สาวน้อยเบสบอล

## Prologue

A girl with a metal bat was chasing him all over the place. His brain was on the verge of stopping altogether. All it could get across was a single order: whatever else, do not stop. The body he had built by throwing himself into sports clubs through elementary and middle school could manage an endurance run on the level of a fitness test without any trouble, but every time he saw the metal bat flash, his breathing turned sharp and ragged. And the situation now was badly suited to running. The schoolbag pressed heavy on his shoulders. The uniform trousers tangled around his legs. The leather shoes, a size too large, he hated with everything in him. Tomoki Haoka could not help beginning to resent his fate. There really are a lot of strange people, he thought. "Ugh, that was a pretty good hit just now, wasn't it? Hey, you." Every time he came out of the batting cage he heard a voice like that. While he kept hitting the white baseballs the machine spat out, he kept hearing all sorts of noise, like muttered whispers. He had the feeling it was something you only got at the cage on this side. There had to be something like that, didn't there. Tomoki muttered, a little irritated. A middle-aged coach standing half-naked like a statue, watching the baseball club practice—scenes like that could be seen on the field all the time. The voice was a woman's, but she was the same kind of person as that coach. A baseball idiot, in other words. Tomoki suddenly saw two people who looked like college students walk into the cage, and against his will his eyes went to the one who was speaking. That baseball-idiot woman was just—

## Chapter 1: Daydream * The End of the Dream

He had already given up once. This was the pitcher's mound at Koshien. The tremor coming off the great stands had not stopped. The field shook as if it had turned into a white-hot cauldron, and through the air and the ground that shaking reached Tomoki where he stood on the mound and rocked his heart. From the dugout he could hear his teammates roaring their encouragement, and Tomoki knew the cheer squad from his old school was watching him with blessing in their eyes. Tomoki gave a small nod toward the catcher, glanced at the powerful batter, and slowly began his pitching motion. He raised both hands overhead, rotated his upper body, settled his hips, stored power to the limit, and exploded around the axis of his foot—force beginning in the muscles of the lower body, rising into the torso, from shoulder to elbow, from elbow to wrist. From his fingertips came a sharp sound. Rosin powder danced in the air. The white ball flew forward at high speed like a meteor dragging a tail, carrying white dust with it. Centered on that pitched ball, a vortex formed. Slowly, as if in slow motion, the ball advanced, then streaked past in a flash and cut a fault line through the air. Several hair-fine faults were drawn into the vortex around the ball and slowly widened into bands. The eighteen-point-four-four meters filled with searing air, the ballpark shaking with a demon's excitement—none of it meant anything anymore. There was only the great cheer of boiling passion, and then everything shattered. Before Tomoki's eyes the world went pure white, as if melted by a scorching sun. Ping!—and then a long, ringing hum…

## Chapter 2: Ballet × Violin

…She hurriedly picked up the book that had fallen. Mikiko lifted her eyes. Tomoki, just coming out of the batting cage, did not seem to have noticed her yet. She quickly spread the book open on her knees and flipped through it with a rustle. Page one hundred seventy-eight. Then she began to scan the sentences written there. "—Don't you get tired of reading a book like that?" Mikiko looked up with a show of calm, without lingering over the story printed on the recycled paper. Even if she read this one page carefully from start to finish, skipping more than a hundred pages would only spoil the plot. "Don't you get tired of always hitting the same thing?" She answered, mimicking Tomoki's blank tone to perfection. He spread both hands in a ridiculous gesture. "You enjoy this?" "I do." She answered in her usual cool voice, a voice utterly different from a moment ago, and it startled Tomoki a little. "Really?" "I'll lend you the book. It's interesting. I brought it specially for you." "No thanks." He frowned and waved her off. "You're reading some impossibly difficult philosophy book again, aren't you." "As if." Mikiko looked at the book in her hands. On the flyleaf it did, in fact, say, "A masterpiece of modern suspense, from a genius of mystery fiction!" Ah—as if something had come back to him, Tomoki blurted out. "That's the one, right? The story about men meeting men, both of them stark naked." "If you want to die, die right now." "I'm joking. Why are you so angry?" He gave a dry laugh, trying to smooth it over. Mikiko sighed. She put the closed book into her bag…

## Chapter 3: Baseball Boy N × The Sky Where Angels Dance

Gripping the rock that jutted out, he let a plastic rope down and moved toward the direction the light was coming from. Seeing children chasing one another with shouts of delight, Tomoki quickened his pace a little. The sound of the waves drew much closer at once. "Hey, hey. This is pretty spectacular." Following that line of sight to the grand view spreading upward, he could not help bursting into praise. The swim resort "AQUA" was an indoor theme park that gathered every kind of water-related amusement. Built on the idea that you could taste the pleasures of summer all year round, it laid out waterslides, a flowing pool, open-air baths, and a restaurant dressed with coconut leaves beneath a glass-domed ceiling, all cleverly arranged. Rock walls and the wild shapes of caves, tropical plants of a dazzling green—the mood of a lost South Seas resort beach stood right before them. Why had Tomoki come to this southern island floating inside the city? That was simple: Mikiko had invited him. A reason along the lines of "thanks for last time." As for why Mikiko had two tickets, one for Tomoki and one for Natsuki, she had paid for them out of her own pocket. Mikiko had not felt herself haunted by any nightmare. Even after she heard the explanation she only half believed it, and when she saw the damage at home she thought, "Ah, maybe that's how it was," and left it at that. Then Chihiro said, "Those two are precisely the ones who saved you, so you ought to thank them properly." And so this outing was planned. Chihiro had meant to come along as well, but she had to intensify her studying for the university entrance exams…

## Final Chapter

"Haoka," he answered into the intercom, and the door opened at once. Mikiko, in sandals, suddenly poked her face out. "Ah, you're back. Welcome." "I bought a present." Tomoki opened the big paper bag. "Thank you. …Hmm, you've tanned a little." Gazing at her cheek: "Come in. I'll get the tea ready." "Pardon the intrusion," he said, taking off his shoes and stepping into Mikiko's room. An interior that had nothing to do with the blazing heat of summer vacation. The air conditioner was set just right, and the scorching weather outside seemed unreal. Looking at the sheet music piled in a jumble on the table was like looking at a cipher nearly impossible to deciph er. Cold green tea and mizu-yokan were set on a plate and brought over. "So? How was it? Were you happy?" Mikiko, sitting with her legs apart, could hardly sit still, dying to hear the answer. Tomoki poured the green tea down his throat without ceremony, then took the memory card from his digital camera out of his pocket. He inserted it into Mikiko's laptop and brought the pictures up on the screen. Mikiko stared tensely at the monitor. "Huh. Is this that American-style stadium?" It had been taken with a traditional ballpark enclosed by white walls, and a great many people, behind them. A church of white walls. "The tilt of this stadium is astonishing. The stands outside the field sit very close to the playing ground. It's wonderful for watching." "Ah, it's Natsuki." A young girl in an orange camouflage sleeveless jersey, photographed against the dazzling natural grass of the field. She smiled as she looked back. A peace sign. "Hey, what about this one? …

## Afterword

On the day I actually sat down to write an "afterword," I never thought I would actually manage to write one. Hello, everyone. I am Eito Kido, recipient of the Silver Prize in the Dengeki Novel Prize, an honor worth celebrating. When the call first came from the editorial department, I was still in a convalescence of less than two months. Once I had finally recovered, I set to the work at once. The heavy pressure made my condition worsen for a time, and in the end I could not close my eyes at all that day. On the day of the awards ceremony I was unwell as well. My teacher went to the trouble of speaking to me, and yet I was truly in no state for a normal conversation, bound up in illness as I was. I am deeply sorry for that. I, with this timid heart and this weakened stomach, finally finished revising the contest manuscript, and the matter of publication finally found its footing. From a year before I began writing the contest manuscript, and through this work of revision as well, I went through a great deal of hardship, but by now it is smoke after the fact, and most of it I can no longer remember. Only, without quite noticing, a faint memory remains, touched with a little "bitterness"—and yet what came afterward has left a deep impression of something like "joy." Yes. Writing novels is, of course, an endless pleasure. If you do not keep writing all the way to the end, the hardship that came before scatters on the wind and vanishes like smoke. And so, to everyone who gave me this road of writing books to walk, there is no way I can ever repay what I owe. This time, in the course of finishing this book, the encouragement and care so many people gave me made me feel, deeply and truly, that it is precisely because of all of you that this book exists. My own strength is only a single drop in the vast sea…

## Prologue

With a clang, the metal bat rang out clean and sharp. A fine ball flew straight at the second baseman. The second baseman thought he could catch it easily and set himself where he stood, but a player running in from the side snatched the ball as if fighting him for it, then, with the smoothness of drifting clouds and flowing water, sent it on to first. A satisfying smack echoed across the riverside field. The call came, unhurried. "……" Tomoki, at first base, returned the ball to the pitcher and then pulled off his glove. He had been using a fielder's mitt, and still his palm had gone blood-red, stinging with a hot pain now and then. Tomoki had already taken his cap off with one hand, and he glared, oddly pleased, at the girl standing near second. "Nice catch, Tomoki!" The one who said it was Natsuki, thumb raised. "If you can stop a ball I hit with every ounce of strength I had, your arm hasn't gone dull." Natsuki smiled as if delighted, but Tomoki was not happy to be praised. "Idiot!" Tomoki flung the bat to the ground. Both hands trembled with pain. "In what world do you get the right to field the second ball!?" "It flew out on the second line. Osim said the third person's movement is what matters most." "Could you not practice soccer theory while wearing a baseball glove?" "Tomoki, will you calm down?" Mikiko, seated on the bench under the roof, shouted with all her strength. "At a time like this, nothing Natsuki says is going to do any good!" …

## Chapter 1: The Demon King * Shaman N of the Moon

This was the third time she had come to Japan. The first time had been for work. The second time, travel. And then, the third… "It's so hot. I can't stand it." The man in white, tossing the ice cream stick into the trash, started complaining with cream still stuck in his beard. A fierce humidity that neither boiling steam nor a sauna could describe left his whole face slick with sweat, and mixed with the melt running off the vanilla ice cream, the edges of his lips had gone slippery. And in heat like this, if you held something like an ice cream, your fingers stuck together, tangled up in vanilla. Jessica only lifted her eyes to the sky. The third time was—caring for an old man. "Here." Jessica held out the towel to the old man. "I am truly grateful," Oswald said, taking it. Even so, it was still hot. The thick air clung fast to the body. Just then a girl who looked to be in her teens, passing by, blinked and looked at the old man two or three times. The students were probably on summer break now. What a perfect station in life. It was infuriating… "Thank you, Jessica." After giving his thanks, Oswald walked on ahead. Jessica threw the towel, now useless, into the trash bin and followed, bold as anything, in the direction Oswald had gone. The two of them, being foreigners, stood out sharply in the sea of people before the station. Because in a small city like this, Ebioka, you would never see their type at all. Jessica had come to understand that without quite noticing. Only, walking like this, the four…