ajinomoto national centre, level 2 left wing court !
"WELCOME, AND WELCOME BACK TO the Youth Training Camp. We hope that you will continue to use the skills you have been taught in this camp in your training, and that you will not forget to also teach your teammates. Remember: volleyball is a team sport. There can be star players, there can be aces, but there is never a true winning team unless you have six or seven players who are able to work in sync with each other."
There were two coaches in the court, and fourteen players in total who stood in three rows before them, dressed in the training attire of their various schools. Volleyball shoes flashed various brands of prestige, and the young adults who stood in the court before their coaches stood stock-still, shoulders relaxed and eyes focused readily on the coaches.
"I want everyone to tell me their names, school and position," the coach — Arata Yoshie, retired ace of the renowned volleyball team JT Marvellous — continued, glancing down at the clipboard she held. She was a tall woman with long, wavy black hair tied into a midlength ponytail, the gray roots of her hair showing the age her still youthful face didn't exhibit. "Then we will proceed to do a warmup and a practice match."
She pointed her pen at the girl in the first row, blue eyes glinting expectantly as she straightened her shoulders, bright green eyes fixing onto Coach Arata with respect. "Abe Chizuru," the brunette said, bowing a little. "Setter. Soraya High."
Some of the players from lesser-known schools perked up at the sound of the best girls' volleyball school, their gazes fixing on Abe with newfound interest as they recognised the colouring of her shirt and shorts — light blue shirt and white volleyball shorts — with a clarity and sureness they hadn't harnessed before.
However, Coach Arata didn't display much excitement at the mention of the famed school, as if she had seen far too many Soraya players to act excited anymore. That was very plausible, all in all, as it would just be extremely bizarre for a Sorayan to not be invited to the camp. Instead, she ticked a box on her clipboard, and her sapphire blue eyes moved on to the next girl.
This time it was a girl with long noir hair, a few centimetres taller than Abe. She had vibrant purple eyes the shade of the night sky, and her bangs were clipped away from her face. She was dressed in a black shirt and red shorts. What was most noticeable about her were her hands — filled with callouses and scars from cuts, the long and nimble fingers also rather crooked. The index and middle fingers of her left hand were taped up.
"Yamashiro Fuyumi," she shared, dipping her head. "I'm a middle blocker, from Inarizaki High."
Coach Arata went through the ranks, and in a few minutes, she was almsot done with the third and last row of girls.
"Tsukishima Kina," the pale blonde introduced herself, nodding as a way of greeting to the coach. "A setter, from Ōkamikumo Academy."
The corner of Miho's lips curled up, and the two friends shared a glance with each other as Coach Arata finished marking eveyrone's attendance, finishing off with Rui, who was the second tallest player in the court.
The two coaches were utilised as the group of 14 were divided up into two groups of seven. Kina and Miho were placed in different groups, and Kina had chatted up the noir-haired middle blocker from Inarizaki, who had been placed in the same group as her. Her name had sounded rather familiar to Kina, and she found herself recalling the call with her third-year senpai from Fukurodani with an interested glint to her eye.
They went through warm up, and were left to discuss the players' positions for the full-court game they would be playing in thirty minutes. While Kina didn't know a lot of the players in her group, recognising only Amanai Kanoka and her newfound acquaintance Yamashiro Fuyumi, they all knew her, be it from watching her competitions or reading Volleyball Monthly.
Kina hadn't been looking forward to having another setter in their group, and had been wondering how to go around this fact when everyone shared their positions. As it turned out, Kina was lucky and had turned out to be the only setter in their group.
The problem? There were two liberos in the team —
And one of them was the first year libero from Itachiyama.
"Okay," Isayama Graie, the other libero — a second year from Kamomedai High — started, "as it is so very obviously stated in here, there are two liberos in this team. I'm sure that we both know the basics of the normal volleyball stuff — spiking, setting, blocking and serving — but we're both liberos for a reason, so what would you prefer, Fukushima-chan?"
Fukushima Ashima was a rather quiet person from what Kina had observed, and had thick bangs that fell to her brows and reserved brown eyes that flitted to Isayama quietly.
"I'm fine with any." Her voice, too, was soft. Not soft in the shy way, but the reserved way that just screamed my room is my spouse and I am an Introvert ™ who hates human interaction. "My serves aren't the best, though."
"How about this?" Yamashiro piped in, sounding orderly and kindly. "We can makes use of the court and the playback feature it has, why don't you guys try serving, spiking, setting and blocking and see whether it's your forte or not? This is a training camp, after all. New skills can be learnt."
Isayam cocked her head to the side, considering the girl's offer for a moment. "Sure, why not?"
Fukushima nodded.
And so, the rest of the thirty minutes were spent with the seven players working on syncing with one another and making use of each others' skills. Kina considered herself lucky, in all honesty, for Fukushima didn't seem to use the Ōkamikumo-Itachiyama feud to get in the way of training, and was indifferent with the way Kina had started to instruct everyone who would be spiking.
While everyone's cooperativeness made the somewhat awkward process of near-strangers training with each other to smoothen out, thirty minutes was just far too little time for Kina to properly analyse everyone's strengths and weaknesses, nor was it enough time to get used to the certain styles the spikers had; Kina was foreign to some of the footworks that the girls executed, and the angles of their arms and legs were a challenge to analyse under the pressure of such little time.
They utilised the replay function of the screen rather frequently, and there was literally no time for opponent-team analysis in the short timeframe. Kina hoped that the coaches knew what was going on, just watching the two groups interact with no coaching included.
Was this the sort of training she would experience in professional volleyball?
Either way, Kina thought, jogging over to the main court, taking her place at the net, it would be an interesting game to play. She got in position, hands on her bent knees, staring down the bane of her existence with determination.
Kousaka Hana glared back at her with equal ferocity, and the slam of Isayama's serve marked the start of the first set.
This would be an interesting game to play.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
ajinomoto national centre, level 2 right wing court !
"Miya!"
Tobio's cobalt blue eyes darted to the other side of the court, shoes squeaking on the blue and orange court made of some sort of special flooring material. A broad-shouldered second year in the Inarizaki High School colours of red and black stepped to the net, hands raised over his head. His fingers, splayed out, caught the ball, it making contact with the pads of his fingers for less than a fraction of a second — and sent it flying straight to the outstretched palm of a rather short second year, startlingly sharp green eyes shrewd. He jumped abnormally high, slamming the ball down to the floor across from where Tobio and the Shinzen High first year had leapt up to block.
The ball made its telltale fall toward the court floor with amazing velocity, and this was surely a point earned for Miya Atsumu and his spiker who exuded a far more intense and arrogant energy that still could compare to the spirit of chibi-chan — Hinata Shoyo.
Komori Motoya's hand made contact with the ball before it could hit the floor, and with that delicate yet powerful save he had made, he put the ball's momentum against the opponent, sending it flying up to where Tobio was dashing for. The navy-haired setter put his hands up, and the satisfying touch of the volleyball hit his fingers for the slightest of time — and he sent it up, high in the air, where a spiker would spike it down with a sure wham.
However, the ball fell to the floor before anyone could jump up and spike it, and there wasn't enough time for even Komori to save it. It fell to the floor, bouncing for a few meters. It fell to a stop at the coach's feet, and the coach picked the volleyball up, throwing it back to the court. A second year wing spiker from Soraya High caught it, and handed it to the blonde-haired Inarizaki student with the dark undercut — Miya Atsumu, Japan's best only second year male high school setter. Miya Atsumu walked to the back of the court in all of his divinity as an excellent server and setter.
Tobio received a few "don't mind!"s from the players on his side of the net, and he nodded slightly. To someone who didn't know the Karasuno first year well, they would think that he was brought down from the lack of response from his set, though Tobio begged to differ.
His older sisters Mae — ex volleyball player — and Miyuki — star basketball player — called Tobio's lapse into his subconscious the 'Tobio Space' — where he entered a space of a kind in his mind, relooking his mistakes and looking for gaps in his tactics, a moment where he would simply contemplate the best way of improvement.
Some would say that Tobio had selective intelligence; if he worked hard for every single thing in life and look through everything like he did for volleyball, he'd be longtime running valedictorian of his class, the most popular kid in school, would be setting for Ushijima in the Miyagi Qualifers. Perhaps Karasuno would have ended up in the finals, though it would've been a lot more likely that he would be facing off his middle school upperclassman Oikawa, and it would be Goshoki Tsutomu he would bicker with, instead of Hinata Shoyo.
That didn't matter as of the current time, however. The world had already made its choices and Tobio was, well, who he was as of now, and what he was doing was focusing on what was ahead of him, not looking back on the choices he had made before today and regretting them.
Miya's serve was brutal; he truly lived up to his name as one of the best high school servers, stance a potential for both a jump floater and a spike serve, hit truly hard to predict — out of court, in court from the right or the left? — all of which Komori definitely thought through properly, receiving the serve at a decent angle. The ball went sailing for him again, and this time everyone was on alert; Komori had called out for Tobio specifically.
The familiar rush of adrenaline and delight coursed through his veins, and he ran under the ball again, lifting his arms up at a familiar and modified angle — with a light push of his fingers, the ball was lifted into the air to the empty space before him, and before the dropping panic of seeing an empty front court before him could set in, Sakusa Kiyoomi's arm swiveled onto the ball, his hand snapping at an impossible angle that made the ball slip through the two blockers' arms and fall to the floor right at their heels.
Tobio landed on the floor, and his dark blue gaze landed on his palms, soft and unscathed of any scars. He gazed at his palms, his slim fingers, wriggled them a bit, all with the indistinguishable note of pride that filled his expression.
I successfully set to one of the nation's best aces!
"Great work, Kageyama-kun!" The broccoli-headed middle blocker from Shinzen High (hair just like his captain, Tobio mused for a second) approached him, holding his hands up for a high-ten. Tobio raised his hands too, and awkwardly slapped his palms onto the boy's hands. He grinned, stepping away, and Tobio found himself slapping the palms of the rest of the team — save for Sakusa Kiyoomi, who merely gave a low hum that signified approval of nothing and disdain of nothing, save for maybe the quality of Tobio's hygiene. Tobio tilted his head to the side, curious as to why the second year ace always possessed such a blank expression on his face.
Cool down after the game (Tobio's team lost 3-4 to Miya's) was an interesting time spent, consisting of Tobio recalling to the short yet springy Kamomedai ace with the wild white hair resemblant to a shuttlecock on how he simply served as someone who reminded him of someone on his team (Hinata (the boke)) and Atsumu calling his setting what a goody-two-shoes would do.
He walked to the cafeteria of the building with the Shinzen High first year, who did most of the navigating, holding a pamphlet of the training centre with one hand and his towel and bottle in the other. Tobio briefly recalled Akane-san, one the top ten aces of the female high school player category, telling him about the free unsupervised training period on level 3 from 8 to 10PM, and then Komori confirming that on the lobby of the national training centre.
A corridor to the right of the lift lobby led to a pair of automated doors, the Ajinomoto logo stuck in vibrant red and orange on the frosted glass doors. The sensor sensed the pair's presence, and the doors slid open into the slits cut into the walls. Tobio and his friend (Tobio truly didn't mean to forget, but he wasn't able to recall the boy's name still) walked through the doors and into the cafeteria.
The cafeteria ... it was inappropriate to call it a cafeteria in all honesty. With a ceiling that stood around two meters taller than Tobio and shining with LED light chandeliers that set a warm, orangey glow to the room of a pleated, semi-traditional and modernised area with walls made of sleek, polished wood.
Yep. It was better suited to be called a buffet — banquet room?
Like a hotel buffet area, there were rectangular tables arranged in an interesting pattern that spanned the entrance of the cafeteria, half-empty with quite a few players all around the ages of sixteen to eighteen walking around the back of the room, filled with large bowls, plates and dispensers of food. Tobio's mouth watered at the sight of food, just food, filling the back of the room, and his friend noted with a slight tone of surprise at the laser like focus Tobio had as he grabbed his tray and made a beeline for the buffet table.
He shrugged the surprise off a moment later, relating to Tobio on a spiritual level; after all, there was food splayed out before a bunch of hungry teenagers who came back from a training session that lasted almost four hours, and like what normal people would do, he followed Tobio with a tray in hand and eyes scanning the buffet table with gluttonous greed.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
a/n — i'm not dead i swear haha. just,,, exams coming up and binge watching bnha ( might see if i can try a hand at writing a bnha fic ! ) HAHA. those two words don't go together don't they? decided that a change of povs would be refreshing and less stagnant, so everyone's favourite blueberry in 4k!