His Warrior Queen: A Haikyuu!! Novel (Tsukishima x OC)

Chapter 118: Mind Games

Tsukishima Kei wiped the sweat from his brow and sighed.

One more set to play against Fukurodani.  This would decide the day.  If they could beat the Owls, they'd avoid the penalty lap, and even better, get to watch Akaashi and his crew hit the deck.

Of course, if they did lose, the Karasuno girls would be taking the lap with them, and Kei sort of actually wanted to see Nakano take a penalty lap with the team again.  It would be like old times, and the very thought brought a little smile to his face.  

The smile edged over into a smirk as he thought about how it would be much, much more satisfying to win.

When Takeda had informed them that Fukurodani would be visiting the area and wanted to spend Sunday afternoon playing practice matches with them, everyone on the team had been excited.  And when Akaashi had messaged the Gym 3 Squad group chat and asked Nakano to see if she could arrange for a mini-tournament with the girls team to round out the day, that had really pushed things to a higher level.

And so, here they all were, second weekend back to school for the Fall and already hip deep in high level volleyball.  Both the Karasuno girls and boys teams were seeded this time around, so there was no need to worry about the prelims.  They would all be going to the playoffs to determine the representatives from Miyagi for the Spring Nationals.  And so, all of their efforts were now focused on becoming the strongest teams they possibly could before late October.  The Karasuno boys were going in as the second seed - a point of pride for their new captain.

Coach Ukai was saying something, but Kei was only half listening.  He had the measure of Fukurodani now, he knew what to do.  It was strange, playing against the Owls without Bokuto.  They were still a great team, but...quieter and more stable.  Kei wasn't sure how he felt about that.  Akaashi and Kageyama had spent a lot of time playing setter mind games with one another, which was rather amusing to watch only in that it seemed to be irritating the heck out of the King.  That always brought Kei a certain level of satisfaction.

As they took the court for the third set, Kei looked over to where the girls were sitting, watching the match and cheering them on.  Nakano had a notepad in hand and was scribbling intensively, and Tsukishima couldn't help but smile again at her diligence.  She caught his eyes, and gave him a wink before he had to return his focus to the game.

Their new line up was working out decently well.  Tanaka had settled into the role of Ace with no problems at all, and of course the two volleyball idiots were still doing their thing as always.  Ennoshita had taken up Daichi's old position, and Tanaka's spot was now filled by one of the two new first years - Tokita.  The only place Kei felt they were struggling was in replacing Daichi's defensive prowess.  But Ennoshita, Tokita and even Hinata were working hard at it.  Receives were no easy thing to master, and the only solution for it was time on the court, working against as many different players as you could.  Yamaguchi was now a rather effective dual wielder.  His spike serves were not quite as strong as he wanted yet, but they were getting better all the time, and he had learned well from watching Miya Atsumu.  Tadashi had insisted that he would master being able to use either a jump float or a spike serve with no tells to tip off the opposing team as to which type was coming.  

The three teams had spent the day doing drills together, playing a bunch of three on three matchups, and then finally full sets.  As Akaashi had proposed, the last part of the day had been reserved for this little tournament.  Fukurodani had played the girls first, and it had been a near thing.  The game had gone the full three sets, and the last set had gone into the thirties before Fukurodani had finally managed to score twice in a row.  The girls team was getting sharp, and this new version of the Owls were still trying to get their wings under them.  It had been amazing to watch, and the Karasuno boys had cheered on the girls like crazy.