"It's all gone."
Tsunade and Shizune stared at the empty basket. Not a single chip was left.
At first, she had been playing ten chips per round. After losing all of those, she switched to playing one at a time.
In the end, nothing was left at all.
And the whole thing hadn't even taken two hours.
Shizune took a deep breath. She knew Tsunade had a knack for throwing money around. Even though it was gambling, she somehow made it feel like charity work.
"That was way too fast…"
"No choice, let's go borrow some from that guy!"
Tsunade perked up cheerfully and looked around for Hatake Satoru.
She had a good time chatting with him earlier—seemed like an interesting guy. She wondered how lucky he was at gambling.
"You talked for so long and still don't know his name…"
Shizune couldn't help but comment and followed Tsunade over.
The two of them squeezed through a circle of people and barely managed to peek inside.
Hatake Satoru was leaning on one hand, completely surrounded by a pile of chips in different sizes and heights.
Kimimaro had already curled up by his leg and fallen asleep.
"Winning all the time is kind of boring."
While calling out odds or evens, Kimimaro's head kept nodding from sleepiness, and Hatake Satoru eventually carried him aside to nap.
For most people, gambling is full of tension and excitement—but in Kimimaro's mind, it was just chips piling up.
Totally boring.
Kimimaro didn't really care about money and didn't understand the value of chips in the first place.
And with Hatake Satoru helping him out, he never lost, so he didn't know what it felt like to lose either.
Gambling lost its fun in an instant.
"This many!? You only started with two chips!"
Tsunade rushed over in disbelief, eyes wide as she stared at Hatake Satoru.
If she had only two chips, there's no way she would've jumped into a game where the minimum was ten.
Even though they said they'd start with the lowest bet, later on if you had less than ten chips, you had to add eight more to match.
The crowd suddenly got noisy.
"Only two chips at the start?!"
"He's got several million ryo now!"
"Did he really not cheat? How is that even possible in such a short time?!"
Hatake Satoru scratched his head and stretched lazily.
"Ah, I lost—I'm done."
He pushed ten chips out onto the table.
To him, those ten meant nothing. Wins and losses are what keep people glued to the table until they've lost everything they have.
Hatake Satoru knew that well. After Kimimaro fell asleep, he even pushed all his chips out once.
That way, he could show he wasn't cheating and get more people to sit down again.
Through his constant wins and losses, most people didn't even notice how much they were losing.
By the time they snapped out of it, there was a scary mountain of chips next to Hatake Satoru.
"Hey! Are you gonna keep playing?"
Hatake Satoru scooped the chips into a basket and handed it to Tsunade.
Tsunade and Shizune stared in disbelief, swallowing hard. Watching Hatake Satoru smile and collect the chips made him look like the god of wealth himself.
"Next time we gamble, we should just put this guy's photo on the table!"
Tsunade said seriously, holding the now-full basket of chips.
After cashing in the rest of the chips, Hatake Satoru took Kimimaro and went to find a room to rest.
And just like that, news of him winning three million ryo in two hours spread across the entire Land of Hot Water overnight.
It even made it to the five great nations through newspaper stories.
Of course, to avoid anyone coming after him for the money, the paper changed Hatake Satoru's name.
They also added the bottom half of Hatake Satoru's face as part of the visual.
After all, no matter how you looked at it, Hatake Satoru's eye patch was just too eye-catching.
Kimimaro, on the other hand, was ridiculously lucky — way beyond normal people. While Hatake Satoru had wins and losses, Kimimaro always won whenever he took action.
He even had a famous line: "Winning all the time is kind of boring."
Right now, the Land of Hot Water was thinking about selling lucky charm dolls modeled after him.
As for Hatake Satoru, he had the honor of being blacklisted by every major casino.
Outsiders might not get it, but the people running the casinos knew exactly what was going on.
Many times when they tried to cheat, Hatake Satoru would not only see through it but mess with them in return.
That night's entire gambling session was completely out of control and nothing like what the casino expected.
Things got so big that they couldn't even stop Hatake Satoru openly.
Everyone knew he was cheating, but they had no way to call him out.
After all, if you can't catch it or prove it, it's like it never happened.
All they could do was quietly put Hatake Satoru on the blacklist and never let him in again.
It was just too frustrating knowing someone was cheating and still being powerless to stop it.
The next day around noon—
Hatake Satoru and Kimimaro, the center of the whole event, didn't feel anything was wrong at all. They just followed their plan and arrived at the Land of Thunder.
Hatake Satoru changed all his cash into a single check—carrying one piece of paper was easier than dragging around a box of bills.
Kimimaro still looked tired as usual. Even though he had breakfast, it seemed like the ocean had already digested it for him.
"Kumogakure Village…"
Hatake Satoru stood on a mountain peak, glancing at a map that showed nothing but mountains, and couldn't help but raise an eyebrow.
The geography of this place was just weird. People actually live here?
But luckily, most of the inhabited parts of Kumogakure had signs of human construction. There were man-made structures that looked like stairs around the area.
In the foggy mountains, those signs stood out clearly.
Hatake Satoru's figure flashed through the air and landed steadily on a flat surface.
"Man, this guy's really lucky. Winning millions in just one night?"
"Yeah, getting that much money in one night—most people can't make that in a lifetime. He must've been over the moon."
"Well, that's one way to put it, but people who go to those kinds of casinos probably aren't short on money either."
A few guards from Kirigakure Village leaned together, whispering while reading the news in the newspaper.
Hatake Satoru leaned in from the side to take a peek upside down at the paper, a bit curious.
"Whoa—this kind of thing actually made front page?"
"Oh, I'm just a civilian traveling around. This is my teacher ID from when I used to work."
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