The shrill blast of Coach Oiwake’s whistle echoed like a gunshot, instantly transforming the Date Tech gymnasium into a battlefield.
“Modified 4-on-4!” Moniwa yelled across the net, clapping his hands to hype himself up as much as anyone else.
“First to fifteen points!
Let’s have a good, clean game!”
The teams had been heavily stacked by the coach to test the rookies.
Team A: Moniwa (Setter), Kamasaki (Middle Blocker), Itsuki (Wing Spiker), and Sakunami (Libero).
Team B: Sasaya (Utility/Setter for this match), Aone (Middle Blocker), Futakuchi (Wing Spiker), and Koganegawa (Middle Blocker).
“I’M GONNA BLOCK EVERYTHING!” Koganegawa bellowed from Team B’s side of the net, throwing his long arms into the air.
“I AM THE WALL!”
“You’re going to trip over your own shoelaces, you oversized baby bird!” Kamasaki roared back, pointing aggressively through the net.
“I’ll blast the ball right through your chest!”
“Both of you, please keep the volume down!” Moniwa pleaded, his captain’s authority already crumbling.
Itsuki stood near the left side of the court, tuning out the shouting.
He was staring at the other side of the net.
Specifically, he was staring at the terrifying canopy of Aone and Futakuchi.
His hands were sweaty.
He had spent the last three days doing nothing but approach jumps, recalibrating his apex.
Now, it was time to test it with a ball.
“Naruse!” Moniwa called out.
“First toss is going to you!”
Sasaya served a float ball over the net.
Sakunami moved with textbook precision, his low center of gravity allowing him to slide perfectly under the ball.
Bump.
A flawless, high receive right to the setter.
“Nice receive!” Itsuki called out, beginning his approach.
Left, right, left.
Itsuki planted his feet and exploded upward.
His newly adjusted timing was flawless.
He hung in the air, his 192-centimeter frame soaring, arm pulled back like a drawn bowstring.
It felt perfect.
Then, the lights went out.
Not literally.
But Aone Takanobu and Futakuchi Kenji had jumped an instant after him.
Aone’s massive, pale hands and Futakuchi’s perfectly angled arms formed an inescapable canopy that blotted out the gym ceiling.
Itsuki’s brain went into overdrive.
Inner cross is sealed.
Straight is sealed.
Wipe the block?
No, Aone’s hands are tilted inward to prevent tooling.
He hesitated for a fraction of a second, trying to calculate a new angle mid-air.
That hesitation bled the power from his swing.
He desperately tried a soft push past Futakuchi’s arm.
SMACK.
Aone didn’t even swing his arms.
He just forcefully pressed his hands forward.
The ball rebounded off the giant’s palms and slammed directly into the floor on Itsuki’s side of the net, mere inches from his own shoes.
“Shut out,” Futakuchi smirked, landing gracefully.
He pointed at Itsuki.
“What happened to the calculator in your head, freshman?
Did the batteries die?”
Aone landed silently, offering nothing but a deep, intimidating glare that made Sakunami squeak from the back row.
Itsuki grit his teeth.
“Damn it.”
“NARUSE!
WHAT WAS THAT WIMPY SWING?!” Kamasaki bellowed, grabbing Itsuki by the shoulders and shaking him.
“IF THERE’S A WALL, YOU DON’T POKE IT!
YOU PUNCH IT!
USE YOUR MUSCLES!”
“He’s right, Naruse-kun,” Moniwa said, far more gently, prying Kamasaki off.
“You hung in the air beautifully, but you slowed your arm down because you were looking for a gap.
If you lose your swing speed, a block like Aone’s will swallow you whole.”
The match continued, and the first-years’ struggles became painfully apparent.
Koganegawa, on Team B, was entirely chaotic.
When Sasaya set the ball to Futakuchi, Koganegawa accidentally jumped at the same time, completely bumping into Futakuchi mid-air and sending both of them crashing into the net.
“YOU IDIOT!” Futakuchi yelled, untangling himself from the net and a flailing Koganegawa.
“YOU’RE ON MY TEAM!
WHY ARE YOU BLOCKING ME?!”
“I GOT EXCITED!” Koganegawa wailed, bowing furiously on his knees.
Every time he jumped, Aone was there.
The silent giant’s read-blocking was terrifying; he didn’t jump on instinct, he watched the set, watched Itsuki’s shoulders, and built an impenetrable wall exactly where the ball was going to be.
Itsuki managed to tool the block once, but Sasaya easily picked it up in the back row.
Tweet!
“Timeout!” Moniwa called, seeing the absolute frustration radiating from his first-year spiker.
They gathered near the sideline.
Itsuki was breathing hard, wiping sweat from his eyes.
“I can’t break through,” he muttered, staring at the floor.
“By the time I see the seam in the block, Aone-san has already closed it.
And if I try to hit a sharp angle, Futakuchi-san is waiting for it.
They’re trapping me.”
“Of course they are,” a calm voice said.
Itsuki looked up.
Sasaya, the third-year wing spiker from the opposing team, had walked over to the water fountain near them.
He tossed a towel over his neck.
“You’re a smart player, Naruse,” Sasaya said, offering a small, mentor-like smile.
“Your spatial awareness is incredible.
But you’re fighting the battle entirely in the air.
That’s why you’re losing.”
Itsuki blinked.
“I don’t understand.”
“Aone and Futakuchi are taller, stronger, and more experienced,” Sasaya explained, taking a sip of water.
“If you jump at the same time and try to out-think them mid-air, they will crush you.
An ace doesn’t just fight in the air, Naruse.
He sets the trap on the ground.”
“On the ground…” Itsuki murmured.
“Where are you looking during your approach?” Sasaya asked.
“At the ball, and then at the blockers’ hands.”
“Stop looking at their hands,” Sasaya instructed.
“Look at their feet.
Look at their eyes.
Before you even jump, you should know exactly what they are planning.
Make them think you’re going for a sharp cross, force them to shift their weight, and then, with that incredible mid-air control of yours, hit the straight.
Don’t react to the wall.
Command the wall.”
Sasaya patted Itsuki on the shoulder and jogged back to his side of the court.
Itsuki stood entirely still.
His mind, usually a whirlwind of chaotic calculations, suddenly crystallized.
Command the wall.
He turned to Moniwa.
“Captain,” Itsuki said, his voice dropping into that quiet, terrifyingly intense register.
“Next toss.
Keep it slightly further off the net.
Give me a wider runway.”
Moniwa felt a shiver run down his spine.
“G-Got it.”
The whistle blew.
Team B served.
Sasaya hit a nasty jump float aimed directly at the corner.
Sakunami, who had been quietly observing the older players all match, didn’t panic.
He remembered Itsuki’s words from the walk home: Watch the shoulders.
Sakunami shifted his weight a fraction of a second before Sasaya struck the ball, stepping smoothly into the trajectory.
Smack.
A perfect, dead-center receive.
“Great receive, Sakunami!” Moniwa praised, getting under the ball.
Itsuki started his run-up.
But this time, he didn’t look up at the ball.
He locked eyes with Futakuchi across the net.
He took a slightly wider angle, his shoulders angled sharply inward, practically screaming that he was going for an extreme cross-court spike.
He’s frustrated, Futakuchi thought, reading the aggressive body language.
He’s going to try and blast it cross to avoid Aone.
Futakuchi shifted his weight to the left, preparing to seal the cross.
Beside him, Aone tracked Itsuki’s movement, taking a heavy step to close the gap.
Itsuki planted his left foot.
He leaped.
Because Moniwa had left the toss slightly off the net, Itsuki had room to operate.
As he reached the apex, Aone and Futakuchi launched themselves, a massive wall rising to shut down the cross-court angle.
But Itsuki didn’t swing.
Not immediately.
Hanging in the air, utilizing the absolute peak of his newly found center of gravity, Itsuki stalled his right arm.
He tensed his core, stopping his mid-air momentum.
The Date Tech blockers had jumped a fraction of a second early to catch his aggressive approach.
For one agonizing heartbeat, the gym seemed to hold its breath.
Aone and Futakuchi reached the peak of their jump—and then, gravity took hold.
They began to descend.
Millimeter by millimeter, the Iron Wall fell.
The moment Aone’s massive hands dipped below Itsuki’s line of sight, Itsuki snapped his torso forward.
He didn’t hit the cross.
He whipped his arm in a violent, perfectly calculated motion, smashing the ball straight down the line—the exact space Futakuchi had abandoned when he shifted his weight.
BAAAM!
The ball struck the hardwood with explosive force, entirely untouched, bouncing high into the bleachers.
Silence descended on the gym.
Futakuchi landed, his eyes wide, looking over his shoulder at the mark the ball had left on the floor.
Aone stared at his own hands, realizing he had been completely manipulated.
“YESSS!” Kamasaki roared, grabbing Itsuki in a suffocating bear hug.
“THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!
YOU PUNCHED A HOLE RIGHT THROUGH THEM!”
“I-I didn’t punch a hole,” Itsuki wheezed, trying to escape the vice grip.
“I just went around it.”
“Same thing!” Kamasaki yelled.
Sakunami threw his fists in the air, cheering wildly.
Even Koganegawa, on the opposing team, was starry-eyed.
“WHOA!
NARUSE, YOU LOOKED LIKE YOU WERE FLOATING!
TEACH ME HOW TO FLOAT!”
Futakuchi ran a hand through his hair, a mixture of intense irritation and genuine respect flashing across his face.
He pointed at Itsuki.
“You little brat.
You set that up from the moment you started running, didn’t you?”
Itsuki, finally free from Kamasaki, gave a small, polite bow.
“Mathematically speaking, it was the highest probability of success, Futakuchi-san.”
Futakuchi’s eye twitched.
“I take back every nice thing I ever thought about you.
Aone, we are shutting this nerd out for the rest of his high school career.”
Aone didn’t nod.
He stepped up to the net, locked his dark eyes onto Itsuki, and extended a single, massive finger, pointing it directly at the first-year’s chest.
The ultimate lock-on.
He wasn’t just acknowledging a teammate; he was acknowledging a rival.
Itsuki’s heart hammered against his ribs.
He smiled—a small, fierce, entirely confident smile.
Standing by the gym doors, Coach Oiwake clicked his pen, scribbling a final note onto his clipboard.
Assistant Coach Nametsu stood next to him, her eyes wide.
“He purposely delayed his swing to let the block fall.
To do that against Aone and Futakuchi…
his core strength and mental processing are terrifying.”
“Sasaya gave him the key, but the kid turned the lock himself,” Oiwake said, his gruff voice carrying a note of deep satisfaction.
Oiwake looked at the court.
Date Tech was famous in Miyagi for one thing: a towering, immovable wall of defense that crushed opponents’ spirits.
They were heavy, powerful, and unyielding.
But looking at Itsuki Naruse, Oiwake saw the future.
“Our opponents know what to expect from Date Tech,” Oiwake murmured.
“They expect Kamasaki’s brute force and Aone’s absolute blockade.
They expect us to fight them head-on.
But now…”
Oiwake tapped the clipboard.
“…Now we have a sniper hiding behind the wall.
A player who uses the chaos and intimidation of our blockers to mathematically dismantle the opponent from the inside out.
Once Koganegawa learns how to toss from that ridiculous height, and Sakunami locks down the floor…”
The coach allowed himself a grim, terrifying smile.
“Let Aoba Johsai and Shiratorizawa boast about their aces,” Oiwake said softly.
“The Iron Wall is going to be armed to the teeth.”