By Monday, Rei's school was packed.
Tokyo had a developed economy, and celebrities lived everywhere, actors, singers, influencers. Seeing star chasers on the streets was nothing unusual.
But Rei was a special case.
Among all the "celebrities" in the city, his daily route was the easiest to predict.
Home → school → rooftop → home.
That alone made him one of the easiest targets to surround, intercept, and ask for autographs.
The school administration had long anticipated this. Security personnel were temporarily tripled, forming a human barrier that kept overly enthusiastic fans from rushing onto campus.
Still, after the premiere of the hikaru no go TV series, the way people at school looked at Rei had fundamentally changed.
"That's him, Shirogane."
"I heard he's dating Miyu from the senior year?"
"That's just a rumor. No one's ever seen them holding hands. Someone only saw them take a taxi together."
"No wonder Miyu's always been close to him. Everyone thought she had terrible taste back then."
"Wait, did anyone read the production credits? The opening and ending themes were both created by Rei himself. That's insane."
"I heard Senior Rei's grades are still top fifty in the year."
"That's impossible. Weekly manga drafts, TV and anime consultant work, and music composition? How does he even sleep?"
"So this is what a real genius looks like…"
"How much do you think he's earning?"
"Tens of millions at minimum. Over a hundred million yen doesn't sound impossible anymore."
"After the TV series aired, the manga ranking will definitely climb. Then the anime airs… this is just the beginning."
Conversations like these followed Rei everywhere.
Even though he'd mentally prepared himself, the constant glances still made his scalp prickle.
High school students weren't as naïve as people liked to believe.
That morning alone, Rei noticed several well-known school beauties "coincidentally" passing by him again and again.
A manga artist classmate might not interest people who didn't read manga.
But a seventeen-year-old with a projected annual income in the tens of millions?
That made people calculate.
And it wasn't just students.
Even teachers had changed.
During class, Rei noticed that voices once sharp and strict had softened. Some teachers met his eyes mid-lecture, nodded faintly, or lingered just a little longer when calling his name.
He could only laugh bitterly.
"So this is what fame feels like…"
At noon, on the rooftop, Miyu burst out laughing when she heard Rei complain, abandoning her usual gentle composure.
"That's normal," she said lightly. "When my mother was alive, relatives like that appeared every holiday, concerned, affectionate, calculating."
She paused, then smiled faintly.
"Once her inheritance went to my sister and they realized there was nothing to take… they disappeared."
Rei fell silent.
Miyu continued, her tone turning serious.
"Right now, the people around you fall into categories. Some want to take art exams and think knowing you means access to actors.
Some want to be friends and treat you like an investment. Some are attracted to your looks, and your future, and want to be your girlfriend so they can help you 'manage' your money."
She looked at him directly.
"You need to be careful."
Rei's heart tightened.
"Hikaru no go is already established. At your level, it's impossible for people not to approach you with motives. But you can't afford a single mistake."
She lowered her voice.
"Say the wrong thing. Do the wrong thing. Let someone record it.If your image collapses, Hoshimori Group won't hesitate to invoke breach-of-contract clauses."
Rei knew she wasn't exaggerating.
For someone like him, even being photographed smoking or drinking would be enough to damage public perception, let alone anything worse.
A "genius young manga artist" wasn't just a title.
It was an image that had to be managed like a celebrity's brand.
In his previous life, he'd seen plenty of manga artists destroyed by exactly this.
"Miyu," Rei said quietly, "how do you know all this so well?"
She smiled.
"Oh, these are the things my mother experienced back then. After all, my mother was a cheerful person who didn't like to suspect others, so she suffered a lot!"
"Otherwise, why do you think I've kept my identity as the manga artist Saki hidden all this time?"
Miyu said calmly. "Isn't it precisely because I'm afraid of running into people with ulterior motives?"
"Thank you."
"There's no need," Miyu paused briefly. "Helping you is also helping my sister. Because of you, she's gained real recognition in the manga editorial world. She's more motivated than ever now, and seeing her like that makes me happy."
Then her tone shifted, becoming businesslike.
"But Rei… now that the hikaru no go TV series has aired, the next step is obvious. When the first season finishes, the anime will premiere."
She continued without hesitation.
"That kind of exposure will bring enormous traffic to hikaru no go. But whether that attention turns into actual support votes, whether the ranking rises, still depends on one thing."
"The plot."
She smiled faintly.
"You should seriously think about how to arrange the story for the next two or three months. You need a real climax. Even if it's just once, push into the top three of Hoshimori Comic."
Her eyes shone with a hint of mischief.
"Let those three pillar series feel the pressure. Let them realize something, that the era of Japan's manga world has already begun to change."
"Plot…" Rei murmured, falling silent.
Miyu looked at him, surprised.
"Don't tell me you haven't thought about it yet?"
She knew him well. Rei wasn't the kind of creator who improvised blindly, he worked from structure, from a full outline.
"No," Rei replied. "I've already planned everything, from now until the ending."
He paused.
"It's just that…"
He didn't finish the sentence.
The "climax" Miyu was talking about, the one powerful enough to shake rankings was inevitable.
Sai's final game. Sai's disappearance.
He knew he couldn't surpass the original.
He knew Sai's fate couldn't be changed.
And yet, knowing he would have to draw that arc himself, in just a few months, still made his chest feel heavy.
"I just hope I won't be cursed too badly by readers when the time comes," Rei said with a wry smile.
Miyu's expression tightened.
"Rei. You're not planning to turn hikaru no go, a competitive Go manga, into some kind of soul-crushing tragedy, are you?"
"Of course not," Rei laughed quickly. "How could I?"
But deep down, he knew the truth.
The entire story only had one truly painful moment.
Just one.
But that single moment was enough to stay with readers for a lifetime.
Rei had carried it for two lives already, and even now, just thinking about drawing it still filled him with regret.
That Wednesday, the latest chapter of hikaru no go was released alongside the magazine.
The pacing accelerated sharply.
In the main tournament, Hikaru displayed strength worthy of a true contender, carving out a solid winning streak.
But no matter how strong a player was, exhaustion inevitably led to mistakes.
Even Hikaru lost a match when his form faltered.
The same happened to Isumi.
Only Ochi remained unshaken.
Determined to secure professional certification with a flawless record, Ochi continued forward.
Then the plot turned cruelly dramatic.
Just as both Hikaru's and Isumi's chances of advancement entered dangerous territory, the draw paired them against each other.
The merciless matchmaking instantly made countless manga readers curse Shirogane in their hearts.
Originally, the two's chances of advancing were already hanging by a thread, but at least the initiative was still in their hands.
As long as they didn't lose another match and kept winning through the remainder of the main tournament, their promotion would still be relatively secure.
But now that they were paired against each other, it meant one thing:
Someone was guaranteed to lose.
And whoever lost would no longer control their own fate.If they still wanted to become a professional Go player that year, they would have to depend on the final standings of hundreds of other candidates from the same cohort, clinging to nothing more than a so-called theoretical chance of advancement.
The moment this pairing appeared, readers felt a suffocating sense of despair.
With more than thirty promotion slots available, couldn't Shirogane just let Ochi, Isumi, and Hikaru all advance?
But hikaru no go was never a feel-good manga, nor a mindless wish-fulfillment story.
It had drama, but it never softened the cruelty of Go simply to satisfy the audience.
If the protagonist's group advanced smoothly without sacrifice, then the cruelty would merely be transferred to everyone outside that group, and that, too, would be dishonest.
Although the manga never explicitly stated it, many readers had already realized the truth:
This match between Hikaru and Isumi was the decisive one.The game that would determine who stepped into the professional world, and who was left behind.
And in such a critical moment, Isumi's long-standing flaw resurfaced.
Overwhelmed by pressure, he made a blunder.
Then, almost instinctively, he moved the stone back with his finger.
The entire action took less than a second.
But Hikaru, Sai standing behind him, and Isumi himself all understood immediately:
He had committed a foul.
Under the rules, Isumi would be disqualified on the spot.
Whether that disqualification would actually occur depended on one person alone.
Hikaru.
The final page of the chapter showed Hikaru frozen in place, his expression blank, unable to decide.
He was already at a disadvantage in the game.
If he protested, he would win immediately.
If he ignored the foul and continued playing.
Could he still overturn the board from this position?
Hikaru's hesitation seemed to spill straight out of the manga and into reality.
This was not just a game.
It was a choice that determined a professional Go career.
After the chapter's release, an enormous debate erupted on Dream Comic's official website.
One side supported Hikaru letting the matter slide.
They argued that Isumi's mistake was born of nerves, corrected almost instantly, and didn't deserve such a merciless punishment. More than that, Isumi had helped Hikaru countless times, training his mentality, taking him to Go clubs, and supporting him throughout the exam. Without Isumi, Hikaru might never have made it this far. Letting it go was simply returning that kindness.
The other side was uncompromising.
Rules were rules.
This was a professional qualification match. Losing here could mean elimination even with perfect results afterward. Hikaru was already behind, how could he possibly give up the one chance handed to him by the rules?
With the hikaru no go TV series airing that same week and drawing in a wave of new viewers, the argument exploded far beyond the usual manga readership.
For the first time, discussions surrounding hikaru no go completely overwhelmed every other series on Hoshimori's official platform.
...
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