Time to finish this.

Shuya and Shogo reunite. Shuya says he’s killed the rest of the people on the boat, and as Shogo heads back onto deck he sees the bodies. They head to the steering wheel and he sees a boat bearing down on them and turns it so they just miss the boat.

“Phew.” Shogo took a deep breath and then let go of the steering wheel. He began pressing the intricate rows of buttons on the nautical instruments. He gazed at the panel for a while, and after seeing one of the diodes go out, he took the radio transmitter. A voice came through the speaker, “This is the Bisan Seto Inland Sea Traffic Advisory Service Center.” That’s what it sounded like.
Shogo responded, “This is Defense Patrol Ship DM 245-3568. We need you to confirm our location.”
“DM 245-3568, we cannot confirm. Are you having trouble?”
“Our DPS navigation device seems to be broken. We will stop the boat for an hour or so to repair the device. Could you notify the other ships?”

So now they won’t be expected to show up for a while and have more time to make their escape. Shogo’s really planned this out very well.

He thanks them for the save, though, explaining Sakamochi had figured it out.

We then get an explanation about what happened. It’s not the best.

After Shogo had shot his gun twice into the air, he pressed his fingers against his mouth, signaling Shuya and Noriko, who were both blinking, to stay quiet. He took his map out of his pocket and scribbled on the backside. The note was obscured in the dim light, but they managed to read it.

See, you’ll remember that Shinji took a lot of precautions before mentioning that they needed to stay quiet, which made sense and we even see that Yutaka blurts something out by accident. I’ve been assuming the reason Shogo has stayed mum about this so long is that he was similarly worried about them saying something when he tried to explain. This really shouldn’t have worked – they should have said something in surprise, and besides, if he trusted them to stay silent when he signaled it, he could have done this much earlier.

Getting the collars off is similarly easy. All he used was a wire attached to a transistor—which he had for some reason—a knife, and small screwdriver. And off they come! He also has a rope ladder in his bag and explains the plan is to tie it to the chain on the anchor of the boat he’s going to leave at.

it was no easy feat holding onto this flimsy rope ladder as the ship sped up, stirred up waves, and dragged them through the sea. It was also hard to reach the deck less than half a meter above the top of the ladder. Without his left arm, Shuya just couldn’t do what should have been an easy task. But Noriko managed to lift herself up there despite her wounded hand, then offered a hand to Shuya. Noriko’s strength took Shuya by surprise.

I think this is the final word on the women issue – some of the boys are protective of some of the girls, which is wellmeaning but ultimately not as necessary as they think.

We finish the flashback with I wish you’d told us about this earlier.” and Shogo saying well, it was necessary for them to act natural. Shogo, you could’ve told them on the way up before threatening them! I know it was more dramatic that way, but that’s a bad thing. Plus, it would’ve failed if they hadn’t been so ridiculously trusting and tried to run or fight back, and really, while I appreciate the message is that trusting people is good, I don’t think you can swing it to trusting people who explicitly say they are currently betraying you right now with the gun they are aiming at you right now is a good thing.

“It’s amazing,” Noriko said. “You managed to hack into the government computer system.”
“Yeah, really,” Shuya agreed. “You were lying about being computer illiterate.”
His gaze still fixed ahead, Shogo grinned. “Well, they found out anyway. Anyway, it all ended up working out.”

I’d also like to put forth the idea that you don’t actually need to be a superhacker to accomplish stuff, explaining why there’s two untouchable godhackers in the class. Hacking is so thoroughly discouraged few people ever learn and vicious retaliation for newbie hackers trying stuff out tends to kill off the remainder. The computers aren’t well-defended at all, and how could they be when virtually no one ever makes the attempt to let them see how their defenses work?

Shogo moves on to more important things, namely his nicotine addiction.

He did manage to extract a crumpled pack of Buster from the other soldier’s breast pocket. The pack was covered in blood, but he casually pulled out a cigarette, put it in his mouth, and lit it up.

Ew, Shogo. Not only are you looting bodies for cigarettes but you’re smoking ones covered in dead guy blood.

Noriko said, “If our group was too large…we wouldn’t have been able to escape like this.”

This is a pretty good explanation. I was mentioning earlier that it was suspicious that Shogo was discouraging getting lots of people even though he said there wasn’t an exact number. Although really, the only real limit is the number of people Shogo could convincingly “kill” in one go, since they don’t have to all escape by this boat.

Shogo advises they go take a hot shower and then grab some soldier clothes.

They were about to head towards the stairs when Shogo stopped them. “Shuya,” he said, “wait, hold on.” He rubbed out his cigarette against the bottom of the helm. “First I’ll show you how to steer this ship.”

Hm…

Shogo explains all about how to steer and change the speed and read the compass, then says that the meet-up notes were actually for the contact, as I guessed.

“Yeah…we have them. But…you’re coming with us, right? Right?”

Yeah, he’s doomed. Shuya notices his hand trembling.

“You guys asked me…” Shogo said over Shuya’s words, his cigarette dangling from his mouth. His trembling hand tossed the lighter by the helm. He continued, “…to come with you to the U.S.” He removed the cigarette from his mouth with his shaking hand and exhaled. “I thought it over. But…” He stopped and put his cigarette in his mouth. He removed it, then he blew out smoke. “It looks like I won’t need to answer that anymore.”
Suddenly, Shogo’s body slid down. His head slumped forward as he fell on his knees.

Too much.

This was getting hinted ever since he was shot and there’s no explanation about the injury, but it just doesn’t make a lot of sense. Any injury that lets you hike up mountains and act normal this long is an injury that shouldn’t be fatal at all if it’s treated, and now he’s collapsing at the perfect moment.

Next chapter picks up exactly where that ends, with Shuya and Noriko rushing over.

Emptied of strength, Shogo’s body felt heavy. That was when Shuya finally realized how Shogo’s back
was soaked. There was a tiny hole right below his neck. It was Kazuo’s shot. The one Kazuo fired at
him. Shogo claimed it was nothing.

So maybe, a collapsed lung plus slowly bleeding out? I really don’t believe his back could be soaked in blood without anyone noticing. If nothing else, don’t they check the winners to make sure they’ll live long enough to do the TV spot?

Shuya doesn’t want to accept it, saying they’ll go to a hospital. Shogo doesn’t even need to argue much to point out that’s stupid. He says he still isn’t sure if he was going to join them, but thanks. Shuya swears he’ll tear down the country like Shogo wanted.

Shogo stammers out a response. Cleaned up, he says: “I told you, Shuya. You don’t have to do that. Forget about it. You two should just try to live, please. Just like wwe did here, trust each other. All right? That’s what I want

And that’s it, he’s gone.

“Shogo!” Shuya yelled. He still had more to say. “You’ll see Keiko! You’ll be happy with her! You’re—”
It was too late. Shogo couldn’t hear anything anymore.

This does a bit to counteract the otherwise very convenient timing for the rest, but only a bit.

And that’s it for Shogo. Shuya and Noriko will have to make it the rest of the way on their own.

Epilogue
UMEDA, OSAKA

They’re at a bus terminal. An enormous TV screen announces that there was a murder of one of the program instructors.

Shuya and Noriko were no longer wearing their school uniforms. Shuya wore a pair of jeans, a print shirt, and a denim jacket. Noriko also wore jeans along with a dark-green polo shirt and a light-gray windbreaker on top. (They did however keep their sneakers, washing them after the game before they wore them again.) Shuya’s neck was bandaged, but it was hidden by the jacket collar, and Noriko’s left cheek was covered with a large bandage, but it was obscured by her black leather baseball cap that she kept pulled low over her eyes. She still dragged her right leg, but it wasn’t so conspicuous anymore. Since his left arm was still paralyzed, Shuya shifted the bag strap against his left shoulder with his right hand.

The book does a good job of setting the scene. I like the detail, I like how their injuries are not only there but still having an impact, I like how mundane the rest of it is.

The note told them to find a doctor who’s living similarly to Shogo’s father and says he was a friend of the man. He’s got emergency money and knows how to get them out of the country:

They would first take a fishing boat from a small fishing village in Wakayama Prefecture into the
Pacific Ocean, and then transfer to another boat in the Democratic Nation of the Korean Peninsula.

If they can get that far, getting to America should be a snap, but the doctor points out it’s going to be pretty risky. I don’t know why he says this, since it doesn’t seem it’s more risky than staying. Maybe he’s just trying to make sure they stay focused.

What is super risky is what Noriko does.

Noriko called home before they left the doctor’s house today. She first called a close friend from another class, having her relay a message to her family to call the doctor’s house from a payphone. It was a precaution against wiretapping.

I’m pretty sure the government has the resources to tap the phones of all her friends too, if they aren’t just already tapping everyone’s phones to start with. And even though I could believe Noriko might think it’s worth the risk of being killed to be able to talk to her parents one last time (especially since she didn’t actually know they hadn’t been killed for objecting to the games or something), doing this means she’s putting them and her friend more at risk, since the government might kill or torture them if anyone finds out.

Back in the current moment, the news reporter is explaining that the gas dispersal did happen and slowed down the usual body-gathering and they’ve only now figured out there’s two missing bodies.

A zoom-lens camera from sea captured police officials and soldiers inspecting the island where Shuya and the others had fought for their lives. There were piles of corpses. For a split second, Shuya managed to make out two bodies. There were Yukie Utsumi and Yoshitoki Kuninobu, on the edge of a black pile of school coats and sailor suits, facing the camera. Despite the dispersal of poison gas, their faces managed to stay unharmed because they had died indoors.

Does mustard gas affect corpses? I’m pretty sure it’s one of those things that reacts with living functions to fuck stuff up, particularly when it doesn’t have any immediate effects, although I think it does generally dissolve tissue. Or maybe this is a function of whatever other stuff they added into their special modified version. I tried googling for the answer and ran into stuff about the Holocaust not being real.

Then, the screen flashes pictures of the two of them and says the government’s looking for them. Then it shows the winner clip.

At the end of the clip, which lasted approximately ten seconds, he grinned and raised his right fist with his thumb pointing up.
The crowd staring at the screen sounded dismayed. They probably thought Shogo was proud about his victory.
But of course that wasn’t it at all, Shuya thought as he watched the screen return to the image of the reporter.
Was it a message to him and Noriko? Did he already know he was going to die when he stood in front of the government camera? Or was it just a display of his unique sense of irony?

Huh. I wonder if he had second thoughts about doing that when Sakamochi explained the whole point was to make people distrust each other. Seems he just played right into that.

Anyway, then it’s back to REPORT THESE INDIVIDUALS TO THE NEAREST OFFICIAL BY ORDER OF YOUR EVIL GOVERNMENT.

Shuya says they need to hurry, and Noriko says that, back when he was gone and it was just her and Shogo…

“He said he was glad to have such good friends.”

Aw… Although still, he should’ve told them about the damn injury instead of giving up. But he really seemed like the sort of person who wanted to get killed for someone else.

Shuya says they’ll stay together forever, but that he wants to come back and destroy the country, and she says she’ll come with him.

They get their tickets from a machine and get in line.

Shuya casually looked over to his left.
He squinted his eyes. There was the entrance to the station concourse, and he could make out the Osaka high-rise district, just beyond the road where taxis and cars were passing each other. A tall, uniformed man emerged from this background, heading straight towards them. He skillfully dodged the flow of pedestrians and made his way toward Shuya.
It was a policeman’s uniform. There was a gold peach insignia shining at the center of his cap.

Fuck.

What’s surprising to me is the reaction:

With his right hand Shuya slowly reached for the Beretta M92F tucked in the back of his jeans

Shuya’s really changed from the easygoing kid of the start. He looks for an escape route, but he’s prepared for violence.

They run, but the guy pulls out his own gun and shoots twice into the crowd. He doesn’t hit anyone and as the crowd panics, he runs into a woman and falls, giving Shuya and Noriko a chance to run.

As he ran next to Noriko, a thought suddenly occurred to him. The screaming, their hasty footsteps, and the officer warning them to stop all receded as his mind was occupied with this thought.
It might have been inappropriate. And besides…he’d ripped it off. Oh, man.
But still he thought this:
Together Noriko we’ll live with the sadness. I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul. Someday girl I don’t know when we’re gonna get to that place. Where we really want to go and we’ll walk in the sun. But till then tramps like us baby we were born to run.

So we don’t get an end with any certainty. Shuya and Noriko are still on the run with no real idea of how to stop the government. But the book ends on a hopeful note:

We’re still on the run. That’s for sure.
Right on. This time we’re on.
And we won’t stop till we win.