Time for a Mitsuko chapter.

Some chatting. The sound of someone moving. She’d even settle for the faint sound of someone desperately trying to hold his or her breath.

But not out of loneliness or anything. She just wants to get back on the killing wagon. She’s now lost both Yoshimi’s gun and Megumi’s knife, and she really misses the gun.

(if she’d had a gun in the first place she would have gone back to the school and killed off everyone that came out one by one).

I wonder how many games end like that?

Mitsuko is actually being a bit more reasonable than Kazou, in that she’s realized that the machinegun guy is useful, but at the same time, she knows that there’s a good chance he’ll make it to the end, so she needs a weapon. Meanwhile Kazou is running himself ragged chasing everyone he can, but I’m not sure if that actually matters when he’s basically a middle school sized terminator.

But anyway. She does hear a human sound. It’s someone peeing.

She’s found Tadakatsu, who used to be close with Shuya.

He was on the baseball team. Nothing exceptional, just an average guy. He was tall and well-built, and his face was average. His hobbies were…actually she had no idea

What she does know is that he’s got a revolver in one hand. Time to stab him while he’s distracted.

She heard someone from behind say, “Whoa,” and Tadakatsu suddenly turned around, along with Mitsuko. She (of course) put the sickle down and looked back at the speaker behind her.
It was Yuichiro Takiguchi (Male Student No. 13). He was shorter than Tadakatsu and had a cute, boyish face.

Seems the two of them hooked up.

Tadakatsu, sanely, immediately aims the gun at her. Yuichiro objects. Tadakatsu, sanely, points out he’s got his gun aimed at someone sneaking up on him holding a knife.

“N-no.” Mitsuko croaked as if her words were stuck in her throat. She made sure her voice was high-pitched and trembling, and of course, she didn’t forget to flinch her body back. Once again, the star actress had a chance to show off her talents. Watch me now.

Tadakatsu is not convinced, but he’s hesitating because Yuichiro is arguing and the moment is lost. Apparently, Yuichiro has already been saying they should try to find others and join up. Tadaskatsu says not this person when for all they know she’s the one who murdered Yumiko and Yukiko.

Yuichiro fell silent for a while, but then said, “Tadakatsu, you shouldn’t raise your voice.” His voice sounded different from before. It was calm and kind. Tadakatsu opened his mouth slightly as if he’d been caught off guard.
Mitsuko was also a bit surprised. Yuichiro Takiguchi was into anime. He was the otaku of their class, but now he sounded quite dignified.

Actually, he sounds like he’s channeling an anime character. Which, in some instances, might be a good idea, but the average shonen forgiveness hero generally gets beaten to a pulp for their good nature before their enemy sees the light, and unless you’re made of rubber or full of magical fox energy or whatever, it’s not really something you can safely emulate.

Yuichiro suggests a compromise. They don’t want to send her away because if he’s worried she’s a threat, she’ll still be able to follow them. It’s safer to keep her around and then they’ll know if they can trust her. Mitsuko, instead of being smug he’s picked the wrong choice, is really impressed by how he’s talking even though she knows he’s making a mistake.

Tadakatsu demands that she give up the sickle and Yuichiro search her, which he’s really embarrassed about and barely touches her. Tadakatsu also says they should check under her skirt for weapons, which really just plays more into her whole act.

Mitsuko only answered in a meek voice, “O-okay,” and lifted her skirt bashfully again up to where her underwear was nearly visible. Geez, this was turning into one of those adult videos titled Fetish Special! Starring Real Junior High School Girls!

Mitsuko speaks from experience there, because Mitsuko is really messed up.

Tadakatsu, still rightfully suspicious, also wants her tied up, and she just as meekly accepts that. Yuichiro is really apologetic about all this, while Mitsuko is thinking that she’s lucky they didn’t see her raising the knife.

The next chapter is still with Mitsuko. Yuichiro is explaining his idea about finding more people to her while Tadakatsu is asleep.

Mitsuko had an idea how they hooked up. Tadakatsu hadn’t slept at all until he met Yuichiro, and he probably couldn’t sleep after joining him. Why? Because he was probably afraid Yuichiro might attack him by surprise. And even though Mitsuko might be much more threatening than Yuichiro, now that she was with them, even if Tadakatsu slept, Mitsuko and Yuichiro would have to keep an eye on each other so long as he held onto his gun and remained cautious. He could still get some sleep.

See, even Mitsuko agrees with me that having more people in your group makes you safer, because it’s harder for an individual to turn on everyone else.

I’m not sure she’s right about Tadakatsu suspecting Yuichiro. It seems more likely he was staying up out of concern for Yuichiro. And we find out that they’ve only been together for two hours because Yuichiro has mostly been staying put, too scared to move during the day. They met up and then spent their time trying to figure out how to escape.

Sleep seems like a major issue. It’s not just that sleeping makes you vulnerable – there’s enough space that if you hole up somewhere you can be relatively safe. But exhausted as they are, there’s a good chance of sleeping through an announcement, and losing track of the forbidden zones is extremely dangerous. At that point, you need to get your hands on someone else’s map as fast as possible. If you’re really unlucky, you’ll sleep through the announcement that the zone you’re in is forbidden and not wake up until your collar’s gone off.

Yuichiro goes on to explain the good-guy perspective on things, which, like Shuya and Yumiko, is that people don’t really want to play, they’re just scared, and that it’s vital to trust each other. Mitsuko plays the opposite camp: well, how do you know Tadakatsu isn’t playing? Kind of a weak gambit, really, he’s not playing because he didn’t shoot Yuichiro.

Anyway, Yuichiro brushes that one off with TRUST IS IMPORTANT YAY. He knows Yumiko’s attempt failed, but there must be some other way of gathering people.

Mitsuko keeps flirting and Yuichiro confesses that Tadakatsu doesn’t really trust anyone, and even he’s suspicious of Tadakatsu. But he trusts Mitsuko.

“I mean, yeah, I haven’t heard great things about you. But that’s so irrelevant in this situation. I mean, sometimes it’s the respectable ones who end up breaking up under stress.” He tossed the torn grass by his feet. Then he looked up at Mitsuko. “I don’t think you’re such a bad person.”
Mitsuko tilted her head. “Why?”
Maybe it was because she was staring at her, Yuichiro nervously looked away again. Then he said, “Well…it’s your eyes.”
“Eyes?”
Still looking down, Yuichiro began tearing out more grass. “You always had a scary look in your eyes.”
Mitsuko forced a smile. She tried to shrug her shoulders, but it didn’t work because of the belt around her wrists. “I guess.”
“But…” The grass was torn into quarters, then eighths. “But sometimes your eyes look really sad and kind.”

I think this is supposed to be right as opposed to him seeing what he wants to see. He goes on to add:

“I’ve always thought you weren’t as bad as everyone said you were. Even if you’d done bad things, I was pretty sure you did them because you couldn’t help it, because there was some reason behind it that wasn’t your fault.”

Me, I think that while Mitsuko may have had a crappy life, she still has the ability to make choices, and it’s the girls who are more terrified of her and the ones she seems more interested in targeting.

Anyway, Mitsuko naturally acts flattered by this, but for some reason she finds it’s not really an act.

He asks what she’s been doing and she claims to have just been running around away from gunshots and to have been so scared!

Yuichiro offers her some water, since she lost her own bag. He then stops and she’s irritated, thinking he’s decided not to give it to her, but actually he just wants to untie her hands to her shock. She drinks daintily then takes advantage of her free hands to hold one of his and flirt harder, talking about how she’s so, so relieved to be there and not have to be scared any longer. So he promises to protect her and he says she’s pretty.

This made Mitsuko smile and she realized this smile had no ulterior motive.
Well, almost none.

…yeah.

We stick with the group for the next chapter.

Sakamochi’s 6 a.m. announcement woke up Tadakatsu.

A good thing, because he seems the most levelheaded.

Yuichiro sleeps next, and Mitsuko begins her standard plan. She starts talking about how harmless and scared she is while “accidentally” flashing her panties at him. He says that he doesn’t trust her because he doesn’t want to die, and she says that if they work together maybe they can escape and smiles at him.

It was different from the one she wore during her somewhat idyllic conversation with Yuichiro. This one was Mitsuko Souma’s special fallen angel’s smile. Tadakatsu’s eyes were glazed, seduced.

Yup, that’s it for poor Tadakatsu.

She asks if they can talk, you know, “somewhere else”, and then starts stripping, leaving only her panties on. He starts groping her and she acts like it’s the most amazing thing she’s ever felt.

She continued pretending to be turned on (in exaggerated porn-video style), but meanwhile her right hand was reaching down to her panties….
Her fingertips touched a hard, thin object.
Gang girls probably didn’t use such cheap, clunky weapons anymore. But it’d been Mitsuko’s weapon of choice for a long time now.

So yeah, they didn’t do a good enough job searching her.

Sorry, Tadakatsu. But at least you get to go out with a nice memory, so you can forgive me, right? Too bad we won’t go all the way, though.

Like with her corpse chatting, I guess you could read this as sarcasm, but it does seem sort of sincere to me. I still can’t quite decide how she is, since she does seem regretful at some points and malicious at others.

Anyway, her attempt to slit his throat is hampered by some bird calling, which makes him look up and see the blade. She tries to attack anyway but only scratches him, then goes for the gun but fails. Tadakatsu gets it instead.

She runs as he tries to shoot her, then stumbles on the now-awake Yuichiro, who she hides behind. When Tadakatsu comes to shoot her, she claims Tadakatsu tried to rape her.

Tadakatsu pointed at his neck with the fingers of his empty left hand. The narrow cut had a slight blood stain. “She went at me with a razor blade!”
Yuichiro turned around and looked at Mitsuko out of the corner of his eye. Mitsuko shook her head (as cutely as possible, as if terrified, now she was playing the virgin). “I was so desperate…I had to use my nails on him.

So yeah. She manages to get Yuichiro to ask for the gun, saying he’ll decide what’s going on and that Tadakatsu should do if he’s really telling the truth, while Tadakatsu rants about how they’ve got to kill her now or else!

He finally agrees to hand the gun over and walks up, then at the last second, aims the gun at her.

Without hesitating, Tadakatsu pulled the trigger.
Gunfire. Two shots.
Yuichiro’s body fell down slowly as if in slow motion right in front of her.
Beyond it was the frightened face of Tadakatsu.

Mitsuko doesn’t miss a beat, grabbing the nearby sickle and throwing it into Tadakatsu before he could react, making him drop the gun, then grabs the bat Yuichiro had.

Thud. The end of the bat landed in the center of his face. She’d crushed in his nose cartilage and cheekbones, tearing out several of his teeth.
Tadakatsu fainted. Mitsuko swung at his forehead. KRAK! His forehead caved in. His eyes bulged out and his hands balled up into fists. One more swing, this time she aimed at the bridge of his nose. Mitsuko Souma’s Special Training for One Thousand Catches. Come on, come on, this next one’s going into center field.
Blood burst out of Tadakatsu’s nostrils with this blow.

Your scheduled reminder that killing people is violent and unpleasant. This is not an easily read book.

With that done, she returns to Yuichiro and finds him still alive.

After some consideration, Mitsuko moved over to block Yuichiro’s view of Tadakatsu’s corpse. Then she grabbed his shoulder to turn him over.

It’s interesting to see how well she does at being considerate. It makes sense – she isn’t exactly your standard psychopath because she does have a pretty good understanding of everyone around her.

She tells him Tadakatsu ran away and hugs him.

Before she pressed her lips against his, Yuichiro’s eyes moved slightly but then they shut.
This kiss was different from the whore’s kiss she gave to Tadakatsu moments ago. It was soft, warm, and kind even though it might have been mixed with the taste of blood.

…and then she shoots him. It may or may not be a mercy kill (there’s no emphasis on him being in pain and needing one), but she’s definitely fond.

“You were pretty cool. You even made me a little happy. I won’t forget you.”
She closed her eyes. Almost remorsefully, she once again gently pressed her lips against Yuichiro’s. His lips were still warm.

The manga definitely does this better, by having Mitsuko much more visibly upset and at a complete loss how to deal with things. Here, it certainly has some impact, but it’s not clear how much when she isn’t even willing to stay with him an extra minute to let him die on his own.

14 students remaining

Things have tilted far in favor of the girls. Of the boys, only Shogo, Kazou, Hiroki, and Shuya remain, while there are still ten girls alive.

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: Shinji’s former friend who he’s been avoiding since he proved to be cowardly. Wasn’t playing. Shinji shoots and accidentally kills him.
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: Bulletproof vest. Strangles Hirono, gets her gun. Attacks but fails to killed Hiroki. Killed by Kazou.
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. Attacked but failed to kill Shuya, Noriko and Shogo. Kill count: 11.
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 Takako. Has a device that shows him when someone with a collar nearby, also armed with a staff. Searching for two girls, one of which was Takako and the other is Kayoko.
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. Killed by Kazou.
13 Yuichiro Takiguchi: Teamed up with Tadakatsu and ran into Mitsuko, who he felt sympathy for. Shot attempting to defend Mitsuko.
14 Sho Tsukioka: Part of Kazou’s gang. Escaped Kazuo’s massacre. Gay. Had a gun. Stalked Kazuo, tricked into a forbidden zone and killed.
15 Shuya Nanahara: Main character? Minor but utterly harmless teenage rebelliousness. Popular with the girls. Killed Tatsumichi. Attempted to stop Hirono and Kaori’s shootout, failed. Escaped Kazou but fell off a cliff.
16 Kazushi Niida: jock, soccer. Killed Yoshio by accident. Had a crush on Takako, tries to get her to stay with him and assaults her. Asserts he’s chosen to play. Killed by Takako.
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.” Teamed up with Yuichiro, accidentally shoots him when trying to shoot Mitsuko. Killed by Mitsuko.
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. Shot and accidentally killed Keita. Killed by Kazou.
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: The other girl Hiroki is looking for. “The one who, in spite of being into tea ceremony, seemed more playful than elegant”.
9 Yuko Sakaki: Sees Shuya kill Tatsumichi and runs away unnoticed.
10 Hirono Shimizu: Part of Mitsuko’s group. Tormented Megumi. Killed Kaori in a shootout, left Shuya alone. Shot Toshinori but failed to injure him and was killed.
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 two knives and a gun. Seems to have resented Takako. Hiroko knows she murdered Takako and passed the message on to Shuya’s group. Liked Yuichiro for being kind. Kill count: 5.
12 Haruka Tanizawa: Yukie’s volleyball teammate, exceptionally tall. Not playing, joined up with Yuki.
13 Takako Chigusa: Close to Hiroki. Track star. Ice pick weapon. Rebuffs Kazushi and is attacked by him. Kills Kazushi. Shot by Mitsuko. Found by Hiroko shortly before she dies, tells him Mitsuko killed her.
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. Currently severely ill.
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. Cracking under the stress of the games. Killed by Hirono.
21 Yoshimi Yahagi: Part of Mitsuko’s group. Colt weapon. In love with Yoji. Killed by Mitsuko.