The buzzer blared through the gymnasium, signaling the substitution.
Itsuki Naruse held up the number 12 paddle, swapping out with Obara.
As he stepped onto the polished hardwood for his first official high school match, a strange, entirely foreign sensation bubbled up in his chest.
It wasn’t anxiety.
It wasn’t statistical calculation.
It was pure, unadulterated joy.
He walked onto the court, his 192-centimeter frame standing tall, and immediately bowed at a crisp, ninety-degree angle to his upperclassmen.
He then turned to the net, facing the Wakutani Minami players, and executed an equally deep, respectful bow.
“I look forward to the match,” Itsuki said politely.
Across the net, Nakashima Takeru blinked, entirely thrown off by the terrifyingly tall freshman acting like a well-mannered businessman.
“Uh…
yeah.
Us too.”
“Don’t let the manners fool you, Nakashima!” Futakuchi yelled from the front row, a vicious smirk on his face.
“He’s a monster who does math!”
The referee blew the whistle, initiating the second set.
Itsuki immediately settled into his zone.
The court transformed into a geometric grid in his mind’s eye.
On the very first rally, Wakutani’s setter pushed a quick attack to the right side.
Before the spiker even left the ground, Itsuki had read the setter’s shoulder angle.
“Sakunami!
Shift left, forty-five degrees!” Itsuki barked from the front line.
Sakunami didn’t hesitate.
He shuffled rapidly to the left just as the Wakutani spiker slammed a sharp cross.
The ball flew straight into Sakunami’s perfectly positioned platform with a satisfying pop.
“NICE DIG, SAKUNAMI!” Koganegawa roared from the bench, shaking the metal chairs.
Sasaya covered the toss, sending it high to Futakuchi, who blasted it through the Wakutani block for the first point of the set.
1 – 0.
“Nice read, rookie,” Kamasaki grunted, giving Itsuki a heavy pat on the back.
“Just adjusting the probability matrix, Kamasaki-san,” Itsuki replied, his eyes sharp.
The rotation shifted, and Itsuki walked back to the service line.
Assistant Coach Nametsu tossed him a volleyball.
Itsuki caught it, the synthetic leather cool and familiar against his palms.
He stood at the end line, looking at the Wakutani Minami formation.
They were expecting a standard float serve.
They were shifting their weight forward, ready for a short drop.
Itsuki slowly spun the ball in his hands.
Flashback.
Kawakami Junior High, two years ago.
The gym was completely empty, save for one player.
The clock on the wall read 7:30 PM.
Squeak.
Toss.
Smack.
Itsuki was drenched in sweat, repeatedly launching himself into the air, serving ball after ball until his shoulder screamed.
He was the volleyball nerd.
The one who arrived before the teachers unlocked the gates and stayed until the janitor kicked him out.
“Naruse, you push yourself too hard,” his middle school captain had told him, packing his bag early.
“It’s just a club activity.
We aren’t going to Nationals anyway.”
Itsuki remembered the crushing weight of that apathy.
He remembered the Chidoriyama match—his final official game in middle school.
His team had given up halfway through the second set.
Desperate to break through Chidoriyama’s suffocating floor defense, he had abandoned his float serve and relied on pure biomechanics.
He remembered the exact feeling.
The perfect approach.
The way his body, shorter then but perfectly proportioned, had coiled in the air.
He had moved like a flash of lightning, twisting his torso backward like a drawn bowstring, aligning his entire kinetic chain into a single, devastating whip of his arm.
When that serve hit the floor, the Chidoriyama libero hadn’t even blinked.
But it wasn’t enough to win the match alone.
A single cannon couldn’t win a war if the fortress was crumbling behind it.
Itsuki snapped out of the flashback, the ambient noise of the Date Tech gym rushing back into his ears.
Tweet!
The referee blew the whistle.
Eight seconds.
Itsuki closed his eyes.
My chassis is different now, he thought.
I am 192 centimeters.
My limbs are longer.
The timing is fractured.
But…
I want to try it.
I want to fire the cannon.
He opened his eyes, a terrifying, icy fire burning in his pupils.
He stepped back, taking a much longer runway than a float serve required.
Across the net, Nakashima’s eyes widened.
“Wait.
He’s backing up.
It’s a jump serve!
Back up!
Deep receive!”
But they were too late.
Itsuki tossed the ball.
He didn’t toss it gently; he launched it high and far into the court, putting a heavy, aggressive top-spin on the leather.
He broke into a sprint.
Left.
Right.
Left.
His sneakers squeaked violently against the hardwood as he planted his feet.
He launched himself into the air.
The sheer explosive power of his jump was staggering.
He soared into the gym lights, hanging at an apex that rivaled Date Tech’s tallest blockers.
Mid-air, the kinetic chain connected.
Itsuki aggressively arched his back, throwing his left arm up to track the ball while his right arm pulled back so far his elbow nearly pointed at the ceiling.
He looked like a massive, terrifying human longbow, drawn to the absolute breaking point.
The Wakutani Minami libero froze, staring up at the terrifying contortion.
What is that form?!
Itsuki’s core violently snapped forward.
The rotational energy transferred perfectly through his elongated spine, into his shoulder, down his arm, and cracked into his wrist.
KABOOM!
The impact sounded like a bomb going off in the enclosed gymnasium.
The ball compressed against Itsuki’s palm, instantly breaking the sound barrier as it shot across the net.
It was a ballistic missile.
It blurred, completely bypassing Nakashima’s reaction time.
The ball plummeted perfectly into the “conflict zone”—the exact seam between the Wakutani wing spiker and the libero.
Neither of them moved.
SLAM!
The volleyball obliterated the hardwood directly on the line, ricocheted at a terrifying upward angle, and slammed violently into the back wall of the gymnasium, echoing with a heavy, metallic CLANG. Visit novelping.com for the full chapter.
Silence.
Absolute, deafening silence descended upon the gymnasium.
The Wakutani Minami players were completely frozen in place, their heads slowly turning to look at the spot where the ball had hit, then up to the back wall, and finally, slowly, back to the towering freshman landing gracefully on the end line.
“Service…
ace,” the referee stammered, raising his flag, visibly shocked.
Itsuki landed.
The momentum carried him forward half a step.
He stood up straight and looked down at his right hand.
His palm was bright red, stinging with a fierce, burning heat.
He slowly clenched his fingers into a fist, feeling the aftershock of the raw power vibrating through his bones.
He closed his eyes.
For a fraction of a second, the phantom memory of his middle school defeat flashed in his mind.
The feeling of turning around after a massive play, only to see teammates who looked indifferent, exhausted, and ready to go home.
The suffocating loneliness of being the only one who cared.
Itsuki opened his eyes.
The world seemed to move in slow motion as he turned his head to look at his current side of the court.
On the bench, Koganegawa had completely lost his mind.
The giant setter was standing on top of the bench—actively being pulled down by Assistant Coach Nametsu—screaming at the top of his lungs, his face red with sheer, unadulterated hype.
Beside him, Sakunami was giving Itsuki two massive thumbs up, though the libero’s face was pale with absolute terror as he vividly imagined having to receive that monstrous serve in practice.
Itsuki looked to the court.
Captain Moniwa was staring at him with wide eyes, looking like he was about to cry tears of sheer joy.
Sasaya—the senior who had taught him how to command the wall—gave him a sharp, deeply respectful salute.
Futakuchi had his hands on his hips, his mouth hanging open slightly before it morphed into a cocky, arrogant smirk that screamed, Yeah, that’s our rookie.
Aone stood perfectly still at the net.
The terrifying giant slowly turned to look at Itsuki, raised a massive fist, and gave a single, incredibly heavy nod of absolute acknowledgment.
And then there was Kamasaki.
“UWOOOOOOHHHHH!!!” Kamasaki roared, sprinting across the court like a runaway freight train.
“NARUSE!”
SMACK!
Kamasaki slapped Itsuki’s back so hard it sounded like another spike, nearly sending the 192-centimeter freshman face-first into the hardwood.
“WHAT WAS THAT?!” Kamasaki bellowed, aggressively ruffling Itsuki’s hair.
“A JUMP SERVE?!
YOU DIDN’T TELL US YOU HAD A CANNON FOR A SERVE!
YOU SNEAKY LITTLE NERD!”
Itsuki stumbled, catching his balance.
His social anxiety usually would have spiked at this level of physical contact and noise.
He would have apologized, hunched his shoulders, and tried to shrink away.
But as he looked at the sheer joy and fierce pride burning in the eyes of his seniors, and heard Coach Oiwake letting out a booming, satisfied laugh from the sidelines…
the anxiety completely vanished.
They weren’t apathetic.
They weren’t giving up.
They were a fortress, and they had just found their spear.
Itsuki Naruse stood up to his full height.
He looked at his red palm, then clenched it into a tight fist.
For the first time since anyone at Date Tech had met him, the quiet, analytical, socially anxious freshman broke his stoic mask completely.
Itsuki threw his fist high into the air, throwing his head back, and let out a raw, triumphant shout that echoed through the entire gymnasium.
“YEEEAAAHHH!”
The Date Tech gym erupted into absolute pandemonium.
The Iron Wall cheered, Koganegawa howled, and the Wakutani Minami players realized with absolute dread that the fortress they were attacking was no longer just playing defense.
Itsuki lowered his arm, his eyes locking onto the Wakutani ace across the net, burning with a competitive fire that would never be extinguished again.
He was home.
And he was Date Tech’s Ace.