The Birth of A Volleyball Legend

Akira didn't need to say it twice as all of his players dropped whatever they were doing immediately, rushing toward him in a hurry. They all had curious gazes with most of them tensed unconsciously, staring at him with solemn eyes.

He could sympathize with them. After spending three months training their asses off with so little to rest, the tournament they had been waiting for was finally in front of their eyes. There was no way they wouldn't feel jitter about it. However, that didn't mean that Akira would let them surround him with a body full of sweat like this.

"Go back and change your shirt first! I will borrow one of the classes close to the gym so that we can see it together. You have five minutes, okay?!"

"Yes, Sir!"

After seeing all of his players scattered to get their shirts changed, Akira turned to Megumi and asked, "Can you help me borrow one of the classes nearby?"

"Sure." The girl nodded before rushing outside.

It didn't even take five minutes before Megumi got to the classroom Akira was asked for. The coach had to give a hat off for the girl's efficiency. However, looking at the tense atmosphere in the room, he knew everyone was impatient and didn't want to hear his small talk at all.

"Okay, wait for a second." The coach connected his laptop to the screen.

Immediately after that, the two devices were connected, and now everyone could see what Akira was doing on his laptop on the screen. The coach accessed this email, clicking twice on the top message there. It came from the volleyball association itself, with just one file with a size of less than one megabyte. When Akira opened it, though, everyone leaned forward immediately, trying to find out the name of their team.

It turned out that this wasn't an easy task. There were about 150 teams across the prefecture joining the tournament with about 30 of them having to go through the first round of the tournament. It was usually reserved for cannon fodder teams who didn't have a good resource to go past the third round and just became the punching bag for the other wealthy teams. However, there would always be some sort of exception in every tournament, just like when Tsunemori managed to end up as one of the top eight teams of the Inter-high tournament last summer.

After a while, with most of them narrowing their eyes to read the names of the schools one by one, Riku suddenly exclaimed, "There it is! Number 87!"

Everyone turned their eyes immediately to where the blonde boy pointed out. As expected, they could see the name of their school there, getting a free pass while waiting for the winner of the first-round game between two schools they had never heard about before.

Tsunemori High Shool VS Sumida High School / Tokomiyama High School

Seeing this, everyone gasped in disbelief. "We have a free pass and don't have to play in the first round?!" Ogawa exclaimed. "That is fucking unbelievable!"

"Why are you so surprised?" Akira raised one of his eyebrows lightly. "You have done so well in the last Inter-high, being the giant killer team before the best team in the country had to put you down. That is not something that could be scoffed out so easily. Be proud that everyone finally noticed your presence."

His words turned out to be a trigger that made most of the sophomore players burst into tears. After their disastrous performance last year which made them have to go from scratch last summer, their effort was finally getting paid off now, and they were sure they couldn't be happier than anyone else.

"Okay, don't be too happy about it! Let's focus on the bracket!" The coach clapped his hand, gaining everyone's attention. "The two teams that are probably going to be our opponent are pretty weak teams. However, I don't want you all to underestimate them. After all, just a few months ago, we were in the same category as them, and look at us now! So, I don't want you all to get sloppy and make a mistake, okay?!"

"Yes, Sensei!"

Then, Akira turned to Megumi. "Sorry, Ayaka-san, but I have to ask you to scout their game first to give us an image of what to expect can you do that?"

The girl pondered for a moment before nodding her head. "Sure! When would it be?"

"Two weeks from now, on 25th October to be more exact. Can you do it?" Seeing the affirmative nod from the girl, he let out a relieved sigh before turning back to his players. "Well, we can talk about our next opponent when it has been determined already. For now, let's focus back on the bracket, okay?"

Yuki turned his eyes back to the screen already, searching for the names of strong teams he wanted to avoid. Just as expected, Konan and Matsukita were on different sides of the bracket, which meant anyone who wanted to go through the final had to play one of them, and if they wanted to win it all and break Konan's dominance, they had to slay the two national giants here.

After scanning the bracket, he found out that Tsunemori was on Matsukita's side, but they were separated by more than 40 teams there, which meant that they would have to face the second-best team in the country in the semifinal. This alone was good news for the team. However, it seemed that lady luck was completely on their side, as Kyoei Gakuen and Shimoyawata were on the other side of the bracket, which made it impossible for Tsunemori to face them except if they somehow won against Konan High.

Still, there were some strong teams on their bracket side, like Kodokan High or Tsukiji High. However, compared to the other teams they had faced in the past, all the Tsunemori players felt more optimistic about playing against them.

"Goddamnit! We hit a jackpot here!" Kaede murmured in disbelief. "How could we have a very favorable draw like this?!" The others also nodded in agreement.

"Well, everyone will also think the same." Riku shrugged, somehow feeling disappointed that the strong teams were not on their side. Yuki had to roll his eyes, feeling the urge to smack his friend hard now. "Man, this is going to be boring!"

"Hey, be grateful, you blonde bastard! I would rather watch those strong teams slaying each other rather than have us playing against them!" Find exclusive stories on empire

"I get it, but this would be so boring! Can we have one or two strong, underdog teams on our bracket side?"

"Hey, don't jinx it!"

As they bickered for a while, little did they know that the universe was messing around with them, putting so many strong teams under the radar on their bracket side. However, that would be a story for another time. For now, everyone was happy, looking forward to their first game of the tournament.