Gauging the Level (1)
"Whoa..."
"He's been at it since morning. How many bowls is that now?"
The cafeteria of the Seisho High School baseball team.
The players were having their evening meal. With a training load that enormous, their appetites were bound to be huge. Even so, every gaze in the room had locked onto Hongo Yukihisa, who stood out like a crane among chickens.
He was demolishing bowl after bowl as if it were manual labor rather than dinner.
"..."
Nice.
Having finished weight training, I was eating exactly according to plan. Seisho baseball served decent food, and if you asked for more, they gave you more. Japanese rice was good on its own, and the side dishes were salty enough that getting it down wasn't hard.
I popped the last piece of ginger-grilled pork into my mouth to finish the bowl.
Find the optimal delivery, lock in the feel, build the body—I couldn't pick just one. I had to do all of it. Looking at this still-lean frame, I couldn't help thinking I should have packed on more mass back in my first year. But excuses now wouldn't change a thing. There was too much to do and nowhere near enough time.
"Thanks for the meal."
"..."
The chair scraped back. I finished as fast as I could without inviting indigestion.
Before I head home, I should throw a few more.
CLANG!
"Hoo."
The bullpen, empty except for me. I fired about ten fastballs into a catcher-shaped target.
The feel is getting better, little by little.
The fastball seemed to have more life than before. Lately I'd been pushing my flexibility harder, even if it meant overdoing it a little. Talent was there from the start, sure—but after letting it rot unused, I was nowhere near a hundred percent.
CLANG!
"..."
After the pitch I wiped sweat with my arm. The fastball had run way inside on a right-handed hitter—headshot territory.
That's not it.
That delivery just now had been the original Hongo Yukihisa's. A big, dynamic overhand motion—plenty of velocity, terrible command.
I'd tried something like it in my previous life. With a weak natural build, I'd hoped a wild, explosive form would make up the difference. Stubborn thrashing never worked. After grinding through every delivery I could invent, what finally fit me best was the opposite: throw clean and simple, then win with command and pitch design.
Hitting is timing. Pitching is stealing that timing.
The words I'd carved into my chest. The line that kept me from quitting, that kept me trying something—anything—new.
A fastball that could work the entire strike zone, up and down, in and out. Plus a splitter and a curve. Of all the pitches I'd once tried to master, those were the weapons I'd actually walked away with.
"Hoo."
I pinched the ball between index and middle finger and threw.
CLANG!
Splitter.
The pitch I'd always trusted most. Against Date-senpai it had clocked high 130s.
Unreal.
And this was a splitter built for drop, not velocity—yet it was still faster than the fastball I'd thrown as a second-year in Korean high school ball. Comparing the two one by one was starting to feel stupid.
CLANG!
Next, the curve. My primary breaking ball. Out of this body, the break looked even sharper.
Good.
After finishing with a slider—my weapon for carving up right-handers—I was sure. Even without the flashy, dynamic delivery, this blessed body could still throw serious heat. A fastball over 150 km/h, real command, and the breaking stuff I'd always believed in. Put it all together, and high school baseball was going to give me something to show for it.
"Even with a little ceremony, it's still just a practice game. Look at this crowd."
"Koshien prelims aren't far off, right?"
"This is Tokyo. Of course plenty of people are rooting for Seisho."
"They haven't made Koshien in years, but it's still Seisho baseball."
"And the matchups this time are pretty solid."
A low, restless murmur filled the air. A fair-sized crowd had packed into the municipal stadium on the west side of Tokyo.
Sunpu High from Shizuoka Prefecture. Tezuka High from Kanagawa. Utsuno High from Tochigi. Seisho High from Tokyo.
Every one of them ranked among the powerhouses of their regions—and Sunpu, in particular, had reached the quarterfinals of this spring's Senbatsu, the Spring Koshien.
From Saturday through Sunday, these four schools would play a practice tournament.
Seisho High School's baseball team arrived on the stage.
"Don't treat this like practice. Treat it like a Koshien prelim semifinal."
"Yes, sir!"
Head Coach Maeda Katsuyori's words landed, and the players in the lineup roared back as one.
"..."
Nagasawa Haruka, manager for Seisho baseball, swallowed hard. Players and managers who hadn't made the bench sat in the front row of the stands to cheer.
Ugh, this is terrifying.
Today's opponent was Sunpu. Looking at the massive frames of their position players, Haruka's mouth fell open. Had they snuck in college guys?
"Haru-chan! Don't freeze up—the underclassmen are watching."
"Y-Yes!"
Fukada Riko—outgoing, but strict when it counted—was the third-year lead manager. The moment her words dropped, Haruka snapped upright in her seat.
"All right, everybody up!"
At Riko's call, managers and players rose together.
"Seisho, fight!"
A full-throated shout. Even the players left off the bench had to cheer without complaint, and timid Haruka cupped her hands into a megaphone and joined in.
Huh?
Haruka glanced to her right.
"..."
One player was barely going through the motions. Hongo Yukihisa.
"Quarterfinals of Koshien, huh..."
"Hongo-kun?"
He was muttering to himself. Haruka called out softly, but he didn't seem to hear. His eyes were fixed on the field.
CRACK!
"Yes!"
Haruka clenched her fist. Top of the first. Matsuda Masahiro—Seisho's cleanup hitter and starting catcher—had split the right-center gap.
"Safe!"
He slid into second. A two-RBI RBI double that plated the first two runs of the game.
"That's Matsuda-senpai for you!"
"That swing is national-level—not just Tokyo."
"No wonder he's a first-round draft candidate."
The first-years behind them stirred. At this stage the third-years still felt more like idols than rivals.
Huh.
I nodded. I'd known it already, but Masahiro's hitting really was something else. He looked every bit the power hitter, yet he seemed to have real contact skills too.
How's this going to go...
Before I'd landed in this manga, the scene I'd watched was a fight between the original Hongo Yukihisa and that same Matsuda Masahiro—more of a thorough schooling than a duel. Now the guy wasn't some reliable extra handing out catharsis in place of the protagonist. He was the starting catcher at my own school. If I took the mound soon enough, that man would be the one receiving my pitches.
Batting fifth, right fielder, Sanada.
The stadium announcer's voice rolled out. Bottom of the first, one out, runner on first—and up stepped Sanada Atsushi, Seisho's fifth hitter and starting right fielder, a second-year.
"Sanada!"
"Crush it!"
One of the best hitters on the roster stepping in sent a fresh surge through the Seisho cheering section.
"We really need Sanada-kun to push another run across here..."
"..."
Haruka fretted aloud. I watched the pitcher-hitter duel the way I always did—analyzing.
Sunpu's starter was a third-year, Imagawa Shinji. A solid right-hander who'd pitched in last summer's Koshien and worn the ace number through this spring's Senbatsu run to the quarterfinals. Even so, from the first inning he was already struggling against Seisho's lineup.
CRACK!
POP!
CRACK!
"Foul!"
Third pitch of the at-bat. Foul. Count: one ball, two strikes.
"The count's against him—what now?"
Hoping the cleanup would still produce, Haruka squeezed her hands tight.
"No. The one being hunted here is the hitter."
"Huh?"
CRACK!
"Foul!"
I spoke, and another foul followed.
"He's treating this pretty lightly, isn't he?"
"Huh?"
"That slider just now—he practically teed it up and swung. From the hitter's side, nothing about it was hard."
"Ah..."
Haruka nodded at my words.
Weird.
Was this really the same unmotivated Yukihisa from before? Watching the game with that dead-serious, analytical face—and he was only a second-year.
CRACK!
"Oh!"
A big, clean sound of contact.
"It's gone."
I said it first.
"Whoa—!"
"Waaaaaah!"
Sanada Atsushi's ball cleared the right-field wall by a mile. Score after the top of the first: Seisho 4, Sunpu 0. A big inning right out of the gate.
"That's Sanada-senpai!"
"Monster. Absolute monster!"
"Didn't he say his dream is to be the Giants' cleanup hitter?"
"..."
Yeah. Kid can hit.
I watched Sanada circle the bases. In my memory he was diligent and overflowing with talent, but not exactly warm—he didn't get close to the rest of the team. Of course, neither did I. So I barely had any memories of actually talking to him.
Anyway. The game...
Four runs in the first. Seisho should be able to sit on this lead comfortably from here.
POP!
"Ball!"
"Haa..."
What is he doing?
The umpire called a walk, and a sigh slipped out of me on its own. From where I sat the pitch hadn't missed by much—but if the umpire's hand didn't go up, it meant nothing.
Bottom of the first: 5–3. After two outs in the top half, Seisho had tacked on another run for five total—and the pitcher was already giving it straight back.
"Oh no..."
"Hoo..."
Manager Nagasawa beside me had both hands over her mouth. The whole cheering section had gone dark. Fair enough. Getting chased down, then loading the bases on a walk with two outs—that would kill anyone's mood.
On the mound was third-year Maejima Genta. A pitcher whose late-140s fastball and slider were supposed to be his strengths. I'd heard he hadn't improved at all since the loss in last summer's Koshien prelim final—but I hadn't expected it to be this bad.
My fist clenched without my noticing.
Why are you just standing there taking it like that?
Up through the fifth run of the top of the first, the atmosphere had felt like a festival. Now it had flipped. In a team sport, good and bad both spread like a virus. Taking a miserable chase like this dragged down everyone wearing the Seisho name.
Get it together.
Wearing the ace number—number one—and throwing like that only made me more impatient. Made me want to snatch the mound even one day sooner. And if I pushed this body any harder than I already was, who knew what would happen.
CRACK!
"Huh?"
Players and managers around me froze for a beat. A cleanly struck ball—a line drive screaming toward the outfield. If it fell, the game was tied.
"Hm?"
Instead it settled neatly into the glove of center fielder Aizawa Junya.
"Haa—thank god!"
"Everybody, clap!"
Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.
Haruka let out a long breath of relief. Even then, third-year manager Fukada-senpai was already directing the next thing that needed doing.
"..."
I clapped along, but my face wouldn't settle into anything pleasant.
Hmph.
Leaving things like this wasn't going to work.