Ever since his disappearance, Sai had appeared to Hikaru only once, in a dream. The memory of that night, remembering his old friend's ambiguous smile, still brought a fresh tear to Hikaru's eye—a tear quickly wiped away, of course. However, that night, it happened again. This time, Sai was in front of a Goban, and oddly thick one with an inverted pyramid carved in it's bottom. It was not at all similar to the one Shindou had in his room, and it wasn't like the ones used by the Nihon-Kiin. Despite the unusual Goban, the position on it was quite familiar. Not questioning the surrealism of the situation, Hikaru kneeled down in front of the Goban across from his old teacher, and bowed. Sai did the same, keeping the same palpable silence as in his last vision. Hikaru felt like shouting out loud and explaining to Sai just how much he'd grown since he'd disappeared. Instead, Hikaru simply took a black stone and placed it in the key point. Sai beamed happily at Hikaru, and took a stone from his own bowl, laying it in the next spot of the prefabricated solution. With confidence, Shindou continued playing out the solution with his old friend, until it finally reached it's conclusion and it became evident that Shindou had indeed cleared it. Bowing in defeat, Sai cleared the board of the stones, while Hikaru watched him wistfully.

            "Sai… I've grown so much since you left."

            The raven-haired man looked up, his delicate features displaying a sad, meaningful smile. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he nodded.

            "I play Touya almost every day now—and I've played his father too, now that he's in retirement." He could feel the familiar sensation of helpless tears begin to form in the corners of his eyes, but he fought them back, in silent refusal to show any weakness to his former mentor. Instead, he forced his voice to rise in pitch and intensity to hide it's dangerous wavering, until he was almost yelling his words. "I told Touya-kun about you, Sai. He had to know—he deserved to know."

            The same smile, never changing, was the only answer afforded.

            "Sai!" Hikaru shouted at the top of his lungs. "Say something! Do something! Give me some sort of clue that you can hear me, that you can understand!" Tears were now beyond hiding, falling in streams down his cheeks. "Say something! Tell me not to get ahead of myself, that I'm still learning! Beg me to let you play! Anything!"

            A look almost of pity marred Sai's features, but his smile did not falter.

            Hikaru could feel the emotions in him rising to a crescendo.   Reminiscence and joy began to be replaced by anger, resentment towards Sai's stubbornness. "Why did you disappear? Why did you leave me when I needed you the most?" He voiced the question he'd been asking himself ever since his friend's disappearance. He did not expect an answer, nor did he get one. He could feel the familiar heat come in his face, the heat of annoyance and anger. "You said you wanted to achieve the Hand of God! Why did you give up on that? Why did you give up on me!?"

            "Sai… I need you. Come back…" But Hikaru had crossed the line, passed into waters not meant to be crossed. His tears began to cloud his vision, and the visage in front of him blurred, becoming a swirl of color, that faded into nothingness.

            A single tear rolled down Hikaru's cheek from his closed eye, and fell to his pillow, leaving a small, dark mark.

            With a discontented sigh, Midou slammed his books into his backpack roughly, slung it across his shoulder, and marched out of the room as the bell signaling the end of the day rang. The first day of school had been as boring as ever. This was to be expected, of course. Nothing seemed to interest him as of late. Not even baseball, his old hobby, captivated him as much as it used to. He felt that he had become the master of the lucky win, which brought along with it a certain reputation for unreliability which did little to soothe his falling ego. 

            "Ano! Midou-kun!" A familiar voice called out across the schoolyard. His head shot up, hoping one of his friends was looking for him. When he caught the eye of the strange boy in the park yesterday, he bowed his head again and pretended not to hear him. This did not seem to deter the golden-banged boy at all. "Midou!" He insisted, running up behind him, putting a hand on his shoulder, and spinning him around. "Hey! I was calling you from all the way back there!"

            "Oh, really?" Midou said, eyes lowered. "I didn't hear you, sorry."

            The boy beamed. "Don't worry about it. It is noisy around here."

            "I'm sorry, I think I forgot your name."

            "Shindou. Shindou, Hikaru."    

            "Ah, well then, Shindou-kun, it's been nice seeing you again. Sayonara." He turned on his heel to leave, but the hand on his shoulder did not cease, and made him lose his balance. He turned on Shindou angrily. "What? What do you want now?"

            Hikaru's expression had turned serious. His eyes were intense and the childish smile was gone, replaced with a look of determination. "I want to see your strength."

            Midou rolled his eyes. "Oh, not that again. Go take a kid's class or something."

            "I'm a 3-dan pro."

            "You're a 30-kyu piece of crap. Now let me go."

            Hikaru's stare was boring straight into Midou's eyes. "Play me. One game."

            "No."

            "I'll take you to Touya Akira if you win."

            Midou's eyes gleamed, and he stopped dead in his tracks. After a few seconds, he snorted derisively. "No way. You don't know him."

            "Like hell I don't. He's my rival."

            "How about this. If I play you, you leave me alone!"

            "What if I win?"

            "You still leave me alone."

            Hikaru sighed in despair. The kid's stubbornness reminded him of Mitani-kun. Still, Hikaru prided himself on being more stubborn than anyone else he knew, and if it was a battle of wills, he always won. "Alright, then." Hikaru said, not at all intending to keep his word.

            Midou snorted. "Follow me." Continuing through the schoolyard and onto the crowded Tokyo street, he began to walk down a narrow alleyway in between a deep row of buildings.

Shindou held a pace three steps behind the boy, following him through the crowded streets of Tokyo, until they finally arrived at a small, two-story corner bakery, the kind that had housing on the upper floor. The cloth roof proudly bore the kana "Ashitaka."

Midou walked in, and held the door open for Shindou as he walked in. He took two buns in his hand from one of the many stocked shelves containing bread and pastries, threw one to Hikaru and proceeded to feast on his.

"Okaasan!" He called across the storefront and into the back kitchen where the baked goods were being produced. "I've got this kid here, we're going upstairs to play a quick game of Go!"

            A woman's head popped between the curtained partition that separated the store from the kitchen. A kindly smile lit her face at the sight of Hikaru, and she adjusted the cloth wrapped around her head. "New friends on your first day?" She beamed wider, not seeing Midou's angry scowl at her comment. "Hello, Midou's friend. Have fun. Are you good at Go?"

            Hikaru bowed politely, nodded, and waited for Midou's mother to return to the kitchen before taking a bite out of his loaf, which was surprisingly delicious. Midou dropped his backpack behind the counter of the store, and ran up a set of stairs in the back wall. "Up here!" He called behind him.

            Hikaru carefully made his way up the old, creaky stairs, and couldn't help but get the impression that the facilities were in dire need of repair. He followed Midou's retreating back into a small room at the end of the hallway. The small, crowded space was filled with posters of famous Japanese and American baseball players, none of which Shindou recognized. A small green futon lay over at the back of the room. "Can we play Go here?" Hikaru asked, wondering what the point of going upstairs had been.

            "Of course. I've got a Goban in my closet." Hikaru could see socks and other undergarments flying out the open closet doors as Midou dug through its contents. He finally brought out a dusty old Goban, which had obviously not been put to use in recent days. However, seeing it caused Hikaru to stagger backwards, a hand in front of his chest as if to ward off evil spirits. "That Goban!"

            Midou, on his knees, looked up from the Goban he was carrying in his arms with puzzled eyes. "Yes, this Goban. Is there something wrong with it, mister 3-dan pro?"

            It was unmistakable—the unidentified Goban Hikaru had seen in his dream was before him right now. The odd thickness, the inverted pyramid, it was all exactly how he had seen it. He shook his head slowly. "No… there's nothing wrong with it, Midou-kun."

            He glared suspiciously. "Whatever. Let's just get this game over with." He breathed discontentedly and handed Hikaru the bowl of white stones. He gave a short, curt bow, just low enough so as to not be rude. Hikaru did likewise. Taking the lid off of his bowl, and placing it in front, he waited patiently for the first move. After playing dozens of professional games, Hikaru was not used to the speed with which Midou-kun triumphantly laid his first stone.

            Right on Tengen.

            Hikaru gasped, his eyes narrowing. It had been a long time since he'd seen such a strange, and yet fashionably interesting move. This child was either very confident, or very stupid.

 Midou smirked from across the Goban. "That's called a stone," he taunted. "You play them on the intersections of these pretty lines."

            Hikaru ignored the rudeness, and instead proceeded to play Sai's favorite opening hand, the upper-right komoku. Midou responded with the lower left. After all four corners had been secured, Hikaru quickly surveyed the board. Midou had a senrensei position, and although it was accidental, it was not a bad opening at all. Hikaru knew that, against such a strong opponent, he could not let himself fall behind in influence. He opted for his own senrensei position, with a stone one space above the side hoshi.

After a few seconds, Midou lifted up his hand, a stone firmly squeezed between his fingers, and placed his piece confidently in a pincer movement on his first stone. Hikaru could hardly contain his surprise at the unusual moves being played. An invasion this early in the game was unheard of in the professional league. Hikaru decided that an urgent point in his opponent's incredibly loose shape had to be taken advantage of, and played on the lower side hoshi. Midou grinned, thinking Hikaru had missed the pincer that had been started. He eagerly completed the maneuver by performing a knight's move on the other side of his corner stone, and Hikaru confidently placed a stone diagonally towards the center. His earlier respect for Midou's quick solution to the Tsumego problem had quickly begun to dissolve, and was soon replaced by a ominous dread that the whole incident had been pure luck. His technique was horrible and amazingly over-concentrated. He had begun to build a wall right off the bat, and as it stood, had a line of ten stones stretching across the top side, despite it only being the twenty fifth turn. As the game progressed, Hikaru could see that, in fact, Midou-kun really had no idea what he was doing. His clumsy play, and his poor knowledge of joseki, swiftly lost him the game. It was not necessary to bother with the counting of the territory.

Midou bowed his head, and softly said "Makemashita." Hikaru closed his eyes, inhaled, exhaled. What a disappointment. He had really expected a little more of a fight. "I guess I was wrong about you." Hikaru said.

"I guess I could say the same thing." Midou replied, an edge of awe and humility having crept into his voice. "You are strong."

"I'm sorry, but… that Tsumego from the other day. It was hard. I don't know how you solved it at this level."

"I continue to maintain the fact that it was incredibly easy."

"It wasn't. It had Touya Akira stumped." Shindou insisted. He brought a rolled up paper from his pocket and put it on top of the Goban, letting it rest above the stones that were still on it, still fighting out their intense battles amongst each other, yielding an unchanging testimony.

"What is this?" Midou picked up the paper, leafed through it.

"It's the Weekly Go from two years ago. When I passed the Pro Exam. The results are on page eighteen. I thought you might like to see it."

Midou eagerly flipped to that page, and his face froze when he saw the three small pictures in the bottom right corner. "It's—it's you!"

Shindou nodded. "Along with Waya and Ochi, two friends of mine."

"You did pass the Pro Exam!" His eyes filled with wonder.

Hikaru wordlessly pressed down on the floor, helping himself up to his feet. He bowed shallowly. "Thank you for the game." With that, he spun on his foot and headed towards the door.

"Wait!" Midou shouted, his hand stretched out after him, a pleading look in his eyes. "Could you… I don't know, maybe… teach me sometime?" He cracked a half-smile.

Hikaru was about to politely decline, but stopped suddenly, the words caught in his throat. In the young boy's eyes, in his expression, in his posture, he could see an intense creativity, a refreshing new outlook. He could see burning ambition and unbridled joy. And, just for a moment, Hikaru thought he could see the mirror image of himself, reflected in those eager eyes.

The Goban in his dream… the one Sai had shown him. Did it mean something?

 He smiled gently. "I think I will. Midou-kun." He continued through the door, and left.

As soon as Hikaru had left, Midou looked down at the finished game on the Goban. Now, why had he gone and done that? It would be a waste of time for both of them. He could never learn Go. He couldn't even pass Chemistry. He sighed, rolling his eyes, as he cleared his Goban of the stones on it, placing them in their respective bowls. He might as well give Go a chance, he thought as he fastened the lids. He didn't seem to be good at anything else.

The first week of school hadn't gone out the way it had come in. The warm, gentle breeze had been replaced by a biting cold draft that pushed the needles of rain right into Hikaru's face as he made the long journey to Midou's bakery. The small umbrella he'd brought proved to be no match for nature's fierce onslaught. All of Hikaru's strength was centered into making sure the fragile green umbrella didn't blow him away. He was offered a reprieve from nature's onslaught at the sight of Midou's bakery looming in front of him a few minutes later. He quickened his pace to a fast jog, and bolted inside the building, glad to be free of the rain.

"Konnichiwa!" He called out as he closed his umbrella, and tied it up. The curtained partition once again opened, and Midou's mother's head popped out, beaming. "Ah, hello, Hikaru-kun."

Hikaru bowed to the appropriate depth. "May I ask where Midou-kun is?"

"I believe he's upstairs in his room. He's been awfully occupied with Go ever since you taught him. It's doing him a world of good."

Hikaru's jaw dropped and he could feel his eyes widening. "He has?"

"Yes, it's true. He's at it right now."

            Quickly bowing once more, Hikaru hopped up the stairs and ran down the hall to his pupil's room, throwing open the door. Inside, Midou's familiar face looked up, furrows of concentration still etched in his forehead. "Hey."

            Hikaru peered at the Goban, once again shocked at its resemblance to the one in his memory. The stones were arranged in the patterns of low-level Tsumego. Hikaru watched attentively as Midou finished placing the last stone that comprised the problem in place, his head turned towards a book he had propped on his knees. A basic tangle of stones yielded an opportunity for black to sacrifice one of his stones to capture a sizeable amount of enemy soldiers. Midou confidently raised a stone, clasped in his fist, and gently propped it on the correct space. He finished the sequence, performing the fully correct solution. As soon as he finished, his head shot up, hoping for praise from his new teacher, still standing. "What do you think?"

            Hikaru smiled slightly, humoring the young boy. "Well, it's correct. But it wasn't very challenging."

            Put off by the unexpected reaction, Midou's shoulders sank in disappointment. Hikaru rolled the soggy backpack he had been carrying off his shoulder, and held it in front of his chest, removing a pile of books from it. "Here. These should present more of a challenge," he said, tossing them across the room into Midou's outstretched arms. Catching them deftly, he laid the slightly moist books on the ground next to him. "Meijin Touya's Study Problems, Graded Tsumego for Beginners… this is good stuff!"

            Shindou nodded. "But it's way below my level. You can have them. I hope it helps."

            Midou had already begun leafing through a book proudly displaying the name "Tsumego for Kyu-level Players" on its spine. Choosing a problem seemingly at random, he placed it on the board, thought for a split second, and once again carried out the full sequence. He looked up once again, fishing for a compliment. "How's that?"

            Hikaru was slightly shocked by the quick solution, but determined not to give in to undeserved praise. "Not bad. Try solving the last chapter of that book before my next visit."

            Midou leafed to the end to see what was in store for him, scanned a few problems, and nodded. "Alright, then. Doesn't look too hard."

            Hikaru dropped his empty backpack. "Alright, Midou-kun. Let's try another game, with a nine-stone handicap and reverse komi. You be black, and we'll review it once we're done."

            "Yes, sensei," Midou said, an edge of humor in his voice as Hikaru got down on his knees in front of him. "Hey," the golden-banged boy said, "If I ever become boring… tell me. I don't want this to become a chore."

            "You're boring me now. Let's play already!"

            He chuckled slightly. This boy did indeed remind Shindou of an earlier him. The passion, the overexcitedness, the unshakeable will to win, were all characteristic of his time in the Haze Jr. High Go team. 'He may not have a thousand-year-old ghost haunting him, like Touya said,' Hikaru thought to himself as he placed his first stone amidst the nine handicaps awarded to his opponent. 'But he's got me. And that may be almost good enough.'

            "So, you see, by grabbing this shape point right here, you allow yourself lots of room to run towards the center. Also, it puts pressure on my group right here, so I won't be in any condition to stop you from connecting. Do you see?" Hikaru looked up from the board into the boy's concentrated face. The game had ended in less than an hour, but Shindou was amazed at the progress Midou had made since their last game.

            His pupil nodded, his eyes still concentrating on the position. "Yes, I get that. But what if I atari this stone here, and then connect?"

            "No good," Hikaru shook his head, somewhat disappointed by the inexperienced suggestion that had just been offered. "I can ignore that atari and cut you off. What I'm left with far outweighs that one stone you just captured, doesn't it?"

            "Ah…" Midou lowered his eyes. "That's right."

            "But don't be discouraged, you're doing great." Shindou said, very truthfully. "It's amazing how much you've grown in just three days."

            The other boy's face lit up happily, evidently exuberant at his compliment. "Really? Thanks, it's a breeze with all those books you gave me. The problems in there are really easy, but they're helping me grow nonetheless!"

            "Yes, you're really good at tsumego, there's no denying that." Shindou frowned. "Your problem doesn't lie there at all. Your weak point is your lack of global view."

            "Global view?"

            "Yes. Go can be likened to an all-out war between two sides. Battles are won and lost over the field. Capturing a few stones doesn't guarantee automatic victory, just as losing a corner doesn't necessarily spell defeat. Your problem is that you concentrate too much on the local fights without keeping an eye on what's happening across the board. It's so easy to trick you into thinking you've won a battle, and that makes make you lose the war."

            "How do I get over that?"

            "Well, for starters, stop treating a game of Go as a series of unrelated tsumego spread out across the board. What you do on one part of the board can and will affect the battles everywhere else. Keep that in mind."

            Midou bowed. "Yes, sensei."

            Shindou bowed back, and stood up, stretching his legs which had been painfully stuck in a Seiza stance for the past hour. "Well, I think that'll be it for today. Try to do chapter 3 of 'Graded Tsumego for Beginners' by tomorrow. Don't spend more than twenty seconds on any question."

            "Tomorrow?"

            "Yeah. I've got a pro game on Saturday, I can't make it then, so I thought I'd come a day earlier than usual." Hikaru winked, stretching one last time. "These lessons will have to get more and more frequent if you want to be serious about this. And it's not like I have anything better to do anyway—I'm just studying Go at home every day, except when I have pro games."

            "Yes. Well, then, thank you for the game, Sensei."

            Hikaru bowed one last time before grabbing his empty backpack off the ground and slinging it over his shoulder. "No problem, just keep up the good work. You're getting better every day! Ja ne, Midou-kun!"

            The young boy continued looking down at the Goban in front of him. His eyes darted suddenly to one of the corners. Had he seen something there a second ago? It had looked like a stain, like water.

            Or tears.

            Or blood.

            His head shot up to look at Shindou. For a second, he could again faintly distinguish an outline. An outline of another figure, tall and in flowing robes. A tall pointed hat lay on top of a head adorned with flowing long hair. Midou's eyes widened, but in a second-it was gone, and the boy wondered whether or not he had actually seen it. Shaking his head, he put it out of his mind for now. 

            Midou stared straight ahead as he heard his teacher's footsteps recede down the narrow staircase. He could hear him shout a farewell to his parents before closing the door behind him, leaving Midou to his thoughts.

            Something Shindou had said had struck him.

'These lessons will have to get more and more frequent if you want to be serious about this.'

Serious? Him? Serious about anything? The thought had never occurred to him. He was used to being close to last on everything. He was failing school, had become the king of the lucky hit in baseball, wasn't exceptionally popular… now that he thought about it, he had never been particularly good at anything.

But now he was attracting the attention of a professional 3-dan Go player. He was being praised regularly, being told that he was making amazing progress. Could it be that, for the first time in his life, Midou Ashitaka was genuinely good at something?

Or was Shindou Hikaru just soft?

            Thankfully, the rain had seceded while Shindou had been giving Midou lessons. Although the streets were still filled with puddles, at least Hikaru was able to put away his umbrella. Memories flooded him as he looked down at the green object.

            "Hikaru, Hikaru! Why have umbrellas not changed in the last 1000 years?" The boy could remember his old teacher's words almost perfectly. Hikaru knew exactly he his mind was drifting towards the topic of Sai. That strange presence he had felt in Midou-kun's house, in proximity of that strange Goban… in that moment before leaving, he had been overwhelmed by his old teacher's presence.  

            But it had, of course, been only a strange memory. Sai was gone, and for the hundredth time since his disappearance, Hikaru forced that part of his life into the back of his mind. It did not do to dwell on the past. Sai was gone and never coming back.

                It was best he get over that, and on with his life.