Zhang Han's grand slam sent a wave through the stadium that hit the Seisenji dugout like a physical thing.
The Seisenji players sat with it for a mont, and then sothing unexpected happened. The despair that should have been there, the visible collapse of morale that any reasonable observer would have predicted after watching five runs score in a single inning without a single out recorded, simply did not arrive.
Most teams, put in that position, would have gone quiet in the particular way that ans the result has been accepted and the remaining innings are just formality. That was the normal response to a five-run deficit against a program of Seido's caliber, for a team that had never scored five runs in a single ga against any opponent.
Seisenji didn't go quiet.
They had made their peace with losing before the first pitch was thrown. That was the part nobody outside the dugout understood. The preparations they had made, the strategies they had built, the conversations Nishikawa and Ueki had quietly held in the days leading up to the ga, all of it had been constructed on a foundation that already acknowledged the most likely outco. They were not going to win. They had known that. What they had decided, in place of the goal they couldn't realistically chase, was a different one entirely.
Play an exciting ga. Show the nation's strongest offensive team what a group of underdogs looked like when they refused to fold. Let the Seido players see sothing they didn't often get to see from across the field.
With the ga already effectively decided, the last remaining weight had lifted from their shoulders. There was nothing left to protect. Nothing left to lose. All that remained was the baseball itself, and they were free to enjoy it.
The Seido players watched this reaction from across the field and were genuinely baffled.
"Are these guys alright?"
The score was five to zero. The inning wasn't over. There had been no outs recorded yet, which ant the gap was very likely to grow before the half-inning concluded. By every logical asure, the Seisenji players should have been sowhere between demoralized and completely deflated.
Instead, they were still engaged. Still watching. Still clearly planning to compete for whatever the remaining innings had to offer.
Even Coach Kataoka, watching from the dugout with the particular stillness of soone who had seen most things a baseball ga could produce, looked montarily uncertain about what he was seeing.
He processed it quickly.
"The opponent has not given up. Do everything possible to score." His voice was calm and direct. "Zhang Han's ho run has shaken the pitcher's confidence. At this mont, his instinct is going to be to reach for his most reliable pitch to rebuild his rhythm. That's the pitch to target. Use every opportunity available and push the gap as wide as possible."
The situation had shifted from sothing that looked like a comfortable lead to sothing that required active managent. An opponent that refused to break psychologically, even from a deeply unfavorable position, was an opponent that could create problems if given any space to operate. The correct response was to remove that space.
Win the ga cleanly and win it now.
"Yes!"
The acknowledgnts ca back from the dugout with real energy. But the truth was, the players heading to the plate didn't need the instruction to feel motivated. This was their first official ga in a Seido uniform. The mont was one they had worked toward for a long ti, through the training sessions that ran past the point of comfort and the individual hours put in outside of scheduled practice ti. None of them were going to approach their at-bats with anything less than full commitnt.
They wanted sothing worth rembering when they looked back at this day.
"Sixth batter. Catcher. Miyuki Kazuya."
Following Zhang Han into the batter's box was a player who had generated his own significant coverage during the Koshien tournant. His hitting wasn't characterized by the sa raw power that made Zhang Han's na recognizable in highlight packages, but the quality of it had been noted by those who paid close attention. Reporters who covered the tournant had settled on a particular formulation when writing about him: a top-tier genius no less than Zhang Han. Players of that caliber, arriving at the plate after a grand slam, were supposed to extend the damage.
"Ping!"
The ball ca off the bat and climbed, then settled, and ca down directly into the glove of Seisenji's second baseman. The fielder had not moved from his position. He caught it standing still, as though the whole thing had been arranged in advance.
In the dugout, the players who had played alongside Miyuki through the Koshien tournant exchanged knowing looks.
"He's completely useless when the bases are empty."
The observation was made without anness, just as a statent of fact that everyone present had already filed away from prior experience. Miyuki's hitting performance with runners on base was frequently remarkable. The success rate climbed, the quality of contact improved, and the decision-making sharpened in ways that had a direct relationship to the situation's stakes. With nobody on base and nothing imdiately pressing, that edge dulled noticeably.
Nishikawa, having absorbed the full impact of Zhang Han's ho run, felt a small but genuine recovery begin. The out had cost him almost nothing, and getting it had given him sothing back. His preparation had flagged Miyuki as a key Seido player worth studying, and the scouting had apparently captured sothing true about how he operated.
In the Seido dugout, Coach Kataoka's expression behind his sunglasses had shifted into sothing more asured.
"Are they already being targeted?"
He had suspected this was coming when the team was at Koshien. The attention that ca with strong performance brought detailed analysis alongside it, and detailed analysis eventually found patterns. Seeing the suspicion confird in a first-round Autumn Tournant ga was earlier than he had anticipated, though perhaps it shouldn't have surprised him.
It would end here, though. The players coming up next in the order were ones that Seisenji's preparation almost certainly had no information on. They hadn't played at Koshien. They hadn't been on the First-string. There was no footage, no recorded data, no foundation for a scouting report.
"Seventh batter. Third Baseman. Masuko Toru."
This was the player filling the space left by Azuma Kiyokuni's graduation. The na was unfamiliar to most people in the stands, and the curiosity that followed an unfamiliar na in that particular spot in the lineup was imdiate and visible. The cleanup territory, even at the edges of it, carried its own weight of expectation.
"Masuko-senpai! Let's go!!!"
Kuramochi's voice ca out of the dugout with the volu and enthusiasm of soone who had clearly decided to make his dormitory loyalty a public matter. Several other Seido players, catching the energy, stood up and added their voices to it.
The atmosphere in the dugout had its own warmth, separate from the ga itself.
Most of the players who had batted earlier were familiar quantities within the program, either previous First-string mbers or players like Kuramochi who had been training alongside the First-string without formally being part of it. The players coming up next in the order were a different category. Two second-year players and one first-year, all of them recently promoted from the lower teams, none of them with any aningful public profile.
They were genuinely new faces in every sense of the phrase.
And their appearance in the lineup signaled sothing beyond the imdiate ga. The transition that had been building since the third-year graduations was fully here now. The next era of Seido High School Baseball, whatever it was going to look like, was stepping up to the plate.
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