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 moment, and then something 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 means 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 game 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 game, all of it had been constructed on a foundation that already acknowledged the most likely outcome. 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 game. Show the nation's strongest offensive team what a group of underdogs looked like when they refused to fold. Let the Seido players see something they didn't often get to see from across the field.
With the game 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 meant the gap was very likely to grow before the half-inning concluded. By every logical measure, the Seisenji players should have been somewhere 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 someone who had seen most things a baseball game could produce, looked momentarily 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 home run has shaken the pitcher's confidence. At this moment, 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 something that looked like a comfortable lead to something that required active management. 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 game cleanly and win it now.
"Yes!"
The acknowledgments came 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 game in a Seido uniform. The moment was one they had worked toward for a long time, through the training sessions that ran past the point of comfort and the individual hours put in outside of scheduled practice time. None of them were going to approach their at-bats with anything less than full commitment.
They wanted something worth remembering 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 tournament. His hitting wasn't characterized by the same raw power that made Zhang Han's name recognizable in highlight packages, but the quality of it had been noted by those who paid close attention. Reporters who covered the tournament 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 came off the bat and climbed, then settled, and came 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 tournament exchanged knowing looks.
"He's completely useless when the bases are empty."
The observation was made without meanness, just as a statement 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 immediately pressing, that edge dulled noticeably.
Nishikawa, having absorbed the full impact of Zhang Han's home run, felt a small but genuine recovery begin. The out had cost him almost nothing, and getting it had given him something back. His preparation had flagged Miyuki as a key Seido player worth studying, and the scouting had apparently captured something true about how he operated.
In the Seido dugout, Coach Kataoka's expression behind his sunglasses had shifted into something more measured.
"Are they already being targeted?"
He had suspected this was coming when the team was at Koshien. The attention that came with strong performance brought detailed analysis alongside it, and detailed analysis eventually found patterns. Seeing the suspicion confirmed in a first-round Autumn Tournament game 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 name was unfamiliar to most people in the stands, and the curiosity that followed an unfamiliar name in that particular spot in the lineup was immediate 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 came out of the dugout with the volume and enthusiasm of someone 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 game itself.
Most of the players who had batted earlier were familiar quantities within the program, either previous First-string members 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 meaningful public profile.
They were genuinely new faces in every sense of the phrase.
And their appearance in the lineup signaled something beyond the immediate game. 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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