Shogo Kawada (Male Student No. 5) reclined against the soft sofa on the ship. He was swaying slightly from the rough waves.
The room was fairly spacious for a small patrol ship. The ceiling itself was low, but the room must have been a couple square meters. There was a low table in the middle, and two sofas on each side, with Shogo sitting on the one away from the door.

:(
:C

Once the forbidden zones were all deactivated after the game was over, Shogo obeyed Sakamochi’s announcements and made his way to the school. In front of the school were the bodies of Yoshio Akamatsu and Mayumi Tendo, and inside the classroom, the bodies of Yoshitoki Kuninobu and Fumiyo Fujiyoshi, all left untouched.

Christ, they’re really dedicated to leaving them to rot for a bit.

What must that be like, to be one of these soldiers? Not only are you there to shoot kids who try to fight back against your government murdering them, but you then spend your time in the same building as the rotting corpses of the first killed?

They pop off Shogo’s collar and shoot the little Look who survived! :D segment, just like Shuya saw as a child. I wonder if you get a double stipend for winning twice or if they say you’ve already got your reward.

Two ships have come to the island – one will move off most of the soldiers, and the other takes the winner, Sakamochi, and the trio of guys who were in the classroom. I guess they’re the volunteers.

And tomorrow the subcontracted clean-up crew would take care of the remaining bodies of the students on the island. The speakers and school computers at the school building would also be dismantled in a matter of days.

Well. At least the cat and chicken should be okay.

Sakamochi heads in with tea and a big envelope. Shogo isn’t interested in dealing with him.

“There you go…” Sakamochi brought the cup to his mouth with a grimace. “You should be more polite with adults. I had this student Kato once. He used to give me a hard time, but now that he’s grown up, he’s quite respectable.”

Sakamochi continues to be a creepy evil kindergarten teacher. I really like how Sakamochi’s come out here. He’s just so viscerally off.

Shogo continues to not want to have a nice chat. Sakamochi continues to want to have a nice chat. He shares the fun fact that people bet money on the games.

Then he said, “I wouldn’t be surprised. You guys are tasteless.”
Sakamochi smiled. “I had my money on Kazuo. Twenty thousand yen. With my salary, that’s a lot. But thanks to you, I lost.”
“Too bad,” Shogo said in a tone devoid of sympathy.

Even better than Sakamochi is their conversation together. I like how he’s been demented and smiley even while talking about losing money.

He says that, as Shogo knows, the collars let him know where everyone is, and so he knows Shogo hung out with Shuya and Noriko the whole time before killing them. You know, imagine what the data must have looked like before they thought to stick microphones in these. Shuya, Noriko and Shogo are traveling, Kazou appears, Shuya splits from the rest of the group, stops, another group meets up with him, he goes back to their base, suddenly most of them die, then Shuya and the last one are together, then she dies, then Shuya leaves. Or Takako – someone comes toward her, she runs, then she kills them, then someone else appears and she runs but not very far, yet the other person leaves, then a third person comes and she dies. You’d have no idea why any of this was happening or even who was necessarily killing who.

Shogo is defensive about how that’s how the game’s played. Sakamochi only gets more smiley and decides to share a special secret fun fact with Shogo, the collars let people hear what the kids are saying!

that wasn’t very nice, Shogo. Was it. ‘Even if we managed to capture Sakamochi, I’m sure as far as the government’s concerned he’s expendable’? You said that. Being a Program Instructor is a pretty respectable occupation. Not everyone can do it.”

Shogo gives no fucks and instead asks why Sakamochi feels like sharing.

It’s because of Shogo’s wonderful performance! His wonderful…slightly confusing performance. Why’d he bother taking them up the mountain? What’s with that? Obviously, “because I felt kind of bad after they’d helped me out” isn’t really going to make any sense to this asshole, although Shogo makes an attempt at that explanation.

“Hey, Shogo, I got hold of the data on the Kobe Second District Junior High School Program.” Then he stared at Shogo. Shogo stared back at him and remained silent. “And as far as I can tell from the data, nothing indicates you had any special relationship with Keiko Onuki.”
“Onuki? Like I said I made that up,” Shogo interrupted him, but Sakamochi spoke over him and continued, “As—” Shogo shut up.
“As you said, to Shuya Nanahara and Noriko Nakagawa, you saw Onuki twice—the first time only for a moment and then the second time right before you won, when she was already dead. Even according to the taped conversations, you never even once uttered her name. Not once. Do you remember that?”
“How could I? It’s like I said—there was nothing between me…and her. You heard me, right?”
“But the thing is, Shogo, the second time around you stopped there for two hours.”
“That was just a coincidence. It was a good spot to hide and rest. That’s how I was able to remember that name so vividly. I tell you, she died a horrible death.”
His grin still glued across his face, Sakamochi nodded, hm hm. “The other thing is…the entire eighteen hours which transpired in this game—which is actually quite fast, maybe the designated area was too small—in any case, you didn’t exchange a single word with anyone. I mean, aside from saying things like, ‘Stop’ or ‘I’m not an enemy.’ “

Wow. That’s perhaps the most depressing thing in this whole book.

As bad as this game was, the majority of the students were willing to speak to each other.

Shogo says it was all an act.

“So I have no idea how you approached this game. You moved around a lot but—”
“It was my first time. I didn’t know how to play it smart.”

I think that means he moved a lot in the first game. He must have been behaving the same as Hiroki. God, this is really, really depressing.

Sakamochi asks for the photo. He wants to see that it’s of that other girlfriend and not Keiko. Oh dear.

Shogo goes to get it and says he must have dropped his wallet.

Sakamochi bellows with laughter. The Shogo hears a weird sound.

“Does that trouble you, Shogo?” He stopped laughing. He still had that creepy smile on his face, though. “That was a helicopter.” He reached out for his tea again and emptied his cup. He put the empty cup on the table. “It’s heading toward the island where you all fought.”

Uh…

Sakamochi switches topics. He wants to chat more about the collars. The state secret collars.

Well, you know, they’re actually called ‘Guadalcanal No. 22.’ That doesn’t matter. Anyway, weren’t you telling Shuya about how they couldn’t be dismantled?”
Seeing how Shogo didn’t respond, Sakamochi continued, “In fact, your theory was right on the mark. Each unit is equipped with three different systems, so even if one of them has a one percent margin of error, with three systems, only one in a million can break down. In reality, the chances are even slimmer. So, it’s just like you said. No one can escape from them. Any attempt to remove it will ignite it, killing its wearer. It’s very rare someone actually tries that, though.”
Shogo still remained silent.
“The thing is…” Sakamochi then leaned over, “…I just thought I’d get in touch with the Defense Forces weapons lab this time around. And guess what?” He looked at Shogo. “They said it could be deactivated by anyone with a basic knowledge in electronics, using basic transistor parts, the kind you find in a radio. Of course, that’s assuming you already know the circuitry inside the device.”

Huh. That seems like a pretty terrible design flaw. I know they’re banking on no one thinking to try, but just look at some of the wonderkids that appeared this time. Shinji was capable of making an improvised bomb and delivery system in a couple hours.

Also god, so Shinji and the rest died because he didn’t think to hack in and find out how the collars worked first?

I guess that’s actually already true, if he’d done that he’d also have known better than to talk about the plan in the first place.

Shogo plays dumb.

if we were to assume the collar was disabled, then obviously it would transmit a signal informing us of the wearer’s death, right? In other words, if there was a student who could remove that collar, then he could survive without a hitch. He’d just have to wait out the game, and once the military leaves the premises he could take his time escaping. That’s right, just like you said to Shuya Nanahara. Say the game were to end in the afternoon, then the subcontracted clean-up crew comes the following day. So there’s plenty of time in between. Also, this time of year the water isn’t too cold to swim in.”

This seems more like an actual plot hole. I’ve been assuming this whole time that the collars continue to transmit their location even after death. I mean, what happens if someone moves the body? People do that, and it seems like it should be even more likely given how upset people here seemed here over leaving them to rot. Plus, even assuming they didn’t realize the collars could be turned off so easily, this also means that any other mechanical failure would be unnoticed – and you can say it’s a one in a million chance, but until you see them actually failing, you’re not going to know that.

He goes on to explain that, normally, he wouldn’t be telling Shogo anything about this. He’d just be impressed Shogo managed to pull off his win and all.

This time though, I was contacted by Dictator Headquarters and the Special Defense Forces before the game began. I mean, on the twentieth.”

See, there was this hacker. And although he was extremely good and even managed to erase all traces from the system…there was a secondary system recording everything, although it took them a while to put the pieces together.

Shogo defends himself, saying he really did hear stuff from one of the guys rounding up corpses, and he heard about the game not running out of time from the instructor last game.

Sakamochi rubbed his right hand under his nose and stared at Shogo. “Why are you telling me this? I didn’t even ask you about that.”

Eeeeeeeeeee and Shogo just got though telling the other two they should go live but that he was a lost cause.

Sakamochi continues explaining that the data accessed included how the collar works, which sure is useless information because if some hacker just published it, the government would change the design. Yet someone really, really wanted it.

He then pulls out some satellite photos. They’ve got pictures of the three of them in the truck, but they were hidden by the trees and dusk up on the mountain where they were shot.

After you shot Shuya Nanahara and Noriko Nakagawa, Nanahara took fifty-four seconds to die, while Nakagawa ended up taking one minute and thirty seconds to die. They should have died instantly if you shot them point blank. So what’s this time lag about?”
Shogo was silent, but—whether he was aware of it or not—his cheeks stiffened. He managed to speak out, “It can happen. I’d have thought they died immediately but—”

God, Shogo, you’re actually kind of shit at this, aren’t you? I guess that’s why you were truthful enough that Sakamochi could poke you about your girlfriend story and stuff. I mean, what about “Yeah, well they both started running and I only had the two bullets so I couldn’t just shoot them again?” or something? Maybe give it a little emotion. Really, you should have like jumped the guy screaming “that’s all we had to do?” when he first brought up the collars being easy to disable.

Anyway, Sakamochi is even less impressed by Shogo’s excuse than I am.

Then he said, “Shuya Nanahara and Noriko Nakagawa are still on that island. They’re still alive, right? They’re hiding in the mountain. You’re the one who hacked into the government central system. Or one of your friends. You knew how to dismantle that collar. You knew we could monitor your conversations, so you gave us that radio drama performance of shooting those two. Then you removed their collars. Am I right?

But you just said they’d escape by jumping in the water.

Sakamochi continues to smile.

Well, you can forget about that. That helicopter that just flew by is going to spray the island with poison gas. It’s a composite poison mustard gas developed recently called Greater East Asia Victory No. 2.

Oh. I guess the animals don’t make it out after all.

I wonder if the mustard gas is supposed to mark them as extra evil, or if Japan doesn’t think much of the war crimes reputation it has.

Sakamochi says that while, technically, Shogo’s not the winner…one of the education committee officials I work for bet a lot of money on you. So I decided to treat this internally. It’ll help my career if I help him out…

Maybe that answers all my questions about the fairness of the betting, maybe people in charge fuck with small stuff to help out the one they bet on or their friend bet on all the time.

Shogo denies it, saying the gas is wasting money. Sakamochi doesn’t believe him and then pulls out a gun, saying they’ll just say Shogo died of his injuries from the game. They can always torture his friends for info instead, after all.

Shogo finally loses it, shouting at him and demanding to know how he can accept it, doesn’t he have kids?

“Of course I have kids,” Sakamochi replied casually. “You know, I like to have a good time, so we’re about to have our third.”

He explains that it’s all there in the program requirements. There’s no exceptions, so even his kids can be picked. He’s pulled strings to get his kid into the best school possible, but this rule is an important one, since it’s the foundation of the country.

I’ll tell you now, this country needs the Program. The thing is, it’s not an experiment at all. Come on, why do you think we have the local news broadcast the image of the winner? Of course, viewers might feel sorry for him or her, thinking, the poor student probably didn’t even want to play the game, but had no choice but to fight the others. In other words, everyone ends up concluding, you cant trust anyone, right? Which would extinguish any hope of uniting and forming a coup d’etat against the government, hm? And so the Republic of Greater East Asia and its ideals will live on for eternity. Naturally everyone has to die equally for the sake of this noble goal.

Wow, when you put it that way it actually makes sense for an evil government to do.

I think part of what makes this seem more plausible to me is that the government as the ultimate cause of the deaths is very much deemphasized. It’s a very “mistakes were made” passive voice type thing, with all the focus on the fact when their backs are against the wall, the kids murder each other. People have said the Hunger Games make sense to make the districts hate each other, but it’s among other issues, it’s explicitly being inflicted on them as punishment for rebelling and plenty of deaths come down to the murderdeath arenas the capital constructs and the murderdeath events the capital rigs up to throw at players whenever things seem too boring.

Plus…well, it’s sort of like what I was saying about how the microphone data is really vital to understanding what’s going on. Without it, it’s very easy to assume interactions are far more violent than they really are. If you were watching Shuya’s dot move about the map, you’d assume that he was the one murdering the rest. If it’s detailed enough you can see he’s not close enough to do it, it seems like Yukie decided to betray the rest for Shuya and triggered a firefight (not her first kills, either, since she murdered a couple near the beginning of the game). Either way, it ends with Shuya chucking the last survivor off a lighthouse.

When you only see the one survivor, you think that all the kids turned on each other and this is the one that’s left. But seeing what actually happened, we know many of them were killed without any attempt or intention of harming others. Many of them only acted because they were wrongly afraid of others being malicious, and some were willing to trust even despite that. To publicise the actual events of these games would be a disaster. The Hunger Games did even worse at this, since, not caring about the other characters much, it seems like most district kids just hid out until they were murdered by the handful of people actually willing to play, and the absurd length of the games means most of it is showing allied kids working together.

I’ve passed this wisdom onto my kids. My oldest kid is in the second grade now and she’s always saying how she’ll sacrifice her life for the Republic.”

That poor little girl.

Shogo is horrified:“A government is supposed to serve the needs of the people. We shouldn’t be slaves to our own system.

Sakamochi has a ready response:This is a marvelous country. It’s the most prosperous country in the world. Well, you might not be able to travel abroad much, but its industrial exports are unsurpassed. The government’s slogan is telling the truth when it claims our per capita production is the best in the world. The thing is though, this prosperity only comes as a result of unifying the population with a powerful government at the center.

I think this also addresses the questions I’ve been asking about how the government really functions and how prosperous the place is. It’s really more of a horror story – what tradeoffs are acceptable? What would it be like to live somewhere where this tradeoff was considered worth it? I’ve also heard one of the metaphors of the book is entrance exams, which certainly do claim kids from suicide and yet are seen as a necessary part of the system. Really, it’s applicable to a lot of things. In America, it’s all those arguments about moral fiber and why abortions and sex education aren’t worth it, because it’s okay for some people to suffer so long as we’re a good Christian nation built on Christian ethics.

On another note, it’s also a good example of two people talking past one another. Their ethical frameworks are so alien to one another that neither can really grasp the other’s – Shogo’s is “people!” and Sakamochi’s is “country!” and from Sakamochi’s outlook, the only reason to be arguing that a government shouldn’t do terrible things to its people is if you think doing that weakens the country.

There’s something so disturbing when that happens and you suddenly realize that all those people around you that you’ve been talking to, who’ve been saying normal things and making normal decisions, any of them could have actually been meaning something else all along. Have you ever said, “Hey, suffering is bad!” and had someone just stare at you and say why? It’s really horrifying. Sakamochi really works for me as the face of an insane government. He’s pursuing goals I can follow on a literal level but with reasoning I can’t understand – someone considering “country” as the final goal is something I’d associate with a deranged computer.

Otherwise…we’ll decline into a third-rate country, like the American Empire. You know, right? That country is in turmoil from all kinds of problems like drugs, violence, and homosexuality.

I can’t decide if homosexuality is there to paint him negatively or because the author views it as a valid boogieman. Generally I assume the former, but then there’s the portrayal of the one gay character in this book. (And whatever was up with Mitsuko’s bit, too.)

Anyway, Shogo says the prosperity gotten this way is all fake. Sakamochi doesn’t care and aims the gun. Then there’s the sound of gunfire.

Sakamochi takes his eyes off Shogo long enough for Shogo to move close enough to grab the gun. One of the soldiers come in to report an attack, and Shogo spins Sakamochi to fire at him.

Shogo looked into Sakamochi’s eyes again. Their bodies still entwined, he drove his right fist under Sakamochi’s chin.
Sakamochi coughed out blood. His eyes stared up at Shogo. The blood spilled from his lips, dripping down to his chin and onto the floor.
“I told you, it was a waste of tax money.” Shogo twisted his fist further into Sakamochi’s chin.
Sakamochi’s eyes rolled away from Shogo. Then they slowly rolled upwards. Shogo moved away from Sakamochi, and Sakamochi crashed onto the sofa. His throat was now exposed. A brown stick poked out of his windpipe like a strange ornament. Closer up, the gold logo, “HB,” on its butt-end was visible. This was one of those pencils that everyone, including Shogo and Shuya, had written, “We will kill each other,”

See, the book shows all the gruesome deaths.

Also, I hope someone realizes things are wrong and calls off that helicopter. I realize that their escape plan probably relies on no one realizing anything’s up, but…

Well anyway.

There was Shuya Nanahara (Male Student No. 15) holding an Ingram M10, standing next to Noriko Nakagawa (Female Student No. 15). They both looked down at him. They were soaking wet.

That’s a much nicer point to end on, isn’t it.