A family thing

Chapter 57 Counterstrike

"Tsk. Goddamnit.", Rin muttered suddenly. "They're bringing him out after all..." 
"Who?", Yoichi asked confused as he followed the green haired. 
"That Antennae bastard.", Rin replied as Yoichi finally spotted the said person, Shidou Ryusei, standing in the center of the pitch, taking in the moment of being in the spotlight. 
"What a drag...", Yoichi muttered and walked into the arena. 
"Oh, look at that, what's this?", Shidou turned his attention to the duo walking out of the darkness of the tunnel. "You seem to be going wild there underlashes junior, but this is as far as your explosion goes."
He walked over to Rin and stared him down, "Let's make it real clear, which one of us is the number one, Rin-Chan~" 
"Then prove it...", Yoichi was about to answer, but was interrupted by Rin, "Sure, you're right on time. I'd been looking to jazz up my game."
He returned the dangerous stare, "Crushing your blond roach underdog ass should do the trick."
"Right back at ya, you brotherloving ass!", Shidou countered. 

"It seems that Wakatsuki is being subbed out in the second half for this player called Shidou Ryusei.", Natsu heard the commentator talk. 
"Who's that?", she asked. 
"No idea...", Hoshiumi answered on behalf of the whole Japanese Men's Volleyball Team. "Never seen him in my whole entire life." 
"Which isn't very long to begin with...", Atsumu murmered silently. 
"So they are bringing on a no-name.", Ushijima concluded hastily to prevent a childish fight between Atsumu and Hoshiumi to break out. "Kinda reminds me of that MSBY Black Jackals versus Schweiden Adlers match." 
"Where I turned out very well.", Natsu's brother added proudly. 
"Which is exactly what concerns me will happen to the match any second.", Ushijima replied. "They're gonna change their game plan."

"They've changed their formation.", Anri told Ego. "TheyÄre really going to use Shidou-Kun in the end. How are you going to respond, Ego-San?" 
"We're not changing formations.", Ego answered and took a seat on the bench. "They've already practiced for the possibility of facing Shidou Ryusei. They won't fall apart so easily and it's not like that decoration of a coach can use him properly either. Besides, Shidou Ryusei who even Blue Lock couldn't rein in, we'll finally find out the reason why he was picked. We'll be able to see the egoist desired by Itoshi Sae. This match is finally getting started." 

Yoichi looked at the change within the U20.
'Now that Shidou is out, the state of the field is going to change...', he thought. 'Whoever adapts to it first will be the hero of this match, that's for certain. But other than that, it's going to be a pain in the ass, because Shidou-Kun's greatest weapon is his overwhelming scoring ability under every single fucking condition.' 
He walked over to his position. Seconds later the game restarted. Sae opened the second half with a quick kick off to Shidou which he soon received back. Yoichi quickly went for ball pressing. Sae anticipated that and didn't waste any seconds to drill the ball into that narrow path between thousands of legs to Shidou. 
'How?', Yoichi was shocked as he saw the ball flying past his left leg. Shidou trapped the ball as Chigiri rushed towards him. Just before the pink haired got close to him, Shidou sent it to the rushing in Sendou. As his teammate trapped the ball, Shidou used the time and ran past Chigiri. After passing the pink haired he headed straight for the goal. Meanwhile Aryu and Niko moved to intercept Sendou. Surprisingly though, instead of going in on his own, he passed the ball to his side to Itoshi Sae with Yoichi right on his tail. Lines appeared in front of his eyes. Sae trapped the ball, whilst his options started to generate in front of Yoichi, but they were to slow to be of any help because Sae has already swung his leg and crossed a perfect curved ball into the box. 
'An instantaneous motion?', Yoichi thought in astonishment. The ball curved right to the climax point, where Shidou wanted it. He jumped up for his usual midair volley. Niko saw it and stormed forward to somehow prevent it by reaching for the ball with his own foot. Shidou on the other hand didn't care. He swung his leg and thrashed his foot into the ball. The ball deflected from Niko's foot but despite that, it didn't prevent Niko from crashing into Shidou making him lose his precious balance and fall onto the ground. 
"Arrrrgh.... you fucking blind-ass!!!!", Shidou grunted in pain. 
"Niko!!!", Yoichi shouted shocked just as the referee blew the whistle for a fould play. Seconds after that he pulled out the yellow card in front of Niko. 
"Little shit!!! Watch where you're going!", Shidou said and held the spot where Niko has crashed into him. 
"Oh my, sorry, I stepped on you...", Niko replied in the most unsorry tone he could. "I mistook you for a bug." 
"That's it, you're dead.", Shidou then said and jumped up again as if nothing ever happened. 
"Drop it, moron.", Sae said as he walked over. "Don't throw away your dream by getting a red card here. You can prove your worth by scoring, so don't discourage me any more than this."
"Hah... how considerate of you...", Shidou replied whilst gritting his shark like teeth. Yoichi walked over to Niko and stretched out his arm to help him up. 
"Good work catching up to him, Niko.", Gagamaru, who also came towards them praised. "It was a fould but still nice work." 
"But I couldn't stop him without fouling... even though I could see it clearly.", he replied. 
"Huh?", Gagamaru was confused. 
"Then change that.", Yoichi spoke unfazed and pulled him up. 
"Ow!!", Niko suddenly winced in pain and held onto his right ankle. 
"You okay?", Yoichi asked concerned and looked at Niko. "Did you hurt your foot?!"
His voice unfortunately failed to deliver his real emotions. Niko sighed and got up anyway.
"Don't mind me, I can still play.", he replied in an evenly cold tone. "I want to, even though I've frustrated that I wasn't chosen to play as striker using my eyes, I realized something with that play just now... how fun it is to play defense and crush forwards." 
He turned around and half walked, half stumbled to his designated position, "That's we're going to win no matter what. Kageyama, thanks to you, I'm not afraid of changing anymore." 
"Right.", Yoichi muttered.