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.
The one facing up, glaring at the sky, was Ryuhei Sasagawa (Male Student No. 10). The one lying on his side, scrunched up, was Hiroshi Kuronaga (Male Student No. 9). It was undoubtedly them, the other members of the Kiriyama Family. The third one was wearing a sailor suit uniform, and because she was face down it was hard to tell, but she looked like Izumi Kanai (Female Student No. 5). And… there was a puddle under their bodies. It looked black, but Mitsuru knew of course what it was. If the sun were shining on them now, the color of this puddle would have been identical to the color of the national flag of the Republic of Greater East Asia—crimson red.
Completely confused, Mitsuru began to shiver. What was… what was this?
“This is the southern tip.” Under his slicked-back hair, the perpetually calm eyes of Kazuo looked up at Mitsuru. He wore his coat over his shoulders like a boxer draped in his robe after a fight.
“Wh-wh-wh-what—” Mitsuru’s trembling jaw made his voice shake. “What’s going on here—”
“You mean this?” Kazuo nudged Ryuhei Sasagawa’s body with the tip of his plain (but nice) straight-tip leather shoe. Ryuhei’s right elbow, which had been resting on his chest, traced an arc and splashed into the puddle. His pinkie and ring finger disappeared into the puddle.
“They all tried to kill me. Kuronaga and Sasagawa… both. So I… killed them.”
That can’t be…
Mitsuru couldn’t believe it. Hiroshi Kuronaga was a nobody who tagged along with the group, so he was all the more loyal to Kazuo. Ryuhei Sasagawa was more arrogant, always putting up a front (sometimes it got to be a hassle to stop him from picking on Yoshio Akamatsu), but Ryuhei had been extremely grateful ever since Kazuo pulled some strings to stop the cops from arresting his younger brother for stealing. These two would have never betrayed Kazuo….
Mitsuru caught a whiff in the air. It was blood. The smell of blood. The odor was far more intense than the smell of Yoshitoki Kuninobu’s blood back in the classroom. The difference was in the quantity. There was enough blood splashed around here to fill a bathtub.
Crushed by the smell, Mitsuru’s trembling chin dropped. Come to think of it… it was impossible to know what someone’s true thoughts were. Maybe Hiroshi and Ryuhei were so afraid of being killed that they went nuts. In other words, they just couldn’t deal with the pressure. They showed up here at the assigned location, but they tried to ambush Kazuo.
But Mitsuru’s eyes were glued to the other corpse. Izumi Kanai, who was lying face down, was a cute, petite girl. She was the daughter of a town official (of course in this kind of ultra-centralized, bureaucratized society, being a town official or council person was just an honorary post without any influence), and although she wasn’t in the same league as Kazuo she probably came from one of the five richest families in town. She wasn’t stuck up at all, though, and Mitsuru thought she was kind of cute. Of course, given how different their backgrounds were, he wasn’t stupid enough to get hung up over her.
And now she was—
Mitsuru somehow managed to say something. “S-so boss, Izumi… how about…”
Kazuo’s calm, cold eyes stared at him. Intimidated by the look he gave him, Mitsuru searched for an answer on his own. “So I-Izumi tried to kill you… too?”
Kazuo nodded.
“She just happened to be here.”
Mitsuru hesitated, but then forced himself to believe what he said. Well, maybe it was possible. I mean, that’s what the boss said. He spat out, “I-I’m all right. I would never think of killing my boss. Th-this game is bullshit. We’re going to take on Sakamochi and those bastards from the Special Defense Forces, right? I’m totally up for it—”
Of course they couldn’t approach the school now, because it was a forbidden zone. That’s what Sakamochi said. But knowing Kazuo, Mitsuru was sure Kazuo had already come up with a plan.
He stopped speaking. He noticed Kazuo was shaking his head. Mitsuru moved his tongue, which had now turned gooey, and continued, “Then we’re escaping? All right then, we’ll find a boat—”
Kazuo said, “Listen.” Mitsuru stopped again.
Kazuo went on, “I’m fine either way.”
Although Mitsuru clearly heard him, he kept on blinking. He didn’t understand what Kazuo meant. He tried to read Kazuo’s thoughts from the expression in his eyes, but they just calmly shone in the shadow over his face.
“Wh-what do you mean, you’re fine either way?”
Kazuo lifted and pointed his chin at the night sky, as if he were stretching out his neck. The moon shone brightly and cast a gloomy shadow on Kazuo’s well-defined face. He kept this pose and said, “I sometimes lose track of what’s right and wrong.”
Mitsuru was even more confused. That was when an entirely different thought occurred to him. Something was missing.
And then he realized what it was.
The Kiriyama Family consisted of Mitsuru, and Ryuhei and Hiroshi, whose bodies were lying there, plus Sho Tsukioka, who was missing. He’d left before Mitsuru. So then why…
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. 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”—yes, just an experience, just an experience to be had, no feelings attached to it whatsoever. Kazuo himself had once said, “This is fun too.”