“What’s going on?! That ball wasn’t the same as before!” Crimson shouted.
“That’s part of the game!” Koutarou answered. “If I only pitched the same way, you would hit them all!”
“In that case, say so earlier,” Crimson demanded.
“Well, you stepped in the batter’s box so confidently, I figured you already knew...” Koutarou scratched his head.
“Jeez...” Crimson griped. “So you have to hit it while anticipating all kinds of pitches?”
“Sorry about that,” Koutarou apologized.
“Hehehe,” Maki giggled, looking at them.
Crimson glanced over at her before readying her bat again.
This is bad, Kou. I’ve got a bad feeling about this... Kenji thought. He used his expressions and gestures to convey the danger. His intuition when it came to these kinds of things was never wrong. If they had been in a match, Koutarou and Kenji would have avoided a direct confrontation. At the very least, Koutarou would have thrown a ball outside of the strike zone and changed gears.
I know, Mackenzie. But that’s why we have to do this, Koutarou thought.
He smiled at Kenji in response and wound up his pitch. Kenji immediately understood what Koutarou’s intentions were and readied his glove. A similar smile formed on his own face.
“Show her what you’ve got, Kou!” he cried.
“Haaaaah!!!” Koutarou threw another straight ball with a serious backspin on it, just like his first pitch. There was no particular reason, but he felt like having a head-on contest.
“Got yooouuu!” Crimson responded with full force, swinging her bat in the same place as the second. She had a beautiful swing, and she hit the ball just as aimed. However, the ball didn’t fly forward. With her lack of experience, she was unable to send the ball in her desired direction; instead it flew high up into the air above Koutarou.
“Good job hitting that, Crimson,” Koutarou said sincerely. The ball sailed smoothly through the air and landed safely in his glove.
“Ugh, I wanted to send it flying farther,” Crimson said.
“You’ll need some more practice for that. In fact, normally, you wouldn’t even be able to hit the ball.”
“Don’t assume I’m a normal woman!” Crimson retorted.
“Which is why I’m praising you,” Koutarou shot back.
“I don’t feel like getting praised even a little with results like this!” Crimson was sulking. Superior physical abilities or not, hitting the ball on your first try was surprising. Koutarou felt like Crimson should have been proud of that, but she wasn’t satisfied. She frustratedly got back into the batter’s box. “Throw another one, just one more!” she pleaded.
“Crimson, I know how you feel, but shouldn’t we save that for after what you came here to talk about?” Maki asked.
“Ugh...” Crimson relented. Having let her emotions get the better of her, Maki’s words calmed her down. She reluctantly left the batter’s box and returned the bat to Nalfa. Crimson knew the importance of what she’d come there to do. “We’ll settle this later.”
“Okay, okay. But why are you even here?” Koutarou asked. “Weren’t you in the middle of a mission at that enemy base?”
The court magicians Crimson was one of were often stuck cleaning up after Koutarou’s and the others’ battles. That was true now as well, as they should have been in the process of cleaning up the waste polluting an enemy base.
“This concerns you too, so come with us, Blue Knight,” Crimson answered.
“Yeah, sure...” Koutarou said. “You heard her; I’m off for a while.”
“Yeah, see you later,” Kenji replied.
Koutarou handed his baseball equipment to Kenji and walked after Crimson. Maki and Green followed suit, leaving the Matsudaira siblings and Nalfa behind.
“She came and went like the wind,” Kotori murmured. Seeing how Crimson was full of drive and did as she pleased, it was a rather accurate assessment of her.
“I wonder why so many radical people like that gather around Kou,” Kenji muttered as he stared at the ball in his glove. It had what looked like scorch marks where it had been hit, a sign of just how fast the bat had been swung.
“Thanks to her, I was able to understand something,” Nalfa said.
“Understand what?” Kotori asked.
“Koutarou-sama had a very wicked smile on his face when facing Crimson-sama,” Nalfa explained.
“Ah, that.” Kotori nodded. She quickly realized what Nalfa was saying. It was a continuation of their prior discussion, where Kotori had said that Koutarou had a different smile for everyone. Koutarou’s smile for Kenji differed from his smile for Crimson. Still, both had a strong sense of joy in them. Thanks to Crimson, Nalfa felt a little more confident in herself.
“What are you talking about?” Kenji asked.
“It’s a girls’ secret,” Kotori replied.
“Then I’ll pretend I didn’t hear anything.”
“Good.”
Nalfa laughed. “Still, I worry that Koutarou-sama doesn’t get enough rest.” Nalfa looked with concern in the direction that Koutarou and the others had gone. He and Kenji had been playing catch to change gears, which meant that he had taken a break because he had so much work. Nalfa worried about his well-being.
“Which is all the more reason for you to be at his side,” Kenji said.
“Mackenzie-sama...” Nalfa murmured. “But wouldn’t I get in the way?”
She felt that it was best for Koutarou to be alone to get some rest, and she worried that it would only be a burden on him if she was around. But Kenji shook his head.
“No, the more danger he’s in, the more he’ll push people close to him away. He’ll try to do it all on his own. That’s why you shouldn’t let him be on his own, Nalfa-san.” Kenji could understand Koutarou because of their long relationship. He was one of the few people who understood the complex feelings Koutarou had deep down.
“O-Okay!” Nalfa vigorously nodded. Kenji’s words were very convincing, and she was moved by them.
“If anything, I think you should cling to Kou-niisan more, Nal-chan,” Kotori said.
“Cling?! That’s a little too much...” Nalfa was a girl too, and also wanted to be close to the person she loved, but she didn’t want to one-sidedly force her feelings on anyone.
“But that’s how Kotori succeeded,” Kenji explained.
“Really?!” Nalfa was shocked.
“Yes, I was always following him around.” Kotori laughed. Thinking back on it, she’d always been following Koutarou around. To put it in a bad way, she had been stalking him. Her childish innocence had prompted her to run after him. “So you should try it too, Nal-chan. It’ll be fine.”
“I... Okay...” Nalfa was still not convinced and nodded weakly. But she knew that she couldn’t stay like this. She couldn’t act like Kotori right away, but surely she could take a first step toward change.
Upon reaching Maki’s room, Crimson started talking before tea was prepared. That was partially because she was in a hurry, but also because there was a lot to talk about.