Coach Miller stood on the sideline. The knuckles of his right hand pressed hard against his temple, grinding in small circles trying to erase the headache pulsing behind his eyes.

  He looked at the bench.

  Aria Fillar sat surrounded by her personal pit crew. One staff member held a cooling fan to her neck. Another blotted moisture from her forehead. A third offered her a selection of energy gels.

  The Queen looked miserable despite herself. Her shoulders slumped forward, posture curling inward. The bright, bubbly energy that usually radiated from her was gone, extinguished by the relentless defense and counter attack of the Port Osea Divers. She looked watered down, a diluted version of herself.

  Miller exhaled. The simple instructions had failed. "Hit high" resulted in slow, floaty balls. "Hit fast" resulted in sloppy mechanics. The raw instinct of his ace had hit a wall she couldn't jump over.

  He had no cards left to play except the heavy ones.

  Miller stepped into the huddle. He knelt in front of Aria.

  "Aria."

  She looked up. Her eyes were a bit glassy.

  "The simple stuff isn't working," Miller said. "We need to get technical. Can you handle a complex rotation?"

  Aria stared at him. She blinked slowly. The sweat dripping down her nose tickled. She gave a stiff nod.

  "Yeah..." she said. "Totally! I love complex!"

  Miller didn't believe her. But the scoreboard read 1-2 in sets. Belief was a luxury he couldn't afford.

  He pulled out his tablet. He drew a jagged line cutting across the court.

  "We are switching to a delayed stack in the C-gap," Miller explained, tracing the path. "When Kaia signals the pipe, I need you to fake the approach to the antenna, plant your outside foot, and cut hard inside to the seam between their middle and right-side blocker. You need to hit the B-quick tempo while Misty runs the X-cross behind you to drag the libero."

  He looked at her.

  "Do you understand the timing window on the B-quick relative to the X-cross?"

  Aria looked at the screen. The red lines and position dots looked like spaghetti and meatballs. The words "B-quick" and "X-cross" floated in her brain like helium balloons, untethered to any meaning she knew.

  She swallowed. She forced an awkward smile.

  "B-quick," Aria repeated, her voice trembling slightly. "Cut inside. Drag the libero. Got it."

  Miller surveyed her face. He saw the panic hiding behind the mascara. He saw the blankness.

  "Okay," Miller lied. "Go execute."

  The buzzer sounded. The fourth set began.

  Aria jogged to the net. She replayed the words in her head. Inside. Cut. B-quick.

  The whistle blew. Salesbia received the serve.

  Kaia Blakitu pushed the ball to the center, signaling the play.

  Aria moved. She started her approach toward the antenna, just like the diagram showed. Then, she tried to cut.

  Her feet got tangled. The transition from lateral speed to forward momentum required a level of footwork she had never practiced. She stumbled, losing all her momentum. She arrived at the middle of the net flat-footed, staring up at a ball that was already descending.

  She jumped. It was a weak, vertical hop.

  Across the net, Himeko Nakamura watched the confusion unfold. She saw the stumble.

  Himeko rose and occupied the space.

  Aria patted the ball over the net, a soft, panicked roll shot.

  Himeko absorbed it with her palms. The ball died instantly, dropping to the floor on her side, but Lisa was already there to scoop it up.

  Transition. Set to Jules. Kill.

  1-0.

  The next rally was worse. Aria tried to run the X-cross. She collided with Misty Cole in the backfield. Both players went down in a heap of limbs. The ball fell between them.

  2-0.

  The collapse accelerated.

  Kaia set Aria on the outside. Aria hesitated. She was thinking about the "B-quick" timing instead of just hitting. She waited too long. She contacted the ball on the way down.

  Himeko was there. The respect she had held for the soaring ace reached point zero.

  She hard-blocked.

  She shoved her hands into Aria's swing path. The ball exploded off Himeko's palms and slammed straight down into Aria's toes.

  BOOM.

  5-0.

  The Salesbia Superdome grew quiet. The fans stopped cheering. All hopes were stopped. They watched their golden goddess shrink with every point.

  The score ticked up. 8-0. 12-0.

  Himeko dominated the net. She read every twitch of Aria's muscles like The Queen was broadcasting her uncertainty in high definition.

  On the next play, Kaia set the ball to the right, trying to find Misty Cole to stop the bleeding.

  Himeko ignored Aria completely. She turned her back on the ace. She sprinted across the net, sliding in front of Misty.

  Misty swung, thinking she had an open lane.

  Himeko appeared from the ether. She clamped the line shut.

  BOOM.

  The ball fell on the Salesbia side.

  The demoralization was total. Himeko Nakamura controlled the entire width of the court. She blocked the ace. She blocked the opposite. She was a wall that moved, thought, and punished.

  18-6.

  22-9.

  The stands began to empty. The white seats of the Superdome became visible as thousands of fans headed for the exits, unwilling to watch the final execution. The roar that had defined the first set was gone, replaced by the squeak of sneakers heading out and the thuds of the ball hitting the floor.

  Coach Miller stood frozen on the sideline. He watched Aria jump. She barely cleared the net. Her face was crumpled, on the verge of tears.

  She was going to get hurt. If she kept jumping with that broken form, her knees would give out.

  Miller slammed the buzzer.

  "Substitution."

  He pointed at Aria and jerked his thumb toward the bench.

  Aria landed. She looked at the paddle, couldn't argue with his decisions. She walked off the court with her head down, collapsing onto the bench and immediately burying her face in a towel.

  The reserve hitter jogged on.

  The match ended three points later.

  TWEEEEEEEET! TWEEEEEEEET! TWEEEEEEEET!

  "Game, set, match! Port Osea Divers win 3-1!"

  The remaining crowd offered a polite, sparse applause.

  Himeko landed. She looked at the scoreboard. 25-12.

  She turned to her teammates, they were smiling, enjoying their first win of the season.

  The stands of the Salesbia Superdome had emptied. The white seats shone under the lights, creating a vast, plastic graveyard where the noise used to be.

  On the home bench, silence reigned. Most of the players had already fled to the locker room to escape the heavy atmosphere. Only a few stragglers remained, packing their bags with slow movements.

  Coach Miller stood near the sideline. He stared at his clipboard. He drew a circle, then crossed it out. He drew an arrow, then scribbled over it until the ink filled through the paper.

  Aria Fillar sat a few feet away. A large white towel draped over her head, hiding her face, her posture slumped forward like a teddy bear.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Miller sighed. He tucked the clipboard under his arm and turned to leave.

  "Coach."

  The voice was muffled from under the towel.

  Miller stopped. He looked back.

  Aria pulled the towel down. Her makeup was smudged. Her eyes were red and her lips were shivering.

  "W-What do I do?" she asked, her voice cracking. "I tried to jump high. Then I tried to jump fast. Then I tried the complex thing. She stopped all of it. What do I need to learn?"

  Miller looked at his ace. He looked at the girl who sold out stadiums and had her face on skyscrapers, now like a loss sobbing child in this vast stadium.

  He felt a heavy weight in his stomach. His job was on the line. The investors demanded championships, not learning curves.

  "You are a natural athlete, Aria," Miller said. "You jump higher than anyone. You hit harder than anyone. In terms of raw specs, you are already better than ninety five percent of the league."

  He took a step closer, lowering his voice.

  "But that blocker... she was reading you. She knew where you were going before you moved. That is game sense. It is the ability to see the future."

  "Teach me that. I'll practice it."

  Miller shook his head slowly.

  "I can't teach you that, Aria. Game sense is inherent. It comes from instinct, or years of struggling to adapt and win against the adaptation. You have been a star since you were twelve. You never had to suffer."

  She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

  Miller looked away, unable to hold her gaze.

  "I'm going to talk to management," he said, his tone turning business-like. "We can't ask you to do everything. We need to buy a second option. Someone who thinks as fast as that Osea captain."

  He turned and walked away toward the tunnel, leaving his star player alone on the bench.

  One game it was, she could still win a lot later on in the season...

  Then why the tears were rolling down.

  Fifty feet away, the atmosphere was party rocking.

  The Divers were packed together, tossing knee pads and water bottles into their bags. Laughter bounced off the vacant dome.

  "Did you see her face?" Lisa Denire said, a rare grin breaking her stoic mask. "When you stuffed that slide attack? Priceless."

  "I thought my arm was going to fall off," Sarah Lemear laughed, rotating her shoulder. "But worth it."

  Jules Moreno was draped over the bench, groaning loudly.

  "I'm dying," Jules whined, clutching her stomach. "Light afternoon snack wore off in the third set. My body is eating itself!”

  She kicked her legs in the air.

  "If I don't get food in ten minutes, I'm going to start biting the volleyballs."

  Coach Elena Vance clapped her hands, beaming with the glow of a 3-1 victory over the giants.

  "Relax, Julibee. Tonight, we celebrate."

  She pulled a golden card from her pocket, waving it like a trophy.

  "I made a reservation. 'Excellence culinaire'. Three Michelin stars. The finest dining in Salesbia. We are going to eat like queens."

  Jules sat up instantly. "Does queens mean big portions?"

  "It means expensive," Elena winked. "Pack up. The bus leaves in ten."

  Himeko zipped her bag. She looked at her excited teammates. A warm feeling settled in her chest. Maybe she's also hungry now.

  'Excellence culinaire' lived up to the city's reputation.

  The restaurant was a panelled with white marble and crystal chandeliers. A string quartet played softly in the corner. The waiters moved silently in tuxedos, holding trays with white-gloved hands.

  The Divers, fresh from the showers but still wearing their team tracksuits, looked like a group of bluejays invading a penguin colony. They sat at a long table in the center of the room, drawing stares from the elegant clientele.

  A waiter placed a large, square plate in front of Jules.

  In the center of the vast white porcelain sat a piece of meat the size of a matchbox. It was adorned with a single sprig of green and a smear of brown sauce.

  "Here you are, Madame," the waiter whispered reverently. "Filet de Boeuf sous-vide with a reduction of trumpet mushroom and essence of rosemary ash."

  Jules stared at the plate. She blinked.

  "Is this... the appetizer?" she whispered to Himeko.

  "I guess it's their definition for it," Himeko replied, eyeing her own plate, which contained three scallops arranged in a triangle.

  Jules picked up her fork. She looked starving. She cut a microscopic piece of the beef, swiped it through the sauce, and put it in her mouth.

  She chewed.

  Mhmmmmm.

  She chewed again.

  Mhmm?

  Her chewing slowed. She stopped.

  Jules leaned toward Himeko. She looked left and right to ensure the waiter wasn't hovering.

  "It tastes like warm water," Jules whispered.

  Himeko cut a piece of her scallop. She tasted it. The texture was perfect and presentation was art.

  The flavor however, was absent. Felt sterile to the mouth, and somehow that's a word to describe food.

  "I miss Osea food," Jules whimpered. "Gimme the spiceeeeeeeee."

  From across the table, Sarah Lemear cleared her throat.

  She looked around the room. Seeing the coast was clear, she reached into her pocket. She pulled out a small glass jar filled with crushed red pepper flakes.

  "Emergency flavours," Sarah whispered, sliding the jar across the tablecloth.

  Himeko's eyes lit up. Jules gasped, snatching the jar.

  "Sarah, I could kiss you," Jules whispered.

  She shook a generous mound of red flakes onto the tiny beef. Himeko took the jar next, dusting her scallops.

  They took a bite. The heat hit their tongues. The flavor woke up.

  They exchanged a silent nod. It wasn't Osea, but survivable.

  The air outside the restaurant was cool and filtered. The Divers walked toward their bus, bellies full (or not full) of expensive, slightly spicy food.

  Himeko lingered at the back of the group.

  Her phone buzzed.

  She reached into her pocket.

  She pulled it out. A message notification from "Kewkvin145".

  She tapped the screen.

  Kewkvin145: Saw the score. 3-1. You guys absolutely destroyed them. And you the whole match? Wabam wabam. Scary stuff.

  Kewkvin145: [Image Attachment].

  Himeko opened the image.

  It was a photo of Damian. The setter was face-down on the locker room's bed, fast asleep, drool pooling on the paper cover. Someone (clearly Kevin) had placed a carrot hat on his head.

  Kewkvin145: Dude passed out 5 mins after the match. We won big though.

  Himeko stared at the screen. The streetlights of Salesbia reflected on the glass.

  "Wabam wabam," she whispered the words, shaking her head.

  Her thumbs hovered over the keyboard.

  Himeko: Thank you. The notes were useful.

  She hesitated. Her finger drifted to the emoji keyboard. She scrolled past the standard faces.

  She selected a cat giving a thumbs up.

  Himeko: ????

  She pressed send.

  A soft giggle escaped her throat.

  She quickly covered her mouth, looking around to see if anyone heard. But the rest of the team was already boarding the bus.

  Himeko looked at the phone one last time, turned off the screen, and jogged to catch up.