Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.

Warning: Same as always.

flowerkid: Sorry about that, but I think it's already too late to change it. As for the temperature, I don't think it's a big problem because I own a pure breed Husky and I live in a country that is even a lot hotter than Japan. Although I must admit that my dog do prefer to stay in an air-conditioned room most of the time.

Esa Marie: Exactly! Not to mention that it'll also be too gross with all those dog's saliva. That's why Sai and Hikaru need Touya. Because he is smart enough to figure out a way to fix this problem ;-)

Liz: It's creepy how close was your idea to mine.

Chapter IV - Sai Meets Akira

It was already three o' clock in the afternoon when Touya Akira finally got out from the Go institute. He had won his game against Kurata, even though it wasn't an easy one. In fact, he only won by 1.5 moku. But a win was still a win, and now he was one step closer to finally rip the Meijin title from Ogata, hopefully.

Thank God that he could sleep well the night before and as the result, being able to fully concentrate on this morning's match. It seemed what Shindou said was right; the dog wouldn't be that much of a problem for him. So he guessed it would be okay to keep the dog for a while, although he would never admit it to him. And he had to admit that Sibe was a cute little dog. But then again, Siberian Husky had always been his favorite.

He remembered that when he was a child, he always dreamt to own one but his mother always told him that he could only have a pet when he was old enough to take care of it by himself. And by the time he was old enough, he had already found out about his allergy so that he had to, albeit reluctantly, accepted the fact that he could never own a furry pet. But now that the dog was already there and proven to not cause him that much harm, he could at least enjoy the dog's presence while it last, even though just from a distance.

With that thought, Akira let out a sigh. If only he didn't have an allergy, it must be fun to be able to hug and play with the dog the way Shindou did. It really wasn't fair. But then he realized how childish this thought was, and decided to stop thinking about it.

By the time he reached the train station, he had forgotten the thoughts about the dog and returned his mind's focus into Go, especially his last game. And after that his mind wandered into some possible moves that might make him won more territory on that game.

The thought only returned to him when he passed a veterinarian's clinic. Shindou's words about the vaccination entered his mind and Akira paused his steps in front of the clinic. It would surely take time to find the dog's owner and even more if Shindou had to find it a new owner, so he thought it would be wise to just take it.

With a determined step, Akira finally entered the clinic. He just hoped that it wouldn't take too long. He did have a study group that would be start in a half hour from now.

000

Akira arrived back to his apartment at 6.30 pm. He was about to unlock the door when he heard noises from the inside. So Shindou had already returned from looking for the dog's owner but who was his rival talking to? He really hoped that Shindou was simply talking on the phone or to himself and not to a guess, because right now he was too tired to talk with anyone.

He pressed his ears curiously to the door only to hear the 5-dan chuckling merrily behind the door. But he could only hear Shindou's voice, so that meant that there were no one else in there. Shaking his head slowly, Akira had almost unlocked the door when he heard a whiney shout that sounded a lot like "Saaii don't bite my hand!" from his rival.

"Sai?!" whispered Akira.

The Go prodigy unlocked the door as quickly as possible and almost pulled it out of its hinges when he opened it. But there really was no one else in the living room other that Shindou and the dog. He just stood in front of the door with a disappointed look on his face until Shindo greeted him with a wide grin.

"Welcome home!" But his grin turned into a scowl when Touya didn't reply. And he started to bombard Akira with questions. "What is wrong with you?! Could you please close the door and stop standing there with that stupid look? Why? Did you lost the game against Kurata-san?"

"NO!" answered Akira quickly while he closed the door. "I just thought that there's someone else with you but apparently I was wrong."

"And you end up looking that disappointed? But you usually dislike having a guess." Shindou asked with a confused tone. "But you're not completely wrong. Sibe is here with me."

"I mean a person, Shindou. So have you made any effort on finding its owner yet?" Asked Akira to change the topic.

He hesitantly patted Sibe's head before he took his seat on the couch but pulled his hand abruptly when the dog was trying to nuzzle it with its nose. He then seated himself as far as he could from the dog. Even after the vaccination this afternoon, he still felt a bit anxious to stay too close to the dog.

But instead of answering him, Shindou only gave a low mumble and lowered his head. From the guilty look on his rival's face, Akira could figure that he hadn't done anything yet.

"I can't hear your answer. Can you please repeat it?" Said the raven hair guy sarcastically.

"I-I haven't." Stuttered Shindou. But then he lifted his head until the both of them were eye to eye. "Hey Touya, you still remember that I've promised to tell you about Sai one day, right? Do you still want to know it?"

"Of course!" Answered Akira without hesitation. But then he lifted one of his eyebrows. "But even if you tell me, it won't make me change my mind about the dog. It won't work to side-track me with the truth about Sai."

He earned dirty looks from both Shindo and Sibe for that answer and he had to stop himself from smiling at how similar the looks were.

"At least, can you listen to me first before deciding that? I'm sure after you listen to my story, you'll want Sa… I mean Sibe to stay." Said Hikaru convincingly.

"Fine. Now are you going to tell me or not?" Asked Akira without hiding his impatience.

"Okay, okay. You can be such an impatient brat sometimes." After saying that, Shindou took a deep breath and began his tale.

000

The 5-dan had finally finished his story and right now, a rather tense silence took over the room. Shindou only waited patiently while Akira's brain was processing the information overload that it just got. It was hard to believe at first but then everything seemed to make sense. So Sai was a thousand years old ghost who taught Shindou to play Go. No wonder his rival could get very good in so short a time.

"Okay. I believe you. It's weird and I'm sure I'm going crazy but I believe you." He then looked at the dog and then at Shindou. "But I really don't see the connection between knowing the truth about Sai and keeping the dog?"

"Well, Sai is back!" His rival declared loudly. And then added with a conspirative tone, "And now he had a body, a dog's body. Yes Touya, Sibe is Sai. He's not a stray dog; he's actually here to find me. "

Hearing his rival's declaration, Akira could only blink a few times. But then he started to laugh hysterically. And now it was Shindou's turn to blink. The bleached bang pro must have thought that his poor rival had gone mad from getting too much information in the mere span of an hour, so he let Akira laughed for a few minutes. But after seeing that his rival wouldn't stop anytime soon, he started to become worry and tried to stop it.

"Touya? Oi, Touya! Please stop laughing!" He shouted, but he was ignored completely. "Look, I can prove it! I'm going to get the goban from my room now and play with Sai. You can just sit and watch. But you must already stop laughing when I'm back. Can you do that?"

After Shindou left for his room, Akira finally could stop his laughter with much coughing and wheezing. He really didn't know what had gotten him. He had never laughed like that before and it wasn't because he found Shindou's stupid lie to be funny. Perhaps he should take a visit to a psychiatrist in the near future. But then Shindou re-entered the room with the promised goban so that Akira had to stop pondering about his sanity.

His rival quickly knelt on one of the side of the goban. He then grabbed one of the gokes randomly and pushed the other one to the dog who had obediently sat itself on the opposite side.

"Now watch!" He said seriously to Akira, after removing both of the gokes' lids.

Akira decided to humor his roommate and sat himself to watch. Shindou got black, so he moved first. And after his rival placed his stone on the board, Akira turned his attention to the dog, expecting nothing would happen. But to his surprise, the dog then dug in the goke with its snout and came up with one of the white stone in between its teeth. He was utterly shocked when the dog placed its stone on the board.

"It c-can't be." Stuttered Akira, but Shindou only held out his right hand to make him stopped talking and just watched the game. So he nodded and continued to watch this bizarre game between Shindou 5-dan against a dog.

When the game nearly reached yose, they had to stop because most of the goban surface was already covered with dog's saliva and the dog started to have problem to placed the stones without ruining the position of the other stones that surrounded the point where he was going to put his. But it was already more than enough to convince Akira.

Other than Shindou, he knew Sai's Go the best. That was how he could see it in his rival's Go. And white's style in this game was definitely screaming S-A-I in bright capital letters.

"So it's true, you're Sai. Wow, this is awesome." Akira said while starring at the dog in wonder. He then added breathlessly, "Will you play me, Sai-sensei?"

The dog's solemn nod was the answer of his question. Akira was about to thank Sai when Shindou's shout of protest stopped him.

"You call him sensei? Don't you think it's too much? Even I, who's his student, never called him sensei." Protested the brash teen loudly.

"That's because I'm not an ungrateful brat like you!" Shouted Akira as loudly.

"Hmpff! Besides, I'm not going to let you use my goban. I need to wash it and its stones before all of Sai's drool stained them permanently. So use your own goban!" Replied Shindou. And he started to clear all the stones from the goban, ignoring Sai's offended glare.

Akira didn't reply him immediately, but then he said, "You're right. It's too gross and ineffective. I got an idea!" And ran into the spare room.

"Hey, where are you going?" Shouted the baffled Shindou.

Akira didn't bother to answer and busied himself searching among the unused cardboards. When he found one with the medium size, he grabbed it and returned to the living room with it. He then went to his room to get one of his black markers.

"You said that Sai-sensei used to simply tell you the position and you're the one who placed the stone, right?" Asked Akira and without waiting for Shindou's answer, he continued, "I think it better stay that way."

Akira started to draw some large circles on the cardboard surface and counted them. He then wrote numbers from one to nineteen in the first nineteenth circles and words like 'upper-left', 'lower-right', and 'tengen' on the remaining circles. When he finished, he watched his work with a proud smile.

"With this, Sai-sensei will be able to tell us where he wanted the stone to be placed and he doesn't have to placed them by himself. He can simply point with his hand… I mean paw, and one of us can place the stone for him." Akira said while showing the cardboard to Sai.

"That's genius Touya. This way, Sai can even play Internet Go again." Answered Shindou excitedly.

Sai, who was already trying his new toy, lifted his head in expectation when he heard the word 'Internet Go' and he nodded eagerly. And Akira could only smile at the Go master's eagerness while he quickly went to his room to get his own goban.

"Now, shall we try how effective it is?" He said with an expectant look thrown at his rival.

Shindou stared at his still dirty goban for a while but then nodded dejectedly and knelt himself on the opposite side of Akira. "But you'll help me wash them later."

"Sure. Now help us to nigiri." Answered Akira.

000

Sai was feeling ecstatic. He had played many games today and he knew that this was just the beginning. Akira and Hikaru were washing Hikaru's goban and Go stones right now but Akira had promised to let Sai play Internet Go on his computer after dinner. He must admit that the two young pros' skills were improving much since he left but they were still not strong enough to defeat him. Yes, he was very glad to play them, but he couldn't help wondering when he would play Touya Kouyo again.

His musings were disturbed when Hikaru and Akira came around, the first carrying the goban and the other, its gokes. The two of them were talking and predicting about what people's reactions could be when they saw that Sai, the famous Internet player, was back. But when they passed him, Akira turned his attention to him and smiled.

"Dinner will be ready soon Sensei. I'll prepare some food that will be good for your health and your fur. Trust me, I know a lot about Siberian Husky." he said, ignoring Hikaru's snort of disdain.

"This morning, you wouldn't even get near him. Now you're calling him Sensei and promise to cook him dinner? You're such a hypocrite, Touya. You never even cooked for me." Said Hikaru while balancing the goban in his hands.

"You have hands so can make your own food. He can't."

They continued their bickering as they entered Hikaru's room. And Sai only stared at the two young professionals disappearing backs with a mix of exasperation and joy. It was really good to be back and he hoped that he could stay this time. But then he remembered the real purpose of why he was back and made a decision in his heart.

He would do everything to keep Hikaru safe, even if he had to sacrifice this newly found life. After all, that was why he was here, right? He would never be able to forgive himself if anything happened to Hikaru and he was unable to stop it.

TBC

Duh, it's getting longer and longer with each chapter. I hope the quality isn't getting worse though.

Next Chapter: The Dog VS The Ex-Meijin.