Kitsuna and Yachi returned shortly after, with the redhead sporting a butterfly bandage across her nose and a fierce scowl. The manager explained the situation to the coach and advisor, while Kitsuna joined the other benchwarmers. She stood there silently, arms folded across her chest and visibly upset.

"Can you make it out at all?," Yamaguchi finally asked her. She ground her teeth at that, and the others were sure that had set her off.

"Not really," she admitted through clenched teeth and a pout. She sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, resetting. Her face was still pulled into a tight frown, though.

"That's twice I've been benched because of something stupid like this," she pouted and complained mostly to herself. Unsure what to say, everyone just turned their attention to the court. HInata was getting some more receives than before, but they were all pretty embarrassing and off. He just got one, with his foot, and Kitsuna wasn't able to tell what had happened.

"It didn't hit the floor?," she asked when the whistle never blew.

"No, it hit his foot," Suga explained. She clicked her tongue, knowing how embarrassed Hinata must have felt just then. They were able to get a point from the ensuing rally, and it was time to switch sides. Suga was up next, replacing Hinata, and they went over some strategy during the short break. Kitsuna took his jacket when he went onto the court, sliding it on and crouching down on the side. She fiddled with some tape and her busted frames, gingerly sliding them onto her face and tossing the tape back to Yachi.

"Will that hold?," Ennoshita asked with some doubt. Kitsuna started to shake her head, but the tape job was super unstable so she stopped.

"No. But at least I can watch the match like this," she answered with a sigh. She stayed crouched on the side like that, propping her head up with her elbows on her knees. The sleeves of her borrowed jacket were a little long, and provided some extra cushion for her face. Some extra warmth, too, with her body cooling down rapidly from the sweat and air conditioning.

The first set was Karasuno's, just barely. The second went to Inarizaki with a pretty decent gap. Things were getting heated up fast, with plenty of player substitutions. Kinoshita was used as a pinch server a little more, but he wasn't particularly successful. Suga was swapped back out with Kageyama as well, and he was currently weighing the pros and cons of asking for his jacket back.

Just then, with things getting tense and the team tunnel visioning hard, Hinata managed an impressive dig and sent the ball up high. It wasn't anything that should have been a shock, it was the team's job to receive anything they couldn't block, but there was something about this set that was just impressive to watch. It stayed up long enough to give everyone on the court a chance to breathe, and among the cheers from the other team members there was one who was close to crying right there. Kitsuna glanced up at Suga, smiling to herself then standing up and swatting his shoulder to pull him back.

"Hm?"

"Save the waterworks for after the match," Kitsuna grinned at him. She was probably trying to tease, but it was clear from her expression that she was equally as proud. She looked back to the match, just as Inarizaki scored a point from that amazing receive. There was disappointment all around, but she sort of expected it.

"I guess you've worked the longest with him on receives, so you get to be proud. Let's see if he can do it again though," Kitsuna smiled still, just a little bit. The other team was making mistakes, too, and that might give them just the luck they needed to pull off a win. Tsukishima went for a block, and nearly fell into Kageyama. It was pretty obvious how tired everyone was getting, and she frowned at that. It was normally her job to sub in and prevent that from happening, but this match would probably have ended up the same way with her help. It came down to one long ass rally, and the twins went for a quick that they had managed to copy from the weirdo duo. That same duo was able to stuff it with a block, though, and everyone was silent as the ball fell. The whole stadium was dead silent until it was called, and then erupted into loud cheering. Karasuno won, but the players were wiped out and needed to be half-carried off the court.

"Man, it's still pretty cold," Suga complained after cooldowns, rubbing his arms. He looked around for a certain jacket thief, but she was nowhere to be seen.

…

"Hey, um," a girl with a bandage on her face and taped glasses approached Inarizaki as they climbed back up the steps into the corridor. She called out to get their attention, but froze up when so many eyes turned her way.

"Come to gloat?," Atsumu Miya glared at her. She shook her head, a little too hard, and her glasses came apart in the middle again. She caught them as they fell, clicking her tongue.

"No. I wanted to talk to a couple of you," she stuffed the broken frames into her pocket and pointed to the two just behind Atsumu. His twin, Osamu, and the crazy spiker Suna.

"We're busy," Atsumu pouted slightly at being brushed aside for his brother. The girl walked right up to the gathered players, ignoring him completely.

"You, what kind of training do you do to be able to hit at those wild angles?," Kitsuna got straight to the point, leaving the rest of her defeated opponents utterly stunned.

"You can't just ask that? What the hell?," the ace, Aran, lost his composure completely. The girl glanced at him, as if she didn't understand why they were so shocked.

"Tryin' to steal some secrets and boost your team?," Osamu challenged her.

"Huh? Nah, everyone kinda has their own thing going. I wanna try to give myself some more stuff to focus on though. So I don't get taken out again," her face hardened just then.

"You were taken out of the match with Ushiwaka from a wrist injury, too," Kita, the team captain, joined the conversation out of nowhere. The girl scowled, but not exactly at the boy who shared that information.

"Yeah. It's annoying. The way he handles stuff could be a good way to get around that, though," she once again directed her attention to Suna.

"I understand, but-"

"Oh. Right. I was also wondering if it'd be possible to set up practice matches. In the future," she cut Kita's refusal off and dove into another topic.

"You'd have to talk to the coach about that," Suna finally spoke up.

"Right. Can you give his contact info?," she didn't bat an eye or back down at all. While it was true that her whole team had been steadily building a reputation for that unfaltering attitude and determination, it was still strange to see this girl standing so tall in the face of a full team of guys who could easily turn the tables on her if it came to a fight.

"Shouldn't your coach or manager be handling this?," Kita went straight for the kill with that. The girl didn't back down even then.

"They're busy with stuff, so I'm taking care of it. Just getting a phone number, anyway. The rest is on them. So?," she gave a sound explanation, though it did leave some holes. Kita let out an uncharacteristic sigh, relenting in the face of her stone faced determination. She handed him a beat up notebook and a pen, and he wrote down the number for the coach. He wrote a second one as well, and passed the paper to Suna who scribbled something out before handing it back.

"Kitsuna! We've been looking for you, come on before Daichi loses it," Ennoshita called out to her. She thanked the Inarizaki boys in a hurry and quickly regrouped with her own teammates. The captain swatted the back of her head, and she snapped back at him.

"Don't skip cool downs! Or you'll end up like before," he half-shouted at her. She stuck her tongue out, but promised to do them later. The team that lost to that rough and ragtag group could only watch with blank faces as the crows left their battleground for the day.