Battle Royale

Come on guy, be a man. Boys don't cry. You might be bigger now, but you haven't made much progress.

Was it by the grace of God? Takako came to her senses once more. She opened her eyes.

Hiroki Sugimura was looking down at her in the soft afternoon light. Beyond Hiroki she saw the treetops, and in between them fragments of the blue sky formed complex patterns like those in a Rorschach Test.

The first thing she realized was that Hiroki wasn't crying.

Then she started wondering, "How did you..."

As she tried to form words with her mouth, she felt as if she were forcing open a rusty door. She realized she didn't have too long to live.

"...get here?"

All Hiroki said was, "I managed." He knelt down beside her and gently lifted up her head. She'd fallen face forward, but now for some reason she was facing up. The palm of her left hand (her left hand...no, the entire left side of her body was numb now, so she couldn't feel anything...it might have been from Kazushi Niida's blow to the side of her head) felt the sensation of weeds underneath—had he carried her here?

Hiroki then asked quietly, "Who got you?"

That's right. It was important information.

"Mitsuko," Takako answered. She didn't give a damn about Kazushi Niida anymore. "Be careful."

Hiroki nodded. Then he said, "I'm sorry."

Takako didn't understand. She stared at Hiroki.

"I was hiding outside the school...waiting for you." Hiroki said and then tightened his lips as if holding something back.

"But...then Yoshio came back. I...I got distracted for a split second. Then...you know how you ran at full speed...Ilost you. I ran in your direction, calling after you, but...you were too far off by then."

Oh no, Takako thought. So it was true. After she ran away from the school into the woods she thought she'd heard a distant voice. But she was so frantic she thought it was just her imagination—and if it wasn't, then it meant there was someone—so she continued running at full speed.

Oh—

Hiroki had waited for her. Just as she'd suspected, he'd been waiting for her, risking his life. And when he said, "I managed," he probably meant that he'd been looking for her all this time.

The thought made her want to cry.

Instead she did her best to form a smile on her face.

"Really? Thanks."

Takako knew that she couldn't talk much anymore. She tried to come up with the best thing to say, but then an odd question occurred to her and she blurted it out, "Do you have a crush on someone?"

Hiroki's brows moved and then he gently said, "I do."

"Don't say it's me."

Still looking sad, Hiroki faintly smiled. "No, it's not."

"Well then..."

Takako took a deep breath. She felt as if poison were spreading through her body which strangely felt both chilly and at the same time incredibly hot. "Could you just...hold me tight? It'll be...over soon."

Hiroki tightened his lips and raised her up, hugging her tightly to his body with both his arms. Her head was on the verge of falling back but Hiroki held it up.

She felt like she could say one more thing.

"You have to survive, Hiroki."

Dear God, can I have one more word? Takako looked into Hiroki's eyes and grinned. "You've become quite a stud."

Hiroki said, "And...you're the most stylin' girl in the world."

Takako smiled faintly. She wanted to thank him, but she was out of breath. She just stared at Hiroki's eyes. She was grateful. At least she wasn't going to die alone. The last person to stay with her ended up being Hiroki. And she was grateful. She really was.

Kahoru...thanks, I heard you.

Takako Chigusa remained in this position as she died approximately two minutes later. Her eyes remained open. Hiroki Sugimura held her limp, lifeless body and wept.

23 students remaining

40

"Get down," Shogo said. He carefully surveyed the area while holding on to his shotgun.

Carrying Noriko on his back, Shuya obeyed Shogo. The area was shaded by a large elm tree. They must have covered two-thirds the distance to the medical facility by now. They should be in the vicinity of sector F=6 or F=7. If they were headed in the right direction (Shogo was leading them, so they couldn't be far off), the school building should soon appear below them to their right.

Moving along the shore, they first passed through C=4. Then they moved east along the foot of the northern mountain. Moving in broad daylight did turn out to be difficult. They would move a little, quiet down their breathing, and when they had to get through thick vegetation Shogo would throw several pebbles ahead to make sure no one was there. It'd already taken them half an hour just to get this far.

Noriko continued to breathe heavily.

Shuya tilted his head back the way mothers do with their infants and told her, "We're almost there, Noriko."

"Uh huh...," she answered.

"All right, let's go," Shogo said. "We're going for that tree over there." "Got it."