Shinji stood up and began to walk forward. As if he’d suddenly turned into a cyborg, his body felt heavy. One day Shinji Mimura woke up to find out that he had become the Terminator. Great.
He slowly walked over to Keita Iijima’s body.
Yutaka glared back at Shinji.
“Why, Shinji! Why’d you kill him!?”
Standing motionless, Shinji answered, “I thought we’d be in trouble if Keita had another weapon besides the knife. I aimed for his arm. I didn’t mean to kill him.”
Hearing this, Yutaka checked Keita Iijima’s body. As if to make a point, he looked through Keita’s day pack too. Then he said, “He had nothing! How could you, Shinji!? Why didn’t you trust him!?”
Shinji suddenly felt hollow. But it was necessary. Hey, Uncle, I didn’t do anything wrong, did I? Right?
Shinji looked down at Yutaka without saying a word. But—yes, no matter what—they had to hurry. They couldn’t let their mistakes drag them down.
Right before he was about to say this, something changed in Yutaka’s face.
His lips trembled. He said, “Oh no, Shinji, don’t tell me you—”
Shinji had no idea what he was referring to. He asked, “What?”
Yutaka quickly stepped back. He distanced himself from Shinji.
Yutaka spoke through his trembling lips, “Shinji, you didn’t do that on purpose…”
Shinji’s lips tightened. He gripped the Beretta in his left hand.
“You’re saying I shot Keita to buy us time? That’s—”
Yutaka frantically shook his head. Then he slowly retreated. “No, no. This whole plan—”
Shinji knit his brows and stared at Yutaka. Yutaka, what is it you’re getting at?
“This whole thing about our escape, that was just, that was—”
Yutaka still didn’t make any sense, but Shinji whose brain’s CPU was amazingly fast finally had understood what Yutaka was thinking.
No, it can’t be—
But what else could it be?
Yutaka was accusing Shinji of having no intention whatsoever to escape, that he had been planning all along to “play” this game. That’s why he shot Keita.
Shinji’s face gave a look of absolute dismay. His mouth might have been hanging open for all he knew.
Then he shouted, “Don’t be stupid! Why the hell would I be with you then!?”
Yutaka was trembling, shaking his head. “Tha-that’s…”
Yutaka didn’t say anymore, but Shinji understood that too. He probably wanted to say that Shinji was using him to survive, for instance by having him keep watch so Shinji could sleep.
But wait a sec here, I used the laptop to take on Sakamochi, and even after that failed, I came up with this other plan. So you’re saying since I’m smart I was playing around with the cell phone and laptop to gain your trust and that my hidden intention was to use the gasoline and fertilizer to protect myself and win the game. That since I only had one gun, a special explosive would come in handy to survive in this game? That right before executing the plan to bomb the school I was going to say, “Nah, let’s not”? Just like how I’d said, “It’s not working” when I was computer hacking? Look, waitasec though, what about that wire we installed by the school? Are you saying I wanted to start a wire-can phone business on this island where all the phone circuits have been shut off? Or you’re just saying that was another act? Or that I had some plan you couldn’t even conceive of?
When I said I’d help out after you told me you were going to avenge Izumi Kanai’s death, you cried. So my response was another deception?
That’s too much, Yutaka. I mean there’s no end to suspicion once you get going. But you’re going too far. This is absurd. Really, it’s hilarious. Funnier than your jokes. Maybe you’re losing it from fatigue.
That’s what Shinji thought on a rational level. And if he could have gone through each explanation step by step then Yutaka would have realized how foolish every one of his suspicions were. In fact, everything Shinji could come up with might not have corresponded to Yutaka’s suspicions. It might have been a simple case of fatigue combined with the shock of witnessing his close friend die suddenly giving way to a suspicion lurking somewhere in the back of Yutaka’s mind. But it came to surface because it had been there in the first place, his suspicion towards Shinji. And the thought of suspecting Yutaka had never even occurred to Shinji.
All of a sudden, the exhaustion he felt was overpowering. A horizontal twelve-cylinder turbo engine. This level of exhaustion is top-class, yessir, it really is a steal, sir.
Shinji uncocked the Beretta and tossed it over to Yutaka. Yutaka hesitated but received it.
Emptied out, Shinji threw his hands onto his knees.
“If you don’t trust me then shoot me, Yutaka. I don’t care, just shoot me.” Crouching, Shinji continued, “I shot Keita to protect you, Yutaka. Damn.”
Yutaka suddenly looked at him blankly. Then ready to burst into tears, he uttered, “Oh… oh…” He ran to Shinji.
Yutaka put his hand on Shinji’s shoulder and began sobbing out loud. Shinji stared down at the ground with his hands on his knees. He realized his eyes too were filled with tears.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was telling himself, hey hey, don’t you have more urgent matters to attend to? Look how vulnerable you guys are bickering like this. Have you forgotten, you’re surrounded by enemies? Look at your watch for crying out loud, you’re out of time… the voice resembled his uncle’s.
But Shinji’s nerves were too worn out, his body too tired, and emotions too rattled from Yutaka’s suspicion against him to take heed of this warning.
He merely cried. Yutaka. I was trying to protect you. How could you suspect me? I trusted you… but then again, maybe Keita Iijima felt the same way. How horrible to be suspected by someone you trust. I did an awful thing.
Amidst these worn out emotions of sadness, exhaustion, and regret, Shinji heard a rattling that sounded like the tapping of an old typewriter.
A split second later, he felt as if burnt tongs were poking through his body.
The wounds were fatal by then, but the pain made Shinji come to his senses. Yutaka, who had his hand on Shinji’s shoulder, fell to the ground. Over at the far end of the farm coop parking lot was a figure in a school coat. He held a gun—something bigger than a pistol. It looked more like a tin box. Shinji realized he’d been shot—of course with bullets, damn—with bullets that had exited through Yutaka’s body.
His body felt hot and stiff—The guy just lanced me with lead bullets, duh—but Shinji reflexively fell to his left and picked up the Beretta Yutaka had taken and dropped. He aimed it at the figure, Kazuo Kiriyama (Male Student No. 6) and fired several times at his stomach.
Kazuo Kiriyama shifted to the right before the shots got to him, though. Then along with the rattling sound, the tips of his hands flashed like out-of-season fireworks.
The blows he felt in the right side of his stomach, his left shoulder, and chest were much worse than the one he’d just felt a moment ago. The Beretta fell from his hand. But by then Shinji had already begun running toward the farm coop. He staggered for a moment, but then crouched down and dashed off, leaping through the sliding door head first. A stream of bullets chased after him and right when Shinji thought he’d escaped them, it managed to blow off the tip of his right foot’s basketball sneaker. This time Shinji grimaced in agony from the pain shooting through his body.