“strike，batter out！”

Faced with the last ball of the bat, the pitcher Hirano-kun, who came out of the eighth inning of the game, finally chose his winning ball, a low finger cross ball in the outside corner. The beater's swing of the baton misses, and the strikeouts are out!

And this also means that Qingdao High School once again bowed down at the feet of Inami, after a year, the winner in this battle is still the unparalleled overlord of West Tokyo, Inaki Industry!

Nine games were played, with an aggregate score of 6–7. Let's congratulate Inami for successfully breaking through to the semi-finals and being the first to get the ticket to this spring's finals! ”

"Oh oh oh

On the court, it is not his familiar figure that is smiling. In the stands, the cheers are no longer those uncles who are rain or shine.

Hasuki Tsukasa, who originally thought that they always looked a little silly after the game, sat quietly on the bench.

Looking at the unwilling faces of his predecessors, listening to the creaking teeth that had been bitten, he suddenly felt that sometimes it was good for them to be stupid.

At this moment, Hasuki experienced the feeling of defeat in the sport of baseball for the first time.

"Lost...... I always feel that the sun is very big today. ”

Hasuki raised his head, the back of his right hand slightly covered his forehead, and the cheers of the teenagers in red and white striped jerseys on the court continued.

"Ah, lost, us."

Miyuki, who was standing on the side, grabbed Hasuki Division's duffel bag with his right hand, his eyes like torches.

What swept the two of them was the laughter that came from the surrounding stands like a sea of roaring, enthusiastic and noisy.

……

"Ceremony!"

"Thanks for the advice!"

……

I remember that a few hours ago, the team's school bus was filled with laughter, and at this time, even Minister Ota, who could most relieve the atmosphere of the team, could only be silent, and the facts were always eloquent.

Hasuki Si deliberately found a window seat and sat down, because there may be no one to lean on himself today.

Just staring straight at the receding scenery outside the window, now he just wanted to go back to school early.

The derby battle in Nishitokyo was played against both King Aodo and Overlord Inami.

In the first three rounds of the confrontation, the two teams with the top strength in the country tested each other, and the Qingdao side, which attacked first in this game, took the lead in scoring and entered the middle game with a 2-1 lead.

Among them, the playing line led by the monster Dong Qingguo is full of pressure, and he can create scoring opportunities in every game, which brings a huge threat to Inami's defense.

Originally, it was obviously a good situation, but Dong Qingguo and the others returned to the bench and joked with Hasuki Si easily.

However, in the second half of the fifth game, the situation suddenly changed, and in the face of Inami's center line in the second round, Akishima could not stop them.

The four-batter and five-batter rounds brought the heavy two points. And in the next sixth game, Akishima Er, who was Qingdao, still didn't resist the pressure after all, and was beaten down by Inashi's line.

Koichiro Tanba, a substitute pitcher who was ready to play at the beginning of the first inning, succeeded in suppressing the opponent's delusional pace of progress in the sixth inning.

However, in the seventh inning, it quickly became chaotic, and there was a constant crisis on the base, and Tanba's already fragile heart tended to be even more fragmented.

In the second half of the eighth game, the opponent scored three points, the score was reversed, and Qingdao fell into a swamp.

On the other hand, Kinoshita, the starting ace of this game, successfully threw seven innings by himself, and although he also showed a record of collapse several times in the sixth inning, he still relied on his perseverance to survive and handed the pitcher Mound to his back Hirano smoothly.

Hirano, who came out of the eighth game and closed the game, was a little unstable at first, but finally managed to win three out games at the cost of two points.

At this moment, the score of the two teams was officially fixed, 6-7, and Inami brought the game to the end with a narrow advantage.

Even at that moment, everyone at Seido High School (except for Hasuki Division) didn't think their team would lose.

However, what awaited them in the final game was the number of strokes that could never be passed and the number of outs that were won in the blink of an eye.

Three outs, the game is over. In the first half of the ninth inning, the whole game came to an end, and Qingdao High School, which attacked first, was defeated because it could not recover the score.

And when the commentator of this game finished reading the words of the end of the game one by one, Hasuki himself was there, watching quietly from the bench where only a little sunlight shone, and all he could do was look at ......

"Whew...... It's a pity that Dongsang, what he said last night couldn't come true, and the losers were us again. ”

Without any warning, in this extremely quiet carriage, Hasuki Si looked out the window at the scorching sun that had been following the school bus and slowly spoke.

“！”

Dong Qingguo, who had been keeping his head down since he got into the car, had his eyes wide open, but at this time, he would rather stare at the pitch-black car board than Xiang Lianmuji.

There were far more than one person in the carriage like him, all of whom clenched their fists so tightly that they didn't want to open their mouths to speak, even if their teeth were clucking.

Seeing that there was no reply for a long time, Lianmuji glanced at Dong Qingguo and then turned his head to look out the window again.

"Now that's the last summer, you should feel what it's like to be a pity this time, right?"

Seeing that there was still no reply, Hasumu still said to himself.

"I'm not just looking at it from the bench this summer, so please don't hold me back.

"In the summer, come with me and enter Koshien."

In the front seat, Dong Qingguo could no longer see the underfloor of the car that was clearly in front of him.

His strong hands clenched the handle beside him tightly, and his closed mouth slowly opened, pulling the strands of silk in his mouth, and his voice was hoarse but determined.

“… Oh! …”

"Hmph."

In the window seat in the back row, Hasuki snorted softly, and his right hand, which had already clenched his fist, was slowly released at this time. Looking out the window again, the sunlight seemed to have softened.

Under the sun, the spring of the Qingdao High School teenagers is officially over, and the next is an even hotter summer.