To the Battlefield (2)
“Hoo·····”
“What are you doing?”
“Even just sitting on the bench for the Koshien prelims, I’m still ridiculously nervous.”
“·····”
First-year Yamada Tetsuya, sitting beside me, spoke up.
The kid had talent, but he seemed to carry a bit of an emotional streak.
Summer Koshien West Tokyo District prelims, round of 64.
For our school, the first game was about to begin.
Of course he’s nervous. Makes sense.
A full 124 high schools were competing in this West Tokyo regional bracket.
Only one of them would advance to Koshien.
Even though our school had drawn a first-round bye, from today on we still had to win six straight games without a single loss to get there.
Brutal, no two ways about it.
In any country’s pro league, a .600 winning percentage was enough to call a team elite. That alone showed how high the chance of defeat always was, no matter how strong you were.
Yet here we had to string together six or seven consecutive wins just to clear the prelims. That was why Japanese high school baseball was so merciless.
Of course, the prize that came with it was nothing small.
Japan was baseball-mad, and the status of high school ball was sky-high.
There were two national tournaments that bore the name Koshien.
In spring, the Senbatsu High School Baseball Tournament held at Koshien Stadium—commonly just called Senbatsu.
And in summer, the National High School Baseball Championship, also held at Koshien Stadium.
That was the one whose regional prelims we were grinding through right now.
Unlike Senbatsu, every high school baseball club in the country had the right to enter the prelims, and only the schools that represented their regions advanced. That gave it real prestige.
In the narrow sense, people sometimes called only this summer tournament “Koshien.”
Which means·····
The team that won this tournament claimed the national title. They could hang the banner of Japan’s absolute best without anyone arguing.
What a magnificent title that was. Anyone playing baseball in Japan would feel their heart race at the thought.
Thwack—!
“Strike!”
“Nice ball!”
“Hmm.”
The scoreboard flashed 148 km/h.
Third-year Maejima Genta, taking the mound as our starter in the top of the first, looked like his stuff was in decent shape.
Crack—!
“Huh?”
A grounder toward short.
But the angle was ugly from a defensive standpoint.
Wait?
Shirakawa Satoru, who had been watching the shortstop side, dove and snagged the ball. The instant he was back on his feet he fired to first.
“Out!”
By a hair, the runner was retired.
“Yes!”
“Nice play, Captain!”
“That’s Shirakawa for you!”
Defense that looked like something out of a pro game gave us the first out of the tournament. On the mound, Maejima raised a thumb in approval.
“Amazing as always!”
“Yeah.”
I nodded at Tetsuya’s words.
From a pitcher’s perspective, he really was a shortstop you could trust.
Of course·····
But leaning on defense to get outs was not my kind of baseball.
The pure thrill of a strikeout that left the batter with no room even to hope for a lucky bounce—
As a pitcher, that held a magnetism you simply could not refuse.
Thwack—!
“Strikeout!”
The next batter went down looking.
Maejima’s excellent command was shining. His stuff had been good today to begin with, but Shirakawa’s earlier gem of a play seemed to have given him an extra boost.
“Out!”
The third batter lifted a foul pop to third.
Side retired. Offense and defense switched.
“Even if you expand the zone a little, if it’s not the pitch you’re looking for, take it with confidence.”
“Yes, sir!”
The coach’s instructions for our at-bats came down.
The opposing pitcher didn’t throw hard, but his arm slot was almost underhand-low, his control was sharp, and among his breaking balls the curve was said to be excellent.
A classic black-magic type.
If you got drunk on your own hitting ability and swung at everything, you were liable to get burned.
Now batting, shortstop, Shirakawa.
Shirakawa stepped into the box.
We had shut them down cleanly in the top of the first, and against this kind of pitcher it would be better to put runs on the board early.
Crack—!
Curve!
Shirakawa got a piece of the first pitch on the outer half.
“Ohh!”
“It got through!”
The result was a single that snuck between third and short.
“Yes!”
“Nice batting!”
A fast runner like Shirakawa now stood on first.
The pitcher wore a sour look; he clearly knew what that baserunning ability meant.
“He’s going!”
“·····”
Safe.
After two pickoff attempts failed to catch him, the runner stole second.
“Safe!”
It wasn’t even close.
“Incredible.”
Tetsuya beside me murmured in admiration. As a catcher he was probably already thinking about how you handled a runner that fast.
As a pitcher, just imagining a guy like that on first made my head hurt.
In the end·····
There was only one real answer.
Don’t let him reach base in the first place.
Number-two hitter Minamino Shintaro grounded out, but in the process Shirakawa advanced to third.
Now batting, third baseman, Kazuma.
A perfect chance for the first run of the game.
Our cleanup trio was starting to come up.
Crack—!
Kazuma Junpei swung at the first pitch.
The pitcher’s outer-half curve was genuinely good; the ball didn’t travel far and climbed high.
“Home!”
But it was an outfield fly, and Shirakawa, already on third, broke for the plate.
The timing was so comfortable the umpire only went through the motions of the safe sign.
“Yes! First run!”
Our bench erupted.
The pressure of the opening game had been heavy, but that first run worked like a perfect sedative.
Thwack—!
“Ball!”
A four-pitch walk.
They’re pitching around him, huh.
Cleanup hitter and catcher Matsuda Masahiro walked.
All the pitcher’s efforts to nibble the edges of the zone had come to nothing.
Seisho’s number-four hitter really did carry that kind of intimidation.
Now batting, right fielder, Sanada.
Two outs, but we still had a runner on.
Next up was number-five hitter Sanada Atsushi.
Thwack—!
“Ball!”
Thwack—!
“Ball!”
Two consecutive curves on the outer half.
Sanada never offered, and the umpire’s hand never rose.
He was probably looking for something other than the curve. Changeup, maybe?
In the late-June heat the pitcher was already sweating as he delivered the next pitch.
Crack—!
“Whoa!”
“Ohh!”
Sanada put a clean swing on the outer pitch, and the ball rocketed toward the left-field fence.
Wow.
I couldn’t help the quiet awe.
A line-drive type of contact that still carried enough force to clear the wall clean.
“Wooooooah!”
“Sanada!”
“Home run!”
The bench went wild.
We had gone from a single first run to a 0–3 lead.
“Nice work.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sanada, returning to the dugout, exchanged a brief greeting with Coach Maeda.
“·····”
So it was a changeup?
I had watched Sanada’s swing carefully.
Among the pitcher’s main weapons—sinker, curve, changeup—he had hit the changeup.
Yet no matter how I looked at it, it seemed like he had been timed for the sinker and still managed to crush the changeup····· I couldn’t even begin to gauge how much raw talent that took.
Yeah.
Our lineup really was that strong.
Crack—!
“Whoa!”
Everyone on the bench shot to their feet.
Bottom of the fifth.
With one out and runners on first and third, Matsuda Masahiro stepped in against the new pitcher and crushed the first pitch.
The massive crack of the bat already told the story; the ball sailed over the left-field wall and out of the park for a home run.
“Home run!”
“Wooooah, Matsuda!”
I clapped while double-checking the scoreboard.
A three-run shot in the bottom of the fifth that turned 0–9 into 0–12.
Ten-run lead after five innings. The mercy-rule conditions were complete.
“That swing just now was insane.”
“Better to finish it quick.”
Matsuda, crossing the plate, answered Shirakawa.
“Line up!”
I hadn’t stepped into the batter’s box or onto the mound today, but as one of the twenty rostered players I took my place in the line.
“You guys will definitely make Koshien. Fight for our share too.”
“Of course!”
Satoru was already shaking hands with the opposing captain.
And just like that, the West Tokyo summer Koshien prelim round of 64—our first game—was over.
Maejima Genta’s five-inning shutout complete-game win. The lineup had put up eleven runs and forced the mercy rule.
“·····”
I slung my bag over my shoulder and climbed onto the bus.
Even so·····
Maybe it was wrong to think this way when the team had won.
But the desire rising in my chest—wanting to pitch myself far more than watching someone else throw from the mound—was something I simply could not help.
“Congrats, Hongo. You’re starting tomorrow.”
“Yeah.”
Classes had ended and I was heading to club activities when Nagasawa Haruka called out to me.
Tomorrow was the round of 32.
West Tokyo prelim third-round game day.
Coach Maeda had already told me I would start against Hoinichi High.
They weren’t pushovers, but they also weren’t a team anyone expected to survive the Koshien prelims.
Of course I had zero intention of taking them lightly.
Rattle.
I closed the classroom door and swapped my ordinary high-school-student mind for a baseball player’s.
“Ah! Hongo!”
“·····Huh?”
It was Hirose Satsuki, waving at me. Looks like she was alone today.
“Heading to practice?”
“Yeah.”
“So cool.”
“Haha·····”
Being on the baseball team was just another club activity to most students. Almost everyone did some kind of club, right? I wasn’t sure what was supposed to be cool about it.
Before I knew it Hirose had fallen into step beside me.
Ahem.
We had crossed paths a few times, but I still didn’t know her well—or maybe she was just that much more outgoing than most people—so she still felt difficult to handle. She seemed like a decent person, at least.
And·····
With Hirose walking next to me, every other student’s gaze locked onto us. Not a situation I usually saw.
Did this make us look like we were close? A pretty high-school girl, and a blonde one at that, walking with me—maybe I looked like a delinquent.
“·····”
But did I even need to care about that? What problem would it cause if people thought that? It wasn’t like it interfered with my baseball.
“You haven’t been to Ikebukuro much lately?”
“We’ve got games pretty often these days.”
“Mm, makes sense.”
Hirose nodded.
Before long we reached the point where the path home and the path to the baseball club split.
“·····”
I started thinking about basic male manners. The conclusion came quickly.
“What are you doing after this, Hirose?”
“Me? I’ve got a part-time job today.”
“Ah, got it.”
Asking that much was probably the polite minimum, right?
A part-time job····· well, for a high-school girl who always seemed to have money, it made sense.
“Hongo, want to exchange messenger IDs?”
“Huh?”
Hirose asked to swap Japan’s national messaging app contacts.
No reason to refuse.
“Thanks! See you later!”
“Uh, yeah, sure.”
Hirose left with a bright smile. I waved back with an awkward one of my own.
“·····Oh, right.”
I should have asked what kind of part-time job she had. Why did those things only occur to me after the conversation was already over?
“Haa·····”
If I just thought of her as a guy who happened to wear a skirt, there wouldn’t be a problem. But the makeup, the perfume, the slightly unbuttoned clothes·····
Hirose was unmistakably a girl, which made even the basic second-year high-school-boy courtesy of treating another social member properly feel hard.
Especially in Japan, where simply functioning as a proper adult without causing trouble was considered a virtue. I had no interest in expanding my social circle, but I also had no intention of becoming a social misfit.
Just go play baseball.
Right. In my previous life it had been the only thing I could do. Now that same thing came with real confidence attached. I had baseball.
“He’s out!”
“Hongo!”
“We came to see you today!”
Summer Koshien West Tokyo District prelims, round of 32.
Seisho High versus Hoinichi High.
Hoinichi batting first.
Taking the mound in the top of the first was none other than Seisho’s second-year pitcher, Hongo Yukihisa.
Between the newspaper articles and the word-of-mouth buzz, he had already become a figure of real support and expectation among Seisho baseball fans. Today the stands were more crowded than usual.
Considering that serious Koshien-prelim fever only kicked in from the quarterfinals onward, the attention was considerable.
From the quarterfinals, both West and East Tokyo games moved to Meiji Jingu Stadium—home of the Tokyo Swallows—and every game began to be broadcast live.
“Play ball!”
The home-plate umpire called the start of the game.
“·····”
Seisho’s starting catcher Matsuda Masahiro, mask already on, looked out at Yukihisa on the mound.
Hongo.
The focus he had shown in yesterday’s practice had been on another level.
More passionate than anyone, yet almost no change in expression—a man who was simultaneously burning hot and ice-cold.
And·····
Thwack—!
“Strike!”
The scoreboard lit up with 153 km/h.
Masahiro felt like a bullet had just slammed into his mitt. Hoinichi’s leadoff hitter flinched.
“153!”
“Is that for real?!”
“That kid’s not a sophomore.”
“And he jammed it right onto the inner edge.”
Thwack—!
“Strike!”
Another 153 km/h.
Thwack—!
“Strikeout!”
The third pitch was a diving splitter.
The batter’s bat cut nothing but air.
“There it is!”
“Insane splitter!”
A murmur began to rise from the stands.
The second batter also went down swinging on a splitter.
And the third?
Thwack—!
“Strikeout!”
A slightly high fastball on the outer half produced a clean whiff. Three batters, three strikeouts.
The number on the board this time read 154 km/h.