Chapter One: The Final Page
The page trembled in Arata's hands.
His eyes scanned the panel. Karasuno stood beaten but unbroken. They looked proud beneath the glow of the court lights. Hinata grinned. Kageyama's sharp gaze shone with fire. The entire team carried themselves like warriors who had given everything.
The last chapter of Haikyuu.
The end of their high school story.
Arata smiled. Tears welled in his tired eyes. "So that is it. huh."
For years volleyball had been his escape. In middle school he had played, but reality had been cruel. Bad coaches, poor training, and a body that betrayed him. He had quit. He had drifted. By adulthood all he could do was watch from the outside.
Watching Hinata soar. Watching Kageyama set. It had been both joy and torture. What he could never be, they were.
Now at twenty-four, sitting alone in his small apartment, manga spread across the couch cushions, Arata felt both closure and regret.
If only I had one more chance.
The thought barely had time to finish before it struck.
A crushing pain in his chest. A gasp tore from his throat. The pages slipped from his fingers as his body convulsed.
The manga scattered on the floor. The last panel stared up at him. Hinata's smile filled with promise.
And then everything went black.
He woke to silence.
His eyes fluttered open. Instead of his cramped apartment, a dim wooden ceiling met his gaze. He jolted upright and froze. His arms, his legs, his body were smaller. Younger.
"What. the hell."
Arata stumbled toward a cracked mirror in the corner of the room. A child's face stared back at him. Ten, maybe eleven years old. Sharp dark eyes. Hair sticking out messily. Cheeks thinner than he remembered.
His breath hitched. "No way."
Memories not his own seeped into his mind. A small town in Miyagi. A modest family. Endless afternoons running through fields.
In the corner leaned a worn volleyball.
Arata's hands trembled as he reached for it. The leather was cracked. The seams frayed. The weight was perfect. The moment it touched his palms something clicked inside him.
It was not a dream.It was not a hallucination.
He had been reborn.
Not in some fantasy world. Not in the past. But here.In the world of Haikyuu.
The same world where Hinata and Kageyama's story had just ended for him was only beginning.
His lips curled into a shaky grin. A laugh bubbled from his chest.The gods had ripped him from his life, cut it short, but given him this instead.
A second chance.
"I will go further than you," Arata whispered to the memory of the manga's final page. His grip on the ball tightened until his knuckles turned white.
Further than Hinata. Further than Kageyama. Further than anyone who had ever touched a court.
Not until he stood as the Ace of Japan. Not until he led them to the World Cup.