Chapter 5 - New Friends
Day 8 – 593 students remaining.
“Well, we’ve searched the whole area and got our map completed.”
Himari looks rather depressed.
“But we couldn’t find any exit.”
Shuji can’t help but want to comfort Himari.
“Don’t worry, we’ve only searched one area. Maybe one of the others found something.”
Himari feels a sudden bust of happiness and smiles at Shuji.
“You’re right.”
Shuji begins to plan the next course of action with Himari.
“We can head back to the hospital but the others aren’t going to be there for another four days.”
Himari states her opinion.
“I want to go back there. This place is still really scary.”
Shuji agrees to take Himari back.
“Sure. It’s almost 7am so we’ll be heading in that direction for today’s food anyway.”
Himari and Shuji begin to walk through the eastern part of town. As Shuji and Himari walk through the area, Shuji notices a commotion. Three guys are surrounding a girl who bears a stern expression. The guys appear to have her pinned against a wall.
“There’s no law here. We can take whatever we want. You can be our girl and stay safe.”
The girl refuses to look at any of the guys in their eyes.
“No thanks.”
One of the guys takes heavy offense at this.
“We’re not asking you. This is our territory. We can do whatever we want. Mikuni has no reach here.”
Shuji begins to think about how disgusting some people in the eastern side of the city are.
‘Disgusting. It’s only been over a week and people are already turning into animals. No, that’s wrong, these types of people were animals long before they came here.’
Shuji then debates intervening in the situation. Shuji decides he will uphold order and begins to walk towards the 3 guys. Before he could approach them, a slightly larger man comes out of nowhere and punches one of the guys.
A fight breaks out and the larger male begins to get beaten up by the harassing men. The girl joins in, in an attempt to save the larger man, and is thrown to the floor. Shuji quickly heads over as Himari stands there in fear and worry. She reaches her arm forward in an attempt to stop Shuji but he does not notice as she is too afraid to speak.
“Oi. Three thugs beating up a girl and an out of shape kid doesn’t exactly scream a fair fight.”
The three guys look at Shuji with smirks.
“What are you going to do about it?”
Shuji thinks for a moment that the best course of action would be to fight as he clenches his fist but he soon realises that the odds are stacked against him. Shuji decides to leverage his connections.
“Move along or I’m calling Mikuni down here.”
The thugs find this amusing.
“Mikuni and his crew haven’t come down here once. This is lawless land.”
One of the thugs looks at another with a bored expression.
“I’ve had my fun. Look, the countdown has begun.”
Shuji looks and notices that the screens have begun their countdown. The thugs find this amusing.
“It’s definitely not going to be any of us today. We had a lot of fun here.”
The three thugs begin to leave and throw an empty bottle at Shuji as they leave and walk past him. Shuji turns around and raises his fist to start an altercation but Himari grabs his wrist as he suddenly calms down and feels at peace.
Shuji offers his hand to the rather large guy. The larger man takes his hand and stands up as Shuji compliments his bravery.
“Doing the right thing is never easy. That’s why there aren’t many good people left. What’s your name?”
The larger man responds.
“My name is Maro Taro.”
Shuji finds this funny and laughs a little.
“Maro Taro? That’s a funny name.”
Maro Taro gets slightly offended.
“Huh? What’s so funny about it?”
Shuji finds the conversation entertaining.
“Nothing at all don’t worry about it.”
This type of light conversation is rare in this part of the city. From the outside, it seems almost like friends playfully arguing.
“Then stop snickering!”
Whilst this was happening, Himari has helped the tough girl up from the floor. Maro Taro and Shuji both turn their attention to her.
“Are you ok?”
The girl looks rather disgruntled.
“Thanks, I guess. But I can handle myself.”
Shuji does not find this believable.
“It sure looked that way.”
The tough girl finds this annoying.
“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Before they could finish their conversation, Shuji looks at the countdown as everybody else notices that it is about to hit zero. The voice begins to speak from the screens.
“The time is 7am. This is day 8. The system has decided that Ichiro Tanaka is the saddest person in the city. That is all.”
Though it is incredibly dark, there is relief in the air that none of them know the person who was selected.
Somewhere far away in the city, everybody is looking at the man presumed to be Ichiro Tanaka. Ichiro is laughing manically as everybody moves away.
“There’s no hope for any of us!”
Ichiro opens his arms and is facing the guns on the roof.
“End my suffering!”
Bang...
The bullet hits Ichiro with so much force that it almost appears as if he was jumping as his body flies backwards towards the ground.
Back in the eastern side of the city, Shuji has decided to restart the conversation with the others in a lighter tone.
“You two aren’t from the far eastern part of the city, are you?”
Maro Taro is the first to answer.
“I was staying a lot further west but things have gotten rough there lately.”
Shuji is confused as to what Maro Taro is talking about.
“Sorry. I haven’t been there since day three. Doesn’t Mikuni have that part of the city under control?”
Maro Taro hesitates to answer for a moment.
“That’s the problem. Mikuni has begun to put people to work. People are now working in the hospital and people are working as cleaners among other things.”
Shuji is surprised at Mikuni’s efficiency and how he could begin to set up an almost functioning society so fast.
“Wow. He really is a natural leader. What’s the problem with that?”
Maro Taro responds depressingly.
“Students seen as lazy are getting a bit of a hard time over there. I didn’t have any skills they could use so I left before anything bad could happen.”
Shuji is a bit disgruntled about this but understands that Mikuni is merely incentivising people that could make everyone have a better time in this place. Shuji then turns his attention to the tough girl.
“What about you?”
Shuji then hesitates as he is about to call her name but realises that he doesn’t know it.
“Wait. What actually is your name?”
The tough girl responds with clear annoyance in her voice.
“My name is Kanna. I’ve just been wandering around this city up until now. I don’t see the point of making friends here.”
Shuji is surprised how someone can survive for so long without anyone watching their back.
“You haven’t found a group yet? You can’t survive in this place by yourself. You need friends you can count on.”
Kanna is surprised at Shuji’s remark. Shuji looks at Kanna and Maro Taro.
“Why don’t you both come with us? We’re meeting up with the rest of the escape team to see if anyone found an escape route in four days’ time.”
Kanna begins to laugh heavily.
“You’re with those idiots. No thanks. I thought you was smart enough to know there’s no escape from this place.”
Maro Taro nods and responds.
“If you want me to join you, then I’ll try my best not to let you down.”
Kanna is surprised by this.
“Are you stupid? You really think that we can escape from this place?”
Shuji is quick to respond.
“No. But it’s important that we rule it out now. Imagine if we spent 100 days here, only to discover an escape route that went undiscovered.”
Kanna begins to realise that Shuji isn’t a fool like she originally thought.
“You’ve put some serious thought into this.”
Shuji responds.
“When you want to be a police detective like I do, you need to analyse your options before making a choice. I chose to rule out escaping early on.”
Himari butts into the conversation.
“Um…Excuse me. Maybe one of the others will have found an exit.”
Shuji looks towards Kanna.
“Of course. The chance of that is small though. I’m sorry.”
Though she tries to hide her sadness at hearing this, Himari nods.
“Its fine. I understand.”
Shuji turns his attention back to Maro Taro and Kanna. Kanna wonders what Shuji plans to do when there is no escape.
“And what if there is no escape? What role do you want to play in this city?”
Shuji doesn’t even need to think about his response. If this city will remain for a year, then Shuji knows what he wants to do.
“I don’t care about Mikuni or whoever is in charge. I want to uphold justice and order. I will keep this city fair and safe.”
Maro Taro gets excited from the way that Shuji has just delivered his speech.
“I’d love to go with you! It would be my honour!”
Meanwhile, upon hearing Shuji’s speech, Kanna has a flashback. She remembers being a young child and walking into her father’s study room. He is tired after a day’s work. There are papers on her father’s desk. From the text on the papers, it is clear that her father is a lawyer.
“Daddy, why do you always come home late? I want to spend more time with you.”
Kanna’s father goes over to Kanna and puts his hand on her shoulder.
“Justice and order. Society wouldn’t exist without it. You’ll learn that someday.”
Back in the present, Kanna is about to speak but before anything further could be said, a light clapping sound comes from nearby.
“Bravo, Shuji. That’s quite a touching speech.”
Shuji turns around to see Tamotsu standing nearby.
“Tamotsu. What do you want?”
Tamotsu responds to Shuji.
“Nothing at all. I just want to see what role you’ll play in this city.”
Shuji is slightly confused by Tamotsu’s statement.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Tamotsu begins to leave.
“That doesn’t matter. I have something important I need to do. It was nice to see you again.”
Tamotsu raises his hand to signal goodbye to Shuji as he walks further and further away.
Maro Taro can’t help but to comment on Tamotsu.
“What a mysterious character.”
Though Shuji wants to think more about what Tamotsu said, he decides to remain in the present and directs his attention to Kanna.
“So, Kanna, will you join us?”
Kanna reluctantly agrees.
“Well, I can’t say that I care about that order and justice kind of stuff like you do. Though, I do owe you a favour. I’ll stick around with you, for now.”
Shuji and the others all begin to head towards the hospital and get to know each other better. As they walk back through the western side of the city, Shuji notices that it has begun to function like a society, with people filling in different job roles.
Shuji arrives at the hospital with the others and waits until the agreed upon day.
