Battle Royale

Mitsuru showed Kazuo around. The small town, including the cafe where his friends hung out, the place he stashed stolen goods, the shady dealer who provided illegal goods. Mitsuru's talents were in fighting, but he did his best to show him every place he knew. Kazuo always appeared calm. He came along maybe out of curiosity. Eventually he took on upper class students besides the ones he'd beaten up, bullies from other schools, or sometimes high school students.

Without exception Kazuo had them instantly writhing on the ground. Mitsuru was crazy about Kazuo. It was perhaps no different from the joy a trainer feels in training a champion boxer.

Kazuo wasn't only strong, though. He was extremely smart. Quite simply, he excelled at everything. When they broke into the liquor store's warehouse, it was Kazuo who came up with the brilliant plan. Kazuo saved Mitsuru from numerous jams he got himself into. (Since he got involved with Kazuo, he never got arrested by the police.) Furthermore, his father was supposedly the president of a leading corporation in the prefecture—no, the entire region of Chugoku and Shikoku. He was fearless. Mitsuru believed some people were destined for greatness. He thought, this guy is going to be someone so extraordinary I can't even imagine what he'll become.

Mitsuru made him the leader of his gang, which continued to stir up trouble. Mitsuru only wondered once whether it was right to get Kazuo involved. Kazuo strictly prohibited (he never said so, but that was the vibe he gave off) Mitsuru and the others from visiting his house (in fact it was a mansion), so Mitsuru had no way of telling whether Kazuo's parents were aware of their son's activities. He was concerned his gang might be a bad influence on Kazuo, who was so obviously well bred. After thinking about it a lot, Mitsuru finally shared his concerns with Kazuo.

But Kazuo only said, "I don't care. This is fun too." Mitsuru decided it was all right then.

And so, he and Kazuo had been through a lot together. The king and his loyal advisor.

Even though they were now in an extreme situation, this was why, while killing other classmates was possible, it was out of the question when it came to the members of the Kiriyama Family. After all, Kazuo himself had passed them notes. Mitsuru was certain Kazuo had already planned out a strategy to deal with this situation. He'd outwit Sakamochi, and then escape. If he really wanted to, Kazuo Kiriyama could take on the entire government, no prob.

These were Mitsuru's thoughts as he left the school and walked approximately twenty-five minutes southward. He saw only one person the whole time. The figure who vanished into the residential area southeast of the school was probably Yoji Kuramoto (Male Student No. 8). That made Mitsuru nervous, of course. He'd already encountered the corpses of Mayumi Tendo and Yoshio Akamatsu lying outside the school when he left. The game was well on its way.

Mitsuru's priority was to get to the place assigned by Kazuo as soon as possible. The others were irrelevant. What mattered was how his group would escape from here.

As he moved south, Mitsuru became increasingly tense as any shelter he could hide behind grew sparse. Underneath his school uniform, his entire body was drenched in cold sweat. Sweat oozed out of his short, permed hair and dripped down his forehead.

A little bit further ahead the coast curved right and left, and somewhere in the middle of this curve a rugged reef extended eastward from the hill and sank into the ocean like a buried dinosaur only revealing its back. The reef was much taller than Mitsuru, blocking his vision beyond it. Glancing at the sea, he saw islands and other small lights that indicated a larger piece of land beyond the dark, vast, horizontal expanse of water. This had to be an island in the Seto Inland Sea. That much was certain.

Once he surveyed the area, Mitsuru crossed the border between beach and woods. Exposing himself under moonlight, he walked toward the reef. He clung to the steep rock and began climbing. The rock was cold and smooth and with his right hand holding a gun and his bags strapped around his shoulders it wasn't an easy climb. After the climb, he found the reef was approximately three meters wide, and the beach spread out beyond the rocks. As he prepared to climb down the other side of the reef, a voice all of a sudden addressed him: "Mitsuru." Mitsuru almost jumped. He turned around and raised his pistol.

He sighed with relief. Then he lowered his gun.

Kazuo Kiriyama was in the shadow of a bulging boulder. He was sitting on a protruding rock. "Boss..." Mitsuru said with relief.

But...

Mitsuru noticed three lumps lying at Kazuo's feet. His eyes squinted in the dark... but then they immediately widened. The lumps were humans.