“Heartless” Mei Kuroki (Third-year Class B) Rank A+
Every last one was an irredeemable psychopath.
One had cut up people into tiny pieces with a knife, another had gouged out someone’s eyes and made the person eat them, another had drawn graffiti art on the street with blood and entrails, another had thrown a living victim into a sulfuric acid bath—just a quick look over the data regarding their bizarre crimes was enough to send a chill down his spine.
And these were the kind of opponents that Kyousuke and the others would soon be up against…
“Hey, look. This Arisugawa girl is super cute, yeah?! And so is Kuroki! I mean, she’s high-ranking all around. She’s an A in the looks department, too. No half measures!”
“Hee-hee-hee… They should make a student directory ranking all the girls’ boobs from A to G… Hee-hee-hee-hee…”
“Wow, I’m suddenly feeling rather motivated! Personally, I feel like this Haruyo girl might be a dark horse. Judging from her name she seems half-Japanese, and her measurements are perfect. Unfortunately we can’t see her face, but that worked out with Renko.”
“Huh? Do NOT even tell me that you’re still, like, into her, Shinji? If you take it to the next level and start fooling around with that bitch, I am seriously going to kill you.”
“Tee-hee. If Miss Bitch is rank S, then big brother must be an S+, right? I don’t think any of these upperclassmen are as strong as they look. They shouldn’t be any trouble at all. My big brother will kill them all before any of us even have to get involved!”
“No, no…”
It seemed that the only two students feeling nervous were Kyousuke and—
“Ehhh?! We’re g-g-g-g-g-gonna fight against…th-th-th-th-th-these people?! That’s impossible—it’s completely impossible! No matter how many lives we had, it wouldn’t be enough!”
“…Fwah.”
—Kyousuke and Maina. Eiri didn’t even bother reading the Red List.
As the classroom burst into an uproar, Kurumiya shouted, “Quiet!” and silence instantly descended.
“Really… It’s fine to be brave, but if you idiots take them lightly, it’ll be a bloodbath. You’ve only got seventeen people. That places a lot of responsibility on each and every one of you. There have been instances in which some classes were totally annihilated before making it to the final game. Don’t let your guard down, piggies!”
Together, the students gave a spirited answer.
“““Yes, ma’am!”””
Tightening up the lax atmosphere, Kurumiya continued, “That’s better. Don’t be negligent! I expect a lot out of you all. Especially Kamiya and Akabane, as they have the potential to compete with that group on the Red List. If this class fights together with those two as the linchpin, you might just stand a chance. Also—”
Kurumiya paused, staring intently at “a certain person.” Everyone else’s eyes naturally followed.
“U-um…what is it, Miss?” Maina asked, blinking her big eyes in confusion.
“Accidental Assassin, Black Pandora, Maina Igarashi, I have certain expectations for you as well! It would not be an exaggeration to say that the victory of first-year Class A depends on your efforts.”
“Huh…?” Maina froze, looking momentarily petrified. And then—
“Huhhhhhhhhh?! M-m-m-m-m-meeeeeeeeeeee?!”
She fell right out of her chair.
“Yeah,” Kurumiya agreed and looked down at Maina, who had landed on her backside. “It’s you, Igarashi. Your mind is dull and so are your reflexes, your physical abilities are below average, and your spirit is frail. You’re shaken up by the slightest thing, and you repeat your mistakes many times over… Your impediments are your strong point, because you are going to sabotage every other team! If this goes well, that alone may gain us more ground than Kamiya and Akabane.”
“Eh?! U-um—”
Ignoring Maina’s flustering, Kurumiya went on. “That said, if it doesn’t go well, we’ll be the ones to take a serious blow, so we won’t know how the chips fall until they do. Will we win thanks to you, or will we lose because of you? I’m hoping for the former. If by some chance it is the latter, when that happens—do you understand?”
“Eek?!” The color drained from Maina’s face at both the intimidating tone and the solemn threat. “Ah, aaahhh…” Her eyes were open wide, and her teeth were chattering.
Maina was on edge even at the best of times, but with the heavy pressure of “the victory of first-year Class A” weighing on her, she seemed as if she might collapse at any moment.
Leaving Maina dumbfounded, Kurumiya returned to the podium. “…Well then. I suppose these three people are the key. Besides them, we have the clever Saotome, and Oonogi with his good reflexes. There’s the agile and nimble Usami, and Tomonaga who knows no fear. And Miss Kamiya, who has no equal when it comes to malicious scheming… We’ll have to build our tactics around these key people—”
“I am not malicious!”
“Now we’d better get on to choosing the participants for each game,” Kurumiya growled, ignoring Ayaka’s raised hand. It was time to get down to business. “Now, there are bound to be a lot of dropouts before the second half, so we’ll play that by ear. What’s essential is the first half. Let’s narrow the focus to the games we’ll concentrate on. Program number six, the Calamity Arms Race, and number eight—”
* * *
“Hyah-haaaaaa! I’m back, Kurumiya cutieeeeee!”
Just then, a lone male student kicked open the classroom’s front door. Kurumiya froze as everyone’s eyes gravitated to the entryway.
“……What the hell is that?” Kyousuke muttered.
His classmates also reacted in the same way.
Kurumiya alone remained composed as she handed the newcomer a printout. “Ah. So you’ve finally returned, Mohawk.”
This person who had intruded on their classroom—the male student with leaves and branches stuck all over his body, his piercing-covered face filthy with mud—Kurumiya called him by name.
“……Mo…hawk?”
As the class stared fixedly at him, it gradually became clear that this was indeed Mohawk. His trademark bright red Mohawk hairstyle was dyed moss green to match his camouflage jumpsuit. What on earth had this problem child been up to…?
“…And?” Kurumiya asked, ignoring the bewildered students. “I suppose you’ve done what you were sent to do?”
“Heh-heh-heh! Of course I have, my honey. Here’s the loot you asked for!”
Mohawk crawled forward toward her and handed Kurumiya a memo notebook. Its front cover was the same camouflage color as his clothing, with big red letters reading SECRET.
“Oh? Well, if you didn’t just get it done! Let’s see now—” Flipping through the notebook and confirming its contents, Kurumiya raised one eyebrow. “Well done.”
“Hyah-haaaaaaaaaaaa!” Mohawk howled with delight at Kurumiya, who was flashing her canines. Seizing the opportunity, he edged even closer and looked up at his teacher with wistful eyes. “Hey, hey, Kurumiya baaaaaaby. I worked hard, right?”
“Yes, indeed.” Kurumiya nodded and put her right hand behind her back.
“I carried out my top-secret mission, right?”
“Yep.” Kurumiya nodded and gripped her special weapon, which was concealed in the back of her suit.
“Which means I can get a reward, right?!”
“I don’t think so!” Kurumiya lashed o
ut with the deadly iron pipe, smashing Mohawk on the side of the head.
“Abwuaa?!” Mohawk went flying.
Tapping the iron pipe on her shoulder, Kurumiya stepped on Mohawk’s head as he lay bleeding on the floor and glared down at him. “Whaddya mean by reward, huh? I thought I told you, Mohawk… When my class takes the top spot at the athletic festival, then I’ll give you an extraordinary reward, I said. Has that goal been achieved? Not yet? Hmm?!
“If you have time to make requests, then I’ll put you to work, maggot!” Kurumiya barked, swinging the pipe in both hands like a golf club. “Launch a kamikaze attack against an enemy class and stir up trouble there until you pass out or, if I’m lucky, until you dieeeeee!”
“Aye, aye, siiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrr!!”
Mohawk, who had been struck on the cheek by Kurumiya’s golf swing, was sent flying again, disappearing out the open door. From the hallway there came the sound of something smashing.
“Go away!” Kurumiya shouted. After closing the door, she returned to the lectern. She turned to face Kyousuke and the others, who sat astonished and confused as to why she was so angry. “…Hmph. You’d think he was completely useless, but somehow, contrary to all expectations, he’s surprisingly helpful! Heh-heh-heh… Hey, you bastards, good news. I’ve got my hands on some information.”
“—Information?”
“Mm. I sent off that garbage idiot—sure that no one would mind if he died—and had him investigate each class’s command structure, tactics, and practice schedule, among other things. The one who controls the information controls the battle—based on this data, we will be able to construct the ideal strategy.”
“““…………”””
Kurumiya’s eyes were formidable. She was serious about securing a victory.
Apparently, one of the older classes was holding training camp at the House of Limbo, and Mohawk had even headed out to that distant location. That was probably why they hadn’t seen much of him lately.
Mohawk always runs riot, doing whatever he pleases… I wonder if the reason he’s being so unusually obedient has something to do with that “reward” that’s being dangled in front of him…
“The reward I’m going to give to Mohawk? Death, of course. Heh-heh-heh… I’ll make good use of him, then finish him off myself in the end.”
“““”””
That was just like Kurumiya. She was unbelievably brutal.
Kyousuke and the others found it impossible to suppress their feelings of sympathy for the mistreated Mohawk.
“All right, we’ve got three days left until the big event! I wonder who from our class will fall in battle… It’s half-exciting and half-scary!”
It was after school on the eleventh day of training. Shinji, sitting on top of the lectern, had suddenly delivered this ill-omened statement.
Fiddling with her nails at her desk, Eiri snorted. “…Hmph. It’s already set, of course. No one’s going to die. Are you stupid?”
“Heh-heh. That would be good, wouldn’t it? Although personally, I’d like you to die, Eiri. Or else Ayaka or Maina, I’d even give Tomomi a warm welcome! Because I’d get to make good use of you all. Ee-hee-hee-hee-hee!”
“…I take back what I said. You should be the one to die, creepo-philiac.”
“We probably ought to kill him ourselves, right? We’d lose a little of our fighting strength, but he’s so gross, I think it would be worth it. Weapon, weapon, where’s a weapon when you need one—?”
“Oh dear! You can’t, Ayaka! Please don’t search for a deadly weapon like it’s a pair of misplaced glasses!”
“Hold up… Why am I last again?! I literally cannot even believe that shit! And after I accepted you despite your freaky fetish… Shinji, you’re cruel…like, really sick… I’ll cut my wrists…” Tomomi slumped over Eiri’s desk as well, sawing back and forth across her wrist with a ruler.
“…Huh? What do you think you’re doing? That’s not even yours.”
Her bad joke had been shut down, but Tomomi just laughed and slapped Eiri’s back. “Kyah-ha-ha! Thanks for the sick comeback, Eiri hun.”
Eiri just frowned.
It had been ten days since practice for the athletic festival had started, and Kyousuke and the others had begun mingling more with their classmates. They had gradually opened up even to Shinji’s group—a group that had been hostile since the beginning of school—and vice versa.
If you could somehow manage to ignore that they were all murderers, they were a surprisingly easy group to get along with, and during break times they chatted with Kyousuke’s group and carried on amicably.
It was weird, but it seemed as if the two groups had held on to their animosity toward each another for so long only because they had made it a point to avoid any contact. Actually, each group had secretly wondered what the other was like.
Of course, it doesn’t change the fact that they’re all just fine with killing people, so I don’t really feel the need to get any closer to them than I absolutely have to…
Kyousuke kept that thought to himself during their sessions of friendly banter.
“But here’s the thing,” Shinji mumbled, looking over the handout that Kurumiya had distributed. “As far as we can tell from reading the student catalog, nobody has really killed all that many people, right? Shamaya has by far the greatest number of murders, but aside from her the most anyone’s killed is eight people. Next is seven, and after that six… There aren’t that many who have killed more than three people. Most have killed just one or two.”
He broke into a faint but fearless smile. “If you just look at the number of kills, the situation isn’t as dire as we thought, right? Plus the upperclassmen who killed eight people did it together in a group of three. Kamiya, who killed twelve people, is second in the school, and Eiri, who killed six people, is practically fifth in the school!”
“Ohhh. That means we’re the favorites anyway? We’re totally good, first-year Class A!”
“No, no…”
They hadn’t revealed it to Shinji and his group, but both Kyousuke and Eiri had a kill count of zero, and they didn’t want anyone to depend on them. To start with…
“Numbers don’t necessarily equal strength, right?” Eiri interjected coldly. “Kurumiya said, ‘If you underestimate them, you’ll die.’ The upperclassmen are way more capable than we are, so if we start to let our guard down like that, I think we’ll have a bit of a problem.”
““………””
Shinji went quiet.
Eiri stopped fiddling with her nails and frowned. “…What?”
Shinji and Tomomi looked at each other.
“W-well…how should I put this, um…”
“…It’s…kinda freaky? Definitely not like you, Eiri—”
“Hey, hey, did ya hear that, Usami?! Just now Eiri gave a totally normal opinion! Prolly cuz she ranked lowest in our grade on the tests. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
“—Huh?”
Instantly, Eiri’s demeanor changed. She stared daggers at Oonogi with her sharp, half-lidded, rust-red eyes. “What did you say? Try saying that one more time, Sunglasses…”
Oonogi, who had been scribbling on the blackboard with Usami—sketching a portrait of the group of girls without the slightest attempt to make the pictures at all accurate—began to visibly panic as Eiri slowly stood up.
“Ah?! No, um, it’s just like you said, Eiri! I also think that the kill count’s got nothin’ to do with it, and that test scores don’t always equal smartness, and huge boobs don’t always equal stupid. Look, you’ve got tiny boobs, but you’re still dumb, right? Ha-ha-ha…”
Eiri turned a bright, furious red. “Just die alreadyyy!”
Oonogi dropped his smug grin and screamed, tossing away the chalk as he fled out the classroom door.
“Huh?! Wait—” Eiri was about to chase after him, when—
“Fgyah?!” Leaping out into the hallway, Oonogi slammed into something solid. He was sent spraw
ling.
“Ah, shit…owww?! Look where you’re walking, you—” Oonogi started to shout but looked up and stopped. “Ah, uh…u-ummm…” At a loss for words, he scooted out of sight behind the classroom wall, still on his backside.
Looming there was—
A male student wearing an ivory-white gas mask.
“………”
Dressed in a blue T-shirt reading GMK48 and tracksuit pants, Renji looked down apathetically at the scene before him. His right arm, which had been mangled by Kurumiya so badly that the bones had been exposed not even two weeks earlier, was now completely healed, without so much as a scar.
“W-watch where yer going!” Oonogi threatened while Renji simply stood, unmoving. “Does this guy not know to look ahead when he walks?! H-hey…whaddya…whaddya have to say for yourself? I’ll kill ya!”
“………”
Renji offered no response. He just wordlessly took one step forward—
“Eee?! Just wait…wait! It was a lie, a lie, a lie! L-l-l-l-l-let’s talk this out… L-let’s talk… So, so-so-sorry, I’m sorryyyyyy!” Oonogi’s voice cracked into a falsetto as he hastily apologized.
Unconcerned with Oonogi, Renji continued walking away down the hallway. Finally, when Renji had passed by their classroom and was fairly far away…Oonogi, unable to stand for fear and surprise, crawled back into the room.
“…Welcome back. What are you so scared of?” Eiri asked in an exasperated tone. “You’re a mess.”
“B, b-b-b-b, but…!” Oonogi was on the verge of tears. His sunglasses had slipped out of place, and he carried on without even stopping to fix them. “That guy, he was unbelievably hard!! It’s terrifying! I thought he was made outta concrete or something. Plus, that air of intimidation… I thought he was gonna strangle me!! He’s really something else, that gas mask guy… Now I know what it feels like to be an ant trampled underfoot by a mammoth!”
“Well, that’s an exaggeration.” Looking down at Oonogi from the lectern, Shinji waved his hand dismissively. “His body certainly is big, and since he’s an exchange student, he does not appear on Kurumiya’s list, which makes me uneasy. However, remember this, Arata. We in first-year Class A have the behemoth known as Kyousuke Kamiya on our side! If we make use of Kamiya’s superior power, it’ll be an easy victory, an easy victory, I say!”
Murder Machine and the Catastrophic Athletic Festival Page 6