"So cool!"
In the stands, a fan couldn't help himself.
His friend beside him laughed and nudged him. "I always thought you were only interested in long-legged girls. I didn't expect you to go weak for a handsome guy. I'm telling Keiko you're actually like this."
"Get out of here!"
The fan shoved his friend away, laughing.
He did think Zhang Han was exceptionally good-looking, but that was just a person's natural appreciation for beautiful things. Nothing more. His orientation was perfectly normal.
"I'm talking about his pitching!"
"I'm talking about baseball. What did you think I meant?"
The two of them laughed it off.
"If this keeps up, Seido might actually turn this around."
The score was 6:4, not a number that inspired despair. As long as Zhang Han could maintain his form and keep suppressing Inashiro's hitting, Seido would have a real chance. From where ordinary spectators sat, that felt like something to hold onto.
Hadn't Zhang Han just worked through the entire top of Inashiro's lineup, first batter through fifth, in one stretch? If he had already handled their best, why worry about the sixth through ninth batters?
There was definitely hope.
Nearby, a middle-aged man in a duckbill cap and of shorter stature shook his head quietly after hearing them.
The two fans looked at him, puzzled.
This man had been sitting there the whole game, notebook open, writing and sketching constantly. A few years younger, and they might have taken him for a scout. But at his age, that seemed unlikely.
Seeing them stare, Fujio assumed they were wondering about his reaction and offered an explanation.
"Not yet. At least for now, Seido isn't good enough."
Zhang Han's performance up to this point had genuinely been unexpected. He had changed the shape of the game. But to say Seido could turn defeat into victory on the strength of his appearance alone would be too optimistic.
For Seido to win, they needed to solve at least one more problem.
They needed to hit Narumiya Mei.
They needed to score off the Tokyo Prince.
Fujio understood this clearly. Coach Kataoka, as Seido's director, saw it even more plainly.
Setting aside whether Zhang Han could hold on, even if he did, even if he gave up nothing in the eighth and ninth innings, the status quo still meant a loss. Defense kept you in the game, but it didn't win it. You still had to outscore your opponent. And Seido was down two runs.
"One run. Just one run. Keep the hitting moving, and decide it in the last inning."
Seido was at a significant disadvantage, but Coach Kataoka believed that was precisely the moment not to be anxious.
One of the key reasons Inashiro Industrial had become the overlord of West Tokyo was the stability Coach Kunitomo had built into them. The more chaotic and uncertain a game became, the more reliably they performed. Their opponents, meanwhile, often exposed their own weaknesses by pushing too hard. Seido had suffered that way before.
This time, having learned that lesson the hard way, Coach Kataoka chose to play steadily.
The Seido players nodded. The instruction had been given. Whether they fully understood it or not, they would carry it out.
Bottom of the seventh inning. Seido High School Baseball Team on offense.
First into the batter's box was Seido's ninth batter, Asou, who had replaced Kawakami earlier in the game.
Before him, Miyuki, Masuko Toru, and Sakai, three players who had looked sharp in recent practices, had all been struck out.
Asou looked toward the mound and felt something involuntary creep into his gaze.
What kind of opponent was this?
"Whoosh!"
The white ball had already whizzed past before Asou could finish the thought.
So fast.
The ball reached him almost instantly. Not only faster than Zhang Han's, but heavier too. The momentum behind it was on another level.
Stronger than Zhang Han?
That realization made Asou's chest tighten.
"Thwack!"
"Strike!"
"Strike!"
Two pitches, and Asou was already cornered. He hadn't managed to swing at either. On the third, he gritted his teeth and went for it.
The result was predictable. By the time his bat came around, the ball had already cleared the zone.
"Strike!"
"Strikeout!"
Narumiya Mei's ninth strikeout of the game. In the stands, the Inashiro supporters erupted.
One out, no one on base.
The lineup came to Seido's leadoff batter, Kuramochi Yoichi. The crowd shifted their hopes to him.
Kuramochi barely got a piece of the ball. It bounced sharply and rolled directly toward the pitcher. He took off for first base the moment the bat made contact, quick as a released rabbit. His speed was real, but the ball had landed too close to the mound. Narumiya Mei fielded it cleanly and threw to Yamaoka Riku in one motion.
"Thwack!"
"Out!"
Two outs, no one on base.
In the late stages of the game, Narumiya Mei had become something close to immovable. He was no longer joking around. He was fully committed to every pitch.
Before the inning, Coach Kataoka had asked the team to play steadily and focus on advancing the lineup. Score a run if possible.
Instead, they had walked into trouble from the very first at-bat.
Kominato Ryosuke came up next and didn't fare much better. He had planned to extend the at-bat, but Narumiya Mei's pitches were getting heavier and coming straight at the heart of the zone. There was no avoiding them. The ball eventually bounced in the infield, Shirakawa gloved it, and threw to first.
Three outs, side retired.
One strikeout and two groundouts. Three up, three down.
Narumiya Mei in the late stages looked almost like he was playing a different game.
Seido's hopes at the plate, in the end, still rested with Zhang Han and Yuuki.
In the top of the eighth inning, Zhang Han surrendered a hit to Hirai but held the situation there. No runs given up.
However, in the top of the ninth, he would have no choice but to face Inashiro's lineup from the top, beginning with Carlos.
The game moved to the bottom of the eighth inning. Seido High School Baseball Team on offense.
Zhang Han stepped into the batter's box.
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