I put three one-million yen chips on all of the spaces. Kamagusu is clearly angry about this, but Nishinotouin motions her to calm down.

Just as I place the last set of three chips, Kamagusu says the time is up. She lifts the cup.

"Death on 1, 3, 13, and 24."

I freeze. I look at Nishinotouin's board and realize that her board has none of those squares. I just lost 120 million yen.

I give Nishinotouin ninety of the one-million yen chips and three of the ten-million yen chips and ask her if we can use 30 million yen this time.

Kamagusu adds the swords back into the cup and motions us to continue betting. I perform my usual betting strategy, but Kamagusu doesn't seem perturbed by this.

"The time is up. I am revealing the swords. Death on 2 and 10."

This time, both Nishinotouin and I have bets on two, however Nishinotouin had a ten-million yen chip on 10, whereas I had a one-million yen chip on 2 and 10. This totals out to 240 million yen to me. However, I'm not focusing on the money.

"Congratulations, Kokoro-san," Nishinotouin tells me as she hands me 24 ten-million yen chips. "Your strategy is working quite well for you. I believe that puts you at a 150 million yen gain from the start of this match."

"Thank you, Nishinotouin-san." I stare intently at the circular board with the slits. "Hey Kamagusu-san. I was wondering if I could pull the swords out of the slits this time around."

She already removed one of the swords, but says it's fine if I can take the second one out. As I pull the sword out, I can't help but notice a slight resistance while pulling the miniature, metallic sword out of its groove in the board. This resistance is a fair bit greater than the normal gravity of the sword.

"Let's start the next round," Nishinotouin demands. "Let's do 120 million this time."

"I am putting in the swords. You have ten seconds to bet. Let Round 4 begin!"

I put four chips on each space, which no one seems to mind. I barely have enough time to fill all the spaces before Kamagusu tells us to stop betting.

"I am now revealing the swords. Death on 4."

Nishinotouin doesn't have any chips on 4. In fact, I didn't even notice how she had all of her chips on one spot until after the swords were revealed!

I give her twelve ten-million yen chips. That puts me right about where I began, with a total of 730 million yen.

"Nishinotouin-san," I ask, tenderly.

"Yes, Kokoro-san?"

"How can you live with being such a cheating bastard?"