"Who are you?"
Sawamura fixed Zhang Han with a stare that carried all the righteous indignation of someone who genuinely felt the question was completely reasonable.
It stumped everyone within earshot.
The Seido players standing nearby found themselves processing something they could barely bring themselves to believe. This third-year middle schooler, who had just gone three rounds with the strongest high school hitter in the country, didn't know who Azuma Kiyokuni was. And he didn't know who Zhang Han was either.
Miyuki, who had been crouched in his catcher's position, lost his composure entirely. He sat down on the ground and laughed.
"That's unbelievable. Do you not watch Koshien?"
It wasn't an unreasonable question. The buzz around both players would fade eventually, as it always did, but for at least these past two weeks, Azuma Kiyokuni and Zhang Han had been the most talked-about names in high school baseball. Their search popularity had climbed past several well-known professional players. The two of them had been everywhere, and this boy from Nagano had apparently missed all of it entirely.
"What's strange about that?"
Sawamura's expression was one of complete sincerity, as if the question confused him more than the answer confused anyone else.
That finished the field off. Laughter broke out across the diamond, spreading from player to player until the whole area had given up any pretense of composure.
"Everyone, settle down." Takashima Rei pressed her lips together, though the smile got through anyway. "He just came from the countryside. He doesn't follow the news much."
She wasn't actually surprised. Sawamura hadn't even heard of Seido High School before she came to find him. Given that, not recognizing Azuma Kiyokuni or Zhang Han was entirely consistent.
"My name is Zhang Han. First-year. I'm probably only about a year older than you." He kept his tone easy, without any attempt to make it impressive. "I'll be your next opponent. Since we're close in age, at least no one can call it bullying."
He glanced over at Azuma Kiyokuni as he said it.
The look carried a clear enough message. I'll handle things from here.
Azuma Kiyokuni was still simmering, but he held his ground and said nothing. He trusted Zhang Han's ability. If anyone was equipped to deal with this aggravating kid, it was him.
"Take your time setting up. I'm looking forward to it."
Zhang Han's interest in this moment extended beyond Sawamura. Standing a few steps away was Miyuki, the same year as him, a player whose reputation within the team and in the eyes of certain professionals sat right alongside Zhang Han's own, regardless of how the outside rankings read.
There was an old saying: in literary pursuits, there is no definitive first. In martial arts, there is no definitive second.
Zhang Han had never considered himself a particularly competitive person. But he had always wanted a real look at what Miyuki was capable of, not from the sideline, but from across the field with something actually at stake between them. Watching from a distance gave you clues. It didn't give you answers. Only a genuine confrontation could do that.
Miyuki's expression shifted into something noticeably more serious than it had been when he was facing Azuma Kiyokuni.
On the mound, Sawamura watched the new arrival with narrowed eyes.
Zhang Han had been perfectly polite throughout. That wasn't the issue. What Sawamura saw underneath the politeness was something he couldn't quite name, a deep, settled confidence that didn't need to announce itself. It radiated anyway.
He didn't know what this senpai had done to earn it, but the arrogance was there all the same, quiet and completely certain of itself.
"Who is this guy?"
Miyuki's expression shifted into something caught between exasperation and resignation.
His temporary partner was extraordinary. He was also, without question, completely unaware of how much he didn't know. Had he watched a single news segment, read one article, glanced at a highlight reel in the past two weeks, he would have seen both Azuma-senpai and Zhang Han more times than he could count.
"He's another monster on this team. In some ways, he's harder to deal with than Azuma-senpai."
Sawamura processed this for a moment, then arrived at what he considered the logical next question.
"His hitting counters my pitching?"
He was working from what Miyuki had already explained to him. His pitching style matched up reasonably well against Azuma Kiyokuni. The natural movement on his throws made pure power hitters uncomfortable, and the unpredictability made guess-hitters unreliable. That was why, despite the outcome of the last exchange, the matchup had been closer than it looked from the outside.
The three rounds had produced one strikeout, one ball with a reasonable chance of being caught in the outfield, and one home run. On paper, evenly matched. But accounting for the age gap, the experience gap, and the difference in status between a Koshien veteran and a middle schooler from a rural team that had never made it anywhere, Sawamura had more than held his own. Azuma Kiyokuni, for his part, had come away looking rather more rattled than anyone would have predicted.
If that was the result when his pitching had the advantage, what would happen when it didn't?
Sawamura wasn't sure he wanted to finish that thought.
"No, not at all," Miyuki said, shaking his head.
The natural quirk ball, combined with the wide, unpredictable range of movement it produced, didn't leave clean openings for hitters to exploit through a single counter-strategy. If anything, Sawamura's style was particularly effective against two specific types: pure power hitters who relied on timing and force, and calculated guess-hitters who needed to read the pitch early. Both approaches fell apart against a ball that moved in ways even the pitcher couldn't fully predict.
"Actually, your pitching is probably one of the types that gives Zhang Han the most trouble."
He paused, then added what needed to be said alongside that.
"That said, I still don't think you'll come out ahead in this matchup."
The reason had nothing to do with pitch types or matchup charts. Azuma Kiyokuni's losses earlier had come from a combination of underestimation and a naturally generous attitude toward juniors. He talked about going all out, but against someone younger and unknown, he had held back. That was simply how he was built.
Zhang Han was built differently.
His concentration in a direct confrontation was something Miyuki had observed carefully. Unless the match had already lost meaning, unless the outcome was so certain it no longer held any interest, Zhang Han's focus didn't waver. In first encounters, especially against someone who interested him, he showed up completely. And right now, Miyuki knew without needing to think about it that two things were true simultaneously: Zhang Han was genuinely curious about Sawamura, and he was also, in his own quiet way, using this as an opportunity to measure himself against Miyuki.
Under those conditions, the chances of Sawamura coming out on top were very slim.
"Then what's there to be afraid of!"
Sawamura's face broke into something that could only be described as relief mixed with enthusiasm. His pitching countered the opponent. That was all he needed to know. The confidence that followed was immediate and total.
Miyuki looked at him for a moment without speaking.
Blind confidence wasn't something he could straightforwardly endorse. But having the will to face the opponent without flinching was always better than the alternative, and Sawamura had never once shown any sign of the alternative.
"Alright then. Give it everything you have against the other monster in this school's top three."
Top three.
Sawamura caught the phrase and held it for a second. Azuma Kiyokuni was clearly one. Zhang Han, standing at the plate now, was obviously another. But that phrasing implied a third.
The question formed in his mind and then dissolved just as quickly, pushed aside by something more immediate.
Zhang Han had finished getting his gear on and stepped into the hitting box.
The difference from Azuma Kiyokuni's initial approach was visible immediately. There was no looseness, no casual air, no sense of a player easing into something at half effort. Zhang Han was focused from the first second, his attention settled fully on the young man standing on the mound.
Takashima Rei had talked about this boy more times than Zhang Han could count. That alone had set a certain expectation. But beyond that, the fact that Sawamura had struck out Azuma Kiyokuni meant Zhang Han had already quietly set aside any thought of treating this as a light exercise.
He studied the pitcher carefully. The mechanics were flawed in ways that any trained eye could pick out without effort. The motion was irregular, cluttered with unnecessary movement, the kind of thing that should have been corrected long before now.
And yet the pitches came out powerful. They moved in ways they had no business moving given what the delivery looked like.
There was something underneath that he couldn't see from where he had been standing before. Something that explained the gap between what the motion looked like and what the ball actually did.
He intended to find out what it was.
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