With a thmpthmpthmp, Yukie was knocked backward. Blood sprayed from the chest of her sailor fuku, and she landed on her back.
For a second, Haruka stood there, frozen. Then she was running after the Browning Yukie had dropped. Satomi's Uzi followed her motion and then barked, thmpthmpthmp. The side of her blouse burst open and sent fabric and blood flying. Her body slid along the floor.
Then Satomi pointed her gun across the table at Yuko and said, "What about you? You're different, right?"
Yuko could only tremble. She shook as she looked into Satomi's face.
She heard a bang and saw a hole open in the left side of Satomi's forehead. Satomi's mouth opened, and she looked to her left. Blood streamed from her forehead. The river of it stopped briefly at the edge of her eye, behind those round-rimmed glasses, then resumed its journey down.
Like an automaton, Yuko stiffly swiveled her head to see where Satomi was looking. There, on the floor, Haruka was sitting upright, apparently in terrible pain—but she had a firm grip on the Browning.
Satomi's Uzi barked, thmpthmpthmpthmpthmpthmpthmp. She might have fired on purpose, or it might have been a death spasm. Either way, the trail of bullet holes ran up the floor and across Haruka's body, knocking her back and twisting her around. A mist of blood scattered in the air, and above her collar, only half of her neck was still attached to her head.
Then, slowly, Satomi toppled forward. With a thud, she slumped atop Yuka Nakagawa's crumpled-up corpse. And then she was still, with not even a twitch.
Yuko, now alone in the room, only stood there shaking. As if her body had turned to stone, she remained frozen and trembled. Like a little child who'd wandered into a museum of oddities, she stared around at her five classmates dead on the floor.
9 STUDENTS REMAIN.
When Shuya heard the sound of something shattering, he figured it was something innocent, such as one of those clumsy girls making lunch dropping a plate. But then when he heard the voices arguing, he sprang upright in his bed.
Sharp pain struck his left side and shoulder. He grunted but managed to use his right arm to pull himself from the bed. Still wearing only his school slacks, he put his bare feet on the floor. The argument carried on. He thought he could hear Yukie shouting amid the voices.
Shuya walked to the door. He put his hand on the knob, turned it, and pushed the door open—but after a centimeter, it stopped with a jolt. Through the narrow opening, he saw a wooden beam running aslant across the other side. As Yukie had warned him, they had barred him inside with a makeshift crossbar.
He took a better grip on the doorknob and gave it a good rattle, but the door refused to budge. He pushed his fingers through the crack, but whatever the girls had done to fix that beam in place, it didn't move.
Just as he gave up and sighed, a thmpthmpthmp sound came through that crack—gunfire, like he'd heard so many times now. There were more screams.
The blood drained from Shuya's face. An attack? But then why is.. . well, whatever it is, something's wrong!
In spite of his injuries, he was able to lift up his right leg and hold himself steady, while he kicked the door with the ball of his bare foot, following a technique Hiroki Sugimura had once taught him. But the stalwart door rebuffed his attack, and Shuya lost his balance and fell on his rear. Pain shot up from the wound in his side. On top of it all, he realized he needed to pee,- but that would have to wait.
Another thmpthrnpthmp. And again, thmpthmpthmp.
He quickly looked over his shoulder to the bed, then stood and lifted the metal pipe bed frame with his good arm. The bed crashed over on its side, and the blankets and sheets fell.
He dragged the bed to the door, went around behind it, then rammed it into the door as hard as he could. The wood creaked in protest, and the door tilted. One more time.
Another gunshot. BANG! This time, it was only one.
The bed frame smashed into the door. Wood snapped, and the door, nearly bent in half, spilled open into the hallway. Shuya yanked the bed back and let it fall over on the floor.
With another thmpthmpthmpthmpthmpthmpthmp, the gunfire came loud and clear through the open doorway.
Shuya stepped out of the room. With the electricity out and the windows shaded and boarded over, the hall was dark. The front door was on his left, and at his right were three more doors along the long hallway. The farthest had been left ajar, and the light leaked into the hall. Its reflection formed a cold puddle of light on the floor.
The beam that had been blocking the door had split in two. The larger piece was about a meter long. He picked it up and dragged his aching body down the hall. There wasn't a sound now. What the hell is going on? Did someone attack?
Shuya cautiously approached the third door. He put his eye up to the opening. Through the crack he saw a room with a kitchen and Yukie Utsumi and Haruka Tanizawa sprawled out beside the center table, and behind them Yuka Nakagawa (What the fuck happened to her face!], and Chisato Matsui against the right-hand wall, and another girl facedown in the table's shadow. That one must have been Satomi Noda, because unless Shuya's eyes were mistaken, the slender girl with silky shoulder-length hair, standing motionless with her back to him, was Yuko Sakaki.
Several guns were scattered among the fallen bodies. The stench of the splattered blood assaulted him.
Shuya froze in shock. The feeling of complete and utter paralysis was identical to what he had felt seeing Mayumi Tendo's corpse in front of the school.
What the hell! What happened here? Yukie—the same Yukie who had told him, "Listen to the girl who's in love with you," was sprawled on the floor. And four more were with her. Are they. . . dead? Are they all dead?
Yuko, her back still to him, wasn't holding a gun. All she did was stand there, like a girl from Venus suddenly dropped on Pluto.
In a daze, Shuya took the doorknob, slowly opened the door, and set foot inside.
Yuko spun to face him. For an instant, she stared at him with bloodshot eyes, and then she was diving for the pistol on the floor between Yukie and Haruka.
In that same moment, Shuya snapped out of his trance. Putting force into his uninjured right arm, he hurled the piece of wood at her the way he used to throw a perfect fastball in Little League. (He doubted now that such a sport existed on this earth. No, that must have been somewhere in a land far, far away, near the Andromeda Galaxy, where they used three of their five arms to play—except in the final inning, when they were permitted use of their tails.)
Shuya grimaced as pain shot through his body, but the wood hit the floor right in front of her and bounced up, and she stopped running and shielded her face with both arms, only she slipped on the bloody floor and landed on her backside.
Shuya ran for the same gun. He couldn't make sense of what was happening, but he was certain that Yuko picking up that gun would only complicate matters even further.
Yuko screeched and backed away. She sat upright, then turned over and scrambled for the opposite doorway. She made it past the table and disappeared through the open door. He could hear her footsteps clacking on something metallic. Stairs?
For a moment Shuya watched the doorway after her, but before he followed, he ran to Yukie Utsumi and knelt beside her.
He saw the holes in the front of her school uniform. Blood had begun to spread beneath her, and her eyes were closed peacefully, as if in slumber. Her mouth was barely open.
But she wasn't breathing.
"No," he said. He reached his hand to her tranquil face, and for the first time since the game began, he felt tears welling up in his eyes. Was it merely because they had been talking just minutes before, or was it something else?
"I didn't know what rd do if you died. . . Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"So you call Noriko by her name, but I'm Class Leader.”
Her face then had been teaiy-eyed yet filled with relief, and later, tinged with sadness. Now her face was eerily peaceful.
Shuya looked around. He didn
't need to check on the others. Yuka Nakagawa's face was discolored, and bloody foam overflowed from her mouth. A pool of blood had formed beneath Satomi Noda's face-down head. Holes riddled Chisato Matsui's back, and Haruka Tanizawa's head had nearly been torn off.
How could this happen?
Shuya looked back at Yukie. With his numb left arm even managing to pitch in, he sat her up. Maybe it was a pointless gesture, but Shuya had to do it.
As he held her, he could hear blood from the exit wounds in her back dripping to the floor. Her neck lolled back, and her braided hair touched his arms.
"Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Teardrops spilled from his eyes and made tiny splashes on her sailor fuku.
Sobbing, Shuya pressed his lips together and gently laid her back down on the floor. He picked up the Browning Yuko had tried to grab. He walked to the open door at the end of the room where she had disappeared. His body felt far heavier than his many injuries could justify. Holding the gun in his right hand, he rubbed his eyes with his bare forearm.
Through the doorway was a cylindrical space with exposed concrete walls. A lighthouse. This is the lighthouse. A steel staircase wound around a thick steel column in the middle of the room. Without windows, the tower was dim. A faint light fell from above.
Shuya yelled, "Yuko!" and began up the stairs. "What happened, Yuko?"
He saw no sign of her above. But then he heard her scream echo through the cylindrical space. Shuya knit his eyebrows and hurried his pace. The wound in his side pulsated with pain. He thought he might be bleeding because he felt the bandage grow damp.
9 STUDENTS REMAIN.
Yuko Sakaki raced up the stairs and was out of breath when she emerged at the top of the tower. The lantern room had just enough space to walk around the Cyclopean eye of the Fresnel lens in the center. The storm panes offered a view of the cloudy sky. To her left, a low door led to the outside catwalk. Yuko desperately opened the door and went outside.
This high up, the wind was stronger than she'd expected and smelled strongly of the sea.
The water unfolded before her. The sea reflected the overcast sky in a muted indigo upon which white waves wove an intricate fabric. Yuko moved to her right around the lantern deck. Across a small clearing at the front of the lighthouse, the northern mountain loomed. A little to the left, an unpaved access road wove around the base of the mountain. A lone white minivan had been left beside a meager gate at the mouth of the road.
Yuko held the steel railing. Beneath, she could see the roof of the attached single-story building—and of the room where she had been only moments ago. She followed the handrail around the lantern deck but did not find what she had expected—a ladder. She hadn't taken a turn on watch yet and wasn't familiar with the outside of the lantern room. There was no way down. She'd trapped herself in a dead end up in the sky. Panic nearly overcame her, but she gritted her teeth and fought it down. With no ladder, she'd have to jump.
Breathing heavily, she returned to where the building lay below, and she looked down again.
It was a long way down—not as bad as to the ground, but still a very long way. It was, in fact, too far to jump, but before she could reach a rational decision, that image flashed through her mind again. Only this time, the other girls were gone, and it was just her there with her head split open. Blood sprayed up and covered Shuya Nanahara's face. She had to escape—no matter what it took. She couldn't not escape. And she was out of time.
Yuko crouched down and slipped herself through one of the wide gaps between the posts in the carelessly constructed railing. Then she was on the other side. Holding onto the railing, she carefully stood on the ten-centimeter-wide lip of the balcony.
The view beneath her feet was dizzying. This is really high. I can't jump from here. It's high . . . It's so high.
Suddenly her body jolted. Her foot had slipped. Below the hem of her pleated skirt, the side of her bare shin struck the edge of the concrete walkway (she felt her skin scraping off), and her body was in air. She shrieked and flailed her hands and wrapped her arms around the bottom of a narrow metal railing post. The rest of her dangled below the balcony's edge.
Her arms were wrapped around the pole, and she was panting for air. I almost. . . died.
Yuko swallowed and willed her arms to hold. Okay first, I need to pull myself up and get back on the other side of the railing. Then I need to figure out a way I can stand up to Shuya Nanahara. That's my only—
A strong gust of wind shook her. She let out a futile scream. Her hands slid from the steel pole and barely hung on to the edge of the concrete. The pole was beyond her reach now.
Her palms began to sweat. Overcome by terror and dismay, she began to panic. How how how how can I be sweating now? My hands— they're slipping—
Her right pinky lost hold and fell.
"No!" she yelled. Her ring finger went next. Then her whole right hand dropped. (She felt the nail of her pointer finger catch, but it broke, and that was that.) Her body swung in the air, pivoting on her left hand. And now that hand was—
She screamed as she fell. A dreamlike sensation came over her.
But then her arm jolted and pulled at her shoulder, and her drop halted less than half a meter after it began.
Dangling from her outstretched left arm, she looked up dumbly— and saw Shuya Nanahara, who was sticking halfway through the railing and had caught her by the wrist.
For an instant Yuko stared at him blankly. Then she screamed, "No!"
Of course if he let go, she would die, but it was Shuya Nanahara.
"No! No!"
With her eyes open wide and her hair shaking wildly, she kept on screaming, and she thought, Why? Why are you trying to save me? Is it to use me to stay alive? Or. . . oh, that's it. You want to kill me with your bare hands!
"No! Let me go!" Whatever remaining traces of rational thought she possessed were in tatters now. "No! I'd rather die like this than be killed by you! Let me go. Let me go!"
Whatever he thought about this—or maybe he didn't think anything—his expression didn't change. "Keep still," he barked.
Again she looked up at him, and then she noticed it. Blood oozed from the bandage around his neck, just below that silver collar, and trickled down his shoulder.
The blood dribbled all the way down his arm and onto her hand.
Shuya grunted and redoubled his grip. His face was clammy with sweat. And he wasn't just hurt in his neck, but all over his body. Not only was he holding her weight with one arm, he was trying to pull her up. He must have been in extraordinary pain.
Yuko's jaw dropped. Why? Why are you trying to save me, when it must hurt that bad? It's because—
The answer came to her all at once. The black fog enveloping her mind cleared as if blown by a sudden gust of wind (much like the sea breeze buffeting at her now). Scattered was the image of Shuya holding that bloody hatchet as he gazed down at Tatsumichi Oki's corpse. Once again, she saw the cheerful boy she used to know back in Class B until only two days ago. He was laughing as he traded jokes with Yoshitoki Kuninobu and Shinji Mimura. He was looking serious as he repeated a tricky guitar riff in the music room. He was grinning as he struck a victory pose from second base, after she'd happened to glance outside the gymnasium during volleyball in gym class and saw him make a perfect hit straight down the third base line. And he was gazing at her with concern, when in class, she'd turned pale from an attack of terrible cramps, and he gently asked her, "What's wrong, Sakaki? You don't look so good," and interrupted their English teacher Mr. Yamamoto's reading to get the attention of the nurse's aide, Fumiyo Fujiyoshi.
Oh. Yuko finally grasped what was really happening. It's Nanahara. Nanahara is trying to save me. Why did I think I had to kill him? Why did I think that? He's Nanahara. I always thought he was kind of cool and kind of nice.
Then another thought began to coalesce—what she had done, and what she had brought about. Again her face paled.
Hos
t my mind. . . and because of me, everyone's . . .
She started to cry. Noticing this, Shuya looked puzzled.
"Nanahara!" she yelled. "It was me. I . . . I . . . tried to kill you." Tears filling her eyes, she looked desperately up to him. He seemed surprised.
She continued, "I—thought you killed Oki. I saw it. I was scared. I was so scared. So I tried to poison your food, but Yuka ate it. And then everyone..."
Now Shuya understood everything. She had been in some nearby bushes and witnessed him fighting Tatsumichi and pulling the hatchet from his face. But that was all—she hadn't seen Kyoichi Motobuchi and Kawada show up. Sure, she could have interpreted it as self-defense or an accident. But she had been so completely terrified that she had no choice but to fear him. She'd tried to poison him, but Yuka Nakagawa ate his food by mistake, and all the girls fell into a paranoid panic. Only the poisoner herself survived.
"That doesn't matter now!" Shuya yelled. "It's all right, so just don't move. I'll pull you up!"
Shuya was lying nearly flat on the concrete balcony, with his body passed between the bars of the handrail. With his left arm disabled, he couldn't grab on to the posts. But he twisted his body and managed to tuck his right knee beneath himself to get leverage for his back muscles. Still holding firmly to her wrist, he began to pull. In his side, and his shoulder, and his neck, and every part of him that hurt, the pain surged.
But then with tears streaking down her face, Yuko shook her head.
"No. No. It's my fault they're all. . . they're all..."
She wrenched her hand about, trying to pull free. His firm grip on her loosened, and he quickly he squeezed tighter—but the blood trailing down from his neck made his hand slip.
Her hand left his. The weight on his arm suddenly vanished.
Yuko's face, looking up at him, fell away.
Then with a thud, she was on her back on the roof of the building below. Rather than fall from his hand, she seemed to have appeared down there like a jump cut in a film.
Battle Royale (Remastered) Page 46