A 14-year-old boy died Thursday after apparently setting himself on fire in a schoolyard in the city of Shinminato, Toyama Prefecture, police said.
The boy apparently doused his body in kerosene and set himself alight around 2 a.m. on the grounds of Nakafushiki Elementary School, police said.
Local residents called police after hearing his screams coming from the school's courtyard. When police arrived, they found the badly burned teen shouting: "It's hot. It's hot."
No suicide note has been found.
The boy, a student of the city's Shinminato Seibu Junior High School, died in a hospital nine hours later of severe burns.
Police said that given the circumstantial evidence, the boy's death is being investigated as a suicide.
The boy was a cheerful person and not the kind of student to get into trouble, according to school officials. He had been a member of the kendo club since ninth grade and "was practicing hard just yesterday as a competition is scheduled for Sunday," a teacher at the school said.