Battle Royale (Remastered)

by Koushun Takami, Nathan Collins

  Maybe that could never be, but Kawada simply shrugged. "You're not talking like a rocker, Nanahara. You sound more like a geezer."

  "I get that sometimes."

  Kawada chuckled. Shuya joined in, and he thought Noriko did as well.

  When she finished her meal, she thanked Kawada, and he took her bowl. With his other hand, he gestured for Shuya to pass over her empty teacup, and he did.

  "Kawada," Noriko said, "I'm feeling so much better. Thank you, really. I'm sorry I caused you so much trouble."

  Kawada grinned and in English said, "You're welcome, ma'am." Then, in Japanese, added, "But it looks like the antibiotic wasn't necessary."

  "That's not true. I know this might sound weird, but they made me feel safe enough to fall asleep."

  Kawada smiled again. "Well, we can't completely rule out the possibility you still have sepsis. Anyway, you should get some more rest. Don't push your luck."

  To Shuya, he added, "Mind if I take a nap?"

  Shuya nodded. "Are you tired?"

  "No, but I want to get some sleep in while I can. After we leave here, I'll stay awake through the night. Okay?"

  "Okay."

  Kawada gave him a quick nod and was carrying the tray out of the room when Noriko said, "Kawada, you should sleep here." She gestured to the adjacent bed.

  But from the doorway, he looked over his shoulder and gave her a smile that seemed to say no. "I'll let you two have some privacy. I'll sleep on the bench out here." He tilted his head and added, "But if you're going to be intimate, please be considerate of your neighbors."

  Even in the low light, Shuya could see Noriko's cheeks turn red.

  Then Kawada left. Through the half-open door, Shuya could hear him walk to the kitchen, then after a moment, walk back to the waiting room. Then silence.

  Noriko grinned. "He's so funny." After her meal, some of the color had returned to her face.

  "Yeah." Shuya smiled too. "I never really talked to him before, but he kind of reminds me of Mimura."

  Kawada didn't resemble Shinji Mimura in the slightest, not in his physique or in his looks. But the way he talked, curt, yet not without humor, was a lot like The Third Man. And though both were the opposite of model students, they were incredibly smart and reliable.

  Noriko nodded. "Yeah, he does. Totally."

  Then she said, "I wonder where Mimura is now?"

  Shuya let out a breath. He'd been trying to think of a way to contact his friend, but with Noriko sick, he hadn't been able to try anything.

  "Yeah, if he were here ..."

  He felt that with both Kawada and Shinji Mimura, no one could match them. Add Hiroki Sugimura, and they'd be invincible, with nothing to fear.

  Noriko said, "I remember the class match." She lifted her head and looked at a point on the ceiling. "Not this year's, but last. It was the finals. Mimura was practically on his own against Class D—four of their students were his teammates from the basketball team. Then after your softball game, you rushed over and joined in, and you two came from behind to take the win."

  "Yeah." Shuya nodded, thinking, Looks like she's feeling talkative too. That was welcome news. "I guess we did."

  "I cheered until I lost my voice. When you won, Yukie and us, we went wild."

  "Yeah."

  Shuya remembered it too—because the typically gentle Noriko was screaming louder than anyone. Yoshitoki Kuninobu, who wasn't very athletic—though he was no Yoshio Akamatsu—was standing apart from Noriko and the others. When Shuya glanced his way, Yoshitoki threw him the devil's horns. Shuya felt a little guilty toward the cheering girls, because Yoshitoki's tiny gesture moved him the most.

  Yoshitoki. . .

  Lost in the memory, he looked at Noriko and noticed she had dropped her head and begun to cry.

  He put his hand on Noriko's blanket-shrouded shoulder and asked, "What's wrong?"

  "I..." She sobbed once, faintly. "I told myself I wouldn't cry, but then I thought... I thought how wonderful our class was, and then this."

  Shuya nodded. Maybe it was the last traces of her fever, or the medicine she'd been given, but she was having some rough emotional swings. He kept his hand on her shoulder until she stopped crying.

  Then she said, "Sorry," and wiped her eyes. After her tears were dry, she said, "Shuya, I wasn't going to tell you this, because I didn't want it to upset you."

  "Tell me what?"

  She looked into his eyes. "Did you know how many of the girls had a crush on you?"

  At this sudden change of topic, Shuya made an uneasy grin. "What are you talking about?"

  But Noriko continued, her expression serious, "Megumi, and I think Yukiko too."

  Shuya tilted his head in puzzled disbelief. Megumi Eto and Yukiko Kitano. Two girls already out of the game.

  "Them?" Somehow, it felt wrong to call them them. "What about them?"

  Noriko looked up at him and quietly said, "They both liked you."

  Shuya felt his face stiffen. After some time, he forced himself to say, "Really?"

  "Yeah." Noriko looked away, then nodded. "Girls can just sense that kind of thing. So . . . just remember that when you think of them."

  She tilted her head and added, "Though it seems arrogant for me to say that."

  Shuya pictured the faces of Megumi Eto and Yukiko Kitano. He committed them to just a small part of his memory—about half a teaspoon's worth each.

  "Wow." The word tumbled out on his breath. Then he said, "You could have waited to tell me that until after we've escaped."

  "Sorry. Did it come as a shock?"

  "Yeah, a little bit."

  "It's just..." Noriko tilted her head again. "If I were to die without telling you, you'd have never known."

  Shuya's head jolted up, and he squeezed her left wrist tight. "Please. No more thinking like that. We're. Together. Until. The. End. Got it? We survive, together."

  Startled by his sudden vehemence, Noriko said, "Sorry."

  Then Shuya said, "So by the way . .

  "What?"

  "I know someone who likes you."

  This time, Noriko's eyes widened a little. "Really? Someone who likes me2.” she said innocently, but her expression immediately fell. The fading sunlight, filtered through the window curtains, cast a rectangular, barely perceptible catchlight in her eyes.

  She asked, "Is he someone in our class?"

  Thinking of his childhood friend's affable, goggling eyes, Shuya slowly shook his head no. Damn it. How much simpler would it have been to stress over some love triangle with my best friend of ten years 1 But that won't be an issue now. No sir, not ever.

  "Nope," he said.

  Noriko seemed somewhat relieved as she dropped her eyes down to her skirt near her knees. All she said was, "Oh."

  Then she looked up again and said, "Who is it? I'm not in any of the clubs, and I don't really know any of the kids in the other classes."

  Shuya shook his head. "I won't tell. Not until we escape."

  She looked a little skeptical but didn't pursue the matter.

  After they'd fallen silent for a while, Shuya looked up at the ceiling. Unbecoming for a medical clinic, where sanitation was supposed to be top priority, the lampshade over the hanging circular fluorescent light was covered with dust—not that the light worked. And even if it did, Shuya wouldn't turn it on anyway.

  "Huh." he said. "Megumi. . . san.” He added the polite san after her name. Boys can be so fickle. "And Kitano-san. If it's true, I don't know what they saw in me."

  The room had gone almost dark, but Shuya thought he could see her smile a little.

  She said, "Can I tell you what I think?"

  "I'm all ears."

  Noriko tilted her head. "What's good about you is everything."

  Shuya laughed and shook his head. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  Dead earnest, she said, "That's what it means to love someone. Isn't that how you feel about that girl?"

  Shuya visualized Kazumi Shin
tani's face. He thought about what Noriko had said. At first, he wasn't sure if he should tell the truth, but he decided to stick with honesty.

  "Yeah. You're right. I guess that's how it feels."

  Sounding amused, she said, "If it doesn't, it's not the real thing," and laughed. She smiled, but only with her mouth.

  "What's so funny?"

  "Even in this situation, talking about it makes me jealous."

  He looked at her, though now in the darkness, he could hardly make out her face. He again wavered over what to say to her, and again went with the truth.

  "That guy who likes you—I can understand why."

  Noriko looked up to him again.

  "You're so wonderful," he said.

  He thought he saw her well-shaped eyebrows twitch, and her lips formed a smile with a hint of sadness.

  "Really?" she said. "Even if it's a lie, it's nice to hear."

  "It's no lie."

  Noriko was quiet for a moment, then said, "Can I ask you a favor?"

  Shuya raised his eyebrows as if to ask her, What? But he didn't know if Noriko could see. Still seated across from him, she leaned forward and gently placed her hands on his arms and rested her head on his shoulder. Her shoulder-length hair brushed against his cheek and ear.

  They remained like that for a long while, until the dwindling daylight outside the window transformed into moonlight.

  21 STUDENTS REMAIN.

  Before dusk completely faded into darkness, Hirono Shimizu (Girls #10) headed west from the thicket where she'd been hiding. She couldn't handle it anymore—her entire body felt hot, as if she were in a scorching desert.

  Water.

  I need water.

  Kaori Minami had shot her in her upper left arm. Hirono had ripped open her blood-soaked sleeve and found that the bullet had passed clean through her arm. The exit wound was the worst of it, shredding a large patch of skin. But the bullet had narrowly missed any of her major blood vessels, and once she had bandaged the wound with her torn-off sleeve, the bleeding soon stopped.

  But the wound became hotter and hotter, and the fever spread through her body. The initial chills came and went, quickly replaced by the burning heat. She had finished off the last of her bottled water by the time Sakamochi gave his six o'clock announcement. After she'd killed Kaori, Hirono had run for two hundred meters, fleeing Shuya, and hid inside a thick patch of bushes. There, she used quite a lot of her water attempting to clean the wound. (She deeply regretted doing that.)

  Nearly two hours had passed since then. For a time, she'd been sweating profusely beneath her sailor fuku, but by now, she'd run out of sweat. She was severely dehydrated. To put it simply, unlike Noriko Nakagawa, Hirono had indeed developed sepsis, and since she hadn't disinfected the wound, the symptoms were rapidly progressing— though of course, Hirono had no way of knowing this.

  All she knew was: I need water.

  As she moved across the green-covered mountain with as much caution as she could muster, thoughts of hatred for Kaori Minami whirled in her head, their revolutions hastened by the fever throughout her body and the dryness of her throat.

  Hirono Shimizu wasn't about to trust anyone else in this game. She had always been tight with Mitsuko Souma, and her seat number was only one ahead of Mitsuko's, so when she left the school, with only Hiroki Sugimura between them, she could have let him pass and managed to meet up with Mitsuko, but she didn't. Hirono knew exactly how fearsome Mitsuko was.

  Here's an example: their group of delinquents had a dispute with a similar group from another school. A little later, the leader-figure of that other gang (who even at her age was a yakuza's lover) was hit by a car and ended up badly injured. Hirono had heard the girl had nearly died. Mitsuko never said anything about it, but Hirono understood that she had gotten one of the guys she knew to do it. Mitsuko had any number of men who were willing to do absolutely anything for her.

  Hirono imagined that if she met up with Mitsuko, the girl would use her for everything she was worth, just to ultimately shoot her in the back in cold blood. Mitsuko might have been able to get the more laid-back Yoshimi Yahagi to trust her (Hirono remembered that Yoshimi was dead now—her intuition told her that Mitsuko had been the one to kill her), but Hirono would have none of that.

  Neither could she imagine ever trusting any of the rest of her class either. The ones who tried to act like they were good were the ones who had no trouble kicking you to the curb. Hirono may have only been around for fifteen years, but she knew that much all too well.

  But even so, she was reluctant to go around killing her classmates. She'd done prostitution and she'd tried drugs, and she'd fought and fought with her fed-up parents, but murder was taboo. Sure, under the rules of the game, killing was permitted; there was no crime in it.

  But.

  Maybe I've done a lot of bad things, but almost all of it never caused anyone any trouble. Sure, I sold my body, but unlike the girls who tried to act all pure while using those phone "dating" services (she knew Mayumi Tendo was one of those girls), I went through Mitsuko Souma's connections to get into a ring of professionals—now that took real resolve. And if a person wants to try drugs, isn't that her personal freedom? Is a department store jeopardized so badly when some makeup gets stolen from the cosmetics department? Really, when they're backed by huge capital? And sure, I bullied some kids, but only the ones who were asking for it. I fought girls from other schools, but we all knew what we were getting into—none of us were new to the game. Anyway, I. . .

  I'm not the kind of girl who's okay with killing people. That much I know.

  But. . . but...

  Self-defense is different. If someone is trying to kill me, that leaves me with no other choice. And if I manage to survive this game that way and make it back home. . . then doesn't that call for some champagne? Or, if that time limit comes and I have to die—on this point, her thoughts weren't clear—well, there's nothing to be done about that.

  And so Hirono hid herself in that farmhouse where she later had that shootout with Kaori Minami.

  Once she was sure no one else was inside, she began to feel at ease. Occasionally, she looked out the window, and when she caught a glimpse of a figure in the storage shed, her heart raced with fear.

  After several minutes of debate, she decided to leave the house. (After all, she was quite good at sneaking out of her own.) She just couldn't bear having someone so near. Since the house had no back door, and the only windows faced the shed, she quietly climbed through the endmost window.

  But at that moment, that very moment, Kaori stuck her head out from the shed to take a look. And without warning she shot at Hirono, who hadn't done anything. Kaori's bullet caught her in the arm, and she tumbled out over the windowsill. Somehow, Hirono got to her feet, and for the first time, she held out the revolver she'd been given and fired. She was pinned there, against the wall at the corner of the house, when Shuya Nanahara appeared.

  That bitch. Always playing innocent, shrieking over these boy bands, and she tried to kill me on sight. Well I took care of her. (It was self-defense. Not a jury on earth would convict me. No doubt.) But if the rest of the class is like her, I can't show any mercy, I think.

  Then Hirono thought about Shuya Nanahara. At least he hadn't pointed a gun at her. (That's how she had gotten her opening to shoot Kaori.) And he'd said he was with Noriko Nakagawa.

  Shuya Nanahara and Noriko Nakagawa. Have they been dating! They hadn't seemed to be. Are they trying to escape together?

  Hirono reflexively shook her head.

  Ridiculous. Out here, nothing would be more dangerous than being with someone else. Get in a group and you'll have no right to complain when someone shoots you in the back. And escape? Utterly impossible.

  I didn't see Noriko Nakagawa, but if he was telling the truth, it wouldn't be long before he killed her, or before she killed him. Whichever. But if one of them ended up surviving. . . then maybe we'll end up having to kill each other. But who g
ives a damn about that right now? Right now, I need. . .

  Water.

  The next thing she knew, she had traveled a good distance. The faint sunlight in the western sky had disappeared. Now, as it had in the early morning of the game's beginning, the full moon, eerily bright, hung amid the jet-black sky and cast its pale blue light over the island.

  Still gripping her .38 revolver, a Smith & Wesson Model 10, Hirono sprinted from one thicket to the next. She ducked and held her breath. She popped her head out from the shadow of the bushes. Beyond a narrow crop field stood a lone house. The northern mountain was to Hirono's back, and low foothills encroached on the other side of the home. She looked to her left and saw several more fields, with two similar houses far beyond, behind which the ground sloped upward into the southern mountain. According to her map, a relatively large east-west road divided the island at the foot of that southern mountain. And from where that mountain stood, Hirono seemed to have made it all the way to near the western shore. As she had confirmed before heading out, she wasn't near any of the forbidden zones.

  Enduring her thirst, Hirono observed the house ahead. The area was silent and still.

  Still crouched, she slipped through the field. The house stood on slightly elevated land. Hirono stopped at the edge of the field, looked to her rear, then observed the house again. It was an ordinary, old, singlestory farmhouse. Unlike the house where she'd previously hidden, this one had a tile roof. An unpaved road led away to her left, and a single mini pickup truck was parked in front of the house, along with a moped and a bicycle.

  The house where she first hid hadn't had running water. This one likely wouldn't either. Hirono looked to her left and right. . .

  And there, to the right, at the back of the yard, the farthest side from the incoming driveway, she saw it—a well. It even had a rope and pulley. Several short, slender, and leafy fruit trees—tangerines or something—grew around the well, but none had any low branches for anyone to be hiding behind.

  Since her left arm was out of commission, she tucked her revolver down the front of her skirt, and in the moonlight, she rummaged through the dirt, finding a rock just big enough to fit in her hand.