Chapter 5

As it turns out, it seems I had greatly underestimated Blank. I've learned a great deal about these two siblings just through this chess match. I opened my eyes, temporarily breaking out of the deep concentration I had been in up until now and looked over my desk at my opponent.

Sora's sly grin has still not left his that face of his, and Shiro was as stoic as always. Shiro was a person who operated based on cold, calculating precision. Her ability to think was extraordinary; throughout this game she had flaunted her immense calculating ability that puts even chess engines to shame. If it was any other game but chess, I'd think she has some kind of precognition - it's almost as if she has a map in her head which shows all possible continuations with terrifying depth and accuracy.

That being said, I think I would be able to beat her. If anything, her being like a supercomputer is both her biggest strength and weakness. Identifying traps and tricks, and intuitively knowing which kinds of moves - like an early b6 push by black for example - can result in long term weaknesses which will be exploitable down the line. Shiro, as well as most computers, can avoid this for the most part by analysing the position at a depth of around twenty moves; if a move won't create a big weakness within that amount of moves then a computer will judge it as a good move, especially if it accomplishes a short-term goal or prevents an opponent's tactic.

There is a problem with this, however. In fact, it has a name: The Horizon Effect. Also known as The Horizon Problem, it's a name for the issue wherein a game such as chess has so many possible game states that computers and AI can only feasibly evaluate a small percentage of them.

Human beings can overcome this weakness by using their intuition and pattern recognition. A human chess player for example will easily be able to identify a variety of traps and tricks in a game by virtue of recognising them. Once a player falls for a trap once, they won't do so again because they'll remember it next time. A computer however has no simple way of doing this - the only way a computer can identify a trap is by evaluating the game state many moves down the game tree.

I had fallen behind a bit but when I realised all of this, I figured out how I can win. By exploiting tricks and traps that would have a negative effect mainly on the positional play of the game - something Shiro can't easily see, if at all.

"Knight g6" I said confidently.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed some of the observers look surprised for a second. Namely, Ayanokōji narrowed his eyes when he heard my move - it was the first time a noticeable change appeared on his face since he entered this classroom. There are two possible reasons a person would have this reaction to my move and my evaluation of Ayanokōji would change drastically depending on which reason he gave for his reaction. I made a mental note to ask him later.

On one hand, he could be surprised because on the surface it looks like I'm simply giving away my knight for free. However, this was the trap I knew that Shiro would fall for. If the pawn on f7 takes my knight, it will open up a diagonal which the pawn previously blocked which I can use to force Shiro's castled king from out of its safety into the centre of the board. From there, it will be easy to attack and will eventually result in checkmate; even for a supercomputer, recovering from a position where your king is isolated is near impossible.

Despite this, the move I had played - knight to g6 - was still objectively a bad move. Why? It's because black can respond with a passive move that covers the diagonal. By doing this, it accomplishes two things - it makes black's pieces more active and developed and also forces me to retreat my knight back to where it was which effectively means I wasted two moves meanwhile black has been developing their pieces and building an attack.

If Ayanokōji noticed this, then he could be anywhere from a good player to a grandmaster - perhaps, even beyond that. However if his reasoning for why my move was bad is because it gives up a piece for free, then he's just an idiot.

I looked at Shiro expectedly, waiting for her response which would inevitably be 'f7 takes on g6', sealing the game. I couldn't help but feel a smug joy as she opened her mouth from across the desk.

With this, my victory is all but assured and I'm 20,000 points richer.

However, no response came from Shiro. Just as she was about to state her move, Sora stopped her. Then, he spoke for the first time since the game began.

"Don't take it, it's a trap. Play Knight to a5 instead."

My internal joy immediately vanished and I felt my blood run cold as a sudden realization hit me. I'd been so focused on deciphering Shiro and planning how to beat her that I'd completely forgotten: I wasn't playing against Shiro, I was playing against Blank.

Shiro's one weakness in chess - her lack of intuition and pattern recognition - was entirely covered by Sora, the man I had neglected to consider until now.

This is their dynamic, how they work together. They have no weakness.

I glanced at the clock on the wall. There was still technically eighteen minutes until the opening ceremony, but this school's campus is practically a mini-city and so it takes a surprising amount of time to walk from here to where the ceremony is located.

In short, I have only around five minutes to turn this around. I'm already six points of material down and due to the tempo I just lost by going for that trap, I'm going to have a worse position too. In short, it's not possible to recover now. Perhaps I could've forced a stalemate if I had kept playing as normal, but I got overconfident in thinking I had deconstructed Blank. This trap which I had intended to set for Shiro ended up being my undoing. Blank is a truly formidable opponent.

"It's my loss. I resign." I said.

Somehow, I felt a strange sense of calm even though I had been thoroughly beaten. Perhaps it was because I had been so used to looking at the world from the sidelines. Everything, from school to chess and everything in between, came easy to me and so I developed apathy towards my daily life. Maybe this school, no, this class can reignite me and give me a goal to strive for.

Hmph. I'll beat you one day, Blank. I swear it.

"You look unusually happy for someone who just lost 10,000 points," Sora said in a teasing manner.

"Ah, I was so caught up in finally meeting worthy competition that I totally forgot about that."

Saying that, I pulled out my phone and transferred 5,000 of my points to both Sora and Shiro, as promised. I realised I had a smile on my face. I understood now a bit of what Ishihara-sensei meant when she said all of class E is once-in-a-generation talent. If everyone else here is comparable in overall strength to Blank, then this class can certainly be considered a miracle.

"You guys together seriously don't have any weaknesses, then? You completely cover each other's bases." I said, a slight trace of irritation in my tone.

"Well, that's not entirely true. Blank does have one weakness."

Well that's a surprise. I thought hard about it, but I couldn't think of anything. Light must've noticed my puzzled expression because he spoke up.

"Can't you figure it out? If not, then you're too caught up in the game you just played. Take a step back and look at the bigger picture." he said

Too caught up in the game I just played? What does that mean? Honestly, if everyone here is going to speak in riddles for the next three years then it's not going to be a fun time. I glanced over at the one guy I knew would also be bewildered along with me - the boy I'd know since I was a child - Suzaku Kururugi. As predicted, he wore an expression of confusion even more so than I did.

"I feel like I'm seriously losing it here. You're all acting like it's obvious. What is it?" I asked with clear frustration.

"It's violence." Ryuzaki, the ever-calm observer, said from his desk on the other side of Suzaku.

Then it clicked. Violence. What Light had said was true. I was thinking so much about how I could beat them at chess that I completely neglected to think about the bigger picture. Sora had even said it during his introduction - he was a shut-in, meaning he had probably never been in a direct confrontation, and Shiro was just a small girl. Beating them with violence seemed by far the most effective method. Somehow though, I felt like I didn't want to do that. I wanted to beat them fair and square on their own turf.

"I see..." was all I could say.

"In any case, if anyone here is threatened with violence I will be able to guard them. I don't know about students in this class, but I'm confident that I won't lose to any other student at this school. My training was very... rigorous." Suzaku said.

I'd severely hope he wouldn't be able to be beaten by anyone else at this school. If there is someone in this school that can beat Suzaku in a fight then I seriously have no idea why he's even in this class.

"That's... reassuring. It will be more reassuring once we see what you're capable of in P.E though." Sora said with a chuckle, to which Suzaku responded with a smile.

"Hey, there's only twelve minutes left until the opening ceremony starts. We'd better get going before we end up late." Light interjected.

Nods of agreement spread around the room, so I picked up my bag along with everyone else and headed out.