Chapter 1 : Kiriyama Rei

The chapter begins with a girl teasing Rei(in his memeories) for his name (Rei is translated as Zero in Japanese). She further states that this name fits his life perfectly as he does not have a home, relatives, school or friends and also stating that he does not have a place where he belongs.

In the present, Rei wakes up in his apartment to the morning sun and breeze. He dresses up, commutes to the shogi hall, picking up drinks to have through the matches and greeting journalists in the reception of the shogi hall.

He takes a sit in the hall, waiting for his opponent, who makes his way to his seat. He greets and asks Rei about his well being, and tries to start a conversation by talking about the weather. But realising that this does not interest both parties, he decides to begin the match. Through the match, a flashback is shown where Rei as a child has advanced to the finals of a tournament and is excited to show it to his supposed family(the man who is currently playing shogi against him and his children) but finds himself disconnected from them as they walk away. The match ends with the man conceding defeat to Rei. He acknowledges the fact that Rei has gotten stronger at shogi. He asks Rei whether he's been eating properly. He says that Rei had left them suddenly and that Ayumu and Kyouko(the kids in the flashback) have been worried about Rei. The man walks out the hall, but Rei still sits in front of the board and whispers to himself that the man is a liar.

Rei starts to commute back home, while doing so he takes a seat in a park, where he receives a text from a person named Hinata asking Rei to come over for dinner. Rei starts to text back that he would not be able to come over because he's under the weather. In the middle of texting, he recieves a text from another person named Akari who asks Rei to bring some pickles and Eggs on the way.

Not being able to deny the request, Rei buys things at the store and makes his way to a house, where he is greeted by the three sisters (Akari, Hinata, Momo). With some extra dessert bought by Rei they have dinner. Hinata asks Rei about the competition he was participating in and Rei reveals that he won. Hinata sets aside some food for her mother and grandmother (who are dead, as revealed by their memorial photos) as they loved curry. During the dinner, news of a man being beaten to death by his son is shown on the TV. In a flashback it is revealed that the man who participated in the match before is Kouda and that he is Rei's father. It is also revealed that he's in a pinch in the current tournament. Rei feels that in today's match, every move he made on the board he felt like he was punching his father with his bare hands, almost so that he could feel the heat of his skin.

The Kawamoto family feels that Rei is feeling a little down, and tell him that he should eat a little, while Hinata sprints off to bring Rei some medicine. An old aged man, supposedly Hinata's grandfather comes back home to find that Rei is sleeping. The old man says that this was to be expected as he had a match today and that he must have practiced hard the day before. He says that he would head back to make preparations for his Japanese Sweet shop tomorrow, Akari says that she would be coming over to help him tomorrow.

Hinata brings a blanket for Rei. She takes off his glasses so he can sleep well, but sees that he had been crying before he slept. She puts the blanket over him and leaves.

In the voice over, Rei reveals his name to be Kiriyama Rei, 17 years old. He is a professional shogi player currently at Class C - Group 1, 5th Dan.