------------(21 and epilogue)--------------

"I'm leaving Japan," Shindou said.

"What?" The pair of chopsticks Touya was holding clattered noisily to the table, and rolled down to the floor.

Kenji jumped at the sound, and huddled closer to Shindou, before he realized what he was doing, and withdrew, looking embarrassed. He gave Touya a nervous smile, and began to eat from his bowl rapidly. Next to him, Kenichi reached out and patted him once on the shoulder, before he resumed glaring at Shindou. Noguchi had excused herself from the table already, pleading a poor appetite.

"Sorry, Kenji," Touya said, and looked at Shindou. "What did you mean by that, Shindou?" he asked again, trying to keep his voice steady.

After a split second of surprise, Shindou's face twisted in a chagrined grimace. "Sorry, I should have realized how that would sound," he said, shaking his head. "Don't eat so quickly, Kenji, you'll choke. Kenichi, do you want more soup?"

Kenichi scowled. "No," he said loudly. His younger brother darted a look at Shindou at the reply, and in the next moment, his bowl of soup had tipped over, splashing out over the surface of the table and dripping down the sides.

"Be careful, that's hot!" Shindou exclaimed, as he caught hold of Kenji and moved him out of the way.

Touya, too, had already made Kenichi stand up and back away from the table before the soup could spill on him.

"I'll get a cloth," Shindou said. He hoisted Kenji into his arms and hurried in the direction of the kitchen.

His arms still around Kenichi, Touya noticed the way the boy stiffened when Shindou disappeared, and the way his eyes watched the doorway to the kitchen. When Shindou came back brandishing a tea towel, Kenichi's shoulders relaxed, and his scowl returned.

"I'll do it," Touya said, taking the towel from him and starting to mop up the mess. Shindou helped to shift the bowls to one side while he cleared up the mess. Finally, they sat down again.

"What do you mean, you're leaving Japan?" Touya asked, when Kenji was coaxed into drinking a refilled bowl of soup. Kenichi was playing with his food, something that Shindou and Touya were both ignoring.

"Not permanently," Shindou said quickly. "Just for three or four months. To Amsterdam, where Asako has her business. Her partner has been holding the fort all this while, you know. I thought it'd be good to get away from Japan for a while... let all the publicity die down."

Something inside Touya's chest relaxed. "I see. When are you leaving?"

"As soon as the police agree to let us leave," Shindou said. His eyes slanted to his sons, particularly Kenichi, who was undoubtedly listening avidly.

"Ah." Touya nodded, the boys' presence preventing him from saying more. Takeshi's contact, he later learnt, was the owner of the house where they had been found. Takeshi himself only knew his contact as someone who would pay handsomely for that kind of news--he truly had no notion that he would be connected to a kidnapping, of all things. There had been many Sai-obsessed fans before, but never one that would resort to crime, and one as ugly as this. Touya hoped it would be the last.

"So I'll need to withdraw from the title games, for this year," Shindou said. "I've already contacted the Go Institute."

"Including the Meijin title?" Touya asked. "You're already in the League, aren't you?"

"Ahh..." Shindou looked guilty. "I'm in two minds about that, actually. You see, I know I have a good chance of getting the title next year..."

"Fat chance," Touya said immediately. "I'm going to be your opponent for the final challenger next year, and you know what that means?"

"Means you lose?" Shindou said. "Nya nya nya." He stuck out his tongue and made a face. Kenji giggled at the sight, and Shindou looked away from Touya to beam down at him. "Yeah, I'm the next Meijin!" he chanted, ruffling his younger son's hair and tickling him. "Me! Me! Me!"

Touya contented himself with his emotional maturity, and said nothing. He met Kenichi's eyes, and for a second they shared a reluctant smile at Shindou's antics.

After a while, Shindou stopped tickling his son, who was still prone to giggles. "Well, Touya?"

"Well, what?"

"Care to put your money where your mouth is?"

"My mouth-" Touya raised his eyebrows, and regretfully decided that it would be too late for him to stay this time. "Name your time and place," he said instead.

"Done." Shindou leant forward, his eyes sparkling. "Tomorrow, noon, at my Go salon."

-----

Well. This could easily be the most innocuous game in the history of Go. The set-up had been bland and innocent, and the shapes growing along the sides were simple to see, easy to decipher. Touya glanced at his opponent for just an instant, and turned his attention to the Go board again, suspicious. He was used to playing bold, strong hands, but Shindou's style had always been somewhat unusual. Creative. Yet, right now, all that Touya could see was that Shindou's hands were harmless. They lacked teeth. Something that said, 'Aren't I cute?' with Kenji's boyish grin. Innocence radiated from the Go board like light from a burning city.

It was a nice irony that Shindou was playing black, really.

Touya could hear the murmuring from the spectators, which included a number of pros and insei, among them his own students. How had they known he was playing here? He could feel his eyes narrow with concentration as he studied Shindou's shape again. There was danger here, and damn if Touya was going to be ambushed by Shindou. He fingered the edge of his stone. Make every hand count, he remembered his father saying. If you're going to waste a hand, you might as well not play it.

There. It would connect his territory at the top, and put him in position to defend the lower half as well. If Shindou was going to attack, Touya was going to give himself a spectator's view of the on-goings. He put down his stone.

He watched as Shindou put down his fan, and felt himself become hyper-focused.

Seconds later, Shindou placed a black stone on the Go board. His eyes were hard with concentration. It looked like any ordinary hand, which meant that it was a hand that Hikaru had planned long beforehand.

Touya braced himself as he took in the ramifications of Shindou's hand.

"Holy shit," he thought he heard Sakurai mutter.

The most innocent game in the world had just turned into a deathtrap. Every single scrap of disputed space was suddenly quicksand. Large groups of Touya's stones stood to be taken in the next few hands, and entire swaths of territory were in danger of being surrounded by black. One stone had overturned the entire game.

Ah, the blade is reversed. Inwardly, he grinned. He had been so frustrated by the Go they were playing in the last few weeks--all Sai's Go. Now this was all Shindou's Go, brashly, expertly and uniquely his.

The Go board was full of sharp edges now. He was once again reminded that Go was a game of war. Burning cities, indeed. He could feel his lips part in a feral grin, and with a komoku, he secured the corner on Shindou's lower right. He had been preparing that corner since the game began, and this was exactly the right time for it.

Shindou's jaw fell the fraction of an inch.

Touya smirked, very slightly, but let Shindou see his grin. He was not the only sneaky one here. Shindou might have the talent of playing amazing hands, but Touya was not going to be caught flat-footed if he could help it, either. He'd played more than enough games with Shindou for that.

Without a word, Shindou placed another stone, enforcing with the stand he had put in place with his earlier hand.

Touya snatched up a stone and placed it at a spot that he knew would frustrate Shindou's momentum.

Shindou replied, over-powering Touya's group at the upper right.

Touya continued to frustrate Shindou, keeping an eye on the territory he was conceding, and the territory he managed to wrestle from Shindou. Both of them slapped their stones on the Go board as quickly as they could, simultaneously losing and accumulating territory with each stone they played. With a corner of his mind that was not busy thinking and calculating, Touya started thinking of it as a dance that spun with dizzy power within the restrictions of the Go board.

He forgot the worry and frustrations of the previous weeks, not hearing the mutterings from the spectators, ignoring even Kenichi and Kenji, who were sitting there watching the game as well. Despite everything, Shindou had assured him, his two sons still loved Go--something that precious had not been destroyed, after all. He settled into the rhythm of the game, taking and giving, playing and extending this dance.

When it ended, Touya was not surprised to find himself breathing hard. Across the Go board, Shindou was no better; his hair was dark with perspiration. Touya blinked the sweat out of his eyes in turn, and let the breath escape from his lips in a light pant.

"Breathe, Itsuki," he thought he heard Sakurai say to Kuroda. Shindou had attached no blame to Kuroda, though the young man had been overcome with shock at learning of Takeshi's connection to the kidnapper. Shindou was taking him to Amsterdam as well, Shindou had confided, to give him a break as well, and to toughen him out with exposure to the European Go community.

Touya looked across the Go board; Shindou's gaze held his for a moment, and his eyes were still hard, full of competition, before he looked away, blowing his hair out of his eyes in a noisy breath. Then he bowed. "I have lost."

With sudden pain, Touya noticed that beneath the bright blond locks, more of his opponent's hair had already turned white.

-----

Touya found Shindou sitting in the front room, contemplating the ancient Go board that had been recovered from the kidnapper's house as well. Kenji was asleep, his face pillowed on Shindou's lap.

"Where's Kenichi?"

"He's sleeping as well, in his room," Shindou said. "Asako is with him."

"Ah. Has he forgiven you yet?"

Shindou smiled sadly. "I can't ever make up for the fact that it took me so long to find him," he said. "On the other hand, he thinks that I have the good taste to have you, his hero, for a friend and rival, so perhaps in time he'll stop trying to stare a hole into my back."

"He's only doing that because he's afraid to let you out of his sight," Touya said, "like Kenji."

"I know," Shindou said. One of his hands fell lightly on Kenji's head, smoothing strands of hair from the sleeping face. "Good game today," he said.

"Yes." Touya thought about the game. Only Shindou could have played that game with him--Shindou and no one else. "You're back, aren't you?" he said absently.

"Huh?"

"Not Sai anymore."

He looked up when there was only silence, to see Shindou looking at him. "What is it?" he asked, wondering at the naked expression on his rival's face.

"I haven't been Sai for a very long time, not until this," Shindou said. "And though there are still times when I miss him with all my heart, the Go I play is mine, not his."

Touya nodded. "Good. Then I'll wait for the time when you come back, and for you to show your Go to me again."

Shindou's chin rose with the same stubbornness Touya had come across twenty years ago. "Hey, same to you too," he said, his solemnity evaporating and his grin reappearing. "Don't worry, I'm not about to fade away. There's still a long way to go. I still haven't played my best game," Shindou said.

Touya could feel his own head dip in comprehension at Shindou's words. "I know," he said, thinking of the game they had played that afternoon. "I haven't played my best game yet, either," he said, though he suspected that his best game, in the future, would be one with Shindou. "The game I want to play most of all…"

"The perfect game…" Shindou murmured. Almost unconsciously, he held his son a little tighter.

"Hasn't appeared yet." They both finished at the same time.

------------the end---------------