Ryuuou no Oshigoto! - Volume 5 - Chapter 4.4

  IONIZATION

The sealing move–––once the Meijin deviated from Shogi standards, the atmosphere inside the break room sizzled as if struck by an electrical charge.

“The evaluation software won’t settle on a rating!” exclaimed Mato, the journalist, as she tried to analyze the match on her computer.

Jin Natagiri and Tamayo Rokuroba, busy preparing the large Shogi board for their own analysis, groan in acknowledgement.

“Those two are reading too deep …… Software casts a wide net, but doesn’t read any more than a few turns ahead. That’s why it can’t keep up when they spend time reading deeper than it can predict, and it can’t assign a value to each move ……”

“Then …… Does that mean my computer is useless for determining who has the stronger formation for the rest of the match?!”

Tamayo clutched her head in her hands. It was her job to analyze and predict from the defense–––Yaichi’s side.

“What am I supposed to do ……? I’m totally clueless right now ……”

Not a single player in the room rebuked her complaining as pathetic.

Each piece’s current location was so bizarre that it was impossible to determine what formation each player had on the board. Neither the professional Shogi players in the break room nor the software at their disposal could comprehend what the two players in the arena were doing any longer.

In the midst of it all, “Master will make this move.”

“Huh?”

The one reaching for Tamayo’s analysis board–––was Ai Hinatsuru Women’s League 3-kyu.

Now officially part of the Women’s League, she had the right to participate in match analysis along with the others in the break room. She took full advantage of it right away by predicting what move Yaichi will make.

Jin watched from the other side of the board and gave a heartfelt nod once he saw what the girl had in mind.

“Ohh ……? I see, I see. Indeed, that seems right up Yaichi’s alley.”

However.

“Smart aleck grade schoolers should keep their mouths shut! Yaichi will obviously move here.”

Reaching in from behind Tamayo’s opposite shoulder to make her point was Ginko Sora, Women’s Dual Title.

Jin nodded once again, impressed.

“Ha-haa …… I could see that too. Yes, I think Yaichi might prefer that one.”

Ginko stood up to her full height, looking down on Ai with a Heh heh, and touting her victory. However, Ai leaned over the board again to put the piece that Ginko moved back in its place and advanced her own without missing a beat.

“Here.”

“Like this.”

“Here.”

“Like this.”

“Here!”

“Like this!”

Ai and Ginko go back and forth, insisting that their own predictions were correct while simultaneously denying the other’s. The two repeatedly moved the other’s pieces back to the original position like bickering children with no end in sight.

“Ah, um …… Excuse me–––.”

Sandwiched between the two, Tamayo tried to interject.

“You stay out of this!”

“Uh …… Okay? S-Sorry?”

Wondering why she was the one getting scolded, Tamayo thought, Oh well, no biggie. They’re showing me some moves, so what’s the problem? And decided to watch the girls’ analysis (?) without interrupting them. She whispered under her breath.

“……… Better not dig too deep into this one ……”

The Meijin and Ryuo were engaged in Shogi far removed from the mostly anything goes sense of modern-day Shogi matches. Trying to understand their thought process could negatively impact her own Shogi senses. The very thought scared Tamayo to the core.

Shogi had the power to fascinate people and change them from within.

The effect grew along with the level of play, to the point where top-tier matches would affect bystanders like a massive energy source altering its surroundings at a molecular level.

The person who understood that second best in the world was quietly sitting at the back of the break room, listening to his secretary read through the match record thus far and analyzing the match on his own.

“…… Which brings us to the current 51st move. The Ryuo has already spent forty minutes of waiting time thinking on it.”

“All right.”

Seiichi Tsukimitsu nods to Sasari Oga and silently ponders her words for a minute before getting another person’s attention.

“…… Ms. Mato.”

“Yes, Chairman.”

“What is the problem with the software?”

“It won’t give me a clear value. Both formation ratings and move predictions keep changing by the second …… Chairman, may I ask you question?”

“By all means.”

“How do you feel about the match so far? I can’t add any comments to the live blog as things are right now ……”

Completely at a loss, she responded with a question of her own.

As someone directly hired by a newspaper sponsoring the event, it was her job to pass along information as well as professional analysis to the media throng waiting outside the break room. Saying, I don’t know was not acceptable.

“Let me think ……”

Seiichi thought of how best to phrase his answer.

“There are two schools of thought in Shogi. Board theory …… in other words, trying to find the correct answer in Shogi itself. The other way to approach it is not to consider theory at all, instead focusing on victory by forcing the opponent to make a mistake.”

“Yes.”

“He prefers matches with a large amount of waiting time–––basically, these two-day matches are his chance to pursue the next level of board theory. That’s why he’s visibly frustrated whenever his opponent makes a bad move. I’m sure you know about that long, disappointed sigh he makes.”

That sigh itself had become legend.

Even if it put him at an advantage, the Meijin would always look irritated when an opponent made a mistake.

“Yaichi, on the other hand, plays more for victory rather than for knowledge. The Kansai playing style …… The willingness to stubbornly hold out, be dragged through the mud as it were, so long as it leads to victory can be explained another way. It waits for the opponent to make a mistake.”

“But …… The Meijin won’t make a mistake.”

“Are you familiar with the phenomenon of ionization?”

“I can’t say I am ……”

Caught off guard by having a word with no connection to Shogi suddenly thrown at her, Mato paused in confusion.

“It’s the process by which molecules susceptible to electricity produce ions from an electrical charge. Lightning and auroras are produced by positively charged ions from high voltage built up by friction in the atmosphere.”

“T-That’s interesting but …… What does it have to do with, um …… Shogi ……?”

“The point I’m trying to make is that a large energy source can induce all sorts of change. Pure air can transform into lightning.”

“So, by sitting across the board from the Meijin … the Ryuo is changing?”

“Shogi is energy. People require large amounts of energy to think. Simply playing Shogi is physically exhausting, yes? However, what remains in place of that expended energy once the match is over?”

“…………… A match record?”

“Exactly. Match records are crystals left behind by that energy. The more thought that went into their creation, the stronger they glow,” Seiichi confidently declared. “He’s pursuing a solution to the game of Shogi at this very moment. A solution that has eluded countless prodigies over the past 1,400 years, one that rapidly advancing technological power couldn’t produce, to the ultimate question–––Should each player make the best possible move each turn, does offense or defense emerge victorious? That is the answer he seeks.”

“……!!”

Mato and Sasari, seated beside Seiichi, couldn’t contain their surprise and curiosity. Anyone who plays Shogi wants to solve that mystery.

At the same time, neither was about to take Seiichi’s outlandish claim at face value.

“Playing Shogi by yourself is impossible. Therefore, finding a partner who can consistently make the best possible move is a necessity. For that very reason, the Meijin has been priming Yaichi over the past three matches. His Shogi has absorbed an incredible amount of energy and is transforming as we speak.”

“The way you talk about it … makes it sound like you’ve experienced this yourself–––.”

“Yes. I have been in this very spot with him before.”

Mato nearly gasped at those words.

It was true.

Back when the Meijin first achieved the Septuple Title, this man was the one who held out to the very end.

Despite claiming five titles as his own before being overwhelmed by a conqueror from the next generation, losing one title after another, this man continued to fight.

He fought to defend his last one in the face of the Meijin’s six titles just after the Hanshin earthquake struck and became a beacon of hope to the people of Kansai.

Amid ruins, from hospital beds, they watched this Shogi player continue to fight on no matter how many losses he took. They saw themselves in him and every move he made brought them courage.

There was no doubt Shogi gave people strength in those trying times.

Even now, people continue to talk about the legendary single move that delayed the Septuple Title for a full year––– the Dastardly 7 Seven Knight.

“Playing against him …… I had already lost my vision and could only see my own mental Shogi board, but I still saw it. My eyes, which could only sense varying degrees of light, clearly saw bright blue sparks flashing from piece to piece. It was that light that showed me. It led me to the 7 Seven Knight.”

The man who had once held the title of Meijin, supposedly blind for decades, turned to face the monitor and calmly asked, “Can you not see it? All that light pulsing in the arena.”

Mato and Sasari thought this truly absurd claim was nothing more than a joke. After all, the chairman loved saying strange things with a straight face.

However.

“……?!”

One look at that monitor, and the two women were at a loss for words.

A bizarre light … an aurora filled the picture of the arena on the screen.

“…… That’s just digital noise, right ……?”

“……… Probably ……”

Mato and Sasari blankly stared into the screen.

Back in the arena, Yaichi had less than one hour of waiting time remaining.