[8] Grade 11: Kyoto Preliminaries
Yamazaki Tachibana, who was among the top 16 in the nation last year, is indeed a tough opponent.
While watching the game from the bench, Imadegawa Yuzuru made this judgment.
It wasn't until he took to the field that he felt the pressure from Yamazaki Tachibana's sharp edge more acutely.
As a powerhouse in volleyball, Tachibana Yamazaki's defense may be slightly weaker, but his attack is outstanding. It was precisely by relying on the explosive physical attributes of his ace spiker and the agile movement of his setter that he made it into the top 16 in the national competition last year.
Perhaps Yamazaki Tachibana is pursuing "offense as defense"?
Ichikawa calmly speculated.
However, even with a strong offensive presence, insufficient defensive coverage can lead to a passive position when facing teams with tenacious defenses.
The Tsurumeikan Men's Volleyball Team, now under the leadership of Izukawa Yuzuru, is a team focused on honing its defense.
...Let's turn back time to the beginning.
In fact, Imadegawa Yuzuru never intended for Tsurumikan to specialize in defense.
In volleyball, the libero is merely the defensive cornerstone of the team, while the outside hitter is the team's sharpest spear. In a typical match, the outside hitter will handle 40% or more of the attacks, essentially making them a key player in the team's victory or defeat.
In volleyball, where the unspoken rule is "whoever has the best attacker wins," a main attacker who can smash the floor is always more important than a libero who can save the ball.
After all, if the volleyball never lands on your own court, it simply means your team won't lose. But if the volleyball keeps landing on the opponent's court, it signifies an undeniable victory.
The most illogical idea would be to focus solely on defense from the start.
Of course, this doesn't mean that a good libero isn't important to the team. But for a newly established volleyball team, a strong outside hitter is like a lifeline, while a good libero is best added after the offensive system is fully developed.
But nothing will go smoothly or easily.
Having never participated in any sports club, Imadegawa Yuzuru worked tirelessly to complete the extremely demanding training schedule posted by the little fat bird, as well as a series of newbie tasks, daily tasks, weekly tasks, and monthly tasks. After saving up for her first ten-pull, she pulled Saotome Chihaya in the "Newbie Ten-Pull Guaranteed SSR Pool - Boys' Volleyball Edition".
The golden-eyed boy, who hadn't yet decided what position he was playing, and the petite libero, who was nearly twenty centimeters shorter than him, looked at each other in bewilderment.
Imadegawa Yuzuru looked down at the liberos and said to the chubby little bird flying around them, "Are you sure? You want me and him to play in the qualifiers in two months?!"
The pink-haired free agent, who had just emerged from the pool and was still quite arrogant, suddenly stood up, pointed at the future captain's nose, and said fiercely, "Are you looking down on me?"
"Don't even mention the qualifiers! I could make it into the national finals!!!"
The chubby little bird landed lightly on the pink-haired libero's shoulder and excitedly told Imadegawa, "Saotome is amazing! He's a T0-level libero in the system's algorithm! The kind who could play professionally!!"
"Huh? I remember you said before that your teammates were all high school students, right?" Imadegawa questioned. "You want me to lead a professional player to stomp on high school students in this world???"
"She's not a professional player. Saotome is a high school student too, both physically and mentally," the chubby little bird hurriedly said. "I was referring to the system algorithm's predictions about the future of the card characters—"
"oh."
Leaving Sichuan today seems to be both a regret and a relief.
Imadegawa has never had high hopes for gacha games, so he wasn't disappointed when his first 10-pull was all R cards except for Saotome Chihaya.
But after examining all the R cards, he questioned Little Chubby again: "Why would a card with R-level volleyball talent possess SSR-level chemistry talent? Does that make sense?"
"Are you suggesting he researches volleyball bombs, blows up all his opponents on the court, and wins the national championship??? So is this the Wen○○ Dog film set? Am I about to create a Crane Cry Hall - Volleyball World Port Mafia version???"
“...Haha.” The chubby little bird explained in a flattering tone, “You know I’m the Haikyuu!! Training System, so my card pool will include all the character cards with volleyball talent. However, in addition to volleyball talent, each card will also have other talents. This character card happens to be in the state of having relatively low volleyball talent, but maxed out chemistry talent.”
"Shouldn't these cards be allocated to some kind of chemistry-based youth development system? Isn't it a waste to get one drawn in the volleyball world?"
"Because the total card pool is so huge, and our leaders will continue to add character cards to the total card pool, the card pools between our systems are interconnected. As long as a character card has a corresponding talent, all the corresponding talent category sub-card pools can participate."
"And it's a perfect opportunity to improve the school construction in our side quest. You can't have an entire school of students playing volleyball, can you?"
"I'd rather the whole school played volleyball!"
Now, Chuanxi He sighs helplessly.
"never mind."
In the days that followed, Imadegawa Yuzuru and the volleyball team continued to work hard, completing newbie, daily, weekly, and monthly tasks to diligently accumulate resources for the gacha pool.
I got a middle blocker in my first ten-pull, so I didn't think much of it.
The second ten-pull once again produced a secondary attacker. Imadegawa comforted himself: It's okay, a secondary attacker is also a form of attack power.
The third ten-game winning streak was another middle blocker, and Ichikawa remained silent.
He was utterly devastated when he drew a free agent in his fourth 10-pull.
Based on all the available character cards, Imadegawa hesitated for half a second before choosing his position as setter. However, after confirming his setter role, his next ten-pull yielded another SR setter card with an overlapping position.
Faced with the choice between retiring to be an opposite hitter and continuing as a setter, and seeing her dwindling stamina, Imadegawa Yuzuru chose to continue as a setter without hesitation, and decided on the strategy of Tsurumi-kan during the IH period, which was to focus on defense.
The teammate gacha pool guarantees one SR card after 10 pulls and one SSR card after 100 pulls.
Imaichi Kawayuki spent dozens more pulls in the gacha pool, getting a total of eleven SRs before reaching the SSR pity system.
However, the Hemingguan Men's Volleyball Club only has six SR players.
...The remaining five SRs are in the Hemingguan Women's Volleyball Club.
Little Chubby Bird says: I'm a volleyball boy training system, not a volleyball prodigy training system. Boys are genderless, so the gacha pool is also genderless. The guaranteed gender for an SR in a 10-pull is random.
Imadegawa Yuzuru, who had just drawn an SR-level main attacker (but the wrong gender) for the first time, stood in the doorway of the Tsurumeikan Volleyball Hall, feeling uncertain and uncertain.
Fortunately, hard work pays off.
On the last day to submit the registration form for the IH Kyoto qualifier, Imaidegawa hurriedly drew 100 times and successfully obtained the new SSR in the gacha pool through the pity system—the secondary attacker Aoyagi.
Besides him, the Heming Hall Men's Volleyball Team already has an SSR libero, three SR middle blockers, one SR libero, one SR setter, and a rare SR opposite hitter.
—That's great news!!!
Today, Xihe, who has left Sichuan, forces a smile.
Fortunately, the captain of the Hemingguan men's volleyball team had already set the tone for Hemingguan's development in advance. Before the qualifiers, this brand-new, inexperienced SSR middle blocker was able to barely integrate into the Hemingguan team through intense training.
Be grateful to your original self.
The cranes of the evening leave Sichuan now.
...Let's go back to the present.
Unfortunately, Tachibana Yamazaki was up against the Tsurumeikan Men's Volleyball Team, who had been relentlessly trained by their captain in receiving and blocking.
Tachibana Yamazaki's attack was fierce enough, and Tsurumeikan's defense was impenetrable enough.
After Imadegawa entered the game, the overall performance of Tsurumeikan became even more energetic.
The libero in the back row is becoming more agile, and the accuracy of their first pass is rising sharply.
The middle blockers in the front row are jumping more nimbly and their blocking success rate has doubled.
In addition to the two players who were already performing well, the rest of the starting lineup at Heming Hall have become increasingly adept at observing the trajectory of the ball and more accurate in predicting its landing point. Several players who had performed poorly in the first two sets have also demonstrated extraordinary abilities.
With a solid first pass from the back row, precise blocking from the front row, and the setter captain's absolute control over the players, they can frequently organize tactical combinations such as quick attacks, staggered attacks, and multi-point attacks.
Even though Yamazaki Tachibana's morale remained high, Tsurumeikan's score continued to rise rapidly with an overwhelming advantage.
Even without Imadegawa Yuzuru present in the previous round, Yamazaki Tachibana was worn down to a dead end by Tsurumeikan's two SSRs and four SRs.
"Beep—"
"The match is over, 'Hemingguan Team' wins, 25 to 20! They lead the overall score 2-1!!"
—In the third set, with Yuzuru Imadegawa in charge, Tachibana Yamazaki, a strong volleyball school, managed to take a huge 10-point lead.
"So tired—"
Imadegawa Yuzuru tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and listened to the excited discussions in the audience behind him.
"Number 4's last block was absolutely brilliant!!"
"Every time Tachibana Yamazaki spikes the ball, my heart is in my throat, but the libero Tsurumeikan is always in the right position. He has such a strong sense of positioning."
"Number 5 should definitely be selected as Kyoto's best libero. His judgment after number 4's block forced Yamazaki Tachibana to change his spiking route was truly amazing."
"Number 4's anticipation is also very strong, and he can block Yamazaki Tachibana's sudden change of spiking route in time."
"The strongest player should be the setter from Heming Hall! Their opening serve was particularly amazing, and their reverse spin serve was so consistent."
"This is what you call a 'clutch server'! I really want XX University to come over for the quarterfinals and learn from them. The key server they sent out in the final set served three terrible balls in a row, giving the opponent points. I don't know what they were thinking. Even if they value 'retirement trials,' they shouldn't have sent out weak players to drag the other players down, right?"
"His passing is also very consistent, and his coordination with the attackers is beautiful."
"......"
The little chubby bird excitedly bounced around on him as it listened to the audience's praise.
"Great! Your popularity is finally starting to rise!"
————————
I originally intended to write about Tsurugi's setting abilities in this chapter, but I kept getting stuck. After typing a few hundred words, I realized it might not be necessary to spend too much time on this match... Yamazaki Tachibana's style was completely countered by Tsurugikan, which is why Tsurugikan was able to grind them down in the last set. In this set, Yamazaki Tachibana lost many points early on against Tsurugi's serves, so Tsurugi didn't need to perform exceptionally well. However, our Tsurugi is definitely a super talented setter! I will do my best to showcase Tsurugi's genius to everyone in the upcoming national tournament!!
As of today, the outline is over 3,000 words, the drafts are over 2,000 words, the character descriptions are over 1,000 words, and the draft box is not yet filled (every day's update is freshly prepared). I'll try my best to accumulate some drafts next ww
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