Aoba Haruka began to shut down: "I wonder why Mom didn't install a smarter brain in you when she was giving birth.. Don't tell me it was fried."
Captain Harukawa nodded very seriously. "Actually, that is a possibility."
Haruka raised her hand and gently patted the head of her troublesome younger brother. "I was wrong. I won't bicker with you like this anymore. Why should I bother arguing with someone who isn't very bright.."
Kureha finally realized, "You're calling me stupid in a roundabout way!"
He brought out his ultimate weapon: "I'm going to tell Mom when I get back!"
Haruka reached out and pinched Kureha's ear. "How immature are you! All you do is tattle! Are you a kindergartner!"
Halfway through the ear-pulling, Haruka let go. "Yeah, you really are."
Miyazaki felt that Aoba Haruka was about to cry from anger, so he hurriedly reached out to intervene. "Haruka, stop bullying him. The coach is going to be here in a moment.."
Aoba Haruka turned her head and protested, "Who is bullying whom, exactly!"
Captain Harukawa also tried to break up the fight: "Change the subject, change the subject! What are we eating later?"
Aoba Kureha replied, "Yakisoba bread."
Aoba Haruka's eyes widened: "You're planning to eat that during the tournament?"
I disagree! I want steak rice!
Kureha protested, "How is cutlet rice better! You have no taste!"
Captain Harukawa could no longer tolerate it and raised his hand to thump both of them on top of their heads: "All of you, shut up!!"
The world went silent.
Karasuno won the first set of the match against Itachiyama with a score of 25:22, the second set went to deuce, with Itachiyama winning 30:32 to level the score.
But in the final set, Karasuno decisively increased the tempo of their overall offense. With the members of Itachiyama exhausted and unable to keep up with the pace of the match, a liberated Hakuma Mebuki successfully broke through Ogihara and the others' defense, ending the match.
The score for the Third Set froze at 25:21 in favor of Karasuno over Itachiyama, Karasuno won.
Miya Atsumu clapped his hands, his mood unexpectedly bright: "Just as I expected."
It wasn't very apparent during the previous matches, but now it's clear that Karasuno has indeed specifically strengthened their defense against Hakuma Meisei's offense.
Looking at it this way, their decision to undergo further training in blocking and receiving was very correct.
Moreover, the physical exhaustion for both sides in this match was clearly visible to the naked eye. As long as they managed their stamina well during this afternoon's match, they would certainly have the upper hand from the start in tomorrow's Finals.
Atsumu stood up and looked at everyone: "Alright, let's have lunch, have one last meeting, get ready to play our Semifinals."
Everyone responded, "Yes—"
After scanning the crowd, Miya Atsumu remained silent for two seconds before pointing at someone without arms and saying, "Hey, Kuniharu, untie him."
Tokura's arms have grown back.
The Women's Volleyball players had already entered the court to begin warming up. While waiting for the coach to bring their meals, Miya Atsumu looked toward Tokura, who was currently competing with Hinata to see whose arms were longer.
Yukihito, how tall are you now?
Tokura thought back for a moment. "The day before yesterday, when I measured it.. it was 189.0."
Hinata, who had just suffered a crushing defeat in the match, had a look of shock written all over his face: "How did you grow to 1.89m so fast?"
Miya Osamu also felt a bit surprised. "You've grown really fast lately."
Miya Atsumu did a quick calculation of the time. "I feel like he'll be 1.9m by the time Haruko comes around."
Back in August, Tokura's height was around 1.88m. If he could maintain this growth rate, Inarizaki would welcome their first player in nearly five years to reach 1.9m during his second year of high school by the time the Haruko opened!
Hinata leaned in and asked him, "Will your knees hurt? Sometimes they ache at night; Coach says it's because I'm growing taller."
Tokura nodded. "Yeah, it does."
Hinata looked Hinata up and down at Tokura with an envious expression. "It feels really good when Atsumu-ge uses hot water to compress it for me. Yukihito, you should try it too."
Damn it, he wants to grow to 1.9m too!
Tokura avoided Miya Atsumu's gaze: "Alright, I'll go back and try it out."
Miya Atsumu added, "Even though your height is a bit lacking, your wingspan should be longer than Hirugami's. Since you want to emulate his blocking style, I'll leave the judgment of this afternoon's match to you."
Don't make any major changes to your technique at this stage; be careful not to get injured.
Tokura pointed to himself: "Huh? Me?"
Atsumu said expressionlessly, "I originally planned to have Nishizawa Hokuto play to get some practice, but since you're handling the blocking and positioning, I'll let Unabara Uta cover for you."
Unabara pointed to herself: "Huh? Me?"
Miya Atsumu crossed his arms over his chest. "What else? Do you two have an objection?"
Facing the Captain's serious expression, the Second Year students stood straight: "No objections, no objections."
Aran wiped away his tears again. "He's grown so much, Atsumu—I really wish Shinsuke could see this—"
He wasn't being unreasonable; instead, he was rationally assigning tasks to everyone, he possessed a certain level of captain's authority.
Heaven knows how much despair he felt when he first learned that Coach Kurosu intended to make Atsumu the Captain.
Looking at it now.. Atsumu is doing quite well.
Unfortunately, Kita Shinsuke has class this afternoon, so he already returned to Yokohama yesterday evening.
If Inarizaki can make it to the Finals, he will come back tomorrow at noon to watch the Finals being held in the afternoon.
Aran was originally supposed to go back for training this morning, but their Head Coach won't be back until this afternoon, so today's training has been moved to the evening.
Their formal team cohesion training is scheduled for tomorrow night and the day after tomorrow; these few days are for regular physical training and rest and adjustment, so the schedule is relatively flexible.
Moreover, with the V League season more than halfway through, Tachibana Red Falcons is steadily holding third place on the standings, leading the fourth-place EJP Gods by a significant margin. For the away games, Coach Blanco plans to use them to test the new Libero; it will be enough as long as he can ensure they don't lose 3-0 to the opposition.
After watching the afternoon matches, he will return with Oikawa and the others and come back tomorrow.
Fortunately, because of the matches this weekend, they had arrived in Tokyo several days early. They are currently training in a rented gym near the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, making travel back and forth quite convenient.
“Good luck in the match!”
Watching the crowd leave after finishing their meal, Aran also prepared to follow the people in the cheering area to switch sides with Itachiyama.
The first match of the Women's Volleyball Semifinals ended, Shinzan Girls advanced.
After the noise of the lunch break, the venue fell into silence once again.
The commentator sat down in the commentary booth with his notes, the court had been cleared as well, with both teams for the afternoon matches waiting in the Players' Tunnel on either side.
After the banners were rehung on the side near Center Court, the conductor of the Inarizaki Brass Band raised his baton.
As the Inarizaki High School anthem played, an electronic voice also rang out through the gymnasium's PA system.
[Next up is the second match of the high school boys' volleyball semifinals, between Inarizaki High School, representing Hyogo Prefecture, Rakusan High School, representing Kyoto Prefecture.]
[The match is about to begin.]
Chapter 431: The 431st Fox
Seeing the coin land heads up, Miya Osamu fell into silence.
He wondered if he had received too many of Miya Atsumu's spikes during warm-ups just now, causing the bad luck to travel along with the ball.
However, drawing lots is a fifty-fifty chance anyway, so it's normal to go first or last. When the Kita Team was still around, he had also drawn last a few times.
In comparison, his own odds of drawing a late slot were about fifty-fifty, while someone as exceptionally unlucky as Miya Atsumu had a thirty-seventy chance.
If he draws a late start at this time, he might even have a chance to start in the Finals..
Miya Osamu comforted himself for a moment, returning to the side of the Inarizaki Coach's bench amidst the sound of Miya Atsumu complaining to the coach.
“Coach! Look at him! He's taking over the Captain's job, he's not even doing it right!” Miya Atsumu complained to the coach, pointing at the returning Miya Osamu.
Coach Kurosu comforted Miya Atsumu, "If it's a late start, then it's a late start; it won't have a significant impact on the overall tactics."
If anything, their positioning during a late serve would be even more conducive to the execution of their subsequent tactics.
At the very least, when starting from behind, Hinata starts in Position 5 in the back row, which allows him to maximize his ability to avoid the blocking encirclement of the Rakusan Captain Harukawa.
Right now, the flexibility of Inarizaki's tactics is built upon the foundation of Hinata's Quick Attack, so it is of course most important that Hinata plays comfortably.
After giving Miya Osamu a fierce glare, Miya Atsumu turned his head and gave instructions: "Play exactly as we discussed before. Yukihito, just don't mess up the connection."
YES!!
Glancing toward the Inarizaki side, Harukawa turned to look at Miyazaki: "In most matches, Inarizaki's rotation doesn't undergo adjustments. In a late-game situation, Miya Atsumu is almost always in Position 2, serving first in the rotation."
Miyazaki, serve just like we practiced before. Don't worry about anything else; just make scoring your sole objective.
Miyazaki Sho nodded solemnly: "Understood."
Alright, let's go!
Rakusan! Victory!!
[Next, we introduce the starting lineup for both sides. Inarizaki High School, Number 1, Captain, Miya Atsumu.]
Hearing the movement beside him, Aran turned his head toward Unai Aman, who was walking over. "Is your work finished?"
Unai nodded. "Yeah, I just need to go back tonight and do a final check on the typesetting."
Unlike his previous trip to Oita, where he had finished his work beforehand, this time he was in Tokyo, so he basically only came by during Inarizaki's matches, though he would also stay a bit longer during his free time.
He has been using his spare time these past few days to handle the remaining work for the next issue of the magazine, once the editor returns, he will need to communicate with the printing factory.
However, the teacher's health hasn't been very good lately; he even caught a cold and had a fever a few days ago. Once this week's tasks are finished, he plans to take a two-week hiatus to recover and adjust his condition.
Of course, he also had some free time because of this, only needed to focus on preparing his own assignments.
Listening to Unai explain the current situation, Aran couldn't help but remark with emotion, "That sounds really tough, being a weekly columnist.."
"It's actually not that bad, we're only busy because it's just me and the teacher. He actually didn't even want to hire me at first; he only decided to take me on because he really couldn't keep up with the deadlines.." Unai scratched his head.
“Most popular weekly manga artists have their own studios, they often have several assistants. Moreover, nowadays, some of the coloring for the follow-up work doesn't even require manual screentone application; once it's imported into computer software, there are plenty of ways to take it easy on the less important parts.”
Unabara rubbed his chin. "But compared to that, the quality of hand-drawn work is definitely better.."
Since we have these two weeks off, the teacher and I are planning to research the special edition for the tankōbon, he also needs to prepare for the autograph session.
When these things were mentioned, Unai Aman was full of fighting spirit: "These are all precious experiences!"