Player: Akashi Asuka
Strength: 82.7 (Core Strength: 82.7, Arm Strength: 82.8)
Speed: 79.2 (Explosiveness: 78.9, Reaction Ti: 79.5)
Stamina: 80.9 (Endurance: 81, Cardiopulmonary Capacity: 80.9)
Jumping: 81.9 (Vertical Jump: 82.8, Hang Ti: 81)
Basic Skills: 76.4 (Serving: 80.1, Bumping: 74.4, Setting: 67.9, Spiking: 82, Blocking: 80.6, Defense: 74.6)
Advanced Techniques:
Diagonal Spike: 81.2
Straight Spike: 81.3
Powerful Jump Serve: 82.1
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After the weekend's training, Akashi Asuka allocated his newly acquired "Grind King Point" to his jumping stat. Thanks to recent physical developnt, his maximum reach had increased from 340 cm to 343 cm.
While a 3 cm gain may not seem like much, for a high school athlete, it's a remarkable improvent.
Through training and matches over the past weeks, all of Akashi's stats had seen a modest uptick. Volleyball Monthly even published a piece praising him as Miyagi Prefecture's new "National Ace." Admittedly, it used Japan's usual flair for exaggeration,
Phrases like "Empire's Fiercest Tiger" or "Strongest Man on Earth."
Still, the claim that Akashi was a national-level ace wasn't exactly baseless. He might not yet be in the top three attackers in the country, but top ten? Definitely.
However, while others valued such titles, Akashi himself found no aning in them.
Ever since the match against Shiratorizawa, he'd realized that his volleyball had hit a strange plateau.
────────── ✦ ──────────Back in Junior High
When Akashi had first transmigrated into this body, its base stats were abysmal. To compensate, he spent a trendous amount of ti improving his weaknesses.
That training continued into high school, and just before the preliminaries began, he finally managed to eliminate all his flaws.
Aside from setting, which isn't vital for a wing spiker, his other skills were at least average, if not above.
But therein lay the problem.
At first, Akashi believed that this approach would help him beco a well-rounded "hexagonal" player. But after facing Wakatoshi Ushijima, the truth hit him, he wasn't a jack-of-all-trades. He had beco painfully diocre in everything.
He'd lost his edge.
During the early rounds of the preliminaries, this hadn't been apparent. Aoba Johsai had dominated every opponent, including Karasuno and other seeded schools. Akashi barely had to exert himself.
Then ca Ushijima.
On the surface, Aoba Johsai had won that match, and Akashi had even gone toe-to-toe with Ushijima for six consecutive rallies without faltering.
But Akashi knew the truth.
The MVP of that battle wasn't him. It was Oikawa Tooru.
Oikawa had been calculating Shiratorizawa's patterns from the start, exhausting Ushijima's stamina. And with his exceptional setting, Akashi managed to barely hold his ground.
If it had been a true one-on-one?
He would've lost. Badly. Without any chance to recover.
Because Akashi lacked a strong, breakthrough specialty.
"I was too focused on covering my weaknesses and forgot to play to my strengths. My fundantals are solid now, but my offensive techniques are limited and lack variation..."
Akashi sighed as he stared at his data panel.
To be fair, it wasn't entirely carelessness. The core issue was simply a lack of ti. This was high school, not the pros. Even with a cheat-like ability, between classes and sleep, he only had 3–4 hours a day to train.
Under such constraints, skill gaps were inevitable.
"There's less than a week until Nationals. Shiratorizawa's best result at Nationals was only reaching the quarterfinals. That ans at least seven more teams nationwide are stronger than them.
That's... terrifying. I need a plan."
────────── ✦ ──────────Later That Day
After the morning session, Akashi had an appointnt with his editor, Kika Wakayama, to submit his manuscript.
Since he'd be heading to Tokyo soon for the tournant, he had pulled several late-nighters to finish the new volu in advance.
Lately, the other signed authors at the publishing house had been under serious pressure, and the reason was Akashi Asuka.
Normally, releasing a new volu once a month was already considered diligent.
But Akashi had doubled that pace.
Including the fourth volu he was about to submit to Wakayama, his average release schedule was one book every two weeks.
That rapid pace kept readers hooked, driving up sales of Cautious Hero.
Just yesterday, the publisher sent him his royalties for last month, netting 4.36 million yen after tax.
That was more than most full-ti workers in Japan earned in a year.
Naturally, Akashi had beco the golden child of the company.
For the past few weeks, the most common thing authors heard from their editors was:
"Sensei, please look at Asuka-sensei's update speed... now look at yours. You're not a kid anymore. Do I really need to remind you?"
Or:
"Sensei, Asuka-sensei just released another chapter. Where's your draft?"
And even:
"Sensei, I'm begging you. Even if you don't care about your royalties, please think of us editors. The newbie handling Asuka-sensei got a bonus this month because of him!"
Many veteran authors, so in their 30s, 40s, even 50s with college-aged children, were now experiencing the sa sense of inferiority they once felt in school.
Under relentless editorial pressure, they had no choice but to buckle down.
anwhile, the instigator himself, Akashi Asuka, remained blissfully unaware.
────────── ✦ ──────────
"Long ti no see, Asuka-sensei!"
"Likewise, Editor Wakayama. You're looking bright today–" Akashi replied with a smile, seated across from her at a café.
"All thanks to you, Asuka-sensei–" she replied. Having just received a bonus, Wakayama was in a very good mood.
se it was nearly unheard of.
"If everything's in order, I'll take my leave. Sorry to make you co out here."
Akashi stood up and added, "Do you have anything else planned today?"
"Oh, not really. I was just heading out to look for a new apartnt closer to the company. My lease is ending."
"I see. Then I wish you the best in finding a place that suits you."
Hearing this, Akashi briefly thought about the Sango Dorm where he lived. But after a mont, he decided not to bring it up.
He was still under evaluation as a tenant, hardly in a position to invite others in.
After submitting his manuscript, Akashi picked up so groceries and headed back to Sango Dorm.
────────── ✦ ──────────The Next Day
Aoba Johsai didn't schedule an external match today. Instead, they held an in-house scrimmage.
"Iwaizumi-chan!"
Oikawa called out. Iwaizumi jumped in response, and the two executed an A-quick play, scoring smoothly.
"Nice spike! That was perfect, Iwaizumi-chan!" Oikawa exclaid, reaching for a high-five.
But to his shock, Iwaizumi took a small step back.
"(д;) ..."
Oikawa's face froze. Was that... deliberate?
After hesitating, Iwaizumi finally said, "Oikawa... can you not smile like that? It's kinda creepy."
The rest of the team nodded in agreent: "Yeah... definitely..."
Oikawa blinked. "Huh? What do you an?"
"Haven't you noticed how overly cheerful you've been lately?" Iwaizumi replied. "That overly sincere smile just doesn't suit you."
"(Д)ノ!! Iwaizumi-chan, that's so cruel! My smile has always been pure and innocent!"
The rest of the team sighed.
Since the victory over Shiratorizawa, Oikawa hadn't stopped smiling. While he used to wear a "professional" grin, now he was genuinely happy.
Normally, that kind of sincerity is contagious.
But with Oikawa? It just felt... wrong.
Maybe his dark nature made the cheerfulness unsettling. The longer it lasted, the more everyone felt a chill.
Today, they'd finally had enough.
But Oikawa had no self-awareness, and when Iwaizumi said it out loud, the guy practically crumbled.
"That's so an~~ sob sob... how could you treat your teammate like this~~ sob sob..."
"Uh..." Iwaizumi looked unsure whether to feel guilty or secondhand embarrassnt.
Just as he was about to awkwardly comfort Oikawa, Akashi suddenly spoke across the net:
"By the way, Oikawa-senpai, did you hear? Ushijima-senpai got selected for the U19 World Youth Team. So even though we beat Shiratorizawa, technically, we still lost to Ushijima-senpai."
Oikawa's tearful expression froze.
A second later,
He stood up, wiped off his fake tears, and his smile vanished.
"You're right. We haven't truly beaten that bastard Ushiwaka. There's no ti to relax."
Seeing Oikawa finally return to normal, Iwaizumi and the others breathed a collective sigh of relief, and ntally gave Akashi a thumbs up.
Well done, Akashi-kun!Akashi didn't exchange many pleasantries and handed over the manuscript. She scanned through it briefly, then her face lit up.
"Incredible. As always, your work is not only fast but truly entertaining!"
Her respect was clear. After recently signing a few new authors, she had co to appreciate just how extraordinary Akashi was.
And she silently thanked her lucky stars for having picked him up.
Those new authors struggled with both quality and speed. She often had to travel dozens of kiloters just to nag them for drafts.
Now she finally understood why the other editors had been so amazed when Asuka submitted work ahead of schedule.
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