Chapter 260: HERO
"Ugh—so hot!"
After getting back to the dugout, Sendo was immediately pounced on by his seniors and practically tortured half to death.
Having finally escaped, he collapsed back onto the bench.
"Here! Drinks!" ×2
The moment he stepped in, the two pitchers each offered him a cup of water.
They were cheering on their teammates in their own way.
"Ahh… lifesaver."
Sendo accepted both cups at once.
"Hey—WAIT! STOP! Sendo!! Drinking too much at once is bad! Wai—!!"
Sawamura rushed over, trying to stop him when he saw him about to drink both.
But Sendo, after downing one cup in a single gulp, pressed a hand over Sawamura's face—and finished the second one effortlessly.
....
"Seventh batter! Catcher—Miyuki-kun!"
The game had resumed with two outs and no runners on.
"Ah! We're doomed! Bases empty! That scheming glasses bastard can't hit anything good like this!"
"STOP saying such unlucky things!"
Jun wrapped an arm around Kuramochi's neck, squeezing tighter—this time, his other hand digging into Kuramochi's scalp.
"IT HURTS!"
"Feel the pain! Maybe that'll shut your damn mouth!"
"Sendo must've said something stupid again, huh?
That guy really never gets tired of it…"
Miyuki, noticing the chaos in the dugout, relaxed a little.
"Shut them down, Mei!"
"Whoosh!"
Pop!
"Ball!"
"Whoosh!"
Ping!
"Foul!"
"Whoosh!"
Pop!
"Strike!"
"We're cornered…!"
Ota whimpered.
Jun unconsciously tightened his chokehold.
"It REALLY hurts, Jun-san!"
"Shut up! This is all your mouth's fault!"
"Hey hey hey—this has nothing to do with my mouth!
—AGH! OW OW OW!!"
"You got a problem!?"
"…No…"
"Being cornered is normal here…"
But Miyuki wasn't tense at all.
"Heh… You already told me the right answer earlier, didn't you? I can't go down so easily."
He choked up on the bat.
"There it is—he always shortens his grip when he's forced into a corner,"
Harada thought.
Unlike Sendo, Miyuki didn't have the footspeed to suddenly attempt a surprise bunt.
Ping!
"Foul!"
Ping!
"Foul!"
"Heh… This works better than I thought. Suffer. Get annoyed. Then throw me something easy to hit."
"Yassan…"
Narumiya glared at Miyuki, dangerously annoyed—
in his mind, Miyuki's face was overlapping with Sendo's.
Step.
Arm swing—
"Whoosh!"
Cling!
"Foul!"
Mei suddenly got serious—throwing a high-quality slider that even Miyuki barely fouled off.
That abrupt jump from 70% effort to full power made it hard for Miyuki to adapt.
"Next one's… a change—!"
Pop!
"Strike! Batter out!"
"STRIKEOUT! Narumiya Mei fires a full-power fastball!
Three outs—change sides!"
"You thought it'd be a changeup, didn't you?"
Mei smirked, somehow reading Miyuki's thoughts.
"But I just used a little bit more strength. I was imagining you as that other bastard."
With that, Mei walked off the mound.
If Harada knew what Mei was thinking, he would absolutely roast him again.
....
"His changeup floats when he throws too many… I was trying to save his pitch count."
"Normally, based on the sequence, a changeup would make perfect sense. But because there's so little info, and Harada's hyper-focused only on that cleanup duo,
he isn't calling the most logical pitches."
Although Sendo's run had brightened the mood slightly, anyone who understood the situation was still extremely tense.
Sendo's scoring method showed one thing clearly—
even he had to choose the safest possible way to get on base.
And Mei's ability to hold back while maintaining full control…was its own form of pressure.
And now—this inning was Inashiro's second cycle.
This was the real turning point.
....
Furuya, a sensitive kid, could feel the pressure from the situation sinking into his skin.
He clenched a fist quietly.
"One batter at a time… I'll handle them."
"First pitch is important!"
"Go, Monster Prince!!"
"Furuya-kun!!"
....
"Now—Inashiro's second time through the order!
Leading off is the speedster—Carlos!"
Carlos was known for his unorthodox batting stance and incredible mobility.
Defensively, he was considered top five in all of Kanto.
And among outfielders specifically, the only one better than him in the entire region…was Sendo.
Carlos entered the box—shook out his arms, tightened his grip on the bat, and smiled at Furuya with crushing pressure.
"Use your full arm swing, Furuya!"
Just as Furuya was about to pitch, Carlos suddenly squared to bunt.
Furuya unconsciously added extra force.
He already knew this inning was crucial.
His nerves tightened.
"Whoosh!"
Thud!
"Ball!"
A rare high miss.
"Ball!"
Second pitch—Carlos used the same trick.
Another ball.
Knowing Furuya couldn't self-adjust yet, Miyuki called timeout.
"Your pitches have plenty of power. No need to force it. Don't be shaken by his stance.
If he bunts, let him.
Leave the rest to the fielders.
Got it, Furuya?!"
"Uh—o-okay!"
"…He clearly didn't listen to a word I said,"
Miyuki thought.
"Deep breaths! Deep breaths!! If you calm down—uh—then… you'll feel better!"
Sawamura said, doing deep breaths in sync—
though he clearly didn't know what he was trying to say.
....
"Got enough strikeouts already, right? I won't go down easily now. I'll fight to the end—I can't keep getting beaten by a first-year forever! …Except for that one guy. He's not human…"
Carlos thought—Sendo invading his mind again.
Sendo had shocked him deeply today—fielding, running, batting…every category was a total overpower.
Carlos no longer considered him human.
"No matter what—I have to get on base. As long as there's a runner on, this pitcher's velocity and pitch quality drop dramatically. He's been going full power for so long—he has to be getting tired. If we get a runner on, we can crush this pitcher!"
This at-bat—no, this entire inning—was crucial for Carlos and all of Inashiro.
It could decide the direction of the next several innings.
Miyuki had realized it too—
Furuya could sense the shift in atmosphere with his sensitive instincts, and he was exhausted.
His pitch count had already passed sixty.
And today was brutally hot.
The game began at 1 PM under thirty-plus degree weather.
The heat was pushing Furuya's stamina to its limits.
"Let's see… How long can your full-power pitching last?"
Narumiya Mei smirked from the bench, proud of how well he had preserved his stamina.
A kind of self-generated superiority.
But Miyuki's timeout didn't have an immediate effect.
Furuya threw his first walk of the game—and it was to the most troublesome runner of all.
Seeing this, Tanba—who had just sat down—immediately stood back up.
He shouted for Miyauchi to start warming up.
Still, one walk didn't mean everything.
Carlos took a massive lead.
Thanks to Miyuki's strong shoulder feinting throws, Seidou wasn't too pressured.
Both teams understood each other's players extremely well.
Inashiro used a simple bunt to advance Carlos into scoring position.
With a runner on second, they intended to bring out their center of the lineup and fight Seidou head-on.
With runners on base, the fixed-stance Furuya lost velocity and pitch power.
Shirakawa relayed this information through signals to the entire bench.
This wasn't the first inning anymore—Inashiro's batters wouldn't be overwhelmed like before.
"One out!"
Miyuki shouted, trying to lift the team's spirits.
The crisis wasn't over, but getting an out was still good news.
Players shouted encouragement to each other:
"Don't mind the runner!"
"Kura! Take him down!"
"One at a time!"
"Let them hit it! We'll field it!"
"You can do this!"
"Ooga!"
Their encouragement helped Furuya slowly regain his mental footing.
....
Next batter: No. 3 – Third baseman, Yoshizawa!
"Yoshi-chan!!"
(He somehow made it sound like a grandpa…)
"The pitcher's starting to get scared!"
"Come on, Furuya! This is when you trust your defense behind you!"
"Don't hit to center field if you can help it!
That monster is dangerous! Try to avoid it!"
Yoshizawa repeated the coach's instructions in his mind.
Coach Kunimoto's meaning was clear.
They could try to avoid center field—but in elite baseball, batters can't fully control direction.
Even if Sendo was guarding center, there were still balls that would punch through.
Sendo's presence was mostly deterrence.
For example:
– A hit that would be a double anywhere else
→ you don't dare run on center field.
– A ball that would drop for a hit against another outfielder
→ gets caught or returned instantly by Sendo.
Great defense was about timing, but elite outfielders stopped innings from bleeding out.
Sometimes being faster by even one step turned a 0% play into a 100% one.
....
"Whoosh!"
"The pressure from before… it's gone!"
Yoshizawa could tell from Furuya's pitches that Shirakawa's info was correct.
Ping!
"Center field!"
"If this drops—it's a huge extra-base hit!"
"Fast!! Sendo's reaction is insanely fast!! Can he make the catch? Runner is ready to tag!"
Carlos took his lead, reading the third-base coach.
Pop!
"STOP! STOP!"
The moment Sendo caught it, the coach waved frantically.
Sendo's throw was so exaggerated it made Miyuki's shoulder fake look ordinary.
"Seriously?! This defense is ridiculous…"
Even Carlos was speechless.
He barely managed to battle Furuya at the plate,
then at first base Miyuki's shoulder froze him in fear,
and now center field's monster froze him again.
If Miyuki's shoulder represented safety, Sendo represented death.
Move = you die.
"Ahhhh!!! Sendo!!!"
Sawamura screamed from the bench in excitement.
"There's no more reliable defense than this,"
Miyuki exhaled, smiling at Furuya.
Even Furuya understood what that smile meant.
"Sendo-san!"
Furuya was genuinely moved.
"Again… this man…How unlucky can we be?"
Inashiro's club president Hayashida groaned.
"Baseball always produces attackers and defenders—
heroes on both ends,"
Coach Kunimoto said without turning around.
"Geniuses appear when they appear. All we can do is play our best."
"I get it! But—"
"Luck is part of baseball,"
Coach Kunimoto interrupted him, already knowing exactly what he was going to say.
This was the true leader of a champion team—
a man whose calm never cracked.
As long as he was there, Inashiro would never collapse.
"But a monster of this level…This is the first time I've ever seen one."
He didn't say it aloud—the thought stayed buried in his heart.
Even in the previous life, during the most critical moments, the only sign of tension was a bead of sweat—his expression always composed.
Unlike Kataoka, Kunimoto had years of battlefield command.
And seeing this situation, he wasn't going to sit still.
He called Harada to his side—just like in the original timeline—to clear away all doubts and hesitation.
In short:
Don't overthink it.
As the cleanup batter—if the pitch is hittable, hit it.
That's all.
And that straightforward command was exactly what made him the most dangerous opponent.
Kunimoto's words were always piercingly accurate.
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