No outs, runners on first and second.
If they'd had any choice, Takami and Manaka would not have wanted to face Zhang Han in this situation.
They had already faced him three times.
Zhang Han's record against them: one hit, one home run.
In their third encounter, Manaka had been at his peak, pitching with everything he had. He had gotten Zhang Han to pop up. But that was then.
Now it was their fourth confrontation, and despite having retired him once, neither Takami nor Manaka had any confidence facing Zhang Han head-on.
Manaka had already thrown one hundred thirty-eight pitches. Eighteen of those had come in this inning alone, without a single out to show for it. Performing at peak strength was out of the question. Maintaining his form from earlier in the game would already be asking a lot.
So how were they supposed to handle Zhang Han?
With runners on first and second, walking him was something they could theoretically accept. But they couldn't do it.
This wasn't about pride. Walking Zhang Han wouldn't solve anything. They still had no outs, which meant after putting him on base they would have to face the three hitters standing behind him. Yuuki Tetsuya, the fourth batter. Isashiki Jun, the fifth. And Miyuki Kazuya, who had hit the four-run home run in the first inning.
Where exactly were they going to find an out?
In the dugout, Coach Tahara hesitated for a moment, then held off on making a change.
On one hand, he didn't believe his relief pitcher would change anything. On the other, he saw an opportunity here for Manaka. Good results were no longer a realistic way to impress the professional scouts in the stands. But fighting spirit, an indomitable fighting spirit, was something else entirely. Manaka's pitching from the fourth through sixth innings had already done enough to earn their attention. If he could show extraordinary resolve now, that would only deepen their interest.
Still, leaving Manaka in meant accepting that Ichidaisan Third High School's game was in serious danger. Coach Tahara understood that. He had decided to swallow the bitter pill.
Out on the mound, Manaka shook off the disappointment and refocused. He studied Zhang Han and turned over his options, looking for a way to get him out.
Zhang Han was doing the same thing in the batter's box.
When he had hit the home run in his second at-bat, Zhang Han had felt like a door to a new world had opened in front of him. He believed he could go further.
So in his third confrontation with Manaka, watching the pitcher's morale surge and his command sharpen, Zhang Han had gone back to the same approach that had worked before, trying to outthink him.
Instead, he was the one who got outthought. He hit a pop fly and was retired.
It was a significant blow.
Not because Zhang Han couldn't accept being put out. His mental fortitude was not that fragile. The problem was the feeling itself. He had just sensed that door opening, and then the moment he tried to walk through it, it swung shut.
Zhang Han's hitting was excellent by any measure. His batting average and home run count were both at the top of Seido. But that didn't mean his hitting was without flaws.
That door he had glimpsed was, in part, about pitch reading.
Miyuki Kazuya could read pitches accurately with runners on base. Kominato Ryosuke could foul off anything, including Manaka's low-angle fastball and slider, the two pitches Manaka considered his lifeline. To make contact with either of those without guessing correctly in advance was nearly impossible for most hitters. Kominato could not only read them but foul them off at will.
That was something Zhang Han simply could not do.
Sitting with that, Zhang Han began to wonder whether his mistake in the last at-bat had come from wanting too much. He had been so focused on developing the qualities he saw in Miyuki and Kominato that he had drifted away from his own strengths.
That was wrong.
Even if the door to a new world had opened, even if new abilities were within reach, they had to be built into his existing hitting system to become real combat power. They had to become genuinely his own.
His hitting had been forged through talent and relentless practice. He couldn't abandon what he already had just because he had seen something beyond it.
On the other side of that, Manaka was being pushed to the edge.
No outs, runners on first and second. The heart of Seido's lineup waiting. It was nearly certain he would give up runs. And if the lead grew beyond three, with only three innings remaining, Ichidaisan Third High School would have almost no path back.
He couldn't let that happen.
As the team's ace, Manaka refused to accept it. Even with his body running on fumes, even with his arm groaning under the strain, he had to find a way to get an out and keep his team in the game.
"Whoosh!"
On his one hundred thirty-ninth pitch, Manaka reached for something extra. The ball left his hand at one hundred forty-three kilometers per hour.
His peak fastball.
In Seido's dugout, Tanba watched his former teammate with clenched fists.
"Kaname."
In the batter's box, Zhang Han waited.
He wasn't thinking about anything. He watched the baseball travel toward him with wide, focused eyes.
Now.
Since joining Seido, Zhang Han had taken two hundred swings a day with the team. On top of that, he woke up early each morning for two hundred more on his own, and stayed late at night for another hundred with his teammates.
What people saw was the hitting record. What they didn't see were the hundred and fifty thousand swings a year, each one paid for in sweat.
All those swings had turned the bat in Zhang Han's hands into an extension of his body.
"Ping!"
The bat found the ball with the certainty of something rehearsed ten thousand times, and sent it into the air with force.
The white ball climbed into the sky, carved a long arc, and dropped into the left field stands.
"Three-run home run!"
"Zhang Han with the three-run blast, and that should be the game for Seido."
The score moved to 10:4.
Seido led by six runs.
Zhang Han had hit his thirty-second home run.
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