The storm and the shield- "the bat and the net" sequel

Yokohama Airport. Early evening. The sun low, the air sticky, and the volleyball season just barely catching its breath before nationals.

The private section of the terminal wasn't busy. One gate agent was half-asleep behind her desk, and two others were arguing softly over whether vending machine coffee counted as "actual coffee." No one looked twice at the young man walking through customs in a pressed blazer and creaseless white slacks.

He walked with the kind of posture that only ever came from private schooling or the army.

Or both.

His suitcase rolled behind him without a sound. Inside it, packed like a mission briefing: a notebook, a portable data terminal, a change of socks, and one singular goal, typed in clean black ink on the front page:

Nakahara, Chuuya.Yokohama U18 volleyball program.Possible Arahabaki subject.Observe. Approach. Recruit if viable.

The boy's name was Adam. He was twenty.
He didn't look tired. He didn't look excited. He didn't even look particularly curious.

But his gaze, when it flicked to the digital arrivals screen overhead, narrowed by half a millimeter. Right on time.

"Clock Tower special envoy has landed," someone whispered in Japanese across the arrivals hall. Adam didn't turn toward the sound, but he heard it anyway.

He exited the gate and stepped into the warm, humid Yokohama evening.

Outside, his ride was already waiting. A small black sedan with government plates and a man in a dark windbreaker behind the wheel, one hand on the wheel, the other tapping rhythmically against the GPS like it owed him money.

"You're the Brit?" the driver asked in English, glancing in the rearview mirror.

"Correct," Adam replied. "Adam Frankenstein. Here under temporary assignment from the European League Integration Program."

The driver blinked. "That's... a lot of words for someone going to watch kids play volleyball."

Adam didn't answer. He was already glancing through the folder in his lap, flipping past team rosters, match transcripts, biometric stats.

Chuuya Nakahara: Age 16. Height: 155 cm. Position: Ace. Spiking efficiency: 84%.
Photos, too. Midair, scowling. Mid-jump, silent. A still of him screaming after a match-point kill.

The rest of the team looked like they were smiling. Chuuya didn't.

As they turned onto the coastal expressway, the lights of the city rising ahead like a second sunrise, the driver asked casually:

"You ever seen the kid play before?"

"No," Adam replied.

"Then how come they sent you?"

Adam looked up.

"Because people keep saying," he said flatly, "that Chuuya Nakahara is what happens when Arahabaki succeeds."

The driver glanced in the mirror again, this time with actual interest.

"Is that so?"

Adam closed the folder. His fingers tapped once on the cover.

"I'm here to find out."