It was unbelievable—who could have done this? Did someone return to kill Mayumi Tendo just as she left the school?
Shuya stopped speculating and cautiously crouched down and checked the premises. For some reason… there was no sign of the attacker. No arrows had flown at him when he’d been standing in a daze. Why? Satisfied with killing only Mayumi Tendo, did the assailant leave the premises? Or… was this some engineered “provocation”? Did the soldiers at the end of the hall kill her to convince everyone that some of their classmates were already willing to play the game? But if that were the case…
All of sudden Shuya realized Mayumi Tendo might still be alive. She might be unconscious from the shock of her wound. In any case, he should look at her.
If he hadn’t realized something odd and restrained himself from taking a step forward a split-second later, Shuya would have dropped out of the game early. In other words…
A silver object whizzed right by Shuya’s eyes. Yes—it came directly down, from above. Another antenna was planted in the ground.
Shuya shuddered. If he hadn’t been standing at the exit, waiting for Noriko, he would have been immediately shot down. The assailant was on top of the building.
Shuya clenched his teeth, snatched up the arrow, and ran to his left. He moved impulsively but in an erratic way that eluded the assailant. He turned around and looked up. Under the dim moonlit sky, a large, dark shadow loomed above the gabled roof of the single-story school building.
Could that be… not Shogo…
He had no time to think. The shadow pointed its weapon at him.
Just to surprise him Shuya threw the arrow at the shadow. But thanks to Shuya’s gifts as a star shortstop, the arrow flew at incredible speed and traced a fine arc right at the shadow. The shadow groaned, held its face, hunched over, and then began to sway. Then it fell.
Shuya stepped back and watched the shadow fall from a height of at least three meters and land with a thud on the ground. The object in the assailant’s hand fell with a metallic crash.
Light leaked through the building exit. The large shadow was lying face down, wearing a school uniform. It was Yoshio Akamatsu. He was motionless now, perhaps because he was unconscious. A hybrid between a bow and rifle—were they called bow guns?—was lying by his hand. The day pack that had fallen by Yoshio’s feet was half open. Shuya saw a stack of silver arrows inside.
Shuya felt a sudden chill. It was true. He was participating! Yoshio Akamatsu was in on this game. Yoshio had taken his weapon, returned here, and killed Mayumi Tendo!
Someone was coming from behind.
Shuya turned around. It was Noriko, who’d taken the situation in as she held her breath in surprise. Shuya’s eyes went from Noriko’s face to Mayumi Tendo—he ran over to Mayumi and touched her neck to check her pulse. She was dead. There was no doubt.
His brain felt like a fuse fizzling out. Others might be in the same state of mind as Yoshio. And one of them might just suddenly return this time, perhaps with a gun.
Shuya had no choice but to change his attitude toward the game now. So this was it. When Sakamochi said, “As soon as you leave here,” this was what he’d meant.
Shuya stood up and ran to Noriko. He took her by the hand.
“We’re running! Do your best, you have to run!”
Shuya began running, half-dragging Noriko, whose leg was injured. Which way though?
He couldn’t afford to deliberate over his decisions. He headed towards the grove. First they’d hide in the grove, then they could, no—he dismissed the thought. Given Noriko’s condition, they were defenseless against any attack. Staying near the area was too dangerous.
Waiting in front of the building for the others was completely out of the question. He rushed Noriko, and they entered the grove. Tall trees mixed in with short trees, and the ground was covered with fern.
Shuya turned to yell some warning to the remaining eleven students coming out (in their class of twenty-one pairs of boys and girls, there should have been twelve students following Shuya’s and Noriko’s seat numbers, but Fumiyo Fujiyoshi had to be counted out), but he gave up on the idea. Shuya reached the somewhat forced conclusion that they probably weren’t as foolish as he was, so they’d flee the moment they emerged from the building anyway, especially once they saw Mayumi Tendo’s corpse. For a moment he thought of Shinji Mimura—but he gave up on this idea too. Once again he forced himself into believing that there had to be some other strategy, another way for them to meet up. In any case, they had to leave.
Holding Noriko Nakagawa tightly, he haphazardly led their way into the grove. A bird cried out, “kaw kaw,” and ruffled its wings as it flew away. He couldn’t see it, but it didn’t matter. He had no time to observe it anyway.
8
Yoshio Akamatsu regained consciousness almost immediately, but because he’d been knocked out cold by the blow to his head he felt as if he were coming out of a deep slumber.
He first noticed how his head was throbbing. He felt out of it. What was it? Was it from playing video games yesterday way past midnight?… which meant that yesterday was Saturday, or was it Sunday?… then today must be Monday which means I have to be in school… but what time could it be… it’s still dark, maybe… I can sleep a little more….
As he sat up, the sky and earth rotating ninety degrees, an empty field unexpectedly spread out in front of him. There was a mountain beyond the field, shaped like a bow, darker than the night sky.
All of a sudden, everything came back. Sakamochi, Mr. Hayashida’s corpse, Yoshio’s departure, discovering the bow gun in his day pack once he found some shelter in a small shack, his returning here, observing Takako Chigusa (Female Student No. 13) whose face was a little severe but beautiful, looking tense now as the track team’s best runner dashed away at full speed, him struggling up the thin steel ladder by the side of the building in order to reach the roof. Then how, due to the trouble he had loading his bow gun with an arrow, Sho Tsukioka (Male No. 14) also managed to escape his reach. And then…
Yoshio turned around and saw the girl in the sailor suit uniform lying there.
It didn’t exactly come as a surprise to Yoshio. What he felt now in conjunction with his memory wasn’t guilt over killing one of his classmates so much as it was fear. It might have resembled a gigantic billboard sign standing in the middle of a wasteland inside his mind. On the sign were letters in blood that read, “I’m going to kill you!” In the background all his classmates held weapons like axes and pistols, attacking Yoshio, who stood in front of the sign as if it were a 3D movie.
Of course killing your classmates was wrong. And besides once the game time had expired they were all going to die anyway so it might have been absurd to fight at all. But that was just too rational. The fact was that Yoshio simply did not want to die. He was petrified by any of his classmates who’d bare their teeth at him. Just think about it, you’re surrounded by a swarm of assassins.
And so his choice to reduce “the enemy” as efficiently as possible wasn’t motivated by rational thoughts but instead from a deeper, primal fear of death. There was no need to discern your allies from your enemies. Everyone had to be an enemy. After all when Ryuhei Sasagawa used to pick on him, everyone looked the other way.
Yoshio scrambled to his feet. First, Shuya Nanahara, who’d been in front of him. Where did he go?… The bow gun. I have to get the bow gun. Where did it?…