Wee! More help.

hkmiller wrote:

I'll skip commenting on stuff I've noticed others commenting on.

No prob.

DB Sommer wrote:

"Yay! I still can't believe we get to take a field trip to Yasuroka

Island!"

Chiyo was practically hopping up and down on her seat in anticipation.

In the manga, Chiyo's been everywhere and done everything that the older
girls haven't,
a fact that might have had implications for this premise...

True. Hadn't thought of that.

Osaka scratched her head curiously. "Aren't teachers supposed to wear gas
masks on field trips?"

Heh.  On second reading, this is our first clue to the ending, not just
Osaka being Osaka.

Yep. Had to be careful wording it so no one suspected in anything other than
hindsight what her comment might have meant.

identical gunmetal gray collars around their necks. They items were

clasped

at the back with a complex electronic locking mechanism.

Chiyo:  "Oh, the old CZ-9500 Electrolock.  I didn't know they still made
those;
I thought they took them out of production because they tended to open
unexpectedly
when subject to sudden impacts."

Heh. Of course, they do hace explosives and detonators in them, so hard
jarring would not be a good thing.

"What are we doing here?" Yomi asked, mirroring the confusion everyone

but

Tomo and Osaka (who took everything in stride, as usual) were

demonstrating.

Indeed, to Osaka the whole scene had a haunting familiarity...

Not all that haunting. She knows exactly what's going down.

[Nameless Male Student #21: Dead]

The numbering confused me a bit, presumably since I haven't seen Battle
Royale
in any version.  It seemed to me that there must be approximately 37 * 2
= 74 students
present at first, 37 males and 37 females, but I think you mean that
there are only 37.
Might suggest instead

   [Student #21, nameless male:  Dead]

Memory problem. The male and female students were seperated, and I couldn't
recall if they had repeat numbers. So I did the halfway thing and had no
numbers repeat, while still keeping them seperate. I think most people will
get the gist of it.

slightly before putting them back on her face. They gleamed maniacally as
she stared directly at Tomo.

BTW, agree that you did make Yomi quite creepy.

Given the circumstances, I'm sure she sees the 'one good thing' to come out
of being here, ie no one can blame her for finally killing Tomo.

on her bottom. She rested on her sore posterior for a few moments,

rubbing

it gingerly.

Not sure how she can be rubbing it if she's resting on it.

Get your hand underneath. Usually you have to lean one way to do it, while
not feeling up to standing just yet. This happened to me a lot when I was a
kid and fell far enough to hurt my bottom.

It was a lucky thing for her her father had insisted she learn
how to shoot a gun for self-defense. Chiyo had always thought he was

being

paranoid, but obeyed. It turned out she was a natural shot, though she

had

never fired anything more powerful than a .22.

Chiyo'd always wondered about these things, so unusual for most Japanese
girls,
and if they had anything to do with these 'Soldats' her parents reported
to at night
when they thought she was asleep.  But probably not, since the one
conversation
she'd managed to overhear completely had been limited to someone named
'Altena' advising her parents on tree horticulture.  Though it was funny
that the
sapling was to be sent to America for 'additional light and air', just
about the time
Chiyo would graduate from high school...

Agh! Don't make me envision Chiyo as Mirelle's partner, please. :)

Perhaps a stuffed cat wasn't the best thing to kill a fellow student

after

all.

On the other hand...

Sakaki leapt at the boy holding the submachine gun.  With her left hand
she jerked its barrel over to point at the girl with the pistol just as he
reflexively fired it, as her right hand shoved the stuffed cat down his

open

throat far enough to block his nasal passages as well.  Leaving the cat
there,
and ignoring his frantic clawings for air, she wrested the submachine gun
from his grasp and turned her attention to the remaining four students,

who

proved to be much less challenging.

Heh. Not all that different from what happened in BR in one of the scenes.

"Ah! I know I only fired four rounds!" Chiyo popped open the cylinder and
looked at the chambers.

Two of them were empty.

Then Chiyo realized:  her gun was perceptibly lighter now that it had been
before Osaka had appeared before her.  Lighter by the weight of two
bullets, in fact.  Unfortunately, she had no time to puzzle out what
this might mean...

Using all of her might, she brought it down hard right on

top of Chiyo's skull.  Osaka reexamined the item that had been
in her backpack. "Darn. I guess a paper fan

makes quite a mess when backed by the Power."  As Osaka spoke,
Chiyo-chan's lifeless body fell, her skull caved in as if hit by a

wrecking

ball.

Ouch. I suppose she has hidden arm strength.

Abruptly Osaka's cousins Manami and Kurumi appeared out of thin air.
"Ayumu!  What are you doing?  You can't hit people with the folded fan!"
Manami exclaimed.  "You have to slice it across their throats!  That way
nobody will be able to tell that it wouldn't normally work without the
Power!"

"And why are you still wearing that collar?  You should have vanished that
first!"  Kurumi suited action to words, and Osaka's collar disappeared.

Osaka sheepishly scratched the back of her head.  "Oh, sorry, guys.  I'm
guess I'm just too distracted again.  It's the ghosts in this place."

"TRY to stay focused, Ayumu, please," urged Manami.  "We know your
extraordinary sensitivity to the worlds beyond is constantly bombarding
you with confusing sensory input.  But you have to try!  Even an Esper
can be
killed in a Battle Royale if you aren't paying attention!"

"I'll try," Osaka agreed.  "I'll get it together.  I will!  I promise!"

Dubiously, the Kasuga sisters pursed their lips and nodded, then vanished
again.

Or that. :)

Osaka continued onward, repeating "Get it together!  Get it together!" for

a

few more steps, before the sight of Chiyo-chan's ghost rising from the

dead

body distracted her again.

Heh, again.

"There's one thing you're forgetting: setting off a device like that is
suicidal. Now who would be stupid enough to do that?"

Enough people have commented on the "stupid" part.  I haven't seen
anyone comment
on the juxtaposition of "suicidal" and "high school" yet.  There are a
few comments I
could make on that topic...

True. but it's a better lead in for Tomo, and frankly, Azu doesn't lead
itself to angst if your name isn't Kaorin.

of it. "That's a bomb of some kind. A radioactive one. If  you set that

off,

it'll kill everyone on the island."

A radioactive symbol might only mean that it's a dirty bomb, a
conventional explosive
with radioactive debris.

True. But Yomi's guess proves accurate, so I don't have to drag out the
scene. :)

And thus the fic ends. Hope you enjoyed it, in a macabre sort of way.

Yes, I did.  Thanks for writing and sharing.

You're welcome. Still have the next part of your fic waiting to be C+C'd.
Hoping to get to the backlog. Already started on some of it.

DB Sommer

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