Chapter 71: The Proposal for a Baseball Game
"Baseball?"
Inside the Kyoto Jujutsu High lounge, every eye turned toward the white haired man who had barged in without warning, wearing his usual blindfold and the kind of grin that made people want to throw things at him on sight.
"That's right. Baseball."
Gojo Satoru flashed a thumbs up, his smile so bright it looked downright offensive.
"After everything that happened on the first day of the Event, don't you think it would be a little cruel to force the students into another round of one on one battles?"
He paused dramatically, then reached behind his back and pulled out a baseball bat like a magician revealing the final trick of a terrible stage performance.
"So," he declared, swinging it twice with the confidence of someone who absolutely should not be trusted with sports equipment, "in the spirit of friendship between schools and to celebrate the burning passion of youth, I have decided that today's individual matches will be replaced with a friendly baseball game!"
The room fell silent.
Then Utahime exploded.
"Who gave you the right to decide that?!"
She hurled the teacup in her hand straight at his face.
Gojo caught it casually.
Not only caught it, but smoothly poured himself a cup of tea with it, like this had all gone exactly according to plan.
"Don't be so stiff, Utahime," he said, taking a sip. "The students are exhausted. And after yesterday's cursed spirit attack, they need a chance to breathe."
For just a moment, the playfulness in his voice faded.
"They need to relax. Properly."
The room quieted again.
It only lasted a second.
Then Gojo leaned over toward Principal Gakuganji, who had been sitting there with his eyes closed, clearly trying to pretend none of this involved him.
Gojo's voice dropped.
"Besides," he murmured, low enough that only the old man could hear, "you want to see it too, don't you?"
Gakuganji's eyelids twitched.
"That boy. Yami."
Gojo's smile sharpened.
"You want to know whether he can do more than cut things apart."
Gakuganji opened his eyes.
A faint glimmer passed through those old, cloudy pupils.
He did want to see it.
After yesterday's battle, it was no longer possible to treat Yami as an especially talented student. The boy had already crossed that line. A body reminiscent of Heavenly Restriction, swordsmanship, physical ability bordering on absurdity, and those strange eyes that seemed to perceive the world on a deeper level than ordinary sight.
If the second day became a nonlethal competition, then perhaps more could be observed.
More data.
More weaknesses.
Or perhaps more reasons to be wary.
Gakuganji cleared his throat and tapped his cane once against the floor.
"If Gojo insists," he said in his usual measured tone, "then we will proceed with his suggestion."
Utahime turned so sharply she nearly strained her neck.
"Principal?!"
Even she looked stunned.
It was like watching an old temple statue suddenly start agreeing with a circus clown.
Gojo laughed, delighted.
"I knew you were a reasonable old man!"
He slapped Gakuganji on the shoulder hard enough to nearly rattle the man's soul out through his spine.
"Great. Then it's settled. The game starts this afternoon."
At two o'clock, under a bright sky and a mild breeze, the field that had originally been prepared for the individual matches had been fully converted into a baseball diamond.
The bases were set.
The scoreboard was ready.
Even the stands had been arranged.
Gojo's efficiency, when applied to deeply unserious objectives, was strangely terrifying.
Yuji Itadori jogged across the field in his new uniform, glove in hand and excitement written all over his face.
"As expected of Gojo sensei," he said. "When he decides to do something, it gets done fast."
Then he looked down at what he was wearing.
"…Though why do we have to wear these?"
Megumi tugged at the front of his uniform with visible disgust.
Across the chest, in giant letters, was printed:
TOKYO JUJUTSU HIGH
The problem was not the words.
The problem was that the entire uniform was a painfully bright pink.
Not subtle pink.
Not stylish pink.
Humiliation pink.
"These are apparently our victory uniforms," Megumi said flatly. "Which means he prepared them in advance. That's the worst part."
Nobara, meanwhile, had adapted much faster.
She adjusted her collar, checked her reflection in a small compact mirror, then nodded to herself.
"The color is awful, but the fit is actually pretty good."
"Why are you accepting this so easily?" Megumi asked.
"Because unlike you, I know how to wear something ugly with dignity."
"That sentence doesn't mean anything."
On the Kyoto side, the mood was a little more complicated.
Some were still frustrated by yesterday.
Some were embarrassed.
Some were clearly here just because the adults had decided it for them.
And then there was Todo.
He stood in his usual sleeveless shirt rather than the provided uniform, arms folded across his chest, muscles bulging, eyes locked onto Yuji from across the field with the gravity of a man preparing for war.
"My brother!"
His voice shook the air.
"Though we have forged a bond of souls, I will not hold back on the baseball field!"
Yuji pointed right back at him.
"I wasn't expecting you to!"
Todo nodded slowly, satisfied.
"Excellent. That is the spirit."
The whistle blew.
The game began.
Kyoto Jujutsu High batted first.
The opening batter was Aoi Todo.
He stepped into the batter's box with solemn dignity, as though ascending a sacred stage. Instead of taking his stance, however, he planted the bat beside him, inhaled deeply, and raised one finger toward the heavens.
"Before I swing," he said, voice resonating with conviction, "I must first deliver a brief address on the relationship between the buttocks and the soul."
The entire field went dead silent.
Even the wind seemed to pause.
Then came a sharp whistling sound.
Whoosh.
Bang.
A fastball struck Todo square in the face before he could get another word out.
The crack echoed across the field.
Todo staggered back, clutching his nose.
"Strike. Batter out."
The referee's voice was merciless.
Todo looked outraged.
"I was not ready!"
"The battlefield doesn't wait for speeches."
Maki stood on the mound, adjusting her glasses with one hand while coolly catching the ball with the other. Her expression said very clearly that if given the chance, she would throw the next pitch even harder.
"What kind of idiot starts philosophizing in the batter's box?"
Todo lowered his hand from his face.
Blood was trickling from one nostril.
He grinned.
"A glorious pitch."
The game only got worse from there.
Or better, depending on who was watching.
Maki's fastballs were vicious.
Her control was excellent.
And for reasons no one needed explained, a suspicious number of her pitches seemed to be aimed directly at Todo's head, ribs, and other vital areas.
Kyoto responded in kind.
Mechamaru could not attend in person, but he had no intention of sitting out.
Representing him on the field was a heavily modified pitching machine the size of a small armored vehicle. Its metallic frame hummed ominously, and its barrel like launcher gave off a menacing shine that made it look less like sports equipment and more like battlefield artillery.
No one questioned it.
This was still Jujutsu High, after all.
Eventually, it became Tokyo's turn to bat.
Players rotated in.
Balls flew.
Insults were exchanged.
Nobara almost started a bench clearing brawl over a close call at first base.
Then the announcer's voice rang out over the field.
"Next batter. Yami."
The atmosphere shifted.
In the dugout, Yami had been sitting quietly with a bottle of water in hand, watching the chaos unfold without much expression. At the call of his name, he stood up and set the bottle aside.
Then he picked up the bat.
A simple black metal bat.
Nothing special about it.
And yet the moment he stepped onto the field, the noise in the stadium seemed to dim on its own.
Every gaze followed him.
The first year who had fought a Special Grade cursed spirit head on.
The boy who had nearly cut Hanami apart.
The swordsman who carried no visible cursed energy, yet stood on the battlefield like something forged for slaughter.
Yesterday, he had been holding a blade.
Today, it was a bat.
Somehow, that did not make him seem any less dangerous.
Yami stepped into the batter's box.
He did not adopt a standard batting stance.
Instead, he lowered his center of gravity, gripped the end of the bat with both hands, and angled his body in a way that immediately made several people in the stands sit up straighter.
That was not a batter's posture.
That was swordsmanship.
It was the stance of someone drawing steel.
Noritoshi Kamo, crouched behind home plate as catcher, swallowed hard.
Through the gaps in his mask, his eyes remained fixed on Yami's face.
The boy looked calm.
Too calm.
There was no tension in him, no impatience, no performative aggression. But that only made it worse. Kamo had fought plenty of opponents before. He knew what pressure felt like.
This was different.
Even holding only a bat, Yami gave off the same sensation as yesterday.
A blade poised at the throat.
Danger without noise.
The faint, unbearable feeling that if you blinked at the wrong moment, something irreversible would happen.
"Seriously…" Kamo muttered under his breath. "Is he actually taking this seriously?"
In the control station off to the side, Mechamaru watched through the camera feed and let out a cold snort.
"Trying to intimidate us with a stance?"
His fingers moved over the controls.
The machine's internal system whirred louder.
"Baseball is not swordsmanship."
He pushed the power limit higher.
"This is not a duel."
The pitching machine vibrated.
Inside its body, gears spun faster and faster, producing a shrill metallic grind that made the nearby students instinctively step back.
"For this pitch," Mechamaru said, voice hardening, "I raised the maximum output to three hundred kilometers per hour."
The launch port glowed red.
Compressed force built inside the chamber.
"Let's see what you do now, Special Grade."
Boom.
The machine roared.
The baseball vanished the instant it left the barrel, reduced to a white streak that tore through the air with murderous speed.
That was not a pitch.
It was an execution attempt.
And it was coming straight for Yami's face.
.....
[If you don't want to wait for the next update, read 50 chapters ahead on P@treon.]
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