Ch.1 – EP06 Emotional Gambits

【The day after the match with Soma.】

The hallway after school was already dyed in the colors of sunset, with only a few figures here and there.

“Sora, come with me for a sec.”

Called by Momoko, he stepped into an empty classroom with no one around.

On the desk, a wooden board had already been placed, the pieces lined up in tidy order.

Momoko stared straight at Sora and spoke.

“...Yesterday’s game—when I said ‘Anger Bait,’ you were surprised, weren’t you?”

“I remembered! I couldn’t figure out why you knew that term, and it bugged me like crazy.”

“Heh-heh. Then today, Teacher Momoko herself will tell you why♡”

She tapped the chessboard with her finger and smiled provocatively.

“Sit. You’re White today. Don’t hold back—Dawaj (Come on)♪”

“...Hmph. If you show off like that, I’ll end up winning.”

Even as he bantered, something in Sora’s chest felt unsettled.

Ruy Lopez. He traced the textbook lines, the theory hammered into him by Introduction to Chess.

But across from him, every time Momoko moved a piece, she stared at Sora, and with a strange rhythm she took control of the board.

And then—the moment a knight leapt into the center.

(...Ugh? W-what is this feeling... the black knight... is scary...)

His heart cinched tight, his fingers stopped moving. His urge to attack dissipated like mist.

(Huh? Where should I go? My king... where should he run...?)

“—Szach-mat (checkmate).”

At the same instant as Momoko’s voice, the black knight sprang sharply.

Before he knew it, Sora’s king was surrounded by his own men and, as if smothered, could no longer move.

“This is a Smothered Mate. Feels like your breath got cut off, right?♡”

—※ Smothered Mate: A beautiful yet suffocating checkmate where a king, immobilized by its own pieces, is mated by a knight leaping over pieces.

Momoko smiled sweetly and held out her hand.

Sora, frustrated, took it and squeezed back.

“...One more. This time for sure.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

Game Two. 

This time Momoko took White.

Sora was already swallowed by a peculiar tension.

(As I thought... Momoko’s pieces are scary. No matter how I move, I can’t see myself winning...)

Just four moves.

A white queen slashed straight in, and the nightmare ending visited him once again.

“Okay, Scholar’s Mate♡”

“...No way. How did I fall for such a basic mate again...”

When Sora was dumbfounded, Momoko chuckled and said:

“Why do you think? Maybe you felt my knight was ‘scary,’ Sora?”

“...! Now that you mention it...”

“That’s the answer. Just like you used Anger Bait to enrage Soma-senpai yesterday, this time I used Fear Spike to bind you with ‘fear.’”

“...Fear Spike? So I... had my lines of play manipulated by fear... and fell into this mate?”

“That’s right♡ How does it feel to have even your emotions controlled?”

“...How? It’s scary, and honestly it feels really awful.”

Momoko nodded, satisfied.

“Widzisz? (See?) That’s exactly why understanding what you make your opponent feel is the first step of ‘Emotional Gambits, using emotion as strategy.’”

____________________________________________________________________________________

“...But why would you teach me something so important, Momoko?”

Momoko’s expression turned a bit serious; fiddling with a piece at her fingertips, she began.

“Up through middle school, I lived in Gdańsk, Poland—on the Baltic coast, a port city where the memories of World War II still remain vivid—because of my parents’ work. That’s where I first learned chess, and the teacher at that school was... Elena Kowalska.”

“Eh!? The author of my Introduction to Chess...!?”

“Zgadza się (That’s right). It’s a strange coincidence, isn’t it? And because I was Japanese—which was unusual there—Elena really took me under her wing. She’d once been married to a Japanese man, apparently. So her Japanese was fluent, and she taught me all kinds of things.”

“...Come to think of it, I said last week my grandmother on my mother’s side was Polish... I remember her name now—pretty sure it was Lena. I’ve never met her though.”

Here Momoko showed a smile of certainty.

“Lena? Rozumiem (Lena? I see)... The story doesn’t end there. Elena had a daughter. Her name was—Mari-san.”

“...Mari!? That’s the same name as my mom...!”

“Last weekend, when I saw the ornamentation on the queen of your chess set, I thought ‘maybe’ and emailed Elena. Then she replied. ‘That chess set is the one I sent to Mari. Mari has a son, and his name is SORA.’”

Sora was struck dumb. His throat dried, sweat beaded in his palms.

“...No way... Then my grandmother...”

It felt like a single thread in Sora’s head clicked into place, connecting end to end.

“Widzisz? (See?) Elena Kowalska. ‘Lena’ is a common nickname for Elena in Polish. Sora, your grandmother being Elena—there’s no mistake.”

Sora picked up Introduction to Chess from the desk and stared intently at the author’s photo.

“This person... is my grandmother...”

Momoko nodded and smiled sweetly.

“Elena is the one who created ‘Emotional Gambits.’ The Fear Spike I just used is one of them. With that, she climbed all the way to GM (Grandmaster). Since she made Smothered Mate her finisher, she’s called ‘The Queen of Suffocation.’”

“...Are Emotional Gambits only Anger Bait and Fear Spike?”

“The ones I learned were those two. But you know, Elena must have more techniques. The only ones who knew all of them were Elena and her daughter, Mari-san. But... Mari-san disappeared after a certain incident.”

“Disappeared... ? But Dad told me Mom died in a traffic accident when I was three...”

Momoko knit her brows.

“That’s where it doesn’t match up... Sora, how much do you know about Mari-san?”

“Mom worked at the same company as Dad, and before I was old enough to remember, a car accident... Beyond that, Dad doesn’t talk. Same with Grandma.”

“...There has to be something behind this.”

Momoko exhaled softly and looked hard at Sora.

____________________________________________________________________________________

“By the way, Sora. How did you learn Anger Bait? Don’t tell me it’s really an ‘awakening’ thing?”

“Sunday night, after you went home... I noticed unknown letters carved into the bottom of a pawn in the chess set. After I held it for a while, something snapped in the back of my head... and during the match with Soma-senpai, the words and strategy of Anger Bait came to me naturally.”

“O mój Boże (oh my god)... It really is an awakening type... It took Elena a year of drilling me before I could use Anger Bait.”

Half exasperated, Momoko laughed, then quickly lifted her face.

“Hey, Sora, that chess set—it's at your house today, right? Can we go see it now?”

“Right now? Dad’s not home today either... but you and me alone—are you okay with that, Momoko?”

“...What’s that supposed to mean?”

“...I mean, I am a guy, and inviting a girl to my room at this hour might be bad, you know, for your parents...”

“Głuptas (dummy)~. You’re my disciple, aren’t you? No need to worry about that at all. My parents are fine with it too (lol).”

With a bang, she smacked his back; Sora, annoyed, was nonetheless at a loss for words.

Along with the pain, only a strange embarrassment remained.