Another new POV. Kaori. All we know about her is that she was Megumi’s friend and she was one of the students remaining when Shinji left and saw the group waiting.
She’s in or near F8 and armed with a small SIG-Sauer P230 9mm Short automatic pistol which still feels large to her. She hears something rustling, a sound she’s been hearing regularly and so far has only been wind or animals. She thinks one might have been a stray cat. I really hope the cat makes it to the end safely.
But that didn’t stop her terror. She bit down and cut open her lip, which was now covered with cuts that had become scabs.
She’s not doing so well. She left the school to see Yoshio and Mayumi’s corpses.
she’d heard a voice coming from the woods in front of her. It was the voice of the school representative, Yukie Utsumi. Then she saw other figures with Yukie in the dark grove. Calling out from the dark, Yukie spoke in a hushed but clear voice, “Kaori! Come join us! It’s just girls! You’re safe with us!”
But she can’t. Even that’s too scary for her.
It’s also sad to note that she’s the second to last girl, the last being the dead Yoshimi. Yukie’s group must have left immediately afterward, even though it’d only have been another few minutes. I’m not sure I can really blame them – they’re trying to create a group where they can be safe enough to not worry about each other, and Yoshimi admits that as part of Mitsuko’s gang she bullied them.
Maybe if they had Megumi with them, Kaori might have been more able to trust them. Or maybe not.
At any rate, there’s no chance of that now. Kaori is rapidly losing it.
she kept on rubbing her face where the leaves had touched her. Her pimples had given her enough grief. She didn’t want her face to swell up from some poison ivy. Even if she was going to die soon, she didn’t want that.
She felt a chill run down her spine. Die? Am I going to do die? Am I really going to die?
The thought alone was enough to make her heart beat faster. She felt like she was going to have a seizure.
Am I going to die? Am I going to die? Like a crummy CD player unable to ignore a scratch on the disc the ringing words skipped over and over deep inside her head. Am I going to die?
She grabs for a locket and pops it open to stare at the picture inside, of a pop star’s photo. Apparently you could only get the locket through their fanclub, and Kaori’s really proud of it, although it’s not particularly in fashion and the rest of the school doesn’t much care. She talks to the locket and imagines he’d talking back telling her everything’s okay and that he’ll sing her favorite song. It’s not clear how much this is normal behavior for her and how much is her currently going nuts, and it’s not clear if she’s fantasizing about this or actually delusional. She asks the locket if maybe she should have gone to Yukie, but then immediately thinks it wouldn’t have helped and starts crying. She thinks about how she just wants to be home with her family doing normal things.
“Junya, help me, she says, adding, I feel like I’m going crazy. And then she sort of realizes she’s talking to a locket about how she thinks she’s going crazy and feels sick and starts crying harder.
But then she hears more rustling. It’s Hiroki. She shoots at him, but he’s already disappeared. So that’s another person who isn’t who he’s looking for.
Well, I can’t really blame Hiroki for retreating, but it’s a shame he doesn’t try to help her, since he must have seen she’s sobbing hysterically. I doubt it’d have done any good, though.
Anyway, she grabs her stuff and runs for it, now certain he was trying to kill her and ran away because she had the gun.
If I hadn’t noticed him and shot at him then Hiroki Sugimura would probably have stabbed my chest with a knife or something. A knife! I have to be careful. I have to shoot anyone I come across. No mercy. Otherwise, I’ll end up getting killed
And that’s about the last bit of coherence she has.
No mercy. Junya. I’m going to be killed! Shoot. Mom. Sister! Dad. Shoot! Shoot! The new record release!
Kaori was losing her mind.
Indeed.
Then it’s back to Shuya’s gang again. It’s twelve, so there’s another announcement. He tells everyone the new list of dead and then three new forbidden zones: J5, H3, D8. None is where they are, in C3, so they’re safe for the moment – although it’s quite possible for the people forced to move to end up coming upon them. Going by the idea most people don’t want to fight, you can probably provoke killing just by forcing them into smaller and smaller areas until they run into each other and startle.
“It may be rough losing your friends, but cheer up. You’re all so young, you’ve got so much ahead of you! Over and out.”
Well, if Sakamochi was thrown by Shinji’s attempt, he’s back to his old self now.
Shuya’s stunned that there’s only twenty-five of them left.
Shogo cupped his hand as he lit another cigarette. Then he said, “It’s like I said. The numbers are steadily dwindling.”
I think half the students gone before half a day has gone by is a bit more than “steady dwindling”. At this rate if they stay hidden, everyone else will be dead before tomorrow.
Shuya stares at some tiny flowers in the grass and an ant crawling on one and thinks about how Shogo’s kind of creepy. Then he thinks about the deaths. He knew Yoji and Yoshimi were an item, so he wonders if they were together and killed by the same murderer who killed Yukiko and Yumiko. Why couldn’t they have suicided like the other couple? Is there some reason it seems really unlikely they’d kill themselves with guns?
Shogo pulls him out of his thoughts by saying that they should eat breakfast. He says the bread is terrible but he got some jam for it. Also, coffee, which seems like a really useful thing. I wonder why he didn’t get something more substantial than just jam, though – or maybe he did stock up on more food and he just figures they should eat the bread first.
Noriko says she’s not hungry.
Shuya realized as she looked down again how pale her face had become. He’d suddenly realized how quiet she’d been.
Well, that explains why she hasn’t had much of a part so far. She’s got a terrible fever. So let’s see, childmurder games by the government, love interest with an injured leg that becomes infected, seventy-five years of tyranny…this is hitting an awful lot of Hunger Games points.
Shogo checks her out and then they wrap her in their coats. He tries to get her to eat the bread and jam, but she can only manage a mouthful. He gives her some cold medicine, which despite the name can involve treatment for fevers. She can barely swallow it with water.
Shuya wants to know if she’ll be okay, and he says he thinks the wound is infected, which could have happened before they even tried sewing it up. Shuya wants to try to get her to a house and warm her up, but Shogo says it’s too dangerous. It doesn’t sound like the best idea, really – it’s noon, so it’s currently warm, and they don’t know where a house is or how far she’d have to move.
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. Doctor skills.
6 Kazuo Kiriyama: Awesome. A sociopath who decides to play the game by flipping a coin. Possesses several guns. 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. Yoshimi’s boyfriend, attacks her. Killed by Mitsuko.
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. Has a device that shows him when someone with a collar nearby, also armed with a staff. Searching for two girls.
12 Yutaka Seto: Class clown. Best friends with Shinji, joined up with him. Fork weapon. Had a crush on Izumi. Decides to take on the government.
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. Best friends with Yutaka, joined up with him. Pistol weapon. Uncle probably part of the rebellion. Decides to take on the government.
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. Kill count: 3.
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 that’s become infected.
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. Yukie asks her to join her group, but she was too afraid to do so. Pistol. Sees Hiroki briefly. Currently cracking under the stress of the games.
21 Yoshimi Yahagi: Part of Mitsuko’s group. Colt weapon. In love with Yoji. Killed by Mitsuko.