The Pro and the Ghost
After the prompt by hostilecrayon: Isumi comes face to face with a ghost.
(Hikaru no Go and its characters belong to their makers, I'm just borrowing them for a while.)
Of course Waya was to blame for it. Waya always was to blame, so what else was new? This time Waya was to blame for the fact that A: Isumi had missed a full night's sleep and was dead tired to begin with. And B: Waya had not bothered to wake Isumi up after he had fallen asleep in the viewing room during the last tournament game of the day.
And so it was that when Isumi did wake up, the room was pitch black and the institute was utterly deserted. It was also locked, from the outside, as he found after going down to check. All the lifts were down and so was the electricity; a recent policy to reduce the institute's bills. That left emergency lights only. Oh, just great!
Isumi hurried back up the stairs to the only room that had been at least moderately warm; the viewing room. On his way there he passed the open door of the Room of Profound Darkness, which at that moment was living up to its name in spades! Then suddely the short hairs on Isumi's neck suddenly stood up, spreading goose bumps all the way down his back; he had spied a movement inside the room from the corner of his eye. He was not alone? Was there an intruder?
He stopped dead and stood perfectly still, trying to look into the room without turning his head. There! There it was again. He was now sure it was real! He, quickly and as silently as possible, slipped into the room, leaving the door open behind him. Now that he had his eyes facing forward he could see the dim outline of a figure. His hand found the switch of the emergency light on the wall and flipped it.
The room was flooded in a deep red light, illuminating a lone figure sitting in seiza at one side of the Goban as though he was quite innocently waiting for a game. Isumi was momentarily stunned by the figure and it was only partly due to the presence of the man (woman?) but more by his/her garb. The figure wore an outfit that Isumi had only ever seen in a Noh play; an outfit that off the stage was just plain outrages, idiotically long sleeves and super tall hat and all.
'What – who -?' Isumi stuttered.
It was only then that the figure looked up at him, an almost bored expression on his/her face. When Isumi said no more the figure turned his head back to the board, as though intently studying a game on it, though the Goban was totally empty.
'Who are you?' Isumi tried again.
At this the figure turned his/her head quickly towards the young Pro and said, 'you can see me?' The voice was low enough to be male.
'Well, of course I can see you!' Isumi was starting to get miffed now; what kind of nonsense was this?
The figure's face lit up with a wide smile. 'Oh, how delightful!' He cast his eyes up for a moment, clapping his sleeve covered hands together with a small but dull thud, exclaiming 'Kami be thanked for this opportunity!' He lowered his eyes back to Isumi and swept his hand, that was suddenly holding a closed fan, in the direction of the vacant seat across from him at the other side of the Goban and said, 'I've been waiting long for a game with you Isumi-san, if you would take a seat please.'
It wasn't until after he had sat down that Isumi remembered to close his mouth. Then, before he had a chance to speak, the strange figured started speaking again.
'I am Fujiwara no Sai, pleased to meet you.' The figure bowed and Isumi could not stop himself responding in kind, 'Isumi Shinichiro, pleased to meet you.'
'Alas, I am unable to touch to the stones!' the figure continued in a effeminately lamenting tone. 'If I may prevail upon your generosity to place my hands, I would indeed be very grateful,' he said, again bowing.
Isumi found himself agreeing to this request and not for a moment did he find himself wondering why this Fujiwara could not play out his own moves. No, he didn't wonder at any of the events so far at all, all he could think at first was that this was a very strange dream and that he'd murder Waya in the morning. Very shortly after that he forgot any thoughts of vengeance or anything else for that matter and could only think about formations and strategies, 'cause this Fujiwara turned out to be a very formidable opponent indeed!
xOxOx
This started out as an attempt at a drabble, but you know, Sai just refused to be captured with only 100 words!
