Day One of Intensive Training (Part 1)

The next day at 5:30 AM.

"Get up, stop dawdling! Practice is starting!"

The early-rising Sawamura went room to room shouting everyone awake, while Wakaba and Fumino had gotten up even earlier to prepare breakfast.

"Ah, I'm so sleepy!" Sawamura yawned himself.

"Ei-chan, forget it, don't call Sen-chan. He has a habit of sleeping in—let's just start our self-practice first! Honestly, we should be grateful he's even willing to teach us!" Seeing Sawamura about to knock on Sendou's door, the others stopped him.

"Last night before bed, he was like a demon, telling us to get up and practice in the morning, but now he's completely ignoring it himself. Jeez! Let's go running! Who knows what time this guy will even wake up!"

So, grumbling all the way, they followed the others downstairs.

And thus, the scene became this: eight boys running, Sendou sleeping, and two girls cooking—or rather, one cooking while the other watched.

Wakaba had already given up letting the clumsy Fumino help. Last night, the dirty dishes had outnumbered the serving plates by several times!!!

As the ninth player, Wakaba didn't need to participate in physical training. As long as she could reliably secure the outs she was given—meaning solid fundamentals on defense—that was enough.

"It must be nice, Sougetsu-san's cooking skills. I'm always so clumsy, I just can't do it." Furuhashi Fumino walked to the window and watched the group running.

"What are you saying? If you try, Fumino, you can do it too. It just takes practice."

"Is that really true?" Furuhashi Fumino replied lifelessly, completely lacking any confidence in herself.

"Really!"

"But I'm already struggling just to study math. Sigh!"

"Huh? They're already done for—all collapsed on the ground."

"They're doing pretty well now. At first, everyone couldn't even handle running five kilometers in the morning. Before, they were just messing around, no real training at all," Wakaba answered.

"Soga!"

"Furuhashi-san! Breakfast is almost ready. Go wake up Akila!"

"Hai yo!" With that, Furuhashi Fumino ran upstairs.

"Thump thump thump! Click!" Knock? That didn't exist.

"Akila, how long are you going to sleep? Get up!"

"Akila! Akila!"

"Fumino? What's up?"

"Time to eat! Get up."

"Oh!..."

"Get up already!"

"Baka, get out first!"

"Ah, sorry, sorry!" Fumino, who had been staring at Sendou, finally snapped out of it and rushed out in a fluster.

"Jeez, this airhead!" Sendou muttered as he started getting dressed, a look of relief on his face.

That's right—relief. He was used to sleeping naked. Luckily, Sendou's natural calm kept him from showing any sign of panic. Fumino thought he was about to take off his pajamas. If that thin-skinned girl had known Sendou was wearing nothing under the covers...

"Oh, morning! You're back?" Sendou said after washing up, seeing the others already eating.

"Sendou, you bastard, it's already eight o'clock. How long are you going to sleep? You can't even call this morning anymore!"

"For me, any time before double digits is still morning."

"How much do you love sleeping? Seriously!"

"A whole lot!"

"Tei, mei!"

"Don't sweat the small stuff! Let's eat, let's eat!"

"Hmph!" Sawamura said nothing more, sulking as he took out his frustration on the food.

Seeing Sawamura fall silent, Sendou gave a slight smile and joined the table.

"Alright, starting today, we're going to practice offense. You can't win if you can't score, so batting is just as important," Sendou said after breakfast, leading the group to the Practice Field.

"As I said before, we'll start with bunting. You only need to master two things. First, the normal stance bunting motion, and learning to mix in feints. Second, the reverse—pulling back from a bunting stance. Later, you'll learn the technique of pretending to bunt but actually swinging normally, and the Hit and Run."

"First, the goal is to catch the opponent off guard with a sudden bunt, and to control your bat so it's not called a swing on a bad pitch. That way, the opponent has to stay alert for bunts and can't just throw wild pitches."

"The second goal is more obvious: when the opponent expects a bunt and throws off-target, you pull back, making the count work in your favor or even earning a walk.

Once you've fully mastered both techniques, the opponent won't be able to predict what you'll do. Not only will the pitch count increase, but your chances of drawing a four-ball walk will be high too. It puts pressure on their mind and the count."

"It doesn't matter if you understand or not. Just practice until you get it. Got it?"

"Hai!"

"Yosh, I told you this guy is your bunting coach, so Eijun, you do the demonstration."

"Demonstration? How?"

"Baka, with the Pitching Machine, of course. I'll set the speed to 120 kilometers per hour for bunting practice."

"Everyone, pay close attention to this guy's movements! A bunt doesn't just use your arms—it's almost a full-body coordinated motion. So watch carefully. Then, combine that with what you've seen in various materials and the explanations of the moves, and think hard about how to do it. I can't bunt myself, so I don't have any advice for you." With that, Sendou went off to adjust the equipment.

Then came Sawamura's bunting demonstration. He effortlessly pulled off all kinds of brilliant bunts, leaving everyone stunned.

"Alright, Eijun, that's enough. Everyone see that? The coordinated movement of the feet, legs, hips, and upper body. You've got three minutes to think it over, then line up and start practicing."

"Yes, sir!"

Three minutes later.

"Whoosh!"

"Ping!"

"Whoosh!"

"Ping!"

For the next hour or so, it was all bunting practice. Probably because their form was off, no matter what they did, they couldn't get it right.

Then Sendou had everyone sit in a circle and meditate, carefully thinking about their own movements, Sawamura's movements, and the standard form explanations they'd seen before.

Sure enough, after ten minutes of meditation, everyone's bunting started to improve.

They repeated this process over and over, and before they knew it, it was already 10 o'clock. Sendou had each person hit ten more bunts and recorded everyone's bunting with a video camera.

Then at 11 o'clock, they wrapped up and went to prepare lunch. Since they'd only arrived yesterday evening and hadn't had time to shop, they were short on ingredients, so they all had ramen for lunch.

After finishing writing yesterday, I felt something was off. Reading it again today, I noticed quite a few sentences had two instances of "but" in one sentence—no wonder it felt awkward. I made some simple tweaks to the surrounding phrasing. For now, this will have to do!