The world had always appeared chaotic to others—full of unpredictable tides, sudden betrayals, and invisible forces shifting the course of destiny. But to him, it was something else entirely. It was a board. A black chessboard, vast and endless, where every man, every empire, every whispered ambition became a piece waiting to be moved.
Shino Taketsu had stopped seeing people in the way ordinary eyes did. A king was not merely a ruler; he was a king-piece with limited moves, trapped by his own crown. A soldier was not just a man with a weapon; he was a pawn— expendable, yet the very essence of progress. And those who believed themselves free, untouchable, beyond the reach of power? They were often the easiest to corner, for they did not even realize they were already on the board.
But unlike the chessboards crafted of ivory and wood, this one was alive. Its black squares stretched across politics, war, silence, and even human hearts. He was not merely a player seated at its edge—he was within it, shaping its design with every decision.
He remembered the first time the vision came to him. It was not in a palace or a battlefield, but in a quiet room, lit only by the flame of a single candle. He had been thinking of his enemies, of allies who shifted like shadows, of mentors who taught but never revealed their true hands. And then the thought struck: They are all pieces. They move because someone moves them. The question is—who holds the hand that guides them?
That night, he decided. If no hand existed, then his would become it.
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Pieces had to be studied. Pawns: the common people, often underestimated. They could be sacrificed, but when pushed far enough, they reached the other side and transformed into queens—unpredictable, dangerous, and capable of turning the tide. He never dismissed pawns; he cultivated them, for one pawn properly placed could topple a king.
Knights: the unpredictable minds, thinkers who struck from angles no one saw coming. He sought them, respected them, but kept them close, for a knight uncontrolled could fracture the board itself.
Bishops: the visionaries, the priests, the men of ideology. They moved diagonally, never straight—men of faith and principle, who often blinded themselves to reality. He knew how to bend them—by feeding their beliefs until their loyalty ran deeper than logic.
Rooks: the fortresses of tradition, the walls of law and structure. They were powerful but rigid, moving only in straight lines. He used them as shields, letting their unyielding strength guard his advances.
And the queen—ah, the queen. Power incarnate. The most dangerous piece on the board, able to strike anywhere, at any time. To have one was fortune. To lose one was devastation. He did not yet know who his queen would be, or if he himself must embody it. But he understood one truth: to move without a queen was to fight with caution; to have one was to rule with fearlessness.
As for the king—his role was more complicated. He knew the king was weak, slow, and easily cornered. Yet everything revolved around his survival. The king is vision itself, he thought. Lose vision, and the game ends. And so he vowed never to let his vision fall, never to be trapped in checkmate by the hands of fate or man.
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The board stretched before him daily, in every encounter. When a rival offered friendship, he did not see a smile—he saw a piece moving two squares forward. When a loyal follower asked for guidance, he saw a pawn searching for its path across the board. When silence filled a hall, he saw black squares waiting for the next move to be made.
Every action became strategy. Every silence, a move left unplayed. Every risk, a gamble across the dark squares of fate.
He grew sharper, colder, yet also strangely liberated. Where others drowned in confusion, he saw structure. Where others wept at betrayal, he saw only a predictable exchange. Where others fought blindly, he calculated.
And those who thought they moved freely, like kings of their own realms, did not realize he had already placed them. A rumor whispered in a tavern, a letter carried by a trembling hand, a glance at the right time—he set the chain in motion, and the pieces danced.
He was not infallible. Sometimes his knights faltered, sometimes his rooks collapsed, sometimes the board grew unpredictable. Yet even in chaos, he found patterns. Even in failure, he learned the language of the game. For the board was not meant to be beaten in a single match—it was eternal. A war without end, where victory meant only surviving long enough to reshape the rules.
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But the black chessboard was not just power. It was weight.
For every pawn sacrificed, he remembered their faces. For every rook shattered, he heard the echoes of tradition crumble. For every bishop twisted, he felt the sting of corrupted faith. His vision demanded that he carry these burdens in silence, for a true player never reveals the cost of the game.
There were nights when he looked at the candlelight and saw the board stretching into infinity, the black squares swallowing even his own reflection. He wondered—was he the player, or had he too become a piece? Did the hand that moved the world belong to him, or was he being moved by something greater, unseen?
These doubts whispered like ghosts, but he never let them grow louder than his discipline. For even if he was a piece, he had chosen to be the one piece that controlled its own fate.
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The world around him did not yet understand. They saw his rise as chance, his victories as brilliance, his silence as mystery. But in truth, everything was calculation.
He had turned life itself into his chessboard.
And as he sat in the quiet of the night, studying the faces of allies and enemies alike, he placed them upon the black squares of his mind. One by one. Patiently. Relentlessly.
The game was far from over.
But he had already made his first move.