Chapter 51: Training
Shun left the kitchen after dinner and went to lie down. The boy then opened the arena and played a few matches. Unfortunately, he still couldn't win the second game of the Bronze Tournament, and he didn't manage to get any progress on the arena mission.
The boy woke up in the morning, left the house, and went for his daily run. Today was Friday, and even though Coach Yamada had given the players a day off to rest, the system wasn't as kind.
Shun finished his run, and after taking a shower and eating breakfast, the boy went to class.
"Hey, you two!" - Shun and Kenta were leaving the classroom after class ended when they heard a familiar voice shouting behind them.
"Ren, why are you yelling?" - Kenta looked back only to see their samurai friend running towards them.
"Hehe, we're off today! I was thinking about going to the arcade, what do you guys think?" - Ren said excitedly, ignoring Kenta's question.
"Hm, not a bad idea, I'm in!" - Kenta quickly agreed.
"Eh, sorry, I'll pass. I'm going to see if I can use the field today to train." - Shun said awkwardly, scratching the back of his head. Thanks to the system, he no longer knew the word "rest".
"Huh? Damn, man, are you serious?" - Ren was shocked. He knew his friend had become obsessed with training, but even the coach had told them to rest.
"Well, if you're going to train, I don't mind joining." - Kenta quickly changed his mind. He had always been the most hardworking of the three, but in recent months, he started to think he was losing that title to Shun.
"Ahhhh, I hate you guys!" - The young samurai complained as he started walking towards the school's baseball field. There was no way he could fall behind his friends.
The three friends arrived at the field together, but instead of going in, they headed towards the coach's office.
*knock knock*
"Come in." - The boys heard Coach Yamada's voice from inside the office. Shun then opened the door and entered, followed by Kenta and Ren.
"Oh, do you need something, boys?" - The coach looked surprised to see the three young men entering his office, he hadn't expected to see any of them today.
"Coach, we'd like your permission to use the field to train a bit today!" - Shun said while bowing towards the coach. Kenta and Ren also bowed, waiting for his response.
"Huh? I thought I told you to rest today." - The coach was surprised by the request but kept a serious expression.
"Well, we won't be training tomorrow either, so I wanted to exercise a bit today, hehe! But don't worry, Coach, we'll just do a light workout!" - Shun said, trying to convince the coach.
"I see. Do you two feel the same way?" - The coach asked Kenta and Ren instead of giving a response.
"Yes, sir!" - The two boys quickly confirmed, but in their minds, they were shouting, "Light, my ass!". They knew there was no such thing as a light workout with Shun.
"Well, you can use the field, but don't push yourselves too hard." - The coach said, his expression unchanged.
"Thank you, Coach!" - The three boys thanked him excitedly, bowed again, and quickly left the office to change and start training.
"Hehe, those boys..." - Coach Yamada smiled as he watched the backs of the three boys. He knew they had been working very hard in recent months. But his smile quickly faded as he remembered something.
"I hope everything goes well on Sunday."
Meanwhile, the three boys arrived at the field. As always, they started with the batting machine. With only three people to take turns, they could hit much more than usual. After a good amount of time batting, Shun went to practice pitching while Kenta and Ren played catch.
Even though Shun hadn't yet achieved a pitch with perfect form, he could already feel that his form was much more stable. He could feel much more power behind his pitches compared to the ones he threw before receiving the system. Unfortunately, since he was only pitching into a net, he couldn't know exactly how much he had improved.
After his pitching practice, Shun joined Kenta and Ren to start the dreaded exercise list. However, before beginning the exercises on the list, he tried doing some finger push-ups. The exercise was much harder than he imagined, he stopped after 10 repetitions and started the list.
After 2 hours, the three were tidying up the field. They had finished the list, and even though they were tired, they no longer felt completely exhausted like before. Since they hadn't practiced defense with the team today, it was still light out, and the three friends left the field together, heading home.
"See you Sunday, guys!" - Shun said goodbye to the two boys. He thought about inviting them to train tomorrow as well, but he quickly realized he shouldn't do that. Ren and Kenta didn't have the system or the Divine Recovery quirk to help them. Overtraining would do more harm than good for them. Besides, he felt like Ren would jump at his throat if he mentioned the word "training" again.
"Later!" - The two boys said goodbye to Shun and continued on their way.
Shun started walking the rest of the way home, and he could only think of two things at that moment: a bath and dinner.
Shun was almost at his house gate when he saw two figures approaching him. One of them was a beautiful girl with black hair and blue eyes, that was Shun's twin sister, Mika.
The other figure was someone Shun hadn't seen in a while. He had a handsome face, green eyes, black hair, and a body almost as tall as Shun's. That boy had been the catcher and captain of Japan twice at the Little League World Series. He led the team to victory and became a champion both times.
Currently, he was the catcher for Japan's under-15 team and was also the starting catcher for the Tokyo Nakano seniors.
"Toji?" - Shun said, surprised when he saw his childhood friend.