The automatic doors of Mikage Arena opened, and Chihiro stopped in her tracks. "……Huge." That was all. Twelve meters to the ceiling. Eight badminton courts spread out simultaneously. Kouna, who had always memorized the second gymnasium's ceiling at 8.5 meters in her body, felt the pressure of the space shift the moment she took her first step inside. The white lines of the courts were arranged in neat rows. In the distance, the sound of players' shoes scraping the floor. The entire venue breathed like one great lung. "Eight courts." Yuri spoke in a low voice. Arms crossed, surveying the venue. Her golden eyes narrowed. Kouna could tell her inner self was wavering. Eyes that were wavering but had absolutely decided not to show it on her face. "Senpai, look." Chihiro tugged Yuri's sleeve in a small voice. Her finger pointed to a group warming up. Gold and green emblems sewn onto their warm-up suits——Suirei Academy. Just by the number of members, they were many times over the White Cranes. Kouna's eyes stopped on one of them. 168 centimeters tall, left-handed. Every time she swung her racket, the air shifted faintly. The shuttle's trajectory was completely different from other players. Naturally fast. Naturally accurate. "Misaki Tamaki." When she said it quietly, Aoi beside her returned a soft "yeah." Aoi was watching the same person too. "That's the girl who was faster than Nozomi, right?" "The teacher said she was slower than Nozomi." "Isn't either way incredible?" "Either way is incredible." While the two continued their exchange in hushed voices, Kouna began dividing the arena in her mind. Sixteen squares. The position where she stood now. The width of the courts. The distance to the ceiling. The coordinates she'd hammered into her body in the second gymnasium crumbled once. The scale was too different. Her "eyes" couldn't process it all. Just a little. Kouna took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She divided it again the same way. This time adjusted to the width of this place. Using the court lines as a reference. The position of the referee's stand. The height of the net. Where the opponent's front player would stand. ——It works. The certainty that "my eyes can work in this place too" quietly returned. Then Shinya passed by her side. With his bag still on his shoulder, he passed in front of the four of them and said just one thing. "Don't be late." That said, he walked toward the reception. He didn't look back. Letters lit up on the electronic scoreboard. 【Shiratori High School】 The four of them looked up silently. Letters lined up in white light. No one spoke. Not Chihiro, not Yuri, not Aoi, not Kouna. Just their school's name was there. Something stirred quietly in Kouna's chest. Exhilaration and tension coexisted in the same place. She tried to put it into words and couldn't. She thought she didn't need to put it into words. For now, just being here was enough. --- The doubles match began. Kouna and Yuri's pair against Suirei's doubles. In the first few rallies, Kouna understood. Suirei's front player was fast. She was reading the course of Yuri's smashes. Not ordinary reading. She was coming with data. Calculating the hitting direction from Yuri's form. As expected, the score gap opened early. Five points, six points. Kouna could see Yuri gritting her teeth even from the back court. "Right back, clear." Kouna said it shortly. Yuri's racket moved. The clear went up. Suirei retreated. The rally changed. The gap narrowed just a little. A few more rallies. Yuri drove a fierce smash down. The shuttle made a sound like it was slicing the court——and disappeared outside the out line. "Out!" The umpire's voice. Yuri took a step toward the referee. Kouna quickly pulled Yuri's sleeve. "Yuri." Short, quiet. Yuri's feet stopped. Three seconds of silence. Yuri turned back, looked at Kouna for one second, and faced forward. "……Understood." The match continued. Around the twelfth point, something began to change. Kouna says "right back." Yuri moves. But——Yuri is moving slightly faster than Kouna's voice. Kouna paused for an instant. (Wait.) Before she could speak, Yuri was already moving. Kouna's "reading" was reaching Yuri's body first. Even without words, the time spent moving on the same court was conveying something. Her observation was beginning to dwell in another person's body. That sensation, a mixture of surprise and exhilaration, spread slowly from the center of Kouna's chest. Something had entered a place it had never entered before. If she tried to put it into words, it would disappear, so Kouna just felt it. They lost the match 16 to 18. But the last few points were evenly matched. --- They moved to singles. Aoi versus Misaki Tamaki. Kouna stood beside the bench, watching the court. Shinya came to stand beside her. Arms crossed, eyes narrowed, watching the court. Watching the same thing as Kouna. Aoi's first serve went in. Misaki returned it. Aoi countered with varied shots. Clears, drops, hairpins. Aoi's shots were truly varied. Misaki was being pushed back gradually. The score was even. (If this continues,) Kouna thought. Midway through, Misaki's eyes changed. Consecutive attacks. Smashes kept coming. Fast, low, accurate. Aoi was pressed. She retreated. The angle of her racket face——. Kouna saw it. That "tremor" appearing on Aoi's racket face. The subtle disturbance unique to Aoi when she lost confidence in crucial moments. That tremor Kouna had known about for so long. Aoi was on the far side of the court from the bench. The distance was too great to reach her voice. Kouna looked at Shinya. Shinya glanced at Kouna once, then silently returned his eyes to the court. The quality of that silence contained something. It could be read as "what will you do," or "you can see it, can't you"——either way, it was a silence that held meaning. The game ended. Interval. Kouna went to the edge of the line. Aoi came off the court. She draped a towel around her neck, biting her lip. "Aoi." She called quietly. Aoi looked up. "Your racket face——I see it." Aoi's eyes met Kouna's. "You don't need to hesitate." She didn't say anything extra. She reduced the number of words. She packed the meaning of "I can see it" into these three words. Aoi looked at Kouna's eyes for several seconds. Then she nodded shortly. The second game began. The tremor disappeared from Aoi's racket face. The score began to narrow. Misaki frowned for the first time. That calm and composed Misaki Tamaki, who shouldn't waver no matter what——her expression changed. In the end, Aoi lost. But in the second game, she pushed it to 21 to 18. The result was 2 wins, 3 losses. Shiratori's narrow defeat. --- While packing their things, no one spoke. The sound of Chihiro closing her racket bag's zipper. The sound of Yuri tying her shoe bag. Aoi sitting in a chair, hands clasped on her lap. Shinya gathered the four of them at the arena wall. He didn't call out to them specifically. But when Shinya went to the wall, the four naturally followed. That was all. Shinya looked around at the four of them. "You all——" There was a pause. "——played the badminton I wanted to see." It wasn't the voice of an instructor praising them. It wasn't the voice of someone scolding them. It was a different quality of voice. The expression that hadn't crumbled for six episodes——just at the edge of his eyelids, for just an instant, something glistened. The outline of emotion melted only there. Yuri asked with straightforward eyes. "Does that mean you're praising us?" "I'm praising you." Chihiro burst into tears. She crumbled with a soft sound. There was no trace of her trying to hold back her tears. She just cried. Still holding her racket bag, she raised her voice. "Ugh……!" Yuri started to say "Chihiro!" but——her own face twisted. She was desperately trying to hold it back. But she couldn't endure it. Tears fell from the corners of her eyes. "…Damn it, I'm not crying." She said it while crying. Aoi laughed softly, saying "Yuri's crying too." That laugh too had red eyes. Kouna, while crying, looked at Shinya's profile. That profile——. Something overlapped in her mind. The dusty group photo on the wall of the second gymnasium. In the old photo, a young man standing alone, slightly apart at the edge. Shinya's profile now. They were the same. The shape of his mouth. The line of his jaw. The angle of his gaze. Everything was the same as that profile in the photo. Before Kouna could say anything, Shinya quietly opened his mouth. "I'm a Shiratori alumnus." The four looked at Shinya. "I'll be the last student under Sensei Segawa——the first advisor who created the club." His voice was matter-of-fact. But the weight of those words was not matter-of-fact. "In the Interhigh before Sensei retired, I competed as a club member. I'm in that group photo too." "……The person at the edge of the photo." Kouna's voice came out. It was thinner than she expected. Shinya looked at Kouna. "You noticed." "Just now, it overlapped." Shinya was silent for a moment. Then he continued. "I owe Sensei a debt. I owe this club a debt. That's why I came back. I didn't want to let what Sensei created end." That was all. There was no long explanation, no sentimental words. Just the facts. But those facts gathered everything from six episodes into one shape. In Kouna's chest, things that had been separate until now——Shinya's back, the seven characters "if the knees hold" in that analysis notebook, Shinya's voice saying her "eyes would be usable," the profile in the group photo——all connected in one line. Tears fell. She didn't wipe them. Something moved again in her chest. Something that no longer fits into the word "respect." Something that was beginning to take shape but still had no name. --- The train home was a local bound for Mikage Station. Chihiro and Yuri moved to the car ahead. Chihiro said "I'm going to talk with Aoi!" and pulled Yuri's arm. Aoi said "Suddenly?" while being pulled along. Kouna and Shinya were left alone in one car. The night of Mikage City flowed past the window. The lights of the shopping street. The orange light of the Mikage Gintengai arcade. In the distance, the outer wall of Mikage Arena was visible. They'd been there until today. Shinya, still looking out the window, spoke quietly. "Today's Shiratori——" Kouna listened without turning. "——has something more precise than third place." The train swayed. "You should have seen it all with your eyes." Shinya didn't turn toward Kouna. Still looking out the window, he spoke. "I saw it." Kouna answered. She paused for a beat. Something decided itself in Kouna. Or rather, it had always been there. It had always been there, but today it took the form of words for the first time. "About you too." She continued quietly. The train swayed. The sound of the wheels continued. Shinya paused slightly. Still looking out the window, he spoke. "……I see." Shinya said it shortly. He said nothing more. Neither denial nor affirmation. Just that word existed as time between them, with the train's sway. Kouna stayed as she was. Knowing her face was red, she looked out at the night of Mikage City. Today so many things had moved, so many things had connected, so many things had been named. But this one thing——it didn't need a name yet. For now, just being in this silence was enough. The train approached Mikage Station. The light of the platform came into view. --- The next morning. When Kouna opened the sliding door of the second gymnasium, morning light streamed in at an angle. Light from the high horizontal window created a long rectangle on the floor. Dust floated slowly in the light. Kouna went to the wall. She stood before the old group photo. Behind the dusty glass, the club members from the year they went to Interhigh were lined up. In the center was Toshio Segawa——the first advis