The humid, salty sea breeze brushed their faces, cutting through the heavy air and cooling the kind of excitement that usually made people careless.
Today, Honami Ichinose had changed into a white sailor-style top with a blue collar and a black pleated skirt. She walked beside Ren Katsuragi along the island's edge, savoring a stretch of time that felt like it belonged to only the two of them.
After calling him an idiot in her head, Ichinose tried to hook his pinky with her smaller finger.
The moment she touched his palm, Ren opened his hand and laced their fingers together—decisive, firm, leaving no room for her to pull away.
Ichinose didn't resist. If anything, she seemed to relax into it, as if she'd been waiting for him to do exactly that.
"Honami," Ren said evenly, like he was asking about something mundane, "have you decided how you're going to deal with Class C?"
Just as Kakeru Ryūen had suspected, the three million points from this exam weren't going to be won easily.
And in its own way, this was an excellent test.
"Uh… deal with Class C?" Ichinose scratched her head, caught off guard by how directly he'd put it. "I didn't think you'd give me something like a pop quiz."
"I'm going to ask Hoshinomiya-sensei to arrange a separate classroom for our study sessions," she continued. "And I'll have everyone stay together as much as possible. If we can make it through the midterms, we'll be fine… right?"
Idealistic as ever, Ichinose had chosen a clumsy, defensive plan.
If Class C wanted to use harassment and tailing to disrupt Class A's study sessions, then she would simply keep her classmates away from Class C.
"Honami," Ren asked, changing gears without warning, "do you know how to play chess?"
"I do."
Back at the villa, orange evening light filled the living room, warm enough to make the place feel safe.
A small chessboard had been set out on the floor.
The game was already well underway, and the balance had tilted heavily in Ren's favor.
Ichinose brought a finger to her mouth, half out of habit, about to bite a nail. Ren tapped her hand away.
"Focus," he said.
Ichinose's thoughts raced as she searched for a way to survive. She played cautiously by nature, trying to hold steady and wait for an opening.
Ren didn't give her one.
His attack was relentless. She couldn't keep up, forced to retreat again and again.
Her queen became a firefighter—sent wherever the board was about to collapse.
It wasn't enough. One by one, Ren took her pieces, stripping her position down.
Eventually even her queen was cornered, with nowhere left to go, and Ren took it cleanly.
After that, he didn't rush for the win. Instead, he tightened the net, picking off her remaining pieces in plain view of her king until there was nothing left to protect it.
Checkmate.
In her first game against Ren, when her king fell, she had no pieces left on the board.
Ren offered no comfort. He reset the pieces immediately, his voice flat and cold.
"Again."
In the second game, Ichinose gave up on attacking altogether and tried to defend from start to finish.
The result was the same.
"Again."
Third game.
Fourth.
Fifth.
Loss after loss piled up. Ichinose's breathing grew heavier, and something sharp flickered behind her eyes—frustration edging into obsession.
If I can't hold the line, then I'll break out.
The sixth game began. This time she stopped retreating on instinct. She started trading, taking pieces when she could, fighting for space instead of clinging to it.
Noticing the change, Ren eased off slightly, even letting her win a few exchanges.
It still didn't matter. Her king went down again.
Ichinose stared at the remaining pieces on the board, then began setting them up with new purpose.
Seventh game.
She pushed even harder than before. If she could take Ren's key pieces, she didn't care what she had to sacrifice to do it.
The board finally shifted. Instead of Ren overrunning her from the start, the two of them tore into each other's positions.
Ren played lighter and lighter, letting her claim more ground, letting his own casualties mount.
For a moment, Ichinose thought she could actually win.
Then Ren took her king from an angle she hadn't seen coming.
Defeat.
Her knuckles whitened around her queen.
Thunk.
She dropped it onto the board, right in front of her captured king.
"Again."
Eighth game.
Ninth.
…
…
Ichinose stopped keeping track. Her eyes went glassy, her movements slower, as if she were playing through fog.
Ren showed no mercy. The same single word, every time.
"Again."
Another game began.
Ichinose—always moving first—reached for a pawn and, without thinking, pushed it two squares.
She froze. Whether from fatigue or her mind simply slipping, she realized the mistake too late. She tried to pull it back—
—but Ren had already moved.
He didn't scold her. He didn't even react.
"Again."
Testing him, Ichinose shoved another pawn forward aggressively, right up in front of Ren's pawn as if daring him to complain.
Ren continued as if nothing had happened.
After that, the game fell apart into something simple and strange.
No one was the queen, and everyone was the queen. Even the king might as well have been a queen.
Pieces Ren captured "came back" in Ichinose's imagination—reborn as queens again and again.
To make her "massacre" faster, she even took three moves in a row, ignoring turn order completely.
Ichinose leaned into it, exhilarated, sweeping Ren's pieces off the board with childish, gleeful ruthlessness.
Ren's king, left with no defenders, faced an army that never seemed to diminish, and accepted the inevitable.
Checkmate.
Only this time, it was Ren who was checkmated.
"Still want to play? Still want to play?" Ichinose stared at him, eyes bright, waiting for him to say it again.
Ren ignored her state completely and stood up.
"We're done."
"Tch. Sore loser," Ichinose muttered under her breath.
Ren looked at her. "Do you understand what to do now?"
Ichinose nodded, suddenly composed, answering with certainty. "I do."
Ren tossed Mochi—who had been lounging in his arms—into Ichinose's embrace and headed toward the study.
Ichinose tidied the chess set with practiced neatness. By the time she put everything away, Ren was already coming back down the stairs.
He tossed something toward her and let out a soft, amused sound.
"Honami," he said, "take your sword."
Ichinose caught it and opened her hand.
A USB drive sat in the center of her palm.
This was…
The "sword" Ren meant.
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Note: I haven't been able to upload chapters because I didn't have internet.
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