One, two, three, … forty-three…
Yara counted the number of people who entered back into the room. Only forty-three had made it back. Her flight had originally held 170 passengers and that didn't include all of the flight crew. Was it really that big of a bloodbath?
“God, there are a lot of them still here.”, said one of the suited men. He was a tall, somewhat pudgy man with rounded glasses. Under normal circumstances, Yara would have thought he looked like a generic Japanese otaku but he held himself and his GANTZ rifle confidently. The man caught her looking at him. He smiled wide and gave her a wave. Yara, a little confused, awkwardly waved back.
Yamasaki, the one that had pushed Yara onto Nishi earlier in the day, wrapped his arm around the bigger man's shoulders. Yamasaki was a slight man with long dyed blond hair. He had a handsomely boyish look that was mismatched with his aging face creases. He smirked.
“Hasegawa, you know she's only checking you out because you're a fat nerd in a gimp suit, right!” Yamasaki yelled into Hasegawa's ear.
“Wha- shut up!”
“You were already imagining your nuptials together, weren't you!”
“Shut up!”
While the two argued, Yara looked around for their leader. Izumi had promised her answers and she wanted an explanation pronto. It wasn't nearly as hard to walk through the crowd this time around and she found him sitting in front of the black ball. She sat cross-legged next to him.
There was a stiff pause before Izumi spoke up. “You want your answers?”
“Y-yes!”, Yara peeped.
“Guess I can give you a quick rundown while we're being graded. We'll be here for a while anyway.”
She was about to ask what he meant by grading, when GANTZ lit back-up to life. Yamasaki and Hasegawa, alongside the fairly quiet third hunter, made their way up behind Izumi and Yara. Yara caught a small glimpse of Nishi from the corner of her eye. He was farther away from the group than he had been previously.
He must be feeling a bit skittish from his argument with Izumi. Izumi was his name right?
Pulling Yara out of her thoughts, Izumi began talking. “GANTZ is going to give us points based on the quantity and quality of the aliens we killed.”
“Aliens?! Those were aliens!?”
Izumi gave her an inquisitive look before continuing. “You died right before coming here didn't you?”
The screen on the black ball displayed a crude cartoon photo of an older Japanese man in his late 50’s. On closer inspection, Yara recognized it as the man that had been sitting next to her on the plane!
“Yeah, I was on a plane when it crashed! The guy on screen was sitting next to me when it happened!”
GANTZ continued to display through different photos with text underneath it. Some of the people in the room giggled at what was written. Yara, not able to read the writing, sat there patiently.
“GANTZ brought us back to life to kill the aliens living on Earth.”
“Oi, oi, not too shabby this week, huh?”, Yamasaki motioned towards the screen. In Japanese, rather than being called by his name, he was labeled as Host Bitch. He didn't seem phased by the insult, well and truly used to the name by now.
Izumi pointed at Yamasaki's display. Replacing the text the others got, instead was a series of numbers. “See there, it says he got 12 points on this mission. The 29 underneath it shows his overall point total from previous missions.”
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“Previous missions? You've done this multiple times?”
“Yep.”
“So what's the third number mean?” Near Yamasaki's 29 score was a 71.
“The number of points left needed to win.”
She got a sinking feeling. “Win…?”
“Every few weeks you'll be brought back here to fight more aliens. You either reach 100 points to escape or you die.”
Yara shuttered. She blankly watched more scorecards come and go. I have to keep doing this! For how long! Shit, I'm going to die again aren't I!
Before long the third hunter's grade popped up. He was scruffy and stocky, but had noticeable muscles. His face had a ruggedness to it that Yara would have found attractive had he been maybe five years younger. 16 points this round, 58 points total, 42 left to go.
“Way to go, Chiba!” Yamasaki patted the stubbled man on the back, who only smiled slightly at his results.
Next up was someone Yara recognized instantly. It was the son that she had gotten lost with. This time, instead of the text being in Japanese it was in English.
CRYBABY
0 P0INT5
T00 MUCH CRYING. F0LL0WED 0THER5 LIKE A L05T PUPPY.
So the black ball is insulting everyone…
“What the heck!”, yelled the son.
“Calm down, Caden, it's fine. Let's just try and get home”, said his mother, pulling him back a bit. Yara was surprised that what Izumi said had been the truth. The mother seemed to be in perfect condition. No injuries at all.
More displays of people Yara didn't know passed by. The presentation had been going on for a while now. Nishi was tapping his foot impatiently with his arms crossed. Hasegawa yawned, waiting for his turn, leaning on his rifle. Some people behind Yara were trying to force the front door open.
“Um, I thought we could leave after the mission?” Yara asked Izumi next to her.
Izumi had a bit of an annoyed glazed eyed look. “The door unlocks once all the points are given out.” He huffed annoyed when another zero pointer popped up. “Normally there are fewer survivors.”
She thought it a bit morbid that more survivors seemed to be a nuisance to the GANTZ hunters. Sure it was taking a long time, but that just meant more people could go home.
Oh.
AMERITAKU
1 P0INT
0NLY 99 M0RE T0 G0
Yara's score displayed in front of her. The cartoony drawing was unflattering but there is no doubt it was her. It seemed that if you managed to get even one point, GANTZ would keep its mocking to a minimum.
The spider was only worth 1 point, huh? Quest to 100 points is seeming less and less possible. Wait, what the heck is an Ameritaku? American otaku?
Hasegawa tapped Izumi on the shoulder. “Izumi, you've been speaking English to her, right? Can you tell her I think it's impressive that she got a point on her first try?” Izumi lazily looked up to Hasegawa, who was smiling wistfully. He begrudgingly turned to Yara.
“Hey, he thinks you're cute. He wants to take you on a date.”
Izumi thumbed at the man. Nishi, who couldn't help overhearing, chortled and coughed a bit. Yara could feel her face turn red and her eyebrows raise in surprise.
“Um, I don't really know him at all…”
“She said she doesn't know you at all.”
“What? How is that a response to what I said? What did you say to her?!” Hasegawa's face crumpled into despair. Yara, feeling incredibly uncomfortable, excused herself away from the ball. Nishi began laughing harder at the awkward situation.
“Ugh, Izumi! What did you say! Nishi what did he say!”
Making her way to the back of the room, Yara locked eyes with the mother from before. The woman beckoned her over. She was a small white American woman in her late-forties. Her son stood next to her, protectively.
“You were the one trying to help us earlier, yes?”, said the woman.
“Yes, sorry about that. I messed up a lot.”
“No, no. No need to apologize. You did your best.” While the mother smiled at her, Yara could see the son sneering at her. “I was thinking, once we get out of here we should go to the American embassy together. They should know that we've all been kidnapped and attacked by these strange monsters.”
“I'm pretty sure the spiders were aliens.” The son snorted at her statement.
“Yes, well, we've all been separated from our luggage and IDs, so we'll need to go there regardless of spider aliens and giant black space balls.” Now it was Yara's turn to hold in a laugh.
“Um, yes, I think going together would be a good idea. They're more likely to believe us with more people.”
Yara nodded along to more of the mother's ramblings. Without any money or passports, it was going to be hard getting to the embassy. Their first course of action would be going to a police station to see if they could get help.
Behind her Izumi stood up, right as some of the people trying to knock down the front door managed to get it open. The grading had finished. Many of the people inside rushed out as quickly as they could. Yara began quietly following behind everyone when she felt someone pull her back.
“Some advice, don't tell anyone outside the room what you saw here.”
She whipped around but saw no one. The room was empty now save the black ball known as GANTZ. Yara took one last look around the room before running out the door.