Chapter 11:

Yachi and Kiyoko went to the girl's dorm, which was really just a classroom turned into a dorm, as they introduced themselves with the other managers from the other schools. Two managers from Fukurodani and a manager from Ubugawa.

"My name is Suzumeda Kaori, you can call me Kaori. She is Shirofuku Yukie. We're third year managers from Fukurodani school." A long brown haired girl introduced herself and her co-manager, who gave a sleepy smile towards Yachi and Kiyoko.

"Call me Yukie."

"My name is Miyanoshita Eri! I'm a third year manager from Ubugawa." A bright twintails girl introduced herself. "You can call me Eri, it's easier that way."

Kiyoko introduced herself and Yachi afterwards. The girls settled down as the other managers began explaining the information regarding to the schedule of the training camp and how they will share work with each other for clean-up duty and kitchen duty. Yachi wrote down any important info as Kaori explains all of the details regarding to their managerial duties.

"We also have rotations but that starts tomorrow so you don't have to worry about that today. But tonight, one of you will be set up for kitchen duty." Kaori explained.

"That can be settled. Yachi-chan, you're up for it?" Kiyoko turned to the shorter girl.

"Hn? Y-yeah, I can." She replied. "I'm not a great chef but I can cook."

"That's a relief, we wouldn't want another mishap in the kitchen again." Kaori commented happily. "I'm really glad you girls are here. We didn't have enough manpower to support the teams during last year's training camp so I was afraid that we wouldn't have additional help."

"Especially since the teams are serious about going to nationals, they practice at crazy hours too. We need to catch up to them in order to support them well. Ah – speaking of crazy practice, anything we should know about from Karasuno?" Eri asked.

"We probably need some space for individual trainings." Kiyoko replied.

"Oh, don't worry about that. Nekoma has a few gyms so that shouldn't be a problem." Kaori replied, "Unless you need privacy or something."

"Does Karasuno has some tricks or special attacks to practice as well? I'm curious about it because the Nekoma members kept talking about amazing quicks." Eri piped in.

Yachi smiled sheepishly, "I wouldn't lie that we don't have some sort of strategies. It's sort of hard to explain it."

Kiyoko gave a small nod. "It is. You will have to see it with your own eyes when you watch our team play. What about your team? Anything important for us to note?"

"Everything is pretty normal in our team except for our Ace's annoying mindset sometimes." Yukie replied.

"Oh! Recently our team practice serves pretty hard. For every end of the practice each player must serve for about 100 times." Eri noted.

Yachi flinched, "100?!"

"Eh…really?" Kiyoko even found herself surprised.

"Yup! So you all must be ready for our team's serves in the future!" Eri chirped.

After the girls talked, they met with an advisor from Fukurodani who gave them a schedule for their duties and rotations. Since they already informed other advisors about this, there seems to be no problem to the schedule.

Yachi was surprised that she'll be having to rotate for Nekoma and Fukurodani before rotating back to Karasuno for the entire week. Kiyoko saw her expression and turned to support her that Yachi will do great with the other teams as well. What is most important is to be able to support the team in the way she can and try not to intervene with their flow too much.

Yachi nodded, taking all of the advices from Kiyoko.

The girls were told to share each other's number in case anything would happen.

Yachi joined with the others when they head inside the gym. She felt it as soon as she enters the room and felt like all eyes were placed on to the team. Yachi knows how serious these people were in their practice because Yachi could already spotted some powerful spikes and serves, the sound echoes loudly to her ears and Yachi couldn't help but flinched in surprise at the thundering sound of balls smacking against the floor loudly.

"Amazing…" Yachi muttered as she looked around the gym, seeing the different players from different school play in such vigorous intensity.

Kiyoko chuckles lightly at Yachi's reaction, "It sure is a different view. Seeing all of the well-known volleyball teams together."

Yachi flinched when she spotted a guy, she was judging that he was the libero, for his quick and agile move when he was able to save a ball at the edge of the court and returning it back to the setter. "Counter!" He yelled, brushing away his pale brown locks away from his eyes.

'How quick!' Yachi's eyes widened, 'How can he receive a powerful spike without getting his arms chopped off?'

Another shows of a tall haired guy who did a jump serve powerfully that Yachi was able to hear the ball smacked against the other court's floor hardly that her ears cringed at the sound. 'H-how? That was so loud!' Her heart hammered in surprise.

"Let's go, Yachi-chan." Kiyoko nudged Yachi out of her haze before she follows the other manager to help the team prepare for practice today. Karasuno team will be facing Shinzen for their first match at the nearest court. As Yachi prepares for the water bottles and towers, somehow there was something chilling she felt from her back.

Yachi looked up and turned to see if there was anything strange around her but she managed to catch a pair of dark eyes, from the other side of the gym, staring at her entire being. She recognized him as Kuroo, the captain of the Nekoma team. Yachi furrowed her eyebrows in confusion as she wondered why he had been staring at her but everything else seemed to stop briefly when he suddenly gave her a smirk when he sees her staring back at him.

Yachi blinked rapidly, feeling her heart suddenly felt like it was leaping out of her chest when she saw the way his lips tugged to the side in a mischievous smile. 'What was that…' Yachi wondered and tried to look away from him but then he surprised her again when he gave her a wave.

Yachi blinked owlishly, looking around her and sees that she was the only one looking at him. She looked back at him then pointed a finger to herself as if she was asking 'Me?'

Kuroo nodded and smiled wider, then he mouthed something like "Good luck, Karasuno-chan."

'What was that about?' Yachi was a little confused to why he suddenly interacted with her from a far and the thing was that they weren't even on an actual speaking terms yet.

As if he sensed the confusion from her face, he mouthed again, "You will be our manager for tomorrow."

Yachi widened her eyes, finally recognizing what he meant. According to the managers' rotation schedule, Yachi was assigned as Nekoma's manager tomorrow. Perhaps Kuroo wanted to talk to her about something before she became their temporary manager.

Yachi nodded and mouthed back, "Do you want to speak about tomorrow with me, Kuroo-san?"

"Yes. Let's talk after practice."

"Roger!" Yachi mouthed back and Kuroo smiled, somehow looking content before he turned his gaze away from her. Assuming that he returns to his own practice, Yachi continues to set back the water bottles and towels near the benches.

On the other side of the court, Kuroo was nudged by Yaku who was giving him a stinky eye. "Since when did you get close with Karasuno's manager?"

Kuroo placed a smug expression on his face, "Huh? What is that? Is that jealousy I hear from you?" he pretended to not hear the Nekoma's libero as he lowered his head and cupped his right ear.

This response made the libero hissed in return, "You ass – "

"Ah, I remember that we're going to have a temporary manager tomorrow for the day. It seems like Karasuno's manager will be our manager." Kai piped in before a brawl happen between them again.

Yaku cools down instantly and blinked, "Karasuno as our manager? That starry blonde girl?"

Kuroo cocked his head, "Eh…is that the first thing you notice about her? How romantic."

"Shut up, you ugly bed-head!" Yaku kicked Kuroo's side with a feisty force that made Kuroo coughed in pain by the impact.

Kai sighed heavily, tired of seeing the duo having their petty fight again. Kai looked towards the other side of the gym where Karasuno was playing a match against Shinzen and caught the figure of the petite small blonde haired girl.

His eyebrows lifted as he finally noticed something about her. "Ho…so that's what made Kuroo and Yaku notice her."

Yachi felt like she just entered another world of volleyball. It was disheartening to watch the team lose for every match and it certainly wasn't a pretty picture for the team to do the penalty doing diving leaps around the court for so many times. She wondered whether they'll bruise their chest in the future if they keep losing like this.

The match against Shinzen was calculative and short as Shinzen kept surprising the team with constant hits from their various formations. It was certainly hard to keep on looking at the ball without knowing who will spike it into Karasuno's court. Yachi began writing down all of the details she learns from the first match.

Then when the team moved on to play against Fukurodani, she was surprised again by how big the gap of capability was between Karasuno and Fukurodani. Yachi's eyes never left the players from Fukurodani when they kept the ball up on their side of the court and easily hands it over to the ace to spike it towards Karasuno. Yachi realizes how agile and powerful they were as a team, each person seems to own some internal understanding to each other's method of play therefore they were quick in setting and spiking their scores.

Yachi couldn't help but lost count of how many spikes the ace of Fukurodani were able to get through Karasuno in such elegant yet powerful form that Yachi's hand instinctively move to sketch on her book when she sees the form of Fukurodani's ace when he jumps and swing his arm to spike the ball. It was so similar to Hinata's style of spiking although this ace was bigger, stronger and definitely more experienced.

Yachi also counts how many times the setter was able to deliver the ball to the members flexibly that she was able to compare Kageyama's play with his. Yachi also managed to sketch his tossing form on her notes as she watched the entire match play.

By the end of the match, the referee blows the whistle where Karasuno lost another round of match again. Yachi stood up along with Kiyoko, coach Ukai and Takeda-sensei. All of them seem to understand something out of the previous matches they just saw.

"As we suspected, they're very strong." Takeda-sensei commented as the team members went off to do their penalty.

"Yeah, it's not that we're not on top of it but this is what it takes to be a team that competes in the nationals." Coach Ukai replied.

"To be able to take on such amazing teams…we still need to do a lot of work."

"Yeah." Coach Ukai agreed.

Yachi flinched when the ace of Fukurodani spiked a powerful ball inside the court against Nekoma when the ball bounces away towards Tsukishima's way. Yachi was about to yell a warning for him but Tsukishima manages to hit away the stray ball with the back of his hand but hissed painfully when he retreated his hand back.

"T-Tsukishima, are you alright?" Yachi hurried towards his side and try to look for his hand. "If it stings then it's better to cool down with water or a cooling gel – "

"Don't bother. I'm not hurt." Tsukishima cuts her off quickly and moves away. Yachi was a little troubled by his response but she could only shrug it off. She didn't know why but Tsukishima always seem so off putting whenever it's time for volleyball practice or match.

Karasuno then continue to play with Ubugawa however they also lose the first match for the nth time of the day and Yachi watches with worried expression that the team isn't moving away in points for their scores in the day. It seems like Karasuno were still adapting to the methods of the teams in the training camp.

As Kiyoko jots down the result of the score, Yachi heard some of the members from Ubugawa commenting on Karasuno's play.

"Geez, how many times did they do the penalty today?"

"They're not bad…just mediocre."

"Who are the first years that Nekoma had a hard time with? Maybe they're exaggerating?"

Yachi huffed in annoyance as she looked over to the people conversing about Karasuno like that. Even though Hinata and Kageyama were not here, that does not mean the entire Karasuno were not good enough to play against.

"Don't be upset, Yachi." Kiyoko spoke gently.

Yachi pouted, "But…"

"If what Tanaka said is true then they'll be here soon."

As soon as Kiyoko says that, the gym's door was opened widely by a pretty looking onee-chan with striking short blonde hair, dressed in cool black tank top and red pants.

"Oh! Looks like they're still going at it! We made it in time!" She exclaimed happily.

Yachi's eyes widened and her lips couldn't help but widen when she sees the familiar figures of Hinata and Kageyama entering the gym, panting heavily as if they had been running their way here.