Practice

3rd POV

Over at Ukai's place.

"EHHHH!!??!" Ukai yelled in his room as he looked at the screen. He put it down and looked back at it. "No way, that girl.....She's really something!" Ukai said as he lighted his cigarette. Ukai had searched up Akiyama Sora and searched her up to see some of her plays in America. He had also come across a game of her when she was in Niiyama back a couple years back. When he first saw that he was amazed and saw that she had talent and good skills.

But she also had strong spikes in middle school as well. But when he searched the internet some more and came across some videos and information when she was in America. An article with a video attached but the article was in English. He started reading it after he translated the page and started reading it.

The heading of the article "New Players of United High School staring Akiyama Sora as she leads the Team to Victory" it said. Ukai raised his eyebrows at this and scrolled down to continue reading it. It discussed her plays and her teammates and a little bit about her saying that she came from Miyagi, Japan. Where she got scouted by a coach Nakamoto Ikeshi who is training her.

As he scrolled down to the video it was a 5 minute clip of their play. As he clicked on it he saw her team dive for the ball and send it up perfectly to the setter as #7, Akiyama Sora rushed to the net quickly and slammed the ball straight down.

It was a quick attack, just as fast as the super quick attack, the match continued on and showed the team doing a synced attack with three spiker but watching all of them ran at different time and just when the setter tossed the ball another attacker from the back came up behind and spiked the ball.

The video ended and the cigarette shaving dropped down on hip lap. "The hell?!" he said and when it ended and he exited out of the article searching up the teams name and the school finding some basic information. He also found more videos of her team, he manged to find her with the mixed team at a special tournament and some with the girls team.

Ukai was amazed and frazzled that this prodigy and elite volleyball player is at their school and will be training. He sighed and ruffled his hair turning off his device. "No wonder Takeda was so adamant about her practicing with the team. With her their then the team can learn and pick up on some of her skills." Ukai mumbled with a smirk on his face.

But some of the other guys also looked at old magazines like Tanaka who searched through the volleyball weekly magazines looking at the girls section finding her name and information to go with it. "New Ace of Niiyama Girl Junior High!" Under that heading it showed Sora's picture with her as she jumped and her with short hair.

A description and some informtation of Niiyama, along with saying "Akiyama Sora, as a new Ace of Niiyama, it was to be expected due to her time as a regular as a first strong contending player. She'll take her team further and with new and third years they'll be able to make it to finals."

Next day

Sora POV

I yawned as I went back in my house to take a shower after my morning run. Right after getting dressed for school with my gym bag I made my way out of the house having plenty time to get to school. "I'm off to school!" I say as I grab my breakfast off the table.

"Have a nice day!" my parents say and I exit my house and start walking down the streets as I make my new route to Karasuno.

I finally get to Karasuno and change into my gym clothes and head over to the gym. "Morning!" I say as I enter the gym and see some guys there. The third years and Kageyama and Shoyo.

"Morning So-chan!!" Shoyo yelled at me while coming over. "Ne ne Sho-chan! Your spikes were really amazing yesterday, teach me!!!" he says while jumping up and down and I chuckle at him.

"Sure-" I got cut off with the door of the gym being slammed open. "Guys!! I found volleyball weekly magazines with Akiyama and some information!!!" he yells and we all look towards his direction. I raise my eye brow at him as he glances around the gym as it got quiet and his eye finally found me.

He visibly got nervous and I hear Azumane cough in the back. "O-oh hi Akiyama!" he says trying to play off that he did research on me. I watch him nervously chuckle right after.

I chuckle and run my hand through my hand. "Well? What did you find?" I ask with curiosity. Wondering if he got some good information and how the new volleyball weekly went. He blinked at me and slowly made his way over.

"Y-your not mad?" he asks and I raise a brow. I hum at that as the boys there look at me. "I guess you were curious right. I would be too so I might do the same. But I didn't think you guys were that curious about me that you had to search me up." I said and I could hear a shuffling around in the back.

Silence and awkwardness comes over and I motion to Tanaka. "Tanaka-san, why don't you share what you found? I wonder if other members found or searched some stuff up as well?" I mumble the last part and give him a smile. He comes over and the boys there gather around.

"Volleyball weekly? Is that the new one and old ones?" I say as I look down at them. Tanaka coughs and opens the old one up and flips to the page with me on it. "Let's start with the old one.....That's you right Akiyama-san?" Tanaka says as I bend down to look at the page.

The other boys do the same as well. I nod my head. "Yeah that's me a couple years ago when I was in Niiyama. I'm surprised that you had this. It's really old." I say and Daichi picks it up off the floor to read it as the other two third years read it behind him.

Daichi raises a brow at it and passes it over to Kageyama once they were done with it. "Wow Akiyama you were a regular as a first year as well?" Daichi asked and I nodded my head.

"Hmm. I was and I became the Ace in my second year, I believer this volleyball weekly came out just after the season started." I said and Azumane looked at me with wide eyes. "You were Ace too?" he said with a nervous sweat coming down.

I nodded my head, "Yeah I was at Niiyama and back in America I became Ace for the girls team as well." I said and put a hand on my chin as I thought. The guys nodded and Shoyo gave the magazine back to Tanaka. "Wow So-chan!! That's so cool!! I wanna be Ace too! But you really got better and stronger since the last time I saw you!" Shoyo yelled at me as the other second years came into the gym.

"Ossu!" they said and I gave them a wave. I patted Shoyo's head "Yeah, I did. I worked hard to get where I am. But I see that you also got a lot better too. But it seems that you forgot my advice that I gave you years ago, your recieves are still bad." I say and Shoyo sulks and looks at me.

"I've been practicing!!" he tells me and I chuckle. "Yeah but you need to practice harder or you'll be receiving with your face." I say and the boys laugh at my comment. "That has happened....." Shoyo mumbled.

I raised an eyebrow. "It happened?" I ask and he looked up at me and shook his head. "It was by accident!" I sigh and ruffle his hair. "Well I guess as long as you get the ball to your teammates or over the net it doesn't really so matter. It'll just be painful and you'll get bruises on your face." I say and he nods his head.

Ennoshita comes over and sees the volleyball weekly. "Who brought volleyball weekly? These look old too." Ennoshita says as he picks up the older ones. He flips through the pages and comes to the page with me in it. Once he stopped at that page he gives Tanaka a glare. "Are these yours?!" he asks and Tanaka nods his head.

"That's rude!" Ennoshita says while hitting Tanaka and grabs his head and makes him bow to me. "Sorry about him! That was very rude of him to search you up without asking you, you must have felt weird about it." he says and I wave my hand around.

"No it's fine. I don't mind. It brings back memories looking back at these." I say as I pick up another old one on the ground. He nods his head and Narita and Kinoshita look over to see the page.

"Wow! Akiyama-san, that's so cool." Kinoshita said and I nodded my head. Tanaka escaped Ennoshita's grasp. "But guys look how different she looks with short and long hair!! She really looks different!" Tanaka says while grabbing the magazine and putting it right next to my face.

The rest of the guys in the gym looked at me and went from the picture to my face. I sweatdropped. The guys nodded in agreeement and I just nodded my head. "Why'd you cut your hair and will you cut your hair this short again?" Tanaka says as he puts down the magazine.

I hum at that and shrug. "I cut my hair in that picture because it was required. I had long hair like this when I was younger but cut it so I could play volleyball on the team. Niiyama doesn't want the girls to have long hair because it gets in the way." I say and continue on "But I'll probably leave my hair the way it is now." Tanaka nods his head and gives me a thumbs up.

"Good decision! But you look good with short hair or long hair!" he exclaims and I nod my head. "Thanks." I say and see Shoyo jumping next to me. "Hm! So-chan you looked really cute before as a kid with your hair up in twin tails and with your hair long! But you had this cool vibe with your hair short! But I think you look prettier with your hair long like this!!" Shoyo says next to me and I smile warmly at him.

"Aw~ Thanks Sho-kun! Your still cute like before when we were children." I say and laugh at his face. "Damn that was smooth Hinata!" Tanaka says and I laugh at that as well.

As the three second years converse with each other and Tanaka talks with the two first years I make my way over to the third years and peak over Sugawara's shoulder to see that they were engrossed in the newest Volleyball Weekly where it shows on one side me and the other side Sean. It was an interview where information in the article portion explaining the program and plans that were to happen in the schools of Miyagi.

"Oh~ So it came out already." I say and watch the third years flinch and look back at me with shocked expressions. "Wha! Akiyama-san!" Sugawara said as he held his arms against his chest. "Sorry about that! I was interested what you guys were so engrossed about." I said and look at them.

Daichi nervously chuckles. "Sorry about that, we were reading the newest volleyball weekly, it was quite interesting. It talked about your situation I believe and you." Daichi told me straight up and Azumane shivered and poked Daichi.

I nodded my head. "Ah I see, did it make sense?" I ask and they look at me and blink their eyes. "Huh?" Daichi says out. I tilt my head at them. "Are you guys worried that I would be upset that you guys were reading the magazine about me or felt bad about not asking me first?" I say and Sugawara nods his head.

I smile and laugh at that. "No I don't really mind. Plus too, you guys are supposed to know and find out anyways, Takeda-san and Ukai-san will explain more to the team later. But what's in there should be like a basic understanding of the program and stuff." I say and they nod their heads at me as they give me small smiles. "But, overall. You guys are the lucky school who I'll spend most of my time training and practicing with. So I hope you guys get used to me and I hope to get to know you all as well." I say.

"Yes, you too." Daichi says and the door opens again revealing the rest of the team. "Ossu!" they say and file in. Daichi claps his hands. "Since everybody is here let's start stretching and warm up!"

"Ossu!"

_________________

Morning practice soon finished and we all started wrapping up. "Okay team! Let's wrap it up, make sure you know the difference and what you did differently and what you should work on as well from yesterday's practice game. I'll see you guy later on today!" Ukai says as he claps his hands.

"Ossu!" the boys go and I nod my head as we clean up the gym and head out. As the boys head out to the locker room I grab my bag and start heading out of the gym. "Akiyama." I hear my name and turn around to see Ukai calling me. "Yes?" I ask as he walks up to me.

"You came from United High School back in the States ,right?" Ukai asks me and I nod my head as I raise a brow. 'Ahh he did his research then~ We never did tell which school I came from~' i thought. "I saw some of your plays and games back in Niiyama and back in the States. I have to say, you improved a lot over the years it seems. But, what you showed us the other day wasn't all of your skills. You didn't go all out did you?" he asks.

I observe his facial expressions and open my mouth. "If you are asking if I took your team seriously, then I always take volleyball serious. Whether it's a practice game or real game even if the players lack in some areas. Opponents will be opponents and they should never be underestimated. Though I can't say that I showed your team everything, I didn't show all my cards and skills. Plus, a lot of my skills as you may have seen from my games come out with a reliable team, a team which takes some time to bring out each others qualities." I say and watch his expressions and see his eyes widen a bit.

I continue, "Though that's granted considering I just met the team." I say and he nods in return. "I see. But, I've wanted to clarify something." he says and I give him a questioning look. "During this time that you spend practicing with us, you are supposedly learn something and gain experience in volleyball to help you in the future. But as I've seen you are more advanced than the team. So to be exact I would say that we are getting more use out of you than you are." Ukai says.

I smirk at that. "I see that you thought of the using the cards that appear before you. That will definitely let the team grow and advance." I say and his eyes widen that I understood his words of 'He was going to make use of me for the team'. "Though of course, Nakamoto and I know of the possibilities of this being the case since the program puts us players in some schools that they accept, plus too I requested this school. Surprisingly that actually let me come here. But I already got a good understanding of the different teams here in the prefecture." I say.

He looks at me with a look that I couldn't understand. I continue on "Though, I may or may not have something to learn, well what you may think. But I believe there is always new things to learn and understand with each team and environment. It's a matter how much you make use of it. But, I also will learn and practice with other schools as well." I say and bow to the coach. "If you will excuse me, I have to get ready before class starts." I say and give him a smile before walking away.