Prologue: The Curse of Sight
The first thing Isagi Yoichi ever knew wasn't warmth, or hunger, or love. It was information.
When he cried in the hospital crib, it wasn't just noise. Even as an infant, his eyes tracked the dust motes floating in the light beams. He didn't just see his mother walking toward him; he saw the shift in her weight, the speed of her step, the angle of her arms.
He didn't have the words for it yet. He didn't know the word "spatial awareness" or "peripheral vision." He just knew that the world was a grid, and everything moved on a predictable path.
By the time he was four, he was terrified of crowds. Not because of the noise, but because he could see too much. He knew who was going to bump into whom before it happened. He saw the future in split-second increments. It was a headache. It was a curse.
Until he found a ball.
At age eight, playing kickball in the park, the chaos of the world suddenly made sense. When the ball was in play, the grid in his head locked in. The wind is blowing from the east. That kid is slow. The goalie is leaning left.
Boom. Goal.
But the real awakening happened at age twelve.
It was a rainy Tuesday practice with his junior high team. The coach, a fat guy who loved shouting about "friendship," was making them run drills. Isagi was bored. His brain was itching.
Suddenly, the rain stopped being just water. It became data. Every drop, every splash, every movement of his teammates. Isagi stopped running. He stood in the center of the muddy field and closed his eyes for a second, then snapped them open.
The field wasn't green anymore. It was a blueprint.
He saw the lines connecting every player. He saw the "danger zones." He realized that if he moved three steps to the right, his teammate would be forced to pass to him. If he slowed down, the defender would overcommit.
"Yoichi! What the hell are you doing? Pass the ball!" his teammate shouted.
Isagi didn't pass. He looked at the teammate—not as a friend, but as a piece on a board. A pawn. If I use him as a screen... I can get past the center back.
Isagi dribbled. He used his teammate's body to block the defender's view, cut inside, and smashed the ball into the top corner.
The goalkeeper didn't even move. He was still processing what had happened.
Isagi looked at his hands. They were shaking. Not from cold, but from adrenaline. I see it, Isagi thought, a dark grin forming on his face. I see everything. You guys are all just playing in the dark. But I... I have the light.
From that day on, Isagi Yoichi stopped playing football. He started playing chess with human bodies.