The cheer still echoed in the air when the Inashiro dugout processed what they had just watched.

Narumiya Mei had observed the whole thing with an expression that sat somewhere between genuine admiration and competitive irritation. The slogan itself was difficult to argue with. The effect it had on the Seido players was visible from across the field, and the effect it had on the stands was louder.

He suggested to his teammates that Inashiro should develop something similar.

The room went briefly excited before Coach Kunimoto’s expression made it clear the conversation was over. His reasoning was practical rather than dismissive. A slogan derived meaning from the tradition and results behind it.

Seido’s cheer carried generations of history and genuine achievement. Imitating the form without that foundation would produce something hollow at best and embarrassing at worst. He had considered several versions himself and discarded them all for exactly this reason.

Carlos, watching from the dugout, smiled and suggested that perhaps out of respect for the cheer, they should go easy on Seido today.

Narumiya’s response to this suggestion was immediate and unambiguous. The fact that the cheer was genuinely impressive was precisely the reason Seido was worth beating. Competitive respect and competitive mercy were different things, and he had no interest in the second one.

The game began.

The organizing committee had arranged the match with resources typically reserved for later rounds. Professional umpires. Dedicated commentators. The stands at Hachioji Stadium were as full as they were going to get, and the atmosphere carried the particular density of a crowd that understood the stakes.

Inashiro batted first.

Before the Seido players took their defensive positions, Coach Kataoka pulled them together for a final word.

“Their leadoff batter, Carlos, has gotten on base in the opening inning of every game this tournament. Once he’s on, their offense has a different character. Keep him off.”

Carlos was known for speed that created problems comparable to Kuramochi’s, which was not a comparison many players could earn. The difficulty of managing a runner of that profile in the early innings of a game this significant was not abstract.

Tanba walked to the mound as Seido’s starting pitcher.

Coach Kataoka had stayed with his decision despite Kawakami’s strong recent performance and Zhang Han’s debut numbers. In the games that mattered most, he trusted Tanba’s pitch quality. The high-breaking curveball at full effectiveness was simply the best single pitch currently on the Seido staff, and the reasoning behind leading with the best available weapon in the most important game of the tournament was straightforward.

Miyuki settled behind the plate and reviewed his internal assessment of the situation.

His personal confidence in Tanba as a starter was limited, and the limitation was not about pitch quality. The curveball was legitimate. The problem was Tanba’s startup reliability, his tendency to destabilize under sustained pressure in later innings, and the mentality gaps that showed up in precisely the situations where rock-solid composure was most needed. Zhang Han and Kawakami both brought a steadiness to the mound that Tanba’s profile did not guarantee.

But Tanba was already standing sixty feet away, and the directive had been given. Miyuki’s job was to make it work.

Carlos walked to the plate.

He was tall and lean, with the particular physical alertness of a baserunner in the body of a batter. Standing in the box, his attention went immediately to Tanba on the mound, the evaluation beginning before the first pitch.

Then he squared for a bunt.

The stands reacted with confused noise. No outs, nobody on base, and the leadoff batter was showing bunt.

Miyuki read it quickly. The bunt was not a genuine attempt. Carlos was fast, genuinely exceptional fast, but an obvious bunt with no runners on base against a powerhouse program’s infield was not a play that succeeded on speed alone. What it accomplished was something more useful: it forced a reaction from the pitcher, created information about how Tanba responded under unexpected pressure, and potentially narrowed where the first pitch was going to go.

Ignore it. Pitch at our own pace.

Miyuki signaled.

Tanba threw a fastball.

Miyuki felt the signal he had given become irrelevant the moment the ball left Tanba’s hand. The changeup would have been slower and harder to redirect from bunt position. The fastball was exactly what a batter pretending to bunt was hoping to see. Tanba had either not processed the signal correctly or had decided to act on his own read of the situation, and either way the result was the same: the pitch that arrived was the pitch Carlos had been waiting for.

The bat came back from bunt position and swung through a full cut.

“Ping!”

The ball traveled toward the gap between shortstop and second base at a flat angle with the speed of a ball struck cleanly by someone who had been ready for a specific pitch in a specific location.

The Inashiro dugout was already responding before the ball landed.

It didn’t land.

A figure appeared in the trajectory before the ball reached the grass. Not in a position that conventional defensive alignment would have placed a fielder, but in the gap, arriving at a moment that implied the route had been calculated and committed to before the pitch was thrown.

The figure did not stand up after making the catch. The ball came out of the glove and traveled immediately toward another figure that had materialized nearby.

“Nice throw, Ryo-san!”

Kuramochi took it in stride, turned, and delivered to first base in a single motion.

Carlos was still accelerating when he arrived at the bag. He was legitimately fast, the kind of fast that made plays look closer than the clock said they were. Kuramochi’s throw had traveled the distance before Carlos could close the final step.

The ball was in Yuuki’s glove.

One step ahead. Just one.

“Out!”

The Inashiro dugout absorbed the call with the specific quality of a group that had been watching something they had prepared for and had still not quite expected to see. The landing spot of the hit had been identified as safe before the ball left the bat. The defensive coverage that had appeared to deny it was not coverage that their scouting data had predicted would be there.

Narumiya, who had already opened his mouth to say something encouraging to Carlos, closed it again and looked at the gap between shortstop and second base where two Seido players were now repositioning without any particular ceremony, as though what had just happened was entirely routine.

He said nothing for a moment.

************************************

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