DDD

[Wandering Swordwoman]

MMO is evil. But since I'm getting bored, eh... I'll check up with Desuclocker and maybe do some things here.


*bringing false hopes since 2012*

You have my thanks. It is great

[Five_X]

Bless you, Desu. If even DDD translations can get updates, then truly nothing is impossible. Even Tsuki 2.

[Desuclocker]

I think I might have gone a bit overboard, treating two chapters as one because I didn't look at the table of contents. But what the hey.

The long-awaited event occurs! That's right, you are about the witness the comeback of Tsuranui!

7/S.VS.S-3

(15.08)

Having finished the long story about the past, Slugger quietly swore; the tale turned out pretty stupid.
A room with abandoned hints at a relocation. Sitting in Arika's apartment among cardboard boxes crammed full of stuff, Kirisu Yaichiro finished talking about his youth in a relatively normal tone.
"So you were acquaintances."
"Only as kids. Then we haven't seen each other at all. Always the way with childhood friends, right?"
"I suppose. But man, try imagining this story in high school. The reporters would've gone wild."
Two geniuses of the same epoch. "Genius" is merely an estimate by fans, a convenient praise.
But there are monsters that are practically sincerely acknowledged by millions. They're especially apparent in the world of sports. After all, the records are broken in a strictly defined game. "Senses", "flashy moves" and other metaphysical estimates are all empty words. Only outstanding records are a true measure; mathematics doesn’t accept a subjective onlooker and enslaves them.
From this viewpoint, Kirisu and Iguruma Kazumi were players crowned with the name "genius" without any pretense.
Those two are friends that have been rivals since childhood. Their story is so natural that for us simple people it's not merely an educational fable but something deeper, reaching for your very soul.
"So I never told anyone. Nobody needs some old tale. Take you - if I tried digging in your past you'd tell me to buzz off."
"Hmm… Well, yeah, come to think about it. But something's wrong. Usually this stuff comes up right away. What about records in the Junior League? Didn't the old team get advertised? Like a special article on you. Or some old interview."
"Yeah. Back during that… my prime everyone bragged that they play with me.
"Aah… Honestly bowed before the clearly unreachable and had the blackest of feelings towards a genius that's just beyond their limits?.. Probably the standard reaction."
Even this was a way of inconveniencing Kirisu… My imagination paints a lot of pictures, but it's better not to think of the solitude Iguruma Kazumi had to feel at the top. And Kirisu didn't tell me this for that reason.
"But "get hit and die" is… like playing Russian roulette with every pitch! Six years in a row. No slacking. That’s one scary fairytale."
Iguruma Kazumi. Even for a pure relief pitcher zero returns is a godly gift. Apparently he went to the mound somewhere around the seventh inning, so now it's clear why Koalagaoka hadn't given the opponent a single point in the second half while Iguruma was around. Back then I thought they were awesome, too, but to get no returns instead of just not losing… If he'd come out straight away it'd be a perfect win.

Career, appearance, biography - everything unknown. However, the maniac serial killer is simply called 'Sinker'.
Of course. There's no name more fitting for Iguruma Kazumi.
"But during his third year of high school he damaged his elbow and left. Overworked it?"
"Who knows… Anyway, his pitching style didn't look ahead. Despite anyone's effort, the trauma could be traced clearly. We trained alone, after all. The trainer instructs to get an effect, but first and foremost he teaches you how to last the longest. However, Iguruma didn't like trainers. He said that this slow learning should be left to those who have a reserve. That he didn't need it."
This was probably the unconscious rebellion of one born socially weak. A life without being sure about tomorrow. Nothing to lose - and that's why he was heading towards destruction with such zeal. The baseball of Iguruma Kazumi, who didn't need teachers, was dangerous to himself.

And in the end
His right hand lost to everything.

"So he's taking his revenge through the A syndrome… by becoming possessed? I'm 99% sure, but how do we confirm it?"
"Confirm? Are you for re… oh, right, that was during the day. Whatever, forget it."
"What?"
Kirisu waves his hand as though swatting at a mosquito.
Hmm… I don't want to think about that, but did I personally meet the maniac? What if - and only if - I keep stumbling into various psychos all the time? Scary.
"Whatever, I'll find it in the notebook. Hey, Kirisu. What do you want to do about Sinker? It's clear that a possessed can't be cured. So you want to catch him and drag him to the police station or just to make him into an urban legend?"
"Nah. If the police catch him, let them. He's messing my entire SVS up, but he's gone on such a spree that the police should go all out now. I don't care what happens to a freak that keeps destroying all the pitchers for mindless fun."
"Uh huh. Well, as a connoisseur of unique events, I think that's for the best. But I don't think he's killing 'just for fun'."
"You should. That he dies if he gets hit is only in his own head. But you can't force your rules on the batter."
"Well, yeah, but is 'if I die when I get hit, then you die when you don't hit' a logical reason to kill batters? Sinker's actions mostly lack thought, but there is something like a creed. To capture the goal; to take nothing but the life. The wallets are there, and he doesn't play around with corpses, right? So Sinker has some goal besides the killing. Perhaps revenge or a longing, or maybe a strong attachment, I don't know, but still."
By Mato-san's decree I don't make contact with A syndrome carriers if I don’t have a reason. They're in ruins, but there's a reason they fell apart. They have some root, a reason to do things their exact way.
"Revenge or an attachment, you say…"
Kirisu frowned, apparently finding an echo of something he knew himself in my words. I understood that he hadn't said everything yet.
"Listen. I don't really want to say it…" - or get involved at all, perhaps. - "But maybe you can at least give him a friendly warning?"
"No. I already said, there's nothing connecting us."
'Then why the hell did you drag me into it?' - I want to retort, but don't. Kirisu's trying to stop Sinker but doesn't want to meet him in person. Because when they meet, a duel will most likely start.
"You aren't connected, and you won't fight him. Oh, yeah, you can't be a batter at all, right?"
"Uh huh. I left baseball and don't have a death wish, thank you. And anyway, a human can't hit that ball."
"Right. So that's the main issue."
A lethal game where the loser dies.
Sinker's demonic ball is undoubtedly real, so there's no reason to put yourself in harm's way… No. Kirisu is afraid to death that it won't be duel at all.
If he doesn't hit, he won't save. Should he find a countermeasure, the game will end in a death anyway.
A cruel rule. This game is unfair to Kirisu from the start.
"All right, whether we take part in Sinker's games is another matter. Just an example: if you are the batter, what will you do?"
"Nothing, that's what… I won't manage against a second-degree sinker… Well, logically, any screwball in the strike zone can be caught. But a swing is a world in a second. See the screwball's type, make the correction, and if there's a trajectory change after the throw you can't react already."

He says scary things with a pretty calm face.
That's why other batters said about Kirisu Yaichiro that it's just not fair.
The important thing is that the ball enters the strike zone - the zone where the swing can be - and this guy will accurately hit any screw ball. Extraordinary static eye measurement and reaction speed, explosive force of white muscle tissues and pinpoint concentration go into technique… The type of the screw ball is clear, but Kirisu Yaichiro has never felt a normal batter's heavy realization that the bat won't hit the ball.

If you can determine the screwball's type, the ball gets returned just as imagined. This is the normal thinking of this genius slugger.
"If it changes a second time, this isn't baseball any more. You can track the first change, but the second… you won't react. The second change is when I already gauged the type and trajectory. Screw balls changing when I already reacted don't fit the previous batting response."
"Got it. So you either have to hit the second change or not come out at all. But Sinker's balls really turn at an angle, you know? Even if they only turned once, you still can't follow them, right?"
"Not if you see the pitcher for the first time… Dude. How many times do you think I played with Iguruma? Against him - let him do right turns or whatever - the odds are even. I'll be able to adjust my return after the first pitch."
That so… Not just baseball, but any sport sharpens your intuition in a battle.
The pitcher and batter are edge cases of that; without synchronization the batter will neither return the pitch nor even hit the ball. The pitcher and batter are the most synchronized pair. And these two have done it thousands of times since their childhood competitions.
Kirisu knows Sinker's every habit.
Even though Sinker's possession leaves him well beyond the limits of many batters, to Kirisu Yaichiro he's the easiest opponent in the world.
Conclusion: the problem lies with the second dimension. That's also the reason why Kirisu Yaichiro apparently left baseball.
"We seem to have come to an unpleasant topic. It's like parallel lines, what the hell."
I give up and rise from my box.
An outsider shouldn't be asking why he left.
A guy who has never known failure broke his bat without any outside influence. Like a bird in the sky throwing away its unique wings. I can't understand this bitterness, and it's sinful to try and learn it.
However, yeah.
"But you helped Sekura Yumiya. Why?"
I must ask as a buddy.
"Work. I took the money and hid him. That's my job right now."
"I see. Heh, you got smarter over the year and a half. You memorize things so well!"
Though the bit about living as an adult got stuck in his mind. Noticing the irony, Kirisu clicked his tongue in annoyance and stood up.
"Enough about this. Forget about SVS, okay? Just leave Sinker to the police."
'Well, bye!' - said his back, and Kirisu went on straight to the next room. There he dropped onto the only bed.
"Eh?.."
What, wasn't he getting fed up and leaving?
"Well, you see, the karaoke where I used to sleep is now swamped with cops, so I have nowhere to live. You have your family home, so lend me this apartment, okay?"
Freeloader. Not waiting for my reply, he went straight to dream land.
"Well, I don't mind… Why are you so fat."
Hmm. Apparently that he dropped everything due to a mental trauma was just me overthinking things.









(sink)

Right hand hurts. Yesterday at night the seventh player was mercilessly finished off.

◇

It was cold. As though in a snowstorm, it shook under the summer sun.
Awakening is always the same. Goosebumps as thick as arrows and the rasping throat tear sleep away.
Upon awakening it barely resembles a human. The reasoning, the consciousness themselves are frozen. It shambles along the dirty construction site, shaking like a ghost, pours water from the sink on the washing platform on its head and is finally itself again.

The dirty mirror reflects a hooded killer maniac.

It feels is face and counts the downed targets.
The first was something like a warm-up. Killed to test own abilities.
The second was on the list. Low priority but since he was right there the sequence could be rearranged. Is this summer especially cold? After the execution it seemed to become much colder.
The third wasn't essential. Just played around too much. Wasted too much blood, strained the elbow. It stayed broken the entire day after the match.
The fourth was found as was becoming a habit and quickly removed. To return home at least a day earlier, he destroyed him while playing around. But why did he do that - he sometimes mysteriously forgot.
There was a fifth,
a sixth - suddenly the various noises were gone. The elbow was taking a while to heal. When it hurt before, it was only after matches. Now each pitch hurts, the old wound opens. Not a problem. It broke, but for now it stayed in line and served. Yes. For now it stayed in line.
The seventh. Noticed that it was over when saw splattering brains. The important match over, counted the balls - four left - and finally remembered that day.
"Ah… Aah…"
Deeply inhaled, exhaled.
What's the deal with this summer? So little oxygen it was impossible to breathe. Skin-wracking cold. The city is silent, as though dead, on the tea table was a long-haired doll with a noose on its neck, one of those that call the rain if you hang them on the window.
Shakes head, holding back nausea. A cold summer, fine. For it summer has been cold for a long time. Hard to breathe, fine too. Summer is just once a year. If it wasn't that hot, where's the charm?
But the silence is unbearable. It liked noise. Senseless bustling, cacophony. Most of all it loved the furious roar of the tribunes: the waves swept over its entire body.
Now nothing could be heard. When the match begins it gets colder. And more painful. But strangely, with each match the outside world's sounds faded more and more.
"Aah…"
Everything only brings suffering, can't remember what all this is for. Right arm twitched, the wrath made it move. When the first one was found, the skull seemed like a crematorium, filled with rage. It was easy to surrender to bone-melting heat. The former hot-headedness came back. But it's not even fun to pitch any more. The ears hear nothing. 'Where's that merciless summer when I wanted to close those eyes?' - the figure in the mirror extends an arm and mocks.

Because it's nowhere.
Maybe there never was one!

"Ah…"
There are no fun memories. They disappeared beforehand. Only base-hurt. The only reward was pain. Having stubbornly endured it for six years, - he - is standing here today.
With this conclusion the consciousness awakened at last.
The cold froze the mind. Yeah, yeah, nothing is fun. Only matches are. It's only fun on the job, the lips under the hood twitch. But - what about the fifth? Was it fun?
The fifth…
The fifth was an unpredictable opponent. Didn't intend to force a match on him. That batter knew nothing after all. But he was bored, and the batter he met was a superb opponent. He sincerely didn't want to fight the guy. But in the end he had to kill. Now his baseball, even unwilling, became such that if he started a game, he had to kill in the end.
"Ri… ght… Faster… Ne… xt…"
…Something's broken, destroyed. Both mentally and physically.
But he doesn't know what's destroyed.
Why? Because his sanity returns only during fights. And even then this cold summer has him at the point of freezing.
The maniac - Sinker - reaches towards a silver cellphone. A glowing dot picks the eighth victim. The GPS built-in only for the game's aces shows the place.













■

(16.08)

According to the report, the maniac's victims numbered seven.
The investigation HQ had isolated Sekura Yumiya as the suspect, but the other day the sixth and seventh victims received lethal injuries, and the investigation's vector became a wide sector.
Assistant inspector Touma Mato became head of the investigation HQ, and the decision was made to consider the case an A-syndrome related incident.
The police haven’t yet determined the identity of the maniac serial killer Sinker, but with the creation of an investigation HQ it was just a matter of time. The police will certainly learn about Iguruma Kazumi.
To be precise - a day later the identity is determined, a day more to prepare the raid. Finally, another day for the devilishly relentless and rapid development of the capture scenario.
Though with quite a bit of subjectivity, the operation was entrusted to Touma Mato, and the success three days later became another fact in her string of victories.

■

"And then it came to me. Only the fourth wasn't an official batter in SVS! It was a reverence. That's really suspicious. So I looked into it and found a pretty solid link. Honestly, it's just wrong when everything fits so well."
Under the shining rays of the sun a detailed report is being given by Tsuranui Mihaya.
"Uh, Arika, I should've said 'revelation' instead of 'reverence', right?.."
Perhaps not wanting to traumatize the blissful girl, Karyou Kaie lowered his voice to a whisper.
"If we correct her every time, sun will set, so don't fall for it. With this one it's smoothly or not at all."
As for me, due to the sofa's occupation I’d taken out the pipe chair and, sitting down near the bedhead, was listening to Tsuranui's message.
"The fourth was called Shinohara, by the way. He was a member of 'Koala's' baseball club in high school. So, I found out that more than half of the other victims are also 'Koalas'. You could say that all SVS members have baseball experience, but aren't there a few too many of you, dear koalas?"
"True. And anyway, the fact the current baseball ace, Sekura, signed up for SVS, is suspicious in itself. If Koya and others found out, they'd forbid entering to all second years."
"That's right! They say that it's just small fry this year, but even the club captain gambling is nonsense. So I talked to former 'Koalas'… They say Sekura-kun doesn't care for baseball any more. Only fools play for real, you can take it easy during the summer, and so on. Ha-ha-ha… Did that prodigal son croak from the curse or what?"
"The heavens punished him enough, leave him alone, please. Again, in Sekura Yumiya's case they were joking. Without a facade like that he wouldn't last."
"Oh? Why do you know such things, sempai?"
"Because he became possessed. If he didn't care about baseball he wouldn't be backed into a corner enough to warp his arm."
Most likely, Sekura Yumiya's spirit was loyal to baseball. His potential just couldn't reach the ideal.
After all, the previous ace, Komagiri, came after the strike-outer 'Doctor K' Iguruma. The weight of expectations on all sides isn't an easy or medium one. A talent forged by Junior and Senior is just another ordinary man before an unimaginable genius. Sekura Yumiya ran from it all and hid his head in SVS.
The world of high school baseball, like other sports, was rather harsh. Every player in the team trained as much as or more than you. Effort applied, talents available and other natural things are also in your opponent's grasp. As a result thousands of people in clubs compete in one prefecture, lose and drop out.
Among them only those who put talent, effort and luck together - the chosen ones - win. Sekura Yumiya believed he was one of those. But he cleverly realized this was self-delusion, and diligently searched for an escape route.
He won't win in the world of high school baseball. Won't be crowned as an ace. If so - where could be in the epicenter, as before?
"Pfft. So the prodigal son Sekura couldn't win in high school baseball and went on to SVS?"
"What, isn't that how it goes? He is a prodigal son, no? He had a lot of money, why would he get seriously involved with the betting?"
"Aah."
Money already tired him long ago. The thing that made Sekura most happy was others' envy.
"Uuu… I want to understand him even less… Maybe he is cursed after all? For example, going bald…"
"You're pretty strict to Sekura-kun, Tsuranui. Is it related to most victims being Koalagaoka players?"
"It is. Hmm, can I say something unpleasant?"
She hesitated, picking words. Probably to suit Kaie.
"Please. I'm used to it, don't worry. You're so kind, Mihaya-san."
And Kaie, quiet as a thieving cat a gallant as a princess, smiled at her.
Tsuranui, not used to praise, blushed and froze.
"Th-thank you so much!.. A-a-au, that'snononotwhatiwantedtosay, s-s-sempai, Karyou-san is so great! Oh no, that shine! He's too bright for me! No, so good, I'm melting!"
Oh you, remnant of a pagan world.
"Wait, if Karyou's visage makes one melt, does that make him a saint?.. Well, whatever, go on, Tsuranui."
"Oh! A-ah yes, hold on. Karyou-san, it's not nice to muddle the waters like that!.. Keep in mind, it's not for sure, but… Last year there was a case of aggression in Koalagaoka's baseball club. The school hushed it up, apparently, but something like a lynching happened in the club room, and the captain Iguruma Kazumi was held responsible. He was expelled.
"Remember how Iguruma Kazumi left the mound at last year's qualifications finals? It happened then."
"I heard he broke his elbow. Held responsible, you say? Sounds as though he was doing the lynching."
"Wh, whoa, sempai, your look is scary! Uuu, that's why I didn't want to say it, but now… Uh, yeah, it's as you said. They say that Iguruma-san was the one lynched by the second and third years in the club headed by Sekura Yumiya. They said he wasn't fit for the baseball club, piled up on him, and the elbow was like… But the school judged Iguruma-san to be the instigator… or not, but some time later, Iguruma-san came to Sekura Yumiya's class during a lesson and tried attacking him, but the teacher held him back… And - presented as leaving of his own accord…"
Tsuranui's story was incomplete in places. She glossed over some events I and Kaie wouldn't like hearing about.
"That's the story… What do you think, sempai?"
"Nothing to think about. Tsuranui, just give me the report."
"Huh?! N-no-oooo, sempai, n-no ha-ands!"
The girl defends the papers' virginity from me, I confiscate them.
"Ah, I want to look too. Arika, get over here."
The demon, sensing a kitten's smell, reaches out.
I sit down on the bed and leaf through the materials.
Mmm, what cute, round letters with a refined touch.

◇

The collective aggression towards Iguruma Kazumi presumably occurred the day before last year's qualifications.
The materials weren't formally acceptable, and since the incident is presumed not to have happened, only so many small details could be found.
It's stated that Iguruma Kazumi damaged the elbow and fingers on his right arm.
The reason for punishment was personal feelings.
That Iguruma Kazumi played baseball alone.
That he didn't rely on the team at all.
And… This reason is considered the one that delayed their actions the most… that Iguruma Kazumi's family was unhappy. To an onlooker their standard of living seemed glaringly low, his clothes and own mother - dirty, which served as a reason.
In fact, Iguruma's family situation was strained. His education bills were waived as a promising baseball player, but his well-being still was far below an average high schooler’s.
Besides, his mother didn't have a permanent workplace, gathering empty cans and bottles day after day, delivering them for recycling and thus earning a bit.
Her activity area in that sphere was very wide. Center station, up to two or even three city blocks away was where she kept walking, gathering trash, otherwise she didn't get enough money. She wore her feet down, gathering cans with splashing liquid, stomping on them, gathering them into bags, bringing them to collection points. A job available to anyone, but hard and painful. She did only that, receiving one or two paper notes a day.
…Iguruma Kazumi's mother silently kept at the job that may look like gathering trash from the side.
Married and divorced young, she didn't have an education, her looks reflected her hardships, and her essence wasn't that good either. She couldn't find a job even if she wanted to, and for her such labor was hard but necessary.
However, others didn't bother looking into the story.
Neighbors and students probably thought the look of her gathering cans and bottles funny. A second year in high school, in baseball club, the second ace right after Iguruma Kazumi - how did he take an upperclassman with such a mother standing above him?
'He's a beggar, so why is he here with me?'
Being a second year in high school - only this year and the next one left in school - Sekura Yumiya was still a kid at heart. Those don't feel pity towards weaker ones. They turn to violence not due to petty jealousy, but to correct unsightliness and bring justice, so they couldn't endure an upperclassman below themselves being an ace.
Pedigree, talent, school's support. Sekura Yumiya had it all, and Iguruma Kazumi to him was just something that 'could be removed at will'.
Thus - the day before regional qualification finals. Iguruma Kazumi suffers the aggression of eight club mates, from every year, and retires from the tournament with a trauma. Sekura Yumiya gets his coveted ace's throne a whole year earlier… This wish resulted in them being destroyed at the match, but there's no need to say whether that made Iguruma feel better.
Four months after the incident was hushed up by the school personnel, during December chills, Iguruma Kazumi burst into the instigator, Sekura Yumiya's, class, but the attempt was stopped by teachers who felt something was wrong, and the tragedy was barely avoided. Iguruma was strictly reprimanded. The teachers didn't enough value in a failed pitcher to justify him, and he 'was expelled of own accord'.
Nobody's seen him since then. There were rumors that he was seen among homeless people near the road, but no one said anything for sure.

◇

The report was easy to follow.
Rumors of those years told by alumni. Irresponsibility of the school personnel, the December aggression towards Iguruma Kazumi. This alone is enough to imagine what happened.
If there's an unclear and unnatural moment, it'd be the void between August and December… Why did he wait for four months - the materials in the report don't even give a clue.
"I see. So Sinker kills those people who lynched Iguruma-san…"
The names of Sinker's victims match those of people who were in the baseball club then.
Including Sekura Yumiya, who's detained by the police, two are left. So, Gondou-kun, the fifth, who had no relation to Koalagaoka, just was in the wrong place at the wrong time. This forces the question whether that was mindless bloodshed. Can one who was oppressed by people feel goodwill towards another? Turns out, Iguruma Kazumi doesn't really care whether he's up against those who destroyed his life or just random people.
"Hey, Tsuranui. Does Kirisu know this?"
"I think so. He was the one who told me where Iguruma-san lived, after all."
"Tch," - I clicked my tongue.
So that's why he's been circling around. He knew second-hand both who Sinker was and what his motives were. He dragged me into SVS so that I'd beat Sinker. Kirisu knows what Iguruma Kazumi is capable of. Apparently he thinks Ishizue Arika can sink him! Thanks so much for the trust… well, it is a bit flattering, but we have an unforeseen complication.
Yes. The maniac isn't Iguruma Kazumi, he turned into the possessed, Sinker.
The ball sent by Sinker amazed Kirisu who was watching a camera's recording. A demonic ball that turns twice. 'Even I, having seen a lot, can't do anything about that', - he calmly assessed.
"And now you wash your hands?.. This is what happens when that moron uses his brain for a change."
"Good job!" - I return the report to Tsuranui.
I was busy with a different matter and asked her to investigate Iguruma, and the girl exceeded my wildest expectations.
"Thanks, well done. Sorry you had to waste the whole day doing nothing."
"I-it's fi-ine, just say thanks! Because I'm… a reliable woman."
Tsuranui grinned and bent her waist like a secretary in a movie. It suits her somewhat, but sadly, she lacks glasses and chest size.

"You see, Arika? That man is a bit unlike a possessed."

Kaie, glancing through the report over my shoulder, said his strange piece.
"Why? His broken elbow fixed itself, right? Two-stage sinker, right? One hundred fifty km/h screwball, right? A complete monster, no?"
"It's not that. Not the nature of the transformation but the reason. The starting point. His motives are too obvious, and the important thing - he's not weak enough to become possessed. After all, he came for revenge even before breaking."
"Hmm…"
True, that's not right.
Most reasons for possession are fear of an 'undefined enemy'. Pressure from the side you can't perceive. Some general impressions you acknowledge you can't deal with.
A human whose soul was broken by such a thing and who's mulling over the idea of changing the situation in his head births the state called possession.
But that's not Iguruma Kazumi. Kirisu's words confirm it - he's not that easy to break. Even accounting for the shock from the elbow breaking, he may have failed, but he tried avenging himself on Sekura Yumiya. This guy's psyche is solid. His head is not made so that everything crashes due to breaking an elbow.
"Well, yes. It's probably strange to think of revenge as the stimulus. Either he kills because a challenge was made or he challenges in order to kill. If it's revenge then it's the second, but then there's no reason to play. Just drop the pretense and murder them all. There must be a reason we wouldn't even think about… See, Arika? While that reason is there, he won't stop."
Kaie means that even after clearing the revenge list, Iguruma Kazumi will keep pitching the ball.
But why?
It's all too clear. If not revenge then passion. The possessed called Sinker has a reason far more important than revenge on those who took baseball from him, and that's why he stubbornly keeps pitching.
"Probably not because he likes it. To Iguruma Kazumi baseball hasn't brought happiness for a long time now."
He said: 'Please, return it no matter what'. And confessed: 'It used to be fun, though I don't remember already'.
So there's one reason left. Iguruma Kazumi is still stuck in that red park. Playing baseball alone, he waits for the one he has to fight until someone loses.
"Kazumi-san's waiting for Kirisu-san," - Tsuranui softly whispers without showing restraint. In such moments the birds in her head sing in unison. - "This overgrown moron. Why doesn't he go return it already."
Sadly, Tsuranui is right as always.
As a pitcher, he wants to fight the prefecture's best slugger. If that's Sinker's motive, then the nightly death matches won't end, and, as usual with such matters, three days later an arrest and the hell called Mato-san await him.
"What?.. Arika, are you on the possessed, Iguruma Kazumi's, side?"
The demon on the bed smiles strangely.
"Ha-ha. Honestly, this story pisses me off. I don't really care whether he lives or dies."
I'm not joking or lying. There's no room for sympathy.
A creature that kills not for self-preservation, but for the mental reason 'must kill to live', doesn't deserve an ounce of pity.
If not for certain reasons, I'd even leave Iguruma out of the diary and forget him altogether, but…
"That's great. By the way, Arika. You realize that your job's not over yet?"
Yes-yes, that's the reason.
The goal is reflected in the notebook. How did I agree, I don't know, but it's obvious that nothing is over, and over the next three days I have to do everything in my power.
Well, I want the money too, and no one will kill me if I don't succeed. I'm considering doing everything in my power rather sloooooowly, though…
"What's bugging me, Tsuranui, is this. Why are you here?"
Tsuranui and Kaie exchanged puzzled glances.
"Well, sempai. I was heading over to give you the report, and then I see you, going to your job. And well, I gave in to temptation and it so happened I kind of tailed you."
The fresh-made stalker clearly thinks I'll fall for this. Should I take her to the police…
"Mhm. You said nothing, and I thought she came with you, like Kirisu-san. And Mihaya-san isn't recoiling from me. Aah, and here I was thinking you told her already…"
'You didn't, huh??' - my employer asks with his eyes.
Well, if Kaie's okay with it, I am too. Tsuranui was thinking too hard about my superior, and they'd meet anyway sooner or later. I should be happy that such turbulent times are starting, really.
"So? What do you think?"
"Mmm. On one hand, I'm relieved that it's a man, but on the other, if you really think about it, it's not quite like some strange feeling is not forming… You can't tell right away, but this guy's a bit creepy, boss?"
Just how hare-brained are you, hey?

■

"Go earn it," - Kaie said with a smile and made me leave the underground.
He gave me the left arm: "Arika likes to get in trouble! So take this just in case". With mixed feelings, after considering what's ahead of me I decided to borrow it. I do have to go investigate, and if word spreads that a one-handed guy is snooping around, I'm done for. This time Mato-san will definitely execute her coveted plan of executing me by placement in a punching bag, so I'll want to lay low.
Tsuranui, not having had enough, followed me; but before the Shikura station I shook her off and took a municipal bus.
The end point is near the industrial district, Nozu. This is a place that, even in Shikura, stands out like an island on the mainland that only locals approach.
Nozu consists of an industrial zone stretching three kilometers wide and sleeping quarters - the workers' living area; nothing to attract outsiders.
The sleeping quarters house a market for food and domestic needs, and few families shop anywhere else. The same goes for us living outside Nozu, and not being workers, we have nothing to do with it. It's like a separate town within Shikura. There's an open communal establishment consisting of three thousand apartments in which eight thousand people live as though not in this world; well, in a material sense they're in it all right. You can get to it by bus in half an hour, like me, and recently a subway station 'Nozu Industrial District' has opened. This zone is called an island on the mainland because it doesn't even have a way station.
My personal opinion is that rather than 'an island on the mainland' the term 'fortress on the hill' would be more appropriate. After all, the Nozu industrial zone is on an elevation, the surroundings can be seen well, and it somewhat resembles a warship thrown onto the ground and left to rust.
I ride the empty bus like a baron and leave at the 'West Industrial Zone' stop.
Instantly the merciless summer sunlight envelops me.
"Ugh. Oh, ohh, braaains," - I wailed mindlessly.
A heat of over thirty degrees knocks any desire to do things out of you.
The road is unhurried and steady. Or not, being sloped upwards. Along the roadside are the communal establishment's buildings resembling giant dominoes. The sky is high and blue, and trees planted to erode mental hygiene are united in already digging into the city blocks.
At first glance it looks like a curious resort town. But a normal observer will soon notice the lack of people, the light aftertaste of horror-esque ruin, and as a dessert, sometimes local gossips give you curious and suspicious looks, as though standing guard over the intruder from their windows.
"Yeah, this is the stuff that goes into urban legends… Here's the house where a patrolman was lynched… oh, nice, there's a gossip there too."
According to the local map installed near the road, this western entrance - in terms of mountain paths - is about the second stage of the ascent.
The patrolman lynching case is a sort of urban legend that happened in July. Residents of a neighboring block complained to the patrolman on duty that 'there were weird people in that building', and the officer charged in there with a newbie's vigor and a battle cry. He went on to disappear and be found a week later, thrown into a trash box like garbage, by a garbage truck driver. The police began an investigation with their honor at stake, but there were no solid leads. There was no trouble connected to the residents, so the case came to a dead end.
This building is オ-13. Either the map's old or something else, but there are not more than a dozen buildings under the オ category… Our auspicious house was given a fittingly lucky number, but that's fine, easy to remember.
"Fine. I'm not wandering the district."
Luckily, my business lies not in the living quarters but in the neighboring factory. I wanted to see that park Kirisu and co. had such tender feelings towards, but after looking at the map I gave up.
I walk down the three-lane road. No passenger cars in sight, just large trucks passing by once every ten minutes. Watching them out of the corner of my eye, I leave the alien world of Nozu's illusory multi-story buildings for the land of normal people.
If you leave the hillside and go into the city, you'll find a perfectly healthy industrial belt. When you lift your eyes to the sky, Nozu would seem like a proper city if not for those high-rise buildings.
I begin what I came here for, - a search for objects.
Closed factories, territories easy to get into, buildings under construction… be great to find a shop… well, I'm looking around. My preliminary analysis suggested four places that fit the bill. While inspecting them all I also paid a visit to Iguruma Kazumi's house.

Iguruma Kazumi's house is in Nozu's suburbs.
Near the canal dug as a waste water reservoir there was a lone one-story apartment house in all the glory of the twenties.
"Excuse meee, is anyone hooome?"
I open the sliding door with no doorbell… well, there's nothing to ring with. At once a woman's voice replied, not from the house, but the garden:
"Oh, guests? Young ones are a rare sight indeed!"
The lively, cheerful voice confuses me.
"Hello. I would like to talk to you about Iguruma Kazumi-kun."
"Oh. Well, let's… Oh, you have a bat? You play baseball too, young man?"
She readily starts talking.
Looks like walking around with a holstered bat was a good idea. The potentially uncomfortable questions didn't come up, and my prepared lines were surprisingly unnecessary.
Anyway, after nearly two hours of talking the events of the four-month void cleared up. Putting the facts down in my notebook, I said goodbye and left.
"Still so early, huh," - I checked the clock on my golden phone and became dejected.
An hour before sunset. Personally, I wanted the sun to set right this instant.

■

With the sun down, the temperature dropped four degrees to thirty. Life became much easier. Besides, I’ve cheerfully forgotten all the bad things and am going to search for the object in a good mood. When I finally found the right site it was past 10 PM.
As usual, I take a walk back. Combining saving pocket change and light training. The human body is valuable, if I don't develop my one-handed carcass right, it'll pretend to be air in the critical moment, and then it's over.
Back from Nozu, along untrodden paths.
Unfamiliar views of the city float by; but even here young baseball payers can be seen. About twenty, raising a busy but amusing noise. Correctly fencing the empty road with poles, so as not to bother the neighbors, they cheerfully and tensely organize betting matches. Hard to tell whether they're decent guys or shady ones.

"Well… that's the point of the game, though."

My sentimentality is inappropriate, but I have to confess, I even grinned.
To those concerned this is entertainment good for wasting time, but to onlookers it's just a laughable farce. And now - the man who had always wanted to be a member is only connected to it as a farce.
The graduates go all out, as though drunk on summer's last days, and the guy who created the whole thing turns away so as not to see it.
The past of two genius sportsmen.
Kirisu Yaichiro threw his away, and Iguruma Kazumi's was taken by those around him. Though differently, their summer ended, finita, curtains.
The one who threw it away left the scene entirely, the one who lost it became a phantom that now kills batters on the streets.
"Nothing changed, huh."
And if during the summer two years ago Kirisu played against Iguruma Kazumi… no, if he at least didn't abandon baseball, it wouldn't have come to this.
I can't blame him. Because we're not that flexible. You can't put back what was broken, can't find a new passion: too sickening.
Besides it's almost impossible to believe, accept that the thing you loved so much can be replaced so easily.
"Ah yes… You can't find a replacement. Only find something similar. But that's fine! No point breaking your back finding something exactly the same."
The man who was called a genius, by completely throwing away his love for baseball, protects it with the same gesture. He scrupulously kept the irreplaceably irrecoverable as properly irrecoverable.
He doesn't want to grasp the lost in tears, thus lowering its value. If he kept holding on, then both baseball and he, led by its spirit back in the day, would devalue. Thus - decisively, saying 'yeah, it happens like that', he turned away. With the regretless phrase he salutes the shine he lost.
"Iguruma is the opposite. Of course they never hit it off."
This moment overlapped due to some mistake.
Sportsmen who don't value victory above all.
A genius batter who said: 'It's enough for baseball to be fun'.
That was why everyone decided he didn't have enough talent to be a professional. Kirisu swings his bat not for himself but for baseball. This sincerity must have looked like suffering to those without it.
Tearing my gaze away from the entrancing game, I walk again.
There are no trains along the way to Shikura. Not a road parallel to the highway, to grant some safety at night, either.
I was walking on the four-lane state road, and before me rose a crossing going up and down.
Being on foot, I naturally go down, by the bridge support.
Under the crossing it's gloomy and empty. Just a single long road under the bridge. Over my head engines and wheels echoed, but down here was lonely, like a different world.
An elongated, empty car parking.
Bluish light and a narrow but straight, easy to see stretch of asphalt.
And then an echo of an electric bell's scream.
My left hand is pierced by a sharp pain.
Taking out the golden phone, I look ahead of me.
Exactly eighteen meters ahead, under a streetlight is the figure of a monster in a hoodie. I jerk the phone open and take the call.

"This you, batter?"

A rasping voice sounds through the speaker.
Puzzled at my own relaxation, I noted that this was how opponents were picked.
"Sinker…"
I stop and put the case down.
Emitting clouds of steam, an unknown hooded youth appeared before the ninth.

◆

This was how Ishizue Arika was caught by the hooded killer.
Inhuman breathing can be heard from the golden cellphone.
Summer is a time of horrors. Not quite a ghost under a sakura tree near the gate, but a phantom under the bluish light - is standing so that it's nearly falling, measuring me with concentrated eyes. His look is past the line where pity begins.
"So… will you bat?"
A voice close to white noise.
A near-death plea spiced with a terminal stage of hatred.
The 'merciless maniac' who killed eight sportsmen already is not like I pictured him at all.
This is Sinker?
Limbs shaking from the cold.
I should probably be afraid.
His eyes are watching me pathetically.
Back in the day batters felt like his targets and wanted to run.
Now it's painfully inverted. He's not the one begged for mercy but the one wanting help. With a voice of not a conqueror, but a hospital patient the killer Sinker repeats:
"Please… You are a batter, right?.."
'Fight me'.
Like a drug addict, looping, needing nothing else.
A momentous flash - if I run full speed now, I can get away, - but two seconds later - nah. Sinker's right hand, covered by a long sleeve, has been holding the ball for a while now.
…Don't be fooled by this voice crying from the heat. He can't be pitied. Phantoms have been dragging people to hell while pleading for help since ancient times. This is just an undead looking for its kin. No running. If you see a ghost, fight back, there's no other way.
I grip the bat. How's my left arm doing? No need to check. The black prosthesis has been burning up since Sinker appeared.
"Damn… What a great coincidence."
In the end, I didn't learn everything about how Iguruma Kazumi came to be this way, and wasn't quite willing to fight, if not for the prosthetic. Now my blood is unexpectedly boiling. The black arm is giving Ishizue Arika courage. Uh huh, you want killing - you'll have it. How does this left arm activate anyway?..
"Or maybe it's a pretty crappy one."
Taking the bat into both hands, I raise it straight up with a wide gesture.
I move it back over my shoulder, relaxing the shoulder belt.
My body's ready. The psyche's trembling a bit, but how else do you play to the death?

"Fine, killing it is. Let's do it, possessed."

I respond to the phantom's white noise with a beautiful gesture.
Sinker curved the mouth under the hood into a smile, closed the phone and raised his left arm - the sleeve flapped like a wing.
No starting signals.
A very rough but smooth pitching swing.
A side shoot ball threatening to dig into my ribcage. A spinning ball impossible for an average sportsman at one hundred and thirty kilometers per hour.
…I hear a brisk sound. The ball I returned goes nowhere near what I thought. Catching on the bat, it didn't fall onto the game territory but went off the road and disappeared under the crossing. A foul ball, it's called. A strike until two strikes, and then not counted as an incomplete hit.
"Wh…what?"
The pitcher's face eighteen meters away clearly twisted in amazement.
The first serve ended in a draw with some losses. The score is one strike. My bad, of course. I was a bit too slow getting myself into the proper condition. This is not the square, just asphalt. With a better positioning of my back foot I can match the speed to the ball.
With the same astonished look the killer maniac pitches another ball. Another shoot ball. And again compassion timidly visits me. Same pitch twice in a row… How senseless. What, were his previous opponents so bad they were cool with not hitting such relaxed throws?
The bat rings weakly.
A foul ball, a bit easier to see this time, bounces off onto the asphalt.
"For crying out loud. Stop patronizing me, or I'll send the next right into your face."
The score is two strikes. But I already have the timing down. If he does a shoot ball again, the game's over.
"What are you surprised at? Don't you know there were two geniuses on Shikura's hill?.. Well, all the talk about me was for naught. Until that meddling Kirisu showed up, the genius Shikura batter's title was mine, you know?"
I spun the bat and relaxed my shoulders.
Demanding a third throw from the pitcher stunned by the ball being touched twice.
"Hey, pitcher. If you don't throw next for real, you'll die, right?"
"H… Hhh!.."
Light returns to Sinker's eyes.
The third ball was a slider, not in the strike zone. I let it by, naturally. The fourth. Feinted a shoot ball into the outer angle and sent it into the inner one. Coursing along the edge of the strike zone. A foul ball, can't be helped. Fifth. Foul, too. Sixth was tense, but foul. Seventh, foul as well.
"Tch…"
So the overconfident one was me. I'm starting to notice - with Sinker's every pitch his speed and spin quality rise. This is not the only pressure. An unnatural cold makes me forget the summer heat. The piercing glare contains hatred concentrated on killing the target. Nausea… Like a cloud of locusts, splashes of a disgusting feeling.
The score is two strikes, two balls.
It's already the seventh pitch.
My forehead is sweating. The opponent is raising gears, my nerves heat up as well.
Batting is working together with the pitcher. Concentrating on their smallest movement, with each one's start you do your own.
Batting is not fighting the pitcher. It's adjusting to him. Being one with his thoughts, breath, movements. After that you put the bat and the ball together. Unavoidably. Now Ishizue Arika grasped the thrower's state as his own, and…

"A… ha, ha!.. Good, you're finally awake!.. You're good if you try!.."

…felt the killing intent of Sinker, who the excitement woke up.
The images matched.
The weakened state is no more.
Alive eyes. An overbearing pose. On his lips - the smile of a winner who destroyed many a batter.
Karyou Kaie asked why Sinker grabbed baseball so hard. It's clear. To him pitching is like breathing. Like how he would die if he didn't breathe, to this killer baseball was nothing other than an indispensable symbol of life.
An A syndrome carrier's perverted obsession. This demon is the incarnation of the deep delusion that he can't simply live. This is not what Sekura Yumiya had, it's true possession.
"Oh, by the way…"
I speak calmly on purpose, but now I, too, am going down the same road his other victims did.
There's no steam coming out from under the hood. Does his mind return as the match heats up?.. The maniac standing some distance before me is no longer a pitcher Ishizue Arika can cross swords with.
It's true. I still can hit the ball with my bat. I think I'll predict the next ball, but not the one after that. Of course, this is assuming he sticks to his usual screwballs.
The legendary double sinker. I won't even have time to react to a demonic ball with two degrees of spin.
"Uh huh… So that's why I was thinking you were familiar, you're Ishizue-sempai!"
The killer that didn't even know who he was playing with finally realized.
"Do we know each other?.."
I don't have the energy to spare on banter, but the reaction was automatic.
"Huh? What's with you? Even I remember you, though it was a while ago… Aah, yeah, I got it. You did say… Damn, that's nasty. You must have had a hard time, too."
Sinker angrily spits. Apparently he can't bear looking at my handicap.
"But see how you became in the end? Then it was unthinkable, but now… I'm happy for you, Ishizue-sempai. Shikura's treasure wasn't a fake. Yeah, if both your hands were alive, we'd end it on the second ball. You won't explain or justify yourself?"
True. If both my hands were a before, I wouldn't lag behind the ball.
But even if I said that, nothing would change.
"Be that way. Oh well, you better prepare yourself for the next throw, yeah?.. Nice look! I'm already uncomfortable, sempai. You're my sempai in all senses and an example to follow, after all, and I might've admired you if it was different… But honestly, it'd look unlike respect and like something weird."
He grabs the eighth ball.
…Blood is dripping from his right arm.
Either he got hurt, or the wound was there from the beginning and just opened up. Anyway, Sinker's arm, as though protesting against the rough handling, is making a crackling sound.
"But that's it. Your efforts are over… Honestly, it's good that you participated, sempai. There was anyone for a long time… My head is just spinning and cloudy. But, before something happens to me, I wanted to seriously fight a batter like you."
The killer maniac gets ready to pitch.
Two seconds later the premonition of fail is dampened by the feeling radiating out of my left arm.
My feeling of danger is lost already.
The fear is erased by the prosthesis.
I'm calm.
Because even before his face, before the death penalty that is his throw…
"Really?.. You want to fight a different guy, Iguruma Kazumi."
…I coldly threw out a striking phrase.
The movement stops. The killing intent that was like an arrow stops.
Of course. Iguruma Kazumi can't ignore my half-question. Several seconds of silence. Sinker opened his mouth, then shook his head - 'no', letting go of his regrets for the past. 'No way'. As though persuading himself - 'the other one's no more'.
"That so. Well, yeah, yeah. True. Those who would run from a duel so hard they'd abandon baseball shouldn't be mentioned. That's right, Sinker. He's long done for."
"Not done for…"
The killing intent rekindles itself like a fire.
This is not that dirty rage. It's wrath born from the sight of those you believe in being derided, righteous wrath living in the demonic ball master's right hand.
"He's still the best batter."
And don't I know it?
Whether he's in the mood or not - a hero lives within him regardless. Maybe he's rusty, but one swing - and the noble gold of his armor will shine again. This is the one you, and me too, adore so much we don't even envy him, a genius player.
"That's Slugger…" - the killer maniac said bluntly.
The pitcher is still waiting for the batter.
Denying that he's a traitor and believing in him.
How laughable. I'm going to die laughing even before the pitch. I lost control because of this left hand. I knew it from the start, after all. It's not I that has to return his ball.
"Sorry to distract you, Sinker. But since we're already talking, here's another question. What will you do when everything's over? Keep this up?"
If this goes on, he'll kill all the batters during the summer. If he kills everyone who took Iguruma Kazumi's baseball away, then what? Will he continue playing his baseball as naturally as breathing?
Didn't he think about that?.. Sinker lowers his gaze to the bloody ball in his hand.
"No. I. I, when I finish, will return home… Yes. Mom's there alone. I have to go back and calm her at last. For that… I'll shut them all up and return to baseball."
"Iguruma…"
Words I shouldn't have heard.
This is not my role. This possession must be stopped by a different person. Realizing this, I seriously thought about my job as an exorcist for the first time.
"Return to baseball - so this, now, isn't it?"
"How is this baseball? I'll go back to the mound. For this I'll kill everyone who knows. Shut up those who broke my elbow, who knows I can't manage. Those who realize I'm possessed will all be killed by me."
A crappy creed.
Well yeah, those who have attacked Iguruma Kazumi know he can't be a pitcher anymore. What'll they think, seeing him back?.. Weird. It's impossible to manage with such an elbow. There must be an unfair trick. Either doping or something else. A growth and a new life as a pitcher received from the A syndrome.
Thus - kill. Not as revenge, but to keep playing baseball behind the curtains, he'll kill everyone who knows he couldn't be healed. And this…
"Those who know the truth… and you, who knows I'm Iguruma Kazumi… the same as they."
The demonic ball master raises the bloody eighth ball.
The form is a low throw.
The launched ball showed there was nothing else to talk about and, exploding the air, disappeared from the batter's sight.
Balls don't turn twice.
A spinning screwball changes trajectory while falling. No matter the brilliant hand, no matter the force of the throw, a ball can't fly straight. It always falls. While doing that it can turn left, right, go lower - that's what a screwball is.
It'll go right after turning left?
Will it go up after falling?
That doesn't happen. A low throw gives such a spin that the arc of the arm swinging down there gives a ball upwards momentum, then makes it turn into a given direction when falling. Initially the ball rises not because of spin but because of the arm's swing.
But the ball turned out to be a surprise.
It completely disappeared from my sight. It went away from my left shoulder and further left, spreading bloody flowers, turned right, and at the moment of entering the strike zone swerved right up, aiming at the batter's jaw.
An instant lasting half a second.
Not swinging the bat, barely jerking my head away, I save my life.
So that's how it is… The burning smell in my nose and what happened right in front of it stunned and enlightened me.
"I think you know, but that was intentional, sempai. I respect you and just missed on purpose. Now it's two strikes, three balls. What will we do, Ishizue-sempai? The score's full, there's no going on!"
We'll do what we will.
I got a rough grasp of how his screwball worked.
'So that's it, how cunning!' - praising and berating myself at once, I can't think of a counter.
And anyway, 99% aren't returned by this duel's conditions. You can close your eyes, swing the bat blindly, and if the ball accidentally turns out to be where the bat was… that's on a miracle's level. Who knows about A syndrome carriers, but a normal man can't beat that.
"The last one. You don't hit it - you die, yeah?"
Sinker grabs the ninth ball.
It's pretty much over. If I run at Sinker I won't make it, if I run away I'll get it into the back of my head.
"Hhh!.."
Apparently the hot poison stopped coming out of my left hand, because the world's jerking around and disappearing out of the fear of death. I have no sense of danger, but I do have terror. Under the conditions of an unavoidable death Ishizue Arika finally regains the normal human fear.
The regret is a little late.
Uh huh, I'm reproaching myself, ended up attaching myself to trouble, while Sinker's right hand is bringing the ball to his chest. He begins the setup motion, the movement that starts the throw.
And in this moment, a second away from death…

"Heeey, replacement, replaaaaacement! Gloomy Boy is replaced by Burning Hand of Success, the batter Hinomori Shusei. A round of applause!"

…proudly, like a wall, a man in a black cape appeared. Protecting me, frozen before the figure in a black cloak with a scythe, uh, ball. Flapping his cape as though spreading his wings. A pathetic, but dear to my heart, scene of a hero's arrival.
"You…"
"Yo, boy. This is called a pinch hitter, right?"
Half turning his face towards me, Hinomori Shusei grins slowly. The demonic ball master is watching the sudden obstacle with muzzy eyes.
…Well, it doesn't matter. Reasons are reasons, but doing anything would be a balk, dear Sinker.

✠

"Yo, bro, wanna play? Let's go, big guy here'll play with you! You won't be bored at all. Definitely better than bullying decent, healthy folks from good families, so relax, smile and die!"
The man wearing reflective sunglasses and a cape.
He, earlier introducing himself to Ishizue Arika as Hinomori Shusei, speaks to the killer maniac in a friendly manner.
In his hand is a stick-like bundle. Thinner and longer than a bat. Looks like a long training sword wrapped in a cloth. Apparently he considers it a bat. He pushed Ishizue Arika out into reserve.
"Hey, what are you…"
"It's fine, fine. Arika-sensei, just go hug your shaking knees in a corner somewhere. Oh, and if you don't mind, cheer for me some, I'd be glad… The audience's support excites me strangely. Uh huh, that's nice, it's like, when you're vain and want to shout 'I'm tired of your silence', what kind of fan is that, I might as well go complete puzzles at home when I'm bored. It's better to waste time in a fun way, like, yeah, when you're pressed and you're intoxicated by the battle and the abyss so close to you, say!"
Hinomori Shusei cut the air with a horizontal swing of his long sword. Ishizue Arika went round-eyed, his pupils becoming tiny dots, and retired… Maybe due to the sight of the scary blade, or maybe not wanting to hear this rambling any longer.
"Pinch hitter… do you even know what that is?"
"Of course. You're the rumored maniac killer, right?.. Well. Don't look entirely like one, but half of me just can't pass by, so… I'll steal a little spotlight from the hero. I'm not saving you, so don't feel indebted. If you reeeally want to, think of this as thanks for the junk food."
The long hair and the cape flutter; Hinomori Shusei stands up - sword held with both hands - against Sinker as a batter.
"I don't know what you're planning, but…" - Sinker moved his gaze from Ishizue Arika to the newly arrived monster, took a step backwards. - "Since you challenged me, you're my prey now."
The killer maniac's eyes are wrathful.
Sinker is irritated that his winning pitch that would've decided the match was interrupted and by this man's callous nonchalance. To him this game is a serious battle to the death. Of course someone laughing and spoiling everything dampens the mood, but what angers him the most is still the man's attitude.
The man is wordlessly saying: this might be a death match, but it's still baseball. There's no need to take children's games seriously.
"Three balls… Well, if you're lucky, you'll live. Black cape."
The demonic ball master's killing glare fixed itself on the silently grinning Hinomori Shusei.
A showdown between a killer maniac in a hoodie and a caped monster.
An eerie, deadly atmosphere not fitting the summer night - no, not having the right to exist in a peaceful city.
The noise of passing cars comes from the crossing above, but there's a feeling of a distance far greater than it actually is. Aside from the road, before a vending machine, Ishizue Arika is watching the events unfold, and something's scratching at his soul.
"Wow. Nice, there's a 100 yen machine."
Drinking canned coffee.

However - despite his confident expectations, Hinomori Shusei raised neither a hand nor a foot towards Sinker.
First ball, second ball, both went past him. Acquiring two strikes in as many minutes, he himself made a puzzled - can't hit that - frown.
"What, newbie, only good at running your mouth?" - Sinker mocks. - "At least wave your hand, or it's all a waste."
The caped man, on the other hand, is not tense at all. Although he took up the batter's spot, he didn't move his improvised bat… No, he didn't even feel the need to do so.
"Well, damn. I thought, standing in the square would be really cool…"
He yawns… A screwball at a hundred and forty kilometers per hour. In the situation of an impending strike-out and parting with life he was very bored.
"Hmm. It's a bit dark, hard to see. Honestly, there's no drive this way. Listen, buddy. As a possessed to a possessed - let's up the speed?"
The black cape flutters.
What is that? Hinomori Shusei crouched a bit and jumped high.
"Pfhah?!"
Ishizue Arika's canned coffee sprays.
The height is a full six meters. A somersault deserving a 10-10-10-10 by the judges, too perfect - the man made a ballistic curve high up in the sky.
"Good, good. Now we need a powerful spotlight, right!"
The black cape disappears.
Ishizue Arika, looking from down on the road doesn't see what happens next. Only his imagination is hinting that something's going on.
Brakes scream in protest. The driver must've been scared: at a speed of about seventy a nonhuman suddenly appears in the headlights. Did he have time to hit the handbrake? After the screeching echo the noise went on, like a joke.
…The crossing above us turned to hell.
One after another - secondary collisions. The bridge caught fire. Constant screaming of brakes. Metal grinding and howling. People shouting. A chaotic orchestra. And the reason of the disaster shows up again.
"Not a bad improvisation, huh? All right, go up, young man. It's at least a little more fun there, let's play."
The man smiles, framed by the fire.
Over twenty severe injuries, miraculously no deaths - this is what was written in the materials on the billiard collision on Shikura highway case, which will be considered an accident until he appears again.
His name is Hinomori Shusei.
Two years ago he was being hunted with a large-scale raid over the entire south border of S prefecture, a confirmed culprit of an especially brutal killing spree. Having escaped en route to the Origa clinic and disappearing since then, the possessed called Vampire in rumors.
What did Sinker see in this man standing against a background of fire?
Like a macaque, he climbed the streetlight and jumped to the road. He couldn't do it in one leap like Hinomori Shusei, but he still showed physical ability pretty astounding for a human.
Having climbed to the scene, Sinker took a stand against the possessed framed by fire with a will to kill and an even bigger hostility.
"So that's how you came, boy. As a reward, stay on your side. I'm fine with mine."
In a few minutes the crossing became hell on Earth, but the smashed cars were burning on the left side of the road while the right was unchanged. A car passed on it, admiring the burning debris in the mirror.
…The black cape stood in the middle of this right side. Among not flying bullets, but hunks of metal approaching at seventy kilometers per hour, he was smiling, holding the long sword at ready.
"Hey, young baseballer, this is the last ball. I'm dodging somehow here, so pitch it into the strike zone. Don't worry, it's just a ball game after all. The viewers must have a show, or they'll be mad!"
Hinomori Shusei is not in his right mind.
But Iguruma Kazumi has long burned out his common sense as well.
"A ball game, you say…"
Can't win. Can't beat this man, the possessed right arm screams. No winning means the outcome is clear. If I pitch, he'll return. If he returns, I'll die. As soon as the third ball is in the air, his life is over. But Sinker won't stop. He won't rest easy until he destroys this man deriding baseball with his 'ball game' with this very game.
"Haa!.."
Suppressing the agony of his tendons, he swings his right hand.
The speed and trajectory are lightning-fast.
A demonic ball impossible to hit for a human dances in a zigzag over the road, heading for the target.
The target is not the body but the strike zone.
The maniac killer Sinker is one who crushes batters' hubris. Begin with a strike-out, otherwise the batter's life can't be taken. Even if he's taken by the premonition it'll be returned, this rule's set in stone… And as a result:
"Whoop… nnhaah?!"
Hinomori Shusei simply and elegantly missed Sinker's demonic ball. The swing was terrifying and empty. An unmistakable miss. Elegant and meaningless, this could be displayed as art.
Thus the duel ended, and Sinker's gripping the punishing ball with no hesitation. The target is the back of Black Cape's head. The demonic ball that takes the life of a target that got struck out. Too bad, black-cape-man. If Ishizue Arika was near, he'd probably be shouting 'Wow, you lameass!' at Hinomori Shusei with all his might.
"Oh wow… Huh, yeah, try hitting that. Turns out it's not just some two-stage spinning ball. It changes not only direction, but speed too! I see, I see, so you can control it that way too, huh…"
He has no desire to listen to Hinomori Shusei's excuses. Sinker, as though lining up with a passing car, releases a demonic ball to the side of his target.
"Oh?"
The demonic ball passed Hinomori Shusei, disappeared in the darkness and then, sparking, flew into the defenseless target.
Everything as usual, trajectory's right, not a centimeter's error - an attack crushing the head's back. But…
"Nope, not gonna work."
As with the previous strike out, Hinomori Shusei simply dodged the demonic ball coming out of the dead zone.
"Uh huh. Hard to return, but dodging can be managed."
The caped figure leaves the batter's posture.
Taking the long sword in one hand, it brings a finger of the freed left to its mouth. A long tongue reaches out towards it from the gap between inhumanly jagged teeth.
"Good, good, you won, young man."
The black cape flutters.
Relaxing the hand with the long sword, the vampire finally shed his lively mask…
"But you see… The luck to survive isn't related to that."
…and smiled cruelly, like a wolf playing with its prey.


The black cape flutters in the wind.
The first step is casual.
For some reason Sinker didn't even see it as the beginning of a pounce upon the prey.
"Kh!.."
He'll be swallowed whole. This intuitive conclusion makes Sinker grab the first ball. He kicks the ground at full speed and jumps back. Taking the ball from his parka with his left hand, he passes it to the right, quickly contracting and wounding up at the same time. Grinning with his uneven teeth, Vampire is assaulted by the sure-kill demonic ball as he takes the step.
Worthy of admiration.
Jumping back and ending up on a crashed car's roof, he instantly turns his body sideways on one foot. Looking from above, his side pitch resembles a beautiful perfect circle drawn with a compass. Even after releasing a ball at a hundred and thirty kilometers per hour, he didn't stop turning.
Three revolutions in just two seconds, like a spinning top. With mechanical precision he lets loose no less than three demonic balls. With delays of half a second they went for the target.
From the target's point of view - from the left, right, and near-precisely above. The balls meant to catch Black Cape turned at a right angle after a second's delay, each to its own direction, and went for the target at incredible angles.
Instantly closing three sides off, invisible sniper shots. In the gap between these unavoidable strikes Vampire roared with laughter.
If Sinker's trademark attack is a refinement of human technique, Vampire is on the level of a natural disaster.
Surrounded on three sides, Black Cape went for Sinker. At a speed that only lets a blur be seen, spinning and dancing, turning into a walking tornado, leaving holes in the asphalt. If Sinker's a spinning machine for shooting demonic projectiles, this man is a mad spinning top. With ballet-like movements he avoids the speeding bullets.
How could this be?.. This weren't random dodges. At the moment of the demonic ball's turn the trajectory was spotted and avoided with minimal effort, resulting in this outcome.
Sinker pitches three balls. Each turns twice, resulting in a diffused, non-fixed impression of six attacks in all. The black cape dances madly, avoiding the effortlessly.
None hit. Sinker is taken with, rather than rage that his demonic balls are powerless, a chilling fear. Not right… Something is wrong with this man's speed. Quantifiable criteria like 'faster than', 'slower than', 'cooler than', and ‘sharper than' can't measure his speed. It's crystal clear that his speed is on a different level from us. Even if the ball has higher velocity, it's pointless. It won't succeed even if it goes faster still. This is something wrong for a living creature. 'While this is unclear, this enemy is unbeatable, not possible to run from!' - his whole body screams…
"Ah…"
An overwhelming stench of death. Urged on by terror that this'll come in a second and take his head off in one swing, Sinker remembered something very similar by association.
In fact it's just a stupid story, but the black cloud approaching him was indistinguishable from a firework spinning on the ground.
"And what!.."
Shaking his delusions off, he throws the fourth ball.
The distance between them is already less than four meters. With a pitching movement that took less than a second, not having the chance to spin properly, he can't expect much speed or control.
"…what of iiit!.."
He pitches a normal fast ball. Aimed straight at the face, it was avoided. However, this ball has a property available only to Sinker. The true essence of the two-stage sinker: a spotted demon forcing the ball to turn at a right angle will crush the target's head for sure this time!..
"Come on, do you think I didn't see it?"
And Vampire easily saw through the trick.
Like a hellish bird, Black Cape flies up. He lands on the hood, holding the scary sword in his left hand at waist level, and the returning, sparking demonic ball clearly coming from a dead zone, flies by due to a small movement of the neck.
"Ah… Ah…"
"But you're pretty smart, young man… Setting your sticky blood on fire in a blink, using it as a jet. Behind, again as ordered, the screwball changes direction and speed. Your growth, youth, isn't some measly elbow. The blood that burns with sparks is Sinker's true ability… Not bad. Turns out there's another madcap besides me who burns this stuff as fuel."
No friendliness. Despite the words' content, Vampire's voice is very cold.
Sinker can't move. The sword in the black cape's hand. No, not a sword, a spear. The scary weapon strongly gripped in the hand is nearly lunging at him now. The fear created by the threat of being pierced by a large-caliber missile makes both legs and head stop working.
"Don't be surprised, my good man. All the magic is gone after you see such a trick once. Even that guy down there noticed!.. Aah… But yes, this is only yours, unique. Can't reproduce that unless you're a godlike pitcher to begin with. Given a baseball's size, two turns are the limit, I suppose? If you do any more, it'll just burn down! But it's inefficient as hell. If you strain yourself like that, you won't last a week, no?.. Oh well. Whether you take care of yourself or not, you'll meet your ■■■■■ here anyway."
The vampire's face comes closer.
It's nearly touching, so as to sink teeth into the neck.
"Ah…"
'I don't want to die. Save me.'
Sinker's eyes shriek with fear.
This is nothing surprising. They're standing face to face. Under the reflective surface of the sunglasses he saw Vampire's eyes.
Eyes with no pupils. Like a demon of mad wrath. Eyes of ice that squeezes the life out of everything that sees them.
"Ah…"
Vampire's left hand rises forward.
The long weapon bites into Sinker's neck.
The thoughts disappearing before the face of death come to a useless conclusion. What a twisted plot. This man's weapon is no sword, no spear. It's the ancient way of eradicating vampires - a huge aspen stake…

✠

The color of flame painting over the night sky promises trouble.
For nearly four minutes I've been watching the unfolding tragedy from down near the coffee machine. However, everything was happening six meters above me, and I could only hear the rich sounds of the catastrophe, but now the carnage has burned out.
I hear a siren far away. If I stay here, I'll be detained for suspicious behavior, and my romance with Mato-san might finally trip a fag of a tender talk in the bullpen. Getting ready to leave, I lower the coffee can into the trashcan, when…
"Huuuh, too bad, too bad. 'Real' ones shouldn't be exchanging pokes, kicks and sparks like that… Oh, you're still here, young man? Your drive to see the show to its end is very gratifying."
A rambling Black Cape jumped down from the crossing.
The wooden sword in his hand… or even a metal pipe… or even something like a metal pipe with a pointy end… anyway, he wraps it in a cloth again and cracks his shoulders. His movements carry the 'work's done, can have fun now' vibe.
"Hmm?.. C'mon, run along, or I'll eat you! Oh, and if they bother you, don't sell me out, yeah? Else you're going to lose time on stuff, be late getting home. If you have to, I recommend praising me. But yeah, as a human it's advisable to be home by one twenty!"
"Sorry, but I won't tell on you even if you ask me to. So how's it gone, did you hit?"
"Believe in me, it was a worthy strike-out."
Black Cape laughs for no reason. A sure sign.
"I don't get it… You caused that up there and got struck out?"
"Well, uh, it's a show, right? There's still a death match in the end, yes? So I had to gracefully lose to the master in the first half. You gotta agree, throwing flowers at the end is the least an adult can do."
The man curves his lips again. This time his smile is accompanied by real thoughts, harmonizing with his intimidating appearance, cruel, worrying.
"Flowers at the end, so Sinker is… you know?.."
'Dead?' - I couldn’t get out.
The accident's fire overhead, left arm is hurting more than when I played with Sinker, the siren is already close. All these various components moved my consciousness away from common sense, but I hesitated to say the word of no return.
"Nah, not dead. There's no need. When he was pressed, he had the desire to run written all over his face, so I let him. It's called luring them in? Ah, tch, the other way around. Uh, catch-and-release? Not right either…"
And what is that? Wrecked everything and then just wounded the guy and let him go?..
"Hey, hey, don't make this face, young man. I tell you, let him run. This one is already out. He wants to destroy himself, so let him. Again, he only looks alive, but his body's right half has died already."
Right half of body is already dead. A nuance not related to his arm, one that was there already… Sinker's ruin was clearly not only mental.
"That so… And how long does he have, what do you think?"
"How long? Go higher, young man! Even if he's nearly dead, do you think I wouldn't notice if there was still life in him?"
He laughs joyfully. The man in the black cape laid a friendly hand on my shoulder and bent his mouth in a light smile.
"Listen. That possessed has self-destructed already. There's no life in him. He's long dead. He's like a mechanism that still has fuel and doesn't want to stop. It's sad, but when his fire burns out he'll end up in the trash heap."
He lowers his arm. Hinomori Shusei leaves with light steps.
"Wait. Can I ask another question? Were you just passing by?"
"Mmm? Are you kidding, it never happens that conveniently. I was looking for someone in Shikura too. And I came here because I felt the atmosphere of a fight, thought - oh, fun! - and intruded."
"Uh huh… A fight's atmosphere - isn't that the most convenient answer, Hinomori-san?"
I mean, come on, we aren't in a comic or something.
"Uh huh. I get you. Yeah, I get your reaction. Although I love heroics, this moment is suspicious. But you know, there are people who really feel it, there's no running from that. Anyway, so much trouble, but at least that time it's half hit, half miss."
'Oh well'. - Black Cape says and this time leaves.
Sirens finally flooded the air, police cars were surrounding the site of the crash one after another.
"Oh. Right, I wanted to ask too."
Hinomori Shusei stops without turning.
The man who can kill me instantly despite standing over five meters away with his back to me asked…

"Say, where did you get that prosthetic? I saw a leg, but an arm is a first!"

…in an indifferent voice that couldn't be ignored.

■

After parting with the totally not strict guy Hinomori Shusei.
Around the crash site now swarming with gapers everything settled down, and the police didn't even start asking for witnesses, letting me return safely.
By the way, I silently ignored the last question. To be honest, Hinomori Shusei saved me, and I'd like to answer him for decency's sake, whether I feel grateful or not, but there's just no answer.
I came to my room in the charitable multi-story building where Kirisu was watching TV with an owner's face.

There was nothing about the car crash just an hour ago. S prefecture's local TV must be staffed by slackers, or maybe the highway was closed off… Probably the latter.
'There were no corpses, young man. I can sleep soundly. Huh? The problem's not with lives? Repairs? Compensations? Dumbass, nowadays the only people without car insurance are those without a driver's license, doc Arika. Relax, the cameras recorded everything, so everyone will be paid. They'll probably ask for new cars too!'
That's what Hinomori-san said. The police are probably already puzzling over the suspicious man in the footage.

"Oh, you're back. You're late, weren't you going to be back by seven?"
"I had stuff to look into, been everywhere. Oh, and Sinker attacked on the way home, so…"
There was no special reaction.
I pass in front of Kirisu and into the bathroom. Wash my face with warm water, get the sweat off. The nerves must have calmed down - the left hand's feedback is very weak. I'm tired of wearing the prosthesis for half a day straight, so I take it off.
Back into the room, where Kirisu's going through the channels boredly.
"You know, I was attacked by Sinker."
"You said it twice… Buzz off, I told you this doesn't concern me."
Deflecting the topic. A predictable reaction. I'm not too happy trying to get him down to the ground. Just doing my duty as informant.
"Yeah, sure. It really doesn't. He'll die on his own, after all. And the police created an investigation HQ, he'll be in jail in a couple of days."
Tomorrow might be a bit too early, but we're talking about Mato-san, to her a self-destructing possessed is of utmost importance. Feels like the right time frame.
"Whoa… Hold on, what do you mean he'll die on his own?"
He took the bait.
"Well, yeah. He's just falling apart. A severe stage of A syndrome… a possessed that can't be cured and just lives like a vegetable - lots of cases like that. The growths are truly a way of granting wishes, but they're too much of a load for normal tissues at the same time. If one uses them too often not 'to survive', their insides rot off leading to death… And Sinker was a bit too hasty in his maniacal activities."
It was a person every two days, after all. If he used that right hand on everyone, then, like Hinomori-san said…
"Well from my viewpoint it isn't so much somatic as psychotic. Many A syndrome patients have mental disorders… The possessed mostly begin mental, but there are those who first manifest the growth and then become mentally ill. Sinker is one of those. A regression to childhood, partial memory loss. Simply put, a memory disorder not apparent even to the victim themselves."
Before the game's start Sinker didn't even know who was before him. No, in that state he probably didn't know who he himself was.
He started the match, grabbed a ball, pitched a few, and only then manifested 'Iguruma Kazumi's' consciousness. The question is how many balls were necessary to awaken it. The young man who apparently used to get his mind right at the game's start reached a state where one or two balls are 'not enough'. It's the end. Like an addict, even after the match… after the batter's death according to the rules, not getting satisfaction, remains a phantom killer who's lost himself, an empty shell.
"Obviously, after that it's over. Iguruma Kazumi becomes a serial killer maniac, true to the nickname, and keeps killing until he is beaten and dies."
He is a real killer, though. A crime for any reason, with any reservation is still a crime. Sinker probably doesn't even care whether the killer in him is true or temporary. Which was he in the end?.. This conclusion can't help him or his victims, just us onlookers.
Still no reaction. Kirisu's clearly dead set.
"Fine, be that way. I won't rub salt in your wound any more. But say, Kirisu. I hear you'll do anything for money?"
'I suppose', - a careless reply follows.
It's good that he doesn't mind.
"Then I need a little thing prepared, what do you say?"
Kirisu's Kirisu, I'm me. Can't nose in others' affairs all the time. I have to work to live my own life.
"Whaaat?.. What-what, three meters in diameter?.."
The strange commission makes Kirisu cringe.
"Will you do it? If yes, just bring it here. I'll pay upon delivery, of course."

◆

So.
My role in this case is over.
The demonic ball master, Sinker. A genius batter who abandoned baseball for no reason. The old promise is unfulfilled - they didn't meet. An event chain that can't be Ishizue Arika's story.
Lowering the curtains is the role of West Block team's ace.
A third person standing around can only irresponsibly inflame the players, jerk around and watch the historical battle.
It's obvious that decisiveness and outcome are the participants' business. However you support the sportsman, in the end you're behind the mosquito net; such is our life.

I don't actually have any pictures to put up, though. There are none at least until the arc ends.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, I know there are some confusing bits in there, so feel free to ask.

[Rygah]

Awesome! I honestly wasn't expecting an update so soon, especially one as long as this. Thanks Desu!

- - - Updated - - -

Spoiler:

I loved his comedic side before, but man, Hinomori is an absolute badass!

[Ossan99]

@Desu
Great Job!! I checked roughly and these are basically good translation. I only found different between Japanese and English as follows:
At 14.08(=Aug 14), time is 10:27 AM, not 10:26 AM. Because "午前十時二十七分" should be "10:27 AM" in English.

[Embrace tophats]

thanks a bunch.

now to wait until all available DDD stuff is translated so that i can binge it

[Desuclocker]

@Desu
Great Job!! I checked roughly and these are basically good translation. I only found different between Japanese and English as follows:
At 14.08(=Aug 14), time is 10:27 AM, not 10:26 AM. Because "午前十時二十七分" should be "10:27 AM" in English.

Thanks, fixed.

[Desuclocker]

I was originally planning to dump the rest of the chapter once it was complete, but my typing hand got damaged, so that's going to wait. For now, please enjoy what I did finish.

Not much new here, I'm afraid. The interesting stuff begins right afterward.

8/Sinker. (bottom)

◆

Ishizue Arika said that Sinker didn't notice his memory regression himself. It's true, but not exactly. After all, his memory fell apart over half a year ago.

Summer of year 2003.
District qualifications just over, the baseball clubs' activity came to a small break. As usual, Iguruma Kazumi stood on the mound and trained his pitches in solitude.
There's no trace of recent screwballs. The balls didn't even reach the catcher, but he kept trying.
A few weeks passed since he had to forfeit from the finals due to elbow trauma. Classmates who didn't know about the tensions within the club thought he was rehabilitating, but in the eyes of his clubmates, who knew the truth, his actions were nothing but an eyesore.
Perhaps due to Sekura Yumiya's parents' influence, the case was hushed up. The school justified it as black marks in their dossiers posing a threat to the young boys' promising futures.
This story won't be publicised. The victim, Iguruma Kazumi, was pacified by an offer of free education.
The club members who got off too easily felt the fairness of this themselves, but Iguruma himself wasn't interested in the unclear future. Only one thing was important to him - whether his right hand will return to its former glory.
An irreparable bone fraction. Comeback as a pitcher aside, such an injury makes simple living hard. Waving the fact aside, he busied himself with training.
The club members laughed at Iguruma Kazumi's denial.
Day after day Iguruma Kazumi went to the mound, and day after day he kept pitching the ball which now didn't fly more than a few metres.
The sight of an upperclassman playing with a broken arm only made the club members laugh. What a moron, doesn't he know what "surrender" means! - they kept mocking his pathetic pitches.
Whatever happened, however you look at it - Iguruma Kazumi's recovery is impossible. Kazumi knew it the best. Sinker, who made many batters tremble, vanished without a trace. He understood that now he'd lose even to an elementary school student, but still kept on training.
Iguruma Kazumi was possessed in a psychological sense.
A reason to come that far? He had a dream that didn't let him surrender.
Winter, December of the same year.
As usual, Iguruma Kazumi finished the training and cleaning pushed onto him by underclassmen and went home.
The next day he burst into a class where the second year captain of the baseball club, Sekura Yumiya, was studying, and tried to lynch him, but the teacher intercepted him and walked him to a so-called student guidance room.
The school judged Iguruma Kazumi's mental state as 'slightly' excited and sent him to Shikura's police station where it asked for help from the youth education department. The protocol noted the boy's extreme mental disturbance.
Three days later.
After leaving the pen Iguruma Kazumi heard the decision about his being expelled from the school, under which he signed. He didn't come home, but was noticed among people without a set residence. In the youth education department he was put down as a runaway and as such became wanted, but no officers found or apprehended him.

Half a year later, July of 2004.
An entire six months passed, and the summer heat just came into power, when among homeless people a youth resembling Iguruma Kazumi was found.
But that's just a hypothesis. Unconfirmed. The youth's consciousness was unstable, and he was in a state where he couldn't remember his own name.
The aged vagrants worried for him and supported his existence. They asked where he lived, and he answered that he didn't want to remember. Sometimes the youth timidly muttered with a begging look: "Excuse me, I'd like to become a pitcher".
And every time the vagrants looked away. Because the youth's right arm - even they didn't want to look - was bent at an unnatural angle.

The cause was a bum who felt very sorry for him.
"If you love baseball so much, you have to see this", - he said and led him to some young people who were playing a game that was becoming popular recently.
Of course, they couldn't take part. They were only allowed to stay a distance away and watch.
But, apparently, he still felt something.
Since then the youth started lazily watching SVS, and bit by bit rudimentary mental activity came back to him. The game was a showdown between pitchers and batters gathering at their spots in groups.
The pitchers chose an industrial strip in the Shikura hill and Nozu as their base. Many unfinished buildings were spacious inside, like supermarkets, and not too dirty. For various reasons - frozen construction, simply no one being there some days - they stood empty and worked well for pitcher training.
He sneaked into the sites past everyone's stares and dimly watched their practice.
His heart contained awe and nostalgia. And - burning pain.
Emotions are electric pulses. It's unknown what exactly awoke his shattered psyche, what influx of feelings called his darkened consciousness back.
He grips the ball with his now immovable right hand and relaxedly watches the assorted pitchers, squinting at the summer sun. As though sleepily watching a movie in detachment - I can't join 'them'. And once...

...Phew. As though his old memories came back.
A summery noon, just like now.
He, very tiny, gripping a ball, was running along the long uphill road.
Before his eyes is an old loaded cart pulled by a single woman.
A thin woman. On the cart are fittings and bars thrown in by generous town factories. These things can't and shouldn't be dragged by one woman.
Bit by bit the woman was getting tired. The road gradient was almost mountain-like. Asphalt where cars don't ride. At the rise's side is luscious green. At the other side is a view above at houses sticking up like a grove.
...The woman is stubbornly dragging the cart. She'll deliver the load to another factory over the hill and sell it for quite a bit of money.
So unsightly and laughable. This woman didn't have any means of sustenance other than this old-fashioned labour.
Apparently he helped her when he was young. Thinking only of playing, he grumpily stands behind the cart. He wanted to throw it all away and go play, but the woman can't drag the cart alone. He suppresses his displeasure and pushes. The ball still in his hand is a small protest.
But in the end their strength wasn't enough.
The cart stopped in the middle of the hill as though rooted to the spot, and they could do nothing more. Like poverty stuck on the sidewalk. No cars. Can't move it. And even if someone passed by, they would hardly help. He wanted to run away, but the cart was borrowed, and he couldn't even abandon it.
An overly hard, cruel summer.
Among the world shining under the sun they lay like a dirty black stain. He had never felt so miserable.
The blue sky over his head is cold.
The sun's summer rays are scorching his head.
Not knowing how to go on, he cried.
He understands his home is poor. He understands that he has to help the working woman.
But still, this was too much. Wearing worn clothes, they drag various crap, the passerbys laugh. So pathetic and sad, he nearly exploded with anger at his bad luck.
But before that he saw something truly hard.
"Ah..."
That's right!.. - the disappearing consciousness came back.
He was poor. He was abused.
The nonsense he was thinking about at the moment raised his spirits countless times; and now it gave him the strength to rise again.

"Huh. So you're that kid?"
"Uh huh..."
And so he remembered how he used to be.
Before him was a middle-aged man wearing a hat. Pitchers were having fun beyond the window. A completely unknown devil, totally unlike the last, spoke:

"You want to join them?.. Go for it. Last time didn't work out too well. Not that I'm trying to repair the damage, of course..."

That he'd grant his wish in exchange for something important to him.

"But maybe you shouldn't? This time is not like the last, this time is for real. If you get hit - you'll really die. The stakes change. If you get hit, it's the end, and you can't stop the match. If that's fine..."

The devil speaks with a kind smile.
"is it worth it, exchanging your life for this dream?" - he asks.
The right hand, long wizened, gathers strength again.
Again. He'll be able to pitch again - and if so, then who cares who this guy is? And Iguruma Kazumi nodded.
Should he bet everything?.. Of course. Ever since that day devoting his life to it was his dream.
The game began.
The man in a hat made a demon possess him.
For him, with his already damaged body part, forming both it and the growth was pretty quick.
...On the other hand - perhaps as payback for not training for so long, - his right arm and the half of his body joined to it was badly burned. It could be called complications caused by the appendage's revival. As a result he put on a hoodie, covering his body and right hand, and became incognito.
"Only thing left is to handle the preparations. Yeah. You wanted to join these..."
The man spoke to a group of pitchers gathered at a construction site. And he watched from afar.
"So... If you accept him into your group, I'll grant your..."
A theatrical voice.
Some youngsters turned darker, and Sekura Yumiya, sitting an a ruin and watching him with bated breath.
Perhaps the man's voice had something hypnotic about it? The gathered pitchers started nodding in the end... He suddenly tried to remember. Seven years ago. Two boys, nodding in response to the man, - was their friend watching them with the same cold stare?
Pitchers - lightly, playing along with the joke, and Sekura Yumiya, hostile to the hooded youth watching from afar, made a contract with the man.
The weirdness showed itself before an hour passed.
He was probably special. The man said that most people recently infected with A syndrome behave irregularly. Iguruma Kazumi wasn't infected before, but in a way he was possessed by something already. Therefore he transformed in a relatively coherent state.
When the youths started complaining about strong pain caused by the body alterations, suddenly one of them bit a nearby pitcher. Like in a zombie movie.
Immediately two pitchers fell, still clawing, biting, killing each other. The madness spread to the rest who began recreating the scene with individual differences.
Perhaps it'd have been easier to join them, but Sekura Yumiya remained uninvolved. As the first one to awaken from the nightmare. A sound mind is a sin here. Among madness the simplest and easiest way to survive is to embrace even greater madness.
Sekura Yumiya must have been pretty tired, to be possessed by an illusion. Let's be friends! - spluttering blood, the shadows of his former friends attacked him, but Sekura fought them off with tears in his eyes. With the balls flying out of his left hand he cracked four pitchers on the head, went crazy, and when he came to, he was already haphazardly smashing his buddies with a bat.
Echoing applause. Covered in blood, the ace pitcher regains himself.
"Excellent. I thought of helping him, thinning the ranks. But you're pretty suitable yourself. Not at all like before, with miss after miss... Finally the last days of this town are here."
The man praises Sekura Yumiya, while Iguruma Kazumi hears a repeat of a deceit he was so used to.
Get hit - death. Throw the battle - death. Now, possessed by a demon, he knows no way to survive other than victory. Sekura Yumiya howled that this wasn't what he told them and threw himself at the hat-wearing man. Stopping this ruckus, a screwball leaves Iguruma Kazumi's hand at one hundred and forty kilometres per hour.
"W-what are you..."
Sekura Yumiya's voice shakes, he turns around. Before him are a pitcher's eyes coldly staring from under the hood.

"I'm tired of your shit... If you're not gonna pitch, give me your cell and get out of my sight."

Sekura Yumiya knows who this pitcher in a hoodie is. He also knows that the screwball thrown by his right hand just now means his former strength has returned. 'He'll kill me. If I remain here, he'll kill me for sure', - his intuition said, and Sekura Yumiya fled, covering his strangely warped left arm.
A silver cellphone, thrown down as though with intentions of smashing it. The ace's number is on it, it is the domain of the greatest pitcher. There's no one in this city who fits the title better.
"I'll handle the clean-up. No big deal, just gotta carry them to a nearby factory, and there they can be hidden so no one can find them. You can use all this baseball inventory. It'll be handy for your revenge, eh?"
Revenge? He tilts his head, puzzled.
He isn't fully recovered yet. His name only came back when he grasped the ball as a pitcher.
"Remember: your switch is wrath."
He leaves the construction site. The man's normal, inexpressive voice comes from behind him:
"Even if it's not apparent now, once it surfaces you can't suppress it... You'll remember someday, kid. Your wrath is not directed at someone in particular. It's anger at an unclear, formless society."
Before leaving he asked the man's name.
The reply was a word even more common than the his facial features, a most normal name.
He - Iguruma Kazumi - opened his revenge season a few days later. Still not knowing his own name, he wandered around the town, and once he spotted the youth who broke his elbow back then, - Sinker was born.

◆

In the mad heat of thirty-eight degrees.
On this day, too, he was woken by the piercing cold.
Kill after kill. The phones gathered one by one are scattered among the trees. The burning summer heat and the phone's incessant, echoing, irritating ringing.
...A phone is ringing nearby. He willed his hand to shut it up and realized that never mind moving a hand, he couldn't even breathe properly.
"Ah... ah..."
He gathered his entire body's abilities, struggling just to breathe.
He barely worked a little heat into it.
...Due to the A syndrome's distortion half of his body was burnt. As a result the majority of his skin's respiratory function was lost. The lowering of body temperature - the abnormal cold assailing him - were caused by rejecting the atmosphere.
Recovering his breath with great effort, he checks the right arm's nerves... Can't move it yet. It moans due to cruel treatment. Won't last for one inning like that.
Such irony... It should recover easily after a few weeks of rest, but he can't afford that long. Not 'doesn't want to', but 'can't'.
The cellphone's sickening howl serving as an alarm captured the fading consciousness.
He saw a dream...
Seems like it was an hour ago, but in fact it's a memory about twenty days old. The freshest memory hold something else, something angry. The ninth batter. The interloper in a black cape. Released a step from being killed, he came here and shut down immediately.
"Hhh..."
Irrelevant. This is irrelevant. He levels his breathing.
Presently his body is more important. It's in awful shape. So much that the response the day before, the one he thought couldn't get any worse, now seems like a healthy norm. Fingertips feel frozen. Cold. So cold. The sun is so close. So hot outside the body. But the voices from the tribunes are distant. The mortal world's cruelty is sickening. Just went to sleep for a bit, and now where's that summer?

"Of course. If you don't play regularly, you'll disappear."

...That day the man wearing a hat was telling Sekura Yumiya about the workings, his words are now darting through his head. That the life in them, the possessed, is supported by demons. That if the demon isn't fed, both die, naturally.
Thus - hold on to diligence, vengefulness. Find the power to live. Repeat the deadly game, like a dose of drugs...

"Get hit and die. That's what I'm talking about. As soon as you lose, your heat, your dream will wither."

Yes... His body is now only moved by stubbornness, by anger.
As soon as he loses that heat, he'll stop functioning.
"Hhh... ah, aah!.."
The right arm's nerves connect. The reckless angry desire to keep pitching starts up his engine.
One left. It's fine, there are still people to pitch at. There are still targets, objects of revenge, he pleads with himself.
"Only, one, left..."
But what to do when there's no one left? The disgusting ringtone throws his thoughts off. Can he go on pitching? And as soon as he pitches, they'll know he's possessed, and he'll have to kill to shut mouths. After all, it's clear from the match that he'll kill the opponent. Even if he survives today, what will he do with that arm that may give out tomorrow? Is there any point to pitching?.. Of course. If there's no other way, then he has to keep killing batters. The summer won't end. Not while there's still room and sportsmen. He can't end it here.
"Yes... I will..."
Even if it's hard, he has to always keep pitching.
But what for, actually?
He broke. Misstepped a long time ago.
Can't remember either his own name nor that reason. Only one thing is clear - pitching. While he lives, he'll keep killing with this very arm.
...He reaches out towards the stubbornly screaming phone.
The caller is a batter, golden four.

He seemed to hear the last horn signalling the game's start.

[Nihilm]

As always thanks for the hard work desu

[Desuclocker]

Here we are! This is the rest of chapter 8. As promised, it doesn't have a single boring moment. At least I haven't found any.

Reveals abound. Stay tuned!

(18.08)

Iguruma Kazumi's name came up in the maniac case investigation this morning.
Kirisu Yaichiro procured the item and arranged the delivery to the specified location according to Ishizue Arika's order and was now walking along the fields on Shikura's border.
A time wasted. Dumbly stomping on the field boundaries, the bored Kirisu lowered his gaze:
"Well, now it's a matter of time."
Sinker's arrest.
The destruction of the karmic bond with Iguruma Kazumi.
Perhaps a final curtain, late but still not lowered.
How is it a matter of time?
Not capable of answering confidently, cycling thoughts uselessly, Kirisu heads to the forest in the outskirts.
The place Ishizue Arika once brought him to. Hard to tell by the forest, but the stop is a pointer. He finds the cube in the forest and opens the door. The darkness stretched to the basement gives an illusion that, if you look carefully, you'll see a mountain of corpses. Forcibly suppressing the instinct screaming about the danger to his life, he enters the darkness. He closes the door, now it's completely dark. Like a dimension cut off from the outside world. Ishizue Arika, who can casually come here every day, is abnormal, Kirisu thinks. His friend always presented himself as thick-skinned, but this deep discomfort seems to deny any escape.
However, this mysteriously worrying path is still far more bearable than what's at its end, Kirisu thinks with bated breath. The real chill comes from the room. The underground room swaying in the diffused sunlight and the beautiful humanoid on the bed. Kirisu can't express the feelings awakened in him by this picture with words, but this beauty is so jarring to him that he doesn't know what to compare it to.
"Excuse me…"
He knocks. No reply. No matter what you do, no one will answer, he remembers Ishizue Arika's words.
Steeling himself, he opens the door.
The garden of darkness appears from the darkness.
In blinding contrasts, on the four-poster bed, this lovely something is resting.
Wearing only the arm prosthetics. Something fish-like is swimming in the ocean on the ceiling. The dog Arika mentioned is not there.
"Oh? What's the matter, Kirisu-san?"
The underground room's owner greets Kirisu with a smile.
"Nothing to do with you… Arika told me to wait here. Apparently something about his job."
"Hmm… Aah, so that's it… What a dummy. Why does he only consider others' business seriously?"
A beautiful smile - made him want to turn away.
The underground room's owner sees the thought process of Ishizue Arika, who called Kirisu Yaichiro here, like this:
"'I wash my hands' - fits him perfectly. How can you tend to the beautiful with such a dirty inside… aaah, I can't take it. This… excessive compassion, makes you want to take and crush it, right?"
Kirisu doesn't understand what the owner is talking about.
But he saw a vague resemblance of this silhouette to Ishizue Arika. They look at different things, consider different things good, but the deep-set feelings seem similar.
Kirisu chased the strange fantasy away and sat down on the sofa. Without thinking about manners. Because to Kirisu the silhouette on the bed is a horror he's better off not seeing.
"Hey, man. What's with your left arm?"
He couldn't handle the silence and asked an immaterial question.
Last evening Ishizue Arika was wearing a prosthesis. Then he apparently didn't visit the underground. 'And if so, then what prosthesis is the owner wearing?' - he thought dimly.
"It's just a plug, Sorrow (my right leg) did me a favour. They're just shaped like arms and legs. The actually useful limbs are worn by other people."
Kirisu doesn't understand Karyou Kaie's words. Like Kaie's reading a picture book. The language seems human, but is closer to the noise the brain lets pass by.
There's no meaning in talking here.
He can't endure the silence, but talking is even worse… He shouldn't have come, after all, Kirisu decides and rises from the sofa.
He isn't going to rely on this something, but if the silhouette feels like it, it can save a possessed! He becomes ashamed at his impatience. And anyway, that doesn't concern him any longer! Kirisu turns to leave…
"So it turns out Kirisu-san is the genius Slugger?"
…But is lassoed before he manages to run away.
"What a surprise… Did Arika babble?"
"No. I knew there was such a person already. Arika just named them. As in, that bandit who just stood here. With his usual disapproving stare, and with such pride, it made me a bit uncomfortable."
The lovely shadow smiles spiritedly.
Kirisu was probably spurred by the smile not being an usual inhuman grin, but one familiar to everybody.
"That little… Got uppity, so I'm a bandit now?"
The constant chill dampened, Kirisu replied easily, abusing his friend behind his back.
"What about now? You're not a slugger any longer?"
"Nah. It was long ago. I don't stand in the batter box any more. What about it? My skill as a batter shouldn't concern you."
"Of course not. But something just keeps bugging me, so I decided to ask you something when we meet; may I?"
A question asked yet again… Slugger, once godlike, hears it asked by everyone. Why did he abandon baseball? Kirisu's spirits sunk from having to hear it here as well.

"Say. Why do homeruns make you puke?"

The question hit home, even making Kirisu flinch.
He's watched by clear pearl eyes. He loses his balance and drops back to the sofa. …No, Karyou Kaie's stare didn't make his consciousness stagger. His very question was Kirisu Yaichiro's sin, one he couldn't turn away from.
"The reasons you two kept and stopped playing are probably disconnected, but they can clear something up. So? Perhaps Kirisu-san's story will give me an idea on how to save Iguruma Kazumi… Or maybe someone who smashed dozens of human heads doesn't have the guts for a simple pure-hearted confession?"
His mind stops. One phrase erases the thoughts of the man who used to be Kirisu Yaichiro.
'Killed dozens of people'. This nonsense only Kirisu knows about is clearly amusing the silhouette.
"You came with this thought, right? You wouldn't get close to this underground place otherwise. Yes, I forgive this impertinence. You can probably feel best just how many people were hurt due to your insensitivity… Come on. Tell me an interesting story!"
Why Iguruma Kazumi keeps pitching the ball.
Why Kirisu Yaichiro abandoned baseball.
"Those two reasons are entirely different, but stem from the same thing. It's all I want to know. I don't care about your sins or your justice."
I just want to hear your story, the demon says.
…He hid the pressure for too long, or maybe he thought that it was fine to reveal anything to that demon.
The charmed man quietly begins confessing the story of his youth's finale.

◇

Kirisu Yaichiro first met Nishino Harusumi in autumn, during his first year in high school.
Kirisu was already seriously involved in baseball, but in another place the environment pinned great hopes on him.
In middle school he, feeling no love for baseball, used to be a delinquent and didn't cut ties with that side after entering high school. To him baseball was the main course, but that didn't mean he took messing around with those people lightly.
Nishino Harusumi was Kirisu Yaichiro the high schooler's 'aniki'. An upperclassman introduced him to Kirisu as a 'sempai of a sempai', but since that day Nishino took note of the boy as a 'useful little brother'. He must have seen the outstanding talent, the inborn star-ness. He didn't like the guy, but certainly could use him. Yakuza's school recruitment.
Kirisu, a member of the baseball club, played with his city friends, but never stepped over the line. Every time Nishino and co. coaxed him to join, he clapped his palms together like a monk: don't bother me while I'm still playing baseball! - and avoided drastic steps.
That balance shifted when Kirisu started his second year.
When he learned about Harusumi's superior at the time, Aoyagi Masashi.

Shouda family's branch, the Nanase group. A wide-profile power group dominating Shikura.
Everyone but the organisation head drank a glass of allegiance to the young boss… essentially the company director, as the young boss, his assistants and all their subordinates made an organization of about four hundred people.
Nishino stood out among the lesser bosses. Ten years ago he already had personal control over all drugs - a weird one. That was because in the beginning of the nineties the group wasn't getting enough income from drugs, and the business was considered the dumps. Not even a freebie, just a job with lots of work and scraps for income. Even to them, hoodlums who had to run around selling underground videotapes, that was a third-rate job. Those were the times when money exchange and real estate were still easy cash.
And Aoyagi was the chief of that then-pariah, Nishino Harusumi, supplied the group with money from financial turnover and was 'a textbook thief'.
Their relations were clearly strained, for obvious reasons. Aoyagi thought that Nishino was a low-grade type who needed scolding, and Nishino Harusumi considered Aoyagi an unjust superior.
Additionally, unluckily for Nishino, the Nanase group, the oaths of which he upheld, was an old-school power group. Profits mattered to it, of course, but observance of 'proper conduct' were even more important. Its creed was that power was above money, and Aoyagi Masashi was its personification.
As times went by, that 'conduct' was declining. The epoch forced considering the modern lifestyle more than devotion to the past if one wanted to advance the group. And so Nishino Harusumi gained power, and his début as Aoyagi's, his former superior's, equal, became a matter of time.
If Nishino was a thief fitting the times, Aoyagi was a thief left behind. The epoch when they met the tide head-on, throwing a mocking challenge at society, ended. Even the 'customs' of power groups were set to shift at a national level, but they kept holding up the old pose. Not even feeling the need to change anything.
…To put it frankly, Aoyagi Masashi was the sort of man that's obsessed with power. His priority was not the enterprise's income but the brute force given by excess of it.
This man keeping the accounts of the criminal financial enterprise didn't become a loan shark for money, but to drive borrowers into a corner. He purposely lent money to people clearly unable to pay it back and then mocked them. His hand ruined lives; many of his victims ended theirs.
Nishino Harusumi was hard as a doornail himself, but compared to Aoyagi Masashi he still was somewhat reasonable.
He understood that the group's organisation would change in a few years, figured out a way to securely extract profits by lowering drug prices as the customer network grew, and intentionally took up a sinecure everyone else underestimated.
Aoyagi, born with a cockerel's soul, was incredibly irritated at this. Since then Nishino with his cunning ways of obtaining pocket change received constant kicks and humiliations. Once their positions began exchanging places, it started getting worse. Nishino was within an inch of death more that a few times. A year later the shift became obvious. But it was possible that he wouldn't last that long; at that time it was essentially Nishino Harusumi's greatest worry.
However, even as his relations with Nishino worsened, Aoyagi was doting on his underling, Kirisu Yaichiro. Perhaps a man born for brute force saw a fellow in Kirisu's build and arm muscles.
Aoyagi offered Kirisu to become his follower many times, but he kept stubbornly refusing. Aoyagi might have been a clearly, obviously disgusting person, but apparently he could be attentive to those he acknowledged. He nodded to the words 'let me finish school' like a future superior, walked around the night town with Kirisu, brought him to his job many times. That was probably his disposition. In this workplace, worthy in Aoyagi's eyes, Kirisu once saw a familiar woman.
A woman with thin features and eyes tired of life. 'That's a victim, just to have some fun with', - the future superior informed him happily.
If there is such a thing as a turning point in human life, that was it for Kirisu Yaichiro.

Aoyagi was a lost cause.
This man hit the weak, kicked those lying down, everything about him constantly growled 'no saving', there was no worth in him.

The woman owed money to a financial enterprise under Nanase's influence and returned a dangerous minimum every month. Back then Kirisu was in the second year of high school. Apparently, without anyone's help, with no obligation to anyone, she was returning the debt alone. She had a son. To not distract him, who finally began being accepted by society, she desperately laboured - that was clear.
In fact, even with the dangerous smallness of her monthly payments, she would fully settle the debt in half a year. The group intended to wring out the payback five years later, but the payments were stable, there was nothing to latch onto. The income simply promised a full payback in a year.
But Aoyagi didn't like that. Not that the rate was lower than intended. It was that a weak creature he wanted to suffer for its entire life was boldly going to save itself, and it pissed him off.
Drove him mad, it could be said.
"Whaaat?! What are blabbering about, huh! You're trash, dust, like hell you'll become like everyone!" - he kicked the woman bringing the money, kicked her in the head, grabbed her by the neck. - "You don't have a right to say the word future! What fucking son! What, your whelp got uppity, huh? He's better than me, huh? He's trash that crawled out of a trash can, is he better than me, answer me!"
Her blood and sweat seemed to spur Aoyagi's madness on.
And so he, for a single reason - 'a bad mood' - said that he condemns not her life, but her son's.
…The state Kirisu Yaichiro was in then was indescribable.
His thoughts completely froze in that moment. His brain crumbled from the temples down, and his vision was overlaid by a sparkling white curtain.

"Your whelp won't even be able to hold the ball any longer!.."

The voice of Aoyagi, mad, fired up by his own shouting, echoes in Kirisu Yaichiro's vacated skull.
There was a promise.
There was a promise he hasn't ever forgotten since childhood.
There was a friend whose life went down the drain due to his own oversight. That friend said that the promise should be forgotten, but he still wanted to fulfil it.
Kirisu jumped to conclusions.
Two days later. Ready for anything, Kirisu Yaichiro broke into Aoyagi Masashi's office, where the boss was alone.
All is lost. Loved things, betrayed. But there are things for which it's worth it, that must be held on to, he repeated to himself.
If we speak of miscalculations, there were two.
One - when it was over, Nishino Harusumi arrived.
Another - Kirisu Yaichiro had too good a memory.

What happened to Aoyagi Masashi, how it was taken care of - Kirisu doesn't know. He seemed to still breathe, but Nishino Harusumi took matters into his hands.
Aoyagi was unnecessary to Nishino, too. What if he survives, not good, Nishino laughed, and then he and Kirisu began keeping their joint secret.
Why, on that night in Aoyagi Masashi's office, where he should've been alone, did Nishino show up, why did he cover for Kirisu?.. Whatever mutual agendas, Nishino, whose superior was attacked, couldn't just up and become Kirisu's accomplice. And if he could, wasn't it because their goals were the same from the outset? A day longer… an hour longer for Kirisu to decide, and perhaps…

Anyway, it's over. At Nishino's order Kirisu focused on baseball since then and until the end of the third year's summer.
But some days later he realized the oddness.
An ordinary training match. As usual, he got into the batter's square, made the usual swing - and couldn't believe his eyes.
What was a ball became a hateful-looking human head, and upon contact with the ball his ear clearly caught that sound.
Crack.
The feeling of smashing a human head.
Brains disgustingly splattering over the cheekbone.
Suddenly Kirisu realizes he just puked in the batter box.
The ball leaves the field in a beautiful arc. Shouts from the tribunes. In the batter box is Aoyagi's shattered head. The voices from the bench shout about a home run. Under the clear, not a cloud, sky, holding a bloody bat is he.
The excessive sinfulness of the act made Kirisu lose consciousness.

…And so every time this vision clings to him at a home run and doesn't let go. A growing mound of corpses. A maniac repeating an imaginary murder with every home run… To him the game called baseball stopped being his pride and interest forever.
A salvation that stained baseball. Kirisu accepted it as a natural result and abandoned his sport life after the third year in school.
He should've stopped it right away, but he had the precious promise. Its execution was already sinful to Kirisu, but he had a partner who was waiting. For him, the friend, he'll keep staining baseball until the end of the summer - such is Kirisu Yaichiro's finale.
Such is the story of a genius slugger who sneakily lowered the curtains.

◇

The confession solemnly ended.
No other person can know Kirisu Yaichiro's soul. Especially Karyou Kaie, devoid of normal emotions. There's only the irrevocable result.
This sportsman didn't run from baseball, he lowered the curtains. Ended the various joys and sorrows, and the master gifted with such shining talent - not because someone scolded him - ended.
"See, to me baseball is just a pleasant thing, there's no reason."
A conviction that seems like arrogance to ones who don't have it.
"Since that day it changed."
Too simple a faith, incomprehensible to those without it.
This is the end of a man who doesn't value wins and losses above all.
Kirisu Yaichiro took up baseball for fun, protected the promise for his own sake and abandoned baseball for his sake as well. That's the whole story. He said enough.
"Yes. And what does Iguruma Kazumi think about this?"
"Only I and Nishino-aniki know about Aoyagi. We'll have to carry this to our graves… Although I blabbed to you, but it's not like you're a normal person. Anyway it's better than telling that arrogant peacock, eh?"
"Rude, and also sharp-tongued!.. Oh well. After such a metaphor I couldn't blab even under torture."
The underground room's owner softly smiles. He must have liked Kirisu's forced comparison.
"So, what now?.. Any ideas?"
Kirisu Yaichiro's traumatic past. The underground room's owner said that if Kirisu tells him the reason he left baseball, he could offer a way to save Iguruma Kazumi.
"Yes. Thank you for your valuable input. I'm not done yet, rather I have a new question. Please don't get it wrong. I'm just interested in what's going on between you two, but not in whether to save or not to save. I'll primitively voice my opinion on what I've heard, and you'll listen attentively."
Yes, Karyou Kaie did say he wasn't going to indulge Kirisu Yaichiro's sins. The underground room's owner is an exotic bird that listens to words and repeats them.
"Yeah, yeah. Fine, say it anyway."
"The let's begin… Say, Kirisu-san. I'd thought he knew why you abandoned baseball. But now I think that can't be. So he has no reason to avoid you, no?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Like I said, about why Iguruma Kazumi is still going on. You made peace with ending the dream, so why can't he, have you never thought of that?"
"Well…"
It's because Iguruma Kazumi leaves room for a duel with Kirisu Yaichiro. They are still bound by the old promise.
"Yes. I thought about that myself while listening to your story. But why doesn't he just come to you? Not knowing your circumstances, Iguruma Kazumi doesn't feel any awkwardness towards you, Kirisu-san. Now he's a pitcher again, and since he understands he can't decide it on the underground arena, he should come challenge you before he burns out, right?"
"Well… because I'm not a player."
"Casuistry. He's a wandering maniac! Not attacking non-sportsmen is unnatural. And if so, he won't reconsider… he has some other reason to keep up the matches. Indeed, perhaps he wants a match with you, but that's just a dim hope, like a dream. Childhood promise? Hardly. It's not that nice… Sinker was born from something dirtier. Actually, you should know what."
Naturally; he knows Iguruma Kazumi's true reason. Well, no point dragging it out any longer, Kirisu decides and turns away.
"Yes. Sinker was born because he still can't forfeit a certain something. But it won't come to be any more… From what I heard Sinker's crimes look like he commits them to forget about it. Loss of reason, substitution of motive. Perhaps avoidance of responsibility. Actually, Arika knows a lot about that stuff. The possessed have their main reason disappear, and they desperately force another one. Pretend they're okay and build a defence based on shaky justifications."
This is common for people. In their case it just stands on the edge of oblivion.
"Everything's fine…"
Kirisu heard a similar phrase.
What did Ishizue Arika say after casually proclaiming he was attacked by Sinker? Partial loss of memory. A memory dysfunction, how convenient for the ill.
"Come on…"
This can't be, Kirisu protests, but he can't will the idea away. No, even if so, then…
It's incredible, but what if Iguruma Kazumi doesn't understand what happened in the winter, in December?
"What the hell!.."
Kirisu's face freezes. He's stupefied by his own assumption's result. Then there's no way out. No salvation. Sinker will keep killing until he dies, will be merely a killer maniac and nothing more.
"It's pointless. There's no meaning to what he does… Can't he stop it? If we explain…"
"You can't explain to a possessed, Kirisu-san. If you want to stop Sinker, you have to play by his rules. Strike-out - and the batter dies. A hit - and the pitcher dies. Wasn't that the agreement?"
The accusatory voice seems to sing.
The sound feels to be too close. Kirisu almost stops noticing whether he's sitting on the sofa.
"Once again I repeat myself: I'm not going to save any possessed. Do it yourself. But if you say that you desire my aid not for you, but for him…"
'No salvation'. The demon stating that so many times is whispering right into his soul.
"It's simple. Just change your perspective. What can you do now, Kirisu-san? If he'll die either way, what kind of death will you grant him, what'll let him disappear without regrets? You wanted to give him this sort of humane salvation, right, Kirisu-san?"
"I… Well…"
Still, like his soul was taken out of him.
This was the problem he was racking his brain over for the last few days…
"Just hit it."
If he could, he'd abandon worthless convictions and stand in the box, it'd be so easy…
"Then he'll die. Either way, he has only a few days left. Let me repeat, you'll not be hitting him. Just return the pitch. That's enough. You won't reach Iguruma Kazumi's reason that way, but it's a splendid finale for the killer, Sinker."
But…
If he can't even 'just return' it.
If he won't even touch the ball, how his spirits will fall…
"I can't… I won't be able to hit it. And anyway, what kind of baseball is it, to the death…"
Kirisu Yaichiro won't give up his life for baseball.
Not 'can't', 'won't'. Baseball played with lives at stake is not the baseball he loved. A betrayal. But speaking of betrayals…
"Exactly, Kirisu-san. You were agonizing over such a simple problem."
The demon giggles in his face.
The unworldly beauty envelops his eyes.
"Hit it mercilessly".
His vision converges into a tunnel, a dot; again he hears a voice, like on that day.
Right. If he listened to Iguruma Kazumi's plea, this wouldn't happen, and, most importantly, he himself *** it to happen.
"If you think you can't hit it, I can offer my aid. If you give me your elbow and eye…"
The voice is too seductive.
"Curtains must be drawn over his dream".
Right. For this it's okay to once again betray what he loved. Perhaps there's really no second salvation, but if this brings us to the conclusion…
"Right. I… would…"
Kirisu Yaichiro's throat is shaking.
He shuts his eyelids tightly and nearly agrees with the words so naturally thrown out by the demon…

"Don't spout nonsense. This is not like you, you lazy bum. And anyway, what's the point of hitting such a thing?"

…and recovers, hearing the voice of Ishizue Arika, who's finally reached the underground room.

◆

"Come on, move aside. This is not a fake self-proclaimed demon, it's the real deal. Believe him and he'll swallow you whole."
With loud steps Ishizue Arika enters the room. His words let Kirisu find his breath again, and the silhouette on the bed sulks unhappily.
"What's with your bad timing… In these decisive moments you keep saving and getting saved, Arika! People try their best, wanting Kirisu-san's old dream to come true, and you…"
Karyou Kaie spoke incredibly resentfully. The sun on the ceiling was hiding behind a cloud, but the atmosphere of enclosure recently filling the room disappeared like smoke.
"What? Dream? Which one?"
"He's talking about my dotting the i's. It doesn't concern you."
Perhaps wanting to distract attention from his awful behaviour, Kirisu rudely and sharply cuts Ishizue Arika off.
"Heh. Must be one bleak thing you've been discussing here… But well, dreams, dots and other pleasures of life will have to wait; care for some pleasant news?"

Ishizue Arika is still serving as a middleman. Isolate Sekura Yumiya, in case of him being possessed - perform an exorcism. Additionally, have the party at fault to take responsibility. With a strong desire to not involve the law, operating solely through Karyou Kaie's means.
In Ishizue Arika's notebook is written: third party, operate. Exorcising the killer Sinker was necessary for finishing the job.
"You want me to help with that, what, exorcism of yours?"
"Yep. A game to the death, fail to hit - you'll be killed. It'd be a great help if you served as bait."
Kirisu receives an explanation to the sudden circumstances and ponders over what to do, how to react. Get angry, or have his face meet a hand… If it wasn't this guy saying this, he'd already have got punched, but well.
"Recently I asked Mato-san to let me talk to the client. They said: turn the matter over to the police, get this much. Exorcism - that much. What do you think, Kirisu-san? My opinion is that this sum will barely, but still justify risking your life!"
Ishizue Arika first displayed one finger, then spread out all the fingers on both his arm and the prosthetic. To Kirisu money wasn't an issue, but such a sum still made him widen his eyes.
"Ten fingers… And each means a hundred?"
"Of course. We'll split it evenly. Ah, and you don't have to hit. Sinker will get absorbed in the duel, then I'll come up from behind and let the dog take care of the rest", - and patted the black prosthesis.
Ishizue Arika's voice is so careless… well, it's too late, though. At this moment Kirisu finally comprehended his friend's words.
Don't have to hit.
Don't have to hit.
Yes. This guy didn't say 'Hit it' from beginning to end.
So if he doesn't settle things, that's fine.
So a dream is a thing that ends without coming true. Normal people are ready for it, and there's no reason to be embarrassed at regretting that the dream ended fruitlessly.
This is Ishizue Arika's conclusion. That's exactly why Kirisu suffers. Because he's a lucky guy who got a chance to settle it; how envious must he be of his friend?
"Hey, Ishizue-sempai."
"Stop 'sempai'ing me, I tell you. I'm not going to drop all those past quarrels and promises on you. Hmm, I wonder if that's help at all. You do work to live. It's just business, Kirisu. You sheltered Sekura Yumiya for money. You knew he sent Iguruma Kazumi's life downhill, but you took the deal. And now you're gonna, like, reject this one?"
To live means to move forward.
Not to get rid of regrets about the past. Just let go of things holding you back, he says.
"After all, what's more important to you, what was before or what is now?" - he adds in a disappointed tone.
A phrase Nishino Harusumi dropped before leaving comes to mind.
A bog-standard phrase which a mafioso who pretty much couldn't live like one pronounced with dramatic flair.
And - disappointed, going 'you used to be simpler', the most convoluted and weird friend in Kirisu's life, in this world.
"Pfft… I relied on you because I'm in a complete corner. I can't manage this alone. I gave up, like, let it go as it may, and somehow got you involved. In the end, it keeps happening this way."
"Kirisu, not half, seven to three. You know, you're free to think these honest thoughts, but keep them to yourself… So? You accept? No?"
Silently smiles.
Kirisu Yaichiro finally mumbled in a resigned tone of a man who gave up:
"Uh huh, I'll do it properly. You're right, Arika. If someone makes trouble for you, you just gotta put 'em down without pointless talk."
He nodded as a sign of the game's start.

◆

The following is something of a third wheel, but since it got tacked on…
"Perhaps that's enough, gentlemen?.. Although I hate to interrupt your heated discussion. Or don't hate to. Or I should get angry because you touched a nerve… Hmm, what to do, this seems to be the first time such a thing happened, I don't really understand…"
Shaking his head on the bed, Karyou Kaie interrupted.
"Listen. What's with 'hit - don't hit'. You intend to put Kirisu-san, a living human, against him? He's Sinker as it is, there's a handicap, and now the batter hasn't played for years - he'll die after three balls in the best case."
"Well, that's his fault, I'll have to ask you to return his senses. It's enough to last three balls, though. Well, and I just want to quietly sneak from behind for my safety."
"You ruined it."
"Now, now! You can think those thoughts, but keep them to yourself, Ishizue-san."
Contrary to Kirisu staring heavily, Karyou Kaie suddenly cheered up.
"You teamed up, huh… But well, the batting hasn't rusted, maybe it'll be fine, eh, Kirisu?"
"I thought Kirisu-san left baseball."
"Baseball - yeah. He swings the bat to exhaustion every day, it's plain to see. And anyway, who said that you don't swing the bat out of the box?.. Once he started, he won't throw the duel. That's his curious character."
"Heh. You're one to talk. You say it's going to be a strike-out and return a liner; say it doesn't concern you and rush into battle."
"Go on babbling. Since we've decided, let's seize the moment. Let's begin now, Kirisu. No point waiting for the night. We'll end it before the scary lady catches Sinker."
"Well yeah, but… how are you going to call him? You'll have to wait for the night…"
"Here, have it back, Kirisu. Sinker attacked me but was interrupted, so there was no strike-out. I still have a participant's right."
Ishizue Arika holds a golden cellphone out.
The set-up is flawless.
Kirisu Yaichiro, cursing the actions of his friend who notices everything except what'll happen to himself, twisted his lips gratefully.
"Fine… But I have a condition. I'll swing seriously, and you, until the result is clear, keep away."
"Fine. If Sinker gets a strike-out, I get him from behind."
"And one more thing. I won't ask you to save his life, but if Sinker lives after the match, let him come to the police. If you agree to both, I'll play that idiotic baseball for life and death."
"Well, fine. However, the first is clear, but the second… Will Sinker understand?"
"Well, I'm normal, so at least mention that. I'm already going up against a two-stage sinker. This handicap is tiny by comparison."
Ishizue Arika nodded to Kirisu's offer: fine, whatever.
From his viewpoint that condition will be hard to explain, but, as Kirisu said, it's a match between a normal person and a possessed one. Using this as a trump during negotiations might work.
"Damn. To have 'conversation with possessed' skills be handy even here… You never know what amusing talents a person might have."
Ishizue Arika, grateful to the absent Touma Mato… not a bit grateful, of course, just pretty words, turns to Kirisu Yaichiro.
"Okay, Slugger, I'll set up the fairest stage I can for you. Really, it's great that it didn't go to waste."
"Prepare? How?"
'I don't get it', - the widened eyes of Kirisu and Kaie said.
Ishizue Arika looked at them…
"Well, like I said, a special platform designed against double sinkers. Whoops, I didn't say it?"
…with an even more amazed look.

[Desuclocker]

I think it was before Enhance even started on the project? It certainly was before I did.

[Daiki]

Thanks for the update.

[Rue]

Oh, would you look at that. Thanks once again for your work!

[Leftovers]

<-- sat down and actually read SvS-2

Holy shit Hinomori is amazing. And between Kaie and the hatter there was quite a bit of info on the workings of possession too.

Thank you for doing this, Desu!

[m1el]

I planned to make an e-book from this translation thread a long time ago, but my adhd nature prevented this from happening.
However, today I've spent 4 hours coding a download script, and it kinda works.

You can download a completely untested e-book from here: ******************#!RtlWACII!eAWBdyeEp...bqduTwFfRu4uu0
And the downloader is over here, in case anyone is able and willing to improve it: https://github.com/m1el/ddd-download

[Desuclocker]

It looks pretty good, although not without faults. Could use a bit of work on spacing, and in some places the (rare) TL note gets confused for actual text.

Overall, good work!

[m1el]

Thanks for the feedback, Desu. slightly updated version

Btw, does anyone know which image is missing from this post: http://forums.nrvnqsr.com/showthread...=1#post1509332 ?

[Desuclocker]

I think you want this one.

[m1el]

Nope, that image is used here already.

Also:

Ouch... I forgot about this painful part.

[Desuclocker]

All right, I just went through the original scans, and yes, there's no image there.