Free Battle Royale by Koushun Takami Page B

skin of his forehead and cheeks peeled away, but this no longer mattered to him. He was already dead by the time he had fallen.
    The same kind of silver arrow which he had shot Mayumi Tendo with was now planted in the back of his neck.
    38 students remaining
    9
    Kazushi Nüda (Male Student No. 16) emerged from the building two minutes after Noriko Nakagawa.
    He stood at the exit for a while, shaking. The bow gun lying next to Yoshio Akamatsu's body was still loaded with an arrow. Although Kazushi had picked it up, he had no intention of shooting Yoshio. But the moment Yoshio stood up, he reflexively pulled the trigger.
    Kazushi did his best to overcome his panic. That's right, the first thing was to get out of here. That was the priority. What he should have done in the first place was ignore Yoshio Akamatsu and Mayumi Tendo completely and run away. Given the circumstances, he had no other choice but to kill Yoshio.
    Yoshio Akamatsu had obviously killed Mayumi Tendo. So Kazushi hadn't done anything wrong.
    Kazushi was very good at making excuses. Once he thought like this, the numbness in his head began to wane.
    As he lowered the bow gun, he automatically grabbed Yoshio's day pack, which was loaded with arrows. Right before he moved on though, he stopped and picked up Mayumi Tendo's day pack too.
    Then he hurried off.
    38 students remaining
    10
    Had they been running for ten minutes now? With his arm still wrapped around Noriko, he signaled they should be still, and they both stopped. Under the hazy moonlight shining through the branches overhead, Noriko looked up at him. Their heavy breathing echoed like a giant wall of sound, but Shuya tried his best to listen beyond the wall for other sounds in the area enveloped in darkness.
    No one seemed to be chasing them. They were too short of breath to sigh, but they could relax a little now.

    As he dropped his bags, a sharp pain ran through his right shoulder. He was in poor shape. An electric guitar was heavier than a bat, but it wasn't something you swung around. After putting the bags down, he placed his hands on his thighs and tried to rest.
    Shuya urged Noriko to sit in the dark grove. After he checked again for any other suspicious sounds, he sat down next to her. The thick grass underneath them made a crunching sound.
    He felt as if they'd covered a good distance, but given how they'd been zigzagging, and how they'd lost all sense of direction climbing the mountain, they might have only been a few hundred meters away from the school. At least the light leaking out of the building was no longer visible. This might have just been due to the thickness of the grove or the gentle slopes, though. Anyway it felt safer deep inside the dark grove.
    His decision was impulsive, but he was certain it was safer than the wide open seaside.
    Shuya looked over at Noriko and whispered, "Are you all right?"
    Noriko murmured, "Yes." She nodded slightly.
    Shuya felt the urge to stay here for a while, but that wasn't an option. First he opened up the day pack.
    He dug into it, groping around, and found an object that felt like a bottle of water.
    Shuya pulled it out. The sheath felt like leather and a leather grip poked out of it. It was an army knife.
    Sakamochi said that the day pack was equipped with a weapon. Was this it? He searched the bag a little more, but nothing else inside resembled a weapon. Only a bag that seemed to contain bread and a flashlight.
    He unfastened the sheath and removed the knife. The blade was approximately fifteen centimeters long, and after checking it he returned it to the sheath and tucked it under his school uniform belt. He unfastened the lowest button on his uniform to make the grip immediately accessible.
    Shuya grabbed Noriko's day pack and opened the zipper. He knew he wasn't supposed to go through a girl's things, but Noriko didn't pack this bag.
    He found something strange. It was a curved stick approximately forty centimeters long. It had the texture of