Watching the volleyball ricochet off his hands and fly farther and farther away, the boy from North River Middle School looked utterly ashamed. He had not done it on purpose... but in the end, he was not a trained volleyball player. The only reason he could even take part in the match was that he had a little talent.
But that little bit of talent was nowhere near enough in front of a true powerhouse.
To the point where even a casual strike from the other side could completely crush them.
And that was the reality now. If Hank had not just come on as a substitute, they might already have been completely steamrolled. For them, that was an enormous humiliation, but they had no way to change it.
After all, with a ball flying straight out of bounds like that, there was no way anyone could save it... and the result was exactly what he expected. The ball landed outside the line. Once the referee handed possession over to the other side, Kindaichi, who had been blocking in the front row, rotated into the back row.
"Don't relax."
Tobio Kageyama gave that cold warning and did not look back again. Instead, he kept staring at Hank, who was still guarding the net, his face full of seriousness.
Thump!
The ball dropped steadily into the back court and traced a fairly clean arc... but the ball that should have gone to North River Middle School's setter was overpassed by the libero in the back row, who used too much force on the receive. It drifted dangerously close to the net.
"A chance. Don't let it slip."
After one glance at the ball about to fall onto his team's side, Tobio Kageyama turned around and barked at his teammates.
Boom!
Just when everyone thought that ball was a free ball for Kitagawa Daiichi Junior High, Hank, who had been staying by the net the whole time, seized the instant before the ball crossed into Kitagawa Daiichi's court. He leaped up again, rising above the net once more.
Then he hammered the ball down right along the attack line with a vicious power spike. At the sharp sound of that explosive jump... Tobio Kageyama froze on the spot.
Looking at Hank, who had suddenly appeared above him, he felt the power of an ace for the first time. There was no doubt about it: whether it was physical ability or raw athletic talent, Hank deserved to be called North River Middle School's unquestionable ace!
"How is that possible... He could even get to a ball like that!? And he immediately turned it into a second attack. Rather than volleyball talent, what's really monstrous is his outrageous physical talent!"
"If we're only talking about volleyball technique, he's still very rough. You could even say he's just a beginner. But with that kind of physical gift, if he's polished properly, he'll absolutely become a perfect unpolished gem!"
"I never thought I'd get to see a prodigy like this in a junior high tournament..."
After Hank used his top-tier vertical jump to snatch away a point that was almost impossible to win, the whole venue erupted.
No one had expected North River Middle School to fight Kitagawa Daiichi Junior High for this long.
A lot of people had already assumed North River Middle School was basically guaranteed to lose, but once Hank stepped onto the court, everything changed!
At this point, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Hank alone had changed the entire flow of the match. Volleyball was supposed to be a team sport. Yes, individual heroics did exist, but in front of a truly complete team, one person was usually not enough to make any real waves.
[Ding! Detected that the host's first match has caused a huge reaction! Reward: Jump Float Serve!]
"..."
After watching Hank score four straight points by himself, Kitagawa Daiichi Junior High finally could not hold back any longer and called a time-out, hoping that this brief break would cool his momentum. But the instant Hank stepped off the court... the system notification sounded in his ear again!
This time, he had actually obtained the technique for a jump float serve!?
As the name suggested, the jump float serve was performed by tossing the ball high with one hand, then striking it in midair so that it drifted unpredictably up and down... or side to side.
Because the ball had almost no spin, it could move in a completely irregular way in the air. That made an already fast serve even harder to receive. Hank knew quite a bit about that. At his current stage, once he had a jump serve like this...
Very few people would be able to handle it. After all, this was only a junior high tournament. There simply were not many players with truly solid receiving fundamentals.
Aside from those who had trained from childhood, almost no one could deal with it consistently. Right now, Hank could rely on his serve to score directly.
It seemed that after obtaining the King of Volleyball System, this match, which had once been nearly impossible to win, finally had a real chance of turning into a victory!
"Hank, in the next stretch of the match... just keep playing at your own pace. Don't get rattled."
"I completely overlooked you in training before. I never imagined you had this much talent!"
Coach Sumi looked at Hank standing in front of him and could not help but sigh in amazement. To think that a player this gifted had gone completely unnoticed by him before... for a coach, that was practically negligence.
(End of Chapter)
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