Title: A View of the Universe
Author: Luce Red
Crossover of series: Hikaru no Go, Death Note
Disclaimer: Characters are property of Hotta, Obata, and Ohba Tsugumi
Type/Notes: General.
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Shindou Hikaru was possibly the only person crazy enough to accept the job.
It was accepted among Go circles that Shindou Hikaru, 5-dan, was just the slightest bit fearsome. This had nothing to do with the fact that he became pro after learning Go for only two years, or that his skill at Go had skittered in a merry hellride from brilliant to childish (and back) in that time, or even his infamous rivalry with Touya Akira, son of Touya Kouyo. It had everything to do with the obsession with ramen, the uncanny familiarity with the personal habits of nobles in the Heian court, and the ability to play Go in all waking hours.
Since the majority of Go professionals in Japan were blameless individuals whose murderous impulses were more often played out on a wooden board with little black and white game pieces, the knowledge that somewhere, a faceless murderer was eliminating hardcore criminals through some mysterious and frightening means, did not faze them in the least. Abstraction was their stock-in-trade, after all. Nonetheless, Go players were not entirely oblivious to the Kira panic that was slowly overtaking most segments of society. Add to that the fact that Go players, especially certain ones in law enforcement, gossiped far more than bored housewives, and it was virtually an open secret that a certain suspect currently in custody at the Great Daikon Hotel, of all places, was being ‘encouraged’ to help in the Kira investigation.
And this suspect—young, of university-going age, male—was currently interested in private Go lessons. For that they had applied to the Go Institute for a suitable teacher who would be willing to agree to some security restrictions, be discreet, and visit the suspect in person. No one else would have accepted the job, but Shindou Hikaru went off with a song on his lips.
Certain individuals would have been aghast at the suggestion that Shindou could actually sing.
****
“Apparently, I’m Touya Hikaru,” Hikaru said, reading off a sheet of paper. “What the hell?” he muttered, looking around the hotel room he had been shown into. “Hellooo?” he called. “Anyone here?”
“Who are you?”
Hikaru frowned at the man who had appeared from behind the couch. He looked to be about eighteen or nineteen, with a shock of black hair wild enough to rival Waya’s, with what looked like permanent bags under his eyes. “Er. Hi. I’m the Go instructor,” he said. “I’m…” he referred to the piece of paper again. “Touya Hikaru,” he read, then brightened. “Hey, do you think I can get a fake passport with this fake name? My friends would get a kick out of it.”
The man’s eyes had narrowed at Hikaru’s introduction. “Go?”
“Yes, Go. You mean you’re not my student? I was told someone here wants to learn Go.”
Anything else he would have added trailed away as the man turned away muttering, “He really went ahead with it… why didn’t the chief tell me…”
Hikaru watched as he walked towards the bathroom door and thumped on it. “Hey! Your Go teacher is here, and why didn’t you tell me you wanted to play Go?”
A shout answered him, but it was too muffled to make out.
The man listened, and turned back to Hikaru, before shuffling towards an armchair. To Hikaru’s surprise, he placed his feet on the chair first, and settled down in a squatting-sitting pose. It didn’t look comfortable. “He’ll be out in a while. What did the chief tell you about your student?”
Hikaru shrugged. “Not much. He just said his son was interested in playing Go. But for some reason I have to use a fake name.” He looked down at the piece of paper, before looking around. “Ah, there’s the Go board,” he said, spotting it on the table by the mini-bar. He brought it over, together with the Go stones.
The other man was frowning. “That wasn’t here before,” he said.
Hikaru shrugged. He didn’t care; it was none of his business, so as long there was a Go board he could use. He began to arrange the board on the coffee table, blinking only once at the laptop placed on the floor next to it. “Do you play Go?” he asked casually.
“Yes. What is your rank now?”
“Me? 5-dan.” And before long, he was telling the man all about his life as Go pro, his family, his best friends, without realizing that he was being questioned for any details that would serve the man’s purpose. “…and someday I want to be Meijin,” he confessed, before it struck him. “Huh? Why am I telling you all this? What’s your name anyway?”
“L.”
“E-lu?”
“Just L.”
“Jasu E-lu? That’s an odd name.” Hikaru scratched his head.
L looked at him. “The English letter ‘L’,” he said.
“Oh.” The appellation would have been odd to anyone who didn’t play with “Zelda” and “Count D” on the internet now and then. “Right. L,” he said, pronouncing the English letter with a grimace. “Do you want to play a game while waiting for my student?”
****
“Wow. You’re good,” Hikaru said. “Why aren’t you a pro?” He looked down at the Go board, thinking through the hands that were exchanged. They were still at the beginning stage; for some reason his student was still stuck in the bathroom.
“You’re even better,” L said.
Hikaru shrugged. “Can’t tell that until the game ends.” He continued to study the Go board. The bathroom door opened then. Hikaru looked up, and his jaw dropped, raising one hand to point at the doorway. His finger trembled. “Ko-Ko Yong-ha!”
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“Shall we begin, Sensei?”
Due to the security requirements, it was decided after some verbal obfuscation that Raito would address Hikaru as “Sensei”. Hikaru had no objections to that, though he thought that there was just the hint of a mocking tone in Raito’s voice whenever the word left his lips. It was as if Raito just hated to acknowledge that anyone could be his superior, even in an innocuous pursuit like Go.
“Have you played Go before?” Hikaru asked.
He knew the basics of it—just like anyone else who had learnt Go as a child to improve the memory and mental skills. But he barely scratched the surface of what even an insei could do, so Hikaru dusted off the ‘customer etiquette’ that Akira had tried to drill into him at one point and did his best not to splutter when his student made a mistake. In spite of Raito’s initial lack of skill, Hikaru had to admit that his student was frighteningly intelligent and was advancing fast.
By their third weekly lesson, Raito insisted that they played even games. With any other pro, the demand would have been staggeringly unfair—a 5-dan pro was not supposed to ‘bully’ an amateur, especially not in teaching games. Hikaru shrugged and allowed it; he had the feeling, especially after a few short conversations with L, that it was safer to let Raito have his own way, and furthermore, he was capable of making it a challenging game for his student even in such situations.
Now Hikaru studied the Go board and the game on it; Raito had plunged in with a fierce attack that seemed as brilliant at first as it was arrogant. He showed an admirable grasp of basic strategy in countering Hikaru’s hands. Then, as the game progressed, he had managed some well thought-out hands that imposed into more and more of Hikaru’s territory. Luckily, Hikaru was far sneakier. He waited. “Do you want to discuss the game?” he asked, having learnt in the first week that it was no use waiting for Raito to admit defeat.
Raito looked up fiercely.
“The board’s almost full,” Hikaru pointed out. Indeed, the game had progressed so far beyond the traditional endgame stage that some of the stones looked as though they were virtually pushing one another out of the way.
“Well,” L looked down with the air of a fusty scientist examining some specimen. Raito glared at him. “It looks someone has managed to out-think you again,” L said. He looked a little worried as his eyes fell on Hikaru.
Raito’s hands clenched by his sides.
L looked from the Go board to Raito’s expression. His eyes seemed sharp even with the shadows under them.
“But Yagami-san is getting to be very good,” Hikaru said, hoping to defuse the strange mood. “Soon, he can play with you, L, and you won’t even need to give him more than two stones!”
Opps. Going by the way Raito’s eyes had narrowed, that probably hadn’t been the best thing to say.
“Why do I need a handicap to play with him, and not with you?” Raito asked.
“Er…” Hikaru shrugged, and replied in his typical blunt manner. “Because although he’s very skilled, he’s not good enough to play a teaching game with you.”
“Sensei,” L said in warning.
Raito straightened even more in his seat. Hikaru winced; it looked painful, compared to L’s weird but relaxed crouch. “You mean you have been playing teaching games with me all along?” Raito asked.
Surprised, Hikaru said, “Of course.” Did he think that Hikaru had been playing him as an equal? It would have been a very short game if that were true.
Raito looked as though he wanted to lunge for Hikaru’s throat, but managed to restrain himself at the last minute. He reached out to put his stones back the container before him. “I want to play another game,” he said. “And play seriously this time!”
Hikaru reached out to collect his own stones. “Yagami-san,” he said. “I always play seriously.”
****
L looked at them as Raito landed a light punch to the seat cushion beside him. “I thought you said you played seriously!” he demanded.
“I did!” Hikaru retorted, stung.
“Then why… I know I’m getting better…”
Hikaru nodded. “You’re getting better, Yagami-san,” he confirmed. “You’ve improved so fast that it’s amazing!”
Raito’s expression tightened as he realized something. “You’re still playing teaching games with me!” he accused.
Hikaru nodded dumbly, staring at Raito like a mouse mesmerized by an eagle’s attack. He also realized that out of the corner of his eye, he could see L wink at him.
“Play a serious game with me,” Raito demanded.
Hikaru opened his mouth.
“I mean, a really serious one,” Raito said, before Hikaru could say anything. “As though I’m… I’m one of your rivals.”
“My rivals,” Hikaru echoed. But I only have one rival.
“You must have them,” Raito said. “Professional games are full of rivalries, aren’t they?”
“Er. Yes.”
“Play with me, then,” Raito insisted. After a moment, he added, “Sensei”.
Hikaru blinked. If Raito was intent on playing him as another pro—or god forbid, as a rival—why call him ‘sensei’ now? Raito seemed to be too concerned about winning. Hikaru considered as he began to collect his stones and drop them into his go-ke.
Although he didn’t know much about why Raito—or for that matter, L—was currently staying in the hotel, he thought that it was certainly a very odd investigation that they were conducting. He didn’t think that teenage investigators, however clever—though the way they sniped at each other was rather entertaining: it reminded him a little of Akira and himself—were going to solve the mystery of Kira. But then, Hikaru thought, I only see them once a week, what do I know. These two men were spending their time in a very strange way, Hikaru reflected. And for someone whose entire circle of acquaintance was occupied in playing Go all day, that was saying something.
“All right,” he made up his mind. If he couldn’t convince Raito that it was ridiculous to expect him, a pro, to play a proper game with a beginner—Raito learnt very fast, yes, but he wasn’t a god of Go—he would show him. “Nigiri, please.”
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“I’ve brought you a notebook.”
L fell off the couch.
Raito’s head snapped up so quickly that Hikaru backed up a step, his bag slipping from his hands to the floor in alarm. To his side, he noticed that L, too, was surprised by Raito’s reaction. He cleared his throat, unnerved by the way Raito was watching him. It reminded him of the way some Go players used to watch him, as if trying to see whether anything strange was hanging around him. That had been when Sai played his games, of course.
“Er, I mean…” He continued to watch Raito as he bent down to retrieve his bag. Something told him that it was dangerous to take his eyes off his student at precisely that moment. Raito looked as though he was trying very hard to control his expression. Still keeping his eyes on Raito, he fumbled inside his bag, identified the object, and pulled it out. “Here,” he said, holding it with an outstretched hand. “I thought you might find it useful to record your games here.”
Raito continued to look at him.
“I forgot about it until just now,” Hikaru said, wanting to fill up the silence. It occurred to him to feel a little nervous. It could be that Raito was still angry. But then, it was Raito who had insisted on a serious game, mano-a-mano, and Hikaru had never been good at pretending to be bad.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw L pick himself up from the floor. He was watching Raito with eyes that were wide open, and quick to seize on any detail that would help him decide how to act. He still stood in a slightly hunched manner, but it was as though the other man was armed.
Hikaru’s arm was starting to ache. “I know it looks a bit strange,” he started to babble. “They sell it only at the shop at the Go Institute, and it has pages for kifu and personal notes and appointments for games and stuff. And a list of all the Go Institutes in Japan, with contact numbers. And… oh!” For the notebook was suddenly snatched from his hand.
“Thank you,” Raito said, examining the light blue notebook.
Hikaru found a chair and sat down in it, his legs suddenly feeling weak. He felt like he had been wrestling with death.
There was only normal curiosity from Raito now. L sank back onto the couch, still watching Raito. Hikaru ran a nervous eye over the contents of his bag; everything was still in there. “So, I was thinking,” he began. “If you like, I can teach you to record your games.”
Raito's movements paused at that.
“Unless you already know how to do it!” Hikaru added. He watched as Raito’s glance shifted to the Go board. “Er, it doesn’t have to be that game, of course!” Damn, he is holding a grudge.
That game had taken a mere hour, and that long only because Hikaru decided not to respond to Raito’s hands too quickly. But the defeat was decisive, and it was with a little trepidation that he had declared, “I think we should stop,” rather than wait for Raito to resign. Raito had lapsed into silence after that, his attention flickering between the game and Hikaru, until Hikaru remembered the purchase he had made that morning.
"All right."
Hikaru looked up. "Really?" he blurted, before he remembered. "I mean, sure. Let's get started." He dug into his bag again for coloured pens, and clambered towards the table. After a few seconds, Raito sat down opposite him, and passed him the notebook. Hikaru flipped it to the first kifu page, before looking up uncertainly. "Do you want to record this game?" he indicated with his chin the game still on the Go board.
After some hesitation, Raito nodded.
"Right," Hikaru took the cap off his pen. "We'll write the date here, at the top," he said, suiting action to his words. "Oh, wait," he said, rolling his eyes at his own oversight. "We should write your name down, first," he closed the book and waited, with his pen posed over the empty space for the name on the front cover. "Er, you're Yagami Raito, right?" He had been calling his student 'Yagami-san' all this while.
"Yes," L said, standing by the side.
Hikaru turned to see L settling down beside him. "Right!" he recalled. "You said that Yagami-san's name is actually the character for 'moon', but it's not pronounced as 'tsuki', but like 'Light'." He nodded in appreciation of his own good memory and wrote down the name. "There, Yagami-san..." Then he paused, for Raito staring at the words he had just written, as though he had seen something frightening. "What's the matter? Did I write it wrong?"
Raito started to shake his head, before he paused, and shook his head. "No. It's right. Thanks."
"Right, let's get started," Hikaru said, glancing towards L, who was studying Raito's reaction. "Is there anything wrong?" he finally thought to ask. "The two of you have been acting like writing down Yagami-san's name is some great event!"
Even L looked a little uncertain that that. "I was just distracted. Sorry about that, Sensei," he said.
"Okay," Hikaru allowed. He turned to the kifu page again, and began to show his student how to fill it the record of their game.
"Wait," Raito said after Hikaru had demonstrated the process by using coloured pens and labeling on the kifu paper. "You remember all the hands we've played?"
Hikaru frowned. "It's not really difficult," he said, thinking about it. "You just have to remember the shape of your stones. Some Go players can remember hundreds of games."
"How can you be sure that you remembered it correctly?" Raito asked, then added, "I mean, in the excitement of the game, you may have forgotten something." He was smiling, his expression benign and he looked innocently curious.
The smile was irritating Hikaru. Me, forget a hand that I've played? "Look, I'll show you," he said, keeping a rein on his temper. He leaned over to sweep the stone pieces to the side of the Go board. "You were black, and you started off with 3-5, and I responded over here," he placed a black stone, then a white stone on a star-point on the Go board. "Then you responded with..."
He began to put the stones back in a replay rapidly, stopping only to describe the shape that Raito had tried to build, and his own responses in return, pointing out his student's deficiencies in planning and suggesting that he should have used certain other hands instead to counter his attacks. There was the ill-conceived tengen hand, meant to force Hikaru into making a mistake and exposing his territory, but setting a stone right in the centre of the Go board was too weak a strategy against him precisely because it was too blatant. There was the attempt to force an invasion into the upper corner. There was the ko fight that Raito wouldn't let go of. There was the over-cautious streak that wasted time...
Hikaru spoke for nearly an hour. He demonstrated the strategies he had used, and how certain hands had to be put in place before he could consolidate his territories. He talked about why certain hands were essential for retaining control. He pointed out the futility of using the very attack Hikaru had taught him the week before. He led Raito through a virtual enactment of his motives on nearly every hand, in some cases nearly reading his mind, if Raito's starts of surprise were any indication. Hikaru spoke until he was aware of a slightly hoarse note in his voice and re-played the last few hands quickly, before taking his hands away and pushing the go-ke aside as if to say, that's it.
At Hikaru's side, L's eyes grew serious.
During this time, Raito grew paler and paler. He kept glancing from Hikaru's face to the Go board, as though unable to believe what he was hearing. His lips moved soundlessly, as though he wanted to say something but couldn't think what, and he twitched whenever Hikaru said "You were thinking about..." He finally subsided, sitting back and looking at Hikaru with eyes that no longer dismissed him as just a Go player.
Hikaru raised his eyebrows. "So, I pass inspection, Yagami-san?" he asked, not caring if he was offending a customer.
Raito's jaw tightened. "You..."
Hikaru blew out breath from his lungs silently, suddenly feeling awkward at the display of superiority. It wasn't something he expected to find himself doing. Akira must really be rubbing off on him, he reflected.
"Very interesting, Sensei," L said. "You have an interesting way of explaining your hands. And you seem to understand your student's mind very well."
Hikaru swallowed to moisten his dry throat, noting that they were more than two hours over the time allotted for the teaching session. "I've been teaching him, after all," Hikaru said, before turning to Raito. "Yagami-san, don't be discouraged. Most of the mistakes you made are the ones made by most beginners, anyway. They're very common," he assured Raito.
Raito did not look reassured. On the contrary, he looked slightly outraged to be compared with 'most beginners'.
"I would be..." L turned to Hikaru, though strangely his eyes lingered on Raito. "I would be interested in talking to you about Raito's Go at another time, Sensei."
Raito's eyes flashed at that. "You think you can understand my thoughts through my Go, L?" he asked.
L shrugged. "It's a good strategy. Sensei here certainly seems to understand your thoughts very well." He turned to Hikaru. "Don't you, Sensei?" he asked.
"Er." It didn't seem like the time to repeat his explanation that Raito had merely made beginner's mistakes. You might understand your opponent's mind through his Go--but only if it was a serious opponent and not a student you could crush in about thirty hands. There was no Zen-like understanding in a confrontation between a fishing boat and a supertanker.
"It's just a game," Raito finally said. He looked at the Go board again, sullenly.
Hikaru thought about it for a moment. His student had learnt Go quickly, but in his quickness, he had only learnt to think of Go as a tool. To Hikaru it was so much more. “Yagami-san,” he said. “You’ve got it wrong, I think. Go isn’t meant to be… what you think it is.”
“What do you mean, Sensei?” L asked, looking interested.
Hikaru swept the stones off the Go board for the second time that day. “See, this is the Go board. Nineteen horizontal lines, nineteen vertical lines intersect.”
“Yes?” Raito looked impatient, as if wondering what Hikaru was up to.
“You think it’s just a game, and just a plain wooden board,” Hikaru said. “But to me, it’s like a universe.” He scooped up some of the stones, and sorted them into their containers. “See, black stones and white stones, like stars in the universe. And in this universe, I decide where the stars go. I’m the god of this universe."
Raito frowned. "You, a god?" he said.
Hikaru nodded. "That was when I decided I wanted to play Go forever," he said. "One day, I'll play a perfect game!" he said, beaming at the two of them.
Both L and Raito stared at him, their expressions identical with that look Waya always got before he declared, "I'll never understand you, Shindou!"
He found himself grinning like a fool, and had to stop. Better leave before he embarrassed himself. "I'm late!" he said, as though with sudden realization. "I should be going now."
The atmosphere in the room was a bit strange. "But..." L started, sounding as though he couldn't make up his mind whether to stop him from leaving.
Hikaru shrugged his coat back on. "Sorry!" he said. "I have to meet some friends later. See you next week, Yagami-san, L-san!"
***
Hikaru had left L and Raito blinking at each other, before L’s laptop gave a loud beep, as though to register a protest.
L immediately went to his laptop, while Raito reached out to collect the stones Hikaru had missed. He hesitated, then pulled the notebook towards him and opened it to a new page. Quietly, he wrote, 'Touya Hikaru.'
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