Magical Ghost Go Princess Akari 
by Cat Who
* * * 

* * * 
Chapter one: Disaster Strikes 
* * * 

On a blackened page, like the inky spill of water on a moonless night, 
the darkness ripples as a voice speaks softly, sound in a paper world. 

"Can you see me? Can you hear my voice?" 

* * * 

"Ahhh, what a lovely day this turned out to be!" Fujisaki Akari said 
with a wide grin and stretch as she walked down the sidewalk, wearing 
her brand-new high school uniform for the first time. Beside her, a few 
of the other girls in her neighborhood who were also going to the high 
school had already started exchanging names and class schedules. 

"Ne, Akari, what does it feel like to you to be in tenth grade?" one of 
her friends from junior high asked. 

"It feels . . . free," she replied, and smiled. The warm sunshine of 
the spring day beamed down on them. A few late cherry blossoms drifted 
on the wind down the residential district road. "I can feel a whole 
forest of paths opening up before me, and I can follow whichever path I 
choose." 

The other girls giggled. "I want to follow the path of a housewife," 
one said. "No work, and a gorgeous husband!" 

"You should have more ambition," another said with a snort. "I'M going 
to be a lawyer when I grow up." 

"Ewwww, you'll have no social life! You'll have to study your brains 
out!" 

"I think I want to join the drama club," Akari said, surprising 
herself. "Our high school doesn't have a go club, so I need a new 
activity."  Her soft penny loafers scraped against the sidewalk as she 
daydreamed.  It would be a start.  She couldn't name precisely what she 
wanted to do with her life . . . but joining something other than a go 
club was definitely a good start.

"Oh, Akari, you'd be so good at drama! You're always so . . . 
dramatic!" 

More giggling. Akari joined in, letting the warm sun wash all her 
apprehensions about the first day away into the gutters, where they 
belonged. Junior high, for all the fun it was, had ended, and she'd 
walk in the sunshine of a fresh start instead of in the shadows of the 
go club . . . and her overachiever sister. 

I'm free, she repeated to herself. We all are. The paths are opening up 
before us. Hikaru has already started down his own path, but the path 
that I will walk is different. My own path. Perhaps it will intersect 
his again . . . perhaps not. Then again, I really hope it does. 

Akari sighed a dreamy little smile. Only those at the go parlor had 
ever guessed about her crush on Hikaru, and even then she'd begged them 
to never tell him. Her love was a secret she cherished. No one else 
needed to ever know, least of all Hikaru. She could continue to support 
him from her own path, walking beside him instead of behind him and the 
others. The way before her was clear. 

"Akari, watch out!" 

The warning came too late as Akari, lost in her little fantasy 
dreamland of paths and Hikaru happily-ever-afters, stepped off the curb 
and felt no solid ground underneath her feet. She wobbled for a few 
moments, actually pin-wheeling her arms for balance, before gravity won 
the battle and she found herself rushing to the pavement face first. 
She felt her leg snap from the pressure of a sixteen year old body 
being thrown in ways that no body was built to withstand. 

"Kyaaaa!" 

"Oh no, Akari! And on the first day of school, too!" 

"Someone call an ambulance -- I think she broke her leg." 

The pain was overwhelming, but not nearly as much as the mortification. 
Breaking her leg on the first day of high school! She'd miss the 
welcome speech, she wouldn't know who was her class 
representative . . . and she'd be forever branded, as "you know, the 
broken leg girl." 

"What'll Hikaru say?" she mumbled before she let the pain drop her into 
the blessed realm of unconsciousness. 

* * * 

Many hours later, Akari actually made it to school, one leg bound in a 
cast and both arms resting on crutches. She was quite high on 
painkillers, too, and floated through the two classes she actually 
attended as a result. 

When the final bell rang, she slipped gratefully out of the classroom 
and hobbled towards home, glad she didn't have her books just yet. The 
doctor had suggested that she go straight home and get some rest, but 
she had wanted to at least make an appearance on the first day. 

Now she was beginning to regret it. Her injured leg throbbed, her new 
shoes were biting into her toes, and the padded arms of the crutches 
were chafing the brand new underarms of her uniform. 

She felt extremely sorry for herself. 

"Honestly, Akari, I didn't realize you were such a klutz," a familiar 
tenor said from behind her, startling her and nearly causing her to 
trip again. Strong arms caught her before she fell, however, and she 
regained her precarious balance on one foot and two sticks. 

"Hikaru!" 

Ah, there he was! Her best friend since childhood. Their mothers had 
been friends, and so they had played together a lot when they were 
little. Then, when they'd been old enough to ride bikes, it was just a 
matter of several city blocks distance to cross to see each other. 
They'd gone through all of elementary school together, and looked 
forward to middle school . . . and then, in sixth grade, Hikaru had 
changed. 

She'd started to lose him, if she'd ever even really had him. 

Losing him was all right, since it was to a game and not another girl. 
But Akari was a determined person, and she'd relentlessly taken up go 
herself in order to keep some connection with him. And then he'd turned 
out to be some sort of go prodigy, and surpassed her in every way, 
until he'd walked the path of the pros, leaving her behind in his dust. 

Now he was out of school for good. Not that he needed it . . . his 
career was set for life. 

Hikaru stuck his tongue out at her. "Your mom called my mom and said 
you'd broken your leg, and that you were so stubborn that you actually 
went to school once the hospital let you go. Dummy." 

Akari shook her head. "If you were in the final rounds of a title 
match, and you broke your leg, you'd still attend it, right?" 

"Of course! But that's different. I'd have a *title* at stake, not just 
my pride. Here, let me at least take your book bag." 

She studied him as they walked along. He hadn't stopped bleaching his 
bangs, which was a strange fashion taste he'd acquired when they were 
only ten, and he looked so lanky and tall now. His clothes were casual, 
light for the warm spring air, and there was an independent air to him 
that had not been there before he became a pro. 

"Ne, Hikaru," Akari started, to fill the awkward silence that had 
suddenly come up, "What do you do on days that you're not playing at 
the institute?" 

"Oh, I practice at home, or play games at one of the go salons . . . 
I've started tutoring children as well." He smiled to himself. "The 
cycle has to continue, you know. Some of the kids have so much 
potential . . ." 

"Unlike me," Akari said with a wry laugh. "I just couldn't keep up with 
you." 

He gave her a mock glare. "It's because you didn't try hard enough. If 
you played in all your free time like I did and studied like crazy, you 
might have discovered a talent that I couldn't see." 

She wrinkled her nose, the wind drifting her bangs into her face. She 
remembered looking up at his window last winter, as he stayed up late 
recreating old go games. He'd inspired her then to work toward her high 
school goal. "You always said I *had* no talent." 

"I was a dumb kid! How the heck could I test something like that back 
then?" 

"Well, now you're not a kid. Test me now. Let me know if I have ANY 
hope." 

Hikaru looked thoughtful. "Come to think of it . . . we haven't played 
a game in a long time. Let's swing by my house on the way home. We can 
play a quick game there. Your mom is probably still on the phone with 
mine about your leg, so she can tell her about it." 

"Hikaru . . . I don't think I can climb the stairs to your room right 
now." 

"Akari, I don't think it's appropriate for you to come up to my room 
anymore, actually." He cleared his throat. Akari felt her face growing 
warm. They weren't little kids anymore, that much was sure. "I'll bring 
the board downstairs; we can play in the living room. I'll let you know 
if you're hopeless then, okay?" 

"Okay!" She smiled. In his own way, Hikaru was trying to make her feel 
better. He had no idea how well it was working. 

* * * 
 
"I'm home!" Hikaru called to his mother in greeting. "And Akari's 
here." 

Hikaru's mother immediately appeared from the kitchen, cordless phone 
firmly on her shoulder. "Oh, Akari! Are you all right! Your mother was 
about to send your sister to pick you up." 

"I'm fine, really," Akari said, waving off her broken leg as if it were 
only a scratch. "Natsumi doesn't have to go through any trouble on my 
account." 

"Well, I'm glad to hear it. I'll bring you some tea, okay?" 

"Thanks, Mrs. Shindou!" 

Akari settled herself comfortably on the living room floor, arranging 
her skirt as modestly as she could with a bad leg stretched out before 
her. Hikaru ran upstairs for his go board, the nice one that his 
grandfather had given him a few years back. Hikaru's family living room 
was familiar, and she grinned at the wall that was now devoted solely 
to Hikaru's achievements in the go world. His mother still believed he 
should have gone to high school and gotten a "real" job, but the fact 
that Hikaru was now bringing his own genuine income was enough to quiet 
her protests. 

Hikaru carefully came down the stairs, balancing the kaya wood go stone 
containers on top of the heavy, square board. "Gee, these things aren't 
made for easy transport," he grumbled, as he felt around for the next 
step with his foot. Akari grinned to herself. 

"They're supposed to stay in one room all the time, aren't they?" she 
asked, and he nodded in affirmation. 

"It dates back to the Heian. One room in every mansion in Kyoto was 
dedicated to go; there were other go boards scattered throughout each 
mansion, as well, but there was always one room formally dedicated to 
the game." 

"Kind of like the Room of Profound Darkness in the Go Institute?" 

"Yeah. Kind of like that." He set the heavy go board down in front of 
her with a grunt, and handed her a bowl of stones. "It should be 
black," he said by way of explanation. She pulled off the lid revealing 
soft, black shale stones. She picked one up, loving the familiar weight 
in her hand. Go was in her blood; perhaps not to the extent that it was 
in Hikaru's blood, but it was there nonetheless. It wasn't her destined 
path, but it was part of the whole that made up herself. 

She waited until he'd settled down across from her before she placed 
her first stone, on the upper right star. 

Hikaru silently placed his own stone, and the game began. 

She was no match for him; the boy who'd lost to the Korean Hon Suyong 
by only half a moku had already risen to two-dan in the weeks since. 
 
"You've gotten better," Hikaru said after she conceded defeat about mid-
game. "Much, much better than I remember. Have you secretly been 
practicing or something?" He looked at her suspiciously out of one eye, 
but he was grinning. 
"Not really," she admitted. "But I have started reading Go World 
Weekly. This move here," she said, and pointed to a rather good move in 
one corner, "I saw in on of Ogata-10-dan's games a while back." 

"Ah! I thought I recognized the pattern. Good job," he said, now 
smiling openly. "We might just make an insei out of you yet." 

"Actually, Hikaru, I don't want to be an insei," she told him 
honestly. "I don't want to be a pro. Insei slots should be reserved for 
those who actually want to pursue a career in go . . ." 

"So what DO you want to do?" 

That same question. The question from this morning; the one she 
couldn't answer. She felt ill defined not knowing what the future held 
in front of her all of a sudden. Some vital part of her was missing 
because she did not have a goal. 

"I . . . don't know," she said softly, ashamed. "But I just don't think 
the path of go is the right one for me." 

She softly touched the kaya wood board, lovingly, mesmerized by the 
temptation of the game. A jolt of electricity raced up her arm, 
startling her, burning her. She cried in alarm. 

"Akari? Akari, what's wrong?" Hikaru said, dropping his smile in favor 
of an expression of alert panic. 

"The board . . . my . . . my arm . . .," she tried to explain, but the 
world was rapidly dimming before her. She thought she saw a flash of 
white cloth surrounded by sparkling motes of light for a moment, and 
she heard Hikaru frantically calling her name, but then the world went 
black, and she neither saw nor heard anything.
 
* * * 

She was warm and safe. That was all that mattered. Hikaru's face swam 
hazily in her memory, laughing and smiling. For the first time she saw 
something else in his eyes, the reflection of sadness and maturity, 
something that did not belong in brash young Hikaru's face. It was 
there only for a moment, but then it was gone, replaced once again by 
youthful, flashing eyes and his usual smirk. 

"Honestly, Akari!" Her sister Natsumi's sharp voice cut into the 
pleasant semi-dream she'd be having. "First you break your leg, then 
you pass out, all on the first day of high school. What the hell do you 
think you were doing? You should have come straight home!" 

Akari had a feeling she receiving a lecture second-hand from her 
mother, who was much closer to Natsumi than she was to Akari. Natsumi 
the perfect overachiever. Her rich, melodic voice, even in the stern 
tones of a good scold, echoed beautifully throughout the room. She 
wanted to be an idol; no, she WOULD be an idol, just as soon as she was 
discovered. 

Brimming with talent, Natsumi outshone Akari in all ways except two. 
Akari was better at go, and, as Hikaru had put it once, she actually 
knew how to be nice on both the inside and outside. 

Natsumi was nice on the outside, but Akari knew that the polished 
exterior hid a conniving, scheming money-grubber. To Akari, her 
terrifying, two-faced sister representated both a goal and a bad 
example.  She'd outshine her sister someday, and she'd do it with 
honesty and honor.

Her sister's nice mask was dropped at the moment. The real Natsumi was 
scolding Akari. 

" . . . nearly gave Dad a HEART ATTACK, what with you being at Hikaru's 
house and all. I had to assure him that I found you in their living 
room, and not upstairs ravaged on Hikaru's bed!" 

"His mom was there," Akari argued half-heartedly. "And Hikaru would 
never do something like that." 

"Uh huh," Natsumi sniffed. "All men are alike. They see a short skirt 
and loose socks -- UNCONSCIOUS -- and next thing you know you're 
ruined." She pretended to swoon and gracefully collapsed on Akari's 
bed. "My career would have been over before it began!" 

About the only trait Akari and Natsumi shared as a flair for the 
dramatic. Natsumi had passed up drama club to focus on her career as a 
singer, but she would have done quite well as an actress. You'd almost 
think she was the one that had had her leg broken today, the way she 
was acting, Akari thought unkindly, then squelched the mean thought. 

She poked her sister with her good foot. "So you came and rescued me? 
Thank you." 

Natsumi gave her a calculating look. "I only did it because Dad let me 
drive the convertible." She winked suddenly, the smiled, her face 
breaking into the same brilliant expression that Akari usually wore. 
She really was a good actress. "I got more whistles and catcalls today 
than I have in weeks! The lighting must have been good." 

"Aren't you worried about the evil men looking at your short skirt and 
loose socks and 'ruining' you?" Akari said dryly. 

"But this is for my career! It's different!" 

"Sure. Keep telling yourself that." Akari shoved her away with her foot 
this time, and collapsed back on her bed, wanting to go back to the 
dream about Hikaru's face. "Go away. I want to sleep." 

"Fine. Be that way and spurn your adoring older sister's love. By the 
way, Mitani called to check on you. He panicked more than dad when he 
found out you were passed out at Hikaru's house." Natsumi collected 
herself and stood up, straightening her skirt, her expression 
angelic. "Unlike Dad, I *didn't* tell him you were only in the living 
room." 

"That was cruel! Let me sleep!" Akari threw a pillow at her sister to 
emphasize the point. Natsumi left, her melodic voice positively 
cackling with insane glee. 

"Why is my family so crazy?" Akari muttered to herself, crawling under 
the blankets and trying to catch the wispy remnants of the happy Hikaru 
dream. "Why, why, why?" 

"Why, indeed," an unfamiliar male voice said in her head. 

Akari sat right back up and looked around her room desperately. No one 
was there. The room she shared with her sister was empty, the last 
light from the day filtering through the shaded window, casting a warm 
buttery glow over the distinct lack of people. Her sister's bed was 
neatly made. Their matching desks were covered in clutter, but no one 
sat in the chairs. Even the closet spilled open, revealing a thick 
tangle of garments that no human could have squeezed into. 

"I really have been overdoing it," Akari muttered to herself, snuggling 
under her covers. 

"Yes, you have," the voice said gently. 

Go away! Akari thought, as if she could make herself be quiet. 

"Look up," the voice said. "Beside you. Can you see me?" 

This time when she peered out from under the covers, there was someone 
there. 

He was tall, a fact emphasized by the old-fashioned tate-eboshi hat he 
wore. His clothes were heavy brocade, sewn in the style of the late 
Heian court. His skin was pale, his hair was long, glossy, and dark, 
and his hands graceful and lean. 

"Who are you?" Akari asked, a surprisingly coherent and appropriate 
question, considering the situation. 

The man smiled sadly. "My name is Fujiwara no Sai. And you are Fujisaka 
Akari. You may have trouble believing this, but I already know a lot 
about you." 

S-stalker! Akari's mind stuttered, and she let out a scream so loud 
that all the dogs in the neighborhood started barking. 

"Get away get away get away," Akari said, flailing at the main with one 
of her crutches. He shielded himself with his arms, but even still it 
took Akari several moments before she realized the crutch was going 
*through* the man, and not actually hitting him. 

"Akari, what happened?" Natsumi burst back through the door, their 
mother and father closely on her heals. 

She knew she looked silly; one crutch poised in midair *inside* a 
man . . . a ghost . . . a . . . what? 

"I," she began, and blinked a few times before the man said, "You moved 
your leg and it hurt." 

Obediently, she repeated, "I moved my leg wrong. It hurt like hell." 

The three family members collapsed against the doorway. "Is that all?" 
her mother said with a sigh. "Akari-chan, you should be more 
considering when you screech like that." 

"I thought Hikaru had come back to rape you after all!" Natsumi said 
with a wicked grin, causing their father's glasses to momentarily shine 
over and his fists to curl. 

"No . . . I'm alright. Really. I think." She tried her best to avoid 
looking at the ghostly being as she dropped the crutch. Apparently they 
couldn't see him or hear him. Just as well. Having a strange man in her 
room would really put a crimp in Natsumi's career, she thought idly. 

They left her alone and shut the door. 

"Are you . . . a ghost?" Akari said with a shudder. She'd always hated 
the idea of ghosts. The dead should stay dead. 

"Yes." 

"Why are you here?" 

Sai sighed, putting his hand to his forehead, and dropped down 
artlessly to the floor. "That's a question I've been asking myself for 
the last few hours. Why, indeed?"

* * *

End Prologue

--Cat Who
www.catwho.net
tprara@catwho.net
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