He was a country boy from Nagano Prefecture.
Zhang Han had heard Takashima Rei mention this person before. She had been visibly excited at the time, and according to her, she had seen the shadow of a true Ace in that young man — a captivating aura that even surpassed that of Seido's current Ace, Hidezawa.
Curiosity is human nature, and Zhang Han was no exception. From the moment he heard about this baseball boy with an extraordinary aura and rare talent, he genuinely wanted to meet him.
Originally, everyone had discussed arranging for the boy to visit the school after the Summer Tournament. However, by that point, the Seido High School Baseball Team had already advanced to Koshien, and with the school's attention firmly fixed on that, the arrangement was quietly pushed aside.
It wasn't until now that Zhang Han heard the boy's name come up again.
"You think very highly of him, don't you?"
Zhang Han asked, his tone carrying the quiet certainty of someone who already knew the answer.
Takashima Rei blinked, caught off guard. "How did you figure that out?"
"Throughout the holiday, you spent thirty to forty days out on your own — scouting, visiting, arranging, and following up on prospects. Out of all of that, you spent three or four days on this one boy alone." Zhang Han paused, letting the numbers speak for themselves. "I can't say one hundred percent, but you gave at least a third of your total effort, maybe more, to him. Isn't that enough proof?"
Takashima Rei hadn't consciously realized it until that moment. Hearing it laid out so plainly, she was genuinely surprised to find that she had, in fact, poured an unusual amount of energy and thought into Sawamura.
But she didn't regret it. Not even a little.
"That boy — he's worth it."
The confidence in her voice was unmistakable. It reminded Zhang Han of the way she had spoken about Miyuki and Zhang Han himself years ago — when Miyuki was still a first-year junior high student and Zhang Han a third-year. Neither of them had been particularly dazzling at the time, not to the untrained eye. Yet Takashima Rei had believed, with absolute certainty, that the moment those two chose to join Seido, they would transform the team entirely.
She had been right.
And now, that same conviction had settled in her eyes again. The boy she had found was still rough — unpolished, unrefined — but she could see the potential beneath the surface, boundless and waiting. With the right shaping, his future would be unlimited.
He was someone who could carry the pitcher's mound for Seido High School Baseball.
Of course, she would never say that out loud. Not yet.
If she did, people wouldn't believe her. Worse, they might laugh. There was no point in that. Her father had taught her long ago that some things in this world are meant to be done, not spoken — and inviting Sawamura was exactly one of those things. Until Sawamura had truly grown into what she believed he could become, Takashima Rei would keep her full opinion to herself. That meant keeping it from Coach Kataoka.
It even meant keeping it from Zhang Han.
"Well, now I'm even more curious." Zhang Han said, the corners of his mouth tugging upward. "Alright. When he arrives, you handle the arrangements. I'll cooperate."
Takashima Rei had taken the train all the way to Nagano Prefecture to pick the boy up herself.
She had originally considered arranging a car, but the mountain roads of Nagano made driving more of a headache than it was worth. So the train it was.
By the time they returned to Seido, it was already past ten o'clock at night.
On the field, the players were deep in practice — running laps, grinding through physical training, working on fielding and pitching drills. Even the third-year seniors, who had graduated and were technically retired, were notably more well-behaved these days. The casual in-team practice games they used to arrange on a whim had quietly stopped.
The Director was back. Doing something they knew Coach Kataoka disapproved of, right under his nose, would be asking for trouble. The psychological shadow he cast was long, and even in retirement, none of them were eager to test its edges.
Outside the school gate, however, a very different kind of energy was building.
Reporters' vehicles had begun to cluster near the entrance, their eagerness practically radiating off them. It hadn't always been this way. When the Seido High School Baseball Team first lost at Koshien, the press had barely given them a second glance. In baseball, the winner is king and the loser is forgotten — that was simply how it worked. Once Seido was out, they had lost their news value, and the reporters had moved on accordingly.
But then the tournament concluded. Osaka Kiryuu claimed the championship, and as the dust settled, people started looking back.
And what they found when they looked at Seido was nothing short of remarkable.
Seido had been the only team in the entire Summer Tournament to score more than ten runs against Osaka Kiryuu. Their total run count made up more than half of all the runs Osaka Kiryuu had surrendered throughout the whole tournament. When you laid those numbers out, the conclusion was almost impossible to avoid — the Seido High School Baseball Team had the strongest offense in the country.
Not everyone agreed, of course. Some raised the reasonable point that a high-scoring slugfest operates under different conditions than a standard game. Runs come easier when both sides are swinging freely, so using that performance alone to measure a team's offensive ceiling was, they argued, an oversimplification.
Others added that Osaka Kiryuu had chosen to go head-to-head rather than pitch around Seido's dangerous hitters. Had they employed more tactical caution — deliberately avoiding the strongest bats — the outcome might have looked very different.
These opinions weren't without merit, and online discussion ran hot in both directions.
But a louder majority simply wasn't buying it.
The counter was straightforward: yes, Osaka Kiryuu's pitcher had chosen to go head-to-head. But so had Seido's pitcher. Neither side had backed down. Both had faced the other's heavy hitters without flinching. It was an equal playing field, and Seido had thrived on it.
More importantly — twelve runs were twelve runs. Three home runs were three home runs. A dozen hits didn't disappear because someone found the circumstances inconvenient. The data was real, and the data told a clear story.
The Seido High School Baseball Team's offensive strength was undeniable. If someone wanted to argue otherwise, the burden was on them to name a team with a stronger offense. Good luck finding one.
A team like that naturally drew attention. And a team like that was filled with names the public had come to know.
There was Azuma Kiyokuni — the monster, the man widely regarded as the strongest hitter of his generation. There was the composed and reliable Yuuki Tetsuya, whose batting average spoke louder than any praise could. There was Miyuki, the clutch performer who seemed to save his best for the moments that mattered most. There was Ace Hidezawa. And then there was Zhang Han — the so-called super rookie who had shattered two Koshien rookie records almost as a matter of course, and who had walked away as the tournament's leading run scorer.
A team this celebrated, with a lineup this eye-catching — how could the press resist? They were drawn in like sharks following the scent of blood, circling closer with every passing day.
The moment official team formation began and public training opened tomorrow, there would be cameras everywhere.
Which was precisely why Takashima Rei had timed their arrival so carefully.
She brought Sawamura through the school gate before any of the reporters had been allowed onto the grounds — while the field still belonged entirely to the team and no outside eyes were watching. They had come by car, moving quietly, and the whole journey had passed without a soul catching a glimpse of Sawamura.
For now, he remained unseen.
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