The Old Baseball Player System

"He framed that pitch." - As soon as Shun returned to the dugout, his doubts were cleared up by his friend Kenta.

"Oh! I see..." - Shun murmured, a bit surprised. He had never seen Sugawara framing pitches before. In fact, he was genuinely impressed; he had never seen any middle school catcher frame pitches like that.

"Looks like this is the national level, huh?" - Shun muttered to himself with a slight smile as he glanced at Sugawara behind home plate. As strange as the white-haired maniac was, Shun couldn't deny that playing against players of this caliber made him excited.

'I'll pay you back soon, just wait!' - Shun thought to himself, his gaze challenging Sugawara. He couldn't stop his hands from trembling with anticipation—he wanted to take the mound already and deal with Sugawara and the rest of Hokuto. But of course, he knew they had to stick to the game plan, and his turn to pitch would come soon enough.

While Shun was fired up about facing such talented opponents, the poor young samurai, Ren, was struggling with Kohei's insane pitches. After all, unlike Shun, he didn't have the system's overpowered skills to help him track the ball's trajectory.

After a low fastball in the strike zone and a failed attempt to chase an outside slider, the young samurai was cornered in the duel. When he saw Kohei's third pitch coming his way—a high fastball just on the edge of the strike zone—he had little choice but to swing his bat and try to make contact.

WOOSH

DING

With great effort, Ren managed to make contact with the ball. But unfortunately for him, it was only enough to send the ball high into the air, where it landed safely in Kohei's glove on the mound.

PAH

"Out!" - The umpire called the second out of the inning, prompting Ren to begin his walk back to the dugout as Shoto's third batter made his way to the batter's box.

Since Ryosuke was playing center field and Jiro was on the bench for this game, Coach Yamada had to make some adjustments to the lineup. Not fully trusting Ryosuke's consistency yet, he placed the young player in the ninth spot—not because he doubted his batting ability, but to avoid issues like the one they faced in the Tokyo tournament when Ryosuke was kicked off the team. As the ninth batter, if he got on base, the next batters would be Shoto's strongest hitters.

Because of this decision, the third spot in the lineup was left vacant. Coach Yamada didn't want to put Kenta there to avoid having Kohei face three left-handed hitters in a row, so he chose the team's former fifth batter, the second-year catcher, Daigo, for the position.

However, in his first at-bat as the third batter, Daigo failed to give Kenta the chance to swing. After five pitches, Daigo struck out, unable to touch Kohei's splitter, ending the first inning. With a 2–0 lead, Hokuto's ace had shown in dominant fashion that it wasn't going to be easy for Shoto to close the gap.

---

"As expected of those two, they're not holding back..." - In the stands, Akira Suzuki, the third baseman for Tokyo Nakano Senior and a member of the U-15 national team, spoke with a sigh as he watched Kohei and Sugawara return to their dugout after retiring Shoto's first three batters.

"Two runs is already a solid lead with Kohei on the mound. If Shoto wants any chance of winning, they can't allow another run for the rest of the game." - Satoshi Hayashi, Japan's future ace, said in a calm voice. However, the fire in his eyes made it clear that he wanted to be the one facing Kohei at that moment. The focus on academics and the lack of baseball lately wasn't sitting well with the young pitcher.

The three girls nearby—Kaori, Hana, and Mika—watched Shoto's dugout with concern. All of them were rooting for Shun, but they knew how good Kohei and Sugawara were, and they understood that Satoshi's words weren't an exaggeration. Scoring two runs against Kohei was no small feat—not even teams in last year's U-15 Asian Games had managed that. And Kohei had only improved since then.

This line of thought made sense, but... there was another girl sitting in the stands who had overheard Satoshi's comment, and when it came to her older brother, logic didn't matter.

Explore more at empire

"Hmph! It's only two runs! Bro can do way more than that, you idiot!" - Little Yumi said angrily, glaring at Satoshi. For some reason, she really didn't like him—especially when he seemed "against" her older brother.

"Yumi!" - Aiko quickly pulled the little girl back and scolded her. As much as she thought it was adorable to see Yumi defending her brother, she didn't want her going around calling everyone who annoyed her an idiot.

"Pft!" - Toji couldn't hold back a laugh after seeing the little girl call Satoshi an idiot, especially after noticing Satoshi's awkward reaction. "Japan's future ace" clearly had no idea how to deal with insults from a little kid.

'You're not planning to hold back either, are you, Shun?' - Toji turned to Shoto's dugout, his curious gaze fixed on his friend. He was genuinely eager to see how Shun planned to defeat Hokuto's incredible battery.

---

The second inning began quickly, with Sora back on the mound. The young pitcher made it clear with his throws that he had no intention of giving up any more runs to Hokuto's batters.

Starting with Hokuto's sixth batter, Sora struck him out after four pitches with a high fastball in the zone. The seventh batter saw only one pitch in the duel—he swung at Sora's screwball on the first pitch and was eliminated with a fly ball to center field. With two outs, the eighth batter also had no chance, striking out after just three pitches, all fastballs. This ended the top half of the second inning with only three batters.

---

Matching Sora's dominant performance, Kohei continued to dominate on the mound in the bottom of the second inning. Starting with Shoto's fourth batter and captain, Kenta, Kohei needed just four pitches to retire the home run threat with a fly ball to right field.

The fifth batter, Sora, did his best to extend the duel, but after six pitches and a full count, he was forced to swing at a pitch in the zone. Unfortunately, he failed to make contact with Kohei's curveball and struck out.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

With two outs, Shoto's sixth batter, Tomo, had no chance against Kohei. After just three pitches—all fastballs in the zone—Tomo struck out without even touching the ball.

The second inning ended with Hokuto Junior High School still leading 2–0.