Chapter 147
The first round of the competition was held in Tokyo.
Although Fudomine did not have to compete in the first round, Akashi and his team came to the competition venue, Arina Forest Tennis Park, early in the morning because they had to attend the opening ceremony of the national competition. Unlike in the past, this time the national competition was held outdoors before the semi-finals.
The competition will be moved to the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium after the semi-finals. After the opening ceremony, the first round of the competition will start immediately. Akashi and his team had nothing to do anyway, so they just looked around.
However, the schools that Akashi cared about were basically all byes, so there was almost nothing to watch in the first round. The only thing that Akashi was slightly interested in was the match between Rokkaku Junior High School and Higa Junior High School.
Akashi is a little curious now. After losing the wooden hand, what is the strength of Higachu now? I think it should be much stronger than ordinary schools. Rokkakuchu will most likely be eliminated in the first round this year.
Slowly, everyone came to the competition venue of Higachu and Rokkakuchu. At this time, the doubles match was already going on. Higachu on the field was Chinen Hiroshi and a player Akashi had no impression of.
Rokkakuchu was Kuroba Harukaze and Amane Hikari, but now the situation of the two is very bad. The opponent's players can shrink the earth. Although they have seen it many times at Fudo Peak, it does not mean that they can completely deal with and block it.
You know, at the beginning of the game, they tried their best to make the two players of Higachu move left and right, not giving them the opportunity to launch the front and back shrinking method. Unfortunately, this is a doubles match, and they can't keep both of them.
In the singles match of the third match, Kisarazu Ryo has already lost the game 6-3. If they lose this doubles match again, they will undoubtedly be pushed to the edge of the cliff.
At this time, Yujiro Kai, who was watching the game, turned his head inadvertently, and his eyes immediately locked on Bokuto. Then he ignored the game and walked directly towards the people of Fudomine.
At this time, Akashi noticed Kai's behavior, but he was a little curious. Kai should come to Bokuto, and he didn't know what they would talk about.
"Eishiro! You actually ran to Tokyo to go to school alone without saying a word!" Kai rushed directly in front of Bokuto, with a little anger in his tone.
"I remember that I contacted you by phone when I first came to Tokyo. It was you who was willful and didn't listen to advice~" Bokuto said calmly.
"Shut up! Don't forget that we made an agreement when we were five years old, and you didn't keep it!" Kai didn't want to listen to Bokuto's explanation at all.
"Yujiro! Do you know who you are talking to now? It seems that you have forgotten the attitude you should have when facing me after not seeing each other for so long!" Bokuto suddenly said with a gloomy face.
After hearing what Mu Te said, Kai's face suddenly froze, as if some bad memories came to his mind, but soon he regained his angry expression and said viciously:
"Hmph! Wait! Eishiro! This time I will lead Higachu to completely defeat your Fudomine! I will let you know that your original choice was wrong!"
"Heh~ You should defeat Rokkakuchu first before you say this to me!" Mu Te said with disdain.
And Kai didn't say anything else, but just glanced at the people of Fudomine with sharp eyes, and turned back to his team.
"Is he your childhood friend?" Tachibana Kihei asked Mu Te with some curiosity.
"Well! Now it seems that he has become a good minister!" Mu Te looked at Kai's back, and his tone was uncharacteristic, with a hint of praise.
"I remember that if Higachu can enter the quarterfinals, he will probably meet us. At that time, do you want to let you compete with your childhood friend?" Akashi suddenly said.
"Let's wait until they make it to the quarterfinals. With Higachu's current strength, it's not easy to advance~" Kido responded calmly.
Indeed, because Higachu's next opponent is Nagoya. You know, Nagoya is a school that has been in the top eight or even the top four in the country for many years. Higachu, which is entering the national competition for the first time, may not necessarily be an opponent.
However, Akashi is optimistic about Higachu. Although they are now missing Kido, their overall strength is not weak. If they hadn't met the protagonist group Seigaku in the original work, they might not be unable to enter the quarterfinals.
In addition, if Akashi remembers correctly, Nagoya should not use the international student team before the quarterfinals, so Higachu is not without a chance of winning.
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At this time, the score on the field has reached 5-4, Higachu is leading, and in the last game, Higachu is already two goals ahead. If he scores one more goal, it will be the end of the match. However, there is no frustration on the faces of Kuroba Harukaze and Amane Hikari, only a firm look in their eyes.
Because during the timeout, the old man gave Kuroba Harukaze and Amane Hikari some very useful guidance, allowing the two to recover the score of two games under unfavorable circumstances.
However, at this time, Saotome Harumi on the coaching seat suddenly stretched out her hand, raised her thumb and turned it down to make a gesture. When Chinen-Kan saw it, his eyes condensed, as if he had made up his mind. (PS: Why does a greasy middle-aged uncle have such a feminine name)
Everyone else was a little curious about Coach Higachu's move, not knowing what it meant. Only Akashi understood what the other party wanted to do, and immediately took out the racket and tennis ball from behind.
When Chinen-Kan on the court was returning the tennis ball, it seemed that his hand slipped suddenly, and the tennis ball flew straight towards the old man outside the court. Just when everyone in the six corners was panicking, a tennis ball emitting a faint light flew from outside the court and directly knocked the tennis ball flying towards the old man away.
Everyone looked back and saw Akashi holding a racket. There was a big hole in the wire mesh in front of him, and people could tell what had just happened at a glance.
Coach Saotome on the other side showed an unhappy expression on his face after seeing it. Obviously, things did not develop in the direction he hoped, which made him feel uncomfortable.
At this time, the referee also immediately suspended the game, because the players in the six corners came to the old man to ask if he was okay, even Kuroba Harukaze and Amane Hikari who were playing on the court did the same.
But what made everyone speechless was that the old man seemed to have nothing happened. He still knelt there calmly, drinking hot tea, and asked everyone to calm down.
"Akashi-kun~ The opposing coach should have deliberately let the players hit the ball towards Daddy, right?" Mu Te, who was beside Akashi, suddenly spoke up.
"Do you even need to ask this~" Akashi said coldly. Daddy helped him a lot. If the opposing coach dared to take action, he would have to pay the corresponding price.
Just when Akashi was about to let Saotome experience what hell was, Saeki Torajiro suddenly came over and bowed to Akashi seriously to express his gratitude.
"Thank you very much, Akashi-san, for saving Daddy just now!" Saeki said sincerely.
Akashi just nodded calmly. At this moment, a faint light flew past Akashi and Saeki, and then there was the shrill scream of Coach Saotome.
Everyone turned their heads and saw that the coach's seat of Higachu had completely overturned on the ground, and Coach Saotome was kneeling there, holding his fat belly, with blood oozing from his mouth and nose. It was obvious that he was seriously injured.
Mu Shou put away the racket in his hand with an extremely cold expression. For some reason, Mu Shou actually took the initiative to attack the coach of Higa Middle School, which no one expected.
The students of Higa Middle School outside the court looked at Mu Shou with ferocious expressions. Seeing that the situation was at risk of getting out of control, the referee immediately blew the whistle, signaling everyone to calm down, and then walked down from the referee's seat to Mu Shou to ask about the situation just now.
"Sorry~ Because there will be a match with Fudo Peak later, I am warming up here and made a mistake by mistake. I didn't expect it to be such a coincidence!" Mu Shou raised his glasses and said seriously.
If this reason was not too outrageous, the referee would believe his nonsense. However, even if Mu Shou's reason was nonsense, the referee had no evidence to prove that Mu Shou deliberately attacked. After all, this game had nothing to do with Fudo Peak.
Seeing that Mu Shou hit a dark shot, Akashi put the racket back into his backpack. For the sake of the referee, this time it was a bargain for that guy.
Afterwards, under the referee's warning, everyone in Higachu could only stare at the members of Fudomine unwillingly. In fact, the referee also had his own judgment on what happened just now. The gesture of coach Higachu and the subsequent action of Chinen-Kan were obviously intentional.
However, what was a little surprising was that the regular players in Higachu didn't seem to care about their coach being attacked. There was no big change in their expressions. They just waited quietly for the referee to announce the continuation of the game.
As coach Saotome was carried away, the game returned to normal, as if nothing had happened, but the hole in the wire mesh in front of Akashi and the empty Higachu coach seat both narrated what had happened.
The doubles match ended quickly, and Rokkakuchu finally failed to win, with a score of 6-4
, which means that if Rokkakuchu can't win the next three games, then their journey to the national competition this year will end here.
In the singles 2, Rokkakuchu sent Kentaro Aoi and Higachu sent Yujiro Kai. It seems that Higachu intends to decide the winner in the first three games.
At the beginning of the game, Kentaro relied on his precise control to block Kai's shrinking technique, but soon the difference in strength between the two gradually emerged.
Especially when Kai held the racket with his backhand, Kentaro Aoi couldn't adapt in a short time and began to lose points frequently, but Kentaro didn't give up and still tried hard to make up the score.
As a result, because he paid too much attention to winning, he ignored the blockade of the shrinking technique. Kai seized the opportunity to win the remaining games in one go and finally won the singles 2 game. So far, Rokkakuchu was eliminated in the first round like the original, and the score of this game was fixed at 6-2.
Although Rokkakuchu had already lost the match, since it was the first round, they had to play all five games. In the next doubles match, Rokkakuchu sent Kikihiko and Shuto Satoshi, while Higachu sent Chiya Shiranui and Koichi Aragaki.
In the original work, these two were called the endurance duo by Mu Te. The physiques trained in the hot environment of Ryukyu Island gave them endurance and lung capacity far beyond that of ordinary people.
But in the end, they actually lost the match because of heat stroke and fainted. You can say that they lost to Kaidou in the physical competition, but no matter what, they should not have heat stroke, and the whole game was almost two-on-one. Kaidou contracted all the defenses by himself, and Inui Sadaharu watched and collected data on the side.
I won’t say much about whether Kaidou is the protagonist. Now facing the doubles combination of Rokkakuchu, these two people have fully demonstrated what amazing endurance is. The game between the two sides lasted for a long time.
Finally, Shuto Satoshi was the first to lose strength and fell to the ground, gasping for breath. Seeing this, Rokkakuchu could only reluctantly announce his withdrawal, because Kikihiko was also very tired and obviously at the end of his strength. On the other hand, both of Higachu were in good spirits.
In the last singles match, Rokkakuchu played Saeki Torajiro, and Higachu played Hirakoba Rin. In this match, Hirakoba Rin actually used the Rice Chips, which made everyone in Fudo Mine look at Kido.
Kido calmly said that he had tried to teach Kai the Rice Chips when he was still in Ryukyu Island, but Kai was not very enthusiastic about tennis at that time and did not pay much attention to it.
It seems that Kai should have taught Hirakoba Rin the Rice Chips, but I don’t know if it’s because Kido didn’t teach it personally, Hirakoba Rin’s Rice Chips are slightly different from Kido’s. Kido’s focuses more on speed, while the opponent focuses more on changes.
Although Saeki relied on his vision to see through Fan Shiqian's changes, he could only fight back reluctantly, and he had no energy to block Hirakoba Rin's shrinking technique.
It has to be said that the shrinking technique is too buggy, especially the all-round shrinking technique of Bokuto. If the strength is not much different and there is no special skill, it is difficult to deal with this technique.
In the end, Saeki still lost the singles match with a score of 7-5. Higachu entered the top 16 with a perfect record, which made them more confident. Kai looked at Bokuto with a look of waiting for you.
After the game, Akashi came forward and exchanged a few words with his father, and then took everyone away. After all, they still had a game to play in the afternoon. As for Rokkakuchu, I believe they have already gotten used to it.
The lunch break was over soon. Fudomine's opponent in the 16-to-8 match was Tsubakigawa Academy. Akashi remembered that they seemed to have met Hyotei in the first round of the original work and were directly eliminated. Unexpectedly, they have entered the top 16 now, but their luck is still very bad and they met their own Fudomine.
In this match, the lineup of Fudomine, except Kintaro, was composed of members of the second army. Akashi didn't want to send Kintaro to the field, but Kintaro kept pestering him to play. Seeing that this was Kintaro's first time participating in the national competition, Akashi agreed.
Tsubakigawa Academy showed great resilience when facing Fudomine. They had no intention of giving up the game in advance, and even fought very hard in the game.
Unfortunately, the gap in strength was a fatal injury. Even the members of Fudomine's second army were not something they could handle. Now Ibu Shinji and Fuji Yuta have broken through to the national level, and Kamio Akira has also reached the national level.
Although Ishida Tetsu is still at the peak of the Kanto level, his wave ball can already play 100 styles, and he only needs the last 8 styles to be the same as his brother.
The rest of the people have also achieved certain success
Long, it can be said that even if the second team is taken out separately, they can at least become the top eight in the country, at least they have exceeded the level of Fudomine in the original book.
Soon, the second team members of Fudomine won three games, allowing Fudomine to advance to the top eight, but because it was their first round of competition, they had to play all five games.
Facing the power and speed combination of Akira Kamio and Tetsu Ishida in doubles, Tsubakigawa Academy ended up in a miserable defeat without any suspense, and the final score was 6-0.
In the singles match, Kintaro walked onto the court happily, but the result disappointed him. The opponent couldn't even receive his ordinary return, and this was under the condition of limiting the outflow of power.
In the end, even though the game was won 6-0, Kintaro still pouted his lips and looked unhappy. He originally thought that the national competition should be full of masters, which is why he had to play before.
At the end of the match at Fudomine, several schools also finished their matches, including Rikkai University, Hyotei, and Shitenhoji. Their opponents were basically ordinary schools.
The four matches that are still going on are: Seigaku vs. Kuroshio, Yamabuki vs. Makinofuji, Higachu vs. Nagoya, and Shishiraku vs. Kabuto.
Akashi was actually a little curious about the fact that Seigaku had not finished the match, so he came to Seigaku's match venue and was shocked to find that Seigaku had actually given up in the doubles match.
At this time, Yukimura also walked over with everyone from Rikkai University, and was also a little curious after seeing the waiver on the scoreboard on the sidelines.
After that, the two came to the back of Seigaku's player seat and asked Fuji about the specific situation. Fuji told the two of them helplessly about what happened.
Akashi and Yukimura felt very speechless after hearing it. It turned out that this doubles match was played by Inui Sadaharu and Kaido. They had won the first three games very smoothly, but during the break, Kaido accidentally drank Inui Sadaharu's drink and then lost consciousness.
In Fuji's description, Inui Sadaharu's expression was extremely awkward at that time. His water bottle was filled with his special mixed nutrient juice, and because he drank it himself, he did not make any adjustments to the taste.
And Kaido suddenly drank a drink that exceeded his taste buds' tolerance. His brain went into a dormant state in an instant for self-protection, which eventually caused Kaido to lose consciousness.
Akashi was a little amused. This kind of drama could only happen to Seigaku. Yukimura later walked to Yanagi Renji and asked him a few questions. He was relieved when he saw Yanagi Renji shook his head.
Gradually, all the games were coming to an end. Akashi also heard that Higachu and Nagoya were fighting fiercely, but for Fudomine, whether the next game was Nagoya or Higachu, there was no big difference.
With the end of the singles match between Higachu and Nagoya, the top eight of this year's national competition were finally released. They are: Fudomine, Rikkai University, Seigaku, Hyotei, Shitenhoji, Yamabuki, Higachu and Shishiraku.
The quarter-finals of the top eight will be held tomorrow. When Mu Te saw the news of Higa's victory, an inexplicable light flashed in his eyes.