5

Third Year Class C,

Fukuoka Junior High School

Student List

1. Akira Nakano

2. Chikaaki Aoki
3. Daisuke Yamazaki

4. Haru Ishikawa

5. Hisoka Fujii

6. Isamu Tanaka

7. Joji Kimura

8. Kinjiri Matsumoto

9. Kiyoshi Okamoto

10. Koji Yoshida

11. Mamoru Shimizu

12. Yukio Katō

13. Umi Ōta

14. Yasahiro Hasegawa

15. Yaso Itō .

16. Tadashi Sasaki

17. Nagataka Yamashita

18. Naoko Kondō

19. Akako Fujiwara

20. Akemi Yamasaki

21. Hiroshi Aoki

1. Aika Maeda

2. Akasuki Nishimura
3. Ane Fukuda

4. Bachiko Fujiwara

5. Chimako Saitō

6. Fumika Ishii

7. Hideka Hayashi
8. Hikaru Yamasaki

9. Hisa Mori

10. Imako Suzuki

11. Kaiyo Yamada

12. Kama Murakami

13. Leiko Fujiwara

14. Mikka Endō

15. Rina Miura

16. Ruriko Kobayashi

17. Suzume Ikeda

18. Erisa Sakamoto.

19. Miwa Ibaraki

20. Yuka Matsuda

21. Utayo Gotō

It was a sunny day with no clouds in the sky. It was the absolute perfect weather for a school trip. The birds were singing, kids were playing and people were laughing. If one were to stop and take it all in, they would realize that it was a little too perfect. It was sickeningly sweet. Yet that fact went completely unobserved. They all thought it was the perfect day. It's a little ironic, isn't it? I mean when you really stop to think of it? The last day of peace and happiness was complete perfection. That only made the Program a million times worse.

If you want to get even more accurate and examine all of the specifics, you will find that the situation only worsens. It was the very first BR Program. The year was 1947. The original idea had been proposed in 1945, it took two years for it to be put into action. Even then, there were and always would be people who were against the three day massacre.

Then again, there were people who were completely for it. They agreed to it, they waited for it, they wanted it, and they enjoyed it. After all, the nation simply had to show that it had the proper control, did it not? I'm sure that if all of the supporters of the BR Act were ordered to fight one another as the students did, they would have posed their own opposition to it after all.

Erisa Sakamoto sat at the kitchen table of her home. Her legs were stretched out and she was slouching. She gave a glance towards her father who was reading the newspaper and then to her mother who was tending to the flowers she kept on the windowsill over the kitchen sink. Their house was rather small. Erisa thought it was far too small for four people. It was her, her parents and her little brother. Botan and Erisa got along rather well. There was a very low amount of sibling rivalry. It was surprising to their parents and to everyone who knew them. The children were total opposites, but they got along perfectly. Just another perfect element to the perfect day.

Erisa was waiting for Botan. She was all ready in her school uniform, waiting almost impatiently to go. Botan, however, was the opposite. He was completely disorganized. Thanks to him, the two of them were almost late.

"Botan, are you almost ready?" she yelled across the house.

The ten year old stumbled down the stairs and ran towards the table, almost colliding with it. He grabbed a piece of toast and said "Ready!"

Erisa gave a small sigh. "You did your tie wrong," she said. He looked down at it and began to untie it with his available hand. She shook her head, "Come here, kid."

He walked towards her while nibbling on the piece of toast. She grabbed the tie and pulled him closer. She quickly untied it and redid it for him. "You have crumbs all over your face," she kindly informed him. He stuck out his tongue at her and she smiled.

She grabbed her backpack. It was packed with clothes for the trip that her class would be going on that day. They would go to the beach to observe the sea life. No student was thinking about science class. They were thinking about going for a swim with their friends. Erisa knew that it would be great. She was beyond wrong.

. ~ .

Kiyoshi Okamoto was sitting on the bus as he flipped through a comic book. He should have brought more, he had finished this particular one and they weren't even close to being halfway away from their oceanic destination. He sighed and pushed up his glasses which, despite his best efforts, kept sliding down. He looked around. His watchful eyes landed on every one of his classmates. He was sitting all alone in the very back, as usual.

It was expected, you see. It was routine. He said nothing unless a teacher asked him a question. He wasn't the smartest of all the children. He wasn't the most popular child. He just happened to always be there. To tell the truth, none of them ever talked to him. He basically had no friends.

Still, he felt incredibly, undeniably close to them. He couldn't explain it. He had grown up near them, but not with them. He knew each and every single one like he knew comic books. No, better than he knew comic books. He had always wanted to talk to them, why not now?

He was incredibly shy, but something pushed him forward that day. He leaned forward and tried to start a conversation with the person sitting in front of him.

"H-how are you today, Sakamoto?" he asked with his voice shaky.

She shrugged. "I'm fine. Same as I was yesterday, I guess. How are you?" If he had talked to anyone else, they would have died of shock. Kiyoshi didn't talk. It was an accepted fact, even the teachers called on him less often than others. "You know, there's no need for formalities. We're friends. Call me Erisa."

He smiled, "I will."

"Duck, Sakamoto!" someone shouted. But it was too late.

Lemon yogurt was thrown all over Kiyoshi. Some of it landed upon Erisa as well. Daisuke Yamazaki began laughing.

Did I forget to mention that Kiyoshi was bullied on a constant basis?

Daisuke and his friends were laughing uncontrollably. The bus was quiet except for their laughter. No one had ever been involved in Kiyoshi's bullying before. There were no casualties, ever. The only person affected by it was Kiyoshi, the quiet one. He never spoke about it, so everyone assumed that he didn't care. He did.

He felt like crying. This was one of the reasons he didn't usually talk to anyone. He didn't want them to go down with him. Erisa had almost the exact same reaction, except she tried to cover it up. She rubbed the yogurt away and gave a single chuckle that broke the silence that filled the vehicle.

It did not have the effect she had wanted. It sounded as if she was mad. She was trying to give the impression that she was willing to laugh it off. Daisuke's friends all turned away from her; for fear that she might end up crying. Daisuke looked at her with an almost sad look in his eyes before turning away.

. ~ .

A girl named Ruriko Kobayashi turned to Erisa and offered a smile. Erisa managed to give a small smile in return. They were best friends, even if they had nothing in common. Ruriko literally talked to everyone. Everyone liked her and everyone claimed to be her best friend. She had people who would follow her anywhere. She had a rather disarming quality about her; it made everyone want to be around her. She let all of the little things bother her, though. She worried a lot.

Erisa on the other hand, preferred to stay with groups of small people. Her humor was sarcastic and she never let anything bother her. She was the strong one, this girl would never break. She was a little cold, but once you were to become her friend, you would realize that she was a very protective person.

Somehow, in some crazy way, Erisa and Ruriko became the very best of friends. Erisa did not claim that she was the closest to Ruriko like everyone else did. She was honest, a little too honest. Still, Ruriko liked that about her and she trusted Erisa with things that she would never tell anyone else.

Ruriko would always remember how they originally met each other. It was a Thursday during lunch hour. In the middle of the school's courtyard, there was a giant tree. It was so wide you could look to your left and then to your right and you would not be able to see what was on the other side.

Erisa sat underneath it, enjoying its shade. She heard a noise. She opened her eyes and looked around her. She saw nothing. She thought that she was imagining that she had even heard a noise, until she heard it again. This time, she was sure of what it was.

Someone was crying and they were doing a terrible job at controlling it. She stood up and walked to the other side of the tree. She sat down again next to a girl she didn't know very well.

"What are you crying for?" she asked. Ruriko didn't answer.

Ruriko had it hard in life, even though she never told anyone. It was just one of those topics that never happened to be discussed. Ruriko lived with her aunt and her six cousins. Her uncle had left them three years prior to the specific occasion we are discussing.

Everyone knew that her parents had passed away. What they didn't know is that she didn't get to eat a dinner on some days. The family had it hard, but she refused to let her smile fade. She refused to let anyone know. She didn't want their help or their pity.

"I-I'm not crying. You're just h-hearing things," she said.

"I guess I'm just seeing things too?"

"D-Definitely," Ruriko said. She sniffled.

Erisa handed her a tissue which the crying child took gratefully. After a few minutes, Ruriko calmed down. She trusted Erisa immediately and began to tell her everything.

"It just gets to you sometimes," she sighed. "You know?"

Erisa nodded. She said nothing, but she listened and that was enough.

. ~ .

Maybe giving her friend a smile on the bus was enough to pay that back. Maybe not. Maybe it wasn't good enough. Ruriko hoped that it was. After all, what else could she give?

All conversation on the bus resumed. People wanted to pretend that it didn't happen. They wanted to get over it. They wanted to forget it. Not all of them knew Erisa very well, but all of them knew that she could easily hold a grudge for a very long time. They didn't want their trip to be ruined.

"I'm sorry," Kiyoshi said to her.

"Don't be," Erisa said, "You didn't throw the stuff."

The bus turned into a tunnel. For every single student on that bus, it all went black.

. ~ .

One by one, the students slowly began to wake up. Erisa's awakening was less graceful than that of everyone else's. She sat straight up as if she had awakened from a bad dream. She rubbed her forehead. She looked around at some of her classmates. They all had silver collars around their necks. Carefully, she reached up. She had one on, too. She shut her eyes.

The door was pushed open. A man walked right in. These children recognized him. He looked at every single one of them. He loved seeing the looks of pure terror which they held on their faces. Some of the girls were crying already. Good.

He smiled and said "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Battle Royale!"

It was then when the fear began to sink in.

AN: Well, what do you guys think? This is going to be my next fanfic. It's going to go into all three days and tell the story of each of the characters. Please review, concrit is appreciated, but try not to be too mean. Thanks so much for reading. Review?