CHAPTER 4: ILLUSION
"Thanks!" Waya called back to the lady at the counter. "I'll just be printing out these sheets, OK?"
The woman looked curiously at him. "That's an awfully big pile of paper… what exactly is it?"
Waya flipped over the top page of the pile face up towards the counter, showing the diagram of a board and stones. "Kifu," he said simply.
"Is that… go?" she guessed. Waya nodded, and grabbed three more printouts from the tray, waiting as the fourth came out. "Why do you need that many games?" she asked.
"They're all played by the same person. A player called Sai."
"Is he good?"
Waya anxiously pulled the last sheet out of the printer, added it to the teetering pile, and opened his backpack. "The best player in Japan, if not the whole world."
The woman watched as he stuffed the giant pile in his backpack and slung it around his shoulders. "One more thing, do you sell soft drinks here at cyber café's? I don't come here much, so I'm not sure."
"Yeah, we do," the cashier pointed at a large vending machine on the opposite wall. "They're 200 yen each."
"Thanks," Waya said as he passed by her, pumped two coins into the machine, and withdrew his drink. He waited until he'd left the café to open it at an arm's length away, lest it should explode on him. Gulping it eagerly, he set off towards Shindou's house, shouldering the heavy load in his backpack.
"Heh," Waya spoke to himself between sips, "this'll be a treat for him. He seemed really concerned about Sai during our last meeting." More than for Hikaru's sake, however, Waya himself was very interested in Shindou's connection to the legendary Sai. Ever since Hikaru had guessed Sai's message to Waya on the Internet, before they'd met as Insei, there had been a lingering suspicion between them that neither cared to address. Although Waya had accepted the idea what Shindou was not Sai himself, a fairly simple thing to acknowledge, judging by the gap in skill between them, he refused to believe that there was no connection at all—that they did not, at least, know each other.
The newest reappearance of Sai's name in their conversation had sparked his interest once more. He hoped that the kifu, all the games Sai had ever played on the Internet, including the one against Touya Kouyo, would give Waya some idea, some hint, as to what Hikaru and Sai were to each other.
He paused for a second and looked up at the street sign, squinting to see it in the setting sun. It was a street he didn't recognize. He'd never visited an internet café before, and had had to rely on Morishita's daughter to give him directions to the place. He let the backpack fall to the ground and dug around in his pockets for the piece of paper that had served as a map. Pulling it out, he tried to find the unknown street on the hastily marked chart, but it wasn't there. She had only paid attention to the streets he needed to take in order to get from his house to the café, and Waya did not feel like turning around, going all the way back to his house, just to be able to find his way to Shindou's.
He looked up. A man was waiting in front of the traffic light, checking his watch. Waya tapped him on the shoulder, and waited for him to turn around.
"Ano, excuse me, but do you know where I can find Nerai street?" The man quickly glanced at the map and up at the street sign. Seeing that the map would be of no use, he looked up towards the sky, a hand at his chin. "I think… if you go this way," he pointed down the unknown street, "past the train station, there's this park. If you cross through it, you'll find Nerai street without any problems."
Waya smiled. "Thanks, you just saved me a lot of time!"
The man smiled back as the light turned green, and he began crossing the street. "It's no problem, Waya-kun."
The boy looked after him with a mildly amused expression on his face. "At least someone reads Weekly Go," he muttered before taking the street the man had indicated. He nervously looked left and right, as if he might accidentally miss a giant park. Just as he was nearing the train station, he looked to his right and saw the path leading into it.
The park shimmered in orange and gold. Even though it was still the middle of summer, the autumn hues seemed never to leave the trees. The yellows and reds were so bright that it seemed to Waya, as he entered, that even though it was night outside, inside the canopy of golden trees, everything was as bright as a summer morning.
A scream pierced the euphoric silence and peace. Waya's head snapped to the left, towards the source of the sound. Someone, a boy, was screaming repeatedly, hysterically. Dropping his backpack and soft drink can, he took off in a sprint. He flew through the thick foliage, dodging the large trunks. The noise became louder, and Waya perceived with some amusement, that he was so caught up in Sai's mystery, that it almost sounded to him as if the voice was screaming that very name.
As he drew closer, however, it could no longer be mistaken that that was exactly what was being screamed. Waya quickened his pace, covering the last layer of trees, and coming out in a clearing. The screaming was right above him.
"SAI!" the voice shouted once more. Although it was ragged from prolonged yelling, it's timbre was unmistakable. Waya looked up into one of the trees he'd just passed.
"Hikaru!"
The boy looked down. He was standing on one of the thicker branches of the large tree, leaning against the trunk and grabbing it with his hands for support. He was looking out towards the clearing, but his friend's shout caused a temporary pause in his screaming, and he turned his head. His bangs covered his face, but fear and hostility still seemed to radiate from him. "Waya-kun!" He gasped in recognition. "Get out of the way!"
Alarmed, Waya turned around completely, looking for the source of Hikaru's alarm, but could find nothing. He looked back up into the tree. "What are you yelling about?"
Hikaru turned his head back towards the clearing, giving Waya a good look at his face. Sweat had mingled with blood from his nose and lip to give him a truly terrifying look. His panicked eyes darted quickly, as if tracking something's movement. "It's Sai," Hikaru answered, "He's got a sword and he's going to kill you unless you move fast!"
At this, Waya conducted a more thorough search of the clearing. But except for Hikaru's hysterics, there was no movement or sound that he could see. "Where?" he demanded, still scanning his surroundings.
"HE'S CHARGING YOU!" Hikaru screamed at the top of his lungs, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Waya whirled around, but there was nothing. He craned his neck to see if there was anyone in the woods.
Suddenly, from above, something fell on him. Waya collapsed onto the ground, and everything went black.
For the first time since as long as Touya could remember, he had turned down a match request from his father. If hearing Shindou's first lie had slightly unbalanced his play, hearing his justifications for his lies would probably have gotten him his pro licence revoked.
His father had known better than to be offended or upset by his son's refusal. Instead, he'd merely put back the two handicap stones he'd laid out back into the black bowl, and the bowls back onto the board.
Touya stepped over his futon and picked up the phone, which had been ringing insanely next to him, as if shouting urgency. He pressed the talk button and held it up to his ear.
"Touya residence."
"Touya Akira?" a hushed voice spoke from the other end, and Akira found it vaguely familiar. "Yes, speaking." He answered.
"You know where Yomiuri Hospital is?" the voice asked.
"Who's this? Who's calling?" Touya demanded. As familiar as the voice was, he couldn't place it.
"Waya Yoshitaka. The 3-dan."
Touya vaguely remembered Waya and Shindou as being very good friends, and his pulse quickened. "Yes, I know where the hospital is. What is it?"
There was a pause on the other line, and he could hear Waya sighing. "Well, it's, um… rather an interesting case. Hikaru seemed to think there was someone attacking us, and felt it was necessary to tackle me from the top of a tree. Neither of us came out of that very well."
"Attacked?" Touya's breath caught in it's throat. "By whom?"
"Um, yeah. That's where it gets weird. He thought that Sai… with a sword… was trying to kill him."
Touya pedalled strongly through the streets of Tokyo, earning many a dirty look from pedestrians and motorists who were forced to dodge him. The cover of darkness made his stunt doubly difficult and dangerous. The wind whipped his dark hair behind his unprotected head, his face a mask of determination. He didn't stop his mad journey until the hospital was in sight. Jumping off his bike and letting it fall by the curb, he ran inside the building. He was very familiar with Yomiuri hospital, his father having once spent two weeks in it after a heart attack. It was where he had played his legendary internet match against Sai.
He ran to the front desk, and demanded of the man, "Shindou Hikaru!"
The man, shocked by Touya's brusqueness, looked at a clipboard. Touya was leaning over the counter. "Room 255" He said, still looking at the board. Immediately, Touya pushed off and went running down the halls, and into the elevator. Pushing the button for the second floor repeatedly, he took the short elevator ride as an opportunity to collect his thoughts.
"You weren't lying, Shindou," Touya panted. "You're just insane."
The elevator slowed to a halt. As soon as the doors opened, Akira continued running down the halls. He saw Waya standing outside a room.
Waya turned his head as he saw the running figure close the gap. He frowned when he saw who it was, and turned back to looking through the window in the door. Touya could see that Waya's left arm was in a cast.
"He's in there?" Akira asked.
Waya nodded sadly. "It's a rubber room."
For a second, Touya thought he was joking, until the seriousness of Hikaru's condition hit him. He threw himself against the door, and looked in. Indeed, the walls were white and embossed, having a very soft texture. Hikaru himself was cut and bleeding in many places, with his arm also in a cast. Touya couldn't stand the sight of him, and turned back to Waya. "What exactly happened?"
"I told you most of it. I found him up a tree in a park, shouting that Sai had a sword and was going to kill him. When he saw me, he tackled me from the top of the tree. With the best of intentions, I'm sure." He added loyally.
He didn't know how to feel. Hikaru had been telling the truth. At least, the truth as he saw it. In his mind, there had indeed been a "Sai." But that meant that Hikaru had played all of Sai's games. And that wasn't possible either.
"Isumi!" Waya called out suddenly, turning around. Touya followed his gaze, and saw a tall, dark man, about twenty-three, rushing into the hall, followed by a nurse.
All three boys looked expectantly towards her. She walked up to the door, stood on her toes in order to see through the window. She took some notes before looking up at the three people arranged around her. "He's your friend?"
They all nodded quickly. She took one last look at her clipboard before continuing. "Well, I don't know how to break it to you, but we think he's got schizophrenia."
Those words seemed to echo in Touya's mind for eternity. For a second, the world seemed to spin, and he thought he would be sick.
"What does that mean, exactly?" Isumi asked.
"To put it bluntly, he sees things that aren't there, hears things that aren't there, and so on," she said. "In this case, he seems to think that there's a man named Sai after him. We don't know much about it, but it could be Sai is a person from his childhood, or a character that left a deep scar in him. Or perhaps just a figment of his imagination. In any case, it scares him deeply, to the point of insanity."
"No…" Touya broke his silence. "He's thought about Sai for years. Dreamt him up about five or six years ago."
The woman looked at him curiously. "Really?"
"It doesn't make sense," Touya said, more to himself than to the others. "How could he play so well? Such a clear Shuusaku style without having ever studied him…"
The nurse looked at him wearily, as if she thought Touya belonged in the rubber room with Shindou. "What exactly are you talking about? He's mentioned Sai before?"
"Yeah, he told me a few days ago… He think he was possessed by a ghost named Sai back in Grade 6," Akira admitted.
The nurse scribbled furiously. "Thank you for that… is there anything else we should know about him? How does he do in school?"
"He doesn't go to school," Waya put in. "He's a professional Go player."
She wrote that down too. "Any… behavioural problems we should know about?"
"No!" Touya shouted, alarming all three people. "He's not schizophrenic! He can't be! He can't play like that!"
Isumi looked at him incredulously. "What are you talking about?"
"The first game he ever played—and the second and fourth—he beat me. Hikaru could not have done that. It was Sai." Touya could not believe he was siding with Shindou. In his own mind, he was calling himself crazy. What he was saying made no sense, but neither did anything else.
"I don't know what you're talking about," the nurse said, in a voice that dripped dislike, pointing towards the room with her pen, "but take a look inside that room and tell me if you think that boy's alright."
With a growl, Touya spun on his heel and stormed out of the room.
Hikaru rocked back and forth nervously, not caring how stereotypically crazy he looked. He was cold, alone, and afraid, and that outweighed whatever the fools in the white coats thought of him.
He could still see him, sometimes. The flash of metal. Hikaru would turn his head, catch a glimpse of his old friend; but it would be gone, instantly.
Hikaru knew he was going crazy. Who wouldn't? His friend, whom he'd missed for more than three years, comes back and tries to kill him. There was no mistaking it. The hat, the robes, the eyes. The eyes, once filled with understanding and compassion, now hollow and full of vengeance.
"What did I do, Sai?" he whispered, his teeth chattering, trying to keep himself warm with only one functional arm. "What'd I do wrong? Is it because I played Go? Did I not let you play enough?"
The dark room didn't answer.
"TELL ME!" He shouted. The rubber walls did not echo—his plea was swallowed immediately.
Would Sai go after his friends, his family? Did the anger and vengeance go that deep? Questions kept Hikaru from sleep, his eyes open for hours at a time.
Click
Hikaru's head shot up, a flash of pain crossed his vision from his arm. The doorknob was turning. He shot up from his seat, the only piece of furniture in the room, and backed towards the rubber wall.
The door opened slightly, showering the room with a thin beam of artificial light. It opened wider, revealing the familiar figure of the ghost. Hikaru's scream choked in his throat; he could do nothing.
Sai's arm flew for the sword at his hip, and Hikaru braced himself. With a flick of his thumb, the sword was in his fist, ready to be drawn in a moment's notice.
Paralyzed with fear, Hikaru barely managed to edge slowly along the wall. Sai mirrored his actions, rotating like two boxers in a ring. He looked hopefully towards the door, the beacon of light. He kept his eyes on Sai, not wanting to alert the ghost to his plan.
"Closer," Hikaru edged towards the light. "Just a little bit more—"
Sai dived at him with his sword, and he barely managed to react in time, throwing himself down to the ground, rolling underneath him.
Now!
Sai's sword was still pointed straight to where Hikaru's body had been seconds before. He shot to his feet and ran for the door. Not turning around to see how his attacker had reacted, Hikaru pulled the door shut behind him, hoping to delay him at least momentarily. He found himself in a brightly lit corridor, with three possible paths. He couldn't remember which way he'd been brought in, so he ran to the left—a purely instinctive choice.
As he began running, hindered by his broken arm, he could hear the door to his room open, pushing him to run faster. He could see, at the end of the corridor, a door marked "STAIRS." He could hear and feel Sai's footsteps drawing closer. He wrenched the door open, passed through, and kicked it closed behind him.
He ran down the stairs three at a time. The door had since swung open, and Sai's silent pursuit continued. Hikaru risked a quick glance behind his shoulder, and saw the ghost far closer to him than he'd expected, sword drawn, a solemn look on his face. Without thinking, Hikaru took his good arm, and vaulted himself over the railing to the next set of stairs, a two metre drop.
He hit the ground hard on his side, and rolled the rest of the stairwell. Pain, especially from his injured arm, raced through his senses, and nearly rendered him motionless, if it hadn't been for the haunting pursuit. As quickly as he could, Hikaru got back up onto his feet and began jogging down the stairs once more, relieved that Sai was now almost a whole stairwell behind him.
He could see the last flight ahead of him. Jumping the last five stairs in one leap, he opened the door and ran through, not bothering to slam it shut behind him this time. He was in the hospital lobby, the double doors leading outside were clearly visible. Two doctors had just stepped out of the elevator. Hikaru caught their eye, and bolted for the door, making his way once more into the cold night air. It was almost dawn, and traffic on the streets was at it's minimum.
Without taking another moment to think about it, Hikaru ran across the street and away from the hospital.