"A baseball enthusiasts' circle?"
Sawamura's first reaction upon hearing about it was complete bewilderment.
Come to think of it, shouldn't he technically be considered Akagi's most senior alumnus?
After all, he'd graduated from Akagi many years ago in his previous life. He'd merely returned to the school after being reborn.
So why had he never heard anything about a baseball enthusiasts' circle?
Fūryō Shōta adjusted the glasses resting on the bridge of his nose and answered with certainty.
"Yes. This school does have a baseball circle. Although none of the current third-year students belong to it, there are still two experienced members in the second year."
He paused briefly before continuing.
"Hōshō-senpai and Oda-senpai!"
Sawamura hesitated for a moment.
In the end, however, he simply shook his head.
"Doesn't matter who they are. We don't need to bother with them."
He'd never heard of this baseball circle in his previous life, and he had absolutely no intention of getting involved with it now.
There were two main reasons he'd enrolled at Akagi Junior High.
The first was to fulfil the promise he'd made to his childhood friends all those years ago.
The second was to use these three years to train himself properly before entering high school.
As far as Sawamura was concerned, it would be much better if he remained the one calling the shots at Akagi.
With one or two years of proper training and teamwork, he was reasonably confident that he could lead his friends to the National Tournament.
After all, Nagano wasn't an especially large region.
There weren't that many genuinely formidable opponents to worry about.
The entire prefecture had only a little over forty junior high schools.
Nearly half of them barely took baseball seriously in the first place.
When all was said and done, there were only a handful of schools that could truly be considered serious rivals for Akagi.
And they had three whole years to work with!
Sawamura had no desire to complicate matters by involving additional upperclassmen or underclassmen in his plans.
I'm perfectly comfortable being the captain right now.
Why would I deliberately invite two upperclassmen to join and give them the opportunity to boss me around?
Wouldn't that just be asking for trouble?
Sawamura had absolutely no interest in recruiting the two senior members of the baseball circle.
Even when Fūryō Shōta mentioned that both boys had previous Little League experience, Sawamura remained unmoved.
After all, not all Little League teams were created equal.
If they had come from prestigious programmes such as Kamemaru Little League, Matsukata Little League or Daikyō, that would have been a different matter.
But Little League teams from Nagano?
Forget it!
As far as Sawamura could remember, Nagano had two officially recognised Little League organisations and another three or four privately operated youth baseball teams.
Yet none of them seemed to have achieved anything particularly noteworthy.
Unfortunately, although Sawamura had no intention of approaching those two upperclassmen, the upperclassmen themselves had other ideas.
They actually came looking for him!
Hōshō stood an impressive 185 centimetres tall.
Oda, on the other hand, was only 165 centimetres.
With a full twenty centimetres separating their heights, the two of them standing together were practically the perfect example of an adorably mismatched pair.
When Oda and Hōshō appeared before him, Sawamura was suddenly overwhelmed by a complicated mixture of emotions.
He genuinely didn't know what he was supposed to say to them.
Although his mental age was more than ten years greater than theirs, the two boys standing before him were undeniably his upperclassmen in his current life.
The strange contradiction between their actual ages and their positions within the school hierarchy left Sawamura feeling distinctly uncomfortable.
He wasn't quite sure what sort of attitude he ought to adopt.
"Please, senpais, have a seat."
Believing himself to be behaving with exceptional humility and respect, Sawamura politely invited Hōshō and Oda to sit beside him.
Then…
He had absolutely no idea what to say next.
Oda and Hōshō exchanged a glance before taking the offered seats.
Sawamura genuinely believed he was being remarkably modest.
However, the two upperclassmen could clearly sense the stubbornness and forceful personality hidden beneath his polite exterior.
Despite facing students who were a year older than himself, both of whom had once made names for themselves in Little League, Sawamura showed no sign of regarding them with any particular admiration.
It had to be said that their instincts were remarkably sharp.
Because they were absolutely right!
Sawamura didn't hold them in especially high regard.
After all, how could anyone reasonably expect a pitcher who had fought his way through Major League Baseball to look back upon two obscure players from a rural Little League team and treat them like extraordinary talents?
The fact that Sawamura was being this polite was already quite an achievement!
His own upperclassman, Kuramochi, had been considerably worse.
After becoming a professional player, whenever Kuramochi encountered his former companions from the countryside, he'd put on such an arrogant air that he barely bothered speaking to them.
Compared with that fellow, Sawamura considered himself positively humble!
And so…
The three of them sat facing one another.
One minute passed.
Then two.
Then three.
For three whole minutes, nobody said a single word.
Hōshō and Oda found it difficult to bring themselves to state their intentions.
Sawamura, meanwhile, genuinely had no idea what he was supposed to say.
Oda couldn't help complaining inwardly.
Honestly!
Fine, you didn't invite us to join your baseball club!
But now that we've swallowed our pride and come all the way here ourselves, couldn't you at least give us a way to save face?
Would it kill you to offer us a convenient opening?
Unfortunately, Sawamura genuinely didn't want these two upperclassmen joining the club and making his life more complicated.
Most of his childhood friends had started playing baseball together simply because they wanted to have fun.
Of course, Sawamura was determined to achieve excellent results.
But if pursuing those results meant completely changing the atmosphere of the team and making his friends miserable, he'd find that equally troubling.
After all, he didn't know what sort of people these two upperclassmen really were.
He didn't understand their personalities.
Nor did he know what ambitions they might possess.
Under those circumstances, how could he possibly invite them to join without giving the matter proper consideration?
Yet now that they'd taken the initiative to approach him, outright rejecting them would hardly be appropriate either.
A flicker of anger appeared in Hōshō's eyes.
What's this supposed to be?
Is this brat deliberately trying to put us in our place?
Hmph!
After letting out a cold snort inwardly, Hōshō finally broke the silence.
"I've heard that Captain Sawamura is quite an extraordinary player."
His voice carried a distinctly challenging edge.
"If it's not too much trouble, would you mind giving us a demonstration of your abilities?"
Sawamura froze for a moment.
Then realisation dawned upon him.
Oh!
So that's what this is about!
He's not convinced!
Fortunately, dealing with that sort of problem was something Sawamura understood perfectly well.
If he doesn't acknowledge my abilities, I'll just beat him until he does!
…
Sawamura had considered the possibility that Hōshō might possess a certain amount of talent.
However, he'd never imagined that the very first time the boy swung his bat, he'd already find the timing needed to make contact with his pitch.
CLANG!
The baseball struck Hōshō's bat and floated weakly towards third base.
Oda, who was watching the confrontation closely, immediately broke out in a cold sweat.
That's bad!
If the ball landed in fair territory, it would almost certainly result in a routine flyout.
The ball was travelling so slowly, and its landing point was so close to third base, that Oda couldn't imagine any reasonable possibility of it escaping a fielder's glove.
Fortunately, the baseball didn't land in fair territory.
Instead, it drifted across the foul line and dropped outside the field of play.
"Phew…"
Oda released a long breath of relief.
"First pitch! Foul ball!"
However, neither Sawamura nor Hōshō made any move to continue.
Under the ordinary rules of a one-on-one batting contest, that pitch would naturally be counted as a foul ball.
But both players understood what had actually happened.
It had been a weak foul pop-up.
The sort of ball that would almost certainly have been caught for an out in a proper match.
In other words…
Hōshō Okuichi had lost their first confrontation!
"I lost."
Hōshō Okuichi looked rather dejected as he admitted defeat.
Sawamura, however, was secretly astonished.
To be fair, he hadn't employed any particularly sophisticated techniques during that pitch.
He'd simply relied on his superior velocity to overpower his opponent.
Nevertheless, there hadn't been anything fundamentally wrong with the pitch itself.
Its angle was sound.
Its velocity was excellent.
And the force behind it was more than sufficient.
Yet despite all that, Hōshō Okuichi had still managed to make contact!
Looks like this upperclassman from the baseball circle isn't nearly as ordinary as I thought!
"That one doesn't count!"
Sawamura's eyes suddenly lit up.
"Let's go again!"
Now that he'd finally encountered such a promising batter, how could Sawamura possibly allow the opportunity to slip away?
He was like a shark that had just caught the scent of blood.
An almost predatory excitement gleamed in his eyes.
And Hōshō Okuichi certainly hadn't had enough either.
He was more than willing to continue their confrontation.
Unfortunately for Hōshō, what happened next was rather satisfying to watch.
In this life, Sawamura hadn't deliberately trained his breaking balls.
However, just because he hadn't been practising them didn't mean he was incapable of throwing them.
More sophisticated breaking balls required his body to become properly accustomed to the necessary movements before he could use them effectively.
But simpler breaking balls?
Those were an entirely different matter.
Sawamura could still throw them without much difficulty!
And once Sawamura began gradually unlocking his repertoire of breaking balls, Hōshō Okuichi's unfortunate fate became almost inevitable.
After three rounds of confrontations, Hōshō, who had previously possessed considerable confidence in his batting ability, had been thoroughly beaten into submission.
By the end of their contest, he barely had any fighting spirit left.
And so, the final conversation between the two boys went something like this.
Sawamura: "Well? Do you admit defeat?"
Hōshō: "I admit it!"
Sawamura nodded with satisfaction.
Good!
As long as you know who's better, that's all that matters!
End of Chapter 011