sasagawam10

Ryuhei Sasagawa - C7-B7 - Enough Dead Heroes

2008-10-18T23:14:54Z

He awoke to bright sunlight streaming in through the window.

Shit!

He scrabbled to his feet, grabbing the cricket bat with one hand and knuckling the grit out of his eyes with the other. He took a deep breath to try and get his sluggish brain into some sort of working order, and moved for the door.

As he slowly moved outside, he glanced up at the sky, shieldin ghis eyes from the sun that was about halfway across the western half of the sky. So, it was afternoon. That meant that he'd been asleep for nearly fifteen hours. That meant--

That means that you've missed two reports, and ten Danger Zones, he raged at himself. You FUCKING IDIOT.

What to do? Obviously the zone he was in was still a valid zone, otherwise he wouldn't have woken up at all.

He started to hyperventilate slightly, as the enormity of his predicament struck him.

You've missed two reports, and have no idea which zones are safe, and which are Danger Zones. You have no idea if anyone else has died. You still haven't seen anyone.

Options? Limited.

Stay where you are. Wait for someone to come and find you.

Not likely that that would happen. Another,

Move back to the platform, taking it one Zone at a time. If the collar starts beeping, make peace with the Spirits, and accept the inevitable.

It wasn't a plan, but it was better than waiting passively for someone to trip over him.

He headed north towards the coast.

He was watching his steps, eyes flicking out to the sides to continually be aware of where he was, when he came to what he thought was the edge of Zone C7. He paused. If he was lucky, this would still be a safe zone.

If it wasn't... well.

He'd know soon enough.

He took five steps forward.

Nothing.

Another five steps.

Again, nothing.

Another five steps.

Still nothing.

He looked down at the map, and raised his head for one final--

Boy Number Ten – Ryuhei Sasagawa – ELIMINATED.

Ryuhei Sasagawa - G9-C7 - Second Movement

2008-09-09T16:05:48Z

Nothing. Not even a goddamned needle left.

Ryuhei kicked at the floor in disgust. He should have known, should have guessed that this would be the first place that people would go to. When you’re thrown into this situation, the first thing you do is track down anything that might give you an advantage. And when a class of jocks, brainiacs, anime freaks, nice girls, deadbeats and whores gets put in Battle Royale, you want something that will prolong your chances.

So here he is, supposedly one of the most dangerous guys in the class, with an odd-shaped bat, and he hasn’t seen a soul in twelve hours, and no kills.

He doesn’t think he can, given the opportunity.

Right then, a voice boomed out across the island, one that was… female?

“"He-hey everyone! This is a call-out to everyone who doesn't want to suffer through this for any longer!”

He quickly checked his watch. The next report wasn’t due for some time, at least three hours. He guessed that one of the girls – he had no idea which one – had managed to get her hands on a megaphone.

“Please come to the viewing platform on the northern mountain so we can think of a plan to get out of here! If we all think of something then we can surely escape! Please come!"

He snarled soundlessly. Pulling the map from his pocket, he plotted the quickest route across the island, skirting the Danger Zones to get to the viewing platform. Let’s see…

G9 to C7 is four zones as the crow flies. That’s gonna be... about half an hour to cover the distance. Via tangerine trees.

Okay, Sasagawa, let’s go.

---

Across small fields, through stands of trees, the afternoon drew slowly on as he made his way across the island, skirting the base of the mountain to approach from the northern side. As he kept low and moving, he spotted a group of girls – Megumi, Yukie, and Yuko – moving away.

The third report came and went, and he noted down the dead and the Danger Zones. He carried on circling the mountain but not for the obvious reasons. True, he was looking out for anyone else that might have heard the girl’s announcement, but it was also turning into a bloody cold night. He had to keep moving just to keep warm.

And then it started spitting with rain.

“Oh, you cannot be serious…” he muttered.

Here he was, totally exposed, no outdoor gear on him at all, and a massive bank of cloud was moving in, low and heavy with rain. What made it even worse was the wind. It was blowing warmer than the surrounding ambient temperature.

“Great, this gets even better.”

He’d been afraid of thunderstorms ever since he was little. And this? Promised to be the mother of all storms.

He looked wildly around, considering his options. Stay outside, get rained on, possibly hit by a lightning bolt if things carried on the way they were, get frozen to the bone. Or he could try and find some shelter that was unoccupied, make sure that it was weatherproof for the night, catch the midnight report and then try and catch some sleep.

He took out the map out and looked it over. There was nothing of any interest to him in the immediate area, as the map only showed large objects and places of interest. He cursed, folded it back up and jammed it in his pocket. Taking off North, he made towards the coast.

He’d gotten about halfway there when he spotted a small shack about three hundred metres away. It looked to be in fairly good condition, and as he hurried over to it, he could see a broken-dawn fence made of split logs and chicken wire surrounding the property. The broken-down henhouse to the side of the main structure showed that the house had been abandoned long before the Government had kicked everyone off the island.

There were no chickens left, obviously.

He made his way into the hut by kicking the door in, battering the lock off the door. A combination of cheap metal used in the construction and corrosion over time made it laughably easy. He ducked inside and flicked on the torch he’d been given just as the first fat raindrops began to patter down.

---

It seemed like an age before the loudspeakers sounded. He expected a normal report.

This one was anything but.

“Fuck – Mitsuru… and Shou?? Jesus tap-dancing Christ.”

That meant—that meant that he and Kazuo were the only two gang members left on the island. He stared at the class list in disbelief.

In terms of classing people by how dangerous they were, it left himself, Kazuo, Shogo and possibly Kazushi for the boys, and Hirono for the girls.

He sat there, stunned. The remainder of the class was full of weaklings, geeks and girls. Unless the weapons weren’t nearly as randomised as Sakamochi claimed, what had happened was a brutal lesson on Darwinism, and one that had taken just under half the class in twenty-four hours.

And now?

Now, Ryuhei was scared.

Chances were that the next person he ran into was going to be packing some serious heat, and they were going to shoot first and ask questions later.

He needed to get some heat, before he froze.

Ryuhei Sasagawa - E7-E9-G9 - Solo Spot

2008-08-20T18:29:36Z

He reached the hills just as the speakers above him crackled to life. He listened to the report with a sense of detachment.

It’s not that he didn’t think that people would play, it’s the fact that they’ve literally been on this island for six hours and they’re already shedding blood and murdering with gusto.

And damn if the first name isn’t Yoshio.

He’s not making any effort.

The digs have gotten sharper over the last year or so, ever since he moved schools to Shiroiwa. Now, it’s an active hate campaign against the fat kid at school.

And it’s not doing anything.

That’s not much of a surprise. What is is the third name on the list.

Hiroshi? No way, man, that’s fucked up--

He has to mark down the names and the danger zones.

The speakers shut off, and he examined the map with six squares shaded in, planning his next move.

Okay. Go north, to the coast. There’s nothing there. Go east, to the Tourist association, and see what’s cooking, or go back south, and miss the school and see if anyone was there.

He still wasn’t sure if he should be playing.

He knew that anyone he came across would think that he was, because of who he was. He was Ryuhei Sasagawa, for crying out loud. He beat up fat kids for sport.

It all comes to a head one day. He loses it and starts kicking the crap out of Yoshio. In front of everyone. He’s yelling at him, telling him to sort his life out, the fat idiot, get off the games and lose – KICK – some – KICK – WEIGHT!!!

He decides that moving towards the Tourist Association would be the best thing, and he’d see what he could rustle up in the way of food and other supplies that might have been left behind.

He looked at the map. Three zones in a straight diagonal line that, according to the scale, would be just over half a kilometre.

He looked up, grinning. Nothing to it.

They track him down later, Hiroshi and Mitsuru and Shou, the flamer. That surprised the hell out of him.

"Saw you in the hall earlier," said Mitsuru. "That was a hell of a smackdown. What'd he ever do to you?"

Ryuhei's lip curled in an unconscious expression of disgust. "It's not what he's done to me. It's what he's not done," he replies, staring at the ground. He can see himself in the same position, all that's different are the faces and uniforms. He thinks, When the hell did my life get this screwed up?

"Who're you running with at the moment?" asks Mitsuru.

"No-one."

"C'mon. We could use someone like you. Nobody'll fuck with you after that. And nobody fucks with us either."

And just like that, he was in. He felt sick.

Nothing to it.

---

Three hours later, he was forced to concede defeat in his quest for items of nutritional or offensive value. There weren’t even any computers that he could use.

The Government had prepped this place really well, removing everything that could be considered an aid to any student with basic survival knowledge. They hadn’t shut off the electricity, though, which was one thing. Running water was another. As he made to leave the building, a thought struck him. If water and electricity were still being supplied, would gas also still be on?

He made his way quickly back to the small kitchen that he had found on his thorough exploration of the building, and turned one of the knobs on the hob to one side. A hiss filled the room, along with the unmistakeable smell of gas. He shut it off again, filing the information away for future use. Assuming he found a container in which to store it, he now had a steady supply of an explosive, should he need it.

Another three hours passed in foraging around the locality, picking tangerines from the trees and he’d just finished his sixth when the speakers crackled to life above him, and Sakimochi came on air for the second report. He crossed off the four names with a coolness he didn’t feel past his skin, and shaded in the danger zones. His isolation from the class, except the gang, was all his own fault, and this made it a double-edged sword. On the one hand, he didn't care that they were all dying, but on the other, he'd made his fair share of enemies, and truth be told he wasn't feeling comfortable without Kazuo and Mitsuru and Hiro-- Kazuo and Mitsuru, now, he amends to himself. For instance, if he ran into Hardcore Souma, he'd be fucked, and not in the literal sense.

He decided to head south to the clinic. Chances were, it had already been ransacked by others for all the supplies the Government hadn’t taken out, but he may still find something worth picking up.

He might also run into someone.

[[OOC: Hey guys, does anyone wanna meet up with Ryuhei? He’s getting a wee bit bored running around on his own!!]]

Ryuhei Sasagawa - Interlude - Trace Amounts

2008-08-07T21:04:01Z

His bunched fist flew forward, and the leader of the gang of bullies fell back, blood flowing freely from the smashed mouth. Takeshi’s expression was a blend of shock, outrage and pain.

The other four just stared, dumbfounded.

Then they all leapt on him.

---

It took three weeks for the last of the bruises to heal. He missed out on six Phys Ed lessons, due to stiffness and being unable to run more than usual. Coach eyed him speculatively, noting that he was favouring the entire right side of his body, but didn’t say anything.

Ryuhei’s mother wanted to know if he’d been in a fight.

He tells her no. It wasn’t a fight he was in. He doesn’t respond to any further questioning.

That night, he misses dinner for the first time. Studying, he tells her when she calls up the stairs to him.

---
The lights in the room are off, so he doesn't see himself sweating.

He wedges his feet under the dresser and braces himself.

He can do this.

“…one…”

“…two…”

“…three…”

---

They left him alone for four months after that. Whether it was due to him smacking Takeshi, or whether they thought that kicking seven shades of shit out of him would reinforce the message, he doesn't know.

But he's grateful for it.

---

“…seven…”

“…eight…”

“…nine…”

---

It’s lunchtime.

He pulls a snackbox from his locker and makes his way to the cafeteria. There’s a couple of rolls of sushi, as well as some cold stir-fried pork and vegetables. He finds a table away from the main crush of people and takes the lid off the box, removing the chopsticks that lie on top.

The group of five make their slow, measured way across the lunch hall, and pick a table close to where he’s sitting. As Ryuhei starts to eat the sushi, he hears them, their snide comments seemingly breaking straight through the white noise of a busy public place and cutting him to his core.

He doesn’t need this, he thinks. He’s lost ten pounds already and he’ll have to get his mother to buy some new school clothes soon. He feels guilty at that, because she doesn’t have a lot of money, but he’d rather be poor than fat.

He replaces the lid on the lunchbox and returns it to the locker, leaving the cold stir-fry alone. He ignores their pointed comments and crude jokes.

---

“…nineteen…”

“…twenty…”

“…twenty-one…”

---

The bell’s rung, and he moves to his locker with the main rush, taking cover as part of a larger group, the single subsumed into the mass. He reaches for the lock, only to find it gone, and the door slightly open.

He throws the door open, and rifles through all his books, his bag and school equipment. He’s got nothing of value to steal, so this break-in confuses him.

He checks everything twice, and searches his memory.

There’s nothing missing.

Shrugging, he removes everything from the locker, cramming it into his schoolbag as best he can.

He starts to walk home.

---

“…thirty…”

“…thirty-one…”

“thirty-two…”

---

He eats the cold pork stir-fry for dinner once he gets in. He doesn’t bother re-heating it, and gets straight on with studying.

It starts later on that night with cramps.

---

The next morning, he refuses to leave the bathroom. As soon as he gets ten feet away from the toilet, he’s seized by another wave of crippling pain, and has to stagger back.

---

That afternoon, he’s taken to the hospital by ambulance. His mother is riding alongside him, and his sister is being cared for by a friend down the street.

---

BEEP.
plink
BEEP.
plink
BEEP.
plink
---

He comes to, unsure where he is.

The ceiling is white, cracked plaster that needs a new coat of paint. The scent of astringent cleaning chemicals is prevalent, and the nasal tube and itch on the back of his left hand tells him all he needs to know.

Hospital.

He feels exhausted, but better. He’s no longer feeling like he needs to cling to a toilet for dear life. He tries to turn his head. He can barely move. Even that small attempt at movement nearly drained him of what little energy he had.

“Well, Mr. Sasagawa, welcome back to the land of the living.”

He focuses on where the voice is coming from, and by sheer force of will manages to turn his head. There’s a doctor standing there, one of the kindly-faced type that will smile a lot while telling you that you have cancer.

He tries to speak, but there’s nothing coming out of his mouth except for a dry, cracked whisper. He looks at the doctor, pleading with his eyes for water.

“I expect you’d like some water, hmm?”

He fills a glass with water from a nearby pitcher, half-melted ice cubes clinking in the top. Putting a straw in the glass, the doctor seats himself next to the head of the bed and guides the straw into Ryuhei’s mouth. “Little sips,” he says. “We don’t want you to have a relapse.”

As soon as he’s sipped the water, he tries to ask the question again. The voice is breathy, faint, it sounds so unlike him that he thinks he’s lost it completely.

“What… happened?”

“Well, Mr. Sasagawa, you had a rather nasty case of food poisoning,” says the doctor. “Have you heard of E. Coli?”

Ryuhei nods his head slightly.

“Good. Escherishia Coli is a bacterial pathogen that is found usually in meat that has been contaminated post-slaughter. It’s also found in the lower intestine, but in a harmless strain that actually does your body good. What happened to you, though, is that you got one of the bad strains in you. It’s called O157:H7, and it played havoc with your body. You were vomiting and having diarrhoea for the better part of three days, and we had to stabilise you with a broad-spectrum antibiotic, as well as get you rehydrated intravenously. That’s the reason for the cannula on the back of you hand. As for the nasal tube, we’ve been feeding you through that for the last day or so.”

“How long have I been here?” he asks.

“You were brought in a week ago, Mr. Sasgawa.”

---

He’s getting his energy back, slowly but surely.

One side effect that he didn’t anticipate – but which he’s thankful for – is that he’s dropped over fifteen pounds in weight. He’s looking a lot slimmer than he was.

He’s just got no energy at the moment. SO the first thing he does when he gets out of the hospital – and those stupid gowns – is to look up an exercise regime on the Internet.

Push-ups, for arm strength and pectorals.

Crunches, for abdominals and leg strength.

Pull-ups, for arms and scapulae.

He starts the next night.

---

“…one…”

“…two…”

“…three…”

Ryuhei Sasagawa - G7-E7 - First Movement

2008-07-29T23:25:57Z

He carried on, picking up the pace until he was running fast. Since his massive and sudden weight loss, he'd been working on building his endurance and stamina, haunted by the memories of the previous schools he'd been in. His mother had decided in a bout of parental craziness that he might as well make a completely new start, and had made him switch schools. Now, he was in as good physical shape as Shinji, maybe better.

It wasn't that he didn't like sports. He did, really. He just didn't feel athletically inclined.

The only reason he still ran and did weights, crunches and push-ups was because he never wanted to return to the fat, blubbering mass that he had been. And even though he was loath to admit it, he saw himself in Yoshio. Who he had been.

Who he never wanted to be again.

“Look, here comes the fat kid!!” came the yells as he shuffled into school the next morning, head bowed to try and deflect attention. It didn’t work.

It never worked.

He hunched lower, knowing that he’d had no breakfast and was feeling hungry. He hoped they wouldn’t hear his stomach rumbling.

“Just shut up,” he mumbled.

That stopped his group of tormentors dead in their tracks. The leader, a vicious-looking boy with a pinched, rat-like face came up to him and stood in front of him, his expression a mixture of outrage and shock. “What did you just say, Sasagawa?” he snarled. His name was Takeshi Kinumasa, and he came from a family that was well-connected in the local community, with the respectable elements, as well as the insalubrious denizens of the underworld.

“I said, shut up.”

“Guys, fatboy here wants me to shut up,” he said, turning back to face his group of four friends. They all grinned, expecting Takeshi to turn around and lay the smackdown on the fat kid who dared to backtalk him.

He turned to Ryuhei, who was standing still, looking at them all anxiously. Then Takeshi spoke the two words that changed the whole course of Ryuhei’s life.

“Make me.”

He slowed down, taking care to stay low and dodging from one piece of cover to the next. He came to a small stand of trees that cast their shadows over the moonlit ground, and abruptly decided to sit down and catch his breath.

He looked around to see if anyone was near,
Ferreting through his bag, the one he’d had thrown at him by the stone-faced soldier in the class, he encountered a water bottle. Pulling it out, he unscrewed the lid and emptied the bottle in five swallows. He considered drinking the second, but decided against it.

He knew that he’d need it later.

He ate both the bread rolls. He rationalised it as eating them while they were still semi-fresh and appetising, rather than leaving them to go stale and become inedible. The carbs in them would also give him an energy boost. Given that he’d not had anything to eat since lunch the previous day, he was ravenous.

He brushed the crumbs off his legs after he finished, before deciding on his next course of action. First off, if he was in the Program, then the others in his class would be looking to take each other out as soon as possible. As part of the gang, and an avid Yoshio-hater, they’d be looking to take him out first and reduce the risk to themselves. Which made him a high-priority target. He needed to lessen his visibility, and quickly.

His uniform was dark, yes, but his shirt was white and it stood out in the pre-dawn gloom. In his bag, he’d packed a change of clothes, as well as his MP3 player, an expensive import from China. For a moment, his capitalist tendencies warred with his awakening survival skills, but in the end, he decided.

He didn’t care what kind of mrtal peril he was in, he’d fucking saved that money himself and he was damned if the Government was going to make him part with it.

He quickly changed, deciding to go with the black tee and dark cargo pants, before slipping his feet into his running trainers. He wrapped the earphones round the MP3 player, tucking it into one of the pockets down the leg of the pants.

He then went through the contents of both bags, laying them out on the bags themselves while he considered the merits of each.

Firstly, the water bottle. He put that to one side to take with him. Next was the sealed bag with the map, compass and pen inside. That went onto the same pile. A small torch followed. The next item was something he’d never seen before.

It looked to be a bat of some kind, but it was the strangest shape he’d ever come across. It was made of a white wood, and it had a red leather grip round the handle. It was long, about eighty centimetres including the handle, and it was thick, and very heavy. One face of it was completely flat, the other side had a spine running all the way down the length of the bat, which terminated and split off to join the bottom corners. He looked at it, nonplussed, before putting it to one side.

There wasn’t anything else in the bag. He tossed it aside before opening his own bag and repeating the process. All the time, the mantra Only take what you can carry, leave all the rest behind was pulsing in his mind. It would increase his chances of survival.

The clothes he left where they were. He wouldn’t be changing again, and besides, they were all the garish colors and designs that he hated. It was at Mitsuru’s insistence that he had bought them.

That boy had a lot to answer for, he thought, with a grin on his face.

There wasn’t anything he’d brought from home that was valuable enough or irreplaceable enough to justify taking with him. All he had was a couple changes of clothes, a book, some gum, and a few other bits.

He packed everything back into the bag and shoved it under a nearby bush, figuring that if he survived and needed anything, he could swing by on the way back and pick it up.

He didn’t think that was likely to happen, though.

After distributing the pen, compass and water about his person, he picked up the map and unfolded it, shining the torch on the paper, hunching over to prevent the escape of as much light as possible.

On his mad dash, he hadn’t noticed any features that were marked on the map. He had, however, noted that there were mountains directly in front of him. He decided to make for the hills, and figure out from there where he was, and where he was going.

He started to jog.

Ryuhei Sasagawa - G7 - Prelude

2008-07-10T22:23:28Z

Because, a long time ago, he'd been just like Yoshio.

"Hey, pick it up, big guy! Faster!"

The coach bellowed at him as he made his lumbering way round the field, his legs burning, lungs demanding more air, sweat running off him in rivulets. His kit was going to stink.

"Sasagawa! Move!"

He didn't bother replying; his traitorous body wouldn't let him. His breath was coming in wheezes now, and he knew that he was near the end of his admittedly short endurance. He slowed down to a careful jog, and then to a leisurely walk.

It took ten minutes for him to get his breath back, which was long enough for him to gather up all the equipment and give the Coach a hand to return it to the equipment store. As they finished putting the last of the footballs into the net bags, the coach turned and looked at him sadly.

"You know, Ryuhei, that unless you lose weight, you're at increased risk of diabetes and heart attacks?"

Ryu sighed. He'd had this conversation with the coach many times before. He shrugged. "I'm trying, Coach. I just can't shift it."

The older man looked at him for a while, regarding him intently. Finally, he nodded in resignation, and said, "Hit the showers, Sasagawa. See you next week."

The use of his surname showed the disappointment that Coach had, and that stung. He was absently walking back to the locker room, mulling over what he could have for dinner when his feet flew out from under him, and he landed, hard, on his back. Winded, he could only lay there for a second, desperately trying to breathe.

"Look, it's a beached whale!" came the jeers. "What's that doing so far from the ocean?"

He would not cry.

He would not cry.

He managed to get up, and stood for a second, breathing deeply, composing himself to walk on without responding to the taunts of his classmates. He took one step, then another, and on the thrid his feet lost traction and he landed on his butt.

The hysterical squeals of playground delight and mocking were almost to much to bear. Putting a hand on the ground to steady himself, he felt a smooth oiliness on the tarmac. Looking down, he could see it; the faint sheen of oil on the ground. His eyes widened.

They'd greased the playground.

They'd planned this.

That night, at home, he sat at the table with his mother and sister, and picked at the noodles. There wasn't a great deal of food, but he was making a conscious effort to cut down on portions. it was difficult, though, with a mother that wouldn't stop going on about him being a "growing lad" and putting an extra heaping spoon full of food on his plate.

He chased the vegetables round the plate for a little while, aimlessly thinking about the sports he enjoyed, and what he could do to lose weight.

He didn't want to be a fat target for bullies all his life.

"Boy number Ten! Ryuhei Sasagawa!"

He rose from his seat with fluid grace, the echoes of Kiriyama's whispered instructions reverberating in his head. He moved up the aisle to the front, caught the pack thrown at him and swung it over his other shoulder before moving swiftly out of the room and into the darkness.

The first thing he noticed - couldn't fail to miss it, really - was the cooling corpse of Yoshio Akamatsu, Male Student Number One.

The second was the voice of Yukie Utsumi, saying, "Hey Yuko! It's Yukie! Come here! I'm sure we can figure out a way out this place! We have to believe, Yuko!"

The third was a rustle as someone - Yuko, at a guess - went running for cover.

Behold, the powers of deduction of a scared, fourteen-year-old gang member with no backup and no boss to think for him.

He took off, picking a direction completely at random. From the class talk given by the old dude at the front, he knew that none of the Danger Zones were active, so he could theoretically go anywhere with no problems.

As he ran, he pondered whether or not to join up with Kazuo and the others. On the one hand, there was safety in numbers and the only realistic threat to their group was Mitsuko's gang. Even so, three on five was a very unfair fight, even more so when you took into account that Yoshimi was basically a good girl gone bad.

He slowed to a light, distance eating jog, and considered the other side of the coin. The benefits of staying alone and staying alive were, at the present time, looking more and more attractive. Who's to say that the first thing Kiriyama wouldn't do was shoot the lot of them, and take out the closest competition?

No, he'd leave it a bit, and see where things lay in the morning.

OOC: Hey, everyone!! Right, onto business. PC control was not sought from Jonathan or Jen, but the lines and actions are so small anyway. And now, for a little pimpage: br_roleplay_syn is a quick catch-up guide for people who've missed a post or seven. It's updated every ten posts - shut the hell up, whichever one of you old-timers just laughed - so add it to your Flist!! - Consumer warning - The BR Synopsis is served with heaping amounts of sarcasm and a large side of snark. You have been warned XD