Then his feet felt funny.
He suddenly recalled how there was a steep slope towards the field with the shrine.
I’m falling!
The two of them tumbled down the slope covered with shrubbery. The clear early morning sky and greenery spun around and around. But he still managed to hold onto Tatsumichi’s wrist.
He felt as if they’d fallen from a great height, but it was probably only ten meters or so. Their bodies crashed with a loud thump, and they were still. The area was bathed in sunlight. They’d fallen into the field.
Shuya was crushed under Tatsumichi. He had to get up before Tatsumichi could. But that was when Shuya felt something strange. Although Tatsumichi had come at him with the force of an air compressor, the strength in his arms had completely gone. They’d gone limp.
His face under the lower part of Tatsumichi’s chest, Shuya saw why, as he looked up.
Right above him, the hatchet was lodged into Tatsumichi’s face. Half of the blade stuck out from his face like the top layer of chocolate on a Christmas cake. The hatchet had landed on his forehead, neatly split open the left eyeball (a gooey liquid leaked out with his blood), and a pale blue light reflected off the blade inside his mouth.
Tatsumichi still held onto the hatchet, but Shuya was the one holding his wrists. Shuya felt a horrible sensation running at the speed of light from Tatsumichi’s face to his wrists.
As if tracing the course of this sensation, blood slid down the blade, flowing from Tatsumichi onto Shuya’s hands holding Tatsumichi’s wrists. Shuya let out a low groan, released his hands, and got out from underneath Tatsumichi’s body. Tatsumichi’s body rolled over, face up, his horrific dead face thrust into the morning light.
Huffing and puffing, Shuya felt a numb urge to vomit.
The incomparable horror of Tatsumichi’s face wasn’t a trivial matter, but for Shuya something even more important concerned himself. Yes. He had killed someone. Worse yet, a fellow classmate.
It was no use convincing himself it was an accident. After all, he had done everything he could to deflect the blade, and therefore direct it towards Tatsumichi by twisting Tatsumichi’s wrists as far back as possible.
He felt incredibly nauseous. But Shuya gulped and held back the urge to vomit. He lifted his head and looked up at the slope he’d just tumbled down.
He couldn’t see beyond the shrubbery covering the slope. He’d left Noriko alone. The important thing now was to protect Noriko. He had no time to puke. He had to hurry back to Noriko, Shuya told himself as if these thoughts would calm him down. He stood up and stared down at Tatsumichi’s face and the hatchet for a while.
He hesitated but then pursed his lips together and pried Tatsumichi’s fingers loose from the handle of the hatchet that split his face. He couldn’t just leave Tatsumichi like this. Of course he couldn’t bury him—but Tatsumichi’s hatchet face was just too much. He couldn’t bear it. He grabbed the handle and tried to pull the hatchet out of Tatsumichi’s face.
Tatsumichi’s face was stuck to it though as it came up with the hatchet. The hatchet was lodged in so deeply, it was stuck.
Shuya took a deep breath. Oh God.
Then he thought about it. No. What’s this about God? Ms. Anno was a devoted Christian but no thanks to her faith in God she ended up getting raped by Sakamochi. Ah, praise the Lord.
Shuya felt another surge of anger.
He clenched his teeth and knelt beside Tatsumichi’s head and put his trembling left hand on his classmate’s forehead. With his right hand he pulled on the hatchet, which made a horrible spurting sound as blood sprayed out of Tatsumichi’s face, and the hatchet came loose.
He felt as if he were in a nightmare. Cracked in the middle, Tatsumichi’s head was now asymmetrical. It looked too unreal. It looked like a plastic fake. Shuya realized for the first time in his life how malleable and fragile the human body was.
He gave up trying to close Tatsumichi’s eyes. His left eyeball and eyelid was split, the eyelid shriveled and swollen so badly it couldn’t be shut. His right eye was probably manageable, but who’d want a winking corpse? It was in bad taste given the circumstances.
He felt sick again.
But he stood up again and turned around. To get back to Noriko he’d have to take the long way around up the foot trail.
Shuya’s eyes opened wide again though now because…
…there was a boy wearing glasses and a school coat in the middle of the field—the male class representative, Kyoichi Motobuchi.
And this representative was holding a pistol.
17
Behind his silver-framed glasses, the class representative’s eyes met Shuya’s. His hair that was always so neatly parted at a 7:3 ratio was now a complete mess. The lenses of his glasses looked smudged, and the eyes behind them were bloodshot and wide open the way Tatsumichi’s eyes were. His face was incredibly pale, as it was inside the classroom, once again resembling a Warhol print. It didn’t look human anymore.
As the gun flinched, Shuya twisted his body and ducked backwards. With an explosive pop, the gun set off a small flame. Something hot grazed the top of his head. Of course he might have just imagined it. Anyway, the bullet missed him.
Still on his back, Shuya didn’t have time to think. He just tried to retreat. The tall grass made a rustling sound under his back.
He was too close. He couldn’t escape. Kyoichi Motobuchi was only several meters away from Shuya, aiming directly at his chest.
Shuya’s face grew as stiff as a plaster sculpture. More than protecting Noriko, more than anything, it was real fear that caught him now, welling up inside. The next tiny lead bullet that gun spits out will kill me! kill… me!
“Stop it!” Another voice yelled.
Kyoichi suddenly turned in a diagonal direction. Shuya also followed Kyoichi’s glance—
A large figure stood in the shade of the shrine. Buzzed hair, no, the head was practically bald, the prominent scars above his brows, the tough face of a thug. It was Shogo Kawada (Male Student No. 5). He held a pump-action shotgun (a sawed-off Remington M-31).
Without any warning Kyoichi shot at Shogo. Shuya saw Shogo quickly duck. As he heard the explosion from the shotgun that Shogo held in his kneeling position, sparks flew from the muzzle like a flame thrower, and the next moment Kyoichi’s right arm was gone. Bloody mist shot into the air. Kyoichi gazed blankly at the half-sleeve of his school uniform. The rest of his sleeve, from his elbow to the hand that was holding the gun, was now lying on the grass. Shogo quickly pumped the shotgun and loaded the next shot. A red plastic shell flew out to the side after spitting out its pellets.
“AIEEEE!” Kyoichi screamed like an animal as he suddenly realized what had happened. Shuya thought he would fall to his knees.
But he didn’t. The representative instead ran for his arm. He pried the gun loose from his right hand with his left hand. Like a one-man baton relay. Great. Shuya once again felt like he was watching a bad horror flick. Or better yet, reading a bad horror novel.
Damn, this was bad.
“Stop it!” Shogo shouted, but Kyoichi refused and pointed his gun at Shogo.
Shogo shot again. Kyoichi’s body bent over into a triangle shape, with his waist pointing out like a long jumper, but blown backwards. He landed feet first, and as if in time-lapse photography the next moment he was falling on the ground face up. He sank into the overgrown grass and remained still.