Notes: This chapter was rather interesting to write. I hope you find it as interesting as I did.
The online amateur rank '8dan' should not be confused with the professional rank 8-dan. There is apparently a rule of thumb that new shodan professionals are generally roughly equivalent to the best amateurs, who are 7 amateur dan. (which honestly makes sense, since a pro starts as an amateur before passing the exam against other amateurs) Amateur dan ranks used by associations go from 1-7 while pro dan ranks are just above them and range from 1-9. Online servers like KGS use additional amateur dan ranks beyond 7 and I'm making the assumption that NetGO is the same.
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Chapter 7: 読み Yomi "Reading"
With a long, determined drag on his cigarette, Ogata Seiji paged once again through the online game history, and leaned back in his seat. He'd already analyzed each sgf file carefully and confirmed them to be the handiwork of that same elusive Sai, and not an impersonator.
But it didn't make sense.
Seiji had already tried putting the pieces together several times before, and could only come to one conclusion that could potentially explain everything:
- how Akira could be so overwhelmed and intimidated by Shindou after playing him twice in the salon, especially when the boy himself had said he had never played go before
- why Akira did not hesitate to skip a pro exam match just to play Sai
- Shindou's remarkable performance against Touya-sensei with the self-imposed handicap, that turned out upon closer inspection to be the spitting image of Sai's go when the handicap was factored in
- and of course, that incident in the hospital with Shindou, when he had found him talking to Touya-sensei about setting up the match with Sai, and Shindou's denial of everything and fleeing when he confronted him.
When he took all of the factors into consideration, Shindou could not simply be an ordinary boy who happened to know Sai. How could Sai play for him in the go salon, or on camera in the Yuugen no Ma, with everyone present believing it was Shindou who was the one playing? Seiji had carefully watched and rewatched the video recordings of the match in the Yuugen no Ma for signs of any hidden device Shindou might have used to discretely contact Sai, but there was nothing.
Thus the only explanation Seiji had ever been able to come up with was that Shindou was himself Sai. This of course begged the question as to where Shindou got his ability from, and why Shindou would hide his ability and pretend to be mediocre, and very convincingly at that, although his lies were terrible.
But he did not hide his ability well enough—an analysis of every kifu he could find of Shindou's games, aside from the match against Touya-sensei, revealed that although the part he played in those games was that of a young insei or a new pro, Sai was still hidden in his moves. If he didn't know any better he would have thought that Shindou was Sai's student.
In this way, the theory that Shindou and Sai were somehow different people who were close returned. He had shown the kifu before, without any names, to strong friends of his who did not play NetGo and knew nothing of Sai or Shindou. They had all told him essentially the same thing: Sai was a master with many years of experience and an extensive familiarity with archaic styles of go, especially that of Shuusaku, while Shindou was a young player who knew only modern go, but learned from Sai. No one ever suspected that the two players could be the same person.
From looking at the kifu and nothing else, Shindou and Sai as different people who were close was a perfectly logical conclusion to make. But that still did not explain how this boy could play Sai's moves with his own hand with no apparent assistance—especially during those first games in which he crushed Akira when Shindou apparently knew nothing about go, and he was back to square one again.
That was before the incident.
Seiji had worried that the secret of Sai had gone to the grave with Shindou, but he also had the opportunity to hear his last words, if they were good for anything at all.
"'Sai, why, what. It hurts. Sai, will I wake up? Touya.'" Seiji repeated to himself, like a riddle.
To most people, it might have just sounded like the confused babble of a boy dying of a traumatic brain injury, and maybe it was, but what if he really were, at least in his dying mind, speaking to Sai?
Either way if Shindou honestly believed he were Sai, he would never use his name as if he were addressing him like that, Seiji figured. Shindou had always insisted that he and Sai were different people, and in the moment of death, he appeared to believe it.
That of course raised the question—who, or what, was Sai, then? There was no way Shindou was literally speaking to Sai, was he? Shindou and Seiji were the only people present. So maybe Shindou was speaking more metaphorically, as if to god or to a memory, or maybe he was just hallucinating. In any case, he clearly addressed Sai as if he were a separate entity from himself in his moment of greatest distress, and that made the mystery all the more confusing.
And then, only this week, Sai returned. With the death of Shindou, Seiji didn't think it possible, but here he was on the go server, so maybe they were different people after all.
But of course, the question: how did Sai communicate his moves to Shindou discretely in the middle of a game in person? Telepathy? He smirked at the outrageous suggestion, but in the back of his mind he had honestly always wondered if maybe something supernatural really was going on. Was it impossible?
At that moment, he heard a cellphone buzz. Not his usual cellphone, but the one on its charger stashed with the rest of the electronics on his desk. A lead?
A couple years ago when Sai was still a new presence on the net, Seiji had put up a small webpage about the mystery, asking for anyone with any clues to contact a secondary phone number or email. The site got some traffic mostly from NetGo players before Sai disappeared and interest died down, and occasionally he even received a call or email, but they were all dead ends.
Seiji picked it up. Some guy ranting about how he met a young Shuusaku. Of course, he'd gotten calls before from people claiming to have met someone who played like Sai, but they turned out to have simply met a skilled player who didn't necessarily play like Shuusaku and not known what they were talking about.
Now the man was asking him if he were in the Tokyo area so that they could meet up. Why not? If he was so close by, it shouldn't hurt to check it out. He accepted, and the man gave him an address.
Seiji grumbled as he left his apartment and walked to a bus stop. His license had been suspended indefinitely for the foreseeable future. Hitting Shindou was one of the most expensive mistakes he had ever made, and his car was but one of the many amenities he had to sell to pay for it.
Why did the kid have to suddenly turn around in the middle of the road without warning? Seiji gritted his teeth and glared at the image of Shindou in his mind. If only the stupid brat had simply continued crossing at his pace, he might have missed him, and none of this would have happened.
Why did he turn around in the road so suddenly, anyway? Seiji struggled to recall the scene with any clarity, without success. Maybe if he were a little more sober. Frankly, the only reason why he could remember Shindou's last words in the first place were because he heard him say Sai's name, catching his attention.
He'd probably just forgotten something in whatever building he came from and immediately decided, in the middle of the road, to return. Shindou was an impulsive idiot like that.
After the bus ride, Seiji carefully navigated the streets in search of the address given to him. A couple of abandoned buildings, a ramen house, a seedy-looking bar. Not exactly the most prestigious place in town, he thought.
He found the exact address. A bar? The man specifically indicated to go downstairs. What could possibly be down there? He headed below and entered. A rather sketchy-looking go salon, mostly empty save for a couple of middle aged men playing, a quiet old mustache'd fellow reading a newspaper behind the counter and one other crude-looking stocky guy in the corner, puffing on a cigarette. The man with the cigarette took notice of him and waved. Must be the guy who called. Seiji paid his fee and joined the fellow at the table.
"There you are! You must be the fellow from the webpage." said the the man. "You look a lot classier than I expected, for some reason. You can call me Dake." He crushed the butt of his cigarette in an ash tray and pulled a pack from his pocket. He presented the pack to Seiji. "Want one?"
Seiji cringed at the Casters. "Thank you, but I have my own." He retrieved his own pack of Larks and pulled out a cigarette of his own.
"Suit yourself," said Dake, as he flicked his lighter to light his own cigarette. Then his eyes grew wide. "Wait, I know you! You're the new Juudan! It is an honor to meet you. Ogata-juudan, was it? Congratulations on your title." He reached forward to light Seiji's cigarette.
"Thank you, Dake-san," said Seiji.
Dake-san casually blew a cloud of smoke into the air, pondering. "I didn't know that professionals of your stature even played online go. With your strength, wouldn't it be a waste of your time?"
"I used to occasionally, when I had more time. These days, I just watch whenever Sai comes on. What about you?"
"I don't play online Go either, but my niece does. If I knew anything about computers, though, I might. It was my niece who found your website. It reminded her of that Shuusaku boy I'd told her about, so she showed it to me. Since we're here, by the way, would it trouble you to play a game with me? I would feel greatly honored. A six stone handicap should be enough." He took the black goke and began laying out the stones with his left hand.
"How did you meet the Shuusaku boy?" asked Seiji, playing the first white move, wanting to skip the idle talk and get right to the point.
"Well, there was this little brat who liked to come here and cheat for money, so I was hired by Shuu-san to teach him a lesson. That was a couple years ago."
A cheater? Interesting. "What was the exact timeframe, and what did the kid look like?" asked Seiji.
"It might have been late April or May. He had suspenders and reddish hair, if I recall correctly."
So after the school year began, but before the middle school tournament, and the cheater was not Shindou. Maybe one of his friends? "Was he wearing a Haze school uniform?"
"Hell if I know? I don't keep track of what uniform each middle school has. Do you?"
Seiji furrowed his brow in annoyance at the question. "I happen to have a little off-hand familiarity. That's besides the point, so please continue with your story."
"Right, ok then. Anyway, this wasn't the Shuusaku boy I was going to tell you about, although he was honestly pretty good for a kid so I don't get why he felt the need to cheat."
"I figured. Go on with your story."
"So the cheater arrived and I challenged him to a game for ten thousand yen, and I beat him fair and square. Of course, I mean his definition of fair, as I only used the same tricks he did on other people. So while we were playing this game, this other kid had come to watch, and when I won and the cheater was a few yen short, he borrowed the money from him, paid me, and ran out."
"This other boy, was he the Shuusaku?"
"Yes he was. The boy challenged me to a game for ten thousand yen to return to his friend, and when I asked him how good he was, he said 'I don't know, probably as good as Honinbou Shuusaku.'"
"I can imagine you laughed when he said it."
"Of course I did! So I played him with my left hand and no handicap."
"Do you not usually play with your left hand?"
"I do, but for this one time, when the cheater came in, I played clumsily with my right and acted really drunk. Then when we were well into the game and he was ahead, I turned it around and beat him easily."
Seiji raised an eyebrow. That reminded him of Kuwabara Honinbou's dirty mind tricks. In fact, now that he thought about it, he, like Kuwabara, also looked kind of like a monkey. Maybe they were related. "So you lured the boy into playing with you for ten thousand yen by pretending to be an easy target? Isn't that really tricky even for him?"
"Maybe, but it's not against the rules of go so I'm not worried about it."
Seiji doubted that Dake was being entirely honest about his part in the story, but it didn't really matter. "Whatever, it's besides the point. Tell me more about the Shuusaku kid. How was his game?"
"His playing was incredible! The boy had me cornered at every turn and I was forced to resign early in the game and pay him the ten thousand. None of the go friends I've told believe me, but I study ancient kifu and that game was the style of Shuusaku. Even people who study and emulate the old-fashioned techniques cannot help but incorporate some modern go into their play, but this was exactly Shuusaku. I can't remember the entire game but I can show you bits and pieces if you'd like."
"It's not necessary, I believe you. What was the boy's name?"
"I don't know. I didn't get his name."
Seiji slapped his hand on the table and raised his voice. "You met a kid who played exactly like Honinbou Shuusaku and you didn't GET HIS NAME?"
"Sheesh, with all due respect, quiet down! The boy ran out of there really fast, and I was so shocked that it didn't occur to me to ask. I asked Shuu-san and he never got his name either."
"Fine. What did the boy look like, then?"
"He had bleached hair."
"Can you be a little more specific? There are lots of kids who bleach their hair." It was probably Shindou, but he wanted to be absolutely sure this man knew what he was talking about.
"His hair was long and bleached in the front and short in the back, and he wore a generic button up black school uniform. I'm sorry, he didn't have any other distinctive features. Anyways, don't you bleach your hair?"
"My hair is natural," Seiji grumbled as he swiftly killed the last of Dake's groups. One of his least favorite questions he got often.
"Ah, I see. Foreign, then?"
"I am naturally blond and Japanese," Seiji snarled through gritted teeth. Another frequent question he hated even more than the last. He was seriously getting fed up with this Dake-san. "You should have resigned a long time ago. All of your groups are dead and there is no hope for your victory at this point."
"I suppose you're right. I resign then," said Dake-san, as he cleared up the pieces. "You sure don't go easy on a poor old amateur like me!"
"I've never been good at shidougo. Not much of a teacher I guess. Just be glad you had a chance to play me at all." Seiji put out his cigarette in the ash tray.
"Of course I am! It has been an honor, though clearly I have a lot to learn before I have any chance against a titleholder." He put out his cigarette as well. "Anyway, do you have any other questions?"
"Did you spot any device on him that allowed him to receive moves broadcast from another person?"
"No, and believe me, I was watching him closely for any sign of cheating. His playing was honest, and as far as I could tell, the moves came from his own mind."
Just the same as in the Yuugen no Ma. He lit another cigarette. "Well, it would interest you to learn that I happened to meet a child exactly of your description. His name was Shindou Hikaru and I sponsored him for the the insei program, and he became a pro within a year."
"Oh? Well good for him, though I'm surprised he didn't create a stir in Go Weekly."
"That's because he hid his skill of Shuusaku as insei and shodan, and did not use it until his game against Touya-sensei in the shodan series." Seiji reached into his pocket and fished out a heavily creased page from Go Weekly and showed it to Dake. "At first, his playing here looks exceptionally poor, but if you re-examine the kifu and factor in that he was secretly imposing a 15-20 point handicap on himself, you'll see that his performance was actually quite remarkable, and smacks of a Shuusaku who learned modern joseki. Not many people noticed this."
Dake-san squinted at the kifu for a moment as he analyzed it. "You're right! Amazing that he could do so well against such a huge handicap. I sure would like to play him again."
"Then it would sadden you to learn that he is dead."
Dake stared at him, mouth agape, for a moment. "Dead, you say?"
"He was hit by a car over a week ago and didn't survive," said Seiji flatly. He dragged on his cigarette.
Dake gazed pensively at the empty goban before him. "That's really quite sad," he said. "I wonder who did it."
"It was never reported in media, so nobody knows. Quite a shame, really. I would have liked to have played him myself." He got up and pushed in his seat. "Well, unless you happen to know anything else about Shindou, it's time for me to get going."
"It was an honor meeting you and playing you, Ogata-Juudan!" said Dake, waving him goodbye, "I look forward to the next time!"
There wasn't going to be a next time, Seiji thought to himself as he departed, as he'd found out all he probably could from Dake-san, and none of it was absolutely groundbreaking information either.
Aside from the fact that he referred to himself as having the skill of Shuusaku, Seiji realized on the bus. All other times, Shindou consistently denied being Sai and denied having the skill of Sai. Even in his moment of death, he addressed Sai as if he were a separate entity. So what gives? If he really wasn't Sai, why openly pretend he was Sai once and then never do it again? And if he really was Sai, why admit it at first and then go to great lengths to hide it?
The man said this was in mid-late spring, so it was after Shindou had passed as a middle schooler at the winter tournament and then attended the middle school, but before the summer tournament. Seiji wished that kifu existed of the middle school tournaments, but they were never recorded.
Maybe Shindou had gotten wiser about making claim to his skill over time as he realized it led to trouble? That seemed like a reasonable enough explanation.
Seiji returned to his apartment deep in thought, and by force of habit, sat at his desk, which was currently cluttered mostly with printouts of Sai's games and selections of Shindou's kifu he'd managed to nab from Go Weekly or the institute. A couple books of classic games by Shuusaku lay at the side.
Dake had emphasized that the Shindou he saw played a perfect Shuusaku with no hint of modern go. Seiji had thought he'd already exhausted whatever he could find from analyzing early games by Sai, but maybe it was worth another look. He turned on the computer and reexamined the sgf's from that summer.
Indeed, the chronology showed that Sai used few modern joseki, and few conventional responses to modern moves, and relied more on classical techniques early on in that summer. Over time he began using the modern techniques more often and adopted more conventional responses, all without abandoning his classical ideas, instead adding the modern ideas to his repertoire. It was almost like he was learning modern go during that time.
Dake-san had said that even people who study ancient kifu and utilize the old techniques usually cannot help but have their modern training show through in a match against a modern opponent. But the Shuusaku he encountered used no modern techniques at all!
That was late spring before that same summer, consistent with the idea that Sai was learning modern go and did not know it originally. What kind of a go player only learned classical techniques first, and only started learning modern techniques after mastering the game to the point of being able to consistently beat not only Akira, but the best players on NetGO?
He went to the fridge for a bottle of beer as he pondered this question. Just what was this Sai? An echo from the past? And what did this thing have to do with Shindou?
Returning to his desk, he logged on to NetGO to check if Sai had been online, and indeed, he had played 3 matches today. The last one had ended while he was on the commute home. As was routine, he downloaded the sgf's for later analysis.
As Seiji moved to close out of NetGO, a familiar name in the online list caught his eye: 'hikaru' was online. He smirked to himself. Now he was seeing Shindou everywhere. Hikaru was a common name and so the fact that another person with the same name was online was not surprising.
He had a look at the game this Hikaru was actively playing anyway, just for kicks. This Hikaru, an unconfirmed 8dan in Japan, was battling it out as white against LL, a top amateur from China. The game so far was even, with komi, and both players played solidly. Either one could pass for a professional shodan or even a nidan.
Wait, that insight, a masterful hand from seemingly out of nowhere—it couldn't be. Was that a Sai's style move? He played back the game step by step. It was impossible. How could it…
He looked at the user's game history and found only three games including the current one, all from this past week (in contrast to seventeen this past week by Sai), and went through every game. It was impossible to deny. Each game had Sai in its moves. Each game was the spitting image of Shindou's kifu.
There was no way Shindou could still be alive. He had personally witnessed the unconscious boy flatline on his hospital bed, and both paid for and attended the funeral, and Akira had been invited to participate in the passing of the bones.
Seiji slouched back in his seat, mouth agape, glasses sliding halfway down his nose in a mixture of shock and a little horror. Another white stone appeared in the live game. How was it possible!? It could not be anyone other than Shindou, playing NetGO, right this very moment, from beyond the grave!
