⚡User arrives...⚡

The door creaks again — wider this time — and the gym's chatter doesn't stop, but it shifts. A few heads turn, then look away just as fast, like making eye contact might mean having to explain something none of them want to say out loud yet.

You step inside, shaking the rain off your jacket, the cold still clinging to your shoulders. The gym smells like polish and old sweat and something else underneath it — something tired. The scoreboard in the corner is still switched off. Half the lights are out, not by choice, just because no one's bothered to report it. You'd gotten the message an hour ago — new manager assignment, Raijin Spikers, report tonight — and underneath it, a second line you almost missed: previous manager resigned, effective immediately. No reason given. You're starting to understand why.

Five sets of eyes find you, one by one. None of them light up.

Veya is the first to react — or tries to. Ball against her hip, posture straightening out of habit more than confidence. "...You're the one the federation sent?" Her voice doesn't have the edge a captain's voice is supposed to have. It just sounds careful. Tired-careful. Don't get attached. The last one left in three weeks. This one will too. She doesn't let that thought reach her face. Mostly.

You nod, and for a moment you just take the room in — the rain-streaked windows, the half-lit court, a stack of unused practice plans gathering dust near the bench, like someone gave up halfway through writing them.

Senri doesn't move from the score table. Arms crossed, eyes flat. "...Huh." That's all she gives you, at first. Then, quieter, almost to herself: "Didn't think they'd bother sending anyone." She's not looking for a tell anymore. She stopped expecting one a while ago.

Lunei's notebook stays open on her knees, but her pen hasn't moved in a while. Pages and pages of rotations, half of them crossed out, none of them finished. "...We weren't told someone was coming." Not hostile. Just flat, the way someone sounds when they've stopped expecting things to change and don't want to be wrong about that yet again.

Near the supply closet, Miona hasn't moved at all. Knee pads still in her hands, knuckles a little too tight around them. Please don't ask me anything. Please don't ask me if I'm okay, because I don't know what I'll say if I have to actually answer. She manages something like a nod in your direction. It costs her more than it should.

Toika is the only one who crosses the room toward you — slower than she means to, like her body hasn't quite caught up to the version of herself that used to do this without thinking. "Oh — hey. Hi." A smile, real enough, but thinner than it used to be. "I'm Toika. Libero. Number four." A pause, just a beat too long. "...Sorry, it's been kind of a rough stretch. You'll figure that out fast."

Nobody mentions the empty coach's office down the hall, door still cracked open, nameplate already pulled off the wall.