Celestia faces Chihiro in a peaceful contest.

It didn't take Chihiro much looking at the menu to figure out a full-proof way to beat Celestia in a competition. The only question would be if he could trick her into agreeing to it... Naturally, Chihiro had rarely tried to trick any of his friends into doing much of anything, so he had no idea if this would work. He didn't think he had anything to lose by trying, though. "Celestia... I r-really want to wear this swimsuit. Could we, um... g-gamble for it?"

Celestia had been tapping her foot impatiently, but this clearly caught her attention. Suddenly, she was all smiles. "Very well. It's a lovely swimsuit, so I understand why you're fired up. However, as I've said before, it's an especially lovely swimsuit for me. If we play a game for it, I will be playing to win. No matter what that game is, we'll play it fairly, of course." The gambler favored Chihiro with the same unmoving smile, setting her parasol and bundle of footwear aside now that she was under the roof and out of the sun. She might have done it just so she could complete her expression, folding her hands beneath her chin as she leaned forward. "What did you have in mind? It's your choice as the challenger. I believe I can fairly be considered the defending champion."

"... Rock Paper Scissors."

Celestia's eyes momentarily widened, then curled as her smile spread to her cheeks. "Chihiro... Just so we're clear. You want to face me in a traditional game of Rock Paper Scissors? Reveal on 'rock, paper, scissors, shoot?' And we won't be using cards, but our actual hands? You are... quite comfortable with that rule set?"

The young man nodded. He'd already picked out a purchase, so as he held one balled fist forward, he kept his other as a pointing finger. He was feeling nervous about how Celestia would proceed, but he had no nerves about the competition at all.

The gambler giggled lightly behind her fingers. "Oh, my. You are quite eager. Do you think that wearing my swimsuit might have given you some of my abilities or luck? We shall see."

"Yeah... we'll see. After all, Rock Paper Scissors is mostly luck, isn't it?"

"Yes, of course..." Celestia replied, slowly moving her right fist into position while smiling. "That's not a bad choice, if you're trying to overcome our skill gap. Shall we proceed?"

The gambler found, for the first time in a long time, she was really having to work to keep her poker face on. It was hard to keep her smile from breaking into the delighted, sneering grin she felt on the inside. "Yes, of course... not! You'd challenge the Ultimate Gambler to a conventional game of Rock Paper Scissors? Aren't you supposed to be a smart one? How stupid can you get?!"

She sized up her prey with hungry red eyes, taking in her every tell as if Chihiro was moving in slow motion. "I must admit, I'm surprised she isn't lacking in confidence. However, she's distracted. She isn't trying to read me at all, and she isn't hiding the clenching of her fist in any way. She might as well have 'rock' written in marker on her forehead! What a total rube. What an adorably outclassed novice! Well, what shall we throw? I think it's too early to simply crush her with 'paper' and send her crawling back to her mousehole. Yes, let's match her 'rock.' Let's see that glint of confidence polished to a mirror sheen. Oh, dear, you got lucky! Ah, Rock Paper Scissors really is the great equalizer, isn't it?! Then, let's add some greater stakes to this friendly competition, shall we? Yes, let's, you hopeless dumbass!"

"Rock...

Paper...

Scissors..."

Everything was going just as Celestia planned. She was sure Chihiro was going to throw rock, but even if the poor girl surprised her, she'd have a generous fraction of a second to see Chihiro's amateur fingers begin flexing out of a fist and change her mind. Instead... "Oh, I'll indulge a little bit. Let's take our eyes off her hand for just a moment to take a look at her face. I want to see the look in her eyes...!"

"Shoot!"

Celestia threw rock, just as she'd intended. She had wanted to see Chihiro's reaction upon a tie, the look of hope that she was going to squash in either the very next game or a terrifying string of victories after it, but something strange had happened. At just the last moment, Celestia's red eyes had looked up at the ceiling. "Shit! I missed it." In the strangely long time she was spending staring at nothing instead of fixing her eyes on the opponent, she thought about how she would gracefully present herself as having stumbled into a draw. She worked on keeping her smile on, then slowly turned her eyes back to Chihiro. "Ah, a tie..."

Chihiro was supposed to look one of two ways; smiling and stupid to show she was allowing herself to hope, or a nervous wreck suffering from nerves. Instead, Chihiro had a bright red face. She looked like she was resetting a dropped jaw. That was a very strange reaction, but not as strange as the next words out of her mouth. "I won!"

"Ahah... Hmhmhm..." Celestia giggled with genuine amusement. "Oh, Chihiro. Chihiro, Chihiro, Chihiro! You're craftier than I expected. I don't fault you for trying to cheat to win; I confess, I may have done the same once or twice in my past, in particularly **** situations. Taking advantage of my momentary glance away from the results is, really, quite clever. But that only works when there's a referee or an audience that you've distracted, dear. You know full well that I'm aware we both chose rock. Unless you're saying I should believe you over my own muscles and intentions?"

"N-no, you, um... threw scissors," the other girl commented, going red again for some reason. "S-so I won!"

"Oh dear, you're a sore loser, aren't you? Again, I sympathize." Celestia smiled with pity and turned to the swimsuit rack, idly browsing it. "Very well. You'd like a rematch, wouldn't you? If you're feeling so confident, perhaps you'd like to raise the stakes?"

Chihiro was... ignoring her?! She was muttering to herself something about awareness, then tapping idly at some point in the air. Probably some habit that was a holdover from her usual work programming.

"That foolish airhead. Your dumb trick didn't even work! Where do you get off taking this so casually? What the hell are you thinking, making me wait for my damn swimsuit?! Oh, I am going to make you suffer..." Celestia cleared her throat and composed herself. "Ahem. Chihiro? Since you seem to be feeling lucky today, I was proposing you might like to raise the stakes. Let's make this like a proper punishment, shall we? The winner will not simply walk away with my prize swimsuit: she will choose the swimsuit that the other must wear."

She was still being ignored!

"She will choose the swimsuit that the other must wear, to the exclusion of anything else, until midnight tonight! Does that suit you?"

"Oh!" Chihiro finally responded, gulping and still looking feverish. "Um, o-okay. Then you'll wear... this." Chihiro paused, turning to the rack and diving into a number of rentals that were clearly different in nature from the others. They looked like the kind Celestia would never let herself be caught in, not in a million years... the kind of low-class, trashy things that only Miu Iruma would choose to wear willingly. The one that the programmer picked off the rack was, perhaps, the very worst: a small but classic bikini with an American flag print, stars across the right breast and bars across the left and the lower body. It was pretty clear that when the poor dupe of a girl ended up wearing it, she was going to have to find some serious pads for the chest.

Celestia covered her thin smile with one hand, narrowing her eyes. "Oh dear. That's neither traditional Japanese nor fashionably European at all, is it? I'd sooner die than dream of going out in it."

"Th-that's an exaggeration, right?" Chihiro asked, looking concerned in spite of being the one to propose it. "I'm, um, n-not trying to hurt you!"

Celestia's smile grew strained. "You? Hurt me? I think you're getting a few steps ahead of yourself... After all, I still have a 33.333% chance to win, don't I? Hmmmm??" She couldn't help but ask the question in a mocking tone, despite her usual efforts to present herself as civil. She was annoyed to see Chihiro didn't look insulted or intimidated. Instead, she still just looked concerned. "Oh, come now! You're a rather strange sportswoman, aren't you? Naturally, if I lose, I'll wear it, and I'll do so without combusting like a vampire. On the outside, at least," she muttered.

Chihiro smiled, but she still looked a little guilty... She looked like her mind was wandering somewhere, actually. She was wearing a smile like she was hiding a secret. "Great... Let's go again?"

"Gladly." That smile was pissing Celestia off. This time, she wasn't going to get distracted, and she wasn't going to leave Chihiro any room to retreat. She put her fist forward, unable to hide the way her rigid arm seemed to threaten actual **** upon her hapless opponent.

"Rock...

Paper...

Scissors..."

Celestia couldn't help but grin. To do so was to hurt her own chances and give the opponent a chance before she truly had victory in hand. It was a disgrace to her title as the Ultimate Gambler. But she couldn't help it! Chihiro was going to choose rock, again! Everything pointed to Celestia's victory, and she wouldn't be taking her eyes off the twerp's losing hand this time. Soon, the Ultimate Programmer would be crying and begging for mercy. Or, even better? Maybe she'd beg for another chance? Maybe she'd foolishly agree to even more humiliating stakes?

"Shooooeeeeh?!" Celestia blurted out, her confident grin spilling open as her tongue fell dumbly out of her mouth and her eyes rocked up to the ceiling. As soon as it happened, the gambler was aware that this was the second time she'd made this humiliating expression. She'd also made this shameful face last time as well, only, somehow, she hadn't been aware of it.

That hardly mattered, though. Her hands... She couldn't control her hands! She couldn't actually see them, since her eyes had screwed so tightly upwards in her head that she felt she was beginning to sweat, but her hands had frozen at either side of her in double peace signs. She couldn't see them, but she could feel them. She tried to complain, but it just came out as a meaningless, stupid mumble, her tongue wagging pointlessly as it hung lewdly over her lower lip.

Finally, about ten seconds after it had started, she was free of it. As though she'd been released from a ****, she fell to her bare legs, gasping and flexing her fingers just to make sure she could, indeed, still unfold them into open-palmed 'paper.' Then, she turned her head back up to the programmer.

Chihiro sighed, wringing her hands in an expression that ordinarily looked like anxiousness. Somehow, in this situation, it almost looked like anticipation. "W-well... You chose scissors, um, pretty enthusiastically, so that settles it."

"I... I chose what...?!" Celestia muttered, staring at her hands disbelievingly. This time, she couldn't deny that when "shoot" had come out, she'd been holding up two pairs of 'scissors.' "I lost?! You think... I lost?!"

Chihiro was viewing something out of the corner of her eyes, but turned them down to Celestia. When she saw her, she seemed to get nervous again, blushing and looking away. "No, I don't 'think'... Y-you did lose! So, um... I'll wear this, and you'll wear that. The one I picked out for you as a punishment, I mean..."

Everything had happened more-or-less as Chihiro had expected. The only question had been how Celestia herself would act, and it turned out she'd set up a pretty nasty pitchfork to run into face-first. In terms of results, it was excellent: the mission was complete, he'd barely spent any gems to get that on-press instant "double peace ahegao" purchase, and he should have a bonus mystery effect to check out. That was on top of the now 17 gems he had in storage to either start getting creative with or start saving up. All he had to do was think of what else to do to his defeated opponent at his leisure... Unless, of course, there was something he hadn't counted on.