Battle of the Kings

Summer nights always come later. It's the same today. It didn't start to get dark until after seven o'clock.

At this time, the light was still on in the conference room of the baseball club of Yokozuna Middle School.

The players of Yokozuna Middle School, under the leadership of the chief supervisor Takeda, watched the game video of Akagi Middle School together.

So far, there are two complete game videos circulated by Akagi. One is the Nagano Prefecture final shot by Yokozuna himself, and the game video of Akagi Middle School playing Tenryuji. Another is the just-concluded video of the game between Akagi and Hakuba.

After watching the video of the two games, the assistant coach of the team took out a notebook and read the statistics of Akagi Middle School indifferently.

"Akagi is a team formed by Sawamura Eijun as the core. Whether it is offence or defence, Sawamura is the core. If Akagi Middle School is likened to a sharp arrow, then Sawamura is the arrow of this bow. If you want to defeat Akagi, you must unplug this arrow."

As he spoke, a picture of Sawamura appeared on the projector screen behind him.

Next to the photo of Sawamura, various data of Sawamura are marked.

"The star pitcher, Eijun Sawamura. His various values ​​are at the top level in the entire middle school baseball world. As a pitcher, the speed of the ball, ball control, power of the ball, and strength of the ball is perfect and impeccable. Some media laughed and said, Sawamura is the uncrowned king. In fact, this statement is not exaggerated at all. In terms of the quality of pitchers, Sawamura should be ranked among the top five among all middle school students in the country."

Having said that, all the Yokozuna players turned their gazes in another direction.

There, too, is a heavenly king.

There are a total of twelve heavenly kings among middle school students, half of which are in the softball league and half in the hardball league. And this one is Ken Uesugi, one of the six kings of the softball league. He is also the least favoured of the six heavenly kings, and even the twelve heavenly kings.

Pitchers are evaluated by various numerical values. One of the twelve heavenly kings counts as one, and the numerical values ​​are all the top in the country. And the most complained about Uesugi Ken is that he is the only king who has been surpassed by others in these values.

The one who surpassed him was Sawamura!

A previously unknown character, now a challenger to Yokozuna.

Uesugi Ken wears glasses, looks uncontested, and gentle, and gives the impression of a good student of that standard.

Seeing everyone's eyes, they all looked at him, Uesugi pushed down the glasses on the bridge of his nose with his middle finger, and said softly, "Isn't this very good? Let me see how powerful this uncrowned king really is?"

Hearing what their ace said, everyone in Yokozuna laughed.

Of course, they know the outside world's criticism of their ace, but this does not shake their trust in their ace.

"I don't think you need to worry about Uesugi. Although Akagi performed very strongly, their team's overall attacking strength is not strong. The impact on us should not be large. Even if it is conservatively estimated, they can take one from us. Two points are the limit."

"Eijun Sawamura has a batting average of 50% to 65% and a hit rate of 71%. Ren has a batting rate of 53% and a hit rate of 58%. Both of them have a good long-hit ability and belong to the national level. With the strength of the two of them, it should have a little impact on Uesugi, but the impact will not be too big. As for the reason, it is very simple, except for the two of them, Akagi can't fight with them at all. Wire in series."

"To deal with Akagi, the most important thing is to see how to overcome their trump card, Sawamura Eijun's pitching. You also watched today's game. Sawamura has the fighting power of zero seals and three Tais just by using ordinary pitches. Don't be blinded by today's game, Sawamura is not a hitting pitcher. When he pitched in Nagano, he had double-digit strikeouts every game."

…

While Yokozuna was studying Akagi, Sawamura also studied Yokozuna's video with his friends.

Yokozuna is strong!

The players in their various positions are very strong, and their overall strength is not on the same level as Akagi's friends. After watching the video of the game, Akagi's friends felt strange.

Yes, Yokozuna is very strong, even just watching the video of the game, you can feel the power of yokozuna. But the strangeness is strange here, such a yokozuna does not make the little friends feel afraid.

Akagi, who originally thought that the national hegemon should be extremely strong, suddenly found that Yokozuna didn't seem to be as strong as he thought.

"In the end, they are also middle school students of the same age as us, not demon children with three heads and six arms. No matter how strong they are, they are limited."

In this regard, Sawamura made a conclusion.

National hegemony often gives people an unfathomable impression. But in fact, they, who are both middle school students, can't really be strong enough to crush the same class.

Of course, they must have the strength to win the national championship.

Even from Sawamura's critical point of view, this yokozuna is quite powerful.

All the players can hit the ball for 135 kilometres, and they develop relatively early, and they are tall and big. Although technically still a bit rough, tactical literacy has already taken shape.

This is a very strong team!

Takeda is worthy of being a professional senior, and he is still very good as a coach.

Sawamura nodded secretly.

What made Sawamura especially vigilant was that Yokozuna was not that kind of legion-type team. In their team, there are several star players far beyond the level of middle school students.

The ace pitcher, Ken Uesugi.

Super strong, Otomo Senjin.

The all-around shortstop who steals bases, strikes, and defends, Nishimura Moriki.

And the catcher Yamanaka Shikanosuke.

The strength of these four people is far beyond the level of middle school students.

It's no wonder that Tenryuji Middle School fought against them at the beginning, but the ones who were beaten were unable to fight back.

Sawamura fell into deep thought, and everyone in Akagi said nothing.

Wada and Sano, the two leading teachers, stared at Sawamura like a curious baby.

"Eijun!"

Feeling the solemn atmosphere, Wakana quietly pulled Sawamura.

Sawamura woke up suddenly.

As the student coach in the team, Sawamura also helps everyone develop tactics.

"You don't need to worry about the opponent's blows, leave them all to me. The most important thing for you is to think about how to get points from Uesugi Ken."

…

Time passed, and a day passed in a blink of an eye. With all the Kanto quarter-finals released, the most crucial game of the Kanto Competition has begun.

The quarter-finals of the Kanto Conference are even more exciting than the championship and runner-up finals of Kanto Conference.

Why is this happening?

In fact, it is not surprising at all, because the most important goal of the Kanto Conference is not to decide the champion, but to decide the four teams in the Kanto region to participate in the national competition. As long as this game is won, the team's most important goal of participating in the Kanto Conference will be accomplished!

In the first game of the quarter-finals, Nagano Prefecture Akagi Middle School played against the host Kanagawa Yokozuna Middle School.

Because of the participation of Ken Uesugi, one of the kings of the softball league, and the uncrowned king Sawamura, this game was also dubbed the "Battle of the Kings" by "Battle Boys"!