[bancroft]
LOST IN THE WOODS
by stellawind
Perhaps having the go conference at an old-fashioned inn, far back in the mountains, had sounded like a good idea on paper. Hell, it had sounded like a good idea when Hikaru had heard about it from Waya. The invitation had made it seem idyllic.
It had also sounded like a good idea, as the old pros (and as the night got late, anyone legal) got drunker and drunker on the local sake, to wander in the woods.
Waya had suggested that as well, grabbing Hikaru, who had in turn grabbed Touya. The three had stumbled into the woods a little past midnight, shrieking with laughter, and not a little drunk upon the sheer fun they had. Even Touya had lost something, and Hikaru had never seen him look as young as he did then.
Getting lost in the wood was an easy task for three city-bred, born, and raised boys. A wrong turn, and they had lost sight of the inn's lights. A little further, and they lost the last trace of the dark road.
Each hid his nervousness, and pressed forward.
A deer path was what they found next, but none of them had the knowledge to see it for what it was really was. They stumbled though bushes and bamboo, loosing it, and then picking it up again. Waya became more and more distressed, arguing that they sit, and wait for dawn. Twice already, they had found themselves at the top of ravine, and had barely kept from sliding down it.
Slippery, damp leaves, still rotting from last autumn, slowed their progress even further. The yukata that had been so bright in the light by the inn were now stained, and as Hikaru pulled away from the bramble he had tripped into, he heard a tearing noise.
He swore, feeling at the hem.
"Is it ripped?" Waya asked.
"Yeah," Hikaru grunted.
Touya muttered something, and pulled his yukata closer around, and hiked it up further. He had been very adamant about getting back to the inn, and had nearly taken Waya's head off last time he had suggested waiting for dawn.
"Maybe we should--" Hikaru began.
"Shh," Waya hissed, head cocked.
The sounds of the forest were instantly magnified as they stilled. Nearby, a bird moved though the trees, its wings harsh against the still sky, and its call mournful and long. Some animal crashed though the brush, and Hikaru couldn't figure out how far it was, before he could swear that the sound of Touya's sharp breathing was louder.
Sai, even when he had first seen him, had been many times less threatening then the dark forest.
Then he felt something against his forehead, and as he brought his hand to it, Waya sighed.
"Rain," Waya said flatly. "Let's just get back to the damn inn so we can laugh about this already."
"Thank you," Touya snapped, and took the lead, picking what Hikaru was sure was a random direction.
Waya's earlier objection and suggestion to wait for light had a point. They were only getting further lost. Hikaru was hesitant to say that they had walked in a circle, but a rough, zigzagging spiral would not surprise in the least.
"We could stop," Hikaru suggested. "Find someplace that's pretty sheltered, and hole up there."
"Rain," repeated Waya. "I say we find the inn again, even if it does take another hour."
"Come on, can we at least wait until it's passed?" Hikaru asked, as the rain finally began to drip down, past the canopy.
"There's a light up there," Touya said suddenly.
"Oh, good." Waya sighed. "See, we're fine."
Hikaru squinted, before finally seeing the orange glow, far off, almost hidden by foliage. It flickered, and then snapped steady, a normal glow of a streetlight, or perhaps of a window lit up.
It felt wrong.
It was too far and too sudden. Hikaru only wanted to turn around, run until he couldn't see it anymore, find the most hidden spot he could, and keep watch there, until the sun had fully risen.
"Guys..."
"It's civilization," Waya proclaimed, gesturing grandly. "I'm sure they have a phone."
"Let's just stop here," Hikaru tried.
Touya snorted.
"Please," Hikaru begged. "It's raining. There could be flash floods. We're on high ground right now. I think we'd best just stay here."
"What's up?" Waya demanded. "I'm just as wet as you are."
"I don't like this."
Touya stilled, and then caught his wrist and began to drag him.
Hikaru tried to twist away, but Touya held tight.
"You're going to give me bruises," Hikaru protested.
"And your 'plan' could leave us with pneumonia," Touya snapped.
Hikaru had come the conclusion an hour earlier that Touya hated any nature outside of a carefully landscaped garden. The wilderness spooked Touya the worst, when they had come to the grim realization they were truly lost. He had startled at every noise, and had yelped loudly when a deer had flitted by before he realized what it was.
The three were getting closer to the light; it had grown from a pinpoint to a speck. Hikaru found himself feeling nearly sick. His stomach roiled, and his throat was choked. It was hard to breathe evenly.
Then he saw it.
The one thing the last two hours had taught him, was to see where a shadow should be. After jumping at every fallen log, or crooked tree branch, Hikaru had started to recognize what a shape should be.
This, however, was too wrong. The shadow wasn't a shadow at all, but something was there. Long and close to the ground it laid, panting.
Eyes snapped fully open and glimmered as Hikaru stilled and both Touya and Waya jumped.
A long tongue lolled out as Hikaru struggled to open his mouth. The stench of rotting meat flooded his nose, but on a deeper level, Hikaru felt lost dreams and broken promises. It was all he could do to keep from retching.
A fox stood, and yawned, showing long canines that gleamed with saliva. It was taller than all of them. "One of you should have known better than this, at least."
It stretched, arching up as Touya gibbered several incoherent words. Hikaru would have been right there with him if he could have moved.
The fox stalked towards them, muscles distinct even in the faint, filtered light. Hikaru saw the reflection of the moon echoed brightly in the fox's eyes, overlaying the orange glow that had drawn them like moths. He felt a sense of the surreal that he hadn't felt since Sai left. The moon wasn't the only thing brighter, but the stars were too. The trees were greener, but the leaf shadows sharper. The darkness was deeper.
Hikaru violently shivered, and that broke his spellbound limbs. "Stop," he croaked.
The fox paused its advanced, and looked at him. "Why?" it questioned, its muzzle less than a foot from Hikaru's face.
"Maybe," Hikaru stammered, "Maybe I should have known better, but they shouldn't."
"Never the less," the fox said, "You will all pay."
Waya cried at the fox's word, and backed up further, to stand beside Touya at the very limit of the corner of Hikaru's eyes.
However, the fox was then still. It faced Hikaru, but the eyes of the beast were not on him, but far distant. Its dark humor in their terror lifted, leaving a great, oppressive waiting.
Hikaru was afraid to breathe, but Waya, and then --a half heart beat later-- Touya stood beside him.
The fox was still crouched, but its ears were flat, and its muzzle twisted into a snarl. It finally chuffed, and the tension in its body broke, as something sparkled in its eyes that Hikaru could only try his best not to look away from.
"You play... go," it said, more absently, with something looking darkly pleased in the tilt of its head.
"Yes," Hikaru hoarsely said.
"Then play for your life." It raised a paw, and made three sharp, swift motions. Its tongue lolled out, and it looked at him, grinning, as a grid, glowing orange, appeared.
Hikaru looked the fox --a shadowed shape against darkness-- behind the board and then his friends.
He stepped forward, and seized the first of the glowing stones. There was no nigiri.
They played with no formalities, and no politeness. Sweat dripped down Hikaru's face, mixing with the misting drizzle that had settled over them after the first hour. He placed orange stones, playing as white, with a breaths too hard and sharp to be sighs.
The stones had no feeling to them, no weight, but for the sinking, draining feeling Hikaru felt each time he set a stone. The fox's stones weren't anything but pure darkness, and at each point it placed them on, a little more of the board would vanish.
The fox's go was different from any he had played before. Hidden moves and malicious traps abounded, but yet there was nothing of grand scale, that Hikaru could see. Small, persistent traps that would cost him if he didn't look for them, but easy enough to stop as he learned to spot them.
However, early in the game he had not seen several, and now as he tallied the game's progress in his head, it was close without komi, and Hikaru knew he should not count on that at all.
They entered yose shortly after, and Hikaru could feel a cold wave of relief sweep under him, looking at the board. He'd won.
It took longer for the game to truly end, and the fox stared at the broad for a long moment, before snapping its jaws shut. The board's glow flickered and then flamed into nothingness, plunging them into darkness again.
The fox looked up, its glowing eyes the only light after the flare of darkness; the moon still hid behind clouds.
Waya grabbed Hikaru's arm and squeezed it tightly as the fox came to them.
"You may two pass," it growled. "And you, little go-player. I've taken my toll." The way the fox said the last with such relish worried Hikaru.
"What was it?" Hikaru whispered, having almost expected this. After all, he himself had admitted that he should have probably known better. At least Waya and Touya would come out of this.
The fox stalked nearer. "Don't worry," it whispered, and stroked Hikaru's cheek with its own. "It was what you valued the most. Nothing less."
It drew away, and Hikaru could barely bring himself to touch his cheek, to scrub it with the sleeve of his yukata. It felt slimly, like rancid oil.
The fox chuffed again, and then bayed. The noise pained Hikaru's ears, but what made him nauseous was the sense of broken dreams and lost paths that fox left in its wake.
And then it was just them.
Hikaru swayed slightly, and pulled the sleeves of his yukata over his wrists with his left hand; his right hand still almost felt burned from the stones. It was past damp now, and was plastered to his skin. For only a brief moment did his arm feel warm, before clamminess set in.
Touya's sudden, sharp sigh sounded only a blink away from a sob, and Waya's breathing was too even and had a shakiness that Hikaru had never heard before.
"What did... what is it?"
Hikaru blinked, the go game finally falling away from his immediate mind. "I think it was a kitsu--"
"What did it mean," Waya clarified. "What did... any of this..."
"The price," Touya hissed, his voice stronger, clearer, and more desperate.
Hikaru stared blankly at the space between them. "I don't know," he whispered.
"What's most precious to you, it's not that hard!" Touya cried, his hands clenching and unclenching before he finally folded them defensively across his chest.
"I don't know!" Hikaru snapped back. It didn't take his memory of Sai, his friends where still beside him. His family? The old goban in his grandfather's attic? It wasn't like he had a girlfriend that the fox could go to and...
What could a kitsune do?
If go-obsessed ghosts were real, was there a limit to what a kitsune could do?
"We should go," Hikaru said, even as all he wanted was to forget, was to sink back to the ground, lay down his head and wake up in his own bed. "Something else could..."
The silence stretched between them, until Waya grabbed Touya's hand, and then Hikaru's. He then dragged them with him out of the clearing, walking too fast, though no one complained as they stumbled over twisted tree roots and uneven ground.
***
They stumbled back to the inn just as false dawn was lighting the eastern sky, mud and leaves stuck to their sandals, clothes torn and stained. The persistent drizzle had finally lifted an hour ago, leaving them chilled and damp.
Exhausted, they tumbled into the room that Waya and Hikaru were sharing by mutual silent agreement. Waya felt a flash of guilt for the tatami mats as Hikaru slumped bonelessly down, eyes wide, not seeing or hearing his muddy hem slap against the floor.
He wanted to reach out, to say something to Hikaru, but the words clogged his throat. There was too much he wanted to say, to ask, and too many words to say wrong. The shape of the thing haunted him, he could remember suddenly seeing the eyes, and watching it rise up out of the darkness, then the long waiting of the game.
Touya shoved past him, and peeled off his yukata. Waya felt vaguely hysterical to realize that on top of everything else, he now knew that Touya wore boxers. Padding over to the misshapen pile of bedding, Touya took a blanket and draped it around Hikaru, before taking another and wrapping it around himself.
"Once," Hikaru rasped, as Waya was copying Touya's example, "A long time ago, I didn't have any idea of morals, and wanted a bit of quick money." He paused and licked his lips. "Grandpa had a lot of junk up in his attic, and I thought that I could sell something."
There was something in the tilt of his eyebrow that made Waya pause before he could ask a sharp question. Instead, he sat down closer to Touya than he might have wanted to, once.
"So, I found it. An old goban, stuffed away. It... it had stains. Stains only I could see, and..." Hikaru broke off.
Touya looked like he was ready to choke him, and Waya wouldn't be surprised if his expression was similar.
"Then there was a ghost, all in white. His name was Fujiwara no Sai."
Oh.
And with that, the mystery that was Shindou Hikaru fell away. The half-truths, and the lies that he had caught Hikaru in all made sense. It was all so simple.
Touya then gasped. "Sai... it took Sai, didn't it?"
Hikaru blinked. "No! No. Sai's been gone. For a long time." He looked away. "But, if it was taking an actual possession... I think it took the goban. In a few hours, I'll call grandpa and ask." He sighed, and then tore his eyes away from the floor and finally looked at them for longer than a second.
And, then, finally then, Waya relaxed. Touya and Hikaru talked more, hammering out old grievances, sorting out who had really played which game. Maybe later, when he wasn't in such a shock, on mental re-loop of seeing the thing rise up and seeing its eyes flash open, he would ask, but for now, he let their voices drift over him like a gentle breeze. A ghost was easier to believe in than a kitsune. For a bit, just for a bit, he could forget that he had been the one to drag them out, that it had been his idea.
And then, they brought out Touya's goban, for Hikaru to replay one of Sai's games.
That had roused his interest enough for him look over. He figured that he should talk to Hikaru sooner or later, and get kifu of games Sai had played; they would be hours worth of study.
Hikaru's sudden yelp scattered his thoughts like birds hearing gunshots.
He looked over to see Hikaru cradling his hand, and glaring at the goke as though it had bit him. Then, with his jaw tensed, and eyebrows worried, Hikaru reached out and tried to touch the stones again, and yanked it away, almost whimpering. He tried again. Color drained from his face, as he tried to get his fingers around it, but couldn't.
Waya grabbed Hikaru's hand and guided it away from the goke.
"Stop," he whispered, as he met Touya's horrified eyes across the goban.
***
by stellawind
Perhaps having the go conference at an old-fashioned inn, far back in the mountains, had sounded like a good idea on paper. Hell, it had sounded like a good idea when Hikaru had heard about it from Waya. The invitation had made it seem idyllic.
It had also sounded like a good idea, as the old pros (and as the night got late, anyone legal) got drunker and drunker on the local sake, to wander in the woods.
Waya had suggested that as well, grabbing Hikaru, who had in turn grabbed Touya. The three had stumbled into the woods a little past midnight, shrieking with laughter, and not a little drunk upon the sheer fun they had. Even Touya had lost something, and Hikaru had never seen him look as young as he did then.
Getting lost in the wood was an easy task for three city-bred, born, and raised boys. A wrong turn, and they had lost sight of the inn's lights. A little further, and they lost the last trace of the dark road.
Each hid his nervousness, and pressed forward.
A deer path was what they found next, but none of them had the knowledge to see it for what it was really was. They stumbled though bushes and bamboo, loosing it, and then picking it up again. Waya became more and more distressed, arguing that they sit, and wait for dawn. Twice already, they had found themselves at the top of ravine, and had barely kept from sliding down it.
Slippery, damp leaves, still rotting from last autumn, slowed their progress even further. The yukata that had been so bright in the light by the inn were now stained, and as Hikaru pulled away from the bramble he had tripped into, he heard a tearing noise.
He swore, feeling at the hem.
"Is it ripped?" Waya asked.
"Yeah," Hikaru grunted.
Touya muttered something, and pulled his yukata closer around, and hiked it up further. He had been very adamant about getting back to the inn, and had nearly taken Waya's head off last time he had suggested waiting for dawn.
"Maybe we should--" Hikaru began.
"Shh," Waya hissed, head cocked.
The sounds of the forest were instantly magnified as they stilled. Nearby, a bird moved though the trees, its wings harsh against the still sky, and its call mournful and long. Some animal crashed though the brush, and Hikaru couldn't figure out how far it was, before he could swear that the sound of Touya's sharp breathing was louder.
Sai, even when he had first seen him, had been many times less threatening then the dark forest.
Then he felt something against his forehead, and as he brought his hand to it, Waya sighed.
"Rain," Waya said flatly. "Let's just get back to the damn inn so we can laugh about this already."
"Thank you," Touya snapped, and took the lead, picking what Hikaru was sure was a random direction.
Waya's earlier objection and suggestion to wait for light had a point. They were only getting further lost. Hikaru was hesitant to say that they had walked in a circle, but a rough, zigzagging spiral would not surprise in the least.
"We could stop," Hikaru suggested. "Find someplace that's pretty sheltered, and hole up there."
"Rain," repeated Waya. "I say we find the inn again, even if it does take another hour."
"Come on, can we at least wait until it's passed?" Hikaru asked, as the rain finally began to drip down, past the canopy.
"There's a light up there," Touya said suddenly.
"Oh, good." Waya sighed. "See, we're fine."
Hikaru squinted, before finally seeing the orange glow, far off, almost hidden by foliage. It flickered, and then snapped steady, a normal glow of a streetlight, or perhaps of a window lit up.
It felt wrong.
It was too far and too sudden. Hikaru only wanted to turn around, run until he couldn't see it anymore, find the most hidden spot he could, and keep watch there, until the sun had fully risen.
"Guys..."
"It's civilization," Waya proclaimed, gesturing grandly. "I'm sure they have a phone."
"Let's just stop here," Hikaru tried.
Touya snorted.
"Please," Hikaru begged. "It's raining. There could be flash floods. We're on high ground right now. I think we'd best just stay here."
"What's up?" Waya demanded. "I'm just as wet as you are."
"I don't like this."
Touya stilled, and then caught his wrist and began to drag him.
Hikaru tried to twist away, but Touya held tight.
"You're going to give me bruises," Hikaru protested.
"And your 'plan' could leave us with pneumonia," Touya snapped.
Hikaru had come the conclusion an hour earlier that Touya hated any nature outside of a carefully landscaped garden. The wilderness spooked Touya the worst, when they had come to the grim realization they were truly lost. He had startled at every noise, and had yelped loudly when a deer had flitted by before he realized what it was.
The three were getting closer to the light; it had grown from a pinpoint to a speck. Hikaru found himself feeling nearly sick. His stomach roiled, and his throat was choked. It was hard to breathe evenly.
Then he saw it.
The one thing the last two hours had taught him, was to see where a shadow should be. After jumping at every fallen log, or crooked tree branch, Hikaru had started to recognize what a shape should be.
This, however, was too wrong. The shadow wasn't a shadow at all, but something was there. Long and close to the ground it laid, panting.
Eyes snapped fully open and glimmered as Hikaru stilled and both Touya and Waya jumped.
A long tongue lolled out as Hikaru struggled to open his mouth. The stench of rotting meat flooded his nose, but on a deeper level, Hikaru felt lost dreams and broken promises. It was all he could do to keep from retching.
A fox stood, and yawned, showing long canines that gleamed with saliva. It was taller than all of them. "One of you should have known better than this, at least."
It stretched, arching up as Touya gibbered several incoherent words. Hikaru would have been right there with him if he could have moved.
The fox stalked towards them, muscles distinct even in the faint, filtered light. Hikaru saw the reflection of the moon echoed brightly in the fox's eyes, overlaying the orange glow that had drawn them like moths. He felt a sense of the surreal that he hadn't felt since Sai left. The moon wasn't the only thing brighter, but the stars were too. The trees were greener, but the leaf shadows sharper. The darkness was deeper.
Hikaru violently shivered, and that broke his spellbound limbs. "Stop," he croaked.
The fox paused its advanced, and looked at him. "Why?" it questioned, its muzzle less than a foot from Hikaru's face.
"Maybe," Hikaru stammered, "Maybe I should have known better, but they shouldn't."
"Never the less," the fox said, "You will all pay."
Waya cried at the fox's word, and backed up further, to stand beside Touya at the very limit of the corner of Hikaru's eyes.
However, the fox was then still. It faced Hikaru, but the eyes of the beast were not on him, but far distant. Its dark humor in their terror lifted, leaving a great, oppressive waiting.
Hikaru was afraid to breathe, but Waya, and then --a half heart beat later-- Touya stood beside him.
The fox was still crouched, but its ears were flat, and its muzzle twisted into a snarl. It finally chuffed, and the tension in its body broke, as something sparkled in its eyes that Hikaru could only try his best not to look away from.
"You play... go," it said, more absently, with something looking darkly pleased in the tilt of its head.
"Yes," Hikaru hoarsely said.
"Then play for your life." It raised a paw, and made three sharp, swift motions. Its tongue lolled out, and it looked at him, grinning, as a grid, glowing orange, appeared.
Hikaru looked the fox --a shadowed shape against darkness-- behind the board and then his friends.
He stepped forward, and seized the first of the glowing stones. There was no nigiri.
They played with no formalities, and no politeness. Sweat dripped down Hikaru's face, mixing with the misting drizzle that had settled over them after the first hour. He placed orange stones, playing as white, with a breaths too hard and sharp to be sighs.
The stones had no feeling to them, no weight, but for the sinking, draining feeling Hikaru felt each time he set a stone. The fox's stones weren't anything but pure darkness, and at each point it placed them on, a little more of the board would vanish.
The fox's go was different from any he had played before. Hidden moves and malicious traps abounded, but yet there was nothing of grand scale, that Hikaru could see. Small, persistent traps that would cost him if he didn't look for them, but easy enough to stop as he learned to spot them.
However, early in the game he had not seen several, and now as he tallied the game's progress in his head, it was close without komi, and Hikaru knew he should not count on that at all.
They entered yose shortly after, and Hikaru could feel a cold wave of relief sweep under him, looking at the board. He'd won.
It took longer for the game to truly end, and the fox stared at the broad for a long moment, before snapping its jaws shut. The board's glow flickered and then flamed into nothingness, plunging them into darkness again.
The fox looked up, its glowing eyes the only light after the flare of darkness; the moon still hid behind clouds.
Waya grabbed Hikaru's arm and squeezed it tightly as the fox came to them.
"You may two pass," it growled. "And you, little go-player. I've taken my toll." The way the fox said the last with such relish worried Hikaru.
"What was it?" Hikaru whispered, having almost expected this. After all, he himself had admitted that he should have probably known better. At least Waya and Touya would come out of this.
The fox stalked nearer. "Don't worry," it whispered, and stroked Hikaru's cheek with its own. "It was what you valued the most. Nothing less."
It drew away, and Hikaru could barely bring himself to touch his cheek, to scrub it with the sleeve of his yukata. It felt slimly, like rancid oil.
The fox chuffed again, and then bayed. The noise pained Hikaru's ears, but what made him nauseous was the sense of broken dreams and lost paths that fox left in its wake.
And then it was just them.
Hikaru swayed slightly, and pulled the sleeves of his yukata over his wrists with his left hand; his right hand still almost felt burned from the stones. It was past damp now, and was plastered to his skin. For only a brief moment did his arm feel warm, before clamminess set in.
Touya's sudden, sharp sigh sounded only a blink away from a sob, and Waya's breathing was too even and had a shakiness that Hikaru had never heard before.
"What did... what is it?"
Hikaru blinked, the go game finally falling away from his immediate mind. "I think it was a kitsu--"
"What did it mean," Waya clarified. "What did... any of this..."
"The price," Touya hissed, his voice stronger, clearer, and more desperate.
Hikaru stared blankly at the space between them. "I don't know," he whispered.
"What's most precious to you, it's not that hard!" Touya cried, his hands clenching and unclenching before he finally folded them defensively across his chest.
"I don't know!" Hikaru snapped back. It didn't take his memory of Sai, his friends where still beside him. His family? The old goban in his grandfather's attic? It wasn't like he had a girlfriend that the fox could go to and...
What could a kitsune do?
If go-obsessed ghosts were real, was there a limit to what a kitsune could do?
"We should go," Hikaru said, even as all he wanted was to forget, was to sink back to the ground, lay down his head and wake up in his own bed. "Something else could..."
The silence stretched between them, until Waya grabbed Touya's hand, and then Hikaru's. He then dragged them with him out of the clearing, walking too fast, though no one complained as they stumbled over twisted tree roots and uneven ground.
***
They stumbled back to the inn just as false dawn was lighting the eastern sky, mud and leaves stuck to their sandals, clothes torn and stained. The persistent drizzle had finally lifted an hour ago, leaving them chilled and damp.
Exhausted, they tumbled into the room that Waya and Hikaru were sharing by mutual silent agreement. Waya felt a flash of guilt for the tatami mats as Hikaru slumped bonelessly down, eyes wide, not seeing or hearing his muddy hem slap against the floor.
He wanted to reach out, to say something to Hikaru, but the words clogged his throat. There was too much he wanted to say, to ask, and too many words to say wrong. The shape of the thing haunted him, he could remember suddenly seeing the eyes, and watching it rise up out of the darkness, then the long waiting of the game.
Touya shoved past him, and peeled off his yukata. Waya felt vaguely hysterical to realize that on top of everything else, he now knew that Touya wore boxers. Padding over to the misshapen pile of bedding, Touya took a blanket and draped it around Hikaru, before taking another and wrapping it around himself.
"Once," Hikaru rasped, as Waya was copying Touya's example, "A long time ago, I didn't have any idea of morals, and wanted a bit of quick money." He paused and licked his lips. "Grandpa had a lot of junk up in his attic, and I thought that I could sell something."
There was something in the tilt of his eyebrow that made Waya pause before he could ask a sharp question. Instead, he sat down closer to Touya than he might have wanted to, once.
"So, I found it. An old goban, stuffed away. It... it had stains. Stains only I could see, and..." Hikaru broke off.
Touya looked like he was ready to choke him, and Waya wouldn't be surprised if his expression was similar.
"Then there was a ghost, all in white. His name was Fujiwara no Sai."
Oh.
And with that, the mystery that was Shindou Hikaru fell away. The half-truths, and the lies that he had caught Hikaru in all made sense. It was all so simple.
Touya then gasped. "Sai... it took Sai, didn't it?"
Hikaru blinked. "No! No. Sai's been gone. For a long time." He looked away. "But, if it was taking an actual possession... I think it took the goban. In a few hours, I'll call grandpa and ask." He sighed, and then tore his eyes away from the floor and finally looked at them for longer than a second.
And, then, finally then, Waya relaxed. Touya and Hikaru talked more, hammering out old grievances, sorting out who had really played which game. Maybe later, when he wasn't in such a shock, on mental re-loop of seeing the thing rise up and seeing its eyes flash open, he would ask, but for now, he let their voices drift over him like a gentle breeze. A ghost was easier to believe in than a kitsune. For a bit, just for a bit, he could forget that he had been the one to drag them out, that it had been his idea.
And then, they brought out Touya's goban, for Hikaru to replay one of Sai's games.
That had roused his interest enough for him look over. He figured that he should talk to Hikaru sooner or later, and get kifu of games Sai had played; they would be hours worth of study.
Hikaru's sudden yelp scattered his thoughts like birds hearing gunshots.
He looked over to see Hikaru cradling his hand, and glaring at the goke as though it had bit him. Then, with his jaw tensed, and eyebrows worried, Hikaru reached out and tried to touch the stones again, and yanked it away, almost whimpering. He tried again. Color drained from his face, as he tried to get his fingers around it, but couldn't.
Waya grabbed Hikaru's hand and guided it away from the goke.
"Stop," he whispered, as he met Touya's horrified eyes across the goban.
***