So we can't breathe inside this bus? Ladies and gentlemen, this bus will be making an emergency landing due to engine trouble. Like, please fasten your seat belts, wear your oxygen masks, and follow crew member's instructions? Yeah, right.

He heard a scratching sound on the right. Shuya had to struggle to catch a glimpse over there. His body felt so heavy. It was as if he were immersed in transparent jelly.

Shogo Kawada was standing up and struggling to pry open a window. But whether it was jammed shut from rust or a broken lock, the window refused to budge. Shogo slammed his left fist against the glass. He's trying to break the glass. Why all the fuss?

But the glass didn't break. The fist ready to strike the glass all of a sudden went limp and clumsily dropped. His body collapsed into the seat. Shuya thought he heard that low voice he'd only recently familiarized himself with faintly gasp, "Damn."

Almost immediately Shuya fell asleep too.

At approximately the same time, students' families in Shiroiwa were visited by men in black sedans. Alarmed by the late night visit, the parents must have been shocked when the visitors presented them with documents stamped with the government's official peach insignia.

In most cases the parents would silently nod as they thought of their children whom they most likely would never see again, but there were those who frantically protested, in which case they would be knocked out by an electroshock baton, or in the worst case, be pummeled by fresh bullets spat out from a submachine gun, one step ahead of their children in departing from this world.

By then the bus assigned to Shiroiwa Junior High School's Third Year Class B's study trip had long since branched off from the rows of other buses and taken a U-turn towards the city of Takamatsu. After returning to the city it wove its way through various roads before it finally stopped and quietly turned off its engine.