Chapter 44: Verbal Victory
"Nice kill, Hinata!!!"
"Ohh!!!"
This time, Hoshino Masaru was the first to respond to Hinata Shoyo's spike, and the first to step forward for a high-five, celebrating Hinata Shoyo's first point of the finals.
Then came the teammates one after another with celebratory high-fives. By the end of it all, Hinata Shoyo felt for the first time that high-fiving was even more thrilling than spiking.
Unlike Yukigaoka, who was celebrating their score, Kosen Academy, having had their highly anticipated first offensive-defensive exchange broken, suddenly fell dead silent.
Especially the coaching staff—this was the first offensive-defensive round after both sides had prepared all night, and it was the round that most tested a coach's abilities.
In this first round that most tested coaching ability, Yukigaoka had laid down four layers of misdirection. Kosen's coach only managed to decipher one layer, the players deciphered two layers, but they were still caught by one layer, so losing the point was only natural.
Kosen's head coach pushed up his glasses, looking through the reflective lenses at Ayasaki on Yukigaoka's bench, somewhat puzzled.
After all, in all the previous footage, Yukigaoka didn't even have a coach, looking like some unknown team that had come to the athletic meet just to create memories.
Yet now they'd been caught off guard by this suddenly appearing coach, forcing them to be defensive.
This suddenly appearing coach—what was his background, what was his style? They had no idea, and could only judge based on Yukigaoka players' playing style from the previous footage.
"Must be a coach who gives players tremendous freedom, otherwise he wouldn't have waited until the finals to make his debut."
"Right! Then let's stick with the strategy and tactics we agreed on earlier. Suppress their ace and the tall guy, then target the vertically challenged blockers for concentrated attacks."
They simply stared silently at Hinata Shoyo, this little shorty who had just scored over the heads of their three 185cm+ big guys.
"Sorry! I shouldn't have rushed up to help defend. If I had waited a bit longer, I could have blocked his spike."
Nagamatsu Yumeto said apologetically to his upperclassmen.
Smack.
Kosen's number one ace gave Nagamatsu Yumeto a heavy slap on the back.
"What are you saying! The match just started a few seconds ago and you're already apologizing?"
"The finals are best of five sets—you planning to apologize all day today, kid?"
Nagamatsu Yumeto staggered from the slap. Hearing his upperclassman's words, he could only scratch his head sheepishly without responding.
Instead, the number one ace seemed to have his fighting spirit ignited by Nagamatsu Yumeto's apology, clapping his hands to his teammates.
"Ora! Don't let the underclassmen look down on us! It's just the first point of the first set—what's the big deal!"
"Next up, it's our turn to spike!"
"Aim at that shorty across the net and spike it down hard for points!"
"Hey you guys across the net! Bring it on!"
In a flock of sheep, the direction the lead sheep moves is usually the direction the whole flock moves. Right now, Kosen's number one was that lead sheep.
His momentum naturally lifted the spirits of the entire Kosen team, like a group of demonic sheep charging toward Yukigaoka with deadly intent, trying to use their sharp horns to crush Yukigaoka right here, right now.
Just like they had done before—defeating team after team to finally stand at the pinnacle of Miyagi Prefecture.
Similarly, the Yukigaoka players standing across from them had also fought through round after round of matches to reach the finals. No match result is ever a given.
Every point in volleyball requires at least a serve, a hit, making the opponent unable to receive it, and the ball hitting the ground before it counts as one point.
And between two teams that had gone through countless battles to meet at the summit, not a single person was willing to let the guys across the net easily take even one point.
At the same time, Yukigaoka's players sensed that unyielding, high-spirited, competitive fighting spirit coming from across the net.
A fighting spirit matching theirs gradually rose from Yukigaoka's players as well.
Two invisible fighting spirits twisted and collided fiercely in the air—the silent battlefield was already thick with smoke.
Kosen Academy's serve was broken, changing sides. Now it was Yukigaoka's ball possession, and the team that gained possession needed to rotate clockwise.
Hinata Shoyo was rotated to position one to serve, while Ichise Guren rotated from back row to front row. At this moment, Yukigaoka's offensive and blocking strength was at one of its strongest formations.
"Shoyo-senpai! Send a good serve!"
"Hinata, if you serve them an easy ball to receive, I'm not treating you to popsicles!"
"Go for it! Shoyo!"
Swallowing hard, the nervousness that had mostly faded from Hinata Shoyo returned to his body, making his entire form somewhat mechanical.
Hinata Shoyo sent out a stuttering serve. Oddly enough, the consequence of this stuttering serve was that there weren't many options—it was essentially a standing float serve.
The wobbly serve wasn't fast, but the volleyball dancing up and down still created some difficulty for the libero's receive.
"I got it!"
Although Kosen's libero used an overhand pass to receive this standing float serve, the execution wasn't very good—even somewhat difficult to work with. Fortunately, Kosen's setter's level wasn't low. For this somewhat distant first touch, he still managed a beautiful quick attack back set.
Matching the setter's rhythm, the number one attacker took a three-step approach and jumped. Although the setter's precision wasn't low, with long-distance quick attacks, pursuing precision inevitably meant losing something else—namely, ball speed.
Seeing that Ichise Guren and Hyakuzawa Yudai across the net were completely in position for the block with no flaws whatsoever, and their height was completely different from teams they'd faced before.
However, the number one middle blocker was also completely different from attackers Yukigaoka had faced before. Without a moment's hesitation, completely unintimidated by the oppressive presence of the two towers that were Hyakuzawa Yudai and Ichise Guren.
He decisively swung for a cross-court spike. This death-defying sharp cross that was already at the extreme limit of approaching zero degrees slammed into the ground in front of Hoshino Masaru's fingers as he was already on his way to make the dig.
Looking at Ichise Guren and Hyakuzawa Yudai, Kosen's number one said expressionlessly:
"You completely sealed off the opponent's straight shot route, yet got spiked with an unexpected cross-court—pretty frustrating, right?"
"Good that you're frustrated. I'm frustrated too. I practiced that cross-court shot for a year, originally planning to use it after making it to nationals, when facing blocking experts who could stand at my height."
"You made me use it early, which means our championship road just got a bit harder."
"Just this little bit of extra difficulty is going to cost our team quite a bit of effort, so next time don't jump so high."
That tone of already treating victory over Yukigaoka as inevitable really irritated Yukigaoka's players.
Just as the short-statured, short-tempered Suzuki stepped forward two paces, ready to start trash-talking the opposing number one middle blocker across the net, Ichise Guren extended his hand, blocking Suzuki's advancing steps.
"Don't be stupid, he's saying that on purpose to provoke us."
"If you really start trash-talking with him, you'll fall for it."
"Keep your mindset calm, Suzuki. Agitated emotions will affect our technical execution."
Suzuki, who had been looking at Ichise Guren with confusion, now showed an expression of sudden understanding.
"I see, I got it, captain!"
"That guy across the net really is underhanded."
"As expected of Captain Guren, so cool-headed."
After saying this, he looked at Ichise Guren's expression, which had gotten a bit menacing.
"This is the first time I've encountered someone who wants to compete with me in trash talk."
"I'm so happy. All the trash talk I've been holding in can finally be let out."
Patting Suzuki's back, Ichise Guren didn't direct his output at the opposing team.
Instead, he turned to look at Hoshino Masaru.
"Masaru, remember to send me the data on the next round's national teams tonight."
Having spent time with Ichise Guren, Hoshino Masaru immediately understood the hint and knew Ichise Guren was about to fire back. So he cooperatively said:
"Huh? Why? We haven't finished the finals yet, have we?"
Ichise Guren stretched his neck and said slowly:
"It doesn't matter. I already got a general sense of the opposing team's strength just now. We can already start considering our next opponents."
Hearing this, Kosen's number one raised one eyebrow, his face darkened, and an extremely displeased expression slowly emerged.
He slowly turned back to look at Ichise Guren, who was already discussing with his teammates how many prefectures there were nationally, which regions had more than one slot, and which areas only had one slot.
"Provoking me? Very well, your mouth can really run, huh? I accept your challenge."
Hearing this, Ichise Guren, who had just been chatting and laughing, quickly turned cold, turning around to face across the net.
"Volleyball is a six-person sport."
The number one middle blocker paused, thinking Ichise Guren was going to say something about how unity and collective strength are true strength, or some other inspirational nonsense.
But unexpectedly, Ichise Guren simply said flatly:
"So, next spike, I'll take on all of you by myself."
"Are you ready for the Armstrong Spiral Jet Rocket Launcher?"
"Trash~"
The last sentence was extremely quiet, barely even mouthed, to avoid the referee's scrutiny.
A wildly menacing handsome face unfolded before Kosen's players, eyes revealing infinite killing intent, like a demon crawling back from hell's mountain of corpses and sea of blood.
***
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