Thirty-Second Spell: Tenbutsu

"Do you know how Tenbutsu works?" Rui asked, coming up behind Haru which startled him.

"Um, no," Haru said. "Where did you go?"

"I went to find my sisters and brother," Rui answered. "They were too busy competing in games to acknowledge me. But when I noticed you weren't following me, I went looking for you."

"Sorry about that," Haru apologized. "I was talking with Chio, that First-Year Primary Student I met prior to the Ceremony of Kimonos, and her grandma."

"Oh, I see. Was it a good visit?"

"Well, it was…I'll explain later. So what is Tenbutsu?"

"Just the most popular game in the Japanese Wizarding Community, especially among kids. It's kind of like hanafuda, the Manai card game."

"Um, I never played hanafuda. My adopted parents weren't really into card games, and neither was my stepsister."

"Ten-Ten!" Seita suddenly shouted, getting Haru's attention.

Apart from the cards he had face-down, Seita had multiple sets of cards in front of him which briefly glowed when he spoke. Each card on the table was intricately painted with different animals and backgrounds depicting flowers, falling leaves, snow, and sunlight. Haru also noticed the face-up cards had their images projected above, allowing the crowd of twelve students to see what cards were being played.

"You really want to double your points, Seita?" Hikari said, and looked down at the cards she had face-down. "Okay, then I'll just end the round here and gain your points making me the winner!"

"No!" Seita whined. "I was so close."

"Better luck next time," Hikari smirked while the floating card images dispersed. "That means you're treating everyone watching this game to Exploding Mochi Balls, Seita."

"Hold it!" Haru interrupted. "Seita, how much money do you have?"

"Only two Ginmo," Seita admitted.

"That's not enough for buying multiple packets of Exploding Mochi Balls which cost 5 Sei each, or 1 Ginmo," Rui realized.

"Well, I suppose I could give you a loan," Hikari suggested. "But then you'd have to pay me back at some point."

Seita didn't like the sound of this.

"You would basically be extorting him," Haru said to Hikari. "I won't allow that!"

This surprised Hikari, Seita, and Rui who all looked at Haru with bewildered faces.

"Ryuji," Seita said. "What are you doing? You don't even like me!"

"I never said I didn't like you," Haru responded. "Sure, I get annoyed when you earn more points for your Clan than me. But that doesn't mean I hate you as a person. And we're classmates! So it's only fair for me to help you out."

"And how do you propose to do that?" Hikari asked Haru.

"If I win a round of Tenbutsu in Seita's place, you have to pay for the Exploding Mochi Balls," Haru answered. "But if I lose, I'll split the payment with Seita so he doesn't have to lose as much money."

Rui was aghast. "But you haven't played Tenbutsu before! And Hikari is one of the best players in our grade."

"Indeed," Hikari confirmed. "So you do still want to play against me, Ryuji?"

Haru then sat next to Seita at the table. "Let's do this!"

Overhearing the conversation, a few more students joined the crowd surrounding the table Hikari and Haru sat at bringing the total to fifteen. While Hikari shuffled her cards, Seita got up and stood next to Rui.

"So since you've never played Tenbutsu, I'll briefly go over the rules," Hikari said. "The object of the game is to match the cards with different suits. Each suit consists of four of the same animal depicted during different seasons. Different combinations of cards equal a certain number of points. And if you want to double your points before the end of a round, you shout, 'Ten-Ten!'. Whoever gets the most points at the end of the round wins. Got it?"

"Yeah, I think so," Haru said, hiding his uncertainty.

"Good! Now shuffle Seita's cards and then combine it with mine to make the draw pile."

So Haru did as Hikari said, and they combined their decks into one. Hikari then took eight cards and put them face-down, while Haru did the same. After six cards were placed in the center face-up, the deck was placed in the middle and the card's images were projected once more.

"There are two spring monkeys, one summer ox, a winter dragon, an autumn snake, and a winter rat on the board," Hikari said, and looked down at her cards. "I'll take the summer ox and combine it with my autumn horse for a Gyūba Combo giving me four points!"

A few students cheered as Hikari took the card with an ox eating grass in a sunny field and placed it next to her card, which showed a horse eating apples next to a tree with falling leaves. When this happened, an image appeared above the cards showing two figures that looked like men. Only one had a horse head the other had the face of an ox.

"It's Ox-Head and Horse-Face," Rui whispered to Haru. "They guard the gateway to the afterlife, according to the Chinese Wizards."

"Hey, less talking and more playing!" Hikari said, making Rui shut up. "It's your turn, Ryuji."

When Haru looked down at his cards, he didn't find any that matched.

"You can discard a card and put it back in the draw pile," Hikari said.

"Okay." Checking his cards once again while looking at the face-up cards, Haru said, "I'll discard my winter monkey card."

After placing the card showing a monkey soaking in a hot spring with snow falling in the draw pile, Haru took another card from the top. It showed a cat with a moon behind it.

"Can you tell me what this card does?" Haru showed the card with the cat, which made a bunch of students gasp.

"That's the Cat Card!" Rui exclaimed. "It basically lets you mess up the enemy player's set by taking away one of their cards. And if they have multiple sets of cards, you can choose which one to disrupt."

While Hikari was speechless, Haru looked back at his cards.

"So I'll take your autumn horse and combine it with the autumn snake on the board, since they both have a fire symbol on the top right corner," Haru said, watching as the horse and snake projections above his head became enveloped in flames.

"A Fire Combo," Rui said. "That means Haru has four points!"

"Four points is nothing!" Hikari argued. "We're just getting started!"

To be continued…