Disclaimer: A pretty useless and redundant tradition of fanfiction. But I'll go mainstream and just say I don't own Hikaru no Go.

This is my first fanfiction and I hope that it meets the expectations of readers. I've always admired the Hikaru no Go community for being so small, yet so high quality. I decided that it was the best fandom to write my first story in and here I am. I'm only 14 so please don't expect too much and be wary of mistakes.
I don't plan to have Sai disappear as early as it happened in the manga. In case you didn't read the summary, this IS a female!Hikaru and HikaAki story.

Constructive criticism and reviews are appreciated. If you feel as though you have a lot of the former, then you could make a great Beta. If this is the case, feel free to contact me as I would really appreciate a beta.

Chapter 1

"Congratulations, ma'am. It's a girl. The nurse handed the new mother her daughter.

"Hikaru…I want to name her Hikaru.

Shindou Heihachi stared at his granddaughter as though she had grown another head.

"If I give you this Goban, you'll just pawn it off like all the other things you've taken from my shed, won't you?" he inquired. Long ago, he had tried to show his granddaughter his favorite game but she had paid no attention, so why the sudden interest?

"Of course not! I am genuinely interested in this Goban and want to play uhh…"

Next to her, Sai supplied "I already told you this earlier, HIkaru! The game is called Go in Japan and is also sometimes referred to as igo! That's also where the name Goban originated from and-"

"…Go! I want to play Go grandpa!" she ended, suddenly cutting Sai off. Sai immediately started going off on how rude it was to interrupt someone who was speaking. Hikaru ignored him.

Heihachi stared at her with skeptical eyes. It was hard to believe that his blond-banged, delinquent granddaughter had taken a sudden interest in Go. In fact, it was almost impossible to believe it. "Where did this come from all of a sudden?"

"Well you see," Hikaru thought about what to say, "It's almost as though a spirit has suddenly taken over my body and has an intense desire to play go. I feel as though if I don't play Go right away, I'll be sick, or I might faint, or maybe I'll even DIE!" Hikaru had never been too good at lying, so she decided to stick as close to the truth as possible. Plus, a little exaggeration had never hurt anyone.

If anything, Heihachi was suddenly even more skeptical of his granddaughter after her little speech. "Well if what you're saying is true, then why don't we play a game right now?" he offered. "If you impress me then you can have the Goban."

"You're on Grandpa!" she responded enthusiastically.

"Alright then bring the Goban inside and set it to the side for now. I have a different Goban we can play on right now, one that isn't so dusty." He gestured at the Goban and started walking back towards the house at a steady pace.

Hikaru lifted the fairly heavy Goban and followed her grandfather, albeit at a slower pace with the heavy weight in her slender hands. "Are you sure you can beat my grandfather, Sai? He's won multiple amateur tournaments in the city. Besides, you probably haven't played in a long time, so won't your skills be pretty rusty?" She whispered to Sai.

"Hikaru, I am confident in my skills and highly doubt that your grandfather will be too much of a challenge. Back in my day, I taught the emperor himself how to play go. Only 100 years ago BLAHBLAH BLEGHBLAH…" Sai continued to ramble. Hikaru wasn't too sure about all this. This ghost insisted that he was a master at the game, but only time would tell Hikaru supposed.

Hikaru tuned him out and decided to reflect on what had happened in the past hour. So she had found a Goban with a bloodstain in her grandfather's shack full of antiques. Said Goban turned out to be the resting place of a centuries old Ghost that loved Go. Said Ghost had demanded that Hikaru take the Goban with her due to how sentimental it was to him. Now Hikaru was about to play her grandfather, the amateur champion, in a game over the Goban. All Hikaru had wanted when she came to her Grandfather's was to make a bit of money so she could go shopping with her friends next week. There go those plans.

At last arrived in the kitchen and set the Goban down on the table. She then strode into the room where her grandfather kept his prized Kaya Goban and took a seat across from where Heihachi was already seated.

"Alright gramps, get ready to be beaten!" She declared arrogantly. 'Sai, you better win this,' she thought.

"Hmph. You're overconfident, young lady. I bet your mother has been spoiling you again. In fact, why don't you place a few stones, Hikaru? In case you haven't forgotten. I'm the amateur champion here." He wasn't too pleased with Hikaru's overconfident attitude. He would teach her to underestimate the amateur champion.

'Place stones?' Hikaru glanced at Sai in confusion. "Basically, placing stones is a handicap for when more experienced players play against less skilled players. But I won't need a handicap against your grandfather." Sai took out his fan and looked intensely at Heihachi.

"I don't need to place any stones, grandpa! Let's just play."

"Hmph. Suit yourself then, Hikaru. Let's Nigiri!" He exclaimed.

Once again, Hikaru looked to Sai for an explanation. Sai gladly explained. "Nigiri is a method to decide who will play black and who will play white. Your grandfather is grabbing a handful of white stones. You need to guess whether the amount he grabbed was odd or even by placing one or two black stones on the board. If you are correct, then you play black."

'Alright, this sounds simple enough.' Hikaru placed one black stone on the board and was rewarded with the black stones. Sai quickly pointed his fan to his opening move. Hikaru fumbled with one of the small, black stones for a moment, before picking it up with three fingers and placing it on 2,3. The game was on.

"Thank you very much for the game!" Sai bowed his head as tears streamed down his face at the joy of being reunited with go. Hikaru stared at Sai in wonder. Could playing this game really bring that much joy to him?

Shindou Heihachi breathed out a sigh of relief. It would have been humiliating to have lost to his granddaughter who had probably only started playing the game a few weeks ago, at most. He had won by only 3.5 moku, so the outcome was still rather embarrassing. The whole time he had felt as though Hikaru was playing was playing shidogo with him, but apparently that wasn't so since he won.

"Grandpa, I won right? Can I take the Goban now?" Hikaru asked; as having won a game against a man who had been playing go for numerous years was a normal occurence.

He chuckled at her attitude. "Hikaru it's customary for the players to thank each other for the game and hold a discussion afterwards, but I suppose you're in a hurry to get home. Furthermore, I won the game by 3.5 moku."

".5? How did you get .5 moku?" She hadn't realized that you could have half a moku from what she had observed of the game. Sai shared her sentiments. "Hikaru I am certain that I won by 2 moku! Ask your grandfather to count again!"

He chuckled once again. "You must have started learning the game only very recently to not know what the Komi rule is." He grimaced at the reminder that Hikaru was a rookie to the game, and yet, had given him trouble. Maybe it was time for him to start visiting go salons again. "White is given an extra 5.5 moku due to the advantage black receives by going first. Regardless, I was still very impressed by your skill so you can take the Goban with you."

"Phew. Thanks grandpa! I'll be sure to visit again soon!" She said happily as she hauled the enchanted Goban into her arms once more and started on her way out, leaving Shindou Heihachi to ponder about her newfound skill.

At home, nice and snug in the tank top and shorts she wore to sleep, Hikaru polished the newest addition to her bedroom, her Goban. "How can you wear such scandalous clothing, Hikaru! Such clothing would've never been befitting of a woman in my day." Sai reprimanded.

"I'm going to sleep soon! It doesn't matter how short my shorts are when I go to sleep!" she responded. Also, I still can't believe you lost, despite gloating about teaching emperors and holding titles!" she reprimanded.

"Well I was playing shidogo with your grandfather; I was going easy on him. It's a pity that we couldn't have held an after game discussion. And it's not my fault I didn't know about the Komi rule, Hikaruuu! It didn't exist the last time I was alive. Please forgive me!" He pouted.

His last sentence reminded Hikaru of her predicament. "I still can't believe I'm talking to a ghost. A go obsessed ghost nonetheless."

"Hikaruuu! What's wrong with liking go?" He whined

Hikaru sighed and decided to change the subject. "What do you like so much about that board game, anyways? It's so confusing and I don't understand the rules."

Sai fell silent for a few moments and a serene face appeared on him. "Go is a lovely game and I have devoted my life to mastering it. I can understand why someone who is unaccustomed to it would dislike it. If you want to learn more about it then I would be glad to teach you, Hikaru."

Hikaru tilted her head in curiosity and stopped polishing the board. "Well I have time to spare, could you tell me more about 'territory', then?"

Sai smiled exuberantly and started off on a rant. "We should start off on the basics. As you probably already noticed, it's a 19x19 board, except for boards they use for beginners that are 13x13 or 9x9, and…"

And so the seed of a great player was planted.

Words: 1,603