Her chest tightened with waves of remorse. She felt as if she were drowning, as if the world were coming to an end. She thought of the cause behind all of this, and her tearstained eyes glared fiercely at Mitsuko. If looks could kill, her glare would have. Yoshimi couldn’t care less now what kind of game this was or who her enemies and allies were. If anyone was her worst enemy, it was Mitsuko Souma, who’d killed her love.
“Why’d you kill him!?” The words sounded empty to Yoshimi. She felt as if she had become a hollow bag in a human shape. But the words came pouring out. The human body could do strange things.
“Why! Why’d you kill him!? It’s horrible! It’s just too awful! You’re evil! Why’d you have to kill him!? Why!?”
Mitsuko contorted her mouth in an expression of dissatisfaction. “You were about to get killed. I saved you.”
“No! I got Yoji to understand me! You’re so evil! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you! Yoji understood me!”
Mitsuko shook her head and shrugged, pointing the .45 at her. Yoshimi’s eyes opened wide.
And so Yoshimi heard the dry pop one more time. Her forehead felt as if it were being crushed by a car. That was all.
Yoshimi Yahagi fell onto the corpse of her beloved Yoji Kuramoto and remained motionless. The .45 caliber bullet had demolished the back of her head. But her mouth remained open as if she were screaming and blood came flowing out from its side. It soaked Yoji’s school coat, oozing out into a dark patch.
Mitsuko lowered the smoking Colt .45 and shrugged again. She’d planned on using Yoshimi to shield her from bullets.
She leaned over and whispered into the ear of Yoshimi’s half-destroyed head, “I’m sure he understood.” There was a strange topping of gray jelly brains and blood on her earlobe. “I killed him because it looked like he wasn’t going to kill you after all.”
Then, once again, she proceeded to pry loose the sickle from Yoji’s head.
31
The faint sound reached Shuya and the others. Shuya looked up. Then they heard it again. They waited, but that was it. They only heard the rustling sound of treetops deep inside the thicket shaking in the wind.
Shuya looked at Shogo, who was sitting next to him.
“Was that a gunshot?”
“That was a gunshot.”
“Then someone’s already—” Noriko began to speak, but Shogo shook his head and responded, “We don’t know for sure.”
They had all remained silent for several minutes, but the gunfire prompted discussion.
Shogo spoke up, “Look, as long as you trust me, it’s cool but… like I said before, we have to survive till the very end. So I just want to make sure.” Shogo looked over at Shuya. “Are you willing to be merciless against the enemy, Shuya?”
Shuya swallowed deeply. “You mean the government?”
“Including them, yeah.” Shogo continued, “As well as your other classmates, if and when they attack us.”
Shuya nodded slightly and then answered, “If that’s what it comes down to, I will.” His voice sounded feeble, though.
“Even if the classmate was female?”
Shuya’s lips tightened as he looked back at Shogo. He looked down again. “If I have to I will.”
“All right then. As long as we’re on common ground.” Shogo nodded and grabbed the shotgun resting on his crossed legs. Then he added, “Someone else will finish you off if you get too hung up on every person you kill.”
Shuya was about to say something but hesitated. He decided it was best not ask, but couldn’t stop himself from blurting out, “So you were merciless a year ago?”
Shogo shrugged. “I killed. You want to hear the details? How many guys I killed? How many girls I killed until I won?”
Noriko crossed her arms over her chest and brought in her elbows.
“No… forget it.” Shuya shook his head. “That’s pointless.”
They fell silent again. Then Shogo said, as if offering an explanation, “I had no choice. Some of them lost their minds—and then some were willingly killing as many as they could. Most of my friends died pretty quickly, and I didn’t have any time to hook up with anyone. And I-I just couldn’t offer myself up and get killed by someone.” He paused and added, “I also had something I had to do, so I couldn’t die.”
Shuya lifted his face. “What’s that?”
“Come on, it’s so obvious.” Shogo smiled a little, but his eyes glimmered fiercely all of a sudden. “I was going to tear up this fucked up country, this country that tosses us into this fucked up game.”
Watching Shogo’s lips tremble in anger, Shuya thought, he’s just like me. He wants to bring down these assholes in charge of this game, these assholes who won’t think twice about making us play this fucked up game of musical chairs, this game of mutual fear and loathing. He wants to send them to hell just like me.
Or maybe… Shogo mentioned in passing he’d lost his friends early on, but I bet he lost someone equally important as Yoshitoki was to me.
Shuya thought of asking him about this, but didn’t. Instead he asked, “You said you’d done a lot of studying—so that was for this purpose?”
Shogo nodded, “Yeah. I would have done something against this country eventually.”
“Like what?”
Shogo only grimaced. “I wonder.” He shook his head. “It’s not so easy bringing down a system that’s already built up. But I would have done something. Well no, I’m still going to. That’s why I have to survive this time too.”
Shuya looked down at the revolver and looked up. Another question had occurred to him.
“Can you tell me something?”
“What?”
“What’s the purpose of this game? How could this serve any useful purpose?”
Shogo’s eyes widened, but then he looked down and began to chuckle. He found it funny. Then he finally said, “There is no purpose.”
Noriko raised her voice. “But they insist it has some military purpose.”
Shogo kept on smiling and shook his head. “That’s just crazy nonsense. Of course this whole country’s insane, so maybe it’s completely rational.”
Shuya felt a rush of anger once again as he spoke, “Then how could this go on for so long?”
“That’s easy. Because there’s no one speaking out against it. That’s why it’s still going on.”
Seeing how Shuya and Noriko were at a loss for words, Shogo added, “Look, this country’s run by a bunch of idiot bureaucrats. In fact you have to be an idiot to be a bureaucrat. My guess is that when this lovely game was first proposed—some crazy military strategist probably came up with it—there was no opposition. You don’t want to stir things up by questioning the specialists. And it’s terribly difficult to end something that’s already been established. You interfere, and you’re out of a job. No, worse yet, you might be sent to a forced labor camp for ideological deviation. Even if everyone were against it, no one could say it out loud. That’s why nothing changes. There are a lot of screwed up things in this country but they all boil down to the same thing—fascism.”
Shogo looked at Noriko and Shuya. He added, “You two, and the same applies to me, we cant say anything. Even if you think something’s wrong, your life is too precious to risk it by protesting, right?”
Shuya couldn’t say anything back. His hot flash of anger all of a sudden went cold.
“It’s shameful,” Noriko said.
Shuya looked at Noriko. Noriko looked down sadly. He agreed. He felt the same way.