HDBMTD 55

~Chapter 65~

“And when I first picked up a chess piece at twelve, I didn’t beat Aria even once for the next three years. Do you know what that means?”

Was he trying to say Aria was smart?

Nocturne, who loved Aria deeply, seemed like he wanted to brag about her to me.

That pure love, still proud of his lover who had already passed away, was beautiful but also a little sad.

Just as I was about to answer, Nocturne looked at me sharply and said,

“It means that even while teaching me chess, Aria never let me win once.”

“….”

“If you’re teaching someone, you’d think you’d let them win once, right? But she never did. Even with the skill to enter tournaments, she just had to beat a beginner to feel satisfied.”

So the first time he brought up Aria to me… it turned out to be gossip.

I had been fully prepared to listen and sympathize with a touching story of missing a lost lover — but now I was at a loss.

‘How am I supposed to react to this?’

I seriously considered whether I should insult her for him, but then Nocturne spoke again.

“I once asked Aria why she never let me win. She answered like this—”

He looked straight at me.

“‘Winning or losing in a game isn’t important.’”

“Ah…”

“She said it was just a game, so there was no reason to let me win.”

This was a conversation that didn’t exist in my memories. Nocturne sighed and grumbled.

“Isn’t that too much? It might be important to the other person. If it’s not important to you, you could at least let them win.”

“That’s true.”

I muttered quietly, and his lips curved in a bitter smile.

“Aria was always like that. She took whatever she wanted in trivial matters, but easily gave up on important things. Do you know how poor the palace became after the Emperor started listening to her?”

“Really?”

“She refused to have electric lights in the palace until all public facilities had them first. Things even the average noble house had.”

His gaze drifted into the air, as if recalling the past.

“Yes, she gave up on truly precious things too easily. Jewels, intellectual property, daily comforts, freedom…”

Then his eyes stopped on me.

“And her life.”

“….”

I couldn’t agree with that. Aria only pretended to have no greed — she never gave up what was truly important. She lived holding on to everything she truly wanted:

Her dreams, her beliefs, her voice, her honor…

And her love.

“Aria’s chess style was perfectly by the book. Not overly aggressive, not overly defensive. Very much like her.”

Nocturne took my knight with his bishop. Having baited him successfully, I picked up the bishop.

“But you — your play style is exactly the same as Aria’s.”

The bishop in my hand froze midair.

A subtle tension filled the room.

“Yes, because I received the princess’s memories.”

I captured his bishop, deliberately meeting his eyes.

“That’s a good thing for me. Thanks to it, I get to experience being a princess, something I never would have otherwise.”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

We fell silent for a while, only the sound of pieces moving between us.

“Just in case, I’ll say this.”

I lowered my voice.

“You might think my memories are too perfect. You might wonder if memory transfer at this level is even possible… but it is, in theory.”

I moved my rook to an empty square and added,

“The mental-type Eshape in the middle must have worked hard. They might have swapped people in and out during the process… there are many ways.”

“Yeah, thanks for explaining.”

Nocturne’s rook captured mine.

Rooks, or “towers,” only moved in straight lines. Holding both rooks in one hand, Nocturne stroked his chin.

“You have Aria’s body and almost perfect memories of her.”

“….”

“Then could it be… you also have her soul?”

I looked up at him, my breath stopping. My heart sped up.

Maybe my tension showed on my face, because he smiled faintly.

“I’m just saying it on the off chance.”

I closed my mouth instead of answering. Then I moved my queen.

“Checkmate.”

“….”

“I won. That means I get to ask the question.”

Finally, Nocturne’s mouth closed.

The first game over, we put away the pieces. Nocturne returned my rook and asked,

“What do you want to know?”

What I wanted to know was the state of his mind.

I tapped the table lightly and asked,

“Why did you save me?”

“….”

Nocturne’s eyes shifted. I watched him nervously.

What he answered would determine what I did next.

From his earlier “Could it be you have Aria’s soul?” I had seen a glimpse of hope.

If his answer was something like “Maybe you are Aria”, that would mean there was still hope — at least a will to understand the truth.

If he said “I don’t know” or avoided answering, it would mean that while he knew I was a clone in his head, he still couldn’t accept it in his heart — reason and emotion at odds, a dangerous state.

And if he answered with “Of course I had to save you” in a loving way… it would mean he had truly gone mad and lost all sense of reality.

In that case, I’d have to get away from him quickly, no matter what.

All my nerves focused on him, I waited. Nocturne finally spoke.

“I would’ve regretted it.”

“…What?”

“I still had so many things I was curious about. If you left like that before I solved anything…”

He looked at me and chose his words.

“It would’ve been very inconvenient for me.”

Inconvenient, huh.

That one plain word warmed me more than all his kind words since I woke up.

‘He hasn’t completely lost it.’

He might be confusing me with Aria, but he was more interested in the information I held than in me as a person. That meant his reason was still working.

This answer was far better than I’d expected.

‘No… he’s almost normal.’

Relaxing a little, I said,

“I’ve already told you everything I know. You know more than I do about my identity.”

“You told me everything?”

Nocturne let out a small laugh. Then he looked me over, as if weighing something.

“You may not believe it, but when I said yesterday that we should delay our talk, it was really because of your health. The doctor advised it.”

“…Advised what?”

“He said not to give you too much stress.”

I couldn’t help a dry laugh. Who was worrying about who right now?

“Forget that and just tell me. What is this unsolved curiosity that made you save me?”

“Well, since you ask…”

He counted on his fingers.

“First, why you never told me you broke my brainwashing.”

“…Tita told you that too?”

At my question, Nocturne shrugged. Of course Tita…

“Second, why you hid the fact that you could use your ability. Third, why you pretended to be a Cambiata when you couldn’t even remember your own name.”

“Is that all?”

“No, there’s more.”

He raised his fourth finger.

“At first, you must have believed you were the real Aria. Then why did you pretend to only be acting like Aria in front of me from the start?”

“…Why did you refuse speed chess again? Asking all this won’t be done in one day.”

My remark made one corner of his mouth curl up.

“When you’re flustered, you crack a joke. That’s the same as Aria.”

“….”

“You’d change the subject while buying time, and even turn the conversation back with a question to take control again. She used that trick a lot.”

“Stop it.”

Aria had taught Nocturne far too much in the past, and now I was the one paying for it.