Not Just a Game Chapter 6
A/N: Well… It's been about two months since I last updated. You're lucky that I finish math tests early, because that's usually when I write… or sometimes in French. Well, all I have to say is that I am a HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE procrastinator. Sorry for the long time to update, many stupid projects and the end of the first marking period delayed it… not to mention the fact that I lost half of the story somehow… and I had to rewrite it too… I can't believe I don't know where it went. Hm…
Waya, you are officially out of Chihime's attention now, so you may breathe a sigh of relief.
Waya: Phew…
Me: (continues) But don't get too excited, since she's bound to find you once more!
Waya: You love lowering my self-confidence, don't you….
Me: 'Tis my job.
Waya: I will get my revenge… one day… some day…
Me: (shrugs) Now do the disclaimer and the claimer.
Waya: Darkhand27 is too stupid to play go, so she doesn't own Hikaru no Go. However, she does have enough imagination to think up of weird people like Chihime (shudders), Vivian, and her dad.
Vivian: (gives Waya a dark look) Who's 'weird'?
Waya: Nobody.
888888
Hikaru waited as Isumi dialed the police. At first, the call wasn't successful—there was absolutely no signal inside the building. Fortunately, Isumi had enough sense to call closer to the window. The effort rewarded him with one bar. He dialed again, and this time is was successful.
Isumi started explaining the situation, "We're in the Go Institute… we can't get out. The rest of the people are—"
There was an explanation on the other end of the line. 'I've got a call! It's someone from the Go Institute!" There was much scurrying around and then, breathlessly, the man said, "Here's the head of the police."
"Um, well, I don't really—" Isumi started. He was cut off by the gruff voice coming out from the speaker of the phone.
"What's your situation?" the police chief growled. He didn't sound like a very jolly guy at the moment.
"Um, there are four of us, I think, but we're separated on different floors."
"And the others in the building?"
Isumi answered, 'They're all unconscious. Every single one of them."
There was a silence at the other end of the line. Finally, Isumi heard a deep sigh coming out of the speaker. "We're going to get you all out. Maybe through a window if everything else fails. Stay right where you are and listen to my instructions. Do you follow? All the other entrances are sealed by some unknown force, so—hello?"
Isumi didn't answer.
"Hello? Are you there? Look, son, we're trying to help you." The chief said. He sat there in the office, seconds ticking by slowly in silence. Something was terribly wrong, but whatever had happened, it had happed quickly and quietly. He couldn't just hang up either. It was their only connection to the Go Institute.
Finally, slowly, Isumi's lips moved. They produced no words, except for a small undecipherable noise that sounded raspy.
"What happened?" the chief demanded angrily.
Isumi didn't answer. He couldn't. His voice was stuck in his throat, and he was too busy looking at something else.
Chihime's head and half her body protruded from the wall. She stepped into the room and sighed happily, "Goodness, I thought I'd never find you."
Astonished, Isumi let the phone fall from his hand. It clattered to the ground and flipped itself closed. Call ended.
The ghost was here.
888888
"Hikaru! Are you sure it was a good choice to separate from Isumi?" Sai asked, floating around in panic. "What if something happens to him while we're gone?"
"He's just making a phone call," Hikaru answered. "I'm hungry. There's some sort of vending machine around here… I think I can break the glass around it with a rod of some sorts."
Sai wasn't finished. He floated in front of Hikaru and yelled with his arms crossed, "It's dangerous to be along in the Go Institute! There's a ghost that's—that's, eh?"
Ignoring Sai's protesting wails, Hikaru had found a thick metal curtain rod that was lying unassembled on the ground. He took it and slammed it into the vending machine. The rod went straight through Sai.
"THAT'S MEAN!" wailed Sai. He pouted and sniffed, "Now look what the consequences could have been. What if the ghost heard that? It could come to kill us any second!"
"Sai, you're already dead."
"SO WHAT IF I'M DEAD? If you die I'm even MORE hopeless!"
Hikaru sighed, finally fed up with Sai's whining. "You're the ghost. Why are YOU so freaked out? I mean, look at you."
Sai stood there and whimpered. "Well… I… um…."
Hikaru raised an eyebrow and opened a can of tea. "What?"
"What if she's… a cannibal ghost? Do you think she would eat me? DO I LOOK EDIBLE? (Could she absorb my essence and devour it???)" Sai whispered fervently. He looked around with a paranoid look on his face.
Hikaru unsuccessfully tried to laugh, then choked on his tea, and solved his problems by spewing a mouthful of the substance to who knows where. He said with disbelief, "Sai, are you afraid of ghosts?"
"Y-y-n-yyy-no-yes."
A moment of silence, and then, "FINE. WHAT IF I AM?"
888888
Waya and Vivian were finally on the move. The ghost had been gone for a long time, and there was no way that they were going to let anything happen without a fight. They were in the storage room, a large, cluttered place with stacks and stacks of go-related items strewn all about.
Waya grunted as he lifted away five go tables and set them aside. Wiping some of the sweat off his forehead, he sighed. "Is this good enough, Vivian?"
She came over to look. He had uncovered two small TV monitors that looked like they hadn't been in use for a long time. She plugged them into a nearby outlet in the wall and they started buzzing with static. She smiled, "Perfect."
They were uncovering all sorts of old radios, televisions, and other types of electrical devices. They had even successfully dismantled the TV that was hung up on the ceiling. Now, the first floor of the Go Institute was all full of these devices, spaced apart in the hallways and hidden in many corners.
"I'm surprised this place has so many TVs," Vivian said. She found three more on the other side of the room.
"Well, we need them to watch reruns of Go games and live competitions, stuff like that," Waya replied. "A lot of these are old and they don't really work right anymore."
"As long as they can make a lot of noise," Vivian muttered to herself as she tried to lift them. They toppled over and nearly destroyed the row of Go boards to her left. Waya sweatdropped and stammered, "Um, Vivian? I think you shouldn't touch that anymore. It looks—"
The whole thing collapsed and she fell backwards.
"d—dangerous?"
888888
Hikaru continued to bicker with Sai as they made their way down the hall back to the Insei Room. He gulped noisily as the last drops of the tea slid into his mouth and wiped at his mouth with his sleeve.
He threw the can away into a trash can near the door. Sighing with satisfaction, he turned the doorknob and entered the room. "Isumi?"
Silence.
"Hello? Did the phone call wor—" Hikaru and Sai stopped short as both of them spotted something on the floor.
Hikaru gulped. It was a cell phone.
The room was silent.
Or was it?
Immediately, Sai went into a panic. "I told you Hikaru, the ghost is coming to eat us! But you're still so young, ohh… why us? Why are we condemned to this fate? Kami-san, I want to play more Go!! Pleeeease?"
All the while, Hikaru just stood there, his ears straining for a sound. The atmosphere was starting to bug him. He was all alone, and that was not good. Then, he heard it again.
Clack, Clack.
"Shut up, Sai!" Hikaru yelled urgently. Sai stopped and finally noticed what was going on. He listened with Hikaru.
Clack, Clack.
A few hours before, to them it would've been the most wonderful sound in the world—the sound of Go stones hitting the surface of the Goban. But as this hour, in this situation, it only served to creep them out even more. There was no mistaking it, though. There was no other way the sound could be produced.
Clack, Clack.
It sounded far off, echoing a bit before it actually reached their ears. But it wasn't a distance sort of "far off". That sound was timeless. It echoed through all time.
Clack, Clack.
The noise created some sort of trance. Ghost and boy felt spellbound by it. It wasn't a normal sound.
"Hikaru…" Sai whispered. "Who is playing?"
Hikaru swallowed. His throat felt dry even though he'd just had a drink.
"I-I don't know…"