In a near-future society, humanity is split into rulers and the ruled. The ruled have no rights. Children without parents are raised in facilities and shipped out as disposable resources once they reach adulthood. Werner, a noble of the ruling class, hosts death games as entertainment using these people. The preliminaries are a simple war of attrition—hundreds run, and only survivors advance. The champion of the main event is promised "human rights."
Kaito and Ren, both facility-raised, survive
A Will for the Survivors - City of Disturbance — False Reactions, the Price of Blood
The air had changed.
Just before surfacing from sleep, Kaito felt the wrongness first. The smell of the wind pouring through the broken window frame on the second floor of the abandoned factory was different from yesterday. Mixed with the damp reek of iron and dust was something faintly burnt—the smell of electrical wiring shorting out.
He opened his eyes.
The eastern sky was still dark. That deepest hour before dawn. But toward the northern sector, the sky was faintly bright.
A pale blue light.
Something was blinking, on and off.
Kaito kept his back against the wall and moved only his eyes, scanning his surroundings. Beside him, Ren was breathing shallowly. His brown, unruly hair stirred in the cold air. His freckled cheeks held a certain tension even in sleep, though his mouth was slightly relaxed.
Was he smiling?
Even while asleep.
Kaito turned his gaze back to the north.
The blinking was regular. Three short, one long. A pause, then the same again. It wasn't the flight pattern of the surveillance drone "Fly." Something else—something mechanical.
The bracelet-type resource terminal on his wrist vibrated faintly.
Kaito looked down at it. Words floated on the screen.
"Ring reaction detected."
Northern sector.
The terminal's map display showed the positions and ring counts of all participants. At a single point in the northern sector, a red dot blinked on and off. The marker indicating a ring reaction.
(At this hour, a ring reaction?)
Kaito stared at the terminal.
The red dot wasn't alone. After a brief pause, another appeared. Further west, another. Three reactions, appearing almost simultaneously across the ruins of the northern sector.
(Three at once?)
Impossible.
A ring only reacts when someone picks it up and holds it. Three participants, at the same time, in different places, all picking up rings. That kind of coincidence didn't happen.
(These were scattered.)
Someone had deliberately faked the ring reactions and strewn them across the northern sector.
Kaito thought of the oddsmen. Specialists who set and managed the betting rates for the Tokeybako. Only those from Holder backgrounds could take the role—people gifted in mathematics and statistics. To maximize the audience's wagers, they would deliberately shift the survival line or scatter false ring reactions as a disruption tactic.
(So they baited a sector that wasn't drawing enough action.)
The northern sector had seen no major movement so far. The killing had been concentrated in the south and around the central plaza. The north was too quiet—the audience's bets weren't moving. So the oddsmen made their move.
Kaito didn't take his eyes off the terminal screen.
Three red dots.
And as if drawn toward them, several blue dots—markers showing participant positions—had begun to move slowly northward.
One, then another.
The blue dots were converging on the northern sector.
"...You're awake."
A voice.
Kaito turned. Ren had his eyes open. His amber eyes looked up at Kaito from the darkness. There was no usual smile. Just the bare expression of someone who had just woken. Those eyes were fixed on the terminal screen.
"The north is stirring."
Kaito said it shortly.
Ren slowly sat up. Old scars rose on the arm where he'd rolled up his sleeve. The small piercing hole in his left ear caught the pale blue light of the emergency lamp, casting a faint shadow.
"Show me."
Kaito held out the terminal. Ren glanced at the screen while checking his own terminal as well.
"Three at once... these aren't real."
His voice dropped.
"Yeah."
"The oddsmen scattered them. Fake reactions in a sector where the betting rates weren't moving. The ones who take the bait gather in the north and kill each other. The audience is happy. The odds spike. It's a common trick."
Ren said it while handing the terminal back to Kaito.
"A common trick, huh."
"It happened in the preliminaries too. Small scale, though. They'd leak false information about a water source, then wipe out everyone who gathered. Same thing."
Kaito looked at Ren's face.
Ren's expression was the same as always. Light tone. Friendly smile. But his eyes were moving, tracking the terminal screen, and they weren't smiling.
"What do we do?"
Ren looked at Kaito.
"We don't go near the north. That place is a trap now."
"Right. The ones who took the bait are killing each other. If we get mixed in, we just get dragged down."
The two stood up at the same time.
Outside the abandoned factory, it was still dark. But from the north, faint sounds were beginning to reach them. Shouts. Screams. The clash of metal.
It had begun.
"We head south. Away from the north."
"Got it."
They left through the factory's back entrance.
The air was bitterly cold. Their breath came out white. The rubble underfoot made faint sounds. Kaito killed his footsteps, moving from shadow to shadow along the collapsed walls. Ren matched his movements precisely.
(This one—he's used to this.)
Kaito thought it while feeling Ren's presence behind him.
Almost no footsteps. No disturbance in his breathing. His body had adapted to walking through death zones.
The two put the northern sector behind them and headed south.
But partway there, Kaito's terminal vibrated again.
"Eliminations: 21."
The number had risen.
As of yesterday, it had been seventeen. Overnight, four more had died.
(The remaining...)
Kaito calculated in his head.
The participants numbered in the thirties. Twenty-one eliminated. The survivors were under twenty now.
The terminal vibrated again.
"Eliminations: 22."
Another one, without pause.
The screams from the northern sector grew louder. Multiple voices rose at once. Metal sounds. Impact sounds. And a wet, liquid sound.
"Eliminations: 23."
"Eliminations: 24."
Kaito counted the terminal's notification tones.
(This is the number of the dead.)
(Or is it my remaining time?)
For a moment, he lost track of what he was counting.
The notification sounded again.
"Eliminations: 25."
Something exploded in the northern sector. An orange pillar of fire briefly lit the dark sky. A hot wind reached even here.
"They're putting on quite a show."
Ren's voice came from behind.
Kaito didn't turn around.
"The operators are seriously accelerating the killing."
"Looks like it. They're going to wipe out everyone gathered in the north all at once. Lure them with fake reactions, make them fight each other. Efficient."
Ren's voice was light.
But that lightness was, conversely, eerie.
The two moved further south.
As they distanced themselves from the northern sector, the screams faded. But the terminal's notifications didn't stop.
"Eliminations: 26."
"Eliminations: 27."
Kaito rolled the numbers over in his mind.
(Already under twenty.)
(Out of thirty-some participants, more than half are dead.)
(It's only the third day.)
The game was progressing far faster, far more cruelly, than Kaito had predicted.
——
The route south ran through a collapsed pipe corridor.
The ruins of what had once been a precision machinery factory. Countless rusted pipes hung from the ceiling, and the floor was littered with metal fragments and shards of glass. Every step produced a faint sound.
Kaito stopped at the corridor's entrance.
(Bad feeling.)
Narrow.
Both sides blocked by collapsed walls, the ceiling low. No escape route. If they were ambushed here, it would be trouble.
"...Let's go."
Kaito said it low.
"Yeah. But be careful. I don't like places like this."
Ren had apparently been thinking the same thing.
The two entered the corridor with space between them.
Kaito in front. Ren behind.
One step, then another.
The metal fragments underfoot made small sounds. The shadows of the pipes hanging from the ceiling, caught in the emergency light, formed strange shapes on the walls.
The air was damp and cold.
Kaito sharpened his senses.
Sounds.
Breathing.
Killing intent.
(——They're here.)
Kaito stopped.
"Three of them."
"I know."
Ren's voice came from behind.
The next moment.
Three shadows leaped out from behind the collapsed walls.
One was swinging an iron pipe overhead. Another held a crowbar in a reverse grip. The last clutched a knife and charged low.
"Die!!"
The man's scream echoed through the corridor.
Kaito moved instantly.
He grabbed Ren's shoulder and shoved him toward the wall.
"Kaito!?"
Ren's startled voice reached the edge of his ear.
But Kaito didn't turn around.
The man swinging the iron pipe was closing in. The pipe came down. Kaito twisted his body to dodge.
But his foot slipped on the metal fragments underfoot.
(Damn.)
The iron pipe grazed Kaito's thigh.
No—it didn't just graze.
A sharp metal fragment attached to the pipe's tip tore through the fabric of his work clothes and bit into flesh.
Shhk.
A raw sound.
The pain arrived a beat late.
Something hot welled up from deep in his thigh. Blood darkened the fabric of his work clothes and dripped to the floor.
"Ugh..."
Kaito suppressed his voice.
Don't show pain on your face.
The technique he'd learned at the facility took over his body.
Kaito supported his faltering body on one leg. Blood kept flowing. The edge of his vision dimmed slightly.
(I can still move.)
Kaito grabbed the arm of the man swinging the iron pipe.
The man's face twisted in shock.
Kaito wrenched the arm up with all his strength and seized the iron pipe from him.
"Guaah!?"
The man's arm bent in an impossible direction. The sound of bone breaking echoed through the corridor.
Kaito drove the seized iron pipe straight into the side of the man's head.
Crack.
A dull sound.
The man's body crumpled.
"You bastard!!"
The man with the crowbar swung at him from the side.
Kaito ignored the pain in his thigh and ducked. The crowbar passed over his head. The wind pressure brushed his hair.
Kaito drove the iron pipe into the man's gut.
Squelch.
The sensation of crushed organs traveled up his hand.
"Gah... hah..."
The man spat blood.
Kaito pulled the pipe free and brought it down on the man's neck.
Crack.
The man's neck bent at an unnatural angle.
He fell without a sound.
"H-heee..."
The man with the knife backed away.
His face was pale with terror.
"D-don't come near me... don't come near me!!"
The man swung the knife wildly and charged in blindly.
Kaito dodged the thrust while favoring his thigh wound.
The knife grazed his cheek.
A drop of blood flew.
Kaito grabbed the man's wrist and wrenched it upward.
"Agh!?"
The knife fell from the man's hand.
Kaito seized him by the collar and slammed him against the wall.
Thud.
The back of the man's head crashed into the concrete wall.
The man's eyes rolled back white.
Kaito drove his knee into the man's face.
Crunch.
The sound of nasal bone shattering.
The man crumpled without a sound.
——
Silence returned.
Kaito dropped to one knee on the spot.
Blood flowed ceaselessly from the wound in his thigh. A red pool spread across the floor.
His breathing was ragged.
His heart pounded violently deep in his ears.
(I can still move.)
(I can't die yet.)
Kaito gritted his teeth and tried to stand.
"Don't move."
Ren's voice came from directly above.
Kaito looked up. Ren was standing there.
In his hand, he held something.
A strip of cloth torn from the hem of his own clothes with a sharp metal fragment.
Ren crouched silently beside Kaito.
"Leg. Out."
"...I'll do it myself."
"Don't push yourself. The wound's deep. The bleeding won't stop."
Ren's voice wasn't its usual light tone.
It was low, quiet, and somehow cold.
Kaito looked at Ren's face.
Ren's expression was blank.
The usual smile was gone.
"...Please."
Kaito said it shortly.
Ren nodded and examined the wound on Kaito's thigh.
"It's deep. The metal fragment is still in there. I'm pulling it out."
"Yeah."
Ren placed his fingers on the wound.
"Bear with it."
Ren pulled the metal fragment out in one motion.
Shlck.
The sound of fl
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