Battle Royale

Of course Sho Tsukioka might have lost his way. Or he might have been killed by someone else. But...Mitsuru felt the truth was more ominous than that.

Kazuo went on, "Like now. I just don't know." The sight of Kazuo going on like this seemed, strangely enough, sad.

"Anyway." Kazuo looked back at Mitsuru. Then, as if he were following a musical score that had suddenly switched to allegro, he began speaking rapidly, as if it were beyond his control.

"I came here. Izumi was here. Izumi tried to escape. I held her back."

Mitsuru held his breath.

"That's when I tossed a coin. If it came up heads I'd take on Sakamochi and—"

Mitsuru finally understood, before Kazuo finished talking. No...it can't be...

He didn't want to believe it. It was unbelievable. Kazuo was the king and he was his loyal advisor. It was supposed to be about absolute, eternal loyalty and service. That's right— even Kazuo's hairstyle. Right around the time Mitsuru's broken fingers healed up, he'd been the one who insisted on it to Kazuo. "It looks good. You look so bad, boss." Kazuo kept the hairstyle after that. It was a silly little detail, but for Mitsuru it symbolized how close they were.

But...Mitsuru finally realized, maybe it was too much of a hassle for Kazuo to change his hairstyle. He might have been too preoccupied with other stuff to fuss over his hair. Then there were other things he realized. Mitsuru had firmly believed his relationship with Kazuo centered around a sacred team spirit, when in fact Kazuo might have just been in it for kicks or just "just"—that's right, just an experience, just an experience to be had, no feelings attached to it whatsoever. Kazuo himself had once said, "This is fun too."

All of a sudden the one thing that had disturbed Mitsuru from early on returned with full force. Mitsuru thought it wasn't such a big deal, so he'd done his best to ignore it all this time: Kazuo Kiriyama never smiled.

Mitsuru's next thought might have been touching on the truth: and it always seemed like a lot was going on in his head. Which was probably the case. But maybe there's something incredibly dark going on in Kazuo's mind, something so dark it's beyond my imagination? Maybe it isn't even something dark, maybe it's just an absence, a kind of black hole—

And maybe Sho Tsukioka had already sensed this about Kazuo.

Mitsuru had no more time to think. He was completely focused on his index finger (that's right, one of the fingers broken that fateful day) on the trigger of the Walther PPK in his right hand.

A sea breeze blew in, mixed in with the odor rising from the puddle of blood. The waves kept crashing in.

The Walther PPK in Mitsuru's hand quivered slightly— but the school coat draped over Kazuo's back was already moving by then.

There was a mildly pleasant rattling sound. Sure, it was different, but something about the pulse of 950 bullets ignited every minute resembled the tapping of an old manual typewriter you'd find in an antique store. Izumi Kanai, Ryuhei Sasagawa, and Hiroshi Kuronaga were all stabbed, so these were the first gunshots to echo through the island since the game began.

Mitsuru was still standing. He couldn't see under his school uniform very clearly, but there were four finger-sized holes running from his chest down to his stomach. His back for some reason had two large can-sized holes. His right hand holding the Walther PPK was trembling by his waist. His eyes were staring up towards the North Star. But given how bright the moon was tonight, the star probably wasn't visible.

Kazuo held a crude lump of metal resembling a tin dessert box with a handle. It was an Ingram M10 submachine gun. He said, "If the coin came up tails, I decided I'd take part in the game."

As if he'd been anticipating these words, Mitsuru crashed forward. As he fell, his head hit the rock and bounced back up five centimeters only once.

Kazuo Kiriyama sat still for a while. Then he got up and approached Mitsuru Numai's corpse. He gently touched the bullet ridden body with his left hand, as if checking for something.

This was no emotional response. He didn't feel anything, no guilt, no grief, no pity—not a single emotion.

He simply wanted to know how a human body reacted after it was shot. No, he merely thought, "It might not be such a bad idea to know."

He removed his hand and touched his left temple—to be more accurate, a little further behind his temple. Any stranger would have thought he was merely straightening out his hair.

But that wasn't it. He did it because of a strange feeling he had—not pain, not an itch, but something elusive and infrequent, occurring only several times a year, when he'd reflexively touch the spot which, along with the feeling, became quite familiar to Kazuo.