Disclaimer: I don't own Hikaru no Go or Loveless.

"blahblahblah" Character's dialogue

blahblahblah Character's thought

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AN: The story will be told from Soubi's and Hikaru's POV.

Chapter 1: Everybody has painful memories

May 2002, The Japanese Go Association

Soubi looked up from the map that Ritsu had given to him earlier. The said building stood high before him.

He's here?

My new Sacrifice.

My new Master.

Shindou Hikaru.

Flashback started

A week ago,

"Here," Ritsu handed him a small piece of paper.

Soubi, who was lying on the floor, received the paper. He tried to read but barely saw what was written on it. His eyesight wasn't fully recovered yet as he had just regained his consciousness. To tell the truth, he was surprised. This was the first time he had ever fainted from the pain of Ritsu's whip.

He wasn't angry at him though.

He was grateful.

He loved the pain.

It helped him to forget.

It helped him to feel alive.

"This is where you can find your new Sacrifice," Ritsu informed him emotionlessly.

Soubi's head snapped up the moment that word came out of his former instructor, "My what?"

"Your master,"

"But I,"

"You need a master, you know that," Ritsu cut off, a bit irritated that his favorite student tried to look away from an obvious truth. "Seimei thinks of you as a traitor now. Sooner or later he'll start hunting you, then the Seven Moons will pursue you in order to get Seimei. Nagisa won't stop sending her Zero to you either. You alone can't fight against them all, not when Ritsuka ditches you for his real Loveless Fighter."

"Ritsuka didn't..." Soubi opened his mouth to argue but no voice came out. The truth was struck in his throat, suffocating him.

"You need a pair. You need power."

"I…"

"Most importantly, you need orders to continue living."

Soubi closed his eyes, with his head hanging down in defeat. The principal was right.

He needed orders.

Flashback ended

Leaning against a wall, Soubi lit his Seven Stars Menthol cigarette. He decided not to enter the building. He didn't know what kind of place it was. He didn't even know what Go was so he decided to wait outside and observe the boy who was supposed to be his new master from distant.

Shindou Hikaru…

Am I to be with him now?

"Your student is a girl? You're lucky, Shindou." A voice spoke up, interrupting his thoughts. He turned to the direction where the voice came straight away. A cat-looking boy was grumbling, "I have to teach a very very old fat man tomorrow."

Another boy laughed at him, "Haha, good luck then."

With those cheerful green eyes and soft pink lips of his, the second teenager was counted as a beautiful boy. He would be even more beautiful if he didn't wear that strange two-color hairstyle but who was he to criticize other's fashion taste when he himself was a masochist.

So, this is he.

Flashback started

"His name is Shindou Hikaru. Although he's only fifteen, he's got a job already. He's a professional Go player," Ritsu briefed on the boy's profile.

"Go?"

"A board game, a highly intellectual board game like chess. From what I heard, the boy is pretty famous in his world. He's just been promoted to a 2-Dans," he shrugged,when he saw Soubi's questioning eyes, "Whatever it is, he must be clever enough. I'm certain that his intelligence and his insight will work to your advantage during the battle."

"What about his Fighter then? His Fighter hasn't appeared yet, has he? And what will happen when he does?" Soubi stood up and dashed at his ex-guardian. He grabbed the collar of his shirt and demanded in a hiss. "What will happen to me then, huh? Or do you expect me to keep changing Sacrifice?"

"That's the privilege of being the Blank Fighter," a simple reply from the older man.

"It's not a privilege. It's a curse," Soubi releasedhim and turned away. He didn't want him to see the sadness displayed on his face. "A curse of not having the destined pair. I'm sick of it; sick of being thrown away like trash once the one-and-only comes. The first time was painful. The second time was unbearable. If there is a third time, I don't think I can take it." He choked up.

But neither his shaking body nor his sorrow went unnoticed to a vigilant individual like Ritsu Minami, "Then Shindou-kun is exactly what you're looking for," he said while adjusting his glasses.

That statement caught Soubi's interest, "What do you mean?"

Ritsu walked back to his armchair and sat on it, "He doesn't have a Fighter, not anymore."

The young man frowned slightly, "I don't get it."

"His Fighter is dead."

His eyes opened wide in shock, and several seconds passed before he could say anything, "He let his Fighter die? That's horrible…"

But the principal chuckled in response, "Oh, no. It's not like that. He didn't even know he had a Fighter."

"What?"

"Fujiwara Sai is…was his Fighter. He was one of my students," Ritsu gracefully got up from his armchair. He went to a window, gazing at the moon in the night sky. He held his hands behind his back and muttered. "If he were alive, he would have been around your age."

"Fujiwara Sai," The name was unfamiliar to Soubi. "I have never heard of him before."

Ritsu turned around. Leaning on the window, with his arms crossing over his chest, he enlightened his best student of all time, "That's because I made sure that the two of you didn't meet each other. I didn't want him to exert a bad influence on you."

"Bad influence?"

"Sai was a clever boy. He was very perceptive. If the opponent showed any signs of weaknesses, no matter how small it may be, Sai would be able to see it and use it against his opponent."

Soubi knew his former mentor well enough to know that apart from Soubi himself, Ritsu had never complimented anyone. Therefore, Fujiwara Sai must have been very good.

There was a pause, before Ritsu continued, "He would have been a perfect Fighter like you if he hadn't behaved that way."

Soubi snorted at that. It's not that he had ever wanted to be a perfect Fighter in Ritsu's eye.

"Three years ago, I gave Shindou-kun's address to Sai. Do you know what he did when he met his Sacrifice?"

How in the world was he supposed to know? He had no clue so he remained silent and waited for the answer.

"He asked Shindou-kun to befriend with him," His benefactor said in disgust as if he would contract leprosy simply by mentioning it. "They did become friends. Sai was by Shindou-kun's side for two years and a half before he died, yet he told him nothing about our world. He didn't tell him that he was his Fighter and that Shindou-kun was his Sacrifice. I followed them once. I saw him dragging Shindou-kun here and there. 'Oh, it's a new Go Salon. Let's go inside, Hikaru.' 'Your ice-cream looks yummy, let me have a bite.' he said. Sai was always a demanding child. However, I didn't imagine he would've dared to go so far to the point of making his Sacrifice follow his own whim."

Stunned, Soubi was lost for words. People had condemned him for violating the Fighter's taboo by having two Sacrifices – he wondered what they would take to this outrageous behavior.

"A Sacrifice and a Fighter are not meant to be friends. A Fighter must protect his Sacrifice with his life. A Fighter must fight and win at all costs. In order to do that, a Fighter must learn how to endure the pain and overcome it. The protector and the one who is protected; a Sacrifice and his Fighter are not equal. I'm not saying that a Sacrifice should treat his Fighter like he treats a dog the way Seimei treated you but a Sacrifice and his Fighter are not friends in any circumstances," Ritsu, whose team was known as one of the best, lectured.

Soubi had heard this speech countless of times since he was five. It was then that he had become Ritsu's protégée and started his training. Apart from the offense towards Seimei, he, too, agreed with the man.

"That's why Seimei hates him so much. He said that Sai was the disgrace of all Fighters. That's why he had Nisei kill him," said Ritsu.

Flashback ended

"A Fighter is merely a Sacrifice's tool. A Fighter needs neither will nor thoughts. A Fighter's sole duty is to obey his master. A dog must follow his master's orders without any question or hesitation. A Fighter must do whatever it takes to fulfill his master's utter satisfaction." Seimei had once told him.

It was no wonder why Seimei erased Fujiwara Sai from the world. To Seimei, his action was against everything he believed in; his being dirtied the world.

This was Aoyagi Seimei they had been talking about. He was the man who considered Soubi to be a faultytool just because he talked without his permission.

Now, standing less than twenty meters away was Sai's Sacrifice, the master of the tarnished Fighter: Shindou Hikaru.

Maybe I shouldn't do this. It's too soon. My wound is still fresh.

"You know that you can't quit being a Fighter," the head master differed when he had mentioned of his retirement. "You don't have a will to live on, unless someone orders you to."

"Excuse me, are you Shindou Hikaru?" he asked the boy with a cold fake smile.

It was quite frustrating but he couldn't find a fault in the head master's logic. He did need a master.

Agatsuma Soubi needed Shindou Hikaru.

"Look at the bright side, Sai died already, no one will ever take him away from you," that was what Ritsu had said to cheer him up before he left his office.

Hikaru had first met Fujiwara Sai three years ago when he was twelve years old. He had been sitting on a climbing stand in a playground around his neighborhood. Then Sai had climbed up the stand and sat next to him, saying that he wanted to get to know him and be his friend.

"So, what do you say? Do you want to be my friend?" Sai had asked him.

"Of course! Why not?" the twelve years old Hikaru had grinned back, "The more friends, the better!"

And so, they had talked, and talked and talked. Sai had kept asking him about his life. How old was he? Did he live around here? Which school did he attend to? Did he have any siblings? Wasn't it lonely to be a single child?

Hikaru, who hadn't suspected anything, had answered all of his questions without restraint.

Come to think of it, he had just realized how careless he had been. Why in the world would a twenty-year-old male want to chum up with a kid like him? What if he was one of those disgusting men who raped children for their pleasure? What if he was a slave trader?

Lucky for him, Sai was none of those – not even close.

To him, Sai was a very complex person. There were times when Sai spent a whole evening philosophizing on fate, on how magical it was for two people to meet in the world with a population of trillions, and on how wrong it was for a person to govern others. Hikaru, who was only twelve back then, hadn't understood what Sai was talking about but he had thought it was cool anyway.

However, there were times when Sai acted as if he was a five year-old boy. He remembered taking Sai to a game center for the first time. Sai had just stood in the middle of the arcade, shocked that such an exciting place really existed in the world. He had watched other kids play games with interest, and fingered a game machine carefully as if it were some sort of a priceless antique. When Hikaru had given him stickers that they had taken at a photo sticker booth together, Sai, with tears welling up in his eyes, received them and swore that he would never lose them – even if it meant that he had to die protecting them. Hikaru had laughed at that, saying that it wasn't a big deal if he lost them; they would simply take a new one in that case. Until today, he still wondered what kind of childhood Sai had gone through. With the exception of Touya Akira, he didn't expect that there was a person beyond fifteen years of age who had never stepped into a game center before.

It was true that Sai embarrassed Hikaru sometimes with his childishness, but he hadn't been able to stop seeing him. He had been attracted to Sai's pure soul already. So, they had become friends. On weekdays, no matter how busy Sai was, he would sneak out from his classes to meet Hikaru at their playground. On weekends, they had gone to department stores, game centers, amusement parks, wherever they wanted to. Mostly it was Sai who asked Hikaru to take him to somewhere fun.

One day, when they hadn't known where to hang out or what to do, Sai had suggested going to his apartment and Hikaru had agreed.

Sai's place was exactly what Hikaru had expected it to be. It was very clean and organized. Although it was full of books and old scrolls, there wasn't a cold or eerie feeling. It had the opposite effect, actually, as those books had given him a surprisingly warm feeling, making him yearn for the past.

Sai had then brought out a small table and laid it in front of him. That table was a Goban.

Hikaru had learnt how to hold a Go stone that day.

At first, Go was nothing more than a 'killing-time' game to Hikaru. He had played it because he had nothing better to do. But it didn't take long for him to actually like the game, since Sai had kept going on and on about how magnificent and how noble the game was.

Before he knew it, Go wasn't just a hobby to him anymore. He wanted to be better; he wanted to be stronger. To achieve that goal, he had to play against other opponents than Sai – the more, the better.

And he knew where to find them.

A year after he met Sai, he had become an insei. A year after that, he had passed the pro exam; he had even gotten the best record.

He wouldn't have seized the first seat if Sai had taken the exam. It was undeniable that Sai was the superior one; he was the one who taught him Go and trained him for the exam after all. If Sai had been a Pro, he would have been legendary since he was incredibly strong. But Sai hadn't applied for the exam, though, saying that he preferred to lead a quiet and peaceful life, rather than become a celebrity.

Hikaru wanted to argue that Sai was a star already. He was well-known, even before Hikaru had joined the insei class. Since the day Sai had started playing internet Go, he had become the talk of the town as news of his unbelievably skills had spread out like wildfire – both online and in the real world.

From that moment on, Sai was not the common man he wished to be; he would always be special. Even his death was not ordinary.

Sai had been murdered.

Five months after Hikaru had passed the pro exam, Sai's corpse had been found in a dark dirty alley. Deep knife wounds and bruises were found all over his body.

Sai had been tortured to death.

The murderer had left him in the alley, next to a garbage bin, like he was trash.

The incident had shocked Hikaru greatly. He had locked himself in his bedroom, refusing to eat or talk to anyone for three days. After he had come out of his room, he hardly spoke. He couldn't sleep, he couldn't eat; he had been living like the dead for the next four months.

If not for Shindou Heihachi, his grandfather, Hikaru would have been engulfed in the darkness of eternal grief. His grandfather, at the age of seventy years old, had suffered from the loss of his friends and family members many times than he would've liked it.

"Your friend is at peace now. If there's something that would make him worry, it's you, Hikaru," Heihachi had told him when he had come to visit him. "You must go on. That's the duty of the living like us. We live for ourselves, and for those who have no chance to live any longer."

He knew his grandpa was right. Sai wouldn't have wanted him to be like this. He had to continue living for the both of them.

It was like he had walked away from the shadows to where the light was shining. And so, Shindou Hikaru was reborn.

He had gone back to the Go world, stronger and more determined than he had ever been. He had participated in the Hokuto Cup Tournament as one of three Japanese representatives. Even if he had lost, it was alright. He would study harder to become greater; like a phoenix coming back to life from the ashes. He would continue walking along this path – the path to the Hand of God.

Today was like to any other day. He came to the Association to play his Oteai game. After the game was over, he had met Waya on his way back. They agreed to go to the subway station together, and Hikaru would then be forced to listen to Waya's whinings along the way there. Once they reach the station, Waya would travel to the outside of the city, to Morishita-Sensei's house, while he would head downtown to Touya's Go Salon.

It was just another normal day. Hikaru liked it. Like Sai, he thought that simplicity was the best and he preferred his life to remain that way.

"Excuse me, are you Shindou Hikaru?" asked a man with long strawberry blond hair with a smile.

Words: 3046

Special Thanks: my dear beta, sany

AN: Please review, every review keeps me writing :)