"Huh, who would bother competing with such a little brat..."
Sainokami Ika didn't even get to finish her sentence before Yukima Azuma's cold glare silenced her completely.
He pulled Hinatsuru Ai in front of him, placed both hands on her shoulders, and introduced her:
"This is Hinatsuru Ai, my disciple. If you want to play against , you'll have to beat Ai first."
"Sainokami Ika, you're always going on about talent and genius. But Ai is soone whose talent surpasses yours."
"Playing against Ai shouldn't leave you dissatisfied, right?"
Hearing this, Sainokami Ika's gaze shifted to Hinatsuru Ai.
This kid… has talent greater than mine?
At least seventy percent of Sainokami Ika didn't believe that statent.
The remaining thirty percent was only because the words ca from Yukima Azuma, so she reluctantly listened.
"Go ahead, ta her."
Yukima Azuma patted Hinatsuru Ai's shoulder, entrusting her with this significant task.
Hinatsuru Ai nodded firmly, then stepped toward the shogi board.
Sora Ginko approached Yukima Azuma, her face clearly worried.
"That brat... is she going to be okay?"
"Don't worry, senpai." Yukima Azuma reassured her gently.
"As for what Sainokami said earlier, don't let it bother you."
"At the end of the day, she hasn't reached the level where talent becos crucial to advancing further."
"She's just an arrogant person riding on a bit of talent. The next ti you face her, you'll most likely win."
Yukima Azuma's words were entirely true.
Talent only fully reveals itself when one reaches a certain height.
Before reaching the critical level of Lv7, talent is almost unnecessary.
With diligent learning and practice, skills improve significantly.
Sainokami Ika's shogi skills were definitely not at Lv7.
If they were, she'd already be a true professional player.
Always going on about talent.
She's just untrained.
A single ga against a ijin would humble her.
One ga would be enough to shatter Sainokami Ika's so-called talent.
Hearing Yukima Azuma's comforting words, Sora Ginko's heart instantly felt lighter.
"I'll go take a look. You carry on with your work."
After saying this, Sora Ginko walked over to the shogi board to act as referee.
Yukima Azuma casually shut the door to the room.
Then, he turned to the remaining three girls.
"All right, while they play shogi, we've got our own tasks. It's ti to start studying."
Kasumigaoka Utaha imdiately excused herself.
She planned to go back and sleep.
Last night, she'd stayed up late writing, so she went to bed very late.
If not for the noisy commotion in the house this morning, she wouldn't have woken up at all.
...
Yukima Azuma led the other two girls to the study corner on the second floor.
Eriri needed to review math and English.
Kato gumi, on the other hand, focused on history and literature.
Sitting at the study desks in the corner, Yukima Azuma grabbed a test prep book from a nearby shelf.
It was a collection of exams he had organized with Kirisu Mafuyu earlier—practically the gold standard for test prep.
"Eriri, start with math. gumi, work on literature. Once you're done, I'll explain any mistakes."
"English and history are more about morization, so I'll supervise you two this afternoon."
Yukima Azuma had planned out the entire day.
Thus, the two girls quietly began working on their assignnts.
....
Ti passed slowly.
Eriri was the first to put down her pen.
It wasn't because she finished faster than Kato gumi.
She just gave up earlier.
When people are pushed to their limits, they can accomplish almost anything.
But math problems are a different story.
With math, if you can't solve it, you simply can't solve it.
Eriri's test paper was left with large sections blank.
Yukima Azuma helplessly picked up the test paper.
First, he looked over the questions Eriri had answered.
Sigh... utterly unbearable.
"Eriri, let see your scratch paper... As I suspected, the problem lies in your calculations."
"Rember, multiplication and division co first, followed by addition and subtraction. Even with more complex problems, don't forget the most basic rules."
Yukima Azuma ticulously pointed out Eriri's mistakes.
He also re-taught her how to properly use scratch paper.
This scatterbrain had written all over her scratch paper in a chaotic ss.
There were calculations she could have gotten right.
But because her scratch paper was too cluttered, she misread numbers from earlier steps, leading to errors in later calculations, ultimately ruining the entire problem.
After correcting all her mistakes, Yukima Azuma began explaining the blank questions Eriri had left unanswered.
Once he had gone through most of the problems, Yukima Azuma closed the test paper.
"All right, Eriri, you can take a ten-minute break. Afterward, we'll move on to the next test."
Hearing this, Eriri asked in surprise:
"What about these questions? Don't I need to learn them?"
She pointed to the final fill-in-the-blank question and the last long-form problem.
"No need. These two questions don't significantly impact your overall score."
"But studying them would drain more energy than the entire test combined."
"Knowing when to skip is the smart choice."
After hearing this, Eriri naturally didn't insist.
All she wanted was to pass the exam, not aim for the top of the school rankings or anything like that.
She got up from her seat and ran downstairs.
The test had drained her; she wanted to play on her phone and eat so snacks.
Yukima Azuma's fridge was always stocked with delicious treats.
...
Once Eriri left, Kato gumi handed in her literature test.
Yukima Azuma scanned through it from start to finish.
The results were much better than Eriri's.
With her current level, Kato gumi would probably scrape a passing grade in her exams.
But to be safe, it was better to study a bit more.
"This blank space—didn't you have any ideas?"
Yukima Azuma pointed to a question left unanswered.
"Mm, I didn't quite understand it. Since it's just a practice test, I didn't want to guess randomly."
Kato gumi nodded.
Yukima Azuma took the question and rewrote it on scratch paper in a simpler form.
"I can [blank] gumi will have a happy future. Our life together will be [blank] secure."
Filling in the blanks, Yukima Azuma provided an explanation.
On the scratch paper, he wrote down two potential answers.
"'Guarantee' and 'protect.'"
"In Japanese literature, this word ans to commit or guarantee, while this one ans to protect."
(Note: I don't speak Japanese.)
Yukima Azuma explained.
Kato gumi nodded.
"So it should be: 'I can guarantee gumi will have a happy future. Our life together will be protected.' Is that correct?"
"That's right. Next question."
Yukima Azuma pointed to the following problem.
But while explaining, Yukima Azuma suddenly felt sothing — Kato gumi's leg lightly brushing against his calf.
Azuma blinked in surprise.
Then, he smiled gently and said:
"gumi, you need to focus when studying."
Kato gumi nodded.
"Mm."
Her response sounded like a soft, delicate murmur.
What's more, the sensation on his leg didn't go away.
As he continued explaining, Kato gumi quietly murmured:
"Azuma-san... I'm finding it hard to focus."
Yukima Azuma couldn't help but feel exasperated.
Pulling stunts like this under the table and still expecting to concentrate? That's rich.
"gumi, do you enjoy this kind of thing?"
"Mm."
"But you really need to focus on your studies right now."
"Even if you say that, the person making it hard for to focus is Azuma-san."
"Huh? Are you blaming now?"
"No, I'm not!"
Kato gumi poked Yukima Azuma's side with her finger.
Azuma started to feel that sothing wasn't quite right.
Her words and actions didn't match up.
So both of them looked down under the table.
What they saw was... Shiratamaru.
The white cat was under the table, rubbing its head against Yukima Azuma's leg while its tail softly brushed against Kato gumi's.
Yukima Azuma picked Shiratamaru up and gave it a light pat on its rear.
"Nyan!" Shiratamaru nyaned, then leapt away to a corner.
The two refocused their attention on the test.
But the atmosphere had turned a bit awkward.
As Yukima Azuma continued explaining, he couldn't help but think back to their earlier exchange.
How should he put it... It was a little embarrassing.
But when he had asked if gumi enjoyed it, she had replied with "Mm."
So… she liked it?
Liked what, exactly?
While pondering this, Yukima Azuma shifted his leg slightly toward Kato gumi.
But just as he moved a little, he felt sothing soft again.
"Shiratamaru!"
Both of them called out at the sa ti.
"Nyan?"
Shiratamaru peeked out from behind a bookshelf nearby.
Seeing that Shiratamaru wasn't under the table this ti, the two looked at each other in silence.
Shiratamaru, noticing that no one was paying attention to it, tilted its head in confusion.
Then, it trotted down the stairs and out of sight.
Eriri rushed upstairs holding a plate of pastries, spoon in hand, and imdiately took a bite.
"Umm, this cake is delicious... Huh? How are you two doing? Weren't you supposed to be studying?"
She noticed the strange atmosphere between the two of them.
A question mark appeared over her head as she continued to eat her cake without missing a beat.
...
The morning study session quickly passed.
Eriri was still a bit worried about her math, but she was likely to pass the test.
She planned to reinforce it tomorrow.
Before the actual exam, she would review the practice work, and it should be fine.
As for Kato gumi's literature, there were no issues at all.
She made fast progress.
Yukima Azuma let both of them review their mistakes.
He then headed downstairs.
He ran into Sora Ginko coming out of a room.
Yukima Azuma walked up to her, looking into the room.
Sainokami Ika was lying on the tatami, her shirt disheveled, looking like she had been playing around too much.
Yukima Azuma couldn't help but feel a little helpless.
That pervert, still hasn't given up on the habit of stripping while playing shogi.
On the other side of the board, Hinatsuru Ai had tears all over her face, clearly having cried.
However, her expression now was one of determination and joy.
Just by looking at their faces, it was easy to guess what had happened on the chessboard.
Hinatsuru Ai was the best at reading the endga.
Sainokami Ika must have pressured her tightly in the first half of the ga.
But, after learning from Yukima Azuma,
Despite still being a girl who cried easily, Hinatsuru Ai's ability to handle pressure had beco incredibly strong.
With her resistance, the ga had gone on long enough for the endga to co into play.
In the end, Hinatsuru Ai, using her excellent endga skills, had turned the tide.
It must have been sothing like that.
"Shishou! Ai won!"
Hinatsuru Ai saw Yukima Azuma arrive and imdiately jumped up, running over to him.
Yukima Azuma reached out and ruffled her hair.
"Great job. After a while, I'll take you to participate in so practice matches and official tournants. My disciple is about to beco famous."
Upon hearing Yukima Azuma's praise,
Hinatsuru Ai's eyes lit up, and her Ahoge on top of her head swayed happily.
"Don't spoil her too much, or she'll beco overconfident and foolish like that idiot lying over there."
Sora Ginko grumbled disapprovingly.
"Ai won't be like that!"
Hinatsuru Ai retorted loudly.
--------------------------------------------
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