A/N: Sorry it's short, next update Wednesday will be longer.
Stepping Stones
~25~ In which Hikaru unleashed a monster
"Alright..." Hikaru cracked his knuckles as he logged into NetGo, on his account rather than Sai's since he didn't want to be flooded with game requests from baby players, and headed for the forums. Waya had happily taken over making sure no one would suspect a random half-Japanese schoolkid of having anything to do with the mysterious ranking God of NetGo (and seriously, people were really calling him that now?). Time to see what he'd come up with.
Hikaru grinned at the top threads all focused on Jaro's identity and marked with the little icon indicating "hot" topics. He clicked on the top one and started reading.
After a moment he stopped reading. Instead he went into the browser toolbar and fiddled the translation software on and off several times, just on the off chance it would change the meaning of the words on his screen. It didn't.
Hikaru sat back in his computer chair and regarded the screen for another moment. "Well... huh."
Then he started reading again, stopped, and instead unplugged his laptop and carried it down to the shed where Sai immediately greeted him. Hikaru grunted in return, focused on settling and orienting the laptop comfortably for both of them, and gestured for the ghost to read over his shoulder.
Sai's expression cycled from surprise to disbelief as Hikaru switched the translator back and forth for their turns reading.
'This is me?' he queried after surely only a few lines.
'Yes. You're Jaro,' Hikaru agreed. Really it was long past the time the ghost should have gotten that, but he suspected it was just shock. He still couldn't decide whether to smile or just stare himself as he read each new person's spinoff of the last rumor. He tilted his head at the screen as he switched it back to English. "What do you think, you're more a globe-trotting Robin Hood or a Carmen Sandiego no one knows exactly what is stealing?"
Sai gave him his puppy dog-drill sergeant look at the question in English (and how he could possibly combine those expressions, much less so effectively, was an even bigger mystery than where Waya had come up with such wild ideas). Hikaru suddenly remembered why he hadn't been down with the ghost in the first place as he sighed and grudgingly tried to rephrase himself in formal Japanese, then gave it up because it just wasn't worth the effort of trying to explain Robin Hood and Carmen Sandiego, then tried not to lose his patience searching for polite words for 'Forget it' instead.
It almost wasn't worth hanging out with the ghost anymore now that it'd gotten so insistent, except he still had great games with it and now his gramps wouldn't play him at all. And it was still fun substitute-teaching the neighborhood kids. And he still hadn't had the pleasure of watching Sai face off against an online player way better than Hikaru and send the opponent home crying about his pro ranking or whatever. (He was going to fix that, somehow, some way, soon, especially now that he had Waya's help.)
But since he was here, and had opened his mouth, he was stuck in the feudal era with every other word he tried getting corrected until he found an escape route.
...Or a distraction.
How fortunate he'd brought with him a laptop full of Go and Jaro rumors.
Hikaru pretended to pay attention to the ghost's lecture while he discreetly skimmed the thread onscreen until he found a really crazy theory, then pretended to have just noticed it and laughed out loud. Sai promptly forgot the lecture in an eager demand to read for himself, and Hikaru was home free.
Except for whenever he said anything, which pretty quickly focused him on meaningful monosyllables and two-word sentences, but that was still okay.
After all, it wasn't every day he got vocabulary lessons from an anonymous smuggler in a self-designed airship, invisible to all radar, who was permanently on the run from several evil governments that wanted him in prison and several good ones that wanted him to file patents, teach their comparatively stupid genius students and devote his clever inventions to their benefit rather than humanity's... plus something about a circus. And possibly, according to the translator, an extremely grainy linked picture and some second-guessing on Wikipedia, a steam-powered bicycle. Except Hikaru wasn't sure what bicycles could possibly have to do with anything.
He was distracted from contemplation of what state the world would be in if real evolution occurred at the same rate as rumors did by a short set of knocks on the shed door heralding the arrival of the neighborhood kids to play Go. Hikaru closed the laptop, got up to let them in and then paused at the door after he opened it, noting an oddity. The kid in front was the squirrelly little second-loudest squirt, not the usual miniboss.
'Where's Shun?' he asked as the kids filed past to form their usual gaggle around the goban, one of them unknowingly in the exact spot Sai had just vacated. Even though the ghost was incorporeal it didn't much seem to like being sat on—or in.
Several of the kids shrugged. Squirrel bothered to put the explanation into words for him. 'Bored. Said he can beat us all now, so why bother.'
Hikaru snorted. "Brat." Had he beaten all the rest of the kids already? Yep, last time he'd gotten Four Eyes by about three points; but the time before that Four Eyes beat him, and he certainly wasn't anywhere close to having learned all he could from Sai. If that evidently wasn't enough of a draw to keep his interest, though...
Hmm...
'Tell him if he not come again, he might miss new opponents,' Hikaru told them, and was gratified to see all the kids sit up and take notice at that. He gave them a few seconds to clamor all their variations of 'Who?' and then held up his hand to silence them with a mysterious smile.
'Not yet. Tell you more later.'
Whines, groans of disappointment, begging, and if he heard correctly one offered bribe of a filched cookie. The squirts were getting more sophisticated. Probably all the Go's influence.
Sai didn't appear to approve of the bribe, or maybe just not of their noise, since he whisked his fan at Hikaru from the corner and jabbed it toward the board. Hikaru obligingly took his usual place at one side of the goban, the ghost settling in the space directly behind him, and concentrated on parroting.
'Now, Kozue, Riku, you two start today. Put down four stones each...'
The kids' lesson ended when Hikaru's mom called him in to eat, then chained him to his homework in the dungeon of his room rather than let him go back out, but finally Hikaru was free just long enough to get back to the shed and plot with Sai before he had to turn in for the night. The ghost wanted an explanation of his idea for new opponents for the kids, even though there were a lot of details Hikaru would have to work out to make anything happen.
Sai was so interested he even forgot to concentrate more on Hikaru's diction than his meaning, and begged more insistently than the squirts to see the potential opponents Hikaru had thought of. So the next weekend Hikaru loaded his backpack with Sai's pots of stones and hopped on the train to the Go Institute.
Hikaru hadn't really put much stock in the ghost's solemn vow to behave in a civilized undistracting manner in public, but as soon as they found the room with all the insei playing Sai's fan went up in front of his face and he went as silent and still as a paused video, just staring in. After a few minutes Hikaru wandered a few steps away from the door, took out his cell phone and pretended to be absorbed in it, so no one visible looked conspicuous. Since he didn't actually know how to play any of the games on his phone, though, it was a very tedious few minutes until Sai rejoined him.
Hikaru stuffed the phone into his pocket and wondered why the ghost looked a little teary-eyed while he glanced around to make sure no one else was nearby. 'So, good idea?' he murmured, partially testing whether the ghost was still too distracted to criticize his speech.
Sai's fan snapped closed. 'Yes.'
Hikaru grinned.