Battle Royale (Remastered)

by Koushun Takami, Nathan Collins

  Shinji looked down at the Beretta 92F stuffed down the front of his slacks. His plan was to lead the government astray with that walkie-talkie, but just in case they were spotted at sea, he'd filled several glass pop bottles with his special ammonium nitrate and gasoline mixture and, making sure their lids were good and tight, put them into his daypack. But without detonators, they didn't amount to anything more than extra-flammable Molotov cocktails.

  In the event that they were about to be spotted, their best move would be to take the initiative and board the other ship and fight, even if they had to swim to get there. If everything went well, they could get their hands on their enemies' weapons, and if they could control the ship, the vessel could provide their means of escape. But for any of that to be possible, he'd have to be a good shot.

  It bothered him a little—he had carried that Beretta all over the island, but he hadn't fired it once. Not even his uncle had had a gun, so he'd never been taught how to use one.

  But Shinji shook his head and told himself, You're The Third Man. Shinji Mimura. You'll be fine. Just like that first time you picked up that heavy basketball and shot a free throw. That ball didn't even touch the hoop as it went through.

  "Shinji," Yutaka said.

  Shinji looked up at him. "Are you ready?"

  His voice pitiful, Yutaka said, "No." Then he took out his notepad and started to write.

  Shinji read it in the moonlight.

  [I can't find the pulley.]

  He looked at Yutaka. His expression must have been fearsome, because Yutaka shrank back a little.

  Yutaka was supposed to carry the pulley and half of the rope. He'd been in charge of the pulley from the moment they recovered it from the well. He was supposed to have set it down somewhere in the warehouse.

  Shinji dropped his rope and his daypack. He got on his knees and began to search. Yutaka did the same.

  They groped about in the dark, even looking behind the tractor and underneath the office desk, but they couldn't find the pulley. Shinji stood and looked at his watch again. The minute hand had rounded the ten-minute mark and was well on its way to quarter after.

  Shinji took the supplied flashlight from his daypack. He held his hands around the lamp end and turned on the light.

  Shinji did his best not to let any excess light spill out, but its faint warm glow spread through the vast space of the self-styled farmers' co-op. He saw Yutaka's dismayed expression, and over his friend's shoulder, he easily spotted the pulley. It was on the other side of the desk, out in the open near the wall, in a shadow just out of reach of the moonlight coming in from the window—not even one meter away from Yutaka's daypack.

  Shinji winked at Yutaka and quickly turned off the flashlight. Yutaka snatched up the pulley.

  "Sorry, Shinji."

  Shinji flashed a dry smile. "C'mon, Yutaka. Get it together."

  Shinji again shouldered his daypack and his rope. He picked up the jerry can. Shinji had pride in his strength, but the combined weight of the last two was quite heavy. The rope was only going part of the way, but he'd have to haul the twenty kilogram gas can up onto the mountainside—and quickly too.

  Yutaka picked up his half of the rope (no small amount; he looked like a turtle and its shell—not that Shinji was any different), and the two boys walked toward the sliding door on the east wall. They'd left the door ten centimeters open, letting in a thin curtain of pale blue moonlight.

  "Sorry, Shinji," Yutaka said again.

  "It's all right. Don't worry about it. Let's just make sure we do this right from here on out."

  Shinji switched the jerry can to his left hand, put his right on the heavy steel door, and slid it open. The curtain of pale light widened.

  Outside was a broad, unpaved parking lot. A narrow road—not the larger east-west road, which was beyond it, just a little farther to the south—ran alongside the building on the right, and a lone minivan was parked near the lot's entrance.

  Opposite the sliding door, the parking lot opened directly onto farmland, where scattered houses made tiny dots among the fields. Farther away, the village's cluster of homes remained visible even at night.

  Shinji looked left. A small shed stood at the rear of the property. Beyond it, fairly high up, Shinji could see the school, enveloped by the foothills. On this side of the school was a small grove beside a two-story house. One tree stood far taller than the rest; this was where they would tie the end of the rope. They had secured the end of the kite string beside an irrigation canal to the left of the grove. The string ran past the side of the school directly to the overlooking rock up in the mountainside, over three hundred meters away.

  Damn, rm good. Now will that kite string let me pull that rope up without it breaking?

  Shinji sighed, then thought for a moment, and spoke. He didn't think it would matter if Sakamochi's men heard what he wanted to say.

  "Yutaka."

  Standing to his left, Yutaka looked up at him. "What?"

  "We might die. Are you prepared for that?"

  Yutaka was quiet for a moment, but not for long. "Yeah. I'm ready."

  "Okay then."

  Shinji renewed his grip on the jerry can's handle and gave Yutaka a grin.

  But the grin froze when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Someone's head popped out of a field, where the crops were growing shorter, off the eastern edge of the parking lot.

  "Yutaka!"

  Shinji grabbed Yutaka by the arm and started to run back inside the corrugated metal walls of the co-op. Yutaka stumbled, partially due to the heavy rope he carried, but he kept up. By the time Shinji had squatted behind the cover of the sliding door, his pistol was already drawn and aimed at the figure in the field.

  The silhouette yelled, "D—don't shoot! Mimura! Please don't shoot. It's me, Iijima."

  Only then did Shinji recognize the figure to be Keita Iijima (Boys #2). Keita got along relatively well with Shinji and Yutaka, as far as their classmates went (mostly because they had been in the same class since seventh grade), but what gripped Shinji was not the relief at their group gaining a third member. Instead, he felt only distress. At this moment, he realized he hadn't much considered the possibility of one of their classmates joining them. Damn it, just as everything is on the line, he shows up now!

  Behind him Yutaka spoke, and the excitement in his voice seemed a little out of place. "It's Iijima, Shinji. Iijima!"

  Keita slowly rose and emerged onto the parking lot. He held his daypack by the strap with his left hand and gripped something that looked like a kitchen knife in his right. Cautiously, he explained, "I saw the light."

  Shinji gritted his teeth. Keita must have meant the flashlight he'd only momentarily turned on to look for the pulley. Shinji scolded himself for jumping to use the flashlight so quickly. It wasn't like him to be so thoughtless.

  Keita continued, "And I came here and saw it was you guys. What have you been doing? What were you carrying? Was that rope? Let—let me join you."

  Knowing that their conversation was being monitored, Yutaka knit his brow and looked over at Shinji. His eyes widened when he saw that Shinji hadn't lowered his gun.

  "Shinji," Yutaka said. "Shinji, what's wrong with you?"

  With his open right hand, Shinji signaled for Yutaka not to move forward, then said, "Yutaka. Don't move."

  "Hey," Keita said. His voice trembled. "Why are you pointing that at me? Mimura?"

  Shinji took a deep breath, then told Keita, "Don't move." He sensed Yutaka go stiff.

  Keita Iijima took one step forward, his forlorn expression evident even in the dim moonlight.

  "Why?" Keita said. "Tell me why. Have you forgotten who I am, Shinji? Let me join you."

  Shinji cocked the Beretta's hammer with an audible click. Keita Iijima froze in place, still a good seven or eight meters away.

  Slowly, Shinji said, "Don't come near us. We're not joining with you."

  Beside him, Yutaka cried, "Why, Shinji? We can
trust Iijima, can't we?"

  Shinji shook his head. Then he thought, Oh, that's right. You don't know, do you, Yutaka.

  It wasn't anything important. Indeed, it was trivial.

  Last March, near the end of the last trimester of eighth grade, Shinji and Keita had gone to see a movie in Takamatsu (the town of Shiroiwa didn't have a theater). Yutaka was supposed to come with them, but he was home, sick with a cold.

  After the movie, he and Keita had looked around the book and record stores in the main street's shopping arcade. (Shinji bought some imported computer books at a used bookstore—a lucky find. Due to the government's strict monitoring over Western publications, even the technical ones were hard to get.) They were starting to head back to the train station when Keita said he'd forgotten to buy a comic that he wanted, and he went back into the bookstore alone.

  That was when three tough-looking high schoolers approached Shinji in an alley off the main road.

  "Hey," one of the high school boys said. "You got any money?" He stood a full ten centimeters over Shinji's one hundred seventy-two. (For someone on the basketball team, Shinji was short.)

  Shinji shrugged and said, "I've got two thousand, five hundred seventy-two yen."

  The one who had asked the question gave the other two a look that seemed to say, What a loser. Then he leaned into Shinji's ear. Shinji was annoyed. Maybe it was from getting wasted on paint thinner or whatever else was popular these days, but the kid's recessed gumline left gaps between his teeth, and his breath reeked. Brush your teeth, man.

  One of his buddies said, "Give us all you've got. Come on, what are you waiting for? Do it."

  Shinji gave them an exaggerated look of surprise and said, "Oh, so you guys are homeless, are you? You should be happy to get twenty yen, then. Get on your knees and beg me for it, and I might even give it to you."

  Gap-tooth made a face that said, Look what we have here. He looked at his friends, who were grinning, then said, "You're in junior high, yeah? Looks like you haven't learned how to respect your betters."

  He grabbed Shinji by the shoulders and put his knee in Shinji's stomach. Shinji tensed his stomach muscles and withstood the blow. In truth, there wasn't much to withstand. The knee kick was more of a threat than anything. Shinji could tell these three punks never went up against anyone their own age.

  Shinji said, "What was that, a love tap?"

  Gap-tooth's narrow, vacuous face twisted and he snarled, "I've had enough of this crap."

  He punched Shinji in the face. This one didn't hurt that much either, though Shinji thought he felt a gash tear open inside his mouth.

  Shinji stuck his finger inside his mouth and felt for the wound. It stung a little. When he withdrew his finger, it had blood on it. Not bad.

  "That's right, hurry it up," Gap-tooth said. "Give us your wallet."

  Still looking down, Shinji broke into a grin. He looked up, and when their eyes met, fear flashed across Gap-tooth's face.

  Enjoying this, Shinji said, "Remember, you started it."

  With his imported hardcover book in hand, Shinji delivered a short-range hook to Gap-tooth's filthy mouth. His hand felt the punk's teeth break, and Gap-tooth rocked back.

  He'd mopped up the rest in ten short seconds. How to fight was a subject covered in his uncle's lessons. They hadn't given him any trouble at all.

  But what had troubled him was something else.

  Ignoring the doubled-over high schoolers and the distant ring of onlooking passersby, Shinji returned to the bookstore and found Keita in the comics section, holding the store's shopping bag with the comic he'd been looking for already inside. He was wandering the section aimlessly, but when Shinji called out to him, he said, "Sorry, sorry, when I came back, I thought of something else I wanted too." Then his eyes widened. "What happened to your mouth?"

  Shinji shrugged and said, "Let's go home."

  But he knew that Keita hadn't needed to ask about his mouth. While Shinji was surrounded by the three goons, his friend's face had peeked out around the corner of the alley, then immediately withdrew. At the time, he'd wondered if Keita had gone to call the police. (Well, he wouldn't count on them anyway—the cops were more enthusiastic about suppressing the public at large than criminals.)

  Gee, so you wanted another book, huh?

  Shinji didn't much enjoy the train ride back to Shiroiwa.

  Keita must have figured that Shinji could surely handle three measly high school kids. And, well, he was right. He probably hadn't wanted to get drawn into the fight and end up injured. Oh, I see. And if he called the cops, the high schoolers might have taken note of his face. Uh-huh. He didn't appear about to apologize to Shinji either. Well, white lies make the world go 'round.

  There was nothing Shinji could do about it. Like his uncle always said, if somebody was cowardly or fainthearted, it wasn't their fault. Shinji couldn't go around holding everyone responsible for everything they did.

  But the front cover of that technical book Shinji bought had torn. Even worse, those gapped teeth had left impressions along the edge and his saliva had stained the paper. That really got Shinji. Every time he took the book out, he had to remember that ugly mug. Even though he recognized he was being uptight, he despised it when his books were torn or dirty. Whenever he read a book, he always removed the dust jacket first to keep it in good shape.

  His uncle had also said, "If we dislike the outcome, we need to punish the person responsible, Shinji. You can't keep your anger bottled up."

  So Shinji decided to punish Keita Iijima by showing Keita the same level of friendship his pal had given him. What's wrong, Iijima? It's not that bad a sentence. It's not like I'm refusing to see you—that wouldn't be very mature of me. We're both better off this way.

  That's how trivial the story was. He hadn't even told it to Yutaka.

  But ignore the trivialities in this game, and you end up dead, right? This isn't out of anger, Uncle. This is that real world you always talked about. I can't have anything to do with him.

  "Yeah," Keita said, playing off what Yutaka had said. "You can trust me." He spread his arms wide. The moonlight reflected off the santoku knife in his right hand. "I thought we were friends."

  But Shinji didn't lower his gun.

  Seeing Shinji's resolve, Keita looked like he was about to cry. He tossed the kitchen knife to the ground. Then he said, "See, I don't want to fight. You have to see that now, don't you?"

  Shinji shook his head. "No. Scram."

  Now anger bubbled to the surface of Keita's expression. "Why? Why don't you trust me?"

  "Shinji—" Yutaka said.

  "Shut up, Yutaka."

  Then Keita's face went stiff. He fell quiet, then, his voice trembling,

  he said, "Is it... is it because of what I did that time? Huh, Mimura? Is that it? Because I ran away? Is that why you won't trust me?"

  Shinji kept the gun aimed at him, not saying a word.

  "Mimura ..." Keita had switched his tone back to one of pleading. He nearly sobbed as he spoke. "Please, Mimura. Forgive me, Mimura."

  Shinji pressed his lips together. For a brief moment, he wondered if Keita was being sincere or just putting on an act. But he shook off his doubts. I'm not alone now. I can't endanger Yutaka. He'd seen this doctrine attributed to the Department of Defense of some foreign nation: "Prepare against our enemy's capabilities rather than their intentions." Meanwhile, the one a.m. time limit was steadily drawing near.

  Yutaka said, "Shinji, what's—" but Shinji held out his right hand to stop him.

  Keita stepped forward. "Please. I'm scared to be alone. Let me join you."

  "Don't come any closer!"

  Keita shook his teary face left and right and took another step. Slowly, he was closing in on Shinji and Yutaka.

  Shinji pointed his gun down and squeezed the trigger for the first time. The Beretta erupted with a dry bang, and the ejected casing traced a pale blue arc in the moonlight. A cloud of dust rose at Keita's feet. H
e stared at the dust cloud as if he were observing some novel science experiment.

  But then he started walking again.

  "Stop! Just stop right there!"

  "Let me join you. Please."

  Keita kept walking, like a clockwork toy built to do nothing but shamble straight ahead. He took another step. Right. Left. Right.

  Shinji gritted his teeth. If Keita was going to draw another weapon, he'd use his right hand.

  Can I make that shot? This time, it won't be a warning. Can I aim true? Am I absolutely sure?

  Of course I can.

  It was now or never. Shinji squeezed the trigger one more time.

  And as he did, he felt his trigger finger slip.

  In the instant before the bang, Shinji realized what had happened. Sweat. I'm nervous and sweating.

  It all happened so suddenly. Keita's torso rocked back, as if he'd been punched in the upper right chest. He spread his arms like a shotputter just before his launch, then the next moment, his knees buckled, and he fell on his back. Even in the dark, Shinji could distinctly see the small fountain of blood spurting from a hole in the right side of his chest. That too only lasted for a moment.

  "Shinji!" Yutaka cried. "What'd you do?"

  Yutaka ran to Keita, whose gaping mouth formed an O. He dropped to his knees, put his hands on Keita's body, then, after a brief hesitation, he moved his hand to Keita's neck. Yutaka's face sank. "He's dead."

  Unable to move, Shinji was still holding out his gun. He felt like his mind had gone blank, but it hadn't. He heard a voice inside his head say, How lame. Not that it mattered, but the voice echoed the way it did when he talked to himself in the shower.

  How lame. Aren't you supposed to be Shinji Mimura, The Third Man who never misses a shot? You know, Shinji Mimura, Shiroiwa Junior High's ace guard?

  Shinji rose, then walked forward. His body felt heavy, as if he'd suddenly turned into a cyborg. One day, Shinji Mimura awoke to find he had become the Terminator. Great.

  Slowly, he walked toward Keita Iijima's body.