Battle Royale (Remastered)

by Koushun Takami, Nathan Collins

  "Whoops, I really did it now," Sakamochi said. "Sorry, everyone. It's against the rules for the teacher to kill his students."

  He closed his eyes and scratched his head. Then, his expression suddenly plain again, he said, "But no more doing anything without permission. That includes whispering. I don't want to have to do it, but if you talk in class ... I have plenty of knives."

  Shuya gritted his teeth and told himself, Wait. Two of his classmates were dead already, their corpses sprawled on the floor. Again and again, he repeated it to himself. Wait.

  But Yoshitoki's face kept drawing his eyes in. He couldn't help it. He felt ready to cry.

  40 STUDENTS REMAIN.

  "I'll explain the rules," Sakamochi said, his voice again cheerful.

  Unlike the already dried blood of their teacher, "Dragonfly" Hayashida, Yoshitoki Kuninobu's blood was fresh, the smell of it thick in the air. Shuya couldn't see Fumiyo Fujiyoshi's face from where he sat, but she didn't seem to be bleeding much.

  "As you all may already know," Sakamochi said, "the rules are simple. Kill one another. That's it. No holds barred." Sakamochi beamed a smile. "And only the sole survivor will be able to go home. And you'll even get a signed card from the Great Leader. Pretty cool, right?"

  In his mind, Shuya spat.

  "You all might think those are some harsh rules. But the unexpected will happen—that's what life is. Listen, if you're going to manage life's accidents, you need to keep a good grip on yourself. Think of this as practice for that. An exercise, okay? Also, in the name of gender equality, there will be no handicaps for the boys or girls. But I do have good news for the girls. According to actual Program results, 49 percent of the past winners have been girls. If they can do it, so can you. You have nothing to fear."

  Sakamochi signaled, and the camouflaged trio began carrying in large black nylon daypacks from the hall. The backpacks soon formed a large pile beside Mr. Hayashida's body bag. Some of them bulged out at angles, as if they might contain a pole-shaped object.

  "One at a time, you will each leave here," Sakamochi explained. "But before you depart, you'll be given one of these bags, inside which you will find some food and water, and a weapon. Every bag has a unique weapon. You see, as I said before, you all come into this with differing capabilities, and this way, we can add a little . . . factor of uncertainty. If that sounds confusing, let me put it another way. We're adding things into the experiment without knowing their effects. Now, we have not predetermined which of you will receive which weapon. As each of you leaves, we'll take one bag from the top and hand it to you. Also inside your pack will be a map of this island, a compass, and a watch. Raise your hand if you don't already have a watch. Nobody? Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you—we are on an island. It's just about six kilometers around. This is the island's first time as the venue for the Program, but everyone has cleared out for us. There is no one else here."

  Sakamochi turned to the blackboard and took a stick of chalk. Next to where he had written his own name, he sketched a large, rounded diamond shape. Above it and to the right, he drew an upward-facing arrow and the letter N. Just to the right of the diamond's center, he made an X. With his chalk still pressed to the blackboard, he looked over his shoulder to speak.

  "All right, this is the island's school. Got it? That's where we are." Sakamochi tapped his chalk against the X. "I'll be staying here the whole time, watching over you."

  Next he drew four spindle shapes, one in each cardinal direction.

  "These are ships," Sakamochi said. "They have the very important job of shooting anyone who tries to escape by sea."

  Now he drew several parallel vertical and horizontal lines across the island, making it look like a misshapen wire mesh grill. Sakamochi labeled each square, starting at the top left, "Al," then "A2," and so on, continuing in the next row with "Bl," then "B2," and so forth.

  "This is just a quick sketch," Sakamochi explained, "but the map inside your pack is along the same lines."

  He set down the chalk and clapped the dust from his hands. "All right, so, when you leave here, you'll be free to go where you please. But I will make announcements, broadcast throughout the island, at twelve and six, day and night. That's four times a day. I'll be letting you know which zones, according to your maps, will be dangerous, from what time. Take a good look at your maps, refer to your compasses and the topography, and hurry away from those areas!

  "And why is that, you ask?" Sakamochi placed his hands on the lectern and looked around at the students' faces. "That's right—the collars on each of your necks."

  Several of the students must have not yet noticed the collars, because they touched their hands to their necks and looked startled.

  "Those collars," Sakamochi said, "are the result of our Republic's advanced technologies. Completely waterproof, shockproof—No, hey, stop, stop, you can't take it off. It won't come off. And if you try to force it loose . . Sakamochi winced. "It'll explode."

  The students who had been fidgeting with their collars quickly dropped their hands.

  Grinning broadly, Sakamochi continued. "Those collars monitor the electrical signals emitted by your heartbeat and inform the computers inside this school whether you're alive or dead. They also can identify your location on the island, which brings us back to the map."

  He gestured toward the blackboard with his right hand. "Those same computers will be randomly determining the dangerous areas before I announce them to you. And if any of you stay in those zones past the determined time—oh, just those of you still living; the dead ones won't matter—if you remain in one of the forbidden zones, the computers will automatically recognize it and will send a signal of their own back to your collar."

  "And," Sakamochi said, giving a dramatic pause, though Shuya felt he knew what was coming. "The collar will explode."

  Shuya had been right.

  Sakamochi stopped to gauge the students' expressions. Then, after a short time, he said, "But maybe you're wondering why we have that rule. Well, if everyone just found their own spot to hide, the game wouldn't progress. So we're going to make you move about. And the areas you can move in will shrink, smaller and smaller. That's why."

  Sakamochi had called this a game. As despicable as it was, the word fit. And though nobody said a word, they all seemed to get the rules.

  "I want to make sure you fully understand," Sakamochi said. "Going inside a building won't help you. Neither will digging a hole. The signal will still reach you. Oh, and that reminds me, you're free to hide inside any of the buildings, but phones have all been disabled. You can't call your mom and dad. You're in this battle alone, just as in life. Also, though we start without any forbidden zones that would trigger your explosive collars, this school is an exception. Twenty minutes after the last of you leaves, this will become a forbidden zone, so be sure to distance yourself from here first. Get two hundred meters away. All right? And in each announcement, I'll read the names of the students who died over the previous six hours. Though the announcements will occur at regular six-hour intervals, when there is only one student left, I will inform them by broadcast. Oh, and one more thing. There is a time limit. Did you hear me? A time limit. In the Program, students die, but if there's ever a twenty-four-hour period with no deaths, time's up. No matter how many are still alive . . ."

  Shuya saw this one coming too.

  "The computers will do their thing, and all of the survivors' collars will explode. There will be no winner."

  Right again.

  Sakamochi stopped speaking, and silence returned to the classroom. The smell of Yoshitoki Kuninobu's blood remained heavy in the air, and the students still seemed in a daze. They were afraid, though unable to fully comprehend their situation—that they were about to be thrown into a killing game.

  Sakamochi, sensing their collective mood, clapped his hands. "Well, that's it for the tedious details. What I'm about to tell you next is more important. A bit of advice. Some of you might conside
r it preposterous to kill your own classmates. But don't you forget: the others—they're ready to kill."

  Shuya wanted to scream Bullshit! But Fumiyo Fujiyoshi's execution for talking in class left him with no choice but to restrain himself.

  Everyone remained quiet, but something had changed, and Shuya saw it.

  The students were looking around, their eyes sweeping across each other's pale faces. But whenever two gazes met, each hastily looked away to Sakamochi. This episode only went on for a few seconds, but even after it passed, the looks on their faces remained—expressions taut with paranoia and fear. Expressions that wondered if the boy or girl beside them was ready to kill. Only Shinji Mimura and a few others appeared calm.

  Shuya gritted his teeth. Damn it, he thought. That's just what these bastards want you to do! Come on, think, all of you—we're friends. There's no way we could kill each other!

  "All right then," Sakamochi said, "let's make sure you got the message. Inside your desk is paper and a pencil. Take them out."

  The students shifted uneasily in their seats and withdrew their paper and pencils. Shuya decided to go along with it for now.

  "Okay," Sakamochi said, "I want you to write this down. If you want to remember something, you have to right it down. 'We will kill each other.' Write it three times."

  Shuya heard the scratching of pencils taken to paper, and he could see Noriko gripping hers. Her expression remained grim. He started to scrawl down the insane mantra, when halfway through, his eyes flicked to Yoshitoki's corpse, and he recalled his friend's bright smile.

  Sakamochi continued, "Okay, now write, 'If I don't kill, I'll be killed.' Three times."

  Once more, Shuya looked toward Fumiyo Fujiyoshi. Her pale fingers, poking out from the sleeve of her sailor fuku, had curled, forming a shallow cup. One of the school nurse's aides, Fumiyo had been coolheaded and was always there to lend a hand.

  Shuya looked up at Sakamochi.

  You bastard, I'm going to drive this pencil into your heart!

  40 STUDENTS REMAIN.

  "All right," Sakamochi said. "So you're going to leave the classroom, one at a time, at uh, two-minute intervals. If you go through the door and turn right, the exit will be down the hall. Loiter inside, and you'll be shot and killed. Now, according to the rules of the Program, we'll select one student to go first, then the rest of you go in the order of your seat numbers. Boy, girl, boy, girl. When we hit the end of the list, we'll loop back to the top."

  Shuya recalled that Noriko Nakagawa was number fifteen on the girls' side. She's the same number as me. We'll leave at almost the same time. Unless she's first, and then I'm last, that is. But. .. can she even walk?

  Sakamochi withdrew an envelope from his breast pocket. "The first student was randomly selected. The result is in this envelope. Just a moment, now."

  Sakamochi took out a pair of scissors tied with a pink ribbon. He had started ceremoniously cutting open the end of the envelope when Kazuo Kiriyama spoke, his voice calm like Shinji Mimura's, though cold and commanding. "When does the game begin?"

  All of the students turned to look at the back row where Kiriyama sat. (All, except for Kawada, who just kept on chewing his gum.)

  Sakamochi kept working the scissors as he replied, "As soon as you leave. So you all might want to find someplace to hide and come up with your battle plans. It's nighttime, anyway."

  Kiriyama didn't respond, but now Shuya finally knew it was one in the morning—no, make it nearly half past one now.

  Sakamochi finished cutting the envelope, pulled out a white paper from within, and unfolded it. His mouth rounded in surprise.

  "What a coincidence! Boys, number one. Akamatsu."

  Sitting in the front seat of the window aisle (or should I say, the steel plate aisle), Yoshio Akamatsu looked stunned. At one hundred eighty centimeters and ninety kilograms, he was big bodied, but in gym class, Yoshio did nothing but screw up—he couldn't catch a fly ball if it was coming right to him, nor could he even run a single lap around the track. His thick lips had drained of color.

  "Quickly now, Akamatsu," Sakamochi said.

  Yoshio grabbed the bag he'd packed for the school trip and unsteadily rose to his feet. The three camouflaged soldiers, rifles held at their hips, prompted him to take his daypack, and he did. The doorway opened into darkness, and he stood there, looking back at his classmates for a quick second, fear in his face. Then he was gone. The echo of a few footsteps became a clomping run, fading into the distance. It sounded like he tripped and fell once before darting off again.

  As the room fell silent, several of the students let out pent-up sighs.

  "Okay, we'll wait two minutes. Next will be girls number one, Mizuho Inada."

  This pattern of attendance call and departure went relentlessly on and on.

  But near the beginning, when number four for the girls, Sakura Ogawa left, Shuya noticed something. Hers was the second desk behind him, in the last row, and when she walked to the front of the class, she walked right by Shuya. He saw her touch her hand to the desk of her boyfriend, Kazuhiko Yamamoto, slipping him a scrap of paper. She must have left him some message on the sheet of paper she had used to write "We will kill each other."

  Shuya might have been the only one who noticed. Sakamochi, at least, gave no sign he'd seen anything. Kazuhiko palmed the note and squeezed it tightly in his fist beneath his desk. Shuya felt a tiny bit of relief, knowing that madness had not yet completely consumed them all. The bonds of love persevered.

  She left the room, and Shuya wondered, What did she write to him? He looked at the map on the blackboard. The name of one of those squares on the grid? A meeting place? That drawing is much too crude, and besides, there's no telling if it'll match the real map at all. Maybe a direction and a distance? But wait, if the two of them are going off to meet somewhere in secret, that must mean they're convinced some of us are out to kill them. That's just how Sakamochi wants us to think.

  Shuya thought. I don't know what's right outside, but surely I can wait there and talk to everyone who comes out after me. None of Sakamochi's rules would do anything to stop that. Sure, everyone's gone paranoid and confused, but if I can talk to them rationally, I know we can all come up with a plan. And Noriko's the first one after me. Can she walk? Shinji's also after me. Too bad Sugimura will have already gone.

  Shuya tried to conceive of some way to get a note to Hiroki Sugimura, but the boy's seat was too far away. Besides, if he screwed it up, he'd just become another Fumiyo Fujiyoshi.

  Soon came Hiroki's turn. As he was about to step through the open door, he glanced at Shuya, and their eyes met. But that was all. Inside himself, Shuya sighed. Fie wondered if Hiroki was thinking the same thing and would be waiting for him outside. He hoped Hiroki could pull aside some of the others.

  Ahead of Hiroki, and after, went the three who had remained quiet through all of the uproar: Shogo Kawada, Kazuo Kiriyama, and Mitsuko Souma.

  Kawada had kept on chewing his gum as he departed. His expression remained calm, and he didn't give Sakamochi or the camouflaged trio a single look.

  Kiriyama had also left quietly, as did Mitsuko.

  When Sakamochi had said, “The others are ready to kill," those three were likely the very first to be suspected by the others. They were the bad kids. Killing would be nothing to them if it ensured their survival.

  But Shuya thought Kiriyama, at the least, was different. Kiriyama had his boys—Hiroshi Kuronaga, Ryuhei Sasagawa, Sho Tsukioka, and Mitsuru Numai. More than just some group who kind of got along, they had a real bond. The rules of this game might turn everyone else into enemies, but those five would never betray each other. When Kiriyama left, Shuya paid close attention to the cluster of followers seated around his desk. Curiously, their expressions lacked concern. Maybe Kiriyama had been able to pass a note to the others. Surely the five of them were planning to escape together. With Kiriyama, they'd be able to give the government the slip—though he wouldn't be trusting a
nyone outside his gang.

  Mitsuko Souma also had her group. But her seat left her separated from Hirono Shimizu and Yoshimi Yahagi, and she wouldn't have been able to pass them a message. Anyway, Mitsuko was a girl. No way she'd be playing this game. Impossible.

  Shogo Kawada alone gave Shuya pause.

  No one in the class associated themselves with Kawada. After he transferred in, he'd hardly even talked to any of his classmates. And so much of him remained an enigma. Never mind the rumors, but those scars covering his body . . .

  For a moment, Shuya began to doubt. Is Kawada going to be the one among us who'll actually dive right in? No way Or would he? There's at least a possibility, isn't there?

  Shuya quickly banished the thought. Falling into mistrust and jumping at shadows—that would be letting the government win. But in his heart, the whisper of a worry remained.

  Time passed.

  Many of the girls cried as they left.

  Though to Shuya it felt like not much time had passed at all, he reckoned it had been nearly one hour (minus Yoshitoki Kuninobu's two minutes) when Girls #14, Mayumi Tendo, vanished out the door, and Sakamochi said, "Boys number fifteen, Shuya Nanahara."

  Shuya picked up his duffel bag and stood. He tried to think of anything he could do before leaving the room.

  Instead of walking straight for the door, he headed left. Noriko turned her head and watched him approaching her.

  "Nanahara," Sakamochi said, flourishing his knife. "You're going the wrong way."

  Shuya stopped. The three soldiers had put their hands to their weapons. He went to speak, but he felt his throat stiffen. He had to force out the words. "Yoshitoki Kuninobu was my friend. At least let me close his eyes. 'Accord the dead every courtesy.' Isn't that what the Leader wrote in his Analects?"

  For an instant, Sakamochi looked unsure, but in the end, he chuckled, lowered his knife, and said, "All right. That's very kind, Nanahara."