Monogatari Series - Volume Ex - Chapter 2

002 

In shogi, there are standard moves. 

This is a strategy, a kata,  or it could even be called a guidepost that our predecessors built up over a period of time that would make your head spin. “A guidepost? Sure you’re not mistaking it for a grave marker?” There were some pros who looked at it cynically, but I didn’t go that far—but I also felt that it was certainly different than just accepting those moves as if they were a sign board pointing to the easy way out, as the more your studies piled up, the more it felt like you were straying further and further into a maze. 

If I was forced to call it something, it was more like a game trail. Walked by a number of pros that before you knew it became a natural path. I didn’t know what view lied beyond that point, but if you don’t walk, nothing will begin. Even if it was obvious that there was an animal at the end of the game trail, for example. 

Although it’s not as if there weren’t any pros who readily ignored those standards and crashed through, walking a pathless path. “The standard moves are like well-mannered guys exchanging social pleasantries,” they loudly proclaim, and calmly make an unorthodox play that looked like they weren’t even thinking—honestly, those kinds of moves weren’t really that strong. It would be better to abandon the standards to make an unprecedented, surprise move, than to only ignore the standards and make some haphazard bad play, since the best you could hope for was for it to surprise your opponent. 

That’s why it wasn’t that strong. 

But it’s scary. It’s not strong, but it is scary.  

I definitely felt jealous of those who could ignore the heavy accumulation of history and stay true to their extraordinary sense of affirmation, but, even still, I would be lying if I said I didn’t have even a speck of admiration for them. 

Nevertheless, though it seems like there were a lot of pros like that before, this was definitely ancient history—modern pros have “manners”, er, I mean the basics are earnestly beaten into them. That’s why when they meet a pro who breaks from the standard, they get surprised. If I were to say how surprised... For example. 

For example, it would be about the same as finding a high school girl wrapped up in newspapers sleeping soundly in front of the Shogi Association. 

“Huh!?... Whaaa!? What is that, I’m scared!” my unvarnished real thoughts came out of my mouth just as they were without me thinking.  

Far from a standard move, it wasn’t even common sense, the sleeping figure of that high school girl—she was a high schooler, right? I didn’t know what school she went to, but anyway, it looked like she was wearing a school uniform. 

But still, that hairstyle was worthy of the term avant-garde—a perfect balance of white and black stripes that completely blended together so that from a distance it looked gray. It was hard to believe that was her natural hair color, but to have dyed it like that would be difficult for even the most talented beautician—the mysterious girl had that hair done up in a short braid. She slept with her hair like that, but that wasn’t the issue right now. There was no doubt that, even though she was sleeping in front of the Shogi Association, she wasn’t anyone related to the organization. Having said that, it seemed that it was not necessarily the case that she just happened to be sleeping in front of the Shogi Association. It wasn’t exactly proof, but the newspaper her small body was wrapped in was, none other than, a shogi newspaper. It was surreal. 

A logical move—no part of this was right. 

“…… Uhhh.” 

It’s not like I had come all the way to the Shogi Association for no reason. Even if it was to avoid any trouble, “pretending not to notice an obviously suspicious person and passing by” was the standard move not just as a pro but as a person, I heavily knew that—but…… 

“Are you OK?” “Is there anybody else here with you?” 

“Did they just leave you here?” 

…… to me who had been helped when I had collapsed in the same way, I couldn’t ignore a defenselessly sleeping high school girl—I couldn’t ignore Akari-san’s standard opening move.  

“Are you OK? What are you doing here?” 

“I was waiting for a kind person.” 

To my nervous and timid questions called out to her, a prompt answer came back—looks like she was playing possum. 

The eyes of the girl were swimming like she was still half-asleep, with a complacent smile on her lips. Rather than an opossum, she looked like the cats at Akari-san’s house. 

“If possible a kind shogi pro. That fits you to a T, doesn’t it— Kiriyama-kun, Kiriyama 5-dan.” 

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1  A kata (型, “form”) is originally a choreographed pattern of movements that serves as practice, mainly in martial arts, but is now used in English in a more general way to refer to any routine that is practiced to various levels of mastery. 
2  Towards the beginning of Sangatsu no Lion, Kiriyama is acquainted with a bar hostess named Kawamoto Akari. When he’s pressured to join some fellow shogi players for drinks, he’s later left drunk on his own, unable to take care of himself. Akari takes him home and takes care of him, being her "opening move".