Chapter 16:
The captain's serve was steadily received by Hyakuzawa Yudai. As soon as the ball was up, Mori started moving.
His gaze was locked on the volleyball in the air. Due to his lack of experience as a setter, Mori couldn't quickly judge the ball's landing point.
He needed to constantly adjust his footwork, unable to just decide on the attack option like more experienced setters.
But Mori's repeated head movements left and right gave him a wide field of vision.
His thoughts went back to two months ago.
"Eh? I have to mentally construct four attack options for every set? And then choose the best one?"
"That sounds really difficult."
Mori scratched his head, feeling a bit troubled after hearing Ichise Guren's demand.
"Then I ask you, in a game of Go, if it's not in the late stages, how many options do you have for each move?"
Ichise Guren looked at Mori with an expression that said "are you kidding me?"
The mentally agile Mori realized that Ichise Guren was using Go's options to draw a comparison with the decision-making required in setting, wanting to highlight how much more mentally taxing Go was.
Loving these mental battles, Mori quickly offered a counterargument.
"That's not the same, Ichise-senpai. In Go, you can sit down and carefully think through the moves in a calm, focused state."
"But when I'm playing volleyball, just judging the ball's landing point and trying my best to deliver an accurate set, that's already taxing me to the limit."
"It's really difficult to do physical exertion and mental calculation at the same time."
Ichise Guren gave Mori a puzzled look, then immediately laughed.
"Well, well, it is a club activity after all."
He didn't say much more, just patting Mori's shoulder and telling him to continue strengthening his receiving. Then he turned to start his own training.
However, as Ichise Guren left Mori's training area, his steps faltered. He half-turned, as if wanting to face Mori again, but then stopped midway.
He didn't fully turn back, nor did he complete the turn. Maintaining this half-turned posture for two seconds, Ichise Guren finally spoke up, catching Mori's attention.
"What is it, Ichise-senpai? Do you have something else to add?"
"No, no, I was just remembering something."
"Huh?"
"When you played Go before, I'm sure you must have encountered a lot of difficult problems, just like in volleyball, right?"
"Yeah, they were really tough to solve. At first, the teacher told me to try solving endgame positions to improve my skills. I had no idea how to untangle them, and it would take me days of agonizing thought to barely manage to solve one set of endgames."
"I see, haha, keep it up then!"
"Eh? Why did you suddenly bring that up?"
Ichise Guren didn't address Mori's puzzled question, just waving his hand behind him as he returned to his training area to begin his functional training.
Mori watched the retreating Ichise Guren, who had started training, still wondering why his senpai had brought up that topic.
The memory ended.
The match continued.
Mori was rapidly swaying his head left and right, shifting his gaze between the ceiling and the court.
'A. A second attack. There's a chance, but I'm completely unfamiliar with that technique, I'm not even sure I can spike it over the net.'
'B. When in doubt, rely on the captain, give it to Ichise-senpai. I'll keep this option in reserve, I need to find the best choice, not just automatically depend on Ichise-senpai to solve the problem.'
'C. Give it to Hinata. There's a chance! Hinata hasn't spiked before, and his short stature provides a strong deception factor, the initial impact would be huge.'
Mori's mind quickly recalled the observations he had made of Kitagawa Daiichi's players earlier.
'Their blocking is a semi-reactive style, focused on prediction, but they also adjust their movements mid-play based on the ball's trajectory.'
'Right now, they've all been drawn to Ichise-senpai, which has a higher success rate than giving the captain a spike.'
'D. Deliver a back-row attack to Hyakuzawa-senpai. I've never tried this before, the training time has been too short, it's all been net-front combination spikes, I haven't set balls that far from the net.'
'And that far from the net, without the net as a reference, I have no idea how high to set it. Damn, this option is unusable due to my own limitations.'
'Alright, I've decided!'
Mori's rapidly turning thoughts came to a stop, and his footwork followed suit. The ball was almost in his hands now.
"Ichise-senpai!!!"
Mori's shout came from his wide-open mouth, his voice carrying.
"As expected, the captain!"
"You first-years are too naive!"
The three Kitagawa players responsible for the net defense all had a slight "I knew it" smile on their faces.
Due to their semi-predictive blocking, the three blockers were already in position, even leaving two steps of run-up space.
But Mori, who was about to set the ball to Ichise Guren, suddenly shifted his weight back.
He executed a somewhat unfamiliar but impressively executed backset.
"I've got it!"
Smack!
Hinata Shoyo's soaring figure took everyone on Kitagawa Daiichi by surprise.
Because in their eyes, this short player was just here to make up the numbers.
His receiving wasn't great, and he was likely not good at blocking either, being so short.
As for spiking, they didn't think Yukigaoka's setter would be crazy enough to choose this sub-170cm shrimp for an attack, with the formidable blocking threats of over 180cm players on their side.
But the lack of understanding of Hinata's jumping ability, the underestimation of Ichise Guren's spiking threat, and Mori's enticing shout before the set - these three factors combined led to one result.
The blockers trying to recover couldn't keep up with Hinata's swinging speed at all, let alone match his full-approach jumping height.
Bam!
The ball slammed down, then bounced back up.
Kageyama Tobio came rushing in from the back row, trying to save the ball, but without any blockers in the way, or even blocking control over the spike trajectory.
Hinata Shoyo, with his small stature but the freedom to choose any spike line, selected the most comfortable swinging path. His spike easily exceeded the "genius" Kageyama Tobio's reaction speed.
This is why volleyball is a sport that prioritizes the team above all else. In one-on-one situations, if it's a receiving duel rather than a blocking one, it's almost impossible to receive successfully.
Once the options for the ball path increase, the unpredictable trajectories become nearly unreceivable.
"Yeaaah!!!"
Hinata Shoyo couldn't help but pump his fist and shout after completing the spike.
Of course, with his personality, he wouldn't hold it in.
This was a pass filled with Mori's trust, and Hinata Shoyo's first successful spike and point scored on the official court after two and a half years of silence on the Yukigaoka team.
But Ichise Guren seemed to watch it all with a somewhat dazed expression.
During those two and a half years, Hinata had experienced being the only one in the volleyball club, practicing spikes against the wall alone, unable to participate in matches, with no one to set for him.
He had likely spiked over 10,000 times by now.
And this spike, filled with gratitude for life and appreciation for the setter, made Ichise Guren see Hinata Shoyo shining brightly next to the LED lights on the court.
He couldn't help but quip:
"This NEET-esque vibe, what's that about?"
****
20 advance chapters at patreon.com/Eatinpieces