"One out! One out!"
"Narumiya! Keep the runners stranded!"
Inashiro's supporters desperately cheered from the stands.
But on the mound, Narumiya Mei gripped the baseball so tightly his knuckles turned white.
His trump card.
His winning pitch.
The Cutter he had worked so hard to develop.
Ushijima Wakatoshi had actually put it into play and driven in a run.
For any pitcher, seeing a supposedly unhittable pitch get hit was a painful blow.
The fact that Ushijima had been retired at first didn't matter.
The run had still scored.
Narumiya couldn't accept it.
"What a joke..."
"Damn it!"
"Damn it!"
His frustration boiled over.
No one expected what happened next.
"Strike!"
"Strike!"
"Strike three! Batter out!"
Kuramochi never even touched the ball.
Three straight fastballs.
Three swings and misses.
The entire stadium stared in disbelief.
Narumiya wasn't falling apart.
He was getting stronger.
The radar gun flashed.
150 km/h.
150 km/h.
151 km/h.
Every fastball exploded through the strike zone.
The velocity had increased.
And somehow, his control hadn't suffered at all.
"YEAH!"
Narumiya roared and pumped his fist.
Meanwhile, the Inashiro bench exchanged stunned looks.
Logically speaking, an emotional pitcher should lose command.
But Narumiya had done the exact opposite.
The pressure had forced him to evolve.
Even the Seidou players felt a chill.
"Seriously?"
"He's getting stronger now?"
The next batter, Isashiki, stepped into the box.
He could feel the difference immediately.
The pressure coming from the mound had intensified.
Behind the plate, Harada smirked.
Good.
Mei's fastball has finally broken through 150 km/h consistently.
Now we can use it even more effectively.
He set his glove high and inside.
Narumiya nodded.
At this point, his only thought was getting outs.
Whoosh!
The first pitch exploded toward the plate.
Isashiki didn't swing.
SMACK!
"Strike!"
Harada glanced toward him.
Interesting.
But Isashiki wasn't worried.
Instead, he smiled.
Last year's defeat...
This entire summer...
We've suffered enough.
For three straight months, Seidou's batters had endured a special kind of torture.
Every other day.
Without fail.
Ushijima personally pitched batting practice to the starting lineup.
Fastballs.
Two-seamers.
Cutters.
Sinkers.
Again and again.
Month after month.
More than ten thousand pitches had been thrown during training and games.
Thousands of those pitches had come directly from Ushijima.
And among them were hundreds of fastballs exceeding 150 km/h.
Narumiya's velocity was impressive.
But to Seidou's lineup—
It wasn't unfamiliar.
"A 150 km/h fastball?"
Isashiki stared toward the mound.
Compared to those two first-year monsters...
That's not enough.
Whoosh!
Narumiya fired the second pitch.
The moment it left his hand, Isashiki recognized the mistake.
Too high.
A clear mistake pitch.
His eyes lit up.
Got you.
Compared to the pitches thrown by our monsters—
This is too slow!
CRACK!!!
Isashiki unleashed his trademark downward swing.
The impact echoed throughout the stadium.
The ball exploded off the bat.
Narumiya's eyes widened.
"What?!"
The baseball screamed toward right-center field.
BANG!
It slammed directly into the outfield wall.
The entire stadium erupted.
"YEAHHHHHH!"
Seidou's supporters exploded with excitement.
Furuya crossed home plate easily.
Another run scored.
Isashiki charged into second base standing up.
Double.
The dugout went wild.
"Nice hit!"
"That's our cleanup!"
"Keep it going!"
Even Furuya, who had just scored, couldn't help grimacing.
Because he knew exactly what had happened.
Over the last three months, he'd personally experienced Isashiki's batting practice countless times.
And unfortunately—
He'd been one of the victims.
Many of those practice hits had come off his own fastballs.
More times than he cared to remember.
Meanwhile, Inashiro's players stood frozen.
"How is that possible?"
"That was a 150-plus fastball!"
Even Shirakawa couldn't understand it.
As Isashiki stood on second base, he grinned.
"150 km/h?"
"Is that supposed to be fast?"
The nearby Inashiro fielders stared at him.
Isashiki pointed toward Seidou's dugout.
"We've got two idiots who throw over 150."
"And we've been dealing with them all summer."
His grin widened.
"Do you know how many times we've hit those pitches?"
"Since May, Ushijima has personally thrown batting practice to us every other day."
"Thirty pitches per batter."
"Month after month."
The Inashiro players gradually calculated the numbers.
Thirty pitches.
Fifteen sessions a month.
Three months.
More than a thousand live pitches against a national-level ace.
And among them, hundreds had exceeded 150 km/h.
That wasn't machine practice.
That wasn't simulated training.
Those were real pitches thrown by one of the best pitchers in the country.
The realization hit them hard.
Shirakawa finally understood.
"It wasn't luck..."
"It wasn't a coincidence..."
He looked toward the Seidou dugout.
A chill ran down his spine.
"Seidou underwent terrifying training while nobody was watching."
He glanced at Narumiya.
"Mei."
"It's not that your fastball wasn't good enough."
"It's just that they were prepared."
"For months."
And that was the truly frightening part.
Narumiya Mei had evolved.
But so had Seidou.
And now, even one of the fastest fastballs in the nation no longer intimidated their lineup.