The northern court still held ash from the Tower's fall. Players crossed its edge to reach other places, but few looked toward the net. Rain came through the damaged roof. Hope had become a word that asked too much of anyone who had stood beneath falling glass.
Lumi came at dusk with a cracked cup and a racket whose face was chipped around several holes. She was a child, and the things she carried did not look like a plan to reopen a court. She poured a little water onto the service line. Then she lifted the racket and watched a point of starlight appear through one perforation and tremble in the cup.
The adults called it a reflection. Lumi agreed. The next evening she returned with the same cup.
Eren watched from the broken stands. He had survived the collapse and had not played since. From where he sat, he could see how little water the cup held and how much of the court remained unusable. Lumi asked him to hold it while she poured. He did. No one applauded a champion for holding a cup, and the task did not require him to say he was ready for a match.
The following evening Eren swept one square of ash. Then he sealed a crack in the racket's face. Others began to do work of their own: water brought from outside, a section of net repaired, one line made visible again. None of it restored the fallen tower. None gave them back the court as it had been. The small jobs made it possible to see the next one.
When play resumed, rain still entered and half the lights were dark. Their first rally lasted four shots. In the next, a ball caught starlight for an instant. They all saw it, though they did not agree about what it meant. The ball came down, as balls do, and the players kept moving.
Eren asked Lumi whether she had known the court would reopen. She had not. She had believed only that the cup could hold one star that evening. It had been enough to bring her back with the cup the next day, and enough for him to hold it when she asked.
They kept the cracked cup by the gate. Some who told the story remembered the star. Others remembered the hands that swept, mended and carried water. The cup could not promise a clear sky. It could remind a visitor that a small sign may be answered with a small act, even before anyone knows how the rest will turn out.