"Whoa, what the heck is going on?"
"Oh, I get it now. When it's their own team serving, they play that synchronized, unified tune to boost morale, then quiet down to give the server a good environment. But when the opponent serves, they purposely play this chaotic mess to throw off the rhythm."
"What? There's a tactic like that? That's seriously underhanded!"
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"Inarizaki High's devil-style cheering is infamous nationwide…" One of the Aoba Johsai substitutes muttered anxiously, feeling the pressure from the overwhelming atmosphere controlled by Inarizaki's cheering squad.
And in truth, even on the court, Hajime Iwaizumi was already beginning to feel the effects.
Though he wasn't exactly overwhelmed by the pressure, the sheer disorder of the noise was undeniably disruptive for any player.
Thud!
With a slightly off-sounding strike, Iwaizumi's serve wobbled uncertainly as it floated into Inarizaki's side of the court.
"Damn! My bad, that was on me," Iwaizumi admitted, clicking his tongue.
"No worries. With this kind of interference, just getting the ball over is already impressive," Oikawa responded.
Inarizaki smoothly received the ball and immediately transitioned into a counterattack. Miya Atsumu stepped in, swiftly and precisely locking onto the spot where the first pass landed.
Oikawa's eyes narrowed. "Here it comes again… yeah, no doubt about it. This guy's going to be a real pain."
The art of setting doesn't dazzle like a flashy spike, but its true brilliance lies in subtlety, and those subtleties, once seen clearly, can be even more terrifying than the loudest attack.
Take Atsumu's footwork just now.
To most, it was just a simple step. But to setters, that step was perfection itself, the "first step," refined through countless repetitions, mastered by only the best.
Boom!
With that flawless movement, Atsumu and his twin brother Miya Osamu launched a fast quick attack and secured the point with ease.
1:2.
"Whoa, that was fast!" The ball was already behind them by the time Aoba Johsai's players even registered what had happened.
"That coordination was insane. It almost gave me flashbacks of Karasuno's first-year monster combo."
"No wonder they're called the Inarizaki Twin Stars. Their reputation is well-deserved."
That fast attack from the Miya twins caught Aoba Johsai off guard. No one understood the terror of a fully synchronized quick attack more than they did.
Without Karasuno's monster quick, Aoba Johsai would've ended the Miyagi qualifiers at least forty minutes earlier.
Inarizaki continued their serve.
This time, it was launched by Kakuna Rintarō. His serve wasn't quite as powerful as Osamu's, but it had a tricky landing spot. Still, by now, that alone wasn't enough to truly threaten Aoba Johsai.
Iwaizumi calmly received it, and Oikawa began setting up the play.
Thanks to the shock of the first spike, Inarizaki's players unconsciously leaned toward covering Akashi Asuka's position.
Some drifted toward Kindaichi, too…
And in that brief moment of imbalance, Oikawa made his move, he launched a setter's attack.
Smack!
Pop!
He struck the ball over the net himself. The sudden move completely caught most of Inarizaki off guard. But just as the ball passed over the net, it didn't hit the ground.
Instead, it collided with a pair of arms, someone had read him.
"You—"
Oikawa's pupils shrank as he looked toward the blocker, Miya Atsumu, who had appeared on the other side of the net seemingly out of nowhere.
He hadn't been able to cleanly dig the ball, and it ricocheted off the block and dropped to the floor. But just the fact that he read Oikawa's surprise setter attack was shocking.
Only one person had ever pulled that off before: Kageyama Tobio.
"…So I wasn't mistaken after all." Atsumu grinned, his voice smug yet excited. "You're just like me, aren't you?"
"That moment, when you thought, 'Now's the perfect time for a setter attack', I thought the same thing."
Oikawa and Atsumu stood across the net, eye to eye.
Two setters with enough cunning between them to outwit thousands, finally meeting head-to-head on the national stage.
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Oikawa's serve.
Once again, the chaotic music from Inarizaki's cheering section erupted.
He tried to keep calm, but the noise still rattled him.
Smack!
The ball left Oikawa's hand, a high-speed jump serve with a tight angle and solid trajectory. Yet, at the very last moment, the musical noise threw off his timing just enough to slightly affect his motion.
Even so, the serve was fast enough to send a jolt through Inarizaki.
Their libero barely managed to react in time, receiving it in a panic, but the first pass veered far off from the setter's ideal position.
"Crap, Atsumu, it's all you!"
Even before the call finished, Atsumu was already in motion.
With the ball just under 1.5 meters from the floor, he dove flat onto the ground and somehow, miraculously, lifted a perfect second touch.
The crowd gasped at the sight.
But for setters like Oikawa and others in the audience, the image of Atsumu made their blood run cold.
"Seriously… why do I keep meeting these damn freaks?" Oikawa muttered, his face pale.
Now it made sense why he hated Atsumu at first sight, he was cut from the same cloth as Kageyama Tobio and Ushijima Wakatoshi.
Those volleyball maniacs who devote every ounce of their soul and body to the game.
Even when they could set the ball with an easier technique, they'd still contort themselves just to get it a fraction more accurate.
Boom!
Aran Ojiro received Atsumu's set and launched a cannonball of a spike straight through Aoba Johsai's defense.
2:2.
The score was tied again.
Now it was Atsumu's turn to serve.
The moment he stepped into the service zone, Aoba Johsai collectively felt a massive wave of pressure crash over them.
Even the cheering from Inarizaki's fans swelled in force, the powerful, grandiose music rising until it drowned out the entire stadium.
Then,
Atsumu slowly raised his left hand and clenched it into a fist.
In that instant,
The music stopped.
The arena fell silent.
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Completed version available on Patreon.com/Veltoria