Six months.
That was all Aoi had left in middle school.
And then—three more months until Kose High opened its gates to its newest students.
Nine months total.
Nine months to become someone who deserves to stand on their mound.
The weight of that thought pressed on his chest as he walked to school the morning after giving Takeda his answer. It wasn't a bad weight. It was solid. Real. A reminder that the dream he'd been circling around for years was suddenly close enough to touch — close enough to lose, too, if he didn't work for it.
If he was going to Kose, he couldn't stay the same.
He had to change.
He had to grow.
He had to become someone who didn't just *wish* for Koshien, but someone who could fight for it.
Which meant one thing:
Training.
Real training.
Not the chaotic, half-formed routines he'd drifted through for years, doing whatever his body felt like. He needed structure now. Discipline. Intent.
He needed to understand the one thing no one — not even he — could explain:
Why his fastball moved the way it did.
---------------------
For the first time in his life, Aoi voluntarily walked into the library.
Masa stared from the doorway like Aoi had stepped into a spaceship.
"You're reading?" Masa whispered. "Voluntarily?"
Aoi glared at him over the top of a book on pitching mechanics. "Shut up."
The school had no advanced baseball textbooks — this was rural Chiba, not a high-performance academy — but Aoi found enough material on basic physics, spin rate, Magnus effect, and hand positioning to at least begin.
He scribbled notes aggressively.
*Moving fastball → sidespin?
Release inconsistency?
Wrist angle?
Low spin efficiency?*
Half the terms felt like a foreign language.
He kept writing anyway.
If he wanted to improve his strange, unpredictable pitch, he had to understand it.
After school, he chased down Coach Sakamoto in the teacher's office, notebook stuffed with diagrams.
"Coach! I think— I think my ball moves because my hand— look!"
He lifted his hand and started bending his fingers back at horrifying angles, twisting his wrist like it was detachable.
Coach immediately palmed Aoi's forehead like he was stopping a charging bull.
"Enough. Stop explaining. Just show me."
So Aoi threw.
Once.
Twice.
Ten times.
Each ball danced a little differently — tailing, wobbling, fluttering, sometimes diving at the last second. Unpredictable. Wild.
Coach watched silently, kneeling to catch, eyes narrowing with every pitch.
Finally, he stood, took the ball, and examined it closely.
"You don't grip it wrong."
"…I don't?"
"No."
He pointed at Aoi's wrist.
"But your wrist is too loose."
Aoi blinked. "That's bad?"
"Not necessarily."
Coach crouched and motioned for Aoi to mirror him.
"Your wrist flexibility creates movement. It's unpredictable now — but if you learn when to tighten and when to relax, you can control that movement."
Aoi stared.
"You mean… it's not a curse?"
Coach snorted. "Aoi, nothing about you is normal enough to be cursed."
His eyes widened in relief and pride.
"So I can control it!?"
"If," Coach said sternly, "you work harder than you've ever worked in your life."
Aoi's grin nearly split his face.
"I can work! I can work really hard! I—"
"Don't faint on me, idiot."
--------------------
Aoi returned home and immediately wrote a daily schedule that made his mother scream, his sister stare, and his father mutter a long, exhausted "oh no."
He titled it:
Aoi's Training Plan (Self-declared 'Not That Bad')
Morning (before school):
* 5km run
* 50 push-ups
* 50 squats
* 10 minutes flexibility drills
* 30 throws into the net focusing on wrist control
* 15 minutes juggling a football ("It helps my coordination, trust me")
Lunch break:
* Mechanics reading
* Pitching notes
* Shadow pitching in the hallway until a teacher yells at him
After school:
* Middle school baseball practice
* 30 minutes bullpen work
* 20 minutes fielding
* 15 minutes batting tees
After dinner:
* 100 swings
* 50 fastballs
* 30 circle change-up reps
* 20 minutes mobility and shoulder care
* 20 minutes dribbling in the backyard under the stars
Before bed:
* Pro pitching videos
* Mental pitching visualizations
He lasted exactly three days before collapsing face-first onto the floor like a fallen tree.
His mother shrieked.
His sister poked him with a chopstick.
Masa dragged him outside by the ankle. "Aoi, this schedule is illegal."
"No… it's fine…" Aoi mumbled into the dirt. "I'm building… character…"
"You're building a funeral!"
Aoi didn't quit.
He adjusted.
He kept going.
And slowly, his body began to adapt.
--------------------
The first pitch he tackled was the four-seam — a simple, clean fastball.
At least, it was supposed to be simple.
To Aoi, it was torture.
"It's boring," he complained during bullpen practice. "It's straight! Like a sad noodle!"
"That's the point!" Masa barked. "You need a reliable pitch!"
Aoi groaned dramatically but kept practicing.
Fingers across the horseshoe.
Wrist locked.
Elbow high.
Every time the ball accidentally moved, Masa screamed like a betrayed parent.
"STRAIGHT! Aoi, STOP MAKING IT DANCE!"
"My arm has a mind of its own!"
"Well tell it to STOP!"
It took nearly a month, but one afternoon he released a pitch and—
FWUP.
Straight. Truly straight.
Masa froze.
"…do it again."
Aoi did.
And again.
Not perfect — not even consistent — but real.
For the first time, Aoi felt something new in his chest:
Control.
A foundation.
A pitch he could rely on.
He needed that.
---------------------
The circle change-up was discovered by accident — as most things in Aoi's life were.
He formed the "circle" grip with his thumb and index finger.
"This feels… wrong," he muttered.
"Everything you do feels wrong," Masa replied.
Aoi threw.
The ball drifted.
Soft. Low. With a gentle fall.
Masa's brows furrowed. "…what was that?"
"I think… a change-up?"
"Do it again."
The next one dropped even harder.
Aoi blinked.
Masa stared.
"Aoi… that's good. Really good."
And just like that, a new pitch entered his arsenal.
Unreliable, yes.
But promising.
Aoi felt like he'd unlocked a door into a new world.
"I want to be dangerous," he whispered.
Masa shuddered. "Please be responsibly dangerous."
--------------------
Fielding had always been… fine.
Aoi was fast, coordinated, and flexible. But instincts? Reading hops? Anticipating the ball's path?
Not great.
Until the day everything changed.
Coach Sakamoto set up a brutal fielding drill: hard rollers, unpredictable bounces, no breaks.
Aoi struggled at first, booting several grounders, muttering apologies, nearly tripping over his own feet.
Then, halfway through —
Something clicked.
The ball came off the bat and suddenly—
Aoi saw everything.
Not with his eyes.
With the same instinct he used in football.
The angle.
The bounce.
The path.
The timing of his steps.
The distance between him and the next fielder.
The exact moment he needed to lower his glove.
He moved without thinking, gliding into position.
FWUMP.
The ball settled cleanly into his glove.
Aoi froze.
Wait.
He knew that sensation.
That clarity.
That wide-field awareness.
It was the same ability he used on the football pitch reading the field in real time.
But this time, he was using it in baseball.
He tried again.
Another ball.
His awareness expanded.
He tracked the bounce before it happened.
He anticipated the speed.
A smooth gather.
Perfect transfer.
Coach stared.
Masa stared.
Aoi blinked, breathless.
"I… I can use it here," he whispered. "The thing I do in football. I can use it for fielding."
Coach's voice was unusually gentle. "Then use it. Let your instincts work for you."
Aoi didn't answer — he just moved again, faster, more confidently.
For the first time, fielding felt natural.
Alive.
Sharpened by everything he already had inside him.
---------------------
Not everything changed overnight.
His moving fastball still veered dramatically.
His circle change-up sometimes became a circle disaster.
And a worrying number of pitches almost hit Masa.
"WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS!?" Masa screamed after narrowly dodging another one.
"I DON'T KNOW! MY ARM HAS FREE WILL!"
But every day, Aoi got a little closer.
He learned to tighten his wrist at release.
He learned to repeat his arm slot.
He studied spin using a marked baseball.
He watched professional pitchers break down mechanics in videos.
He took notes.
He corrected mistakes.
He tried again.
Slowly — painfully slowly — his chaotic movement became predictable movement.
Not perfect.
But real.
And now he had:
A four-seam fastball
A controlled moving fastball
A developing circle change-up
Three pitches.
A sharper defense.
A stronger body.
Piece by piece, he was becoming a pitcher.
-----------------------
Batting… was a war.
Aoi swung like someone fighting off a bear.
"You're… athletic," Masa said at one point.
"That sounds good!"
"It wasn't a compliment."
But Aoi trained.
Off the tee.
Soft toss.
Dry swings in his room.
Shadow swings in the hallway (followed by multiple teacher scoldings).
His timing improved.
His footwork stabilized.
His balance sharpened — football helping more than expected.
He still wasn't good.
But he wasn't hopeless anymore.
---------------------
Somewhere in the middle of all the sweat, bruises, soreness, and hours of repetition, Aoi felt it:
He was changing.
Not just physically.
Mentally.
For the first time in his life, he wasn't just moving— he was moving with intention.
Every drop of sweat felt like progress.
Every ache felt like proof.
Every late-night collapse into bed felt like dedication.
He wasn't drifting anymore.
He was chasing.
-----------------------
Late one evening, under fading sunlight, Aoi threw his last bullpen session of the day.
Coach Sakamoto caught the final pitch, paused, and looked at him with a strange expression.
"Aoi," he said slowly, "your ball doesn't move randomly anymore."
Aoi blinked. "It… doesn't?"
"No."
The coach folded his arms.
"You're learning to guide it."
Aoi stood there, breathing hard, sweat dripping, chest rising and falling.
He didn't feel transformed.
He still felt like the same restless kid with too much energy and not enough discipline.
But Coach's next words hit deeper than anything he'd said before.
"You're starting to look like a pitcher."
Aoi's chest tightened—and then eased.
He smiled.
Small.
Soft.
Steady.
For the first time, he believed it:
He was becoming someone worthy of Kose's mound.
Someone who could make his strange left arm into a weapon.
Someone who could chase Koshien without fear.
And he wasn't done yet.
Not even close.