If you understand what the author is saying I recently decided to reread volumes 18-23 of the manga of Hikaru no Go, which was something I hadn't done for twenty years.  I had, in fact, only ever read those volumes once, despite having read the manga twice and watched the anime five or more times.   You see, the first time I read that final arc (a part of the story the anime didn't cover), it left me feeling hollow and empty. It wasn't because it was bad.  In fact, some of my favorite scenes are in that arc.  It's just that the ending fell flat to me.  It felt like an anticlimax, a letdown, a "Why did you continue the story for another arc after the fantastic ending of volume 17 if you were just going to end it with nothing?" But I decided to give it another try last week.  I thought maybe I had missed something important that gave the whole thing meaning. I HAD! (Inhales and exhales.)  Wow.  Boy, had I missed it.  And the ending is awesome . . . if you understand what the author is saying.  It's just that it's subtle and easy to miss. Which is a flaw.  If an ending is so subtle that the reader can easily miss it, the author risks the reader never rereading it and thus walking away permanently unsatisfied.  This is why I try to write stories that work on many different levels — if someone only cares about the surface level, I want the story to feel satisfying for them.  The thing is, Hikaru no Go had always been a story that worked on many levels.  So why did the ending, and only the ending, wind up so vague that the meaning could easily be missed? I have a theory.  Here's my thought. I believe that the author didn't fully know what the meaning was.  She knew part of it, but it wasn't clear enough in her mind to make it clear for the reader.  She knew "this thing is right" and "that thing is right," but she didn't fully grasp what those details were building up to, and what the natural conclusion of all those details should be. I think she would have done a stupendous job if she'd had more time to ponder.  She just didn't have the time because she had a publisher, a deadline, and two collaborators waiting for her.  So what we got was almost finished, with seeds of brilliance that only had enough time to poke their cotyledons above the surface.  Not enough time to produce the bounteous harvest we all wanted to savor. So. I will now go on to show you what I believe the next scene of the story would have been, if the author had had enough time to fully ponder it and think through where all of the hints she was dropping were leading. As a warning, there are going to be massive spoilers for one of the best anime/manga series of all time, so if you haven't read or watched it yet, you may want to stop right now and go immerse yourself in that story first. This is set approximately two weeks after the end of the manga. The Start of Eternity Touya Kouyou sits at a Go board in the middle of the night, with both bowls of stones by his hand.  He reaches out and places a black stone on the board. Clack!  The noise rings through the silent room. He waits, pensively watching the board.  At last, he reaches out and places a white stone. Clack! More stones follow steadily, with occasional pauses for pondering.  Clack.  Clack.  Clack.  Clack.  At last, the board is filled with the work of two brilliant Go masters. Kouyou leans back and exhales in satisfaction.  "I won." "Only by half a point."  Sai, sitting on the other side of the board, curves his lips up in a mischievous smile.  He reaches for a fan to tap on his mouth, remembers he no longer has it, and sets his hand back onto his lap instead.  "I look forward to many more games in the future." Kouyou opens his eyes and smiles broadly, his lined old face looking youthful.  "So that's what you look like." "Indeed." Sai stands, and Kouyou does the same.  He looks down and notices his body has fallen slumped on the floor.  He is pleased that it landed away from the Go board, away from the arrangement of stones. Perhaps he should have told his wife and son.  Once he started hearing the voice of a long-dead Go master, he knew the end of his life was nigh.  But he didn't want them to mourn him before he was gone.  Besides, there were obvious hints that his health was failing, and it wouldn't be very long before they would see him again.  Human lifetimes were so short, compared to eternity. Akira will recognize who I was playing, he thinks with a smile, looking down at the Go board.  I hope it remains undisturbed. Then he departs with his newfound rival, ready to meet all the other dead Go masters who have been waiting for him. I do not know where the story would go from there.  Yumi Hotta would have to create it.  It's her story, and I have full confidence in her ability to make any new arc brilliant.  I will simply state that, if anything else were to follow, I hope that the following things would happen. Sometime within a few days after his father's death, Akira notices the final game on his father's board, and is shocked to recognize not only his father's playstyle, but Sai's.  That means his father must have been playing Sai!  But both bowls are on his father's side of the board, and there is no sign of anybody else having been in their home. Over the course of the next few months, Akira starts to sense the presence of his father at important times.  His mother does, too.  Akira slowly becomes convinced that death is not the end, and that his father's spirit is still alive, still cares deeply about his family, and still cares deeply about Go.  Along with this new conviction comes a clear conclusion that has been niggling at the back of his mind for a long time, but he's dismissed it as impossible: Sai . . . could be a ghost. Accepting that as possible allows the final piece of the Hikaru mystery to click into place.  Akira has now been through the grief of losing his beloved father and powerful mentor all at once.  What if Hikaru went through something similar, and he had no one to talk to?  That might explain why Hikaru seemingly lost his mind for awhile and abandoned Go altogether.  It would also explain why Hikaru seems so fixated on Honinbou Shusaku.  Perhaps Honinbou Shusaku was a mentor for him, and has now left. Akira doesn't ask him.  The two are not buddies.  They're rivals.  They're frenemies.  They get on each other's last nerves.  Neither of them wants to have a heart-to-heart talk.  Their conversations are battles, and their battles are waged on the Go board.  But the greater understanding helps Akira.  It helps him to silently forgive his rival for the betrayal of having abandoned Go, and him, for so long. At some point, perhaps several years in the future, the two are shouting in each other's faces over some part of a match they just had, and Akira yells something like, "Well, you were trained by the ghost of Honinbou Shusaku, so you should know perfectly well that this move was stupid —" and Hikaru stops abruptly and goes, "What?!" And I think that's the last implied scene of the story.