Author's Note

Here it is. Here it fucking is. Exactly one year later, I give you CML 15. And with that, I give you the end of our journey together.

I'm really emotional right now, what the fuck.

Please watch this cosplay music video that I made with my friends to commemorate three years of CML. If you don't remember what happened in the fic, it's a good way to jog your memory (and your tears). Go on youtube and add the URL /watch?v=bF-0u5O1aOg

No warnings, just tears. Enjoy, for the last time.

The grey smoke curled delicately as it rose into the air, dissipating with the crisp wind responsible for the horrid chill. Kuroo often thought that he'd be able to survive out here in the winter deadlands if he only had to worry about snowfalls, rather than the freezing flurries and storms. The tips of his bare fingers were numb, and Kuroo swore softly when the half-smoked cigarette he was manipulating escaped his grip and fell into the snow with a quiet sizzle. It disappeared next to the three other butts Kuroo had dropped in the last quarter hour.

Unsatisfied, he blew out the last of the warm smoke in his lungs, and then pulled another stick from the smashed-up carton in his jacket pocket. He stuck it between his lips almost mechanically and cupped his hand around his face as he lit it, briefly enjoying the warmth of the lighter's small flame on his reddened cheeks. He inhaled deeply, hating the acrid taste of tar on his tongue but soothed by the heat travelling down to his core. When he exhaled, it came out like a sigh.

He rinsed and repeated wordlessly, twirling the cigarette between his frozen fingers between puffs as he'd been doing for a while now. The repetitive movement kept his mind off his thoughts. If birds of a feather flocked together, then Kuroo felt right at home in this icy, barren wasteland.

"Is it going to take catching the flu for you to wear a damn hat?"

A voice ripped through the silence hanging around Kuroo, although the young man didn't have to turn to know who'd decided to join him. He leaned forward against the railing in front of him, taking another puff of smoke while the newcomer approached.

"I'd ruin my hair if I wore one," he chuckled, cigarette smoke punctuating each weak laugh. "Better dead than ugly."

"Surprising that you're not dead already, then," the young man behind him retorted without much bite to his words. The fresh snow crunched under his boots as he took self-assured steps towards Kuroo, only to stop next to him. He eyed the cigarette between his lips distastefully. "Maybe you will if you finish that packet in your pocket."

"If only it were that easy," Kuroo sighed, hanging his head.

His companion took it as an opportunity to snatch the cigarette from his shaking fingers, and throw it into the snow with the rest. It sizzled as it went out, accompanied by Kuroo's whine of disappointment.

"Tsukki!" he sighed, glaring at his friend, who looked guiltlessly onward, into the barren street. "I won't even have the chance to get cancer if you throw out all my cigarettes like that."

"What are you trying to do?" Tsukki interrupted him, his breath fogging up his cracked glasses lightly. "You haven't touched a single smoke since the forest. Since we got to Niigata. Why start again now?"

"Are you concerned for me, Tsukki?" Kuroo hummed teasingly, lighting another cigarette with ease. His dislocated shoulder ached when he cupped a hand around his face, but the cold numbed the inflamed joint despite the layers of clothing and bandages.

"Stop avoiding the topic. Answer me." Tsukishima coughed when Kuroo blew the smoke towards him, waving the cloud away from his face with a grimace. "And keep that away from me."

"I'm just trying to feel alive again, is all," Kuroo shrugged nonchalantly, leaning back against the railing. "Haven't felt this empty in a while."

The air around them settled, and it became clear that Kuroo was done joking around. His serious countenance made Tsukishima's hairs stand on end, but he pushed through.

"Remember when we found you guys in camp Omega-13?" It felt like it was a lifetime ago, for all it was worth. Each one of their trials felt like it had lasted a decade. "You smoked a lot, then. We asked Kenma about it. He said you did it because you were still alive, when everyone else is dead."

"Kenma's always been too bright for his own good," Kuroo shrugged. "It's true. This is my punishment for outliving everybody else."

"Makes no sense."

"Not a lot of things do, these days." Kuroo took a long drag, and exhaled in a loud sigh. "Like why Suga, of all people, was the one who ended up dead because of us."

Tsukishima said nothing. His heart sank as they reached the core of the matter, what he'd come to talk about when he realized that nobody had seen Kuroo for the ten hours following their tragic return.

"You're terrible at therapy, Tsukki. Consider a career outside of human relations, would you? You're too antisocial," Kuroo chuckled at his friend's silence.

"It takes one to know one, and that's why you're gonna tell me what's got you so hung up," Tsukishima retorted, hugging himself for warmth when a chilly gust ran through them. Kuroo's fingers were a bright red around the dirty white of the cigarette.

"Touché." Kuroo took another drag and counted off a few seconds. "How's Daichi?"

"The same as before." Tsukishima nudged him with his elbow. "That wasn't my question, though."

"I'll be fine if you stop reminding me that I'm not." There was the smallest tinge of annoyance in the teasing lilt of his voice, but Tsukishima remained undeterred.

"Don't be a drama queen," Tsukishima clicked his tongue. "Just answer the damn question."

"Don't get mad, Tsukki," Kuroo laughed lightly, then sobered. "I'm… I'm going to be fine. I just need some time to think."

"What are you thinking about?"

"A lot of things." He twirled the cigarette in his hands, eyes drawn to the idle action. "What happened out there. Why it happened the way it did. What we could've done differently to prevent this outcome." He hung his head, letting his greasy hair obscure his face. "If we could have saved Suga. If we could've done anything… anything at all…"

"Hey…" Tsukishima felt awkward now, not expecting this kind of heartfelt confession from Kuroo. He expected teasing, light comments about dark matters, but no actual conversation. "There's nothing you could've-"

"But what if there was?" Kuroo interrupted brusquely, his fists clenched in silent suffering. The cigarette in his fingers snapped with an audible crunch, and Kuroo yelped when the scorching ashes singed his skin. While he shook his hand in pain, Tsukki bent to pick up a handful of snow, which he pressed to Kuroo's palm, holding onto his wrist with his other hand. He realized that Kuroo was shaking. And that it was much too fine of a tremble to be from pain or from cold.

"Kuroo…" he began, eyes riveted to the snow melting off his chilled skin.

"What if there was...?" Kuroo repeated, quieting down. "What if we could've done something to save him, and we didn't? We shouldn't have let him come in the first place. This responsibility is on us."

"You don't have to bear it alone."

"Daichi will expect us to," Kuroo shook his head. "You saw what he was like. He hasn't spoken a single word, hasn't left Suga's bedside since we saw him. This is going to change him."

"Enough for him to forsake everybody else for Suga-senpai's sake?" Tsukishima frowned. "The captain isn't that kind of person. He still has everybody else on his mind, no matter what."

"He used to. But now…" Kuroo shook his hand free from the snow, but Tsukishima held strong onto his wrist. He didn't fight it. "I saw it in his eyes, right from the start. Suga's gone, and a part of him has, too. He's not the Daichi we know anymore."

"Don't say it like that," Tsukishima mumbled uncomfortably.

"It's true, though," Kuroo sighed, finally pulling away from Tsukishima. "Something's changed. I don't know what has, but he's changed. And that makes it especially difficult to plan for the future."

"Is that what you were doing, out here all alone? Thinking about the future?" Tsukishima sighed. "You've never had trouble coming up with plans before."

"That was before Daichi turned into a wild card," Kuroo shrugged, heading off towards the interior of the mall complex. "All my plans so far have been successful because I knew the materials I had to work with. But we've got a variable amongst us now, and the future has never been more uncertain."

Tsukishima watched him leave, a strange nausea roiling in his gut at the confession. Though their present had always been rocky, their future had always seemed simple, and clear cut; stay together, survive, find safety.

But it seemed like they couldn't even count on that plan anymore.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

Nishinoya was loathe to admit that he recognized Hinata's loud sobbing all the way from down the hall. It nearly stopped his advance as he made his way towards the intensive care room, if only because seeing his kouhai in so much pain risked breaking him.

But the younger ones had just lost another senpai, another leading figure and person of reference. More than ever, Noya had to be strong for them.

Faking self-assurance as best as he could, he knocked lightly on the door, and entered.

The small room was crowded with people and the rare advanced medical machinery that Awa had salvaged from the city. Hinata, whose cries blanketed any other hushed conversation in the room, was crumpled in a corner with his face in his hands, Kenma doing his best to support him with his arms. Asahi stood at the foot of the bed, his face pale and sorrowful, although he, too, seemed to be making an effort to stay strong. Kageyama was leaning against the wall, eyes wide and lips pursed, as if he was absolutely lost in the flurry of activity and emotion in the room. Yamaguchi, on the contrary, was by the monitors and the ventilator, eyes riveted on the numbers and graphs tracing on the screen, understanding things about Suga's condition that none of them could. Oikawa sat in one of the chairs next to Suga's bed, hunched over with his elbows on his thighs to support what he probably felt as the weight of the world on his shoulders. Iwaizumi, steadfast as always, stood next to him with his hand on his shoulder, and his eyes on Suga, his glossy eyes sorrowful beyond words. The only person who seemed unbothered by the close quarters was Suga, laid out and swathed by blankets, his silver hair blending in with the white pillow like a dissipating halo.

His eyes were closed, and under the blankets, Noya could make out the light rise of his chest. Daichi, sitting next to him and holding his hand, seemed to be following the same movement with his eyes. It was all he did as all hell seemed to break loose around him.

He was the first one that Noya approached, because despite his silence, he seemed to be the most haunted by the incident.

"Daichi," he called, weaving his way around a worried-looking Asahi to reach his side. Daichi didn't turn to look at him, so Noya repeated. "Daichi."

"He hasn't spoken a word since everybody got here," Iwaizumi informed him softly, glancing worriedly at the captain. Indeed, Daichi did not even react to being mentioned. His gaze seemed frozen on the breath fogging up the mask on Suga's face in regular intervals.

"I guess it's not much use trying to get to him now…" Noya sighed, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I remember when Ryuu died. I couldn't be reached for days afterwards. I can definitely understand what he's going through."

At that, nobody commented, though Asahi did glance away guiltily, as if everything was his fault somehow.

Nothing was their fault, and they all wanted to believe it. But they had nobody else to blame. It was a dangerous game to play.

"We should clear the room. Give him some space," Noya suggested, turning to Kageyama, who still looked lost. "Kageyama. Let's leave."

"Right…" Kageyama nodded hesitantly, glancing over at Hinata. "With him?"

"Yeah…" Noya approached Hinata, whose wails had died down to hoarse whimpers. "Shouyo… come on. You need a break."

"But… S-Suga-senpai…" Hinata protested weakly, and Kenma's arms tightened around him. "We can't l-leave him!"

"We're not," Noya convinced him, putting his hand out for Hinata to take. "But you need to get some air. We all do."

"How many more, senpai…?" Hinata hid his face in his hands, his shoulder trembling. Kenma's eyes were glossy with barely-repressed tears, probably infected by Hinata's anguish.

"Come on, Hinata," Noya dodged the question, squatting to pry Hinata's hands away from his face. Hinata's pleading expression, eyes rimmed red and leaking heavy tears, was nothing short of heartbreaking. Noya felt nauseous, and clenched his hands tightly. "Let's take a walk."

"Mhm," Hinata nodded, swallowing heavily as if trying to swallow back his tears. He pulled one of his hands out of Noya's firm grip to wipe his face dry, and then accepted Noya's help to pull himself up. Kenma rose with him, his fingers weaving through Hinata's to support him more subtly as they stood. His shoulders were hunched, too, and Noya could see the way he glanced at the floor, then at Hinata, then back to the floor. He said nothing, but was clearly hurting.

"Yamaguchi, you come, too," Noya turned to the other boy, who was lifting Suga's eyelids to flash a penlight into his eyes. Yamaguchi finished his assessment, and then turned to Suga, indecisive. "Let the nurses assigned to Suga do all of this work. You need a break from the medical stuff."

Yamaguchi considered it, glancing at the cardiac monitor, then adjusting the small white clamp on Suga's index finger. He brushed over Daichi's hand by accident when he did so, but Daichi didn't react. Yamaguchi seemed slightly perturbed by that, and retreated his hand to his chest with a worried glance to his captain. He then glanced at Noya, and slowly nodded.

"Come on," Noya invited him with a wave of his hand, ruffling Yamaguchi's hair affectionately when his kouhai got close enough. Yamaguchi flinched, but relaxed against his senpai's touch. His eyes were sad.

"Senpai," Kageyama called as he approached the cluster of distraught teens, because he belonged there as well. He seemed as clueless as ever, though, when he asked his question. "Suga-senpai isn't going to wake up, is he?"

Hinata choked another sob, and Noya noticed that Oikawa's hunched shoulders tensed. Perhaps that was enough of Kageyama's brutal honestly for one day.

"We won't know for a while." He simply left it at a safe answer, and ushered them towards the door. "Let's go."

Nobody said a word as they began to leave, only interrupted by the opening of the door from the outside. As if the room wasn't cramped enough already, Kuroo strode in, followed closely by Tsukishima.

"Hey," Kuroo greeted the general assembly, glancing at the tight group on their way out. "You guys okay?"

"I'm taking them on a walk. They need some air." Noya glanced at his little group of followers worriedly.

"Good idea," Kuroo nodded. "Just came back from the outside myself. It did me a world of good."

"You smell like cigarette smoke," Iwaizumi pointed out.

"It did me a world of good," Kuroo repeated casually.

Noya was mildly alarmed at that, but said nothing. He hadn't seen Kuroo smoke since they made it out of the mountain pass towards Niigata, and didn't know why he would pick up the bad habit again after months of cessation, but he wasn't in any place to criticize. They all had their ways to cope.

Instead of commenting, he led his group towards the door, swerving around Kuroo and Tsukishima. However, as they reached Tsukishima, Yamaguchi stopped, and slowly pinched a piece of his sleeves to grab his attention.

"What is it?" Tsukishima asked gruffly, turning to Yamaguchi, who didn't let go. "Go get some air with Noya-senpai."

Yamaguchi cocked his head softly, looking at Tsukishima as if he expected something of him. Tsukishima glanced back in silence, and then sighed, pulling his arm out of Yamaguchi's grip.

"Fine, I'm coming," he grumbled, and Yamaguchi's expression lit up.

"Later, Tsukki," Kuroo waved to him, and Noya waited for Tsukki to fall in line to lead them out.

The door closed behind them, and, surrounded by the silence of the hallway, Noya felt a little better.

"We'll get through this, just like we have everything else," he murmured mostly to himself, but the others seemed to hear it, and agree silently. They followed their senpai out.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

Inside the room, Iwaizumi let out a heavy sigh as the door closed behind Noya. It's not that he didn't appreciate the smaller boy, not at all. In fact, Noya was one of his closest friends in this group. But at this moment, the way things were, Iwaizumi didn't want anybody else in the room with Daichi.

That included Oikawa, but Oikawa had categorically refused to leave, and he categorically refused to leave Oikawa.

It all sounded a bit ridiculous to him.

"And then, there were five," Kuroo rumbled out in a weak attempt as a joke, approaching Asahi, and clapping his hand on his shoulder. "You wanna go take a breather, too?"

"I'm staying," Asahi shook his head, glancing at Kuroo with more determination than he ever seemed to show. "I have to."

"Okay, big guy," Kuroo shrugged, patting Asahi's back supportively. He nodded back at Kuroo and backed up against the wall, leaving his place to Kuroo, who leaned onto the foot of the bed.

That's when Oikawa finally looked up, his face wrinkled by a deep frown.

He signed something that Iwaizumi quickly interpreted as questioning his sudden appearance.

"I'm here for the same reason as you, pretty boy," Kuroo answered vaguely, but that had Oikawa backing off regardless in understanding. Iwaizumi, however, didn't understand. Kuroo externalized feelings of guilt much more differently than Oikawa did.

To each their own, he supposed.

They fell into a silence that was neither tense, nor comfortable. In fact, Iwaizumi had a hard time describing it, even though he'd gotten very good at sensing the intentions behind silences. It felt a bit uncanny to him. He didn't know what to expect.

He flinched when Daichi finally spoke, because he hadn't been expecting it at all.

"Someone did this to him, didn't they?" His voice was rough, his words ground out against his teeth.

Oikawa turned to Kuroo, and the two of them exchanged glances. Iwaizumi saw Oikawa's eyes fall to the floor soon thereafter. He nodded slowly.

Daichi said nothing, simply stared at Oikawa as if very sluggishly processing his motion. Kuroo seemed to be watching his every move carefully, carefully like he did with people he didn't trust.

Iwaizumi himself almost flinched when Daichi suddenly stood, his free hand going to Suga's pale forehead. He combed a few stray hairs out of his face, tucking them behind his ears, and then cupped his cheek tenderly. His eyes were as steely as ever, his harsh gaze dissociated from his tender actions.

"Kuroo," Daichi finally called, rubbing a few circled into Suga's cheek that left little blanching spots. His grip tightened on Suga's free hand, so hard that the oxygen monitor on his finger began to show dropping values. "I want you to promise me something."

To his credit, Kuroo said nothing. No snarky comments, no taunting, nothing. He, too, seemed disturbed by how suddenly Daichi had changed.

"Promise me. When you find the people that did this…" Daichi's caresses halted. "Kill them."

Iwaizumi wasn't the only one whose eyes widened at the harsh command. Oikawa turned to him with barely-veiled alarm on his face, and Iwaizumi simply reciprocated the sentiment. He couldn't say anything. Even Kuroo the Unshakeable seemed shaken.

"We'll leave you with Suga," Kuroo finally decided, pulling away from the foot of the bed. He hid his trembling hands into his pockets in a semblance of nonchalance. Oikawa followed his lead, also standing up from his chair. "When you realize that I can't do that, come see us."

Iwaizumi had always been a bit afraid of Kuroo. As he watched his back retreat towards the door, he realized that it was because he would follow him, despite never understanding what went on in his head.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

Surprisingly enough, it was Asahi who approached Kuroo next, catching him on the side after a tense lunch with the rest of the group, minus Daichi. As soon as Asahi got up to leave after him, Kuroo suspected he was coming to talk to him about just that.

"Daichi isn't a bad person."

Kuroo sighed, turning around to face Asahi. They were alone in a hallway that wound around the main mall walkway, the only witness to their conversation a creepy, dilapidated mascot in the display of what used to be a sweets shop before the world turned sour. For Asahi to confront him one-on-one in this isolated place, he must've had something pretty important to say.

"You know…" Kuroo simply began, shoving his hands in his pockets casually. "When someone begins a conversation with a defensive statement, I tend to believe the opposite."

"He really isn't."

"There you go again. I have a problem with authority, you know."

"Please don't joke about this." Asahi's firm tone finally wiped the budding smirk off Kuroo's face. He stayed quiet now, waiting for Asahi to continue. "You've worked very closely with Daichi all this time, and you know how he's all-business… But you didn't know him before the war. So please… don't think that his anguish is all that defines him."

"I know it doesn't," Kuroo answered him soberly. "I only knew him briefly before the war, and I know he was a strong, steadfast pillar for you all, kind-hearted and fiercely protective of those he loved- his team. After the war, Daichi is one of the rare ones who didn't change; he just rewired himself. He directed his protectiveness in a different direction, applied his heart of gold to new situations revolving around the same individuals he wanted to protect before the war."

"That's… that's right," Asahi blinked a few times, seemingly thrown aback that Kuroo had grasped Daichi's feelings. It wasn't that Kuroo was unempathetic, after all. He just chose to discard emotions in favour of rational thought, is all.

"I also know that through all of these events in our journey, Daichi has had an anchor of his own," he lowered his tone. "He's been able to keep a clear head because someone has been holding onto his heart for him."

"Don't think that because Suga is gone that Daichi is going to break," Asahi interrupted him briskly, shocking Kuroo with his temerity. "He's stronger than this. It's true that Suga has always been one of the most important people in his life, and it's true that right now, his mind and his heart are a mess, but…"

Kuroo respectfully gave him the silence as buffer time for his next words.

"But… when he gets back up -and he will-, he will be stronger than ever," Asahi concluded. His voice was steadfast, his conviction more grounded than Kuroo had ever seen it before, and he couldn't help it- he believed him.

"I know," he murmured. "But until then…"

"Until then, we support him," Asahi cut in. "We hold up his heart until he learns to hold it himself once again, and until then, we can't judge him for anything he says."

"I wasn't going to take his request seriously," Kuroo defended himself, realizing what this conversation was about, finally. "I'm not a hitman, if you haven't noticed. I can't just find out who did this to Suga and waltz into their top-secret base inside a mountain and shoot them all up by myself. Even if I could, I wouldn't." He'd already killed enough people to last him several lifetimes. When old horrors came back to haunt him on quiet nights, he still woke up with the smell of gasoline in his nostrils, the echoes of screaming in his ears, and sweat rolling off his shoulders like pieces of bloody flesh raining down his body.

He shivered in recollection and tugged his mind back towards the present. Asahi was looking at him weird.

"Point is, there's nothing I can do about anything right now." And that was the worst part of it all for someone like him who thrived on holding the reigns. "We're gonna have to let time run its course."

"Right…" Asahi looked down and wrung his hands. "Umm… thanks for understanding. Daichi means a lot to me, and…"

"We won't give up on him," Kuroo assured him, completing his unfinished thoughts. "He's our family, too."

"Thank you," Asahi choked out, and Kuroo took it as his cue to leave. He spun around and walked off and didn't know if Asahi started crying or not, because he had other things in mind.

His feet led him away from Asahi, away from his friends, out into the bitter cold that stung his cheeks with every painstaking step. He roamed with no specific destination in mind, boots dragging through the thick snow like an uncanny simile for the way time seemed to drag on endlessly around these parts.

…-…-…-…-…-…-….

And time did drag on, days stretching a hundred times longer than they usually did, time's arrow soaring through molasses. Kuroo was afraid of looking at the clock sometimes, afraid that if he looked too fast, he would see the hands ticking backwards. The days seemed never-ending, and the loss of one of their own -again- was at the source of it.

Their wastelander training instructors gave Kuroo and his team some time off to mourn their friend. Kuroo would much rather have stayed in training, kept his mind focused on things he could control, but with insistence on all sides, he desisted. He and Oikawa returned to their regular duties as maintenance workers, Bokuto returned to the radio with Akaashi, and Yamaguchi bravely volunteered to plug the gap that Suga had left in the medical team.

(When Kuroo saw him next, he seemed to have lost weight and colour to his cheeks.)

Meals were a quiet affair. They usually all convened at dinnertime because their schedules almost only lined up after work hours, but the get-togethers were no longer an opportunity for solace as they were before. Instead, the silence made it obvious that there was a hole in the group that wouldn't be filled again.

Again.

Kuroo wished he could say that going through the loss a first time had steeled them for a second time, but that would be wildly false. Losing Tanaka had been a tragedy, and losing Suga was a whole other ordeal. Nothing could have prepared them to cope with this.

Time healed all wounds, Kuroo figured, although he wasn't sure how that worked if time stopped moving entirely.

If Suga was there with them, he would've explained the healing process like resuscitating someone who's already dead. Compress, breathe, defibrillate; buy time, stay alive, and jumpstart your life again.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

The metaphorical defibrillator charged during the two weeks that followed the fateful incident. For two weeks, all of them just trudged through their days, grief and insecurity clinging to their bodies like a second layer of skin. Stayed alive and bought time, bought time for something to happen although none of them knew what they were waiting for.

A dead man doesn't usually expect the shock, just like they didn't expect the event that pulled them out of bereavement.

It happened on just another night, as life-changing events usually did. Kuroo sat at the dinner table with everyone else, letting his eyes trail over them more often than they did over his fried rice. Noya sat diagonally from him, discussing the intricacy of perfectly-made fried rice with Iwaizumi, whose opinion bordered on 'if it's edible, it's good'. Next to him, Oikawa was taking small bites of food and chewing twice as long as any of them did, and when he noticed Kuroo staring at Iwaizumi, he grinned and signed something about Iwaizumi being a brute and not refined at all.

It was a rare moment of peace.

And then, a man came barreling down the nearby set of twisting stairs, the loud clanging of his boots on thin metal grabbing their collective attention. Kuroo noticed more than a few shoulders tensing up at the frazzled man landed, and saw a few people shift when he headed hurriedly for them.

"Sorry to interrupt!" he called before he even got near them. It drew a few looks from the tables around them, though rumours spread fast in small communities and their group was no stranger to being gawked at.

"Can we help you?" Hinata asked, glancing at the rest of the table for answers they didn't have.

"There's an emergency broadcast to be made," the man explained, catching his breath. "I need Bokuto and Akaashi to come with me right away!"

"What's going on?" Asahi piped up, worry already etched into his face. "Is something wrong?"

"No time to explain," the man adjusted his glasses as they slid off his nose with the sweat glistening on his face. "Please, hurry!"

"Let's go, Akaashi!" Bokuto nudged his partner with his usual energy, though he didn't seem too enthusiastic.

"Lead the way, please," Akaashi sighed, taking one last bite of fried rice before standing up.

"Akaashi," Daichi suddenly called, surprising everyone by speaking up. "You'll tell us if anything is wrong, right?"

"Yeah," Akaashi assured him, glancing at Bokuto, who was already heading off in a jog. He turned his body to follow them. "Tune in, and then we can meet after the broadcast."

"Good luck," Noya waved at him, lips pursed in concern. Akaashi nodded, and sprinted off to catch up with Bokuto.

"What's this all about this time?" Iwaizumi sighed, glancing at Kuroo.

"Let's find out at the same time as everyone else, I guess," Kuroo shrugged, glancing over at Daichi. "Hey. You still have our radio?"

Daichi nodded and rifled through his knapsack, pulling out an antiquated radio that they'd inherited when an elderly man from the agriculture district passed away. They didn't use it often, seeing as the radio hosts tended to tell them important information directly, so it took a while for him to fiddle with it and turn it on.

When the static cleared, background music wafted into the air. It was an old, classical tune, meant to be soothing, though its purpose was defeated when a jarring voice interrupted the music out of the blue.

"Please stand-by for an emergency broadcast."

The music began again from where it'd left off, making everybody uneasy. Now catching onto the flow of events, nearby tables were also turning their radios on, until the crackling of the classical tune had become the background to the cafeteria's regular chatter. The voice announcing the emergency broadcast repeated a few more times, each time only adding to the tension settling over the inhabitants of Awa.

"Arghhh, this is making me anxious!" Noya suddenly exclaimed, ruffling his hair to let some tension out of his shoulder. "I wish they'd just get on with it!"

"Relax," Iwaizumi sighed, remorselessly stealing a ball of rice from Noya's plate and sticking it in his mouth. "They'll get to it when they get to it."

"That doesn't even mean anything!" Noya pulled his bowl away from him. "And don't steal my food. I thought you didn't care for fried rice."

"I said I don't mind, as long as it's edible," Iwaizumi shrugged, speaking through mouthfuls of rice. Next to him, Oikawa silently laughed, and signed the word 'brute' with a long-suffering expression on his face.

Sitting across from him, Yamaguchi let a tiny smile of genuine amusement etch on his lips. It was the first that Kuroo had seen from him in a while.

Suddenly, the music stopped, and the clattering of equipment came over the air.

A terrifying, deathly silence fell across the entire cafeteria as everybody listened in on the radio with bated breath.

"Citizens of Awa," Akaashi came on the air first, tone firm and controlled. "We apologize for interrupting your regular schedule and come to you with an urgent broadcast."

"Tonight, we'll be setting a curfew, so right after dinner, please go to your dorms and cover all the windows and doors as inconspicuously as you can!" Bokuto chimed in, his energy converted into hurry. "I mean… we're not declaring a state of emergency, or anything, but it's pretty close."

"An hour ago, Awa received grim news of its most famous wastelanders, Nakamura Daisuke and his team, under terrible circumstances. Kondo Naomi, the field medic of Nakamura's team, was returned to us by her driver, who escorted her back when the team got caught in an explosion out in the field."

The people around them began to talk, a few gasps and shuddered breaths audible above all else. The silence of death fell upon them again as Akaashi continued.

"According to Kondo, Nakamura Daisuke and Kogane Souji, his partner, were immediately killed in the blast."

Voices rose to wails around them, and Daichi winced, turning the volume up a little louder. They all huddled closer around the radio, to hear better, and to hold each other together.

"Hasegawa Kotori, the combat specialist, attempted to escort Kondo away as she had gotten close to try and get to Nakamura and Kogane, but a second explosion was set off, injuring the women as well. According to Kondo, Hasegawa sustained a severe head injury, but Kondo herself had lost her left leg in the explosion, and so it fell upon Hasegawa to take her to safety."

"Oh god," Hinata whimpered, covering his mouth with his hand. "This is a horror story… it can't be real."

"An explosion that targeted the wastelanders, huh…" Tsukishima muttered out loud, eyes hidden by the reflection of the light on his cracked glasses. He looked pensive.

"Hasegawa dragged Kondo to their extraction point, at which point their driver, Saito Ayumu, transported them back as fast as possible. Tragically, on the trip back, Hasegawa, who had possibly been bleeding into her brain since the explosion, passed away, leaving Kondo as the sole survivor of the team." Akaashi's voice was choked up, but admirably enough, he kept himself steady as he spoke. Some people around the cafeteria had already begun to cry and wail, pray or curse the gods again for the continued misfortunes that were cast upon them.

But their table remained silent.

Somehow, they had nothing to say.

"Kondo is going to be fine, though!" Bokuto added in as side-commentary, trying to prevent the newscast from spiralling into a dark void of despair. "Hasegawa had prevented her from bleeding out, and so our medical team, led by an ex-ICU nurse and an ex-surgical intern, are currently operating on Kondo as best as they can to tie off her leg. Once she has recovered, Kondo has agreed to receive visitors."

"Following the strike of yet another tragedy to the people of Awa tonight, the overseer and her advisors have determined that further investigation has to be conducted before the security of Awa can be reconfirmed," Akaashi began again. "A curfew for sundown has been set for all inhabitants, and so we ask for your own safety that you return to your dorms before it's dark outside and lock up. Should you have to stay inside the main complex after hours, bedding will be provided to you so that you may remain here overnight."

"People of Awa, listen to me," Bokuto continued, his voice low, and uncharacteristically serious. "This is a horrifying tragedy, and not the first that we've seen. Being a wastelander is a dangerous job, but the series of incidents that have targeted our brave men and women lately have nothing to do with chance. According to Kondo, the explosions were deliberate, rigged and set off by people who were observing their advance. Someone out there is attempting to hurt our community, and until we can be better protected, we can't take any chances. Stay together. Stay inside. Report all suspicious findings to the appropriate authorities. And most of all, be kind to one another. Awa needs to stick together in these trying times."

"More information will be released as Kondo recovers from surgery," Akaashi concluded. "We apologize for delivering such grim news, but we, as well as the governance of Awa, beg that you all remain safe. Support each other in these terrible times. You have made it this far, and together, you will make it yet again."

"This concludes the emergency broadcast commissioned by the governance of Awa, presented to you by myself, Bokuto Koutaro, and my partner, Akaashi Keiji," Bokuto finished. "Thanks for listening in, for all it's worth."

The radio cut off with a shrill tone, and then, static.

The loss of Bokuto's and Akaashi's voices left Kuroo devoid of anything to focus on, and so, he became acutely aware of the absolute chaos in the cafeteria around them.

"Let's leave," he beckoned, unable to stand the commotion of people crying and falling to their knees and expressing anguish and terror alike in their desperation.

Nobody said anything in response, but the tension in their muscles showed that they were all like-minded.

"We should go find Bokuto and Akaashi," Iwaizumi suggested, getting up from his seat with everybody else. "Maybe they'll be able to tell us what the hell just happened."

"I'm not sure there's much else left to say," Noya commented in a whisper next to him, and Kuroo couldn't help but agree.

They migrated upwards as a group, climbing the stairs and stationary escalators until they reached the topmost floor of the mall complex. It was empty, save for the store that had been repurposed as the entrance towards the broadcast studio. As they approached, Kuroo made out two figures sitting close at a desk inside the store, hunched over one another. The eccentric hairstyle gave it away before Kuroo got too close; Bokuto's hair had gone black at the roots but he still insisted on spiking it up with gel he had the lunch ladies make from dietary gelatin. At a closer range, it seemed like Bokuto was leaning over Akaashi, who was completely doubled over in his seat.

"Bo?" Kuroo called as they approached, frowning. Bokuto immediately whipped his head up in surprise, but Akaashi didn't move. Kenma was the first to break from their group and jog to his side, hands hovering over his still form.

"Hey," Bokuto sighed as they arrived, giving them a tired smile. "So. Tough news, huh?"

"'Infuriating' is the word you're looking for," Tsukishima provided unhelpfully. "Ugh. Enough is enough."

"You'd think people would think like you after all this time…" Daichi shoved his hands in his pockets. "There's no humanity left to preserve in this world."

"Hey, come on," Bokuto frowned, glancing over at Akaashi, who Kenma was trying to coax out of his cocoon. "There's always something worth holding onto, no matter what. Right?"

"Right." Iwaizumi clenched his fists, biting his lip in thought. "But… my question is… who's been doing all this? It's clear that this was deliberate, and that it was… it was the same occurrence as…"

"… as with Suga," Daichi completed, not noticing how nervous glances were thrown at him. "I thought so as well. Two such events in close timing with one another… for them to be unrelated coincidences would be a fool's thought."

"That doesn't get us anywhere, though," Hinata crossed his arms. "If we're gonna do something about these bad guys, we have to know more about all this!"

"We're not doing anything, idiot!" Kageyama smacked him on the arm immediately. "We're kids! There's no way we can go up against evil guys who killed an entire group of professional wastelanders."

"Ow, no need to be violent…" Hinata pouted, rubbing his arm. "I was just saying… there's no way we can just sit down and do nothing. Not after this has happened. Not if it could happen again."

"We should leave it to the adults," Asahi suggested hesitantly. "I'm sure they'll ask Kondo about the incident some more once she gets out of surgery."

"Well, we will, too," Bokuto announced, glancing back at Akaashi. "That's what Akaashi is upset about. The overseer asked us to interview Kondo once she's well enough to get more information, if only to help ease the population's worries."

"Tension is running high enough as is already," Akaashi finally added in, unwrapping himself and looking towards their group with his eyes rimmed red. He didn't meet anyone's gaze. "And for us to harass that poor woman for a scoop when she should be resting and mourning… It's wrong. I…" His voice broke. "I can't. I can't imagine doing that to her when I couldn't imagine doing that to Daichi when Suga…"

"Thank you," Daichi sighed when it became clear that Akaashi couldn't continue. "You're very kind, Akaashi. Perhaps it's time you rested for tonight."

"You should come over to our dorms," Hinata suggested hopefully. "You and Bokuto can squish in with us. It'll be safer to stay together, and you won't have to be alone."

"What's this? A logical idea?" Tsukishima teased, grinning widely when Hinata squawked and tried to pick a fight with him. Yamaguchi was the one to break it up with a firm hand on each of them and a long-suffering expression on his face.

"Come on," Kenma coaxed Akaashi, helping him stand. "Shouyo is right. Don't stay alone tonight."

"In that case, let's get going." Noya motioned towards the escalators. "We should make it back before curfew."

"Better start getting suited up right now," Kuroo hummed half-heartedly, shoving his hands into his pockets as they began to walk. "I heard there's a storm coming."

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

The next day, Kuroo was surprised to find himself being approached by Daichi out of the blue. The young man, who'd been detached somewhat since Suga's accident, didn't tend to speak much to him these days, especially not by cornering him on the way out of the bathroom like this. They were alone in the dimly-lit hallway of their dormitory house, light chatter from the common rooms below rising to their ears in whispers. At this time of day, people were most likely to already be getting dressed to go outside for another day at work.

"Thanks for waiting for me," Kuroo greeted Daichi mockingly, stopping next to him. Daichi, who'd been leaning against the wall, uncrossed his arms and pursed his lips.

"I'm going to go see Kondo today." He skipped all the formalities and went directly to the point. "She's been out of surgery since late last night and Bokuto said they were going to interview her today. I'm going to go visit her and ask her some questions before he and Akaashi get there."

"And you're telling me this because…?"

"Come with me," Daichi responded flatly. "You were there when Suga… when we lost Suga. You should hear the answers to my questions, if she has any."

"Very considerate of you to offer," Kuroo hummed in genuine surprise. "Any reason why you're doing this on the down-low?"

Daichi did wince lightly at that, diverting his gaze in a tell-tale admission of undercover motives.

"I just… don't think she'd give out the answers I want to anyone and everyone. I figured I might have more of a chance if I went alone. With you, of course."

"Well, if I'm to uphold the reputation that people associate with me, I have to say yes to your shady offer," Kuroo shrugged in good humour. "Alright, I'll be there. Besides, I'm much too curious to find out what it is that you have to ask her that can't be said around others."

"Whatever you say, Kuroo," Daichi rolled his eyes, turning around to leave. "Though I can't help but wonder if you're only doing it for the kicks this time, too."

"Give me some credit," Kuroo raised an eyebrow. "I may not look like it, but I have our group's best interest at heart. Not just the group's, at that, too, but every person in the group is important to me as well." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "You're important to me, too."

Daichi didn't reply. Kuroo figured there wasn't much that anybody could say to such a blatant admission of concern. However, he'd lost too many of his loved ones to mince his words and hide his feelings behind embarrassment any longer. He couldn't live with any more regrets.

"See you there," he simply offered, and brushed past Daichi without a glance back.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

When Kuroo turned the bend that led to the infirmary, he saw that Daichi was already there, as expected, loitering around the entrance to the area. The guy didn't have a subtle bone in his body, and Kuroo was almost glad he tagged along. Daichi looked a bit relieved to see him, too, and began to walk towards him with a tiny upwards tug of his lips, before his eyes fell upon the two people who trailed after Kuroo. His smile fell, a frown immediately sliding in its place.

"Good morning, captain," Kuroo saluted teasingly. "Here I am, as promised. I hope you don't mind if I brought a couple of others along."

"Well…" Daichi seemed at a loss of words, running his gaze over Kuroo's companions hesitantly. Almost as if sensing his discomfort, Oikawa, to Kuroo's right, flashed him a cheerful greeting. Yamaguchi, on Kuroo's left, simply indulged in Daichi's discomfort and hung his head, fiddling with the ripped seams of his sweater.

"They're filled in already, no worries." Seeing as Daichi seemed to be bogged down, Kuroo jumpstarted the conversation. "I really want them with us, seeing as they were a part of the original squad. They deserve closure as well."

Daichi glanced at them dubitatively, but then sighed, conceding.

"Fine. Let's go. We don't have a lot of time before the nurse checks up on her."

"You did your research," Kuroo translated, eyes on Oikawa's moving fingers as they walked.

"I just… don't want anybody to know I went to see her," Daichi tried to explain, leaving it vague.

"Ooh, the anticipation is killing me," Kuroo whistled mockingly, drawing a tiny chuckle from Yamaguchi.

They walked in silence through the halls of the medical wing, ignoring the regular patient rooms and making a beeline for the acute care rooms. Kuroo noted how Daichi completely turned his gaze away from the hallway that led to the only intensive care room, where Suga spent his days existing on machines, and quickly paced towards the other branch of the hallway, which led to the acute care rooms.

The noise in the rooms was a bit louder on that side, moaning and crying commonly rising above the voices filtering out from under the doors. Daichi led them past a few of those rooms, and then abruptly stopped in front of an unlabeled door. He took a breath, exhaled calmly, and then knocked.

"Enter," a voice beckoned from within, and Daichi glanced back at the rest of their group only once before entering the room.

The woman in the bed seemed surprised to see them come in, and they took advantage of her surprise to file into the room and close the door behind them.

"I apologize, but may I ask who you are?" she immediately questioned, her frown dragging down some gauze that was taped over her face. "Nobody is allowed here but the nurses…"

"We are very sorry to come in unannounced, but we really wanted to visit you, Kondo," Daichi began, slowly approaching her. As he got nearer, he slowly began to make out all the scars and bruises littering her thin arms, the circles under her eyes and the haunted look in them. His eyes briefly flickered to the blanket, where, instead of a lump where her left leg should've been, there was nothing. "We just had some questions."

"I do not want visitors presently," she sighed, glancing down at her lap, and then immediately away, as if the mere sight of her missing leg burned her. "I apologize. Please leave."

"We won't take up your time," Daichi shook his head. "Please. We are a group of young wastelanders, in reality, and we very much look up to you, even more so with the incident. We wanted to offer our condolences." Kuroo smirked next to him, but Daichi was grateful that he didn't call him out on the obvious lies. They seemed to want the same thing, after all.

"I see," Kondo raked her gaze across them. "Thank you."

"Our friend recently passed away in similar circumstances," Daichi continued, shuddering visibly at the admission that Suga was gone. Though… he wasn't really. He supposed that this was just another lie he'd have to spin. "He went out in the field for a search and rescue, and an explosive set off an avalanche in which he was asphyxiated."

"I return the condolences to you." Naomi's eyes widened. "I am very sorry. In fact, I had heard in passing that another wastelander had gotten caught in a trap like this recently, but I hadn't heard the whole story. Your friend is in the ICU currently, right?"

"Right," Daichi nodded, although his mind stuck on one thing that Naomi said. "But… about what you just said… you are saying that these explosives are all deliberate setups?"

"Oh." Naomi seemed to clamp down. "I apologize. I cannot really talk about that."

"I understand," Daichi soothed her, though he really didn't. "It's unfortunately much too big of a coincidence to have two teams attacked like this, so I've been entertaining the idea of it being planned. Do you have any idea who could be behind them?"

"Even if there was somebody doing this, and I'm not saying there is, I wouldn't be able to tell you about them," Naomi shook her head harder, getting visibly uncomfortable. Daichi felt like she wouldn't be very cooperative any longer.

"Please, please help us out," he lowered his voice and his eyes, hunching his shoulders inward like he remembered Kuroo doing when he was trying to manipulate someone. It made him look smaller and more defenseless. "Why are they doing this to us? Why did our friend have to die? What wrong have we done?"

"I… I…" Naomi seemed at a loss of what to say. Daichi wondered how far he'd have to push until suddenly, her eyes flashed next to Daichi, widening.

Daichi followed her gaze, towards Oikawa's flushed face as genuine tears rolled down his cheeks. Yamaguchi was at his side in a second, drawing him sideways into a hug.

"I apologize for my friend," Kuroo butted in, his voice quieter than Daichi had ever heard it before. "He's been having nightmares lately, reliving the avalanche over and over again, wondering if he could've saved our friend… It's just… we've had such a hard time getting over him when we just can't understand why anyone would do that to him."

When Daichi turned to Naomi again, he noticed that there were tears in her eyes as well.

"I…" her voice broke and she looked away in embarrassment, wiping the unshed tears away. "I'm very sorry. I didn't think mere children would get dragged into this. It's a horrible tragedy what happened to Daisuke and my team, but I… I can't believe they would go for children as well…"

"Please, tell us who they are," Daichi begged again. "Please… we just want to make things right for our friend."

"No. No, don't," Naomi suddenly looked terrified. "Don't do anything rash. The only thing you can do now is move on." She dried her tears, and straightened her spine. Her lips pursed into a thin line and Daichi saw that she'd regained all the composure she'd lost earlier. "As wastelander recruits, you are the hope of Awa. Your teammate was precious to you, as mine were precious to me, but their death is not the end for you. Daisuke would've asked me to keep moving on after he died, and that's exactly what I will do. I know for a fact that your teammate wouldn't have wanted you to grieve for him."

"How? How do we move on?" Kuroo translated for Oikawa, who shakily signed the message.

"Find your new beginning, recruits," she advised them. "Ask yourselves why you joined the wastelanders. For me, it was to better the lives of the people strong enough to have made it this far, and though I am no longer fit for the field, I will continue my work by doing medical research and will continue the mission that my team and I carried out since we started together. I cannot tell you what your future will bring, but you and the other young wastelanders must remember one thing; you are a beacon of hope for our community, and you must never falter. For the memory of your fallen comrades and the sake of those who still live."

"I… I see…" Daichi nodded, acknowledging that he'd lost control of the conversation he was hoping to manipulate. Naomi had seemed to have put her guard back up, and even Oikawa had dried his tears, figuring that they couldn't work her over anymore.

At that moment, the door opened, and Daichi turned right in time to see Satoko, their unofficial guardian angel, walk in.

"Hey Naomi, I was just gonna come see-" she interrupted herself and immediately glared at Kuroo when she noticed that he was in the room. Kuroo at least had the decency to look ashamed, unable to meet her eyes.

Shame was an expression that Daichi rarely saw on Kuroo, so he figured that he should enjoy it. That is, until he realized that he, too, should be ashamed right now.

"What are you guys doing here?" Satoko asked, frowning. She didn't seem as playful as she used to be every other time they'd been with her. "Nobody is supposed to be in here yet. Naomi is meeting the interview team for the radio, and that's all the visit she's agreed to get for now."

"Sorry, Satoko…" Daichi began. "We just wanted to-"

"Please leave." It was Naomi who interrupted them now, biting her lip. "I would like to be alone with my friend right now. Thank you for your visit."

"Alright, let's go," Kuroo motioned his head at the door before Daichi could speak. "Thank you for your time, Kondo. We wish you the best."

"Thank you," Daichi parroted, bowing. Oikawa and Yamaguchi also silently bowed to her, and then turned to leave.

Satoko watched them file out of the room with a slightly disapproving look in her eye. Daichi didn't dare look at her as he walked past. She was kind, but also terrifying.

They gathered outside the room, and Yamaguchi clicked the door shut behind them. Daichi waited for one breaths, then two, then…

"Good job in there," Kuroo praised, turning to Oikawa for a high-five. Oikawa, whose eyes were entirely dry, and who smiled back, returning his high-fie enthusiastically.

"Incredible," Daichi deadpanned. "You can't take a break and be genuine, just for once?"

"Look who's talking. I'm not the one who told the most lies in there, you know," Kuroo shrugged.

"I was trying to get answers out of her."

"So were we."

"You didn't bring them in for closure, did you?"

"Not entirely," Kuroo smirked, and nudged his head at Yamaguchi, who nodded back, and got on his knees. "I brought them in for their individual talents in finding out what we need to know."

"What…?" Daichi began, eyes trained of Yamaguchi as the younger boy pulled his stethoscope out of his pants' cargo pocket and put it in his ears. He then got on all-fours, and slipped the head of the stethoscope through the opening under the door.

"Holy shit," Daichi found himself saying, baffled. Kuroo grinned widely, probably at his incredulous expression, but motioned for him to pipe down.

Daichi held his silence, watching Yamaguchi shift the stethoscope until he got a good listen of the amplified conversation inside. Then, he motioned for Oikawa, and as if this was all rehearsed, Oikawa headed over and put his hands on Yamaguchi's stethoscope to hold it steady. Once it was secure, Yamaguchi began to move his fingers, signing out whatever he heard inside the room.

Daichi couldn't help but be impressed.

"They're talking about rogues…" Kuroo translated in a low voice, attentive to every flick of Yamaguchi's wrists. "Some sort of rogue group holed up at the nuclear power plant." He watched Yamaguchi struggle to catch up and spell some words that he didn't know how to sign. "They're guarding it… they're planning to use it to wipe out the west of Japan."

A certain time elapsed as Kuroo took in many of Yamaguchi's symbols at once.

"They know people are in the wasteland… but don't have enough manpower to hunt them down to their bases. They want to detonate the power plant as a fast-track." Kuroo's eyes darkened as Yamaguchi's lips fell into a frown. He diligently kept reporting what he heard. "What happened to Suga is probably their doing. Wastelanders are more in danger now than ever before."

Daichi's heart might have stuttered in his chest, but he'd never admit it.

Yamaguchi listened a little longer, hesitating, and then shook his head. Oikawa let go of his stethoscope, and they both rose from the floor, dislodging the stethoscope from underneath the door.

"Done?" Kuroo confirmed, and Yamaguchi nodded, folding his stethoscope and storing it back in its place. "Okay. Let's break for today. Stay away from each other to avoid drawing suspicion, in case Satoko wants to follow up. We'll discuss this tomorrow at lunchtime."

Everyone nodded, all business, and Daichi couldn't help but be impressed once more. Kuroo did definitely have a talent for pulling out the best (and worst) in people. He was glad he'd asked him to tag along.

"Good job, everybody," he acknowledged, and they split.

Daichi immediately headed to the ICU room to tell Suga that they'd identified his murderer.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

Kuroo casually avoided Oikawa, Yamaguchi and Daichi for the rest of the day, only letting himself get close to them when others were around. He didn't know if they were being watched, but he preferred not to take any chances. The information they'd gotten was highly concerning, and he couldn't wait to dig deeper into it, but he couldn't afford to slip up in his haste.

Still, he couldn't help but let Yamaguchi's report run laps around his head, over and over again through the day and even through the night, preventing him from getting much sleep. There was a lot that had been lost in translation, and listening in with a stethoscope didn't provide the best quality when they tested it out the first time that Yamaguchi suggested it, so Kuroo was sure that some vital information was missing from what they'd found out. He still didn't know who the rogues were, and he didn't understand their plot involving the power plant. There were so many questions he still had for Kondo Naomi, not that she would ever answer them. Kuroo briefly wondered if Bokuto and Akaashi had been able to get good stuff for their interview, or if they'd gotten apologies and half-hearted answers as well.

Until lunchtime, however, he couldn't take any steps forward. Metaphorically, at least, since in wastelander training, he didn't hesitate to outrun half the class during warmups. All the thoughts in his head were building up to become a pressure to be relieved by sweating it out. Bokuto ran alongside him, not sure why he was suddenly so motivated to do laps, but following all the same. Oikawa avoided him, perhaps more than usual, but Kuroo didn't confront him, as the only thing more suspicious than suspicious behaviour was correcting said suspicious behaviour.

Perhaps he'd been trying too hard. In retrospect, acting normal would've probably been the best thing to do, not that it would've made much difference in the end. Satoko would probably never have let them off the hook either way.

As he'd guessed, she didn't.

The group of trainees broke for a short break around the mid-morning, and Kuroo headed to the water station to quench his parched throat. Keeping his mind on his work helped the time pass quicker, although he had a feeling that he'd be exhausted by the end of today at this rate. He grabbed a paper cup of room-temperature water from the large container that the kitchen put at their disposal, and sipped it calmly on his way back to the group.

"Kuroo!"

Interrupted, Kuroo slowed to a stop and sipped the last of the water, eyes turning to the side to whoever called him. To his left, Satoko was leaning against the open shutters of the footwear-store-turned-gymnasium, arms crossed, fingers tapping against her elbow. Her face was impassive.

"Satoko," Kuroo greeted with a movement of his head. "Good to see you. I've gotta run back to training right now, but maybe-"

"Come with me," Satoko interrupted him without even letting him finish his mild-mannered façade. "It won't take long."

Kuroo's lips pursed, and he crushed the paper cup, throwing it into a nearby garbage bin. He didn't answer her, but the way she looked at him expectantly made it feel like he didn't have a choice in the matter. She simply waited, unmoving and unflinching, until Kuroo finally made a move to walk. At that point, she waited for him to start walking in front of her before she followed.

It made Kuroo nervous, but he refused to show it. Cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck but didn't quite roll down his spine. He tried to breathe in deep and square his shoulders as Satoko led him off.

Finally, they reached an adjacent hallway, empty save for a clanking ventilation shaft overhead. Kuroo wondered if he should keep going, before he heard Satoko's footsteps halt. He stopped at well, unsure what to do. He had a feeling that he was in a bit of trouble.

"So," he began, turning around slowly as not to startle her. "What can I do for you?"

Satoko said nothing. However, before Kuroo turned entirely, she had rushed to his side. He only had a second to flinch before she had him by the collar, slamming his back against the wall. Breath left Kuroo's body in a gasp, and out of reflex more than anything else, he tried to twist and break her hold immediately. Still, Satoko must have seen it coming, because she immediately countered his desperate move for freedom, and slammed him a second time against the wall, this time with her forearm pressed against his throat. Kuroo's head swam with the impact, and when his vision cleared of the black dots, he glared right down into Satoko's steeled eyes.

"What the hell is this about…?" he choked, Adam's apple uncomfortably bobbing against the bones of Satoko's arm.

"Don't play dumb with me," Satoko threatened in a low tone, momentarily pressing on Kuroo's throat, just to emphasize the position he was in. Kuroo cleared his throat in an attempt to calm his nerves, though it didn't do much for him.

"What is it that you want?" he asked instead, narrowing his eyes at her. "I know it's about us snooping around the infirmary, but asides from asking Kondo questions that she didn't want to answer, I don't think we did anything wrong."

"Please don't take me for a fool," she rolled her eyes, although she seemed entirely unamused. "I was facing the door. I saw the stethoscope. I know you were listening in after you left."

Kuroo didn't respond immediately, taking a few deep breaths through his nose to try and quell the anxiety slowly rising within him. His discomfort must've been plain on his face because it was at that point that Satoko finally released him.

Kuroo stumbled away from her, rubbing his neck to ease the residual ache from Satoko's hold. She hadn't pressed hard, but it was hard enough to make Kuroo's skin crawl uncomfortably at the memory of the sensation. Satoko herself did not move, giving Kuroo the space he needed to recover and recompose himself. Once he was ready, he stood up and squared his shoulders again.

"I know you know things you're not supposed to know," Satoko finally continued, keeping her distance. Kuroo felt confident that she wouldn't try to restrain him again. "I should've seen it coming."

"I wasn't even the one who listened in," Kuroo huffed off-handedly.

"Then who was it?"

"I'm not selling out a friend, if that's what you're asking," Kuroo winked playfully at her, his usual confidence returning to him with every word. Satoko still looked unamused, but she hadn't moved, nor reacted, which Kuroo took as a good sign.

"Regardless," she pursed her lips. "You spied on me and Naomi, two of the highest-ranked officials in Awa, and got away with classified information. You do know that according to Awa's civil code, forcing access to regulated information is punishable, right?"

"Now I do," Kuroo hummed, not threatened at all. Something about Satoko's demeanour told him that he wasn't in trouble, despite her earlier actions towards him. "But I don't think you're here to place me under arrest, or anything."

"What makes you so sure?" It was Satoko's turn to sound playful. She probably enjoyed Kuroo's fiery attitude as much as it ticked her off.

"Well, if you saw the stethoscope under the door the moment we slid it through, you would have stopped us," Kuroo countered confidently. "If you didn't stop us, I can only assume that it's because you had reason for us to know the information Kondo was withholding from us. Am I right?"

To that, Satoko remained silent for half a minute, although Kuroo's smug expression never left his face. Finally, she let out a scoff, and crossed her arms again.

"You piss me off, always acting like you know you're right," she grumbled. "In a way, you still are, too. I did intentionally let you listen in on Naomi's and my conversation, because I need you to be aware of the information she gave me for the next service I'm about to ask you."

"A service?" That threw Kuroo aback, as he wasn't quite sure what he could accomplish other than provoke people into acting in his favour. He was rather powerless in the traditional sense of the word, if he thought about it.

"Right."

Satoko paused for a moment, scrutinizing Kuroo, as if making the final call on whether or not to be having this conversation with him. Bit too late, Kuroo figured, because even if she left it at that right now, he would stop at nothing to pursue the truth, if only to satisfy his curiosity. He had to know what kind of leverage he held against Satoko, again, simply for informational purposes.

"I'm organizing an expedition into the wasteland," Satoko finally announced, rushing through her words without taking a breath, almost as if afraid that if she stopped, she would not pick up where she left off. "Remember the rogues? It's what we call the division of the Japanese army that has gone rogue and is now on some holy mission to purge Japan of its 'unworthy' people. They want to kill-"

"I know of them," Kuroo piped up. "Haven't heard of them in a really long time, though. Almost thought they'd disappeared. But I know them, better than I care to admit; they're psychotic zealots who want to commit seppuku on a national scale to avenge Japan's fallen reputation."

"Exactly. Have you met them before?"

"Uncomfortably so." The smell of gasoline and burned flesh singed Kuroo's nostrils again for a second. He swallowed heavily to dispel it. "No matter. We know about them, is all you need to know. Continue with your proposal."

"If you say so." Satoko didn't seem convinced but at least seemed to know when to stop pushing someone on a clearly sensitive topic. "The goal of this mission is to put a halt to their plans, and hopefully drive them out of the wasteland as a collateral effect. It's a large-scale mission targeting the nuclear plant in Shimane, and I'm planning to get a group of people across the wasteland to go shut it down once and for all, before the rogues have a chance to use it to their ends. I want you guys to come with."

"Can I just immediately point out that not everybody in my group will agree to go?" Kuroo argued almost instantaneously. He could name off the top of his head a couple of people who would outright refuse to participate in this expedition without a doubt.

"I don't need everybody," Satoko assured him. "I know you guys rather well. I know that you are all very capable young men, and as much as I'd love to bring you all, I would actually be alright with only a few. You, of course, because you wouldn't sit still if we left you behind…" She seemed to muse out loud. "Perhaps that Daichi boy, too. It would give him the opportunity to get revenge for his friend in the coma."

"If that's what you honestly think, then you don't know us at all." Kuroo's smirk fell into a dead-serious expression. "Daichi would never do that. If you think that he would abandon everything he holds dear on some pointless journey to 'avenge' Suga, you're absolutely wrong."

"I apologize."

"Don't make assumptions about us anymore," Kuroo warned her lightly. "You may know us more than anybody else in Awa, but you still don't know us. Our group has been through so much… there is no way you could understand what motivates us to rise to see another day." He clenched his fists tightly. "You can't understand."

"I'm sorry," Satoko frowned, and the sadness on her face only served to tick Kuroo off even more. "I spoke out of turn. I know you've all been through a lot, but… I believe you came out of it better people, and better survivors. And that's why I'd ask for your help."

"I'll think about it," Kuroo answered vaguely. "Like I said, not everybody will agree to this plan, and if there is one thing we don't do in this reconstructed family of ours, it's leave one another behind. I'll talk to them, explain your plan, but I can't guarantee that anyone will agree."

"It's more than I could ask of you already." Satoko still looked sad for some reason. "I apologize again, Kuroo. With the way you hold yourself, you and some of the others, it's… easy to forget, sometimes, that you're still just kids."

"I know." He knew better than anyone how even they, themselves, oftentimes forgot about their unfortunate circumstances, if only to make them a bit more bearable. "I… I should get back to training. I'll talk to the others about this tonight and give you news when I get them."

"Thank you," Satoko called, but Kuroo was already brushing past her. He felt her eyes on his back as he retreated, still rather ambivalent about the encounter. "Tetsuro. I mean it. Thank you."

"Don't thank me just yet," Kuroo simply grumbled, and walked away from her without a glance backward.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

Hinata had not stopped crowing about their "secret meeting" that night, but try as he might, he never got a word out of Kuroo as to what it entailed. Kuroo made sure not to let anything slip during their dinner hour, not sure how confidential this information was supposed to be. Consequentially, he waited for that night to arrive to gather the others in their dormitory house's living room-turned-storage closet.

The rows and rows of winter coats and snowpants belonging to the inhabitants of the house were dripping with melting snow, the hardwood floor swollen and uneven from all the moisture. Boots in innumerable quantity, matching or otherwise, snaked along the walls all around the room, floating on puddles of muddy water. The sole window in the room, wide and tall, allowed the darkness of the incoming night to contaminate the inside of the house. A particularly violent gust of wind ruffled the tarp covering one part of the glass, duct-taped over the hole that one of the children had accidentally made by throwing a ball through the window. The entire room smelled of humidity, although the tendrils of cold air leaking through the gaps in the duct-taped window made the smell a bit more bearable.

There, in the midst of darkened rows of damp clothing, Kuroo gathered them and waited.

"What are we waiting for, anyway…?" Noya asked, yawning. "I've had a long day. I wanna sleep."

"Won't be long now. Bokuto and Akaashi are supposed to join us after they get their stuff. They're sleeping here tonight, remember?" Asahi reminded him patiently, patting his back.

"Can't you just tell us what's going on so we can all get some rest?" Of course, Tsukishima was the one to complain, and Kuroo saw it coming a mile away.

"Hold your horses, Tsukki," he clicked his tongue playfully. "It's important. I really want everyone to be here right now."

There was a rasping noise, and everybody turned to Oikawa, who finished his wide yawn and then realized that he was being gawked at.

"Cover your mouth when you do that," Iwaizumi sighed, shoving his shoulder lightly. Oikawa ducked his head, seeming overwhelmed by the attention.

Their attention was taken away from Oikawa when footsteps began to head down the stairs, and all eyes instead turned to the newcomer into the living room.

"Oh!" It was a young woman, slightly older than them, and her uniform spoke of her role in the community. "Good evening. What are you all doing down here? Are you alright?"

"Yes, we're fine, officer," Daichi assured the peace officer. "We just wanted to talk away from the ears around us in the dorms."

"It is crowded in those rooms, isn't it?" The woman smiled indulgently at them. "Alright, just don't make too much noise. There are people sleeping already. And I'm the officer on duty tonight, so if you need anything, you can find me in the officers' usual spot."

"Thank you." Daichi nodded at her, and she returned the greeting before heading downstairs to check on the basement dorms.

"Isn't it weird that they have officers in every house now?" Hinata mused out loud. "It used to be a head of the house, usually a nice older lady, but now the head of the house is a peace officer. Are they expecting us to be in danger?"

"Use your brain," Kageyama clicked his tongue at him. "They're probably bringing up the security around here because of what happened to that wastelander whose entire team was killed."

"Well, if whoever did that to them decide to blow up this house, one officer isn't gonna stop it," Hinata protested, if only to spite Kageyama. "Use your brain."

Kageyama's hand soon found itself on Hinata's hand, and Hinata squawked when his grip tightened.

"You wanna say that again?"

"Enough," Daichi sighed tiredly, and that was enough to tear them apart. Silence fell across them for a second. The command felt foreign coming out of Daichi's mouth.

In a better world, Suga would have been the one to break them up.

Morbid thoughts gave way to relief as the front door suddenly opened. A cold gust of wind and snow rushed in to herald the arrival of both Bokuto and Akaashi, who shook off all the snow piled on them and let it join the puddles already on the floor. Bokuto removed his hat and his mittens immediately, but almost dropped them when he turned his head and realized that the group was already there.

"Kuroo!" Bokuto greeted in excitement, rushing towards him as soon as he spotted their group in the corner.

"Bokuto, take your boots off," Akaashi sighed behind him, kicking his own boots off against the wall and then avoiding the wet footsteps that Bokuto had left in his hurry.

"Oh, sorry." Now mindful of his winter gear, Bokuto unzipped his jacket and kicked off his boots, and handed his jacket to Akaashi whilst he busied himself with unbuttoning his snowpants.

"Hello, Akaashi," Kuroo greeted him, seeing as Bokuto was struggling with the stuck zipper.

"Good evening, everyone." Akaashi swept his eyes across the group and then inclined his head in greeting. His hands busied himself with shoving Bokuto's accessories in his coat sleeves and then hanging it up in a practiced motion.

"So, what's this super secret meeting about?" Bokuto immediately skipped to the point, throwing off his sweatpants and handing them to Akaashi as well. Akaashi hung them up like he'd done it for a lifetime.

"Sit down, relax." Kuroo tapped the floor in between him and Yamaguchi, and the entire circle scooted to make place for the newcomers. "Let's wait for Akaashi to hang up his own stuff, first."

"There's one heck of a storm brewing outside," Bokuto noted idly, sitting down cross-legged next to Kuroo. "Good thing we're staying here tonight!"

"It's a little bit tight, but we'll make it work," Asahi informed them sheepishly. "We share our room with a family of four, and they take the corner, so we just have to squeeze ourselves into the rest of the room."

"Kenma can share with me tonight," Hinata suggested, turning his bright gaze to Kenma, who seemed lost in thought.

"I have no objections," the young man agreed. "Kuroo moves too much in his sleep anyway."

"I do not!"

"Let's keep this argument for another time," Daichi interrupted them with a wave of his hand. "It's true that it's late, and we have another full day tomorrow. Let's get this meeting over with."

"I'm ready now,"Akaashi prompted, sliding to his knees next to Bokuto. "Apologies for the wait."

"Alright." It was only one word, but it had everybody sobering immediately. Kuroo's tone of voice spoke volumes about the importance of their upcoming conversation, and yet his face spoke volumes about his hesitation. "How should I tell you this?"

"Straightforward," Iwaizumi immediately answered, lips pursed. "We've been through enough already to have to beat around the bush."

"You're right." And yet, Kuroo didn't seem too convinced. "And yet, for some reason… it's so damn hard."

"Well… if it's bothering you so much, you should just spit it out so that we can share your burden," Noya reminded him intently. "We promised each other that we wouldn't let our burdens consume us ever again."

"You're right." Kuroo closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. Concern had begun to creep upon the faces looking at him, and he was nervous to face them. But, he opened his eyes, and he did.

Daichi sat across from him, and he looked straight at him as he opened his mouth to explain.

"I'm leaving Awa."

There were no words, but Kuroo felt a ripple of anxiety run across them like a wave. Nobody dared to speak. Not even Bokuto, who seemed to be entirely confused by Kuroo's confession.

"What do you mean, Kuroo?" he finally asked, breaking through the silence. All heads turned to him, and then back to Kuroo. "Where are you going?"

"What's happened?" Kenma corrected the question, knowing him better than most.

"Is something wrong?" Asahi frowned concernedly.

"No, no, nothing is wrong," Kuroo bit his bottom lip pensively. "At least, not yet."

"I tod you not to beat around the bush, and here you are doing it again," Iwaizumi huffed, crossing his arms. Next to him, Oikawa put a hand on his knee to calm him down, frowning. "Tell us what's happened."

"Satoko spoke to me this morning," Kuroo found himself admitting, figuring that he may as well keep going. He wrung his hands in an uncharacteristic show of nervousness. "What happened to those wastelanders was no incident. It was a deliberate attack, orchestrated by the rogue division of the army."

"The rogue division?" Kageyama frowned, glancing subtly at Hinata, whose eyebrows had creased at a painful memory all of a sudden. "We haven't heard of them in so long. Since… Since Niigata."

"They're still kicking?" Noya sighed in frustration. "I thought we were done with them when we left Niigata!"

"Still kicking," Kuroo confirmed with a sigh. "And they are on the move again, this time towards the nuclear power plants near here, notably the one in Shimane. The wasteland has been too rough for them to cross it in search of survivors, so they're apparently intending to detonate the power plant to wipe out everybody else on the mainland."

"Incredible," Tsukishima deadpanned. "Just… incredible."

"I know," Kuroo sighed, linking his fingers together in an uncharacteristic show of anxiety. The movement did not go unnoticed by most parties, who threw glances around them uncomfortably. "That's not all."

"What else is there to say?" Asahi asked, genuinely confused. "They're on the move, and they want all of us dead. There's nothing more to it, right?"

"Wish I could say so, big guy," Kuroo shook his head, snorting amusedly. "No, there is more. Satoko didn't approach me just to announce that there's a genocidal organization on the loose- again. She… she also approached me to offer me a solution."

"Kuroo." Daichi's voice was suddenly sharp, his breath hitching. Everyone turned to him as he sat up with his spine erect, almost painfully straight. His face was set gravely. "What have you done…?"

"Nothing!" Kuroo defended himself with a confused fervour. "At least, not yet. I told her we'd think about it…"

"You're beating around the bush again," Iwaizumi warned him lightly. "Spit it out."

Kuroo glanced at him quietly, and then glanced around the circle of people he called his family. The moonlight fell upon them and cast warped shadows intermingled on the moisture-swollen hardwood. The wind blew harshly outside, ruffling the tarp taped to the broken window. It momentarily covered the sounds of Kuroo's heavily-beating heart.

"Satoko is putting together a team of people to cross the wasteland and go shut down the power plant once and for all," he finally announced, taking a deep breath. "She's asked us to be a part of it. And I'm going to go."

He shut his eyes, ready to receive a verbal whiplash, although, a few seconds later, nobody had spoken just yet. When he opened his eyes again, he realized that it was because all eyes were on Daichi, who seemed stone-faced under all the attention.

The silence continued for another while. Glances were exchanged, silent conversations flying all over the place. Hinata leaned over to whisper something brief to Kageyama, who in return just shook his head grimly. Oikawa signed a few things to Iwaizumi, which Kuroo didn't read in time, but he did read Iwaizumi's hesitant response.

I don't know.

Kuroo felt like it was the only response any of them had in mind right now.

"I'm going to go with her," Kuroo finally reiterated, just to break the silence that wasn't tense per se, but just uncomfortable enough to make his skin crawl. "I feel like a sitting duck just staying here. I can't… I can't do nothing when there's another threat out there just waiting to-"

"Kuroo." Finally, Daichi interrupted him in a firm tone.

All eyes went to him. His face was unreadable, and Kuroo shut his mouth in respect for his answer.

"I won't go. I can't." He sighed, and his shoulders sagged under the weight of yet another dilemma he was much too young to face. "Suga can never leave this place, and I will never leave him."

"I…" Kuroo frowned lightly, suddenly feeling guilty about his proposition. "I wouldn't ask you to… I just…"

"Awa is the safety we've been searching for all this time," Daichi continued, still steeled in his response. "We left the Karasuno gymnasium because it was no longer safe to stay there. We entered camp Omega-Thirteen because we thought it was our salvation. When we left the death camp with you and Kenma, it was in search of a place to be safe. When we ran to Shoukyo, it was in an attempt to find a safe place to save your life. We left Shoukyo because safety would never be guaranteed to us there. We crossed mountains and forests towards Niigata and almost died trying to reach our safety. Even then, even when we thought we were safe, the second bomb exploded and brought terrible loss upon us. We brought Iwaizumi to safety, and even then, we left Niigata and travelled to Nagoya for something better. In Nagoya, we could've been safe, but the situation became precarious, and we left for Awa, leaving one of ours behind. We almost froze to death getting here. We lost another one of our own once we did. But we're safe. We're finally safe."

The retelling of their entire journey over the past months seemed to sober up several people in the circle who seemed undecided. The atmosphere turned sad, in recollection of the hardships they'd endured and the people they'd lost.

"Daichi-"

"We finally made it into a self-sustaining society with enough supplies, a functioning social order, and natural defenses against outside threats, not to mention that the people here will not try to kill us once night falls." At that, Kuroo visibly flinched, his hand flying to his neck where his scar had very largely healed into a raised line of flesh. "This is the ideal place we've been trying to find all this time. This is what we envisioned when we left behind our hometown and our past lives. We've sacrificed so much to get this far, but we have."

"And now, I'm trying to take it all away- again," Kuroo completed, hanging his head. "I know. I know, Daichi, believe me. I just… I can't stay here anymore, not when I know that things are happening out there, beyond our tiny community."

"You and I, and everyone else in this circle knows that you're not doing it out of the good of your heart," Daichi frowned. Kuroo visibly flinched, now looking decidedly uncomfortable.

"Daichi," Kenma interrupted him, clenching his fists. "Please stop making Kuroo look like a bad guy. Choose your words carefully."

"No, Kenma. He's right." Kuroo gave his best friend a faint smile, though it fell apart quickly. "You're right. I'm not doing it out of the goodness of my heart. I don't even know what that means anymore."

"We've all been through so much, Kuroo." Finally, Daichi's tone softened, and his expression fell sadly. "We've all been through so many horrors and traumas, more than any person should ever have to endure, and we finally have a chance to heal. I know you think you're not worth it. We all know it. But please, you need to cease this self-destructive behaviour. You need to stay."

"I can't." Kuroo's voice choked, and he dipped his head suddenly.

"Kuroo?" Bokuto raised his voice in alarm. "Are you okay?"

"Hush," Akaashi prompted him, putting a hand on his upper arm gently. "Let him be."

"I can't stay here anymore," Kuroo continued, lifting his head. Tears had massed in his eyes, glinting in the moonlight. A noticeably uncomfortable ripple went through the circle, as Kuroo had never been one to show such raw emotion. He'd been so guarded since Shoukyo that it was rare to be witness to his vulnerability. "I'm going to go crazy if I have to hand off control of my life to someone else again."

Oikawa visibly froze at that, hand flying to his scarred lips self-consciously. Nobody commented when Iwaizumi linked his remaining fingers together with Oikawa's silently and squeezed. If anybody could empathize with Kuroo at that moment, it as the two of them.

"Maybe I am crazy for wanting to throw myself head-first into danger again, but staying here doesn't feel like safety to me," Kuroo continued, using his thumb to wipe the tears out of his eyes before they fell. "Ever since we got here, I've been afraid, afraid that whatever stability we find will be torn down again like it has in every other place we've settled in. I've been afraid that getting complacent would get me killed, even if people assured me it wouldn't. I've been afraid that I would wake up one morning and everything we have here today would be gone, just like it has time and time again. In a way, knowing that there's a new danger out there is comforting; at least I don't have to live my life pretending that everything is alright."

"This is no longer our problem, Kuroo. We should let others take care of it, others who are better qualified for dangerous things like these," Daichi sighed. "We've made it this far by sheer force of will and sheer luck. Most of the people in this circle aren't even legal adults, and you're asking them to risk their lives again to fight a war that never should've been theirs to fight? We're all tired, Kuroo. You are, too."

"I'm tired, but not of fighting," Kuroo corrected. "I'm tired of wondering if another disaster will strike us though we've done our best to avoid them. I'm tired of running away, and I'm tired of making plans to run away. I'm a leader, Daichi, aren't I?"

"Yes, you are," Daichi nodded, looking straight at Kuroo. The glance they shared was soft, intimate, carrying a weight that only the two of them could comprehend as leaders in their own right. "And time and time again, you've led us out of the flames. Your heart's in the right place, Kuroo. But you… you're addicted to the wanderlust that was been fuelling our journey across the country. Like any addiction, it's going to be your downfall."

"I may be addicted, but it's how I hold myself together," Kuroo admitted, and let out a heavy sigh to rid himself of all the insecurity this debate was sowing across his mind. "I'm going to go. I am a leader, and I want to save us one last time. The people in this circle are the only people left in the world for me. I won't let any of their suffering- our suffering- be for nothing in the end."

"At the end of the day, I can't do anything to stop you," Daichi sighed, shrugging. "But I will not go with you. And nobody here should feel pressured to go with you."

"I'm not asking anybody to come with me." Finally, Kuroo glanced around the circle, meeting the eyes of each and every one of the brave souls standing at his side. "I'm doing this because I want to. Ask yourselves; do you want this, too?" He then turned to Daichi, and inclined his head lightly in respect. "You asked something of me when Suga first came back from that expedition, Daichi, and I don't think I can ever forget it. You asked me to kill the people who took Suga away from you, and I… I was at a loss, because I can't do that, especially when I have a choice. And so, this is my choice. I will not kill for your revenge, but I will fight for your future. Yours, Suga's, and everybody else's."

"Let nobody ever tell you that you don't have your heart in the right place," Daichi chuckled sadly, glancing at Kuroo softly. "Tetsuro… It hasn't been easy for you either, and I apologize for the burdens I set upon your shoulders all this time. I'm sorry I couldn't do more for you."

"You've saved me so many times that I've lost count," Kuroo snorted, but his expression softened as well. "But, thank you. This team would not have made it without you."

"Not at all," Daichi shook his head. "We made it through thick and thin together. That's why I wish we could stay together until the very end. Truthfully, when Suga was brought back, I saw red. I wanted to go out there and hurt the people who did this to him, because he didn't deserve this terrible fate. I wasn't in a good place those first few days, and if you had asked me then, I would not have hesitated. Yet now, my mind is clearer. My heart is lighter. Suga is never coming back, and vengeance will not make me feel any better, nor any cleaner. And so, my place is here, at his side until the very end. And you… your place is out there, unrestrained and free and in control of your own fate."

"It is." The smile on Kuroo's face was bittersweet, and he glanced at Daichi just a little bit longer before turning to the others. "I'm sorry. I… didn't mean for things to get so heavy. And I don't mean to pressure any of you, but… we've made our choice."

"We have to make a choice too now, don't we?" Noya mumbled, eyes downcast. "And whatever happens… we're not staying together, isn't that right?"

"I'm sorry," Kuroo apologized again, for anything and everything. "I could've turned Satoko down immediately, and never have spoken to any of you about this… But if I have any trust left to put in this world, it's to be put in all of you. I want you all to know, and I want you all to make your decisions."

"I think we're all glad that you didn't keep this to yourself," Iwaizumi glanced around the circle to confirm. "Still… if only there was some other way…"

"I don't think there is," Tsukishima sighed, crossing his arms. "Kuroo. How much time do we have to decide?"

"A few days. Satoko didn't mention it exactly, but she understands that this is a tough decision to make." He glanced around the circle again, taking in the shadow-cloaked figures of the people he fought to protect. Many of them looked torn, both in mind and in heart. "I know I'm asking you for a lot, and I know it's selfish. I'm asking you to pick whether you want to stay here with Daichi, or come out to the wasteland with me. If you stay here, you'll be safe. If you come with me, you'll be in danger- again. There's more to it than that, but I only ask you to follow your instincts. Pick whichever option your heart favours."

"If you stay here, you will be powerless to control your fate, whilst the wasteland will give you freedom to lead your own life," Daichi added. "It's not an easy decision. I never expected it to come down to this, but now that it has, there's no running away from it."

"We can't just leave each other behind, though!" Hinata protested. "We've fought so hard to stay together, and now we have to fall apart?"

"We're not falling apart," Daichi soothed his worries. "Hinata. Everything we've been through, we've been through together. Nothing can pull us apart anymore; not distance, not death. Nobody is leaving anyone behind; we're just doing things in the way we each feel is right. And that's why it's important to make your own decision, without letting others influence you. This is your life. Lead it the way you want."

"What about a compromise?" Bokuto piped up, his usual energy dampened by the nature of the conversation. "Kuroo, why don't you lead expeditions into the wasteland while Satoko is gone? You get to go outside, and you return to us one way or another."

"No." The shake of Kuroo's head was definitive. "There is no compromise."

Somehow, it seemed like the kids around him already knew that. When Kuroo glanced at them one by one, he saw indecisiveness and he saw sadness, but he did not see hopelessness. In that sense, he was not worried. He trusted them all, even when he trusted nobody else, and he knew that they would surmount this obstacle like they'd surmounted everything else that had stood in their way thus far.

"This is the hardest thing we've ever done, and we've done a lot of tough things to get this far." All eyes turned to him again, but Kuroo felt light, and free of all his anxieties. He felt liberated. "There are no more shades of grey in which you can hide. I'm asking you to decide between black and white, left and right, and to spend the rest of your life without regrets. This is your journey's apotheosis. It's time to decide how your life culminates."

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

They agreed to give each other a few days of space regarding the issue, just so that they could all think about it on their own and come up with their unbiased decision. However, and unsurprisingly in retrospect, Kuroo was approached the very next day by Bokuto, who seemed way too enthusiastic to talk to him.

"Kuroo!" he called, sliding to a stop next to the bench where Kuroo was lifting a dumbbell.

"You're supposed to be training," Kuroo reminded his absent-minded best friend, putting his weight down and stretching his sore fingers. "Free training time doesn't mean you get to slack off."

"I'm not slacking off," Bokuto huffed, pouting. "I'm here to talk to you about what you said last night!"

"Bo," Kuroo frowned. "It's a tough decision. It's not something you can make overni-"

"I'm coming with you!" Bokuto interrupted him cheerfully, a bright grin plastered on his face. "No way am I letting you go at this all alone."

"Bo." Kuro groaned and massaged his forehead. "The entire point of that fancy speech last night was to stress the fact that you shouldn't be making this decision on account of someone else's. It doesn't matter what I do. I want you to choose for yourself."

"I am." Strangely enough, Bokuto's voice was levelled. "This is my choice. I've spent my entire time here in Awa and I've never seen what's out there. I want to know what you've been through. I want to understand what's on your mind. You look like you're all alone in your own head, and I want to keep you company. I can't do that 'till I understand what it is you've lived through."

"Bokuto…" Kuroo's eyes went wide at the heartfelt confession, and he bit his lip. "I, uhh… didn't think you had it in you to be so… empathetic…?"

"Of course I do! I'm the best at everything, after all," Bokuto grinned, although his smile died down into a softer one as he glanced fondly at Kuroo. "I lost everything in the Forty Fireworks. My home, my parents, some of my memories…" He caressed the tiny scar on his right brow pensively. "It doesn't feel like I'm doing anything worthwhile these days. It feels like I'm just living for the sake of being alive. I want to be someone that you can depend on once more. Akaashi treats me like a kid, and I'm only in Awa to entertain the people and keep up their morale… but it really feels as if a part of me is missing. I want to find it. And I bet I'll find it out there."

"I see…" It was sound reasoning, not that Kuroo had the right to judge. It was simply surprising for Bokuto to have so much insight and to have thought of so many aspects of his decision. Kuroo had to respect it.

There was only one minor problem.

"Have you told Akaashi…?" he ventured, sighing when Bokuto flinched. "You haven't? Come on. Remember how that ended the last time you did something stupidly dangerous without telling him?"

"He waxed sad poetry on the radio, it'll be fine." Bokuto looked sheepish nonetheless. "Besides, this is my decision to make, not his. You said so yourself."

"Of course it is. I'm just saying, I don't want to get yelled at again," Kuroo snorted, picking up his weight again. "Come on, snap to your training. We'll go talk to him together afterwards."

"Alright!" Bokuto punched the air in triumph. "I can't wait! This is gonna be so good!"

"Sure," Kuroo hazarded a tiny smile, watching Bokuto rush off excitedly to burn his energy on wastelander training. As airheaded as his friend was, he was still dear to him, and Kuroo hoped that their talk with Akaashi didn't end up in disaster- again.

They trained in separate teams for the rest of the morning, and when they were given a break for lunch, Bokuto rejoined Kuroo excitedly.

"Akaashi is in the studio, rehearsing for tonight's programme," he explained giddily. "Let's go see him!"

"Don't get too excited," Kuroo tried warning him, but his friend was already off, jetting away towards the staircase. Where he got that boundless energy, Kuroo would never know. At least their venture into the wasteland would not be boring if he came.

They entered the studio antechamber, greeting the man at the door, and petting the two cats curled up on the basket bed at the entrance on their way in. Akaashi was already there, reading his script, and turned his eyes up when they came in.

"Ah, Kuroo, Bokuto," he greeted with a light incline of his head. "I thought you'd be eager for lunch after your training. What brings you here?"

"We wanna talk to you about something, Akaashi!" Bokuto announced, sauntering over to slip into his seat by Akaashi's side. "It's about yesterday night."

"Oh." Akaashi seemed to know where this was going, and his face had fallen into a pensive frown by the time Kuroo got to his side. "I see."

"Bokuto wants to come with me to the wasteland," Kuroo broke the ice, watching Akaashi's brow twitch minutely. "We wanted to let you know beforehand, so you don't try to shank me in a corner this time."

"I thought so." Akaashi didn't seem to find the quip funny, instead letting his eyes trail down at his paper. "I suppose I did see this coming."

"You did?" Bokuto cocked his head.

"I had a feeling that these walls wouldn't be able to keep you contained one day," he sighed. "I guess that this is your ticket out."

"So…?" Bokuto prompted, leaning into Akaashi. "Are you going to freak out again? Because I'm going, no matter what you say."

"I'm not going to freak out, as you say, Bokuto." At least Akaashi had the decency to sound miffed. Kuroo bit his lip to stifle a chuckle. "You're free to go. But then, that means that I am free to follow you."

"Alright!" Bokuto threw his hands up, cheering loudly. The cats at the door got out of their bed and walked off to find somewhere quieter to rest. "This is gonna be so great!"

"Of course," Kuroo hummed, although Bokuto's enthusiasm wasn't infectious to him. Instead, he was stuck glancing at Akaashi, trying to decipher the sea of emotions raging in his eyes. He seemed stricken, conflicted, but not surprised. His body language spoke of acceptance, of defeat.

Most of all, he offered no other explanation for willingly endangering his life than to follow Bokuto.

Kuroo smelled fish, and it sure didn't feel like lunch to him.

"Great!" he suddenly interrupted Bokuto's victory fanfare, startling Akaashi visibly. "Now that that's over with, let's go have lunch. Bokuto, can you go on ahead? I want to play with the cats a little more."

"Sure, I'll save you a seat," Bokuto nodded, jumping out of his seat. "Tama loves cuddles, so you're better off trying to grab her over Midori. Midori is a master ninja and will escape your grip no matter what."

"Duly noted," Kuroo snorted, walking Bokuto to the door. "I'll join you in a second."

"Later!" Bokuto nodded, opening the door. "Later, Akaashi!"

He quickly closed the door behind him, just in time for Midori to come running out from under a set of technical equipment, mewling pathetically at the closed door.

"No can do, little man," Kuroo chuckled, petting the cat once before he arched away from Kuroo's hands and walked off again.

"What is it, Kuroo?" Akaashi dragged his attention back to the subject matter at hand. "Bokuto isn't stupid. He knows you want to talk to me alone. So do us both a favour and be straightforward about what you want from me. You already got my opinion on the matter."

"I want answers, but I don't think you'll be very happy to provide them to me," Kuroo shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets as he advanced back towards Akaashi.

"Enlighten me." Dropping his script on his work table, Akaashi slid off his seat and met Kuroo halfway. "What are you scheming?"

"I should ask you that, Akaashi," Kuroo reflected to him. "You've been acting weird the entire time we've been here, but this is something entirely new. Right now, when we were talking about Bokuto, you looked like something was wrong." Putting a hand on Akaashi's shoulder, he squeezed gently. "I'm being genuine, Akaashi. You're my friend, and you're not alone. Something is on your mind, and I'm tired of it plaguing you."

"I have nothing to say to you, or anyone else," Akaashi bristled, though he looked more fearful than anything else. "I'm fine."

"Akaashi, you're not," Kuroo insisted. "What's wrong with you? What's going on?"

"Leave me alone." Shrugging Kuroo's hand off, Akaashi took hurried steps away from him. He wasn't running away, but it really felt like he was.

"Akaashi!" To no avail, Kuroo's call fell on deaf ears as Akaashi exited the studio. Midori came running out of his hiding spot, mewling, but Kuroo had no time for him. He had to catch up to Akaashi.

He exited into the antechamber, where the doorman was sitting down, magazine hanging from his hand.

"Hey, what's going on?" he asked, clearly confused. "Akaashi left so suddenly…"

"It's nothing," Kuroo assured him, rushing out of the studio.

He closed the door behind him and ended up on the topmost level of the mall complex. Below them, the makeshift fields were sparsely occupied, most workers having taken a break for lunch. The bleeding sky shone through the overhead windows, casting a reddish hue over the entire place. And amongst the bright view before him, Kuroo spotted Akaashi quickly making his way off.

He would not let him get away once more.

He burst into a sprint, his muscles already warm from wastelander training. By the time his rhythmic footsteps alerted Akaashi of his approaching presence, Kuroo had already gained on him.

"Akaashi!" he called, hating how his long-time friend froze in place, and then backed off, like an animal being cornered by a fearsome predator. "Hey, come on. I just want to talk to you!"

"I don't want to tell you anything, why can't you understand?" Suddenly, Akaashi sounded desperate. He didn't make a move to run away, and Kuroo slowed down, mostly because the cracks in the otherwise-impassive boy's mask were beginning to show. He knew better than anyone how heavy the burden of a façade could be. What burden was Akaashi carrying that was so unspeakable in nature?

"Akaashi, I'm not going to judge you," Kuroo assured him, taking a few steps forward. Akaashi took a few steps back. "I'm the last person on this planet who would. I have no right, after all I've done. So please, you have to tell me what's going on with you?"

"I can't." Akaashi's voice cracked. "I can't, Kuroo, I can't. This is my burden, my secret to bear. It's my fault, and I'm the only one who has to repent for it."

"What did you do…?" Kuroo pursed his lips, taking another step. Akaashi backed up again. There wasn't much of the hallway left for him to run into, and they both knew it. "Akaashi, talk to me. You're outright telling me that something is wrong, so tell me what it is and I can help you."

"Nobody can help me," Akaashi snapped. "Nobody should."

"I will," Kuroo promised. "I don't know what's weighing on you, but I swear to you that I've been there. Akaashi… I have more blood on my hands than any other person in our group. I've… I've done so many things I'm not proud of…" Seizan, the death camp, Shoukyo… He'd had so many demons to battle at some point that he'd almost lost himself. "But the other guys forced this burden out of me and carried it by my side. I still have nightmares about the things I've done, but now I know I'm not alone through it all."

To his credit, Akaashi seemed to weigh Kuroo's words, debating. And Kuroo let him be indecisive just for a moment, because he knew he would've been, too. Hell, his team had practically torn his darkest secrets away from him against his will that fateful night in Shoukyo. But he didn't regret any part of it.

"I won't tell anyone," Kuroo promised, taking a step closer. This time, Akaashi remained still, contemplative. "I won't tell Bokuto."

It must've been the keyword that triggered Akaashi to react. In the second it took Kuroo to blink, tears were rolling down Akaashi's haggard face.

"Please… please don't tell him…" Putting his hands to his face, Akaashi tried to wipe it free of tears. "I did it for him… It's all for him…"

"Hey." Carefully, Kuroo approached Akaashi, who seemed to be lost in himself for a second. "I'm here."

"I regret it every single day…" Akaashi murmured, sniffling. He looked small and tired when he curled up on himself, another grim reminder that he, too, was but a child. "And yet, a part of me would do it all over again."

"Tell me what happened," Kuroo ordered, firmly, but not unkindly. His hands hesitantly fell upon Akaashi's burdened shoulders, and when he didn't shrug them off, Kuroo caressed his upper arms supportively. "Akaashi… Let me help you."

"I've been lying to Bokuto all this time," Akaashi admitted. "He lost his memories when the Forty Fireworks hit Tokyo and I've been lying to him about what really happened."

"He didn't tell me much about what happened in Tokyo," Kuroo admitted. "I just know that you guys got out of there after the Fireworks and that you weren't in the Tokyo bunkers during the nuclear strike. Bokuto also implied that the scar on his eyebrow is a result of it. What happened?"

"The night of the Forty Fireworks, I was staying over at his house. When the bombs hit, his house fell apart, his parents were killed, and Bokuto cracked his head on rubble, losing his short-term memory. I got him out and sought out some help for both of us, and we were taken to a relief camp on the outskirts of Tokyo, where Daichi most likely heard us on the radio for the first time." Still, Akaashi hadn't relaxed, his muscles still tense under Kuroo's fingers. He didn't need to speak any further for Kuroo to guess that he was lying.

"That's what you've told Bokuto, right?" he asked in a low voice, briefly glancing around to make sure they were alone. "That's the lie."

"Yes." The answer was clipped, breathy. Akaashi seemed to be hesitating still, sniffling occasionally. Kuroo let him come to terms with himself instead of pushing him. They had all the time in the world.

"Will you tell me the truth?" he prompted after a minute of silence, his hands still caressing Akaashi's shoulders reassuringly.

"The truth…" Akaashi didn't dare meet his eyes. "The truth is that… I did it. I killed Bokuto's parents."

Kuroo's hands froze in place for just a second, but it was a second too long. Akaashi pushed himself out of his arms, wiping his face on his sleeve.

"I shouldn't have told you."

"No, Akaashi," Kuroo shook his head. "I'm just surprised. But I know there's more to it than that. Please tell me what happened in Tokyo, what makes you think their death was your fault."

"It wasn't just my fault, it was my intention," Akaashi bit back viciously, although he cooled off quickly. "I apologize… I shouldn't be lashing out at you."

"It's okay. I don't mind," Kuroo snorted self-deprecatingly. "What makes you say that?"

"Like I said, I was at Bokuto's house on the night of the Fireworks. When the bombs hit, his house fell apart, and we fell under the rubble. Bokuto and I were together, so I got to him quickly, but his parents were elsewhere in the rubble." He seemed to hesitate at that point. Kuroo let him move at his own pace. "Bokuto was scratched up, but nothing grave. Still, he insisted on going back in to find his parents. I followed him, even though the remaining house was set to fall at any time."

"You found them?" Kuroo asked gently, hazarding a hand on Akaashi's shoulder again. He wasn't pushed away.

"Yes. They were buried under the rubble, both of them, but they were alive." Akaashi shut his eyes tightly, as if the mere memory was painful. "They called out to us, begged us for help, and Koutaro just rushed in, trying to dig them out, trying so, so hard to save his parents…"

He interrupted himself with a choked sob, burying his face in his hands.

"He tried so hard. He wanted to save them, and they asked to be saved. I should have helped him," he sniffled into his hands. "But the house was going to fall apart, and no matter how many times I told Koutaro that we had to go, he insisted that they couldn't leave his mom and dad behind…"

Kuroo could see where this was going, but he let Akaashi continue, tightening his supportive grip on his shoulder.

"The house was going to fall… I had no choice…" he seemed to be trying to convince himself through repetition. "There was… there was a plank of wood nearby. And Bokuto just wouldn't agree to leave, not willingly. I was going to lose him, too. I couldn't… I didn't think, I just… picked up the plank, and…"

His shoulders hunched as the weight of his guilt fell upon him, and a stifled cry left his lips.

"Oh, what have I done…?" he lamented. "The house collapsed shortly thereafter. I condemned them, Kuroo… Even as I dragged Bokuto away, they cried for us, begged us not to leave them… They were my second family, and I betrayed their trust and left them to die, all because I was selfish. I couldn't bear to lose Koutaro, not in the heat of the moment… I didn't think…"

"Akaashi…" Kuroo murmured, putting a hand on his head. "Akaashi, it's alright…"

"No, it's not!" Raising his teary face, Akaashi put the entirety of his troubled soul on display. "It's not okay! I killed them, Kuroo. I killed them, and I was ready to pay for my sins when Bokuto regained consciousness… but he didn't remember what happened, and I… I just couldn't…" he choked on his guilt again. "I couldn't betray his trust. He was all I had left. I couldn't tell him what I'd done. I lied to him. I lied to him to keep him close to me… what have I done…?"

Akaashi curled his shoulders in on himself again, and sobbed quietly. Sighing, Kuroo stepped forward, and when Akaashi didn't step away, he pulled him into his arms.

"You did what you thought was right," Kuroo murmured. "The heavens know that sometimes, it's the best you can do."

"I killed them," Akaashi repeated, muffling his cries against Kuroo's shirt. "I killed them and I lied to him about it. All because I was selfish. I can't forget it and I won't let myself. Koutaro is my responsibility. I have to stay with him and finish what I began by… by murdering his parents."

"Hey," Kuroo warned in a clipped tone, pulling him away just enough to look straight into his eyes. "You didn't murder them. You acted in Bokuto's best interest, and that ended up in collateral casualties. You can't bring his parents back to life, but you can tell him the truth."

"I can't lose him. Please, don't make me tell him. I can't lose him," Akaashi sobbed out, his breath hitching. "Please. He's all I have left."

"I won't tell him, and I won't make you," Kuroo murmured, loosely gathering him in his arms again. "But you have to tell him. You can't let go of this guilt until you do. And knowing Bo, he'll forgive you. He might take some time, but he will. You mean the world to him, Akaashi. He won't give you up so easily."

"Is that how I get rid of it?" Akaashi asked, his tone almost innocent in comparison. "This guilt. Is that how I'll forget what I've done?"

"You'll never forget." Kuroo's grip tightened on him, and he gritted his teeth. "I'm sorry. Decades from now, you'll be lying in bed and you'll remember the faces of the people whose blood will always be on your hands. You'll never forget the people you've killed. But Bokuto is alive. Bokuto is alive, and it's all thanks to you. Even if he doesn't know it, he is here today because of your sin and your sacrifice. When the guilt becomes too much to bear, remember that, and it'll get better."

"I just want it all to go away…" Akaashi mumbled, wiping his face on his damp sleeve and then returning it to Kuroo's shirt. "I'm sorry. For you to see me like this…"

"Hey." Kuroo pulled him away so that Akaashi could see the serene smile on his face. "It's alright. Believe me when I tell you that I know exactly how you feel. And when I drowned in my guilt the first few times, nobody was there to pull me out. You mean a lot to me, Keiji. I don't want you to suffocate any longer."

"Thank you," Akaashi sniffled, raising his red-rimmed eyes to Kuroo to attempt a small smile. "I… I will try to tell Bokuto the truth. Maybe not today, nor tomorrow. Maybe not even this year. But someday, I will. I must not allow this guilt to cloud my judgment any longer."

"That's my boy," Kuroo chuckled, ruffling his hair affectionately. Akaashi smacked it away and rolled his eyes.

"I think I will go rest before the evening programme," he murmured, stepping away from Kuroo. "I… I have much to think about."

"Good idea," Kuroo nodded, stepping out of his way. "Take care of yourself."

"I will." Stepping past Kuroo, Akaashi only distanced himself by a few feet before stopping again. "Kuroo?"

"Hmm?"

"I will come with you and Bokuto on your journey across the wasteland regardless." He didn't turn to face Kuroo, but his back was straight, and his fists were clenched. He seemed determined. "No longer because I feel I must atone for my wrongdoings, but because I want to cherish every moment of life that my sins have granted my best friend. With the same heart that killed his parents, with the same hands that saved his life, I want to stand by his side and watch him live. That is why I will come with you."

Kuroo smiled. He could do nothing else.

"I look forward to it," he promised quietly, because he truly did.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

The alarms on the bedside monitors were turned off, which made the small room much quieter than it should've been. For Daichi, hospitals had always been full of noise, rushing people, screaming alarms, and crying victims. This- the white room and white sheets and white noise- was something he had not entirely processed yet.

Sugawara had lost weight. It was easy to note even from a glance that his cheeks had begun to sink, his skin thinning and bruising more easily. His colour had gone from a healthy pink to a sickening white, as if his body was trying to camouflage within the swaths of blankets on him. The tubes coming out of him each kept him alive in their own way, but looked completely out of place on someone who used to be as lively as him. The oxygen mask remained on his face at all times, and Daichi sometimes felt like Suga still had hope when he watched his slow breaths fog up the interior of the mask.

And then, the nurse walked in. She checked his pupils. Moved his arms. Pinched the bed of his nails. Quietly wished Daichi a good day, and left as quickly as she came.

It was always the same. They never said it out loud, but Daichi knew that they were always on the edge of telling him that Suga was dead. That he should begin to mourn and try to move on.

But Suga still breathed on his own. That must've counted for something. He was still fighting, and so, Daichi couldn't give up on him.

The door opened again with a creak, but Daichi did not move from where he'd laid his head down on the blankets, idly playing with Suga's limp fingers. He figured that the nurse had returned, perhaps to give him the rare medications they gave him nowadays.

However, when the newcomer did not approach, Daichi finally lifted his head, and turned around.

Kageyama met his eyes nervously, and glanced away, fidgeting. He was alone, which was a surprise.

"Hello, Tobio," Daichi greeted, attempting a small smile. Breathing seemed to be a tedious task when he was around Suga these days.

"Hello, captain," Kageyama greeted awkwardly. "I… Am I interrupting?"

"No. Come over," Daichi invited him, patting the bed.

Kageyama nodded, and then made his way over, hesitantly sitting next to Suga's hip.

For a while, both of them just watched Suga's chest rise in rhythmic pattern. Daichi didn't know what Kageyama had come here to do, but the younger boy seemed to be contemplating something rather deeply, scrutinizing Suga's still face. He didn't seem to have the words for whatever he wanted to express, however, and so, Daichi let him think in silence.

"I will stay here," Kageyama finally spoke, his voice booming through the stark silence of the white room.

There seemed to be more to it than that, judging by his expression. Daichi watched several emotions flit across his face before he spoke up.

"What made you decide that?"

"I want to protect you for a change," Kageyama answered, not sounding quite sure of himself. "My senpais have always done the protecting around here. You, Suga, Tanaka, Nishinoya… You've always looked out for us, from the very beginning. I've taken that for granted. So now, I want to protect you, before I'm too late to do that, too."

"I don't want you to feel like you owe me anything, Tobio. Do what you want to do for yourself," Daichi advised him.

"I don't feel that way," Kageyama grimaced. "It's just… Captain. You've led me through the darkness so many times. Many times, when it seemed hopeless, you were there to lead us out. And now that the darkness has come for you, I… want to fight for you. I want to."

"That's very kind of you, Tobio," Daichi offered him a soft, fond smile. "If you really do want to stay, I will not stop you. Just be sure that it's what you truly want. You'll probably live more adventures if you decide to go with Kuroo, after all."

"I don't want any more adventures," Kageyama shook his head. "Not for the sake of having adventures, anyway. Wherever I go now, I want to make a difference, and I think I can make the impact I want to make by staying here with you and Suga."

"That's a sound argument. I won't try to dissuade you."

Kageyama nodded, and fell silent again. Daichi watched him, even when he glanced away, noting that he still seemed deep in thought. However, he didn't push. If Kageyama had something to say, he would on his own terms.

The silence stretched. Daichi's eyes went from Kageyama, to Suga, back to Kageyama. Finally, when he shifted in his seat, Kageyama seemed to snap back to reality, and blinked several times.

"Um… one more thing," he added, turning his questioning gaze to Daichi again. "I… I also want to stay because I don't want to live any more new journeys. Instead… I want to stop, and recollect the one that's taken me this far."

"Right. We have been through a lot to get here," Daichi acquiesced. They had been on the road for almost nine months, after all, and in those nine months, a lifetime of struggles had plagued them.

"I know we're going to split up," Kageyama admitted, his face falling slightly at that. "Some people are going to go with Kuroo. Others will stay with us. But… if we've come this far together, it feels wrong to leave each other behind. That's why… before we go, before we have a chance to be separated, I want to try to do something."

"What's that?" Daichi cocked his head, interested. Kageyama seemed to have given his words a lot of thought.

"I want to try and… talk to everyone." He seemed uncomfortable with the simple notion of it, which was slightly comical to Daichi. "I want to get their stories, their recollections of our journey together. That way, at least even when we are apart, none of us will be forgotten."

"I doubt we could forget each other, even if we tried," Daichi remarked, but the fond expression melted back on his face, effortlessly this time. "It's a wonderful initiative. You're growing by the day, Tobio."

"T-Thank you." The younger boy seemed to be embarrassed by the praise, glancing away sheepishly. His eyes landed on Suga, and his sheepishness melted into something warmer, softer.

Daichi smiled, and glanced at Suga. In a better world, he would have smiled, too.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

Two days passed, and nobody spoke of the ultimatum that had been placed upon their shoulders. It was better that way, to let one another debate their decisions without the influence of others around them. Unity had been their greatest strength until now, but they needed some time alone to consider the important decision they were about to make.

At dinnertime, they sat together, as they always did, and spoke about everything and nothing. The mood was jovial, and the atmosphere was light, perhaps even lighter than usual. Perhaps it was the calm before the storm. Perhaps they all innately knew that the time had come to make their choice.

When the bowls of fried rice were empty and the conversation had died down, they seemed to know that it was time. It was only a matter of who would start the conversation.

And, as they always did when they were at a loss, they turned to their trusty captain for guidance.

"Have you all decided?" Daichi finally breached the subject when it became obvious that no one else would.

There were quiet glances around the table, smiles falling flat. Nobody seemed to be able to answer that upright, and several of the boys looked uncomfortable with the silence.

"It's alright if you need more time," Daichi continued, seeing as nobody else did. Nobody seemed comforted by that idea, however.

"I don't think the decision will get any easier to make, no matter how much time we have to make it," Noya finally admitted, sighing. He ran a hand through his hair pensively.

"True," Kuroo hummed. "And as much as we'd like to put it off, we can't. So. Tell us now. Will you stay, or will you go?"

Still, nobody spoke. It felt like they were afraid of breaking the ice, of spilling the depths of their hearts to everybody around them. Still… they were family. All of them had suffered and grown to become a family, and if there was one thing they could each count on from their family, it was undying love and support.

"I'm staying."

The silence splintered and snapped, quicker than any of them expected it to when an unlikely participant to the conversation spoke up first. All eyes went to him, at the edge of the table, so quiet and meek in his corner, and suddenly, it felt like a weight had been lifted off their shoulders.

All thanks to Kenma.

"I'm staying," Kenma repeated, his voice steady and his fists clenched.

Kuroo's face did not reflect it, but everybody could guess that he was a bit heartbroken.

"I am not like you, Kuro," Kenma shook his head, a sad smile slipping onto his lips. "I'm not brave, nor strong, nor cunning the way you are. Out there, I'm no good. I can't create plans on the spot, and I can't react quickly to things around me. Truthfully, the uncertainty that has followed us across the country always made me anxious, and I don't think I can do it again- not when I know that staying here will keep my fears away. I have made my place here, in Awa. You mean the world to me, Tetsu, you do, but… I'm too scared to go out there again, even for you."

He glanced at Kuroo, and Kuroo bravely upheld his gaze, lips pursed. Tsukishima, sitting next to him, could see his fists ball up the cloth of his sweatpants under the table.

"You've done well in thinking this through," Kuroo finally acknowledged, nodding his head. "I'm glad… you're doing what you know is best for you, regardless of all else. And I… when I go out there… I'll be fighting for you, too."

The promise settled on all of them like a warm blanket, and after a round of slow glances between the two childhood friends, all eyes went to the person sitting next to Kenma.

Hinata responded to the looks with a bite of his lip.

"It's my turn, huh…?" he chuckled mirthlessly, throwing Kenma an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, Kenma. I'm gonna go."

"Oh." Kenma looked down at his lap, long hair obscuring his face. Hinata visibly snuck his hand under the table to hold his. For him to lose the two people that meant the world to him would take a period of adjustment.

It almost made Hinata reconsider. Almost.

"I want to see the world, Kenma," Hinata continued, turning to the rest of the table for support. "This… this journey we've been on… it's been an adventure through and through. And sure, we had our scary moments, the times when we thought we would not make it, and all the times we've suffered, but in retrospect, it's been pretty cool. We've all learned a lot and come a long way, right? I can't stop now."

"Shouyo," Daichi called him unsurely. "It's going to be dangerous out there. You're going to be scared, and you'll suffer, and you once again might begin to think you'll never make it. Are you sure you want to go?"

"Yeah." The determination stone-set on his face hammered it home. "When I left the rubble of my house behind me, my mom… she seemed to be waving me off and wishing me luck. She died in there. Natsu did, too. And I thought I would die. I wanted it, even." The difficult topic seemed to be one he'd already come to terms with, for his expression never wavered. "But I lived. I lived, no matter what happened, and when I go to meet my mom and my sister in the afterlife, I want to be able to tell them that I lived for them, too. That's why I have to go. Staying alive is no good if I'm not gonna live my life."

"You're right," Daichi conceded. "You're a good kid, Shouyo, and you do deserve to live your life to its fullest, whatever that means to you. When we first brought you back to the Karasuno gym, admittedly, we didn't think you'd make it. But you proved us wrong, and here you are. I am sure that you can beat the odds again. After all, you've always had a talent for doing the impossible."

That sent a round of chuckles across the table, the mood lightening with every person that spoke. Hinata seemed to brighten up just a little, and that seemed to draw Kenma out of his slump, if only a little.

"Alright," Kageyama spoke up next, taking a deep breath. "I already told the captain, but I'm staying. I want to stay where I can make a difference, and I want to support Daichi and Suga just as they have supported me all this time."

"That's not all there is to it, right, Tobio?" Daichi prompted him kindly. "Tell everyone the project you're working on. It's a lovely thought."

"What project?" Hinata asked excitedly, grabbing his arm and shaking it. "What is it? What are you planning?"

"Let me go and I'll tell you, stupid!" Kageyama huffed, pushing Hinata back and glaring at him.

"No need to be rude, Bakayama," Hinata crossed his arms.

"Please don't fight," Asahi sighed, sounding so tired that it was comical.

"I want to stay here because I don't want to live any new journeys, but I want to recollect about the one that's taken us this far," Kageyama explained. "I guess… I guess I want to keep the memories of our time together alive, even when all of us are apart. I'm gonna make sure nothing about us is ever forgotten."

"It's an excellent project, Kageyama," Kuroo nodded. "Can't say I expected this of you, but hey. I guess we've all changed somehow, right?"

"Right…" Kageyama nodded, trailing off.

"Well, I will stay as well," Asahi picked up where he left off. "Awa is a wonderful place. It's self-sustaining, and peaceful, and I… I think I can grow by planting my roots here." He looked embarrassed to go on, but the silence seemed to give him the push he needed. "Hinata once told me something that's changed my entire outlook on my life."

"I did?" Hinata cocked his head, though he was promptly hushed by Kageyama.

"You did," Asahi laughed lightly. "You told me… you told me that I was Karasuno's legacy. That I… I would carry on the memory of who we were before strife changed us. When I felt useless and left behind, you told me that I was your constant, your guiding post, your home to return to. I've never taken that lightly. And if I want to continue being that steady pillar for everybody here, then I have to stay here."

"Hinata actually said that?" Noya asked, though it came out a bit less flattering than he probably intended.

"Hey!"

"Yeah, he did," Tsukishima nodded, though he sounded like he was mocking him. "I know, I was surprised, too."

"What's that supposed to mean? Come over here and fight me, Tsukishima!"

"Enough, enough," Daichi appeased them, mildly amused. "Go on, Tsukishima."

"I'm leaving," he answered rather briefly. "I'm gonna be stuck with a lot of unpleasant people," he threw Kuroo a dirty glance, and received a sleazy grin in return, "but I want to go back out there and keep searching for something more. Staying here, to me, feels like giving up… and I… I promised that I would never stop moving forward."

He pushed his cracked glasses up his nose, catching a glint of the light in them. A shit-eating grin spread across his face.

"That, and, when I inevitably die and my body becomes worm food, I at least want to know that I died doing more than Shrimpy ever will."

"Tsukishima, you bastard-"

"Oh boy…" Kuroo sighed, running a hand through his hair. "It'll be fun, traveling with these two."

"What about you, Tadashi?" Daichi moved on to the younger boy sitting next to Tsukishima. However, the look on his face was conflicted. He seemed to have a lot to say.

Noticing the same thing, Tsukishima turned away from antagonizing Hinata, and glanced at Yamaguchi. His friend exchanged a worried look with him, and began signing.

"He says he's going," Tsukishima translated, and clicked his tongue when he continued to read Yamaguchi's fingers. "Says he feels guilty if he stays here. Every day he spends in Awa is another reminder that Suga-senpai died in his place."

"Yamaguchi, no…" Noya frowned.

Suddenly, the mood was somber again.

"Tadashi, this isn't anybody's fault," Daichi assured him, lips pressed together in a thin line. "If anyone is to blame, it's those rogues."

Yamaguchi seemed to consider this before he continued.

"Then that gives me another reason to go," Tsukishima translated dutifully. "He's basically going on about repenting for Suga-senpai by doing everything he can to fight those rogues."

"Vengeance shouldn't be your motivator, Yamaguchi," Kuroo advised him, experienced in that particular department himself. "There's no emptier feeling than that of living for revenge. You're welcome to come with us regardless of motive, but please, for your own sake, reconsider."

"I can't," Yamaguchi finally spoke, his voice raspy from disuse. Several people around the table flinched in surprise at hearing him talk, especially the ones who hadn't heard him yet. Yamaguchi cleared his throat a few times, and glanced at Daichi. "Suga-senpai was my teacher and my friend. We were going to be doctors together after the war. And I can't help but feel that I killed him. So now, I have to live our dream for both of us."

"I see…" Daichi's face fell, and he glanced away. "Thank you, Tadashi. If Suga lives on within any one of us, it'll have to be you. I still wish for you to reconsider your vengeful feelings, but that's your decision to make in due time. For now, you have my thanks, and my blessing."

Yamaguchi nodded, and signed a simple end to his admittance. Even without Tsukishima's whispered 'thank you', Daichi knew that Yamaguchi would be okay.

They all took a second to digest what they'd been told, and then the eyes went to Oikawa, who sat next to Yamaguchi. Similarly to the latter, he turned to Iwaizumi to make himself heard. However, Iwaizumi seemed to know already.

"Both of us are staying," he announced, lips pursed in thought.

That seemed to come as a shock to a lot of them around the table. Kuroo seemed thrown aback, even.

"We were going to go at first thought, but… then we realized that here in Awa, we have something that we don't have out there on the road," Iwaizumi explained. "Control. Control over our lives, over our decisions. Staying in Awa might be less than ideal, but… Tooru and I are tired of being dragged across the country against our will."

There was a respectful silence for the two boys who had been through things that nobody should ever experience in their lifetime. Their argument was sound.

"On some nights, it's still hard to believe that we're not there anymore," Iwaizumi admitted. "Sometimes, none of this feels real. The power to make tiny choices is so important to both of us… it's something that we have here in Awa."

Oikawa signed something with a sad smile on his face, and by the looks of Yamaguchi's expression, it wasn't anything nice.

"He says that… Sometimes, it's as small as being able to decide what to have for dinner," Iwaizumi translated. "On days where it once again feels like our bodies aren't our own, it takes that sort of small freedom to remind us that we're still people, and we're still here."

"Even though you're staying, the road ahead of you is a tough one," Kuroo nodded quietly. "Iwaizumi. Oikawa. You've both been incredible despite the terrible things that have been done to you. I wish you all the best."

"And if you ever need anything, you know you can count on me, and everybody else that is staying," Daichi reminded them, getting a small smile from Oikawa in return. The scars etched around his lips had begun to fade, but they would always be there, and in the back of his mind, Oikawa would always feel like he didn't own his body. Similarly, Iwaizumi would never regain his fingers, would always be afraid of his bouts of psychosis. Still, both of them seemed to be adamant on healing. All that the others could do was support their every effort.

"Sorry for making things depressing," Iwaizumi laughed mirthlessly, rubbing the back of his head. "It just… felt important for us to justify the reason we're staying."

"By all means, dude!" Noya patted him on the back. "Don't apologize for any of it. In fact, I'm glad you've said it out loud. It always helps to externalize your feelings!"

"Don't you start with that psychology crap on me," Iwaizumi teased him, pinching Noya's cheek and eliciting a squawk from him.

"I'm serious!" Noya protested, pulling away from him. "That's why I wanna stay, too. A bunch of people are going to be leaving, people who mean everything to us, and they'll be heading into danger. We'll probably never know if something happens to them. It's gonna be a stressful time, and I know that my place is here amongst you guys to be a beacon of support during that transition. I think I'll be of better use here, acting like someone you can lean on. Ever since Tanaka passed away, it's been my goal to support everybody going through a rough time… and I won't let anybody staying here feel like they've been left behind!"

"I can think of no one better to do that than you. Thank you, Nishinoya," Daichi nodded to him. "I think it's already a huge relief to see that the war hasn't taken your spirit away from you. We're lucky to have someone like you to pick us up when we fall."

"It's no trouble," Nishinoya grinned brightly, pointing his thumb to himself proudly. "You can call me the Guardian Deity of Awa!"

"We'll work on that," Iwaizumi snorted, pressing down on his head. "Start by growing a bit taller, first, you Midget Deity of Awa."

Oikawa let out a silent laugh and signed something to Yamaguchi, which made him snicker as well.

"Don't you dare talk about being short, Iwa-chan," he translated, which brought Iwaizumi's blazing anger crashing down upon Oikawa all over again.

"We'll never leave, at this rate," Kuroo quipped, watching them fight with amusement specked in his eyes. Still, despite saying that, he didn't move to stop them.

They indulged in the fight just a little longer before Daichi stepped in to calm them down. They only had Bokuto and Akaashi left to go through, and after that, their mentally exhausting day would draw to a close.

"Alright, Bo. You're up," Kuroo prompted his friend next, watching Bokuto's eyes light up.

"We're going, definitely! Absolutely! For sure!" he crowed loudly. "It's going to be so cool, being on the road with you, bro! I haven't seen any of the world out there yet, and it's really making me feel inadequate… which doesn't work, because I'm totally the best."

"What Bokuto is trying to express is that he wants to learn more about the world outside of these walls," Akaashi translated tiredly, although he seemed unbothered by Bokuto's loud mannerisms. "He developed a taste for wasteland exploration since enrolling with your team, and he wants to do more exploring. Going out with a team of professionals and his friends is the best opportunity for him."

"Mhm. What Akaashi said," Bokuto nodded vigorously. "Really, though… it feels like my place here in Awa is as an icon of entertainment. And it's fine, we need those. But I know I'm destined for greatness, so I gotta go out there and see what it's like!"

"Okay, calm that fire, hot shot," Kuroo chuckled. "Welcome aboard."

"Yes!"

"As for me, I will also be leaving alongside Kuroo," Akaashi finished. "My reasons are very personal and I'd rather not share. All I will say is that my heart is out there, in the wasteland. I once put up barriers between myself and it, and I intend not to make that same mistake again."

"If that's what you think is best for you, then you don't have to say any more," Daichi assured him kindly. Then, he slowly glanced around the table. "I guess that's everyone."

"Wow… so this is really happening, huh…?" Hinata chuckled mirthlessly. "I guess it didn't feel real until now."

"We still have a few days to digest this information," Kuroo assured him. "I'll give the names to Satoko tonight. Until I get back to you with more news, you don't have to worry about it. Spend your days like you would've, had we never had to make this choice."

"Kuroo is right," Daichi agreed confidently. "The time for goodbyes has not come yet. And until it does, there's no use in thinking about it. Let's just enjoy our time together like we have forever ahead of us."

And as always, the group trusted their captain to lead them onward. Letting out a rallying cry of agreement, the atmosphere around the group settled, and conversation returned to lighter topics.

Daichi was proud of every single one of them, and took a moment to imprint the scene before him into his memories, to return to it on future days when the hole in his heart would be gaping wide open.

He wouldn't say it to them, not when they tried to stay strong for one another in these dire times, but Daichi would miss them. As individuals, and as the people who'd grown to become family together.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

The decision was made a few days later, and was announced over the radio, so that by noontime, all of Awa knew what risks they faced now, and what their dedicated wastelanders were doing about it. It was announced that the mission would begin in seven days after the announcement. It seemed like much too long of a time when the power plant could explode at any time.

Yet somehow, the following week seemed to pass by in a flash. Daichi's group did their best to reintegrate their daily routines without the looming knowledge of their friends' departure holding them back. On the other hand, Kuroo's group were put through rigorous training alongside other members of the mission team as a sort of crash-course to surviving the wasteland. Bittersweetly enough, the courses took up the entirety of their days, effectively cutting short the remaining time they had to spend with their friends.

It seemed like such a waste, in the end. Each side reconsidered their stance more than once.

In the end, though, they stayed firm to their beliefs, and each and every one of the boys worked hard to make the most of their last days together.

Kageyama worked most tirelessly of all, doing his utmost to get some private time with each member of Kuroo's group to talk to them about their experiences. Everybody seemed to realize how important this was for their survival as a group, even when they were apart, and put effort into the interviews. Even Tsukishima kept his sarcasm to a minimum when Kageyama asked him to describe his point of view of the events that had brought them all the way here. Through it all, Kageyama scribbled notes furiously in his notebook, which he was seen carrying everywhere in the next week or so. Once he was done with the members of Kuroo's group, he began interviewing the people who decided to stay behind. All in all, he did a surprising job of preserving their memories and giving them an opportunity to accept the idea that they would leave one another soon.

Seven days had been much too short of a time to prepare to say goodbye, in retrospect.

But, then again, a lifetime would have been a day too short for their family to prepare to part ways.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

The day before their departure seemed to be the easiest of all. Perhaps their instructors were giving them leeway in their training efforts, Kuroo figured, because he was much less tired after their morning session than usual.

The others seemed to be thinking the same, just barely out of breath when they finished their laps around the mall complex. Their breaths puffed rhythmically as clouds in the cold air, but Kuroo's body was still warm.

Bokuto joined Kuroo behind the finish line a few seconds later, huffing lightly.

"Is it just me, or is walking around in the snow getting easier?" he asked, excitement glinting in his eyes. "I have a good feeling about our plan."

"That makes one of us," Kuroo grumbled, pushing his ski goggles up on his head to look at his best friend.

"What's got you worried?" Bokuto asked, nodding at Yamaguchi, who slowed to a stop next to them soon enough.

"I don't know. Maybe I'm still a bit hesitant about leaving the others behind," Kuroo admitted.

"It's too late to go back on your word, though," Bokuto shook his head. "You already promised the others that you would do your best to fight for them and protect them with all you had."

"Right," Kuroo let out a half-smile, and turned to Yamaguchi. "Well, I guess I should be putting more effort into training than worrying."

Yamaguchi just shrugged, though he did throw Kuroo an understanding look.

"What are you talking about?" Tsukishima arrived as well, panting lightly as he stopped and stretched his back. "You're the one who got us into this. Don't you dare lose sight of your goal now."

"Is that your strange way of cheering me up, Tsukki?" Kuroo teased, poking Tsukishima's abdomen as he stretched, and immediately earning him a smack to the hand.

"I don't know how I'm going to survive around you every single day," Tsukishima grumbled, throwing him a sharp warning glance.

"I will also be suffering, if you need any moral support." Appearing from around the corner, Akaashi also jogged over to them, and patted Tsukishima's arm. "When Bokuto and Kuroo are within sight of one another, they both simultaneously lose twenty points of I.Q."

"That's not true!" Bokuto pouted and squared his shoulders, his puffy winter coat making him look like an angry bird.

"Yeah, at least make it ten," Kuroo added, snickering and putting a hand on Bokuto's shoulder. "We're a dream team together!"

"I'm here!" The last member of their team came running from behind the corner, huffing. Skidding to a stop right next to Yamaguchi, Hinata pulled his hat right off his head, shaking his hair free of the sweat that matted his strands. "Phew, running in snow is so much tougher than running on the ground. My endurance took a hit there!"

"It wasn't even that long of a run, Shrimpy," Tsukishima commented, readjusting his glasses on his reddened nose. "You sure you're gonna be able to keep up with us?"

"Of course I will!" Hinata insisted, slapping his hat back on over his ears. "I'm going to be the best in the whole group!"

"I'm gonna be the best!" Bokuto rose to the challenge too quickly. "Even better than all the other people in the traveling party!"

Yamaguchi looked unsure at that, and signed a quick comment to Tsukishima.

"Tadashi is right," the blond nodded, turning to Bokuto and Hinata with a disapproving frown. "Most, if not all of the people in the group with us are adults. They know how to do this a lot better than we do."

Yamaguchi nodded, and continued to sign.

"Yeah…" Tsukishima nodded, glancing away.

"What did he say?" Hinata cocked his head curiously.

"He was wondering if we should be going on this mission with them after all," Kuroo translated instead, lips pursed in a thin line. "And I… I'm still not fully convinced that we're an indispensable asset to the traveling party. They've got scientists, soldiers and experienced wastelanders in there, so… I don't know what it is that we've got to offer. Still." He took a deep breath. "Satoko asked for us personally, and I want to believe that there is something for us to do out there."

"The contribution you will bring will be different from the rest's."

They all turned around to watch the newcomer appear from around the corner, waving happily to their group as she approached. Her long hair blew with the wind, her scarf tangled within. Her tired eyes seemed to be alit with fondness, or perhaps it was just the light reflecting off the snow.

"What do you mean, Satoko?" Akaashi asked curiously. "What can we bring to the table?"

"Psychological baggage of all sorts," Satoko answered, stopping with a decisive crunch of her boots on snow. "Your group has travelled across the country, and you know how to carry out long journeys that may seem bleak at their destination. We need the type of moral support that experienced members of your group can provide. You'll essentially be living proof that our venture will not be fruitless."

"Ah, figureheads," Kuroo nodded wisely. "I always love being an illusion of virtue instead of actually being a good person."

"Shut it, would you?" Satoko rolled her eyes, slapping Kuroo's arm without actual aggressiveness. "You're always so negative."

"Satoko," Hinata cut in, looking a bit nervous. All eyes went to him, and suddenly, he seemed doubly nervous. "Umm… I just… I just wanted to know if you thought about that thing I asked you the other day."

"Oya?" Bokuto perked up. "What thing? Is it a secret?"

"It won't be for long," Satoko chuckled, patting Hinata's head fondly. "Hinata's gonna tell you what that's all about. I just came to tell you that everything is arranged for you, and that you're excused from training for the rest of the day."

"What?" Tsukishima's eyes narrowed. "Are you sure it's a good idea to cut training short on the last day before we set out? If anything, we should be making double the effort today."

"You may as well take it easy," Satoko shrugged. "You've been working really hard lately, and nothing about this situation can be light on your hearts, what with leaving your friends behind and all. That's why Hinata asked me to help him organize something for you guys, so that you can wind down and enjoy your last day together."

"Now you've got me curious," Kuroo chuckled, pulling his ski goggles back on. "I definitely see what this is about!"

"Ahh… you'll see!" Hinata fidgeted with his hands, glancing at Satoko. "Thank you, miss! I really appreciate you helping me put this thing together."

"No problem." Satoko shooed them off with her hands. "Now go, while the sun is still high in the sky."

"Right!" Hinata nodded, enthusiasm leaking into his voice. His smile erupted into a wide grin. "Follow me, everyone! We're going to head back to the mall. Everybody should already be waiting for us there!"

"The others are going to join us?" Akaashi asked, falling into step as they joined behind Hinata in a light jog.

"Yeah. It's something that everybody needs to be together for," Hinata nodded, then stopped talking to save his breath.

The rest followed his example, and they all jogged for a few minutes through the thick snow to return to the entrance of the mall complex.

There, huddled and dressed in full winter gear, were all the other members of their group, standing around like they were waiting for something.

"Hey!" Hinata called enthusiastically as he sped up, a bright grin blooming on his face. "Over here!"

"Good afternoon, Hinata," Daichi greeted him, his group turning to face the newcomers as Hinata caught up to them. "What's going on? Satoko suddenly gathered all of us and told to wait for you out here."

"Did something happen?" Asahi asked, wringing his hands together. "Are you alright?"

"Oh, yeah," Hinata assured them with a nod. "It's nothing bad. Actually, I had a surprise for everybody, and I wanted us to be together for it!"

"What have you got up your sleeve, Shouyo?" Noya asked, his excitement clearly shining through.

"I can't spoil it until we get there," Hinata shook his head. "Now, just follow me! We have to make the most of the daylight."

Light chatter came up as Hinata led them away from the mall complex, mostly about the nature of Hinata's surprise, which Hinata managed to hide for the most part. They walked for almost half an hour as such, further away from the commercial district of Awa, and more towards the untouched residential areas. Light snowfall accompanied them on their way, but the winds had calmed just enough for them to walk without freezing their cheeks off. The snow continued to pile as they ventured through neighbourhoods ravaged by the war and untouched by the fallout.

Ultimately, as Hinata led them past another series of houses and a large building came into view, it became clear that it was their ultimate goal.

The building was nondescript, although its layout in wings marked it as being an establishment of some sort. A part of it had crumbled recently, rubble mixed with snow piled high against the side. Snow had blocked passage towards it, except for a thin passage that had been carved through, just wide enough to let one person through at a time. It seemed to have been made recently.

"We're going to this middle school," Hinata finally clarified their destination, although it didn't quite clarify its purpose. "Let's get inside, and I'll tell you more after!"

"You're gonna kill me with this suspense!" Noya sighed dramatically, wading through the snow that came up to his hips in places.

"It better be worth it," Kageyama grumbled, teeth clattering audibly when he shivered.

"You, of all people, is going to enjoy it. Stop complaining, Bakayama," Hinata teased him, taking the lead.

They got in a single-file to go through the path cleared in the snow, and one by one made their way in through the busted front door. Inside, the hallways were dark and cold, although that did not deter Hinata from confidently strolling down the one on the right.

"Come on," he urged the rest of them, pulling his mittens off. "You're gonna love this!"

With nothing else to do but follow, the others made their way down the hallway after Hinata. The air remained cool, although being cut off from the wind and snow did warm them up a little bit. The lockers lining the hallways blurred past them as they advanced, trying not to glance around at the dilapidated posters and signs decorating the walls that spoke of an innocence long-gone. Being inside this school made something ache inside of every single one of them. It felt like a yearning for a life they used to have, and that they knew they'd never find again.

Finally, Hinata stopped in front of a set of sliding doors, practically buzzing with excitement. When he turned to glance at them, they could practically see the anticipation spelled out in his eyes.

"We're here!" he announced, putting a hand on the sliding doors. "Watch this."

Without giving them time to get any more consumed by their own curiosity, Hinata threw the sliding door open, and strode in.

When the rest of them filed in, they were met with the nostalgic sight of a dim gymnasium, waxed wooden floors dusty and illuminated only by the filtering of sunlight through the high window panes. Numerous sports team banners hung on the walls, decorating the otherwise-monotone beige room. Dust particles floated in the air, cool but stuffy from months and months of stagnation.

In the middle of it all, the sun shone down on a volleyball net precariously set up on poles with what seemed to be duct tape.

"Wha… What's this…?" Iwaizumi asked first, glancing around at the others in confusion. They all seemed to be as lost as him.

"What's all this about, Shrimpy?" Kuroo turned to Hinata, who had walked a bit off to the side while they marvelled at the sight before them.

"Well… it's our last day together, right?" Hinata answered a bit sadly, kneeling and reaching underneath a bench against the wall. "So… I figured that maybe… Maybe we could spend our last moments together doing something we've always done together."

He seemed to hesitate, but then pulled out a volleyball for all of them to see.

"Satoko helped me set this all up. It can be our way of saying goodbye," he suggested, suddenly losing all his confidence and looking shy underneath the eleven gazes on him. "Our last memory together should be something we'll cherish forever, whether we find one another again in the future or not."

Nobody spoke for a while. Hinata didn't dare meet their eyes for fear of having said something dumb, and fidgeted where he stood, fingers tightening on the volleyball in his hands. The dust seemed to settle around them.

And then, Kenma suddenly had his arms around Hinata, squeezing so tightly that Hinata was afraid he might break.

"Shouyo… Thank you," Kenma sniffled, and Hinata felt the chill of tears being smudged against his bare neck.

"W-What…?" Taken aback, Hinata pulled away from Kenma and looked at him as if to be sure that he was actually crying. "No, it's nothing! Please don't cry!"

Glancing up at everybody else, though, showed that Kenma was not the only one crying. Tears were glistening in the eyes of several occupants of the room, some of whom had let them flow, and some of whom made furious efforts to hold them back.

It was humbling and heartwarming, and Hinata suddenly felt like crying, too.

"Shouyo…" Daichi murmured, eyes rimmed red despite not shedding any tears. "This is such a considerate gift to all of us. Thank you."

"I don't want to be sad anymore," Hinata hazarded a smile, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. "I guess this is the closest I can be to saying goodbye with a smile."

"In that case…" Noya sniffled loudly and wiped very obvious tears from his eyes. "What are we waiting for!? We shouldn't be standing here getting sentimental. Let's play while the sun is still up!"

"Alright!" Bokuto cheered, unzipping his jacket. "I haven't played in so long, this is gonna be so good!"

"Come on, Tsukki. Let's see if you still have it in you," Kuroo taunted, grabbing Tsukishima's wrist to drag him towards the court.

"Don't be annoying, or I'll block the hell out of you." Even Tsukishima seemed to be excited, which only hyped everybody else up.

"I'm curious to see what's changed with my hand like this," Iwaizumi mused out loud, clenching and unclenching his three remaining fingers experimentally.

"Don't forget to warm up!" Asahi reminded them, pulling his hat off and tossing it in a corner. "Don't pull any muscles in your excitement."

Yamaguchi approached Oikawa and enthusiastically signed something to him, to which Oikawa replied with a fervent nod and a rush to get out of his snow gear.

"Your kouhai has a good heart," Akaashi commented to Daichi, expression relaxed in a light smile. "I feel confident in being a part of your traveling party."

"All my kouhais are incredible," Daichi proclaimed in a rare moment of overt pride. He then turned to Hinata. "Thank you, Shouyo. You may not know it, but you've perhaps hammered the last nail in. Nobody will be leaving with doubt now. This is the closure we needed."

"I'm happy to have been of service," Hinata nodded cheerily, and tossed him the volleyball so that they could get started already.

Finally, as everybody got busy getting undressed and warmed up, Hinata turned to Kageyama, who hadn't said much so far.

"Hey." He nudged his side. "You okay? You haven't said anything."

"I…" Kageyama seemed to be struggling with words, burying his face in his scarf. "I… I don't know how to…" He let out a frustrated grunt and fiddled with his fingers nervously. "All this… it makes me feel…"

"Tobio." When Kageyama looked at Hinata, the young man was beaming at him, his expression bright enough to part the clouds perpetually hanging overhead and shining sunlight upon the court.

On the court, everybody was already getting placed, waving one another over excitedly. Overlapping voices filled the air that seemed to have been quiet ever since they left Karasuno at the very beginning of their journey.

That's exactly what it felt like, in retrospect; a return to the beginning. Closing their adventure with the way they began it. The world ended with them.

"You're welcome," Hinata simply murmured to Kageyama, and threw his arms around him.

Kageyama did not hesitate in returning the embrace, and engraving every last detail of this last scene in his memory and in his heart forevermore.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

They played volleyball until they were exhausted, until the sun began to fall through the sky and the red light bleeding into the gymnasium began to dim, until their legs ached and their heart beat fast enough to burst.

And then, once the last rally was over, they all flopped to the cool wooden floor and laughed, laughed until their sides ached and they cried. They laughed for all the times that they had cried so far, for all the times that they had mourned, for all the times when they had forbidden themselves from being happy. They laughed for the memories they'd made and for the memories they'd keep close to warm them up on cold nights spent apart. They laughed for the friends they'd made and the friends they'd lost, for the people they loved waiting for them either in this life or the next.

Their laughter became the apotheosis of their existence together, filling the silence that perpetually haunted them, freeing the heavy burdens in their hearts, and promising that regardless of what came, there would always be hope to be found in the memory of their laughter.

"Let's make another promise," Daichi suddenly suggested, when they all lay breathless and contented.

"Captain, that's cheesy," Noya quipped, only to earn himself a stern hush from Asahi.

"It might be. But it's still something we should do." Pushing himself up, Daichi gripped the volleyball, turning it over in his hands. "Let's sign this volleyball with our names, so we never forget this moment."

"Like we did at the Karasuno gym!" Hinata crowed. "So cool! Let's do it!"

"It'll be kind of like a progress record," Kuroo agreed. "You guys started by yourselves, and now here you are, with more people and less people than you began with. I think it's a good idea to keep a record of that. It's our entire adventure in one memento."

Oikawa quickly signed to Iwaizumi, and then got up, heading off.

"He's going to go find a marker in the teacher's office," Iwaizumi translated, sitting up as well. "Let's do this."

"We should head out soon, though," Akaashi recommended, glancing at the high glass panes. "It'll be dark soon, and it gets substantially colder then."

"Let's do this first, please, Akaashi?" Bokuto pleaded, making doe eyes at Akaashi, who simply sighed.

"I didn't say we couldn't. I'm all for it."

By the time Oikawa returned, they had all gathered into a circle, and were debating where to write their names on the ball. Kenma made space for Oikawa to sit down between him and Asahi, and Oikawa put down a black permanent marker, which Noya immediately made a grab for.

"Okay!" he announced, taking the ball from Bokuto. "Here we go!"

Just like the boys of Karasuno had done so long ago, the ball and marker were passed around the circle. In Noya's hands, it was white, and by the time it got to Tsukishima, black characters had been scribbled all over it. Careful not to smudge the drying ink, Tsukishima inscribed his own name in a remaining blank spot, and then set the ball down in the middle of the circle again.

"It's done," Hinata marveled.

"Yeah. And with this, we have proof that we lived, and that we will someday meet again." Picking up the ball, Daichi stood up. "Let's go get some rest, everybody. Tomorrow, we're going to rise early for a big day."

"Stretch so your muscles don't freeze up in the cold!" Kuroo reminded them as they all rose to go get dressed.

"And stay warm," Daichi added as an afterthought. However, it felt like a useless comment to make.

From the looks on each one of their faces, he could tell that they would never truly feel cold ever again.

That night, they all unzipped and layered their sleeping bags so that they all slept close to one another. Just for one last time, for one last chance to imprint the feeling of belonging amongst warm bodies into their hearts and their bones.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

"Today, citizens of Awa, a new dawn is rising above us."

The sky was clear, the sun only barely shining through the horizon. Bleeding reds and fiery oranges cast light upon the mall complex, and the shadow of the building extended far beyond it.

"Led by our overseer's trusted advisor and older sister, Satoko Niijima, a group of twenty-two wastelanders is setting out to cross the Honshu wasteland, a feat that has never before been accomplished, in order to reach the Shimane nuclear power plant."

The air was crisp and cool, filled only by the sound of orders being barked and the beeping of trucks backing up. The crunch of boots in fresh snow was overshadowed by the voices on the radio, who were clearly not Bokuto and Akaashi as one might guess.

"After recent tragedy struck Awa, this team -the largest team of wastelanders in the history of Awa- will attempt to reach the power plant and shut it down before the rogues have a chance to use it to bring more harm to the survivors on the mainland. Their mission is a dangerous, but necessary one to accomplish."

Off on one side, the trucks were being loaded with supplies for their journey. On another side, the science division of their traveling party was huddled up and discussing things that nobody else would understand. Satoko stood in the middle of it all, long hair tied up in a high ponytail and fluttering in the gentle breeze as she commanded her team with practiced ease.

"The wastelanders that are setting out on this mission are estimated to be gone for a long time, several months at best, and never to return at worst."

"Of course you'll return."

A collective breath was released as Daichi finally spoke, rising into the still morning atmosphere as white mist. Once tension had bled from their shoulders, they all turned to him, and Daichi turned off the radio.

That only left them to fill the silence.

"This is it, then, huh?" Kuroo sighed, glancing up at the sky. Tiny snowflakes danced in the air and landed on his eyelashes. "We're going to be leaving soon."

"Yeah," Daichi nodded. "All of you… take care. And remember. No matter how long it takes for you to return, you have to return regardless."

"It's kind of hard to believe that this is the end, isn't it?" Noya snorted mirthlessly. "It really felt like our adventure would just… keep going forever. But this is it."

"It's not over yet," Hinata tried to correct him. "It's just… put on hold. We'll meet again for sure."

"I guess this is a good time to thank everybody. For everything they've ever done." Kuroo's admission was a bit of a shock, but nobody wanted to spend time mulling over that right now.

"Yeah," Asahi nodded, biting his lip. "Nothing would've been possible to accomplish without everybody's strength and devotion."

"We came a long way and accomplished many things," Iwaizumi added. "I think that we can be proud of the things we've gained, regardless of the things we've lost."

"And the people," Yamaguchi murmured, his voice ringing out too loudly in the crystalline air. "And the people that we've lost."

"Wherever they are, they're all watching over us and wishing us well," Akaashi reminded him. "The memories of the ones we love will be the wind at our backs out there."

"And we won't let them down!" Bokuto promised, glancing around their circle. "We won't let you down!"

"We know you won't," Iwaizumi translated for Oikawa, who signed, and then slipped his hand into his best friend's for support.

"Just promise to take care," Kenma whispered, gently touching Kuroo's arm and raising a pleading gaze at him. "I know we've all done some really outlandish stuff to get here, but none of us are superhuman. We're still human, and we're still just kids. So… rely on the adults around you to do the hard stuff, please."

"Yeah," Kageyama nodded, the frown on his face characteristic of his moments of deep thought. "You all gave me your stories. I wrote them down. Don't let them end just yet."

"Don't worry too much. It's annoying," Tsukishima grumbled, pouting lightly. "At least pretend you trust us to return unharmed and successful."

"Of course we do, Tsukishima," Noya rolled his eyes. "You don't have to worry about us either."

"I'm not worried."

"Sure."

In the distance, one of the trucks beeped loudly.

"Okay, wastelanders!" Satoko's voice rang out loudly over all of the other voices. Suddenly, a hush fell over everybody gathered outside, and all eyes went to her.

It was so quiet that one could almost hear the thumping of frantic hearts racing in unison.

"It's time to head out!" Satoko announced, pointing to the trucks. "The trucks are loaded, just hop onto the one you are assigned to! From here on out, we're going out to protect the ones we love, so when you say goodbye to the lives you leave behind, say it with pride!"

A resounding rallying cry rose from the small crowd amassed outside the mall complex, and soon enough, a throng of people were breaking away from the others, who stayed behind. Several other wastelanders had their families and friends out to wave them goodbye, so at least the boys that remained behind did not feel too lonely in their heartbreak.

"I guess this is it," Kuroo finally decided, outstretching his hand at Daichi. "From here on out, I leave them all in your care."

"And I, in yours." Daichi grabbed Kuroo's hand firmly, not so much a handshake as it was an embrace. "Just don't do anything stupid."

"None of this formal stuff, you guys!" Noya booed them both, jumping on Daichi. "Group hug!"

"Group hug!"

With comfortable laughter, all twelve of the boys found themselves holding each other tight, and after the laughter faded, perhaps for one second, they indulged in grief. Embracing for a moment longer than they should've, they then split and let the lingering warmth in their limbs melt the frost beginning to creep on their hearts.

They would not give in to despair.

"Good luck," Daichi wished quietly, deciding to wave them off with a fond smile.

"You, too." Kuroo returned the smile, without any smugness, without any arrogance, without any ulterior motives.

"And be careful. It's an ugly world out there, and every time we thought we'd seen it at its worst, we were always proven wrong." Daichi let his eyes trail over the boys lined up next to Kuroo, watching Hinata, Tsukishima, Yamaguchi, Bokuto and Akaashi square their shoulders in response to his statement. "Whatever you do, don't lose your way, even when the world turns dark once more."

"We won't," Kuroo assured him confidently, taking in one last sight of the boys he was leaving behind with Daichi. As he made contact with each and every one of them, Oikawa, Iwaizumi, Noya, Kageyama, Kenma and Asahi nodded at him. "We'll fight on through the night, and we'll see you again come morning light."

And with that promise, it was goodbye.

There were no more words to exchange, not if both parties wanted to keep their eyes dry.

"Let's move out," Kuroo ordered, and somehow, nobody managed to say a word past the ball in their throats.

Turning their backs, the first group left towards the trucks. And though they glanced behind and waved a few more goodbyes, they never stopped in their advance.

It put Daichi's mind at ease, and he straightened his back as he watched them load into the trucks.

Around them, families and friends of the other wastelanders were crying, yelling out goodbyes and whispering fervent prayers for their continued safety. Yet somehow, Daichi couldn't bring himself to do any of those. For some reason, he knew in his heart that Kuroo and his team would be safe.

The trucks were loaded without fanfare, and rumbled to life. The first one turned into the passage that led out of Awa, towards Tokushima, and the second one followed closely. The crunching of snow under tires made the entire thing feel that much more real.

Those trucks were taking their friends away from them, possibly for good. That alone should have been enough for Daichi to step in, call them back, but he didn't. Next to him, the other boys who were now his to protect stayed silent, though perhaps one or two of them had begun to cry.

He didn't know, for he did not turn around to check, eyes riveted on the horizon.

He remained standing there until the trucks completely disappeared from his view, until his toes began to go numb from the cold and until the crying families around him began to quiet down. At that moment, he was aware of the loud beating of his own heart and of the swell of sadness in his chest. He had promised not to cry, but this goodbye was just too bittersweet.

"Let's get back inside," he finally decided, and nobody mentioned if he choked on a word or two. "We have work today, and we might already be late for our shifts."

"Ironic that we have to go to work after all this…" Iwaizumi chuckled sadly, his expression downcast. Oikawa mirrored his expression and put his head on his shoulder to support both of them. "Life goes on, I guess."

"Absolutely." And with every word he filled with whatever resolution he had left, Daichi found his strength and his conviction returning to him. He could do this. He, and everybody else he still had with him, could do this. "Life goes on, even without them. And until we meet again, it's our responsibility to keep their memory alive by living our lives the way we would've if they were still here next to us."

Behind him, Kenma sniffled lightly and wiped his nose on his mittens. Noya put a gentle hand on his shoulder in support, though his eyes were wet as well. Oikawa turned into Iwaizumi's chest to hide his face, and Iwaizumi tangled his fingers in the hairs at the base of his neck to pull him closer. Kageyama hunched his shoulders inwards like he was caving in, and Asahi set his hand on his head to anchor him with the weight.

Daichi stood tall, and repeated to himself that this pain, too, would someday come to pass.

"Let's get inside," he prompted them all, and when their steps towards the mall complex became shaky, he herded them forward with a strong hand across their backs.

He could only imagine that somewhere out there, Kuroo was doing the same.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

And thus, life went on.

Satoko and the wastelanders never returned to Awa.

The volleyball remained untouched, gathering dust until the day they would meet again.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

….-…-…-…EPILOGUE…-…-…-…

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

When the sun shone across the floorboards, it shone gold.

It made for quite a dramatic sight in the abandoned gymnasium, particles of dust dancing visibly in the path carved in the air by the light. The air was stable, heavy, untouched, and it almost seemed like a travesty to disturb the stillness of the room. It felt like this place was a pocket of time and space that had stopped long ago, its history visible in every nick and mark on the floors and on the walls.

The gymnasium itself was a mess. All lined up against the back wall, many different objects gathered thick layers of dust. Mattresses and pillows were strewn around, as were poles, clothes, tools, ropes, and countless other miscellaneous items. Anyone who did not know the history of the place would be tempted to describe it as a dragon's den; anyone who did would know that it was a rabbit's warren.

When the golden light lit up the room in a warm glow, the gym seemed to come to life once more, and the walls whispered the story of survival that had taken place within its bounds. Undisturbed by time and nature, in the middle of it all, a testament stood naked for all to see; black marker on wood.

"Remember that we lived."

The silence gave way to the voice that rose, peace disturbed by the sound of clicking heels on wood. The woman standing by the door did not seem concerned that her voice was violating the serenity of this sanctuary, instead shuffling across the room with a camera following her.

"That is the last message that the survivors of Karasuno High School inscribed before they left to set out into the dangerous world outside," the woman continued, talking to the camera. "Now, six years later, we have a chance to revisit the place that they called home, and shed light on the struggles of the victims of the terrible war that ravaged the country."

"Plug the title in somewhere," the cameraman recommended to her.

"Got it," the woman nodded, and the serious mask slipped back on her face. "Six years ago, with the advent of the war, these children were forced to leave their homes and travel across the country in a desperate search for safety. Ever since, the war has been resolved, Japan capitulating in the best interest of its remaining citizenry and beginning its reconstruction efforts. Now, in the fifth year of rebuilding, we are slowly uncovering the stories of horror and hope that were written during this brief, but devastating conflict. The Karasuno High children are only one of the many groups that outlasted the war and wrote these stories, and for the future of our nation, in the interest of the next generation, these are stories that must never be forgotten. Today, the Karasuno High School gymnasium, where the boys first set up their pocket of resistance, is considered a protected patrimonial site, and in the years to come as the Miyagi prefecture is given new life, it will be transformed into a museum. This is a testament of hardship and hope. It once stood as a last bastion of defense; today, it is their story's apotheosis."

"Whew. Took you look enough to get that one out," the cameraman laughed, putting his camera down.

"It's a complicated word, Hitoshi," the woman groaned out, rubbing her forehead tiredly. "The director of our documentary insisted that it be titled 'Apotheosis'. Apparently, the kid collaborating with him on production and narration wanted it that way."

"Speaking of which, shouldn't we talk to him?" Hitoshi glanced to the end of the gymnasium, where a lone figure was sitting on a rickety plastic chair, glancing at the walls. "He is one of the Karasuno survivors, after all. He could be an interesting addition to the documentary."

"He's a special character…" the woman rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. "You're right, though. Let's go see if he'll talk to us."

The camera began rolling again, and the film crew headed towards the young man in the corner.

"Excuse me," the woman called when she got close enough, waving slightly at the boy. It took a few seconds for him to notice her, and when he did, he looked a bit caught off guard. "Apologies for disturbing you. My name is Mitsuki Hagakure, and I am filming a documentary about the Karasuno survivors. It's nice to meet you."

"Likewise." The boy seemed to be one without too many words to spare, and he bowed his head lightly to Mitsuki. "I know about the documentary. I'm co-writing it."

"Oh!" Mitsuki's cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and she turned to the camera. "Please cut that part out."

"No worries," Hitoshi snickered.

"Alright, I apologize for not recognizing you." Back to business, Mitsuki pulled a foldable chair over and sat down next to the boy. "If you don't mind, I would like to ask you some questions."

"Go ahead."

"Firstly, could you please tell us about yourself?"

"Ah." Again, the boy's dark blue eyes darted around nervously, and he pushed a few strands of black hair behind his ears. "My name is Kageyama Tobio. When I was sixteen years old, I was one of the Karasuno survivors. Ever since the end of the war, I've been working on a project to release the story of our struggle to the public so that it can maybe someday help this conflict from happening again."

"Your story is a heart-wrenching one to tell, Kageyama," Mitsuki nodded empathetically, eyes going sad. "Could you tell us what happened to you and your friends in the war?"

"A lot of things happened," Kageyama frowned, as if not understanding the purpose of the question. "We left Miyagi after the first nuclear explosion and travelled across the country to search for safety. We picked up some people along the way. We outlasted the second explosion in Niigata. Then, we travelled down to Tokushima, where we settled in a refugee-organized camp called Awa. We stayed there a while before about half of our group left to cross the wasteland on a mission. They did not come back before the end of the war four months later, and none of us from Awa have heard from them since."

"It's an extensive tale that spans across exactly a year," Mitsuki continued, turning to the camera. "At the young age of twenty-two, Kageyama Tobio is the author of a bestselling novel about the war and the story of the Karasuno survivors. He worked on it for a couple of years before publishing it, and it's the novel that drew attention to the story of the Karasuno survivors and made the government declare this gym a national heritage site. Due to funding issues, the official inauguration is only being done tonight, but it is nonetheless exciting to see all of this stem from one novel. Kageyama," she turned to him again. "Could you please tell us about your work?"

"I mean… it's about what I told you already," Kageyama frowned. "It's a collection of our memoirs from the war. It goes from the moment we gathered in the Karasuno gym, to the moment we left one another in Awa, and it details everything that happened to us and every person we picked up and let go throughout our journey. I spoke to all of the boys in my group to get their point of view and their stories, and put it all together in a way that made sure that people could feel the pain and hardships we endured. War affects lives, real, individual lives, and destroys people in horrible ways. I just hope that our story can help avoid a repeat of this terrible event."

"Your novel has a very graphic style. It's shocking, actually, that you included all of the nitty-gritty details in your writing, but I suppose that is the point of it."

"Yeah, it's intentional. I wanted to make people feel disgusted and outraged at whatever they read," Kageyama confirmed. "This isn't a fiction novel. It's a recollection of real events, and it denounces the atrocities of war, the psychological and physical consequences of it. I hope that it makes people worldwide realize that casualties of war aren't just numbers in history books. They are real people who struggle and crawl in pain, made to kneel by forces stronger than they could ever be, and yet who fight because they have people that they love."

"What a chilling way of describing it. You're very talented, Kageyama," Mitsuki complimented him. "Funny, seeing as you had a more withdrawn personality back then, from what I can tell from the way you depicted yourself in your novel."

"Perhaps." A light tinge of red coloured Kageyama's cheeks, and he fiddled with his fingers in a show of nervousness like the old days the reporter spoke of.

"Now, I'm very interested to know about the writing on the floor there," Mitsuki jumped to the next topic, hitting a dead end on the book. "It's a message written in black marker on the gym's floorboards, and it says 'Remember Karasuno. Remember that we lived', along with some names, including yours. Tell us more about that."

"We wrote that before we left the gym for good." Kageyama's expression fell slightly. "One of my closest friends suggested it as a way to preserve our memory. At the time, we genuinely weren't sure what awaited us out there in the rest of the country, and we were afraid. Just in case we died out there, we wanted to leave our mark, and so we signed off on the place that had kept us safe since the Forty Fireworks." Sighing, Kageyama lifted his gaze again. "The names are those of my teammates who were with me then. Some of them are still alive today, some of them aren't. Some of them, I don't know. The nation's been in disarray since the war, even if it's been five years, and I haven't heard from the boys with whom I've lost contact."

"A lot of attention is being brought to this place by the media recently," Mitsuki noted. "Do you think that'll help you find your friends again?"

"I sure hope so." Finally, Kageyama etched a small smile, though it was sadder than anything else. "I have to admit that… writing this book, it was also my way of calling out for them. I want them, wherever they are now, to know that there is still a place for them here. Me, and everybody who is still with me, we all want to find each other again and get back together."

"It's a very good idea to reach out to them via the media. Today is the official inauguration of the Karasuno gym as a national heritage site," Mitsuki reminded him, though he probably didn't need to be reminded. "Tonight, there will be a ceremony and a cocktail in the honour of the Karasuno gym, and I heard that your friends were attending, is that correct?"

"Yes. The ones who are with me have all been invited by the government to attend and make a speech," Kageyama confirmed. "I already called out to the ones that I've lost from my sight. I'm hoping that the publicity this place is getting will also attract them all back here tonight, so that we can finally reunite."

"I wish it with all my heart," Mitsuki smiled at him, partly fond and partly sad. "Now, a few more questions about your book. Could you please explain the cover image for it? I'm sure it's confusing for many people, because it's not visibly related to the topic of your book."

"The cover is a picture of a volleyball, I know," Kageyama confirmed. "But that volleyball is one that has all the names of the boys who survived by the time we parted in Awa. It's a parallel to what we did here in the gym, in order to highlight how far we'd come and how much we'd lost. Volleyball is important to all of us, since we all met through the club in high school, and even the boys with us who weren't from Karasuno were familiar to us from rival volleyball clubs. That volleyball was a way for us to remember what we used to be, and I chose it as my cover image because it carries such a bittersweet emotional weight for us all."

"You really thought of everything, didn't you?" Mitsuki nodded, eyes wide, clearly impressed. "One last question for you, Kageyama, before we let you go. The title to your book is also a very peculiar one, and the meaning behind it doesn't jump out immediately. Could you tell us why your novel is titled the way it is?"

"Here, I have a copy in my bag," Kageyama huffed, rifling through the shoulder bag at his feet. After a few seconds, he pulled out a worn, dog-eared, bent copy of the book, and presented it to the camera. On the cover page, the volleyball, signed with the names of all the survivors, stood proudly on display. "Umm… the book is titled 'Come Morning Light'." He seemed wistful, and turned the book to run his finger across the title embossed on the front page.

He fell silent for a moment, and both Mitsuki and Hitoshi respected his silence. He seemed to be living something far beyond what the eye could see, and seemed to be feeling something far beyond what their hearts could feel. For a moment, the camera caught sight of the broken boy that had loved, lived, and lost. For a moment, they saw a young man who'd been forced to grow up too fast, too much. The golden sun fell upon Kageyama's eyelashes, and the next time he blinked, his eyes turned glossy.

"It's a promise," he simply stated, his gaze still on the book. His finger rhythmically caressed the title, as if he kept repeating the promise to himself. His voice seemed just a bit tighter, just a bit quieter. Broken and patched up, but never to be whole again. "It's a title that represents hope. It's a promise to look forward to the end of the night. Despite all the horrors that the darkness brings, over, and over, and over again… come morning light, we still live, and we still rise."

Author's Note

In a certain way, this is our journey's apotheosis as well. You, as readers, and I, as the author, are going to have to say goodbye to this fanfic. We'll always have the memories we've made together, but now, we part. I'm, uhh... I'm really emotional right now.

I don't know what I want to write in these ANs. I don't know if I want to explain some stuff from the fic or if I want to cry or if I want to talk about the work. It really feels like there's not enough time to get stuff out there, so uhh... those goodbyes were super relatable, lol.

Well, I left the ending up to interpretation for you guys, as I usually do with long fanfics. I dislike setting endings in stone because the end is never really the place where everything stops. An ending is supposed to be a gateway to a new beginning, so I want to let you guys imagine for yourselves how the fic actually finishes. If it wasn't clear, the war lasted 4 months after Kuroo left Awa, an armistice was signed, and 5 years later, we have the epilogue, where Kageyama presents his cleverly-titled book. If you didn't get it, uhh... this fic is Kageyama's book. Yeah. So anyway. Who shows up to the inauguration from Daichi's group? Who shows up from Kuroo's group? What's happened to the people who showed up? What happened to those who didn't? Those are all questions I want you guys to answer for yourselves so that this fic can be just a little more personal to you. Talk to me on tumblr and let me know what you think!

Otherwise, I'm going to do all my long-winded post-mortem notes on Tumblr bc they don't really belong here, but I just... I want to thank everyone who gave this fic a chance, from the bottom of my heart. Whether you just discovered it or you were following since chapter 1, whether you really loved it or just skimmed through it, whether you made it this far or let go halfway, I want to thank you for your incredible support, your boundless enthusiasm, and all the encouraging feedback you've ever given me.

Thank you a thousand times over, and may we meet again!

(watch the video, just fckin do it)

-SharkbaitSekki (Cin)