Yuki Tsukishiro stared blankly at Shinta Uchiha's words, and at the paper where victory was already decided.
It took her a long while to react.
Wait a second—this wasn't Go, it was Gomoku?
"Plan successful."
From behind her, Shinta Uchiha nodded in delight.
He was perfectly satisfied with this result.
That's right! This was how it should be! When an Uchiha faces an Otsutsuki, he should greet them with this gorgeous, crushing victory!
"Weren't we playing Go?"
Yuki didn't stay stunned for long. She quickly wrote her confusion on the paper and passed it back to Shinta Uchiha.
"...Go is too complicated. Gomoku is better for passing the time. I think this suits you more."
Shinta Uchiha paused for a moment, then quickly scribbled an excuse as an explanation.
This was a **fake reason**!
The real reason was: Shinta Uchiha didn't know how to play Go. He only knew how to play Gomoku.
"Another round."
Yuki accepted this **fake reason** and challenged Shinta Uchiha to a rematch.
"No."
Shinta Uchiha refused without hesitation.
This wasn't because he couldn't play, nor was it because he was afraid of losing.
Shinta Uchiha was always happy to accept a loser's challenge, give them a second chance, and he valued fairness deeply.
This was even recorded in his past Naruto mobile game experiences.
Shinta Uchiha never deliberately dragged out the 60-second timer. At 59 seconds, he would immediately accept the challenge.
When 1v1ing friends in Naruto mobile, he'd happily accept the loser's repeated rematch requests, crushing his friend again and again.
Only when the opponent relied on dogshit luck to win a round and started barking would he refuse to continue the fight and stop the match.
Yep, all true! It was all recorded in Shinta Uchiha's previous **Diary** like this.
Ironclad evidence!
So... he really wasn't afraid of losing another round—he just couldn't bark anymore.
"Another round."
The great witch had no intention of giving up easily. She issued a rematch request for the second time.
"...Hmm, no."
"Another round."
"No, really, no."
"Just one round."
"Um, Tsukishiro-san, I'm actually a good student. I need to listen to the lesson, really listen to the lesson. I won't fool around in class with you."
"?"
"...Another round."
Shinta Uchiha stared at the words Yuki had written, his fingers starting to tremble slightly.
Honestly, he really, really wanted to write "You've lost your cool" as a reply to Yuki.
But one of Shinta Uchiha's few remaining shreds of reason warned him not to do this.
What if this inherently evil guy got pushed too far and used force?
At that time, the one who'd lose their cool would be Shinta Uchiha.
No, that wasn't even the only possibility.
Judging by how Yuki had built her evil plan around bullying, she was probably a top-tier stress-resistant king who could endure what ordinary people couldn't, who wasn't afraid of being splashed with cold water, and who would never lose her cool.
"Another round."
The great witch, whose smile seemed to have a subtle shift from before, issued a rematch request for the sixth time.
At the same time, she turned her head, locking eyes with Shinta Uchiha, forcing him to look away, his face turning red.
The teacher and classmates around them tacitly ignored this scene, which was far too abnormal for a classroom.
...
The great witch wasn't stupid.
Even if she might be a little better than that blind love fool who kept searching for the witch, the backstage manipulator who was good at flipping tables and reciting curses was hardly someone you could hold high expectations for.
So...
"Another round."
The notes kept being passed back and forth on the desk, but this time, the one who wrote those words wasn't Yuki—it was Shinta Uchiha.
The one who'd been playing ostrich and refusing to rematch had switched from Shinta Uchiha to Yuki.
"Eighteen losses, seventeen of which I thought I would win."
"Four times I thought I was getting a handicap and still didn't win."
"Two times you could've kept giving me a handicap and won, Uchiha-kun, but you suddenly stopped."
"Zero wins."
"Uchiha-kun challenged me twenty-four times. I accepted eighteen, refused six."
As always, Yuki recorded everything that had happened around her with numbers.
But unlike before, the great witch's mood was not calm.
She hated Shinta Uchiha!
Hated that scheming, bullying, weird kid Uchiha-kun, who pretended to be merciful on the surface but was a total coward when it came to the crunch!
...Fine, it wasn't just dislike.
It was a lot of dislike.
The great witch wasn't a sore loser, and she'd never target someone over a tiny setback.
She only hated everyone equally, cursed every human being.
"Scheming. Bullying."
Yuki held the bento Shinta Uchiha had given her that morning, updating her evaluation of him in her mind.
The reason she wasn't accepting rematches now wasn't because she'd lost, her defenses were broken, and she was running away.
A great witch could never be flustered and unelegant by a human.
It was just because Shiro and Emma were dragging her to eat lunch, so she didn't have a chance to be alone with Shinta Uchiha, eat, keep playing Gomoku, and get her chance to turn the tables.
It was all Sakuraba Emma and Nikaidou Shiro's fault.
They were the ones who'd let Shinta Uchiha escape the great witch's trial.
"Um, Yuki..."
Just as the great witch was in a bad mood, Sakuraba Emma popped her head out like a puppy who'd found something strange, resting her hand on her short, gradient pink-white hair, looking hesitant to speak.
"?"
Yuki snapped back to her senses, looking at the good girl Emma, who was so different from Shinta Uchiha, in confusion.
"Yuki's bento is different from before."
Sakuraba Emma pressed her legs together, quietly voicing her discovery.
She'd sharply noticed that the bento Yuki was holding wasn't the same one as before.
And it smelled different too...
"...Uchiha-kun made this."
Yuki placed the slightly cold bento on her lap, honestly telling Emma the truth, then pointed with her finger to the other side of the rooftop, where Shinta Uchiha was watching her like a stray cat, deliberately keeping his distance.
"He made it specially for me this morning."