Gantz: The beginning

100 points.

Yoko dodged the large arm once more and rolled herself across the floor as it broke apart the railing that protected people while they shopped. The other arm was already missing, courtesy of her other teammate, right before.... Anger flooded through Yoko as she used the suit's strength to propel herself into the air, above the alien's head. "Bastard!!" Yoko fired five shots before gravity pulled her down toward its form, and she grabbed hold of its shoulder to fire three more shots before the effects of the gun threw her off as parts of the alien's body blew up. Yoko felt like she was falling in slow motion as she watched the head explode, and she didn't feel the joy in her victory to even celebrate because the kill wasn't hers. "It's not fair."

..........................

There were seven other players at the start of the mission when Nishi, Yoko, and Jiro appeared in the room, their faces void of the same surprise the others were showing. It was hard to imagine that this was their third mission without Ryo, hard to imagine how far they'd come, as a team or as individuals. Their personality changes were good and bad, and one might consider their overall skills and ability to become numb to the Gantz world an awful thing, but it kept them alive. When the Gantz showed them their next target, everyone in the room, excluding the three members in suits, began laughing at the absurdity. The weapons and cases were revealed once Gantz opened, and Jiro, Nishi, and Yoko were quick to arm themselves. It became clear very quickly to each new set of players that the three silent ones only concerned themselves with each other and offered very little information to anyone else; by now, they no longer cared. Nishi suspected Ryo's death caused Jiro's sudden silence and somewhat coldness to others; the old man was technically their leader and losing one of his 'comrades' was probably affecting him more than he let on. The alien appeared to be in some form of a shop's decor, one they used for clothing, hence the name, mannequin alien.

The discovery of other weapons proved relatively useful, and sometimes, though not as effective, it had gotten them through a dangerous mission. The 'trap gun,' which they dubbed it, fired three laser anchors connected by strong rope on the first shot and wrapped around the target securely before the anchors buried inside the ground. The second shot sends the target away by the same transportation as Gantz. Despite only being sent away to an unknown place, the result was the same, and they gained their points. Jiro was the first to use this weapon on their first mission after Ryo's death, stopping an alien's claw-like hands from slicing Yoko's head off, defeating the boss, and therefore earning himself at least fifteen points for the entire mission; it was on this mission that the survivor from the spidrat mission met her end. Yoko was responsible for killing the boss in the next mission, gaining herself eleven points. Without realizing it, the team took turns to defeat the boss, allowing them to score equal points. They didn't plan it this way because it was usually always Nishi to go after the boss at the end, and Yoko and Jiro suspected that he didn't particularly like the subconscious decision. Regardless, they were closer than ever before, and it was only thanks to this that Jiro and Yoko were catching up to Nishi's score, which was now at eighty-three, making them realize they might achieve their freedom together after all.

Nishi's last score angered him; while he did defeat the boss as per the order of their turn, the alien's point value was only six, only one point higher than the smaller ones. The aliens' overall point value had been low in the previous three missions; only by defeating the boss on two of the missions were the points the highest. It was unfortunate, but not surprising, that the harder the mission, the higher the points.

Gantz started to transfer them to their target's location, and it was the first time they appeared inside a building and not outside on the streets. The players realized the building was a large shopping mall, and some of the players who deemed it familiar pointed out its location was somewhere in Kyoto. Except for the Gantz members, the mall was quiet, the stores were almost pitch-black, but the rest of the mall was dimly lit by the backup paneled lights.