Chapter 14!

PART TWO
MIDDLE STAGE

Yup, we’ve passed some milestone! Bear in mind the book is nowhere near done. There are a total of four parts in this book. That means we’re one-fourth in now, and with one-fourth of our student cast dead. I doubt the author will manage to keep the two even, though, I think it’s just a coincidence. I should also mention that the book is about eighty chapters total, so this doesn’t represent one-fourth in that respect.

We finally return to Shuya. It’s dawn.

Shuya Nanahara looked up and watched the blue sky gradually turning white through the thicket. The branches and leaves of oak, camellia, some kind of cherry, and other kinds of trees wove an intricate net around them and hid them.

Reasonable types of trees, my god.

Shuya checks out the map. Presumably he decided to wait until there was light to do this rather than messing around with a flashlight. Smart, Shuya!

The map is a very detailed one, showing the contours of the ground so that it’s easy to tell where you are. It also shows the roads with their relative sizes, houses and other buildings of interest (there wasn’t much besides symbols indicating a medical clinic, a fire station, and a lighthouse and then a town hall, a fishermen’s coop, that was about it) This makes a lot of sense, they need to let the kids be able to navigate despite having no real practice.

Beyond, there’s a field and a small shack. There’s a Shinto archway in front of it, so he figures it’s a shrine. He can see it’s empty. But he doesn’t want to hide there, because there’s only one way in or out. If anyone comes they’ll be trapped.

I’m not sure what cultural connotations this has. Generally violence on holy sites is frowned on, and from anime they’re definitely meant to be sanctuaries from monsters at least. I don’t recall much emphasis on them being places you’re safe from other human beings – but then, that’s generally the same way it’s handled with Christian churches as well. People instead use those as the setting for violence precisely for the juxtiposition, so that might be implied here as well.

What really stands out to me is the part about it being an open field, so anyone will see you approach or leave. That seems even worse than the single door.

Shuya decides to hang out.

Shuya settled on a place surrounded by shrubbery relatively near the sea, where they could lie down and rest. Higher up the hill the shrubbery seemed thicker, but he thought that would also attract others, and in case they met someone who turned out to be an enemy, he thought they were better off somewhere not too steep, where it was hard to run.

He seems to be making pretty good decisions here. I particularly like the idea of avoiding thicker cover simply because its utility might mean it attracts other people. That’s an important balancing element here – the best will also be the most contested.

Shuya’s been thinking about ways to escape. But all he came up with was a boat, and even if they could find one, there’s a ship there to catch people who try that. And that’s not even the biggest problem.

Once a special signal is transmitted from the school, the bomb inside the collar explodes. According to rules this would happen to anyone caught in a forbidden zone, but of course the same would apply to anyone attempting to escape by sea. In fact these collars rendered those guard ships unnecessary.

Indeed. The fact the sea isn’t forbidden is probably just another example of Sakamochi’s sadism. The boats seem more inexplicable, so my guess is they’re really there to keep anyone else from getting to the island instead. I don’t think they’d waste a couple ships just to intimidate the students slightly more, but outsiders getting to the island would be a big problem. The school is likely comparatively undefended and since they’re relying on the collars to see where everyone is and keep them away, they wouldn’t even notice non-collared people sneaking around. This seems like a prime target for any rebellion.

But that’s other people. For Shuyay, he realizes that in order to escape the first step requires disabling the collars. But there’s no way to get to the school controlling it, because it’s the first area forbidden. On top of that, since the collars report their location, even their approach would be noticed.

He thinks they should stay put during the day and not move until night.

But here again there was another problem, the time limit. “If no one dies within twenty-four hours.” The last time Shuya saw someone die was when he left the school, which was over three hours ago. If everyone remained alive, in a little more than twenty hours everyone would be dead. Even if they made an attempt to escape, by nightfall it might be too late to get their act together. Ironically, more classmates dying would buy them more time to survive.

Such dismal logic.

It’s unclear here who he means by “they”, all the students or just him and Noriko. Shuya comes off as rather monofocused, which honestly makes a lot of sense considering the terrible situation they’re in. Any escape is impossible, so concerning yourself with also gathering up everyone else first is too much.

He does wish he could find his friend Shinji. Shinji’s smart and he’s sure he’d have an idea. He spends a bit regretting his panic after Yoshio, but at the same time, he’s still not sure if Yoshio was the exception or the rule.

It was impossible to determine who your enemy was in the first place. Who was still normal and who wasn’t anymore?

So paralyzed, he doesn’t want to do anything.

In the end we have no choice but to sit here and see what’ll happen.

No, Shuya! You’re actually on a really tight time limit. The more time goes on, the fewer areas you’ll have access to and the more time the killers have to hunt you down.

At least he’s not going to do nothing but cower. Once night falls he’ll try to find Shinji.

but will we even be able to do that? Even though the island was small, with a diameter of six kilometers, finding someone under these conditions wouldn’t be easy. Besides, will we even have enough time between nightfall and the “expiration time”?
Furthermore let’s assume by some stroke of luck (what an expression) we end up hooking up with Shinji, or it’s just the two of us, and we somehow manage to escape, we would be considered fugitives.

Yup, it’s a pretty tight time limit. Shuya’s being unbelievably optimistic to think the time limit itself is the real issue, of course. (Also look! Precise size. This is the first book that I’ve actually had a clear idea of the environment and area.)

Anyway, here he’s confirming that he’s only trying to get Noriko and himself out. Finding his friend is just because it’s a practical thing more than a desire to help rescue him.

Shuya can’t actually believe there’s a way out. Unless we emigrate somewhere, we’ll spend the rest of our lives as fugitives. And then one day we’ll end up being assassinated

The way this is put acts as if emigration is practically unthinkable, as opposed to what you’d want to do if you ever got the chance. Instead he spends a while detailing how after they’re in inevitably assassinated in an alley mice would eat their fingers.

Perhaps what’s really going on is he doesn’t believe emigrating is possible and “unless we emigrate” is kind of like “unless we find a unicorn”. Certainly, dictatorships usually don’t let you leave easily, and I’d assume people would especially want to leave a country that liked to play death lottery with their kids. His rejection of the idea still seems weird, though – presumably if you believe you can hide out within the country, you could sneak out in a similar way? I wonder if there’s particular focus to the propaganda about how either there’s no way to get across the border or that all the other countries will kill you if you do it.

Depressed by how bad things look, he wonders if Yoshitoki was the lucky one by dying before he had to deal with it. Considering he lived long enough to discover their beloved parental figure had been brutalized, their teacher murdered, and then had a horrible lingering death, that’s more of a stretch than usual.

He considers suicide for a moment, then looks over to Noriko, who he reminds us is pretty, and then says that now there’s sand on her face, her hair is frayed (probably frizzed or tangled is the better word) and there’s that horrible collar around her neck that makes her look like a slave.

This damn game was taking away all her attractive qualities.
Shuya then suddenly felt a surge of incredible anger. And with it, he came to his senses.

We won’t lose. We’ll survive.

I’m not really sure what’s up with the idea she doesn’t look pretty being the true crime here. I’d like to believe this is some sort of translator/cultural disjoint and it’s trying to express something along the lines of this murdergame thing is just bad in every aspect, from the great all the way down to the little. But it sure seems to be saying the crime is that attractive girls don’t look as attractive.

Well, at least he’s clear that slave collars are a decided negative when it comes to that.

At any rate, he’s so outraged he’s finally motivated to actually fight back. He wants to really hurt them for what they’ve done.

Noriko asks what he’s thinking. Shuya says he hopes she doesn’t want to commit suicide and Noriko says no way…then pauses to say that, unless maybe they were the last ones left, because then if she died, he’d win. Shuya’s shocked and says that no, they’ll stay together no matter what. I wonder if, should it actually happen, he’d commit suicide instead? His behavior toward Noriko, while admirable, definitely seems motivated in part by his friend’s death, and I have the sense he feels like the only way to honor his friend is to do anything, including die, protecting his friend’s crush. At the moment, though, he insists it won’t be necessary, they’ll both make it.

Noriko nodded and said, “I’ve always thought this, but you’ve always had this positive force.”
“Positive force?”
Noriko smiled. “I don’t know how to say this but you have this positive attitude about living. Like right now you’re totally determined to live.

Then, of course, she says this is what she likes so much about them. In case this isn’t obvious enough, the way she talks here is almost identical to the way Sakura talked about her boyfriend.

Embarrassed, Shuya says it’s just that he’s an idiot. Then, I guess to counter her idea that he’s an upbeat guy, immediately points out that he’s an orphan but she’s not so if they escape she’ll never be able to see her family again and is she going to be okay with that idea?

Noriko, being sane, points out that yeah, she can deal if the alternative is being messily murdered. But then, not willing to let the downer party stop, points out that he won’t be able to see his crush again either.

And yeah, it does suck a bit, but he brushes it off.

He thought of adding, “It was just a one-way crush anyway,”

I think this is setting up for eventual Noriko/Shuya. On the one hand, that’d resolve the love triangles and issue of not being able to be around others neatly, but on the other hand, that’d make things too neat. I kind of prefer Shuya unconsciously motivated by survivor’s guilt and the belief his dead friend would have done everything in his power to save Noriko.

Then we finish on a cliffhanger:

but he was interrupted by the sudden blare of Sakamochi’s voice ringing through the air.

So, this chapter is not really that impressive. They’re pretty much treading water here. I don’t even have anything to add to our cast list. A lot of time is spent thinking of possibilities and rejecting them.

It’s nice to see suicide keep coming up as an option and that they actually have decent reason not to try it – they believe escape is possible. Their choices aren’t a simple binary of kill or be killed, and in some way even buying into that is accepting Sakamochi’s version of things. Even if they’re killed in the process of trying to escape, that’s still a blow against the fear that permiates this – right now, on an island with Sakamochi and the soldiers, it’s the other students people are most afraid of. Even forcing the government to be the ones to kill them is a small victory against the idea that their peers are the ones they shouldn’t trust.