Because Otoha had no home, we shared ours. My dad refused to let Otoha sleep on the couch. So we gave her my room, and I shared my dad's room. I didn't mind, and after the first few nights, I could fall asleep even with his loud snoring. My dad got good at rolling away from my kicking.
The three of us were having a watery breakfast when there came a knock from the front door.
I got up and opened it.
It was Shisui.
"Hey, if it isn't my second favorite minion!"
I pouted. "I'm not your minion anymore!"
"Once a minion, always a minion." He held up a big paper box. "You mind delivering this?"
Without waiting, he placed the box in my arms.
"What about Kouta?" I asked, stumbling back.
Kouta was Shisui's actual minion. He was from a year below me in normal school. From what I heard, he was fantastic. He always had a thermos of hot tea ready and called Shisui "Boss" and everything.
"Oh, he's at the station. But this is technically not police work so…" Shisui laughed, shameless. "Anyway, Kurenai is waiting for it at the park."
Furrowing my brows, I looked at the box. It was big and heavy. Before I could say anything, Shisui dangled a bribe in front of me.
My eyes sparkled.
"Eh? Eh?" he teased, keeping it out of reach.
"Okay! Okay! Yes!" I said. I opened my mouth.
Shisui lowered the strawberry. I bit down, getting everything except the stem and Shisui's fingers. In bliss, I chewed.
"Where in the park?" I asked, swallowing.
Shisui said by the picnic area, the main road. There would be no way I'd miss it.
Nodding, I followed his instructions.
When I got to the park, however, I saw it was busier than usual. The picnic area was crowded with hundreds of people! Finding Kurenai might be harder than I thought.
But as I got closer, some of the people waved. It was my friends. I waved back. Then more people waved.
Slowly I realized I knew everyone there. Then I saw the banner.
"Ah, there you are, Ayae!" Kurenai said, taking the box from me. When she opened it, I saw it was a creamy chocolate cake with endless strawberries on top.
"You didn't think we'd let you leave just like that?" Tamaki said, hands at her hips.
My friends all giggled at my reaction. They did everything to keep the party a surprise. It was hard too, with so many people from all over Konoha.
"Yeah, you're way more popular than we thought—!" Dai was saying. Everyone froze at my tears.
Ayame rushed to hand me her handkerchief.
Nodding in thanks, I took it and blew my nose.
Done, I sniffed. "Let's party!" I exclaimed happily, and everyone cheered.
There were many games throughout the day. We played lots of kemari. The Triplets really liked it, chasing and barking as we passed the ball.
Magical Girl Veda was also popular. More and more people wanted in, so we ended up having a massive battle tournament.
I lost in the first round to Ijouna, who then lost the second round to Sakura, one of the girls from the flower shop. Sakura was slow in choosing her cards and bit her lips a lot. Despite being very slow, she went on to win her next match too.
Then there was Shisui and Sasuke, two of the fastest players. Against each other, they both played one card after the next without blinking. When it came time for the final reveal, we learned Shisui had no strategy at all! He was bluffing the whole time. I was unsure he even knew the rules of the game. He lost hilariously bad.
Tamaki turned out to be a star player. She defeated many seasoned players in a row, including Reina. Against Gin, she cornered him so well, Gin would have lost no matter what he played.
Everyone also had eyes on Itachi and Michio, two other good players. When they matched, they went thirty whole rounds in stalemate. Then Michio fell into one of Itachi's trap cards and got KO'ed in a single turn. Sobbing, Michio plopped next to Shisui in the loser's circle.
Finally, there was Ino. Some players won through card combinations and strategy. Others won through bluffing and mind games. Ino was good at both. After she defeated Hana, everyone had bets on her as champion.
But then, Ino lost to Naruto.
Naruto struggled at the game. He could barely read, needing my dad to read for him. He mispronounced half the card names. Ino had the game in the bag until by some miraculous luck, Naruto ended up winning on the last turn. Ino was super, super angry about that.
Then the first semi-final match got announced.
It was going to be the Uchiha brothers, Itachi and Sasuke. Theirs was the most intense game ever. Everyone watched wide-eyed, as counters after counters, traps after traps, went off in a never-ending chain. Sasuke's AVENGING ANGEL had an attack of over 9000 towards the end! I didn't even think it was possible for attacks to be that high!
Itachi forfeited. He had only one card left in his hand and nothing on the field. Not that it mattered. Reina confirmed there was no card in the entire Veda universe that would have a higher attack.
Sasuke couldn't believe he won. Once he recovered, he looked happy enough to scream. He was so happy, he even said thank you when Sakura complimented him.
As the gravekeeper of the match, I cleaned up all the cards for the next game.
I stopped when I picked up Itachi's last card.
CHANGE OF HEART. 0. REVERSAL.
Speechless, I looked up.
Itachi looked away.
Huffing, I shuffled his card in, hiding my smile. I'd keep his secret.
Next, Sakura and Tamaki faced off. They were both cautious, strategic players, trying to guess what the other person was going to do. They also both liked taking their time setting up spells, which caused a lot of suspense.
To everyone's surprise, Sakura won again. She was super clever, damaging herself to trigger her own counter. She ended the game with a one-hit KO.
With boosted confidence, Sakura excitedly went onto semi-finals. She kept on glancing over at Sasuke, who was waiting to play the winner. I could tell she really wanted to face him.
To her dismay, she lost to Naruto immediately after.
Naruto drew a perfect combination on his first turn. How lucky!
So it ended with Naruto and Sasuke in the final round.
Sasuke wasn't too excited. He thought it'd be an easy match, especially after defeating Itachi.
But the match dragged on and he still wasn't winning.
Sasuke frowned.
His eyes narrowed. Naruto countered him perfectly again.
Naruto grinned stupidly, now ahead in the game.
"Wah! Naruto's good!" I said, proud at how fast he improved.
"No, he's not!" Ino hissed. "He's just drawing all the right cards at the right time!"
"No one can be that lucky," Sakura grumbled.
"Hey, who said it's luck?" Naruto said, overhearing. "Maybe I just know the trick."
"And what's that?" Sasuke asked, cold.
Naruto wondered whether or not he should tell Sasuke the secret. In the end, he decided Sasuke needed all the help he could get.
"Okay, fine, listen," Naruto said, beckoning us closer.
We leaned in.
"You have to…" he whispered. "... believe in the cards!"
Sakura and Ino collapsed.
Sasuke's eye twitched.
I stared in awe. I liked that!
"Your strategy is… believing in the cards," Sasuke deadpanned.
Naruto nodded enthusiastically. "Yup! Think hard about the card you want, and it's there!"
Sasuke breathed hard.
Slowly, his anger turned into a smirk.
"If that's how you want to play."
Naruto's eye widened when Sasuke drew the perfect counter and destroyed Naruto's field in one blow. Naruto laughed, then realized it meant he was losing now and got serious.
Naruto drew the exact card to defeat Sasuke's card.
And Sasuke drew the exact card to defeat Naruto's.
It went back and forth like that.
"Wow, the cards can hear your wishes!" I breathed.
Gin facepalmed.
Itachi hid his smile behind his fist.
"Ayae… I think they're just cheating," Tamaki said, sweating.
"EH?!"
"Not intentionally," Itachi said, looking at Naruto. He paused at Sasuke. "Sasuke is cheating."
Apparently, Naruto wanted to win so badly, he was transforming the cards with henge. He didn't realize he was doing that though.
"He can do a henge that young?!" Gin demanded.
I could believe it. Naruto was very smart, after all.
Naruto's cards were all made up now, the names and pictures getting weirder and weirder.
Sasuke hated him. He cheated even more blatantly, stealing cards straight from the gatekeeper and gravekeeper.
They insulted each other.
MASTER SAGE NARUTO got summoned to the field.
Sasuke screamed.
I giggled. It looked like they were having fun.
The match drew the attention of the people not even in the tournament.
I noticed Ise and Shao watching the game from the other side.
Shao saw me and smiled before noticing Itachi. Itachi noticed him back.
They studied each other for a long time. Itachi looked curious, enough to almost step forward, as if drawn by what he saw.
Shao was the opposite. He looked like he was getting sick, even sicker than when he was inside the jail cell. He was about to step back.
But then, the match ended.
"I WIN! I WIN!"
Naruto jumped up and down, arms up in the sky.
"Look dad, I won!" he told my dad. He turned to Shao. "Boss! Boss! Did you see, did you see? Sage training worked! I won!"
Shao raised an eyebrow.
Naruto realized his mistake. He looked sheepish. "Sorry, we. We won."
Sasuke lifted his head, as if he had just risen from the dead.
"I knew it. I knew it!" he hissed, getting up. He banged the table, leaning in. "Who. Who was helping you? It's you, isn't it?" He shot a nasty glare at Shao.
"What! No! That's cheating!" Naruto said, very offended.
Sasuke screamed again. "Oh fess up, loser! If you tell me it's believing in the cards one more time…" he threatened.
"You do have to believe in the cards!" Naruto screamed back.
Then Naruto stopped, realizing something.
"Wait, you haven't been thinking about the card you want… to yourself, have you?"
Based on Sasuke's expression, he was.
Naruto closed his mouth. He held back a snicker. Then he burst out laughing.
"Oh man, you dumb! You thought that would work?!" Before Sasuke could interrupt, Naruto wiped the tear from his eye. "No, you have to think about what you want to things that can help you," he said. "Like Lil Gama."
"Who?"
"My imaginary friend!" Naruto proudly declared. "He's the frog who lives in my tummy!" He paused, stroking his chin. "At least, I think he's a frog. He feels very…" He drew a spiral with his finger. "Hm." He looked up. "Anyway, it can be an animal or tree or whatever, but senjutsu won't work unless they want to help you. And nothing will want to help you if you're like... that. See, I'm trying to help you right now, and you won't listen! You're the worst best friend ever!"
"Since when I was your friend?!"
Naruto didn't blink. "Since now. We just played a game together, didn't we?" He looked around, bored. "Want to get cake?" he asked, beaming.
"I hate sweets."
"Dad made this thing called a pizza," Naruto said, jerking his thumb.
Sasuke liked the pizza. Sasuke was the only one who liked the pizza.
Ayame, who had been one of the people adventurous enough to try, politely suggested maybe less wasabi.
Itachi and I put together couldn't even finish one slice. We both took a bite before dying inside.
The cake brought us back to life. We both sighed at the sugary goodness. I waved to Uncle Tekka and asked if he could pass us two cups of hot tea. I handed one cup to Itachi and kept the other for myself.
"I thought you didn't like tea," Uncle Tekka said, confused but also delighted.
I paused, looking at my cup, then at Itachi, then at my cup again. I smiled. "I don't mind if it goes with something sweet!"
Before the day was over, a group of us played Magical Girl Veda one last time. Only this time, we tried love mode. To this day, Reina had not beaten it. She wasn't aware of anyone who had. Masae said it might be unbeatable.
But I was optimistic. Love mode allowed as many players as you wanted. And we had so many smart people at the table! And adults too! My dad and Ms. Hyuuga and Teacher Iruka and Aunt Mikoto.
We lost on the third turn.
Shisui held up one of his cards, showing it had died.
He laughed nervously while both Sasuke and Naruto yelled in outrage. We took a long time just to set the game up. They couldn't accept it was already over.
Teacher Iruka had to rein the boys in and get them to behave.
My dad said it was okay. We lost, but the game didn't have to be over. We could continue playing and see how well we do.
And so, despite our rough start, we did do very well.
DRUNKEN MECHANIC summoned lots of dangerous cards, but we learned that if you combined him with MERRY TUNE early enough, MUSIC BOX would be summoned instead.
And if you gave that to NOVICE MAGICIAN, she could transform it into TINY DANCER GIRL.
And if you took both TINY DANCER GIRL and LITTLE SOLDIER BOY to meet THE ICE QUEEN, she would gift the players with CHANGE OF HEART!
And if you handed that to RED ARCHER and have her encounter AVENGING ANGEL, he would turn into MERCIFUL DEVIL. He countered the effects of DARK ILLUSIONIST, allowing PRIESTESS OF THE MOON to finally come out.
She was very hard to get in play, but once she was, the game suddenly became very easy. She could summon PEACEFUL NIGHT, which changed all the cards from aggressive to passive. We could then stop worrying about cards damaging each other and focus on fulfilling their win conditions.
We ended up saving all the cards. Well, all except the card Shisui lost in the very beginning.
The card was FIRE JUGGLER. It was a very silly-looking card, especially the picture in love mode. We made a mistake of keeping TIMEBOMB with him instead of CHAIN MISTRESS.
The rules were very unforgiving. Because of that one mistake, we couldn't claim victory. It was super upsetting, enough to make Gin want to eat his cap.
Reina, who had been trying to win love mode for forever, was the most upset. To be so close and still fail… She wept. It might have been better than saving no cards at all!
"That's not true," Riku said, sweating.
My dad agreed. "We didn't win this time. But we did learn something important."
"What's that, daddy?" I asked.
"That the game is winnable."
Masae's eyes widened.
"Proof of concept," Shao whispered, staring at all the cards. He glanced at everyone around the table before his gaze fixed on Itachi, and finally, on me.
My dad nodded. "Right, proof of concept."
Love mode was harder than power mode. But beating it wasn't impossible. In fact, it wasn't even improbable.
The cards had the ability to hurt each other, but it was clear now that they hadn't been designed for that. They had been designed to fill each other's story, to realize each other's dream. They were there to help the players succeed.
We just had to keep trying, that's all.
Gin's eyes burned at that. "Alright, let's go!"
"Next game! Next game!" Naruto agreed.
"Nope! Bedtime!" my dad said, picking him up. "Besides…" My dad looked at me with a soft smile. "Someone has a long trip tomorrow."
Naruto blinked. He peered down at me from our dad's shoulder. "You're leaving, Sister Ayae?"
Ino facepalmed. "What did you think the party was for?"
Naruto didn't know parties needed reasons. He thought people just threw them because they were fun.
"But… you'll be back, right?" Naruto asked me.
I noticed Naruto wasn't the only one looking at me and waiting.
I softened. What a silly question.
"Of course."
