Talent (1)

As a fan of sports anime in my past life, I had some understanding of baseball, though it was just the most basic rules. I couldn't play, but I wasn't completely clueless either.

All in all, Sendou held high expectations for his Little League career.

Sendou also enjoyed the relaxed time of his final semester as a third-year student.

April, after spring break, on the first day of school after classes, Sendou came alone to the Tokyo Wildcats Little League camp.

"I'm Coach Nakanishi of the Wildcats. Are you the new recruits this year? Then let's start with self-introductions!"

"Aka-dou Elementary School, Satou Mei. Please take care of me!"

"..." "..." "From Teikou Elementary School, Sendou Akira. I'm a complete beginner at baseball. Please take care of me!"

Sendou was the last one.

There were over ten new recruits, enough to prove how strong and professional the Wildcats were.

"Now we'll start infield throwing practice! Line up. The veteran players go first; the new recruits watch carefully."

The infielders formed a long line, followed by the new recruits. The coach hit grounders, and the infielders fielded them and threw to the first baseman.

Even the new players with some experience hadn't undergone this kind of professional training. Most of them waited until the ball had almost stopped rolling before they started throwing.

So after the veterans finished, when it was the new recruits' turn, all sorts of blunders happened—balls rolling completely behind them, bouncing off the edge of the glove when picked up, and even beginners like Sendou who were lucky enough to have the ball pop right into their glove but couldn't hold it and it bounced back out.

But none of the older players laughed at them. They were beginners, and they were all very young.

The upperclassmen had all been through this before. A prestigious team was harsh, but equally tolerant of newcomers.

Everyone had to catch ten balls.

Sendou was last. That was just his personality—he liked to take a more marginal position in things like this.

The first ball didn't fly far. Sendou immediately rushed forward.

When it bounced, it unfortunately took an irregular hop. Everyone thought he would miss it.

Sendou's right hand, holding the glove, moved sideways quickly, and the small ball landed right in the glove.

Since Sendou didn't have a fixed position and hadn't bought his own glove, he was borrowing one from the team. It wasn't as stiff as a new glove, so catching was easy. He quickly grabbed the ball with his left hand and threw it to the first baseman. The first baseman didn't even need to move his glove to catch the throw, and it made a crisp pop sound.

Amid the "Amazing!" murmurs nearby, Coach Nakanishi's eyes lit up.

When Sendou's father had signed him up, he'd mentioned that aside from hitting once at a batting center in the city, Sendou had never touched baseball and wasn't really interested in it. But the other parents at the batting center at the time all said he had a talent for hitting.

However, Sendou usually didn't like playing with others. His father hoped that by agreeing to learn baseball, Sendou might change.

That catch just now was entirely Sendou relying on his reaction speed, far beyond normal, to snag the ball.

And his shoulder was strong. An ordinary fourth-grader could only throw about half the distance and needed a bounce to reach the first baseman, but Sendou could throw it straight into the glove. That control and power were also innate.

It showed he was a very suitable candidate for pitcher. A pitcher's ball power and speed require explosive strength.

But hearing the sound of the ball hitting the glove, he knew that almost no sixth-grader in the country could match him.

"One more ball!" Coach Nakanishi called out.

Sendou didn't say a word, but his eyes showed he was ready.

"What a quiet and withdrawn kid," Coach Nakanishi thought to himself.

His mind was working, but his hands weren't slow. He hit another infield grounder.

But this ball was much faster than the previous one, on par with the veterans, and the bounce wasn't as easy to handle.

The moment the ball left the bat and flew toward him, Sendou reacted quickly, turned sharply, charged forward, caught it, and threw.

"Pop!"

Once again, it landed in the first baseman's glove.

"No way!" This time, Coach Nakanishi was genuinely shocked.

If he hadn't been coaching for over ten years and come from Major League Baseball, he probably wouldn't have noticed. But precisely because of all that experience, he knew just how terrifying the talent revealed by Sendou's series of movements was.

Yes, terrifying.

In his view, the ball hadn't flown far after leaving the bat before Sendou started moving. That meant he could judge the landing point and ball speed shortly after seeing it leave the bat.

It showed his dynamic vision could easily track the ball's trajectory and quickly determine the landing point.

And that calm expression on his face—he might even be able to judge the timing difference very accurately. His sensitivity to speed differences was simply inhuman.

With that kind of reaction speed, infield defense would be godlike. And for a batter, it would be the same.

With this ability, he didn't need to worry like other batters about the speed difference between fastballs and changeups or breaking balls. He only needed to judge the weak point and trajectory—and as it happened, his judgment of trajectory, spatial dynamics, and his Dynamic Vision's ability to track moving objects were all exceptionally gifted.

It was as if everything was simulated in his mind, and all he had to do was follow the script, aim for the intersection of the trajectory and the bat, and hit the ball. Simple.

If the upper limit of the pitch speed his static talents could judge was high enough, then his static talent was a bug-level existence.

Combined with the explosive power he had shown earlier—that kind of dynamic talent—it was the kind of ability that made pitchers despair.

Of course, all of this was his own judgment. Right now, he was already extremely excited, eager to find out just how far his static talents could go.

At the same time, he was shouting inwardly at his luck. If he had undergone a period of training, these static talents would have been hard to detect.

By then, people would only know he was strong—but not why he was strong.

"One more pitch!" With that, the difficulty of Sendou's pitches began to increase, and the hits came faster and faster. By the fifth pitch, he accidentally put too much power into it, and the ball shot past Sendou's body before he could even react, flying through the infield.

Strictly speaking, Sendou had reacted. But his young body simply couldn't keep up. His eyes followed the ball as it moved, turning his head slightly, while his body remained frozen.

"What's this coach thinking?" Sendou grumbled inwardly.

Sendou's power-hitting talent was modeled after the genius batter from One Outs who could see the rotation of the ball, the monster from Cross Game—Mishima Shintarou—who had a batting average over 60% in high school, and Azuma Yuuhei, who had comparable strength but, due to missing games and never attending Koshien, had a near-perfect hit rate in limited at-bats. Combined with some of his own ideas, Sendou was shaped into an All-rounder capable of playing almost any position. However, his real formal baseball training wouldn't begin until high school—something that probably wouldn't be seen for a long time yet.