Even with his eyes closed he could tell the light was bright. It was there and then gone. He drew in a shaky breath and opened his eyes, first staring at her with amazement and uncertainty and then down to his knee.

There was no pain.

He had forgotten what it was like to not feel pain in his knee.

"Th-the pain's gone," he said in a rush, voice shaky. "Oh. I..."

He swallowed back a sob and his eyes prickled with tears. It had been years since he felt like this. While Santiago had broken his knee and had her doctor minions purposefully setting it bad so that he'd always be in pain for the past few months had been awful, he hadn't truly been pain-free since he was fifteen. Not since he had overworked himself because of feelings of inferiority that Kageyama Tobio and Ushijima Wakatoshi had brought out in him.

The memory of his first collapse came to him. The Aobajosai's gym, a month into his first year there, the late hour, the pain that shot through him like the arrow through Achilles' heel. How he crawled on his stomach to his bag to call his best friend, the ride to the hospital as he clung to Iwaizumi. Ever since that night the pain of his limitations, the pain of the knowledge that he was not a gifted athlete like Kageyama and Ushijima. The pain of the knowledge that he might never overcome the wall that was Ushijima. The pain of the knowledge that one day Kageyama would surpass him in skill. Especially once he had injured his knee in his attempts to break down Ushijima's wall and stay ahead of Kageyama's growth. That pain had been a physical reminder of those facts.

That pain, the physical part was gone. The pain that had been with him for almost four years was gone.

Quietly he said, "I can barely remember a time when it didn't hurt." And then he sobbed in joy.