He actually felt a bit too lazy to obsess over what he would do in the future; staying on the volleyball court was a simple and easy choice.
Since he had decided to keep playing volleyball, mastering the jump serve was a task that had to be added to his schedule.
Practicing the jump serve now is a decision that will pay off in the long run.
Besides.. he didn't want to see Miya Atsumu's smug face pointing at him, claiming that since he was a Third Year, he shouldn't be unable to perform a Jump Serve.
Lowering his arms from his chest, Suna's gaze fell once again upon Hirugami Fuku, who had just walked to the service position.
In terms of style, if he were to choose someone to copy, it would undoubtedly be Hirugami Fuku.
Opportunities for such close contact were rare, so taking good notes would certainly save him a lot of unnecessary thinking later on.
Noticing Suna's serious gaze, Miya Atsumu silently turned his head to glance at the window above.
Asagami turned to him and asked, "What are you looking at?"
Miya Atsumu replied, "I was wondering what kind of sun rose in the sky today, that Rintaro actually has the interest to watch the opponent's serve."
As if sensing that Miya Atsumu was speaking ill of him, Suna's sharp, knife-like gaze immediately locked onto Miya Atsumu.
Atsumu shut his mouth, acting as if he hadn't said anything or seen anything.
Hirugami Fuku glanced at Komori, then silently averted his gaze.
Although he is still a high school student, Komori is quite difficult to deal with, especially when it comes to the First Receive.
Even though his sets aren't always perfectly steady, Komori truly manages to get the ball up for any kind of play possible.
And Kageyama's ability to support as a setter was also sufficient; even if the first receive wasn't quite in place, he could still make the set.
Finally, neither Hinata Aoba nor Sakusa, acting as spikers, were picky about the balls, which allowed this ragged formation to be maintained continuously..
So he decided to avoid the problem at its source.
He wanted to completely avoid Komori.
But the problem lay here: Komori's defensive range was vast.
With his sufficiently tall stature and the support of Aoba on the other side, his defensive coverage covers nearly three-quarters of the court.
The difficulty of avoiding him is extremely high, attempting to target Aoba specifically would be no different from directly feeding the ball to Aoba.
In this situation..
Hirugami's mind raced, he quickly thought of a solution.
He tilted his head slightly toward the Head Referee, observing his movement as he blew the whistle.
After catching this movement, Komori's entire body tensed up instantly, ready to react to the opponent's buzzer-beater.
At that same moment, Hirugami raised his hand and tossed the ball.
Komori shifted his weight backward almost immediately, trying to react to the rhythm of the ball as best he could.
But in the next second, the ball flew up only a little before falling back into Hirugami's hands.
—He wasn't tossing the ball, but was simply bouncing it in his hands to adjust his touch.
It was too late by the time Komori realized this; before he could adjust his center of gravity, Hirugami tossed the ball into the air.
This time it was a real toss, Hirugami had no intention of hitting from the back row at all.
His serve hit the top edge of the net and then dropped right in front of Hakuma.
Hakuma himself was too tall; this kind of ball passed through his reachable range almost instantly.
By the time he wanted to move to receive it, it was already too late.
The ball landed directly at his feet, Hirugami Fuku's serve scored.
Aoba Haruka in the back row sighed in frustration, "To think he'd pull a move like that."
He originally thought that Hirugami's feinting motion was aimed at them in the back row, but in the end, it turned out to be a net touch.
To deliver a fatal blow once the enemy lets their guard down..
Hinata raised his hands to his head: "I didn't react at all!"
Everyone knows that Hakuma's receiving skills are average, so in this situation, he really should have provided cover for the first receive, but he completely failed in his duty.
Aran shrugged his shoulders. "So this is the world of dirty adults.."
He tilted his head slightly and saw Suna looking as if he had learned something new.
Hmm, he felt like Inarizaki was about to gain a few more dirty players; he hoped Inarizaki's opponents could hold out for a little longer.
Unlike Miya Atsumu and Suna, who were preparing to study deeply, Hinata looked at the opposing Hirugami Fuku with eyes full of fighting spirit: "Again! I'll definitely receive it this time!"
But Hirugami Fuku was not going to grant him his wish; he held the second ball until the very last second of the service time limit, before suddenly launching a jump serve toward Aoba Haruka.
Fortunately, Aoba Haruka performed quite poorly, decisively throwing himself onto the ground like a human cushion to somehow manage to receive the ball.
Kageyama praised again, "What a great first receive!"
Aoba cried out in despair, "Don't praise me for stuff like that!"
At the same time, Sakusa, having secured the ball, had already spiked it toward the position behind Miya Atsumu.
The setter was in an area where interference was possible; according to standard tactical arrangements, Bokuto should have provided Miya Atsumu with sufficient cover.
But whether it was because Miya Atsumu wasn't being given the ball or not, Bokuto was clearly not in his usual form; he failed to successfully neutralize the power of the ball, instead sending a super-fast set to Miya Atsumu.
Miya Atsumu jumped up while grumbling, his body leaning at an almost diagonal angle to reach the ball as it crossed the net, sent it to Ushijima Wakatoshi.
Hakuma and Sakusa had already caught up to Ushijima in Position 2, the two of them teaming up to form a block in front of him.
Both of their blocking strategies were mature enough that Ushijima had no interest in facing them head-on; instead, he decisively adjusted his spike trajectory, hitting a ball toward the side that sat somewhere between a Sharp Cross and a Short Diagonal, with the spin causing it to land slightly short.
Aoba, who had originally been positioned deep to defend against a heavy Sharp Cross, was standing quite far back, making it difficult to handle this ball from his position.
Hinata, having pulled away from the net, turned his head very decisively and lunged forward with a single-footed push, touching the ball with one hand.
Although the ball's trajectory was a bit wobbly, even flying straight out of the court, Kageyama should have no problem with it.
Hinata rolled halfway and controlled his body to prevent himself from rolling over, stopping his momentum before quickly getting back up.
He was already quite skilled at avoiding things like rolling backward, but this ball was moving so fast that he had no way to follow up with a subsequent attack.
Kageyama's set went straight to Sakusa, who scored by tooling the block, breaking Hirugami Fuku's service turn.
"Nice play!!" Aoba Haruka and Hinata high-fived and cheered.
Hinata's receiving movement just now was so beautiful; he had already mentally prepared himself to dive forward again to act as a meat cushion.
Bokuto, who had been lacking energy the whole time, suddenly became excited: "Shoyo—I'm so moved—"
He was startled by Miya Atsumu's sudden wailing.
Wait, so it's not just Bokuto who plays well, but he also gets excited watching others play well?
Hayami rested her chin in her hand and sighed softly, "Shoyo, what a cute name."
In fact, he had also wanted to call Hinata by his name before, but just like Aoba, he suffered a fierce glare from Miya Atsumu.
Hinata also declined him tactfully.
It wasn't because Miya Atsumu wouldn't allow it or because their relationship wasn't good enough; the reason Hinata gave was that Inarizaki had a junior with the same name as him, he was afraid of getting the two of them mixed up.
Hayami could only express her regret regarding this.
But it didn't matter; none of them had managed to successfully exchange names with Hinata, for the others, one could only say it was all thanks to Miya Atsumu.
And now, seeing Miya Atsumu being tormented on the court by Hinata and Kageyama.. he felt incredibly refreshed.
“Nice play, Shoyo! One more!”
While the practice match here was being played intensely, the members of Inarizaki, far away in Amagasaki, were also conducting their daily training.
Because half of the starters were absent, their training focused primarily on individual drills and fundamentals, so the frequency of intra-squad matches was low.
Seeing a familiar figure walking into the Volleyball Hall, Rishia Heisuke, who was still instructing the First Years, turned his head to look over. "Coach Omimi? You're back from your training?"
Coach Omimi nodded. "Yeah, I got back last night. I intended to come straight here, but I fell asleep as soon as I got home and started unpacking."
He scanned the crowd of club members and then asked, "Why is it just you few?"
None of the Third Years are here, among the Second Years, Tokura and Xun are also absent.
"Itto and Yukihito were taken by Coach Kurosu to practice blocking over at the Amagasaki City Volleyball Club next door, the Third Year seniors went with them," Rishia explained simply.
Akuma has a competition today and won't be back until the afternoon. We are doing regular first receive and spike training here, Reo Mizuta is in charge of setting.
Fukami slumped dejectedly, "I'm a Middle Blocker too.. why didn't you take me to practice blocking.."
Ogata, who had just crawled back from under the net, reached out and patted his back. "It's because you need to stay behind and refine your serve even further. The seniors are all counting on your crucial serves to score points."
Seeing everyone training in an orderly fashion, Coach Omimi nodded and looked toward the Libero duo resting at the side of the court. "How is it, Nishizawa Hokuto? Are you finding the First String training difficult to keep up with?"
Nishizawa stood up, scratched his head, said to the Coach, "It was a little bit at first, but I've adapted now."
Although the First String also practices the fundamental skills used by the Second String, the pace of basic training is very fast because of the upcoming intra-squad matches, so he was indeed a bit out of sync at the beginning.
But he eventually found his rhythm in training, bit by bit, hasn't made any more mistakes.
Coach Omimi felt a bit more at ease: "That's good. If there's anything you don't understand, don't hesitate to ask; as long as it's something we know, we can explain it to you."
Nishizawa's situation was a bit different from Hinata's; at that time, Hinata always had Kumagai with him in the Second String. While Nishizawa had Ogata guiding him in the Second String, Ogata would not be moving up to the First String this year and would most likely enter with next year's freshmen.
He was still a bit worried that Nishizawa would feel lonely in the First String since he didn't have any acquaintances there.
But looking at the current situation.. Nishizawa has already become quite well-acquainted with everyone.
Seeing the concern in Coach Omimi's eyes, Unabara Uta laughed heartily. "After all, he is the Libero."
No one wants to have a bad relationship with the Libero, except for certain Setters.
Even if Nishizawa himself doesn't have a personality as likable as Hinata's, as the Libero who maintains the team, others will spontaneously support him.
Coach Omimi nodded. "That is true."
Nishizawa blinked, feeling a bit bewildered by the two of them, as their conversation made absolutely no sense.
What kind of thing has anything to do with him being a Libero? Is it some new secret technique Coach Omimi learned?
Recalling the secret technique, he gave a soft "ah" in response. "Shoyo-senpai sent me some things a few days ago, but even when I showed them to Coach Kurosu, he didn't understand them. I guess I'll have to wait until Shoyo-senpai returns before I can study them."
Upon hearing this, Unabara Uta fell silent for two seconds.