The Birth of A Volleyball Legend

*SPLASH!*

Instead of crossing to the other side of the court successfully, the ball hit the net, making Kyoei\'s players on the front-line wince unconsciously when they realized a powerful spike flew past their faces a second ago. The silence befell the court was finally broken by the cheers exploding from the crowds.

"YOSSHAA!!"

"Come on! We got the first point!"

"Come on, everyone! Don\'t give them any chance to score!"

"Beat them all!"

Amidst the cheers that celebrated Nitta\'s failure, the corner of Ito\'s mouth twitched in annoyance when he saw the ball bounced in their area, which gave Tsunemori the first point of the game.

"What the hell, Nitta?!" He landed a chop straight to Nitta\'s head. "Don\'t play around like this!"

"Arkh!" The one who received the chop winced, rubbing the spot where he had just been hit. "It is just the first play, and I am still warming up! Why are you so worried, Senpai?!"

"That\'s because it is the first play that we have to grab the initiative from the start!" Ito scolded. When he received the stare from the referee though, he held back his frustration toward his kouhai before sighing and said, "The longer the time you need to get into the game, the longer we are going to win the game. Just get that into your thick skull."

Meanwhile, on the other side of the net, even though they just got one point freely, there was no crazy celebration from Tsunemori players. They looked at each other solemnly, especially when they remembered how the ball still moving and had a strong momentum to push forward even though it hit the net already.

"The amount of power he has is insane," Riku commented. "It will be bad if his aggressiveness is the same as the record we watched."

"Yeah." Yuki nodded solemnly. Then, he turned his attention to the other players who gathered around him. "If any of you have a chance to attack, try to always target him. Let\'s see if he can go back and forth for the entire game."

"Sure."

After that, the referee blew his whistle, signaling for Tsunemori to do the next serve. Riku stepped up and grabbed the ball from the referee, followed by the crazy cheers that exploded once again from outside of the court.

"RIKU-SAMA! KYAA!"

"Please, look at here, Riku-sama!"

"Riku-sama!"

All the Kyoei players were startled at the sudden cheers, then turned their eyes at Haruo speechlessly. This was the exact same reaction their middle blocker would receive from the girls at their school, and they didn\'t expect to see someone receiving the end of it. And based on the normal reaction from Tsunemori players, they all knew the opposite side also got used to the crazy fangirls already.

Still, they were not lowering their guard at all, especially when Riku took his time and space outside of the sideline for his serve. By now, they all had already watched the record of Riku\'s jump serve and they came prepared for this.

*BAM!*

All the Kyoei players were ready for Riku\'s serve. When they saw it went straight in Nitta\'s direction, just like their normal operation, their ace took a step aside and let his teammates receive the serve.

"Oh! Nice receive, Aki!"

Riku was surprised for a second, didn\'t expect the opponent to receive his serve so easily. It seemed what he thought was right, there was definitely no cannon fodder in a team like Kyoei.

"Yamada! Left!"

Seeing Nitta start his run-up and ask for the ball, all the Tsunemori players tensed for a second. Yuki stared at the setter\'s eyes for a second before noticing there was no hint of deception there, so he knew the ball would fly into their ace. He turned his attention there, just to find out Nitta was eyeing him hungrily.

\'He is going to target me again?!\'

*BAM!*

Nitta unleashed a powerful spike, aiming it straight at Yuki. Unfortunately, he forgot the presence of the blocker in front of him who reacted in time to touch the ball and reduced its speed in the air.

"OH! Nice block, Hirano-senpai! Chance ball!"

"I got this!"

Yuki reacted quickly when he saw the ball fly close to the sideline. He was surprised though, to see that there was no reaction on Kyoei\'s side as if they had already expected something like this to happen. What he didn\'t know was that he and Hirano had already been noted as Tsunemori\'s key players by Saito.

Still…

\'Let\'s test their defense first.\'

Yuki passed the ball to Riku on the right side The blonde boy didn\'t even have to move as the ball came perfectly in his direction. Now, his job was to figure out how to deal with the blockers in front of him. The pressure he felt under Harup\'s eyes was so intense that he froze for a second. However, Riku was the type of player who got more excited the better his opponent was.

He tried to fool Haruo by glancing sideways at Koji on the left side. However, Kyoei\'s middle blocker didn\'t bulge, keeping his eyes on him. Riku was surprised, then thought, \'Then, can you react quick enough for this?\'

Riku passed the ball to Koji on the left wing, the pass contained some speed for the hitter to do a quick. Seeing the ball aimed directly at him, Koji grinned, leaped forward before spiking the ball hard toward the opposite side.

*BAM!*

There was no resistance from Kyoei\'s players as the ball pierced their defense, falling into the backside of their side. Koji stared in disbelief when he watched it, not expecting things would go so easily. But when the crowds cheered on him, he clenched his fist immediately, knowing another point added to the team because of him.

"YOSSHAAA!"

-0-

Saito on the sideline just sighed in exasperation when he saw the late reaction from his players. This was the bad habit that plagued the team for a while. It would usually take them a long time before they got into the game. That was why they were always chasing from behind in the beginning, and when they played against a strong team, they would always lose the first set.

Still, he didn\'t want something like this to always happen. He glanced at the bench players next to him and thought of a way to get his players\' engines to turn on quickly. Without hesitation, he said to all of them, "Start warming up. Be ready to play at any time."

The bench players were taken aback by the sudden instruction, but they nodded their heads quickly. "YES, SIR!"

With the threat of getting replaced when the game hadn\'t even run for more than five minutes, Saito wanted to see which one of his players would still dare to slack off because it was still the beginning of the game.

\'Let\'s just hope they get my message and start to get serious.\'