Sona didn't stop walking until we reached a quiet wing of the Sitri mansion. The air here felt different—thicker somehow, like the walls themselves were listening. She pushed open a door and ushered me inside, closing it gently behind us.
The room was a study.
Tall bookshelves lined the walls, packed tightly with tomes on magic theory, devil law, strategy, economics, and history. A large desk sat near the window, sunlight filtering in through sheer curtains, illuminating neatly stacked documents and an immaculate chessboard placed at the center of a low table between two chairs.
… Of course it was a chessboard.
I exhaled and rubbed the back of my neck. "Alright," I said, breaking the silence. "Mind explaining what just happened out there?"
Sona remained standing.
She didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she turned and looked at me—really looked at me. Her gaze slowly traveled from my face down to my shoulders, my chest, my arms… Then back up again. It wasn't lewd. It was assessing. Measuring. Like she was evaluating a variable she hadn't accounted for.
Then she adjusted her glasses with her forefinger.
The familiar gesture should've been reassuring.
It wasn't.
"That welcoming," I continued carefully, "felt more like I was being inspected than greeted. And that dress—" I gestured vaguely. "No offense, but it's… very unlike you, Kaichou."
Her lips pressed into a thin line.
For a moment, I thought she might snap at me.
Instead, she walked past me, sat down at the table, and placed one hand on the chessboard.
"Play with me," she said.
"…Chess?"
"Yes."
I blinked. "You dragged me away just to play chess?"
She finally looked me in the eyes. There was something tense there. Something… resolved.
"I will explain everything," she said evenly, "after the match."
I studied her for a second, then shrugged. "Fine by me. Honestly, that was half the reason I came here anyway."
That earned me the faintest twitch at the corner of her lips.
I took the seat opposite her.
She set the board, pieces already arranged with mechanical precision. White pieces were placed in front of me.
"You're giving me white?" I asked.
"I am," she replied.
"…That's generous."
"It's fair."
Something about the way she said that made me once again think, "Something is definitely not right."
We began.
At first, everything felt normal—well, as normal as it could be when playing chess against Sona Sitri. Her opening was solid, conservative, and textbook-perfect. I responded the best I could, relying more on instinct than actual theory.
I wasn't bad at chess, and I was not the best either. In a real battle, I have that sixth sense to go on full command because I can sense how I am going to win, but here I don't have that instinct.
And in chess, Sona is a monster.
At least, she should have been.
Yet, as the game went on, something felt… off.
She made small mistakes.
Nothing obvious. Nothing sloppy. Just tiny openings—hesitations where there shouldn't have been any. I capitalized on them without fully realizing how. A fork here. A discovered attack there. Every time I thought, Wait, shouldn't she punish this?—she didn't.
My position kept improving.
Ten minutes passed.
Then twenty.
And somehow—
"Check."
The word left my mouth before my brain caught up with it.
Sona didn't say anything, just looked at the board and gave a nod. Maybe at herself or maybe at me, I didn't know.
I stared at the board.
Her king had no escape.
"…Checkmate," I finished quietly.
Silence swallowed the room.
I leaned back, stunned. "I—uh. Did I really just—?"
I looked up.
Sona's face was burning.
Her cheeks were completely red—not a faint blush, not a hint of embarrassment, but a full-on, unmistakable flush spreading all the way to the tips of her ears.
What the Fuck Is Happening? There is no way; I defeated Sona. It's not like I am underestimating my capability. I know my chess skill, and I also know hers. If it was a real battle, I am 99% sure I could defeat her—1% being the margin of error or for some miracle—but in chess, she would have defeated me completely.
And look at the expression she is making; I didn't even know she could make that expression.
"…Kaichou?" I ventured.
She slowly raised her head to look at me.
And then she spoke.
"When I was younger," Sona said, voice quiet but steady, "my parents arranged several potential engagements for me. As the future head of the Sitri household, it was… expected."
I frowned but stayed silent.
"I refused every single one," she continued. "Not out of rebellion. But because none of them met my standards."
She placed a hand over the chessboard.
"I made a condition."
"A condition?"
"Yes." She met my gaze directly. "I promised my parents that I would only marry someone who could defeat me in chess."
"… You're serious?"
Of course, I know that condition. In fact, every devil in this underworld also knows. Even with that condition, she didn't have a fiancé till now. That alone tells of the talent she has for chess.
I am not saying I am not interested in Sona as a woman. In fact, she is one of the most famous intelligent beauties out there. And I also like her to some extent; I like her intelligence, to be exact. But the problem is, from what I remember, she absolutely loathes the idea of polygamy.
And to some extent, I already have a harem, and she is very different from Rias. Even though Rias knows about me and Akeno, she is still jealous; she didn't force us to stop that relationship. But Sona would be different. Since she already knows that Rias and I are a thing—I didn't think she knew about the sexual life of us—she can't do anything about that, but it is still polygamy, no? So why would she willingly jump into something she hates?
"I am." Sona answered my previous question.
She looked away, fingers tightening slightly. "I have never lost. Not once. Not to noble heirs. Not to political prodigies. Not even to my previous fiancé."
"And today," she said softly, "you defeated me."
"But—" I hesitated. "You held back. No, that isn't right; you let me win."
She snapped her head toward me.
"No."
The word was sharp. Absolutely.
"I guided the game," she admitted. "I created opportunities. But you saw them. You took them. You didn't hesitate. You didn't panic. You trusted your judgment."
Her blush deepened.
"That victory," she said, voice trembling just slightly, "is valid."
The room felt suddenly very small.
She looked at me again—really looked at me this time.
"You asked why my parents treated you the way they did," she said. "Why I'm dressed like this. Why Serafall and my peerage aren't here. I already gave the answer to that." She said that and left in a hurry.
I just sat in the chair, thinking about what I should do next. Rias would be really mad.
~~~
Give me a comment and thought on this fanfic. Support me by giving me a power stone.
I have posted 100+ advanced chapters on my Patreon. If you are interested, join my Patreon.
Support me:
patreon.com/BlackBolt517