Battle Royale

Slightly past 3:30 a.m., Toshinori Oda (Male Student No. 4) left the house he was hiding in. Immediately after he hid there, he surmised it was inside sector E=4. Sakamochi had announced the sector would be forbidden at 5 a.m.

Before he opened the back door to leave, he glanced over at Hirono Shimizu's body, which he'd dragged into the corner. All he did was glance at the body lying face down. He didn't feel particularly sorry for her. After all this was a serious competition. You get what you deserve. Hirono Shimizu didn't even think twice about shooting him the moment she saw him. Of course, he'd been the one who snuck up behind Hirono to choke her.

Although he wasn't sure where his next resting spot should be, Toshinori finally decided to move east towards the residential area. The area on the map was approximately two hundred square meters. According to the map, the narrow flat land extending outward from the residential area turned into farm fields spotted with houses. Once he was well beyond this zone then all he had to do was hide in one of these houses. After all, he came from a privileged family and lived in what was probably the nicest house in the prefecture (Kazuo Kiriyama's house was probably the nicest, but Toshinori would never admit this). Hiding in bushes was beneath him. Entering a house was dangerous, given how someone might already be hiding there, but he wasn't worried. Now he not only had a bulletproof vest (with a certificate of high quality) but the revolver he'd taken from Hirono. Furthermore...

...he was now wearing a full-face motorcycle helmet he'd found inside the house.

A thin cloud appeared in the sky. Its tip was already slowly beginning to cross the low full moon. After checking the chin guard of his superdeluxe helmet, he crossed the yard and made his way down the edge of the narrow field next to it.

He could see the flat land continuing down to the eastern shore. It wasn't completely flat, though. It went up and down. Most of the area was covered with farms visible by their various moonlit shades. On the left, a hundred meters away, was a house by the base of the northern mountain. There was another house another hundred meters to its right. Further left were two more houses. There were no other houses in the vicinity. Three to four hundred meters away were farms spotted with houses. He couldn't see very well because his view was blocked by a hill and the woods, but this geography seemed to continue out to the residential area on the island's east side. The flames from the intense explosion that came immediately after Sakamochi's midnight announcement were located immediately to the right of the hill. But the flames must have gone out, because now the area sank back into darkness.

On the south side, to his right, were two adjacent houses. But this was—if you assumed the blue dots indicated residential houses—on the borderline between sectors E=4 and F=4. Behind him the northern and southern mountains were connected—or to be more accurate, the base of the northern mountain stretched out like a cliff along the western shore without any houses in sight. According to the map though, there were supposed to be a couple houses up in the mountain.

Unless he'd misread the map, he'd be outside the forbidden zone if he got to the third or fourth house to the east. But if he found out they were dumps, then he might have to consider moving further on. First of all, he couldn't stand dirty houses, and second of all, he was certain a vulgar place would only attract vulgar people.

Toshinori decided to move over there.

He crouched down and walked cautiously along the field ridge of the farm. But he was appalled at the sensation of dirty soil. The dull pain he felt from Hirono Shimizu's shot in the stomach area of his bulletproof vest only infuriated him more. Why did he have to be thrown into this coarse game and writhe around on the ground with the "vulgar masses"? (This was an expression his father, who ran the largest food company in the eastern part of the prefecture, often used at home, but it was a favorite phrase Toshinori himself used to express his scorn for the "vulgar masses." Of course, he was well bred, so he could never say it out loud.)

Whether he had a right to claim it or not, it was true he possessed a unique gift, unique even among his talented classmates who ranged from being star players of their teams and clubs to being leading delinquents, or even being queer (this one was dead now, he was a very vulgar queer too). In fact, it was unique to the entire school.