Haikyuu!!: The Disaster of Gamers

The referee's whistle was short and sharp, breaking the silence in the Tokyo Gymnasium.

26:25. Karasuno High School's match point.

Sawamura Daichi stood outside the baseline of the service court, tapping the volleyball twice on the wooden floor with both hands, and took a deep breath. He didn't look at Inarizaki's massive cheering squad on the other side, nor did he listen to the shouts of Lu Jianguo's group of black-clad bodyguards in the stands. His gaze was fixed solely on the white edge of the net.

Throw the ball, take a running start, and swing your arm.

The volleyball, with a downward arc, struck precisely into the corner of Inarizaki's back row. Akagi, like a bird flying close to the ground, dove to catch the ball.

"Make a save!" Gong You shouted, moving laterally from the net and, despite losing his balance, forcefully pushed the ball to the left wing.

Ooshiro Alan met the ball with a powerful slam. Nishitani Yuu crossed his arms in front of his chest and took the hit head-on. The force of the impact sent him sliding half a meter backward.

"Counterattack!" Kageyama Tobio quickly took his position.

The meat grinder started up again.

This was the third match point of the game, and both sides were exhausted, relying entirely on adrenaline to stay alive. In order to seize that fleeting opening and to score before their opponents, the pace of the game was unknowingly pushed to its limit.

Ryunosuke Tanaka spiked from the left wing, but Rintaro Kakuna blocked it with a double block.

Miyaji made a quick attack from the back row, and Higashimine Asahi dived to save the ball.

Hyuga Shoyo made a breakthrough in the middle lane, but Kita Shinsuke defended it steadily.

The ball darted back and forth across the net, its speed increasing rapidly. The screeching sound of sneakers rubbing against the floor was deafening, almost piercing the eardrums. Every jump was a full-force effort, and every landing was accompanied by heavy breathing.

The atmosphere on Karasuno's reserve bench was extremely tense. Sugawara Koji gripped the railing tightly with both hands, his knuckles turning white. Yamaguchi Tadashi and Kinoshita, among others, instinctively leaned forward.

"Quickly! Keep firing!"

"Just one point away! Hurry up and get it!"

The anxiety off the field inevitably spilled over onto the field. Kageyama's passes became increasingly lower, and Tanaka's run-up became more and more rapid. Everyone was pursuing maximum speed, trying to tear apart the opponent's defense with fast breaks.

"Don't rush!" Wu Yangxi suddenly stood up from the coach's bench, veins bulging on his forehead, and roared at the field, "Slow down! Keep the pace steady!"

But the players on the field couldn't hear anything. Oxygen deprivation and extreme excitement robbed them of their hearing.

Lu Ren sat on the bench, the towel on his head slipping down to his shoulders. He was breathing heavily, his calf muscles still spasming uncontrollably. He stared intently at the chaotic afterimages on the field, his brows furrowed.

As the tactical mastermind, he was all too aware of how dangerous the current situation was.

Speed ​​is a double-edged sword.

In volleyball, extreme speed can indeed catch the opponent off guard. However, in the final stages of a match when players are exhausted, blindly pursuing speed is poison. In the pursuit of speed, players' positioning is compressed to an extreme degree, and their focus is fixed on the ball, resulting in a drastically narrowed field of vision. Deformed movements, misjudgments, and broken coordination—these fatal hidden dangers are frantically breeding in Karasuno's half of the court.

Inarizaki is a strong team with a deep foundation. With Kita Shinsuke on the field, their system won't completely collapse. As long as Karasuno makes a mistake first, Inarizaki can seize the opportunity to strike back.

"We need a buffer." Lu Ren gritted his teeth and slapped his knee.

Someone desperately needs to step up and forcefully break this damn rhythm. We need a ball tossed high in the air, giving everyone a few seconds to catch their breath, to clear their vision, and to cool down their feverish minds.

If he were on the court, he would not hesitate to push the ball towards the ceiling.

But he doesn't even have the strength to stand up now.

"This is bad." Lu Ren watched as Rintaro Kakunami of Inarizaki feinted at the net, fooling Hotaru Tsukishima's block, and hit a tricky cross-court shot.

Dongfeng Xu barely managed to touch it with his foot, and the volleyball bounced high, flying towards Karasuno's backcourt in an irregular trajectory.

The position was too far back, and Kageyama didn't have time to retreat and organize, while Nishiya was also tied up on the left side by the previous defense.

The score is tied at 26. Lu Ren closed his eyes.

"I'll do it!"

A crisp roar pierced through the noise of the venue.

Lu Ren opened his eyes.

Hinata Shoyo retreated to near the baseline. The simple-minded creature who usually only talked loudly on the court, ran around like a perpetual motion machine, and whose mind was only on "spiking" and "fast attack," now had his feet firmly planted on the floor.

He didn't try to jump, nor did he look for the attacker's position. He simply and very standardly, even somewhat clumsily, put his hands together and, at the moment the volleyball fell, steadily launched it from bottom to top.

The volleyball hurtles towards the lights on the top of the stadium.

This is a completely uninviting and extremely ordinary high ball.

But it flew too high.

The volleyball traced an extremely long parabola through the air. In those long two or three seconds, time seemed to stretch out across the entire Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium.

Daichi Sawamura straightened up, took a deep breath of the sweaty air, and his lungs filled up again.

Kageyama Tobio took a half step back, and his vision, which had been blurred by lack of oxygen, refocused, allowing him to see the positions of everyone in front of the net.

Hotaru Tsukishima shook her aching wrists and readjusted her blocking steps.

Higashi Mine and Tanaka Ryunosuke each retreated to the outside of the attack line, creating space for each other during their run-up.

That ball soaring high was like a timely rain, extinguishing the raging fire on the field.

Lu Ren sat on the sidelines, completely dumbfounded.

He stared blankly at the orange-haired figure's back, his tactical calculations completely stalled.

Hinata Shoyo? That guy who wanted to smash every ball over the net at top speed actually made the most rational and strategic choice of the entire match at the most crucial match point?

Without relying on data analysis or complex logical calculations, he simply acted on his animalistic intuition, sensing that the team was on the verge of collapse, and then, with the simplest of actions, pulled everyone back from the brink.

"This kid..." Lu Ren's chest heaved violently. He rubbed his face with a complicated expression and couldn't help but curse, "You're ruthless."

The ball finally landed.

Tobio Kageyama was already in the perfect position. He no longer needed to force a lower arc in his pass in pursuit of speed. He touched the ball with both hands and steadily sent it to the left wing.

Dong Fengxu took a running start and jumped. The power he had accumulated over three seconds exploded completely at this moment.

Heavy artillery bombardment.

Inarizaki's double block was barely held up, but the ball's momentum was too great, and it bounced directly to the back row.

The Inarisaki players, who also got a chance to catch their breath, regained their composure. Kita Shinsuke displayed extremely solid fundamentals in the back row, steadily setting up the powerful spike towards the net.

"The final blow." Gong You stood still under the net.

He didn't watch the ball, nor did he look at the opposing defense's positioning. He simply relied on the strange tacit understanding between the twins to lift his hands upwards.

Gong Zhi sped up from the back seat, not even fully opening his eyes, and swung his arm in the air.

Twins fast attack.

This is Inarizaki's most lethal weapon in dire situations. No communication, no aiming required; extreme speed and perfect teamwork are enough to tear apart any defense.

But they chose the wrong opponent.

The moment Miyaji jumped, two black figures simultaneously rose into the air in front of Karasuno's net.

Hinata Shoyo and Kageyama Tobio.

The spectators in the stands will gasp at the twins' fast attack, and Inarizaki's opponents will feel despair at this move. But for Hinata and Kageyama, the rhythm, the height, the trajectory of the arm swing…

too familiar.

This is the kind of fast break they practice hundreds of times a day in the gym, a fast break they can execute with their eyes closed.

"Too slow." Kageyama snorted.

The two men spread their arms in mid-air. They were not fooled by Miyaji's feint, nor were they distracted by Miyayu's pass. Their hands formed an impenetrable iron wall, completely blocking the path of Miyaji's swing.

"Bang."

The volleyball struck Hinata and Kageyama's palms heavily with a thud, then bounced back at an even faster speed than it had come from.

Gong Zhi stared wide-eyed in mid-air as the volleyball grazed his shoulder and slammed into the wooden floor at his feet.

Within the boundary.

The whistle blew. The referee's arm pointed towards Karasuno High School's half of the field.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium fell silent instantly.

A second later, a deafening roar of cheers, screams, and even the cracking sound of Lu Jianguo's suona horn from the stands merged into a sonic boom that seemed to lift the roof off the stadium, completely engulfing the entire stadium.

27: 25.

The score is tied 2-1.

Nishitani Yu was the first to rush onto the court, throwing herself onto Hinata's back and causing Hinata to stumble. Tanaka Ryunosuke let out a long howl, tears and sweat mingling as they streamed down his face. Sawamura Daichi, Higashimine Asahi, and Sugawara Koji huddled together, the three third-year students crying uncontrollably.

Lu Ren was sitting on the bench, and before he could stand up, he was grabbed by Kinoshita and Narita, who rushed over and lifted him up from both sides.

"We won! Lu Ren! We won!" Yamaguchi Tadashi jumped up and down beside him.

Lu Ren was dizzy from the shaking, and his thigh muscles were still throbbing, but looking at his teammates around him who were both crying and laughing, and at the Inarisaki players on the opposite half who were packing up their things with their heads down, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.

The system that ranked second in the country was strange, but they managed to dismantle it.

"Stop shaking, or I'll throw up." Lu Ren slapped Kinoshita's hand away, stood firmly on one foot, and looked up at the blinding spotlights on the stadium's dome.

Cross-server dungeon, second stage, cleared.

They have taken another big step closer to the ultimate championship throne.