I'm continuing to enjoy the story. I agree, Ashiwara is more fun.
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You have a typo: "go payers".

Oh, I wasn't expecting a mention in the AN! *humbled*
May I just say how adorable a naive Sai is? I did appreciate the Empress outlining the fulminating political field, for it confirmed my suspicions while elucidating several other gray routes.
Tora is an OC I don't mind; you've written him well. One thing that confuses me, though, is the line "Torajirou was my name before I took my oaths. She still insists on using it."
Why would the monk's name change before and after taking oaths? (I'm ignorant of Heian religious conventions...)

I'm glad to see the plot moving forward. I wonder how the inevitable (I assume) tragic outcome will occur. Sai, for all his bumbling, seems to have lots of allies.

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Do you mean

"no one has ruled past twenty years – many not even past ten"
or
"no one has ruled past twenty years – not many even past ten"

They don't mean exactly the same thing, but the latter phrasing is preferable, I think, if it does not depart too far from the intended meaning.

Such A Novel Idea! This Is The Only Heian Fic I've Found, And Is Amazing. You're In-Character And Historically Accurate, And I Love Your Writing Style. I'll Be Watching You From Now On! (Apologies For The All-Capital First Letters, My Phone Overrides My Efforts To Undo The Capitalization)

Kyaaaa! I love your fic, hopefully soon upload more chapters, because I really like the couple SaixHikaru, but not Sai Hikaru much attention, especially because I love Hikaru, I love it, it's so cute and uke, although Hikaru is one hehe silly sometimes, I like when Touya Hikaru dominates, after all seme see Touya is best, he does so well, although I prefer them in pairs of two and not trios hehe, I love the couple WayaxHikaru, is one of my favorite, and the IsumixHikaru, although not many fics of them, or also that of MitanixHikaru, although there are not many fics of them, I also like a lot, but I also like to see how you relate to others Hikaru rivals I also like other couples, as long as Hikaru is uke, sorry I can not see any other way, lol, keep it up, hopefully do more fics of them, lol, well keep it up, thank you and kisses.

"the Biwa Lake" :

This got me thinking about what a crazy and inconsistent language English is.

Oceans and Seas : almost always "the name category", with the category term sometimes dropped (e.g. "the Pacific"). Sometimes also "the Sea of name", e.g. the Sea of Japan. In any case, the "the" is always used, and the word order is pretty consistent.

Rivers: in the United States (and I think Canada as well), almost always "the name River". In England, usually "the River name", but not (based on a quick search of river names on Wikipedia) as consistent as we are on this side of the Atlantic.

Lakes: rarely do you see a "the" used as part of the name. (The only well-known such lake I can think of in the United States is "The Great Salt Lake", which in casual speech is usually called simply "Salt Lake".) However there is no consistency in word order. The Great Lakes are all "Lake name". The Finger Lakes are all "name Lake".

So in the case of Biwa, you're probably be safe with either "Biwa Lake" or "Lake Biwa", though the "the" should be dropped.

Crazy, isn't it?

I'm continuing to enjoy the story. It's moving a bit slowly but I really don't mind that.

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I had trouble spotting much of anything to nag you about this time. But I will comment on the following:

"he had only ever played against opponents that were clearly stronger than him"

This is grammatically incorrect (it should be "stronger than he"). However, this is a mistake which is so common even among native speakers that it sounds more normal to many people than the correct way would. The grammatically correct phrasing can even seem like an affectation, a form of hypercorrectness similar to when people tie themselves in knots to avoid splitting an infinitive or ending a sentence with a preposition.

My personal preference in this case would be to write "stronger than he was". It's grammatically correct but does not sound stilted the way "stronger than he" would. But leaving it as is would also be OK; most people wouldn't even notice it and those who would notice it are so used to that sort of mistake in everyday speech that they wouldn't give it a second thought.

A rather lengthy commentary about such a small thing!

Still loving this fic. I really liked Kouyou's scene here, the whole thing about go and life. Very much like him.

Yes, things march towards the inevitable unhappy conclusion.
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I saw very little to nag you about this time. But the sentence

"There were irises everywhere; roofs were covered with them, they were hanging from the eaves, commoners had them on their waist, and in the court there wasn't a single courtier who wouldn't have been adorned with iris ornaments on their heads. "

has trouble with singular/plural agreement. "Commoners" are plural and should therefore have "waists". A "single courtier" is singular and should therefore have (one hopes) only one head.

I'm feeling lazy this time around, so as far as "nagging" is concerned I'll only point out that in one place you have "descent" where it should be "decent".

But anyway, Easter witches? I never knew such a thing existed.

:D Yay yay.. thanks for the regular updates.
Thanks for mentioning.
Uhm, yeah vaguely canon the game between Touya Meijin and Hikaru. This is what you meant, right?
Just some wondering thoughts, with the twists the story takes so far, there will probably less tragedy i.e. those cheating and all with Sai having a network outside of the capital and perhaps his Father and honest Hikaru around? Also there seems to be less rivalry too. Is Sai his father's? But his Father is busy with the official work as well.
Oh, I really like your integration between your 2 stories thru dreams. Maybe making Hikaru in t in tu in the tlearn go extra fast that way? Haha..

Things are getting more interesting.
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"it is something that combines us"
This is understandable but unidiomatic. To say "connects" would be less unusual in this context.
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I hope you're feeling better.

Yay.. it has been very interesting. Somehow I feel Sai's fathet is like Touya sensei, good hearted but wise. Things definitely took a turn.
Looking forward for future updates :)

Hello ! (Sorry for the surely following mistakes in english, I'm french ;-) )
I really do not ubderstand why have such few review ! I mean, yeah, it's an unusual fanfiction ( an original one, which is great !) and not everybody like that but ... You write well, your chapters are long (I looooove the long fanfictions, which is very hard to find with such a fandom _ !), the story is intresting, etc ... In fact, this one of the best (long) fanfiction (I don't read one shots, so I can't tell) of HnG here (and I do know what I'm talking about).

Thank you for that, please keep writting, do your best and good luck :-D !

Laurie

You are right, things have been moving a bit slowly.
I am glad to see Akari back in the story.
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"Rains abided, and the weather turned hot and sunny..."
Abide (when used intransitively) means to remain, which is the opposite of what I think you are trying to say. Also, "abide" in this sense is pretty much obsolete.