Level Horizon (Haikyuu!! WingedAU)

Year Four.80; Dyspathy

The wings of transformation are born of patience and struggle. ~Janet Dickens

~Seven Months Later, Early Autumn~

Keiji Akaashi moves into position for the set off Yaku's receive in the waning fall light.

It has been over eight months since the earthquake.

Sheru Bay is well on its way to being rebuilt, the beach crew having had a hand in supplying much of the muscle to do it. The docks have been restored and ships now come in again, several of the mainstay shops have been replaced, and almost a third of the homes stand once more. Ukai has his shop back as do Sugawara's relatives. A small section near the center of the docks where the main road meets the ocean had been set aside as a memorial for those lost, a Volley net erected there that sees daily use by the inhabitants of the small coastal town.

Saeko Tanaka had stayed close to a month, the blond woman a hurricane of a personality on her own let alone surrounded by the rest of them, and everything had seemed... quieter since she'd left. Akaashi hadn't minded the constant bickering with her brother and the other former sentries, had found it quite endearing, actually. It was fascinating to see a facet of the world the Karasuno group had come from, and it was somehow gratifying to instantly have been inducted into her line of fire—Akaashi knew that Bokuto'd been secretly stoked to have caught flak from her as much as any of the others for scarfing down a meal she'd made far too quickly to have actually tasted it.

They were all so used to the reserved Shimizu and flighty Yachi that having another female as loud and colorful as Noya and Tanaka was initially intimidating for everyone except the Karasuno unit. The female crow's ease in readily assuming an older sister role with them all—even Kuroo, which the black cat hadn't quite known how to handle—and the confidence with which she'd slipped into it had been slightly unsettling. She'd taken the reality of the unusual number of level pairs among them in stride, too, it seemed; she'd been appropriately flabbergasted for several moments when Tanaka had awkwardly explained his own situation, but she'd been largely unfazed by most of it.

Although, it had frankly been hilarious watching her catch Tanaka in a headlock and threatening him with monumental amounts of pain if he so much as looked at little Natsu wrong for the next several centuries as she was getting ready to leave. The bald crow had managed to look horrified in her chokehold while Natsu had simply stared at the spectacle with a bewildered expression. She'd had that kind of effect the entire month she'd spent with them—during which time they'd seen an unusual amount of Ukai as well. Word from Yaku was that there was a very good reason for that...

They'd finished rebuilding their beach house only last month in close to the same place it had been before. They'd done their best to keep it the same as it had been, but they had made the front room bigger to accommodate what seemed like an ever-growing number of people. Ukai had even pulled some strings and had a massive pane of glass shipped in for the big picture window— something Lev had been slightly less than impressed at. Among the many things Saeko had brought with her were cooking utensils, household items and everything that had belonged to the former first unit including bedding and clothing that had been sent along by their parents which helped to outfit and stock their new home.

The beach itself is much different than it used to be, though; much of the shoreline weathered away completely and the ocean is now closer to their front door. A new net had had to be set up on the other side of the small stream in order to avoid the high tide line, and it was almost out of sight of their new home. Once again, Ukai had come through for them and secured a sack of Volley balls for the town so they could actually use it.