Battle Royale

Mitsuru tried a surprise kick at the pimply faced one in front of him, but he was immediately tripped by the one on his left.

As soon as he fell back, the pimply one kicked him in the face, knocking out his front teeth. The back of his head pounded against the wall that he'd been busy using on his classmate. He felt dizzy. Something hot oozed down the back of his head. Mitsuru tried to get up on all fours, but then the one on his right kicked him in the stomach. Mitsuru groaned and puked. One of them said, "What a fucking mess."

Damn, he thought. Bastards...fucking cowards...I could take on any of them if it was just one on one....

But there was nothing he could do now. After all, he'd been the one who deliberately chose a deserted place to intimidate his classmate. There wasn't a chance a teacher would appear.

They pressed his right wrist against the floor. One of them carefully pried Mitsuru's index finger back and tucked it under his leather shoe. For the first time in his life Mitsuru experienced real fear.

No...this can't be.

It was. The sole of the shoe came down as Mitsuru's finger made a horrible cracking sound. Mitsuru shrieked. He'd never been in such pain. They kept laughing, "Hee hee hee!"

Mitsuru thought. These bastards...they're insane...they're not at all like me...they're crazy....

They were preparing his middle finger. S-stop...

Without an ounce of pride left, Mitsuru begged for mercy, but they ignored his pleas. The same cracking noise came. Mitsuru's middle finger was ruined now. Mitsuru screamed again.

"Let's have one more then."

That's when it happened.

The door to the art classroom suddenly slid open.

"Can you guys keep it down?" The voice was quiet, though.

For a moment Mitsuru wondered if it was a teacher. But a teacher would have intervened a lot sooner, and besides, a request to keep it down would have been strange.

With his back still pressed to the floor Mitsuru glanced over at the door.

He wasn't too big, but he was incredibly good looking. He was holding a paint brush.

He'd seen him at the class introduction. He was one of Mitsuru's classmates. His family seemed to have recently moved here. No one knew who he was, but since he was quiet and appeared obedient Mitsuru didn't pay much attention to him. Given how his looks were so refined, he probably came from a nice family. Someone like him would do his best to avoid fights, so he was nothing to worry about.

But what was he doing in the art classroom? Probably painting, but wasn't that a little strange on the first day of school?

The pimply guy went up to the boy. "Who the fuck are you?" He stood in front of the boy. "Who the fuck are you? First year? What the fuck are you doing here? Huh? What was that you said?"

He knocked the paint brush out of the boy's hand, and the dark blue paint from the brush splattered against the floor.

The boy slowly looked up at the pimply guy.

The rest needed little explanation. The small boy beat up the four third-year students. (They were all lying on the floor, completely paralyzed.)

The boy approached Mitsuru. After looking him over he only said, "You should have your hand examined at a hospital." Then he went back inside the classroom.

Mitsuru gazed at the four bodies lying on the floor. He was completely stunned by something so completely unprecedented. He felt in awe of the boy, like a rookie boxer doomed to mediocrity upon suddenly encountering a world champion. Mitsuru saw genius.

From that point on Mitsuru served that boy—Kazuo Kiriyama. He had no need to acknowledge it. Kazuo Kiriyama had beaten up four guys at once when Mitsuru could have only taken them on one on one. There should only be one king, and those who weren't should serve under him. He reached this conclusion a long time ago. The idea probably came from his favorite boys' manga magazine.

Kazuo Kiriyama was a mystery.

When Mitsuru asked how he managed to learn how to fight so viciously, he'd only respond, "I just learned." Kazuo would only ignore any further attempts to find out more. Mitsuru would then try to coax more out of him by suggesting he must have had a reputation in elementary school, but Kazuo only denied it. Then maybe he'd been a champion in karate or something? Kazuo denied this too. Another odd point, Mitsuru learned later, was the fact that Kazuo had broken into the art classroom to paint the day they met. When Mitsuru asked why he did that, Kazuo only replied, "I just felt like it." This was how Kazuo's strange persona contributed to Mitsuru's attraction to him. (Furthermore, the quality of the painting depicting a view from the classroom of the empty courtyard far exceeded the first-year junior high level, but Mitsuru never got to see this painting, because Kazuo had tossed it into the trash after completing it.)