Which made Shuya realize, oh, that means Yoshitoki is alive. Realizing how silly the whole ordeal was, he was about to cry from relief as he trotted over. How silly. I can’t believe I could dream of Yoshitoki dying.
And how did I end up with Noriko? Hey wait, since when did I stop calling her “Noriko-san”? How presumptuous I was in that stupid dream, he thought. They were linked together in the dream. So does that mean I have some feelings for her beyond admiring her poetry? Uh oh, that means I’ll end up fighting with Yoshitoki. That’s trouble.
Still, this idle thought made him grin.
Shuya entered the school building, now hushed because classes were in session. He ran up the stairs. Third Year Class B was on the third floor. He skipped every other step.
He reached the third floor and turned right into the hall. The second classroom was Class B.
Shuya stopped by the door for a moment, trying to come up with an excuse for Ms. Okazaki. He was feeling sick—no, he had a dizzy spell. So he had to lie down and rest. Would she believe him, given how he was always in perfect health? Yoshitoki would give an exaggerated shrug, and someone like Yutaka Seto would say something like, “I bet you were sleeping,” Shinji Mimura would snicker, and Hiroki Sugimura, his arms folded, would look mildly amused. Noriko would smile at Shuya as he scratched his head. All right, that’s what I’ll go with. So what if it’s embarrassing?
Shuya put his hand on the door, made himself look as apologetic as possible, and gently slid it open.
Right before he looked up from the formal posture he assumed, a stench assaulted him.
He looked up. He slid the door open with all his might.
The first thing he saw was someone lying by the lectern.
Ms. Okazaki.
It wasn’t Ms. Okazaki. It was their head instructor, Masao Hayashida. And his head was missing. There was a puddle where it was supposed to be. Only half of his eyeglass frames were lying beside him.
Shuya tore his eyes off of Mr. Hayashida’s corpse and examined the rest of the class.
There were desks and chairs lined up as usual.
The strange thing was that his familiar classmates were all sprawled over their desks.
The floor was covered with blood. An intense stench wafted up.
After standing still for a moment, he quickly reached out for Mayumi Tendo… and realized that an antenna-like silver arrow was planted in her back. Its tip was poking out of her stomach while blood dripped down and off her skirt onto the floor.
Shuya moved forward. He shook Kazushi Niida’s body. Kazushi’s body tilted with a jerk, revealing its face.
Shuya felt a chill run up his spine. Kazushi’s eyes were now two dark-red holes. Blood and a slimy egg-white-like substance oozed out of them. Then there was a gimlet-like object with a thick handle stabbed into his mouth.
Shuya screamed and ran to Yoshitoki Kuninobu’s seat. There were three holes in his back, each one blooming with flowers of blood. As he held him up, Yoshitoki’s head slumped over onto his shoulder. His bulging eyes gazed up at the ceiling.
Yoshitoki!
Shuya raised his voice. Then he looked around frantically.
Everyone was either slouched back in their chairs or lying on the floor.
Megumi Eto’s throat was slashed like sliced watermelon. A sickle was planted in Yoji Kuramoto’s head. Sakura Ogawa’s head was split open like an overripe fruit. Only half of Yoshimi Yahagi’s head existed. An axe was planted in Tatsumichi Oki’s head, his face cracked down the middle, left and right out of alignment like a split peanut. Kyoichi Motobuchi’s stomach looked like a sausage-factory trash bin. Tadakatsu Hatagami’s face was completely crushed and covered in blood. Hirono Shimizu’s face was swollen black, and her sea-slug-sized tongue dangled out from the side of her wide open mouth. The body of The Third Man, Shinji Mimura, was covered with bullets.
Basically, everyone was dead.
Something caught Shuya’s eye. Shogo Kawada—that standoffish transfer student with the bad reputation—had deep stab wounds all over his chest. His eyes were half-open and looking down at the floor. They were out of focus.
Shuya took a deep breath and looked over at Noriko Nakagawa’s seat. It was right behind Yoshitoki’s, so he could have noticed earlier. For some reason though, it felt as if his classmates’ seats were swirling around with the corpses. He finally managed to locate Noriko.
She was still sprawled on top of her desk.
Shuya ran to her and held her up.
THUD. Her head fell off. Leaving behind her body, it landed with a thud on the floor and rolled around in a pool of blood, and then looked up at Shuya. With eyes full of resentment. I thought you said you would save me, Shuya. But I ended up dying. I really loved you, too. I really did.
His eyes glued to Noriko’s face, Shuya held his head and opened his mouth. He felt he was going crazy.
He could tell a scream was welling up inside.
Suddenly, he saw something white.
As he became physically aware that his body was in fact horizontal, his vision came into focus, and Shuya finally realized it was the ceiling. On the left side he saw a fluorescent light.
Someone gently touched his chest.
He realized how heavy he was breathing. His eyes followed the hand up to the arm, the arm up to the shoulder, and finally discerned a sailor-suit figure with braided hair—female class representative Yukie Utsumi (Female Student No. 2), smiling warmly.
“Looks like you’re up. What a relief,” she said.
59
Shuya tried getting up, but the pain all over his body immediately assaulted him, and he fell back. He realized then he was lying on a soft bed with fresh sheets.
Yukie gently touched Shuya’s chest again, then lifted the puffy blanket up to his neck. “Don’t exert yourself. You’re injured pretty badly. You seemed to be having a bad nightmare. Do you feel okay?”
Shuya wasn’t able to respond coherently. Instead he surveyed the room. It was small. There was cheap fabric wallpaper on the left wall, and on the right behind Yukie was another bed, but besides that there wasn’t much else. There was a door near the foot of the bed, but it was closed. The wooden frame gave it an old look. There seemed to be a window above his head letting in a dull light which illuminated the room. Given how dull the light was it seemed cloudy outside. But where was he?
“I don’t get it,” Shuya said. He realized he could speak now. “I don’t remember checking into a hotel with the student representative.”
He was still in a half daze, but Yukie gave a sigh of relief. Then her full lips erupted into a soft chuckle. “You would say that, wouldn’t you? I’m so relieved you’re all right though.” Looking at Shuya, she added, “You were out for quite some time. Let see… it’s been,” she looked down at her watch on her left wrist, “about thirteen hours.”
Thirteen hours? Thirteen hours. Thirteen hours ago I was—
Shuya’s eyes opened wide. His memory and the present locked in. He was fully awake now.
There was something he needed to find out. Right away.
“What about Noriko, Noriko Nakagawa? And Shogo Kawada?”
Shuya said this and took a deep breath. Were they still alive?