The second set officially began. Fukurōdani had the opening serve.
After Aoba Johsai cleanly received the ball, Oikawa and Asuto immediately executed a quick, first-tempo attack. The timing was perfect, allowing Aoba Johsai to claim the first point of the set.
The serve then rotated over to Aoba Johsai. Iwaizumi Hajime stepped up and delivered a steady serve, which was received cleanly by Fukurōdani’s libero.
After taking the first pass, Akaashi Keiji calmly set the ball to Bokuto once again. This set wasn’t particularly fast, giving Asuto, Oikawa, and Kindaichi enough time to react. The three of them quickly moved into position, forming a formidable triple block.
With those three blocking together, the strength of the wall was obvious. Just the sight of six arms stretched across the net was enough to intimidate almost any Ace spiker.
Yet Bokuto showed no hesitation. He exploded upward directly into the triple block, the muscles in his hitting arm bulging as if he intended to smash straight through it.
Ordinarily, given the blocking strength of Asuto and the other two, they had no reason to fear a straightforward power spike. But in that instant, the overwhelming aura erupting from Bokuto made all three of them instinctively tense up.
“Hold your positions! Stop him!” Oikawa’s expression changed slightly as he was the first to thrust his hands forward into a pressing block.
This style of blocking sacrificed a little height, but it greatly increased the pressure on the attacker while making it much harder to blast through with raw strength. It was considered the ideal way to deal with a power hitter. Asutoi and Kindaichi instinctively mirrored his movement.
Then, everything changed.
The overwhelming pressure surrounding Bokuto suddenly disappeared. The muscles he had tensed relaxed in an instant. Instead of a full-powered spike, he gently cupped the ball with an astonishingly soft touch.
The volleyball floated delicately over the triple block… not too high, not too low. It had just enough height to clear their fingertips before immediately dropping toward the floor.
“Oh no… Damn it!” Aoba Johsai’s backcourt defenders, Shinji Watari and Iwaizumi Hajime, instantly realized what had happened. Both threw themselves toward the falling ball with everything they had, but they were one step too late.
Thud! Smack!
The sound of the ball hitting the court and the two defenders diving onto the floor rang out almost simultaneously. As Watari and Iwaizumi lifted their heads, the first thing they saw was Bokuto looking down at them from across the net.
[An unexpected tip!]
[Fukurōdani’s ace, Bokuto Kotaro, faced Aoba Johsai’s powerful triple block and suddenly switched to a perfectly placed tip, completely fooling every defender on the other side! What an incredibly clever point!]
“That guy… can actually make plays like that?” Oikawa frowned. He had never expected that someone as calculating as himself would one day be outsmarted.
If it had been someone else, that would be one thing. But that owl… No matter how he looked at him, Bokuto didn’t seem like the type of outside hitter capable of such a crafty play.
“Tch… He got us good,” Kindaichi clicked his tongue in annoyance, clearly unwilling to accept it.
His reaction was understandable. For many blockers, someone like Ushijima Wakatoshi, who simply overpowered the block with overwhelming force, was much easier to respect. By contrast, a point scored through clever tricks like Bokuto’s often left blockers with the illusion that they had only failed because they let their guard down.
But Asuto knew better. That point had been far more than just a clever trick.
Asuto himself specialized in read blocking, which meant that he waited to see the direction of the set before committing to blocking. Because of that, while he occasionally failed to stop an attack, he was rarely fooled by one. Yet just now, even he had been deceived by Bokuto’s attack.
It wasn’t because Asuto had been careless. It was because, in that single instant, the overwhelming pressure radiating from Bokuto had forced him to react exactly the way he did.
In fact, Asuto even suspected that if he and Oikawa hadn’t committed to a pressing block, Bokuto might never have chosen the tip at all. Instead, he probably would have tried to blast straight through their block with brute force. And that wasn’t an impossible thought at all.
At Bokuto’s level, once he had made his preparations, changing his attack in midair wasn’t particularly difficult.
The third rally began with Fukurōdani serving and Aoba Johsai launching the attack. Once again, the offense revolved around the partnership between Oikawa and Asuto.
Oikawa first used his exceptional setting technique to shake at least one of Fukurōdani’s front-row blockers out of position. Then, Asuto acted as the decoy, drawing the attention of several more defenders.
The final attack was entrusted to Kindaichi. With almost the entire court left open in front of him, Kindaichi easily drove the ball into the floor and reclaimed the point for Aoba Johsai.
“Those two are seriously impossible to deal with.” The players of Fukurōdani felt as though Asuto and Oikawa’s coordination was pushing them to their mental limit.
Oikawa already possessed elite-level setting skills. Not only could he bring out one hundred percent of every teammate’s abilities, aside from Asuto, but he could also orchestrate attacks from virtually anywhere on the court. Normally, dealing with Oikawa alone was already enough to give Fukurōdani a headache.
But now, Aoba Johsai also had Asuto, a national-level ace whose offensive ability was hardly inferior to Bokuto’s. One had to remember that for super aces like Asutoi and Bokuto, their terrifying offensive power wasn’t their only weapon. Simply standing on the court made them the perfect decoys.
And using a player of that caliber as bait had another enormous advantage. Even when the opposing team knew perfectly well that the Ace was only a decoy, they still had no choice but to devote multiple blockers and defenders to him.
Because the instant they relaxed, even by assigning one fewer blocker, that Ace could simply hammer the ball straight through their defense.
No one understood that better than Akaashi Keiji. After all, he’d spent years using his own owl to attract the opposing defense before creating opportunities for the rest of Fukurōdani’s attackers. Which was exactly why Akaashi understood better than anyone just how much of an advantage it was for a setter to have an ace like that.
…
“But…” His gaze drifted toward Bokuto, whose fighting spirit continued to rise with every rally. A relaxed smile appeared in Akaashi’s heart. “None of that matters anymore. Because right now… Bokuto-san is unstoppable.”
Smack!
Five minutes into the set, the score stood tied at 6–6.
Moments earlier, Oikawa’s serve had failed to score directly. Even so, the blistering serve had disrupted Fukurōdani’s defensive formation. Because Akaashi had been forced into a less-than-perfect set, Asuto once again accurately read Bokuto’s attack route.
Now that Asutoi’s blocking ability had reached 81, once he completely identified an opponent’s spike trajectory, even a single block could apply tremendous pressure.
In that instant, Bokuto, who had originally planned to hit a sharp cross-court spike, suddenly felt every hair on his body stand on end.
A chilling instinct shot through him. Like a wild animal sensing danger, his body reacted before his mind could. At the very last moment, he forcibly changed the timing of his attack. Instead of driving a sharp cross, he softly pushed the ball down the line.
Tap!
The volleyball lightly struck Asuto’s palm before bouncing high back into Fukurōdani’s side of the court.
“Hm?” A flicker of surprise crossed Asuto’s eyes. ‘Did this guy’s instincts detect the danger and force him to change his attack?’
The ball floated back over Fukurōdani’s court, and their players quickly reorganized. Avoiding Asuto’s blocking position, Akaashi set the ball to Bokuto once again. This time, Bokuto successfully blasted through Aoba Johsai’s defense and scored.
Four minutes later, the score had become 12–11. Fukurōdani held a narrow one-point lead thanks to Asuto’s earlier service error.
After the rotation, Asuto returned to the front row. Aoba Johsai served, and Fukurōdani’s libero cleanly received the ball. Akaashi used a clever fake to move Iwaizumi Hajime out of position before once again sending the set to Bokuto.
Even so, Bokuto still had to attack against the double block formed by Asuto and Oikawa. Neither of them was the tallest player on Aoba Johsai, but when it came to blocking technique, both ranked among the very best.
Although there were only two blockers, they sealed off nearly two-thirds of Bokuto’s attacking angles. The one lane they intentionally left open had already been covered by Shinji Watari waiting behind them.
It looked like a simple defensive setup, yet in an instant, it pushed Bokuto into what seemed like a dead end.
Then, in the very next moment, Bokuto swung. Instead of aiming for the court, he deliberately targeted Oikawa ‘s fingertips. The volleyball skimmed ever so slightly off Oikawa’s fingers before flying out of bounds.
Tweet!
The referee blew the whistle. Point… Fukurōdani. The score was now 11–13.
When the point was first awarded, everyone on Aoba Johsai looked completely bewildered. None of them had understood what had happened. Bokuto’s tool-off had been so subtle and so perfectly executed that, if Oikawa hadn’t admitted the touch himself, even the referee probably wouldn’t have been completely certain.
Once the call was confirmed, cold sweat finally began to appear on the faces of Aoba Johsai’s players. Left with no other choice, Aoba Johsai immediately called a timeout.
“He’s way too strong!”
“He’s like another Ushiwaka! You never know what kind of spike he’s going to hit next!”
“What the hell is with that guy? He was completely ordinary in the first set, so why has he suddenly become so much stronger in the second?”
As soon as they returned to the bench, the players couldn’t help but vent their frustrations. None of them could understand Bokuto Kotaro’s performance.
The Bokuto of the second set was like a completely different person. No matter what kind of defense Aoba Johsai put up, he always found the perfect answer.
They were only halfway through the set, and Bokuto had already scored nine points, accounting for well over two-thirds of Fukurōdani’s total score. It was simply unbelievable.
Although his style of offense was completely different from Ushijima Wakatoshi’s, the pressure Bokuto was putting on Aoba Johsai felt almost identical to what they had experienced against Shiratorizawa. No matter what they tried, they simply couldn’t stop him from scoring.
“That’s true.” Standing nearby, Coach Irihata Nobuteru stroked his chin in agreement. “Unlike Ushijima Wakatoshi, who scores through overwhelming power, Bokuto Kotaro possesses an incredibly complete offensive arsenal. He can attack in almost every conceivable way, and his instincts are exceptionally sharp. Most of the time, you don’t notice it, but when it matters most, those instincts always guide him toward the best possible attacking option. He’s an extremely troublesome player. As expected of one of the nation’s top five aces.”
Before this match, Irihata had naturally spent considerable time studying every player on Fukurōdani, and among them, Bokuto Kotaro had been his primary focus.
Under normal circumstances, Bokuto’s performance was directly tied to his emotional state. When his spirits were low, he was practically a different player altogether. But once he became excited and fully locked in, his ability could rival even the top three aces in the country, just like he was doing now.
So, if they wanted to defeat Bokuto, the first step was to break that momentum. They didn’t necessarily have to send him back into negative mode; even cooling off his blazing rhythm for a short while would be enough.
“It looks like we’ll have to take a bit of a gamble.” After thinking silently for a moment, Irihata finally made up his mind. Turning toward the substitutes’ bench, he called out to one of the reserve players. “Kyōtani. Start warming up.”
(End of Chapter)