Hello, all. Sorry it's been a little longer than I usually take to post a new chapter. My life has been a little hectic lately. So apologies aside, I hope chapter twenty was worth the wait :)

Lunar Eclipse

Chapter Twenty

Daichi listened to the dull thump of his sneakers as he walked to school that morning, taking solace in the new spring warmth that had decided to finally ride into Torono Town on a gentle breeze. Head down, he watched for puddles leftover from last night's rainstorm. Daichi knew that worrying about the rain wouldn't matter - that he'd have to change into his indoor shoes anyway - but he'd rather not deal with the annoyance that a pair of soaked, muddy sneakers would cause him when he changed back at the end of the day.

Before long, the captain trudged up the walkway to the school's front doors and curled his fingers around the metal handle, internally sighing at the cool water that still adorned its surface. He wiped his hand off onto his uniform pants as he entered and traversed the halls. Finally reaching his classroom, Daichi sat down in his desk and reviewed his daily mental checklist for about the third time that morning, trying his best to keep his mind on the tasks of the day and not on the drama that last night's catastrophe was sure to provoke. Upon looking around, Daichi noticed the one desk he knew would be empty: Sugawara's. Suga had a really rough night last night, he found himself thinking, He's probably at home getting some much needed sleep.

As if missing his vice captain wasn't enough, it was upon walking into his first period Chemistry class that he noticed another missing teammate: Asahi. It didn't make as much sense, but he still found it completely understandable. Asahi might not have had any direct part in the nightmare that occurred last night, but he was far more delicate than his appearance led people to believe. Besides, he'd gotten to know Mr. and Mrs. Azumane fairly well over these last three years. After as big of an affair as the team meeting last night, he wasn't surprised that Asahi's parents kept him home today.

It was a strange feeling, not having Suga or Asahi to keep him company. Sure, Asahi was absent on occasion (anytime his overprotective parents deemed it necessary to keep him home), but Suga had gotten a perfect attendance award every year for the last five years straight. Not having either of them at his side was a lonely feeling that made Daichi more uncomfortable than he would have liked to admit.

Over the course of the day, Daichi would discover the true magnitude of the damage that had befallen the rest of the team. Tsukishima was obviously absent, and so was Yamaguchi. After a quick chat with a highly distraught Nishinoya in the hallway after second period, he thought Tanaka would be absent as well, but as it happened, Tanaka turned up around lunch time. The rest of the team was present, but after talking with the handful of players he ran into in the hallways every so often, Daichi quickly learned that actually being at school was causing more problems than staying at home.

All in all, Daichi had a rough morning. Between missing Suga and Asahi in class and periodically seeing how badly his teammates were handling the depression and exhaustion of last night, Daichi would be glad when this whole shebang was over and done with.

Tobio Kageyama was not what most people would consider a good student - Mrs. Nakada knew this fact very well. He almost never had the correct answers when she called on him, and he always seemed to be staring at her with the vacant look that, over the course of her thirty years of teaching, she had come to associate with two types of students: those who were simply not paying attention, and those who were very, very confused. She could tell that on most days, Kageyama fell into the latter category. Math didn't seem to be this student's strong suit, and it made sense. It was nonsense to think one could become a math teacher without encountering scores of students who complained about the horrors of mathematics.

And sure, despite his earnest efforts at learning her class material, Kageyama was far from a model student. She could tell by watching the way he interacted (or didn't interact) with the other students in her class and in the hallway, Tobio Kageyama definitely had an attitude. He was very clear on the things he did care about, and the things he didn't, and he often made it very obvious that despite his attempts at actually learning from her class, he did not care about it. She didn't know what his motivation was for trying so hard, whether he had pressure from his parents to keep his grades up or a club that required a certain GPA, but whatever it was, something had changed, because today was the worst Mrs. Nakada had ever seen him act.

Unlike usual, Kageyama didn't even have his books out on his desk. He simply sat there staring out the window next to his seat, twirling a single mechanical pencil deftly between his fingers. She called on him a few times throughout class, but he either refused to answer or otherwise mumbled to the point that she couldn't hear him anyway. About halfway through class Mrs. Nakada decided she had enough. As she explained a homework question to another student, right in the middle of her sentence, Tobio Kageyama yawned. Very loudly. She turn on her heel to face him.

"Excuse me, Kageyama, is my class interrupting your nap?"

Kageyama could have handled this situation a number of different ways. He could have scowled and hoped Mrs. Nakada continued teaching. He could have apologized and made at least some effort to pay attention for the rest of the period. What he should not have done is exactly what he did next.

"Yes! Thanks to this dumbass school, I was here in the middle of the night instead of sleeping at home!" he shouted, leaning forward in his desk, making no effort to control his anger.

If Kageyama wants to play this game, Mrs. Nakada thought, outraged at her student's disobedience, then I'll play along.

"Humor me for a minute, Kageyama. How is the fact that you were here the school's fault?" Kageyama could hear the sass in his teacher's voice and it infuriated him. After last night, he was not in the mood to deal with this shit.

"Because my team needed me! I'm not just gonna stay home when my team has an emergency!"

"Kageyama, I don't care that your team had an emergency, or that you didn't sleep last night. This is my class, and you will pay attention!"

If the argument had just ended there, Kageyama might have gotten through the rest of class without further incident. However, before the temperamental setter could respond to his algebra teacher, another student decided to throw in his two cents.

"Hey, don't sweat it, Mrs. Nakada," he teased, "Everyone comes second to Kageyama's precious volleyball!" In the heat of the moment, Kageyama stood so forcefully from his seat that he knocked his chair to the floor with a loud clatter. Hands balled into fists, the angry teenager wanted nothing more than to beat this kid's face into the tile floor.

"What the hell did you just say!?"

That was it, Mrs. Nakada decided. This was where the circus act ended.

"Hey, quiet! Kageyama, to the principal's office! Now!"

Furious to the point of seeing red, Kageyama bounded from the classroom, glad he could take a walk to clear his head.

It was on his walk to the principal's office that he ran into a certain orange-haired spiker. Kageyama was so focused on the floor, that he didn't see Hinata walk straight into him. As soon as he felt the small shoulder collide with his arm he tensed and started to yell, only to immediately pull back when he saw the rest of the body the shoulder was connected to.

"Hey, watch - oh. Hinata." Hinata looked up to meet his glare, just as startled. "What are you doing here? It's the middle of class."

"Hey, I should be asking you the same thing!" Kageyama noticed there was a tad more hurt in his teammate's voice than when they usually bantered. Hinata seemed to be just as on edge as he was. In a way it was a relief. He wasn't the only one who was apparently still reeling from last night.

"I'm on my way to the principal's office." He finally answered, too bitter and uncomfortable to make eye contact.

"Wha!? What for?" Hinata sputtered. Kageyama was reluctant to tell him about his outburst in class, because he knew Hinata would lord it over him until they graduated. He ultimately decided that he didn't care enough about his situation to lie about it.

"I swore at the teacher."

"Stupid! I told you to stop swearing so much!" In a moment of blind rage (that hadn't quite calmed since his last surge of anger), Kageyama seized Hinata by the collar and swung him into a locker.

"You're telling me I'm supposed to care!?" Hinata yanked his setter's hands from his collar and threw them to the side shortly before placing his own hands in the center of Kageyama's chest and shoving him onto the floor.

"What's gotten into you, Bakageyama!?" Kageyama flew to his feet and went for Hinata's collar again, only for Hinata to swiftly dodge him.

"What do you mean what's gotten into me? Were you even listening last night? Volleyball is the only reason I wake up in the morning," he shouted, "It's the only reason I tolerate this stupid school, so I can go to practice. So now that the team's fallen apart and our dreams of Nationals have been dashed, what the hell am I supposed to care about now!?"

"Do you think you're the only one who's upset about this? Have you looked at anyone else on the team? What happened to teamwork and being in this together?"

Their conversation unfortunately wasn't destined to go any further. By this point their shouting had attracted the attention of several classrooms of students, including a few teachers. As door after door opened into the hallway to see the reason for all the noise, students and teachers alike began to spill out to watch the fight. When Mrs. Nakada re-opened her door at the sound of Kageyama's voice, the first sight she saw was the student she had just sent to the principal's office holding another, smaller student in a headlock. The smaller student, who she vaguely recognized to be Shoyo Hinata, seemed to be trying to bite Kageyama's arm in an attempt to get him to let go. What was wrong with him today? Was he just trying to get into as much trouble as possible?

"Tobio Kageyama!" Both boys froze in their tracks and whipped their heads around to face the teacher who had just shouted.

"I thought I told you to go to the principal's office? Do you want to get expelled?" Kageyama released his grip on Hinata and bowed to his teacher, hoping it looked like an apology when in actuality, he just didn't want to acknowledge the hundred or so eyes of his classmates staring him down. After he straightened himself up again, he stalked moodily toward the principal's office.

"Hinata!" Hinata turned from watching Kageyama stalk down the hallway to once again facing the teacher. "Where are you supposed to be?"

"Um..."

"I want you to sit here until he comes back," she said as she pulled a chair out into the hall, "then I want you to go see the principal, too. There's no way I'm sending you both together just so you can get into another fight." Hinata slowly made his way to the open chair and sank down into it while Mrs. Nakada and the other teachers ushered everyone back into their respective classrooms.

Daichi would have liked to say that he was surprised at the news of Hinata and Kageyama's fight, but that was sadly not the case. After seeing Kageyama's punishment on the pull-up bar last night, he had a feeling this wouldn't be the last time the temperamental setter would lash out before this nightmare situation had been resolved. And with Hinata, who was naturally at odds with Kageyama all the time anyway, just trying to hold himself together, they were bound to mix about as well as oil and water - or maybe oil and fire.

Unfortunately for Daichi, over half the students at Karasuno had attended the Shiratorizawa game not too long ago, and as a result the boy's volleyball team was still on everybody's radar. And with the fact that Kageyama and Hinata were both on the team and apparently shouting something about volleyball during their fight, the rumors spread like wildfire: Something was very wrong with the Karasuno Boy's Volleyball Club.

It was for that reason Daichi had been pelted with questions from random classmates for the rest of the morning. What was wrong with the team? What happened last night? What did that first year mean when he said they were no longer going to Nationals? It infuriated him. There was no way he was giving away such sensitive information and disrespecting Tsukishima and his family by making him a town celebrity before he even got out of the hospital. The kid was going to have enough problems just trying to recover while completing all his schoolwork. He didn't need to be hounded by curious classmates as well.

After turning down handfuls of such classmates throughout the morning, Daichi was looking forward to simply relaxing and eating his lunch in peace. Now that the sun was out and shining bright, having dried up the moisture from last night's rain, Daichi figured it might take a load off his mind to escape the press long enough to eat his lunch outside in the school courtyard. He was about halfway through his lunch when he was approached by another student, this time, someone he recognized.

"Michimiya. I didn't expect to see you out here."

"I've been looking all over the school for you." She said as she sat next to him in the grass, "Everyone's really worried about the team."

"Worried about the team?" Daichi asked between mouthfuls of food, "Or interested in our misfortune?"

"Well, to be honest, I would have said interested until the news hit just now." Daichi almost dropped his lunchbox.

"Wait, what news?"

"Haven't you checked facebook today? There's a local news article spreading around the school like wildfire. It talks about a shooting that went down at the Family Mart between midnight and 1am last night. It only mentions one person - the victim - and it calls them a 'sixteen-year-old Karasuno student.' Since whoever it was is a minor, the news agency can't use their name, so everyone in the school has been playing twenty questions to figure out which of the first years is absent today."

Daichi, feeling caught between an impossible moral decision, remained silent. After Michimiya realized that Daichi wouldn't say anything, she continued.

"Of course, there's bound to be several students absent in any one class on any given day, but then I heard that Hinata and Kageyama got into a fight this morning, and that they were apparently yelling something about volleyball. That's when I realized that the two events could be connected."

Daichi realized that he'd been cornered. If he told Michimiya that her hunch was correct, then the knowledge that Tsukishima was the victim in question could spread around the school and make the team's recovery process a thousand times harder than it needed to be. On the other hand, it didn't feel right to straight out lie to her, especially after all the encouragement she had given him during the Shiratorizawa game. Maybe... Maybe he just had to trust that she would keep the secret.

"Michimiya... Before I say anything, you need to understand that this information cannot leave this conversation, for reasons that should become obvious as I explain."

Michimiya scooted closer to Daichi as she focused her gaze in his direction.

"Of course. I just wanted to make sure you guys were okay, and to offer my help if there's anything I can do."

"I understand... In a word, yes. They are connected... It was... It was Tsukishima. We had a late practice due to some scheduling conflicts, and he and Sugawara stopped at the Family Mart on their walk home. Someone tried to rob the place, and Tsukishima got caught in the fire. That's what Kageyama meant when he said we'd lost our chance at Nationals. Because it's almost impossible for Tsukishima to recover in time, and the team doesn't have a chance without him."

"Oh, no..." Michimiya gasped as her hands flew to her mouth, "I'm so sorry..."

"Thanks... But I'm sure you understand why the rest of the school can't know it was him. When he returns, the last thing he needs to deal with is being swarmed by his classmates as he's trying to heal from his injuries and catch up on his schoolwork."

"Yeah... That's so awful." Before their conversation could continue, the end of lunch bell rang.

"Hey, I'm going to go. If you guys need anything, please let me know, okay?"

"Of course. Thanks, Michimiya." Daichi packed up the rest of his uneaten food and returned to class.

Nishinoya was pissed. First, Tanaka didn't even show up to school, and then Hinata and Kageyama went and alerted the entire school to their team's problems by having that fight. People had been coming up to him all morning asking him about the team's first year members, and it was all he could do to avoid shouting at someone. By the time lunch had come around, Karasuno's Guardian Deity had definitely had enough of being around other people for the day. When the teacher announced that it was time for lunch, Nishinoya took his food out of his backpack and headed straight for the door.

He didn't stop until he found the most secluded spot in the school yard - the back entrance. Most people who wanted to eat outside went to the picnic tables or the courtyard because it was near the main entrance, and had the most space. However, there was also a back entrance that wasn't really used by anybody but the school's maintenance workers. Most regular students weren't aware it was even an entrance, and those who were didn't eat there because there wasn't much space, and because it was in such a secluded spot that the school's high walls didn't allow it to get much sun. Nishinoya actually liked this entrance a lot, because it was the best place to go whenever he wanted to skip class. He knew nobody would bother him here. However, before he could begin to eat, he saw Tanaka turn the corner and approach the entrance.

"Oi!" Nishinoya shouted, "Where the hell have you been?" Tanaka seemed to be looking down at his feet as he walked, and his head shot up at the sound of his friend's voice.

"What do you mean where have I been? I was at home with Saeko." Tanaka asked as he approached his teammate. He stood stock still in front of Nishinoya's lounging form, glaring him down. After Saeko's meltdown, he was really not in the mood.

"I mean, we've been taking the brunt of this bullshit without you! Hinata and Kageyama got into a fight in the middle of the hallway earlier, and since they were shouting about volleyball, now the entire school knows that something's wrong. On top of that, the news article of the shooting just hit facebook, but since Tsukishima's a minor they couldn't use his name, so now everyone's trying to figure out which of the first years didn't show up to school today. I can't walk two feet down the hall without someone stopping me and asking what's going on. It's only a matter of time before someone realizes everything's connected. It's been nothing less than hell."

"Well, then let me make your day even worse." Tanaka took his phone out of the side pocket of his backpack and scrolled a little. Once he found the page he was looking for, he sat down and handed his phone to Nishinoya. Nishinoya took one look at the screen and immediately wished he hadn't.

"No way."

"Yeah way. Akiteru Tsukishima's obituary."

"So when coach said that Tsukishima's mom called last night about his brother..."

"Yeah." Tanaka put his knees up and buried his face in his hands. "Saeko and I both woke up really late this morning... I was on my way out the door when she found the obituary online. She started rambling about how she had just seen him at the Shiratorizawa game not long ago. When we got home from that game she did nothing but talk about him with mom the rest of the night. The last time she was that into a guy they dated for two years. I think she might have really liked Akiteru. When she woke up and saw that he'd died... she just fell to pieces. So I ended up being even later because I was making sure she was alright before I left." Nishinoya let a scowl cross his face.

"Wasn't Akiteru an alum? That means it won't be long before the rest of the school catches wind of this, too." Nishinoya sighed, ran his fingers through his hair, and after a few breaths, stood from his seated position. He yelled, kicking the wall.

"Dammit! Is anything else going to go wrong today?"

"Even if it doesn't," Tanaka said, "It's going to get way worse before it gets better. Remember, at some point Tsukishima is going to wake up and find out his brother died. He's going to need to come back to school and deal with all the attention." Nishinoya sighed, letting his head fall forward to rest against the cool surface of the brick wall. He did not want to think about his teammate waking up to this hell hole.

"Speaking of Tsukishima, did you get Coach's text?"

"Yeah, I did. Thank god he's alive."

"You gonna go see him after school?"

"Is that even a question? Of course. We're a team, and that means he's getting my support, whether he wants it or not."

Tanaka stood from his place and set his hand on Nishinoya's shoulder. The libero lifted his head from the wall and met his teammate's gaze. Yes, they were a team. Despite the fist fights, the harsh words, and the death, they were a team. And any gossipy classmate who wanted to mess with that was going to have to go through Nishinoya first.

At long last, we finally check back in with the rest of the team. If you're enjoying the story, leave a review, and remember that constructive criticism is always appreciated!