Battle Royale (53 page)

Satomi's Uzi burst out. It wasn't clear whether she pulled the trigger intentionally or whether it was from her nerves twitching. Rows of bullets tore along the floor and pierced Haruka's body which got tossed over and back. A bloody mist burst upward, nearly tearing off Haruka's neck above her metal collar.

Satomi's body fell forward slowly and landed with a thud over Yuka Nakagawa's corpse. She remained absolutely still.

Completely alone in the room, Yuko just kept on trembling. Her body was stiff as a rock. With the look of a child wandering into a freakish museum exhibition, she gazed at the floor covered with the corpses of five of her classmates.

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When he heard the shattering sound, Shuya just thought, oh, one of those clumsy girls must have dropped a dish, but when the sound was followed by an argument, he got up from his bed.

He felt a sharp pain run through the left side of his stomach and his shoulder blade. Shuya groaned, but using his right arm he managed to get out of the bed and stepped onto the floor with his bare feet. He was only wearing his school uniform pants. The heated argument continued. He thought he heard Yukie shouting.

Shuya walked over to the door and put his hand on the doorknob. The knob turned and as he pushed…the door seemed blocked. Through the one-centimeter gap he could see a wooden plank diagonally set against the door. As Yukie had warned him, they had constructed a makeshift bolt lock.

Shuya grabbed the doorknob and shook it vigorously several times, but the door wouldn't budge. He poked his fingers through the gap, but the plank, set against the door, refused to move.

On the verge of giving up, he took a deep breath when he heard the all-too-familiar rattling sound through the gap. There were several screams.

Shuya turned pale. Were they being attacked…but if that was…in any case, something was wrong!

Shuya managed to keep his injured body from tottering over. He raised his right foot and kicked the door with the heel of his bare foot, using the front kick technique he'd learned from Hiroki. But the door easily spurned his kick, throwing him off balance. He fell back onto the floor and felt a searing pain go up his side. He also realized he needed to pee, but that would have to wait.

BRRATTA. More rattling. And then more BRRATTA.

Shuya turned back to the bed, stood up, and lifted the edge of the bed that was made of steel pipes with his right hand. The bed landed on its side with a thud and the blanket and sheets slid off.

Shuya dragged the bed, pressed one end against the door, and went around to the other end. He then shoved it against the door with all his might. The door made a cracking sound. One more shove.

Bang. Gunfire. This time, one shot.

The bed pummeled into the wooden door. The door bent in half with a crack and opened into the hall.

Shuya yanked the bed from the front of the door with his right hand and let it fall against the floor.

The typewriter-like rattling gunfire was now clearly audible through the open door.

Shuya came out into the hall. The shades were drawn on the windows that had been nailed shut with wooden planks so the unlit hall was dim. The entrance was on his left. There were three doors down the hall on his right. The far door was slightly ajar, and light leaked into the hall, forming what looked like a cold puddle of light.

Shuya picked up one of the longer pieces of broken planks in front of the door, approximately one meter long. He dragged his aching body down the hall. It was completely quiet now. What the hell happened?

Did someone attack, or…

Shuya cautiously approached the door. He peeked through the gap and saw the room with kitchen equipment where Yukie Utsumi and Haruka Tanizawa were sprawled out by the center table. Beyond them was Yuka Nakagawa (what's up with that face!). Chisato Matsui was against the wall on the right.

Someone was lying face down in the shadow of the table. That someone had to be Satomi Noda, because the relatively thin body standing still with her back towards him and silky, straight, shoulder-length hair belonged to—unless Shuya was mistaken—Yuko Sakaki.

There were several guns scattered around the collapsed bodies of Yukie's group. He was assaulted by the stench of blood splattered across the floor.

Shuya froze in shock. That overwhelming numbness was identical to the way he felt when he saw Mayumi Tendo's body right in front of the school.

What happened? How could this have happened? Yukie who had just said to him, "You might want to listen to the girl who's in love with you," was lying over there. Four others had fallen too. Were they dead? Did they die?

Yuko, her back facing Shuya, didn't have a gun. She was just standing still like a Venusian suddenly dropped onto Pluto.

Shuya was in a daze as he slowly clutched the doorknob, opened the door, and stepped into the room.

Yuko turn around. She gazed at Shuya with bloodshot eyes, but then went for the gun lying on the floor between Yukie and Haruka.

Shuya also came out of his daze. He tossed the plank he'd been holding with his uninjured arm the way he'd pitch a perfect fastball in Little League. (He wasn't sure anymore whether such a game existed on earth. It seemed to take place on a distant planet in the remote Andromeda Galaxy where the inhabitants played this game using three arms out of five, although the use of one's tail was permitted in the final inning.)

His body suddenly ached all over, and he grimaced. The plank hit the floor right in front of Yuko and bounced up. Yuko stopped as she shielded her face with her hand and fell back onto the bloody floor.

Shuya dashed for the gun. He knew that in this chaos Yuko holding a gun would only make matters worse.

Yuko shrieked and retreated. She got up, turned around, and ran to the other side of the room. She passed by the table and disappeared through an open door further down. There was a metallic clang.

Were they…stairs?

Shuya gazed over there for a moment after she disappeared. But then he dashed over to Yukie and knelt down beside her.

He could tell her chest was ridden with holes. The blood was oozing out under her body already, and her eyes were shut peacefully as if she were sleeping. Her mouth was barely open—

She wasn't breathing anymore.

"Ahh," Shuya cried. He reached out his uninjured right hand to her peaceful face. He felt tears welling up for the first time ever since the game began. Was it because they'd just talked minutes ago? Or was it because of what she'd said:

"I just wouldn't know what to do if you died....Do you understand what I'm saying? Do you?"

Her tearful but relieved face. Her melancholic face. And now her oddly peaceful face right beside him.

He looked around. There was no need to check. Yuka Nakagawa's face had changed color. A bloody foam dripped from her mouth. Satomi Noda lay face down, a puddle of blood under her head. Chisato Matsui's back was covered with bullet holes, and Haruka Tanizawa…her neck was nearly torn off.

How could…how could this be…

Shuya looked back at Yukie. His nearly paralyzed left arm supported his right arm so he could hold her up. It might have been a meaningless gesture. But Shuya had to do it.

As he held her body, he heard the blood dripping onto the floor from the holes in her chest. Her head hung back and her braided hair touched his arm.

"Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Shuya burst into tears as they fell onto her uniform.

"Ungh," Shuya bit his lip and gently let her down onto the floor. He picked up the Browning Yuko had attempted to grab. He walked to the door at the far end of the room where Yuko had gone. His body felt incredibly heavy. It wasn't just because he was injured. He wiped his eyes with his bare right arm, which was also holding the Browning.

He entered. It was a cylindrical space made of bare concrete. The tower. This was the lighthouse. There was a thick steel column in the center and a spiral steel staircase winding around it. There were no windows, only a sliver of light from above.

"Yuko!" Shuya yelled. He began climbing the stairs as he yelled, "What happened, Yuko!?"

Yuko wasn't there at the top of the stairs. But…he heard the sound of her scream "AIEEE" echo through the cylindrical space of the tower. Shuya knit his brows…and began quickly climbing the stairs. The wound in his side began to ache. He thought he might be bleeding because his bandages now felt damp.

9 students remaining

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Yuko Sakaki ran out of breath as she climbed up the stairs to the top of the lighthouse. The Cyclops-like Fresnel lens was at the center of the landing, and there was enough space to move around it. She saw the cloudy sky beyond the windproof windows of the lantern room. On her left was a low door that led to a narrow balcony, and frantically she opened it. She was outside now.

Maybe it was the height, but the wind was stronger than she'd expected. She caught a strong whiff of the sea breeze.

The ocean was right there in front of her. Reflecting the cloudy sky, the sea was dull indigo, and the white waves were woven into it like some fabric. Yuko edged over to the right. The northern mountain was right in front of her. There was a small, open lot in front of the lighthouse building. On her left an unpaved road stretched out around the foot of the mountain, and there was a white light truck right by a barely functional gate in front of the road.

Yuko held onto the steel handrailing around the balcony. The room she was inside only moments ago was down below. She saw the roof of the single-story building annex. Following the railing, she continued circling the lantern room, but didn't find what she thought she would—a steel ladder. Yuko never had the chance to keep watch so she didn't know the exterior of the lighthouse. There was no way out. She was standing, facing the sky. She was trapped now. Realizing this, she was about to panic, but she clenched her teeth and held herself together. If there was no ladder… then she'd have to jump.

She was panting. She ended up returning to her previous position. She looked down again.

It was high. It wasn't as bad as leaping to the ground, but it was still high. In fact, it might have been impossible to jump at this height, but before she could make a rational choice the image flashed across her mind again. This time it was
her
head, alone, split open. Blood spraying up. Shuya's face covered with its blood. She had to escape. No matter what. She just had to escape. She had no time to lose.

Yuko crouched down and slid between the haphazardly installed steel fence. Its bars were widely spaced. She got through. Holding onto the railing from outside, she cautiously stood on the edge of the balcony barely ten centimeters wide, but…

…the view below her feet made her dizzy. It was way too high…jumping down was out of the question…it was just way too high…

Her view suddenly shook. Her feet slipped. The side of her shin hit the concrete edge of the balcony (she felt her skin scraping off), and Yuko's body flew out into the sky. "AIEEE," Yuko shrieked.

Simultaneously, her hands groped around and managed to grab a thin steel bar from the steel fence.

Yuko's body hung from the edge of the balcony.

Holding onto the railing, Yuko was panting. She nearly…nearly died.

However, she took a deep breath and put all her might into her hands. First, that's right, first she had to lift her body up and get back to the other side of the railing. Then she would have to figure out some way to fight Shuya Nanahara. That was the only—

The strong wind whistled by and shook her body. She shrieked, "AIEEE," but it didn't do much. Her hands clutching onto the steel bar slipped, and now the palms of her hands barely managed to hold onto the edge of the balcony. Now she couldn't even reach for the steel bars.

She was appalled to find her palms were oozing sweat. She was overcome with fear and panic. How, how, how, how could she be sweating now? Her hands…her hands were slipping___

Her right pinky slipped off the edge of the balcony.

"No!" Yuko screamed. Then her ring finger. Then her entire right hand fell off the railing (she felt the nail of her index finger catch, but it peeled off and that was that). Her body swung, her left hand now the fulcrum. And now her left hand too…

"Ahhhhhh—" As she screamed, Yuko was overwhelmed with a dreamlike sensation that she was falling.

But then she felt an impact run down her arm to her shoulder. Her fall came to a halt less than half a meter below.

Swinging like a pendulum on her left arm, Yuko gazed up…and then saw Shuya Nanahara beyond the railing extending his body, stretching his right arm out, holding her wrist.

For an instant Yuko gazed at Shuya's face, but then the next moment she screamed, "No—!"

Of course if she let go she would die, but it was Shuya Nanahara holding her hand!

"No! No!"

Her eyes wide open, her hair tossed around, Yuko continued screaming as she wondered, why? Why are you trying to save me? Is it because you want to use me to survive? Or, oh, I get it. You want to kill me with your very own hands!

"No! Let me go!" Yuko screamed. Any trace of rational thought had all but disappeared. "No! I'd rather die here than let you kill me! Let me go! Let me go!"

Whatever he thought in reaction, or maybe he wasn't thinking at all, in any case, his expression stayed the same, and he yelled, "Don't move!"

Yuko gazed up at Shuya again…and realized the bandage under the silver collar covering his neck wound oozed with blood now dripping down his bare shoulder.

The blood dripped down his arm and reached her left hand.

"Ugh," Shuya moaned. He gripped Yuko's hand tighter. His face was breaking into a sweat. That's right, it wasn't just his neck, his entire body was covered with severe wounds. Given how he was not only holding her entire weight with his right arm but attempting to pull her up, he had to be in incredible pain.

Yuko's jaw dropped. Why? Why would you try to save me when you're in so much pain? That's—

Strangely enough, it suddenly all came to her. The black mist clouding her thoughts suddenly cleared as if blown away by the sea breeze blowing against her body. The image of Shuya holding the blood-soaked axe, looking down at Tatsumichi Oki's corpse, suddenly vanished as if shredded by the wind, and all her previous (although it was only two days ago) memories of the Third Year Class B classroom along with the cheerful expressions of Shuya Nanahara came back to her. How he joked around with his friends Yoshitoki Kuninobu and Shinji Mimura, how he looked so serious repeating a difficult guitar line while practicing in the music room, how he posed triumphantly at second base after making a perfect hit down the third base line during gym class, which she managed to see from the gym where she was playing volleyball. And then when she was pale from menstrual cramps, how he'd gently said to her, "What's wrong, Yuko? You look pale," interrupted their English teacher Mr. Yamamoto, and called on the nurse's assistant, Fumiyo Fujiyoshi. How he looked so concerned then.