I assure you, I will definitely be help," Ishimaru said, voice muffled from the pen in his mouth. He glanced up at Oowada. "Wait. Are you planning on killing people?"

"Fuck, only if I need to," Oowada said. He ran a hand through his hair. It was beginning to come undone. "I wanna hook up with Kuwata and Fujisaki. Find a way out of here. What about you? Anyone you wanna find?"

"I would not be against finding Naegi-kun," Ishimaru mused. "However, I am afraid I do not have many friends. Perhaps someone else who does not seem to have many friends, such as Fukawa-kun. Or Komaeda-kun."

Oowada shuddered. "Komaeda freaks me out."

"I believe that is why he does not have many friends."

Oowada snorted. "And you want to team up with people like that. People who are gonna try and kill other people, because they don't have any friends."

"Do you think I am going to kill people?"

"Well, no, but fuck, your whole thing is following rules. An' it's against the law to kill people, ain't that right? So you'd never do it."

"And there's the reason of it being completely immoral. The rules are to kill in this game."

"That too," Oowada said. "But, hell, you're a lot different from Fukawa an' Komaeda."

"Komaeda is a very motivated individual."

"Motivated to be creepy as fuck."

"Perhaps him and Hinata have 'hooked up.'"

"I don't know what context you're usin' that in and it's weird as hell."

Ishimaru sighed and kept a hold on Oowada's weapon. He was quite happy that Oowada trusted him enough to give him the weapon, but it made him more on edge. He could not forget the blonde person he had seen back at the shrine – now that he thought about it, he was more and more convinced that it was Saionji. It could be nobody else – both Sonia Nevermind and Byakuya Togami were blonde, but neither of them were that small. There was nobody that small apart from Saionji, or perhaps Fujisaki – but the person had been much blonder than Fujisaki, whose hair was a bit more brownish. Also, Ishimaru was almost totally certain that Fujisaki would not be scrambling around in trees.

"Here will be far enough from any danger zone," Ishimaru decided. "There is a small shack nearby, according to the map."

"Someone probably already took it," Oowada snorted. "We can look into it later. 'm beat."

29 STUDENTS REMAINING

So, no deaths in this week's group of chapters, but I do have a lot planned, so, there's that.