Because junior high school baseball teams were in direct competition with one another, they tended to be extremely wary of their rivals.
Naturally, when a previously unknown team like Akagi suddenly appeared, along with a pitcher as remarkable as Sawamura, the other schools were eager to see what they were capable of.
They wanted an opportunity to test themselves against this mysterious newcomer.
Unfortunately, during that period, Sawamura had instructed Sano to reject every single invitation for a practice match.
The result was something nobody could have anticipated.
By making themselves unavailable, Akagi had inadvertently created a sense of scarcity, making the other schools even more desperate to play against them.
It was an unexpected stroke of good fortune for Akagi.
They certainly weren't lacking potential opponents anymore.
For a newly established baseball team, this was an incredibly valuable advantage.
In his previous life, even when Sawamura and his teammates had reached their third year of junior high school, they had still frequently made elementary mistakes during matches.
And why was that?
Simply because they hadn't played enough matches!
They lacked practical experience.
This time around, however, it seemed Sawamura would no longer have to worry about finding opponents for practice matches.
The team he'd chosen was Nagata Junior High School.
Nagata was a school only marginally stronger than Akagi, and it was particularly famous for its consistent first-round exits.
A first-round casualty, as the name suggested, was a thoroughly weak team that habitually got eliminated in the opening round of major tournaments.
What kind of team made up the largest proportion of participants in major national competitions?
Different people would undoubtedly have different answers to that question.
However, there was one answer that almost everyone could agree upon, and which was supported by the numbers.
Teams that were eliminated in the first round.
Such teams accounted for nearly half of all participants.
In terms of sheer numbers, they were unquestionably the largest group.
Nagata was precisely that kind of team.
For the past ten years, they had never once managed to advance beyond the opening round of a major tournament.
As a result, they had earned the rather affectionate nickname of the 'Perennial Bottom-Feeders'.
No matter how deeply the members of such a team loved baseball, their greatest ambitions could hardly compare with Sawamura's.
After his rebirth, Sawamura was no longer satisfied with merely leading his childhood friends to the National Tournament.
He intended to take them all the way to the top.
He wanted Akagi to become national champions!
Nagata Junior High, on the other hand, had a much more modest dream.
Their greatest ambition was simply to survive the first round of a major tournament and finally break the curse that had plagued their school for so many years.
Even their hot-blooded captain could only rally his teammates with promises of achieving the greatest result in Nagata's history.
And what exactly was that historic achievement?
Approximately fourteen or fifteen years earlier, Nagata had managed to reach the last sixteen of the Nagano Prefectural Tournament.
Admittedly, reaching the last sixteen would have been a fairly respectable result in a place like Tokyo.
But Nagano Prefecture had only a little over forty junior high schools in total!
Reaching the last sixteen generally meant winning no more than two matches.
Depending on how favourably the tournament draw worked out, some teams could even reach the last sixteen after winning just a single match.
Consequently, Nagata's greatest historical achievement wasn't particularly impressive when examined more closely.
Nevertheless, their lack of success did absolutely nothing to diminish their love of baseball.
Nagata had a reasonably large number of club members, and their training was organised and thorough.
Amongst the weaker teams that regularly suffered first-round eliminations, they were actually one of the more respectable opponents for a practice match.
Their current practice-match record stood at fifteen games played and three victories.
That was precisely why Sawamura had selected them.
They weren't particularly strong, but at least they resembled a properly organised baseball team.
The moment Sawamura arrived at Nagata Junior High, he experienced something that could only be described as celebrity treatment.
Nagata's players immediately gathered around him.
They surrounded him from every direction, treating him like the centre of their universe.
"Is it true you can throw at 120 kilometres per hour? You don't even look much taller than 160 centimetres! How tall are you exactly?"
"Which Little League team did you play for? I don't remember hearing your name before! You must have been pretty famous in Little League, right? Are you a transfer student?"
"It's a pleasure to meet you! Please take good care of us!"
Their behaviour didn't resemble upperclassmen greeting a younger student at all.
Nor did it resemble hosts welcoming a visiting team.
If anything, they looked more like a crowd of devoted fans meeting their favourite celebrity.
"I'm 166 centimetres tall!"
"And I've never played in Little League. I've always trained on my own!"
Sawamura cheerfully answered Nagata's players as they bombarded him with questions.
However, he couldn't help complaining inwardly.
How am I supposed to play against these guys after they've welcomed me like this?
Nevertheless, Sawamura could more or less understand why Nagata's players were behaving so strangely.
They genuinely loved baseball.
Because of that love, they must have studied the sport extensively.
Sawamura was certain that they'd also worked incredibly hard to break their school's curse of perpetual first-round eliminations.
And yet, despite all their efforts, they still lacked confidence.
Baseball had existed in Japan for such a long time that the competitive hierarchy was firmly established.
Every additional round a team advanced in a major tournament represented a significant difference in strength.
Even after training diligently and giving everything they had, Nagata's players still couldn't see a clear path towards success.
Can Nagata Junior High really win?
Can we actually defeat another school in an official tournament?
Those questions constantly weighed upon them.
Akagi, however, was different.
Although Akagi's baseball club had only just been established and possessed none of Nagata's experience or history, it had one extraordinary advantage.
Sawamura Eijun!
As long as Akagi had Sawamura as its leader and ace pitcher, Nagata's players firmly believed that the team wouldn't remain trapped in the first round for very long.
Whether in the real world or in fictional stories, there were countless examples of a single outstanding pitcher transforming an otherwise ordinary baseball team into a genuine powerhouse.
Unfortunately, pitchers of that calibre were extraordinarily rare.
But whenever a team was fortunate enough to obtain one, its members could begin dreaming of achievements that had previously seemed impossible.
The National Tournament!
Perhaps even Koshien someday!
Why did Nagata lack confidence?
The answer was painfully simple.
Because their team didn't possess an ace pitcher like Sawamura.
Envy.
Admiration.
Longing.
All those complicated emotions intertwined, eventually producing the peculiar scene unfolding before him.
Nagata's players crowded around Sawamura like fans surrounding a famous star.
But were they really gathering around Sawamura himself?
Not entirely.
What they were truly drawn towards was the dream they'd always carried in their hearts.
A dream that Sawamura seemed capable of making real.
"Please take good care of us!"
"We're looking forward to playing against you!"
After spending nearly ten minutes being questioned and admired like a celebrity, Sawamura finally managed to escape the enthusiastic crowd.
At last, the practice match between the two schools officially began.
It was the top of the first inning.
Nagata Junior High would bat first.
Whoosh!
The baseball shot from Sawamura's hand like a beam of laser light.
It flew straight towards home plate and plunged into Yamaguchi's waiting mitt.
THWACK!
The sound of the ball striking the catcher's glove was extraordinarily heavy.
So heavy, in fact, that the hearts of Nagata's players seemed to sink along with it.
What incredible speed!
And that power!
Although they'd already heard descriptions of Sawamura's pitches from Shirin Junior High's second-string players, witnessing them with their own eyes was an entirely different experience.
They couldn't help being shocked.
"His fastball is ridiculously quick!"
"Doesn't that look faster than 120 kilometres per hour? I've seen 120-kilometre-per-hour pitches at a batting centre before, but I swear his look faster!"
"Is that guy really only twelve years old?"
Nagata's players began discussing the astonishing pitch amongst themselves.
Whenever they looked towards Sawamura, their eyes were filled with a mixture of envy and admiration.
Amazing!
He's seriously amazing!
But why?
Why did such an incredible pitcher have to enrol at Akagi instead of coming to Nagata?
If only our team had a pitcher like him…
The possibilities were simply too wonderful to contemplate.
Nagata's players barely dared to imagine what their team might accomplish with such an ace standing on the mound.
"Strike!"
"Strike!"
"Strike three! You're out!"
"Strike three! Batter out!"
"STRIKE THREE! YOU'RE OUT!"
Faced with Sawamura's fastballs, which were now exceeding 120 kilometres per hour, Nagata's batters were completely helpless.
Their batting speed simply couldn't keep up with his pitches.
And anticipating the timing of his delivery before the ball arrived was a skill that lay well beyond their present capabilities.
Under those circumstances, their only option was to swing blindly and hope for a miracle.
Unfortunately for them, Sawamura wasn't feeling particularly charitable.
He dispatched all three batters with ease, recording three consecutive strikeouts.
Three batters up.
Three batters down.
The inning was over before Nagata even had a chance to mount a meaningful attack.
In truth, Nagata's overall strength wasn't particularly different from that of Shirin's second-string team.
Back then, Shirin's reserves had been completely incapable of hitting Sawamura's pitches.
Naturally, replacing them with Nagata's players wasn't going to make much difference.
"Great pitching!"
"That was brilliant!"
Akagi's players enthusiastically gathered around Sawamura as he returned from the mound.
Every single one of them was delighted.
After all, not a single baseball had been hit towards them during the entire inning!
Which meant they hadn't needed to field anything.
And if they didn't have to field anything, there was no danger of a baseball suddenly flying towards them!
Being able to dispose of their opponents so easily, without having to worry about catching or stopping the ball themselves…
Wasn't that absolutely wonderful?!
End of Chapter 007