The volleyball net sagging between two fence posts in their backyard had all the professional dignity of a clothesline that had given up on life. Their father had spent twenty minutes adjusting the height with an assortment of rope, duct tape, and what Ryu could only describe as optimistic engineering.
"Is it supposed to sag in the middle like that?" Mei asked from her perch on the back porch, where she'd positioned herself with a notebook and what looked suspiciously like a scoring system.
"Character builds character," their father replied, giving the net one final adjustment. "Besides, your brother needs to learn to adapt to different conditions. Not every court is going to be regulation perfect."
"I'm pretty sure that's not how that saying goes," Ryu said, bouncing the volleyball experimentally. The weight felt familiar in his hands - not quite the same as his father's professional ball from the orphanage, but close enough to trigger muscle memory from those early morning practices with Kenichi.
"Details," his father waved dismissively, then clapped his hands together. "Alright, son. Let's start with the absolute basics. Show me your serving stance."
Ryu moved to what he hoped was the service line - a strip of masking tape their father had laid down approximately where regulation distance should be. He bounced the ball twice, took a deep breath, and set up in the stance Kenichi had drilled into him hundreds of times.
"Not bad," his father said, walking around him like a coach evaluating form. "Your feet are positioned well, your toss hand is ready. But you're holding tension in your shoulders - try to relax a bit."
"Tension helps with power, right?" Ryu asked, genuinely curious.
"Common misconception. Tension restricts fluid motion. Power comes from technique and timing, not muscle strain." His father demonstrated, going through a slow-motion serving motion. "See how everything flows together? Toss, step, contact, follow-through. It's like a dance, not a fight."
"A dance that involves hitting things," Mei called out helpfully. "Very aggressive choreography."
"Ignore your sister," their father said with fond exasperation. "She's just bitter because she can't even hit a tennis ball straight."
"Hey! My hand-eye coordination is perfectly adequate for non-athletic activities!"
Ryu tuned out their banter and focused on the ball in his hands. This was it - his first real serve in front of his new family. No pressure at all.
He tossed the ball up, stepped forward, and swung his arm with what he hoped was proper technique.
The ball sailed majestically through the air, cleared the net by a comfortable margin, and landed squarely in their mother's herb garden, where it promptly got stuck between the basil and oregano plants.
"Well," their father said thoughtfully, "it had excellent height and distance. That's... something."
"It's definitely something," Mei agreed, making notes in her book. "I'm writing this down as 'Serve Number One: Seasoned the garden.' Should I give points for creativity?"
"Please don't keep score," Ryu said, already jogging toward the herb garden to retrieve the ball. "This is supposed to be encouraging."
"Encouraging doesn't mean pretending physics don't exist," Mei replied cheerfully. "But I'll give you half a point for not hitting any windows."
Their father was more diplomatic. "Your arm swing looked good, and you got solid contact with the ball. The direction is something we can work on with practice."
"How much practice?" Ryu asked, brushing oregano leaves off the volleyball.
"Well..." his father considered this seriously. "In my experience, it takes about a thousand repetitions to develop muscle memory for a basic serve. But everyone learns at their own pace."
"A thousand?" Ryu stared at him in horror.
"Give or take a few hundred. But hey, that's only about two months of daily practice!"
"That's supposed to be encouraging?"
"It's supposed to be realistic. Volleyball isn't something you master overnight - it's a lifelong journey of incremental improvement and occasional breakthrough moments."
Ryu's second serve went significantly better, at least in terms of trajectory. It cleared the net, stayed within the general vicinity of their yard, and only bounced off the fence twice before coming to rest near the back door.
"Progress!" their father announced with genuine enthusiasm. "That one was actually playable. In a very broad sense of the word 'playable.'"
"I'm upgrading that to three-quarters of a point," Mei declared. "The ball stayed in our zip code this time."
They spent the next twenty minutes working on serving basics - foot positioning, toss consistency, contact point, follow-through. Ryu's accuracy remained wildly inconsistent, but his father's patient coaching was helping him understand the mechanics better.
"Remember, it's not about power," his father kept saying. "Consistency first, then we worry about velocity and placement."
"What if I want to serve like those players who break windows and terrify people?" Ryu asked.
"Those players spent years perfecting their technique first. You have to walk before you can traumatize opposing teams."
"That's a weird metaphor, Dad."
"Volleyball is a weird sport. Beautiful, but weird."
After what felt like fifty missed serves (Mei helpfully informed him it was actually thirty-seven), Ryu was starting to get discouraged. His shoulder ached, his accuracy hadn't improved significantly, and he was pretty sure their neighbors were getting annoyed by the constant sound of volleyballs hitting various surfaces.
"Maybe I should stick to basketball," he muttered after his latest serve somehow managed to go sideways and knock over their mother's wind chimes.
"Hey," his father said, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. "What's the first rule of learning any new skill?"
"Don't give up after thirty-seven attempts?"
"Be patient with yourself. Every great player went through this exact same phase. Even the professionals you see on TV started by hitting balls into herb gardens and wind chimes."
"Really?"
"Well, maybe not those specific targets, but definitely inappropriate places. I once served a ball directly into the school principal's coffee during an outdoor assembly."
Despite his frustration, Ryu found himself laughing. "You didn't."
"I absolutely did. Had to write a formal letter of apology and promise to pay for dry cleaning his suit."
"What did Mom say when she found out?"
"Mom wasn't Mom yet - we were still in high school. But your grandmother made me practice serves for three hours straight in her backyard as punishment."
"Did it help?"
"Eventually. Though I think the real lesson was learning to live with embarrassment and keep trying anyway."
They were setting up for another round of serving practice when their mother appeared at the back door, having apparently finished whatever Sunday morning tasks had been keeping her inside.
"How's the volleyball education going?" she asked, surveying the scene with amusement. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she was wearing one of their father's old athletic shirts that was several sizes too big for her.
"Izumi's making steady progress," their father replied diplomatically. "He's got good form, just needs to fine-tune the targeting system."
"By 'fine-tune' he means 'completely reconstruct,'" Mei added helpfully. "But in fairness, some of the missed serves were quite spectacular. That one that somehow bounced off three different surfaces before landing in the neighbor's pool was genuinely impressive."
"It went in their pool?" their mother asked in alarm.
"Just barely cleared the fence," Ryu said quickly. "And they weren't home. I climbed over and got it back."
"You climbed over the Yamadas' fence?"
"It seemed like the right thing to do?"
Their mother shook her head with fond exasperation. "Well, at least you're taking responsibility for your errant serves. That's very mature."
"I'm full of maturity," Ryu said proudly.
"Sure you are," Mei snorted. "Mature people definitely spend their Sunday mornings terrorizing herb gardens with volleyballs."
"Can you do better?" Ryu challenged, holding out the ball.
"Probably not, but I'm not the one who declared volleyball as my new life passion yesterday."
"That's not - " Ryu started, then stopped. Because actually, that was pretty much exactly what he'd done. "Okay, fair point."
"Tell you what," their mother interjected, "why don't I try a few serves? It's been years since I played, but maybe I remember something useful."
"You played volleyball?" Ryu asked in surprise.
"Just in high school, and I wasn't very good. But your father made me practice with him when we were dating, so I learned the basics through sheer repetition and romantic obligation."
"Romantic obligation?" their father protested. "You loved our practice sessions!"
"I loved spending time with you. The volleyball was tolerable at best."
She took the ball from Ryu and moved to the service line, testing the weight in her hands. "It's been at least fifteen years since I've done this, so don't expect miracles."
Her serving stance looked rusty but fundamentally sound - feet positioned properly, ball held in her non-hitting hand, shoulders squared to the net. She bounced the ball once, took a breath, and tossed it up.
The serve was nothing spectacular - no tremendous power or perfect placement - but it cleared the net comfortably and landed well within the boundaries of their makeshift court.
"Show off," their father said with obvious pride.
"Muscle memory," their mother replied, but she looked pleased with herself. "Plus I had a very patient teacher who made me practice until I stopped embarrassing myself."
"I want to try again," Ryu said, motivated by seeing his mother's successful serve.
"Go for it," his father encouraged. "Remember what we worked on - smooth motion, consistent toss, follow through toward your target."
Ryu set up at the service line, trying to channel everything he'd learned in the past hour. The ball felt comfortable in his hands, his stance felt more natural, and for the first time all morning, he felt genuinely confident about his chances.
He tossed the ball up, stepped forward, and swung his arm with fluid precision.
[Critical Strike Activated - Temporary Unlock]
[Perfect Technique Override - 3 seconds]
[Success Rate: 100%]
The system notification flashed so briefly that Ryu almost missed it, but the result was unmistakable. The serve was perfect - powerful, accurate, with just enough topspin to make it drop sharply after clearing the net. It hit the exact center of their makeshift court with a satisfying thud.
Silence.
"Holy crap," Mei said, her scoring notebook forgotten in her lap.
"Language," their mother said automatically, but her voice was filled with amazement.
Their father just stared at the spot where the ball had landed, then looked at Ryu with an expression somewhere between pride and confusion.
"That was..." he started, then stopped, searching for words. "Son, that was a genuinely good serve. Like, really good. Competition-level good."
"It was?" Ryu tried to keep the surprise out of his voice. He'd felt the moment of perfect technique, the way everything had flowed together exactly as it should have, but he hadn't expected it to be that obvious to everyone else.
"Do it again," Mei demanded, jumping up from her chair with renewed interest.
"Yeah," their father agreed, tossing the ball back to him. "Let's see if that was a fluke or if something just clicked."
Ryu caught the ball and moved back to the service line, trying to recapture whatever had made that serve so perfect. He went through the same motion, focused on the same technique points, and swung with what felt like identical form.
The ball sailed over the net, over the fence, and directly into the Yamadas' pool again.
"There's my son," their father said with a mixture of relief and amusement. "I was starting to wonder if you'd been replaced by a volleyball prodigy."
"That's more like it," Mei agreed, making notes in her book. "Though I'm definitely giving that first one bonus points for temporarily making everyone question reality."
"Where did that come from?" their mother asked, still looking slightly stunned. "That serve was completely different from all the others."
"I don't know," Ryu said honestly. "It just... felt right for a second. Like everything clicked into place."
"Well, that's encouraging," his father said. "It means your body knows how to do it correctly - we just need to train your muscle memory to find that feeling consistently."
"How long will that take?"
"Could be weeks, could be months. Breakthrough moments happen when they happen, not when we want them to."
They continued practicing for another hour, with Ryu's serves returning to their previous level of creative inaccuracy. But everyone's mood had been lifted by that one perfect serve - proof that improvement was possible, even if it remained frustratingly inconsistent.
"Alright," their father said finally, "I think that's enough serving practice for one day. Your shoulder's probably getting tired, and we don't want to develop bad habits from fatigue."
"What's next?" Ryu asked, surprised to find himself genuinely disappointed that practice was ending.
"Next, we work on receiving. But first, let's take a break and get some water. Your mother's been standing there looking like she wants to say something for the past ten minutes."
"I was just thinking," their mother said, "that this looks like a lot more fun than I remembered. Mind if I join the next session?"
"Really?" their father's face lit up. "You want to practice with us?"
"Why not? It's a beautiful Sunday, I don't have any urgent housework, and watching you two bond over volleyball is making me feel left out."
"What about me?" Mei protested. "I've been providing valuable statistical analysis and moral support!"
"You can keep score," their mother said diplomatically. "Every team needs a manager."
"Do I get a clipboard?"
"We'll see what we can arrange."
As they gathered the equipment and headed inside for water and snacks, Ryu felt something he hadn't experienced since arriving in this world - the simple pleasure of family time without the weight of guilt or identity confusion. His serve might be terrible ninety-nine percent of the time, his technique might need years of work, but for this moment, he was just a kid learning volleyball with parents who cared enough to spend their Sunday morning teaching him.
The system flickered briefly at the edge of his vision:
[Daily Quest Progress: Volleyball Practice - 63 minutes completed]
[Base Reward: +8 XP Family Practice Bonus: +5 XP]
[Status Effect: Family Bonding - Duration extended]
[Critical Strike ability temporarily accessed - Cooldown: 23 hours 57 minutes]
[Level: 1 (24/100 XP)]
As they walked inside, their mother put her arm around his shoulders. "You know what? I think we should make this a regular thing. Sunday morning volleyball in the backyard."
"Every week?" Ryu asked.
"Every week," she confirmed. "Family tradition, starting today."
"Does this mean I have to keep statistics for every session?" Mei asked with mock horror.
"Only if you want to," their father said. "But I have a feeling your brother's improvement is going to be worth documenting."
Ryu wasn't entirely sure about that, but as they headed inside to plan the rest of their Sunday, he found himself looking forward to next week's practice session.
Even if it meant terrorizing more herb gardens.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
[Current Status:]
[Host: Yukitaka Izumi (Soul: Ryu Miyamoto)]
[Level: 1 (24/100 XP)]
[Skill Points Available: 1]
—
[Stats:]
- Serving: 2/100
- Receiving: 1/100
- Setting: 3/100
- Spiking: 0/100
- Blocking: 0/100
- Stamina: 15/100
- Jump Height: 28/100
- Game Sense: 15/100
—
[Abilities:]
- Empathic Connection (Level 1) - Active
- Critical Strike (Level 1) - Temporarily Unlocked (Remaining Uses: x2)
—
[Active Quests:]
- Daily: Complete 1 hour of focused volleyball practice (Progress: 63/60 minutes - COMPLETE)
- Tutorial: Successfully receive 10 serves in a row (Progress: 0/10 | No deadline)
- Main: Find Your Team (Deadline: 29 days)
—
[Status Effects:]
- Memory Integration (60% Completed | Paused) - (Processing orphanage training period)
- Identity Crisis - Severe guilt and emotional distress (2 hours)
- Family Bonding - Enhanced emotional connection, +10% XP gain from family activities (52 hours remaining)