Don't Celebrate Too Soon When There Are Special Rules

The day of the Special Exam arrived, and all the first-year students gathered at the gym.

A temporary ring had been set up in the center of the gym, with a square table resembling a mahjong table placed on top.

The stage already in the gym had been left unused. The students from the four first-year classes sat around the ring in clockwise order—Class A, B, C, then D—and waited for the exam to begin.

Sitting in the back row, I didn't have any particular thoughts about this Special Exam. The excitement belonged to the people onstage. Those of us below could do nothing but sit here and cheer them on.

"The exam will now begin. Each first-year class, please send your contestants up in order."

The announcement sounded, and the Special Exam officially began.

Class A's first contestant, leading off, was Shimizu Naoki. He had some ties to Hashimoto Masayoshi. On the surface, he was part of the Katsuragi Faction, but in truth, he was a fence-sitter who sided with whoever had the upper hand.

Class B's first contestant was Tokito Katsumi, a distant relative of Tokito Yuya from our Class C. The two got along quite well.

Class C's first contestant was Tokito Yuya. He and Tokito Katsumi had agreed beforehand to compete first, making it a battle between relatives.

Class D's first contestant was Yukimura Teruhiko, a demanding student who wasn't a hypocrite. He put pressure not only on classmates who were poor at studying but on himself as well. He had excellent academic ability and was the very model of a top student. Since this Special Exam focused on calculation skills, he had been chosen to compete.

"This exam will be Class A's victory. You only need to fight for second place."

Shimizu Naoki placed his five white cards and four black cards into the slots on the table, one by one.

During the competition, contestants only needed to press down firmly on the slot containing the card they wanted to play. The underside of the table was transparent, so the audience couldn't see the cards, but the images were relayed to the judges' tablets.

"Confidence requires backing... ability, and I don't see any in Class A."

Tokito Katsumi also placed his five white cards and four black cards into the slots. Class B's strategy for this Special Exam was to keep things steady and adapt to whatever came.

Kanzaki and Ichinose trusted the abilities of Class B's students, so they had held only a few practice matches among themselves during the short time they had. When competing, each Class B student brought the same neat sequence of cards: one through nine.

"Everyone's being so honest? Somehow, I don't believe it."

Tokito Yuya held back a laugh as he looked at the cards the two people ahead of him had placed in the slots.

Then, under everyone's gaze, he took out nine white cards and put them into the slots, becoming the first contestant to openly break from the conventional approach.

"Results: Shimizu Naoki wins. The score is Class A, B, C, and D: 3:1:0:0. Class A is in the lead. Shimizu Naoki will play first in the next round."

After four rounds, the score showed that Shimizu Naoki had taken a decisive lead.

Tokito Katsumi and Tokito Yuya had tied in points during the fourth round. For now, Tokito Katsumi was ahead in the battle between the two relatives.

Tokito Yuya wasn't anxious about falling behind. All his attention was focused on keeping track of the cards.

For the first seven rounds, the students of Class C had only one task: keep track of the approximate values of the cards their opponents used that round.

In the eighth round, they would pass the ball to Hiyori to tally everything up. Then, in the ninth round, Ryuen would carry out the plan to wipe out the other classes' points.

Class A knew that Class C didn't have any eights or nines. The eights and nines Ryuen had received from Kushida were two "assassins." No matter how many points Class A built up with its eighteen eights and nines during the first eight rounds, if Ryuen found an opening in the ninth round, the balance of victory would begin to shift.

"Results: Shimizu Naoki wins. The score is Class A, B, C, and D: 5:2:0:1. Class A is in the lead. The first round is over. The second round will now begin. Classes A, B, C, and D, please send out your second contestants."

In the first round, Class A took the lead thanks to its advantage in card values. Class B scored points only with its two cards—the eight and the nine.

The card with a value of seven even resulted in a tie between Classes A, B, and D. Since Class C had played a card with a value lower than seven, no one scored that round. As a result, the total after nine rounds was only eight points.

"My analysis should be pretty close. My relative's cards weren't rearranged; they were lined up very neatly from one to nine. Class A used at least three sevens in the first round."

"Got it. Leave the rest to me."

After passing along the information he was confident about, along with his notebook and pen, to the next contestant, Tokito Yuya returned to his seat.

When the second round began, the Class C student again brought out nine white cards.

It couldn't be helped. Since Class C had eighteen ones and eighteen twos, they had to give up a great many opportunities.

Tokito Yuya had confidence in himself and understood his relative well. He also knew about Class B's strategy in advance.

He dared to take nine ones straight to the table and analyze the values based on the cards Class B played.

The later Class C contestants didn't have the nerve or the keen eye for that, so they all chose a different strategy.

Under Ryuen's guidance, Class C was the most creative class. They had come up with a plan as soon as they received their cards.

They had noticed that the backs of the white and black cards were actually identical. Even after scanning them and overlaying the images in the software, there was no discernible difference between the two.

So they printed custom backs for all thirty-six white cards and "turned" every black card into a white one.

Then they could assign values to the cards and use the expressions of Class A's contestants to guess what they were holding. After all, Class C knew what configurations Classes B and D would have in the final round.

They would use the combined efforts of the three classes to figure out Class A's hand. They only needed to estimate how many eights or nines Class A would have left for the final round.

"Results: Katsuragi Kohei wins. The score is Class A, B, C, and D: 24:14:11:17. Class A is in the lead. The eighth round is over. The ninth round will now begin. Classes A, B, C, and D, please send out your ninth contestants."

By the end of the eighth round, Class A's lead was already substantial. What's more, Class A still had all nine trump cards for the final round.

This trend had become apparent as early as the start of the seventh round, so whenever Katsuragi won a hand in the eighth, the Class A students would cheer.

What they didn't know was that they were celebrating far too soon.