"Bang!"
"Out!"
Chris was out, just like that, in a way nobody could quite explain.
In the senior team's dugout, the complaints were immediate.
"That kid's luck is unreal."
If that last hit had landed, Chris would very likely have reached second base. A clean double, gone just like that because the opposing second baseman had timed his run perfectly and made the catch.
The teammates felt the sting of it. But the result was the result.
One out, nobody on base.
"You can't stay lucky forever. Sooner or later he'll learn a lesson."
"Masuko, you're up."
The next batter was the former first string third baseman, Masuko Toru. His hitting in this game had already been on full display. Three hits, four runs. Not far off Zhang Han's output. His teammates had every reason to expect something here.
On the other side, as Chris returned to the dugout, his teammates met him with encouragement.
"Don't worry about it. He just got lucky."
"You hit that ball well."
The second string third-years were not unfamiliar with Chris or his ability. They also knew his injury had only recently healed. Swinging the bat the way he had was already impressive. Chris understood baseball better than any of them, and he understood the situation clearly. What he needed right now was simple support, not analysis.
Chris managed a smile, but the doubt in his eyes hadn't cleared.
"Something wrong?"
Zhang Han leaned in, looking at him carefully.
"A completely standard fastball, maybe 130 kilometers per hour. Would you miss it?"
Chris answered the question with a question.
Zhang Han gave an almost imperceptible nod. He understood.
A fastball at around 130 kilometers per hour was barely enough to qualify at the prestigious school level. It was nowhere near fast. Against Seido hitters, a pitch like that, if it was truly a standard fastball, should result in a hit almost every time. Zhang Han himself would connect on it without fail.
Chris was the same. Eight months of rehabilitation hadn't taken away his foundation. He was operating at no less than 90 percent of his previous level. Even at 80 percent, he should not be missing a standard fastball at that speed.
But he had. He knew it clearly even if nobody else could see it. The ball he hit had come off too high, the arc larger than it should have been. Something had been off.
This was worth examining.
Either the young man on the mound truly had extraordinary luck, as everyone was saying, or there was something else going on with his pitching.
"As expected of Chris-senpai. You noticed."
Zhang Han looked at him with genuine respect.
"You knew?"
Chris asked, surprised.
"Last year, I was the one who faced him. He didn't just pitch against Azuma-senpai. He went up against me too."
Chris hadn't known that at all. The doubt in his eyes deepened. "And the result?"
"A tie, I suppose."
Zhang Han said it carefully.
Chris quietly exhaled. He knew Zhang Han well enough to read what that meant. Zhang Han had come out on top. But the fact that this young man named Sawamura had made Zhang Han work for it at all, had shown pitching that gave Zhang Han pause, said something significant.
"That pitch was?"
"Should I tell you, or would you rather observe a little more yourself? My suggestion is to watch another at-bat. There might be a surprise."
Zhang Han had a feeling, difficult to explain, that Sawamura and Chris might have some kind of destined connection.
Chris agreed readily.
He fixed his eyes on the confrontation between Sawamura and Masuko Toru on the field.
In the first string section, Kuramochi was grinning.
"A battle between roommates. Masuko-senpai, little Sawamura, both of you give it everything."
There was something deeply satisfying about standing in the first string lineup, watching others sweat for a chance to join it. The only thing slightly souring it was that Zhang Han was also out there representing the senior team, a constant reminder that this wasn't purely a second string versus freshman matchup. Core first string players were involved too.
Out on the field, the confrontation had begun.
Even with Chris's experience as a data point, when Masuko saw the ball coming in, dead center again, he swung without hesitation.
"Ping!"
The hit was powerful. The ball traveled sixty or seventy meters before landing, bouncing, and being gathered by the outfielder.
Getting the ball to the outfield was a good hit by any measure. But Masuko felt dissatisfied.
He knew his swing hadn't been fully committed. The contact had been slightly off, and the landing spot was not where he wanted it. It was enough to put him on first base, but pushing further would have risked being thrown out.
He stayed at first.
Two outs, runner on first.
Miyauchi came up next and hit a sharp line drive directly to third. Kanemaru caught it cleanly in his glove.
"Thwack!"
"Out!"
Three outs. Change of sides.
When the inning ended, everyone was staring at each other.
It was a genuinely strange inning. Starting from Furuya Satoru, the freshman team seemed to have flipped a switch.
They had given up seven runs in the first inning, five in the second, and four in the third. Against Seido's batting lineup, even a mixed one of first string and second string players, giving up runs in every inning was simply the expected reality. They didn't have the defensive ability to stop it.
And yet, in the fourth inning, they had given up nothing.
You could argue that Zhang Han had been too proud to press his advantage and conceded his at-bat deliberately. But the three first string hitters who had followed, all of whom had been scoring machines earlier in the game, had also gone quiet. And it wasn't that they had played poorly. All three had made solid contact, hitting the ball well, to good spots.
They had just been caught out, inexplicably, every time.
"Like seeing a ghost."
"His luck is just unreal."
Even now, some people were still attributing Sawamura's results entirely to luck.
Neither side scored in the fourth inning. The score remained 6:1.
The game moved to the fifth.
Chris replaced Miyauchi behind the plate. Miyauchi shifted to the outfield, taking the position Chris had been playing.
Under the senior team's original plan, Miyauchi would have been subbed out entirely at this point. But that arrogant freshman had not yet been properly dealt with. They were not letting this go. He needed to be put in his place, completely and clearly.
With that in mind, they kept Miyauchi in the game. His bat was not weak, and they were going to need every weapon they had.
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