I was writing this while listening to Kalafina. Inspiring stuff.


The Ghostly Fox

In a surprising twist of the tale, Akiyama Koaru's success was stopped by the proverbial wall yesterday as the Amateur 7-dan lost in the finals of the Go Association's free-for-all tournament yesterday. In a spectacular match yesterday, Akiyama lost by forfeiture to his opponent, an unknown amateur, Fujiwara Sai. When questioned about his defeat, Akiyama Amateur 7-dan simply replied that 'the difference in their strength was too high' for him to ever compete with. Fujiwara Sai had disappeared after the match with the prize money, about 100,000 yen (US$1184.95),not taking into account tax deductions,and is thus unavailable for comment.

Many amateurs have declared Fujiwara Sai to actually be 'Sai' the mysterious legendary Internet Go player who has thrilled and cowed Internet Go players on the popular Internet site, Net Go, for over half a decade. 'Sai' had reached an even higher level of respect among the online Go community when 'Sai' apparently played an even game with then five-title holder Touya Koyo and won by half a moku.'Sai' is widely regarded as the Ghost of Net Go, famous for his silence on the Net and for never replying any messages sent to him,with the only recorded exception to date being the infamous 'I'm strong, aren't I?' to then insei Waya Yoshitaka, now Waya 3-dan. If Fujiwara is truly the Ghost, then perhaps this would be a reason for his disappearance after the game.

Kosemura was slightly nervous as the editor of Go Weekly himself read his article. 'You're really sure about this 'Sai' character?' the gravelly tones barked.

'Yes sir!' Kosemura replied quickly, more out of decorum than fear. The editor had a way of making his reporters feel like soldiers awaiting inspection. 'I've even gotten a quote from Touya Akira sensei, and he says that it's definitely 'Sai'.'

'Do you have any idea how strong is Sai?' the editor asked quietly, never needing to raise his voice to inspire fear.

'No, but I've seen the kifu, and I've gotten comments from the International Amateur Tournament held three years ago or so, when 'Sai' first made his appearance and apparently caused a scene in the online Go scene. Just the mere mention of 'Sai' at any international tournament was enough to cause a stir in the crowd, even when 'Sai' had only just come out.'

'Well, I'll tell you,' the gravelly voice growled. 'He beat me.'

Many reporters of Go Weekly rank their editor as one of the strongest non-pro Go players alive. This was not on any official ranking but on the word of Kuwabara Honinbo, which somewhat made it truth itself. Ogata had also mentioned that the editor definitely could have been a title holder if he'd gone pro. So, if Sai was able to beat the editor...

Kosemura could already hear the title of the next article to write:

SAI: God or Demon?


And so, Sai found himself at home for the second time.

Technically, it was not home; it was more of a place shared with Chiaki and now, Seimei. 'Home' was not a wide place; Tokyo's property prices ensured that none other than for the very rich could get private property anywhere near the city area. It was an apartment, not tiny enough to be a 'rabbit hutch' nor large enough to be luxurious, but comfortable enough to fit two taller-than-average men and one average man.

Upon entering the place, Sai had that abrupt feeling of stepping into a desolate forest again. The place was essentially modern, black white and brown being the predominant colours, which meant wood flooring, white walls and black upholstery, upon which a veritable library made its home there in the hall. Furniture was mostly wood and cushions, sparse but sufficient; a single low table around which one could eat while sitting on cushions, or play Go using the useful grid carved into the table itself, and with not a television in sight. Sai had bemoaned the lack of a 'magic box with people inside' until Chiaki had shown him the computer at the far end of the hall. Branching off was three bedrooms, one for Sai, one for Seimei, and the last which Chiaki shared with the resident ghost, a former resident of the place.

Which thus explained how the fox could get such a prime catch near Shinjuku station for only thirty thousand a year; the owner was desperate to give it away.

Sai had had the usual reaction upon learning of the apartment's other resident; he had panicked until meeting the ghost. Even two days away from it didn't help Sai with the problem.

'Which goes to show that even a ghost can be afraid of ghosts,' Chiaki grumbled as Sai jumped away from the long-haired, white-robed wraith drifting out of the tiny kitchen carrying a tray bearing tea implements. 'You used to be a ghost yourself, why are you afraid of ghosts?'

Sai briefly wondered what would Hikaru's reaction be upon meeting the spectre named Haru. Being quite predictable, Hikaru would probably freak first. Much like when they had first met. Except this time, Hikaru would probably call the exorcist first, and then freak until the ghost was safely gone. Sai had wondered what would happen if Hikaru did choose to see an exorcist instead of play Go. Not that it would help much; Torajiro found the same problem too. Except that Torajiro had had professional help attempting to remove Sai with no success, an indication of Sai's stubbornness when playing Go was concerned.

'Date...' Sai could only pout as Haru moved to hover near the bespectacled Chiaki.

'I told you to move already or at least make your adopted spectre less...like a ghost,' Seimei commented. 'I could do it, if you prefer...' he whispered, flicking his fan.

'No, no, it's fine, really,' Sai hurriedly replied before Seimei could cause another spectacular accident. Of course, he had heard the stories during the Heian era about Abe no Seimei's spectacular exorcisms and eccentric mannerisms, but that was to be accepted; people who exorcised other things normal people couldn't see [and it usually worked] would tend to be eccentric, but never had he associated Seimei with magic until Seimei had waved his fan at the traffic light and caused it to explode spectacularly.

'If you say so...' Seimei looked disappointed as he kept the fan.

'If you try anything funny, I'll throw you out, Abe,' Chiaki warned as he stirred the tea pot, having already poured in the hot water and tea powder.

'You're no fun, Kuroki,' Seimei pouted.

'Kuroki?' Sai asked, looked at Chiaki.

'My surname. I had to have one to get around, right?' Chiaki scowled at him, capping the teapot. 'It wasn't my choice.'

'I see, it's just...unusual,' Sai carefully chose his words. 'Not many have that name.'

'Not many at all,' Seimei echoed, dodging the spoon Chiaki hurled at him.


After several hours of observation, Sai could only conclude that Seimei and Chiaki had a rivalry going on and it was best mostly to sit back in the surprisingly comfortable wooden armchair that made up the only free-standing furniture over a metre tall in the room and watch them argue with each other over some of the most ridiculous things. The novelty wore off at around ten, he noted, when the two departed at the exact same time to their own rooms. It was weird, how they could argue all the time and yet still stay in the same house. Sai thought that they would have destroyed the place already, at the rate they went.

He laid back into the chair, tentatively wiggling the toes still in the cast. He could still feel them, and he could still feel his feet, but he looked forward to when he could get it off. It was...unusual, and a serious impediment to movement.

His mind then managed to turn itself from the mundane faculties of his feet and to his rival. Touya Koyo was still alive and in apparent possession of all his faculties, as Sai deduced. Sai had been slightly worried upon hearing how two years had passed, and had fervently hoped that Touya senior was still alive. To see his rival in the flesh, and to be seen in return...somehow, that made up for all the drawbacks of having a physical body.

Sai looked at his hands as an idea came to him. He could remember that he had played many games since he got a physical body back. Many, many games. Still, he could not find any additional calluses, wrinkles or any mark of the passage of years. He frowned slightly, remembering how Fushimi had commented on the lack of white hairs he had, to which he had replied that it was a benefit of youth. And his leg...already, he couldn't feel the pain. It was as if the bone had set itself into its proper place already.

The realisation dawned.

I have time...

Touya Koyo doesn't.


The former Meijin was currently in his house, studying an empty board. Across him knelt his student, the Juudan Ogata, who laid out a game for him to see, stone by stone. Both men were well-fed and rested, but there was no denying that, for the first time, the older man felt excitement under the contentment, at what could be a glimpse of his rival. The ghost he had chased across the Japan Straits and back had deigned to materialise in Tokyo now, but for how much longer, he did not know.

Slowly, the black and white stones, piece by piece, formed a beautiful battlefield, the battlefield on which Kurata had faced off against Sai. Indeed, it was either the genuine article itself or an experienced fake. Seeing as the young man Ogata had described had beaten Kurata, who was due to challenge for the Ouza title soon, it could not have been a fake. Therefore, it must be the real article. Briefly, the older man considered asking why the young man was injured, but then he remembered what Akira had told him and wisely kept silent. Seiji had apparently felt very guilty, such that Touya senior had seen Ogata pull off an earpiece before entering the house. He thoroughly approved Ogata's new habit of using an earpiece, much safer for pedestrians that way.

But he digresses; his attention turns to the board as Ogata laid the last stone where Kurata had surrendered. Immediately, they know.

'He is here,' the former Meijin breathed. Then, to Ogata's surprise, he chuckled. 'An old fool's dream has come true.'

'If you say so,' Ogata acquiesced. 'He doesn't look like a Go player at first sight. With that long hair and dressing, I didn't think he was good. In fact, if I didn't play him myself, I would never have believed it.'

Immediately the memory of the young man today came back to him. Long hair? From behind, a long-haired man might seem like a woman. So that was how he hadn't noticed the man; they had disappeared into the crowd. Still, why had the young man smiled at him...?

He could feel his heart beating faster as realisation fell into place. What if...?

What if Sai was truly here?

Touya Koyo was not a very religious person, but on that very night, he felt like he could climb even the tallest mountain and praise the higher powers up there. He had not believed Akira's words initially, but now, confronted with irrefutable proof, he could believe.

Thank you, Kami Sama.

'I'm back, O Tou San,' Akira announced as he stepped into the Go study. 'Oh, good evening, Ogata San. What are you studying?'

'One of Kurata San's games. Kurata was a bit pissed that he lost to the opponent,' Ogata smirked. 'Until I told him how An Tenson lost badly to him as well.'

'Who?' Akira was puzzled.

'Sai,' Ogata replied, almost like he was happy. Ogata Seiji, happy. Ecstatic, even. And Sai hadn't disappointed; every move was flawless, save for one which was invariably a trap. It was a good game, brutal, but good.

Ogata Seiji, happy. Akira was afraid. Ogata Seiji was simply...not very happy. Ogata Seiji did not smile outwardly at the world in a happy voice. Yet, Ogata Seiji was happy. Which meant...

'How was your last game for the right to challenge Ichiryuu sensei for the Kisei title?' Akira asked innocently.

'Fantastic, the old geezer wasn't at his best,' Ogata gave a non-committal shrug.

The mystery was solved.


Hikaru missed his ghost.

When he was twelve, he had suddenly become attached with a ghost who apparently loved to play Go so much that not even death had stopped him from playing. Sai had introduced him to Go, and allowed him to first meet Akira, from which he then played on, to one day catch up to Akira and be acknowledged as a rival worthy of having. He had fallen in love with the game. Sai had taught him Go, and with it a love for Go. Now, he followed many others before him, down the never-ending road to that perfect game, that everlasting move, the Divine Move. Then Sai was gone. The feeling was much like losing an arm or a leg; it hurt like hell. It hurt until Hikaru realised that, much like an arm or a leg, Sai still lived on in him. Sai lived on in his Go, so as long as he played, Sai could still live.

Then Sai had returned, and it was like regrowing an arm or leg; pleasant but needing some getting used to. Now, Sai was temporarily gone, and Hikaru felt uncomfortable again.

What if he disappears again...?

Hikaru was horrified. Sai couldn't disappear again, he just can't. Sai can't leave, not after just coming back, not after just playing a game, not now.

Sai...

Hikaru...Hikaru... 'HIKARU!'

Sai's previous attempts at scaring his wits out were nothing compared to right now, where Hikaru found his Go sensei jumping about his room. He was definitely not going crazy; Sai was definitely here, as attested by the mess made by Sai's entrance. Sai was, although slender, taller than average and thus was now sprawled out on his student's floor. Uncharacteristically, Hikaru wondered why Sai's leg's were so incongruous in the loose cotton pants with one cast sticking out of the left leg, but then he realised that Sai had just appeared out of thin air.

'Sai!' Never in his life would Hikaru outwardly admit having missed Sai, or at least not until Sai had just escaped a life-threatening situation. 'Why are you here?' Then he asked the more interesting question: 'How did you get here?'

'Huh? Eh?' It seemed that Sai had found himself in his student's room again, and not in a good way. 'I don't know. I was just thinking about how I wanted to play Go, but no one would play with me, and I wanted to use a real goban...' then he'd thought about it and focused on it and before he knew it he was there and how had that happened he didn't know, but he wasn't going to complain.

It sounded like a puppy complaining about being kicked. Even Hikaru found that a bit difficult to resist. 'Fine, we'll play,' the student sighed in the face of his teacher and those violet puppy eyes. Dragging out his goban and the goke, he took Black, as Sai took White. 'Same rules?'

'Okay, I want to see how much you've improved,' Sai smiled as he fished out his fan from his pocket.

Then, all conversation stopped as the pair laid out their stones. Black and White contrasted against each other, the distant past reaching out to the far future, paving out a single, yet varied road. Black and White fought for dominance on the board, as had many more of them before, the stones paving out a fierce battle. Go was a skill where people had to open their hearts and trust their opponent, and as teacher and student, the pair of them trusted one another. However, even that trust could not stop the inevitable.

'Makemashita,' Hikaru bowed and said the concluding words before turning on his teacher. 'Sai, you beat me again! Don't you show any mercy?'

'You have improved plenty in the time I was gone,' Sai noted. 'I could not actually see the extent of your game two nights ago, but now I can clearly see it. You've grown stronger, Hikaru.'

'No thanks to you,' Hikaru retorted before reflex action forced him to cover his mouth. Oh shit...

Sai had frozen in that almost comical way that would have been funny if you didn't count the fact that Sai freezing in any way wasn't good at all. 'Sai? Sai, are you all right, talk to me...' Hikaru almost panicked.

Until Sai's fan flew out at him, tapping him right between the eyes. 'Of course not, but don't get cocky,' Sai had turned into a reproaching mother hen. 'I can still beat you!'

'Oh yeah? Let's try again!' Hikaru challenged, with a handful of stones in his fist.


'You're evil!'

'I am not,' Seimei insisted. 'I simply sent our little charge out of the house. He was getting bored and lonely.'

'You could call a cab,' Chiaki acidly replied. 'Or even take the car. There was no need to send him there like that now, was it? People will be wondering how on earth did he get there.'

'He's a ghost,' Seimei replied, moving closer to Chiaki over the grid etched into the table. Pachi. 'So I flew him there.'

'That doesn't make any sense at all, and into the room?' Pachi.

'Hmm...yes,' came the reply.

'What ever it is, you're just not going to mention the conveniently extra gifts Fushimi gave him, right? You're just going to screw up the child's life all over again.'

'He will figure it out for himself,' Seimei firmly answered as he placed the last stone. 'And then he will come to us for answers.'

'Besides,' Seimei added, 'he's already of age. Why do we still call him a child? I do believe he's older than you by about six centuries.'

'Shut up, Abe,'

'With pleasure, Kuroki,'


When Sai woke up from the oblivion of sleep that had claimed him sometime around where Hikaru began to nod off in the middle of the game, he noticed that firstly, Hikaru's face was all over the goban. Then, he noticed that his hand was still stuck in the goke. What was weirder was that the goke was still closed, so, against all scientific thinking, his hand had passed through solid faux wood into the goke.

Waking up to this was enough to ruin the day already.

'AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!' Sai's screams of horror reverberated around the room, shocking his student awake immediately.

'Sai, what the hell are you yelling about...' Hikaru blearily rubbed his eyes, digging out Go stones from where they had managed to adhere themselves to his face. 'Was it a nightmare?'

Sai studied his right hand again, the one which he'd pulled out of the goke earlier. 'I...it must have been a bad dream.' Sai acknowledged.

'Well, don't do that next time!' Hikaru almost yelled, quietly thanking the gods that his parents were currently on their second honeymoon to Hokkaido. So Sai's yells had gone quite unnoticed in the house, which thus explained why Mrs Shindo wasn't knocking on the door demanding to know why someone was yelling in his room.

'Er, yes, sorry,' Sai apologised as Hikaru sleepily shuffled to the bathroom, all traces of the energy gifted by adrenaline now gone.

Over the sound of running water, Sai slowly studied his hands again. Placing his hand on the goban, he made a motion to push through. His hand met the resistance of the hard wood, and he couldn't push through no matter what he tried.

He relaxed, his stance already crumpling with relief. There was nothing wrong with him, he wasn't somehow passing through solid objects...yes, all was right with the world...

Dazed, he only just registered that his cast had been slipped off and was now lying in a corner of the room. Add to that his hand was sinking through the goban...

Later, Hikaru found his Go sensei unconscious and lying on his messy floor in a dead faint.


Touya Akira was an early riser. He normally was, but nobody said that he was a morning person. Touya Akira was possibly one of the most morning-unfriendly people on earth. Today was one exception. You'll be alert too when your rival calls you up at six in the morning to panic about his Go sensei having fainted.

Akira was actually quite proud about how he'd kept his calm, told Shindo to shut up and check for a pulse. Following which, to check if Sai was breathing. Akira found himself openly praying that Sai was breathing, a fact which he wouldn't admit if confronted with it, later on, until Shindo announced that Sai had a pulse and was breathing.

Then he'd expelled a breath he never realised he was holding and told Shindo to splash water onto Sai.

Shindo had hung up after that, leaving Akira to come up with various theories as to what on earth had happened to Sai:

Sai could've collapsed from a heart attack. That's not possible, a heart attack would have killed him. He wouldn't have been breathing.

Stroke? Listen to yourself, Akira. A stroke? Are you joking?

Then...maybe he got an epileptic fit.

Yes, maybe. But what could frighten him?

The inner monologue was disrupted by the bone-deep tiredness that now overcame Akira, as he succumbed to sleep, his last conscious thought being, Stupid Shindo.


I hope I managed to put Ogata a bit into character there. I was actually afraid he was going to turn out all OOC on me.

In that last bit, people might wonder why Sai managed to turn out a bit like Shadowcat [X-Men]. I added that last bit in as a possible plot line to explore, tell me what you think.

Maybe I should allow the two great rivals to meet soon...

Please, read and review!