Kaori Saejima -2021- May 2026

Someone had been listening to the game inside her head.

And somewhere deep in her mind, on the immaculate 81 squares she had built to survive the silence, the silver general she had moved in her apartment that morning began to glow with a cold, impossible light. Kaori Saejima -2021-

Kaori's breath caught. Her left hand twitched inside the glove, a moth against a windowpane. Someone had been listening to the game inside her head

The wood groaned.

The board in her mind was perfect. Immaculate. The 81 squares stretched out like a city grid, each koma —each piece—a living soldier with a name and a grudge. She was playing against a ghost. Not a real one. A composite of every master she had ever studied: a phantom grandmaster she called The Caretaker . Her left hand twitched inside the glove, a