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The Replica on the opposite side put away his smile.
The faint trace of amusement vanished, leaving behind a calm, unfeeling mask.
"Then I've got to be serious too," he said quietly. "To let you see, the version of yourself that you want to be."
His expression turned indifferent, the kind of stillness that belonged not to a man, but to a mechanism of pure logic.
Every warmth, every smirk, every flicker of humanity he'd shown before, gone.
Maybe this was his true self. Maybe all those emotions were only tools, instruments he wielded to fulfill a purpose.
A reflection of Akane's own belief that the body, the heart, the mind, all existed as extensions of one goal.
Watching that transformation, Akane closed his eyes.
"So that's how it is," he murmured inwardly.
"That's my future."
"Does certainty and control… make one wrong?"
He paused. "No. Wrong or right is just a superficial construct here."
"If we mull over right and wrong, we'll fall into the same chains of endless recurrence."
"How to be like him, but not like him…"
When he opened his eyes again, the Replica had finished his turn.
The narration had ceased. Silence hung in the air, sharp, reverent.
The Replica now played with mechanical precision, his movements cold yet beautiful, like gears turning in a perfect clock.
Every stone placed was the result of infinite calculation, each move branching into countless possibilities.
The board reflected this change.
The earlier symmetry, he mirroring of one another, began to fade.
The game grew sharper, cleaner, more abstract. Territories expanded and collapsed. Each move was a collapse of probability, a narrowing of infinity.
Now there were two versions of the same person seated across the board.
One adapted and thrived within chaos — reactive, alive, flowing with uncertainty.
The other grasped at absolute control — predictive, all-seeing, shaping chaos into order.
Akane played absentmindedly at first, letting instinct take the lead.
But as the game unfolded, something inside him began to shift.
His thoughts deepened, patterns interlacing faster than ever before. It was visible, almost physical, the tension in his gaze, the rhythm of his breathing, the sharpness of his perception.
His analytical power sharpened.
His mind adapted, evolved, breaking through itself like a cocoon tearing open.
And as he played, a quiet reflection bloomed in his thoughts.
"He mirrors me," Akane thought, "but a mirror only reflects what stands before it."
"You just need not to stand in front of the mirror. Never allow yourself to be mirrored, be different."
The Replica finally spoke again, his voice now stripped of tone, mechanical and calm.
"Wisdom," he said, "is to race against time, or to take your time."
"Choose wisely: whether to win or not. Whether to play eternally, or to end everything in a single move."
Thoughts collided within Akane's mind.
The Replica's stones spread outward, forming circles that enclosed his territories, boundaries tightening like snares.
He was predicting Akane's movements before they even began, closing in around every possibility.
"Like a fish on a chopping board," the Replica said.
Akane felt that his own options were narrowing down.
"I need to move fast," he muttered, eyes narrowing.
He mulled over the board again, weighing not only outcomes but intentions, his own, and his reflection's.
He played aimlessly at first, letting his instinct take over.
Yet there was something different now: he wasn't just surviving the Replica's predictions, he was thriving within them.
Every restriction became a point of adaptation.
Every trap, a form of freedom.
Then he stopped. His hand hovered above the board.
"To outplay yourself?" he whispered.
"There is no need to win, is there?"
He placed the stone back in his palm, resting it lightly against his knee.
Then he looked up toward the Replica, eyes calm, voice quiet.
"When I think about it again…" Akane's tone deepened, not in despair, but in realization.
The Replica lifted his gaze.
"…you also said it yourself," Akane continued.
"'To outplay yourself is to surpass what you already understand.'"
At those words, the white void began to tremble.
The light of the board pulsed softly, its gridlines wavering, as if the foundation of the game itself began to crumble away.
Like a seed splitting open, something inside Akane began to sprout.
"I have surpassed you," Akane said slowly. "I don't need to be you anymore. It's not about abandoning myself, nor denying my thoughts as useless."
The Go board cracked. The lines blurred. The stones shimmered, black and white merging, dissolving the very boundary that separated them.
The Replica remained silent, his indifference unwavering. He stared at the dissolving board, still expressionless.
"We are seekers," Akane continued, his tone steady, soft. "There's no need for certainty. We are nothing but instinct, an impulse of life wanting to understand the world."
"As for control, domination, and all their branches… they are merely different ways to be wise."
He looked upward into the endless white sky.
"And now," he said, voice growing lighter, "I think I understand. I won't abandon you, as I have said before."
He stood. The chair dissolved beneath him as he rose.
Walking toward the Replica, he extended his hand.
"The key is balance," he said. "To adapt to what comes, to protect what can be protected."
"There is no certainty in what will happen; we can only thrive within chaos, and control what little we can."
The Replica stared at the offered hand for a long time, then chuckled softly.
When he raised his eyes, they were gentle again. A faint smile curved his lips.
"Never forget yourself, Akane, of what you are," he said.
"There are no right or wrong paths in this grand story. Only the ones you choose, and the methods you create to walk them."
He leaned forward, voice lowering into a whisper.
"The test was never to win the game. It was to realize why you wanted to win."
The light from the board intensified, flooding the void in radiant white.
Akane felt the tension in his chest loosen, something deep within him, the cage of reason, beginning to uncoil.
His red-grey eyes caught the dissolving lines, gleaming faintly like dawn breaking over an empty world.
The Replica's voice lingered, fading into the brightness.
"Go isn't about capturing stones, Akane.
It's about balance, between restraint and freedom.
Between knowledge and ignorance.
Between the move you can predict… and the one you cannot."
The world went white.
In the end, the Replica didn't take his hand, but Akane knew that side of him would always be there.
After that, Akane's quiet whisper followed:
"…Then, let's start over."