Chapter 105:

Giraffe attack

En Passant Grandmaster

Mimoko was in hell. Her mouth was on fire, and seemed to only get hotter the more ice cream she shoved into it. Eventually, she gave up on that and began chugging water like crazy. Downing her glass didn't do the trick so she immediately downed both Iori's and Carol's waters as well.

"WAH! That's an indirect kiss!" Carol gasped.

Mimoko breathed heavily as she slammed the glasses down. Her mouth had finally cooled down, but her temper was now well past boiling.

"The hell did you do to me!?"

"Pranked ya, that's what," Iori snickered as she emerged from behind a corner.

She then explained that she had bribed the waitress to give Mimoko an ice cream laden with ghost pepper spice. Apparently, ice cream was said to cause ghost pepper spice to stick to one's tongue, meaning Mimoko had been unknowingly making her experience more hellish by gobbling down more ice cream.

As Iori and Carol high-fived and began reviewing their footage, Mimoko snapped. and slammed her hands on the table. "You two like streaming, don't ya? Well let's play a fun game. How about if you lose, you become my sandbags?" she angrily smiled.

Iori and Carol began to go pale as they realized they were screwed.

...

"So yeah, that's why me n' Cece-chan are trapped in a chess match with rising star and Grandmaster, Mimo-chan!" Iori grinned as she nervously filmed everything.

"You're lucky I'm giving you mercy. That experience was VERY hellish," Mimoko angrily smiled as she cracked her knuckles.

The rules of the challenge were simple. Both Carol and Iori would challenge Mimoko simultaneously to a chess game. Should either of them win, they win the challenge, but if they both lost, they'd lose.

"What we do if we lose?" Carol asked.

"Well duh, loser shaves off ALL their hair! I'm talking hair, eyebrows, eyelashes, everything goes! Not to mention we throw in a wax hotter than the ghost pepper spice, depilatory cream, and maybe even a head laser!"

"You two are insane, but if you decide to do that, it's on you. But one thing you will certainly be doing is become my chess sandbags for the day," Mimoko scowled.

Iori gulped and decided to go first and moved her pawn to f3. Unamused, Mimoko moved her pawn to e5.

"Now watch closely! I'm about to turn this cute grandmaster into the baldest fool around!" Iori declared as she moved her king to f2.

Mimoko began to get visibly more angry as she moved her pawn to d5, but it subsided a bit when Iori moved her pawn to c3. "Could she actually be trying to do something creative under the guise of a blunder?" she thought as she moved her bishop to d6.

Then Iori moved her king to e3 and Mimoko's rage peaked.

"YO! I'm goin' for the omega bongcloud!"

"Iori-chan... Will you STOP MESSING WITH ME!?" Mimoko roared as she slammed her pawn down on e4.

"Lol- HEY! I can't Omega Bongcloud now!" Iori fumed as she moved her pawn to d3.

"Why would I let you?" Mimoko snarled as she moved her knight to c6.

"HAH! Delay's over! Omega Bonglcoud comin' back on air in one!" Iori smirked as she captured the pawn at e4 with her d-pawn.

However, Mimoko completely ruined her plans by capturing said pawn with her d-pawn. Iori attempted to strike back by just capturing said pawn with her f-pawn, but then Mimoko moved her bishop to c5.

"Lol bye-bye-"

"My queen prevents you from moving your king to d3," Mimoko glared.

Iori went pale and began to panic. "NO! I wanna Omega Bongcloud! You ruined it!" she cried as she moved her queen to d4.

"That was the best move you could have made, but you're still on a losing trajectory," Mimoko glared as she captured the queen at d4 with her knight.

"LOL screw the queen! King's gonna Omega Bongcloud!" Iori snickered as she moved her king to d3.

"That's it! You wanna go bald, go bald! Check!" Mimoko shouted as she moved her knight to b3.

"Lol, I'm so close, I'm completing the run," Iori grinned as she moved her king to c2.

"Oh? You want something flashy? Well here you go! Checkmate!" Mimoko glared as she captured the rook at a1 with her knight, winning the game.

"Lol, that's just a rook- NO! I DON'T WANNA GO BALD! Cece-chan, save me!" Iori cried as she began clinging to Carol.

Carol however was sweating buckets. While the original challenge was supposed to see her and Iori simultaneously play Mimoko, Iori had fallen before Carol could even make her first move.

"It's your move. Don't disappoint me," Mimoko angrily smiled in English.

Carol was terrified. While she had dabbled in chess for streaming content and had quickly reached a rating of 400, that was nothing in the face of Mimoko's rating of 2730.

Carol nervously gulped and moved her pawn to e4, while Mimoko responded by moving her pawn to e5. She then moved her knight to c3, entering the Vienna game.

"The Vienna game? Perhaps I'll ease up a bit to make this fair," Mimoko thought as she moved her bishop to c5.

"YES! Now I get a pawn!" Carol grinned as she moved her queen to g4.

"The giraffe attack!? Yo, I saw a vid on this move!" Iori grinned as she regained her gusto.

Seeing this caused Mimoko to pause for a bit. "I see. Maybe I've been in the gutter too much. After all, chess is about having fun. It seems in all the chaos these past few days has made me forget that. Perhaps I should apologize to Iori-chan, mainly for yelling at her and for condemning her and her friend to baldness and being my chess sandbags," she thought as she smiled and moved her knight to f6.

Carol took the bait and immediately captured the pawn on g7 with her queen. "Look! I get a rook!"

"Not exactly," Mimoko chuckled as she moved her rook to g8.

Carol went quiet as she realized she couldn't take the rook. She frantically darted her head around the board until she found the one safe place to move her queen, h6. But that was only the beginning.

"Perhaps I should consider enjoying myself more instead of just trying to win, check," Mimoko smiled as she captured the pawn at f2 with her bishop.

"HAH! You messed up, girl!" Carol gloated as she captured the bishop with her king, completely unaware that she had blundered.

"Check, seems that's the end of your queen," Mimoko smiled as she moved her knight to g4, forking the king and the queen.

Carol began to tremble before tipping over her king. "I resign."

"NO! We're gonna go bald now, you idiot!" Iori fumed as tears began pouring down her face.

"Welp, guess you two better book an appointment at the salon," Mimoko smiled as she grabbed Iori's phone from her. "But first, time for a lecture on your games. This counts as part of your punishment, so no bailing. We'll start with Carol-chan's game. Now, resignation was the right move as being down a queen and castling rights meant your position was completely losing. You actually had a decent position after you played the Giraffe attack, but you got greedy and went for the pawn at g7. This was the start of it, though it wouldn't have been the death of your queen."

"What do you mean?"

"Rather than capturing my bishop, you should have moved your king to d1. If you played perfectly, you'd only lose a knight by the 10th move, but your position would still be bad. Rather, instead of capturing the pawn on g7, you should have moved your queen to g3. I would have castled, then you could move your bishop out to c4. At that point, things are still in my favor, but it's more playable for you."

Carol smiled and thanked Mimoko for her insight. "You ain't half bad, Mimo."

Mimoko blushed and accepted the praise before scowling and turning to Iori. No mercy was given to her for her stunt.

Once the long lecture was over, the girls all headed off for a salon.

"Say, Mimo, why you wearing cargo capris with suspenders?" Carol asked.

"Oh, she's a suspender otaku that's why. Girl wears suspenders with everything when not required to wear a school uniform," Iori quipped.

"If you don't want to be short a camerawoman, don't critique her fashion," Mimoko angrily smiled.

"Well suspenders aside, the outfit is pretty cute and shows off those smooth legs of hers along with that slim midriff," Iori snickered.

"Mine are smoother," Carol pouted.

"Think you meant to say mine were the smoothest, but guess we'll both be in contention for smoothest woman in the world after this crazy makeover. Oh, and the place DOES have laser hair removal, so we doing it."

Carol grinned and nodded as Mimoko began to get a little worried. "Uh, these two can't be serious about all this, can they?"

"Say, Mimo should get in on it, then we could be the bald bitch trio," Carol suggested.

Mimoko quickly shot that suggestion down with an angry smile and firm "No!".

"Shame, but you would look really sexy with your hair down, especially with that outfit."

Yeah, suspenders aside, it is a pretty badass outfit. Heck, I'd say it's even the dripiest out of the three of us," Iori nodded.

"Oh, I recognize those sneakers! They one an award for the most stylish woman's sneaker!" Carol cried as she pointed at Mimoko's snazzy white sneakers.

"And as Iori-chan put it, my clothes are the dripiest, but the woman who designed them deserves all the credit. She truly didn't deserve such a cruel fate, which is why I'll wear her legacy with pride," Mimoko smiled as she clenched her fist.

...

Mimoko shuddered as she filmed Iori and Carol getting sheared. They truly did go all out. Even though she was just filming the ordeal, she couldn't help feeling terrified at the sight of Iori and Carol going bald. Just like Iori promised, they didn't hold back; their heads were shaved as bald as possible before being waxed along with their eyebrows and eyelashes. The two were then subjected to a full head and face shave and wax before being encased in depilatory cream, bawling their eyes out all the while.

"Are you sure you want your heads lasered?" the stylist nervously asked.

Iori briefly stopped crying. "Um yeah? Oh, and don't forget the eyebrows- Er, where the eyebrows were. We want this to be THE most extreme bald makeover. Oh, and if you could cover our mouths with some tape when ya laser us, that'd be appreciated."

The stylist begrudgingly agreed and Iori once again started crying again as her head was lasered. Once the lasering was done, she and Carol had their heads oiled and briefly calmed down as the oiling caused them to enter a state of bliss. However, they quickly went back into freak-out mode after seeing themselves bald. Even Mimoko let out a shriek at how radically different the two now looked.

Now completely devoid of hair, Iori and Carol bawled their eyes out for a few seconds before suddenly regaining their gusto.

"Lol, guess the Omega Bongcloud's a bust. Don't play Omega Bongclouds against grandmasters or you'll end up omega bald like me n' Cece-chan," Iori grinned as she began tapping her now smooth bald head.

"We never gonna have hair ever again," Carol grinned as she pulled out a marker and began drawing eyebrows on herself.

Once the three headed out, Mimoko turned to Iori. "Sorry you had to go permanently bald just to cheer me up."

"Huh? What are you talking about? We were down for this from the get-go," Iori shrugged.

Mimoko simply smiled and handed Iori her phone back. "You really are like Tanabe-kun, always doing things in roundabout ways."

"Hold up! You crushin' on him!? No way, he's mine!"

"Huh!? Y- You're in love with Tanabe-kun?"

"Psych!"

Mimoko began to pout in anger as her face went red with embarrassment. "Mo, I don't care if you're bald for the rest of your life," she huffed as she stormed away.

"Sorry Mimo-chan, but that psych was a psych. I'm gonna be Oki-kun's girl," Iori thought.

"Oh by the way, do you happen to know where Utami-chan went? I thought I saw her at the restaurant briefly.

Iori shifted her eyes away as Mimoko shot her an angry glare.

"Uh, I figured she'd get in the way of the prank so I uh... tied her up in the bathroom."

"IORI!"

"What, I made sure to lock the stall door so she should be fine."

...

Back at the restaurant, a staff member nervously knocked on the door of the stall. "Uh, ma'am. Are you alright?"

"Mmph!"

"Ma'am?"

Suddenly, the door flung open as a bound and gagged Utami came tumbling out. The nervous staff member quickly untied her and as soon as she was free, Utami stormed out. However, Mimoko and co were long gone.

"Where did they go!?" she asked the waitress.

The waitress nervously responded that they left nearly an hour ago. Furious, Utami attempted to head out, but stopped as she noticed something odd. A thick fog had begun to form, making it impossible to see.

"What's going on!? It shouldn't be this foggy here!"

The full games:

White: Iori Ishikiridokoro (1188) Black: Mimoko Inoue (2730)

1. f3 e5

2. Kf2 d5

3. c3 Bd6

4. Ke3 e4

5. d3 Nc6

6. dxe4 dxe4

7. fxe4 Bc5+

8. Qd4 Nxd4

9. Kd3 Nb3+