Light of the Sun

Awake

Hikaru gasp as he open his eyes in fright, his green eyes dart around as he takes in his surroundings. Hikaru feels his skin damp in cold sweat and a chill run through his body as he shudders.

Just what on earth?

Hikaru raise and lean on his elbow on his bed and register in his mind the impossible as he stare at the immaterial ghost that sit primly on the floor beside his bed as if Sai, the jerk had not been absent in his life for more than 50 years.

Then Hikaru jerk back in shock as he remembered that he was an old man, remembered being on his death bed at a jaded age of 87 years old, he remembered dying.

So how was he here? Alive and breathing in his childhood home no less with Sai? He had long since come to term with Sai's disappearance. To actually see him again, Hikaru has no idea how to feel.

"Hikaru?" Sai furrows his brow looking at him with expressive eyes in concern.

"Y-Yeah?" Hikaru stuttered a bit and feel a bit taken aback when he heard his higher tone of voice.

Boy, does he sounds so young! He decides not to ponder on the fact that he is not in the afterlife that he expected but somehow ended up living his past. While he did not specifically ask for a second chance being content with his previous life, he also did not want to question the Powers that Be for his current situation. Might as well go with the flow and see where to go from here. He got to meet Sai again after all so it's not like he's complaining.

And seeing that he is not desperate to play GO for himself after a lifetime of experience and transcendence in the Game, he feels he owed it to Sai to let the ghost play this time.

With that thought, Hikaru moves on to more important things like finding out the date. To be honest, considering that Sai is still around, it makes sense that he is in junior high school years.

Man, he is not looking forward to that. But the prospect of seeing his friends again brightens him up a bit.

Back to the matter at hand, he wonders at what point in time he is currently in?

"Hikaruuuuuuuu!" Sai whined loudly.

"Whoa!" Hikaru startled so badly he fell off the bed. He really needs to remember that he has company. He was more than used to Sai's absence now but he should pay attention now that Sai is here.

"Hikaru, you keep staring into space, are you alright?" Sai frets.

"Yeah, I am alright, just thinking," Hikaru assured the ghost as he moves towards his study table and look up the calendar.

Well, thank goodness for that, it was just after the pro exams. To be honest, he did not want to have to experience that all over again.

He is at that point in time at the beginning of his professional career as a GO player.

He received his pass result just three days ago and should receive news about his first dan series match soon.

"Hikaru! There is a call from the Go Association for you," Shindou Masako called out.

Speaking of... what timing.

A moment later...

"Hikaru! That match, please let me play," Sai pressed determinedly.

Hikaru stared at Sai, deadpan.

"Sai, before I answer that, let's make some things clear first, yeah?" Hikaru began patiently.

Sai look uncertain but he nodded.

Hikaru began,

"First, I have no doubt that Touya Akira will be watching that match, and you have played him three times already, twice at his father's salon and once on the netgo, and we were close to being exposed as the netgo player Sai at the time. Touya is not stupid. He recognized your plays and will immediately make the connection. He will no doubt have a lot of questions. If you play this match, we are essentially admitting to Touya that you and I are one and the same.

Secondly, this match will be recorded and released in the news of Go Weekly and other equivalent games and sports magazine. People all over Japan or even the whole world would be able to see this game, and the smart ones who are able to make the connection, no matter how unlikely, will assume that they have found Sai's identity.

Now the crux of the matter is this, your plays and skills will be attributed to my name, Shindou Hikaru and after the match people of the Go World will expect that level of playing from me from now on thus consequently you would have to play the matches that I will have in the future as well. People will have questions that I will not be able to answer when I play using my own hand in future matches after all. (Hikaru carefully did not mention that his own strength is not a problem since he could very well imitate Sai's Go easily. Since he had transcended in the Game, Hikaru has surpassed beyond even Sai's strength but best he keep that to himself)

With me so far?" Hikaru asked.

Sai nodded solemnly. Along his tirade, Sai become more and more subdued as he listed how things are likely to turn out.

"Considering all of this, do you still want to play against the Meijin?" Hikaru asked softly wondering if Sai is selfish enough to sacrifice Hikaru's GO so he could play all the official matches in the future. Not that Hikaru minded of course, he already had half a century experience playing against remarkable players around the world in his previous life, but admits that he can be vindictive too, testing Sai like this.

Sai is silent for a long time in consternation. Hikaru gives him time to mull things over. The match is not until Sunday after all. Today is only Wednesday. There are a few days yet.

In the meantime, Hikaru uses the gap to re-familiarize himself with his parents, friends and the world itself. 50 years is a long time and a lot of things had changed like technological advancement among other things.

On the other hand, Sai has been immersing in deep thoughts. He wants to play many more games against the many remarkable players in the world of Go such as the Meijin, the current Honinbou as well as other title holders.

The divine move.

That is his goal and he figures if he plays these amazing players, he could be closer to attain it. He even returns from the dead as a ghost for that goal.

But Sai also realized with horror that he would essentially sacrifice Hikaru's GO for it even though he was the one who encourage Hikaru to play in the first place.

Torajiro...his previous host, Honinbou Shuusaku had also sacrificed his GO to let Sai play, and these plays made history in the world of Go. Could he really ask Hikaru to do so for his sake?

Hikaru...Sai feels no small amount of guilt for his selfish wishes but he also feels anticipations and thrill at the thought of playing players closer to his level, where he would feel that blood boiling excitement in his veins, to play beautiful and satisfying games that made him love GO so much in the first place.

Sai wants to feel like that again. He believes that once he attained the divine move, he would be able to pass on happily and peacefully and move on to the afterlife. Kami must have let him stay in the living world so he could attain that Hand of God and Hikaru can help him achieve that.

Sai told Hikaru as such, his thoughts and feelings, hoping beyond hope that Hikaru would let him have this, that Sai would teach everything he knows to Hikaru so that when he finally pass on, Hikaru could carry his legacy and the world will know him as the second coming of Honinbou Shuusaku.

Hikaru simply smiled, his eyes a touch wistful as he braced himself to let the world see him and Sai as one individual and deal with the potential outcome.

A legend is coming.