Battle Royale

by Koushun Takami

  "But Hirono ran in that direction."

  "No, I doubt she's gone that far. It wouldn't be necessary." Shogo pointed to the flat land with his thumb.

  "But we'll avoid this mountain where she might be hiding. We'll take a different route." Shuya lifted his brow. "Is it safe for us to move through the flat land?" Shogo smiled and shook his head. "The moon may be shining, but this isn't daylight. I think we're safer there than in the mountain, where there's too much cover."

  Shuya nodded. Shogo took the lead and began descending the slope. Shuya held the SIG-Sauer tightly in his right hand and followed Shogo as he supported Noriko.

  The trees turned into a field of short grass. The first farm they came across had a field full of squashes. Beyond this field there was a wheat field. This island was so small these probably weren't for domestic consumption. Of course the Republic of Greater East Asia was incessantly issuing orders to promote national self-reliance, so even a small farm like this might contribute a little to the effort. As they moved along the edge of the farm, the soil under their sneakers felt dry. Maybe it was because several days had passed since the area had been evacuated. Still, Shuya was struck by the pleasant, rich odor of wheat drifting through the evening air, anticipating the summer.

  It was a nice smell. Especially after having smelled so much blood.

  There was a tractor to their left. Beyond the vehicle there was a house. It was an ordinary, two-story house and appeared relatively new. It was probably one of those cheap, mass produced buildings resembling Banana Homes or Vertebrae Houses. Even though it was in the middle of the farm, it was enclosed by a concrete wall.

  Shuya looked at Shogo's back as he moved forward.

  Something irked him.

  He looked back. Noriko was leaning on his left shoulder as she walked, but he noticed something high above her head in the middle of the sky. Something flashing in the moonlight, tracing an arc. This object came flying at them.

  20 students remaining

  50

  What made Shuya such a star athlete in his Little League days was his incredible ability to perceive objects in motion. Even in this dim light Shuya could tell that the object flying towards them right now resembled a can. Of course, they were in the serene Seto Inland Sea region, so it couldn't possibly be an empty can falling from the sky from a hurricane. There was no way it was an empty can. No.

  Shuya suddenly released his shoulder, which was tucked under Noriko's right armpit. He couldn't even afford to call on Shogo, who must have realized something odd though, because he also suddenly turned around, while Noriko tottered without Shuya's support.

  Shuya dashed out. His jumping ability was quite extraordinary. Just as in the past, during the Little League prefectural semifinals, he could make the ultimate play from any given position, stealing the opponents' winning home run in the bottom of the eleventh inning.

  Shuya caught the ball—no, the can—in mid-air with his left hand. He put it in his right hand, and as he came down he twisted his body and threw it as far as he could.

  Before Shuya landed a bright light shined through the night.

  He felt the air burst as a sonic boom tore through his eardrums. The bomb blast blew him away before he could land, and he fell sprawling onto the ground. If he'd waited for the hand grenade to fall, he, Noriko, and Shogo would have all been mincemeat now. Although Sakamochi's crew might have reduced the grenade's explosive power so that it couldn't be used against the school, it was more than capable of killing human beings.

  He raised his head. He realized, he heard nothing. His ears were screwed up. In this state of silence, Shuya saw Noriko collapsed on his left. Then he lifted his face to look back at Shogo and saw…another can flying at them.

  Another one! I have to…but it was too late now.

  His disabled ears all of a sudden heard a definite but muffled bang, almost simultaneously followed by another explosion in the air. This sound was also muffled, but this time it felt a little further off and Shuya wasn't blown away. Right beside him Shogo was on one knee, holding his shotgun. He had shot the hand grenade, as if he were skeet shooting, blowing it to bits before it managed to explode. Shuya ran over to Noriko and held her up. She was grimacing. She seemed to be moaning, but he couldn't hear her.

  "Shuya, get back!"

  Shogo waved his hand and fired his shotgun with his right hand. Shuya then heard a different sound, rattling gunfire, and the wheat heads right in front of him scattered into the air. Shogo fired another two shots. In a state of confusion, Shuya pulled Noriko into the shade of the ridge marking off the farm. He got down. Shogo slid to his side, firing several shots as he went. The rattling continued, and the ridge soil blew up, grains flying into his eyes.

  Shuya pulled out his SIG-Sauer and looked out from the shade of the ridge. He fired blindly in the direction Shogo was firing.

  Then he saw him. Less than thirty meters away, the unique slicked-back hair behind the break in the house's concrete wall.

  It was Kazuo Kiriyama (Male Student No. 6). And although Shuya's hearing was impaired, he could recall the sound of the rattling gunfire. It was the same sound he heard from far away when Yumiko and Yukiko fell at the northern mountain peak. Of course he might not have been the only one with a machine gun, but even so, Kazuo, who was right in front of their very own eyes, had just tried to kill them without warning, with of all things a hand grenade!

  Shuya was certain Kazuo was the one who'd murdered Yumiko and Yukiko. He thought of how they were killed and felt a flash of rage.

  "What the…what's the hell's he doing!?"

  "Stop shouting, just shoot!" Shogo handed the Smith & Wesson to Shuya and reloaded his shotgun. Shuya held a gun in each hand and began shooting at the concrete wall. (Two-hand shooter! This is crazy!) First the Smith & Wesson, then the SIG-Sauer ran out of bullets. He had to reload!

  Having waited for this moment, Kazuo got up. BRRRRATTA. Sparks flew out from him. Shuya ducked, and Kazuo revealed part of his body that was behind the wall.

  Shogo blasted his shotgun away. Kazuo's body once again vanished. The swarm of shotgun pellets blew off part of the wall.

  Shuya ejected the empty magazine from his SIG-Sauer and pulled out a loaded magazine from his pocket. He opened the Smith & Wesson cylinder and pushed the rod in the center of the cylinder to release its spent shells, puffed up from the explosions. One of the shells nearly singed part of his right thumb. It didn't matter. He quickly loaded the .38 caliber bullets Shogo had rolled over his way. Then he aimed at Kazuo's house.

  Shogo shot again, blowing off another part of the wall. Shuya also fired several shots into it with his SIG-Sauer.

  "Noriko! Are you all right!?" Shuya yelled. Right next to him, Noriko answered, "I'm okay." He could make out her response, which made Shuya realize his hearing was back. He saw her in the corner of his eye reloading 9mm Short bullets into the SIG-Sauer's empty magazine. Of all the things he'd seen since the game began this one really sent his head reeling. How could a girl like Noriko be participating in a battle like this…

  A hand appeared from the other side of the wall. The hand was holding a machine gun. It rattled again. Shuya and Shogo ducked.

  Kazuo got up. As he continued shooting, he came forward. Then he ran behind the tractor. The distance between them was shrinking.

  Shogo fired a shot, blowing off the tractor's driving panel.

  "Shogo," Shuya called, after shooting twice.

  "What?" Shogo answered as he reloaded his shotgun.

  "How fast can you run the hundred-meter dash?"

  Shogo took another shot (annihilating the tractor's rear light) and answered, "I'm pretty slow. Maybe thirteen seconds. My back's strong though. What?"

  Suddenly Kazuo's arm stuck out from behind the tractor. Sparks flew as Kazuo revealed his head, but as Shuya and Shogo fired back, he ducked again.

  "We can only retreat into the mountain, right?" Shuya spoke quickly. "I can run a hundred meters in al
most less than eleven seconds. You and Noriko go ahead. I'll keep Kazuo there." Shogo glanced at Shuya. That was all. He understood.

  "At the place we were, Shuya. The place where we talked about rock," Shogo said quickly. He gave Shuya his shotgun and retreated into a ducking position. He moved around over to Noriko. Shuya took a deep breath and shot three times into the tractor with the shotgun, prompting Shogo to lift Noriko and run in the direction they'd come from. Noriko's eyes flashed by Shuya's for a moment. Kazuo's upper body appeared from behind the tractor. Shuya fired his shotgun several times. Kazuo, who had his gun pointed at Shogo and Noriko, ducked. Shuya realized he was out of shotgun shells so he picked up the Smith & Wesson instead and began shooting again. He immediately used up five bullets. He opened the SIG-Sauer and loaded the extra magazine Noriko had loaded with bullets and began shooting again. It was crucial he keep on shooting.

  He saw Shogo and Noriko disappear into the mountain.

  The SIG-Sauer was empty, and there were no more extra magazines. He could only reload bullets.... But then this time Kazuo's arm appeared from behind the tractor's blade. The Ingram machine gun rattled away. Just like before. Kazuo was running towards him!

  Shuya had to get out of this gunfight. He held onto only the empty SIG-Sauer (he still had seven more individual 9mm Short bullets), turned around, and ran. If he could reach the mountain where there was plenty of cover, Kazuo wouldn't be able to get too close to him. Shuya decided to head east. Noriko and Shogo would be headed west to get where they were yesterday. He wanted to lead Kazuo as far away from them as he could.

  It all came down to his sprinting speed. He had to get as far away from Kazuo as possible in a short span of time. A machine gun basically offered a shower of bullets so it was impossible to dodge at a close distance. What mattered was how far he could get.

  Shuya ran. As the fastest runner in the class (at least he thought so. He was even a fraction of a second faster than Shinji Mimura, unless, that is, if Kazuo wasn't really trying during his test), he could only rely on his speed.

  Right when he thought he was five meters away from a tree he heard a rattling sound. He felt a severe blow against the left side of his stomach.

  Shuya groaned as he began losing his balance, but he kept on running. He ran into a row of tall trees and made his way up the slope. The rattling resumed and this time his left arm reflexively flinched up. He realized he'd been shot right above his elbow.

  But he still ran. He continued east—hey, yo, that's a forbidden zone—and moved north. More rattling. A thin tree to his right crackled and burst into matchstick-sized splinters. More rattling. This time he wasn't hit. Or maybe he was. He couldn't tell anymore. He only knew he was being chased. At least he was buying time for Noriko and Shogo.

  He made his way through the trees and vegetation, climbed a hill, and then descended it. He couldn't even afford to worry that there might be someone else hiding in the dark, waiting to attack him. He had no idea how far he'd gotten. He wasn't even sure which direction he was running. Sometimes it seemed like he could hear—sometimes it seemed like he couldn't—the rattling sound. He couldn't tell maybe because his hearing had been impaired by that explosion. In any case now was not the time to be relieved. Farther. He had to get farther.

  Suddenly Shuya slipped. He'd somehow reached a cliff, and all of a sudden realized that the slope just dropped off. Just as he'd done when fighting Tatsumichi Oki, he tumbled down the steep slope. He landed with a thud. He was no longer holding the SIG-Sauer. And as he tried to stand up…

  He realized he couldn't. He wondered, in a daze, am I delirious from blood loss? Or…did I hit my head?

  Impossible. I'm not injured so badly I can't stand up...I have to get back to Noriko and Shogo...I have to protect Noriko, I promised Noriko…

  As he tried to get up though, he fell forward…

  …and lost consciousness.

  20 students remaining

  51

  It was almost pitch dark, but beside the dimly moonlit window Shinji tossed the item in his hand once again onto the floor. The sound of it hitting the floor was muffled by the thick folded blanket, but there was a popping sound along with a ring.

  Shinji immediately picked it up off the floor and then tucked the small plastic item inside the blanket. The sound stopped.

  "Come on, let's go," Yutaka said. He'd been watching over Shinji, but Shinji signaled him to calm down. He repeated the test again.

  Pop, zing. It made the same sounds. Shinji picked it up, and it stopped. Was it all right? But if this malfunctioned, then all the careful preparations they'd made would come to nothing. One more try—

  "We have to hurry…" Yutaka said again, and Shinji's face was about to flush with anger—but he managed to suppress it. Although he wasn't entirely satisfied he said, "All right," and concluded his test. He unhooked the lead wire connecting the battery and mini-motor which was used for the test and began peeling off the plastic tape attaching the motor unit to the battery.

  Shuya and Yutaka were back at the "Northern Takamatsu Agricultural Cooperative Association, Okishima Island Branch."

  Along with the school and harbor fishery coop, it might have been one of the largest buildings on the island. The space, unlit of course and enveloped in darkness, was the size of a basketball court, and there was farming equipment strewn all over the area, including a tractor and combine harvester. There was also a light truck with a missing wheel lifted on a jack, probably to be repaired. Then in the corner were piles of sacks of various kinds of fertilizer. (And hazardous ammonium nitrate was further beyond them, stored in a large cabinet with a provisional lock that Shinji had busted open.) The slate walls were at least five meters high, and there was an upper floor attached along the north wall where more fertilizer, insecticide, and other supplies had been stored. On the opposite, or east, wall was a steel staircase diagonally descending from the second floor, and underneath the stairs was a large sliding warehouse door. Next to this sliding door, in front of the stairs in the southeast corner, was an officelike space made up of partition walls. Beyond its open door he could make out office equipment, including the outlines of a desk and fax machine.

  Setting the wire across sector G=7 where the school was turned out to be a hassle. First, Shinji tied the end of the wire to the tip of a tall tree behind the rock they'd climbed on. Then he took the other end and began walking between the trees, but then a gust in the upper region of the sky acted up, so guiding the garbage-bag balloons proved to be difficult. There were at least ten occasions where he had to climb up a tree to loosen the wire. On top of that, given how the enemy could be anywhere in the dark, he had to worry about Yutaka, so the endeavor ended up exhausting him.

  But he'd managed to set the wire after a full three hours, when he heard the gunfight. It was past 11 p.m. He heard an explosion as well, but he couldn't afford to get involved, so he hurried back to the farm coop with Yutaka. By then the gunfire had ceased.

  Finally Shinji began building the electric detonator, but this also turned out to be difficult. He didn't have the proper tools, and furthermore the device required a delicate balance. Electric current had to run through the device at the moment of impact against the school, but at the same time he had to make sure it wasn't so sensitive it'd be ignited in the middle of the rope cable by, say, a bump or knot in the rope. But somehow he managed to build it, using a motor (which he removed from an electric razor) instead of the detonator for the test. It was right when he began testing, in other words, only moments ago, that the midnight announcement was made. The only one who died was Hirono Shimizu (Female Student No. 10), whom Shinji saw immediately after the game began. He thought it might have been a result of that intense gun battle, but in any case Sakamochi had announced something far more urgent, at least to him and Yutaka. Sector F=7, which included the cliff rock they'd climbed up on to survey the school, was designated to be a forbidden zone as of 1 a.m.

  No wonder Yutaka was so impa
tient. If they couldn't enter that area then all their preparations would amount to nothing. It would be the end for them. He didn't want to be in the situation of, after a clever play, being just one move away from checkmate only to fall into a fatal trap. Shinji quickly pulled out the electric detonator from the tube chained to his knife. He connected the two cylinders— their dull metallic exterior shone in the dark—and peeled off the insulation from the lead wire. Then using tape, he first secured the small plastic spring serving as the electrical switch, then took the end of the lead wire extending from the detonator and tied it to the wire from the charge device. He taped the connection over and over so it would be completely secure. Then next to the battery he installed a condenser circuit board taken from the flash component of a camera. In order for the detonator to be absolutely reliable, he needed a high voltage output. He connected the wires to this device as well. To prevent any accidental detonation, he decided he would work on the remaining wire from the electric detonator at the top of the mountain, taping the exposed end of the wire to the side of the battery.

  "All right."

  Shinji stood up, and then put the completed detonation device in his pocket.

  "Let's hurry. It's time."

  Yutaka nodded. Just in case, Shinji tossed his equipment, including the electrical pliers and extra lead wire into his day pack, and then lifted several piles of rope they had divided up onto his shoulder. He looked down. There was a gas can filled up with a mixture of gasoline and ammonium nitrate. To add oxygen, he stuffed in insulation material filled with air and folded in pleats. The opening was shut with the lid, but next to it another rubber lid functioning as the detonator holder was tied to it with a plastic cord dangling from the handle.

  Then he looked at his watch. It was 12:09. They had plenty of time.

  Okay then. He was trembling from excitement. It took a lot of effort, but now they had everything they needed. They would connect all the ropes they had, tying one end to a tree in H=7. Then they would tie the other end of the rope to the end of the fishing wire secured by the weight of a rock. They would unravel the rope and leave it there and then go around the school, going up the mountain into F=7. He would take the wire tied to the top of the tree and reel it in immediately. The rope stuck to the wire would then come to them. He would proceed to attach the pulley to the gas-can gondola with the detonation device and thread the rope through it. Then he would stretch the rope taut with one swift motion and secure it to a tree. Then the rest is…party time, dude. Have fun! Here we go! Make it happen!