“I can’t stand eating alone.”
I get summoned to Ai Yashajin’s room as soon as the match pauses for lunch. There’s no ignoring a player’s selfishness- …… request during a title match.
But there is a limit.
“Listen up, Ai ……”
People are going to talk if it gets out that the Ryuo secretly visited his grade-school aged apprentice in her private room. It’s suspicious enough that I came all the way out into the boonies to accompany her to this match in the first place. Not in a lolicon sense, though. In Shogi terms!
“This isn’t smart. Misunderstandings are bound to happen, yeah?”
“There shouldn’t be an issue unless you’re the assistant observer.”
It seems the young lady doesn’t get the hint.
Thoroughly enjoying the Tohoku cuisine that she hardly ever has a chance to eat, Ai continues.
“And you’re writing a match article today, yes? There’s nothing improper about sharing lunch with your apprentice for material. So long as you don’t discuss the match, that is.”
“…… Just to be clear, the association staff took my phone as well.”
There’s a lot of gray zone when it comes to how isolated players should be during a title match.
The rules are in a transition period, and the details haven’t been completely ironed out to this extent.
The players themselves are forbidden to carry any electronic devices starting the day before the match, but that’s not the case for the match recorder, journalists and others involved with the match. They can break the rules all they want if they are so inclined.
That said, this is a Women’s League match. Pros like myself are so much stronger that Women’s players wouldn’t need to rely on electronics if they can ask us for pointers.
―――Then again, today’s match is the exception.
Even the early stages of the match this morning went beyond the normal realm of Shogi sense. Especially Ika. Even I can’t understand what the heck she’s trying to do.
“By the way, I spoke with Okito-sensei―――”
To avoid discussing the current formations, I bring up the weird dream I had as well as what Okito-sensei told me.
Grade schooler or not, I had to tell someone about the ghost story I’m in right now.
―――Knowing Ai, she’ll say, “Huuh? What are you, a moron?” and laugh it off!
I accepted her summons to lunch knowing that a tsunami of criticism was coming my way, but ……
Rather than shoot it all down, Ai takes a completely different angle.
A supernatural one.
“Have you ever heard of apophenia?”
“Have you ever heard that I never went to high school?”
Ai shrugs off her Master’s retort with a huff and then elegantly devours a piece of sushi using chopsticks. Wow, that ticks me off ……
“…… And? What is this …… apophenia, was it?”
“That’s what it’s called when a person can make sense out of chaos.”
“……!”
At one point, I was told that I was hallucinating when I said there’s a systemic reason behind the moves software makes.
The person who said so was Mirai Futatsuzuka 4-dan. He happens to be Okito-sensei’s research partner.
He’s also a graduate of The University of Tokyo and a software developer on top of being a pro Shogi player.
A guy so smart and skillful that he was dubbed the Software Translator, insisted that Ika and I are one and the same.
That we were both something other than human.
“There’s also a type of apophenia known as pareidolia, a phenomenon in which a person visually derives information out of random data …… A simple example would be seeing a human face in a tree trunk.”
Or a man in the moon.
Or seeing shapes in the stains on the ceiling.
Ai explains that pareidolia is a term to describe those instances.
“It’s known to happen with computers as well. Things that shouldn’t be there sometimes show up in images created by deep learning software while it is analyzing random images.”
“Like haunted photos ……?”
“Researchers call these strange happenings deep dreams.”
“Deep …… dreams?”
“Due to overfitting, computers can make the same mistakes as people. Isn’t that interesting? Androids are counting digital sheep. And―――”
Ai takes a moment to wipe her mouth with a napkin before saying.
“Both apophenia and pareidolia are classified as mental illnesses.”
“Mental ………… illness …………”
“Ika Sainokami has been an interesting subject for me for quite a while now. My curiosity
wins out over unease in her case. Though I’m sure you feel differently.”
Ai Yashajin’s inner scientist is showing as she mumbles on.
I can feel excitement coming from the one-in-a-million girl attempting to seize the future of Shogi itself using the world’s fastest supercomputer.
“The last time I played against her, I could tell the software algorithms were affecting her own emotions. She abandoned them completely in her matches against Ginko Sora and Sota Kunugi. This Shogi is something to behold, isn’t it? Today might be the last time you ever speak with Ika Sainokami the person.”
“…… Are you saying that learning how to play Shogi like a computer has driven Ika insane?”
“Not quite.”
Ai adjusts my wording.
While only slight, the implications are huge.
“Ika Sainokami comprehends the formations on the board like a computer processing images. For a human being …… that’s too much weight to carry.”
“…………”
“Taking in that much information has changed the makeup of her brain, allowing her to acquire more of it the more her brain resembles a computer. That’s why her Shogi has gotten so strong. At the same time, though, it loses the traits machines don’t need.”
“Traits machines don’t need? Like …… a heart ……?”
Ika grew up surrounded by old folks with cognitive problems.
In that environment, she craved even the slightest bit of human interaction. She wanted to be loved, but the only people around couldn’t communicate.
What if one of them was able to express some kind of emotion through lining up Shogi records?
And if Ika understood that gesture as a sign of affection?
In that case ……
If that is the case, it’s heartbreaking ……
What we perceive as a battle, Ika misinterprets as love. Now she’s on the verge of losing that completely.
Ika can’t be forgiven for what she’s done within the Shogi world.
I sure won’t forgive her for hurting Big Sis without so much as a second thought.
Even so, if that monster loses whatever semblance of a heart she has left ……
“It’s time. I’ll be going now.”
Ai stands up, adjusts her kimono, grabs her pouch with her watch and her fan inside, and makes for the door.
“Ai!”
I shout because I couldn’t get to my feet in time.
Flipping her hair over her shoulder like a black wing, Ai turns to face me.
“What?”
“………… Nothing.”
Her opponent’s origins. Ai just theorized that the monster she is about to go hunt is actually a sad, lost soul in search of love.
―――…… Can she still fight knowing that?
I couldn’t bring myself to put it into words.
If I did, it might impact the match.
“It’s about time we compare notes.”
I’m drinking tea in the association staff green room when the observer comes back after the match starts back up again and strikes up a conversation.
“I’m told that you have access to the world’s fastest supercomputer, which runs deep learning software, Mr. Kuzuryu. Please inform me of its rating.”
“……”
He’s not picking up on how awkward it is for me to talk with him, at all.
―――Maybe he’s lost all of his emotions, too ……
I was just starting to sympathize with him. Feeling a little betrayed, I do what he asked.
“Awaji. Rate the current formations,” I say into my phone and numbers show up on the screen.
Of course, my phone isn’t doing the calculations. The supercomputer in Kobe sent them to my phone remotely.
“Awaji says the offense has an advantage.”
“With these formations? My own software cannot settle on a rating …… She’s too strong.”
“That’s because Ika has played the best move according to Awaji all the way back to moving her King to 5 Eight on the opening move.”
Now that I’ve said so, I counter with a question of my own.
“The software you developed is deep learning as well, correct, Okito-sensei? Have you given it a name?”
“No.”
It was a short but clear rejection.
Now, him refusing to show his hand yet again is really getting under my skin.
“…… I played against Awaji for a full month. Nonstop.”
“Did you? That is an interesting approach.”
“Ika has been playing the same moves as Awaji, and I don’t think I can do that even after playing against Awaji for a month. In all seriousness, no other program would ever play 5 Eight King as the opening move. No one would ever think it was an option without learning from Awaji’s match records.”
I keep talking, almost to prevent Sensei from getting any words in edgewise.
These things should be kept secret, but the words just kept coming.
“The thing is that Ika could only have studied a total of 101 Awaji matches, including the match I played against Shinokubo-sensei. Being able to replicate Awaji’s sequences to this degree …… It’s unbelievable.”
What if this actually is apophenia like Ai was talking about?
What if studying Awaji’s match records gave her a deep dream, which showed her how to play this style?
I’m no doctor or scientist.
This just might be a regular guy mixing supernatural with sci-fi. Heck, dreams and reality are mixing together at this point.