The Birth of A Volleyball Legend

"Riku, watch your teammates first before taking an action! You are not a mind reader, stop doing something that could risk the play!"

"Asahi, don't forget to communicate with Hirano first before moving! You know he is not good in that aspect, right?!"

"Yes, Sensei!"

"Kai, do the drill together with Jimmy! He is good at getting into someone's skin, and you will need it soon."

"Yes, Sir!"

"Koji, two more laps together with Yuki! After that, go for another spike drill!"

"Yes, Sensei!"

It was a day after they watched the game between Matsukita High and Hibiya High, and after recovering from their shock, they bounced back and were ready for training again. Even though they just realized they were still far behind the second-best team in the country, let alone the best one, they didn't care about it. If anything, since they experienced the defeat against them both, they were pumped up for a revenge match at least against one of them.

Still, that was going to be for the future, though. For now, since they were still in the top sixteen, they still had to win two more rounds before they could face Matsukita High in the semifinal of the tournament.

"So, who is going to be our next opponent?" Ogawa asked when the coach gave them a few minutes break.

"Either Matsubara High or Oyama High. Their game would be played an hour later." It was Riku who answered the question. The blonde boy had already established his status as the team's informant, so whenever someone needed information regarding their rival or anything related to the tournament, if there was no Megumi or Akira around, they would ask Riku directly.

"Matsubara and Oyama, huh? I have never heard those two before." Asahi hummed. "Is there anything we have to know?"

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"Well, there is not a lot of information about them even on the Internet. The only thing we know is that they are just like us, a pretty new team that had good results in the past and started entering everyone's radar. The only different thing is that we fought against a lot of top teams, so the attention to our side is bigger." Riku explained.

"So, another rising star, huh?" Koji pondered for a moment before throwing an idea. "Why don't we watch their game like what we did for Matsukita a few days ago?"

"Unfortunately, we cannot do that." It was Asahi who answered that with a wry smile. "Not only the game is not big enough to be broadcast on television or even on YouTube, but it will also be played in Matsubara High on the east side of Tokyo, so if we are not going there, we won't be able to watch the game at all, and I am sure Akira-sensei would rather watch us training rather than letting us wandering around like a bunch of headless chickens."

"And you are right, Asahi. For now, training is more important than watching a game that will be played in a place about one hour of journey with the train. It would be a waste of time, you know?" Akira suddenly chimed in out of nowhere, attracting the players' attention. "Also, you don't need to worry about not knowing your future opponent. Megumi-san has already been there to record the game for us later. So, don't you dare try to use intelligence gathering as a reason to slack off, okay?"

Even though Akira's words weren't aimed at anyone here, some of the players who had that thought scratched the back of their heads sheepishly. Yuki himself just shook his head in awe as he realized that once again, Megumi had to sacrifice her time to do the exhausting job for the team.

Honestly, while they – the players – were the main characters in the tournament, the heart of the team was still Megumi. If not for the girl, the team would crumble instantly without anyone knowing what to do, and it was no exaggeration.

Her responsibility wasn't just gathering information for their next opponent. Besides that, Megumi also had to take care of the team's logistics, like jerseys, food, drink, and transportation for the away game, and hell, she even handled something so simple as finding out where was the venue of their next game, and that didn't count all the administration jobs she had to do to make sure the team could play.

So, yeah, Megumi was the true heart of the team, and they all needed to appreciate the girl more when she came back from the intelligence-gathering work.@@novelbin@@

"Yuki?! What are you doing, dozing off in the middle of the training?! Get your ass off the bench and start running!" Akira's shout woke Yuki up from his thoughts as he realized he was still in the gymnasium, listening to the coach's arrangement.

Fortunately, since this was in the middle of the tournament, the training intensity was pretty low. Even a maverick coach like Akira won't dare to put the team in hardcore physical training or try to do a new strategy since it is either too risky for the players' health or the risk of disturbing the team's concentration by forcing them to learn new stuff out of nowhere. So, yeah, in the middle of a tournament like this, the training was pretty light, just to maintain the player's condition so that everyone could be in their best condition at all times.

In the middle of the training, though, when Riku asked for a quick break for himself since he wanted to check for something on his phone, the blonde boy suddenly gasped out loud, attracting everyone's attention. Everyone was worried for a second when they saw the boy froze on the spot, but the next words that came out of his mouth managed to shock them straight to the core.

"Kyoei Gakuen is on the lead! They won the first set against Konan High, and it is in Konan High's home court! Damn, this is crazy!"

It took them all a few seconds to proceed everything. But when the information finally sunk in, everyone – hell, even Akira also jumped to the blonde boy, wanting to confirm whether he was joking or not.

"Where is it?!"

"Come on, Riku! Don't joke around like that!"

"Hey, no need to push! Calm down, will you?!"

"Akira-sensei, are you okay?!"

After quarreling for another few seconds, all the people there finally calmed down, staring at the small screen in front of them intently. Yuki himself was lucky to get the front row, and after confirming that Riku was right that Kyoei Gakuen won the first set 27 – 25 against Konan High, he could feel his jaws drop when the cameraman turned the attention to one particular Kyoei Gakuen player who was announced as the MVP of the first set, and that person was none other than Haruo, the genius and the best middle blocker of his generation.