The Birth of A Volleyball Legend

"YOSSHAAAA!" Riku roared, waving his hand madly at the crowd. All the people there didn't disappoint him, shouting his name as if he were some sort of messiah.

"Come on, Riku!"

"Get them, Riku!"

Yuki had to roll his eyes in exasperation when he saw how smug his friend was. Kaede next to him just chuckled, shaking his head in amusement. "Just let him be. You know how he adores the attention, right?"

"Oh, I know very well about it, Senpai. A bit too well to my liking, even." Yuki murmured.

Kaede and Koji who heard that snickered laughter at him. "Well, this is still better compared to his unmotivated lazy ass state. At least, we will have him in his better form right now." Stated the ace.

It was no longer a secret that Riku was always moody when facing a weaker team. He always felt that there was no challenge to play against them, which made his performance unbearable. Oh, he won't stoop so low to the point he was a burden, but for the people who knew what he was capable of in his best form, it was torture watching the blonde boy's style when he didn't want to perform.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the net, all the yellow jersey players gathered around, starting to grill Tachi – their main information broker about Yuki and Riku – about the last play. "Okay, Naomichi. I think I speak for everyone here when I ask, what the hell was that?!" Inoe, the defensive specialist, asked. The others also nodded in agreement, looking at their young ace questioningly.

"I don't know!" Tachi cried in frustration. "I have only seen a glimpse of this attack once during the training camp, but after that, they had never shown it all again for the rest of the camp, so I thought it would just be a coincidence! I don't know if they can switch roles so seamlessly like that!"

This made all the Sumida High players depressed instantly.

"In hindsight though, we should've expected something like this to happen." Kengo, the other outside hitter sighed. "We saw how the glasses boy took the emergency setter role pretty easily during his game either with Tsunemori or Tokyo Thunder. It is our stupidity not to assume he would be able to do the same in a normal situation."

Yeah, they had the video of Yuki and Riku's game when Tsunemori played against Konan and Tokyo Thunder U-19 played against Fukushima Phoenix U-19, and while they saw a lot of combination attacks between Yuki and Riku, they thought it was just an emergency case. Now that they knew it wasn't the case – and suffered from it too – they couldn't help but curse their own stupidity.

"Okay, let's move on from this." Hitoshi finally said. "So, we know that half of Sensei's strategy is working, and to complete the other half, we need to stop their attack. Our decision to keep eyes on the blondie is right, but now, we need to keep another for the four eyes. Iguchi, can you keep your eyes on them both and tell us who will set the ball one second before the attack comes?" Asked the captain.

All the eyes turned into the setter who pondered for a moment. After a while, the setter finally sighed and said, "I cannot guarantee it, but at least I can try."

-0-

Unfortunately, predicting who would set the attack one second before it happened wasn't an easy task to do. Iguchi tried his best to keep up with those two, but Tsunemori's freshmen played like a magician today, not giving any hint of who was going to set up an attack and where would the ball go until the last second.

Of course, if in the end, the outcome was just a normal attack to the hitter, it would be easy for Sumida High to handle it. They just kept their eyes on the spikers and no matter who set up the ball, they would be able to stop the attack completely. However, Yuki and Riku were proficient in trickery. So, when they saw the opponent was focusing too much of their attention on the spikers, they could just send a dump straight to the opponent's area.

BAM!

"Shit! Kengo, cover!"

"I got this!"

It was still Yuki's turn to serve, and Sumida High was still stuck with the strategy their coach set before. They just gave away the chance to attack to Tsunemori and got ready for defense. Just like this time, Kengo didn't set up an attack immediately, but sent it back straight to Tsunemori's side.

"I got this!" Koji shouted, receiving the ball.

"Nice receive, Koji!" Riku grinned.

Yuki was also ready, shadowing his friend from behind while also glancing around to get ready for another one of their shenanigans. All the Sumida High players tensed, getting ready to defend with all their might. Iguchi kept staring at the two boys intently, and when he saw Riku's intention to keep the ball by himself, Sumida High's setter shouted, "It is the blondie! Get ready!"

Hitoshi grinned when he heard that. After trying three times, Iguchi finally was able to catch their shenanigan in time to tell the other Sumida High players to react. Now, it was Hitoshi and Homura's turn to react.

"Homura, left! Don't let him go straight!" He shouted to his teammates.

They both moved in sync, following the ball's movement before jumping together to stop the attack. Koji himself didn't panic. No, he was waiting for them to jump too. At first, he wanted to fool the two blockers with a delayed attack. However, if he pulled out something like that, with how fast the pass from Riku was, he would definitely miss the ball and make himself look stupid.

'Damn, Riku. You don't give me a lot of choices here. Well, let's see if I can do this.'

As he jumped, Koji could see the area in front of him was covered by Hitoshi and Homura. Of course, he could try to brute force his way, but he wasn't confident his strength would be enough to deal with the two blockers. He wanted to go for a cross-spike too, yet Hitoshi who came one second late would still be in time to stop that. So, without too much choice, Koji glanced at Homura's fingertip and took a decision.

BAM! Enjoy exclusive content from empire

"Shit! Someone, cover it up!" Homura cursed.

Yeah, in the end, Koji decided to aim for Homura's fingertip, aiming for a block out. This way, even if the opponent somehow managed to stop the attack, it would be hard for the other players to get the rebound.

"I got this!" Inoe cried, diving forward to get the ball. "Tachi! You have to end this!" He shouted, sending the ball to the young ace.

"Don't worry, Senpai! I got this!" Tachi looked up to the sky, seeing the ball was coming at him.

However, he wasn't alone here. Hirano was tracking his movement too, ready for an aerial duel between two players. They stared at each other for a second, trying to gauge each other's ability to deal with this. Still, after waiting for a few seconds, Tachi's patience was running thin, so he jumped immediately to greet the ball in front of him.

Hirano of course wasn't going to let him go like that. He jumped at the right time, contesting Tachi's attempt to attack. He still had the confidence to kill anyone in a one-on-one battle like this.

However, it seemed he underestimated Tachi's raw power, as he suddenly felt a sharp pain on his forearm when the ball hit it.

BAM!