The game between Seido High School Baseball Team and Inashiro Industrial High School Baseball Team was nearing its end. Both teams had been going back and forth, refusing to give an inch.
The score was 6:4, Seido trailing by two runs.
Despite being behind, Seido's supporters were still full of confidence in what was coming. After all, the next batter was Zhang Han.
If before it had been a budding sign, today's game had settled it completely. Zhang Han had come to bat twice already, and both times he had hit Narumiya Mei's pitching out of the park. As his fans saw it, Narumiya Mei hadn't gotten Zhang Han out once all game. How could Inashiro expect to win?
"This guy has tricked me twice."
Narumiya Mei's eyes burned. No one had said it to him, but he knew it perfectly well. He had not gotten Zhang Han out yet.
And that was a large part of why Seido still had such strong fighting spirit. Their players hadn't accepted defeat. They could still hit. They hadn't given up. They could keep fighting.
Zhang Han hadn't lost yet.
All of that had become fuel for Seido. To break it, Narumiya Mei had to get Zhang Han out directly.
The truth was, he had never expected Zhang Han to develop this fast. Back in his last year of junior high, when they had faced each other, Narumiya Mei had given up a hit but had largely been able to suppress him.
By the Summer Tournament this year, their matchup had been even. He gave up a hit and a run. Now, facing Zhang Han again, it was Narumiya Mei who was being suppressed.
Multiple matchups. Hit out every time. Not once had he had the upper hand. Zhang Han had even hit a two-run home run in the middle of it all.
Since when did he have to be wary of Zhang Han?
Narumiya Mei, with his extreme pride, could not accept that. His next pitch came out with everything he had, as if he were trying to settle it in one throw.
The white ball whizzed past. Zhang Han barely had time to react.
Zhang Han had come prepared for exactly this.
They had been opponents for years, both becoming star players for their respective teams from their first year of junior high all the way through their third. Now in high school, the team names had changed but nothing else had. No one understood you better than a long-standing opponent, sometimes not even a friend.
Narumiya Mei was not someone who accepted defeat. Having come out the worse in their previous confrontations, he would be looking for a chance to even the score. He would be watching Zhang Han like a hawk.
Zhang Han knew this clearly and felt no anxiety over it.
Through their previous encounters, he believed he had a strong grasp of Narumiya Mei's pitching. Aside from the changeup he kept as a deterrent, Narumiya Mei's other pitches didn't have much variation. If Zhang Han waited patiently, he would eventually get the pitch he wanted.
Like this one.
The white ball came in inside but stayed within the zone. Zhang Han had a clear read on it and swung.
"Ping!"
The ball flew seventy to eighty meters before hitting the ground. The Inashiro fielders had no time to react.
"Foul ball!"
The ball had veered a few meters and landed just outside fair territory. Fortunately.
Zhang Han's expression didn't change. He retrieved his bat and reset his stance.
In the stands, the girls erupted.
"So cool, Zhang San…"
"Good hit!…"
"Zhang San, Zhang San, you're the strongest!! Zhang San, Zhang San, you're the best!!"
That was the restrained end of it. One girl had pushed her way to the front of the stands and was shouting at full volume.
"Zhang San, I like you!!"
"Go out with me!!"
The fans around her exchanged looks. She was quite pretty. Not someone who would struggle to find a boyfriend. So what was the rush?
In Seido's dugout, the teammates were talking amongst themselves.
"This kid is really something."
They were all on the same team. How could they not be a little envious?
"There's nothing to be done. It's a world that judges by looks."
Miyuki spread his hands.
He was immediately met with cold stares from every direction.
The Seido players weren't as strikingly handsome as Zhang Han, but most of them were reasonably good-looking. Miyuki and Yuuki were popular types at school. But others had more distinctive appearances. Not ugly, just unique. Isashiki Jun with his little beard, Masuko with his heavier build, Kominato Ryosuke, who was handsome but shorter than most girls. These were sensitive topics.
"I really didn't mean anything by it. Just stating the facts."
Miyuki tried to explain, but before he could finish, several of the second-year upperclassmen had already closed in on him for a round of what could generously be called character education.
This junior was getting more and more presumptuous.
While the dugout was busy with that, the duel on the field took a new turn.
Zhang Han read the incoming pitch cleanly and swung with confidence. This time, the ball went foul again.
Once was a coincidence. Two consecutive fouls gave Zhang Han a bad feeling. Something was off.
Two strikes. He was cornered.
Zhang Han waited for Narumiya Mei's third pitch.
He didn't hesitate. He swung at the incoming ball, completing his full swing, but his bat found nothing.
A changeup?
Zhang Han was stunned.
The changeup, used only once against Yuuki and never again since, had just reappeared. That meant everything they had previously assumed about Narumiya Mei's changeup was wrong. It wasn't just a bluff, something thrown once for effect and then shelved. It was a genuine weapon he had developed, and he was willing to use it.
"Strike!"
"Strikeout!"
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