Southpaw

Challenge Accepted

Eijun had started to keep a journal about his progress in baseball and he filled it out with his training menues, discoveries, and goals. Ever since his discorvery about his moving fastball, Eijun began to actually think about the mechanics of baseball. With the visit from Takashima-san from Seido, he began training even harder... even if he was conflicted about whether he would go or not. 

So far, his pitching notes included his find about different pitching grips, and how they changed the way his ball broke. This idea came from his book, and when he really though about it, he realized that he hadn't been consioulsy gripping the ball in consistent places or ways. Although, it was easier said than done. As of now, Eijun could only control the four and two seam, and he had trouble figuring out how to stabilize the others. EIjun also had some pitches that he wanted to learn like the slider, cutter and change-up but as of now, he knew that without proper instrution it was not going to happen.

This morning, Eijun excitedly packed his travel sports bag with his mitt, and a spare practice uniform with cleats just in case. Although he was slightly trepidatious about this trip, he wanted to make sure he was prepared for anything. 

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Seido's baseball fields were bigger than he thought they would be. Eijun completely ignored Takashima-san as he bounced excitedly from alien equipment to clean cut baseball diamonds.

"UWA! What's this? I don't even know what it does..." Eijun's eyes sparkled at the sight of the equipment. Takashima-san smirked and pushed up her glasses, knowingly. Seeing this, Eijun slputtered, "You don't need fancy equipment to play ball, you only need a ball, a bat, and a mitt." He huffed turning away from her.

"OI Kawakami, throw like you mean it. My grandmother could throw harder than you!" A fat man? or was it a boy...? looked like he was bullying a smaller player who was almost cowering on the mound, Eijun knew the feeling well.

Whenever his middle school team played a team with bigger, better and stronger players, Eijun felt like he wanted to hide. Eventually though, he found strength in his teammates, and realized that as ace he needed to feel the weight of everyone's expectation on him. When he came to that epiphany in his first-year, his ball started to carry a heavier weight that it didn't have before. His pitches were stronger and moved wilder at the plate. Although... When he thought about it now, it didn't seem to do much for him is his last game. Eijun sympathized with the pitcher, so he had to speak out. He just couldn't help himself.

"Hey who's that fatty? He looks like some kind of monk.... Are you sure he's a high schooler?" Eijun started to try and instigate something to draw attention away from the poor pitcher who seemed to be trembling. The older boy's head snapped in his direction like a whip, and before Eijun knew what was happening they were chest to chest... or rather belly to chest.

"Who do you think you are calling my cute belly names?" The boy said, stepping forward to intimidate Eijun. Of course, Eijun being as dense as he was, it didn't really work.

"My name is Sawamura Eijun! Don't you know that baseball is a team sport? You can't play by yourself, and you should treat your teammates well!" Eijun's eyes glimmered with intensity, and blazing with stubborness. He absolutly hated anyone who was mean to their teammates. Eijun was the captain and ace of Akagi's baseball team, even if he didn't feel like it after the loss, so above all else he hated that these elites were allowed to be careless with their teammates. It made his work seem irrelevant, and unimportant.

While he was thinking, he completly missed the side conversation between Takashima-san and the boy...

"Azuma-kun, please forginve this boy, he's from the country. He doesn't really know what he's saying. Do you mind teaching him a lesson?" 

"Sure, but I'm not letting him off the mound even if he starts to cry for his mother." Takashima-san winced almost unoticbly, except for the twitch of her face. Eijun's head moved from side to side in disbelief. He was only here to watch not to challenge someone. However, he knew that if he did want to go here, he wasn't sure yet dammit, then he would need to prove himself. And what better way to do that than to strike this bastard out? 

"I accept! You better not dissapoint me old man." Eijun petulantly crossed his arms squinting his eyes at Azuma.

"Oho, this sounds interesting. Mind if I catch for this guy Rei-chan?" A guy with messy brown hair and sports glasses said as he lounged against the fences a little ways away from where the confrontation was.

"Ah Miyuki-kun, I'm glad you asked, this guy has some interesting pitches. I'd like you to try and draw out his potential." Takashima-San whispered conspiratorily. Miyuki smirked, his eyes sharpening on Eijun due to the praise from Takashima-san.

"Well kid, we better get going yeah? Lets get you changed and warmed up." Eijun nodded and followed Miyuki, swinging his bag over his shoulder. He was definitly glad he decided to bring his gear.

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"Okay brat, so what do you throw?" They were playing catch to warm up Eijun's shoulder for the challenge. 

"I pitch fastballs for life!" Eijun yelled. Miyuki grasped his stomach and curled over laughing.

"Seriously!?" He cackled amusedly, "You're interesting, you know that?"

"As actually, I throw a moving fastball, and have a two and four seam. I can sometimes control the dircetion that it breaks in, but I'm still working on that... My most uncontrollable moving fastball is my palmball. Um, and I have a weird pitching form?" Miyuki calmed down and nodded. 

"Well the only way that we can test that is having you throw to me right?" Miyuki crouched down on the mound curiously holding his mitt out for Eijun. His eyes widened as that ball seemed to go off course, and suddenly broke into the zone. 'His arm is so late... It's almost like the ball seems to go faster than it is. "Interesting. Where can you throw in the zone?"

"I can throw the corners, but I'm better with inside pitches." Miyuki nodded before coming back up to Eijun.

"Can you go over the basic signs for the pitches?" Eijun nodded at him before showing him the general signs for his moving fastballs, and the placement signs.

He paused, "I don't actually have signs for the palm ball, four and two seams. Uh, my catcher on my old team couldn't handle them well, so we sealed my grips." Eijun fibbed the last part, not wanting this catcher to know that he was literally worked out these pitches over the last month or so.

"Ah, ok so let's do four fingers for the four seam, two for the two seam, and a fist for the palm ball." Miyuki quickly flashed the new signs as he said them. Eijun puffed out a breath and nodded.

"Well let's go do some monster slaying!" Miyuki said, and lightly tapped him on the shoulder with his mitt.

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Author's Note: Hi again! are you guys proud of me? Here is another update within 3 days :) Yes there is still another chapter coming from You Leave Butterflies in Your Wake, and Sheltering Fangs so I promise those will come out ASAP. This week has been a little busy though, so they might come out at odd hours haha.

-CinnamonRoll0307