Eventually, Nagato walked over to the bench and handed me the bat.
“Here.”
She pointed at the worn metal bat.
“This has been modified with a boost in attribute data,” she said.
“What’s that mean?” I asked. Nagato stared at me for a while.
“Homing mode.”
And with that, she trotted back to the bench and sat down on the end before burying herself in a thick book she picked up from below.
The score was now 9–1 in the top of the fourth. It appeared that this would be the last inning.
It appeared that their pitcher hadn’t entirely recovered from his shock, but his pitches were still more than fast enough as far as I was concerned.
And then I found out what Nagato had meant.
“Whoa!”
The bat moved on its own. Dragging my arms and shoulders with it. Clang.
I thought that I’d barely hit the ball, but it went flying over the stands as though carried by the wind past the grass and into the next field. Home run. Jaws dropped.
I see. Homing mode, is it…
I tossed aside the bat, which had apparently obtained the ability to automatically go after balls and hit them twice as far as normally possible, and began jogging around the bases.
Once I reached second base, I looked up and my eyes met Haruhi’s as she waved her arms up and down, but she quickly looked away. You could just celebrate the way my sister and Tsuruya are. As far as I could tell, Taniguchi and Kunikida were astonished while Asahina, Koizumi, and Nagato were silent, and the nine members of the opposing team had looks of bewilderment on their faces.
I was feeling pretty guilty, but the opposing team wasn’t done being astonished.
My sister tottered over to the batter’s box next with the batter’s helmet hiding over half of her face since it was too big. I’m surprised she could even walk straight. The secret weapon I’d prepared to ensure our defeat took a full swing at the first pitch and sent it flying over the fence. In other words, what most people call a home run.
There’s a limit to how ridiculous you can be. A little girl in fifth grade just sent an eighty mph (estimate) pitch thrown by a college student all the way to the main stands. It’s hard to believe this is happening in reality.
“Amazing!”
Haruhi didn’t doubt reality for a second. She greeted my sister, who had quickly circled the bases, and swung her around, all smiles.
“What wonderful talent! You have a bright future ahead of you! You could definitely make it in the majors!”
My sister squealed cheerfully as Haruhi swung her around.
This is just… Whatever, the score’s 9–3 now.
I was sitting on the bench and holding my head.
Our home run offensive was still under way. The score was now 9–7. Seven straight home runs in one inning. I’m assuming that we set a tournament record.
Taniguchi returned after a big hit.
“I’ve decided to join the baseball team. I could make it to the nationals with my batting sense. After all, it felt like the bat was hitting the ball by itself!”
Kunikida stood next to him sounding overly optimistic.
“Yeah, no kidding.”
As their mind-numbing conversation continued, Tsuruya was slapping Asahina, who looked unusually stiff, on the shoulder and laughing loudly. It’s a good thing they’re all so simple.
“You and me! Man-to-man!” Haruhi said as she held the bat. Isn’t the pitcher the one who’s supposed to say that?
The metallic clang I was already sick of hearing rang again and the ball bounced off the scoreboard.
That made the score 9–8. During this period, the opposing team had gone through three pitchers. They probably didn’t want my sympathy, but they got it anyway. Poor guys.
We completed a rotation as Asahina, Nagato, and I hit consecutive home runs and we finally took the lead 11–9. Eleven consecutive home runs. I was starting to feel like this was getting pretty dangerous. Since I had a feeling that the members of the opposing team were looking at our bat instead of our players. They probably figured it was some kind of magic bat. I guess they weren’t exactly wrong.
Before I handed the bat to the next person up, my sister, I brought Nagato away from the end of the bench where she’d been reading.
“That’s enough,” I said as Nagato’s expressionless black eyes actually blinked multiple times in succession as opposed to her customary one blink every ten seconds or so.
“I see,” she responded.
She placed her thin fingers on the handle of the bat I was carrying and recited something really fast. I couldn’t make out what she said, but I doubt I would have understood it if I had, so it didn’t really matter.
Nagato then removed her fingers, returned to the bench, and picked her book up again without saying a word.
Good grief.
My sister, Koizumi, and Kunikida struck out so fast you had to wonder if their previous hits had been some kind of fluke. In fact, it’d been plain cheating.
I’d forgotten, but this match had a time limit. In the first round, ninety minutes was the limit. The organizers had done this so they could get through all the necessary matches today. Therefore, the next inning would be dropped. If we lasted through the bottom of the fourth, we would win.
Is it really okay for us to win?
“We cannot afford the alternative,” said Koizumi.
“I have received word from my colleagues. Thanks to our efforts, the expansion of closed space has been checked. However, the Celestials remain so we still have to deal with those. But it would be a great help if no more of them show up.”
But if they make a comeback now, it’ll be a walk-off loss. There’s no need to think about how bad Haruhi’s mood will be then.
“And so I have an idea concerning that.”
Koizumi smiled to reveal teeth so white I wanted to tell him to go do a toothbrush commercial. He whispered his idea to me.
“Seriously?”
“I am very serious. This is our only remaining option if we wish to make it through this inning while giving up a minimal number of runs.”
Once again, good grief.
We informed the umpire of a change in positions.
Nagato would take over as catcher for Koizumi. Koizumi would move to center field. And I was switching positions with Haruhi to stand on the mound.
Haruhi was grumbling when Koizumi first informed her about the pitching change, but then she made a face once she found out I was the relief pitcher.
“… Well, okay, I guess. But if you give up a hit, you have to buy everyone lunch!”
And with that, she retreated to second base.
Nagato was just standing there like she was spaced out while Koizumi and I put the chest protector and facemask and whatever on her. You sure about letting such a gloomy girl be catcher?
Nagato trudged to her spot behind home plate and squatted down.
Okay, time for the match to restart. There wasn’t much time left, so I didn’t get a chance to warm up. I have to throw the first pitch of my life on the fly.
In any case, I gave it a throw.
Whuff.
The ball somehow managed to land in Nagato’s glove. Ball.
“Take this seriously!”
That was Haruhi shouting back there. I’m always dead serious, man. I tried to sidearm it this time.
The second pitch. I was hoping that the batter might be fooled a little, but no such luck. His bat rushed straight for my weak pitch. Damn, I basically fed that one to him!
Smack.
“Strike!”
The umpire yelled loudly. He swung and missed so that would be a strike. However, the batter was looking at Nagato’s hand with an incredulous expression on his face.
I understood how he felt. How else would he react? Anybody would be in disbelief after watching my weak ball abruptly drop thirty centimeters right when it was on the verge
of making contact with the bat.
“…”
Nagato remained squatting as she snapped her wrist to return the ball to me. After catching her floater, I wound up to pitch again.
Every time I threw the ball, it turned into some kind of half-assed fastball. And my third pitch was way off the mark—or it would have been if it hadn’t changed course after a few meters, curving in a way that obviously ignored stuff like inertia and gravity and aerodynamics. It even managed to accelerate before it landed in the catcher’s mitt. Smack. That was a good sound. Nagato’s small body shook a bit.
The batter’s eyes were as wide as saucers. The umpire was also speechless. After a while, he finally opened his mouth.
“… Strike two!”
He didn’t sound very confident. This is getting annoying so I’ll just get it over with.
I was just randomly throwing the ball at this point. Not even trying to aim or anything. Not using much strength to throw the ball either. Nonetheless, every ball I threw would go inside the strike zone if the batter didn’t swing, and curve if he did.
The secret lay in whatever Nagato was mumbling every time I threw the ball. And it was so secret that I had no idea how it worked either. It was probably some sort of data manipulation like how she’d previously saved my life and reconstructed the classroom or whatever she did to the bat earlier.
As a result, this was like pitching to an electric fan. Without a doubt, Yuki Nagato was the MVP for the day.
In no time, the opposing team had racked up two outs and the last batter was at a 2–0 count. Should it really be this easy for me to close the game? Sorry, Kamigahara Pirates.
I turned to the batter, whose face was pale at this point, and threw a normal pitch without exerting any effort.
The ball changed course toward the strike zone. The batter swung with all his might. The ball changed course again toward the outside corner. The bat swung around so hard you could see an afterimage. Strikeout. Whew, it was finally over… except it wasn’t.
“!”
The ball spun toward the backstop. It appeared that she’d gone overboard on the curve. The ball grazed Nagato’s catcher’s mitt and the Mystery Ball (my name for it) sank like a forkball before bouncing off a corner of home plate and rolling off.
It was a wild pitch.
Given this last chance, the batter dashed off. However, Nagato remained frozen in her catcher’s stance, squatting in silence with her facemask still on.
“Nagato! Pick up the ball and throw it!”
Nagato looked up blankly in response to my instructions before slowly standing up and chasing the loose ball. At an excruciatingly slow pace. The batter had already touched first base and was attempting to make it to second.
“Hurry!”
Haruhi was standing on second base and waving her glove around.
Nagato finally caught up to the ball and picked it up, staring at it as though it were a sea turtle egg. She then turned to me.
“Second!”
I pointed straight behind me. Haruhi was standing there shouting at the top of her lungs. Nagato nodded her head about a millimeter—
Whoosh. A white laser beam passed the side of my head. It took a few strands of my hair with it. I didn’t realize the laser was Nagato throwing the ball using only her wrist until I saw the ball knock Haruhi’s glove off her hand and all the way into center field.
Haruhi was staring at her previously gloved hand while the runner had apparently fallen down right in front of second base in terror.
Koizumi, the center fielder, picked up the glove and withdrew the ball before walking over to the batter-runner with his universal beaming smile on his face as he bent down to tag him out. Then he apologized.
“I’m terribly sorry. We happen to be a slightly unreasonable group.”
As I wondered if he was including me in that unreasonable group, I released a deep sigh.
Game over.
The members of the Kamigahara Pirates were weeping. I didn’t really get it, though. Were they going to be punished by alumni later? Or were they just frustrated by the fact that they lost to a team of high school amateurs that had more females than males and included a girl in grade school. Probably both.
On the other hand, Haruhi, who obviously didn’t care about the grief the losers were feeling, was in high spirits. She had a smile on her face much like the one she had back on that day when she came up with the idea of creating the SOS Brigade.
“Let’s win this tournament and enter the national tournament this summer! Dominating the entire country isn’t just a dream!”
She was shouting stuff like that in a serious tone. Taniguchi was the only one who looked interested, though. I merely wished that she would give it a break already, and I’m pretty sure the High School Baseball Federation felt the same way.
“Excellent work.”
Koizumi had come over next to me while I wasn’t paying attention.
“By the way, what do we do now? Shall we continue into the second round?”
I shook my head.
“So basically, Haruhi will be in a bad mood if we lose, right? Which would mean we have to keep winning. That would require more of Nagato’s bogus magic. No matter how you look at it, it’s pretty obvious that there’s going to be trouble if we keep ignoring the laws of physics. Let’s forfeit.”
“That sounds best. The truth is that I need to go help my colleagues soon. To eliminate closed space. It appears that they need more people to deal with the Celestials.”
“Say hello to your people for me. To those blue guys too.”
“I shall do that. In any case, this incident has taught us that it is a bad idea to allow Suzumiya to be bored. We should take that into consideration during future endeavors.”
After telling me to take care of the rest, Koizumi headed off toward the administrative tent to inform them that we wouldn’t be advancing to the second round.
He left me with the harder job. Guess I don’t really have a choice.
I walked over to where Haruhi was forcing Asahina to dance the can-can with her and poked her in the back.
“What? You want to dance with us?”
“We need to talk.”
I took Haruhi outside the field. She became unexpectedly quiet.
“Look over there.”
I motioned toward the bench where the Kamigahara Pirates were sobbing.
“Don’t you feel bad for them?”
“Why?”
“They’ve probably undergone intensive training for this day. The opportunity to become the champion for four years running was on the line so they were probably under a lot of pressure.”
“So?”
“They probably have a few benchwarmers who didn’t even get a chance to play, that are holding back their tears. Yeah, like that guy with the crew cut behind the net. You really have to feel bad for him, right? He’s never going to get a chance to play.”
“What’s your point?”
“Let’s forfeit.”
I just said it flat out.
“You’ve had your fun, right? I’ve had enough to share with anyone who asks. I’d rather just go grab lunch and talk about stupid stuff. To be honest, my arms and legs are completely worn out.”
That was the truth. After all that running between the infield and outfield, I was physically exhausted. Mentally too.
Haruhi then made her favorite face, the one that resembled a sulking pelican, as she glared up at me. I was starting to get worried when she finally spoke up.
“You’re okay with that?”
“I sure am. Asahina, Koizumi, and even Nagato probably feel the same way. My sister’s been over there practicing her swinging for a while now, but if you give her some candy, she’ll drop the bat.”
“Hmm.”
Haruhi alternated looks between me and the field as she thought it over. Or maybe she was just pretending to think it over. She grinned.
“I guess that’s fine th
en. I’m pretty hungry anyway. Let’s go have lunch. I was thinking, baseball sure is a simple sport. I didn’t expect to win so easily.”
Really.
I kept my mouth shut and shrugged.
When I told the captain of the opposing team that we were letting them advance to the second round in our place, he began thanking me profusely while weeping. That just made me feel even guiltier. After all, we basically stole that win by using some ridiculous methods of cheating.
I had immediately turned to leave when the captain told me to hold on and whispered in my ear.
“By the way, how much do you want for the bat you guys were using?”
And so, at the moment, our group, excluding Koizumi, was occupying the corner of a family restaurant and chowing down.
My sister had grown attached to Haruhi and Asahina and sat between two of them, stabbing at her hamburger steak with a knife in a dangerous fashion. Taniguchi was holding a serious discussion with Kunikida about how he was going to join the baseball team. Yeah, he can do whatever he wants. Tsuruya’s attention was now focused on Nagato. “So you’re Yuki Nagato? I’ve heard a lot about you from Mikuru.” Her random chatter was ignored by her reticent underclassman, who silently munched away at her BLT sandwich.
Everybody had ordered way more than necessary, but that was expected. Since I was paying for everybody.
Haruhi had announced that little tidbit as though it were some kind of brilliant idea. I have no idea how Haruhi came up with it. Nobody has ever been able to trace her pattern of thought, so I wasn’t exactly surprised. I didn’t bother protesting because it would have been too much of a pain. In fact, I was in a pretty good mood.
Because I’d managed to get my hands on some unexpected extra cash.
Here’s to the success of the Kamigahara Pirates.
The following happened a few days later.
After school one day, we were in our room in the clubhouse, living another normal day as usual.
I was playing Othello with Koizumi as I drank tea made by Asahina in her maid outfit. Nagato sat next to us reading a philosophy book she’d borrowed from the library that looked like a thick dictionary. By the way, Asahina was dressed according to my request today. It’s definitely better to be served by a maid than by a nurse. And Asahina stood carrying a tray as she intently watched our match.
The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya Page 4