Rebirth

Chapter 3

Akira sped after Hikaru once he had settled the bill, his expensive leather shoes slapping the pavement loudly. Heads turned and people stared; Akira's behaviour was indeed rather unbecoming of his attire, and it was not everyday that people saw a young man in a suit, running like the devil himself was behind him, his tie flapping all over the place.

Right then, Akira didn't care what the world thought or said of him. All he wanted was to see Ishikawa Sayoku, or perhaps even play a game against him. Only then would he know if he was the one he had striven to beat all these years.

Hikaru, who had a head start over Akira, reached the crowded pachinko stall. No one paid any notice to him, other than the receptionist, who greeted him politely. Hikaru, in his baggy orange shirt, faded jeans and dyed fringe, looked very much in place here. As Hikaru was scanning the rows of machines, Akira burst into the stall, breathless. A couple of people turned from their games to stare at him: ruffled hair, crooked tie and muddy shoes. He didn't really belong here, and he knew it, but he didn't care; all he wanted to do was to find Ishikawa.

Meanwhile, Sayoku and his friends were settling comfortably into their games, with one of them waiting for his turn. Just then, someone vacated a booth and he made a beeline for it. In his haste, he failed to notice Hikaru and bumped into him. As he turned to apologise, he recognised Hikaru and Akira and with ill-concealed shock, yelled,' Shindou-sensei! Touya- sensei!'

All the other insei's ears pricked up and they turned from their games to greet Hikaru and Akira. Sayoku, who was seated at the end of the row, was completely unaware of Hikaru's presence until one of his friends elbowed him. Sayoku reacted by jumping up from his stool and was just about to scold his friend for interrupting his game when he caught sight of Hikaru.

Their eyes met, and time seemed to slow down for the two of them. Sayoku heard his blood pounding in his ears and saw many memories of Hikaru flash by him. Hikaru in the Go club, Hikaru as an insei, Hikaru at the pro exam, Hikaru.

'Hikaru.' he heard his voice call, and the images before him began to fuse together in a maddening swirl, then everything exploded into the blackness that overcame him.

*****

'Ishikawa-kun!'

'Sayoku!'

'Ishikawa-kun! Wake up!'

Sayoku opened his eyes groggily and his gaze met that of Hikaru, Akira and several of his insei friends gathered around him. Wait, he was on the floor. and several other customers at the pachinko stall were staring curiously at him. 'What. what happened?'

'What do you mean, "What happened"? You suddenly fainted and collapsed on the floor!', one of his insei friends, Itsuki, said.

'Oh. I did?' Then he looked up and once again, met the concerned gaze of Hikaru and Akira.

'Are you okay?', asked Hikaru. 'You-'

'Hikaru!!' Sayoku suddenly broke out of his trance-like state, jumped up and enveloped Hikaru in a tight hug. Hikaru was rather taken aback by this rather unexpected gesture. Itsuki and the other inseis were practically gaping at the strange, if not rude, sight before them. Akira simply stood apart from the rest, observing the entire situation quietly, unnoticed by the others.

When Sayoku finally released Hikaru, he noticed that there were tears shining in Hikaru's eyes. All this while, all Hikaru had of Sai were memories; he did not even possess a photograph of his friend, mentor and opponent. Admittedly, after all those long years of Sai's absence, the memories had faded somewhat, but it all came back to him during the brief hug he shared with Sayoku.

'Hika-no, no! Shindou-sensei.'

Wiping away his tears with the back of his hand, Hikaru shook his head as if to clear all the emotion that was clouding his sight, and when he had finally composed himself sufficiently to speak, he said, 'Ishikawa-kun, would you care to play a game with me, now?'

Sayoku turned to his friends as if to seek their approval, and when he saw the supportive glint in their eyes, he made up his mind and replied, 'Hai!'

*****

The game between Hikaru and Sayoku had been going on for some time already. The entire gang of inseis and Akira were crowded around the small table at a Go salon across the street from the pachinko stall. Akira was carefully analysing the game and he agreed that Ishikawa-kun was a formidable opponent, although he wasn't quite as good as Hikaru, yet. However, his moves reeked of Sai's outstanding playing style, or he was greatly influenced by Honinbo Shusaku. Akira reminisced his games with Sai nearly fifteen years ago, and came to the conclusion that Sayoku had the potential to play like Sai. By then, he would become one of the best players in Japan, and perhaps the world as well.

Right then, Akira turned his attention back to the goban. It seemed like Hikaru had the upper hand, and was almost sure of winning the game. Hold on, the cluster of Ishikawa-kun's black seeds near the bottom left corner looked rather harmless, but on closer scrutiny, Akira realised that they were really a dangerous trap.

Akira glanced at Hikaru, who showed no sign of having noticed the trap, but was instead calmly capturing more territory. And, walking steadily towards Ishikawa-kun's trap.

Meanwhile, Sayoku was gleefully watching Shindou-sensei walk towards his 'brilliantly' thought of trap, but in his complacency, he failed to note that Shindou-sensei was in fact making use of Sayoku's trap to turn the tables on him. Akira noticed this, and smiled, relieved that Hikaru was not about to ruin his own reputation by losing in a fair game to a fresh sho- dan.

'I have lost.'

As expected, Hikaru won the game easily, but what Sayoku had won was the respect of Akira, Hikaru and his friends from his insei days. Sure, it was almost taken for granted right from the start that a sho-dan would lose to a jyuu-dan, but Sayoku put up a good fight right to the very end of the game, and that was more than enough.

However, unbeknown to Sayoku, Hikaru and Akira had come to the same conclusion by the end of the game: Ishikawa Sayoku would someday be as great as Sai, the legendary Go wizard who left his mark deeply etched in the online Go world.









A/n: wow. This chapter took me 2 months to write T_T. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and I also would like to apologise for the long wait. I really appreciate your reviews ^^ I never really expected this fic to garner so many supporters =D. Just in case you all are wondering, the next update would take maybe another month or so, since the teachers are practically piling work on us -_-(). In the meantime, I would like to wish all of you a very Happy Lunar New Year and, of course a very very belated New Year. ^^ Ja!