As usual, I do not own Hikaru no Go. This fanfic is registered under the Creative Commons as non-commercial, non-profit work. I will most definitely have to take this down if the author requests it, or even knew about it. Honestly, I don't think she does, and we're all happy to keep it that way. People who break the status quo beware.

Enjoy.


The Disturbing Fox

'Sai, how is Chiaki San connected to you?' Hikaru asked through a mouthful of burger. Atypical of Shindo, he'd chosen WcDonald's. Sai silently cursed his student's bad taste in food.

Sai chose not to answer that question yet, instead wondering how he was going to have to answer that question. Somehow he doubted that Hikaru would readily accept Oh, the gods up above were deciding my sentence, and then Fushimi Inari Sama came along and took me under his protection, so now I'm given a physical body and time to pursue the Divine Move and apparently the gods readily accepted this verdict as they didn't know where to put me, so while I was in Kyoto relearning everything about life Chiaki was responsible for my complete re-education for the past two years. Even Sai had limits to how much one could believe. Hikaru might have accepted that he could be a ghost, and thus he could have believed that Sai had been spared by the gods and allowed back, but precedent suggests that they would still part ways someday.

And when that day comes, who would leave first? I don't know how much time I have left, or how long Fushimi Sama's promise would hold. Hikaru, some things are better not known. Can I tell you...?

'I was told to look after Fujiwara San by someone I respect.' Chiaki answered. 'So I'm right here to look after him. Honestly, I don't think much of your protégée, Fujiwara. I assume it's the first impression he gives. Shindo Kun, I very much appreciate your accompanying your teacher here.' Chiaki told him, still studying Hikaru intently.

Hikaru glared back at him. 'Sai, who is this person?'

'Hikaru, didn't I already tell you?' Sai gasped at him. 'Chiaki San is a friend.'

'Sai, let's be more specific; what is this person?' Hikaru shot back.

The look on Sai's face was one of pure horror. 'Hikaru...'

'Sai, I don't know how you got a body, or even how the heck you managed to get here , but I know that not everybody is so trusting to take in a stranger. If Chiaki San was so kind as to take you in, either he knows who you are, which would mean he's psychic or something, or he's incredibly trusting to the point of idiocy, which doesn't look it. Also, he does the creepy eye thing and he looks at me like...like...like I'm a steak or something.' Hikaru broke off with a slight shiver. 'If I didn't know better I'd say he's like you, older than most people but don't look it.'

'He's good,' Chiaki told Sai. 'Apparently he has brains under that bleached head of his. Very good, this one. You've taught him well enough to use his brains.'

'Chiaki San, Hikaru has almost always managed to bluff his way through situations like this,' Sai replied. 'He has also allowed me to play Go and even kept my existence quiet as I played. I believe we can tell him why I could come back.'

'What's going on, Sai?' Hikaru asked, almost childishly confused.

'Well, let's see...the short of it is that Sai was originally going to be reincarnated, but considering that he's one of the few that managed to advance so close to the Divine Move, he was somewhat spared and er...placed on probation.' Chiaki cheerfully pronounced the very serious sentence hanging on Sai as if it was a joke. 'Now, your precious sensei is stuck on this earth until either he achieves the Hand of God, or any other option which are so horrible that ascension is pretty much the only option. Sai absolutely cannot die during this time or he won't get any more chances.'

'You mean...' Hikaru was almost horrified.

'He'll fade. His soul will be broken into tiny little bits and scattered to the four winds. Reincarnation was already lost to him, now if he goes, he's gone. No more Sai of the Fujiwara. Gone from history, gone from existence, just...gone. Forever. You'll never see him again. '


Up till now Sai had never considered that Hikaru could be annoying. Noisy, maybe; occasionally borderline irritating, but not deliberately annoying. Today he wondered if perhaps he should revise his opinion of his student.

'Hikaru, I'm not going anywhere, so please stop circling me. I definitely do not remember becoming something for you to orbit around,' Sai patiently explained as he lugged one extremely heavy bag along the street they were walking.

He'd wanted that bright purple phone, as Chiaki had called it, although honestly it was quite a lot smaller than the phone he had imagined but both Hikaru and Chiaki had rejected the phone on the grounds that it was too blinding a colour. Chiaki had wanted Sai to get the black phone, but Hikaru had retorted that it was too monochrome and therefore too boring, and that the canary yellow option was better. Sai had baulked at that particularly horrible thing, and even the salesperson manning the counter had been slightly offended by the bright contraption. In the end, Sai had chosen white, the only colour scheme that had not offended anyone's colour taste, one that Sai thought was rather good-looking personally, and even Hikaru had admitted that the white suited Sai.

Plus, the phone came equipped with GPS. Just in case.

Of course, this was the cue for Hikaru's phone to ring, and for Hikaru to pick it up, and then the whole store had heard the typical verbal exchange between Touya Akira 5-dan and Shindo Hikaru 3-dan as the two young Go pros yelled at each other through a miracle of modern communication technology, the hand-phone. Of course, Sai immediately felt guilty for leaving 'poor Akira' at the hall without a word but then Hikaru had dragged Sai off to explore an old shop selling Go implements that Hikaru had recently found. Immediately, Sai's Go addiction managed to drive guilt from his head.

Of course, Sai ended up buying the most books. Even as a child, he'd always adored books. In this time, the him from the Heian era felt more at home with paper and ink than with steel and aluminium and silicon. Of course, technology was nice, but he still like books and paper. Paper didn't make odd noises and die horribly fizzling deaths if you accidentally dropped it into the flooded sink, he'd learned the hard way. Fushimi had been laughing about that incident for a whole day straight.

'Ne, Hikaru, wait for me...' Sai watched the little glowing man turn dark, and the red hand appeared, almost like saying, You shall not pass as Hikaru skipped further ahead.

'Well, who told you to be so slow...?' Sai dimly heard the reply over the screeching of rubber on asphalt.

That was when the pain started.

Ow...why are my books over there? How did I end up here? What the...?

Ow...I don't want to die...help me...

Hikaru...


'Shindo, call an ambulance,' Chiaki ordered, having now glanced at the car plates. Cursing at luck for this accident, the fox made his way to the collapsed Sai, the long-haired Go prodigy having almost been run over by a bright red Mazda. A very familiar bright red Mazda. Luckily it had been clocking about twenty or thirty kilometres per hour, or Sai would have been turned into something bloodier.

Chiaki approached Sai and expertly checked the trapped left leg, the Go prodigy whimpering and moaning in pain. No blood, but that didn't discount internal haemorrhage or broken bones, for that matter.

Looking up before applying CPR, Chiaki saw that student of Sai, Shindo, with a cellphone to his ear, speaking quickly and intently into the receiver, all the while intently glaring intently at the driver. Chiaki had better vision than most, and he could clearly see two warring sparks of emotions in the boy's green eyes, now turned into something cold in the reflections of the broken windscreen.

Recognition, mixed with cold, raw fury.

Ogata Seiji got up from where he'd collapsed behind the seat. Who the hell was standing in front of a bloody car in the middle of the road? And in Tokyo, too. People had better sense not to commit suicide by road intersection these days. They all wanted to die in their own homes or jump off a high-rise building or something like that now. No point in pulling down some innocent person on so-called murder charges or into the depths of guilt.

He did a perfunctory search on himself. He didn't have any parts in pain. He wasn't bleeding. He had a pulse. He didn't have any obvious wounds. And that was the entire length and breadth of his medical knowledge. At least he was alive and uninjured; that had to count for something.

Pushing open the door, he clambered out to check which person he'd almost run over. Almost; he could clearly see the victim sitting up when he felt a hostile stare slowly stroke across his skin. Ogata Juudan was an experienced player, one who knew the effect the eyes of another on the psyche. He had faced stares like this before, only...this one was so much more hostile, so much more angry. Turning, he could look straight into the burning emerald eyes of Shindo Hikaru. He'd never really seen Shindo angry before; he wasn't keen to repeat the experience.

However, that wasn't the painful blow that took his breath away, stuck a metaphorical knife into his guts and figuratively twisted the knife. It was the sight of the victim he'd almost run over; the long hair, that facial profile, those features, though twisted in pain...

Ogata's heart almost had a coronary there and then. Truthfully, Ogata would have welcomed it if just to repay what he'd just done.

Oh gods, I've almost run over Sai.


Akira had just about had enough of Kosemura's bugging him when his phone rang, temporarily stemming the flow of questions from the Go Weekly journalist as Akira answered the phone. Barely had he asked: 'Moshi moshi?' when he had to move the headset away from his ear as a torrent of words came gushing out of it at the top of Shindo's voice, barely discernible save for: '...Sai...accident...hospital...'

Truthfully, Akira would have liked to think that he handled the situation calmly and efficiently, but he just told Shindo: 'Say that again, slower, and with less volume, Shindo.' He wasn't dumb enough to convince himself that he wasn't panicking.

After which, he'd proceeded to extract all details from Shindo and get the name and address of the hospital at which Sai had been sent. It was only after he hung up that Akira noticed that his palms were sweating and his hands were shaking so much that he'd almost dropped the phone. What would happen if Sai died...?

Akira didn't want to know that the rival his father had been travelling the world to search for was dead. He didn't want to be at the funeral of Sai, he didn't want the Ghost of Net Go to become a literal ghost, not now, not just when he was about to enter the pro world...there were so many games yet to be played, so many moves not yet made...especially the Divine Move.

Yelling for a taxi, Akira flagged one down, slammed the door shut, and told the driver to get to the central hospital quickly. It was only after the driver had almost broke the Formula One record for fastest head start that Akira recognised the driver as one of Shindo's older students. Then he wondered why was he thinking about this when Sai had been run down. Ah, well.


Ogata silently cursed himself for not wearing an earpiece in the car. He had been manually hanging up on a call on his cellphone when the accident happened. Of course, though it was technically Sai's fault for standing in the middle of the road when the light was green, Ogata supposed he should share the blame as well. Not to mention that he had almost run over Sai, a crime which would have had the Go world screaming for his extremely agonizing, slow and bloody execution if word got out. Of course, nobody died, but still...if looks could kill Ogata supposed he would be dead and bleeding from Shindo's numerous glares in his general direction.

Hikaru was still shooting daggers at Ogata when Chiaki came out to the waiting area. 'Good news, he'll live, and he can keep that leg, but Fujiwara will be stuck with a cast for about a month and will have to use crutches. Unlucky man; run down on his second day in Tokyo. Of course, the hospital wants to keep him for overnight observation, so Shindo, do you want to stay here tonight or should I...?'

'It's fine, I'll stay with him.' Hikaru quickly answered.

'Okay then. Say, I take it that the driver is paying Sai's bills?' Chiaki inquired, eyes flicking to Ogata and back to those burning emerald eyes.

'Like hell; I'll pay for him,' Hikaru snarled fiercely.

'You're a minor, you don't count. I can pay for Sai, but frankly my day job doesn't pay that much in one shot. I don't think Sai is going to consider press charges as well, seeing as he's really big on forgiving people. It also seems better to demand compensation for the hurt inflicted.' Chiaki emphasised the hurt and was somewhat morbidly pleased to see Ogata shift uncomfortably on the plastic hospital chair.

'Shindo!' Turning around, Hikaru saw a panting Akira dashing at full speed towards him. 'How's Sai?' Slowly recovering, Akira finally noticed Ogata there. 'Ogata San? Why is he here?'

Just then, a yell of terror could be heard down the hallway form where Akira dashed past earlier.

'You can ask him,' Hikaru flatly replied as he walked to see Sai, leaving Akira in his dust.

'You know, O Kaa San always said that you would run down someone someday if you didn't use an earpiece,' Akira told the older Go pro after hearing the entire story. 'I think we should be lucky Sai didn't die.'

'I'll never forget the stupid earpiece if it's the last time I do,' Ogata sighed miserably. 'I don't think even committing seppuku would atone for this crime.'

'Maybe we should just check on Sai now,' Akira desperately suggested.

'If you say so then.'

Akira was a bit worried at those words; Ogata wasn't a suggestible person at heart. He must have felt really guilty.

Akira's suspicions was confirmed when he walked into the ward later. It was not a private one, being one with six beds per room, but at least Sai's bed was tucked into the room's shadows and thus afforded a bit more privacy than most. Still, Akira could hear Hikaru's voice: '...stay in bed, Sai, you just survived your first traffic accident.' Ogata visibly winced.

'Just the thing then,' Chiaki's voice chimed in as a yelp, a thud and Sai's 'Huh?' sounded from behind the curtain. 'Shindo, you can boot up the Net Go website and occupy Sai's time with the laptop. I've also got a foldaway goban inside the bag and a change of clothes plus toiletries for Sai. I have things to do tomorrow, so you keep him company. If he's in pain, give him a painkiller, two or three every three hours. No more than that, okay? Shindo, I need to get to Kyoto for now, there's someone else coming to babysit Fujiwara. Don't worry if a stranger walks into the room; I think Fujiwara would recognise him. Yes, Fujiwara, you still need a babysitter. Oh don't worry, he's about your age. Yes, that age.' Akira had no idea what he was talking about.

'You sound like my mum,' Hikaru grumbled, muffled, Akira supposed, by the 'bag' Chiaki had thrown at him. 'Almost always nagging.'

'In some ways, Sai is like a young child, and I'm supposed to care for this child in an adult's body, so excuse me if I do sound like a mother hen,' Chiaki's reply shot back.

'Hey!' Akira heard Sai's outrage as the curtains were drawn back to reveal the three characters behind it. Chiaki was pulling the curtain back to its normal recess. Hikaru was just barely visible by his bleached bangs behind the bag Chiaki had thrown at him. And Sai...

Suffice it to say that Sai had never looked more in pain. His left leg was in a cast and suspended above the bed. Sai himself was pale and his face drawn, clearly still in pain despite the best efforts of the hospital's Accident and Emergency section. Akira sympathised with Sai for a bit.

'Oh, Akira,' Sai sounded surprised. 'When did you get here? And who is that person behind you?'

'Er..yes. Sai San, this is Ogata San, a student of my father's and the one who accidentally ran you over,' Akira sounded rushed. 'Ogata San, this is Fujiwara Sai San, who is apparently Shindo's mysterious sensei who taught him how to play Go.'

'I know. We briefly met in the Touya Go salon the day before.' Ogata replied. 'I sincerely apologise for having almost run you over.'

'Oh, it's fine, it was my fault for not moving out of the way fast enough.' Sai gently replied. 'Hikaru, I don't think the painkillers are working. You said they were supposed to stop the pain, but why isn't it stopping?' the last bit was almost a whine, as Sai reached over, waving desperately at Hikaru for lying to him about painkillers killing pain.

Ogata would have been amused if his guilt hadn't outweighed his amusement. 'Perhaps you need a distraction.'

'Distraction?' Sai's eyebrows had coyly risen, as those amethyst pupils slowly tracked to the bag and then to Ogata's eyes. At that moment, Ogata Juudan would swear that that look in Sai's eyes was disturbing beyond reason.

He knew that look was disturbing beyond reason on perfectly good grounds, Ogata had known, as he continued to duke it out with Sai on the goban, Shindo reluctantly placing the stones to coordinates dictated by Sai. Mid-game was nearly over and Ogata had not wasted several years as a Go pro to recognise that he wouldn't be able to get enough points by yose to make up for the difference in moku. This was Sai indeed; Sai had already forgotten the pain in his leg, so absorbed in the game was he.

As Ogata placed the last move on the goban, fully aware that White had still maintained a lead of five and a half moku throughout a game without Komi, Sai sank back into the big pillow behind his head, sighing in a certain sort of satisfaction as the game concluded. 'Thank you for the game.'

'Thank you for the game, Ogata sensei. It was wonderful...' Sai trailed off for a bit. 'It's slightly different from the last time we played. More aggressive, not at all like you. Normally you would consider to riddle the field with traps instead of fighting it straight out like you did.'

'I was merely covering all the angles,' Ogata smoothly lied, fully aware that what Sai had detected was really reserved only for Sai and Sai alone. Having studied the preciously few kifu of Sai's games he managed to derive from online archives that actually could be played by Sai [a few years ago, he wouldn't have believed the number of amateurs who got a kick out of forging a Sai kifu], he had developed a ready strategy for Sai. Unexpectedly, he had been trying it out in their last game and it had backfired with predictable results. So he had gone back to the drawing board, with the results of that now on the goban. Back to planning again, then.

He was about to request another game, and probably would have succeeded if the nurse hadn't appeared and insisted that visiting hours were over, and Ogata had to leave, since Fujiwara San needed to rest, and a oblique mutter from Hikaru about being run over managed to shut Ogata up long enough for the nurse to throw him out of the ward. Once the door had closed, Hikaru had closed the curtain around the bed and sank into the chair behind the bed sighing. 'I can't believe you can still forgive that guy,' he moaned to Sai.

'It was after all, partly my fault to have been standing in the middle of the road,' Sai acknowledged. 'Furthermore, forgiveness is typically easier than hating him. I have not died, after all.'

'You almost died,' Hikaru grumbled. 'The doctors were all going over how lucky you were that you weren't hit in the ribs.'

'I'm right here, Hikaru,' Sai replied petulantly. 'I'm not going anywhere yet. Hikaru.'

'Yes?'

'Perhaps it is time we actually sat down and talked.'


'Okay, so the only reason you couldn't find me for the past two years was that you were first in heaven attempting to reincarnate,' Hikaru was muttering to himself, as if the facts would be accepted by his brain if he talked about it long enough. 'Then, a higher power of some sort put you through what I think passes for several boring months of reviewing your life over and over again. Then you had to undergo judgement, but the judges couldn't decide how to judge you. Then this Fushimi Sama came and took you in, and you were stuck with two foxes in Kyoto and couldn't find a telephone in sight.'

'Thank you, Hikaru; you do have such a gift for summarizing.' Sai replied in a weak attempt at sarcasm.

Hikaru ignored him. 'So how does Chiaki San fit into all this?'

'He...assists Fushimi. I think he's like me, too.' Sai admitted, realising that he did not know much about his friend.

'What, Chiaki San's a Go-obsessed ex-ghost too?'

'No! He's...something like a spirit, but unlike a ghost you can see him, you can talk to him, he can affect the physical world...but he doesn't feel normal.' Sai decided on this piecemeal explanation. 'It's like...he's not part of this world.'

'Maybe he's a kitsune?' Hikaru asked hopefully. 'Oh boy, there's really youkai in this world...'

'Maybe...' Sai replied softly, wondering about Chiaki, the man who seemingly did not fit into the human world...


A Kitsune is the Japanese fox spirit. They are noted for not only being extremely mischievous, but also unreasonable. They are the most famous among the youkai.

Youkai is the Japanese word for a demon/apparition/spirit/supernatural things. The term itself is an umbrella term in Japan consisting of mostly anything supernatural, not that I think about it.

Read and review!

Actually, I'm considering if Sai should meet someone he recognises from his Heian days and who could possibly help him get on with life...and who better to do so than the Heian era's most famous person linked with the supernatural, Abe no Seimei? Tell me what you think in the reviews.

Thanks.