Diamond No Ace: The Strongest Hitter

Chapter 203: Meeting Without Recognition

At the end, Kiryuu's players once again made a promise to meet again in Koshien, and it was the most said to Sendo. Today, he was truly impressed by this guy's performance.

Sendo got Tachi's LINE because this guy openly told him that he liked his smile, which left Kiryuu's team members stunned.

"Sendo!" When Sendo followed everyone out the gate to see off Kiryuu's players, Coach Kataoka called out to him.

"What is it, Uncle Sunglasses?"

"Hey!"

Though Sendo had gotten used to the nickname he'd given him, and Sawamura had also picked it up (as Coach Kataoka thought of him), hearing it in front of the other coaches still made Coach Kataoka's head throb.

"Phew! Tomorrow, you can rest for the day. Get some recovery from the training fatigue."

"Thanks for your hard work today!".

"Sendo-kun!" Coach Matsumoto spoke up.

Hearing the voice, Sendo turned around.

"Your performance today was truly perfect. I look forward to your growth. See you again at Koshien!"

"Alright, then I'll take my leave first." After seeing the coaches were fine, he caught up with everyone.

"Sendo-kun is really an interesting kid!"

"Not at all!"

Afterward, the two began their goodbyes.

"Kataoka-san! Just like I said to Sendo-kun, let's meet next time at Koshien!"

"Yeah!" With Coach Kataoka replying, Coach Matsumoto headed toward the bus.

"Alright, we're heading to Kanagawa tomorrow. You all better stay focused!"

"Yes!"

"Thanks for your guidance!" As the bus started, the team led by Yuuki bowed to bid farewell.

"Thanks for your guidance!"

Tachi flashed a final smile after the bus started, marking the end of the day's battle.

"He smiled!" Furuya stared blankly at Kiryuu's departing bus.

"He really did smile! Let's head back!" Sendo softly replied, looking quite happy.

"Huh? Sendo! You're in a good mood today!" Sawamura curiously leaned over to peek at Sendo.

"What's up?"

"Well... how about catching my newly evolved pitch?"

"I wanna pitch too!" Furuya seemed like he wanted to compete with Sawamura on everything, or maybe he just liked mimicking him, not to mention he somewhat admired Sendo.

"I almost died earlier. Who cares about you two!

I'm heading back!"

"One pitch is fine!~ Sendo~" Sawamura pouted and acted cute, staring at Sendo's retreating back.

However, Sendo completely ignored him.

That night!

Knock, knock, knock!

"Who is it?" Sendo tiredly opened the door.

"Sendo! I can't sleep! Come run laps with me!"

"Do you know what time it is?" Sendo glanced at the clock in his room.

"Forget it! Let's go!" Seeing Sawamura's determined gaze, Sendo couldn't refuse.

"By the way, aren't you afraid of waking people up?"

"I saw Watanabe-senpai, and he said you were the only one sleeping."

"Is it not considered disturbing me? Hey! Don't deliberately ignore me!" Seeing that Sawamura wasn't treating him like a person, Sendo expressed his frustration.

"Huh? What are you doing, sneaking around practicing alone?"

"Too sneaky!!" When the two of them reached the field and saw Furuya running alone, Sawamura was upset.

A second later, Sendo noticed that Sawamura seemed to have realized something.

"Wait! Isn't that my Aibo?"

"That's not good, classmate!"

"So that's what it is! By the way, I think this happened in a previous life too... but I can't remember clearly." Sendo was speechless at Sawamura's thought process.

"What's the big deal? If it's yours, you should put your name on it!"

"I did! Right here, look! Right here!" Then Sawamura pointed it out for him!

"You really did write it! When did you do that? I have no memory of it!" Sendo nearly choked on his spit.

So, Sendo, who was mildly interested, watched as the two of them bickered.

"Hey! You guys!" After a while, a voice called down from the slope.

The three of them looked up.

"Sawamura, Furuya, just because you're not playing tomorrow doesn't mean you can slack off! You still have to wake up early tomorrow, don't overdo it!"

"And Sendo, what are you doing here instead of going back to sleep?"

"None of your business! I don't even know why I'm here!" Sendo mumbled quietly.

"Well, you two did give up 15 points, so it's no wonder you can't sleep!" And with that, the guy went back to bed.

Leaving Kuramochi, who was left in stunned silence, to watch him go.

"I see now! So that's the backstory! Hahaha!" Sendo suddenly remembered the situation.

At this point, the two pitchers were completely heartbroken.

"Wait! Bastard! We only gave up 14 points total! Don't add extra!"

And Furuya, trembling, added, "Yeah! Don't add it!"

The two were absolutely adorable.

"Nobody would recognize you if you took off your cap and goggles!" Sawamura shot some harmless trash talk, leaving Sendo speechless as he wondered whether he should teach him how to properly make someone feel hurt.

In the end, Sendo dismissed the idea, thinking, "What if this guy learns how to hurt my feelings?"

"Alright, go back to sleep!" Sendo interrupted Sawamura, who was still throwing a tantrum.

The next day, during the practice match against Inashiro, Furuya started as the left fielder, and Haruichi as the second baseman, with mostly substitute players on the field.

However, none of this concerned Sendo. He had the day off today. Last night, due to being dragged out by Sawamura, he woke up just as the game was nearly over.

After waking up, he fell into deep thought.

According to the original timeline, today senior Tanba would get injured. Though he wasn't sure if that would still happen, after thinking it over repeatedly, he realized there was nothing he could do.

Should he not show up today to avoid the injury?

He'd definitely be seen as crazy!

Even if there was a way to prevent it, he just couldn't think of one!

Sendo wasn't even sure if he wanted to go watch the game today.

After thinking for a while, he finally made up his mind—he would go!

However, in the end, he decided not to watch the practice match.

True to his word, Sendo put on his clothes and went looking for snacks, only to realize there were none left.

He then remembered that, during the training period, he had been too tired to go buy anything.

So, he headed to the cafeteria and grabbed a bunch of bananas.

...

"It's about time to go, Mei! I hate this guy!" As Sendo casually walked toward the field, he overheard a large guy from Inashiro say this.

"Yeah! Last summer, he was completely dominated by Miyuki's leadership!"

"Shut up! Let's go!"

Fate would cross their paths again, though they didn't recognize each other.

"That guy is Harada Masatoshi, the catcher from Inashiro. He's really big! Hmm..." Sendo thought to himself as he took a bite of his banana.

"Speaking of which, haven't I seen this face somewhere before? Well, it's such a common face, so it's not surprising if I have." With that thought, Sendo walked over.

"Well then, see you later!" Narumiya had just finished speaking when he noticed Sendo's presence.

Standing over 180 cm tall, Sendo was hard to miss. Although there wasn't much information about him, his face had been remembered.

"One of the monsters from Seidou High! Sendo Akira!" Narumiya muttered, his voice sounding awkward as if he couldn't quite figure out how to say it.

Pitchers and batters, there's a natural opposition between them, and Sendo had something Narumiya didn't.

Sendo made his debut in the spring tournament, while Narumiya only got to play as a starter in the summer tournament.

Because of that, Narumiya was very focused on Sendo, though in a way that couldn't be clearly defined. This led him to remember both his name and face.

"What did you say?" Harada heard Narumiya's voice, turned around, and saw what happened next.

"What are you guys doing? Has our game against Inashiro ended?"

"What are you doing here, Sendo? Why are you only showing up now?"

"I'm off today! Just woke up!"

"You just woke up!!" Sawamura wasn't happy with that response.

"Still acting like the big shot! But your performance yesterday was really good. You must be exhausted, so it's fine to rest for a day," Kuramochi also chimed in.

"Yesterday? I heard that they played a practice match against Osaka Kiryuu! How did it go?"

"There's so little info about this guy!"

"Speaking of which, why do I feel like I've seen him before? The name Sendo feels like I should know it! What's going on?"

Harada was lost in thought as well.

"If I had known about a player like him before, there's no way he would have been so quiet this year!" Harada thought.

"What's wrong, Harada-san?" Narumiya, noticing Harada's deep contemplation, asked.

"Nothing! Let's go!" Harada said, turning and walking away, bringing an end to the first meeting between him and Sendo after six years.

Both of them forgot about each other, which was understandable. After all, it had been over six years, and they had only met once. At that time, Sendo wasn't paying attention to the opponent.

The same was true for Harada. Although Sendo's performance had been impressive back then, it was normal for an elementary school student to either get dominated or dominate others.

Over time, such events were easily forgotten.

Elementary school was just a phase.

Even though Harada had wanted to form a pitching-catching duo with him in the future, and even after visiting the Wild Cats to understand why Sendo didn't play in the summer tournament, the memory faded once he found out that Sendo had moved away after a practice match the following day.

Over time, Sendo's name became just a distant impression, no matter how vivid that memory had been.

"Sawamura! You should really pay attention to that left-handed pitcher! Watch him closely!" Chris said seriously to Sawamura after the two left.

"Huh?"

"During last year's summer semifinals... It was them who blocked our path!" Kuramochi recalled.

"For us, they're like fateful opponents! If we don't beat them, we can't reach Koshien! Inashiro's second-year ace! Narumiya Mei!"

"Let's go! Let's join the seniors and watch the game!"

Out of respect, no one was watching from the catcher's perspective, so the group joined their seniors.

Sendo was teased by his seniors about his stamina, and then they all watched the game together.

Even though Inashiro had only allowed five hits in the first six innings, Narumiya's pitching suddenly shifted to another level in the seventh inning, as if he had been saving his energy for this moment.

He displayed his ace-level stamina management, with a slider that had great late movement, a forkball that dove sharply toward the ground, and a fastball that hit 148 km/h.

Sendo, watching Narumiya pitch up close for the first time, was truly impressed.

In his previous life, Sendo had been an outsider who watched baseball from the sidelines.

Now, having entered the world of baseball, he could truly appreciate how terrifying these pitches were.

He knew that Narumiya's signature pitch was always a change-up, but even without counting that, Narumiya was an extremely tricky pitcher in Sendo's eyes.

How would a confrontation between them go? Sendo couldn't picture it. He knew that his skills were probably not on par with Narumiya's, but he also knew that he wouldn't be without a chance to fight back.

Recently, Sendo himself had begun to feel that he was in a period of growth. He could even feel himself getting stronger.

In a pitcher-batter duel, the batter has multiple opportunities, and choosing to let some pitches go might change the outcome. However, this estimation was very inaccurate. Even Sendo himself didn't know what his true level was, and Narumiya was undoubtedly more skilled than just what was visible.

Even though the estimation was off, deep down, Sendo had the feeling that Narumiya was someone he couldn't quite beat, and that thought drove him on relentlessly.

"So, how do you feel, Sendo? How about that pitcher? Are you scared? Also, since you're a left-handed batter, your match-up with him might not be great!" Fox-senpai asked, grinning.

"Not really! This pitcher is strong! But isn't it interesting to face an opponent when you don't know if you can win?"

"Exactly! And this thing called 'match-up' isn't always absolute, right? Maybe it's not him and me who are a bad match!"

"Ha ha ha! You're an interesting one!"

"You really dare to say that!"

"But the incredible thing is, for some reason, it's hard not to believe him!" Chris murmured to himself as he watched everyone relax because of Sendo's words.

At that moment, Narumiya threw his change-up.

"A change-up!" It was Jun who spoke bluntly.

"What's that? A pitch that's neither fast nor slow!" Sawamura asked curiously.

"What's wrong? Everyone?" Sawamura noticed the odd expressions on their faces and asked.

"That pitch is hard to deal with!"

"Why?"

"It's a slow pitch hidden behind a fastball, making it difficult for the batter to adjust to its speed! That's why it's so tough to hit!"

"Hmm… still don't get it!"

"Why aren't you nervous? You're a batter too! And you were the fifth batter yesterday!"

"Oh! Because that kind of pitch doesn't affect me. My spatial awareness is really good, so I'm able to adjust to the speed difference without getting fooled."

"What are you talking about? I don't understand at all!"

"Just remember, normally, that pitch is very troublesome."

The seniors were completely immersed in their own world and didn't hear the conversation between them.

"Tch! That pitch wasn't a joke. On top of having a powerful fastball with both horizontal and vertical movement, now he's adding changes in speed?"

"That guy! How much further is he going to evolve?"

However, Jun's evaluation was immediately overshadowed by Narumiya's overly confident expression, which annoyed him.

That high-and-mighty look was enough to make even the usually calm Sendo want to teach them a lesson.

"I really want to punch that smug face of theirs!"

"Now's the time for a pitcher's line drive!" Of course, Ryousuke's thoughts were the worst.

"We need to hit one out in today's game!" Masuko was already planning how to handle Shuhoku High.

Everyone's fighting spirit had been ignited, and Tanba called Ono over.

Sendo, without saying a word, closed his eyes to simulate the scenario in his mind.

After finishing the simulation, he walked off without a word.

"Are you leaving?" Sawamura noticed Sendo walking away.

"Mm."

"Looking forward to it! Inashiro!" Sendo's thoughts echoed in his mind.

At this point, Tanba was nearly flawless. Unlike later when he returned from injury and occasionally threw hittable fastballs, he was able to control the game almost entirely with his fastball, with his crucial curveball always coming through when needed.

With a steady mindset that never broke under pressure, it could be said that Seidou now had its ace.

Tanba's injury might have been fortunate for Sawamura and Furuya, as it allowed them to get significant playing time in their first year, growing rapidly, especially Sawamura.

But for Seidou, it was an unfortunate turn of events.

When Sendo learned of Tanba's injury, all he could do was silently mourn in his heart.

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