Reinforcement Plan

After changing into their athletic wear, the other club members arrived. Hayato chatted with everyone for a bit. Upon learning about Hayato's excellent academic performance, Ennoshita decisively pulled him into their study group. Honestly, it was too much effort to tutor Nishinoya and Tanaka, those two idiots, all by himself. Since there was a top student like Hayato, why should he work so hard?

Soon, everyone had changed and arrived at the gymnasium together. Hayato spotted a familiar face standing beside Coach Ukai. It was the advisor for the volleyball club, the Japanese literature teacher, Takeda Ittetsu. He seemed to notice Hayato's gaze.

"You must be the new club member, Kuroba Hayato. I'm Takeda Ittetsu, the advisor for the volleyball club."

Looking at the advisor, who was about the same height as Kiyoko-senpai, Hayato quickly greeted him. After Hayato stood up straight, Teacher Takeda happily appraised him.

"Yesterday, I heard Coach Ukai praise your height and volleyball skills. Kuroba-kun, perhaps this is fate. On our Karasuno's journey to nationals, a falcon with black feathers has joined us. In Yanhuang, falcons are known as Sea-Eastern Greens, powerful birds of prey. I hope you can fully display your abilities."

After poetically interpreting Hayato's name, Takeda waved his hand sheepishly.

"Ah, look at me, I've fallen into my old habit. Am I being too literary?"

"No, Teacher, you're absolutely right. I am the strongest bird of prey, and my teammates are not weak either. This year, we will definitely go to nationals."

Clenching his fist with full confidence and placing his thumb over his heart, Hayato shed his gentle demeanor and made a powerful declaration that stunned both Teacher Takeda and Coach Ukai nearby.

Before the two could react, Hayato bowed and turned to go train with his teammates.

Coach Ukai, finally recovering, watched Hayato walk away with a complex expression. He supposed it made sense; how many kind people could be ace spikers? Rather, Hayato now seemed to fit the title of ace even better.

"Ukai-kun, what Kuroba-kun just said truly touched my soul. My hair is standing on end."

As he spoke, Teacher Takeda unconsciously rubbed his arm, then his gaze became determined.

"We will definitely go to nationals, won't we?"

"Of course."

Coach Ukai also regained his composure and answered him seriously.

As everyone trained with Hayato, they increasingly realized the significant gap in their skills. However, being young, none of them wanted to lose. Thus, they trained with exceptional seriousness that day. Seeing everyone work so hard, the coach and teacher were very pleased. At this pace, they believed the entire team could still improve considerably before the training camp.

Asahi had been training very hard since Hinata's arrival, but he still couldn't resolve his internal issues. His overly gentle nature often caused him to involuntarily retreat in certain situations.

For example, now, with Hayato's addition, the team could be more conveniently divided into two groups for practice without such a large skill disparity. Coach Ukai reused yesterday's team divisions, and the two teams began a practice match.

When it came down to match point, he would always opt for a safer serve. Hayato, on the other hand, went all out, even for the final point, deciding to win with a jump float serve. Unfortunately, his touch was off today, and the serve went out of bounds, giving Asahi's team the victory.

Asahi, who had just breathed a sigh of relief, heard Hayato apologize from the other side.

"Sorry, I got a bit too eager and didn't control the ball well."

"It's okay, it's okay. We'll win it back next game."

Sugawara, who was on Hayato's team, patted his back. After yesterday's training, Coach Ukai planned to pair Hayato with Sugawara for the time being. Hinata and Kageyama's pairing didn't need to be changed yet.

"Okay, leave it to me. Keep setting me up a lot in the next game too."

Hayato, who hadn't lost confidence despite losing a crucial point, made Asahi quite envious. He had always lacked such a strong mentality.

Silently cheering himself on in his heart, a new round of training began.

"Opportunity ball!" "Screen, screen!" "First touch!"

The energetic voices of the young men echoed throughout the gymnasium. Everyone was giving their all, 120 percent.

After the final game of training concluded, everyone was panting, exhausted. Hinata quickly asked Hitoka for the match results. The answer was a 6-4 split, with Hayato's team winning more games.

"Ugh, damn it, I lost to Kuroba-senpai again today."

"Yeah, Kuroba-senpai alone can suppress us. Most importantly, Hinata, you idiot, why haven't you improved much at receiving? Damn it, most of the points lost were because you couldn't receive the ball when you rotated to the back row."

Kageyama ended his sentence by angrily giving Hinata a merciless iron hand, making Hinata yelp.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch! It's not my fault Kuroba-senpai is so sneaky and just spikes the ball at me."

"Idiot, what's sneaky about that? Isn't it natural to attack the opponent's weak points?"

Seeing the two start arguing again, Hayato quickly went to mediate. He also felt that Hinata's receiving skills were indeed a weakness for the team at the moment. So, he gave Hinata an idea: to interact with the volleyball more often in his spare time, get used to it, and slowly make it a part of his body. That way, at least he wouldn't panic so much when receiving the ball like he did now.

Hinata now trusted the highly skilled upperclassman immensely. After hearing Hayato's suggestion, he immediately nodded vigorously, promising to interact with the volleyball every day, even sleeping with it.

Hayato quickly said it wasn't necessary, while inwardly thinking that this wasn't Captain Tsubasa, where the soccer ball is a friend.

Hayato was surrounded as soon as individual training began today. Everyone wanted to train with him, except for Tsukishima. Tsukishima was still the one who wasn't very interested in volleyball. Watching Tsukishima walk to the side, Hayato began planning how to build a good relationship with him.

However, he would focus on training with everyone else for now. Hayato, who accepted everyone, trained with each person one by one until his arms were too tired to lift. But the results were very significant. Hinata improved rapidly. Seeing Hinata's progress, Hayato smiled with satisfaction. No matter how skilled he himself was, volleyball was a team sport.

Although Hayato still had room for improvement, significant progress was unlikely in the short term. Therefore, the focus should shift to his teammates. Hinata's offense was very strong, but his defense was too poor, with points scored and lost being almost equal.

Furthermore, the Karasuno Volleyball Club had a fatal flaw: insufficient personnel. With only one lineup, any incident involving a player would be very troublesome. This could be seen from Daichi's and Tsukishima's injuries, and Hinata's fever. Therefore, Hayato's addition could alleviate this situation, but it wasn't enough. The other substitutes, Ennoshita, Yamaguchi, and even Kinoshita and Narita, who had less screen time, should continue to strengthen themselves.

This way, Karasuno wouldn't be so passive when unexpected events occurred.

Thinking of this, Hayato glanced at these few people and wondered if he should suggest to the coach to increase their training load. The few people who were packing up the volleyballs suddenly shivered.

"What's going on? I suddenly feel a chill down my spine."

"Me too."

"Same here."

After training ended, everyone went home. Hayato walked Kiyoko home and then told her he was going to tutor Tanaka and Nishinoya today. After bidding farewell to Kiyoko, Hayato followed the map's directions to Tanaka's house.

Upon entering the house, he found that the second-year students had already started studying. Hayato put down his schoolbag and joined them.