Part 11: Game Over
Barely before Paul's body had settled on the ground, the clean-up crews descended into the forest. Bukiyo, still aghast at the outcome, was quietly but carefully disarmed. "Wait here" said a soldier, and the Japanese boy was so exhausted he was in no mood to argue.
Slowly the sound of a helicopter rang around the locale, and Bukiyo was expertly led through the trees to the main road. He was acutely conscious of the camera crew following his every move, but was careful not to look directly at them, preferring instead to bow his head and warily pick his way over the fallen branches and tree roots. In the state he was, it wouldn't have been difficult for him to trip.
When he reached the helicopter at the main road, Hannelore was waiting with a horde of press photographers. It seemed the entire world was there; reporters, generals, functionaries, the odd local... After the events of the last couple of days, with his friends and his lover dead, it was almost more than Bukiyo could cope with.
He was guided towards the side of his former German classmate, rather roughly, partially by the military, and partially by the burgeoning crowd of rubberneckers and officials.
"Citizens!" she declared in a voice which was a mixture of hammy stage actor and over-eager local politician. "We have a winner! We have our winner!"
Kyo was lifted up onto a soldier's shoulders, much against his will, and bowed his head even lower, his hair hiding his blood-and-tearstained face as much as possible. After everything he had already been through, this seemed like some kind of weird hallucination to him.
Hannelore waited until she had everyone's attention before continuing. She gazed up in mock-admiration at the little gore-soaked and battered student who was trying to pretend he was anywhere else but here, still reeling from Paul Courtney's death, still tripping on adrenaline and tortured, anguished memories.
Then she screamed, flinging her arms up into the air in an overexuberant gesture of celebration, "Bukiyo Natsume has emerged victorious from this year's Battle Royale. He is this year's Model Good Citizen, and has a glorious life ahead of him. Here he is!!! Here he is!!! Let's all congratulate our courageous, strong, beautiful, perfect and magnificent winner!!!!"
The obsequious crowd roared its approval, conveniently putting aside the small matter of Natsume's criminally explicit homosexuality; after all, he was a good-looking boy, ripe to become the pin-up of a nation of young girls, not to mention their moral leader. The horde were completely caught up in the celebrations, whipped up into a frenzy of adoration by Hannelore's frantic speech, the screams and shrieks bouncing off the trees and making it sound as if the whole forest was full of yelling maniacs, the million flashbulbs of the world's collected press popping and strobing in their eyes.
After a few minutes of parading him around in front of the press, Hannelore made a gesture to the soldier carrying Bukiyo to wind up the formalities and remove the Winner to a waiting helicopter, which was in turn to take Natsume to an unknown location, where he would be continually held under armed guard, to live in the finest luxury, rich beyond the dreams of Croesus, having been persuaded to become… the new Great Leader's consort.
Once the celebrations had ended, and Bukiyo had been whisked away to his life of fabulous indolence and wealth, Hannelore was returned to the Harvey Institute. It had been decided that she, in future, would be running the place, taking over from Harvey, trying to "correct" the youth of the European Regime. She had, after all, earned her place there.
The other staff, not least old Miss Claridge, were none too keen on suddenly being usurped by someone who, only a few days earlier, had been one of their pupils. For the pupils that remained, the first few days were bittersweet. Sweet, in that one of their number was now a celebrity, and that the sadistic Harvey had met an appropriate end, live on TV. The bitterness though was losing their classmates, and the revenge that Hannelore wreaked on them on her return. For days afterwards screams filled the corridors at night as Hannelore imposed the new school regime - and it wasn't just the pupils who felt the full power of her wrath. Staff were suddenly absent for a few days, and returned limping and sore. Hannelore was clearly enjoying her new role.
The time came, though, for the German to settle down to the day-to-day management of the Institute. One morning in October, a couple of months after the Battle had finished, Hannelore was looking through some of Harvey's files when she noticed one sealed with wax, marked "Eyes Only". She needed no hesitation.
Mongolia? Battle Land?
