"Whoosh!!"
The white baseball hissed through the air.
Osaka Kiryu's seventh batter froze. His eyes followed the ball, his bat swung bravely—he swore he made contact.
Yet when his swing finished, there was nothing. Empty air.
"Thwack!"
The ball landed cleanly in Chris's mitt.
The batter's face paled. Like a phantom… it disappeared.
That was the same thought Chris had the first time he caught it. The pitch that seemed to vanish. The pitch he had named—the Illusion Ball.
"Strike!"
Silence swept through Osaka Kiryu's dugout and the stands. Confusion hung in the air.
Nobody dared hope their batter could hit this ball out of the park. At this point, even just touching it seemed impossible.
"At least… make contact—" someone muttered.
The second pitch came, this time Zhou Hao's Straight ball. The seventh batter, still haunted by the Illusion Ball, hesitated. He swung late.
"Ping!"
The ball dribbled weakly, barely five meters. Zhou Hao pounced, scooped it up, and fired to first.
"Thwack!"
"Out!!"
Two outs, bases empty.
Kiryu's dugout stirred uneasily.
"Completely unreadable…"
"It looks identical to a fastball, but breaks away at the last instant."
"And paired with his Straight, the effect doubles…"
For the mighty Universe Team to sound this uncertain—it said everything about how shaken they were.
"A baseball doesn't just disappear," Director Matsumoto murmured, eyes narrowed. "There's a trick."
At that moment, Osaka Kiryu's eighth batter stepped up. Normally the weakest link in the order, even as a main player, his odds looked grim. Few expected anything from him.
And yet—
"Ping!"
Contact!
The crack of the bat startled even the hitter himself. He blinked at the bat in disbelief.
The ball skipped outside the third-base line.
"Foul!"
Azuma lunged but couldn't glove it.
Shock rippled through Osaka Kiryu's bench. Even by accident, someone had touched the untouchable.
Chris's jaw tightened. Damn it… too lucky. If not for that mistake swing, they might never have figured it out.
Now, with even a sliver of data, a team of Kiryu's caliber would begin dissecting the mystery.
Zhou Hao responded sharply: two Spiral balls in succession.
"Boom!"
"Thwack!"
"Strike!"
"Strikeout!!"
Three outs. Side retired.
The inning was over, but the damage was done.
When the eighth batter returned, his teammates swarmed him.
"What happened?"
"How'd you see through it?"
"How did you touch that ball?"
The player raised his hands helplessly. "I don't know… I think my swing was off. A mistake."
Director Matsumoto's eyes glinted. "When you swung, your bat dropped lower than usual, didn't it?"
"Yes… my posture slipped."
"That explains it." Matsumoto's lips curved into a thin smile. "It's not sorcery—it's a low-angle inside slider."
All eyes turned to him.
"The motion mimics a Straight. But with extra spin from his grip, the ball veers inward just before the plate—about twelve ball-widths. To the batter's eyes, it looks like you're making contact. In reality, the ball drops under the bat. A visual misplacement."
"…It feels like magic," one player whispered.
"It is magic," Matsumoto replied coolly. "Applied to baseball."
Even so, a trace of respect flickered in his voice. To throw such a pitch flawlessly, repeatedly, on the Koshien stage—Zhou Hao's control was beyond anything he'd seen.
"He really is a monster. He wants you to doubt, to hesitate. The moment you waver, he'll strike you down with the Straight."
"Insidious… this guy's too insidious!!"
"What do we do, Director?"
"You gamble." Matsumoto's eyes sharpened. "This trick only works low in the zone. Up high, it fails. So on low pitches—you guess. Straight or Illusion. Fifty-fifty odds. And with three at-bats each… someone will solve him."
The dugout straightened. Their fear ebbed, replaced by a simmering confidence.
For the first time, Osaka Kiryu felt they had a real path to cracking Zhou Hao's magic.
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