Chapter 1 : A Game of Chess

It was a game of Chess.
A nearly perfect art of the game was being played.
The girl tapped the clock. It was Yuriko's turn.

Yuriko sat, looking at the multicolored board. Every square was a different color in the known (and unknown) spectrum of colors.
She observed a thousand steps ahead of her. Observed the silence in the room full of people, sitting in a circular manner, watching her make a move. A single wrong move could be a fatality to the otherwise perfect gameplay.
She moved her knight to D5.
And she tapped the clock. It was Yuriko's turn.

Yuriko sat, looking at the space in front of her. It was fulled with plenty of faceless faces. Unknown people. At least, unknown to her. Her opponent had played a perfect offence, by moving her knight to D5.
Yuriko moved her rook to D13.
It was a perfect defence.
And the girl tapped the clock. It was Yuriko's turn.

Of course, such a perfect game could only be played by the perfect. Such a perfect offence could only be mounted by a perfect player of the game. The game, in which is so artistically perfect, could only be defended by another player who was THIS perfect.

Yuriko looked around her. She knew the game would end in a draw. She was hoping for it.
And besides, playing against yourself is one mighty boring thing to do.
But alas, there was no other player who could go past her 7 steps.
She gave up them game, and left the arena.

***

Slowly, Touch returned to her, and so did Hearing. Taste would be back in a while, and had left a message with Smell. Smell would inform Yuriko of the soon-to-return Taste.

At first she heard mumblings.
"Spin the duck, dude" or something like that. It involved spinning a green-silver duck. Weird.
Then, she started Feeling.
Her skin felt cold (she was still in underwear). A metallic cold. And so were her wrists.
She still could not see. But she is now awakened, still in the Huge Blackout caused by the Floating of The Planet as A Ballon, she supposed.
But she could feel the roughness across her chest. And she heard noise. As though as she was on the road. But it could not be. Maybe she was just in bed?
Then Touch resumed his function in her body. She felt the blindfold being tightly tied across her eyes.
Then Realisation took a metal staff and struck her hard.
She was being kidnapped (?)
But she was feeling a sort of Apathy. Felt like she did not even care about her kidnaping. She tried to scream, but Voice failed her.
Internally, she cursed.

***

"You know, Spindark is awaiting. 't'll be a great day, when one day, the ultimate she-weapon gets released." A man said
"Yeah, and you are nothing but a puny minion" Another voice.
"So? At least I am in the know even a little bit of Spindark. I know, and you don't." said the first voice
"But I do the balancing of the budget, see!" the Second Voice said.
In the shadows, a man, in poise of a balancing person, both hands stuck out perpendicularly to the body, stood up. There was something on his head. It looked like a pile of Money being gingerly balanced on his head....