Author's Note:
Hey everyone! It's been a while! There were a lot of problems I had to tackle with writing this chapter, many of which involved formatting it and figuring out how to get it just the way I wanted it. It caused there to be a longer delay than normal between chapter releases, but finally, we're here! Thank you all for your patience!
For the best reading experience, please adjust your font size until the bottom images are clearly legible:
[🀫🀔🀚🀆🀄]
~ STAGE 11: Open The Game! ~
[START]
Two years. Luka had spent two whole years learning how to fight so that she could defend herself if the situation came to it. Two entire years, and now she was playing a gambling match.
She wondered if this was how English majors felt. Depending on how this went, maybe she'd walk out of this with crippling debt, too—really complete the set. Assuming she lived that long.
"Something wrong?" Sannyo mocked. The owner of the club, likely on sheer whim, had given Luka the chance to decide the game they were going to play. Luka could tell she was smirking behind that golden fan of hers, positively lapping up her panic. Was this what a youkai feeding off the fear of a human looked like? "Let me guess, having some trouble making up your mind?"
"Sorry miss, it's just… such a hard choice..." Luka spoke dramatically, her hand covering her mouth. "I mean, the chance to play a game with someone of your status, it's so… much. It's just so difficult for me to think straight!"
She imagined she was about as successful hiding her fear as Sannyo was hiding that crappy smile.
Luka quietly grumbled into her palm. Of all the things to be forced into, she really wished it hadn't been gambling. She'd made a habit of complaining about her luck, and it made people assume she was either just cynical or modest. So people would challenge her to games of luck, either in misguided attempts to cheer her up or genuine curiosity.
For example, a cheery, social girl like Marisa suggesting that she play first-to-10 rock-paper-scissors against Reimu out of curiosity. Just purely random play, with no strategy behind it.
Reimu v. Luka. Final score: 10 - 0.
"Hehe, yeah, that was kind of a low blow to use Reimu. Okay, now try me!"
Marisa v. Luka. Final score: 10 - 0.
"... E-Er, okay, how about another 10?"
Marisa v. Luka (2). Final score: 20 - 0.
"Again! A-Again!"
Marisa v. Luka (Stopped counting). Final score: 50 - 0.
"... Did you piss off an evil spirit in a past life or something?"
She was pretty sure she didn't. Either way, her luck was horrible. Forcing her to literally gamble her life in a casino game just felt like the punchline to her short joke of a life.
For a brief moment, Luka considered bluffing. Make up some sort of story, maybe make a sneaky run 'to the bathroom', get out of the building? She shot a glance back at Sannyo, locking eyes with her. A flick, and her fan closed; a sharp, witch-like grin.
(… I'm going to die here. They're going to find what's left of my corpse packed in a half-eaten lunch box floating downstream—)
Luka bit into her lower lip. Hard.
She had to get a grip. Stop whining. If she kept her calm, there had to be some kind of solution. Some way out of this. She didn't waste all that time in Gensokyo, letting her dad wonder if his daughter was even still alive, just to end up actually dying in a moldy old casino of all places. Her life wasn't ending on such an anticlimactic note.
(Calm down. Relax your breathing. Let your thoughts flow…)
The challenge was a game. If playing by pure luck would get her killed, then she needed to pick something that relied less on it. And it had to be something Sannyo had here and that they both knew how to play. Luka doubted the youkai would patiently sit down and listen to her explain how chess worked while she carved out pieces.
Luka started digging. She'd played a few different games with her dad and a few regulars back home. She needed a Japanese game; something she still knew how to play, and that she could stand a decent chance of 'winning' in some fashion. Of course, it wasn't easy to think of an answer. How was she supposed to come up with any ideas with an entire gambling den of youkai sitting just outside of the room?
(… … … Wait, that's it!)
"Hey." Luka turned to Sannyo. "Do you have mahjong tiles around here?"
"Oh?" Sannyo looked intrigued. "A young lady of more modern tastes, how appropriate. Yes, those are a recent addition to our tables."
"Good. Let's get those out. We're playing riichi mahjong."
This was a stupid plan.
Riichi mahjong really wasn't her strongest pick. She knew the basic rules and had an okay memory of the hands, but she'd only ever played it once or twice with her dad and some of his friends.
But. She'd picked it anyway, and it was for a reason. Two, actually, both of whom had joined them in the back room at the newly set-up mahjong table.
"Wow, playing with the owner… Talk about a lucky chance!" A short girl wearing what looked like camo fatigues and a military cap seated herself at the North of the table.
"It's a little surprising. Hehehe…" A girl in a tidy white blouse, with tiny black wings peeking from the back, claimed the South.
A kappa and a tengu. Though she initially thought of them as part of the danger against her, Luka realized these two were actually her lifeline.
Riichi mahjong was a four-player game. Though some variants existed with fewer players, it was easier to come to an agreement on the rules if they followed the standard format. So, after some 'judicious' scouting, Luka pulled these two into the back room to fill in the rest of their table. She made sure to leave no room to let Sannyo pick—there was no way she was risking that old con.
Neither she nor Sannyo informed them of the stakes. They only knew that they had been invited to participate in a very special game involving the owner. It was all in the interest of keeping the game's intent 'pure', which Sannyo seemed to agree with. It seemed like Sannyo really was being honest about just playing a simple game to pass the time. For now, it seemed like the whims of youkai were working in Luka's favor…
Luka snuck a glance at both of the new players. For the time being, neither of them seemed to be eyeing her funny or sniffing at her. They probably didn't smell anything human on her, or if they did, they were ignoring it.
Sannyo took her seat at the East. "Before we start, shall we review the rules of this game one final time?"
Luka nodded. "I was just about to ask." It wouldn't hurt to re-clarify everything. She didn't want to leave room for Sannyo to suddenly toss in some new rule in the middle of the game, under the guise of 'oh, well I thought you understood~'. (Eugh, now she was thinking about Yukari again.)
Riichi mahjong was a game all about forming hands of tiles. To those familiar with games like poker or rummy, the idea was similar. Players shuffled and dealt around a set of tiles split into different suits, each player taking turns on who took the role of 'dealer'. Once the tiles were in their hands, all four players would race to be the first to form a 'hand'—a group of 14 tiles that fit a legal pattern—by drawing and discarding tiles, one-at-a-time.
Each time someone completed a hand, that was the end of the round. The winner who completed their hand would gain points in accordance to their hand, and the table would move to the next round. Both Luka and Sannyo agreed to play the tonpuusen format, so the entire game would only last 4 rounds total. 4 chances to complete a hand first and earn enough points to win.
"Just so it's easier to decide," Luka said. "I say we should judge the winner of our contest based on who scores higher than the other in the final rankings. Is that fine with you?" (Come on, make this a little easier for me…)
"Mm, I can agree to that." Sannyo nodded. (Nice!)
Riichi mahjong wasn't a zero-sum game. While players wagered/took points from one another, placements were always under a sort of time limit imposed by the total number of rounds. So this battle was going to be a race.
All Luka needed to know was that, once the 4th round was over, she needed to have more points than Sannyo.
And that was why she'd picked riichi mahjong, and made sure to pick the two other players she had. In a free-for-all game, everyone naturally would play to maximize their own chances of winning. Youkai likely weren't all that different.
So, Luka's plan was imperfect, but simple: let the youkai fight amongst each other while she carefully snuck a spot above Sannyo.
Again. She didn't need to be in 1st to win, as per their agreement. She just needed to score higher than Sannyo. That was all.
"Ah, if I may," Sannyo leaned forward. "I'd like to just clarify one small thing before we start."
Luka didn't like that smirk. "What's that?"
"Will we both be playing this to the fullest of our abilities?" Sannyo almost seemed to be sneering. "Or, shall this just be a casual game?"
… … … A casual game. For her life.
"Are you making fun of me?" Luke asked, extremely sincerely. To the other two, it probably sounded like Sannyo'd wounded her pride. "Of course I'll be playing to the 'fullest of my ability'. You can take it as easy as you want, I don't care."
"I'm just making sure we're all in agreement." Sannyo smiled.
With that, Luka finally took the West seat—
[E]Sannyo
[S]Tengu Kappa[N]
Luka[W]
… It felt a bit weird that the directions didn't match her visual for a compass. Supposedly, that came from the fact that, in Chinese, the directions were ordered 'East, South, West, North'. So turns in mahjong were organized in that fashion: a simple counter-clockwise rotation starting from the 'East'.
With each player claiming the cardinal winds, the clatter of shuffling tiles filled her ears. It brought back memories of home. Casual evenings with family, friends, and acquaintances, huddled around a table in the back room of the old pub. She kept forgetting what hands were what. Every time, she'd have to ask her dad, the esoteric weirdo who had taught her the game in the first place.
The smell of smoke again, and she was back in Sannyo's casino. Shuffling tiles and setting up with three people who would happily split her corpse up for boxed lunches. A bunch of bamboo-backed blocks scattered across a green-colored battlefield; ornate bricks to build a wall they were all going to fight over. Four winds, four generals—her true opponent, Sannyo, almost seeming to tower over all of them.
Click, click, clack. The tiles stacked into a two-tile-tall square wall, each side facing one of the players. Hidden behind each, a small stack of coins. To the others, it was just a measure of their score. To Luka, those coins were her very life. 30 coins, 1,000 points each.
Rankings (East 1, Round 1):
1st - [East] Sannyo: 30000 pts
1st - [South] Tengu: 30000 pts
1st - [West] Luka: 30000 pts
1st - [North] Kappa: 30000 pts
↙️East
↘️South North↖️
West↗️
Time to play.
With the wall set, Sannyo gently cut loose a small section of tiles from her side—the "dead wall"—and separated it from the larger portion of the wall. Then, with careful motions, everyone took tiles from the wall and set them facedown, each player getting 13 tiles total.
Right, the tiles themselves. If she continued the poker comparison from before, the square 'wall' of tiles could be compared to a deck of cards. If she remembered correctly, it followed similar ideas to normal playing cards, too.
Normal tiles were numbered 1-9, split into 3 suits:
Characters —
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
Bamboos —
[🀐 🀑 🀒 🀓 🀔 🀕 🀖 🀗 🀘]
Dots —
[🀙 🀚 🀛 🀜 🀝 🀞 🀟 🀠 🀡]
After that, there were the 'honor' tiles, which were special tiles sort of like the 'Kings/Queens/Jacks' set in traditional playing cards. Those were:
Winds (East, South, West, and North respectively) —
[E] [S] [W] [N]
Dragons (White, Green, Red) —
[🀆 🀅 🀄]
(Oh, good, the translation spell worked on the Wind and Character tiles. That could've gotten messy.)
Each tile had 4 copies in it. Counting them in total, that made for 136 tiles.
Once the facedown tiles were dealt to everyone, Sannyo flicked a single tile on the dead wall upright:
[🀆🀫🀫🀫🀫]
[🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫]
Right, the dora tile. Luka didn't really understand dora all that well, only that it was a modifier for bonus points. Basically, any tile that came after that tile in its suit was worth bonus points if it was in someone's winning hand. Something like that.
Speaking of hands. With the dora reveal, everyone started flipping their 13 tiles up to look at what they had. Luka did the same—
[🀚🀚🀛🀜🀝🀟🀡[2][4][5][N]🀄🀅]
… This was a decent starting hand, wasn't it?
There were plenty of hands in riichi mahjong to go for—too many for her to remember all at once—but the basic principles of the game were structured around forming sequences and triplets, both referred to as 'melds'. (Sequences being any three tiles that followed their numerical order, triplets being self-explanatory.)
Every turn, they'd draw a tile, making their hand 14 tiles. To form a winning hand, they actually needed 14 total: typically 4 melds of 3 tiles each, followed by a pair of matching tiles. Or in the case of special hands, whatever made up those conditions. No matter what collection of tiles a player assembled, though, they needed to fulfill a specific condition:
They needed a yaku. Scary terminology aside, yaku were just specific formations or combinations of melds that made the hand count as a legal winning hand.
Looking back at her hand, Luka tried to think of what yaku she could fulfill. There was 'pure sequences' using her Dot tiles, maybe. A series of melds going from 1-3, 4-6, then 7-9, followed by any other meld and a pair. That was the first thing she could start trying to build.
Glancing up from her tiles, Luka saw the other players silently reviewing their own hands and each other. Each pair of eyes studying the competition, trying to pick up on any kind of tell from their opponents.
With the exception of one of them: Sannyo. She only watched Luka, only seeming to pay the other players a passing glance worth of attention. Drawing a tile from the wall, she set it next to her hand of tiles and scanned them over with her eyes. Showing no real emotion, Sannyo carefully plucked one from her hand, and set it at the center of the table:
[🀔]
This was the flow of riichi mahjong: drawing tiles from the wall, and if you didn't have a completed hand, discarding one and moving to the next player's turn.
There was another aspect, however…
Everyone at the table studied the tile, but no one made any moves on it. The turn cycled to Sannyo's right—the tengu at the South. Seeming to also show no interest in the tile, she drew from the wall and looked at her hand. Then, she picked a tile and set it forward:
[🀞]
There!
"Chi!" Luka called.
This was the other aspect of riichi mahjong: 'calls'. Whenever a player discarded a tile, there was a brief moment where players could make a call to claim the discarded tile for a meld that would go in their own hand. Chi was the term for a call that would make a sequence.
It was only possible to make the call on discards that came from the caller's left side, so the possibility of that call being made looked something like:
Sannyo↘️
↗️Tengu Kappa↙️
↖️Luka
Suppressing a smirk, Luka slid the tile over to her side like it was a fresh and eager military recruit. She separated out the two other tiles that completed the sequence, before turning them over and revealing them to the other players.
[🀜🀝🀞]
Those were the rules. When someone made a call like that, they 'opened' their hand, revealing to the other players the specific meld they were forming. It changed the hand's scoring, among other things, and unfortunately gave the other players a little more information about what the caller was going for.
It was normally kind of a bad idea to call recklessly, for that reason. Smart players could piece together what kind of hand she was going for based on her calls, and the more calls she made, the more obvious it'd become. In a proper full-length game, it would've been like running around with a big sign saying "Hey everyone, look at what I'm going for!" every call. Eventually people would stop discarding the tiles that completed your hand, so it wasn't good for long-term play.
But in tonpuusen, where the game length was cut in half? Building a hand quickly was the entire point. Not to mention, she wasn't in this to win it. If she won an early hand and got a decent lead, it'd go a long way in helping her beat Sannyo.
Another rule involving calls: once one was made, the turn immediately moved to the caller's side. Luka looked back at her hand:
[🀜🀝🀞 / 🀚🀚🀛🀟🀡[2][4][5][N]🀄🀅]
She was still a little ways off from finishing her hand… Two more sequences with the 1-3 and 6-9, then she needed another meld and a pair. Maybe she could make a sequence meld using the Character tiles.
Either way, she needed to discard something. Warily, she glanced at the Green Dragon tile. Like she'd remembered earlier, the bonus pointtiles were what came after the dora tile. So, if the White Dragon was dora, then the Green Dragon was the bonus tile. If that was the case, holding onto it wasn't a bad idea. If she was lucky, she might form a pair with it, and that would definitely help her hand out.
With a nod, she picked the North tile and discarded it. No one called it, and the turn proceeded to the kappa of the North. She drew, looked over her tiles, discarded something no one seemed to be interested in, and the turns restarted their cycle.
So continued the game for another cycle. Luka'd gotten the table's attention; no one was tossing out any tiles she wanted.
[🀜🀝🀞 / 🀚🀚🀛🀟🀡[1][2][4][5]🀅]
She still wasn't all that much closer to a winning hand, and the game had gone on for a bit… What to do now?
"Chi."
The word cut into Luka's thoughts, and it was from the one voice she didn't want to hear it from. Looking across the table, Luka saw Sannyo calmly taking a discard from the kappa and making a meld from it:
[[1][2][3] / 🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫]
A sequence… Could Sannyo be going for a similar sort of hand as her? Luka looked at the [4], and [6] in her hand. If that was the case…
Chances are, she'll be waiting for them to see if they're in the wall. So, if I hold onto these for now, I might be able to make her wait for a bit. Maybe make her waste time and swap hands…
It wasn't like they were totally useless, either. If she could use them for her spare meld, it'd pay off twofold.
Studying her hand, Sannyo discarded another tile: [🀆]. With a sigh, she pulled out her pipe and began to smoke.
—Wait. She was smoking?
"Hey," Luka started to protest.
As if expecting a response, Sannyo locked eyes with her. As did the entire table, for some reason. "Hm? Is something the matter?"
"—" The words caught in Luka's throat. Cautiously, she scanned the table, looking for some sign the smoke was doing something. Nothing.
It was just a hunch earlier, that the smoke had something to do with her ability. But still, Luka felt like there was something off about it. Would calling it out be the best play? Then again, her opponent was the owner of a gambling den that played host to an entire building's worth of youkai…
"... I'm curious. What's your ability, exactly?" Luka asked.
It might've been a bit clumsy, but if she could get her talking…
Playing with the pipe between her fingers, Sannyo's lips curled into a smirk. "Much like a name, it's impolite to ask something like that without first giving your own."
"I don't have an ability." Luka replied flatly.
An eyebrow raise. "—That so?" Sannyo's smirk darkened. "Funny, I also don't have an ability. What are the odds?"
Ah, crap. She thought she was lying. To be fair, it wasn't an unreasonable thought; everyone in Gensokyo seemed to have some kind of ability. Luka didn't really understand why, but even after two years had passed, she had yet to awaken to whatever secret superpower she was supposed to have. Frankly, she could barely fire danmaku and couldn't even fly; she didn't feel all that encouraged to dive into the matter.
Luka started to open her mouth, a desperate attempt to set the record straight, but she sensed glares on her. Her small talk was grinding the pace of the game to a halt, and the other two players were getting impatient. Unwillingly, Luka backed down before she drew aggro from the whole table.
She'd heard all she needed, anyway. The way Sannyo denied the question carried an implication: she was using her ability. What exactly it was remained a mystery to Luka, but it was in play somehow. The smoke didn't seem to be doing anything, which made Luka a little uncertain. Either way… Luka cupped her hands around her tiles defensively.
With her interruption over, the tengu's turn came. Seeing the dragon tile must have spooked the tengu, since after a brief moment of consideration, she tossed another tile:
[🀆]
Another White Dragon. That removed them from the potential melds. It wasn't something Luka could use, anyways. No one claimed it, and the turn went to her. Another draw, let's see…
[🀜🀝🀞 / 🀚🀚🀛🀟🀡[1][2][4][5][6]🀅]
Perfect. That [6] gave her a random meld to fit that part of her hand. For now, she'd discard the [1], since that no longer served a purpose. She'd discard the [2] the next time her turn rolled around.
As soon as the tile hit the table, she felt a pair of eyes studying her. Sannyo's eyes. Piercing right through her, it was like a pressure building on Luka's person. What was she looking for?
She tried to ignore it at first. To just let it go. It wasn't that weird, for her to be studying Luka so closely in a game like this. But it just kept going. Even after the kappa discarded her next tile and the turn went back to Sannyo, she kept staring at Luka. Just Luka, not even the other competitors. Unblinking, her pipe still in her hands. It was starting to get uncomfortable.
"See something you like?" Luka protectively shielded her tiles. It felt like the smoke was starting to fold around her, which made her even more wary. "Ogle me all you want, but I'm not into chain-smokers." Or women trying to kill her; she wasn't that desperate."
Just for a moment, Sannyo's brow raised. Just a little, to the point Luka almost didn't notice it. What? Was Luka's response somehow strange? Was the whole game actually a weird pretense for something? (If so, screw the risks, Luka was booking it before the afternoon turned into something else entirely.)
"Ah, nothing." And just like nothing had happened, Sannyo slipped back to her normal confident composure. "Let's see…"
Luka narrowed her eyes, unsure what the point of that little interaction was. She was so focused on dissecting it, that she didn't notice the cloud of nicotine miasma slowly flowing all around the table.
The game continued as normal. The wall was starting to run out of tiles, and if it ran out before any of them finished their hand, the round would end by default. That wasn't ideal, but it probably wasn't an issue. Luka, at the very least, was almost finished with her own hand:
[🀜🀝🀞 / 🀙🀚🀚🀛🀟🀡[4][5][6]🀅]
She just needed a few more tiles… Just a little longer. If she was really lucky, she might even draw the other Green Dragon and make a pair.
The turn cycled over to the kappa, who seemed a little frustrated. She probably wasn't very close to having a finished hand. After staring at her tiles a little disappointedly, she slowly reached for one…
*Fuuu…*
(Hm? What was what?)
… Then stopped. Her eyes shifted to another, and a confident smirk formed on her face. Gripping it, she set it forward with a resolute clack!—
[9]
"Chi." Said Sannyo, with no hesitation nor seeming surprise.
[[7][8][9] [1][2][3] / 🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫]
Just like Luka thought, she was going for pure sequences, too…!
"Agh!" The kappa must've only just realized it, gently smacking her forehead and readjusting her gap. "Crap…"
Luka could only stare at her with a hint of disbelief as Sannyo went to discard her tile. Really? You didn't think there was a risk of that happening?
That complicated things. If Sannyo was at two called melds this late into the game, there was no telling how close she was to winning. She likely had a lot more hidden in her hand than what she was showing.
If that was the case, Luka needed to close her hand out. Fast.
The tengu's turn came and went. She tried to hide it, but Luka saw frustration building on the tengu's face as well. She probably wasn't any closer to finishing her hand than the kappa was.
Great. Not a fantastic start to this daring little plan of mine…
The moment the tengu's discard hit the table, there was a brief flicker of dissatisfaction on Sannyo's face. She was waiting for something. If that was the case, and if her hand was almost complete, then…
Luka drew her next tile, hopeful it'd give her something to use.
[🀜🀝🀞 / 🀙🀚🀚🀛🀟🀡[4][5][6]🀅🀒]
Of course. Her luck was never going to make anything easy for her.
She'd need to discard something. And she needed to be mindful about what it was. There were more calls than chi that she needed to worry about…
*... Fuu— … *
—Her head was starting to feel foggy. The pressure must've been getting to her.
Hazily, her eyes drifted to the [🀅].
That tile… It was a dora tile, right? This round had been going for a while, and the others had yet to be drawn. So, it was unlikely she was going to draw the rest. In other words, it was little more than dead weight clogging up her hand. And the longer she held onto it, the more likely someone else would pull the rest.
And if that happened… If she took too long, and that call was made on her…
Right… She needed to discard it now. She needed to give up on that wait. To just put her hands on the tile, and…
… and…
"—!"
Luka slapped herself across the face. Full-force, nearly throwing herself out of her chair.
(Stop, you dumbass!) Her conscious, currently screaming mind flowed back into clarity. (What kind of backwards logic are you following? That situation I just described is EXACTLY why I DON'T want to discard this thing!)
"H-Hey, is something wrong with you?"
Back in reality, Luka realized the others were understandably looking at her like a person who'd just slapped herself for no reason. The tengu, who had called out to her, regarded her with a look of mild concern and genuine bewilderment, while the kappa eyed her with seeming irritation; probably at her yet again interrupting the game with her antics.
… And then there was Sannyo. Wearing an expression Luka hadn't seen the entire game, her eyes were wide, with an emotion Luka almost dared to call surprise. Was she surprised at Luka having a breakdown at the table? It must've not been a very intense shock, as it only took her a few seconds to regather her composure.
"Losing your calm so quickly, Miss East? we've only just begun…" Sannyo's serene tone was pitying in that mocking way, like she was talking down to a manic chihuahua losing its mind on a road trip.
"Tch." (Yeah, yeah, screw you too.) "Just dozing off a little. Had to wake myself up." Luka rubbed her eyes. Where did that fog come from, anyways? How stressed out was she?
With her mind cleared, she already knew the obvious thing to discard. That look in Sannyo's eyes from before was way too dangerous to ignore. Even if she couldn't win this hand, the idea was to avoid getting hit with a bad call. Even worse if it risked Sannyo finishing her hand.
(Pon…)
The second kind of call—pon—was similar to chi. The major differences were that it involved completing a triplet, and it could be called on anyone, not just the player to the caller's left. Meaning even Luka was at risk of that kind of call. Everyone in the game was.
Luka snuck a glance at Sannyo. Just as she thought, she was watching her discard intently. Seeing that, Luka firmly grabbed a tile and passed it forward—
[🀒]
Sannyo's eyes narrowed. Her hunch was right; Sannyo was looking for something. Fortunately, that wasn't it, nor was it something anyone else needed. The turn cycled back to the kappa, who regarded her own tiles with a bit of hesitation.
"Hm…" The diminutive youkai gently played with a tile…
*Fuuu…*
(Hey, there it is again…)
And then, with some measure of unease, nudged it forward.
[🀅]
(Hm? Wait, that's—)
"Well, how unfortunate. Ron."
It was only one word, but two calls happened at once. Gripping the row of tiles in front of her, Sannyo flipped her hand over; like an enemy general revealing her ingenious flanking maneuver—
[🀅 🀅🀅 [1][2][3][7][8][9] / 🀐🀐 🀗🀗🀗]
It wasn't a pure straight, but it was still a valid one: a dragon triplet. Just having a triplet of dragon tiles was enough to form a yaku. It was why discarding dragons was so dangerous, especially in the late game.
A pon—a triplet call, just like she'd thought. But it'd come packaged with another: a ron.
To summarize it: if chi and pon were general calls that could be made at any point of the game to make a meld, then ron was a declaration of victory. Only possible if you were one tile away from completing your hand, it allowed a player to claim a discarded tile to complete their hand. Like pon, it could be made on any fool's hasty discard. The only way to avoid it was to not discard the tile; to not be the idiot nail who stuck their head out and got hammered down.
"Gah…!" Naturally, the idiot in-question wasn't too happy. "Let's see, that's yakuhai, with—one, two, three dora…"
"11,600 points, to be exact." Sannyo smiled.
The number felt like ice dumping in Luka's stomach. To the kappa, it was just a number. A stack of coins to pass over to the winner. But to Luka, the metallic clattering sounded like the beginnings of a death knell.
With that hand's end, the battlefield settled. The tiles shuffled anew, and the winds shifted upon the second round—
Rankings (East 2, Round 2):
1st - [North] Sannyo: 41600 pts
2nd - [East] Tengu: 30000 pts
2nd - [South] Luka: 30000 pts
3rd - [West] Kappa: 18400 pts
↙️East
↘️South North↖️
West↗️
Luka'd avoided the worst outcome for now. But this really wasn't ideal…
"Hm-hm." Sannyo hummed in her direction. "Quite impressive."
Luka stopped shuffling for a second. "What?"
"I thought you weren't playing at all. Actually, I was considering going a little easier on you after the first hand for a moment. To try and keep things interesting." Luka couldn't tell if that was a look of genuine respect or not on Sannyo's face. "But it seems like you really do understand the rules, honored guest."
"?" Luka could not get a read on this woman. Was she being sarcastic? "I guess so? I just avoided getting called on ron. It's not some masterful play."
"Is that so…?" Sannyo's expression intensified, just a little. It felt like she was also trying to get a read on Luka, though Luka didn't really understand what it was Sannyo thought she was hiding. Then, with what sounded like sincere curiosity, "In that case, I look forward to seeing what happens when you actually start playing."
Something was off. But Luka didn't have time to ponder it; she was just going to roll with it. "Hah! Trust me, you'll see." Luka puffed up pridefully, even if it was just hollow boasting. Better to at least sound confident
She just needed to stay focused. The game had only just started. Luka was at a disadvantage, but there was still time to turn things around.
With the wall rebuilt, the tiles were dealt once again. This time, it was the tengu's turn to deal. The tiles went around and around, and once they were done, the dora tile flipped once again:
[🀀🀫🀫🀫🀫]
[🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫]
(Hm.) Luka peered at her hand. Maybe, just maybe, she'd get something she could use…
[[1][1][2][5]🀐🀓🀕🀖🀗🀛🀝🀂🀂]
… And, trash. Wow, for a second there, I thought my luck would let up for a second. Whoops!
Putting on her poker (mahjong?) face, Luka carefully watched the table. As usual, Sannyo showed no signs of whatever was in her hand, be it good or bad. The kappa seemed apprehensive, likely making some very purposeful decisions, given she was in last place.
The tengu, however, seemed to narrow her eyes decisively. Watching her eyes, Luka saw that she seemed to be looking at a specific set of tiles in her hand. Did she have something?
(If she does, she'll probably go for it. Depending on what it is, I may just want to let her duke it out with Sannyo…)
It felt a little cowardly, and boring, but it was still a survival strategy. Hey, if the bird decided to go after the dragon at the top of the scoreboard, who was she to stand in her way? Luka only needed to outscore Sannyo, not the tengu.
As the tengu drew from the wall, a confident smile plastered itself on her face. She did have something, didn't she? After a careful pause to consider what she wanted to discard, she set it out—
[🀚]
"Hm. Pon."
The ice in Luka's stomach jumped straight into her chest. That was Sannyo's call. She plucked the tile, like playing with Luka's frozen heart, and set it with the rest of its trio.
[🀚🀚🀚 / 🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫]
A pon right out of the gate? Why? Was Sannyo sitting on another hand?
The tengu grimaced as Sannyo seized the flow of the match, pulling the turn over to herself. Taking her draw, Sannyo looked at the tile carefully, then set it down.
[🀐]
Rgh, nothing she could use…
The turns continued as normal, with the tengu and Luka both drawing and discarding nothing of use. The kappa, ready for her turn, drew her tile and surveyed her hand. Her finger lingered on one…
… Then, as if rapidly reconsidering, slid to a different tile and clicked it against the table.
[🀞]
"Chi." Said Sannyo once again.
[🀚🀚🀚 🀝🀞🀟 / 🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫]
Again. Like the entire table was dancing to her tune, Sannyo made another call.
(What the hell? Are they just giving her tiles? It can't be that…)
Luka'd made sure that the other players wouldn't have a reason to just let Sannyo win. They shouldn't have known anything about the agreement between her and Sannyo. Heck, as far as she was aware, they were just patrons, not secretly employees. So why did it feel like Sannyo was the only one making any calls…?!
"Please," Sannyo smiled, and the ice coating Luka's heart flowed into her blood. "Try to make this a little more interesting for me." Serene, beautiful. Almost like she wasn't giving out death threats.
Luka wanted to shout something, but she felt like Sannyo was trying to rile her up. Make her careless. She couldn't afford to fall for that mindgame. Instead, Luka looked at the kappa. Why did she so carelessly toss a tile in the same suit like that? Even if she couldn't tell what was in Sannyo's hand, she had to at least be able to tell there was too much risk behind that play.
If only for her own mental health, Luka let loose a silent glare towards the kappa; the best approximation of a nonverbal 'you idiot!' she could muster. She made sure it was at an angle the kappa could see, too.
In response, the diminutive youkai… didn't even react.
"..."
In fact, the kappa didn't even seem to be aware Luka was there, now.
(...Huh?)
"Let's see, how about…?" Sannyo's voice pulled Luka back to the game, and she heard another tile hit the table.
[1]
Time slowed. Luka glanced back at her hand.
[[1][1][2][5]🀓🀕🀖🀗🀛🀝🀂🀂🀃]
It wasn't a tile that she needed. No, actually, it wasn't something Luka could imagine she could make a proper hand in-time with.
But. Luka needed to test something. There was something she needed to see.
"—Pon!" Luka called. Hearing it, Sannyo raised her brow, watching as Luka slid the tile over to her hand.
It wasn't important that she'd just opened her hand. No, she shouldn't even be focusing on her own hand right now. What was happening in front of her was far more important.
She discarded one of her West tiles, studying Sannyo's reaction. Nothing. The woman passively let the tile go, and let the turn move to the kappa.
"Hm…" Deep in contemplation, the kappa seemed to be hesitating over her next play.
*... Fuuu—*
Luka's ears perked. There! She'd heard it earlier, too! She snapped her gaze towards the sound. There, at its source—
—was Sannyo, smoking.
"Uh…" The kappa muttered. "How about this one?"
[🀒]
"Chi." There. Right on schedule, there was Sannyo. Taking the tile as her own, and setting it amidst the rest.
[🀑🀒🀓 🀝🀞🀟🀚🀚🀚 / 🀫🀫🀫🀫]
All with the same smug, serene expression. Her words weren't empty taunts. It was just like Luka feared: Sannyo, for all her earlier bravado, was cheating. She was quite literally dangling the fact in front of her.
"... You've gotta be kidding me." Luka couldn't hold it in any longer.
"Hm?" Sannyo smiled.
"Wipe that smirk off your face!" No, her temper was seriously flaring up at this point. "You force me into this game, and you're going to cheat on top of it?! Don't you have an ounce of shame?!"
Sannyo's smile, for some reason, faded slightly. "'Cheating', you say? Care to explain how?"
Luka's face was burning, and she rose from the table in a rage. She didn't even care about their deal at this point, or about the tengu and kappa sitting at her sides. The entire game was a sham. "That smoke! I've been hearing it, this entire game! I was stupid to even think you'd play by the rules!"
It was at that moment that Sannyo's fading smile completely vanished. Her entire posture straightened, and she sat upright like she was being insulted. Like she was holding her patience. "—I believe I've said this once before, but I'll repeat it again. This is an esteemed place of recreation. To encourage—no, to perform the act of cheating, especially as the owner of such a den, would be beyond reprehensible."
"Really?" Luka growled. "Then explain why every time you blow that smoke, someone seems to toss you exactly what you need!"
It could've been anything. A code system, for instance. If any simple way to communicate without words was usable, then it was easy enough to assume Sannyo was making requests for specific tiles each time she puffed that pipe of hers. And if it wasn't something as convoluted as that, and if it was just her ability, it didn't matter. Cheating was cheating.
Sannyo, however, did not change her expression. She still looked insulted, for some reason. "I see. Was I giving you too much credit, earlier?" She frowned. "A pity. I figured you'd been paying attention to what I was saying, earlier."
"What do you mean?"
"I shouldn't give you a hint. Not after that disrespectful accusation." A sigh. "But… Like a newborn child, you're naive and new to all of this, so I'll be generous." Sannyo gently grabbed a tile with two fingers. "Our terms. Do you remember my question, from earlier? This is a battle between us, and us alone. 'To the fullest of our abilities'."
With a clack!, another discard. A tile no one took. A tile Luka completely ignored, as if the game no longer concerned her. Yet for some reason, she couldn't bring herself to move. Sannyo's words lingered in Luka's mind, as did another gentle, soothing exhale from Sannyo's pipe as she lavished the room in more tobacco smoke.
That sound, that fog which filled the room, surrounded the table. It clouded both the tengu and the kappa, and their expressions were glazed over, as if caught in a dream yet fully awake. Moving like their bodies weren't fully in their control.
At that moment, Luka felt the puzzle pieces in her mind clicking together. Sannyo's words. The strangely convenient plays. The fog in her mind from earlier. She was seized by a crushing sensation, like a shadowy cloud creeping over her, swallowing her whole.
As if following an order, the tengu precisely aimed for a specific tile and placed it on the table. Sannyo didn't even bother to look at it as she called for it.
"Ron."
[[4][4][4] 🀑🀒🀓 🀚🀚🀚 🀝🀞🀟 / [7][7]]
A poisonous, flower smile that was slowly choking Luka to death. "Tanyao. 1500 points.
(That's what her ability is! And, that's what I…!)
That was Sannyo's ability. Her ability was to control peoples' minds using her tobacco smoke.
This was what Luka had agreed to, in all her careless haste. A no-holds barred game where both sides used their abilities to try and win.
Luka had challenged her to a 4-player game, expecting to be able to use the chaos of it to try and seize some kind of victory. And instead, the entire table, her entire strategy, had been turned against her with all the ease of a single puff of smoke.
… And just like that, the ice in her blood had completely engulfed her. She was sweating; a cold, deathly sensation. The tengu. The kappa. Sannyo. All the eyes in their small, isolated room lingered on her.
"I see you've gone pale." Sannyo's smile returned, but it no longer carried the same beauty as it did. It was twisted, cruel, and unforgiving. Luka had overstepped a boundary, and was only being allowed to live by sheer whim. "I'll forgive you for your impudence, but that's the only instance I'll allow."
Seeing that dark look in her eye, Luka realized. It wasn't just the other players. It was the patrons outside. Everyone else in this gambling den, they were all at the mercy of a single woman wielding nothing more than a tobacco pipe.
The tengu, still in a daze, slid the coins to Sannyo's side once more, and the death knell grew louder and louder. Edging closer and closer.
Rankings (East 3, Round 3):
1st - [West] Sannyo: 43100 pts
2nd - [East] Luka: 30000 pts
3rd - [North] Tengu: 28500 pts
4th - [South] Kappa: 18400 pts
Sannyo smiled. "Now then, go ahead and take your seat, Miss Luka. We've still got two hands left."
Author's Note:
For the record, if you're wondering why I kept putting brackets "[]" around the tiles, it's because on FFN they didn't save in the Doc Manager without it. Why? I have no clue! But it works, so screw it, sure.
Phew. I hope after reading this one it's pretty clear why this chapter took so long. Learning mahjong just for this chapter was a fun and educational experience, but I'm not sure I can do something as bold as this too often. It was a really mentally draining task, and it took me a while to try and make sure what I put together at least felt adequate. I hope the end result was enjoyable for you all.
Originally, this was meant to be a single chapter, but I had to split it up into two for the sake of pacing. Hopefully, since I already have it outlined, that should mean it'll take less time to write, right?
… See you next time, and have a Happy New Year!