"There is no comparison," Hikaru insisted. "Ninjas are way better. They can decapitate a pirate before he ever has a chance to draw his gun."

"Oh?" Yeongha smirked. "I seem to recall you skipping Naruto to read One Piece in the last three JUMP magazines you bought."

Hikaru opened his mouth to argue before shutting it without saying a word. "Fine," he muttered. "You win this round."

/

"So this is the famed prodigy that Touya-sensei flew to Korea especially to see." Ogata flicked the ash off the end of his cigarette. "Yoroshiku."

"Ogata-sensei!" Hikaru's head dipped respectfully. Yeongha's remained stubbornly upright.

Ogata cocked his head in acknowledgement. "Enjoyed your stay in Korea?"

"Yes, I did," Hikaru said honestly. "I learned a lot."

"Hn." The cigarette died a swift and messy death on the brick walls of the institution. "It certainly looks that way. You're looking to qualify for both Kisei and Honinbo titles, aren't you?"

"Yes sir." Hikaru nodded.

"Glad I took a chance on you back then," Ogata chuckled. "Good luck, Shindou-kun."

/

"Who was he?" Yeongha asked the moment they were out of earshot. "What was he talking about, taking a chance on you?"

"That's Ogata, Touya Meijin's…ah, well I guess he's not Meijin anymore. He was Touya-sensei's student." Hikaru explained. "He sponsored me when I was trying to become an insei, a long time ago."

"Touya-sshin's student, huh," Yeongha mused, narrowing his eyes. "Don't let him use that against you."

Hikaru snorted. "You think I would?"

"He would," Yeongha said unyieldingly. "He is one of those types of players."

"Relax," Hikaru said reassuringly. "I won't fall for it."

Because this was the final round of matches before the League was decided, his game was in a private room with a table for press and any other person who wanted to watch. His opponent was already sitting at the board when he walked in the room, a serious, marked expression on his face.

"I won't lose to you today, Shindou," Ochi said resolutely. After failing to qualify for the Hokuto Cup, Ochi had thrown himself into his studies, improving his hands, working harder and harder to reach the level he had seen in his contemporaries.

Hikaru took his seat, fan gripped tightly in his hand. "I can't lose to you either," he replied. The victor would be the one to advance to the League; and the title in question was the one most important to him.

They began.

/

Ochi played well. Shindou played well too, but Ochi matched him hand for hand. He had heard from Waya that Shindou now favored attacking over defensive play, but he would attack too, go all out, and force Shindou to defend. The game advanced quickly past the opening hands, Ochi continuing to feel in control of the match.

Two insei came in around ten minutes to watch the match. Ochi ignored them, trading stone for stone going deep into midgame, fighting fiercely for every hand. And then Shindou placed a stone on 11-7. It made him take pause. 'No…no way…'Ochi stared at the board in incredulity, wanting to believe it wasn't as bad as he thought. To his horror, it was even worse.

Shindou had just rendered his main formation useless. In one move, he had lost so much of his territory that continuing on would be like playing a seasoned Pro reversed-komi. It was almost a flashback to the last match they played during the Pro Exams, where Shindou completely turned the game around on a weak hand. But this was even worse; Shindou had dominated the game, turning good hands into great hands.

He had been completely outplayed. Shindou played on a deeper level, steady and relentless. Ochi had been determined to count the difference between them, down to the last moku, but now…

"I surrender," he bit out, furious and humiliated. All this time, he thought he had been improving in leaps and bounds, and Shindou flew over his head once again.

/

"Thank you for the game," Hikaru said, bowing his head as Ochi took off, no doubt to the nearest men's stalls. He finished clearing off the goban and stood up, stretching. He had won. He had advanced into the Honinbo League. It wouldn't be for another few months, but he was one step closer to winning back Sai's title.

Two insei were sitting at the side table, gawking at him. "Excellent play, Shindo-sensei," the boy blurted out. "I've never seen a hand like that."

Well that was a first. "Please," Hikaru laughed sheepishly. "I'm not good enough to be called sensei just yet."

"Yes sir," the girl exclaimed. "Shindou-san."

Hikaru decided against correcting her. "Hey wait, I recognize you," he said. "I played you in the last Young Lion's Tournment." The girl actually blushed. "What's your name?"

"I'm Rui," said the boy excitedly. "This is Oka. We're taking the Pro Exam right now."

It was only a year ago that he was in their shoes, and they were even younger than he had been. Hikaru grinned at the two of them. "Good luck."

"Yes sir!"

/

Yeongha didn't have a match that day, instead electing to watch the Gosei elimination between Ichiryuu and Serizawa in the viewing room.

"I'm impressed," he said as his greeting. "I've seen both of their kifu before, both of them rarely play as well as they are right now."

Hikaru shrugged. "The Room of Profound Darkness has that effect on people."

"You've played for a title before?"

"No, I played Touya-sensei back in the Beginner Dan series."

"Oh? How did it go?"

"Uh…" It was Sai who had played. "I lost."

"Of course you did. I meant did you feel any differently?"

"I don't remember," Hikaru said honestly.

"You are useless," Yeongha said affectionately. "Play a game with me?"

"Sure," Hikaru moved to take the empty chair across the goban.

"No," Yeongha said, standing up abruptly. "Not here."

/

"The public area?" Hikaru glanced at him in confusion. "Why here?"

"I like the atmosphere." Yeongha said.

Hikaru raised his eyebrows in disbelief, but sat down anyway. Yeongha drew black and took ten minutes on the first hand. You want to be serious?Hikaru shrugged, but went with it.

Maybe it was frustration from the matches he had been playing lately against the lower-dans, but he had developed a real appreciation for Yeongha's Go: clean and sharp tactics with only the smallest of margin for errors. They played without timers, each reading so deeply that a counter would have proved distracting.

A shadow fell over them around midgame and stayed until they had played the last hand.

"A half moku again?" Hikaru wailed once all the territories were counted up. "Why is it always that half a moku?"

"You lost when you defended right here," Yeongha said, pointing to the bottom-left corner. "If you had stuck to your initial strategy and attacked right here, you might have done better."

"Might have?"

"I might have had a counter," Yeongha said. "But now I've been denied that opportunity, thanks to you."

"You cannot seriously be that self-centered," Hikaru stood up indignantly, preparing to rage—

"It was a good game."

"Huh—what?" Hikaru asked, caught off guard.

"It was a good game," Yeongha repeated. He was smiling—not a smirking half-smile or a sarcastic wide-smile. It was a real smile involving both corners of the mouth and the crinkling around the eyes.

"Uh…" Hikaru said haltingly, not exactly sure why his pulse was suddenly speeding up. "I…thank you, I guess?"

Yeongha leaned closer. "Loser takes me out for dinner."

Hikaru swallowed. "I was planning to go play at a salon later," he said, voice quivering only slightly.

"Pick me up later then," Yeongha said. He laid his hand on Hikaru's fingers briefly and then he left Hikaru standing there, blinking, wondering what the hell just happened.

/

"Samsung Cup?" Amano nearly bit through the eraser of his pencil. "The press release came out already?"

Kosemura nodded emphatically. Amano scanned the list quickly. Kurata had been invited again. Touya Kouyo was also on the list, which would have been more surprising if he hadn't already been popping up on various other tournament lists in the last few months. Other than that, the only other Japanese player on the list was near the bottom.

"Shindou Hikaru?" Amano exclaimed in surprise. "Shindou-kun was invited to play in the Samsung Cup? And not Touya Akira? But why? His only international tournament was the Hokuto Cup and he lost both his matches there."

"That's what I thought!" Kosemura chimed in. "They said the list isn't finalized just yet, and they'd send out more invitations whenever someone declined to attend, but…"

"How fascinating," Amano said, leaning back in his chair.

"Maybe they didn't ask Touya because they didn't want him to win," Kosemura chirped brightly.

"No…" Amano scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Maybe it's something else…"

/

Touya Akira was in a poor mood.

Shindou had just stormed out after a verbal debate that had been more heated than the game they were arguing over.

"What's your problem?" Shindou had shouted. "My Go changed and now it isn't good enough for you anymore?"

"That's not what I'm saying at all!" He had shouted back. "I'm saying you're so far influenced by someone else that you've lost your own Go entirely!"

Shindou had made a noise in the back of his throat before standing up so fast he nearly threw his chair out from under him. "I'm not fighting with you on this," he had practically yelled out.

"Have it your way!" He had yelled.

"Fine!" Shindou had yelled back before the door slid shut.

It was a testament to how intense their argument was that Kitamura-san chose not to interfere at all, even now, as Touya stared at the goban, fuming.

"I just saw Shindou-kun run out of here like a cat whose tail caught on fire," Ogata said, walking into the salon. "Something happen?"

"Nothing happened," Touya said through clenched teeth. Ogata took one look at the board whistled.

"Not one of your better games," he said. He pointed to the cluster in the center. "What happened here?"

"I didn't see it," he said hoarsely. "If we had finished …"

"Aren't you happy Shindou-kun is improving?"

"Of course I am," Touya all but snapped, struggling to find words. "It's just…this hand isn't him at all. When I brought it up, he got mad and we got into a fight."

Ogata stared at the board. He didn't know Shindou's Go as well as Akira did, but he trusted Akira to be smart enough to judge. If Shindou's Go had changed by so much and yet managed to play evenly with Akira, he could only have enhanced his game. Akira, who had never had a peer competitor he took so much interested in, could not have been happy seeing Shindou Hikaru's Go advance in such a direction.

"Akira, I'm going to do you a favor," Ogata said, clearing off the board and beginning to map out the kifu of a game. Touya watched the patterns of black and white play out, his expression growing wearier by the second. "White is Shindou-kun," Ogata said continuing to place stone. "Black is Ko Yeongha."

Touya started. "Impossible," he immediately protested. "I've seen two of their games before, they didn't play anything like this."

"They played this game earlier today," Ogata said. "I saw it."

What their game was now lacking had appeared in the game Ogata was setting in stone before him. The rhythm, the fluidity, the knowledge of each other's minds which forced each other to think further into the game because you knew the other person knew how to counter where you were going to play.

"Be careful," Ogata chuckled. "Your rival is being stolen away. How will you respond, Akira-kun?"

[/]

t b c

+ After reading the manga again, I realize that my timeline is a little off. So I did some quick restructuring to where I have the order of events down correctly (I hope), but the time in the year when they occur might be a little off. So for those of you who are sticklers for canon…sorry. ^^;;

+ I post in short chapters frequently because I don't have a beta, so the only feedback I get is when you, as the readers, respond. For that reason, I don't want to advance too far in the story for worry that I might get caught up in something so deeply I forget what I'm trying to say. So for everyone who has left a review (especially the ones who just drop in to tell me they enjoy reading), thank you very much. :)

+ EDIT: And many thanks to Anon who kindly corrected my ridiculous 6-stone handicap to a reverse-komi.