“Listen up, everyone ” It was a girl’s voice.

Despite the distortion and distance, Noriko immediately identifies it as Yumiko’s voice. We’re then told that Yumiko is tall, energetic (athletic?) and on the softball team.

Shogo does not look pleased. He says he’ll check it out, and Shuya and Noriko say they’ll come too.

They only go a little ways.

There was a viewing platform between the trees scattered on the peak. It was probably five or six hundred meters away from the foot of the mountain, where they were. But they could still see it clearly. The platform was a crude construction, resembling a shack with a missing wall. There were two figures standing under its roof.

I can only think that they really didn’t consider the presence of guns. This is really something where you have critical mass issues. Some people will stop fighting because two people say they aren’t fighting. Others are going to wait for the first group to move and demonstrate that more than just two people aren’t fighting. And so on. It’s quite possible for someone to both potentially be convinced and to be willing to take a potshot at them right now.

Yumiko tells everyone to stop fighting and meet up.

Was it a megaphone? The one cops use to address criminals cooped up inside buildings under siege? It felt slightly absurd (“Put down your weapons and come out with your hands up”), but he could see how her voice could reach not only them but the rest of the island.

I wonder that’s so absurd here? The only thing incongruous to me is the conflict between it usually being in the hands of officials, with power and numbers behind them, and here it’s being used in quite the opposite way. I suppose it could also just be that it’s weird to see recognizable anything in such a situation.

Also I sort of wonder if dictatorships even do that sort of thing. Wouldn’t they just throw in some canisters of mustard gas and call it a day?

“This is really bad,” Shogo said with a grimace. “They’ll get themselves killed totally exposed like that.”

Shogo does seem legitimately on the side of minimal killing. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t indicate anything’s wrong.

Shuya, meanwhile, is struck by the fact they’re doing what he meant to but was too afraid to carry through with – not giving in to fear, going forward assuming people aren’t killers. And he guesses they probably meant to be visible.

And then Shuya freezes up because – well, what if Shogo really is their enemy? So somehow he decides the solution is to tell Shogo to stay with Noriko, who’s most vulnerable, while he heads up to them. If nothing else I guess he can be relatively sure Shogo won’t kill Noriko yet, since there’s no real advantage to doing that.

Instead, Shogo calls him an idiot for planning to go over there. Yeah, they’re not playing, but if he starts moving, he might run into someone who is.

“I know that!” Shuya shot back.
“No, you don’t get it. Everyone knows about those two now. If anyone attacks them, then the enemy’s going to wait for others offering themselves up like you. With more targets “

This is why it’s disappointing that the class roster was seeded with two psychos, because it removes the possibility of this playing out just among the regular kids. What would happen? Are there kids who have rationalized that this is all inevitable, so they might as well kill? I don’t think it’s really evil to want one person to survive rather than everyone sitting down for nonviolent protest until their collars explode, and unlike the televised Hunger Games, there’s no one to see you making that stand. And if you think the only way out is to win, then…well, you’d have to kill them anyway, and you don’t exactly want to make friends first because that makes killing them later worse. In fact maybe it’s easier to just shoot them now rather than thinking about what-ifs.

You can easily see how this could end in disaster even without needing people who want to murder each other.

The two girls continue to beseech everyone to come up and that they’re not going to fight, and Shuya insists he’s going to them.

“You want me to just sit back and watch them get killed?” He raised his voice uncontrollably and blurted out, “Or is my leaving going to decrease your chances of survival? Is that it? Is that what’s going on? Are you our enemy?”

Ah, Shuya. It’s good of you to care.

Shogo continues to be eerily calm, and Shuya says it reminds him of the man who used to run the orphanage, so it’s a positive fathery calm and not creepy I guess.

I’m not sure why because Shogo’s argument is that if Shuya dies Noriko likely will too.

if you go now and don’t return, then you’ll drastically decrease Noriko’s chances of survival.

Which sure does sound like a threat to me, but apparently Shuya takes it as given that even with Shogo helping rather than, say, abandoning her as dead weight, they still have a much better chance with him around too.

loving someone always requires you to not love others. If you care about Noriko, don’t go.”

This is really not a good way of looking at things.

Shuya’s willingness to help her is good, but his monofocus on Noriko really isn’t a very positive thing and it makes most sense as him doing it because Noriko is there and currently needing help while until now, others have been elsewhere and he couldn’t do much. But now we have two other people visibly in danger. It’s true, if Shuya’s primary goal is Noriko’s individual survival, he shouldn’t leave to help others. But I don’t see any reason why it should be. If he doesn’t go to them, he’s drastically reducing their chances of survival, and they’re the ones who stand to die right now, while Noriko is okay at the moment. Sacrificing two people currently at risk in case one person needs you later isn’t ethical.

Shuya sadly doesn’t reject Shogo’s statement, but the book does say he felt like crying and he asks if Shogo means they just let them die.

Shogo instead shoots his shotgun.

“We’ll be decreasing our chances of survival slightly. Only slightly.”

See, Shogo, that sort of reasoning is a lot better than just saying Noriko’s more important.

You can definitely argue that you can’t save everyone and it’s better to go with the safer option, or even that trying to get to them is probably futile because they’d probably be attacked before you got there anyway.

Shuya explains the idea is that gunshot will scare them off. Were I Yumiko, I would interpret gunshots that didn’t appear to be aimed where I was as exactly what every gunshot not aimed at someone is: communication. While communicating details may be tricky, in general we’re wired for signalling each other and noticing those signals. In this case, it’s not hard to figure out that someone thinks what I’m doing is a bad idea – gunshots as enthusiastic agreement seems like a real stretch. They’re attempting to tell me I’ve misjudged the situation and should hide. But conversely, someone doing that would be proving the very point – someone is wasting ammunition telling me I’m in danger, and that, not an attack, is the first response.

So it really comes down to the subtlties of interpretation: do I assume that the person knows something I don’t, that although not everyone is playing there’s at least one around I need to hide from? Or do I assume the person is simply afraid for me and making the same assumption that everyone has been, that people are playing, when that’s the very thing I’m trying to counter?

Yumiko’s voice, amplified by the megaphone, stopped. It felt as if Yumiko and Yukiko were looking down where they were.

But of course they can’t see anything. Shuya wants Shogo to keep shooting, because, I don’t know, he thinks it’s awesome or something. It’s not like two gunshots is hard to understand but three will clear it up or something. Shogo tells him that the more they shoot the more likely someone will come after them.

Shuya considered it. Then he tried to point his Smith & Wesson into the air.

You are not a bright one, Shuya. Shogo, more patient than me, just tells him no again instead of slapping him or something. I guess you’ve got to be really calm and not escalate things under the circumstances.

Once again, Yumiko Kusaka’s voice shouted, “Stop it! I know none of us want to fight

That is a very good interpretation of events, Yumiko.

Unfortunately Kazuo then shows up to cut things short. There’s the typewriter sound of his apparently infinite machine-gun ammo and the girls scream, all amplified through the megaphone. It’s a shame neither of them managed to name their attacker. It likely wouldn’t be too useful but you never know.

Interestingly, the chapter count ends with 29 students remaining. Why?

Because they’re not dead.

The next chapter jumps to Yukiko’s point of view. She’s been shot in the stomach and she can’t stand, but she’s crawling over to Yumiko’s side.

“Yumiko! Yumiko!”
As she shouted, a red mist sprayed into Yumiko’s face, but Yukiko didn’t even realize it was coming from her mouth.

Wow that’s disturbing.

Yumiko is still alive and manages to open her eyes again. She tells Yukiko to escape. Yukiko says they’ll go together, but of course she can barely even move herself, let alone Yumiko. Although really, they’ve both got to be fatally wounded anyway.

Yumiko’s face was right in front of her eyes. Her glazed eyes stared at Yukiko. She asked in a feeble voice, “You can’t move, Yukiko?”
“Nope,” Yukiko did her best to form a smile. “I guess not.”

This is so depressing. Yumiko says she’s sorry, Yukiko says this was the right thing to do. Yumiko confesses to also liking Shuya. Yukiko remembers how once they’d gone shopping and found a pair of beautiful earrings  and argued over how the other one should get them, and ended up splitting the cost and each having one earring.

“Yumiko. I’m so happy that we’ve been

And Kazuo shoots Yumiko in the head. Yukiko barely realizes what’s happened before the same happens to her.

Kazuo stays down to avoid anyone seeing him and grabs their packs. So now he’s in possession of two grenades and some darts.

27 students remaining

That was one depressing chapter.

Although Kazuo rather wrecks the setup, he works out fine for this chapter, which is really more about the sheer unfairness of it all. They did the right thing, and they weren’t even killed for really misjudging the situation, they were killed because there’s a wolf among the sheep. Nothing they did could have worked.

1 Yoshio Akamatsu: “the biggest kid in the class, the timid type, the kind of kid who’d always end up the target of pranks and insults.” Bowgun weapon, kills Mayumi, killed by Kazushi.
2 Keita Iijima
3 Tatsumichi Oki: jock, handball. Hatchet. Runs into Shuya and Noriko, attacks when Shuya reaches for a weapon and accidentally killed in the resulting fight.
4 Toshinori Oda
5 Shogo Kawada: Looks older than the rest, has facial hair already, transferred in, scarred. Shotgun. Saves Shuya and kills Kyoichi.
6 Kazuo Kiriyama: Awesome. A sociopath who decides to play the game by flipping a coin. Current kill count: 6.
7 Yoshitoki Kuninobu: Shuya’s friend since childhood, they grew up in the orphanage together. Killed for threatening Sakamochi.
8 Yoji Kuramoto: Seen briefly by Mitsuru.
9 Hiroshi Kuronaga: Part of Kazou’s gang. Killed by Kazuo.
10 Ryuhei Sasagawa: Delinquent. Part of Kazou’s gang. Bullied Yoshio. Had a younger brother. Killed by Kazuo.
11 Hiroki Sugimura: Tall and knows martial arts. Seems tough but is actually shy, likes Chinese poetry. Shuya’s friend. Close to Chigusa.
12 Yutaka Seto: Class clown.
13 Yuichiro Takiguchi
14 Sho Tsukioka: Part of Kazou’s gang. Escaped Kazuo’s massacre.
15 Shuya Nanahara: Main character? Minor but utterly harmless teenage rebelliousness. Popular with the girls.
16 Kazushi Niida: jock, soccer. Killed Yoshio by accident.
17 Mitsuru Numai: Delinquent. Part of Kazou’s gang, pistol weapon, tried to keep Ryuhei from bullying Yoshio, believed himself Kazuo’s adviser. Killed by Kazuo.
18 Tadakatsu Hatagami: jock, Shuya’s friend when they were younger. ‘Shuya had started playing electric guitar, which was considered an “unpatriotic” activity. Tadakatsu’s mother was uptight about that sort of thing.”
19 Shinji Mimura: Shuya’s current friend. ‘short hair and wore an intricately designed ring on his left ear’, highly athletic, knows a lot of information, particularly about the outside world. Extremely cool under pressure.
20 Kyoichi Motobuchi: Class representative, dad’s a government official. Sees Shuya’s fight with Tatsumichi. Pistol. Killed by Shogo.
21 Kazuhiko Yamamoto: Sakura’s boyfriend. Gun. Commits suicide.
Females
1 Mizuho Inada: A friend of Megumi’s.
2 Yukie Utsumi: class representative, braided hair, Haruka’s volleyball teammate. The first one to speak after their abduction. Noriko’s friend. Not playing, joined up with Haruka, sees Kazuhiko and Sakura’s suicide.
3 Megumi Eto: Friends with Mizuho and Kaori. Had a crush on Shuya. Diving knife. Killed by Mitsuko.
4 Sakura Ogawa: Kazuhiko’s girlfriend. When she was young, she saw her father killed by the government. Commits suicide.
5 Izumi Kanai: ‘the preppy whose father was a town representative’. Killed by Kazuo.
6 Yukiko Kitano: Yumiko’s friend. Dart and dartboard. Crush on Shuya. Killed by Kazuo.
7 Yumiko Kusaka: Yukiko’s friend. Hand grenades. Crush on Shuya she’s hiding. Uses a megaphone to try to talk to the rest of their class and convince them to stop killing and join up with each other. Killed by Kazuo.
8 Kayoko Kotohiki
9 Yuko Sakaki: Sees Shuya kill Tatsumichi and runs away unnoticed.
10 Hirono Shimizu: Part of Mitsuko’s group. Tormented Megumi.
11 Mitsuko Souma: Delinquent group leader. “Even though Mitsuko had the gorgeous looks of a pop idol, she always wore a strange, listless expression on her face.” Has a sickle and a diving knife. Killed Megumi.
12 Haruka Tanizawa: Yukie’s volleyball teammate, exceptionally tall. Not playing, joined up with Yuki.
13 Takako Chigusa: Close to Hiroki.
14 Mayumi Tendo: The first death in the game, killed outside the school.
15 Noriko Nakagawa: She has a crush on Shuya he’s unaware of and Yoshitoki has a crush on her she may be unaware of. She’s nice and likes literature. Suffering a leg injury.
16 Yuka Nakagawa: Yoshitoki says she’s fat. Class clown.
17 Satomi Noda : “model student who wore wire-rimmed glasses which suited her calm, intelligent face”
18 Fumiyo Fujiyoshi: Killed for whispering to Yukie. “She was the nurse’s aide. She was quiet but very caring.”
19 Chisato Matsui: always quiet and withdrawn
20 Kaori Minami: A friend of Megumi’s.
21 Yoshimi Yahagi: Part of Mitsuko’s group.