Chapter 37

Hiroyuki left Tanaka and Azumane alone to think about what he said. Hiroyuki himself has already had a glimpse of what kind of ace they will be.

Azumane will probably be like Ushijima, breaking all the walls in front of him. His presence on the court will be the biggest assurance for his team, telling them that if they could not score, they can always depend on him. That is if he could fix his mentality problem.

As for Tanaka, he will be the lesser version of Bokuto, loud and the mood booster for his teammates. The only thing he needs to do now is to improve his foundation and gain as many experiences as he could get in this training camp.

Honestly, those two have good potential. It is just unfortunate for Karasuno that it will be Azumane's last year.

"Hori-san!" Coach Ukai's voice snapped Hiroyuki from his thought.

"What can I do for you, Ukai-san?" He asked politely.

"Do you mind helping the team in service training?" Hiroyuki shrugged,

"Sure, just gather them to this court after they finished their breakfast." He only got a simple nod as the answer.

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Right after they finished their breakfast, Hiroyuki could see all of the Karasuno team gathered in one of Fukurodani's courts with an excited face. He coughed a little, gaining their attention,

"Coach Ukai asked me to help you train your service. Listen here! Almost every team in the national teams probably has two or three players who can absolutely score just from the service or become a threat just by their services, just like Oikawa. Hell, one of the teams, Inarizaki from Hyogo, has four players who can do that." Several players gulped nervously at the mention of Oikawa's services.

"Unfortunately for you, only three players here who are able to do that right now, and their probability to score from the serve is not that good for the national tournaments. Those three are Yamaguchi," The one mentioned gulped nervously, "Azumane, and Kageyama." Those two nodded, satisfied with the assessment.

"Don't be satisfied yet." Hiroyuki quickly reprimands the two. "You two have the potential because of your jump serve. But your power still could not overwhelm even Sawamura and Nishinoya, let alone the defensive team like Nekoma. The accuracy is also not that great, so you better improve that." Azumane and Kageyama nodded seriously.

"As for the rest, I will show you how to do jump serve and floating serve so you can train with one of them. But you better not use that for the next tournament as it would not be ready and would get your opponent an easy chance ball." All of them listened carefully to what Hiroyuki said.

"Instead, I will show you several tricks you can do with your service. You can do the service right after the whistle blows to surprise your opponents, waiting for a moment after the whistle blows, aiming close to the net, aiming close to the sideline, aiming at the weakest receiver, aiming at the space between their players, or something like that.

You can think creatively about that, and as long as it works and is still within the rule, it is okay. The main purpose is not to get points from the service, but to break your opponent's formation.

For example, if Kageyama is in the back and your opponent aims their service at him, Kageyama could only do two things. One is to receive the ball, but let you all handle the second ball, and the second one is to wait for anyone beside him to cover the ball for him. But that would mean Kageyama has to wait for the receiver to get the ball before he could move to his natural position, and it would break your formation. Do you understand?"

All of the Karasuno members nodded while some of them widened their eyes in realization, especially Kageyama. But Hiroyuki decided to ignore it for now,

"So, based on what I told you, can anyone guess what would we train for this morning?" Only Sugawara, Kageyama, and Tsukishima raised their hand. But it didn't surprise Hiroyuki as he knows those three are the members with the highest volleyball IQ in Karasuno. He pointed his finger at Sugawara, letting him answer the question.

"Since you stressed about aiming, I can guess that we will train our accuracy." He replied, resulting in a clap from Hiroyuki.

"Good answer. Now everyone, stand!" They did as Hiroyuki said. "Now we still have two hours before you play against the other team, but I will only take one hour to do this so you can train the other things as well. Make a line!" After all of them formed a line,

"Nishinoya, come here!" The energetic libero comes forward excitedly. "Now, we will do something called serve and sprint. Does anyone know about that?"

"I know," Kageyama answered excitedly. "We will serve the ball to the position one, then ran and get the ball, and then serve to the position two, ran and get the ball, and so on. Once we passed all of the six positions, we will pass the ball to the next players to do the same." Hiroyuki nodded,

"Good explanation. But this time, Nishinoya will be the guard, trying to receive all of the balls until all of you finished the drill. Can you do that?" Hiroyuki turned his attention to the Libero, who unsurprisingly nodded in excitement. "Hell, yeah! It sounds fun!"

"Now, Nishinoya. Your job is simple. You will be in the middle back, your usual position. So, you will have to find a way to cover that area. Do you think you can do it?" Nishinoya nodded, thinking of a way to do that. Hiroyuki grabbed a box and placed it inside the court.

"You have to send the ball here. Anyone knows why?" Kageyama raised his hand, "That was the setter position." Resulting in a nod from Hiroyuki.

"Good. You will have to send the ball straight to the setter. Every time you failed to do that will equal two overhand passes on the wall at the end of the day as the penalty. And for all of you," Hiroyuki pointed to Karasuno members. "I don't care what you do, as long as you can make Nishinoya fail to send the ball to the box, it is fine. Every time you failed to do that will equal five serves on the wall at the end of the day as the penalty. Any objections?"

Seeing as no one said anything, Hiroyuki nodded and clapped his hand,

"Good, we will start now!"

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Coach Ukai and Hiroyuki stand together on the sideline, watching the progress of every member. Thirty minutes has been passed since the drill started, and they could see the players full of sweat.

"What do you think about them?" Hiroyuki thought for a moment before he replied to Coach Ukai's question.

"The bench players, Tsukishima, and Azumane lack stamina. It's only thirty minutes and they have sweated that much. Hell, even Nishinoya didn't sweat that much, and he is the one who did the hardest here." Coach Ukai nodded as he also saw that problem.

"Azumane didn't play for a month before the game against Nekoma, so he is still working to gain his best performance again. As for the rest, you are right. The bench players and Tsukishima will have to work harder."

"Not only them, I think all of your players need to improve their stamina before the next tournament. They all have decent stamina, but they will not be able to survive in 'The hell of day three' in the national tournament when they have to play two games in a day. Hell, I bet some of them will not last long enough in five sets game for the final in the prefecture tournament."

"I know that. That is why I plan to do physical training every morning before breakfast, and I will raise the intensity little by little every day. I just hope that it would be enough for them." Hiroyuki nodded at what Coach Ukai said.

"As for the serve, Nishinoya did a very good job here. On average, he received the ball perfectly five times per player, and only Yamaguchi managed to pass his defense four times. But I can see several players have the potential to be the pinch servers."

"Oh? Who are they?" Coach Ukai asked in interest,

"Well, for first, there is the second year, Kinoshita. I could tell he observed Yamaguchi a lot to do the same floating serve, and by the way, he served now, the ball floated perfectly three out of six times. That was decent for him who learns just by observing." Coach Ukai nodded while looking at Kinoshita, trying to figure out how to use that.

"I could teach the second years how to serve, you know? Besides Nishinoya and Tanaka, they will not have a lot of minutes to play, so it would do them good to learn about it." After pondering for a few minutes, Coach Ukai nodded and shouted,

"Narita! Kinoshita! Ennoshita! Come here!" The three of them looked at each other with confused faces and shrugged, while the rest of the team stared at the three curiously. "All of you, continue your work!"

Once the three players stand on the sideline, Hiroyuki started to speak,

"You know that you three are the players with the least minutes playing here, right?" They winced but nodded at the question. "Since you will not have too many times to play, do you want to learn how to do service ace with me?"

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Author note:

You can also read:

- Transmigrated Into Anime World as Kiyoko Shimizu's Older Brother up to chapter 44

- Naruto: Ashigaru up to chapter 13

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