Chapter 9: Ichise Guren's Powerful Jump Serve
After the serve rotation, Ichise Guren moved from position 6 to position 1, preparing for his serving turn. He came to the right side of his court's baseline, spinning the ball and feeling its rotation in his palm, mobilizing every nerve to sense the ball's weight and texture.
Meanwhile, the Yukigaoka players who had rotated to the front row quickly completed the motion of crossing their hands behind their heads, then assumed trembling poses.
This action left the opposing players somewhat puzzled, but Kageyama Tobio's mind formed some guesses, and he began taking the upcoming serve even more seriously.
After confirming that Ichise Guren was holding the volleyball, the referee blew the whistle to begin the eight-second count.
At the same time as the whistle, the sound of Ichise Guren's serve rang out. This powerful surprise attack caught all the Kitagawa Daiichi players off guard. Even after the volleyball hit the ground and slowly stopped rolling, no one made any movement.
The referee's whistle blew, and only then did the Kitagawa players realize that their opponents had scored another point.
"Damn it! Libero! What were you doing? Your role on the court is defense!"
"Now you can't even touch the ball—what's the point of you being on the court?!"
For two consecutive rallies, Kageyama Tobio hadn't even touched the ball once as they lost two points, and his back-row teammates' complete inaction made his irritation even worse.
Kitagawa Daiichi's coach gripped his thermos tightly, frowning as he stared intently at the Yukigaoka players.
'How have we never heard of this team before?'
'Not only do they have a player over 195cm tall, but this 180-something server doesn't seem like someone to mess with either.'
'We're not going to suffer an upset in this prefectural tournament, are we?'
Looking at Kageyama Tobio loudly scolding across the court, Hinata Shoyo didn't pay much attention, thinking it was just a natural argument arising from disagreement.
Instead, he covered the back of his head again and shouted loudly:
"One more ball! Guren!"
"You got it!"
Kitagawa Daiichi quickly regrouped, preparing vigilantly for Ichise Guren's second serve.
This time, however, after hearing the referee's whistle, Ichise Guren didn't rush to jump serve. He knew in his heart that if he served another power-reduced ball aimed at quick attack, it would very likely be received directly by the opponents.
So he naturally tossed the ball up, giving himself plenty of time for a running approach.
One step, two steps, three steps!
As Ichise Guren leaped into the air, the Heavy Artillery badge glowed brightly in his mind, and after that successful serve, the In the Zone badge quietly lit up as well.
The sounds around him suddenly disappeared, the entire world fell silent, and he could only hear his own heartbeat and breathing.
His eyes locked dead onto the volleyball, hand-eye coordination reaching the peak of neural signal transmission at this moment.
Perfect takeoff, perfect airtime, perfect timing, perfect arm swing.
To put it in 2K terms, this serve was "green-lighted."
"BANG!"
A deep, heavy sound rang out in Yukigaoka's half of the court.
The volleyball, carrying reverberating sound, whistled toward Kitagawa Daiichi's half.
"SLAM!"
It crashed down in bounds.
The Kitagawa players all turned their heads in unison to look at the volleyball still rolling behind them, fear creeping onto their faces.
Sugawara Koshi was startled by Ichise Guren's powerful jump serve.
"What kind of serve was that? Holy crap!"
"Are today's junior high students this intense?"
Tanaka Ryunosuke's face also took on a serious expression as he began thinking about whether his good friend could receive such a ball.
"I wonder if Nishinoya could handle that ball."
Seeing his two teammates again treating the opponents as hypothetical enemies, Sawamura Daichi laughed heartily.
He was happy to see that even after experiencing being shut down by iron walls, their ace leaving the team, and their libero departing as well, his teammates were still throwing themselves wholeheartedly into volleyball with high fighting spirit.
So Sawamura Daichi joined his teammates' discussion with a smile, planning how to deal with those players when they entered high school.
Meanwhile, Kitagawa Daiichi's coach sitting on the sideline couldn't sit still any longer.
Although this was only Ichise Guren's second serve, this was already their third point lost. Moreover, in these three rallies, except for Kitagawa's number 3's serve in the first rally, no one had touched the ball since.
If they let that number 1 continue like this, their team's morale might collapse.
Kitagawa Daiichi's coach hurriedly called a timeout from the referee.
First, to adjust his players' condition and morale, and second, hoping this interruption could cool down Ichise Guren's hot hand. After all, even professional players didn't have a 100% success rate for service aces.
With only a few tenths of a second of ball contact time, even the most skilled players could easily make mistakes.
"Ahem!"
"Don't worry, that number 1 on the other side can't possibly serve such high-quality balls every time. After this timeout, his hand might already be cold."
"Moreover, we're only seeing that powerful jump serve for the first time—the previous two points weren't earned through his powerful jump serve!"
"We've just started the match. Once we adapt for a while longer, we'll definitely be able to receive his serves!"
Hearing their coach's speech, many Kitagawa Daiichi players had sudden realizations.
'That's right, his powerful jump serve only earned one point.'
'Why scare ourselves? The first point was that tall guy's super-hand attack, the second point was number 1's surprise attack.'
At this moment, Kitagawa Daiichi's captain also began an inspiring speech.
"That's right, what are we afraid of? The match has just begun!"
"Don't you all have confidence in your three years of training?"
"Think about how much time and sweat you've put in these three years!"
"Hard work never lies!"
Kitagawa's players were all fired up with fighting spirit.
"That's right! What are we afraid of!"
"We're Kitagawa Daiichi!"
"Let's go! I'm definitely going to receive his serve!"
However, the king within the Kitagawa team, Kageyama Tobio, still wore an displeased expression.
He called over his team's libero.
"Hey! Next time he serves, I'll receive it!"
"No matter how powerful his serve is! If you can't handle it, just stand still and don't move!"
"Within three balls, I'll definitely receive it properly!"
After hearing this, the Kitagawa libero looked at Kageyama Tobio, who had arbitrarily taken over his role, and didn't mince words, directly retorting:
"If you're so great, why didn't you receive it just now?"
"What gives you the right to tell me not to go for the ball?"
Kageyama Tobio glared back at him.
"My feet moved just now!"
"While you stood there without moving at all!"
The libero was about to curse back, but then remembered something.
'This guy at that time...'
Although the Kitagawa libero was very reluctant to admit it, when he carefully recalled the moment, he realized that he indeed hadn't moved, while Kageyama Tobio's feet had actually been in motion.
Without loudly retorting, he just picked up a towel and wiped his sweat.
"Mind your own business."
Seeing that the other party didn't continue arguing, Kageyama Tobio didn't say anything more.
He just clicked his tongue once and walked back to the court.
Returning from the timeout, it was still Ichise Guren's serving turn. The tactic of using timeouts to disrupt a server's rhythm was usually very effective.
But for the current Ichise Guren, it wasn't very useful, because his third badge had already begun to glow.
[Microwave] - No matter the situation, his shooting touch would never go cold.
With the double boost from [Heavy Artillery] and [In the Zone], Ichise Guren's serves earned two more consecutive points.
The score reached 5:0.
All the spectators in attendance clicked their tongues in amazement.
"This is incredible! Could Yukigaoka actually take down Kitagawa Daiichi?"
"Too scary, what a super dark horse!"
"A huge upset! If this continues..."
"You can't tell at all that Kitagawa Daiichi was last year's champion team!"
"Yeah, isn't this match completely one-sided with Yukigaoka dominating!"
"They've already called one timeout, and that king hasn't even touched the ball on court!"
*****
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