Intra-squad Practice Match

In the first half of November, the team's routine physical examinations began.

"183 centimeters, 72 kilograms." Kōshū hopped down, now officially qualified to start learning changeups.

Next was Shibasaki. "Ah—down two jin. What happened?"

Coach Fujii noted the numbers and said helplessly, "Have you been sneaking in pitching practice at home lately?"

Shibasaki had switched to sidearm pitching, and lately he was in the stage of adapting to the new form. Starting with the grueling task of correcting his posture, he had to integrate all his previous pitching into the sidearm delivery. After even a little overexertion, his weight had immediately dropped like a stock price.

Sato was third, and he had visibly filled out a little.

"Good, you've reached your weight target—and exceeded it by quite a bit." Coach Fujii's words were like stamping a fattened pig with a purple "Pass," signifying that this stage of feeding had paid off. "As for Shibasaki-kun, we'll start measuring your resting heart rate every day again. I want to see whether the past few days of training have been excessive."

"Okay..." Shibasaki answered, somewhat dejected.

The newly arrived young pitchers did not quite understand why this senior was so downcast. They merely stared curiously at Shibasaki. Over the past few days, fresh faces had gradually joined the Little League Team. Starting in autumn, they would follow the team through adaptation training. Only those who could keep up and were willing to stay would officially join the Little League Team the following year.

After the pitchers finished their strength tests, they joined everyone else for a few general tests, such as baserunning time trials. Kōshū was especially fired up today. He wanted to laugh, to throw a hundred pitches to his heart's content, but standing beside Shibasaki always made him hold himself back. In the end, he could only vent his energy during the sprints, bringing out the same focus he had shown in the finals and pushing his average speed between bases below four seconds.

"You're really excited today," Hayakawa Aki remarked. No expression stayed on Kōshū's face for more than a second; he was practically like a dog let out of its cage. "What's gotten into you?"

"Hehehe," Kōshū whispered, "This afternoon, in the team scrimmage, I'm going to strike out ten people."

"...There are only nine people on the other side."

"That doesn't matter. I'm striking every last one of them out."

"That'll be exhausting, you know..." Hayakawa Aki gave him a warning. In truth, making hitters completely unable to touch a pitcher's ball was difficult. At most, they would fail to hit it well. And if all else failed, they could still lay down a Sacrifice Bunt. So if Kōshū took the Picher's Mound intending to strike out everyone, every pitch would definitely demand enormous stamina.

But contrary to Kōshū's expectations, Coach Ninomiya had them draw lots to split into Team A and Team B this time.

All three pitchers unfolded their slips.

"Ah." Kōshū showed his letter to Shibasaki and Sato. "I'm on Team A for the whole game."

Shibasaki and Sato, meanwhile, were assigned to the top half and bottom half of Team B respectively.

The Team A players changed into ordinary uniforms without team names and put on dark caps, while Team B did the opposite.

Kōshū swept his gaze across the field. Everyone was almost completely mixed together. The people he was usually more familiar with had been assigned to Team B. In the infield, the catcher had been replaced by the backup, Hiramiy. He was a first-year middle schooler and had been helping Sato train his accuracy.

During the very limited preparation time, the two discussed their approach.

"In a moment, I'll use a pitching strategy that alternates inside and outside pitches to get the batters out—"

Kōshū cut him off. "We can factor in my changeups too. Honestly, I want to strike out everyone on the other team. Hiramiy-kun, can you help me?"

Hiramiy froze for a moment, sensing the blazing passion in the opposing pitcher's eyes. Ah, that's right. During the first in-team practice game, Kōshū struck out so many upperclassmen. But after getting used to batting practice pitches, a lot of them started being able to hit him. Is he unwilling to accept that?

Hiramiy nodded. Beneath his calm exterior, his thoughts began to spread. Come to think of it, why did they start hitting him later? Was it simply because they saw through Kōshū's pitching?

No, they saw through Hayakawa-senpai's pitching strategy, didn't they? After all, that guy can throw the ball wherever the catcher asks him to. The other side of carrying out the catcher's intent so faithfully is that hitters only need to target the catcher.

Kōshū threw two fastballs, bringing his fingers' sensitivity back to its peak.

This time, Kōshū was also Team A's cleanup hitter. During the infield meeting, he saw that Nitta would be the Second Baseman behind him. Their eyes met, and Kōshū somewhat expected him to say something. The old manzai duo had been split up after the third-year Shortstop graduated, leaving only Nitta, the king of bad jokes. He always tossed out a terrible pun when people least expected it.

Kōshū was not a humorous person, but when Nitta told bad jokes, he liked to sidle over, listen, and have a laugh.

But the moment Nitta opened his mouth, Kōshū wanted to strangle him.

"Ah—we're kind of like that in this game, aren't we? Is there a movie like that?"

"What?"

"Stop keeping us in suspense."

"What movie?"

"What movie is it?"

"King Kong versus Godzilla. Is there a movie like that?"

"Oh—" Amid a chorus of sudden realization, Kōshū alone wore a face full of question marks. Seeing the meaningful looks in everyone's eyes, he stepped forward and grabbed Nitta, who was trying to run away.

"What's going on, Nitta-kun? And what does King Kong have to do with anything?" To avoid letting the coaches notice anything strange, Kōshū kept a smile on his face, though his gaze was sharp as a blade. He had probably already guessed what was going on.

"No, no, no, not at all! We definitely weren't discussing how Kōshū-kun looks like King Kong!" Nitta yelled at the top of his lungs, heedless of the danger. The people gathered around the Pitcher's Mound burst into delighted laughter. A vein bulged on Kōshū's forehead. So what was Godzilla supposed to be? Thinking about it, the answer was obvious—it was Hayakawa Aki, whose batting had grown increasingly refined under Coach Kinoshita's guidance.

Kōshū gave Nitta a few vicious pinches before finally letting go, satisfied. Amid everyone's winks and nudges, Nitta put on a relieved expression. "Thank goodness. I survived the grasp of King Kong, the cleanup hitter."

So what was going on now? Kōshū looked at Hayakawa Aki, who had been placed second in the order, then shifted his gaze back toward the Batter's Box. The leadoff hitter was Katsumura, the Right Field player who had originally batted fifth. What is Coach Kinoshita doing? He stacked all the strong hitters at the top, putting the ones with high Batting Averages first so they can get more at-bats?

That was really aggressive. By comparison, Coach Fujii's Team A lineup was still the traditional sort.

Then, for the first pitch, Kōshū nodded at the catcher and jammed a High Rotation Speed Straight Ball high and inside on the leadoff hitter. Unfortunately, the batter trusted the pitcher's control and barely moved out of the way, simply letting the pitch go by.

"Ball."

Tch, you trust me that much? Then here comes another one. You haven't seen this pitch before, have you?

On the second pitch, the batter broke out in a cold sweat as he dodged what looked like a hit-by-pitch ball, only for it to curve into the Strike Zone.

"Eh—" The people in the Dugout could not quite make out what Kōshū had thrown, but the ball had initially looked like it was going to hit the batter. Then the discussion grew noisy.

"I almost thought Kōshū-kun had missed his spot just now."

"So what kind of pitch was that? A cutter or a Slider? It looked like the trajectory dropped too."

"I really want to get into the Batter's Box and see."

Hayakawa Aki, waiting in the On-Deck Circle, curled his lips into a smile. Fine. To let the pitcher have his way for once, I can accept giving them a little less information. Let each of them experience it firsthand—it'll be more effective than anything I could say.

The third pitch was a low-spin fastball on the inside low corner, dropping more than the first pitch. The leadoff batter failed to line it up properly and could only foul it off.

This guy's fastball is really hard to hit.

The leadoff batter silently complained about Kōshū.

Another pitch—a Cutter that tailed from the outside into the ball zone. The leadoff batter swung and missed. In the first inning, the first batter went down on four pitches by strikeout.

Kōshū bent down and tossed the rosin bag a few times, then gave Hayakawa Aki, who was stepping into the Batter's Box, a mischievous smile.

You didn't tell everyone on Team B about my pitching?

Separated by eighteen meters, the two seemed to understand each other perfectly. Hayakawa Aki returned his smile.

It wasn't for your sake.

But how was he supposed to strike this guy out? Hayakawa Aki was very familiar with his pitching, so he needed to do something Kōshū wouldn't expect.

The first pitch was a high-spin fastball low and inside. It roared toward home plate, freezing Hayakawa Aki's swing for an instant. In that instant, the best hitting window had already passed. Strike.

Huh? That was 137, wasn't it? That's already faster than his previous best, Hayakawa Aki thought as he shook out his bat and reset his stance. Or rather, he's outperforming himself right now. Going Full power right at the start of the game... what a hot-blooded guy. He's got every hair on my body standing on end.

Amid everyone's discussion of how the pitch seemed faster, the pitcher-catcher pair began their second confrontation with the batter.

Catcher Hiramiy sensed the tension between batter and pitcher and kept thinking to himself. Kōshū said his top speed was around 135, but that last pitch was subtly faster. How should I plan the Pitching Strategy to get Hayakawa-senpai out on strikes? Outside Corner Balls aren't his weakness anymore...

Let's go low and outside. Keep the velocity at maximum and get his eyes used to this speed.

The second pitch went into the Outside Low Corner ball zone. Hiramiy felt Hayakawa's body tense for an instant, then relax once he realized it was a ball.

Now that his body rhythm is starting to adapt, let's throw a Cutter in the same spot.

Kōshū nodded. The Cutter only topped out at around 127. With both the speed difference and the change in movement, Hayakawa's bat only barely grazed the baseball as he swung and missed.

"Whoa—" Kōshū wanted to whistle for himself, but since he was still on the Pitcher's Mound, he forcibly held it back.

The third pitch was a high-speed ball low and inside. Hayakawa Aki awkwardly caught up to it, but still couldn't scoop it up in time. He hit it straight at the Second Baseman and was forced out.

"Tch—he still got a hit on it." Kōshū sighed. At top speed, it really does feel like the ball might slip out of my hand a little. I don't have as good a handle on it as I do around 130.

Hiramiy patted his gear. He and Kōshū had never partnered up in a game before, but at that moment he understood Kōshū's feelings perfectly. He immediately helped him settle down and focus on the next batter.

Team B's third batter was struck out after Kōshū quickly regained his composure and worked the inside and outside corners.

And so, the first inning ended in a seemingly easy Three Up, Three Down.

"Kōshū, nice pitching. Next time, let's strike out Hayakawa-senpai together." Hiramiy ran back to the dugout alongside Kōshū, leaving him with that bold declaration.

"Haha, then I'll be counting on you."

I'm here. I'm going to slap some faces. When it comes to emotional problems, I'm bringing out the ultimate weapon—Shoujo Manga. Yesterday, I binged so many episodes that it was like chugging a healing potion. Positive emotions UP! UP!

The name of this anime is way too embarrassing to put here. Mainly because it's the first Shoujo Manga I've ever watched, and my best friend practically forced it on me. Specifically, she came to my house at ten at night—she lives nearby, so it wasn't dangerous—opened my browser, searched for the anime, opened the first episode, and said just one word to me: "Watch!" Then she coolly went home, leaving me alone to watch almost through the night and finish it...