Aran nodded. "True, even Atsumu and Kazuharu wouldn't do something that stupid."
Hearing that annoying name, Oikawa Tooru's face darkened by a shade: "Someone must be talking behind my back; it's most likely Miya Atsumu."
No one would be idle enough to mumble about him except Miya Atsumu.
Aran was stunned for a moment. After recalling the schedule for the IH tournament, he shrugged and said, "At this time, Atsumu and the others should still be playing their matches."
Oikawa said with absolute certainty, "Regardless, it's him."
He had intended to say a few words in defense of his childhood friend, but considering Miya Atsumu's usual behavior, Aran swallowed the words he was about to say.
Forget it, let Miya Atsumu take the blame for some of it..
Komori raised a hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead. "That was too reckless."
Inamura let out a soft sigh. "But this will only be useful the first time; it's nothing to fear."
Unlike that kind of high-intensity quick attack, which is essentially a standard tactic, this lateral movement itself requires sufficient approach time; as long as they know there is a possibility it might come, they will be on high alert in advance.
They wouldn't make the same mistake twice, so this kind of surprise attack could only be used once.
The Inarizaki members naturally understood this logic, but using it was a decision Miya Atsumu had made after careful consideration.
Their greatest advantage right now is that Arima Shuji has enough stamina to support him in making frequent diving saves, but Arima Shuji's own problem with inaccurate setting will still affect him in his role as the setter.
The more frequent diving saves he performs, the more severely his stamina is depleted. Considering that the Five Sets Finals are this afternoon, he absolutely cannot exhaust his physical strength here.
Karasuno's opponent is Fukuda General, which is essentially a smaller version of Itachiyama, though they are inferior in every aspect.
Especially after the graduation of the current Shiratori class, Fukuda General did not receive sufficient reinforcements in time. Even so, under the leadership of Coach Tsurumaru, their players still managed to secure a place in the Semifinals by relying on their solid fundamentals and rich tactics.
However, this kind of lineup is not difficult for Karasuno to deal with, not to mention that Fukuda General had an even harder time in their two matches yesterday, their current form is not very good.
For Karasuno, the morning match was a guaranteed victory.
Inarizaki will surely end up in a stalemate with Itachiyama here; for the sake of a more lasting victory, they must seek a more efficient solution.
Since they cannot organize a sufficiently rich and exciting offense if the first receive is not in place, they must fully utilize every available spiker to pursue the quality of every ball—faster, higher, stronger.
Although it means the spikers will have to work much harder, the overall burden remains within an acceptable range of physical strain.
Moreover, they have plenty of substitutes for the spikers; Kosaku, Tokura, the others can all take the court directly, unlike the setter and libero, who are much harder to replace.
They absolutely cannot let it drag into a third set, otherwise, with Unabara Uta not being there, the afternoon match will be impossible to play.
The time has come to burn all bridges!
Seeing Miya Atsumu set another extremely high ball to Position 3 for Hinata, Hoshiumi's expression looked grim.
On the court, Komori performed a diving save to reach Hinata's spike, sending the ball back toward the Attack Line.
Meanwhile, Inamoto had already followed up, using a single hand to push out an extremely fast Quick Attack.
Inaramura, who had already rushed to Position 2 under the early guidance of the Middle Blocker's signals, raised his hands to spike the ball, which hit Rishia's arm.
The spike was too fast; Rishia had no time at all to adjust his receiving posture. The ball landed near the side of his arm and flew off, almost parallel to the ground.
Miya Atsumu took two steps forward and used his hands to dig the ball up, sending it toward Position 4.
The quality of the underhand set was not as precise as the overhead set; even for Miya Atsumu, who was extremely proficient in both types of setting, he could not produce a ball with the same millimeter-perfect spin and speed as the overhead set.
All he could do was give his absolute everything and then trust the Ace.
Two hands suddenly pressed down the moment Hinata's spike descended, Ogihara's gaze as sharp as a blade.
From the opening until now, he had finally waited for this.
—A chance to crush Hinata head-on.
The tension in Hinata's mind was stretched almost into a straight line. The moment Ogihara Ayato's hand pressed down, his body reacted almost by instinct, pulling back his strength at the very instant of the spike.
The ball was pressed into Ogihara Ayato's hands, then it bounced back toward the Inarizaki court.
——A rebound.
Miya Atsumu breathed a sigh of relief: "Nice one, Shoyo! One more time!"
Hinata landed on the ground, in his peripheral vision, he saw Ogihara's expression was grim, looking quite unwilling. However, he didn't pay too much attention to the other man and quickly retreated to prepare for the next attack.
During those two weeks at Central Physical Education University, aside from basic beach volleyball training, the thing he encountered most was the Iron Wall of Shiratori's Bokuto and Shimizu, both of which stood well over 1.9m.
Without cover and unable to perform a hard spike, the most resistance he could offer was tooling the block and constantly playing for rebounds to seek another chance to attack.
And what Inarizaki needs right now is exactly this kind of easy opportunity to catch their breath.
As the Ace, he must give the team this chance.
Hinata brushed past Suna and rushed toward Position 2, intending to run a parallel attack.
Suna moved toward Position 3 and set a high ball to Position 3.
Meanwhile, Rishia Heisuke, who had retreated to Position 4, took a large stride forward and jumped forcefully near the net, facing Inamura head-on as he rushed over.
Under the cover of Hinata and Suna, Miya Atsumu's feint successfully deceived the other two.
Miya Atsumu delivered the ball steadily into Rishia's hands.
As for Ogihara Ayato's desperate, side-on diving attempt, it could only be described as a futile effort.
With the determination to spike this ball down no matter what, Rishia swung his arm with full force to smash the ball down.
With a deafening thud, the ball was slammed straight down between Inamura's two arms and flew out of bounds.
But it had already touched Inamura's arms before hitting the ground, so it was ruled a block out, Inarizaki's score was valid.
"Ohhhhh—nice one, Heisuke!" Hinata raised his hands and rushed over, jumping up to high-five Rishia.
After nearly being blocked just now, his emotions were riding a massive roller coaster, his spirits were incredibly high.
Komori put his hands on his hips and let out a long sigh. "It's not just Hinata; everyone in Inarizaki is going all out."
Inamura shook his head. "It won't last long. That Number 4's physical condition is barely above passing, Suna is even worse."
This style of play, characterized by high-frequency movement and high-intensity spiking, cannot be sustained for long. As for exactly what kind of impact it will have.. it will depend on how large of a score gap Inarizaki can create while operating in this state of coordination.
Glancing at the scoreboard showing Inarizaki 4:1 Itachiyama, Sakusa withdrew his gaze.
This match, the current Inarizaki cannot defend.
Miya Osamu's second serve was received by Komori, Sakusa scored by tooling the block, breaking Inarizaki's scoring streak.
Inamura, having gained the service right, delivered a beautiful serve. After Arima Shuji committed a receiving error, Suna's spike was caught and blocked by Ogihara, allowing Itachiyama to score consecutive points.
Hakuma watched with great discomfort: "The tempo of this match is ridiculously fast; I haven't been able to see the ball since it started."
Being unable to see the ball was quite literally the case.
Unlike the state of intense focus during a match on the court, the ball travels at such a high speed that if the people in the stands lose focus for even a moment, they won't be able to find its position.
Before this, because both sides' First Receive quality was quite good, the Setter had at least enough time to analyze the situation when making a set.
But now, both sides were launching a relentless bombardment against each other. Even Komori found it quite difficult to handle under this rhythm, let alone the fact that he often didn't even get a chance to make a receiving movement; the balls provided by Ishikawa and the others were much like those from Arima Shuji.
The ball flying back and forth left Hakuma feeling dazed, unable to keep up at all.
Hearing Hakuma's complaint, Hoshiumi replied, "You still need to practice."
If he can't see the ball clearly, it means his dynamic vision hasn't been sufficiently trained; no wonder this guy's receiving is this terrible.
If Karasuno didn't still need Hakuma as a decoy, they might as well just move him to the Middle Blocker position.
The buzzer sounded on the court. When the score reached Inarizaki 5:3 Itachiyama, Kumagai was substituted out for Suna to serve.
Arima, who had been subbed out, sat down on the Coach's bench. Coach Kurosu said something to him that left him somewhat stunned, but he did not argue.
Hinata raised his hands to cheer for Kumagai: "Akuma, hit a good one!"
Kumagai nodded, took the volleyball, walked to his approach position.
In his field of vision, Miya Atsumu, who was positioned up front, raised his hand behind his back to make a gesture to him, signaling him to set to Ishikawa.
Taking a glance at the positioning of Itachiyama's three players in the back row for the First Receive, Kumagai silently rotated the ball in his hands, making no rush to toss it, nor did he give Miya Atsumu a response.
He was the one serving, he had his own thoughts and judgment; Miya Atsumu was only giving him advice, whether or not to listen was up to him.
And he had no intention of listening to Miya Atsumu.
In the final second of the service time limit, Kumagai raised his hand to toss the ball, took a large step forward, suddenly pulled back his strength at the moment of contact, using his palm and the heel of his hand to hit a Jump Float Serve.
The ball hit a precise point just above the net between Inamoto and Ogihara Ayato, lightly rolling over the net and skimming the mesh as it dropped toward the ground.
“I've got it!”
Inamoto almost reached out his hand, but fortunately, Ogihara shouted in time, sidestepping and bending his knees to receive the ball.
As his knees hit the ground, the diagonal force caused Ogihara Ayato to crash onto the floor, even slightly obstructing Inamoto's path to adjust his positioning.
Inamoto also realized that things had taken a turn for the worse, but he could do nothing but leap over Ogihara, jumping as high as possible to try and reach the ball.
Just as Inamoto was feeling somewhat lost due to the terrible situation, a reassuring voice rang out immediately after.
Give me the ball!
Hearing Sakusa call for the ball, Inamoto did not hesitate any longer and raised his hand to set the ball right to him.
Spiking down any ball—that is the Ace's vow to the setter, a vow to the entire team.
When you don't know what to do, setting the ball to the Ace is always the right move.
Facing Inarizaki's three-man block, Sakusa decisively drew a curve toward the left side and spiked the ball toward the edge of the court.
Miya Osamu, standing in the Libero position, stepped forward and lunged into a lunge to get under the ball, perfectly absorbing its momentum and popping it high toward the front row.
The volleyball flew upward, gradually stalling at its peak before falling.
The high-speed rhythm of the match suddenly slowed down at this very moment.
Miya Atsumu, who had already taken his position, let out a long breath, lightly leaped, arched his back, preparing to use his back to tip the ball upward.
But just as the Itachiyama members were chasing after Hinata in Position 2, he used his wrist to send the ball almost vertically upward.
Kumagai, who had already moved up to stand behind the Three-meter Line after the serve, leaped from the back and swung his arm with full force to spike the ball down.
The sound exploded upon impact; with the spike hitting the net, Kumagai's physical advantage was utilized to its fullest extent.
Komori's gaze drifted slightly toward his own body, driven by instinct, he almost subconsciously extended his foot, using the top of his foot to hook the ball.
The ball was moving very fast, but Komori controlled himself and didn't kick it; instead, he maintained a position underneath the ball, cushioning it so that it would bounce upward in the next instant, naturally avoiding any issues regarding a ball handling violation.