The air in the Advanced Nurturing High School's Chess Club activity room was thick with the scent of floor wax and the stifling silence of a predator at work.
When Jin pushed open the door of Chess club, he didn't find the rowdy atmosphere of a club recruitment day. Instead, he found a massacre—of the intellectual variety.
A short, illiac-haired girl sat perched on a club chair like a monarch on a temporary throne.
A silver-topped walking stick leaned against her leg, its presence a stark contrast to her delicate, doll-like features.
She wore a beret with an air of effortless sophistication that made the school uniform look like high fashion.
This was Class 1-A's Sakayanagi Arisu.
Across from her, a third-year Chess Club member looked like he was suffering a cardiac event.
Sweat soaked his collar; his hand trembled as it hovered over a knight. Arisu didn't rush him. She simply watched with a faint, polite smile that never reached her cold, crystalline eyes.
"I... I lose," the senior stammered, bowing his head so low it nearly hit the board. "I will transfer the points to you immediately, as per the contract."
"Senpai's opening was quite spirited," Sakayanagi Arisu's voice was like velvet over shattered glass.
"If you pay more attention to the structural integrity of your late-game defense, you might actually hope to touch the true professional circuit one day. Do keep practicing."
The senpai didn't look insulted; he looked honored to have been crushed by her.
As she began to rise, reaching for her cane with a methodical grace, her gaze drifted to the doorway.
Her eyebrows arched—a subtle, sharp movement. "Ara," she purred, her lips pursing into a playful line. "It seems there's a fish that got away from the net."
Jin stepped into the room, his expression unreadable, though a predatory glint flickered in his eyes.
"Classmate, In this school some fish are too big for a net. They require a harpoon."
As Jin approached, the world around him shifted. To anyone else, the room was just a club space.
To Jin, a Devil, with the help of enhanced magical version of 'transperant world' he could see inside Sakayanagi Arisu lied an unawakened, sacred gear.
Even the physical deformity, her congenital heart disease and weakend physique, may be due to this unawakened sacred gear's manifestation.
Jin who carried the weight of the Underworld's "Evil Pieces" within his dimensional space, the room began to hum with a violent resonance.
Deep within his soul, his connection of Evil Pieces began to emit resonance. They weren't just reacting; they were screaming.
The Bishop piece pulsed with a blinding, rhythmic light. It sensed her. Arisu's fragile frame concealed a reservoir of latent magical potential—a natural-born strategist with the spiritual capacity to command the very elements.
The Pawn pieces followed, their glow steady but dim, acknowledging her versatility.
The Queen piece, however, gave off a faint, flickering spark. It was a peculiar reaction. It confirmed she had the raw power of a Queen, but her physical limitations—the deformity Jin could feel vibrating off her like a discordant note—meant she lacked the "Rook's" sturdiness or the "Knight's" kinetic speed.
This means if she became a 'Queen', she will be a glass cannon of pure intellect.
She's perfect, Jin thought, his heart cold. But a Devil only gets fifteen pieces. 'If I turn her and she breaks, that's a piece of my set gone forever.'
"You're looking at me with a very... analytical gaze, classmate," Sakayanagi Arisu said, pulling him back to the mundane world. "Shall we see if your bite matches your stare?"
Under the watchful, somewhat confused eye of the club advisor, a new contract was drafted.
The stakes were absurd for a first-day encounter: 800,000 Private Points.
It was a sum that could buy a student's way out of expulsion or provide a life of luxury for three years.
"I didn't expect another First Year to have such a bulging wallet so soon," Sakayanagi Arisu remarked, moving her first Pawn with a slender hand. "This school is becoming less tedious by the second."
Jin mirrored her move instantly. "I'm the one who's surprised."
"I thought I was the only one ruthless enough to shake down the senpais of the Shogi club on day one. You took over a million private points from the Chess Club alone? I really was too kind to the Shogi club upperclassmen. I'll have to milk them dry next time."
Sakayanagi Arisu chuckled, a small, melodic sound. "You speak of them like cattle. I like that. But tell me, how did you know I was a First Year?"
"Logic," Jin replied, his hand moving like a blur, slamming his piece down the moment her fingers left hers.
"Upperclassmen wouldn't be this desperate to prove themselves on day one. Class 1-A. Leader Sakayanagi Arisu. It's destiny, isn't it? A for Arisu. The little Mascot of the Class A."
He watched her closely, using her first name with a deliberate, oily affection designed to prick at her composure.
"Arima-san," she said, her smile widening just a fraction—a sign of genuine amusement or mounting irritation.
"If you think calling me by my given name or playing at this frantic pace will rattle me, you are mistaken. I don't let 'small things' dictate my heart rate."
The game transformed into an invisible war. It was no longer about wooden pieces on a checkered board; it was a psychological siege.
Jin maintained a blistering pace. Every time Sakayanagi Arisu moved, he responded within half a second.
He wanted to create a vacuum of time, forcing her to breathe in his rhythm. He was the aggressor, the "Devil" demanding a soul.
Sakayanagi Arisu, however, slowed down. She leaned back, her pale skin ghostly under the fluorescent lights, taking minutes to contemplate a single pawn push. She was forcing him to wait, to simmer in his own aggression.
To the observers, Jin looked dominant. He was "winning" the clock. He was the one dictating the flow.
"Checkmate," Arisu said suddenly.
The word was quiet, but it hit the room like a thunderclap. She placed her Queen down with a delicate click.
"You used three methods to disrupt me, Arima-san," she said, her voice dripping with the satisfaction of a cat that had finally caught the mouse.
"The familiarity of my name, the pressure of the clock, and the 'Mascot' label. It was a brilliant, multi-layered strategy. Truly. It made me quite nervous."
She looked at the board, where Jin's King was hemmed in by her Knight and Bishop.
"But while you were playing the man, I was playing the board," she continued, her eyes shining with a terrifying brilliance.
"I broke through your 'fast chess' trap and found the one line you overlooked in your haste to intimidate me. A pity. You have the talent, but you lack the patience of a true master."
She began to reach for her points-transfer terminal, the victor's spoils within reach.
Jin didn't move. He didn't look frustrated. In fact, he started to laugh—a low, guttural sound that made the Bishop piece in his soul flare with dark crimson light.
"Arisu," he said, his voice dropping an octave, "you really are a genius. You saw the trap I set for your mind. But you failed to see the trap I set for your ego."
He reached out and moved a piece she hadn't accounted for—a sacrifice he had made ten moves ago that now blocked her Queen's escape route, opening a lane for a hidden Rook.
"You thought you 'counter-killed' me," Jin whispered, leaning across the board until he could smell the faint scent of tea on her breath.
"But I let you feel that victory so you'd stop looking for the real threat. Now... look again."
The color drained from Arisu's face as the true geometry of the board revealed itself.
The predator hadn't been the girl with the cane; it was the boy who had been waiting for her to feel safe.