"Strikeout!!"
Narumiya Mei had shown terrifying control the moment Seido put runners on base. None of the next three batters could make contact. Not one.
Inside Seido's dugout, the silence was heavy.
They were all asking themselves the same question. Why was this game so strange today? The opponent's strength had exceeded everything they had anticipated.
"Don't worry about the opponent. We just need to do our own thing."
Coach Kataoka read the mood immediately and moved to steady his players before the doubt could spread any further. Fueled by their coach's words, Seido charged back onto the field with their jaws set. Their opponent was strong — that much was clear. But they were not pushovers either. At worst, they would fight it out to the very end, and the result was still anyone's guess.
Carlos, however, had no interest in any of that.
When he stepped into the batter's box, he was even more casual than the first time. He swung his bat back and forth above home plate in an almost lazy arc, as though he had wandered in from somewhere else entirely. Only when the umpire reminded him to get ready did Carlos pull his bat back and fix his eyes on Tanba.
Tanba felt a flicker of irritation.
What was this slouching kid trying to pull? Was he deliberately provoking him?
If that was the game, Tanba was not afraid to play it. His own condition today was solid. In a direct confrontation, the one who walked away embarrassed would not necessarily be him.
Behind the plate, Miyuki was developing a headache of his own.
He had never seen Carlos carry himself like this before, and he could not get a clean read on what the other side was planning. But one thing he felt certain about: this guy was hiding something. Whatever it was, it was worth being careful about.
He gave Tanba a subtle signal, then issued his pitching call.
When you could not yet read the opponent's condition or likely approach, a probing pitch was always the safe play. Put something out there, watch the reaction, and decide from there. Even Miyuki, who was normally willing to take risks, had been pitching more conservatively than usual today. The game demanded it.
He set his glove just outside the strike zone. A ball — something to bait Carlos and see what he did with it.
Tanba raised an eyebrow slightly when he read the sign. He was not entirely satisfied with the call. But Coach Kataoka's earlier warning was still sitting at the back of his mind, and he did not push back. He went with Miyuki's instruction.
Whether it was the irritation still lingering in his system, or whether the sustained high-level play had begun to wear on his mechanics, something went slightly wrong. The pitch that was meant to settle safely outside the zone drifted. It crossed into the inside corner of the strike zone.
Miyuki's eyes went wide the moment he tracked it.
A wayward pitch. Now. At this point in the game.
He felt his stomach drop. The location was not just a mistake — it was a sweet spot. Sitting right on the inside corner, clean and attackable. Carlos was not the kind of batter who let something like that pass.
Sure enough.
The moment Carlos picked up the ball's flight path, his eyes lit up. A hittable pitch had essentially delivered itself to him without any effort on his part. Turning it down would have been an embarrassment.
He waited until the ball was fully within reach, confirming it was not a trap, then unleashed his swing.
"Ping!"
The contact was clean. The white ball drew a sharp arc and dropped on the third base side. Masuko dove and managed to trap it under him.
He was quietly pleased with himself. His defensive instincts were not his strongest quality among Seido's fielders — his place in the lineup rested more on his bat than his glove. But this time, his reaction had been good.
He pushed himself up off the ground, already turning to throw to first base.
Then his eyes went wide.
Carlos had already eaten up half the distance, with barely ten meters remaining to first base. Masuko's heart seized. He hurried the throw.
The moment the ball left his hand, he knew.
He had been too rushed. Too much force behind it.
A small error in release, carried across the full length of the throw, became a significant deviation by the time it arrived. Yuuki did not even have time to get in front of it. The ball landed beside him and skipped out of bounds.
Carlos, who had been perfectly content to stop at first base, could not believe his luck. Things just kept falling into his lap. Turning them down would have been against the natural order of things. He took off immediately and ran to second base.
No outs. Runner on second base.
Coach Kataoka rose from the bench. He looked toward the dugout, then sat back down slowly.
Masuko's mistake could not be excused. And yet no one in the dugout was willing to claim they would have done better out there. If it really came down to replacing him at third base, the best option would have been Zhang Han — but Zhang Han had not practiced the position. There was no clean answer.
Kataoka exhaled. He would deal with it after the game. For now, he filed it away with a note to himself. Masuko had been training for a year and a half. Most of his teammates had long since turned their defensive reads into pure instinct. But today, Masuko had been a half-beat slow on the catch and then thrown in a panic. Two separate errors stacked into one damaging play.
It was self-sabotage, plain and simple.
Seido had not been taken apart by the opponent. They had tripped themselves.
Even Inashiro's players were puzzled. Carlos's at-bat had been acceptable at best — nothing spectacular. And yet there he was, standing on second base with nobody out. Seido, who had been matching them blow for blow, had suddenly short-circuited and handed him the base.
"Steady! Steady!"
Seido's supporters in the stands kept calling out to the players, though the supporters themselves were not doing much better. Their teammates, who had been fired up and ready to take the fight directly to Inashiro, had somehow unraveled on their own. There was no way to explain it.
But that was the reality.
The next batter was Shirakawa — and Shirakawa was exactly the kind of player who recognized an opening and refused to let it close. Seeing Seido's defense rattled, he stepped in with that in mind.
Tanba pitched.
Carlos, standing obediently at second base, broke a step early and took off toward third.
Shirakawa, who had looked to be setting up for a normal swing, shifted into a bunt.
"Ping!"
The ball dropped directly in front of the mound and rolled back toward the pitcher. Tanba had already read the bunt coming. His reaction was sharp — he charged forward, scooped the ball cleanly, and immediately looked toward third base. The third base coach was already calling it: Carlos had stolen the bag.
But by the time Tanba had the ball, Carlos was already there. Throwing over would have been too late and too risky. He accepted the trade and pivoted to throw to first base instead.
He had barely turned, and the ball had not yet left his hand, when Carlos moved again.
He blew past third base without slowing down and pointed himself straight at home plate.
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