The following day, at Hachioji Stadium, the second round of the Autumn Tournament had begun. Thirty-two teams had entered. Sixteen would advance.

Seido’s opponent was Hakuzan High School, a public school program out of East Tokyo.

Seido took their half of the first inning on offense, and the lineup that stepped up to the plate was noticeably different from the one that had played the day before. With three of the core starting players sitting on the bench, the batting order had been reshuffled. Several players from the previous game retained their positions, and three new faces filled the gaps. As a unit, it was a lineup that represented roughly half of Seido’s first-choice options.

On the mound, Akai had already developed a thin film of sweat across his forehead before the first pitch was thrown.

He had watched Seido play at Koshien. Most people in Tokyo high school baseball had. And most people who had watched those games carried a specific kind of complicated feeling when they found themselves scheduled to face that same program. The offense they had put up against Osaka Kiryuu remained the reference point that everything else was measured against. Standing on the mound opposite that lineup required a level of self-assurance that Akai was working to maintain.

And then he saw the bench.

Yuuki was sitting. Zhang Han was sitting. The two players who had anchored the most intimidating part of that offensive display were not in the starting lineup.

For the Hakuzan players, the reaction was difficult to entirely suppress. There was the outward performance of competitive readiness, and underneath it, a quieter response that was closer to relief. Facing a half-strength Seido lineup still wasn’t a simple proposition, but it was a different problem from facing the full version. A loss against this particular opponent would be manageable, and if the margin was reasonable, it would be something the program could carry with some dignity. The absence of Yuuki and Zhang Han opened a door that would have been firmly shut otherwise.

Akai refocused on the task in front of him.

The inning moved quickly to two outs with a runner on second.

Getting there had cost him more than the scoreline suggested.

The leadoff hitter, Kuramochi, had required seven pitches before Akai found the sequence that produced an awkward swing and a ground ball to the infield. Seven pitches for an out was not an efficient transaction, and Akai understood that as he watched Kuramochi’s speed carry him almost to first base before the throw arrived. Hakuzan’s infielders were solid enough to make the play, barely, and the out was recorded. But the pitch count was already accumulating before the inning had properly developed.

Kominato Ryosuke had been next. Akai had no prior information on him. The player was not from Tokyo, had built his reputation in Kanagawa before joining Seido, and had generated no footage or scouting notes in Akai’s preparation. What he could read from watching Kominato stand in the box was that this was a player who had a specific plan and had arrived at the plate having already committed to it.

Akai had designed what he considered a bait pitch, working off his read of Kominato’s physical profile. The compact frame suggested limited power projection, and the angle of his stance implied he would struggle to pull an outside pitch with any authority. A well-placed ball in that location, even if he made contact, would produce something manageable.

Kominato took the pitch and drove it into a gap in the defense.

The bait had worked. The outcome hadn’t. Six pitches spent, and the runner was now in scoring position.

The third batter, Sakai, came up and hit an infield grounder that should have ended the inning on a double play. Kominato had read the situation and moved early enough to break up the timing, and the result was two outs with a runner on second instead of three outs and a clean change of sides. Four more pitches gone. Seventeen total, and the third out hadn’t arrived yet.

Now Masuko Toru was in the box.

Akai knew the profile. Pure power hitter. Contact anywhere on the bat had a meaningful chance of producing something that traveled. Against a pitcher already at seventeen pitches without a comfortable inning behind him, a power hitter with fresh legs was exactly the wrong matchup to be navigating.

He made his decision and threw with purpose.

Masuko tracked the pitch and swung with the kind of full commitment that didn’t involve second-guessing.

“Ping!”

The ball climbed sharply, carried forward ten meters or more, and then came down almost vertically. Akai had already broken toward it from the mound, reading the trajectory and covering the ground between himself and the landing point in a few quick strides.

He caught it.

“Thwack!”

“Out!!”

Three outs. Change of sides.

Standing on the mound with the ball in his glove, Akai let something out. A sound that belonged to a person who had just navigated something that required everything they had, and needed the effort to go somewhere external rather than simply continue sitting in his chest.

From the Seido dugout, Zhang Han watched the display with a slightly furrowed expression and turned to Isashiki beside him.

“Is this the standout player you mentioned? He doesn’t look that impressive to me. I feel like he’s not performing at the level he was supposed to have in middle school.”

Isashiki considered this for a moment.

“Didn’t you say he might be past his peak?”

The observation wasn’t entirely wrong. There were still flashes of the ability that had drawn interest from multiple powerhouse programs coming through in Akai’s work. The sequencing showed thought, and the final pitch to Masuko had been well-placed under pressure.

But the effort required to produce seventeen pitches and three outs against a lineup missing its two most dangerous hitters was a number that told its own story. Every batter he had faced had extended the at-bat, made him work, forced him to commit sequences he hadn’t fully planned for. None of them had been easy, even the ones that resulted in outs.

At this pace, the question of what Akai looked like in the fourth or fifth inning was already becoming relevant.

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