Yoshino, Maeda and Chikako stood on the other side of the table. Yoshino took out three packs of laminated cards and put them on the table. He looked at his two partners before turning to Sora and Shiro.
"So, Total Cards is the name of a game I invented. I understand that playing a game that you may not be familiar with may make you feel uncomfortable, but I made an effort to keep it simple."
"As long as you explain the rules clearly, you don't have to worry Yoshino!"
Sora replied with a smile, showing his arrogance and carelessness about the situation. Shiro remained silent but had full confidence in her brother.
"Total Cards, it's a game played with the contents of 54 cards, in short there will be two teams of two players, each receiving 27 cards."
"54 cards? Normally it's 52. Do these packs contain jokers?
"Yes, they do. The distribution of the 27 cards per team will be done after shuffling.
"So far, we're following.
"Once you have all 27 cards in your team, there will be a second shuffle and a second distribution, assigning each person 5 cards.
"5 cards each, out of the 27 cards, that leaves 17 available."
"Yes, those 17 cards from your team will be shuffled with the 17 cards from my team, so there will be 5 cards in each hand and 34 cards in the middle of the table."
"All right, got it."
"Now about the game, the goal is simple, it will be played in turns and rounds, a round lasts 10 turns, the game will be played in 3 rounds. During a round, each player will have two choices: to pick a card from the opponent in front of him or her, or to pick a card from the pile of 34 cards in the middle of the table.
"Do we necessarily have to keep the card we draw or pick?"
"The card you take from an opponent, you must necessarily keep it and give him one. As for the card you draw on the table, you can put it back.
"Very well."
"You can only draw from the cards of the opponent in front of you, the opponent next to you is for your partner, you can't switch targets from one round to another."
"And so, what is the point of this?"
"The game is called Total Cards because it's a game of sums, at the end of the 10 turns ending a round all 4 of you will put your cards on the table. The team whose cards have the highest value wins the round."
"The highest value?"
Kushida who until now was not talking and trying to concentrate on the rules raised an important question.
"Yes, as you know the cards have different levels of importance, the cards with numbers take the numerical value of those numbers, as for the jacks, queens, kings and aces the arrangement is as follows: 11 for the jack, 12 for the queen, 13 for the king and 14 for the ace. As for the jokers, they are worth 15, taking the highest value."
"I understand, so we'll take the value of each of our 5 cards and add them together to make a score."
"Absolutely and the higher score wins the round as I said. A little clarification on the rules: you are obliged to pick from your opponent's hand each round, but you are not obliged to draw a card from the middle pile. So you can do either one action or both actions in the same turn. Also you can't draw the card your opponent took from you, not until the next turn anyway. Finally you can freely shuffle the cards in your hands to mislead your opponents and not have the same cards stolen from you next turn."
"The game is simple, I like it, we agree. Simply, I have a requirement in terms of card shuffling, I want to see you do known techniques, not weird ones."
"I'll do an American shuffle and an Indian shuffle, is that okay?
"That's fine."
"Is everyone ready then?"
"Yes!"
The two young gamers shouted in unison.
"I'll say it again, but you're allowed to whisper to each other to communicate, simply you're not allowed to talk to Kushida-chan for obvious reasons."
"No worries, how about we start the first round?"
Said Sora with the same smile on his face. Yoshino looked at Maeda and Chikako who sat down opposite each other, Maeda was opposite to Shiro and Chikako opposite to Sora. Yoshino began his shuffle and dealt 27 cards to each team, with the cards turned over. He took each pile and shuffled them again, making a new distribution of 5 cards to each player. When all the deals were done, he gathered the remaining cards and without shuffling them, placed them in the middle of the table.
"Kushida-chan?"
"Uh... yes?"
"To find out which team starts drawing their opponent's card first, we'll flip a coin, can you do it? I'll give you the coin."
"Uh... okay."
"It'll be heads for your team and tails for mine."
Kushida stepped forward, picked up the coin and tossed it into the air.
"Tails! Luck is on your side, Sora and Shiro you may begin, remember you are obliged to draw a card from your opponent's hand but not obliged to draw one from the pile on the table."
"Very well."
Sora and Shiro began the game. Shiro had the following cards: 5, 8, 4, 10, J, which gave her a total of 38 points. Sora had the following cards: 3,7,7,10,D which gave him a total of 39 points. Their team had a total of 77 points, and Yoshino's team had a total of 80 points.
The rounds went by rather quickly, Sora was in deep thought. He was sure of one thing: this game was not a simple game of chance, there was a certain cheating technique that was used for sure. If it was only a game of chance then Yoshino didn't need to call two of his friends to play with him, after all if he wins the 100 000 points, he will have to share it with them which is not to his advantage.
Sora was then convinced that Yoshino had rigged the game in order to ensure his victory and for that he needed his two friends. If he could win, then he was sure to get a certain amount of points, which was much better than relying on luck to get 100,000 points.
Sora was sure that he would lose the first round, so he had to use this round to identify the cheating in order to avoid losing the other two.
He observed everything, the cards, the players, he noticed that the two players in front of him were whispering at each turn, which was not normal considering the chance factor of the game, they should not have so many things to communicate about if it was the case.
He then noticed that after each whisper Maeda would immediately pick up a card from Shiro but the reverse was never true, Maeda rarely said anything to Chikako it was rather she who passed on the information.
He remembered the fact that there were three packs of laminated cards. He didn't think it was strange at first because it was considered an anti-cheating measure, but if it turned out that the game was rigged, then those packs might have had some other significance as well.
Kushida had received a notification on her cell phone in the middle of the game and had decided to slip away for a few minutes.
As Sora continued to watch, the turns came and went and the first round reached its end.
"All right, lay down your cards, we'll count them together."
Both teams put down their cards, as expected, something was going on.
"89 points for Sora's team and 95 for Maeda and Chikako's team, you were close, one card could have changed the whole game. No luck for you this time but the game is not over yet!"
"Tell me Yoshino, you told me at the beginning that the boxes of laminated cards were used as an anti-cheat measure but now that I think about it, it would be better if we used those same cards and shuffled them right? It would be much more random, after all the boxes of laminated cards... they all have the same layouts right?"
Sora watched the reactions of each of the players to the utterance of these words, Yoshino had remained rather unmoved and so had Maeda but he noticed some small intricacies about Chikako. It was hard to observe but there were details that indicated she was not so serene.
"We can't Sora. If we do that then we can't guarantee that there's no cheating, after all what's to say that you didn't fold or cross out the actual cards so you could mark the important ones?"
"That's true you're right, I'm stupid for not thinking about it, so much for me."
"No worries, it's hard to see cheating in card games, it's sometimes very subtle so we do everything to avoid it!"
Yoshino said with a big smile, he who was the creator of a whole well-crafted plan. Sora understood what was going on, he didn't have all the subtleties but he knew how the cheating took place.
Meanwhile Kushida came back among them, she had a tray with some drinks and approached the table.
"I brought you some drinks...aaa-"
Kushida as she spoke stumbled to the side and two of the cups toppled over, the drink poured over the tray but several drops also fell on Chikako's outfit.
"I'm really sorry! How clumsy I am, my apologies, I have some wipes in my bag I think, wait!"
Chikako looked irritated and Maeda and Yoshino were confused. She stood up in anger and said in a dry tone.
"Forget it! I'll be right back, I'm going to dry myself quickly in the toilet. Damn, how can you be so clumsy..."
"Are you okay, Kushida?"
Sora asked her. She turned to him with a smile on her lips and reassured him.
"Yes don't worry Sora-kun, I feel so bad for her... sorry Yoshino..."
"Ah, uh... don't worry! She will finish pretty quickly!"
Yoshino still had that same weakness towards Kushida, what an incredible power Kushida had. Sora decided to get up too.
"I'll take this opportunity to make a quick trip to the bathroom then."
.
.
.
Ten minutes later both players were available again and the second round started. Sora and Shiro were suddenly calmer, Sora had talked to Shiro about something before starting the second round, related to his observations.
The turns went by just as fast as in the first round, Yoshino could be seen with a relaxed smile watching the 4 players having fun with each other. Well, "having fun" was a big word, one of the two groups was likely to lose 100,000 points after all.
But this truth didn't worry Sora and Shiro, although it did worry Kushida a lot. The second round ended and Yoshino asked both groups to lay down their cards.
This time Sora and Shiro won their game with a total of 99 points against 90 for Chikako and Maeda's team. Yoshino was very surprised and didn't dare to start the final game right away, he knew that there was a chance that they would lose but the chance was so small that he became anxious. He asked for a break and went to talk to his team a little further away.
"What's going on?!"
"Chikako, I followed your instructions without any change, was there a mistake somewhere?"
"No..."
"Is it possible that there was a mistake in the middle pile?
"No, normally when a player draws a card from the middle pile and puts it back, they always put it under the pile and not on top, so the top of the pile doesn't change in terms of content."
"So what is going on?!"
"My guess is that luck is just smiling on them, but it won't happen twice!"
"Alright fine, let's go back, don't fail, remember the situation we're in."
"Yes!"
They shouted in unison before returning to the gaming table.
"Sorry for the little hiccup, are we all set for the final round?"
"Yes, but I have a small request Yoshino."
Sora raised his hand again with a cocky smile on his face, wanting to add something. Kushida and Shiro looked at him with surprise.
"What is it Sora?"
Asked Yoshino, who didn't like him very much but tried to keep his cool.
"Now that I think about it, there is no guarantee that the team that wins will receive its reward. That's the reason why, I would like us to sign a contract."
"A contract?!"
"Yes, a simple contract in which the loser concedes to the winner the amount he owes him. Moreover, this contract will be more useful to you than to us, after all we don't have to give you the 100,000 points at the end of this game if you win."
"Huh?! What does that mean?!"
"Well yes, what will you do? Complain to the school? Would they really believe you if you told them you didn't get 100,000 points for winning a card game? They'd think that is excessive."
Yoshino swallowed his saliva, it was something he hadn't thought of but he found it very suspicious that Sora was the one offering this deal. Was this guy so thirsty for the answers that Yoshino had? First he offered 100,000 points and now he wanted to turn it into a contract?
Yoshino didn't answer right away but Chikako did.
"Let's do it."
"Huh?"
Yoshino turned to her, surprised. Chikako looked at him with a serious expression.
"You brought me here to earn money may I remind you, if we get ripped off you'll have to pay me out of your own pocket, do you want that?!"
Yoshino's tension was rising, a contract was to their advantage and he also had to make sure he kept his end of the bargain with his own class members. He remained silent for a few seconds but under everyone's gaze, he agreed.
They took a few minutes to write a contract together and sign it. All the members present had signed it. The contract was written in simple words so that no trickery could be included.
With these preparations made, the last round was about to begin and in the middle of all the chaos Sora had a big smile on his face.