Sai sighed sadly. He hadn't finished his game before he had vanished from Hikaru's room and found himself here, wherever here was. The garden was beautiful, but it was completely still. Perhaps he'd finally found himself in the afterlife?

"What was the meaning of it all?" he asked. Why had he been given a second and third chance, if it wasn't for him to make the Divine Move, the Hand of God, the perfect end to the perfect game?

The pool of water that he suddenly found himself sitting in front of glowed briefly before the reflection he'd briefly glimpsed in it changed. It now showed Hikaru's face rather than his own. As he looked at the reflection of the child he'd trained, the child that had played for himself rather than allow him to play for him as Torajiro had mostly done, it changed.

One moment it was Hikaru, the next it was a young man in a military uniform, then a young housewife, then Torajiro, then it became several other people he didn't recognize. The style of clothing the people wore grew progressively older with each new reflection.

Finally, the image in the pool stopped shifting.

He knew this person.

He couldn't help but laugh.

He had ended where he began, Go Instructor to the Emperor.

No...it wasn't that. He'd been given the position that had been robbed from him before his death, and he had done what a good teacher was supposed to do. He had shown his student the true beauty of Go, and had given his student the tools to surpass him.

Perhaps, the next time he faced the Emperor across a Go board, it would be him that was the student. That would be...interesting.