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It had been a good life, Touya Kouyou thought as he closed his eyes. He had nothing to regret over what he'd left behind. A child, a legacy, a history of games played to the best of his ability. And what few things might have left him unsatisfied, he realized were not within his power to change.
A name unheard. A face unseen. A challenge he would have loved to face again and again. But it had been clear that was not to be. Whatever reasons the mysterious Sai had to remain anonymous, it was enough that the fellow had gone to such lengths to challenge him to a single game. Without that, they may never have played at all.
"Touya-san!" an unfamiliar voice whispered. It was a man's voice, but with the giddy excitement of youth. It certainly wasn't anyone from his household, or who he expected to be among the close friends gathered around his deathbed. Although he hadn't expected to open his eyes again, it was surprisingly easy to blink himself awake and turn his head. Too easy, in fact. He felt more clear headed and strong than he had in months. Between that, and the bright-eyed stranger sitting in seiza by his bedside, clothed in Heian era court garb, there was only one thing to assume.
"I've died, haven't I?"
"Yes," the stranger answered. "But although your soul moves on, the knowledge of Go that you've accumulated during your lifetime remains here." Clicking a fan shut, the man -- whom some might have called oddly intense, but who gave Kouyou the oddest sense of familiarity -- sighed with his closed eyes turned up to the heavens. "Perhaps it is destiny that we both find ourselves here, now, among the ranks of Go saints enshrined to watch over the game. Once I passed on from my earth-bound years, my only prayers were to see you and Hikaru again. And Hikaru, I am sure, is destined to find his way here just as you were."
Kouyou narrowed his eyes at the man he'd never seen before, but who seemed to know him. He knew this intensity. And he hadn't been a fading old man long enough to forget the boy, Shindou, who was no doubt the Hikaru in question. The one who played so strangely in his first match, as if their were other forces at work. The one who, long before vying with his son in each year's title matches and everything else that was between them, had come to him with an utterly impertinent request: to play a mysterious, desperate someone on the computer. Akira's Hikaru.
Well. If this man had been dead the whole time, that certainly explained a great deal, including why such a vehement player had never tested for a rank among the professionals of Japan. How he had managed to present himself in the world at all was unimportant. To play a Hand of God was a goal worth transcending mortality, and Kouyou would never argue that fact.
"It was you," he said. "You've brought yourself before me at last."
"I regret that the measures I was forced to take in the past caused me to hide my face from you. Since knowing of you, it has been my earnest desire to look you in the eye, and place stones on the board as the game of Go was meant to be played, Touya-san. If you will permit me..." The gentleman rose, and offered a deep bow. "Allow me to present myself. I am Fujiwara no Sai, lately the tutor of Shindou Hikaru, and I would be honored if you would face me across the board once more."
Once more, and probably for the rest of eternity. He couldn't say he objected.
"Very well, Fujiwara-san. Lead the way."