Battle Royale (Remastered)

by Koushun Takami, Nathan Collins

  Her body, in the sailor blouse and pleated skirt, splayed out on the roof, and her head was turned in an unnatural way. Her head appeared oddly distant from her body. A red splash extended from the top right of her head like an elongated, abstract-art maple leaf.

  "Ah . . ."

  For a while Shuya remained there, his arm still hanging from the balcony as he stared at the sight below.

  8 STUDENTS REMAIN.

  Hiroki Sugimura (Boys #11) held his breath.

  He'd heard the intense gunfire about ten minutes ago. Having been wandering in the northern mountain, he hurried to the east, toward the source of the sounds. When he came upon the lighthouse, silence had fallen.

  Hiroki had noticed the lighthouse on his map, but thinking Kayoko Kotohiki would never hide by herself in such a conspicuous location, he hadn't bothered to investigate. He hadn't been sure if this place was the source of the gunfire, but when he looked down from the surrounding clifftop, he saw a girl sprawled on the roof of the brick building connected to the lighthouse. Even at this distance, he could see the red stain beneath her head. She was dead. Much like with Megumi Eto, her short hair and petite body might have belonged to Kayoko Kotohiki.

  He slid down the cliffside. From below, he couldn't see the body on the roof, so he went around to the front entrance. Inside the open door, desks and chairs were jumbled in a pile, like someone had built a barricade, and then for some reason tore it down. Cautiously, Hiroki proceeded down the hallway of boarded-up windows (next to the entrance was a room with a bed and a broken door), and the display of his locator changed. Six stars. Alert, Hiroki shifted his broomhandlestaff to his right hand, withdrew his gun from his waistband with his left, and slowly advanced.

  When he reached the room with the kitchen and the standing pools of blood, he froze.

  The bodies of five girls were strewn about the room. The girls' class leader, Yukie Utsumi, was face up next to the center table. Haruka Tanizawa, with her head nearly torn off (yikes!) was to her right. Yuka Nakagawa, her face a sickly black, was near the back. Chisato Matsui had fallen forward by the sideboard table to his right, and her pallid face was turned toward him. A fifth girl lay facedown in the blood in the shadow of the table.

  The four whose faces he could see were clearly dead. But he couldn't be sure about the other.

  He carefully scanned the room once more. He looked toward the open door on the far side and listened. No one seemed to be in hiding.

  He returned the pistol in his left hand to the back waistband of his slacks, walked between the bodies of Yukie Utsumi and Haruka Tanizawa, passed by Yuka Nakagawa, and circled around the table. The soles of his shoes made splashing noises as he walked through the blood spread all over the floor. He crouched beside the facedown girl, set down the broom handle in his right hand, and put both hands on the girl. When he began to turn her over, sharp pain shot out from where Mitsuko Souma had stabbed him in his right shoulder. Toshinori Oda's bullet had only grazed his thigh and hadn't bled or hurt much at all. But Hiroki ignored the pain and turned over the body.

  Satomi Noda. A red hole had opened in the left side of her forehead, and the left lens of her glasses, askew but still on her face, had shattered, possibly when she'd hit the floor. Dead.

  Hiroki laid her back down and looked to the open doorway at the rear of the room. That led to the lighthouse tower and up to the lantern room.

  The sixth blip on his detector would be the girl on the roof. She too was certainly dead, but he had to find out who she was—chiefly because she resembled Kayoko Kotohiki.

  Hiroki drew his gun and stepped through the door to find a steel staircase. He rushed up the stairs—taking care for his footsteps not to make any noise. Someone might still be up there. In his right hand, he held the detector along with the broom handle and kept an eye on the display.

  But the device showed no change as he came up into the lantern room. Hiroki put the detector back into his pocket and the pistol into his back waistband, and he went out to the lantern deck.

  He put his hands on the steel railing, gulped, and thrust his head over the railing and looked down.

  He saw the body of a girl in a sailor fuku. Her neck was twisted in an unnatural way, and blood had splattered beneath her—but she wasn't Kayoko Kotohiki. She was Yuko Sakaki.

  And yet, he thought, as he felt the sea breeze on his face and gazed across the water, the six girls here died all at once. He hadn't seen any guns in the room below, but from their wounds, and the many holes in the walls and floor, he was certain that the gunfire had come from here. He tried to imagine what had happened—somehow, the girls had gathered together and shut themselves inside, but then someone attacked them. That was plausible. The other five downstairs were killed first, and Yuko fled to the tower, but she fell to her death before the attacker got to her. And that assailant had left before Hiroki arrived.

  But then there was the barricade at the front door. If they'd boarded up every window and blocked every way in, Hiroki wondered, why did the girls tear down the front barricade when the attacker showed up? The attacker could have done it on the way out. . . . But no, that wouldn't explain how he—or she—got inside. Could it be that there were seven girls, and one of them suddenly betrayed the rest or had her plans revealed? No, that couldn't be. And Yuka Nakagawa—she wasn't shot. She looked like she'd been strangled or something.

  And I can't figure out the blood splattered all over the table. How did that much blood get up there? But that's not all—what about the door by the front entrance? How did it get broken?

  No matter how much he thought about it, he wasn't going to find any answers. He shook his head, gave the roof one last look, and returned to the lantern room.

  Hiroki tramped down the winding metal staircase in the dim tower and gazed at the walls without paying attention to them. He felt a little dizzy, as if his spiral descent were a part of him. Maybe it was his fatigue, or maybe it was his realization.

  We're down another six now. At noon, Sakamochi said there were fourteen of us left. Now there are eight, at most.

  Is Kayoko Kotohiki still alive? She wouldn't have died sometime since noon, somewhere I haven't found yet, right?

  No, he thought. She has to be alive.

  Though he had nothing on which to base this belief, for some reason he felt nearly certain. Only eight of them remained—or less. But he was still alive. And Kayoko Kotohiki was surely still alive. Only finding her was taking too much time. A full day and a half had passed since the game began, and he still hadn't found her. But he would find her. Of this too he was nearly certain.

  Hiroki thought of Shuya Nanahara's little group. None of the three's names had been in the announcements. And Shogo Kawada had told him, "Hop on our train whenever you like."

  Is there really a way out? And can I really reach that station with Kotohiki?

  Of that he wasn't sure. But whatever it took, he wanted to get her aboard that train.

  Shall I offer you my hand, Mademoiselle?

  Ha, that sounds like a line Shinji would use.

  He could see how Shinji Mimura could be friends with Yutaka Seto. Shinji liked to joke—though his sense of humor was a little different from Yutaka's. Shinji was more sarcastic, at times biting. But he knew the importance of being able to laugh things off. Back in second year, while some government official from the regional school board was droning on during the closing ceremony for their winter term, he and Hiroki were talking, and he said, "My uncle used to say that laughter is a crucial element for harmony, and it might be our only means of release. Do you understand that, Sugimura? I still don't quite get it."

  Hiroki felt like he vaguely understood but couldn't get a good grasp on it. Maybe he was just too young. Whatever the case, Shinji Mimura and Yutaka Seto were dead now. Hiroki would never be able to give Shinji his answer.

  Lost in his thoughts, Hiroki found himself standing in the kitchen with the five corpses. Once again Hiroki looked over the blood
-soaked room.

  Because of the overpowering stench of blood, he hadn't until now noticed the enticing smell coming from the pot on the cooking range. With the gas surely shut off, the girls must have been cooking with some kind of solid fuel or something. He walked over and took a look. The flame beneath the grill had gone out, but steam still rose from the stew inside.

  He'd had nothing to eat aside from the government-issue bread (and he'd run out of water and had to retrieve more from a well outside a house), and he was hungry, but he shook his head and tore himself away from the pot. He couldn't bring himself to eat—not in this room. Besides, he needed to hurry and find Kayoko Kotohiki. He needed to leave now.

  He staggered to the hallway. The sleep deprivation had left his legs unsteady.

  Someone was standing at the front door at the end of the long corridor. In the darkness of the hallway, the figure stood silhouetted by the bright outside light.

  Before his eyes had time to go wide, Hiroki dove sideways, back into the kitchen. At the same time, violent flames burst from the figure's hands, and a stream of bullets flew past Hiroki's feet.

  His expression twisted with alarm, Hiroki rose to one knee, slammed the door shut, and turned the lock.

  He'd heard that gunfire before. He'd heard it right before and after that incredible explosion. He'd heard it behind him after he ran from Toshinori Oda—whoever this was had killed Toshinori. He'd also heard it when Yumiko Kusaka and Yukiko Kitano were killed. And he'd heard it many other times. Which meant that this was that classmate. Like Hiroki, he must have heard the gunfire and come to investigate—or he'd come to take out the person who had killed Yukie and her girls. Or maybe he was the attacker, now returning.

  Still kneeling, Hiroki put his left hand around to his back and gripped the pistol. He'd found spare ammo in the daypack Mitsuko Souma had left behind and filled the magazine, but he hadn't found a spare magazine—maybe Mitsuko had kept it in her pocket. The weapon was a single-action semi-automatic Colt Ml911. The magazine housed seven rounds, and he had one more in the chamber. He would not likely have time to reload. The moment he tried, he'd be mowed down by that machine gun—or whatever other firearms his attacker carried.

  He pressed himself against the wall beside the door and looked across the kitchen where the girls' corpses lay. All the windows had been boarded up from the inside. Tearing down the barriers to get outside would take time. He looked at the door to the lighthouse tower. But no, that wasn't an option either. The upper platform was too high for a jump—if he did, the best he could expect was a long sunbath next to Yuko Sakaki. Hiroki wondered what this unknown attacker was doing now. Is he sneaking up to the door? Or is he going to wait for me to come out? No, he must be in a hurry too. If he doesn't end this quickly, someone else coming to investigate the gunfire might catch him from behind, so he'll—

  Hiroki was right. Bullets tore through the wooden door around the handle. (Several of the rounds struck Chisato Matsui's corpse, directly in front of the door, and shredded flesh from her shoulder and side.)

  The door crashed open.

  The next instant, a dark figure dove into the room.

  The figure sprang to his feet, and Hiroki saw that it was Kazuo Kiriyama (Boys #6). Paying no heed to anything else in the room— not even the corpses—he aimed his machine gun at his blind spot to the side of the door. By the time it was pointed there, he was already firing.

  Five or six bullets dug holes in the wall—and then the shooting stopped. No one was there.

  Not missing this opportunity, Hiroki raised his broom handle and attacked Kiriyama from above. In a snap decision, he had climbed atop the tall, wall-mounted shelves beside the door. He had put away his pistol, having decided not to rely on the unfamiliar weapon. What mattered now was not to let his opponent—Kiriyama, he now knew—shoot.

  Kiriyama sensed his movement and looked up. He began to raise his gun, but before he could, Hiroki smashed his wrist with the broom handle. The 9mm Ingram MAC-10 clattered to the floor, slid, and came to a stop on the other side of the table, near Satomi Noda.

  Kiriyama started to pull another gun from the front of his slacks (a large semi-automatic pistol—not Toshinori Oda's revolver). But Hiroki landed in a fighting stance and immediately flicked his pole, slapping this second gun from Kiriyama's hand.

  Keep striking! Don't stop until he's down!

  Hiroki swung again, but Kiriyama leaned back and went straight into a backflip. With a finesse fit for a kung-fu movie, he bounded over Yukie Utsumi's body, did a flip, and landed on his feet in front of the center table, with a revolver in hand. Hiroki recognized it as Toshinori's gun.

  But Hiroki's move must have taken even Kiriyama by surprise. In an instant, Hiroki had rushed forward, closing within eighty centimeters of the killer.

  Hiroki shouted, "Hyah!" and swung his pole, slapping a gun from Kiriyama's hand for the third time. The revolver sailed through the air, and before it landed, Hiroki wheeled the other end of the pole at

  Kiriyama's face. Kiriyama's back was to the table—he wouldn't be able to dodge backward again.

  But the broom handle stopped mere centimeters before it struck the killer's face. And then a third of the pole's length skimmed past Kiriyama's head as it went flying. Only then did Hiroki hear the wood snap. Kiriyama had brought up his left palm and chopped the broom handle in two.

  The killer immediately followed with a right spear-hand strike to Hiroki's eyes.

  Kiriyama's hand moved so quickly that it was a miracle Hiroki managed to duck in time.

  But he did duck it, and as he did, now that he had dropped the broom handle, he grabbed Kiriyama's wrist with both hands. He twisted it back while at the same time driving his right knee into Kiriyama's stomach. The killer grunted but remained expressionless.

  Keeping Kiriyama's wrist bent backward with his left hand, Hiroki drew his pistol with his right, cocking the hammer. He pressed the muzzle into Kiriyama's stomach and squeezed the trigger.

  And he kept shooting until every last bullet was gone. Kiriyama's body shook with each shot.

  When the pistol's slide locked, the eighth spent cartridge clattered to the floor, where it rolled and clinked against one of the others.

  Still holding Kiriyama's wrist, Hiroki felt the strength slowly drain from his opponent's body. Kiriyama's head, with that slicked-back hair, went limp. Were Hiroki to release his wrist, his body would likely slump onto the corner of the table and slide to the floor.

  But instead Hiroki stood fixed to the spot, facing his foe, breathing heavily, as if the two were locked in some strange dance.

  I won.

  He had won against the Kazuo Kiriyama—the same Kazuo Kiriyama who boasted an athletic ability superior to Shinji Mimura and maybe even Shuya Nanahara, and who, from what Hiroki had heard, had never lost a fight.

  I beat the Kazuo—

  Suddenly, sharp pain pierced through his right side. He grunted . . . and his eyes went wide.

  Kazuo Kiriyama was looking up at Hiroki. And the knife in his left hand was digging into Hiroki's stomach.

  Slowly, Hiroki's eyes moved from the knife back to Kiriyama's face. Kiriyama stared at him with those handsome, yet cold eyes.

  How. . . is he. . . alive?

  Hiroki had no way of knowing it was because Kiriyama was wearing Toshinori Oda's bulletproof vest. And right now, there wasn't any point in trying to figure it out.

  Kiriyama twisted the blade, and Hiroki moaned. Hiroki started to lose his grip on Kiriyama's wrist.

  Oh no, this is bad. Really bad.

  But Hiroki summoned the strength to renew his grip. He swung up his other arm, which still held the emptied pistol.

  His elbow connected with Kiriyama's chin.

  Kiriyama flew back and skidded across the blood-covered white table. The blood splatter, which had resembled the flag of the Republic of Greater East Asia, now looked more like the stripes of the American flag. The knife came free, gouging out about thi
rty grams of flesh. Blood gushed out from the wound. Hiroki let out a gasp that emptied his lungs.

  But the next moment, he was turning on his heels and running for the hallway door.

  Just as he was passing through the doorway, he heard a gunshot, and the doorframe cracked. Kiriyama hadn't had time to pick up one of the many guns from the floor. He must have been carrying a fourth (probably strapped to one of his ankles).

  Ignoring the gunfire, Hiroki ran.

  He hurtled over the scattered chairs and desks at the entrance. The moment before he emerged outside, he heard that all-too-familiar machine-gun fire, but he was in a crouching run, and Kiriyama's shots missed.

  The cloudy sky threatened to rain at any moment, yet seemed so terribly bright.

  Hiroki sprinted for the thicket beyond the gate where the minivan was parked. Behind him, his red blood speckled the white earth.

  He heard the machine gun again, but he had already burst into the thicket.

  He didn't have time to rest now.

  8 STUDENTS REMAIN.

  It had begun to drizzle. In pale daylight muted by thick clouds and raindrops, the rain-washed island foliage took on a dark sheen.

  Shuya slowly wove his way through the bushes. To his right, he had an open view of the sea, a dull gray beyond the white curtain of rain.

  He was wearing his own shirt, uniform, and sneakers, which he'd found in the room where Yukie and her girls had been. Raindrops fell from tree branches and soaked his school coat. He carried the Uzi submachine gun slung from his shoulder, his right hand on its grip, and had tucked the CZ 75 pistol in the front of his slacks. The Browning—along with all the ammo he'd collected—was in the daypack on his back.

  Shuya had quickly distanced himself from the lighthouse. Some fifteen minutes later, when he had begun collecting branches to light the two signal fires near the northern cliffside, gunfire came from the direction of the lighthouse. He was not surprised. Even though the massacre had occurred inside, two of his classmates had likely heard the repeated gunfire, gone there, and ended up fighting.