Ken and Daichi made their way down to the eting room, arriving a little early. Seeing as how the door was still closed, they decided to wait in the lobby, only for more and more of their teammates to join up.
Masayuki looked as if he’d just been woken up from a nap as he fell back into one of the couch’s. It wasn’t just him, many of the players looked fatigued, which was understandable.
They had now been in Arica for 11 days, if they counted the day that they arrived.
Over this span, they had played 10 baseball gas against the best U18 players in the world. The fact that they had been able to hold on this long and remain undefeated was a testant to both their skill and drive.
The group sat in silence as the team started to congregate in the lobby. While they would usually be chatting or ssing around, everyone seed to have hit a wall.
“It all ends tomorrow huh?” Daichi spoke up, his tone laced with hidden emotion.
It seed as if he wasn’t just talking about the World Cup, but the current status quo.
“Yeah… We’ll either be bringing back ho the trophy, or going ho in defeat.” Kuro stated, his gloomy aura only adding to the lancholy of the atmosphere.
“What do you an? We smashed the US team last ti, and we’ll do it again.” Riku replied, not even wanting to entertain the thought of losing.
“It won’t be that easy this ti.” Ken stated matter-of-factly.
He felt everyone in the lobby turn to him in that instant, though he didn’t shrink back.
Masayuki sat himself forward and stared at Ken.
“Why do you say that?”
Ever since their last ga against the US where Ken divulged his ga plan to him and a few others, Masayuki had looked at Ken in a whole new light.
At first he had thought that the guy was a player who used their instinct to play the ga, yet he had been greatly mistaken. Not only was he able to pinpoint the patterns in the US play style, he was able to co up with an effective asure to target these quirks.
“Whatever we learned last ga will need to be scrapped. I can guarantee that the Coach would have seen through all of our plans by now.” Ken replied.
His reason was simple. Because of 3 people… Ryan, Leo and his Grandfather.
Ryan had such a large ego that he would never let his performance down. If Ken knew his personality well enough, he believed that the guy would be reviewing their ga like a hawk.
There was also the fact that he hadn’t pitched at all in the following 2 gas, likely conserving his strength for the finals tomorrow.
The next person was Leo, a man dubbed the catching machine. He was so thodical that Ken was able to use his own patterns against him. Due to the fact that Japan were able to score against not just Ryan, there was no way that he wouldn’t figure anything out.
Lastly, his Grandfather… The Head Coach. The man who had taught his own father everything he knew about baseball.
Ken had no doubt that if anyone could figure out what he had done in their ga, it was that man.
Masayuki nodded. Not only did he believe Ken, he didn’t even ask for any supporting evidence.
“So we’re back to square one?” Riku asked.
“Pretty much.”
Before they could continue the conversation, a tired looking Chris walked into the lobby and directed everyone to enter the eting room. Judging by his body language, he’d been working non-stop.
Ken was the first to get up, walking next to his father.
“We’re on the ho stretch.” Ken said with a grin, placing his hand upon his father’s shoulder.
“Mmm, 1 more ga.” Chris replied, flashing his son a grin.
Everyone filed into the eting room, taking up the empty seats. By now, everyone had already claid a regular seat that they would take up for every eting, showing just how often they spent in there.
It took a few minutes for everyone to settle down, but eventually they regained their focus.
Coach Takashi made his way up the front, wanting to kick the eting off in his usual fashion.
“With our last ga against Canada today, it brings an end to the Super Round. Since we have remained undefeated in the World Cup thus far, we’re sitting on top of the leader board.” He said simply.
There were no flowery words, nor emotion in his tone. It was as if he was speaking about sothing completely irrelevant to himself and those present.
“Be that as it may, our job is not finished…”
He scanned the faces of his players in front of him with a serious deanor.
“I could stand here right now and tell you all that you’ve done a wonderful job so far. I could pat you on the back and tell you how proud I am that we were able to remain undefeated against the best teams in the world…”
“But I won’t.”
The Head Coach began to pace back and forth, his words channeling directly into the player’s hearts.
“I won’t do such a thing because it ans nothing. It holds no value… Not to you, and not to Japan.”
His voice remained firm, yet there was an underlying passion within his words, one that evoked a rising response from those who heard it.
“You don’t want words of comfort from do you?”
“No sir!” The players shouted back in response.
“You’re not a bunch of kids who need to give you a pat on the back and coddle you right!?” This ti the coach’s voice rose in volu.
“No SIR!”
“Good… I won’t mince any words with you, tomorrow will be our toughest ga yet. Whatever happened against the US team in the last ga was nothing but us catching them off guard.”
“We can’t afford to be complacent, not against this team… Which is why we’ll be making so changes to the line up.”
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