When Zhang Han hit the three-run home run, Seido's supporters broadly felt the game was as good as over.
The lead had stretched to six runs. The score stood at 10 to 4. With only three innings remaining, Ichidaisan Third High School had almost no realistic path to a comeback.
And Seido's offense still hadn't ended.
The boys from Seido were still eyeing Ichidaisan like tigers, hungry for more.
In Ichidaisan's dugout, the assistant coach watched Manaka teetering on the pitcher's mound and felt a pang of sympathy. He walked over to Coach Tahara.
"Coach."
No more words were needed. The meaning was plain.
"Manaka boy has tried very hard. Tell him to come down and rest."
Tahara had wanted to give Manaka a test, not break him. Manaka clearly had nothing left. Keeping him out there would be a torment to both his body and his spirit.
"He can't continue. Change the pitcher."
The one who had truly finished Manaka Kaname was not Zhang Han. It was Kominato Ryosuke, smiling from start to finish. The thirteen pitches he had ground out of Manaka drained what remained of his stamina and knocked the fight out of him. Zhang Han had delivered the final blow, but the damage had already been done.
One hundred thirty-nine pitches, and now he was being pulled.
When Manaka walked off the mound, Ichidaisan's supporters did not respond with disappointment. They stood and applauded.
The last three runs were a little painful to watch. But in the six innings before that, Manaka had held Seido's powerful lineup to seven runs. His fighting spirit had been on full display, and the supporters gave him the respect he had earned as he left the field.
In Seido's dugout, Tanba loosened his clenched fist and watched his former teammate go with something close to relief.
He still hadn't caught up to Manaka. That much was clear, and it stung. But he had drawn strength from watching him, and he had learned things.
"Just wait. Three months from now, I will take back what I lost today."
Tanba's path to becoming the ace at Seido had not been smooth. But he had never regretted the decision to come here.
It was because of Seido that he became teammates with Yuuki and Isashiki Jun. It was by growing alongside them that he had broken into the first string and earned the ace number. That experience was worth a hundred times what his junior high years had given him.
Manaka had always been ahead of him, and for a long time Tanba had lived under that shadow. But it was precisely because he had stepped out from behind Manaka that he had learned to grow on his own terms, one step at a time, until he arrived here.
In this game, facing Ichidaisan's lineup, he had given up four runs. It was his best performance since the Spring Tournament began, and possibly his best since joining the first string. The three runs at the start had been rough, but everything after that had felt different. He had begun to see the view Manaka had always been looking at.
"Manaka, can I stand on the same starting line as you now?"
Seido, leading by six, still seemed unsatisfied.
Yuuki, the fourth batter, and Isashiki Jun, the fifth, followed with consecutive hits. Ichidaisan's relief pitcher had barely settled on the mound before he gave up a run. The score moved to 11 to 4.
This was only the Tokyo Spring Tournament final. In another context, a seven-run lead with three innings left might trigger a mercy rule. But this was Koshien, and the game would be played to its end.
The gap between the two sides had grown to seven runs.
Miyuki, batting sixth, stepped into the batter's box.
Seido had not wasted a single at-bat through the fifth batter. Consecutive hits and home runs had pushed the score out by four more runs, with Isashiki Jun still standing on first base.
No outs, runner on first.
It wasn't the most loaded scoring opportunity, but it was a favorable one.
Miyuki had already hit a four-run home run and a run-scoring single. Five runs accounted for by one man, half of Seido's total on the day. His performance was every bit as impressive as Zhang Han's two home runs.
Seido's supporters expected more. A hit, or even another home run. Against most teams, even strong public schools, they might not have pushed for it quite so hard. But this was Ichidaisan Third High School.
The team that had blocked Seido's road to Koshien for years. At least a third of that painful stretch of missed tournaments could be laid at Ichidaisan's feet.
Now the positions were reversed, and Seido's supporters weren't about to let this moment pass quietly. They wanted to win, and they wanted to win big. The larger the margin the better, and if Ichidaisan had to suffer it in front of millions watching on Tokyo Television, all the better.
Only a rival from the same district could inspire this kind of feeling. The strong schools they would only meet at Koshien were opponents, but not enemies. Ichidaisan was something else entirely.
"Beat them!"
"Take every run you can get!"
"Let them taste it too!"
What had started as a Tokyo Spring Tournament final had been transformed into something closer to a Koshien showdown by the sheer intensity of these two rivals.
The strong schools from across the Kanto region who had come specifically to scout the Tokyo final were not smiling with the satisfaction of having gathered useful intelligence. They were stunned.
In the Kanto Tournament half a month from now, they would have to face both of these teams?
That was a cruel thought.
Seido's hitting lineup alone was enough to make any ace pitcher nervous. And then there was Inashiro Industrial, which had dominated the nation at Spring Koshien. How strong had they become?
The visiting scouts had come to watch and learn. Now they weren't sure they wanted to know.
"Seido! Seido!"
Amid the rising chant, Miyuki stepped in against Ichidaisan's relief pitcher.
"Ping!"
First pitch, decisive swing, clean contact.
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