Inside the screenwriting office of the production team…
Jing Yu's assistants were busily handling a mountain of miscellaneous tasks under his direction.
That, unfortunately, was all they could do. Whether it was the intricate Go knowledge in 'Hikaru no Go', the layered rules and logic of 'Another', or the tightly interwoven foreshadowing in 'Steins;Gate', none of it was something they could just "fill in" or improvise based on a broad outline from Jing Yu.
After working closely with him for some time, the assistants had come to understand one thing very clearly:
There's a reason geniuses are called geniuses.
Even though Jing Yu had wrapped up his minor supporting role in 'Another', and in 'Hikaru no Go', the story focus had shifted away from Sai to the current protagonist Hikaru...
In 'Steins;Gate', Jing Yu was still the absolute lead actor, and at the same time, he was responsible for writing the core scripts of all three shows. His assistants could only help with mechanical and secondary tasks—but the main content, the plot structure, the twists and turning points—all came from him.
Yet somehow, the quality of his work never dipped.
"Is this guy even human? Where does he find the time to come up with all these ideas? Where does the inspiration come from when he's busy acting all day?"
At first, everyone had assumed Steins;Gate was a rare misstep in Jing Yu's career. It was understandable. He had poured so much effort into 'Another' and 'Hikaru no Go'; it made sense if 'Steins;Gate' didn't get the same polish.
But then, over the past few days, they had started reading the later 'Steins;Gate' scripts trickling out of Jing Yu's hands.
And they were all collectively stunned.
That chaotic, incoherent mess of a story in the early episodes?
After Tuturu girl Mayuri's death?
Suddenly… everything started making sense.
The phone microwave, the text messages, the time travel, the mysterious organizations, the tightening timelines, world-line divergence…
And at the center of it all—Okabe, the protagonist, using his improved version of the phone microwave to jump between countless parallel worlds, fighting against the law of "world-line convergence," trying to save Mayuri, who in every timeline, every version of events, was destined to die.
All of it—the absurdity, the randomness, the slow pacing—it had all been deliberate.
Every weird little moment in the early episodes? Foreshadowing.
"This is insane…"
"I finally understand what the phrase 'the gap between people is bigger than the gap between man and pig' means. My uncle pulled strings to get me on this team to learn from Jing Yu—but how the hell do you even learn from a guy like this?"
"I used to think the way news articles described him was exaggerated, but no… being here in person is even more absurd. Like, how is he this good at Go? Dude doesn't even study game records or watch professional matches!"
"He also doesn't read sheet music or music theory. But he locked himself in the office for a couple of days and boom—the 'Hikaru no Go' soundtrack and insert songs are done. Just like that. The music team just needs to record them."
"Exactly! And in his past dramas, go listen to the soundtracks. They're incredible. His piano and violin performances were insane—but I've never seen him practice any of that!"
"Honestly, being here for over a month has made me… kind of depressed. Like, really realizing that monsters like him actually exist in this world is something else."
"What a shame though… 'Steins;Gate' doesn't get to its main plot until episode five. Most viewers won't have the patience to stick around that long."
"Doesn't matter. Everyone knows that ratings don't always reflect quality. Some slow-burning shows take time to build a fanbase. And once the word-of-mouth spreads, they make up for it in merchandise, DVDs, and licensing."
They kept their voices low as they worked, chatting as they went about their tasks—mostly about Jing Yu.
Just then, the man himself pushed open the office door.
He had just returned from shooting that evening, but before he could even think about heading home, he still had to finish writing 'Hikaru no Go' Season 2, Episode 5.
His eyes carried a trace of exhaustion.
Without a word, he walked over to his desk and immediately started working on the script for Episode 7 of 'Hikaru no Go'.
This was the episode of a crucial showdown—the long-awaited final battle between Koyo Toya and Sai.
Sai would win… but not completely.
Because while both of these top players from two different eras agreed that Sai had won the match…
Hikaru would spot a move—one single move—that could've reversed the entire outcome.
The Divine Move.
And it wasn't Sai who played it—it was Hikaru.
The move Sai had chased across a thousand years... ended up appearing in his own game, but played by someone else.
It was as if Sai's very existence—his thousand-year journey to the present, his spiritual mentorship of Hikaru—had all led to this moment. So he could witness the Divine Move… but not play it himself.
From that moment on, Sai's spiritual form would begin to fade. His obsession, the thing keeping him tethered to this world, had finally been fulfilled.
"But since this is the Divine Move," Jing Yu thought to himself, "then it needs to truly deserve that title."
It couldn't just be a gimmick.
It had to be a move that would blow the minds of all Go players watching, professional or amateur. Something that no one else in the world could come up with.
But therein lay the problem.
Whether in anime, manga, or TV, it's nearly impossible to create such a board position. Even Jing Yu, with his near-professional skills, couldn't invent something like that from scratch.
And in the original manga, this was one of the things that bothered him most.
The move labeled "Divine" in the source material? Didn't really live up to the name. It felt underwhelming.
So, Jing Yu wanted to fix that in the drama adaptation.
He wanted to prove, to every 'Hikaru no Go' fan watching:
"This is the Divine Move."
And even if he couldn't come up with it himself, he knew there were entities out there that might be able to help…
Like AlphaGo—the AI that could beat the world's #1 players while giving them a 2–3 stone handicap.
Or even better…
His own exchange system panel.
Jing Yu quietly opened the panel.
To his assistants, it looked like he had just sat there spacing out for a few minutes, maybe dozed off from exhaustion.
But then—he suddenly jumped up, eyes shining with excitement.
"I found it! This is the move!"
He had spent less than 100,000 credits.
And in return, the panel had given him the exact game record he needed.
In Jing Yu's previous world, and in this one, there had never been a player capable of producing such a game.
But in the vast infinity of parallel worlds, someone—somewhere—had played a game that met his exact criteria:
A professional-level game in which 99.999999999% of Go experts believe White wins by half a point, but in fact, there exists an unbelievably subtle, near-impossible-to-see move that allows Black to reverse the outcome and win instead.
It was an absurd request.
A game like that wouldn't exist in this world, or the last.
But in some other timeline… it had been played.
And now, it was his.