Ace of Diamond: Return of the Pitcher

In the final match, the American players finally regained their pride. Although they didn't manage to break through Narumiya at the end and win, so there was a slight sense of regret.

However, overall, their reputation was saved.

For these players from Los Angeles's Wind Youth Academy, being able to secure a draw against the Tokyo representative team in front of them was still somewhat acceptable.

Although they hadn't thought much of their opponents before arriving, after one game, they greatly acknowledged the strength of the Tokyo representative team.

It would be hard not to recognize it after being dominated by the Tokyo team's players like that.

The American players had good personalities and were quite open-minded.

At the suggestion of the reporters, they gathered with the Tokyo players to take group photos.

The players were very eager to interact with the Tokyo players.

They truly acknowledged the strength of the players from Japan.

Even without mentioning the best-performing player, Sawamura, the other players showed extraordinary determination and skill in these two matches.

On the baseball field.

The Tokyo players were also willing to communicate with the American visitors.

However, for some, their poor English was completely useless at this moment.

At this point, Sawamura still stood out like a crane among chickens.

His fluent spoken English was so perfect that even the American players couldn't detect any awkwardness.

If they closed their eyes and didn't look at Sawamura's Japanese appearance, they might have even mistaken him for someone born and raised in America.

Plus, his top-notch performance in the game made the American players eager to interact with him.

They affectionately pulled Sawamura into conversations.

Sawamura handled it effortlessly.

Besides him, there were few other people who could communicate well with the American players—surprisingly one was Miyuki Kazuya.

This genius had evidently prepared in advance for MLB and worked hard on his language skills. Even his partner, Sawamura, didn't know that Miyuki was now this good in English.

Sawamura had always thought that Miyuki only started learning English seriously after entering MLB.

Now, it seemed his assumption was naïve.

Another one was Yoh Shunshin.

This guy was a genius in foreign languages. Besides his native language, he was proficient in three other languages.

Even Sawamura was amazed.

Among the people Sawamura knew, Yoh Shunshin's talent for learning could definitely be ranked in the top three.

"Yoh-san is amazing, you've never been in such a linguistic environment, yet you can use it so fluently?"

"It's not that impressive, just a bit of talent."

Yoh Shunshin pushed his glasses, and his casual tone, along with the gesture, made him look incredibly cool in Sawamura's eyes.

'This guy was really something!'

Sawamura sincerely admired him.

Frankly, something like that wasn't easy without talent or really a lot of hard work and dedication.

After the interview, everyone boarded their respective trains and went their separate ways.

Sawamura and Miyuki naturally stayed together.

In the final two innings of the second game, Miyuki partnered with Narumiya Mei.

Any other coach in the position of Coach Kunitomo would have found it difficult to be absolutely fair and just.

Coach Kunitomo did an excellent job in this regard.

Regardless of the reason, he was able to achieve fairness at least on the surface.

Just that alone was already a significant achievement.

We must know that during the Summer Tournament, teams like Seidou High School and Inashiro Industries almost always face each other in the finals.

Although it was done out of necessity, the decision to pair Narumiya with Miyuki was remarkable.

All of the Tokyo representative players, including Sawamura, were shocked.

"How is Mei-san's pitching? What's different when seen from the catcher's perspective?"

Sawamura asked directly, genuinely curious.

He was very familiar with Mei's pitching, but that understanding was from a batter's perspective.

What would it feel like to view Mei's pitching from the catcher's perspective?

Sawamura was truly curious.

Not to mention that the Narumiya he knew had already transformed into someone completely different from before.

Especially that Change-up.

It still lingered in Sawamura's mind.

In the previous game against the American representatives, although the Tokyo team won decisively, there were still many elements of luck involved.

In terms of strength, the gap between the two teams wasn't that big.

If the American players had prepared better for the Tokyo team from the start, they wouldn't have lost so badly.

In summary, the American team had strength.

The reason they lost so badly was mainly due to bad luck.

Their strength was by no means weak!

In this case, it was almost unbelievable that Narumiya could strike out batters using three change-up pitches.

As for Sawamura, although he perfectly replicated Narumiya Mei's performance, it was largely because the batter had a mental shadow from Mei's pitching.

Without that mental shadow, Sawamura would have struggled to strike out Reinhardt so smoothly with Change-ups.

Miyuki didn't answer Sawamura's question, instead wearing a concerned expression.

They were traveling in the same direction as the Inashiro baseball team, so they were riding on the same train.

At this moment, the two teams were still together.

Miyuki suddenly glanced at Narumiya Mei with a complex expression.

Sawamura, behind him, looked at Miyuki with curiosity.

"What's on your mind?" Sawamura genuinely wanted to know. Miyuki wasn't the type to intentionally act mysterious.

So his sudden silence was concerning.

Miyuki, however, wasn't concerned about that. After some hesitation, he finally approached Narumiya.

"Mei!"

Narumiya looked surprised at Miyuki's sudden call.

Even when Miyuki took the initiative to speak, his response was very calm.

"Is something wrong?"

When the two of them started talking, a few members of the Inashiro baseball team in the carriage pricked up their ears.

Sawamura looked at them curiously.

Neither side knew what the two were about to discuss.

Miyuki's expression was very hesitant.

Finally, his belief won out over his mixed feelings.

He spoke up.

"I don't know if I should say this, but you have seen your habits when you pitch."

These words landed like a thunderclap.

Everyone was stunned.

This was huge news.

For a pitcher, if they have certain small habits when throwing a fixed pitch type, it can be extremely fatal.

Even top-tier pitchers like Sawamura Eijun and Narumiya Mei cannot escape this. If they have such a weakness, their opponents will relentlessly exploit it during the game.

If Miyuki truly discovered such a weakness, then why would he reveal it?

The players of the Inashiro baseball team looked at Miyuki with complex expressions.

As a friend and partner, Sawamura understood this well.

'Miyuki-senpai is just that kind of person. If he discovered a pitching weakness in Mei-san during their partnership, he would definitely point it out.'

In other matters, Miyuki might play some tricks, and his words could be sharp, but on this matter, he would not hesitate.

From this perspective, he is a very honest guy.

Thus, Sawamura was not at all surprised by Miyuki's choice.

What surprised him was that Mei had an obvious weakness in his pitching.

'It shouldn't be!'

Although the title and fame of "Tokyo Prince" might not be as loud as the "Demon King" Sawamura, Narumiya Mei is still well-known nationwide. Inashiro Industrial High School faced several strong opponents this year.

The champions of the Jingu Tournament and the runners-up of the Spring Koshien.

None of this was based on luck; it was all earned through the strength of the Inashiro baseball team.

And the core of Inashiro's baseball team is Narumiya Mei.

'If there were such an obvious weakness in Mei-san's pitching, it should have been discovered long ago by his opponents, long before Miyuki found it.'

'No, wait!'

'It's not completely impossible.'

Sawamura quickly reconsidered his thoughts.

After all, the world is full of surprises.

If Narumiya's weakness is extremely subtle, only visible from the catcher's perspective, then it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility.

'But, Would Harada-san or Tadano let such an obvious weakness without addressing it?'

While Eijun was lost in thought, Miyuki Kazuya had already informed Narumiya Mei of what he had discovered.

"Every time you throw the Changeup, your mitt instinctively rises. If the opponent doesn't pay attention, they might not notice anything, but if they observe carefully, they should be able to spot the difference. There's about a 3 to 4 cm difference between the two. And when you pitch Straight ball, you put a bit more power on your right leg, so your stride looks a bit faster."

When Miyuki Kazuya shared his discovery with the players of the Inashiro baseball team, they all looked at him with strange expressions.

Especially Narumiya. His face showed no signs of panic. Instead, he smiled in a way that made no sense.

"Well, this is an unexpected turn of events!"

He suddenly said this out of nowhere.

Eijun and Miyuki exchanged glances. Both were not fools.

By observing the reactions of the Inashiro players, they could roughly guess what was going on.

There must be something they didn't know about.

The two remained silent, patiently waiting for an explanation from the players of Inashiro.

Mei glared at Kazuya.

"I say, why didn't you just quietly take this information back to Seidou? Why bring it up here?"

Upon hearing Mei's question, Kazuya, despite having already suspected something, broke into a cold sweat.

He suddenly thought of something very frightening.

"Could it be...?"

"This is really frustrating. We've been wasting our efforts."

Narumiya said with a sly smile… or what it would look like a sly smile because he was more smug about it.

'So it was a trap!' Eijun thought a bit relieved with the info.

It turns out that before the exchange game began, the players of the Inashiro baseball team had already rehearsed all sorts of possibilities, including the pairing of Narumiya and Miyuki.

According to the lineup of the Tokyo representative team for the exchange game, the probability of them pairing up wasn't very high.

However, the players of Inashiro had an intuition that such a pairing would happen in the upcoming match.

To be prepared, they had designed a trap before the game.

This trap was set to allow Miyuki to bring back information to Seidou High School.

The Inashiro players never underestimated themselves.

Even though their old rivals, Ichidaisan High School, and the rising stars, Yakushi High School, the talented players of Inashiro High School had no doubts—they would win in the end.

The only team they felt uncertain about was the dominant Seidou High School.

In this era, Seidou High School is at its peak. Even the elite players of Inashiro High School didn't dare to underestimate Seidou.

That would be the battle of the decade.

Before that battle began, they definitely didn't want to reveal any of their secrets to Seidou's players, especially their Ace's pitch.

However since the exchange game would be centered around Inashiro High School, they might face unavoidable situations during the match.

If they couldn't hide their weaknesses, they would have to resort to a mix of truth and lies.

This strategy was similar to Eijun perfectly copying Mei's pitch.

It's incredibly difficult to handle American players without showing any strength.

'Since that's the case, it's better to showcase a bit more and perhaps create confusion.'

'Clearly, the Inashiro players, especially Mei, were thinking the same thing.'

They had carefully set a trap for Miyuki.

The plan was progressing smoothly, and it seemed that Miyuki had fallen into the trap.

But no one expected that he would bring it up at this moment.

"Why bring it up?" Mei asked.

The Inashiro players looked at Miyuki in confusion.

They weren't unfamiliar with him, after all, they had some history together.

In their minds, Miyuki wasn't the kind of person to just do things without a reason.

There must be a scheme; they were sure there was a conspiracy behind it.

Though they thought this, they could never voice it.

After all, it's not like they could complain after he pointed out their weakness.

"Well, it was intentional after all!"

Even though Miyuki broke out into a cold sweat, he appeared calm on the surface.

The players of Inashiro all nodded.

"We've already let you see our Ace's pitch, of course, we have to give you some 'gifts' to take back. But we didn't expect you to bring it up!"

This phrase, "bring it up," was repeated three times by the star players of Inashiro, clearly expressing their frustration.

"Can't help it, what else can we expect from this guy? He's just a good person at heart." Mei chuckled.

"But is it really okay, for you to tell us your plan like this?" Sawamura asked.

"What can I say, Kazuya's honesty touched my heart. Unlike certain someone." Narumiya teased Miyuki while japing at Sawamura.

As the train reached its stop, the Seidou players had no choice but to leave.

"This means we've let you see my pitch courses for nothing, and you two managed to steal the spotlight in the game," Narumiya Mei said angrily.

"Mei-san, saying it like that makes you look like a very vain person."

"Look who is talking, didn't you do the same when you were pitching?!"

"Oh me? No way, this was me going at 50% of my strength!" Sawamura said with a smug smile.

"You Damn Vain Kid!!"

When he opened his mouth angrily again, Sawamura couldn't help but relax.

Earlier, he had been puzzled by Mei's strange behavior.

On the field, Narumiya Mei was indeed very imposing, but in everyday interactions, he always appeared immature.

In short, he had the heart of a child.

It turns out, he hadn't changed his personality; he had simply been hiding something.

Eijun laughed and shook his head.

In fact, this made him feel relieved. Narumiya was still the same as before.

Although his strength had grown stronger, his core nature had not changed.

"How will you compensate me for my loss?"

Just before Sawamura and Miyuki got off the train, Narumiya still wanted to argue.

Fortunately, Miyuki wasn't going to indulge him.

"You've failed at your own scheme; how could you ask for compensation?"

Miyuki had seen many shameless people, but Narumiya's level of shamelessness was rare.

"You have won the Senbatsu, but we will be having the summer this year!" Narumiya said with an unusually serious tone.

"Like I would let you!" Miyuki replied.

The time together was brief, and as the train started moving again, the Inashiro players quickly disappeared from sight.

Eijun and Miyuki exchanged a look, both realizing the gravity of the situation.

The behavior of the Inashiro players today had served as a huge wake-up call.

It made them realize that they were more targeted than they had imagined.

If Inashiro's team were setting traps for them, how would other teams treat them?

"My skin is crawling!" Eijun said, deeply affected.

"By the way, about your earlier question—what do you think of Mei's changeup? Do you think you can hit it?"

"No!" Miyuki answered almost without hesitation.

Eijun was surprised.

"Summer's just a month away! Before it starts, I'll find a way."

...

T/N: Well, That's it for now.

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