Okay it's a tad long but I assure you it is worth it so please try stay with me.
It begins with the return of an unexpected face, Ōtsuki! IE Horse-Shoe Nose EVERY-BODIES favorite Foreman for group E! He tracks Kaiji down to where ever he is living and is super cryptic but claims to be on a day pass and has a gamble that he intends to challenge Kaiji. The wager is more or less Kaiji will shoulder his entire debt and return to the underground and he will go free. Why would Kaiji ever agree to that? What could Ōtsuki POSSIBLY offer in return? . . .NOTHING! Think about, Kaiji is Kaiji he'd accept this gamble because he feels that he owes it too him. So with his guard up and guns blazing. The gamble begins.
I do not presume to make any claims that I can construct a gamble so ingenious that FKMT himself would say "Yeah I could write 13 Volumes on this" so I don't know how we reach half way point, but then out from the shadows Ichijō! And then Kaiji is like, "Oh fuck I was trying to out think Otsuki, but this isn't a Otsuki type of problem this is a God damn Ichijo quandary bitches. Total tone shift and the gamble is taken to a whole new level. But for some reason Ichijō is equally as cryptic as Otsuki as too how he put all this together, but he makes it clear that he was just straight up using Otsuki to lull Kaiji into under estimating shit.
THE GAMBLE RAGES ON! And a glimmer of hope is seen on Kaiji's horizon! And what do we do when Kaiji almost almost has happiness? THAT'S RIGHT! We snatch that mother fucker away and crush it to a fine powder. At 3/4ths the way in who will reveal himself as the Ringleader? Who else! Tonegawa, still covered in burn wounds and perhaps a touch of festering. Really really want to know what he has been up to. I imagine it was something similar to a "Siberia" type transfer to a place where nobody needs to be cause nobody is. And basically, Otsuki was beinwg used by Ichijo to build the THING and all of there resources went in there. They were able to get a line of communication with Tonegawa he tested the gamble against himself, failed, and then made a few adjustments, and somehow got together the information on Kaiji as well as took care of the day passes. Three Levels of mind fuckery are going on at this stage, and I hope you are still with me cause I am about to wrap this up.
Kaiji kicks their asses by sheer force of will and the day is saved.
Why should this happen?
1- Revenge is sexy as Hell
2- Kaiji already told Ichijo that he would accept a rematch despite having no conceivable reason to do so.
3- It's a decent enough story to be placed somewhere in between Arc 1, and The Grand Finalle!
Thank you! Thank you! This does sound a like fan-fic doesn't it?
Yeah a little, but I ain't ever going to write a word about this idea that ain't these words. PEACE & MAHJONG!