No... There was still one person who believed in me. I couldn’t give up yet. It was Aoki who taught me to always keep trying.
I landed another low kick. Her left leg shrank back... but in exchange, she plowed her fist into my side. I resisted the urge to puke and tossed out another low kick. Again, her leg pulled away... and then she struck back with a high kick. My arms were now too numb to defend me anymore.
Nevertheless, I threw out another low kick.
Murmurs rose up from the crowd as I tried and tried to brute-force my way to victory, slamming my right leg into her left. I heard it connect — and yet her leg didn’t move a muscle. Her expression didn’t shift.
Then she stepped forward to attack... and her face twisted in pain. A moment later, her left leg gave out, almost like she’d tripped. Unable to support her own weight, she went down like a sack of potatoes.
Sure enough, my attacks had landed after all. She had simply tried to act like they didn’t.
I had kicked, kicked, kicked my way to the upper hand. It wasn’t the coolest or most efficient strategy — if anything, it was downright boring, and to some, it might have even looked like cheating. But sparring wasn’t about looking cool all the time.
The battle, however, wasn’t over yet. Right before Chinatsu’s knees touched the ground, she sprang back up again. The look in her eyes said I’m not going down here. I’ve earned this win.
Once your leg gives out, it takes a lot to summon your strength again. She was truly tough, and part of me was terrified to think of what she might hit me with if I failed to finish her off. Not only that, but she was keeping her stance low, so she’d be able to block pretty much any of my normal attacks... and in terms of raw strength, she had the advantage...
So I jumped again.
I put my left foot on her right knee like I was using it as a springboard.
This caught her entirely off-guard. She hadn’t predicted what would happen next.
Pressing down hard with my left foot, I swung my right foot up toward the sky... toward her jaw.
This move was called a shining wizard, popularized by Yaegashi Taichi’s favorite spectator sport, pro wrestling. He’d taught me about it a while ago when we watched one of his DVDs together... and today, I finally got to try it out.
A shining high kick.
Honestly, nine times out of ten, Chinatsu could probably beat me handily. She hadn’t wasted her life. But I hadn’t wasted mine, either. And this was proof of that.
My right foot connected with her jaw, sending her straight to dreamland. KO.
Winner: Kiriyama Yui/Aoki Yoshifumi
Total Flowers: 10
✦ ✦ ✦
Out of nowhere, the opportunity I had waited for finally manifested itself.
Given their talents, I knew they would make it pretty far in this tournament. Thus, as long as we kept winning, I was confident we’d run into each other eventually... and yet when the moment finally came, I wasn’t quite expecting it.
With this, we had the right to challenge our senpai. To fight them head-on.
“You guys should join in too,” Inaba Himeko had called out to us as we passed by. Turns out, they had been looking for opponents.
And so we ended up in a battle against the pair I wanted to beat most of all: Inaba Himeko and Yaegashi Taichi. I couldn’t have asked for more.
Ever since we joined the Cultural Research Club, Enjouji and I had tried our best to be like our senpai. It was our dream to be on their level. Not that we wanted to be exactly like them, but... we wanted to scratch the surface, ideally before they left the club for good. Otherwise that tangible goal would fade into illusion and we’d never get another chance to seize it.
To make matters worse, we would soon be the oldest students in the club. What would our kouhai think if the club was run by a couple of losers who couldn’t compete with their forerunners?
We needed to beat them, just once.
Six desks were pushed up against each other to create a long table. Sitting on my desk was a pile of playing cards — the hand I was dealt.
On my left was Enjouji. Next to her was Inaba Himeko, then Yaegashi Taichi, then Setouchi Kaoru, then Shiroyama Shouto. This was yet another three-way battle.
At first the four of them were going to battle each other, but every time Inaba suggested a battle format, Setouchi staunchly refused, claiming Inaba was “clearly plotting something!” (It was the right call, in my opinion.) Thus, they drew a challenge from the Battle Box: Pair Poker. Poker, however, was best played in a large group... and right as they were debating whether to redraw, Enjouji and I happened to walk by.
So there I was, sitting at a desk and waiting to receive the rest of my cards.
Before the battle, I had told Enjouji in no uncertain terms that I wanted to win. If we could win this, we would prove to ourselves that we were just as good as our senpai... or at least, we could be. And with that confidence, we would have the strength to carve our own path forward.
That, and the idea of finally beating them was just really appealing on its own.
“I already know the rules, but would anyone else like a refresher?” asked Setouchi once she finished dealing out the cards. Her short hair gave her a no-nonsense vibe, but the piercings glittering in her ears suggested otherwise.
“Y-Yes, please! If you could explain the basics — ack!” As Enjouji raised her hand, she nearly dropped her cards. Please get it together.
“Okay, I’ll explain it,” said Taichi. “Where would you like me to start?”
“The very beginning... Um, but I’d prefer to ask someone else. If you’re the one explaining it, I won’t be able to concentrate. Because of your voice.”
“Alright then. I guess someone else will have to do it.” Even Taichi had grown numb to her bizarre voice fetish.
“The goal is to create combinations of cards, known as a ‘hand,’ using the ones you’re dealt. Make a strong hand, and you’ll win all the chips that were bet on that round. Rinse and repeat,” explained Shiroyama, a friendly and charming third-year who struck me as the popular type.
He was in the jazz band; and incidentally, he and Setouchi were dating. Since Taichi and Inaba were also a couple, that made me and Enjouji... No, no, no way. But if anyone saw us right now, they might mistakenly think we were together, too.
“First, each participant’s gotta bet some chips. This is called an ante,” Shiroyama continued as he set two chips in the center of the table with a clack. “Next, you look at your five cards and decide whether to raise your bet, bet the same as everyone else, or drop out. If you stay in, you have to match your bet to everyone else’s.”
Enjouji nodded pensively as she listened.
“Once everyone’s agreed on the amount we want to bet, you have the chance to discard whatever cards you don’t want and draw an equal amount of new cards to replace them. Then you look at your new hand and decide if you want to raise your bet. Or if you feel like you probably won’t win, you can decide to drop out.”
“I see. So it takes some strategy.”
“The participants who don’t drop out all show each other their cards, and the person with the strongest hand gets all the chips in the pot. Here’s a table of all the different hands in order of strongest to weakest.”
So far, these rules were in line with regular five draw poker.
“But in our case, we also have the pair element. So every time you want to decide whether to raise your bet or drop out, you have to do so as a pair. Then each pair will play all ten of their cards at once. So you never know what cards might actually come in handy.”
“Sounds like there’s a lot of potential for strong hands and dramatic comebacks,” Taichi mused.
With these special rules, the element of chance would play an even greater role than usual. Perhaps Enjouji’s beginner’s luck would come in clutch.
“Each pair gets 50 chips to start with; the pair that has the most chips at the end of the time limit wins. Or, if the other players run out of chips completely, the game will end. Any other questions?”
“Let’s set a rule that players aren’t allowed to show their cards to their partner under any circumstances,” Inaba added. You’d think I’d be used to her voice by now, and yet it made me tense. “And as I’m sure we can agree, any team caught cheating will lose automatically.”