While walking towards where they lost Yoshioka, they still seem nervous. I don’t get why I’m not upset or anything, but Higuichi keeps flinching each time I move near her. It’s kind of upsetting actually. I’ve only helped them so far if anything they have been a bit of a burden.

Shaking my head again. I take a short break to fetch my throwing knife from my medical bag and storing it in the slot one of my knives use to hold. I’m down to only one. Sakamoto Managed to run off with two of them ha in hand. Chuckling to myself at my pun I overhear the others whispering back and forth.

Himiko whispers to Higuichi “I know I should be happy he’s with us and all but… hes kind of scary…”

Higiuchi seems to shiver a bit before responding. “Yeah… he said hes close with a friend with someone you know?” She helps support Himiko as Togo leads the way to where they lost Yoshioka and there are a lot of rocks.

“Well… I don’t know him personally, but he showed me a picture of Miho hugging him… after the incident she refused to be touched by anyone, so they must be very close…” she seems a bit dazed.

“Why is your friend so close to someone so dangerous? I know we are here to survive but he’s killed at least four people so far. He also seems very experienced in it… I don’t doubt he’s someone bad.” She gives me a quick glance and meets my eyes watching them. She freezes for a moment as Himiko continues.

“I don’t know… maybe she started getting in with the wrong crowds after she left?” Higiuchi is trying to stop her with rapid glances my way, but she doesn’t notice until after she insulted me.

Walking over near them. “HA, that’s a bit hurtful! I’ll have you know I’m an honors student.” Himiko finally realizes I was listening.

“But why are you so experienced at this? If you’re just a student, shouldn’t you be like her?” Higiuchi points at Himiko. I feel like Higiuchi isn’t giving Himiko enough credit there. She resolved herself to kill herself before. She has the grit to kill if needed.

“I mean it’s just a matter of resolve and you don’t give Himiko enough credit. I’m sure if she’s pressed against the wall, she could kill just as easily as I could.” This seems to give Higiuichi some pause.

“I’m curious is that a true statement or a false one? From a metaphorical perspective that’s true from a literal perspective it’s false.” She’s hesitant to answer likely not wanting me to know how she works. She’s saved by Togo who announces we’ve arrived.

Looking for any sort of tracks my search skill can’t find anything either. Footsteps not being a proper search target.

Giving up for now we will just have to find him later. “It looks like hes gone. We need to find some place to set up camp for the night.”

Himiko looks around before looking back where we came from. “The radio tower isn’t that bad we could head back up that way?”

I shrug. “While it’s not bad it’s also not great… at least with the chasm being a semi-circle around it theres less likely to be Komodo dragons up there and it will give us a height advantage to use more gas BIM. It’s just gonna suck on our backs.” This got a nod from Togo and Higuichi as they both spent the last night sleeping on the ground. I didn’t even consider packing a sleeping bag something I’ll be sure to fix in the future.

Higuichi speaks up a bit red faced “Not to mention not much privacy for taking care of…business.” she looks away from Togo who is also a bit red faced.

It makes sense there it’s pretty open space up there. “Ah right I suppose neither of the girls would want to do their business near either of us on top of a hill where people can see.” This gets a bit of a blush from everyone.

Togo clears his throat before speaking up. “Our old place is too far away to walk to before it gets dark. Our only other bet is to either go to one of the beaches or we could search for another house.”

I agree with him. “Let’s just head to the beach… it’s easier to find and we might be able to catch a few fish in the morning.” Though the sands going to be a pain in the ass.

“Alright beach it is… where’s the closest one?” It doesn’t take long I just look back on the memory of being up at the radio tower and looking around and compare it to our current position. While there are abandoned buildings off in the distance they are too far to reach before it’s dark.

A couple hours later we get to the beach and find where someone else had a BIM fight. A bunch of scorch marks and a half-mangled body splayed out on the shore burned to death. Looking closer to see if they left any supplies the dumbass that killed them didn’t even take his chip. The BIM are missing though so they at least know to defend themselves. Maybe they just don’t want to play at all? Oh well, their loss our gain. Going through the guy’s pockets there’s a second chip there too.

“I’ve got another two chips here.” I call out to the group. Everyone is staring at the two chips in my hand. We now have seven free floating chips. Enough for someone to leave without even needing to kill one of the other people in the group. There’s a lot of tension in the air since each person is carrying a few of the chips of the whole.

I make something clear. “Now I know it may be tempting, but if someone tries to steal the other chips or kills someone else here. I will kill them before they even have a chance of getting off the island.” I give a death glare at Togo and Higiuchi they both flinch. Himiko doesn’t receive the glare but is likewise scared.

Togo nods silently “You don’t have to worry. I won’t be the death of another team.”

“I understand too…” Higiuchi seems to be more scared of me rather than for the sake of the squad.

“Let’s set up camp!” We set up on the side of the beach with a fire and a few fish we caught by tossing a timer BIM into the water nearby. BIM are odd, they might explode but they leave no shrapnel. Does that mean it dissolves? Or maybe the casing is burned up as part of the explosion.

Elsewhere in a control room watching the games.

???? POV

A bald man stares angrily at a group of employees. “It looks like we have our first group to collect eight chips! None of them are even trying to kill each other though! So boring so dull, where’s the drama! Where’s the tension of a team falling apart! Honestly, this is turning out much more much more boring than I expected. None of their kills even USED THE BIM! The other contestants are using them, except for that mercenary bastard though so at least they aren’t a waste. But our main selling point for this whole scenario is live action Btooom! to show the graphic trash of a society dying in tragic and gruesome ways! Instead, we have four idiots killed by a teenager and the world’s number ten player horribly maimed within his second confrontation. What are we supposed to sell our watchers now? They have only been there for two days! In order to make this profitable we need at least a week of footage, and the fights are over too quickly to even drag them on!” A few of the employee’s cringe at the bald mans temper cowering slightly. This is the company president. He could make them all disappear if he wanted so him not being happy was really bad.

Gesturing around he starts another speech. “We need action, we need intrigue! We can’t let the game end so quickly! Everything hinges on this. If things continue like this, we won’t have enough content to even propose our idea!” A few of the people that understand the context have sweat going down their backs.

The same man that introduced the rules on the plane nervously starts to talk. “Mr. president, In the beginning, everyone starts out peacefully working together its only a matter of time until their group falls apart. We don’t have to worry about them ruining the show. The confrontation between him and the mercenary should give us a lot of views! Besides life or death situations will always be one person who betrays the others. That in my opinion is the most exciting part of all.” The fat man slowly adjusts his hat nervously. Hoping that the president agrees with his view on it.

Nodding the president at least looks happy. “Hmmm indeed, by the way how are these images so high quality? If they are recorded, how can we have all these angles?” Several people nervously wait for someone else to answer.

Finally, a man with heavy bags under his eyes answers. “Inside each of their left hands is a chip that contains a very responsive sensor. The device has three-dimensional scanning ability and is capable of capturing movement. The chip is constantly scanning the surroundings and by combining the shape of the landscape with applied textures we can make a complete 3D realistic image to play.” He yawns before pulling up an example of a scene of a person shape moving through the jungle and applying a scanned image of the person moving over the image.

The president nods before frowning. “Okay then, would you tell me what the HELL these flesh blobs are?” The company president points at two separate images. One a bag that Hitomi’s group is carrying. The next are two knives stuck inside of Sackamoto. Both have a fleshy texture on them with blood on one end as if torn off of something.

The same tired man speaks up, rubbing his neck nervously. “Well… sir the items somehow escaped the scanners sensors before the contestant Hitomi grabbed them. So, once it sensed them it assumed they were part of his hand… a lot of textures change rapidly in an environment, so a lot of the process is automatic. He seems to have grabbed them so quickly that the scanner couldn’t detect it’s movement and thought it was part of the object.”

Slamming his hand on a desk the president scowls. “That’s NO EXCUSE! WE NEED THIS TO BE PERFECT! Earlier in our debut conference, some of the upper management mentioned how ugly it looked that they were carrying around a mass of flesh. It broke the immersion, they started to see it all as FAKE which defeats the whole point of all this!” The fat man falls back a bit. Then turns to glare at the man with bags under his eyes.

“Fix the texture or its your ass Tsuneaki Iida” He yells at the man that explained the graphics.

He turns to look at him slowly blinking tired eyes. “Sir, I work in game balance and design to ensure that the game follows what your audience wants. I don’t work in the graphics department. I wouldn’t even know how to fix that…” He looks back to his computer ignoring the shocked looks from people since he just spoke back to a superior.

The fat man slightly upset barbs back. “Well then, since your job is game balance, what do you propose we change? We need to do something or that group will finish before we have any time to impress investors.”

Iida looks up from his laptop again sighing deeply. “Well, I suggest we make an announcement to the island. Congregating them on being the first to get 7 chips. In the announcement we can leak their location or their description. This should make other players move towards them or team up against them. Alternatively, we can contact him with a deal to leave so we don’t have to worry about him. He’s a killer but not as interesting as the mercenary.”

“YES! That should lead to the excitement we need. That should also force them to use their BIM! Either they all kill each other or at the very least they will give a better show then the farce so far.” The others are looking happy at this revelation.

“That solves one problem, but that texture problem still needs to be handled. Takanohashi get it fixed or there will be consequences.” The company president looking at the fat man running the game who begins to sweat.

“Also look into those kids past. No average teenager wakes up one day and suddenly becomes an assassin. He also nominated himself, as far as I am aware we were only supposed to have 32 contestants so I want to know why these extra two are here. They might have some sort of connection to the company. Look to see if he’s affiliated with any of our enemies or if it was someone here that's trying to mess with our plans. I don’t like surprises like this.” A man standing near the back nods and leaving quickly. The meeting over everyone heads back to their business.

Iida takes his laptop and leaves the room. Clearing his brow of sweat. I don’t want more to die but I’m willing to kill them all if it means an end to this madness. Either Sakamoto will find a bug in the game to ruin it for them. Or it will end so fast that they don’t have time to enjoy it. The entire company hinges on this. If either plan makes this companies first appearance fail… Maybe I’ll be able to live with myself.