Looking at the interview vans parked outside the school gate and the figures standing in the scorching sun, the young man in the car turned to Takashima Rei beside him.
"Who are all those people?"
"Reporters. They're waiting to interview our baseball team and players."
There was no missing the quiet pride on Takashima Rei's face as she said it.
As a top national powerhouse, Seido was no stranger to this kind of attention. They had seen a similar spectacle the first time the baseball team made it to Koshien, returning in glory with the whole country watching. The reporters had swarmed then too, and while Takashima Rei and the others had been happy, they hadn't lost their heads over it.
But this was different. The Koshien games were already over, and the baseball team hadn't even officially begun gathering or training yet. The players out on the field right now were there entirely of their own volition, just like Zhang Han, staying behind for extra practice. Not that they had much choice. With the third-year students retiring, the competition for First-string spots had quietly begun, and no one who understood that could afford to be complacent.
And yet, reporters had still come.
The young man's long eyelashes dropped slightly as he processed this.
He wasn't about to let anyone think that just because he was from the countryside, he could be easily fooled. He had played baseball for three years. In all that time, he had never once heard of reporters showing interest in baseball players. Could baseball players really draw this kind of attention?
He was genuinely puzzled. But he kept his mouth shut.
This wasn't the time to ask questions. If he spoke carelessly, he might reveal too much about where he came from, and the last thing he wanted was to be looked down upon. He couldn't embarrass himself here. More importantly, he couldn't embarrass his school.
Takashima Rei had a fairly good read on the awkward thoughts turning behind those wide eyes. The baseball team the young man belonged to was, by any objective measure, weak. But no matter how weak a team was, it was still a team, and this young man had founded and managed it himself. In doing so, he had shown a sense of responsibility and charisma that went well beyond what most people his age possessed.
That, more than anything else, was one of the core reasons Takashima Rei valued him.
Every special recruit on the Seido High School Baseball Team was an elite pulled from somewhere. Their roster, if you broke it down, was essentially a collection of clean-up hitters and Aces from their respective middle school days. Everyone was excellent. But precisely because each of them was excellent, they had grown used to carrying themselves alone. They focused on their own performance, their own growth, and somewhere along the way, the baseball team had quietly lost something important.
Perhaps this young man's arrival could remind these gifted players of something they had forgotten. Like why they had wanted to play baseball in the first place.
The car rolled through the gate without stopping and came to rest along the embankment surrounding the baseball field. Takashima Rei and the young man stepped out, and the first thing that hit them was the heat, followed immediately by the sight of bodies drenched in sweat moving in every direction across the field.
Sawamura Eijun's eyes went wide.
On the field, a figure launched himself into the air and pulled down a ball two meters away as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Sawamura had never seen anything like it during practice back in Akagi with his friends. A question surfaced in his mind before he could stop it: were the people in front of him really just high school students?
Even professional players, he thought, might not put on a much better show.
"Why is that person so fast?"
The player running base drills had reached Second Base in what felt like the blink of an eye. Elsewhere, others were running while dragging tires behind them. Some were grinding through frog jumps. Every single figure on that field burned itself into Sawamura Eijun's memory.
He had always told his friends, with complete sincerity, that they were going to make it to the national tournament together and dominate the country. He had never thought he was exaggerating. He genuinely believed that he and his friends, as a team, could get there. It was only a matter of time and effort.
But standing here now, watching these players train, Sawamura Eijun questioned his own certainty for the first time.
If they ever faced a team like this one, could they actually win?
The answer sat in his stomach like a stone.
Probably not. If he was being honest with himself, they would probably not survive a single inning against a team this strong.
Beyond the players themselves, the training facilities made his jaw drop. A brand new pitching machine, apparently capable of simulating a Changeup. A vast, immaculately maintained baseball field. Equipment of every kind lined up and ready for use.
Sawamura thought about how many times he had gone around asking for help, trying to get his hands on even a basic pitching machine so his friends could practice hitting. He had never once succeeded.
"These are the training facilities our school takes pride in," Takashima Rei said, appearing at his side. She had noticed exactly where his gaze had settled, and she moved in without hesitation. "Whatever we can provide to our players will not fall short of what a professional baseball team would offer."
There was a saying, she knew, that money wasn't everything. And she didn't disagree with that entirely. But without money, nothing was possible either. Advanced facilities and scientific training methods gave a player's potential somewhere to grow. That was simply the truth.
Sawamura Eijun was quiet for a moment. Then he spoke.
"If you recruit only excellent players and back them up with facilities like these, of course the team is going to be strong."
He paused, and something shifted in his expression.
"But the more I see this place, the more it bothers me. I really don't want to lose to a team that has everything handed to them like this."
Takashima Rei blinked.
That was not the response she had been expecting. The longing in the boy's eyes had been plain as day. And yet, somehow, that longing had produced the opposite conclusion. By the look of it, he wasn't planning to accept Seido's invitation at all.
"May I ask why?"
"I want to ask you the same thing!" Sawamura Eijun said, his voice rising. "Since when did baseball become a sport only for people with money? If you love baseball, why does it have to look like this? Friends are the most important part. We don't have fancy equipment back home, but as long as we have each other, as long as we have bats and a baseball, anywhere can be our field."
He said it loudly, as though the words needed to be heard clearly to become real.
The players training nearby glanced over. A few of them turned their heads toward the sound before drifting back to what they were doing.
Takashima Rei, for her part, felt something sharp rise in her chest. She took a short breath and responded with deliberate calm.
"I think I understand how you feel. But I don't see it the same way. These players chose, at fifteen years old, to leave their hometowns and live away from home to chase their baseball dreams. From the bottom of my heart, I respect every one of them for taking that step."
The nearby players who heard her words quietly turned back to their training without a word.
Sawamura Eijun stared at her. For a moment, he had nothing to say. He had to admit that her words hit harder than he expected. There was something in them that made his chest tighten, and for just a moment, his resolve wavered.
Then, from the direction of the hitting area in the distance, a loud and thoroughly arrogant voice cut through the air.
"Hey, country kid! Can't you pitch properly? You're ruining my hitting!"
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