Aragaki Shun's first all-out effort to use his brain pushed his mind, already operating at the limits of an ordinary person, to constantly convert its potential into computational power.
At that moment, thanks to his powerful control over his body, he faintly sensed the heat within him burning. As his concentration continued to sharpen, every sound around him faded away, and the countless possible futures on the chessboard became increasingly clear.
Seven moves... eight... nine... ten...
One minute... two minutes... three minutes... four...
Time passed slowly until, at a certain moment, Aragaki Shun's eyes seemed to suddenly light up. At last, he had found the greatest glimmer of hope among all those possible futures.
He picked up the chess piece that could turn the tide and made his twenty-first move.
"Phew~"
It was as if the entire clubroom had breathed a sigh of relief. Only Sakayanagi Arisu frowned at the boy's move.
She couldn't understand. What was the point of that move?
She glanced at Aragaki Shun, whose expression remained calm and unreadable, then analyzed the next few moves. Seeing that she still had the advantage, the girl dismissed his demeanor as nothing but an attempt to put on a show.
Let's see if you can still keep that expression once you've completely lost!
Sakayanagi sneered inwardly. How could a mere ordinary person understand the heights a genius could reach?
Trying to drag things out and wear down her stamina? Who did he think he was?
Chess was indeed a sport that consumed a considerable amount of the body's energy, but only when there wasn't an overwhelming gap in skill between the two players.
Based on their first twenty moves, Sakayanagi didn't believe her opponent had what it took to keep up with her. All she had to do was think for a moment and she could checkmate him. How could that possibly drain her stamina?
Certain that victory was assured, the girl moved the piece along the route she had already settled on. Compared with the long time Aragaki Shun spent thinking, she took less than half a minute to make her move.
Aragaki Shun didn't care. He was now completely immersed in the game. Unless something unexpected happened outside and triggered his Danger Sense, he wouldn't care how anyone else reacted.
The onlookers didn't know whether Sakayanagi Arisu's move had been part of Aragaki Shun's calculations, but they could tell from the Chess Club president's timer that the boy made his twenty-second move much faster than before, pausing for only about three minutes.
Then he spent a little over two minutes thinking about his twenty-third move, less than two minutes on his twenty-fourth, around ninety seconds on his twenty-fifth, and only eighty seconds on his twenty-sixth...
Aragaki Shun was moving faster and faster. His opponent, Sakayanagi, gradually sensed that something was wrong, and her previously composed state of mind began to grow tense.
She couldn't tell which move had caused the problem. She had been in the lead, but suddenly she'd lost control of the game. The board was now full of unpredictable twists, and she could no longer play as if she were toying with him.
"Very good! Excellent! It seems you really aren't one of those mediocre fools. I was mistaken to think you were merely a despicable man with a little cleverness. Underestimating you was my fault."
Sakayanagi Arisu put aside her irritation and forced herself to calm down, preparing to face Aragaki Shun's increasingly fierce attacks in the best possible state.
She'd been irritated because, though his chess skills were still inferior to those of several Chess Club members, he'd tried to take advantage of her physical weakness. He was a bastard who was good for nothing but his looks.
But now it seemed Aragaki Shun had simply gotten rusty from not playing for a long time. If he was given some time to focus on calculating, he had a real chance of turning the game around and beating her.
The girl could no longer treat her opponent as if he were a toy to play with.
No matter what, the time-control rules he'd chosen were the standard rules used in international competitions. She'd even cut the time limit in half. Under the circumstances, he could hardly be said to have gained an advantage. He had reached this point through genuine skill.
Anyone their age with this level of skill was undoubtedly a true opponent. She, too, would have to give it her all to pursue victory.
Seeing that Aragaki Shun didn't reply, Sakayanagi wasn't surprised. She, too, began to sink completely into the game, searching for a glimmer of victory by drawing on the countless chess records and endgame analyses stored in her mind.
The onlookers in the clubroom were astonished to find that, just as Aragaki Shun's moves returned to a normal pace, Sakayanagi Arisu's began to slow down instead.
As one sped up and the other slowed down, the atmosphere in the clubroom grew heavier. A few of the spectators who weren't good at chess felt as if they were about to suffocate. They wanted to do something, but feared disturbing the game and getting beaten to death by the others.
Time passed slowly once more. This time, however, the one who hadn't made her next move was Sakayanagi Arisu, with the white pieces.
About four minutes later, the girl finally made a tentative move—her thirty-first.
Aragaki Shun's gaze was calm. He, too, spent three minutes calculating the changes in the game before moving his own piece right after her.
Sakayanagi Arisu was taken aback. She frowned as she calculated her opponent's intentions, taking even longer before choosing the route she thought was best.
The two went back and forth, predicting each other's intentions. A single move could determine the board's state ten moves later. Though only a few moves had passed, the game was already filled with the clash of blades. One miscalculation could end the entire match.
Both players' remaining time continued to tick away. When the girl moved her white piece for the thirty-seventh move, Aragaki Shun paused. He didn't move any of his black pieces. Instead, he came out of his intense focus and looked up at the girl sitting opposite him, whose face had taken on a faintly flushed hue.
"Never mind. I'm done. Let's call this game a draw. I got a little too emotional earlier."
The boy's words set time moving again, after it had seemed to come to a standstill. The many students and teachers watching around the chessboard also seemed to wake from a dream. One by one, they moved their limbs and began discussing why Aragaki Shun had suddenly called for a draw.
Wait! When had there suddenly become so many people?
Aragaki Shun came back to his senses and realized that the area around him was packed with people. Looking around, he discovered that the members of the Shogi Club next door, whom he had challenged earlier, had also been drawn over. There were also a few middle-aged men he didn't recognize. He had no idea when they'd arrived.
It seemed the game had gone on for quite a while, drawing a crowd of onlookers.
Aragaki Shun took out his phone. Nearly eighty minutes had passed since they introduced the time-limit rule.
After such a long game, and with his earlier challenges to the Billiards Club, the Judo Club, and the Shogi Club having taken quite a while too, it would normally have been just about the right time to go eat dinner.
At the thought, a wave of hunger hit Aragaki Shun. He'd burned too much energy concentrating earlier. He'd better go replenish it soon.
But although he wanted to end things there, someone else didn't.
"Stop right there!"
Sakayanagi Arisu clenched her fist, her face growing even redder as she glared at Aragaki Shun, who was turning to leave. "It's your turn now!"
Aragaki Shun glanced at her strained expression, realizing that his opponent had understood: the move she'd just made had been a low-level mistake that only an amateur would make.
Of course, a game like this came down to who made a mistake first. He had no reason to feel bad about dealing her a heavy blow.
But from her expression, he could tell that Sakayanagi Arisu was clearly forcing herself to keep going. What if she collapsed right there on the chessboard?
Seriously, with a body this frail, where had she found the courage to challenge someone to a game of chess?
Chess seemed to involve nothing more than sitting still and moving your hands, but in professional competitions, it was an intense mental sport. The energy players expended in a single match was fully comparable to what athletes in other sports used.
In major international tournaments, it was normal for professional players to lose an average of one kilogram over the course of a single game. There had even been a champion who lost ten kilograms in five months and nearly died at the tournament.
"Do you really think there's any point in continuing?"
Aragaki Shun sensed the girl's stubborn gaze and asked helplessly.
He'd actually wanted to beat her through skill, and he was confident he'd be the one to win if they played to the end. He hadn't expected the match to be only halfway over before his opponent was no longer able to keep up.
Apparently, Sakayanagi Arisu had made that mistake because she'd exhausted herself and her thoughts had started to grow muddled.
How should he put it? Had Sakayanagi Arisu actually been beaten by the Falcon Taming Tactic?
So it was better to leave it at that. Losing this game would be humiliating, and winning it would be meaningless. A draw would be best for everyone.
"The game isn't over!"
The girl stubbornly insisted on continuing.
Heaven had given her flawless looks and a genius mind. Since nothing in the world could be perfect, it had taken away her health.
She had always comforted herself with that thought.
If she lost to someone her age in such a wretched way here, all the years she'd persevered would collapse like a joke, forcing her to confront the cruel, cold reality—
She had never been a genius!
What did a true genius look like?
Even when her shortcomings outweighed her strengths, Sakayanagi Arisu still didn't believe she was inferior to Aragaki Shun in intelligence. But the tragic truth was that her body couldn't even support her through this match.
There was no point in stubbornly insisting otherwise. Even if she was confident that her intelligence was second to none, she could barely compete with someone on the chessboard she'd played with for over a decade. Where could this so-called "genius intelligence" possibly shine?
The girl couldn't help but hate her frail body, afflicted with congenital heart disease, once again!
"Enough."
Aragaki Shun frowned as he looked at Sakayanagi, who stood in his way with a determined expression, refusing to let him leave.
He couldn't understand why such a seemingly delicate girl would push herself this far, regardless of her health.
But people's beliefs were often shaped by the particular experiences of their lives. It was normal for an outsider who hadn't endured those hardships to fail to understand.
All Aragaki Shun could do was bring the situation to a quick end. He didn't want this to get out of hand and land her in the hospital. The thought made his scalp tingle.
So he picked up a black piece from the board and seized on the mistake Sakayanagi had made earlier, moving it into a position that would decide the outcome.
Once he made that move, even the Chess Club members who weren't as good as the two of them could see that several of the white pieces were in danger at once. In the next few moves, Sakayanagi Arisu would have to keep sacrificing important pieces to avoid checkmate.
Even if the girl insisted on continuing in this situation, the best she could hope for was to prolong the game and struggle her way toward a draw.
But with her mind already muddled, was she going to pursue a draw?
Did she really want to go straight to the hospital?
"What do you say? Let's end this match here. You're welcome to challenge me again whenever you've saved up enough points!"
As he spoke, Aragaki Shun glanced at several middle-aged men among the onlookers. Their expressions were clearly unusual as they watched Sakayanagi Arisu, hesitating over whether to approach her.
Their air didn't match that of schoolteachers, and they seemed concerned about Sakayanagi Arisu's condition. Could they be professional medical staff her family had hired?
At first, when he saw the cane, Aragaki Shun had thought she merely had trouble walking. Now, judging by her frail state, she might actually have a heart condition.
So was there something wrong with her family, letting her run around school in that condition, or was there something wrong with the school, admitting just anyone?
As soon as the question occurred to him, he remembered that the school's Board Chairman was also named Sakayanagi. And why, in Advanced Nurturing, which was supposedly a three-year boarding school, were there medical staff specifically assigned to care for a student?
Mystery solved. The school really was her family's, huh!
Tsk, why did such a troublesome person have to be in his year?
After a few seconds of exasperation, Aragaki Shun looked directly at the teacher who had witnessed the match and their wager.
Are you going to announce the result or not? Do you really want to stand there and watch the Board Chairman's relation collapse?
"Today's match is over. The winner is Aragaki Shun of Class 1-B. In accordance with the agreement, Sakayanagi Arisu of Class 1-A must pay him five hundred thousand points."
Fortunately, the Chess Club's instructor didn't let them down.
He didn't know whether the Board Chairman had already given the school staff instructions, or whether the teacher was simply worried about the trouble a student collapsing would cause. In any case, after receiving Aragaki Shun's signal, he didn't hesitate. He stepped forward and announced the result.
Aragaki Shun breathed a sigh of relief and prepared to leave.
To his surprise, Sakayanagi Arisu, whom he'd expected to cause more trouble, merely stared blankly at the board after hearing the result. She didn't do anything else to test his patience.
Thank goodness. Otherwise, he would've started wondering if she was really going to use her frail body to frame him.
"...Classmate Aragaki, are you really just an amateur who plays chess now and then?"
Sakayanagi Arisu looked up and suddenly asked Aragaki Shun the question that was bothering her.
But the next moment, as she recalled how Aragaki Shun's skill had gone from enough to deal with her at a glance to increasingly unfathomable over the course of their game, Sakayanagi had to bitterly admit that there really were geniuses in the world who could beat ordinary people's ten years of effort with nothing but a last-minute cram session.
That was right—ordinary people!
This was the first time Sakayanagi Arisu had called herself that with such a sense of helplessness.
It wasn't as though she'd never lost at chess before.
But her opponents had either been older, professional-level players, so she could comfort herself that she still lacked experience, or they'd been students who specialized in chess to make a living, so she could explain that chess was just one of her everyday hobbies.
But now she'd met someone her own age who had clearly devoted little effort to chess, yet had caught up with her ten years of dedication in just a few hours once he focused.
Ha. She'd called herself a genius and taken pride in it, surrounded by her family's praise from childhood onward. It turned out she was only this laughably mediocre...
Seeing the girl sink into depression all by herself, like a fish or shrimp caught in a net, Aragaki Shun felt inexplicably awkward. He had the impression that he was bullying a little girl, shattering her childhood fantasy.
"Classmate Sakayanagi, it's getting late. Why don't you transfer the points you lost to me first, then go back to your dorm and zone out by yourself?"
If he'd shattered her illusion, then so be it. Children had to face the reality that Santa Claus didn't exist sooner or later.
I'm not close to her. Comforting her is something her parents can worry about.
Everyone in the Chess Club stared at him. Even Shibata looked at him as if he were beyond saving.
Sakayanagi Arisu, who had been wallowing in melancholy, twisted her face. My dad's the Board Chairman. Do you really think I'd stiff you for five hundred thousand points?
At that moment, Aragaki Shun's mysterious image in the girl's eyes shattered into pieces.
She glared at the guy and, annoyed, transferred him five hundred thousand points on her phone.
Looking at the still-considerable number of points left on her phone, she hesitated over whether to schedule another match with him right away.
But after this experience, whether she liked it or not, she had to admit that as long as her body remained so frail, she would never beat an opponent with comparable chess skills.
She hadn't been willing to accept that in the past. It had taken reality to show her that if she exerted her mind to the fullest for half an hour without being able to determine the outcome, she would be forced into the tragic position of losing without actually being defeated.
Seeing that the girl really seemed to want another match, Aragaki Shun felt a headache coming on. He really didn't want to wager against someone who might collapse in the middle of a match at any moment!
Never mind the rumors that he bullied disabled people. She also had an unclear relationship with the Board Chairman of this school—][.
Before you continue