Bloodgame (The Pounding Antelopes Remix)
This is the moment when she realises she's lost the game. This is the point when she knows she has fought her last battle. And lost.
She knows that the blood in her mouth is her own. Copper and salt on her tongue, defeat choking her as it trickles down the back of her throat.
She feels the bullets slam into her, feels them force their way through her skin. A few minutes ago she killed Kotohiki, shot her. Not in cold blood though, because they were all forced into it.
The boy with the submachine gun, the new kid, takes aim. Only one of them is going to survive this. Mitsuko promises herself that she will not die here. She's going to win, even if that means killing every single one of her classmates.
With Hatagami, Takiguchi and Kaori gone there are six streaks of blood on the torn shirt. She keeps the shirt in her bag, wrapped around her steadily accumulating collection of weapons. She is keeping score, she is going to win.
The blood tastes of copper, salt and victory.
It tastes better when it's dry.
This is the moment when she shoots Chigusa. The athlete (the stupid bitch) crumples to the ground and Mitsuko feels elation hit her own bloodstream. The red trail from Chigusa's wound is the mark of Mitsuko's victory. She has always preferred her achievements to come at the expense of others.
Twenty-one to go. Mitsuko plans to take as many of them as possible.
She thinks for a moment that she has lost to Hirono. This, she thinks, is humiliation. But the scythe thuds into the post beside her, and Hirono takes too long to pull the trigger. Mitsuko never gloats, which is why she's going to win.
This is the moment when she makes her first kill. She is surprised how easy it is, how smoothly the blade slides along and into Megumi's throat. Megumi is pathetic, and dies like a loser.
Mitsuko wipes the blood on her school shirt, red handprints making the uniform decidedly - finally - non-regulation.
Mitsuko is going to win.
This is the moment when Kinonobu's blood hits her. Bits of muscle, bits of throat, losing their momentum as they splash against her skin. She stands still as a statue, careful to control her reactions.
When the other kids panic, when they run and scream like frightened animals, she licks her lips. Copper, salt... Mitsuko's blood is going to stay her own. No one is going to feel her blood on their skin. Mitsuko knows this game. Which is why Mitsuko is going to win.
The blood in her mouth is her own, pulled from her lips when her mother's palm hit her. Her mother is angry, yelling and lashing out. Years from now, she will realise why.
Years from now she'll decide that it's because of the men, in and out of the house at all hours. The men in her mother's room, the men in Mitsuko's room.
This is the moment when Mitsuko decides to win.
This is the moment when she gets her first taste of blood. It tastes like salty metal. She licks it from her fingers, wipes it from the pain between her legs. She is bleeding -- because of her mother, because of the men. She vows that from now only the only blood she will taste is the blood that she takes from other people.
This is the moment. This is where everything changes.
Mitsuko is going to win.