The Birth of A Volleyball Legend

Now, the possession returned back to Tsunemori High, and Riku grabbed the ball immediately as he was ready to start the game. Before this, he talked to Yuki shortly, asking advice on who should he target next. Although he was confident with his own service, Yuki was the best server he had ever seen, so his unique insight could be useful in a time like this.

'Well, even though currently, we are dominating, there is still no hint of desperation in their eyes, and fire is still burning there. So, we need to make sure that we kill that as soon as possible, so say goodbye to a weak, ordinary serve. Go all out with your most powerful serve, and try to aim it at their number 2. Even though his contribution doesn't look that impressive, he is the team's support system. Once you can put pressure on him, the other Kikugawa players will feel the same, and that is when this set will be in our grasp.'

Riku glanced sideways at Tachibana for a second before turning around quickly, not wanting to give a hint of where he would go next. Even though he was a bit skeptical about Tachibana's role, he still believed in his friend's world. So, right after the referee blew the whistle, he aimed the ball straight at the opponent's left side, trying to put the ball in front of Tachibana's spot.

BAM!

The ball was fast and powerful, forcing Tachibana to lean his body forward to get it before it could fall on the floor. The awkward posture also made him fall, preventing him from joining the counterattack. However, since he had already done his role perfectly, it was the other player's turn to take action.

"Ayane-senpai, give me a little bit higher!" Kaito raised one hand, asking for the ball.

On Tsunemori's side, Hirano also prepared himself, getting ready to anticipate the attack. After the last failure, he was determined to repay the favor. He calculated the timing carefully, knowing that since Kaito was attacking from the back row, he had to adjust his time perfectly so that the obnoxious boy wouldn't take advantage of the time difference between those two.

However, Kaito's action was beyond Hirano's expectations. The boy didn't even wait until the ball was in front of him, but instead, he turned around sharply before jumping, changing his stance from a straight-spike into a cross one. This caught Hirano off guard, and even though the middle blocker was trying to jump, he was one second too late as the ball was launched already.

BAM!

"Shit! / Fuck!" Kaede and Riku cursed in unison.

The ball delivered by Kaito bounced off Kaede first before it went straight to Riku's body, and since those two weren't ready to receive it, they couldn't control where the ball would go, and as a result, the third ball was flying far outside of the court.

"Don't worry, I get this!" Yuki shouted, keeping his eyes on the ball. He also did the same for the sponsor board in front of him, not wanting to crash into it in this situation. Fortunately, the ball was a bit too short and didn't pass through the board, making it easy for Yuki to save the ball and send it back to Kikugawa High's side.

"Oh! Nice save, Yuki!"

"Come on, Hirano! Don't let yourself get toyed by him all the time!"

Hirano gritted his teeth when he overheard that. After all, who would want to get toyed like this? If anything, he also wanted to kill the boy in front of him, but the boy was smarter than him. This time, he wanted to stop the boy's blitz attack, so he jumped a bit quicker than usual. However, right when he was taking off from the ground, he could hear Yuki shouting loudly, "No, Rano! Wait a little bit longer!"

At first, Hirano was confused by Yuki's words. However, when he saw Kaito was still on the floor while smirking at him, the middle blocker widened his eyes in realization. Unfortunately, he couldn't do anything about it, as when he was about to go down to the floor again, Kaito finally jumped, executing the attack without any blocker in front of him.

BAM!

"Hell, yeah!" Kaito clenched his fist, celebrating the point he got once again by taking advantage of Hirano. When his eyes met Hirano's for a split second, a small smirk formed on his face as if challenging the boy, 'What are you going to do?' before walking back to his teammates. However, this small gesture was enough to make Hirano's blood boil instantly.

"Senpai, you need to calm down a little," Yuki said cautiously. "I know you are frustrated about him, but charging recklessly wouldn't change anything about it. When the team is trying to recover from the opponent's attack, we need you to stale the time for us with a patient play, not rushing recklessly like the last play. Your behavior wouldn't bring anything but disaster to the team."

Hirano scowled, wanting to rebuke Yuki's words. It wasn't easy to get criticized by a junior. However, deep down, he understood his kouhai's point. No matter what happened during the team's defense, as long as the ball went to the backcourt, he would stand in the front line all the time. First, it was to launch a quick counterattack when the team needed it the most, and second was to be the team's first defender to stale the time either with intimidation, rebound, or even soft block so that his teammates could recover first. There was no need to risk everything with a gamble hard block that had the bigger opportunity to fail, and that was what he did earlier.

The atmosphere was pretty awkward since a sophomore player was being scolded by a freshman like Yuki. However, since Yuki had already established his position as probably the most important player on the team, the others had to listen to at least show some respect for his opinion, and it didn't help that what Yuki said was often the truth, so the others didn't have any chance to rebuke it.

"Sorry, that was my bad." In the end, Hirano just grunted shortly. "I will try to play my role better the next time."

The other Tsunemori players sighed in relief when they heard that. At least, Hirano didn't feel dissatisfied with how Yuki reprimanded him. However, that didn't mean that Hirano was willing to let it slide so easily. Right after he turned around, his eyes met Kaito once again, and as he clenched his fist tightly, he vowed to himself, 'Even if I have to die today, I have to stop him at least three times before the game is over!'