"Ah, Akira-kun. It's good to see you again," Ogata said lazily as he approached the boy. Akira returned slowly to reality, having been deep inside his own thoughts.

"Ogata-san," he replied politely. "How was your match with Ichiryu-Meijin?"

"It isn't quite over yet. The man's no pushover." The man lit a cigarette in a fluid motion. "He didn't become the Meijin by some fluke."

The second round of the Honinbou title was becoming absolutely ruthless. Touya himself had already been eliminated and Shindo was barely in the running. He could only afford one more loss, and even then…

'It's a long way off before the next round. And the title match is still a year away…'

"But at any rate, I needed to speak to you, Akira-kun." Touya pulled his attention back to his old friend. "The Hokuto Cup…have you heard anything new about it recently?"

Touya shook his head. "It's a few weeks away still. The Go Association contacted me and Shindo, and I assume Yashiro-san, about it last month. The qualifying tournament is only be for challengers for our seats this year, but we shouldn't know the results before the end of the month."

"Well, it's been decided that I will be the team manager for this year. And since the Hokuto Cup has grown in popularity since last year, the qualifying tournament is a bit more involved. The preliminary round both here and in Kansai has just ended, and you three will have to play in the final round two weeks from now. Don't take it lightly and lose, though," Ogata smirked. "It's your last chance to earn a victory for Japan, after all…"

"We did manage to defeat Korea last year," Touya reasoned, a defensiveness creeping into his tone that he did not like; his Go had always been strong enough to defend itself. "The Chinese were just too enthusiastic."

"It doesn't mean all that much without having beaten Ko Yongha."

Touya flinched. His was the only loss in that round and somehow no one seemed to be able to let him forget it, least of all Ogata.

'Though Shindo seemed satisfied that even I couldn't defeat his "nemesis"…'

"He'd gotten much stronger since the first Cup. And besides, he's too old to compete this time." Akira couldn't suppress a sigh. Maybe Yongha would come watch the tournament and Touya could seek a rematch.

"We'd best take advantage of that and terrorize this tournament." Touya couldn't tell if the 10-dan was joking.

The weather was nicer than it had been in days. A passing storm had ended overnight and the morning sky was clear. The sun warmed the spring air, cut by a slight breeze.

"Are you sure you wouldn't like to learn?" Setsuko asked the boy with his own voice. His emphatic refusal bothered her. He seemed to enjoy the music now that he was used to her controlling his body, but every time she offered to teach him…

'I'm positive. More than positive. Quit asking. And quit talking to me in public. People must think I'm insane.'

"No one's paying attention to us," Setsuko frowned, continuing to tune the biwa. The instrument seemed to purr as she tightened the strings, anticipating the song she was about to play. "And you know, I am taking up your time and energy and I would like to compensate you somehow. It isn't fair for me to exhaust you all the time without any benefit," she murmured.

'Setsuko, please don't worry about that kind of thing. It's annoying.'

"Why are you mad?"

'I'm not mad, I just don't want you waste your time thinking about that stuff.'

"All I have is time."

Hikaru didn't answer, but she felt a deep hurt building from his heart. An old wound. A wound that had never properly healed.

"Hikaru?"

'Just be happy, okay? So long as you're happy…'

'Sai,' Setsuko realized somberly, 'He must have thought he had time as well. This cannot continue forever. I just hope…hm? What was…' Her hands stopped as she tried again to grasp what was right outside of her memory.

'Setsuko?' Hikaru prompted after a moment of silence and stillness. She shook the haze from their shared head and smiled, fingers sliding over the glossy wood of the biwa.

"Shall I sing?" she asked merrily, knowing that he would pretend to oppose out of habit, but enjoy hearing his voice wielded as it was by the talented priestess.

'By all means,' he said instead. The softness and lack of sarcasm surprised the spirit, but she cradled the biwa for a moment and smiled.

"This song was taught to me when I was very small and still living in the capital," she said quietly. She began plucking a slow lullaby a bit sweet for her taste, but it fit the mood well. She felt Hikaru relax and slip into the spirit of the song.

'All songs have it,' she thought as she began to sing. 'The deep spirit; a life that never dies. Each time a song is played, two points in time are connected in the endless web. A song heard now was heard in another millennium by other people, all breathing this air.' Her fingers pulled plaintive cries from the biwa. 'Are you listening, Hikaru? This is the song you heard my heart sing.' She breathed in deeply. The feeling shouldn't have been so strange. 'Can you hear me, God? Is this what I'm meant to be doing?'

Setsuko sang. The feeling of her biwa pressed against her body—

'No, this is Hikaru's body,' she thought as she strummed. None of the things she felt—the vibration of the biwa, the sunlight on her face, the fabric rubbing her skin, the warmth of the late spring breeze—were actually things she felt. 'Hikaru feels all of these things. And I am just borrowing the sensation.'

'Setsuko?' her host called. His voice was muggy and strained. 'Setsuko, I'm feeling…tired. Can you find your way back to the apartment?'

Of course. What is…? She stopped as his awareness faded. He had fallen asleep in her usual corner of his mind. Setsuko was dumbfounded. 'Is that even…well, it's obviously possible, but…'

Her worry made her stand and immediately start heading back the way Hikaru had come. She felt her way back to his apartment through use of familiar landmarks and only thought she was lost once. The strange faces and general raucousness of the city was disorienting enough without trying to propel her unfamiliar body. Such extensive control left her exhausted, sprawled out on the floor just inside the doorway.

Once safely home, however, her concern returned to her host. He hadn't been feeling especially well of late and this collapse was unprecedented in her time with Hikaru. It was unnerving, to be completely alone for the first time since she had latched on to her host. In one thousand years, he was the only person she had actually been able to talk to. And that, at least, earned a bit of loyalty. She stood clumsily and inspected the body to the best of her ability.

'His temperature's a bit high. Face is a bit paler than usual. A cold, perhaps?' Unfamiliar lips frowned as she watched Hikaru's face in the mirror. 'Was it because of the lullaby…? Surely not. I've sung lullabies before and he was fine…' She looked down at Hikaru's hands. They were larger and tougher than hers had been, but the biwa had left welts on the pads of his fingers on his left hand. She touched the fingers to her lips.

"It is such a rare opportunity…perhaps I should take advantage of this time?" she mused aloud.

Using Hikaru's body, Setsuko indulged herself in the small human comforts she had missed in the past millennium. She ate a delicious meal of leftovers that had been a gift from Hikaru's mother, took a long bath, danced around the cramped apartment, and smelled every pleasant thing she could find. Soaps, flowers, foods, clean laundry, the few books Hikaru kept besides his kifu and manga. She allowed herself to indulge, drinking a fair amount of Hikaru's modest collection of liquor, dancing again in the ceremonial forms she had practiced in her days in Ise. She ran her fingers over the soft blankets on his bed, splashed water in the sink, even plunged her hands into the goke, soaking up the familiarity that the body felt from it. Muscle memory prompted her to take one stone and place it on the goban, the sharp =pachi= slightly stirring her host's consciousness.

What a sobering moment that was. She stood and teetered back to the bathroom, surprising herself by what she saw in the mirror. Setsuko knew that she wouldn't see her face reflected there, but it was a small shock nonetheless to watch Hikaru's body moving as she commanded it. Bottle green eyes blinked back at her. The blond bangs that partially obscured her vision shone brightly. Her neck felt cold.

'Is it truly okay to stay like this?' the spirit wondered. She wanted to sit and brush her hair, but she didn't have her long curtain of black anymore. She didn't have her jade hairbrush or her handcrafted mirror, her junihitoe or her palace or her rituals…

'Am I still Tachibana-no-Setsuko?' she thought miserably as she stared into the green eyes of a boy she barely knew in a bathroom mirror in twenty-first century Tokyo. 'Absolutely nothing is the same. Can I still call myself a Saio of Ise like this?'

"No…" she whispered. "One thing is still the same." She pulled the bachi from Hikaru's pocket.

'Hikaru's been avoiding me for days; why should he speak to me now?' Touya wondered, standing outside Hikaru's apartment. He was startled to hear Hikaru's voice coming from inside. It wasn't loud, but it seemed to carry right to him.

'Who is he speaking to? No, he's…he's singing?' The realization had his mind going in circles. It was strange, old-fashioned music; some form of old story song with pauses in the phrasing that weren't present in contemporary music. When he listened closely he would hear it: the twang of the biwa.

A strong rejection built inside the young pro as he grew more and more disgusted with the idea of Shindo touching that horrible instrument. It was foul, perverse. Touya almost raised a fist to bang on the door, to silence the wretched music and demand that Hikaru never touch the thing again.

But Akira just stood and listened. He thought his initial aversion to the music had been justified anger towards his rival's macabre obsession, but he gradually accepted his own selfish desire to listen in.

He actually wanted to hear Hikaru play that wretched instrument.

Touya was still abnormally, unnecessarily afraid of the biwa. He couldn't think about it without feeling slightly angry—just another piece he couldn't fit into the puzzle of Shindo Hikaru. But hearing it as hands brushed against it…

The twang of the biwa, Hikaru's voice layered on top…

'I should go…' he thought without any desire to do so. He instead let himself inside, shutting the door behind him. Hikaru's eyes were closed, but they opened slightly as Akira entered the room and sat on the floor a cautious distance from the boy. He just listened, wondering why the singing continued. Why Shindo wasn't shouting at him, demanding that he explain himself, order him to leave.

A husk Shindo had never produced in his voice came out in his singing. Was it really the first time he had heard it? That emotion…

'What's happening?' Touya wondered as he leaned into the sound. Hooded dark eyes held his gaze too long. Something was uncomfortably different about Hikaru, but Touya was far too entranced to leave at this point. He sat there, holding the horrible eye contact and pretending nothing was strange. He wanted to go; he wanted to run. The smirk on Shindo's face that kept reappearing was driving him mad. The song went on and on.

And on.

Akira couldn't move. The words stopped and the gentle strums came less and less frequently, though Hikaru's body still moved to a tempo only he knew.

"What is it, Touya?" Shindo's voice was warm and wet against Touya's ears. The music had left behind some kind of residue that changed the way he heard his friend. Why else would such a familiar voice seem so…alien?

"I just wanted to listen. I didn't want to interrupt," Akira answered in a low voice. Shindo set the biwa aside, placing it delicately against the wall. "I didn't know you had learned to play." Hikaru stretched and stood up, swaying as if drunk.

"I've played for a while," he answered with a cryptic smile. An unrecognizable smile. Something was different. Something was wrong.

"Shindo?" Touya stood slowly. Hikaru's face was pleasantly smiling at him, but something was strange in it. Something was very wrong.

"Touya." He crossed his arms. "I don't suppose you regularly make a habit of barging into people's homes without even bothering to knock."

"Oh, no I didn't intend to…" Touya trailed off as he tried to remember the reason he had gone all the way to Shindo's apartment. He had no idea. "I just wanted to talk, I suppose."

"Oh? I'm afraid I'm not quite able to talk at the moment, but if you wanted to set up a meeting later…?"

Touya blinked. Just what had happened to the Shindo he knew?

'This is bad,' Setsuko thought as she tried to keep her face pleasant. 'Touya Akira…damn it, boy! Why now? Why did you have to appear now?' She was becoming frantic. Hikaru still slumbered, and she didn't know how to wake him.

'It should not be possible for him to be unconscious!' she thought as the silence grew.

"I'm really too tired to contribute much in the way of conversation…" she told Touya, a line that would have passed for an ungracious dismissal in her day. He shrugged it off easily.

'Hikaru never talks this way. Blast it all!'

Hikaru! she shouted at him. There was no reaction. His body began to sweat in her panic. 'What will happen if he doesn't wake?' she wondered, taking a seat on the sofa. Touya sat beside her, face a mix of concern and frustration.

"Well, don't talk then. But listen, okay? I wanted to speak to you about the Hokuto Cup, but first I feel I must…apologize, I suppose, for the way I behaved last time we met." His eyes stared directly into Hikaru's. The boy would have surely been uncomfortable, had he been aware. "I didn't intend to fight with you."

Hikaru, please! Touya wants to speak to you! the ghost begged, hands clenching where they rested on Hikaru's knees. Her panic was rising. She had no idea how Hikaru's body would react if left this way, with its owner unconscious for an extended period. Even when sleeping normally, Hikaru was still had primary control of the body. It might reject her presence, expelling her completely without Hikaru's conscious consent for Setsuko to conduct the body. The priestess had no idea how it might react to a completely alien presence.

"Please don't worry about that kind of thing," Setsuko said, awkwardly trying to remember Hikaru's words to her earlier. "It's…annoying." She felt her cheeks darken as Touya looked almost aghast. Her gaze fell to Hikaru's knees.

'Was it too much?' she wondered nervously. 'I'm just not very good at mimicking Hikaru…'

"Shindo, you are beginning to seriously worry me now. You come pick a fight with me, then you avoid me for days, and now…just what is this?" He made a general gesture regarding Setsuko's demeanor.

She didn't look directly at him as she said, "He…I haven't been avoiding you."

"You've been arriving to your matches later and leaving much earlier than usual."

"I've only had one match since then."

"And you haven't even spoken to Ito-san since that night either."

"She is usually the one to set our appointments, not me," Setsuko returned evenly.

Hikaru, why must I have this fight for you? she shouted at him. He still did not budge.

"And I come here to apologize, and you call it annoying?"

"You entered without permission and started questioning my behavior."

"I'm only concerned! You're being so strange right now!"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"That is what I'm talking about!" Touya jumped up, becoming more expressive than Setsuko had ever seen him. "Why aren't you shouting at me? Tell me to get lost or mind my own business or something normal!"

Hikaru!

"I swear I don't even know who you are right now!"

Hikaru, please… It was becoming too much for the spirit. She felt like she could cry. She just wanted Hikaru to wake up and fix everything and let her sleep. She was so tired…

"It's that awful biwa. Ever since you found that damned thing, you haven't been normal! You just—"

HIKARU!

'DAMMIT, WHAT?'

Setsuko was wrenched back into her customary niche and Touya went off on some tangent as Hikaru, absolutely livid from having just woken up, fought his way back into conscious control.

'Oh thank God,' Setsuko thought wearily, willing herself to stay awake and aware until the situation was properly remedied. After such a traumatic trip to the back of Hikaru's mind, the spirit wondered how she was still sensible.

'Um…Setsuko?' the boy asked as Touya glared at him.

"Shindo, what is wrong with you?" Touya asked in a low voice, finally noting his rival's lack of attention.

"Nothing. I mean, nothing you should be concerned with. Um…"

'Setsuko, what the hell is going on?' he asked as Touya puffed himself into full-steam verbal assault mode.

"The hell I shouldn't be concerned, Shindo! Honestly, that thick skull of yours—"

"Touya, I have to pee," Hikaru interrupted, stomping down the hall and slamming himself into the bathroom.

'Setsuko?'

He only just came by. I was playing and he let himself in the apartment. He heard me sing. Is that…Hikaru?

'He let himself in?'

Is that strange? I thought he might often…?

'It's definitely strange. Especially for someone like Touya.'

'Someone like'…?

'He has really good manners. What else?'

Setsuko explained quickly the situation.

'Annoying? You called him annoying? When have I ever—'

This morning in the park! Really, Hikaru, the ghost pouted. Words are important; never say something unless you mean it completely.

'Uh-huh. And you just told Touya Akira that his concerns are annoying.'

Setsuko paused, unable to find an appropriate comeback.

Well, you said it to me… she glowered.

'Is that all, then?'

I think so.

'Don't go to sleep yet,' Hikaru ordered, feeling the grand depth of her exhaustion. 'Just in case I need you.' He left the bathroom, rejoining his friend in the living room.

"Touya, should we start over then?" Hikaru asked with a sigh. "I'm sorry I said you were annoying."

"I think I meant all of the things I said," Touya replied icily. He seemed to be sulking, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. Hikaru sat on the couch, reclining in some imitation of nonchalance.

"Well, I did mention that I wasn't exactly fit for company today, didn't I?"

'You did say that, right?'

Just about, the priestess answered, fatigue growing past the point that she could ignore it. Hikaru…I really…can't…

'I know. You can rest now. I'm sorry to have made you do so much today.'

No, it was… she thought for a moment. It was fun.

He wasn't wrong. Touya knew he wasn't wrong. Maybe he had barged into Hikaru's apartment, attacked his friend's character out of the blue, even insulted his most recent pastime; but he wasn't wrong.

"You've been like this for months, Shindo. Ever since your grandfather died, you've been different." Though Touya put as much weight and meaning into his words as he was able, he couldn't ignore the relief that surged forth after finally being able to say them. "I can never tell when you're happy or just pretending nothing's wrong. Sometimes you look as if you're about to just run away to someplace I won't be able to find you; as if none of this matters to you anymore." He couldn't look Shindo in the eye.

"What are you talking about?" Hikaru asked after a moment. Touya snapped his gaze back to the other pro, disbelief and anger fading when he saw the gentle expression on his rival's face. "I won't do that again, Touya. Not after…Not after all that's happened. I owe everything to Go, and I owe all of that to you, Touya."

'Wait, what is—' Hikaru was smiling, but he looked almost sad.

Touya lifted his chin. He felt his features stiffen. He wasn't about to back down from the argument simply because Hikaru didn't want to fight.

"Something has changed with you, Shindo. I know that I promised to go to Innoshima with you next week, but if you don't tell me what has happened, I'll call it off." He kept his haughty mask in place as he watched his rival squirm. He watched as Hikaru seriously considered cancelling their plans, and he saw as his friend caved.

"Things have been a lot different since my grandfather died," he admitted, hands fidgeting as he spoke. "There have been a lot of things to come to terms with. Not being able to see him…well, it brought back a lot of stuff and now…" He trailed off as he met Touya's gaze with a willful stare. "I've been so preoccupied with things that've already happened—things I can't change—that I haven't really been thinking about where I'm going. Where…where we're going. What you said really…it made me think about a lot of things."

Touya was taken aback. He rarely saw his rival make such a face, half abashed and half determined. The eye contact Shindo forced almost made him uncomfortable, but there was a comfortable resolve, a fiery determination that allowed him to relax and prompt, "And? Do you have an answer for me, Shindo?"

The bleach-banged boy smiled and stood as if to comfort his rival, but swayed dangerously as he tried to support his own weight and crashed back down to the sofa. His hand clutched at the fabric of his shirt and he seemed desperate for air. His face was red, his features clenched together in some mild degree of pain. Touya was quickly at his side, touching his forehead and cheek.

"You're on fire!" he accused, as if the fever was Hikaru's fault.

"Touya, help me get to bed. I have a…a match in the morning."

"You goddamn fool…"

"Hey, I resent that," Hikaru said. "Fools can't catch colds."

Touya wrapped his arm around Hikaru's waist, hoisting him from the couch. Together, the pair managed to get Hikaru into his bed and under the covers. Hikaru was sweating from the effort it took.

"I'll bring you over some dinner later," Touya said, bringing Hikaru a stack of kifu he had requested. "Get some rest and take some medicine. And I'm still mad at you! Don't think for a second that…" Touya trailed off as he realized that Shindo had already started to snore. "For the love of God…"

Touya sat on the edge of Hikaru's bed, feeling his forehead again. It was blazing hot. He pushed Hikaru's bangs out of his face and wondered if he should get a compress for him.

'There probably aren't any in the house,' he reasoned, running the back of his hand over both of his rival's cheeks. 'This damn idiot has no idea how to take care of himself.'

He sighed and stood, making a mental list of all the things he would need to bring along with the dinner he had promised his friend.

"Shut up, Touya," Hikaru grumbled. He would have been angrier if his bed wasn't so comfortable. His bed…

"Hmm?" the sound of his voice was coming from everywhere. "A…dream?"

"Yes."

Hikaru sat up to see Setsuko sitting in an old-fashioned tatami room, brushing out her long black hair. The room was unfamiliar to him, but he could feel that Setsuko was very comfortable in it.

"My private suite," she explained, indicating the somehow vast chambers that—by dream logic—fit within his bedroom. The paper walls were all decorated with red maple leaf panels. Lanterns with the same motif were scattered across the chambers, all visible as the doors slid open by themselves. He was no longer lying down but sitting beside Setsuko, combing a small section of her hair. "I've been remembering many things."

Her face was clean, something Hikaru rarely saw. Her eyes seemed lighter in comparison. Freer.

"Sorry for having run your body down," she apologized. Her voice was lighter as well. A sincerity he wasn't accustomed to made him smile.

"I haven't been paying enough attention to it anyway. It's as much my fault as it is yours," he soothed. The rhythmic nature of combing his companion's hair helped him to relax. "And there will be plenty of time to rest before the match tomorrow. And after that…"

"…we go to Ise," Setsuko finished. Hikaru watched her face in the mirror as he continued to comb her hair. The motion reminded him somewhat of placing stones on a goban. The small tangles he worked out of her hair were clusters of stones captured. Each strand of untangled hair was another bit of territory secured.

Setsuko giggled at his train of thought, rising and moving away from his hands. She flitted around a corner and disappeared. Hikaru followed her to find a different room entirely, empty but for a single goban and a cushion on either side.

"Play," the spirit bade him. She was somewhere just outside of his line of sight. "Play now, Hikaru. You need to focus for your match in the morning."

Hikaru grudgingly took a seat and stared stupidly at the cushion across the board.

"Setsuko, who…" He couldn't find her. All of the doors that had been open were shut. Hikaru was completely isolated within the dream. He tried probing his mind, but he was too far in his own head to locate his friend. "Setsuko!"

"I guess she's letting me focus…" he muttered, returning his attention to the goban. Only one goke sat atop the board. Black.

He set the goke to the side of the board, taking a single stone in his fingers. He only hesitated for a moment.

Star point. Top left. The resulting =pachi= echoed throughout the chamber. He stared at the stone, waiting for a reply. After minutes of nothing, he closed his eyes and sighed, slouching out of his focus.

=chk=

Hikaru snapped his eyes open to see a white stone had responded. Two below the star point, top right.

Four to the right of the bottom left star point.

His hand followed his command separately from his mind. He closed his eyes, waiting for—

=chk=

Mid-right point.

'Too familiar to be coincidence. But just to be sure…'

Challenge at the top right. The instant he looked away from the board, before he could even close his eyes:

=chk=

Shuusaku's joseki. It was his calling card. It was…

"Sai!" The boy called, eyes flying open. He sat up slowly, not recalling having lay down. It took Hikaru almost a minute to realize he was not still sitting before the goban in that foreboding chamber. His hands gripped his bedsheets as he realized what must have happened.

What Setsuko had done.

Tears rolled out of his eyes; tears he only half understood.

Quickly, dear readers. To Ise!