Shuya gripped the handle and pulled.
Tatsumichi's head lifted with the hatchet. The blade had dug so deeply that it wouldn't come free.
Shuya exhaled deeply. Oh, God.
Then he thought again. No, where the hell is God in all this? Ms. Anno was such a devout Christian, and what did her faith get her aside from being raped by Sakamochi? Well, halle-fucking-lujah.
Rage erupted within him.
Gritting his teeth, Shuya knelt beside Tatsumichi's head and placed a trembling hand on his dead classmate's forehead. With his other hand, he yanked out the hatchet. With an ugly spurting sound, blood sprayed from the boy's face, and the blade came free.
For a second, Shuya was overcome by the feeling that this was all a bad dream. The left and right halves of Tatsumichi's head had tilted askew. It was too unreal, like a plastic facsimile. For the first time, Shuya realized how fragile and malleable the human body was.
Closing Tatsumichi's eyes didn't seem a good idea. Tatsumichi's eyelid, which had been split in two along with the eyeball, had contracted and twisted upward and would never close again. The other eye was manageable, but who would want a winking corpse—especially here?
Shuya felt sick again.
Instead, he stood and turned. To get back to Noriko, he'd have to take the long way around up the trail.
But his eyes shot open wide again.
Fifteen meters in front of him, in the middle of the field, stood a boy with glasses and a school jacket—Kyoichi Motobuchi (Boys #20), the boys' class leader.
And the class leader was holding a revolver.
30 STUDENTS REMAIN.
Behind silver-rimmed glasses, the class leader's eyes met Shuya's. His hair, usually neatly parted to the side, was now a tangled mess, and his glasses were smudged and filthy, but those eyes—those wide, bloodshot eyes? They looked just like Tatsumichi's had. His face was as pale as it had been in the classroom, inhuman as an Andy Warhol painting.
Shuya perceived the gun's barrel begin to move. He twisted over backward and dropped to the ground. The next instant, he heard the explosive bang and saw a small flame envelop the muzzle. He thought he felt something hot skim just over his head, but he might have imagined it.
His back still on the ground, and with no time to think, Shuya tried to retreat. The tall grass rustled against his back.
He wasn't moving nearly quickly enough. He couldn't escape. Kyoichi had advanced within a handful of meters and was settling his aim on Shuya's chest.
Shuya's face went as stiff as a plaster sculpture. More than the need to protect Noriko, more than anything now, true terror swelled up inside him. The next tiny, tiny lead bullet that gun spits out will kill me. It'll kill me!
"Stop!" came a voice.
Kyoichi gave a start and looked back over his shoulder. Dumbfounded, Shuya followed the class leader's glance.
A large figure stood at ease in the shade of the small shrine. It was Shogo Kawada (Boys #5), with his butch-cut hair—practically shaved off—a prominent scar over his eyebrow, and that intimidating carnival-food-vendor's face. He was holding a pump-action shotgun, a sawed-off Remington M31.
Kyoichi spun to face this intruder and fired. Kawada quickly dropped to his knees. His shotgun barked, and sparks showered from the muzzle as if it were a flamethrower. An instant later, Kyoichi's arm was gone. Blood sprayed into the air, and for a moment, the class leader stared in wonder at the new short-sleeved look of his school uniform. The rest of the sleeve—along with the arm, and the hand holding the revolver—had fallen to the grass. Kawada swiftly pulled back the handgrip and chambered the next shell. The spent red casing flew out to the side.
As if only now realizing what had happened, Kyoichi let out an animal shriek. Shuya thought the class leader would just fall over now.
But he didn't. Instead, Kyoichi ran to his severed arm. With the hand he still had, he wrenched the revolver from his own fingers. Like a relay baton pass, Shuya thought. One guy filling two positions, way to go! Once again, Shuya felt like he was watching a bad horror flick. Or maybe reading a bad horror novel.
Damn, this really is bad.
"Stop, I said!" Kawada yelled.
But Kyoichi didn't stop. He pointed the revolver at Kawada.
Kawada fired again. Kyoichi folded over in the middle like a midair long jumper—only this jumper was blown backward. He landed on the tips of his dangling feet, and then the next instant, as if the film had skipped a few frames, he had crumpled face up on the ground. He sank into the tall grass and moved no more.
Shuya scrambled to his feet.
He saw the class leader's body amid the waving leaves. Near his stomach, a gaping hole had been shredded open through his school jacket. His insides looked like a slop bucket at a sausage factory.
Kawada didn't spare the corpse a glance and walked straight toward Shuya, shotgun still at the ready. He pumped the forearm grip, ejecting another empty casing.
Shuya was overwhelmed by the series of events that he had just witnessed and the horrific deaths of Tatsumichi and Kyoichi. But between heavy breaths, he managed to say, "Please, wait, I—"
"Don't move," Kawada said, stopping on the other side of Kyoichi's body. "Drop your weapon."
Shuya became aware of the hatchet in his hand. He did as he was told. The bloody hatchet thudded to the ground.
Just then, Noriko appeared where the trail hit the steep slope. She had pushed through the thicket, dragging her hurt leg behind her. She must have followed after Shuya and Tatsumichi. (Shuya then realized not even a full minute had passed since his fight with Tatsumichi Oki.) Noriko's face had already gone pale, probably from the sound of the gunfire, but when she saw the sprawled corpses of Tatsumichi and Kyoichi, and Shuya and Kawada facing off, her breath caught.
Noticing Noriko above, Kawada wheeled his shotgun, pointing it right at her. Noriko froze.
"Stop!" Shuya yelled. "Noriko is with me. We don't want to fight!"
Kawada slowly turned his head to Shuya. His expression seemed strangely vacant.
Then Shuya shouted, "Noriko! Kawada saved my life. He's not our enemy!"
Kawada looked in Noriko's direction and back to Shuya, then, slowly, he lowered his gun.
Noriko remained still for a time, then raised her hands to display that she was unarmed, and climbed—nearly slid—down the steep trail. Dragging her injured leg behind her, she limped to Shuya's side. They both stared at Kawada.
Kawada regarded them as if they were twin armadillos. Shuya noticed that the stubble on the young man's cheeks and chin had grown a little longer.
Finally, Kawada spoke. "First, let me explain—I had no choice but to shoot Kyoichi. Understood?"
Shuya glanced down at Kyoichi's corpse and considered what Kawada had said. What if, he thought, taking time with it, what it Kyoichi had just been confused? The class leader might have seen Shuya take out Tatsumichi and gotten the wrong idea. Noriko wasn't with him. That misunderstanding would only have been natural.
Yet Kawada spoke the truth. Shuya couldn't blame him for his actions. If Kawada hadn't shot Kyoichi, Kyoichi would surely have killed him. After all, I killed Tatsumichi, didn't I?
Facing Kawada, Shuya said, "Yeah, I understand. And thank you. You did save me."
Kawada gave him a small shrug. "I was just stopping Kyoichi— though I guess it ended up that way, huh."
Adrenaline was still rushing through Shuya's body, but he managed to cobble a few words together. "I'm just glad to see someone who's still normal here."
In truth, Shuya was astonished. Back in that classroom, he'd pegged Kawada as the only classmate who would take part in this game. But rather than becoming an opponent in the game, Kawada had saved his life.
Kawada stared at them thoughtfully for a while, then asked, "You two are together, then?"
Shuya raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, I said we were, didn't I?"
"Why are you two together?"
Shuya and Noriko looked at each o
ther, then back to him. Shuya said, "What do you mean—" at the same time Noriko began, "What do you—" and they both stopped mid-sentence. The two looked at each other again. Thinking she was letting him talk, he turned back to Kawada and said, "What do—" But again she had said it too. They exchanged another glance, then faced Kawada in silence.
Something of a grin flashed across Kawada's face. If it had indeed been a smile, this would be the first time Shuya had ever seen one from him.
Kawada said, "Okay, fine, I get it. Anyway, let's find a place to hide. No reason to stand around here out in the open."
29 STUDENTS REMAIN.
Yuko Sakaki (Girls #9) hurtled through the undergrowth. Running wildly like this was dangerous, but she needed to escape, and it didn't matter how.
The scene Yuko had just witnessed flashed through her mind— what she had seen from the bushes. Tatsumichi Oki's head split wide open. Shuya Nanahara extracting the blood-soaked ax.
Yuko had felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Shuya Nanahara killed off Tatsumichi Oki. Truly and utterly.
Until Shuya pulled out the hatchet from Tatsumichi's head, Yuko, as if possessed, had been unable to tear her eyes away. But when she saw the red on that blade, terror finally overcame her. She grabbed her daypack, clamped her mouth shut to contain her unbidden scream, and ran. Her eyes brimmed with tears.
In her state, she scarcely heard the exchange of gunfire she'd left behind.
29 STUDENTS REMAIN.
Shuya and Noriko led Kawada back to the thicket where they had hidden. They picked up their bags, and Kawada remarked that the view from there wasn't very good. Shuya had put a lot of thought into choosing that location, but Kawada seemed surprisingly acclimated to the situation, so the two did as he instructed and followed him a little ways up the mountain. That dirty cat had disappeared somewhere.
Not far away, in the undergrowth, Kawada said, "Wait here. I'm going to find Motobuchi's and Oki's bags."
When Kawada had left, Shuya helped Noriko sit and then sat beside her. He gripped the revolver (a .38 Spl Smith & Wesson Chief's Special) Kawada had given him after recovering the handgun from Kyoichi's body. Carrying the weapon made him uncomfortable—after all, he'd witnessed that ghastly one-man baton pass—but he endured holding it.
"Here, Shuya," Noriko said.
She held out a pink adhesive bandage. She must have retrieved it from her daypack, which Tatsumichi had slashed with his hatchet. Shuya touched a hand to his ear. The bleeding had mostly stopped, but his fingertips were met with a jolt of searing pain.
"Stay still," Noriko said. Leaning in, she unwrapped the bandage and began carefully wrapping it around his earlobe. "I wonder why everyone came to this part of the island. Including us and Kawada, that makes five."
Shuya stared back at her. Having been graced with one action scene after another, the thought hadn't occurred to him. But she was right.
He shook his head. "I don't know. But we came here to get as far away from the school as possible. We avoided climbing the mountains and we stayed off of the coast, where we would have been too exposed. Maybe we all thought the same things, and we all decided this same location would be safe—us and the class leader and Oki."
The moment he mentioned Tatsumichi, he felt a sudden wave of nausea. That face, each half askew like a split-open peanut shell. And his body is right nearby. Come one, come all, and see the amazing Peanut Man!
With the queasiness came a sudden return to clarity of mind and senses, each having been numbed in the rush of combat.
"Shuya, you're looking pale. Are you okay?"
Shuya couldn't answer. A shiver ran through his body, then became a tremble. Harder and harder he shook, until his teeth chattered erratically, as if doing a maniac tap dance.
Noriko placed her hand on his back and asked, "What's wrong?"
His teeth still clattering, Shuya answered, "I'm scared."
Shuya turned his head left to look into her face. She gazed back at him with concern.
"I'm scared," he said. "I'm freaking scared. I killed someone."
Noriko looked into Shuya's eyes for a long moment. Then, moving her injured leg with care, she slid forward to sit, cross-legged, diagonally in front of Shuya. Gently she opened her arms and wrapped them around his shoulders. Her cheek touched Shuya's trembling cheek. He could feel her warmth. The stench of blood clung to the inside of his nostrils, but now the faint smell of perfume—or is it shampoo?—came through.
This gesture had surprised him, but he was grateful for the comforting warmth and smell. He sat still, hugging his knees.
Shuya was reminded of the hugs his mother had given him before her accidental death. He stared off into the edge of Noriko's sailor collar and thought of his mother. She had spoken clearly and moved with such vibrancy. Though he had only been a child at the time, he thought she had been a cool mom. Her face, well, she looked a lot like Kazumi Shintani. She was always exchanging smiles with his father, who, with his mustache, didn't look much like a typical salaryman. (Holding Shuya wrapped in her arms, she had told him, "Your dad works with laws. He helps people in trouble. In this country, that's a very important job.") Seeing them together like this made him think, One day, I'll marry someone like her, and we'll always smile at each other like they do.
Gradually, his trembling subsided and then stopped.
"Are you all right now?" Noriko asked.
"Yeah. Thanks."
Noriko slowly let him go.
After a while, Shuya said, "You smell nice."
Noriko smiled bashfully. "Don't say that. I couldn't take a bath yesterday."
"No, you really do smell nice."
Another smile was flashing across her face when the bushes rustled. Shuya covered Noriko with his left arm and readied the Smith & Wesson in the other.
"It's me," said a voice. "Don't shoot."
Parting the thick undergrowth, Kawada appeared. Shuya lowered the revolver.
Kawada wore his shotgun in a shoulder sling and carried two daypacks in his arms. He pulled out a small cardboard box from one of the bags and tossed it to Shuya.
Shuya plucked the box out of the air and opened it. Inside, bullets formed neat rows and displayed their gold-colored posteriors. Five were missing, like pulled teeth.
"They're for your gun," Kawada said. "Load up."
Kawada set down his shotgun and took up a piece of string. He lifted it up and pulled, and Shuya could see that the string ran into the bushes. Kawada then took out a pocket knife and unfolded the blade from its handle. Since his provided weapon had been the shotgun, he must have brought the knife on his own.
Kawada moved to a nearby tree, its trunk about as thick as a soda can, and carved in a notch. He then fit the taut string snugly into the groove and cut off the extra, which he also tied around the tree in the same manner.
Shuya looked up to Kawada and asked, "What's that?"
"This?" Kawada said, putting the knife away. "It's kind of a primitive alarm system. The string makes a circle around us twenty meters out, in double layers. This end is connected to the outer rings—if someone catches on the string, this end will pull loose from the tree. Don't worry, the intruder won't even notice. But we'll know to be on the alert."
Shuya thought for a second, then asked, "Where did you find that string?"
With a small tilt of his head, Kawada said, "There's a general store down by the harbor. I wanted a few things, so I went there first off. I found the string there."
Shuya's jaw had dropped. No matter how small, any island would have at least one place to buy goods as a matter of course. A store would have all kinds of useful things. The thought of it, though obvious, hadn't crossed his mind—though even if it had, with Noriko to look after, he wouldn't have been able to wander around the island.
Kawada sat facing the two of them and began to search through either Oki's or Motobuchi's daypack. He withdrew a water bottle and a roll of bread and asked, "Wanna eat? It's time for
breakfast."
Still hugging his knees, Shuya shook his head. He wasn't at all hungry.
"What's wrong? Are you feeling sick because you killed Oki?" Kawada inspected Shuya's face and spoke casually. "Don't let it get to you. Say everyone is killing one person at a time, then this is like a tournament. With forty-two students—no, make that forty—kill five or six, and you'll win. Only four or five to go."
Shuya glared at Kawada, even though he knew this was supposed to be a joke—no, because he knew it was a joke.
Shrinking beneath Shuya's withering look, Kawada pulled back and said, "Hey, sorry. I was kidding."
His voice acidic, Shuya asked, "What, you don't feel sick? Or was killing our class leader not the first time for you?"
Kawada shrugged. "Well, first one this time, at least."
Shuya thought that was a weird thing to say, but he couldn't place what exactly was odd about it. He felt confused. Whatever the case, if Kawada was as much of a delinquent as the rumors suggested, it might take a lot more to upset him than it would Shuya.
Shuya shook his head, then switched topics. "Um . . . there's something I don't get."
Kawada lifted his eyebrows, and the scar over his left brow raised with them. "What's that?"
"The class leader . . . Motobuchi, he—"
"Hey," Kawada interrupted, lifting up his chin. "I thought we'd been over this. I didn't have any choice. Are you trying to say I should have let him kill me? I've got no interest in trying to be Jesus Christ. For one, I can't resurrect myself. Not that I've tried."
"No, that's not what I was going to say."
As he tried to figure out what to say, Shuya wondered if that was supposed to be another joke. Was Shogo Kawada the joking type?
Then Shuya said, "When Motobuchi fired at me, that was because he saw me kill. . . well, he saw Oki dead right in front of him. No, I did kill Oki. But that was because he attacked me first."
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