Jules Moreno jogged toward the left side of the net, nudging Sarah Lemear with her elbow.

  Bright laughs bubbled up from the huddle, echoing strangely against the corrugated metal roof. They talked about the post-game dinner, about the seafood tower Elena had promised, about 'the pressure' of finding the right words for the press conference after such dominant streak.

  On the other side of the net, the Tarin Herons moved in the enthusiasm of commuters waiting for a delayed bus. They walked to their positions, checking their kneepads or staring at the ceiling lights. They just stood there, casually chatting, waiting for the whistle to tell them to start working again.

  The referee signaled.

  The Tarin server tossed the ball. It was a standard float serve, competent.

  Sarah Lemear stepped in, bumping it cleanly to Willow. The rhythm was established instantly. Willow set a quick ball to the outside. Jules Moreno was already there, swinging free and loose. She hammered the ball past a disjointed block, burying it into the floor.

  "Side out! Point Divers!"

  1-0.

  "Too easy!" someone shouted from the Osea bench.

  Willow Vance took the ball for the next serve. She walked to the baseline, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. The stadium fell silent, waiting for the Osea machine to keep rolling.

  She spun the ball. The yellow and blue panels blended together under the warehouse lights. She took a breath, holding the air in her lungs for a second, then released it.

  Thwack.

  Her hand struck the leather flat. The ball sailed across the net, shivering in the air as it hunted the back line.

  The Herons' libero, a small player with quick feet, stepped forward. She accepted the ball onto her platform with a soft shrug of her shoulders. The pass popped up, drifting toward the setter’s hands near the net.

  From the left side, Jiayi Rui began her approach.

  Her movement was maddeningly simple. Left foot, right foot, left foot. One could say she was hop-stepping to her approach.

  Himeko Nakamura watched her. She shuffled laterally, mirroring the rookie's path. The timing was easy to read. Too easy.

  The Tarin setter pushed the ball out to the antenna.

  Jiayi jumped.

  Himeko jumped with her.

  They rose in perfect synchronization. Himeko's arms extended fully, her shoulders locking to create a solid wall. She sealed the line. She sealed the cross. From her altitude, she could see Jiayi's face clearly. The rookie's expression was blank, unreadable.

  Then, the world changed for Jiayi Rui.

  The saturation bled out of the universe. The bright yellow of the gym lights, the deep blue of the Divers' jerseys, the colors of the advertisements on the wall...

  Everything drained away into a silent grey monochrome.

  Time decelerated to a crawl. The ball hung suspended in the gray air, spinning with agonizing slowness.

  Jiayi's eyes scanned the void.

  She saw them.

  Glowing, crimson lines pulsed in the darkness. They stretched across the court like a spiderweb made of laser light.

  One thick red line connected Himeko's right shoulder to the floorboards deep in the backcourt. That was the line of sight for the cross-court spike. At the end of that thread, crouching in the gray stillness, was Lisa Denire. The libero was tense, her muscles coiled, waiting at the exact termination point of the angle.

  Another line connected Himeko's left hand to the sideline. The block was solid there.

  Jiayi tilted her head slightly. The perspective shifted.

  She saw a new line, one that connected Himeko to Lisa yet with completely different pathing.

  The "Link" revealed the causality. Because Himeko was jumping here, with her arms extended so wide, she was casting a visual shadow. A cone of blindness stretched out behind the blocker's body.

  Lisa was positioned perfectly to dig a spike, but she was positioned blindly. The red wire connecting her eyes to the ball was severed by Himeko's torso.

  There was a gap. A pocket of gray floorboards sitting right in the middle of that shadow, about four feets in front of Lisa.

  If the ball traveled through that specific tunnel of air, close to Himeko's hip but under her armpit, Lisa wouldn't see it until it cleared the obstruction. By then, human reaction time would be too slow.

  The puzzle was solved.

  Jiayi blinked once. Color started rushing back into the world. The roar of the crowd returned.

  Jiayi swung.

  She drove her hand through the ball, aiming for space near the blocker's ribs.

  The ball flashed past Himeko's torso, tucked tight against her side.

  In the back row, Lisa Denire waited. She saw Himeko seal the net as titanic as a wall of iron.

  Suddenly, a yellow-blue blur exploded from behind Himeko's waist.

  Lisa flinched. Her brain registered the threat a fraction of a second too late. She threw her hands out, a desperate, reflexive jerk.

  THUD.

  The ball slammed into the floorboards four feet in front of her toes.

  Lisa stared at the spot, her hands still suspended in the air. She hadn't even moved her feet.

  "Point, Tarin Herons."

  The referee signaled the side-out.

  Jiayi landed softly. She turned around and high-fived her setter, a small smile playing on her lips.

  The match developed in a way felt deceptively equal despite everyone still knowing Divers are a better team.

  Side-out. Side-out. Side-out.

  The scoreboard clicked upward in perfect unison. 5-5. 10-10. 12-12.

  On the surface, the Port Osea Divers were playing their usual heavy-hitting game. Jules Moreno crushed cross-court spikes. Sarah Lemear found the corners. The machine was working.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  But underneath the defense aspect, something felt strange.

  Himeko Nakamura stood at the net, her chest heaving slightly. She tracked the ball, she tracked the setter, and she tracked the spiker. She did everything the manual said a middle blocker should do.

  Yet, Jiayi Rui moved through Himeko's defense like smoke through a keyhole.

  When Himeko shuffled left to close the line. Jiayi saw the movement and snapped the ball back toward the seam Himeko had just vacated.

  When Himeko stayed centered to protect the middle, Jiayi hit a high, looping shot that dropped exactly into the deep corner Himeko's shadow obscured from the libero.

  Himeko felt like a puppet master who had gotten tangled in her own strings. Every decision she made became the catalyst for Jiayi's success. Himeko was the starting point of the Link. Her position dictated the solution to the puzzle, and Jiayi solved it instantly, every single time.

  The score remained tight. Osea, being the stronger team, fought for every inch. Tarin, in the opposite, simply walked through open doors.

  14-14.

  15-15.

  Then, the Herons found traction.

  A scrambled play by the Divers sent a free ball over. The Herons capitalized. Jiayi hit a sharp cut shot that landed inches from the line.

  15-16.

  The next rally saw Willow misread the block. Jules got stuffed.

  15-17.

  The two-point gap felt like a canyon.

  The Herons served. Lisa received perfectly. Willow set Sarah on the right. The Herons dug it.

  The transition began. The Tarin setter pushed the ball high to the left pin.

  Himeko looked forward.

  Jiayi Rui was approaching. Her face was placid, looking maddeningly peaceful.

  That peace terrified Himeko. Panic flared in Himeko's chest. Logic abandoned her. She realized there's no way she could stop this ghost alone.

  "Block! Help! Triple!" Himeko screamed, abandoning her zone.

  She sprinted to the pin. Sarah Lemear and Jules Moreno heard the desperation in their captain's voice. They crashed inward, abandoning their assignments to join the wall.

  Three blue jerseys rose in unison. Six hands pressed over the net, creating a fortress of bone and intent. They eclipsed the sun. They shadowed Jiayi completely.

  Jiayi jumped, seeing the wall, her arm cocked back.

  They waited...

  And waited...

  ...It was a fake.

  The Tarin setter, reading the panic Himeko had broadcasted to the entire stadium, had pushed a back-set to the opposite side.

  The Tarin opposite hitter jumped, just a rookie with average stats and a nervous skillset found herself staring at a completely empty net. Just twenty-five feet of open varnish.

  She swung.

  THUD.

  The ball buried itself into the floor.

  Himeko landed, surrounded by her teammates. She stared at the empty space where she should have been standing.

  15-18.

  16-20.

  Himeko Nakamura stood at the net, her chest heaving not from from the mental shear of trying to solve an unsolvable equation.

  If her lead foot is planted at forty-five degrees, the cross is open. If her elbow is low, she's tipping.

  Himeko gripped logic like a lifeline. She built a castle of probability in her mind, layering defensive theory upon defensive theory to trap the rookie. She needed to be faster. She needed to be smarter. She needed to seal every possible exit.

  The pass came to the Tarin setter.

  Himeko's eyes narrowed. The set was tight, pushing toward the left pin.

  Jiayi approached. She moved with that same infuriating, sleepy rhythm.

  Himeko exploded upward, channeling every ounce of her frustration into a perfect, textbook seal. She aligned her center of gravity with the ball, her arms extending to create a towering roof over the net. She left zero gaps. The line was dead and the cross was dead. The tip was covered by her chest.

  Jiayi jumped.

  She looked directly at the center of Himeko's palms.

  She swung.

  She drove the ball straight into the heart of the block with deliberate, suicidal intent.

  BOOM.

  The ball slammed into Himeko's rigid hands. Because the force was directed straight into the strongest part of the block, the physics were simple. The ball rebounded instantly, crashing straight down onto the Tarin side of the court.

  "Point, Port Osea Divers! 19-23."

  Himeko landed. She stared at the ball bouncing on the opponent's floor. A kill block. A perfect stop.

  Then the buzzer sounded for the rotation. Realization hit her like a bucket of ice water.

  She had to serve and then leave the net.

  "No..." Himeko whispered.

  She walked to the back line, the ball heavy in her hands. She looked through the net. The front row now consisted of Jules and Sarah. Without Himeko's height in the middle, the 'Link' Jiayi saw must have turned into a highway.

  Himeko served. A safe float.

  The Tarin libero passed it.

  The Tarin setter pushed the ball to the left.

  Jiayi Rui approached. She jumped. She saw the shorter block of Jules Moreno. She swung over the top, burying the ball into the center of the court.

  "Point Tarin. 24-19. Set point."

  Himeko rotated out. Lisa Denire subbed in. Himeko sat on the bench, towel over her head, her mind reeling. She had won the battle at the net, only to realize she had lost the war of position. How cold and calculated can Jiayi Rui be?

  On the court, the Divers scrambled. A bad reception. A free ball sent over.

  Jiayi attacked again. A simple, clean line shot that avoided the desperate dive of Lisa.

  THUD.

  TWEEEEEEEET! TWEEEEEEEET!

  "Point, Set, Tarin Herons! 25-20."