The Birth of A Volleyball Legend-Chapter 357: Reiki’s Determination! (I)

"So, that is the rumored magic ball that even managed to take down Konan High’s elite defense, huh? Damn, that doesn’t look impressive at all." Kiyotake whistled, VERY impressed. He would never expect such an ordinary serve would take the entire Tokyo volleyball ecosystem by storm, yet here they were. "What do you think, Wang-kun? Isn’t that… What is the word, impressive?" He asked the freshman next to him in awkward English.

Of course, Michael Wang who didn’t know what happened just tilted his head confusedly. "What is so impressive about that? If anything should you feel afraid that you would get scolded by Sensei? You failed to receive such an easy serve, after all."

While Kiyotake couldn’t understand even half of the thing Michael Wang just said, the confusion showed in the Chinese boy’s face was enough to tell him about it, and Kiyotake had his face palmed at that. "Oh, yeah, you weren’t in the team yet when Sensei made a big deal about this serve. Forget it. Don’t worry, Wang-kun, I will be okay." He patted his kouhai’s shoulder reassuringly, which only made the confusion grow on the kouhai’s face.

When the game was about to be restarted again, Toru Aniki, Tsukiji’s head coach rose from his spot and called Michael Wang to give Kiyotake more space and wait until the senior player was able to receive the ball first before starting to move forward. While Michael Wang didn’t understand why the coach would ask that, he just nodded in agreement since the referee had already asked him to go back to the court.

Unfortunately, what they were waiting for didn’t come. After sending four consecutive serves in a row to Michael Wang, Yuki suddenly changed his target toward Neito who was on the other wing. The sudden unexpected change of target caught everyone off guard, and unfortunately, Neito who had already reached half his way toward the front side could only flinch when he saw the ball was coming straight to his face at a high speed.

BAM!

"HELL YEAH!" Yuki clinched his fist enthusiastically when he saw the ball touch the floor. Your next journey awaits at novelbuddy

Neito himself could only shake his head in disappointment as he proceeded to the last play. When he saw the ball coming to his face, instead of thinking of a way to save it, the only thing that popped into his brain was how to avoid it. No one would blame him, of course, and he knew about it. Not a single being here wanted to receive a smack on the head like that. However, the setter felt ashamed that he failed to receive the serve.

"Don’t fret over it, Neito!" Kiyotake patted his shoulder reassuringly. "We know that he is one kind of a server, and we have already seen that in the last set. If we blame ourselves for every point he scored from the service line, we will be eaten by our guilt and won’t be able to win this game. Come on, don’t be so gloomy like that! How is your shoulder, by the way?"

At first, Neito was confused by the question, not knowing what was wrong with his shoulder. However, when his head recalled how the last play went, he remembered that he didn’t dodge the ball perfectly as it bruised his shoulder a bit. He rubbed the spot that felt sting a little before shaking his head. "Don’t worry, there is nothing wrong here. Let’s focus back on the game and think of a way to stop that bastard before he goes too far and thinks we are just a bunch of weaklings."

"Atta boy! That is the spirit!" Kiyotake grinned widely. "As the victims of the boy’s serves, we have to take revenge later or he would think we are just a bunch of paper tigers, right?"

Now that Yuki just exposed their lack of awareness in the last play, this time, all of the Tsukiji players were ready. They positioned themselves like they would be the ones targeted next, not wanting to be blindsided once again by the glasses boy.

Seeing this, Yuki changed his approach. If before, he aimed his serve to kill, now that he knew the chance was pretty slim to do that, he decided to go for a serve that could break the opponent’s formation. He aimed the ball straight in the spot between the front and back players, forcing the two sides to scatter to figure out who would get the ball.

Updat𝓮d from freewēbnoveℓ.com.

"I get – "

"BANJO! THAT’S MINE!" Reiki shouted, forcing his teammates to move back to his original position. Even though the ball looked like it was about to fall to the back, Reiki made the best decision here since he could still reach it with an overhead pass. This also allowed his team to do a quick counterattack since Neito was already in the best spot possible to set up an attack.

"Oh! Good job, Reiki!"

Unfortunately, Neito stood in front of Reiki, which closed down the captain’s route to run forward and join the attack. However, that didn’t mean Reiki would stand aside without doing anything. No, he tracked everyone’s movement while also waiting for where Neito would send the ball, ready to be the backup for his teammates.

’Listen, Reiki-san.’ Matsumoto spoke after the award ceremony of the Rookie of the Year over two years ago. ’I know that you are an amazing player with unbelievable speed, but other than that, you don’t have anything stand out that could help you survive the game. I know that you don’t like to hear this, but let me tell you something. A player with only one pony trick will never be able to survive long.’

The memory of his talk with Matsumoto – Konan High’s captain – two years ago suddenly appeared on the tip of his brain. Reiki gritted his teeth as he tried to banish that thought.

’Why would that stuck-up bastard’s words come right now?’ He sheeted in rage.

Even though Reiki could see the point of Matsumoto’s words, he still hated Konan’s captain for his ’I told you so’ expression whenever they beat Tsukiji High in any tournaments. It was as if Matsumoto made it his mission to make Reiki’s life miserable whenever they faced each other. However, no matter how much Reiki hated it, he couldn’t deny the astronomical improvement he had after facing his rival, and this was probably the best time to show everyone about it.

BAM!

"Oh! Nice block, Rano!"

"No, this is not over! The ball is bouncing back into the air!"

"What the hell?! Who is that?!"

"Hey, it is Reiki! That is our captain right there!"

What Reiki just did was simple. He tracked down every movement in the court before figuring out that the ball would be sent toward Kiyotake, and he didn’t think twice before deciding to shadow his teammate. His decision was proven to be the right one as Tsunemori’s middle blocker was able to knock down his friend’s serve, and fortunately, he was already in the best position to save the ball and keep it alive.

"Neito-senpai! Give it high!" Reiki could see Michael Wang pointed his finger at the sky.

Of course, with Kiyotake’s failure to execute the ball before, it was logical for Neito to send the ball to Michael Wang who was on the opposite wing. However, what Reiki and everyone found surprising was how quickly Tsunemori’s players recovered from their last block, and just like before they still used the same ’no-blocker’ strategy to face Michael Wang’s attack.

"Wang! Calm down! Send it to the front left!" Reiki shouted.

The one guarding that spot for Tsunemori was Koji, and Reiki knew that besides being the team’s ace, Koji was probably the weakest defender on the court right now. It was only logical for him to target the boy.

Or… So that was what he thought.

Unfortunately, Reiki miscalculated two things here. For one, Michael Wang was in the right wing, and to send the ball to Koji, he had to do a cross-spike here. Unfortunately, it was clear Michael Wang was inexperienced in doing that kind of attack, which resulted in a weak ball aimed toward the opponent’s ace. Secondly, it seemed Reiki underestimated Koji’s capability as a defender here, what with how easily the boy received the ball without disturbing his team’s formation.

’Damn! Of course, it would never be that easy!’ Reiki cursed.

Still, he didn’t lament the failure for too long and moved already to prepare for another attack. He tried his best to concentrate as he saw how almost all the Tsunemori players rushed forward with an erratic rhythm while those two freshmen – the devil twin as everyone called them – moved in unison to confuse all the people there of who would pass the ball.

When it was finally revealed in the last second that it would be the blonde boy who would pass the ball, though, Reiki flashed forward with his quick speed to cover the right side. Even though he knew Michael Wang was there, he didn’t want to let the boy fight alone here, so he snuck behind his kouhai before following him to jump with both hands extended in the air.

As a result, when Asahi swung his arm to spike the ball, even though it managed to avoid Michael Wang’s blocker, in the end, the ball just met Reiki’s hands, which resulted in another point for Tsukiji High.

BAM!

"HELL YEAH!"