Day three begins with an absence.
Unlike the standing preliminary round, the elimination matches are conducted from seated form.
Korin Academy gathers in the preparation hall with its reserve wearing the number for fifth position.
Beside Korin’s name, the shooting order remains the one posted the night before, but Kanda’s name has been crossed out.
The reserve’s has been written beneath it.
After the venue medic cleaned and dressed the shallow cut on Kanda’s cheek, Korin’s coach and a tournament liaison escorted her back to the inn.
She had been barred from further shooting that day, and the reserve prepared to take her place this morning.
Then the doors at the far end of the hall open.
Kanda walks through them with her equipment bag over one shoulder.
A narrow white bandage follows her right cheekbone.
Bruising shadows the skin beneath it, but both eyes are open and clear.
Voices falter around Korin.
Their reserve turns first.
The other girls follow.
Their coach reaches Kanda before she crosses half the hall.
Aina cannot hear the beginning of the exchange, but she sees the refusal in the coach’s posture.
Kanda answers without lowering her head.
The conversation continues for several minutes.
An event physician joins them.
She tests Kanda’s vision, asks her to follow one finger, and checks the dressing along her cheek.
Kanda answers every question without trying to minimize the pain.
The physician speaks to the coach and hands him a form.
The coach reads it twice.
Then he looks at Kanda.
“Under normal circumstances, I would keep you out for the day.”
The nearby voices quiet enough for Aina to hear him.
“I understand.”
“You will stop if your vision changes, if the wound opens, or if drawing makes the pain worse.”
“Understood.”
“You will not decide what qualifies as too much.
I will.”
Kanda inclines her head.
“Yes.”
The coach turns toward the officials’ table with the medical clearance.
Korin’s reserve removes the fifth-position number and hands it back to Kanda.
“Captain,” she says warmly.
The substitution is reversed minutes before registration closes.
No announcement accompanies it.
Kanda simply takes back the place she occupied before the Hollow touched her string.
Sayuri stands beside Aina, watching the same scene.
“She came back,” Sayuri says.
“She should be resting,” Aina says.
Sayuri looks at her.
“That is different.”
“It usually is when you say it.” Aina turns toward her.
“A bowstring cut her face yesterday.”
“And you carried eight wounds through Regionals.”
“I admitted that was a mistake.”
“After repeating it for months.”
Aina leaves the argument there.
Across the hall, Kanda secures the number at her waist.
She looks up and finds Aina among the Tokui uniforms.
For one moment, neither moves.
Then Kanda inclines her head.
Aina returns the gesture.
The first matches are called.
✦ ✦ ✦
Thirty-two teams remain in each division.
By the end of the day, only eight will.
The boys enter first.
Tokui faces a school from Miyazaki whose preliminary score matched theirs exactly.
The two teams kneel side by side before the range.
Okabe opens with a hit.
Saki follows.
Hit.
Mori misses narrowly to the left.
Takeda restores the sequence.
Ryosuke closes with the fourth hit.
Four against three after the first arrows.
The advantage disappears during the second sequence.
Miyazaki records five.
Tokui records three.
Seven against eight.
No one in the Tokui gallery speaks between shots.
The silence is not empty.
It presses downward with every number added to the board.
The third sequence reverses it again.
Okabe hits.
Saki hits.
Mori corrects.
Takeda hits.
Ryosuke hits.
Five consecutive impacts.
The Tokui section releases its breath as one.
Twelve against eleven.
The final five arrows determine which team retires today.
Miyazaki finishes with sixteen.
Okabe hits.
Saki misses.
Mori hits.
Takeda hits.
Fifteen.
Ryosuke raises the final arrow with Tokui one behind.
If he misses, their tournament ends.
If he hits, the match continues.
The hall becomes still.
Ryosuke releases.
Hit.
Sixteen against sixteen.
The teams return with one arrow per archer.
The shoot-off is not decided by which position breaks first.
All five arrows count.
Miyazaki records four.
Tokui steps forward.
Okabe hits.
Saki hits.
Mori misses.
Takeda hits.
Three.
Ryosuke draws.
The arrow leaves with the same clean note Aina heard during the individual final.
Hit.
Four against four.
Another shoot-off.
This time, Miyazaki records three.
Tokui records four.
The boys advance by one arrow.
Saki reaches Ryosuke beyond the exit and offers him a towel.
“You seem determined to make every round unnecessarily memorable.”
“You missed the first shoot-off.”
“I was hoping we could discuss your successful final arrow.”
“We can discuss both.”
Saki wipes the perspiration from his face.
“I withdraw the invitation.”
Ryosuke takes the towel from him when he finishes.
“Your second shoot-off arrow was better.”
Saki looks at him.
“That was almost praise.”
“It was an observation.”
“Of course.” Saki’s smile remains as they return to their team.
✦ ✦ ✦
Korin enters before Tokui’s girls.
Kanda’s return has spread through the venue.
The gallery quiets differently when she takes the fifth position.
Some spectators know only that her string broke.
Others saw the blood.
None saw the Hollow.
Kanda’s first arrow strikes the target.
Her expression does not change.
The second lands closer to center.
By her third, the bandage near her temple has begun lifting at one edge from the heat.
Her coach watches from the boundary.
Kanda raises her fourth arrow.
No shadow reaches toward her string, but her eyes shift briefly to the empty air beyond fifth position.
Light bends there in a thin vertical seam, visible only when she changes the angle of her head.
She settles without following it.
The seam disappears.
Kanda releases.
Hit.
Four out of four.
Korin wins seventeen to fifteen.
Kanda remains in position until every movement is complete.
Only beyond the exit does she touch the dressing on her cheek.
Her coach reaches her immediately.
She says something Aina cannot hear.
He checks the bandage, then allows her to remain with the team.
Kanda searches the hall.
Her gaze settles on Aina again.
This time, she approaches.
Sayuri stays beside Aina.
Kanda stops in front of them.
“Yesterday,” she says, “you called to me before the string broke.”
Heat reaches Aina’s face.
“I used your given name.
I am sorry.
I did not mean to be presumptuous.”
Kanda studies her for a beat.
“Given the situation, I can forgive it.”
“That is generous.”
The faintest curve touches Kanda’s mouth, then is gone.
“I heard you while I was drawing.
I could not drop the bow in time, but I turned toward your voice.
The movement was small enough that I thought it had made no difference.” She touches the edge of the bandage.
“The medic disagreed.”
Aina remembers the fractional change in Kanda’s shoulders before the snap, almost lost beneath the string’s violent recoil.
“The broken end crossed my cheek because I moved,” Kanda says.
“If I had stayed in line, it would have struck my eye.”
The image comes too easily: the string crossing Kanda’s open eye, the ordinary accident becoming something permanent.
“The officials nearly disqualified me for shouting across the range,” Aina says.
“I would do it again.”
Kanda’s violet eyes hold hers.
“Thank you, Aina.”
The use of her own given name should make the exchange even.
Instead, a strange pull moves through Aina—familiar enough to invite trust, wrong enough to make her skin cool.
Kanda’s expression alters at the same instant.
“What is it?” Aina asks.
“For a moment, your name felt familiar.” Kanda looks away first.
“That makes no sense.”
White stone threatens at the edge of Aina’s vision: rain-midnight-black hair, a broken boundary, her hand arriving too late.
“No,” Aina says softly.
“It doesn’t.”
Sayuri remains beside her, quiet and watchful.
Kanda glances toward fifth position.
“There is something else.
Before the string broke, the air behind me bent.
Like heat above stone, except the hall was cold.
I saw the same distortion during my fourth draw today.”
She cannot see the Hollow.
Not yet.
But she has begun to see where it presses against the world.
“If it happens again, step away from the range,” Aina says.
“Then find us.”
“Us?”
“Both of us,” Sayuri says.
Kanda hesitates.
“Understood.” Then look toward the result board.
“Win your match.”
“We intend to,” Sayuri says.
Kanda’s attention shifts to her.
“Then perhaps we will meet today.”
“Perhaps.”
Kanda returns to Korin.
Aina watches her return to Korin.
“She used your given name,” Sayuri says.
“After I used hers in front of an entire tournament hall.”
“That is not the same.”
Aina turns to her.
“Is that a complaint?”
“It is a distinction.”
Then Tokui is called.
✦ ✦ ✦
The girls’ first match is decided without a shoot-off.
Morita sets the opening pace.
Ishida misses once and corrects.
Fujimoto holds the center with three hits.
Aina records four.
Sayuri records four.
Eighteen out of twenty.
Their opponent finishes with sixteen.
Tokui advances.
The second round begins after a short break.
Sixteen teams remain.
The bracket places Tokui beside Korin.
When the pairing appears on the result board, the noise inside the preparation hall changes.
They met in the regional final.
Korin won by one arrow.
Now one of them will reach the national quarterfinals.
The other will shoot together for the last time as this team.
Kanda stands fifth across from Sayuri.
Aina occupies fourth beside Korin’s fourth archer.
Before entering, Kanda’s coach speaks to her once.
“Do not overdo it.”
“Understood.”
“That includes refusing to admit when it hurts.”
Kanda does not answer quickly enough.
Her coach’s expression hardens.
“Kanda.”
“Understood.”
The teams enter.
Morita’s first arrow hits.
Korin’s first answers.
Ishida hits.
Korin’s second answers.
Fujimoto misses.
Korin’s third hits.
Aina raises her bow with Tokui one behind.
She releases.
Hit.
Korin’s fourth answers.
Sayuri follows.
Hit.
Kanda closes Korin’s sequence.
Her arrow strikes near center.
Four against five.
The second sequence belongs to Tokui.
Five hits.
Korin records four.
Nine against nine.
No advantage remains.
By the end of the third, both teams stand at thirteen.
One sequence remains.
Morita hits.
Korin’s first misses.
Ishida hits.
Korin’s second hits.
Fujimoto hits.
Korin’s third misses.
Sixteen against fourteen.
Aina lifts the nineteenth arrow for Tokui.
Across from her, Korin’s fourth archer has already hit.
Sixteen against fifteen.
Aina draws.
She releases.
Hit.
Seventeen.
Sayuri and Kanda remain.
Kanda shoots first.
Hit.
Sixteen for Korin.
Sayuri raises the final arrow.
Tokui already leads.
Her result cannot take away the victory.
It can finish the answer Korin gave them at Regionals.
Sayuri releases.
Hit.
Eighteen against sixteen.
Tokui advances to the national quarterfinals.
Korin’s tournament ends.
For several seconds, neither team reacts.
Then both complete the closing movement.
Beyond the exit, Morita begins crying before Ishida does.
Fujimoto embraces both of them.
Sayuri remains beside Aina until Korin leaves the range.
Kanda stops near them.
The strain has reached her face now.
Her right eye is watering, though the dressing remains clean and secure.
Her coach waits only a few steps away.
“You won,” Kanda says.
“We did,” Aina answers.
Kanda looks toward Sayuri.
“You corrected the final arrow from Regionals.”
“I remembered it.”
“So did I.”
Sayuri inclines her head.
Kanda turns back to Aina.
“Do not stop in the quarterfinals.”
“We won’t.”
“Good.
I would prefer to have lost to the champions.”
“Then we will try not to disappoint you.”
Her coach calls her name.
Kanda returns to him.
He checks the bandage and says something that makes her look away with visible irritation.
“She gave you another instruction,” Sayuri says.
“She appears to enjoy doing that.”
Before Aina can question the silence, the boys begin their second match.
✦ ✦ ✦
Tokui’s boys defeat their next opponent seventeen to sixteen.
Hakuryo advances with nineteen.
By sunset, eight boys’ teams and eight girls’ teams remain.
Tokui occupies both brackets.
No school from Tokyo has two teams left except them.
The bus ride back to the inn should feel victorious.
Instead, exhaustion settles over every seat.
Okabe sleeps against the window.
Ishida rests her head on Morita’s shoulder.
Saki examines the skin along his thumb until Ryosuke takes his hand and presses a strip of athletic tape over the reddened place.
Saki watches him work.
“You carry tape for me now?”
“You forgot yours.”
“I did not forget it.
I left it somewhere temporarily.”
Aina looks up.
Saki meets her gaze across the aisle.
“I understand why you like that defense.”
“It remains inaccurate when you use it.”
Sayuri’s shoulder shifts against Aina’s.
A quiet laugh escapes her.
Since Kanda’s string snapped, the tournament feels ordinary again.
Only when the bus enters the hot-spring town does Aina see the Hollow.
It stands on a wooden footbridge above the river.
Steam moves through its narrow body.
Its empty face follows the bus.
Then the road curves.
The figure disappears behind the trees.
It does not attack.
It only watches.