Only ten or twenty minutes after the announcement, the sound of distant gunfire returned. When the machine gun fire followed, Noriko's heart froze.
No matter how hard she tried, Noriko would never forget that sound. Without a doubt, she knew it belonged to Kazuo Kiriyama's machine gun—assuming that no one else had been given the exact same weapon. She feared that Kiriyama had been still chasing after Shuya and had finally caught him.
But before she could say anything to Kawada, she was interrupted by the sound of an incredible explosion far surpassing that of those hand grenades Kiriyama had thrown at them. After that, the machine gun fired twice more, the bursts now comparatively a whisper. Then the silence returned.
Even Kawada seemed somewhat surprised by the sound. He was using a knife to carve some kind of arrow. But he stopped and said, "I'm going to go take a look. Don't move from this spot." He left the thicket and came back right away and reported, "Some building's on fire to the east."
Noriko started to say, "Could it—"
But Kawada shook his head and said, "It's pretty far south from where we ran into Kiriyama. Nanahara escaped into the mountains, so this wasn't him. We'll keep waiting for him here."
The news relieved her at the time, but that was nearly an hour ago. Shuya still hadn't returned.
Noriko held her wrist up to the coin-sized spot of moonlight coming in through the leaves. Her watch read twelve past one. For some time now, she had been repeating this action as if it were a magic ritual.
Then she buried her head back into her skirt.
A horrible image flashed through her thoughts. It was Shuya's face, his mouth open and his gaze distant, an expression not unlike when he'd sung "Imagine" (he'd said it was a rock standard) during one of the breaks in the music room while the teacher was away. But in this vision, he had a large black dot on his forehead like a Hindu's bindi. Without warning, a red liquid rose up inside the dot—which was actually an extremely dark, deep hole. From his brain at the bottom of the hole, blood oozed forth and spread over his face like cracks in a pane of glass.
Noriko shook her head and dispelled the vision. She looked over to Kawada, sitting beside her with his back to a tree, smoking his cigarettes. At his side, he'd set down his handmade bow, and several arrows stuck out of the dirt.
"Kawada," she said.
Almost a silhouette in the darkness, Kawada took the cigarette from his mouth and rested his hand atop his standing knee.
"What?"
"Shuya should have been here by now."
Kawada returned the cigarette to his lips. Its tip became red, and the faint light illuminated Kawada's expressionless face. She felt a flash of irritation at his lack of concern. His face sank back into the shadows, and smoke lazily drifted from his lips.
"Yeah."
His calm voice annoyed her too. But remembering how he had saved her and Shuya several times, she suppressed the emotion.
Then she said, "Something . . . must have happened."
"Probably."
"What do you mean, probably?"
Kawada's silhouette raised its hands. The smoldering end of the cigarette shifted.
"Hey, calm down. That machine gun earlier was definitely Kiriyama. Assuming there aren't two of that same gun going around out here, anyway. And with that explosion, Kiriyama wasn't fighting Nanahara, but someone else. Whatever happened, Nanahara escaped Kiriyama. That's for sure."
"Then why hasn't Shuya—"
"Because he's hiding somewhere, probably. Maybe he got lost."
Noriko shook her head. "He might be hurt, or worse."
A chill ran down her spine. That image of Shuya's face, with his gaping mouth and the widening red spiderweb replayed in the back of her mind. Despite escaping from Kiriyama, he could have been fatally wounded. He could be dying right now. And if not, he could have been attacked by another student as he fled over the mountain—or he could have passed out somewhere . . . and if somewhere fell inside one of the forbidden zones, he could die while he was unconscious. After all, area F-7, just to the north of the school, and at the base of the mountain where Shuya had likely run and hid, was designated to become a forbidden zone at one o'clock. And it was past one now.
Noriko shook her head again. That's not possible. Shuya would never die. He's like a saint with a guitar. He's kind to everyone, and sympathetic, never losing that reassuring smile, and he's decent and innocent and he wears his heart on his sleeve, but he has an unyielding spirit. He's my guardian angel. How could someone like that die? He wouldn't. No way. But. . .
Softly, Kawada said, "Yeah, maybe. But maybe not."
Noriko turned her wrist and nervously checked her watch again. Then, moving her aching leg, she inched closer to Kawada and took his left hand from his knee and gripped it with both hands.
"Please. Can't we go . . . can't we go look for Shuya? Will you come with me? I can't do it by myself. Please."
Kawada slowly lifted his hand and guided hers back to her knee and gave them a pat. "No can do. Even if you insist on going alone, I won't let you. If I do that, then Shuya asking me to look after you was for nothing. He'll have put himself in danger, letting us escape first, for nothing."
Noriko bit her lower lip and stared at him.
"Don't make that face at me," Kawada said. "It hurts, having a girl look at me like that."
He scratched his head with the hand holding his cigarette, then said, "You really care about Nanahara, right?"
Noriko nodded. She nodded with confidence.
Kawada nodded back at her and said, "So try to understand what he'd want."
She bit her lip again, then lowered her eyes and nodded. "All right. All we can do is wait, right?"
"Right." Kawada nodded.
After a brief silence, he said, "Do you believe in the sixth sense, Noriko?"
Noriko's eyes widened a little at the unexpected topic. Is he trying to distract me by talking about something else?
"Yeah," she replied. "A little. But I don't really know." Then she asked, "Do you believe in it, Kawada?"
He stubbed out his cigarette on the ground.
"No, not at all," he said. "Actually, I don't bother thinking about it. Ghosts, and the afterlife, and cosmic energy, and the sixth sense and fortune telling and supernatural powers, that's the talk of fools who escape reality because they aren't equipped to handle it. Sorry, you said you believed a little, didn't you? No offense. It's just my opinion. But. .
Noriko looked at his eyes. "But?"
"But sometimes, without any apparent reason, I'm certain about things that are still unclear. And I can't explain why, but I've never been wrong."
Without a word, Noriko watched his face.
Then he said, "Nanahara is alive. He'll come back. Somehow, I know this."
Relief softened her expression. Everything Kawada had just said might have been made up. But even if it was, she was happy he'd said it to her.
"Thanks," she said. "You're kind, Kawada."
Kawada shrugged. "I'm just saying how I feel."
Then he said, "Nanahara's lucky."
Noriko glanced at him. "Hm?"
"To be so loved."
She smiled a little. Only a little. "You've got it wrong."
"What?"
"It's one-sided. Shuya likes someone else. And she's wonderful. I'm nothing next to her."
"Really?"
Noriko lowered her head and nodded. "She's really cool. How can I put it? She's strong, and that's what makes her so . . . beautiful. I'm jealous, but I understand why he's attracted to her."
Kawada tilted his head. "I wonder." He struck the lighter a few times and lit his cigarette. "I think Nanahara likes you now."
She shook her head. "No way."
"When he comes back," Kawada said with a grin, "you should call him a jerk for making you worry. Really let him have it."
She smiled a little again.
Then Kawada blew out smoke and said, "You should lie down. You still h
aven't completely recovered. And if you get tired, you should sleep. I'll be awake the whole night. When Nanahara comes back, I'll tell him to wake you up with a kiss."
"Okay." Noriko smiled and nodded. "Thanks."
She sat there for another ten minutes, and then she wrapped herself in the blanket and lay down.
But she couldn't sleep.
17 STUDENTS REMAIN.
Hiroki Sugimura was utterly exhausted. He'd been walking without rest since the game began, so it was only natural that he would begin to tire. But with each of Sakamochi's announcements, he'd heard the numbers of the dead, and his exhaustion rocketed up to the next level. They were down to twenty now—no, as far as Hiroki knew, it was already seventeen. The Shinji Mimura had died. He had been together with Yutaka Seto and Keita Iijima.
After Hiroki left Shuya's group in the clinic, he headed toward the previously unexplored northwest shore. Hearing a pitched gunfight just past eleven, he followed the noise and ended up a little to the east of the center of the island. But the noise had stopped before he got there, and he didn't find anything. Then the midnight announcement added to the list of forbidden zones, and Hiroki decided to visit each in turn. Then, just as he had nearly reached the zone on the north side of the school, F-l, he heard a single gunshot—immediately followed by that machine-gun sound.
From his vantage point on the mountainside, Hiroki could see over to the flat land below. Lights—likely gunshots—flashed in a field just west of the village. As he descended the mountain, he heard an earsplitting roar. For an instant, between the trees, the night sky lit up. Again came that machine-gun brattattattat.
When he left the foot of the mountain, he saw a burning building near where he'd seen the flashes. He considered that his machinegun-wielding foe might still be in the area, but just as it had been with Megumi Eto, he had to find out what had happened. Cautiously, he wove his way between the fields, until, where the fires yet burned, he found Shinji Mimura's corpse. A large building, maybe a warehouse of some sort, was in ruins—it must have been an explosion after all. Beside it, debris large and small littered the parking lot, where, in front of a lone minivan, Shinji was lying facedown. His body had been riddled with bullets. Nearby, Yutaka Seto and Keita Iijima had been buried by the rubble.
The machine-gunner, who must have been the one to kill Shinji, was gone. But Hiroki, knowing one of the other students playing the game could be attracted to the area, quickly left.
He crossed the east-west road and ran into the base of the southern mountain. There, the thought again hit him: Shinji Mimura is dead. Hiroki knew Shinji fairly well, and his death was hard to believe. Though it seemed crass now, Hiroki had thought of him as immortal—someone who would refuse to die even when he was killed. Hiroki learned martial arts at the town's dojo, but ultimately that amounted to nothing more than technique. He had nothing on Shinji's innate physical prowess and had always assumed that if the two ever sparred, even under the martial arts rules with which he was familiar, and even with his full ten-centimeter height and reach advantage, he wouldn't stand a chance against Shinji. On top of that, Shinji was much smarter. Even if Shinji had been unable to escape from the game (though that likely had been his plan), he never would have been killed by any of the others. But this unknown machinegunner had done just that.
Hiroki didn't have time to mourn Shinji's death. He had to find Kayoko Kotohiki. If he didn't find her soon, and she got caught by the machine-gunner, she'd be killed in a split second.
Since zone G-3, which would be a forbidden zone after three o'clock, was located on the northern side of the south mountain's summit, Hiroki decided to hike there.
He'd been on this mountain several times now. Takako Chigusa's body would still be on the side of the mountain in zone H-4, not far from his destination. He hadn't even been able to give her a proper burial. Instead, he'd merely closed her eyes and folded her arms over her chest. She would still be outside any of the forbidden zones.
As he cautiously advanced through the darkness, Hiroki absently thought, I'm an awful person. I wasn't even able to stay with my closest friend. And now I'm going to walk right past you again on my way to G-3.
I'm sorry, Takako. But I still have something I have to do. I have to find Kayoko Kotohiki. Please forgive me.
Then another thought occurred to him. It was about Yutaka Seto.
Yutaka's seat number directly followed his, and he would have been the second to leave the school after him. But Hiroki had been scoping out the situation and frantically searching for a place to hide with a clear enough view of the entrance. Before he knew it, Yutaka had already vanished. That was when Hiroki decided Takako would be his priority. He let Haruka Tanizawa (Girls #12) and Yuichiro Takiguchi (Boys #13) pass by. (Then, after all his precautions, Yoshio Akamatsu's surprise appearance panicked him enough for him to lose sight of Takako.) Yutaka had managed to join up with his friends, Shinji and Keita Iijima. But now he was dead along with them.
I have to hurry, he reminded himself. Of all the others, he didn't want her to die.
Hiroki stopped beside a tree that hadn't many branches, and he looked at his handheld locator. The device's liquid-crystal display had no backlight, and he had some trouble reading it with only the moonlight. But he squinted and found the faint shadow created by the crystal molecules.
As per usual, the display remained unchanged, with the solitary star marking Hiroki's own presence. Hiroki let out a faint sigh.
Should I just shout for Kayoko? He'd asked himself that question many times now, and again he mulled it over. By the time he'd found Takako Chigusa, he was too late. What if calling out for her could prevent that from happening again?
No. That wouldn't work.
He couldn't do it. First of all, he couldn't be sure that Kayoko would respond. She might even run away. Besides, while he didn't care if someone attacked him, Kayoko could end up being targeted if she were to come at the same time.
He was left with no choice but to rely on that crude government-issued locator. But at least he had that; without it, his task would have been harder. He hated the government for throwing his class into this bullshit game—he hated them plenty—but on this one point he was grateful. There was a saying about finding a small consolation within a larger sadness. Did that make this a small gratitude within a larger outrage?
Hiroki crossed a knoll overgrown with tall grass, and he came upon a gentle upward slope with sparsely scattered trees. He knew he would soon enter zone H-4, where Takako now rested. Hiroki held up his locator and shifted it to catch the moonlight on its display.
In the center of the screen, he saw a blurred double image of his own star indicator. Damn, I'm getting too tired. My eyes are starting to go.
He was still looking down when he realized he was wrong. He spun, and the pole in his right hand flashed. Using the form he'd mastered in his martial arts training, his graceful movement traced a clean arc in the air.
The pole struck the arm of the figure standing behind him, who grunted and dropped something—a gun. In that brief moment when he'd been distracted by the locator, this person, gun at the ready, came up directly behind him.
The figure ran for the weapon. Hiroki thrust his stick into the assailant's path. The figure stopped and staggered back.
Then he saw her—first, the typical sailor fuku. Then, her face, beautiful in the bright moonlight, angelic and lovely, and unmistakable—the face of the girl who had left the school directly after him, while he hid in a corner of the schoolyard, not yet able to find a proper hiding place—the face of Mitsuko Souma (Girls #11).
Mitsuko raised both hands to her face and stepped back. "Don't kill me!" she cried. "Please don't kill me!"
She stumbled and fell onto her behind. Her pleated skirt revealed her white legs nearly all the way to the top of her thighs. As she edged farther back, those legs moved seductively in the pale moonlight.
"Please! I was only trying to talk to you. I wouldn't even thi
nk of killing anyone. Please help me. Help me!"
Hiroki silently stared down at her.
Apparently taking his silence as a sign that he meant her no harm, she slowly lowered her hands below her chin and looked up at him with the eyes of a frightened little animal, glistening with tears.
"You believe me, don't you?" she said. The moonlight fell on her pitiful, teary-eyed face. A hint of a smile appeared at the edges of her eyes. It was not the triumphant smile of having deceived her opponent, but rather one of heartfelt relief.
"I. . . I. . ." she said. As if only now noticing her bare legs, she tugged down the hem of her skirt with her left hand. "I thought I could trust you, Sugimura. And I was so scared, being all alone . . . This is all so terrible . . . I'm scared ..."
Without a word, Hiroki picked up the gun Mitsuko had dropped. He saw that the hammer had been pulled back, and so he uncocked it and walked over to Mitsuko. Holding it grip first, he offered it to her.
"Th-thank you," she said, timidly reaching for the weapon.
Her hand froze.
Hiroki had flipped the gun around in his hand and took the grip. Its barrel pointed directly between her eyes.
"W-what? What are you doing, Sugimura?"
Her face contorted in astonishment and fear—or at least, contorted. It was incredible, really. No matter how many rumors spread about her, very few (particularly among the guys) would believe their eyes, seeing that lovely face twisted and pleading. Even if they didn't, they'd still probably be convinced to do whatever she asked. Another time and Hiroki may very well have been one of them. But right now, Hiroki possessed an exceptional piece of information.
"That's enough of that, Souma," he said. Holding the gun on her, he stood up straight. "I saw Takako—before she died."
She gazed up at him, trembling those large, perfectly shaped eyes. If she was regretting not finishing off Takako, not a hint of it appeared in her expression. Only fear was there—and an entreaty for understanding and protection.
"N—no," she said. "That was an accident. That's right, I . . . wasn't alone the whole time. But when I met Takako, she ... It was her . . . She tried to kill me. That gun was hers, so ... so I—"
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