After some indecision, Shuya decided to return to the lighthouse. The shots had sounded like Kazuo Kiriyama's machine gun—a sound he knew only too well. He doubted that Noriko and Kawada would have rushed toward the scene of the massacre, but few players remained. If one side of this battle was Kiriyama, then the other could very likely be Hiroki Sugimura—though it could of course also be Mitsuko Souma.
But the gunfire quickly ceased. Shuya reconsidered and decided not to return to the lighthouse. He didn't think he'd find anyone there now—except for possibly one more corpse added to those of Yukie and her girls.
The rain had started to fall just as Shuya had finished preparing the two signal fires atop the cliffs. He had found a lighter in the lighthouse, but with the rain, he hadn't been able to get the fires going.
When the rain worsened, Shuya gave up and moved on. Noriko and Kawada probably hadn't moved far. Sector C-3 was a forbidden zone now, but the adjacent D-3 and C-4 remained safe. They should still be somewhere in that area. He could make the fires once he was closer.
With that plan in mind, he began walking. But when the northern shoreline turned toward the west he heard the faint sound of a chirping bird far in the distance. This was near two-thirty in the afternoon. Shuya stopped to listen—and hurriedly looked at his watch. The second hand ticked seven times, and the faint chirping stopped. Kawada had said he would sound the birdcall for fifteen seconds. Once Shuya accounted for how long it took him to check his watch, that seemed to be about how long the chirping had lasted. And Shuya had the impression that most birds didn't chirp in the rain. At the very least, the occasional tweets he'd heard the afternoon before were otherwise entirely absent now.
Shuya continued along the northwest shore—and again he heard that chirping. This time, the sound was distinct. This call came exactly fifteen minutes after the last—and stopped after exactly fifteen seconds. Kawada. Without waiting for a signal fire, Kawada had been sending Shuya the call.
Three minutes had now passed since the third call. Shuya was getting close. According to his map, he was just entering Sector B-5 from B-6.
Shuya rested his feet for a moment. He put the Uzi's barrel under his left wrist and used the gun to lift his arm so he could see his watch. This way was easier than straining his muscles to lift the arm on its own. The watch's hands, distorted through the raindrops on the glass, indicated five after three.
The birdcall sounded like it came more from the mountain than near the shore. Shuya sent the sea one more glance, then proceeded up the gentle slope. He looked up and noticed that the shape of the northern mountain appeared different, and he realized how far he'd circled around the mountain and was now deep into the western shoreline.
Just a little more now. He hadn't walked a kilometer and a half, but he was feeling the effects of losing so much blood. His body was weak, and the severe pain from all his wounds was nearly enough to make him throw up. (He really needed to not be moving.) But I'm almost there—almost there.
He entered the thicket. Having to push his way through the bushes intensified his exhaustion. The danger of someone attacking from the undergrowth of course remained. But he couldn't afford to worry about that any longer. If that did happen, all he had to do was squeeze the trigger of his Uzi.
The thickly layered leaves became sparse, and the thicket suddenly opened into a clearing. Shuya froze. No gun-wielding foe awaited in this small open space—but he did find something unexpected.
At first, he thought they were two gray boulders. But they were moving. And when he really looked, he saw the legs, in sneakers and black slacks.
Corpses. Two boys had died here.
A small flash of red rose from one of the stiff gray clumps and cried, "Kaw!" It was a medium-sized bird—about as large as a heron— with its head stained red. They were feeding on the bodies.
Reflexively, Shuya raised the Uzi toward them and pressed his finger on the trigger . . . but he stopped himself. He walked toward them.
The birds flapped their wings and flew away from the bodies.
Shuya stood beside them in the rain. He felt a sudden urge to vomit and instinctively raised his right hand (which still held the Uzi) to his mouth.
It was a chilling sight. The birds had picked away at their exposed faces. Here and there, red flesh poked out through the skin. They were covered with blood.
Shuya managed to hold back his nausea while he looked at the bodies. They seemed to be Tadakatsu Hatagami and Yuichiro Takiguchi. Then he noticed that through no fault of the birds, Tadakatsu's face, which was by far the worse of the two, had been brutally mangled. Even his nose, which had so far escaped the birds' beaks, was crushed.
Shuya looked around and saw a bat lying nearby in the grass. Despite the rain, the bat's tip was still tinged red. Between the bat and Tadakatsu's face, the boy had apparently been beaten to death—the baseball player killed by the implement his sport depended on.
Yuichiro's face was in comparatively good shape—though it seemed to have been stripped of its lips and eyeballs.
Shuya heard flapping, and one of the birds returned to land on Tadakatsu's face. Then a few more came to join it. Since Shuya had been standing still, they must have thought it was safe.
You think you're sate, you bastards?
Shuya tightened his finger on the Uzi's trigger, but he stopped himself. Getting back to Kawada and Noriko was the most important thing now.
More of the birds returned.
Were the other bodies all over the island being eaten by birds like this? Or was it just because these two were near the sea?
Shuya tore his gaze away from the two bodies, walked unsteadily around them, and entered the thicket ahead. The birds cawed behind him.
As he walked farther, he felt another sudden urge to puke. He had become accustomed to people dying, but seeing them eaten by birds— by those filthy birds . . .
I'll never again be able to stand on a beach and feel at peace watching the birds fly. When I write my own songs, I'll never again sing about seabirds. I don't even think I'll want to eat poultry for while. Birds. . . suck.
But then he heard that chirping again. He looked up. Fat raindrops hit his face.
Well, birds suck. . . but maybe I can give the little ones a pass.
After exactly fifteen seconds, the chirping stopped. It seemed very close now.
Shuya looked around himself. The undergrowth continued up the gentle slope. They must be . . . they must be around here. Kawada and Noriko must be right nearby. But where?
Before he could think of an answer, the nausea he'd suppressed at the back of his throat resurged. The two corpses and their sagging faces. And the birds making an afternoon snack of their soft flesh. Yummy.
He knew he shouldn't puke. It would only weaken him further.
But.
Shuya fell to his knees and vomited. Since he hadn't eaten anything, all that came up were gastric juices. The sharp, acidic stench struck him.
Shuya threw up more. Something pink was mixed into the yellow liquid, like spilled paint. He wondered if his stomach was messed up too.
"Nanahara," a voice said.
Shuya looked up. Reflexively, he pointed the Uzi toward the voice. But then he slowly lowered the muzzle back toward the ground.
Amid the bushes was that face that would have been at home behind a carnival food stand. Kawada. In his left hand, he held a bow which he seemed to have carved from wood, and he was lowering an arrow in his right. Shuya realized, Oh, that's right. I must have caught on his tripwire.
"Bad hangover?" Kawada joked, but his voice was infused with a deep warmth.
With a rustling of leaves, Noriko appeared behind his shoulder. She gazed at Shuya, and beneath her rain-drenched hair, her eyes and mouth trembled.
Halfway knocking Kawada aside, she dragged her leg and ran to Shuya.
Shuya wiped his mouth and shakily rose. He let the Uzi drop on its sling and met her with a one-armed embrace. He didn't care
that the impact of her body sent pain shooting through his side. He didn't care that their reunion came atop a fresh pile of puke. She clung to him, a warmth in the cold of the rain.
Buried in his chest, she looked up at him. "Shuya, Shuya, I'm so glad . . . I'm so glad." She was crying. Teardrops fell from the corners of her eyes and mixed with the raindrops that struck her face.
Shuya gave her a grin. Then he realized he too was nearly crying. Too many had died in this damn game. But he was happy the two of them were alive. He was as happy as could be.
Kawada walked over to them and thrust out his right hand. For a moment, Shuya was puzzled by the gesture . . . but then he understood. He held out his right hand past Noriko and shook Kawada's hand. It was large and thick.
His voice gentle, Kawada said, "Welcome back."
8 STUDENTS REMAIN.
A little down the slope toward the western shore, an outcropping of rock formed a low, seaward-facing wall amid the trees. Two large sticks stuck out from the rock face. (If Kawada had put them there, it must have taken him a lot of work with his knife.) Leafy branches stacked across the two sticks formed a shelter from the rain, and raindrops dripped from their tips.
After taking some potent painkillers Kawada had taken from the clinic, Shuya told them what had happened in the lighthouse. Kawada boiled water in a tin can using some charcoal. The sound of it bubbling melded with the falling rain.
When Shuya had finished his story, Kawada said, "I see," then let out a deep breath and put another Wild Seven into his mouth. He'd rested the Uzi between his legs. They'd decided to have him hold the submachine gun, while Shuya had the CZ 75, and Noriko carried the Browning. Kawada lit his cigarette.
With a feeble shake of his head, Shuya said, "It was awful."
Kawada blew a small puff of smoke and took the cigarette from his lips. "Yukie forming a big group ended up backfiring."
Shuya nodded bitterly. "It's hard ... to trust someone."
"Yes, it is." Kawada dropped his eyes and nodded. "It's very hard."
He appeared to think about something as he continued to smoke in silence. Then he said, "In any case, I'm glad you made it out alive."
Shuya recalled Yukie's face. I'm alive. Thanks to those girls, I'm alive. But now they're out of the game.
Shuya looked at Noriko, who was sitting to his left. The news of the deaths of her friends, Yukie Utsumi and Haruka Tanizawa, had hit her hard, but now she was tending the water. When she saw it was boiling, she took out some bouillon cubes (also found by Kawada) and plopped two into the can. The scent of broth soon came drifting up.
Noriko asked, "Can you eat, Shuya?"
He looked at her and raised his eyebrows. He knew he needed to eat, but he had just thrown up—and besides, the image of those stiff gray lumps that were Tadakatsu Hatagami and Yuichiro Takiguchi still flickered in his mind. He couldn't summon an appetite. (Shuya hadn't mentioned the lumps, which were likely still wriggling a mere hundred meters away. He said that he had thrown up because of the pain he was in.)
Cigarette in mouth, Kawada said, "Eat, Nanahara. Noriko and I already had lunch."
Shuya looked at him. His stubble had thickened. Finally, Shuya nodded. Using a handkerchief, Kawada lifted the can by its lip and poured the soup into a plastic cup that he offered to Shuya.
Shuya took the cup and slowly lifted it to his mouth. The taste of broth filled his mouth, and the warm liquid slid down his throat and into his stomach. It didn't feel as bad as he'd expected.
Noriko held out a bread roll. Shuya accepted it and took a bite. And once he started, he was surprised to find out he was able to eat it. Just like that, the roll was gone. Regardless of his mental state, his body had been starving.
"Do you want more?" Noriko asked.
Shuya nodded and raised his empty cup. "A little more soup."
This time Noriko filled it.
He took the cup and said, "Noriko."
She looked up at him. "What?"
"Are you feeling better?"
"Yeah." She smiled. "I've been taking more of that cold medicine. I'm fine now."
Shuya looked at Kawada. He was facing to the side, smoking. Without looking back at Shuya, he nodded. He'd taken another of the antibiotic syringe kits when they left the clinic, but she must not have needed it.
Shuya turned to face Noriko again and returned her smile. "That's great."
Then she asked the same question she'd been repeating ever since he rejoined them. "Shuya, are you really all right?"
He nodded. "I'm all right."
He really wasn't, but what else could he say? Sticking out from the cuff of his uniform, his left hand was a different color than his right. He didn't know if it was because of the wound in his shoulder or the one in his upper arm. It might have been nothing more than the tight bandage around his elbow. His left arm felt like it was becoming more and more stiff.
Shuya took another sip of the soup and set the cup down by his feet. Then he called Kawada.
Kawada was inspecting the Uzi's condition. He raised an eyebrow and looked at Shuya. "What is it?"
"It's about Kiriyama."
As he contemplated the events of the past day, the question occupying his thoughts just before he was forced to split up with Kawada and Noriko suddenly came back to him. He was also thinking of that gunfire he'd heard after leaving the lighthouse. It was the same question he'd shouted when Kiriyama attacked them: What the fuck does he think he's doing? In other words, what kind of human being was Kazuo Kiriyama?
As far as Shuya could tell, Kiriyama wasn't the only student playing the game. There was Tatsumichi Oki, who Shuya had fought, and Yoshio Akamatsu. And if Hiroki Sugimura were to be believed, Mitsuko Souma would fall into the same camp. But Kiriyama was so lacking in mercy or hesitation, so cruel, and so calm. Shuya had always felt a strange otherness in Kiriyama, but inside this game, that feeling expanded to full size and came at him head-on. Shuya recalled those cold eyes he saw behind the flames erupting from the machine gun's muzzle, and shuddered.
Kawada hadn't said anything, so Shuya continued, "What's . . . what's up with him? I can't understand it."
Kawada looked down. He fidgeted with the safety switch, which was combined with the fire selector for the automatic and single shot modes.
Then Shuya remembered him saying that they didn't need to understand it. He expected to hear that same answer again.
But Kawada had a different response now. He looked up and said, "I've seen people like him before."
"In the last game?"
"No." Kawada shook his head. "Somewhere else. Somewhere completely different. When you're the son of a doctor in the slums, you see a lot of things."
He took out another cigarette and lit it. He exhaled smoke and then said, "I think he's a very hollow man."
Noriko asked, "Hollow?"
"Yeah." Kawada nodded. "There's no place in his heart for morality or love. No—for any kind of values at all to take root. That's the kind of person he is. And I doubt there's any reason for the way he is."
No reason, Shuya thought. Does that mean he was born that way?
Kawada took another drag and blew out smoke. "Sugimura mentioned Mitsuko Souma, right?"
Shuya and Noriko both nodded.
"We can't be sure she's really playing the game because we haven't seen her ourselves. From what little I've seen of them in school, they're similar. But Souma has purposefully rejected morality and love and all that. I'm sure there's some reason behind it. I don't know what it is. But Kiriyama doesn't have a reason. That's a big difference. He doesn't have a reason."
His eyes still on Kawada, Shuya murmured, "Scary."
"Yeah, it's scary," Kawada agreed. "Just think about it. It's probably not his fault. I mean, sure, you can say that nothing is anyone's fault—but at the very least, I don't think he has the capacity to grasp the unknown future. What would be scarier than to be born that way?"
Then he continued, "What I mean is, e
ven an ordinary guy like me sometimes can think that everything is pointless. Why do I wake up and eat? It all ends up shit in the end. Why do I go to school and study? Even in the unlikely chance that I become successful in the future, I'm still going to die. You can dress nice and make people envious, or get rich, but none of it means anything. It doesn't mean a damn thing. Anyway, maybe such meaninglessness is appropriate for this shitty nation.
"But—and here's the 'but'—you and me, we have other emotions like happiness, right? We can find enjoyment. It's nothing that amounts to much—but isn't that what fills the emptiness inside us? At least for me, that's the only answer I know. So ... I think Kiriyama lacks those emotions. And without them, he has no criteria around which to form any values. So all he does is choose. He chooses what to do. He doesn't have a fixed rudder. He just chooses at random. Take this game now, for instance. I think there was a good chance he could have chosen not to take part in the game. But he decided that's what he was going to do. That's my theory, anyway."
Then he added, "Yeah, it's scary—both that that kind of person could possibly exist, and that we have to go up against that kind of a person now."
Silence fell over the three. Kawada took one more drag on his shortened cigarette, then rubbed it out on the ground. Shuya picked up his cup of soup and took another sip.
Then Shuya looked up at the cloudy sky over the edge of Kawada's tree-branch canopy and said, "I wonder if Sugimura's all right."
He had already told the other two about the gunfire he'd heard after leaving the lighthouse, but he was still worried about it.
Noriko said, "I'm sure he is."
Shuya looked at Kawada and said, "I wonder if we'll be able to see his smoke."
Kawada nodded. "Don't worry. From here, we can see smoke from anywhere on the island. I'll check periodically."
This reminded Shuya about Kawada's birdcall. It had led him to them, but why did Kawada possess such a strange object in the first place? He intended to ask Kawada, but before he could, Noriko spoke.
"I wonder if Sugimura has been able to find Kayoko."
Battle Royale (Remastered) Page 48