“Tachibana. You can jump 10 cm higher.”
Huh? What is this person even talking about?
“Take a look at this.”
When did she even record that? On the tablet in Coach Tashiro’s hands was a video of me spiking the ball earlier.
“This was filmed using the cameras installed all over the arena. Watch your form closely and remember it well. Shigeno!”
This time it was Yumi-san being called—(I just can’t bring myself to call her “Shigeno-san” anymore)—and she stepped up to do a spike, just like I had.
“Alright. Back to practice, Shigeno. Tachibana, here’s Shigeno’s spike. What’s different between hers and yours?”
Now she was showing me Yumi-san’s spike video. What's different? Honestly, there are way too many differences.
First off, we’re built completely differently. I’m smaller. My stride’s shorter too. Again, mine is smaller. But my hitting point is higher, and my spike hits harder.
And then...
“!! The backswing!”
Mine’s way smaller. It’s one thing for my swing to be smaller because of my size, but even the motion itself is too short. That’s just weird.
“Exactly. The backswing is like wings for a spiker. But you? You barely go back 45 degrees at best. Shigeno, on the other hand, swings her arm past 90 degrees before she jumps. In other words, you’re only using about half the potential power of the backswing compared to Shigeno. Now, when it comes to arm swings, there are tons of players even at the national level in high school volleyball who don’t backswing much either. And since you can already jump high, your high school coach probably didn’t bother pointing it out. There are a lot of other techniques you’ve had to learn, after all.”
After hearing that, I tried swinging my arm like Yumi-san—right there on the spot—and...
“Ow.”
Nope. Couldn’t swing it that far.
“To swing like that, you need shoulder flexibility. That’s not something you pick up overnight. And for high schoolers, your current jump height is more than enough. So that’s fine as it is. But still, if you’ve got the potential to jump higher—then go for it!”
Shoulder flexibility, huh… How do I get that? The word “flexibility” makes me think of Reiko. Now that I think about it, her backswing isn’t as big as Yumi-san’s, but it’s definitely bigger than mine. Maybe I should ask her too—not just the volleyball experts here, but someone like her who’s done gymnastics, where flexibility matters even more than in volleyball.
＝＝＝＝＝＝
Even after that mind-blowing discovery, practice and medical checks went on. Blood tests, and other tests with weird machines I didn’t understand.
Once everything wrapped up for the day, Mika-nee called out to me.
“Yuu. I want to get in a little extra practice—come with me?”
I really look up to my two sisters, Ryou-nee and Mika-nee. I’m proud of them. So unless it’s something totally bizarre, any request from them is a guaranteed YES.
＝＝＝＝＝＝
There are always a few people who stick around for extra practice after the official schedule. I mean, these are people good enough to make the national team—if you leave them alone, they’ll just keep practicing forever. So even for extra sessions, staff supervision is required.
We borrowed a court to get some reps in.
“To be honest, I’ve always wanted to try receiving one of your spikes at least once.”
“If that’s all, you could’ve asked anytime…”
That request was so tame I almost cried. Does she really think I wouldn’t even agree to that much?
“There just hasn’t been a good opportunity until now. Satsuki, can I get a toss? Yuu, just toss a ball over to Satsuki and spike it. Oh, and go with an open attack.”
The Satsuki she’s talking about is Kawamura Satsuki-san—another classmate of Mika-nee and Himesaki back in high school.
With libero Mika-nee, ace Yumi-san, and setter Satsuki-san at the core, Himesaki apparently won both Inter-High and Spring Nationals four or five years ago.
Actually, now that I think about it… three high school teammates ending up on the same national team? That’s pretty wild!
“Yuuri-chan, just so you know—Mika’s the only one selected for the full national team. Yumi and I are here as part of the U-23 group. …Honestly, I don’t think I can cut it as a setter for the main team.”
“C’mon, Satsuki, don’t be so down. Yumi was all fired up earlier, like, ‘I’m totally stealing the ace spot during this camp!’”
“Oh please. You’re the one who kept saying, ‘No way I could ever be a regular on the national team’ just a little while ago…”
Satsuki-san’s one of the few people here with actual common sense. At the very least, she doesn’t treat me like a mascot pet. She still calls me “Yuuri-chan,” though.
Across the net, Mika-nee stood ready on the other side. The rules were simple: I would spike from center, aiming wherever I wanted, and Mika-nee would try to receive it. She was the only one on her side. No matter how you look at it, this matchup was totally in my favor. I mean, it's not even a contest.
“Hey now, it’s not supposed to be a contest. I just want to try receiving one of your spikes, that’s all.”
“Then wouldn’t it make more sense for me to just spike at you directly?”
“That wouldn’t be good practice for a real game. Just think of it as practice for hitting where the defenders aren’t.”
So that’s how it was: I’d spike, and if Mika-nee could manage it, she’d receive it. Honestly, if I got serious, I was confident I could hit ten spikes and keep her from even touching a single one. Do people not realize how big a volleyball court is? It’s 9 by 9 meters. And she’s going to defend that alone?
My spikes aren’t the kind of thing you can react to after you see them. If that were possible, men’s volleyball wouldn’t have such a high success rate for spikes.
“Satsuki-san, please.”
I tossed the ball to Satsuki-san, who set it up with a clean open toss.
It was a beautiful toss. I used to think Hina’s tosses were good, but this was on a whole different level.
A great toss gets you fired up. I was gonna crush this one. Time to show off the difference in our skills to Mika-nee.
But then…
Pof.
“Whew! That was fast! Yuu, you could totally beat Yumi with that spike!”
Mika-nee just casually received it.
But it wasn’t just any old receive.
Even back when players from Tamaki Commercial or Himesaki had managed to receive my spikes, it was more like they guessed the course, threw themselves at it, and maybe got lucky with a body part.
But Mika-nee was different.
I had spiked the ball about two meters to her right. I was sure of it. And yet she received it square-on, dead center.
Not only that, the sound of the ball hitting her arms wasn’t the usual dull thud I was used to hearing when people barely managed to catch one of my spikes.
And the return—it floated up perfectly to setter position. The classic “A-pass.” Textbook perfection.
“Yuu! One more, okay?”
“…Ah, yeah.”
I must’ve spiked about twenty more balls after that.
By feel, my success rate was about 60%. As amazing as Mika-nee was, even she couldn’t cover a full court alone.
But more than 60% of those spikes? She touched them.
I’d been aiming for where she wasn’t, and she still got a piece of them.
If she’d had teammates backing her up, my spike success rate would’ve probably dropped to around 40%.
What is this woman?
I mean, people say my spikes are faster than the guys’, you know? So how the heck is she even getting a hand on them?
“Yuuri-chan. Surprised?”
Before I knew it, Yumi-san had appeared behind me. Her face was nothing like the playful one from earlier—it was all seriousness now.
“Your sister Mika is a spiker’s worst nightmare. Practice with her long enough and you’ll lose the confidence to even spike in her direction.”
“That’s rich coming from you! Back in high school, you never let me receive a single one of your spikes!”
“That was just during our first year through the spring of second year, right? After that summer, you owned me.”
Mika-nee and Yumi-san started bickering again, but I wasn’t really in the mood for it.
No matter how amazing Mika-nee is… is it really possible for her to receive that many of my spikes?
“Yuu, want me to tell you how your one-chan was able to receive them?”
“Huh? You’ll tell me?”
“Sure. The reason I could receive them is simple: I practiced a lot.”
…Disappointing.
Can’t believe I actually expected some secret trick.
“Hey now, Yuu. That’s not the part where you get discouraged—it’s where you ask, what kind of practice I did.”
…!!
Right! Maybe she did some kind of special training—something unique that made her so good!
“Mika-nee! What kind of training did you do?”
“Hmm… let’s see. First off, the basics: underhand and overhand catches (to practice positioning your hands correctly for the ball). Then one-on-one drills. Diagonal receives. Diving practice. And after that…”
…Wait, that all sounds like the stuff we already do at Matsujo.
I mean, maybe the difficulty level’s higher, but still… it’s all kinda standard, isn’t it?
“Haha! You really wear your feelings on your face, Yuu. But you still don’t get it, do you?”
……? What am I not getting?
"Could it be that the best way to get better at receiving is just by building up the fundamentals?"
"Exactly. There’s no royal road when it comes to receiving. Talent doesn’t matter much, either. It all comes down to how much you’ve practiced. Well, that’s just the technical part. That alone wouldn’t be enough to receive your spikes. That’s why I thought about what kind of course you’d aim for."
"Huh??"
"For example, the first spike earlier. Knowing your personality, I figured you’d be thinking something like, ‘Time to show off the difference in our skills to that big-mouthed Mika-nee,’ so you’d go for a full-power spike to a spot that looked just barely reachable—about two meters from me, right in my range. And as for the direction, I guessed you’d go with a turn (to your left, from Yuuri’s perspective), since you said you were enjoying playing the center ace position."
...Correct. I really did spike it two meters to Mika-nee’s right, and she turned that into an A-pass.
"And the second one—you started panicking a bit, thinking, ‘Uh oh, Mika-nee’s the real deal. I’ve gotta go all out,’ and went for a spike in the cross direction you’re confident in—towards the back of the court, the farthest spot from me."
...Also correct. And she turned that into an A-pass too.
"And then, the third one—"
So that's how Mika-nee was able to receive all my spikes—because she knew my personality inside and out. She kept reading my mind one step ahead. I always thought she was a muscle-brained type, but faced with her cunning insight...
"Hihehe, hihehe!"
Mika-nee squished my cheeks with a stretch.
"Hey, Yuu. Be honest with me, okay? I won’t get mad. You were just thinking something rude, weren’t you?"
Mika-nee abruptly let go of my face.
"I'm sorry. I didn’t think you were capable of brainy plays, Mika-nee."
"There there. Such an honest little sister. And I’m a generous onee-chan, so I won’t get mad, just like I promised. I won’t get mad... but as older sister, I’m finding you guilty of lèse-majesté. Sentence carried out."
And thus, my cheeks were squished again.
In this world, younger siblings can never win against their older sisters.
＝＝＝＝＝
"Oooh. Your hair really is amazing, Yuu!"
"Hehe. I don’t have height, curves, a waistline, or a butt to boast about, but at least my hair is something I can beat you and the others with."
"That’s not true! You’re super cute, Yuu."
After that, we were told by the staff to rest for the day and got kicked out of the gym. We'd already eaten dinner before individual practice, so the only thing left to do was take a bath and go to sleep. So here we were at the bathhouse.
And around us were nothing but pervy noblewomen lying in wait for a glimpse of nudity.
The moment you let your guard down, it’s "Yuuri-chan, let your onee-chan wash your back," followed by a full-on sexual harassment ambush.
...In the second half of the summer training camp, I had some harrowing experiences mainly involving Mana, Mana, and again Mana. That horror must never be repeated.
So I decided to strike preemptively.
Operation: “I’m having my onee-chan wash me!”
Mika-nee has a big-sis personality and never turns down a request from someone younger. In fact, all I had to do was shove the bath set at her and go, “Nn,” and—
"Whoa, what’s this? Someone’s feeling clingy today."
Or,
"Just for today, okay?"
—she said as she started washing my hair and body.
Despite having a tomboyish image, Mika-nee’s got over twenty years of being a girl under her belt—not just for show.
"Seven pumps of shampoo for one wash... What a pain."
She said that, but washed my hair more carefully than I ever would, and gently scrubbed my back so I wouldn’t get any scratches on my skin.
Seeing us getting along like this, no one in the national team dared to interrupt. Thank goodness.
...Occasionally, I’d spot someone staggering out of the bath with a nosebleed. I told myself they must’ve gotten dizzy from the heat.
Sure, I wasn’t getting groped all over by the pervy noblewomen anymore, but that just meant Mika-nee was the one touching me all over instead.
But honestly, this is the same Mika-nee who, when I first turned into a girl, offered to demonstrate how to use a tampon—and actually became the one and only person in my life to insert a foreign object into me.
At this point, there’s nothing she could touch that would make me feel shy.
And to make things worse—I mean, looking back, it still stings—when I first turned into a girl, she insisted on teaching me how to wash my body... and touched me everywhere.
...If I were a proper, chaste Yamato Nadeshiko, she’d have had no choice but to take responsibility and marry me.
And just as I was thinking that—
"Yuu. You are doing your training properly, right?"
"Yeah. Why?"
While washing my arms, Mika-nee suddenly asked me that.
"It’s just... not only your arms, but your waist, back, and legs—none of them have really developed any muscle. Okay, maybe ‘none’ is an exaggeration. But if you were really doing the training I taught you every day, your body shouldn’t look like this."
"Oh, that! I’ve been wondering about that too. You and the others have all been building muscle just fine, but I’m not seeing any changes at all..."
"That is strange. Let’s ask the trainer once we get out of the bath."
＝＝＝＝
"I’ve been wondering about your body too, actually."
Once we got out of the bath, we talked to the certified male trainer about my body, and to our surprise, he already thought something was off.
"Today’s tests covered things like body fat percentage on the surface level, and muscle fiber composition in deeper layers. Based on the results, your body structure is that of an average middle or high school girl who does a bit of sports. And yet, your performance on the physical tests puts you not only at the top of this training camp, but on par with top-tier male athletes. Your body structure and your test results just don’t match up."
The trainer let out a long sigh.
"We haven’t done detailed tests like genetic or blood analysis yet, but within the scope of what we could check today, there’s no trace of doping or drug use. To put it bluntly, this is a loss for modern medicine. With the body you have, there’s simply no way you should be able to demonstrate that level of physical performance. Your body is full of mysteries."
Mysteries, huh... I did have a genetic test once, and it confirmed I was definitely human. But maybe I’ll be classified as non-human before long.
"So, while I can’t say for sure that what I’m about to tell you is correct, I do have one hypothesis. To be blunt: the current training regimen just isn’t intense enough for your muscles to develop. Muscles grow more from doing three reps at your limit than doing a hundred light ones. The training you’re doing now is only slightly more intense than what a typical high school girl might do. That might match your body structure, but based solely on your performance data, the workload is far too low. You’ll need to train at a level suited for top male athletes if you want your muscles to grow."
The training menu he laid out after that almost brought me to tears. Things were already tough enough…
"You go to a regular public high school and belong to a normal volleyball club, right? In that case, doing a totally different training regimen all by yourself might be difficult. But even so, I’d like you to continue this program for about six months."
Six months… so, all the way until Spring Nationals? (dead inside)
And that’s how I ended up with a training menu made just for me.
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