A family thing

Chapter 22 Feel my ego

"Anri-Chan.", Ego spoke. "Do you know what awakening is?" 
"You mean that stuff from those heroes in those movies, don't you?", she asked confused. "Like the thing when Peter Parker suddenly felt his powers." 
"Not really.", the skinny football freak replied as he looked at the game on his monitors. "That's an idiot's thing to come up with." 
Anri just stared at the man sitting in a very bad posture on the boss chair. 
'Did he just call me idiot?!', she thought. 
"Awakening is not a supernatural phenomena or gaining superhuman powers, or any kind of that unrealistic shit.", Ego explained his thesis. "That's just a delusion of a person who tends to dream. Got it? 'Awakening' is a puzzle that occurs on top of accumulated thoughts and experience. The build up failures and trial and error procedure even then when facing the ultimate hurdle and trying to win over it. The scrambled pieces to success fit into their places and then. And only then. Ego will  bloom." 
A dark aura surrounded the project manager of blue lock. Some might describe it as cool and dramatic, but Anri would rather call it creepy and kinda lunatic. If that stupid man in front of her wasn't the manager she chose by herself, she would have put him into a facility to cure psychological disorders long ago and definitely not even close to children. 
"In other words.", Ego continued. "The moment you learn to know what you yourself really are. That is 'awakening'." 

Zantetsu threw the ball to Reo who immediately crossed it to Nagi. The white haired trapped it with his chest and kept it in the air to get past Igaguri and Yoichi. The number seven then jumped up and kicked it. 
'Easy goal.', Reo thought as Nagi got to kick the ball without being budged. However, it didn't go into the net as they intended it to be. It went back to the direction of their goal. Yoichi was still up in the air with a small round mark on his forehead. 
'That's the reason why middle blockers are awesome.', he thought of the technique he has just used to deflect a demonic attack and landed on the ground. he quickly rushed past Nagi. Suddenly everything became slower. He could feel his vision over everything begin to expand. Every detail could be seen now. The lines multiplied themselves. Everyone was now on a pin point position. 
'If this is the vision Nii-San gets to see everytime he is on the court. Then it's fucking amazing.', Yoichi thought as he sprinted throught the middle. Raichi retrieved the ball in a very slow motion. Almost like he was a person on a YouTube video that was being played at a quater of its actual speed. Every information about everything became so clear. 
'What the hell is happening.', was the only thing Yoichi had in mind. 'Whatever it is, it's fucking amazing!!!' 
The ball slid to him and was immediately nutmegged through the legs of a team V player. Yoichi ran past him and then crossed it over to Bachira. 
'Right on mark.', Yoichi thought and continued to run into the direction of the box. In the corner of his eyes he could observe every tiny detail of Bachira's crazy dribbling. For him it was almost like watching a YouTube-tutorial. Blue light surrounded him. His ice blue eyes were the source of it. He stared at the dribbling monster with only one clear message everyone on the pitch could hear without him having to say a word. Even the team V players. 
"FUCK!", Reo cursed. "MARK HIM GUYS!!!!" 
"Give it.", Yoichi whispered with a deadly hissing under it. 
"Coming right your way, Kageyama.", Bachira said excited and crossed it across the pitch to the box. However, Yoichi has already inside the penaly area. 
"Shit.", the dribbling monster cursed. 
"THERE IT IS!!! GET THE BALL!!!", Reo ordered his minions. A marksman cross appeared on the rotating sphere only visable to one person. Yoichi stopped his run with his right leg and used the kinetic energy he has built up with his sprint to bounce back to where the sloppy cross was sent to by his team mate. He could already see Nagi running back to defend, but it was still in slow motion. It didn't matter to him anymore. Like Ego said. Claim victory as a logical sequence. With that mindset, Yoichi ran up the way his mentor has taught him and lunged himself into the air. But this time, he didn't keep a straight body tension like the way he would, when he was spiking a volleyball. This time he leaned back, like backflip performers and swung his leg in the process like a whip. A huge bang could be heard, as he made contact with the leather. Sheer power built up by his leg swing forced the ball into the net and ripped the anchor of it out of the grass. Yoichi landed on his back and jumped up imediately to lock eyes with Nagi, "Know your place, effortless lazy bastard." 
With that he walked back to his starting position. 
"Just winning up by one, isn't going to satisfy me.", he added. "While your satisfaction with your talentless potential and the boyfriend of yours, who thought, that you'd be the key for him to win everything is going to go under on the battlefield I created." 

Hinata wasn't in Japan only for his sister's national tournament. In reality, it was because of the training and preperation for Paris 2024. Right now, they were having a practise game in the nationals team gym. Iwaizumi being Iwaizumi of course put him with Atsumu just to seperate him from Kageyama. That wasn't really the worst part of it. The worst part of it was him having to play as wing spiker and Ushijima playing as opposite hitter on the same team. 
'Oh boy... two demanding spikers with big egos... I hate this kind of situations, when I'm not really the one to decide.', Atsumu thought as he ran to the ball after a beautiful receive by Yaku, their Libero. The only player on the Japanese men's National Volleyball team, who was shorter than the outside hitter on the left side calling for a perfect fast set. But that didn't help him in any kind of way. The pressure and aura of that short tangerine and the stupid canon are never gonna stop. The times he chose Hoshiumi over both of them just earned him glares of daggers from four eyes. 
'Poor Atsumu...', Suna thought as he ran up to jump into the air. His tempo was a bit slower than Hinata which was meant to be. 'That's why I don't like the setter role.'
"Fucking hell. Only Kageyama knows how to deal with this shit.", he muttered under his breath and pushed the ball to the outside, where Hinata was already in the air. 'How does Tobio do it? Oh right he stares back, but unlike him, these two bastards just see me as a fucking joke.' 
The blonde dude ran to secure the attack to prevent a possible monster block by the three man block built out of Kageyama, Hyakuzawa and Bokuto. 
'I still don't know what the mum of this dude fed him just to get him the size of Shaquille O'Neal.', Atsumu muttered inside his mind out of jealousy. Height didn't matter for Hinata though. He has proven it many times and was about to prove it again. The 172 centimeters big outside hitter swung his arm and smashed the ball to the corner of the side-out-line and the net line making them win the set. Hinata landed gracefully onto the ground. 
"Alright, that was a great set.", Iwaizumi clapped with his hands. "Good positioning of the block, but I guess you can't cover everything up. Maybe next set we switch Kageyama and Gao at the starting line up. That way, Hinata gets higher blocks, so it's a bit more challenging for him. Now, let's have a small break before we resume."
A stare down involving Ushijima, Hinata and Atsumu began right after the break was announced. Atsumu however popped up more like a little kitten who has got between two lions.
"Yo look at him. He's gonna get threesomed.", Suna said to Kageyama who smirked at the sight. "How do you deal with those two though? I'm kinda curious."
"Easy.", Kageyama said.  "You stare back. You let them feel your fucking ego." 
"So that's what you're trying to do.", Hoshiumi budged in. 
"What is that supposed to mean?", Tobio retorted. 
"No I just thought you were acting like an arrogant asshole each time you're doing that.", the white haired with the seagull eyes stated. 
"Yes, because that's how it works, seagull face!"