Diamond No Ace: Echoes Of The Ace

Chapter 10: The Match

Eijun sulkily returned to his hospital room after being scolded by his mom.

Lying on the bed, he felt inexplicably restless, tossing and turning without knowing what to do.

Seeing him like this, Grandpa Tanaka couldn't help but speak up.

"Eijun, you've decided to go to Seidou next year, haven't you? How are you planning to handle it? Even though they haven't made it to Koshien in six years, it's still a powerhouse baseball school. The pressure will be intense, right?"

"Is that so? Isn't it just baseball, no matter where you go? As long as there's a ball and a bat, you can play, right?"

Eijun replied weakly, lying face-down on the bed, his head tilted.

Grandpa Tanaka sighed at the boy's naive answer.

While technically true, baseball was indeed just about the ball and bat at its core, there was more to it than that.

"Eijun, what you said isn't wrong, but do you really think Seidou is just that simple?"

Noticing Grandpa Tanaka's serious expression, Eijun looked puzzled.

But as he recalled the things he saw, heard, and felt during his visit to Seidou's training facilities, a shiver ran down his spine.

He sat up straight, trying to give a serious answer.

"No, it's not. Seidou is… how should I put it? Exciting? Passionate? That doesn't quite feel right."

Grandpa Tanaka smiled wryly at Eijun, who seemed lost in his own thoughts.

"Intense, fiery, like a battlefield. Am I right?"

"Yeah, exactly! There were tall, strong guys everywhere, but they were surprisingly agile."

"They'd dart around the field in a flash, and the ball would snap into their gloves just like that. And so many players could hit the ball really far—it was terrifying!"

"There were even some amazing seniors practicing their pitching and batting, but one upperclassman with a hitting streak just kept knocking their pitches away."

Grandpa Tanaka listened attentively as Eijun animatedly described what he had seen at Seidou.

The boy's honey-colored eyes sparkled, as if lit by the sunlight.

"Exactly. That's what a powerhouse is like, Eijun. Without a strong, determined heart, you can't survive there. Every player is incredibly skilled, and they can be great teammates—but only if you can become one of them."

"That place really is like a battlefield—not just because of its location in Tokyo's highly competitive league, but in its very nature."

Eijun couldn't quite grasp what Grandpa Tanaka meant.

A battlefield?

Wasn't it supposed to be a team?

He suddenly thought of the war films he had watched with his grandfather.

His face turned pale as gruesome scenes of flying limbs and bloody bodies flashed through his mind.

"Tokyo? Seidou? Is it really such a terrifying place?"

Grandpa Tanaka, noticing the way Eijun's imagination had gone completely off-track, sighed deeply.

"What are you thinking? I'm talking about intense competition, not a battlefield where people die!"

"Wait, it's not the kind of battlefield where people die?"

"Of course not—it's just high school baseball! How could something like that happen? Well... actually, there have been incidents."

Hearing this confirmation, Eijun's expression crumbled entirely.

"Wait, calm down and listen to me."

"Yes, there was an accident in Koshien once where a player tragically passed away, but it was a rare accident."

"What I mean by 'battlefield' is the fierce competition between students. In Tokyo, with over 200 schools competing in the summer tournament, only two teams can make it to Koshien."

"Everyone else faces defeat. Lose just one game, and for the third-years, their three years of effort are for nothing."

"Every team is made up of the best players chosen from many, and you saw how many players were there that day, didn't you?"

"A lot," Eijun admitted.

Compared to his current school, the atmosphere was entirely different.

The massive baseball field seemed cramped with players practicing all sorts of drills.

That was just one field—Seidou had outdoor fields, indoor training facilities, equipment rooms, bullpens, and more.

Eijun was finally starting to grasp what kind of place Seidou was.

"Exactly. Powerhouses like Seidou always have a lot of players—almost a hundred. But out of those, only 20 can make the bench for the qualifiers."

"At Koshien, that number shrinks to 18. And among those, only 9 players can step onto the field to play. Many bench players might not even get substituted in for a single inning.

Eijun, that is baseball."

Eijun had never considered the possibility of not being able to play in a game.

In middle school, he had barely managed to gather the minimum number of players for a team.

The idea that simply standing on the field could be such a challenge had never crossed his mind.

Now, he couldn't help but wonder what kind of emotions drove the Seidou seniors to keep striving so hard.

That day, Eijun's perspective on the world shifted entirely.

Grandpa Tanaka told him many stories about high school baseball—about other schools, Koshien, and most of all, his own experiences.

Eijun finally understood just how naive it was to think that all you needed to play baseball were a ball and a bat.

If you wanted to truly enjoy baseball and play it with happiness, you needed enough skill to back it up.

Otherwise, you'd be left watching the victors embrace and celebrate, while you walked off the field in defeat.

In baseball, only the winners get to enjoy the game freely.

For the losers, all that's left is regret and tears.

Claims like "I gave it my all," "I have no regrets," or "I did my best" are often hollow.

Deep down, you'd be haunted by questions: Why didn't I try harder?

Why couldn't I run faster?

Why couldn't I hit that single or home run?

But does that mean those players didn't try?

At Seidou, Eijun had witnessed firsthand how hard everyone worked and how strong they were.

Yet, even with all their efforts, they hadn't reached Koshien in six years.

No one could deny their determination, not even themselves, and that only made the pain of failure cut deeper.

"Hey, the finals for the Tokyo Summer Koshien qualifiers are next week. Let's go watch it together," Grandpa Tanaka suggested. "I think experiencing the atmosphere firsthand will be good for you."

Eijun agreed to the invitation.

After another two aimless days in the hospital, his mom finally allowed him to be discharged.

However, Eijun hadn't been sleeping well.

He spent his days watching game recordings, thinking about Grandpa Tanaka's words, and his nights dreaming of strange, blurry things that left him feeling restless upon waking.

Finally, the day of the finals arrived.

At the train station, Eijun's mom dropped him off where Grandpa Tanaka was already waiting.

"Mr. Tanaka, I'll leave him in your care today. Are you sure you're feeling up to it? If not, Eijun can go on his own—he's a big boy now."

"Hahaha, don't worry, Mrs. Sawamura. It's been a long time since I've watched a live final. I'm really looking forward to going with Eijun."

"Well then, safe travels! And Eijun, don't trouble Mr. Tanaka, alright?"

"I won't!" Eijun protested loudly.

...

At the Stadium

"Whoa, it's huge… and there are so many people!"

Eijun leaned on the railing, marveling at the massive stadium filled with countless spectators packed closely together.

"Alright, Eijun, sit down now. The game's about to start," Grandpa Tanaka reminded him.

The atmosphere in the stadium was electric.

Even sitting in the stands, Eijun could feel his heart pounding with excitement.

As the air raid siren signaled the start of the game, the tension rose, and the match began.

Both teams were powerhouse schools from Tokyo, showcasing incredible offense and defense right from the start.

The game was intense and evenly matched.

Although players managed to hit singles, they were repeatedly stopped from scoring.

It was nothing like the games Eijun had seen back in Nagano.

Despite the lack of runs, the game felt extraordinarily fierce and of an entirely different caliber.

During the intermission, Grandpa Tanaka asked Eijun what he thought about the game so far.

Eijun, his gaze fixed on Seidou's dugout, clenched his fists and, barely suppressing his excitement, replied with a grin:

"Baseball really isn't something you can just watch. You have to get on the field and play it yourself!"

Grandpa Tanaka was taken aback.

He had assumed that seeing such a high-level game might intimidate Eijun.

Instead, it seemed to have lit a fire in him.

'He's a pitcher through and through,' Grandpa Tanaka thought to himself.

"But it's strange," Eijun continued. "Isn't Chris-senpai the starting catcher? Why isn't he playing in such an important match? Instead, there's this… Miyuki, uh, Miyuki-something?"

"You don't know him? That's Miyuki Kazuya, a genius catcher. He was really famous in middle school! Lots of top schools in Tokyo invited him, but for some reason, he chose Seidou," a nearby spectator helpfully explained, noticing Eijun's confusion.

"The Chris in those recordings? Maybe it's because of the phone call you made the other day that he's not playing now," Grandpa Tanaka said, stroking the beard on his chin as he watched the field.

Eijun's hands, which rested on the railing, clenched tightly.

He wasn't sure how to feel about it.

"Don't worry," Grandpa Tanaka reassured him.

"It might actually be a good thing that he's been subbed out for now. He'll likely have another chance to return to the field. But it's incredible, isn't it? Using a first-year catcher in a final like this… that kid must be something special."

Neither Eijun's worry nor Grandpa Tanaka's amazement stopped the game from resuming.

The second half of the inning was underway.

In the final innings, Inashiro replaced their ace pitcher with a first-year, Narumiya Mei.

Seidou, feeling insulted by what they perceived as underestimation, was fired up.

Yet, they couldn't fully crack Narumiya's pitching, even until the very end.

Inashiro's excellent defense bolstered their batting lineup, leading to a critical moment when their cleanup hitter smashed a powerful hit into the outfield, driving in two runs.

These two runs ultimately sealed their victory.

Eijun's most vivid memory from that game was the sight of the Seidou seniors crying in defeat.

That was when he realized that the catcher on the field was the same one who had caught his pitches during his visit to Seidou—the intimidating, genius catcher Miyuki Kazuya.

Even Seidou's feared "Big Brother" upperclassman couldn't hit Narumiya's pitches in the final moments.

Standing silently on the sidelines, fists clenched, Eijun watched the heartbreaking scene unfold.

Yet, his heart burned with a single thought:

---I want to play baseball! I want to stand on this field! I want to fight alongside them, against the strongest opponents!

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