Chapter 244: The 15th Strikeout!
"Impossible?"
Everyone on Inashiro Industrial High School's baseball team knew very well that the freshman pitcher from Seidou High was incredibly talented and smart.
They had never doubted that fact.
But being smart was one thing; being smart to such a terrifying extent was another matter entirely.
Completely reading the batter's intentions and deliberately setting traps to bait the hitter—
This clearly wasn't the style of Seidou's freshman monster pitcher.
Then, who exactly was behind this cunning tactic?
The answer seemed obvious.
Carlos lowered his head and found himself staring directly at Miyuki, who had a faint smile on his face.
It's him after all!
Because Seidou High's first-year ace had performed so spectacularly on the mound, Inashiro's players had unintentionally focused all their attention on him alone.
They had completely overlooked Miyuki's presence.
This was a serious oversight!
Carlos should have known all along—his opponent wasn't just the boy pitching on the mound, but also this troublesome catcher who had given them headaches from long before.
"It's you?"
Hearing Carlos's question, Miyuki smiled and nodded lightly.
"You didn't seriously think we'd let our first-year carry the burden all alone, did you?"
As he finished speaking, Miyuki deliberately glanced at Carlos.
"Your opponent has never been Furuya alone—it's always been our entire team."
At that moment, Carlos felt a tremendous shock inside.
He'd previously been full of confidence.
Although Furuya's pitching was undeniably astonishing, he had already thrown so many pitches today. Including this at-bat, they'd directly faced each other four times in this game alone.
If counting previous encounters, they'd faced off even more frequently.
As the star player of Inashiro Industrial High School, Carlos naturally had tremendous confidence in his abilities.
Take this very moment, for example. He was fully convinced he had a good chance of hitting Furuya's pitches head-on.
Only now did Carlos finally realize how naive he'd been.
He had always thought about confronting his opponent in a straightforward, head-on clash.
But why should Furuya cooperate and engage him directly?
Furuya clearly had smarter options—simpler ways to secure an out.
The atmosphere in Inashiro's dugout grew heavier. The players' expressions darkened as they realized this uncomfortable truth:
Seidou High School had never once had a reason to play according to Inashiro's tempo.
They had their own rhythm, their own strategy…
"Things just got even more complicated!"
Narumiya Mei, sitting in the Inashiro dugout, stared at Miyuki's bright and confident expression, inevitably recalling the scene when he'd once invited Miyuki to join their team.
"Do you want to join us?"
At that time, Narumiya had already succeeded in recruiting stars like Carlos and Shirakawa, forming the foundation for a powerhouse team.
If Miyuki had agreed back then, they could've built the most formidable high school baseball lineup in history.
But Miyuki had declined.
Rather than joining an unstoppable team, Miyuki had chosen the challenge of overcoming them on the field.
And now, that decision had become prophetic.
What if Miyuki had agreed back then?
No matter the opponents in West Tokyo or even at Koshien—they would've swept through every challenge effortlessly.
Even a monster like Furuya would have been nothing more than a minor obstacle along their path to glory.
But memories were only memories.
The battle on the field continued relentlessly.
Though Carlos now clearly recognized the enormous difficulty ahead, he had no intention of giving up.
He raised his bat once more, staring at Furuya with intense concentration.
Yet this time, Carlos no longer had the overwhelming confidence he'd felt earlier.
Facing the combined power of Seidou's pitcher-catcher duo had just multiplied the difficulty exponentially.
This was an undeniable fact.
Even Carlos himself wasn't entirely confident at this point.
But that didn't matter.
Although he lacked the certainty to land a solid hit, he still clearly remembered his coach's instructions.
If he could directly hit the ball, that would naturally be ideal.
A clean hit would not only put him safely on base—it might even give them a scoring opportunity if luck favored them.
And even if they couldn't score immediately, they'd still put pressure on Seidou High's defense.
At this stage of the game, politeness was pointless.
They couldn't afford to let go of any chance, no matter how slim, to increase their odds of winning.
Just like right now, he needed to stubbornly cling on and fight to the bitter end.
"Boom!!"
On the second pitch, Carlos didn't swing.
"Pop!"
"Strike!"
Two strikes—Carlos was cornered.
Miyuki, crouched behind the plate, frowned slightly.
He quickly noticed Carlos had altered his batting strategy.
"He adapted quickly!"
Miyuki couldn't help but feel impressed.
Inashiro Industrial's star players certainly lived up to their reputations.
They definitely weren't some one-man team.
Besides Narumiya Mei, every one of their key players was difficult to handle.
Playing against such a strong team was undeniably exhausting.
Fortunately, Seidou had plenty of extraordinary talents of their own.
Their ace pitcher, for instance.
"Bring it on!"
Seeing Miyuki's sign, Furuya subtly nodded.
He could easily guess what his opponent was thinking:
"You plan to drag out my pitch count? Go ahead and try!"
Now, with two strikes against the batter, Furuya had no reason to worry about Carlos refusing to swing.
He lifted his leg high and slammed it back down, shifting his body's momentum and releasing the ball with overwhelming power.
"Boom!!"
No matter how many times they'd seen it before, the hardcore Seidou fans in the stands felt their blood boiling each time Furuya unleashed another blazing fastball.
Such a thrilling sight—this was truly the pitching style of a real man!
While they were lost in excitement, the white ball had already reached the batter.
Carlos's face turned grim.
His dark complexion seemed to darken even more with determination.
As the baseball suddenly appeared right before his eyes, Carlos clenched his teeth hard and swung the bat with every ounce of strength in his body.
"There's no way I'm letting this pitch get past me!"
Carlos held tightly onto his bat, unwilling to loosen his grip even a little. As he swung, the young batter gave it everything he had—pushing his limits like never before.
"Clang!"
At the instant his bat connected with the ball, Carlos felt his hands go numb.
So powerful!!
It was even stronger than he had imagined!
Forget comparing it to a cannonball—this pitch felt like being hit by a bulldozer.
Carlos nearly lost his grip on the bat. Thankfully, he managed to hold on desperately.
The white baseball was forcibly driven into foul territory.
"Foul ball!"
In the stands, Seidou High's die-hard supporters continued to cheer excitedly, deeply feeling the immense strength behind that pitch.
"That Carlos is one of Inashiro's star players!"
"Even he couldn't send the ball forward into fair territory!"
"Just how powerful was that pitch?"
The crowd buzzed with admiration.
However, among Inashiro Industrial's own players, none of them thought Carlos had been overpowered by his opponent.
Quite the contrary.
They unanimously felt Carlos's performance deserved their highest respect.
"This guy is too cool!"
"He actually managed to foul that monster's pitch off!"
"Maybe by the third pitch, that monster won't be as strong as we think!"
Although none of the Inashiro players had yet noticed any signs of collapse in Furuya, they were determined to stick to their strategy—to keep wearing him down bit by bit.
They could only hope desperately that the moment they were waiting for would arrive as quickly as possible.
So even the smallest hint of weakness from Furuya was something the players from Inashiro Industrial absolutely refused to overlook.
Right now, for example, they were already starting to feel Furuya was no longer as invincible as he had been at the start of the game.
They believed they'd finally discovered his weakness.
"Maybe if we swing at the next pitch with all we've got, we can send it flying?"
Just as this hope was beginning to blossom among the players and supporters of Inashiro Industrial High—
Furuya stepped forward on the mound.
With even greater intensity than before, he hurled another pitch toward home plate.
BOOM!!
The white baseball shot out like a bullet.
In the batter's box, Carlos knew very well that waiting until the last moment to swing against Furuya was impossible.
With other pitchers, perhaps he could manage it.
But against Furuya's incredible speed, delaying his swing was meaningless—he had to make his decision the instant he saw the ball.
From the very first glance, he had to judge the pitch's trajectory and timing, then swing without hesitation.
This required both sharp instincts and solid experience.
Only by combining both could anyone stand a chance of connecting with the freshman monster's pitches.
Carlos did exactly that.
The moment he saw the ball leaving Furuya's hand, he swung with everything he had.
"Hit it out!"
Since he'd managed to foul off the previous pitch—even though it had left his hands trembling—Carlos still believed he had a chance to hit the ball solidly this time.
With a tremendous swing, Carlos sent his bat flying through the air.
"Whoosh!!"
His bat sliced through the air with tremendous force, producing a fierce sound.
Yet this time, his bat hit nothing at all.
Carlos had clearly seen the baseball and had timed his swing perfectly.
He wasn't fully confident he'd get a solid hit, but he was at least sure he'd make contact.
Yet his bat passed cleanly through empty air.
"How is that possible?!"
Carlos's dark face was filled with disbelief.
Where's the ball?
How could a ball that big suddenly vanish from his sight?
The answer revealed itself immediately.
As soon as that thought crossed Carlos's mind, the white baseball had already landed neatly in Miyuki's mitt.
"Pop!"
"Strike!"
"Strikeout!"
"Three outs—change sides!"
The final pitch turned out to be a changeup?
Furuya had used this tactic before, and it had already caused plenty of trouble for Inashiro's powerful hitters.
Logically speaking, Inashiro's batters should've been prepared for a pitch like this.
Yet, in reality, not a single batter from Inashiro Industrial High had anticipated it.
Under the constant pressure of Furuya's lightning-fast pitches, no batter could remain composed enough to specifically guard against the changeup.
Compared to the unlikely chance of facing a changeup—which appeared maybe once every dozen pitches—they preferred betting everything on the overwhelmingly fast straight balls.
Whether it was the two third-year batters who went down earlier, or Carlos who'd just been struck out, all of them made the exact same choice.
In a situation like this, the sudden appearance of a changeup became Furuya's ultimate finishing move.
At the end of the bottom of the eighth inning, the game had finally reached its final inning—
The ninth inning!
The score was tied 2:2.
This final inning was destined to be extraordinary.
At the top of the ninth, it was Seidou High's turn to bat.
However, very few spectators were paying attention to something as trivial as who was batting next.
Instead, almost everyone's focus was glued to a single, astonishing fact:
"Fifteen strikeouts!"
In this single game, Furuya Satoru had already broken the record that he himself had set just moments earlier.
"Good heavens! Is he really just a freshman?"
Though they'd confirmed it repeatedly, whenever the fans mentioned Furuya's incredible achievement, they couldn't help but ask this same question again and again.
They simply couldn't believe it. Such a remarkable achievement was actually created by a freshman?
He still had two full years ahead of him!
If he was already this powerful now, just how far would he grow in two years' time?
No one present could give a definite answer.
But one thing was certain:
Even now, Furuya had already etched his name into high school baseball history.
He was truly that extraordinary!
"What a terrifying guy!"
Not only the spectators—even his teammates at Seidou High were shocked.
None of them had expected Furuya to be this incredible.
"He just casually breaks historical records… What kind of monster is he?"
As excitement and discussion filled the air, Coach Kataoka suddenly spoke up:
"We still have one inning left—let's find a way to score at least one run! I have absolute faith in our ace. One run is all he'll need!"
Coach Kataoka's trust in Furuya had clearly reached an unparalleled level.
And none of Seidou's players doubted his words for even a second.
They also completely trusted their ace pitcher.
Still, scoring a run wasn't going to be easy.
In the top of the ninth inning, Seidou High was up to bat.
Stepping into the batter's box first was their ninth batter.
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