People were playing Tehon-hiki on the Yakou grounds in late March. A form of gambling unique to Japan, and the most beautiful game in the world, as Akane sees it. She can't get enough of the psychological warfare you can only enjoy in gambling spaces. Everything was running normal until a goon named Iijima informed her that Okamura went broke. Okamura was their most experienced dealer. He spent years doing it and could execute the methods with perfection. Letting the player win the first rounds to build the mood, letting the player get back 30% of what they came with to make them come back another day, and all that jazz. He knew what he was doing but some man came in and broke him. Akane couldn't imagine who could do that, so she decided to be that man's dealer.
Akane went to the room and found Ziz sleeping in the corner. The narration compares him to a gray wolf and keeps calling him that until he gives his name. With some effort, Akane managed to wake him up, but even after this nap, Ziz was still completely plastered. He blamed the Yakou's window placement, because the beautiful view to moon gets him wanting to drink, and demanded Akane to compensate by giving him more booze. He also brought his own bottle of aslan sütü, which he wouldn't share with her. Akane started doubting Okamura's losses, but Ziz made a comment that back in the day, people thought booze was magecraft, which informed her both that Ziz is a mage, and that he's a lot older than what his chiseled mid-20s-looking face suggest. They started the games and we get Akane's perspective on gambling. Her thought is that what drives a player is 70% the thrill, 20% vanity, and 10% masochism. Ziz, due to being so hammered, was core example of a player moved by mood. He shifted rapidly through the angry drunk, crying drunk, and laughing drunk modes, making the narration compare him to an actor playing the whole movie all by himself. Ultimately, Ziz went broke and asked for a loan to play more. He's not a regular, so Akane couldn't lend him with some collateral, so Ziz offered some information as collateral. The information he gave was that he's from the Wandering Sea and that when it's time to change Black Chests, his pupil would kidnap Akira. Akane asked why would he tell that so easily, and he answered that it's to set up a greater bet. The bet: "If you manage to protect the Black Chest, you can do whatever you want with my pupil, but if he manages to kidnap her, we can do whatever we want with her". Akane couldn't see the point of the bet, since a successful kidnapper would already do whatever they want anyways, but Ziz brought up the importance of mutual consent in magecraft. We get the examples of the Dead Apostle whose consent-based power made everyone believe that vampires need permission to enter people's houses, the family consent necessary to offer someone as a sacrifice in the Bible, and most relevantly here, contracts. Stealing the Divine Body wouldn't do anything to the Yakou's contract with the god, so mutual consent was a key factor here, hence the bet. He also nonchanlantly told them his pupil is a dragon, so they knew they're up against an opponent on their Black Chest's level. But the main motive behind all this is simply that Ziz loves gambling. He chose to be a mage solely because that would raise the ceiling for what kinds of bets he can make.
"I know that's rich coming from me, but gambling won't get you anywhere."
"That's what I like about it. I want it not to get me anywhere. Life gets too rational if you leave it unattended."
The man's words were nonhostile.
"Life gets, rational?"
"Can't you see? Evolution, degeneration, those are all end results of rationalization. Unused organs and abilities instantly atrophy, while used functions steadily improve. Well, that's naturally the right way for things to be. No matter how high level an ability is, there's no point in holding on to something you won't use. Like our planet Earth, we also have only so much we carry. We should be rationalizing all that we can. Wait, is 'optimization' the word we use for it nowadays?"
The man's word made Akane squint.
In a sense, that was a price mages had to pay for the acts of ones before them. It's undeniable that, be it for Western Magecraft or for the Yakou's business, some functions were discarded by their predecessors. Anyone who clings to those was like a wraith stuck in the past.
"Hu, hu."
The man started laughing again.
"But, you see, the act of gambling is the opposite of that."
The man watched the moon from the window.
The moon was peeking from the edge of a mountain, but almost on the top of the night sky.
"All the logic and the calculations are lost forever at the ends of the betting act. Ah, winning or losing doesn't make a difference. Going home with many times the wagered cash or with zero is fine the same way. Because by the point you place something in the wagering scales, that means you
don't mind losing it. That's when life shines for the first time, when it loses the value inherent to it. You can build something up for thousands, even millions of years, but it only gains meaning when you throw it away."
Akane recognized Ziz as really dangerous, not so much because he was a Wandering Sea but because the speech above laid his Origin bare. Since the date of the Black Chest exchange was already leaked and the Yakous have a yakuza reputation to maintain, Akane was forced to accept the bet. Ziz got his loan to play a final round of Tehon-hiki. He claimed to have figured her out and played a Suichi. Before Akane could ask, Ziz clarified that he can't predict the future. They revealed the cards and both played a 1. Ziz own. Trusting his assurance that he can't predict the future, Akane's theory was that he noticed a pattern in her cards that not even her knows about.
As Ziz was leaving, Akane asked what he wanted her Black Chest for. He answered that he has an opponent he's been waiting for for years. He's the last in the Ergo dibs line, so things might be over before he got to his opponent, but he still wanted to set up the board just in case. Akane asked what kinda of opponent is that, and Ziz answered he's "like this", showing the Wukong mask he used for his Wukong vs Nezha performance in volume 1.
Akane woke up in the same corner she first found Ziz asleep. She asked Iijima and Okamura about Ziz, but they didn't remember any mage coming to the venue that day. She tried to investigated Ziz to no avail. And as promised, months later Akira was kidnapped.
Originally Posted by Misaya
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