Hello, my friends. It is time for another trip down the basement ladder...

Kaga played first, snappishly tossing a star at the black board. Sai retaliated, placing it with calm certainty, and Kaga cast a look towards Hikaru. Perhaps he was not expecting me to play like this. Maybe he sensed Sai's power through me. Cats are able to do that, right? I think so.

They continued the game, Kaga snarling at first, but slowly boiling down to a simmer as they clashed over the board. His tail swished back and forth thoughtfully and his ears were relaxed. Hikaru didn't know Go could have this effect on felines, but was happy to discover it.

The game was quick. Hikaru couldn't tell exactly what was going on, but he knew it was over when Kaga sat back, staring unfathomably at him, and said, "He's it, Tsutsui."

Tsutsui, who was also staring dumbstruck at Hikaru, sharply glanced at Kaga. "Even if he were, we would still need another player."

Kaga waved a hand. "I'll do it, I'll do it."

Tsutsui's face lit up. "Oh, really?"

"I don't understand," Hikaru said, confused. "I am...what, exactly?"

They continued to talk as though he weren't there. "I honestly thought you would never say yes, Kaga-"

"Yeah, well that was when I genuinely thought we had no chance, but with him here-"

"He is strong." Sai said as though he were talking to himself. "Strong for such a young one."

"Sorry to interrupt, but what am I?" Hikaru said, irritated.

Kaga snapped out of his trance and abruptly got up from the table. Pointing a long-clawed finger at him, he announced, "You are the third member coming along in our little journey!" Quick as lightning, he yanked Hikaru up out of his seat by the collar, hooking his claws in. Hikaru yelped and tried to wiggle away, but Kaga drew him even closer to smell him properly. "What are you?" He said, sounding genuinely curious. "A being from another world? A star given human form? Are you just a little boy?"

"I am a boy," Hikaru shouted, finally managing to wrestle away. "But I am not a boy going on any journey!"

"Kaga, ease up and let me explain." Tsutsui said firmly, and Kaga sat back down with a little satisfied hiss.

Tsutsui beamed at Hikaru and said, "Kaga simply wants you to come along with us on a...trip, shall we say."

"To where?"

"The underground." Tsutsui replied. "To...ah, face off against some adversaries."

Hikaru cocked his head. "Adversaries?"

Kaga's tail twitched irritably. "Enemies. We're battling over the stars."

"The stars?" Hikaru repeated hopelessly.

Kaga squinted at him. "Are you a parrot?"

"No." Hikaru said defensively.

Kaga looked away, disappointed. "Oh. It would have cleared a lot of things up if you were. Just my luck you had to be a human child and keep confusing us."

Hikaru opened his mouth to say that it wasn't his fault he wasn't born a parrot, and anyway, Kaga shouldn't assume one was bird based on their speech, but Tsutsui intervened.

"There are only so many stars in the sky, Hikaru. Many are used every day, and many are not put back in their proper place. Still more are broken, or tarnished so much that they barely shine. Our neighbors in the nearby mountain hoard stars for days on end because they cannot get them freely underground."

"Why is that so bad?" Hikaru asked curiously. "If they cannot get them right away, they might as well stock-pile them, should they not?"

"They should not indeed." Kaga snarled. "How would you like being trapped inside of a mountain, when being free in the sky is all you have ever known? Besides the disrespectful capture, they don't put the stars back in the sky where they belong. They simply bury them."

"And with less stars in the sky," Tsutsui concluded, "The more the sky erodes."

The sky can't erode, can it, Sai?

"Unfortunately, it can. Wears down so much that it tears a hole in the galaxy." Sai shook his head sadly. "This was not a problem in my time, but it appears that it is becoming quite an issue."

Hikaru turned away from his ghostly friend and directed his attention to Tsutsui and Kaga. "We cannot stand for this," Tsutsui was saying. "So, we are going to the mountains to play their best members in an even game. If we win, they will return each and every star in their possession to the sky. If we lose, well…"

"We s top bugging them and let them vandalize the earth." Kaga finished, positively growling.

"I never would have expected that you would stand up for Go, Kaga." Hikaru said, surprised.

"Believe it or not, there are some things I will not tolerate." Kaga said levelly, looking him in the eyes. "I never thought we had a chance against those guys, but you might level the playing field. So...will you come with us?"

Hikaru thought for a minute. "Hikaru! We cannot let them get away with such an act!" Sai was crying. "Please, say yes!"

But Hikaru would have said yes even without Sai's pleading. The stars he had held, the stars he had played with...they were all unique, beautiful in their own way, allowing him to create patterns and shapes, borrowing their beauty. He would stand up for anyone, or anything, that allowed him such a pleasure.

"Of course I will." He said, grinning. "When can we leave?"

Kaga seemed to deflate a little. Tsutsui nervously adjusted his glasses. "Ah, with Kaga, you, and I, that makes three. They require four players."

Hikaru folded his arms. "We need to find another player?"

Tsutsui nodded.

Hikaru perked up. "That should not be too hard."

Kaga snorted. "Nobody wants to go up against these players, child. They are...extremely vicious."

"How vicious?"

Tsutsui gravely pushed up his glasses. "More vicious than Kaga."

Hikaru gaped. "Where are we going to find somebody insane enough to play somebody like that?!"

That was how, two hours later, Hikaru found himself walking through the alarmingly tall forest, aimlessly looking for a living soul.

"At this point we will take anybody." Tsutsui had said as he had seen him off. "Anybody that can place a star or count up points. Just look around for a while, see if you can find anybody we missed."

"I don't know if I will find somebody in these woods," Hikaru complained aloud, gesturing at the thick growth of trees.

"We could find a sparrow," Sai said, but not sounding hopeful. "Or another squirrel."

Hikaru heaved a sigh. There was a rustling under the leaves, and he immediately dropped to the ground, shifting the sticks and debris aside until he uncovered a tiny newt. It looked up at him indignantly.

"Excuse me," Hikaru said, trying to be as friendly as possible. "Do you play Go?"

The newt skittered away with a mutter that sounded suspiciously like, "The audacity!"

Hikaru sat up, dejected, but not completely ready to give up hope yet.

"We will just keep looking until we find somebody, Hikaru!" Sai said encouragingly. "Simple as that!"

"Do you play Go?" Hikaru asked the beetle crawling up the tree trunk.

The beetle sniffed. "Certainly not. Do you think I can, with these little legs?"

Hikaru scratched the back of his neck, abashed. "I suppose not."

The beetle scuttled away.

"Do you play Go?" Hikaru asked the frog as he crouched next to a stream.

The frog stared at him, bug eyed, and ate a fly buzzing in the air next to his head. Hikaru stood up and glared as the frog hopped away, shouting after it, "Don't pretend like you can't understand me, I know you can!"

"Do you play Go?" Hikaru said, half jokingly to the tree he had bumped into. He was so shocked when the tree answered, "Ah, but of course," that he ran away.

"If you had kept an even mind with the tree, we would have found our player by now." Sai scolded him as Hikaru clambered up a hill.

"We couldn't have brought a tree along anyway," Hikaru waved him off. "We'll find one."

"We have been looking for two days..." Sai sighed.

Hikaru ignored him as he finally reached the top of the hill. It was a fantastic view, overlooking almost all of the forest. The grass tall and waving in the wind. The sun was just beginning to set, and the ghost and the boy stopped all action for a moment just to look at it.

Suddenly, the moment was broken by a furious roar coming from the other side of the hill. It sounded like somebody was climbing up. Hikaru jumped and anxiously waited for whatever was on the other side to come into view.

"I have returned as promised, you fiend!" The voice shouted, and Hikaru finally saw a small animal scurry up the side. It was a fox, with a feline face and a bright orange tail. There was a large pile of rocks stacked on his back, and Hikaru couldn't begin to fathom how they were not falling off by now. The fox itself was covered in dirt, his fur scruffed up and matted.

Seeming to take no notice of Hikaru, he stood up on the hill, faced the sun, and began throwing rocks as hard as he could off of the hill, shouting which each toss.

"Take this, you menace! And this, and this-"

"What are you doing?" Hikaru asked, trying to come off as curious but more alarmed than anything else.

The fox didn't bother to look at him until all his rocks had been hurled into the sea of trees that laid beneath the hill. When he had finished, he irritably turned around and fixed Hikaru with a gloomy stare.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" He grumbled, his voice taciturn.

"Trying to get yourself committed." Hikaru told him truthfully. "Really, what are you doing?"

"I am fighting my worst enemy." The fox turned to face the other side of the hill and snarled ferociously at something Hikaru could not see.

"Look at it," the fox growled, staring into the sky. "Hanging there all day, torching the land, smugly staring down at me..."

Hikaru looked at where the fox was growling, and had to work hard to keep in a shout of laughter. "Oh...you mean the sun?"

The fox pointed at the sweetly setting sun, his mouth twisted in a grimace. "Of course I mean the sun! Every day, I wake up, and it is there, blaring in my face! It dries up water, it peels the bark off of trees, and you expect me to do nothing about it? Somebody has to stand up to the sun."

"But we need the sun." Hikaru said logically. "It gives us energy and-"

The fox held his hand up to cut off his sentence. "I simply do not care. The downsides outweigh the good. Stars are good for something. Stars, you can look at, you can play with, you can touch. The sun only sits there all day, making you sweat, and for what? Another lousy day of heat and sweat and-"

"Sorry to interrupt," Hikaru interrupted hurriedly. "But you said something about stars. Do you play Go?"

The fox stopped his rant and looked Hikaru in the face. "Of course. Who doesn't?"

"You would be surprised." Sai said absentmindedly.

Hikaru beamed. "Good! Some friends and I are going on a journey to play against-"

"I will not go." The fox interrupted, sitting down and moodily cleaning his fur.

Hikaru blinked, nonplussed. "B-but why not?"

"I have better things to do." The fox said coolly, now picking a hardened piece of mud out of his tail.

"Like shouting at the sun?" Hikaru snapped, now getting annoyed. "These are good players! They will be a challenge! And a lot more fun to play against than the sun, I'm betting!" He pointed a finger at the retreating sun, and the fox scowled.

"No means no." He frowned. "At least, I think it does. I hope it does. If not, I must have come across as a right idiot."

"Well, I wasn't going to be the one to say it." Hikaru muttered waspishly.

He hadn't meant to say it. It had slipped out. He wouldn't have said it if we wasn't so tired and exasperated. But now he had said it, and if there was a way to take words back, Hikaru hadn't yet discovered it.

In the blink of an eye, the previously unmotivated fox had turned into a concentrated storm of fury, scrambling to his feet and baring his teeth, growling furiously, saliva dripping from his gums. Hikaru immediately took a step backwards, holding up his hands as he did so. Sai protectively stepped between him and the fox, though with the full knowledge he wouldn't be able to do anything.

"I-I'm sorry!" Hikaru said quickly.

The fox barked, and Hikaru turned and ran down the hill, tripping half way and tumbling to a stop at the bottom. He panted, eventually recovered his breath, and huffed out, "What is his problem?"

"I don't think it would be a good idea to recruit this boy." Sai said nervously. "He seems...unstable."

Hikaru dusted himself off and stood up, hands on hos hips. "We'll just try again tomorrow, Sai. We can not let this opportunity go to waste."

The next day, before the sun had even risen, they both crept up the side of the hill like centipedes, stopping at the slightest noise, and continuing when it turned out to be a bird, or a cloud colliding with a nearby mountain (They both had to stop to watch that one). Hikaru finally peeked over the side of the hill to see the fox sitting on the grass, rigid as a block of wood, facing the North.

Staying n his belly to show submission, Hikaru said, "Hello."

The fox glanced over his shoulder and his scowl became more pronounced. "Oh. It's you. The insulting child."

Hikaru shook off the prickly feelings and slowly got to his feet, careful to not seem aggressive. "Yes."

They looked at each other in silence for a while. "May I sit down next to you?" Hikaru asked, glancing at Sai and feeling encouraged when he received a nod from the ghost.

The fox sulkily looked back at the sky. "Sure."

Hikaru took a seat on the grass, keeping his hands in plain view.

"I am not a wild animal." The fox hissed through clenched teeth. "You do not need to act as though I will break your neck if you do something wrong."

"That is what you were going to do yesterday," Hikaru objected, forgetting to be courteous. "I am only being cautious."

There was a white hot flicker of anger in the fox's eyes for a moment, but it flickered out. The fox grudgingly nodded, and Hikaru took that as an invitation to go on.

"What is your name?"

The fox's tail swished back and forth. "...Tell me yours first."

"I'm Hikaru Shindo."

"...Yuki Mitani."

Hikaru offered Yuki a smile. "We are strangers no longer. So, Yuki, why won't you come with me to the mountains?"

Yuki grimaced at the temporarily dark sky. "Somebody has to stand up against that menace."

Just as he finished his sentence, the sun barely peeked over the side of the trees. Yuki was on his feet in a flash, snarling and hissing and barking with the ferocity of a rabid werewolf.

"Do you see what I mean?" Sai shouted over the ruckus created by the tiny fox. "Unstable."

We can work it out, Sai, it will be fine.

"Do you see what I mean?!" Yuki growled. "It will just walk all over the sky if I am not here! It can be free to scorch whatever it likes if I do not keep it in check-"

"I am telling you, Yuki," Hikaru shouted. "It is only in your head!"

"You're wrong! You-"

At that point, Hikaru, without any more knowledge of what to do, picked up a stick and hit Yuki upside the head. Yuki hit the ground hard. Hikaru dropped the stick, but the damage had been done. He took several steps back, ready to bolt. Yuki trembled, got slowly to his feet, and faced Hikaru.

"That hurt," He said mildly, rubbing the back of his head. His ears swiveled. "Why did you hurt me?"

Hikaru was so perplexed by Yuki's response that he took a moment to respond. "I hurt you because I had to."

"Why?"

Hikaru cleared his throat. "Ah...You would have hurt me, or yourself. I could not take any chances, or waste any time thinking about the ethics of it."

Yuki nodded slowly as though he was processing this. "I see. What if it hadn't worked? What if I had stayed out of my right mind?"

"Than I would not have had to worry about getting another player for my group anymore." Hikaru said solemnly. "Or worry about anything ever again."

Yuki nodded again. "Probably." He stood up. "I am sorry to cut this short, but I must go gather rocks."

"Rocks?" Hikaru parroted, shaken by the change of conversation.

"Rocks." Yuki confirmed gravely, turning and beginning to make his way down the hill. "I need to gather them to use them as projectiles."

Hikaru sighed. "You are still going to attack the sun?"

"Of course." Yuki glanced over his shoulder. "If I am not too tired after I am done, perhaps we can play a game when the sun goes down."

Hikaru perked up and Sai gasped in excitement. "Really?"

Yuki nodded and left without another word, and Hikaru sat down to wait.

Yuki has officially arrived! Go get that sun, little buddy!