The Hokuto players arrived at the dugout, drawing everyone's attention. Shun looked in their direction with fire in his eyes, he was excited.
The boy then looked at the stands. He could clearly see his mother, father, and little sister sitting in the area right behind the catcher. He then looked one row below them and saw three beautiful girls sitting and chatting, one of them being his sister Mika, but the person who caught his attention was a blonde girl with green eyes.
"She came!" - Shun smiled and quickly looked away. He noticed that Kazuki had left the dugout, heading toward the umpire. On the other side of the field, a white-haired boy also came out of his dugout and walked toward the umpire.
"Shoto, your call." - The umpire held a coin in his hand and spoke to Kazuki.
"Heads." - Kazuki said without thinking too much about it, since heads or tails was just a game of luck.
The umpire nodded and flipped the coin. Both captains and the umpire watched the coin fall to the ground and spin until one of its faces came up.
"Hokuto, your choice." - The umpire said, seeing the tails side up.
"We'll start on offense." - The white-haired boy, Sugawara, said disinterestedly. He turned around right after speaking, without bothering to greet the opposing captain.
"Tch!" - Kazuki was a bit irritated by the boy's attitude. He greeted the umpire and returned to his team's dugout.
"We're starting on defense!" - Kazuki said as soon as he arrived.
"Get ready!" - Coach Yamada nodded before shouting loudly to his players.
"Yeeaahh!" - All the Shoto players shouted as they raised their fighting spirit. None of them hesitated anymore.
"They seem fired up." - Kohei said, observing Shoto Junior High's dugout shouting loudly.
"Eh? Whatever... Toru, finish them off. Let's get this over with quickly." - Sugawara said to a small boy with black hair and an ugly face.
"Hehe, leave it to me!" - The small, ugly boy said with a smug smile as he climbed the dugout steps with his bat in hand. That was Toru Okada, the center fielder and leadoff hitter for the Hokuto team.
"Keep it going, Isamu!"
The dugout continued cheering. Kazuki looked worried about the situation.
"Isamu Endo, second-year shortstop. He has a good bat, we can't let them score this early in the game!" - Kazuki began to think of a plan, but it was much more difficult than he thought. All he knew about this batter was what he had seen in the game against Seishin.
"Damn! I can't overthink this, I need to get the best out of Sora." - Kazuki made up his mind. He gave a signal and positioned his glove. He called for a curveball that would fall right at the lower edge of the zone for a strike. Sora nodded at the sign and pitched.
PAH
"Ball!"
The pitch dropped a little more than it should have, and Isamu just watched the pitch without moving.
"Damn! Is his control off? Or was he shaken by the previous hit?" - Kazuki began to worry about Sora's condition. The boy seemed fine during warm-ups. Since it was still too early to judge, Kazuki called for an inside high fastball.
Sora nodded at the sign and pitched.
"Damn!" - Kazuki realized the pitch hadn't gone where he wanted, it was an easy fastball right down the middle. The captain hoped Isamu wouldn't swing, but unfortunately, his hope wasn't enough.
WOOSH
DOOOOOONG
"Damn it!" - The young samurai Ren shouted as he watched the ball fly high and fast toward the right-field stands. He saw the runner on second base trot past him with a smile on his face.
Shun looked at the ball and ran for a bit before giving up, sighing deeply. He glanced at Sora on the mound with concern.
"This isn't going to be easy..."