Sai had been walking beside Hikaru staring at the brightly colored and very familiar device that was drifting by overhead when someone actually bumped into him. Someone had actually bumped into him, despite the fact that he was completely intangible to everyone but Hikaru, the twelve year old boy who was currently a couple feet away and "spacing out" as he listened to one of those small music devices.
The man muttered an apology and kept going.
Turning to see the one person in the world besides Hikaru that he was currently able to touch, he found much to his shock that he actually recognized the man, or at least thought he did.
"Abe no Seimei?" he said, more to himself rather than in inquiry.
The man stopped and turned.
"Fujiwara no Sai." the man greeted him almost warmly.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
"Getting batteries for the remote since my usual manner for powering such things fried the last one, and toilet paper, and some parts for the helicopter." Abe no Seimei replied.
"Helicopter?" he asked, looking up once again at the flying device overhead as a memory frantically tried to spark itself.
"Yeah, you remember, the giant green lawn ornament you won off me." Abe no Seimei replied rather casually in modern Japanese with traces of an accent he couldn't quite identify. "It's amazing what the American military is willing to sell if you give them enough gold. Getting it back to Heian-Kyo was a bitch though."
"You know, I don't remember exactly how you got that thing back." he said, remembering the "lawn ornament" and how he'd hired dozens of movers to bring it to his property only to have them send it back again less than a week later.
"I spent nearly a quarter of that thing's value in lessons from someone who actually had a chance at beating you." Abe no Seimei replied, smirking slightly.
"Really? Who?" he asked, excited at the prospect of finding a real challenge.
"Honinbo Shindo of course." Abe no Seimei replied.
"You mean I...?" he started, unable to quite figure out how to finish the question. The man had done some questionable and admittedly clever things in the past but using him to defeat himself...
"Who said anything about you?" Abe no Seimei said, before laughing and walking off.
He tried to ignore the chill that ran up his spine at that statement.