This chapter is mostly talking. It's less insane than usual, because that's just Akira.

Hikaru and Sai had been walking through the woods for a while now.

"Hikaru," Said Sai as he walked along beside the boy, "Do you even know where this mountain is?"

Hikaru scratched the back of his head. "No," He admitted. "I reckon I just thought I would keep walking until I got to it."

"That is probably not the best way to go about things..."

"I think it sounds like a plan," Hikaru said. "Which is one more thing we didn't have before coming here."

And so they kept walking.

After an unspecified amount of time, they broke through the other side of the forest, and, miraculously, there was a towering mountain in front of them, so high it would hurt Hikaru's neck to look at the top.

"Why, there it is!" He remarked. "I wonder how we get up!"

"Hikaru, there's somebody here!" Sai said urgently.

Hikaru looked to where his ghost was pointing, to see an auburn haired woman walking towards him from around the edge of mountain. Her hands were clasped in front of her, and she cocked her head at him before saying, "What are you doing here, little boy?"

"I'm here to challenge the Dragon's son to a game of Go." Hikaru said bluntly.

The woman let out a little scream of laughter and tipped back her head.

"Did I say something amusing?" Hikaru said waspishly, bristling.

The woman held up her hands in a pleading gesture. "Oh, I didn't mean any ill will by it! I only thought that you would be able to do very little against him."

"How do you know for certain? He's only a child like me, is he not?"

The woman shook her head. "Oh, no, he is not like you. You are brash and loud and determined if you managed to find this place...the Dragonling is too, you know. Determined like you. But in a different way, you understand, in a much different way."

Hikaru was confused for a moment. "Different ways? How many different ways can there be?"

The woman shook her ginger head. "Oh, little boy, the Dragonling is going to beat you miraculously."

"You may think that now," Hikaru said flippantly. "But you haven't seen me play yet."

The woman gave him a little amused smile. "I don't need to. But very well."

She gestured to the foot of the mountain, where there was a small hole, barely big enough for a toddler. "You can get in through here." She said cheerily.

Hikaru walked to the hole and peered inside, seeing it was a tunnel. "But I'm much too big for this!" He said to her, still staring into the blackness of it. "How could I possibly fit?"

He turned around to see that the woman had vanished, leaving only a cup of tea sitting on the ground with a paper wrapped around it reading 'DRINK ME'. Hikaru picked up this curious cup to see the liquid inside looked like regular green tea. He sniffed it gingerly. It smelled like green tea.

"But I probably shouldn't drink it," He fretted. "It might be poison, or liquor, or even worse, that nasty cough medicine my mom makes me drink when I have a cold, the one that tastes like..like..." He turned to Sai dreamily. "Well, like medicine, I suppose."

"Hikaru, you seem to be getting more inebriated on the fumes from the liquid as we speak," Sai pointed out, peering suspiciously at the cup. "Perhaps you should just drink it if you have no other option."

Hikaru shrugged and sipped tentatively at the drink, but finding that it had a nice flavor, one of green tea, cherries, chocolate, and soda, he quickly finished the cup.

He leaned down to place it on the ground only to find that he needn't have bent at all; he was already shrinking in size! The cup was now as big as his arm.

"It's a shame I didn't leave at least a little liquid left in the cup," Hikaru said sadly as he was shrinking rapidly. "Then I could have swam in that delicious drink. I once had a dream," He was now chatting unconcernedly to Sai (who was also growing small and who looked positively alarmed about it) "That I was swimming in a pool of marshmallows, they're these little edible foamy things, and that was enjoyable, but it would have been much better in real life..."

Hikaru and Sai finally stopped shrinking. They were now the size of a puppy.

"How bizarre!" Sai said in wonderment, blinking down at his hands.

"Bizarre, yes, but at least now we can get it to the mountain!" Hikaru said eagerly, trotting briskly to the tunnel, which now resembled less a hole and now a gaping mouth. He entered it confidently, and even Sai walked with a bounce in his step knowing he was about to play Go. It was so dark they could barely see, but Hikaru cared not a button for the pitch blackness, and Sai emitted a faint glowing light that they couldn't exactly see by, but gave them comfort.

"Now, hang on here a minute!" Hikaru exclaimed after a moment, stopping and putting his hands on his hips. "This tunnel is going down, not up. How could we possibly reach the top of the mountain if we're going down? Maybe that woman was only messing around with us. Or maybe he's not at the top of the mountain at all. Maybe he's underground."

And so they kept walking. Eventually, they stumbled out of the tunnel, and Hikaru was surprised at the scenery that awaited them there. They were standing in a cavern, with one wall open to the night sky. Because it was night outside, even though Hikaru remembered it being early morning just a few minutes ago. Looking out at that impossible sky was a baby dragon. Hikaru knew it was a dragon somehow, even though he'd never seen one before. It looked small, maybe Hikaru's normal size. Its scales were blue and shiny, and they glimmered in the light of the stars as he turned to look at Hikaru properly. For a long moment, they surveyed each other.

Then, Hikaru broke the silence. "I'm here to challenge you to a game, Dragonling."

The Dragonling smiled politely, a feat Hikaru wasn't sure a Dragon could have pulled off.

"You are?"

"I am."

The Dragonling was silent for a second. "A game of Go?" He finally said.

"Yes." Hikaru answered a little impatiently. "My name is Shindo Hikaru and I'm here to play Go."

The Dragonling nodded a little and beckoned him nearer with a clawed hand. Hikaru, feeling not the slightest bit of worry, walked forward without hesitation. Why, he doesn't look at all frightening. I don't know why everybody is making such a fuss over a kid!

Once Hikaru was standing by his side, The Dragonling reached a hand to the sky and nicked a small star. He held it between two claws and offered it to Hikaru. Hikaru didn't know what to do, but Sai came to his rescue. "Hold it in your hand, and then we'll see who plays black and who plays white."

"But how will that determine who plays black and who white?" Hikaru blurted out loud.

The Dragonling tilted his head a little. "What?"

"Um...what am I supposed to do with that star there?" Hikaru rephrased, pointing at the little shiny star.

The Dragonling blinked, surprised. "You have played Go before, haven't you?"

"Yes" Hikaru said defensively. "Just...give me a reminder?"

Nodding again, The Dragonling eyed Hikaru curiously, but gave Hikaru a lesson without saying anything else about it.

"You see, each of us will hold the star, and then we let it hang in the air between us, and whoever it chooses gets to be black."

"What do mean, 'chooses'?" Hikaru said, looking at the puny star in the other child's grasp.

"Why, the star chooses which of us it likes better, of course." The Dragonling said. "But I wouldn't take it personally if it chose your opponent, if I were you. Stars are famously fickle, and are known to choose on a whim."

"But why let the star choose?" Hikaru asked. "Why not rock-paper-scissors for it instead?"

Now The Dragonling's eyes were so wide they seemed to reflect entire universes in their depths. "Good heavens, boy, do you know anything about Go? If the star does not choose, they will refuse to play the game! Would you willingly be somebody's puppet if they didn't allow you to make any decisions whatsoever?"

"I wouldn't be anybody's puppet, regardless if they didn't let me do something!" Hikaru said without hesitation. "But, I guess if that's what they want, I'll give it to them."

Hikaru reached forward and poked the little star nervously. It shivered and backed away from him on the palm of The Dragonling's hand. Hikaru felt irrationally hurt that the star had reacted like that to him, and glared at it. Sai stood next to Hikaru and beckoned to the little shiny light, and the star shivered again and drew closer to them slowly. All at once, it let out a joyous squeak and launched itself at Hikaru, who flinched away.

I've never touched a star before! What if it hates me, and it burns me?

But the little boy was wrong. The star latched itself onto his shirt, squealing, and Hikaru felt warm, like he was being embraced was a fairy. Sai laughed in delight, and tickled the star.

The Dragonling, who, of course, knew nothing of Sai, blinked his orb eyes in surprise. "Well...it appears it likes you. You play white."

Hikaru looked away from the star in surprise and confusion. "But I thought you said whoever it chooses gets to be black!"

"Yes. I said that. But right now I'm saying white."

Hikaru only stared blankly, and nodded. "'Kay."

The Dragonling took the star off Hikaru's chest and flicked it back into the inexplainably dark sky.

He turned back to Hikaru. "So...Hikaru. Are you ready to play?"