The Birth of A Volleyball Legend

So, yeah, if only the senpai weren\'t so lovestruck for the girl, he would ask bluntly, \'Are you fucking kidding me?\'

"Arina-chan? Yori-kun? What are you doing here?" Suddenly, a voice came from the door. When Yuki turned around, he could see Megumi who was surprised at the two new presences here.

"Megumi-chan!" Arina Sugawara smiled brightly at the team manager. "I have been waiting for you to come! Here, sit next to me!" She offered the seat to Megumi. Under Yuki\'s questioning gaze, Megumi explained, "We have been together in the same class for three years in a row, so you can say we are close to each other."

It seemed that wasn\'t new information as everybody except him knew about it already. However, it was nice to have someone who knew the girl and wouldn\'t be blinded by her pretty face at all.

"So, Sugawara-senpai, can you explain why do you want to spread rumors about us? You know how messed up our situation a month ago because of it, right?" Yuki decided to take over since he couldn\'t rely on his senpai.

Arina Sugawara nodded, showing she wasn\'t offended. "I can understand your concern, but what I want to do is far from a petty reason like jealousy because you are favored by the headmaster or something like that. No, what I want to do is to enlighten the students about the school\'s wrongdoing.

Not a lot of students here know what happened behind the purge, and I bet you don\'t know about it too, right?"

"Okay, hold on for a second. Let\'s stop this before we go too far." Yuki interrupted, seeming to have enough. He ignored the death stares sent by his senpai and continued, "Can you explain it chronologically? About what happened, why, and how spreading rumors about us would help your agenda?"

Arina Sugawara\'s face flushed red, clearly not used to being interrupted rudely like this. However, she regained her composure quickly with a single cough before explaining, "I apologize for my incompetence in explaining this matter. First of all, let\'s make sure we are on the same paper here. You should\'ve known about the purge that happened in this school, right?

About how all the clubs were dissolved one by one without mercy?"

Everyone nodded, knowing about that.

"Then, do you know about the reason for it?" Arina Sugawara asked, and by the look of her eyes, it was directed to Yuki.

Yuki pondered for a moment before replied carefully, "From what I heard, it is to save money since our school suffered from so many debts and wants to cut off the clubs they think as useless. But it seems it should be more than that, right?"

"Smart." Arina Sugawara nodded in approval. "You are right. If it is just to save money, the school doesn\'t have to disband all the clubs here. In fact, they shouldn\'t disband any of it, since everything was because of the mismanagement of the school, and they had no right to punish the students for their failure.

However, what you don\'t know is, that the school has already prepared several clubs to be opened after everything was buried to the ground."

"Really?!"

"Yeah. As far as I know, there is a computer club, a design club, and the old science club will be reinstated once again in the next month. The list is not fixed and it seems the school still wants to add some for the students."

Everyone stared at each other, thinking about it. Even though it sucked that all the clubs were disbanded, there was a replacement, which probably wouldn\'t be much different, right? If the science club could be activated again, what prevent the other clubs from having the same luck?

"You might think it is okay, right? Since the science club can be activated again, your club might still have a chance, is that what you think?" Arina Sugawara guessed what was inside their mind correctly. Seeing the others blush in embarrassment, she sighed, then continued, "You are not wrong in thinking about that. Unfortunately, things are not so simple here.

The school has already been in contact with the Maiko group, and from what I heard, they want to create new clubs here to support their group so that they could scout some talented students here and recruit them as cheap workers."

"Maiko Group?" Riku asked confusedly. He and Yuki weren\'t Tokyo natives, so they didn\'t know a lot about it. However, everyone turned somber as they heard the information from Arina Sugawara.

"Maiko Group is a conglomerate group that has been pretty active in the last couple of years." Koji who was the most well-informed person in the room explained, yet his expression was solemn. "In the last couple of years, they brought so many things, from the newspaper corporation, electronic company, software business, and even establishing their own group to enter the entertainment industry."

"I also heard about them," Okamura added with the same solemnity. "Rumor said that they are involved in so many shady businesses, from taking children to work illegally for them, making their people work until they pass out, and some inhuman activities that are always revolving around them wanting to save money illegally.

Nothing is proven to be true, of course, and they kept saying that the rumor came from their jealous rival to smear their reputation. But when the group knocking on our door right now…"

Everyone shuddered at the implication. It seemed Maiko Group was here to open up clubs that were relevant to what they needed so they could scout talents from here to work for them. However, they knew it would be hard to establish clubs out of nothing and attracted the students\' attention to join.

So, why not fix it by cooperating with the teachers to close down all the old clubs and create new ones from scratch so that the students would be forced to join their clubs?

It should be a win-win solution in their book.

"Have you talked about this to the headmaster?" Yuki suddenly asked. "You are the student council president, right? Your voice should have some weight for the higher-ups."

"In theory, it should be." Arina Sugawara smiled wryly. "Unfortunately, the student council is not just for students anymore. The headmaster put one teacher as the middleman between the students and the school, so whenever we have something to discuss, we cannot talk to the headmaster directly.

And as far as I know, not a single complaint I sent to the middleman arrived safely at the headmaster\'s desk."

"WHAT?!"

Everyone was stunned by the news. Not only the old clubs were going to be replaced by the new clubs cooperating with a shady conglomerate group, but the student\'s voices had been repressed already. Although they knew the situation was bad, they had never expected it would be this bad.

"So…" Riku finally spoke, breaking the silence. "Even though I know it is bad, I still don\'t get how spreading rumors about us will help you."

All the eyes turned to the student council president immediately. This was the most important matter. Arina Sugawara came here in the first place to ask whether she could spread rumors about them. They still, didn\'t get how it would help her in the long run.

"Well, it is like this." Arina Sugawara showed a helpless expression. "To fight against the school\'s unfairness, we student council alone are not enough. We need more support from the students. Unfortunately, not many people care about this, thinking it is too much trouble for them. Some even said it is okay, making it easier for them to get a job after they graduate from school.

So…" She trailed her words for a moment, looking hesitant. Everyone was confused at the sudden change of mood. However, it was Yuki who realized what she wanted to do.

"Okay, let me get this straight. Do you want to unite the students by spreading rumors about us being favored by the school so that the students would feel angry toward the higher-ups, then hope it would make all the students feel curious about the problem and want to expose the school\'s deal with the Maiko group after that. Is that right?

But don\'t you think it will make us a sacrificial lamb that would die from the rumor you create?"