The gold general from 2014. Her abandoned pawn. It sat in the center of the board's edge, placed precisely on the 8th square of the first rank, like a marker on a grave.
The main reading room was a cathedral of shelves, most of them toppled like dominoes. At the far end, beneath a stained-glass window depicting a phoenix that no longer caught the light, a single table had been set. Two chairs. A shogi board. And on the board, arranged in the starting position, every piece present except one.
"Did you?" The figure stepped forward, hat tilting back just enough to reveal a chin, a mouth that smiled without warmth. "Or did you simply forget that when a master plays alone for long enough, the ghost learns to play back?" Kaori Saejima -2021-
Kaori stepped through. The rain immediately soaked through her cardigan, but she did not shiver. Her mind was already arranging the pieces on the board of the library's foyer: marble floor (81 squares if you counted the tiles), a collapsed information desk (rook, immobilized), a staircase spiraling upward (lance, threatening).
She walked deeper. The air tasted of wet plaster and old secrets. The gold general from 2014
Someone had been listening to the game inside her head.
She pulled out the chair.
"You're not real," Kaori said. Her voice was a rasp she barely recognized. "I made you up."