"THIS IS THE FINAL SET…" DAICH SAID as he and the rest of the crows huddled together, "of our losing streak at these away games. Let's at least try to win this one set against the strongest school at the training camp, Fukurodani, before we go home."
The boys shouted back in reply, "Yeah!"
"We're gonna get this one!"
"Yeah!"
Fukurodani stood on the other side of the court, all of them looking pleased at the challenge the crows had set for them. So they set up for the start of the game with their normal line-up. Asahi served the ball over the net, a pretty strong serve, though it was received by Fukurodani's brown-haired #11, Komi Haruki.
"It's a bit off!" Yachi jumped.
Those on the sideline watched as Akashi set up to Bokuto, who jumped up to spike, only for Tsukishima and Kageyama to block it. Though even if the block was strong, it was hit hard enough to fly out of bounds, a point for Fukurodani.
Endo whistled, "That Bokuto is hard to block, huh." It was kind of hard to ignore such a loud guy like Bokuto, though Endo hadn't spoken to him at all. If they were going to have to go up against some strong opponents when they made it to nationals, it was a good idea to get used to these monsters now.
Though the game continued on, points won back and forth between Fukurodani and Karasuno. Surprisingly, the crows were keeping up with the owls. Though Bokuto really was a formidable opponent. He really is in the top five aces for a reason.
At one point, Shōyō even tricked the enemy with a feint attack! One that no one really saw coming, or thought that he would even think of doing. He certainly had Bokuto to thank for that, to the owls' chagrin.
Even with all the yelling on the court, to be honest, Sakura wasn't paying too much attention to the game. Yes, she was watching the ball go back and forth over the net, but wasn't really registering what was going on. Her eyes were just blankly following the ball in a repeated cycle, only pausing when a point was won. What was the score anyway? She wondered.
Though she supposed that she could attribute her inattention to the fact that her head was up in the clouds. Whether she liked it or not, one of the main things that she was focusing on was… Tsukishima. This camp has forced her to think more about him and his role on the team, to her annoyance. She had seen that he wasn't putting his whole heart into the team a few days ago, and it had annoyed her a little. After all, if he wasn't going to do his absolute best for the team, then Shōyō would have a harder time achieving his goal. Her talks with him, his attitude, Yua's words, were swirling around her head. Wait? Yua's words?
Sakura internally groaned. What Yua had been saying, insinuating about her and Tsukishima was infuriating on its own. She analyzed him a little bit, that was all. It wasn't something like a crush or infatuation, that's just stupid. Tsukishima gets under her skin, even if she tries to hide that fact from him. She knows all he wants to do is get a rise out of her any chance that he can get. Much like how she would like to get under his skin when he got on her nerves. That's all it was.
Suddenly, the screams of her brother and Kageyama were what brought her out of her thoughts. She blinked owlishly at them as they cheered to themselves. Sakura leaned over to Yachi, "what did they do?"
"Did you not see it!?" The blonde girl shouted in Sakura's face, "they hit it! They actually hit a really awesome quick attack."
"Oh." Sakura took a second to absorb that before smiling a bit, "about time they worked it out!" She looked over at the two idiots, a wave of relief washing over her. Whatever was stopping the freak duo from being freaky seemed to dissolve just a bit.
"You did it!" Yachi exclaimed across the court, gaining the duo's attention. She bounced around, even shaking Sakura's shoulder in her excitement, "You did it! You did it! Nice kill, Hinata! Kageyama-kun!" Besides her, Sakura smiled at them and gave them a thumbs-up in support. Shōyō and Kageyama shared a brief look before raising their fists to the girls. That just made Yachi even more thrilled.
In the grand scheme of things, Sakura thought, they were starting to slowly put together the elements they needed to get far in a tournament. That was certainly a wonderful first step. So the game continued on, points won back and forth between teams and each of the boys getting more pumped up. Though even after that miraculous spike between Kageyama and Shoyo, they still hadn't seemed to get it down 100%. They missed a few times, Sakura thought, it'll get there eventually.
Karasuno continued to display the skills that they had started to develop at this camp. One being the libero set that Nishinoya was doing well with. Though it wasn't perfect, there were clear signs of improvement. The synchronized attack also had some amazing potential. All the while, throughout the practice game, Sakura was helping Yachi understand some rules and plays throughout the game. It was certainly a relief to Yachi to know that Sakura was there to help her out when she needed it.
Yachi glanced at Sakura. She blinked owlishly as she saw that she didn't have her camera in her hands. It was bizarre not to see the camera glued to Sakura's hand. Though it was just swaying back and forth around her neck, which seemed strange.
"Sakura, are you done taking pictures?"
Sakura shrugged her shoulders, "taking photos of the same game can get a bit repetitive. There aren't too many things I could get right now that wouldn't look the same as yesterday or anything else from the rest of this week." She then muttered, a bit embarrassed, "plus I ran out of space on my SD card."
Yachi blinked, "Oh, what are you going to do with the pictures you did take?"
"I'll send a few to the yearbook after I touch them up a bit, they can pick and choose what they want to use." She explained, "The rest will probably just sit on my SD card." With how many SD cards she had, it would probably be a good idea to back them up somewhere, but she didn't have a computer at the moment to do that. She'll have to ask Shimada if she could use one of the club computers, since it'll probably take a long time.
"Maybe you can make a portfolio with them." Yachi suggested.
Sakura pursed her lips, "I thought about doing that a bit ago. I have tons of photos I was thinking of adding."
"Your photos are great! It'll look good for school or work!" Though as Sakura thought of it, she'd have quite a lot of pictures to sort through… which would take a while.
Back with the game, the score was tied up, surprisingly. It was 18-18, and Karasuno was quite pumped about it. They were keeping up with such a power-house school like Fukurodani, and that's a feat itself really. Even more plays were starting to flow easier with Karasuno as well. They tried a synchronized attack that worked very well. They were slowly but surely building a well oiled machine. That certainly worried Fukurodani a little bit. A time-out was then called.
"Yes, yes, yes!" Tanaka exclaimed, "We're actually neck-and-neck with Fukurodani at the last part of the game."
Nishinoya smiled widely, "Yeah!"
Ukai gathered the team around, "That doesn't mean you should get too confident. The real battle begins now."
"Right!" The boys all agreed.
Takeda stepped up, "It's true that we should be on our guard, but it's also true that all of the cogs you have created are now starting to fit together. Please continue to perfect them while you're playing this match."
"Right!"
Ukai nodded his head, "Also, just as planned, you haven't been letting their ace spike too freely. Though there was that one ridiculous cut shot…" He sighed lightly, thinking back on that ridiculous play, "But that was because Tsukishima was able to put in one touch."
Tsukishima blinked a bit at being praised, "Oh, right."
"If you can keep their #4 back, we just might be able to do this. Let's finish this!"
The boys all shouted, "Right!"
They played the next point, which ended up with Fukurodani getting it. Which meant that it was then Bokuto's turn to serve. It seemed like he was getting tense and frustrated with how the game was going. The constant denial of spikes and being backed into a corner a bit had affected him. So when he served, the powerful hit went straight into the net instead of over it.
Sakura, now focused on the game again, blinked at such a mistake. "That's interesting," she mused as she watched Bokuto fall to his knees in despair. "He's definitely a very emotional player."
Yachi tilted her head at the comment, "Is that bad?"
"He's really wearing his emotions out in the open." Sakura explained, "He's frustrated with how he keeps getting stopped by our defense. So he's losing his cool a bit. Which means he's more likely to make mistakes like missing a serve."
Just as Sakura explained to Yachi, Bokuto was starting to lose his cool. Not only did he mess up his serve which let Karasuno tie up again with Fukurodani, but he also missed a spike. So now with a score of 20-19, Karasuno was in the lead. Which was thanks to Bokuto's mess ups. Something that obviously made Bokuto depressed as he dramatically yelled, "Don't toss to me anymore!"
Sakura shook her head, "why are so many of these volleyball idiots such drama queens?"
Though she didn't expect much of an answer to that. It would be one of life's greatest mysteries. Thanks to Bokuto's mess ups, Karasuno was quite determined to try to win this practice match.