All Is Fair in Love and War

Chapter One. I play Go with Hulk

Author's Note

Welcome to my story, everyone! A quick shoutout to nastyspaghetti who made the cover for this story, as well as to Linbo123 for providing me with plenty of useful information on the 1980s.

As I mentioned before, this is a crossover between the PJO series and Greek mythology itself.

Also, please watch the video above to learn the basics of the game of Go because it's going to be a very important part of the story.

Last but not least, all the chapters, unless specified otherwise, are going to be told from the POV of Shinobu Mitsurugi.

I really hope that you enjoy my story.

Let's begin. :)

•••

It had been three weeks since my arrival at the mysterious Lotus Hotel and Casino but the time was passing by so fast that the only reason I had been able to keep track of it was a small white calendar in my room which was illustrated with posters of old Japanese movies - a souvenir I had brought from my hometown of Nara a mere week before everything went south and I ended up completely alone in a country far away from mine, cut off from my mother and grandparents, with practically no money and no ability to get to Long Island - my original destination. Now that calendar was on my round nightstand as a visible reminder of what my life used to be like before that giant crab...creature had almost killed both Mom and myself.

Fortunately, the staff of the hotel where I was staying now had been kind enough to let me stick around and provided me with a plastic card that had an infinite amount of money, a nice room with traditional Japanese paintings and access to all sorts of entertainment for free.

It probably sounds too good to be true but it was absolutely real and, honestly, Heaven in comparison to the very real prospect of living on the streets that was staring into my face at the time because I had run out of money and only had a few belongings and an address in New York City written on a piece of paper.

An address of a place where, according to my mother, I should go should I need help, and I had no reason to doubt her nor my grandparents who had advised me to do the same thing.

I slowly got out of my bed with fresh white linens and lilac purple pillows and regulated the temperature of the air conditioning which was protecting me from the scorching heat of the Nevadan August sun, when the temperatures were usually around a hundred degrees Fahrenheit and it seemed to be a miracle that the people outside hadn't been cooked alive in such conditions and the metal of the signs, cars and street lights was so hot that it could give a person unfortunate enough to touch it quite the burns.

As usual, my room was awfully quiet in a stark contrast to my mother's apartment in Honolulu and my grandparents' house in Nara. Even my grandmother's shrine was filled with sounds of the voices of the visitors and the priests, the tunes of the light wind caressing the plants and the chirping of the birds.

A feeling of emptiness was eating away at me from the inside as I remembered my grandmother's funny stories, my grandfather's cooking and singing and Mom's visits to Nara during which we would always spend quality time together, sharing news, watching horror movies and playing Go, among other things.