Another round of Citizens. If it kept going this way for too long, Vlad was going to have Kaiji cornered. Well, sort-of cornered. Maybe once he felt a little more daring and had a better feel for this, he might try to take that route. For now, the security of the middle rounds was too enticing for him to turn down.

"Hm..." Exciting. Yeah. That probably wasn't the word that he would have used for it, but it was undoubtedly suspenseful. "Only once before," Kaiji responded plainly. The way he spoke hardly gave any indication of why that was or in what context he had done so, but he was certainly not enthusiastic about it. Sure he had managed to win a fortune from it, but he only did so to lose it to his own stupidity a little while later. It was a sore spot, especially with all the trouble he had gone through to win.

Well, this was it. He had decided to play the Emperor card, and he wasn't going to back out of it. If he did, he would be waiting too long. There was still a two out of three chance that he could put down another Citizen, meaning that Vlad had a one in three chance of besting him. All things considered, the odds really were in Kaiji's favor.

Part of him was still reluctant to place down the Emperor, though, so as soon as he had the card in his hand confirmed its identity, he placed it down with more haste than he had the others, as if he was tempted to put it back in the pile and would do so if he hesitated. His hand lingered a little when the card hit the table as if deciding if it really wanted to let go, then pulled back normally. With that, the muscles of his face tensed and ever so slightly tugged the corners of his mouth into a more prominent smile as his eyebrows eased upward. There was a difference in his whole body, actually - he was leaning forward a little more than before. Would Vlad notice any of that? Kaiji sure as hell didn't.