Hikaru's Life Lessons Number Nine: Computers Should Not Be Playing Go Unless They Can Do Holographs Like On Yugioh, Which Would Be Awesome

Akira was rather upset that he had to be the one to mention the fake Sai to Hikaru. He was burning with curiosity to know what Sai thought about this, and he couldn't manage to get Hikaru alone so he could talk to Sai directly—Yashiro and Kurata were always around. Hikaru had ignored his attempts to find an excuse to leave the room together. Akira wanted to be insulted, but—Hikaru looked miserable. He was barely even paying attention to his games. He certainly wasn't gloating over first seat for the Korean game.

Finally, Akira's impatience won over his pride and he loudly opened the subject himself.

"What do you think of the announcement about Sai?" he addressed to Yashiro and Kurata. "Do you believe it?"

Kurata ran a hand over his chin. "I didn't at first. But they've been putting on some pretty convincing demonstrations. Professor Wen has traveled to China, Korea, America, and a few European countries and has beaten every single player. I didn't think anyone but Sai could do that."

"But there's still reason to be suspicious," Akira noted. "For starters, no one has explained why the player Sai appeared on the Net as a Japanese player, when this computer was created in China. His location could have been falsified but why would anyone bother? Also, the original 'Sai' always played games online but the professor hasn't played a single game on the Net. He only accepts in-person challenges. It's almost like he wants to avoid being challenged by the real Sai online, isn't it?"

Yashiro said, "But everyone is talking about how Sai hasn't played a game online since the Touya Meijin match."

Hikaru muttered, "I've been busy…and I don't have any money left to afford a net café."

Akira resisted the urge to smack Hikaru across the back of his head. Covering up for Hikaru's blunders was officially no longer Akira's problem.

Behind Hikaru, Sai was declaring, "You mean to say everyone actually thinks this machine is me? This is an outrage, Hikaru! I must have an opportunity to defend myself."

Hikaru said, "The truth is, I sort of thought the machine would lose a few times and then vanish as a fake."

"That's what everyone thought," Kurata said. "Up until this point no one has been able to create a computer program that could play Go at the unbeatable level. There have been programs that could beat all the amateurs, yes, like that silly Deep Orange, but up until now humans have always been the best Go players. We were rather proud of that, actually."

Yashiro said, "It's a bit of a letdown, isn't it? Everyone was so excited about Sai revitalizing the Go world. There were more students joining the insei and even my father made a comment about how Go was appearing more in the news. But now people find it's a computer no one will be very interested anymore. A computer, well—it's cheating."

Sai buried his face in his hands. Hikaru looked stricken as well.

Akira said, "I've been analyzing the computer's matches, and its style is very similar to Sai's. If it's not Sai then it's deliberately copying his past games. Professor Wen is coming to Japan in three days, supposedly to lay to rest any rumors that he's been avoiding the place previously believed to be Sai's home country. My father wants to play the computer, but the doctors told him he has to wait another week before he's allowed to do anything 'stressful' and because his heart attack was during a Go game, my mother is laying down the law."

"You said 'the computer.' Don't you mean that your father wants to play Sai again?" Yashiro asked.

Deliberately addressing the space in the air where Sai was, Akira said, "I meant it the way I phrased it. My father doesn't believe that Sai is a computer. And for the record, neither do I."

Kurata said, "I don't want to believe it, but—the evidence is more convincing with each loss. At this point, Sai or not I don't know if we can say that humans are the best Go players anymore."

Looking angry, Hikaru said, "Perhaps during this visit we'll see the real Sai beat the computer. I'd like to watch that."

Honestly, did Hikaru live under a rock? Akira sighed and delivered the cold hard facts. "First of all, Hikaru, the matches have to be played in person. Second of all, most of the demonstration matches are given to professionals by invitation only. Professor Wen created one 'open challenge' time after people accused him of trying to avoid Sai by only playing known professionals. But it was scheduled for the same time as the Hokuto Cup. And by the way, it would embarrass Japan on an international stage if one of their players didn't show up at the Cup. So no, you aren't going to be able to make it—you have a prior appointment."

Kurata said, "Everyone knows that Professor Wen scheduled the time on purpose, in order to attract attention away from the Hokuto Cup. He said on TV that we'd see which event attracted more reporters. It's like he's mocking us."

Feeling bad about how glum Sai looked, Akira added, "I'm sorry. Some of the professional players keep putting pressure on Wen to accept online challenges."

Yashiro said, "You know, if his program isn't Sai, Professor Wen is never going to let it play online. He wouldn't risk meeting the real thing."

Kurata said, "At this rate, he doesn't need to in order to ruin Sai's reputation."

There was nothing anyone could say to that.

Alone his room, Hikaru flopped onto his bed and stared at the ceiling. Finally, he said, "Sai, I don't know how I'm going to fix this. I'm sorry. This is much worse than what that Korean guy said about you, isn't it?"

The ghost covered his face with a fan. "This is the second time in my existence that my name has been tarnished with the label of a cheater. I begin to wonder if it is a fate that I must bear."

Angrily, Hikaru put a fist into the covers. "It isn't. They're the cheaters, not you."

"And now I'm going to disappear before we even have the opportunity to clear my name."

"Don't say that."

"This feels like my punishment for doing something wrong in my life," Sai opinioned.

Hikaru said, "It's all because someone taught a computer how to play Go so they could cheat their way to victory."

Surprisingly, Sai said, "I don't have any objection to people teaching these metal boxes to play. It takes a greater grasp of strategy to teach another, especially a machine with no mind of its own. In attempting to put the entirety of Go in a metal box, the creator must obtain a deeper understanding of the game. The ideal of such teachers is to discover every possible move in Go that could ever exist and create a being that cannot be beaten in Go—that is what the Hand of God is."

"The Hand of God? But something like that should be done by a person, not a computer."

"If it is built by humans, then humans are the ones chasing after the Hand of God. It is the human behind the machine who triumphs, in having created the unbeatable game." Sai smiled sadly. "And in that sense, the Hand of God is the end of Go. I always knew that. Once the perfect game is found, what point is there to playing? I have longed for and feared that day."

"Sai…weren't you angry at the computer pretending to be you? And now you're fine with it?"

"I hate the fact that the man behind that machine stole my name. I don't mind those Chinese children who announced themselves honestly and fought me with their machine in a fair duel. But this man lies and steals other's hard work. And I hate the fact that people see me as a cheater now—they think I am a human who used a machine to play for him while taking all the credit himself, who pretended to fight his opponents on equal terms while using a tool to an unfair advantage. I have played all my games with honor. I have evolved and learned from my opponents, and I am not yet a perfect player—they all had a chance to beat me. Yet from these games both players progressed. And now someone tells me that none of my games counted. That I do not exist as a person at all. And how can I argue? I have no mouth to speak, no hands to play on my own. I might as well not exist."

Hikaru sat motionless for a long moment. Then he said, "You're wrong, Sai. You do exist. You can have my body, and my name too, if that is what it takes. I'll let you play him at any price. And we're going to beat that fake Sai."

For the second time, Hikaru had double-booked.

The Hokuto Cup was supposed to start at 9:00 AM in the morning. The open matches wherein the Synthesized Artificial Intelligence would accept challengers from any player was to also start at 9:00 AM. The Hokuto Cup ended when all matches were complete, which was expected to be around 8:00 PM. Then there would be an hour-long closing ceremony.

The open matches against the Synthesized Artificial Intelligence ended at 9:00 PM, the same time as the Cup, but theoretically if someone skipped the ceremony they could make it in time. The problem was that traveling between locations would take another forty to fifty minutes. It wasn't happening—not unless the matches took much less time than was expected.

Ko Yeong-ha was extremely surprised to find that his opponent was Hikaru Shindo, not Akira Touya as he (and everyone else) had expected. Was he to take this to mean that Hikaru had hidden talents, or was the Japanese team just a bunch of idiots?

Either way, all he had to do was play his best. He clicked his timer and began his game.

The first few moves were routine and took neither of them any time at all. It wasn't until the first groups began to form that Yeong-ha began to linger more than a few seconds over his moves.

He took ten seconds to move.

Hikaru took five seconds.

He took six seconds to move.

Hikaru took three.

He took thirty seconds to move.

Hikaru took fifteen.

Yeong-ha didn't normally pay much attention to his opponent's speed, but he was starting to notice something unusual. Hikaru was taking much less time to play than he was.

Yeong-ha lingered a full minute over his next move. He watched Hikaru's face twist with nervousness. When he finally played, Hikaru slapped down his next piece so quickly the timer was barely able to register any change.

Yeong-ha felt a rising tide of anger. It was almost as if this Japanese player was trying to beat him while playing Speed Go. Exactly how lightly was he being taken?

He'd let the misunderstanding over his comment about Honinbo Shusaku stand because he'd wanted an opponent who would become passionate about the game. Instead, he was left with someone who barely seemed to care about their game at all.

Deliberately, Yeong-ha began to restrain himself a few extra seconds before each move he made. He was not usually a player who had any problem with time so he was not afraid to use his allotment liberally. Hikaru Shindo responded by playing even faster. Ko Yeong-ha's indignation rose, and he played more aggressively, now seeking to crush his opponent quickly as well. That was all he deserved.

But despite his insanely fast moves, Hikaru didn't look like he wasn't taking the game seriously. His spine was rigid, sweat dripped from his face, and he'd barely blinked for the whole game. He played as if he truly wanted to beat Yeong-Ha with all his heart, and he simply had only half the time on his clock to do so.

Hikaru placed a piece down and Yeong-Ha realized that a large number of his stones had been captured. When had he made such a mistake? Had he been playing so angrily that he'd lost track of the flow of the game?

He focused all his energy on defense—but it was too late. Finally, he said, "Pass."

"Pass," Hikaru replied.

The room was quiet. If they hadn't known what to make of Hikaru Shindo playing the number one Korean player Ko Yeong-Ha instead of Akira Touya—then they knew even less what to make of Hikaru Shindo winning by half a point.

Hikaru finally looked up from the board and met Yeong-Ha's eyes squarely. "That was an amazing game, thank you. And Honinbo Shusaku is awesome."

Then he ran for the door like he was being chased by a horde of hungry lions.

"Wait, stop!" Kurata shouted as Hikaru ran. Puzzled, he turned back to the rest of the Japanese team. "Maybe he had to go to the toilet."

Akira muttered, "There's no way…he couldn't be that stupid. What am I thinking? Of course he's that stupid. Idiot, idiot!" Then Akira took off in a run as well, leaving Kurata standing alone, astonished.

But something was clearly up, something he didn't want to miss out on. Kurata turned to Yashiro. "Would you mind accepting victory on behalf of the Japanese team by yourself? Here's my speech, you can use that if you want."

With that, Kurata ran out the door, leaving poor Yashiro standing alone as reporters descended on him.

Hikaru did in fact go to the restroom—but it was a public restroom at the train station.

When he slipped into the women's room, Akari met him inside with a large bag. She looked at her watch. "If you're going to catch the train, we have ten minutes."

Hikaru was already stripped off his clothes. Akari handed him the outfit from her bag. "You know, I was saving this for a special occasion."

Hikaru managed a smile. "This is a special occasion. It's going to be a Go game that's going to go down in legend. I think I've seen it done often enough to put the hair extensions in. You start working on the make-up."

Wordlessly, Akari took out her make-up case. For Hikaru, she'd even brought out the eye shadow with glitter and sparkles.

Akari was aware of how stupid Hikaru's idea was. Too many reporters, too many cameras, too many people he knew—he was going to get caught. But if he was determined to go through with this no matter what, then all she could do was ensure that his face was as unrecognizable as she could manage to make it.

And that whatever people might say about Hikaru wearing a dress in public, they wouldn't be able to say that he didn't look damn good in it.

Kurata whispered to Akira, "So I followed you here. Why are we here?"

"Shh," Akira hissed, scanning the faces in the room, most of which were fixed on watching the Synthesized Artificial Intelligence beat yet another Japanese professional player.

Perhaps Akira had somehow managed to get here first. He'd lost sight of Hikaru pretty quickly, but he'd thought that he knew Hikaru's destination. No, there was really no doubt in Akira's head that Hikaru was coming here; it was a little scary how well he knew Hikaru at this point. And because he knew Hikaru so well, Akira knew that he had to stop Hikaru before he did anything that he would regret for the rest of his life.

On the stage, Professor Wen was announcing another victory for SAI. Everyone watching had seen that coming for the last fifteen minutes; only the human player's stubbornness had drawn out the game.

Wen announced, "This will be our last match of the day. I hope you will all join me for a few refreshments."

Kurata whispered in Akira's ear, "What a scumbag. I've done some background research on that guy. He majored in computer science in college but failed, and every job he's got since then has been with his family's connections. Word on the internet is that no one in the Chinese programming geek community believes that he actually wrote that program himself. He must have brought it, and now he's basking in the fame. In the name of Go, I hope that computer isn't really Sai."

Akira continued searching. But he was stopped by his father's voice. "Akira, I'm glad to see you. Please come over."

Akira expected that his father would be asking why he wasn't at the ceremony. But perhaps he hadn't even thought of that; Koyo Touya had a look on his face that was saying "Save me." He had been cornered by Professor Wen.

"It's such a pity that you have a doctor's note excusing you from playing. Touya Meijin," Wen was saying. "I would be happy to open up one more match if you still want to play."

Akira understood why he'd been called over: it was to hold his father back if he tried to jump onto the stage and challenge for a game.

Akira cut in, "I think my father would rather play the real Sai. It's a pity he isn't here, but you won't accept online matches, will you?"

Wen's smile grew cold. "I don't need to. Anyone who wants to call himself Sai can challenge my SAI to a match. If my program beats that person as well, that that just means mine is the real Sai, doesn't it?"

"I object!"

The voice was hideously, horribly loud, enough so to cut through the conversation. Heads began to turn to the figure standing in the doorway, bent over and gasping from running.

"Wait, that's only weddings, isn't it? Let me try again. I'm here to play that fake computer, and I'm not leaving without a game. Allow me to introduce myself: I'm the real Sai."

Softly, under his breath, Akira said three very bad words that his mother would have been ashamed to hear from him.

She was wearing as simple purple dress with a long silk bow hanging down her chest, finished with tall black boots. A golden bracelet jangled on her left wrist, and around her neck was a golden necklace with a heart on a chain. Long black tresses fell in loose curls over her shoulders. She looked like she could have stepped off a page of a fashion magazine.

And needless to say, 'she' was Hikaru.

Author's note: Yeah, we had to get back to the cross-dressing at some point. Otherwise I would have to change the title of this fic, and I hate to think of new titles.