A Life with the Akatsuki [ABANDONED]

The Misadventures of Nagareboshi: Chapter Six

“Neither of you can challenge me to another game for a full year.” 

XStory 6XX Taken X

“It depends on who I will be playing first.” I reply, buying myself time. I know a lot of games, but most of them require set up or objects that I bet would be hard to find. Like cards.

Kisame quickly shakes his head. “I won’t be joining in on this, kid. Mind games are not my specialty. Itachi will be your opponent.”

Truthfully, I was hoping Kisame would be my opponent. However, I still have a game in mind. I just hope it can stump Itachi, who I know to be a genius. “I will show you two different puzzles if you can solve both of them, you win. If you only solve one or none, I win. You have one minute to solve both puzzles.”

I take a handful of pencils and pens out of my bedside table drawer before crouching on the floor. Then I arrange them on the floor in the shape of a Tic-Tac-Toe board. “I need six coins. It doesn’t matter how big or small they are.”

Itachi hands me the six coins, seemingly pulling them out of nowhere. Deidara clears away the broken glass and picture frame before sitting crossed-legged next to me. Kisame and Itachi sit across from me and Sasori is the only one left standing.

“Alright, bets come first. My bet remains the same, but I am adding the rule that no one from the Akatsuki or associated with the Akatsuki in any way may challenge or kidnap me for a full year. This includes third-parties and anyone you might hire, whether it is with money, incentive, or threats. What are your terms?”

Itachi pauses to think. “Our side remain unchanged, but with the added term that all previous agreements with Sasori and Deidara are null.” In other words, this is an ‘all or nothing’ match.

“Deal,” I answer, biting my lip. This could either be my last challenge from them for a long time, assuming they still remember me by the time it wears off, or I am fighting a losing battle. Before I can back out, I begin explaining the game. “The point of the game is to get all six coins inside the figure, but there cannot be three in a straight or diagonal line. Only one coin per box. You have thirty seconds starting now.”

And it takes him all of ten seconds to get the coins in the correct placing, three on the opposite ends of the Tic-Tac-Toe board, making six in total. My hands begin to shake a little, so I tuck them under my folded legs. “O-okay. You can take the coins back now. The goal of this puzzle is to make three identical boxes using these pencils and pens in only three moves. All of them have to be used. Your time starts now.”

Almost immediately, Itachi moves the bottom left pencil down to make the second box and the top left to form the third circle at the top. He stops for only a second or two before taking the left side of the middle box and moving it to form a box using the two extra pens to the right.

Truthfully, if it had been just about anyone else, they would have gotten frustrated and made mistakes. The first puzzle, I will admit, was easy if you go about it calmly, but by the second one, people are usually stuck. The two puzzles are quite different and it usually takes a good ten seconds for the average person to adjust to the change and start thinking about it. Because he finished the first one so quickly, that gave him fifty seconds to work on this one.

It is times like these that I wish I had planned ahead. Because the moment I lose, I finally think of all the other options I had for games and challenges. My uncle taught me so many, but I couldn’t think of any useful ones in my time of need. Maybe that is why they came to me in the middle of the night? Because my mind would not be functioning completely?