6/Slugger. (bottom)
■
"Cool. Maybe he can live with me for a while?"
So Kirisu Yaichiro's grandfather, a baseball player himself before the war, said, looking at the six years old boy.
It's definitely here that the chance showed itself. Regardless of the tight family budget, his parents bought Yaichiro a bat and patted his head, sating that if he seriously loves baseball he should seriously practice it.
Mom and dad were unhurried people without any impressive talents, but one could be proud of them.
Apparently he never was praised, and thus he didn't listen to advice from the side and never devoted himself to baseball.
Childhood years. Disappointing the grandfather, he lived as he pleased, never coming close to baseball.
Although he did play amateur baseball with his classmates in elementary school, he didn't prepare to these meetings. The bat seemed to him a treasure, and he walked around with it, not to do sports, but to satisfy the childish thirst for adventure.
Kirisu Yaichiro first came in contact with actual baseball two years later. In the second grade autumn he seriously took up the bat and swung it everyday after meeting one of his future friends. Once he was heading to Nozu to find a new place to play and suddenly noticed a boy a year younger than himself who was throwing a ball at a wall.
The small, scrawny boy was throwing his ball over and over for a long, long time.
He began when the sky wasn't yet red and kept on until it was almost below the horizon.
The boy was concentrated, but not passionate.
A throw, another throw, each one strong but disinterested. He was disgusted. Constrained by no one, he kept on throwing the ball, sighing in the end: "Shouldn't have begun", — and went home. Yaichiro watched this for a few days and then distractedly spoke to him.
"Can I join you? Well, if I'm a batter, it'll be baseball."
Why did he speak to the boy? Something pushed him, but he couldn't remember what exactly… Well, he probably won't ever remember by now. The reason was a pretty insignificant conclusion, but one you couldn't just shrug off.
"Who are you?"
The boy looked at the older one carrying a bat with doubt, but was too tired to even chase him away and thus agreed.
From that day baseball began for Kirisu Yaichiro.
The boy was called Iguruma Kazumi. A first-year from another school, well-known in Nozu, has no father.
"What, Yaichi? Started baseball even though you didn't like it?"
Father, happy about the son's passion, tactfully softly supported his decision so as not to embarrass him.
At that time grandfather already parted with the idea of adopting Yaichiro, but mother was captivated by the attractiveness of the idea and had some hopes for his talent. She proposed him to enter the Junior league, 'since you took up baseball', but he didn't agree — wasn't interested. He didn't know the kids there, and the adults' mugs were too cocky. After all, for him baseball was a special game, one where close friends compete.
"Hi, Iguruma. I have a new ball."
They met in the industrial district of Nozu, in the park-yard of an uninhabited building.
Their playing the game of baseball, beginning from a small thing, became a regular activity in less than a week. Were Kazumi's serves out of the ordinary? Was Kirisu's batting out of the ordinary? Not even aware of baseball's small rules, they simply played "throw the ball — hit the ball", refining their techniques day after day and raising the difficulty accordingly.
If they had a spectator, they wouldn't believe these were elementary schoolers. Not only because of their technique: their concentration was not that of a child. These were two fully serious, uncompromising duellists.
"Grandad says that it's not baseball without a catcher. And that batter must play against a pitcher and a catcher. And that leaving a pitcher alone won't do."
Their overly tense game became almost funny. To play properly they needed a catcher. Kirisu didn't want that inwardly, but, contrary to his expectations, Kazumi was happy with the idea of a third friend.
"Okay. If you brought him, Kirisu, I trust him. Anyway, I botch often. I need to free up my head, or I'm never going to beat you."
A pitcher needs a smart catcher.
Glad that his friend with a hard character trusts him, Kirisu discarded the petty alertness and began looking for a catcher comrade. A friend from the "on the grass" baseball came up. He loved baseball, but his parents couldn't let him into the Junior league, and he took interest in Kirisu and Iguruma's game.
"Well, yeah, and everyone loving baseball went to the Junior. You'll be batting, right? I forgot when was the last time the ball reached me. If you will, I'll be happy to join."
The third boy was the perfect middle between Kirisu and Kazumi. By skill, character and family circumstances. They say that a trio reaches natural balance. And thus they — only a pitcher, catcher and batter — played a non-pretentious game called baseball until Kirisu entered fifth grade.
When in team play a single player stands out, the team's overall strength goes up rapidly.
The movements of an outstanding sportsman are closely examined. Some may casually compete with him; some trust him unconditionally and hope that while he's with the team, there won't be any problems.
The growth of a team which has a clear hope is outstanding. It's probably because the members, not hesitating or worrying, merge in a single entity physically and mentally.
This is called 'reaching after the talent'.
Each of the three boys in the park of the district full of comfortable corners was an outstanding sportsman in his own way. Being born with a fit body. A willpower raised by the environment. A purely childish belief in others' genius.
They had the necessary minimum to overcome the technical part, and in the closed world without adults they toiled with all they had. Gathering bits of their non-knowledge, they studied techniques as they could and tested them on each other.
"The hip-joi-nt is important for a baseball player. With a strong base you throw well and swing well… But how do you train it?"
During the period not blessed with many trainers Kirisu Yaichiro reached great sport achievements, and the tips he carefully gathered weren't even facts but something like "gut sense". Luckily, small children learn from such personal experience better than from logic and complicated medical theories.
"You need to train not the visible body, but the inner… umm, axle. Grandad said that both pitcher and batter are like a wound spring, and when the rotation support isn't holding up, the rotation itself is wrong. And, umm, you have to develop these, umm, den muscles…"
They only learned from grandfather how to develop the abdomen, the body's axle.
At that time, it's said, if you don't learn the forms of serving and batting under a trainer, you'll never fix them afterwards. But their training was directed not by trainers, but by the freedom of movement naturally present in the body.
With one step forward and a spring-like spin you throw a ball reaching a hundred kilometres per hour.
Within less than a second you swing the appendage — the arm and the bat accelerating to a hundred kilometres per hour.
All these are movements natural to living creatures who performed them since the era of hunters 'to survive'. Nothing special. If you're human, your movements can be repeated by a million of others.
Roughly speaking, batting and pitching attempt to direct the movements to the natural bending of the arm according to the rotation of the shoulder and hips. So you make your body memorize the forms, natural, as seen from the side, after which you discard the excess meat you didn't even know about and create individual movements suiting you best — that's how you train technique… They didn't need that at the time.
The base form is researched individually. Even without studying the 'common methods of pitching and batting' born from the lessons of the past the psyche and eyes striving towards the most fitting form are enough to raise the skills of pitching and batting without any trainers.
They studied such individual techniques, and that was all. After all, this baseball was only for them three. There was no need to memorize 'strategies' aimed at the whole team's victory.
"I'll try throwing a side. The speed may vary depending on the size, but the spin only depends on training."
Iguruma Kazumi felt the limits of an upper throw and had to switch to a side one.
If in baseball where only individual techniques are sharpened someone is different in power, there'll be no game.
The pitcher not suitable for the batter any more was training towards that. So as not to leave the friends who rescued him behind. Not only did he master the side throw, he even took up the trump card, the lower throw.
Until the very end Kirisu Yaichiro hadn't realized that this was not only obsession with the ball's magic, but also the fear of losing friends.
…Alas.
The anxiety and teeth-gritting of his friends was clouded by the joy in being able to hit previously impossible screwballs.
◆
Kirisu Yaichiro had many buddies, acquaintances, but only two of those he could call friends.
In his case it could only be called 'coincidence'. He had fun in the atmosphere of his classmates, but the baseball in the park was so incredibly interesting that he only came to his senses when he could only call two people his friends.
On the other hand, Iguruma Kazumi was lonely because his surroundings played a cruel one on him.
This gave him a reason to hide a grudge. But the bastards weren't someone precise, it was the entire society, and neither Kazumi nor Kirisu could overcome this problem… no one probably could.
Iguruma Kazumi didn't have a father. His parents divorced before Kazumi was even born. His mother was an average woman without an academic profile who couldn't find a job — and wasn't used to working anyway. The conditions were strained since his birth, and Kazumi couldn't even imagine something was amiss.
And still he didn't want to have his revenge on the society, since his mother was desperately raising her son in her own way. She couldn't work like normal people did, but she gave her all to any job, even the ugliest one. Struggling to defend her son against problems, she tired times quicker, knew no happiness, and seeing her hurried ageing, Kazumi had no right to envy the world.
But there were only enemies around.
The society won't give a hand to the weak. Not only won't — it has no qualms with attacking those breaking its rules. The mother and son were considered not only weak, undeserving of compassion, but "pitiful wretches" fit for attacking.
Kazumi was despised by the elder neighbours, and the kids laughed, imitating their parents. Even if he could make friends with kids who didn't care, sooner or later their parents forbade them to see Kazumi. Even the obligatory education, singing praise to equality, after the constant non-payment for the cafeteria and education gave up on treating the boy as a student. After all, the teaching staff had no need to defend the kid of a parent not living by the rules, and no adult was on his side.
Kazumi's homeroom teacher, a clean freak, didn't tolerate a single stain in her class, and decided that if the dirt couldn't be removed it had to be used effectively at least.
Such a comfortable target. The homeroom teacher officially made a weak person the scapegoat, a target to vent irritation on.
There wasn't a roll call without attacking Kazumi in the form of small punishments for yesterday's behaviour upon returning home.
"Sensei, Kazumi-kun was playing outside the school again!"
Both other students and the teacher knew he was helping with his mother's work, but…
"Iguruma, come forward. What do you have to say? Aren't you ashamed?"
At the moment when he almost blurted out the real reason he was slapped.
Barely heard, muffled laughter. For kids it's a show to dispel the lesson's boredom. The teacher looked at her hand, obviously wanting to wash it that very instant, and sent him to his seat through clenched teeth.
"Sensei, Kazumi isn't ashamed, you're too kind to him!"
"One who doesn't listen won't hear. Leaving him alone, ***-san, that's enough."
An echo through the class — a heartfelt happy giggle. People condemning oppression strive to oppress. Kazumi's homeroom teacher, as a woman with a strong sense of righteousness, wasn't being malicious. To her and other adults the weak already look like criminals. The elementary school was a great purgatory for Iguruma Kazumi.
The meaning of those who Iguruma Kazumi acquired as friends even they didn't realize.
…Kirisu Yaichiro managed to notice it when their playing the game of baseball was coming to an end. In the events of the empty and near-empty days he realized his foolishness and his friends' problems.
In the end of the week, after the game, Kirisu invited Kazumi to his home and shared many a dinner with him. Dining with a friend made Kirisu happy, and Kazumi was glad that Kirisu's mother diligently arranged small feasts for them as well.
In the school Kazumi couldn't even eat normally, and he was awkward accepting Kirisu's dinners, but at the same time he was happy.
However, there was a small misunderstanding here.
For Iguruma Kazumi this was something like yet another event — 'feed the strangers' kid well'… With care developed through survival he realized that he had to 'try to look good'. Kazumi thought of the dinner prepared for him, the guest, at the end of each week as a special treat. He was glad, but at the same time he felt guilty for that hospitality.
That's why he held back at this lavish table.
Precisely due to the specialness of the event Kazumi restrained himself before that special thing.
And at that day — not the weekend, but a random workday — Kirisu invited Kazumi over. Mother was surprised at the unexpected guest and smiled at him. 'Sorry, but we only have usual food, nothing special'. After a few moments… looking at the empty table, Iguruma Kazumi understood at last.
This dinner similar to a party. Usual family food that, he thought, would be simpler without guests.
And with that he realized that normal kids ate exactly that.
"Aah… I see. So this is normal."
Without surprise, without sadness. He simply quietly accepted this reality. Just for the first time in years the poverty of his home, which he tried hard not to think about, covered his eyes with dew.
Kirisu saw that.
A face like a Noh mask. The face of a kid who saw warm happiness and knew despair was etched into Kirisu's memory forever. His home wasn't rich either, but never again could he say his family was poor.
This would stain the one main character he respected.
Kirisu Yaichiro, whatever he looked like to others, considered himself a normal human.
He believed he won't become the main hero of a 'story'. Born in a normal family, living a normal life, and going to live on that way until the end. He won't ever become a hero.
He doesn't have his own strength. The body he was born in isn't his own strength. He didn't find in himself, a human, the inhuman power sufficient to fight plights.
Kirisu Yaichiro understood that vaguely and saw in Iguruma Kazumi an unreal power, saw a main character in him and revered him.
Painfully so.
◆
"Hey! How are you, Sinker?"
Since the time Iguruma Kazumi switched to side throws Kirisu began calling him Sinker. With all the respect and friendliness towards a hero and friend walking the path he would never choose himself.
Baseball with them three was becoming, as it's called in chess, a stalemate.
They met thousands of times in duels. The awkwardness of steps heading for the mound, the discomfort in the right shoulder while standing in the square. Only by these trifles could one notice their mood that day. The battle score goes toe to toe. No, by the nature's endowment Kirisu Yaichiro has an advantage, but the pitcher and catcher united their efforts to counter him, and the scales were balanced once again.
But Kazumi's deciding ball is something else entirely.
A lower throw, and the demonic ball rushes almost to the lower boundary of the dead zone.
The ball sent by a right arm almost scraping the ground slides up, where, obeying the spin it was given, it 'sinks' right before the batter's position in the lower part of the dead zone.
Then, from the batter's box, it's as though the ball makes a ninety degrees turn and falls; this is Kazumi's winning ball, the 'sinker'. When the ball reaches the upper point of the trajectory, even Kirisu was sluggish with his grounder.
Their score isn't set. Kirisu won points-wise, but the trick of this ball still was a mystery.
"listen, can we join? What baseball can there be with 3 people, right?"
When you play baseball for over 3 years there's bound to be rumours.
Somehow the baseball lovers heard of this game of three, and it slowly started growing.
Both Kirisu and Kazumi were gaining friends. While under the guise of baseball, it was still joy to Kazumi. No one was bullying him. The boy who up until now was attacked just for existing gained the right to be in a big group for the first time in his life.
"What Junior are you in, guys?"
Afterwards a manager from the Junior league joined. The courteous man, upon learning the three belonged nowhere, hotly advised them to join.
…Like many other sports, baseball was a betting game. This is why it isn't widespread in poor countries.
The entrance fee, monthly pay for education, uniform and design. Completely outside a child's capabilities, and you can't ask your parents… Kirisu could, but for the others it was an unreachable dream.
"Okay. If you're with us, we have more than enough money. Maybe you need something else?"
The radiant dream suddenly approached and motioned them to follow.
The entire year after was a golden time for Kirisu.
More than the activities in Junior league, more than the progress gained from the new knowledge he enjoyed the fact that now all three could play baseball with everyone.
"Kirisu, you're going to junior high next year, right? Then we'll probably end up in different teams."
Real baseball with new comrades. The chick of battles before the spectators' eyes and the same feeling of nervousness as the pitcher's coming to the front.
Everyone gulped with difficulty when the batter in the last, ninth inning turned the score on its head.
On the pitcher's mound and the batter's box all kinds of stares meet. This is a feeling of unity. Friends and foes, though split into the camps of 'us' and 'them', synchronized on the movements of a single ball; he loved that moment with all of his heart.
Kazumi did too. And thus said:
"Listen, just don't laugh your ass off, okay? I will be such a pitcher that no one but you will ever hit me. And you too become such a batter as not to miss anyone's ball but mine. And let's some beautiful day…"
"Let's some beautiful day settle our score on the big scene", — he said.
Scratching his cheek, as though talking about an impossible dream.
The same naive childish dream was always nurtured by Kirisu as well. Since the time the two of them started pretending to play baseball he wanted to show a lot of people how Iguruma Kazumi throws his ball. The Junior league is a decent support. Every time Kazumi was acknowledged as a good pitcher he felt glad for him as much as he would be for himself.
…Therefore fame and ovations are secondary. Kirisu Yaichiro didn't want to be acclaimed as a genius, even accidentally.
"Thank you, Kirisu. It's all thanks to you."
Half a year passed in the Junior league.
Kazumi wholeheartedly thanked Kirisu.
His face exhausted, his shoulders and elbows barely lifting after constant training, his face completely disinterested compared to the park, but he gratefully lowered his head.
"You know, lately mom is smiling. She's happy everyone's praising me…"
It seems she was blaming herself as well that his life was so hard for so long.
Igurumi Kazumi's mother quietly rejoiced in her son's activities.
Kirisu Yaichiro's friend, the most fitting opponent for him, left him behind and decided to consider baseball his only beacon.
'That's why he's a hero', — Kirisu sourly smiled and blessed his friend's journey.
But a corner of his mind went in deep thought.
What would be, if then… on that day when Kazumi opened his heart at the dinner, he cared a little bit more about himself? What would be if he managed not to run his dear friend into a corner?
◆
The ways of the inseparable trio slowly separated.
Or perhaps it's that Kirisu approached baseball matches inordinarily.
The sportsman with a talent greater than everyone else's feels the victory's charm the least. This lifestyle was bright for those who had no natural talent. It made them feel the gap one can't cross just by work.
Therefore it's like this.
"Having fun, kids?"
They fell to the temptation of the suspicious adult with a soft smile.
The man who has suddenly woven himself out of the sunset twilight.
They got into the Junior league, gained a big team, but even after that their daily activity went on. They couldn't devote as much time to it, but they still had matches, checking their form, pointing out their weaknesses, clapping each other's hands, laughing. Kirisu went into the sixth grade, and next year he'll go to junior high, and there won't be time for him to come here.
An Edem with the prospect of being expelled.
No — it already was a remnant of paradise losing the last of its shimmer.
In their paradise there was a smiling stranger.
"This gentleman here is playing the devil… What do you think? You seem like good boys, so the gentleman shall grant you one wish each. But in exchange for something important to you."
His speech showed one thing: a screw was loose in his head.
Kirisu got ready to chase the 'gentleman' out, but his younger friends, it seems, didn't feel any danger in these words.
"Do you like baseball?"
"Of course I do. There are no people my age who don't love it. No matter what you say, our generation didn't have enough fun in its time."
The timbre was manly but soft. Unlike with Kirisu, adults never talked to Kazumi, and the sole fact that the 'gentleman' spoke to him as an equal already gave him joy. Perhaps that he grew without a father played a role here too.
In the end they accepted the 'gentleman's' offer.
The devil smiled and asked them for their wishes.
"I want to hit home runs on every innings!"
"Then I want to be an unhittable pitcher!"
Kirisu answered noting.
He wasn't so childish as to play along with this nonsense; at the time he didn't have wishes great enough to give up the important things he already had.
But the others answered at once.
Their jealousy towards the talented friends, their nervousness since loss became unacceptable to them, innocently broke out of their lips.
"These are good wishes. Well, as promised…"
Softly smiling, the 'gentleman' took their hands.
Big, dry hands through the touch of which his pulse could be felt.
The 'gentleman' slowly let them go. No changes, and the kids disgruntedly reproached him, while Kirisu sighed at ease — it's just as he thought…
"No, there are changes. Now, if his ball is hit even once, he'll die. And if he doesn't hit a home run once, he won't survive either."
The devil laughed, his mouth maliciously curved like a crescent moon.
The twilight is deepening.
The red air is sticky, like blood. This definitely not funny, ridiculous curse took root in their hearts.
"Well, the gentleman is a devil, after all. The gentleman can't grant wishes any other way. But look, kids: a man's dream and life must be the same. If you compromise, think of them independently of each other, the happiness becomes empty."
The devil smiled: "Stay alive!.." Life. There's the simplest and most important joy.
"You hit, you die. You don't hit, you die. How lucky — that which you guys love the most became your very life.
In other words, the loser doesn't have the right to live."
The stranger disappeared along with the sun.
Like he was never there in the first place — disappeared, leaving Kirisu and his friends' sight. What a crazy bum. They laughed — fooled by a silly adult! — and went their ways.
Everyone wanted to forget that smiling face as soon as possible.
The curse happened to the two friends the next day.
◆
Next day. The classes were over, and in baseball 'on the grass' their third comrade didn't manage to hit a home run. Of course, there was nothing abnormal about that. The friends, having forgotten yesterday's encounter, returned to the familiar park, practised as a trio and said their goodbyes.
"Guys, listen. A misfortune has occurred."
The other day. The manager's voice was drowned in the noise of the train running along the river.
The catcher is nowhere to be seen. The one who loved baseball as much as they did, the friend who didn't rest a single day, wasn't there… Last night he died at home. Not just him — the entire family suffered his fate. Seems like a breaking and entering killer, but the perpetrator is unknown. The neighbours heard a quarrel, and a rumour went around — domestic violence, perhaps?
"That's because he broke the contract…"
It's not that Kazumi bought it, he didn't even believe after his friend's disappearance.
It's just that a small anxiety rose in him.
If he's hit he dies. Just a groundless suggestion, but actually this was Iguruma Kazumi's own decision as well.
If his self-awareness, the essence of his being is that he's an excellent pitcher, then at the moment he becomes a mediocre pitcher he'll return to dust he came out of… He understood that very thought was leading to destruction. Kazumi did have doubts about his path as a pitcher, but he had no way back.
He couldn't betray the expectations of his mother and those around him. He was accepted as a society member with the condition of being a pitcher. If he stops being a pitcher, he'll become like he was before, weak, the only thing left to him being enduring.
"If I'm hit, I die… My life is in that ball. So, a hit ball means…"
There are no unbeatable throws.
There wasn't an adult who taught Kazumi this basic of basics; after all, in his mind, originally that of a loner, a pitcher could play baseball alone. As a result he became even more lonely, a reclusive sportsman, and…
"So, you want to kill me?"
His false curse turned into reality.
A thirst for killing born of self-defence. Iguruma Kazumi, standing on the hill, really is ready to kill. A throw for him means none other than a duel to the death, each and every one of them.
Kazumi, determined and talented. stimulated by fear and vengefulness, is refining his right arm.
He made outstanding screwballs his base technique, and his pitching was closer to a relief than to a starter. Now Iguruma Kazumi became a pitcher who went out to the mound at the seventh inning and didn't allow a single hit after that, one who could boast a truly diabolic, record score.
The compensation for that was that he was a loner even in a team. No one opens up to the man ready to kill even during team training.
"Well, whatever. My baseball was like this anyway. Let the talentless scum bunch together. I need no one."
Even his best friend's warnings didn't reach the target.
The mountain of corpses was rising.
Iguruma Kazumi became a king in the desert.
Kirisu didn't know how to stop that perversion. What could he say, he who hadn't noticed his friend's nervousness for many years? He who hadn't noticed the disgusting image of the friend that was forming behind his back in the team…
Reflecting on it calmly, the teammates probably weren't happy to have them. Newbies warmly accepted by the manager. In less than half a year he was chosen as the starter — a junior who cheekily passed the senior pitchers while giggling.
Kazumi initially stood out in the team.
It's just that Kirisu hadn't noticed.
"Hey, Kirisu, you remember that time I blurted some idiocy?.. If you do, let's forget it…"
The first one, any person would hold their breath before such as him. This isn't as interesting and fun as before.
Kazumi must hate the batter enough to want to shoot him, and Kirisu, thinking of him, can't light-heartedly take up the bat like before. This wasn't their personal duel repeated a thousand of times.
It became apparent how naturally they didn't get along.
One who was lost from the very beginning and one who was satisfied all his life can't understand each other.
As months, years went past, their roads divided further still.
They will never reach an understanding.
Baseball beloved by Kirisu isn't the same as baseball needed by Iguruma Kazumi.
That's the whole story.
Young Kirisu was upset, thinking that such a man should have been born with a ton of genius, and once muttered aloud about the unfairness of the world.
Thus Kirisu Yaichiro's childhood ended.
Since junior high he went wherever his heart directed, freely enjoying baseball.
Iguruma Kazumi earned the nickname 'Sinker master' and earned big success as the first screwballer in the prefecture.
Six years later the two of them had another chance to meet. On the third year of high school Kirisu Yaichiro accepted the last, decisive battle of the summer…
■
Kirisu Yaichiro earned a name as the prefecture's first slugger, beginning since the first year of high school.
In the general high school №1 of Shikura city which he entered there was a baseball club with an above average potential. There was an informal, but genius batter, and the manager thirsted for his team's victory as well. Accident after accident, and baseball, stuck at the level of entertainment, became whole to him again.
In the first year they only accomplished building the team foundation. The battles began next year. Kirisu Yaichiro became a second-grader, the team began cooperating, a fourth batter rose, and finally qualification rounds were visible ahead.
The team was developing under the banner of the genius batter, Kirisu Yaichiro.
But — that same second year he developed an odd habit.
For unknown reasons he became sick every time he hit a home run. Seriously sick: he vomited up to three times in a single match, and often lost consciousness.
Teammates and and manager asked whether he had any guesses at least, but he didn't answer, and even the school's director was worried about his problem. The teachers pleaded the best student, whom they strangely trusted, for attention, but he…
"Treat him against his will? I don't know… If he himself wants to vomit, let him do so."
…answered quite coldly.
And now Kirisu Yaichiro is suffering, but his abilities as a batter don't fade in the least, and the legendary slugger's fame rings round the prefecture.
However, baseball isn't so simple that you could just win through a single slugger, and Shikura №1 loses the first game in the spring qualifications and the summer regionals' 'top four'.
Next, 2003.
The last summer for Kirisu Yaichiro.
This year they, indignant, had they way blocked by the rival school, Koalagaoka. Both schools won a game in succession, and the last one, delayed by a few days, was hailed as the battle against fate in the public. Yes. Shikura №1 had their super batter — well, Koalagaoka has its own genius. Not only the ace third year pitcher is supporting Koalagaoka. A relief pitcher for him, second year Iguruma Kazumi, entered Shikura city's sports arena once more.
The day before their match. In the home of Kirisu, who intentionally avoided meeting, a phone call rang from his former friend.
"…Please, hit whatever happens."
He came straight to the point.
A terribly tired voice, nothing left of what it used to be.
"Baseball is torture to me. But it used to be fun, too. I don't remember that now, though."
That's why he wants release?
With this he hung up, and the egoistic wish was transmitted.
In the match Kirisu Yaichiro got two home runs from the starter, quickly dragging the ace off his pedestal, for which he paid with his consciousness. He opened his eyes only after Shikura №1's loss.
◆
The chance to dispel the curse was lost forever.
After that Kirisu Yaichiro declined many flattering job offers and left baseball. Snapping that he wasn't such a hero as to go pro. No one could know what a war was going on in the depths of his soul.
Meanwhile another year passed.
The ace third-year graduated, and Koalagaoka with its new ace, Iguruma Kazumi, loses the summer regional qualifications. In the decisive day the ace Iguruma Kazumi excused himself with a trauma and left the mound. The young second-year captain, Sekura Yumiya, performed as a replacement but, alas, lost.
Four months later. Iguruma Kazumi is expelled from the Koalagaoka high school by his own request. No one looked for the runaway genius, nor worried about his leave, and not a person knows what sort of a life he led afterwards.
Originally Posted by ほうれん草
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