[color=6ecff6]“Man, it always comes back around to fighting, doesn’t it?”[/color] Ichiro’s smile slipped a little at the less than encouraging response he got from Kasemchai. Everyone was so hung up on battling and earning points more than anything else; even his own teammates spent more time figuring out how to win fights than they did practising for the next big game, which was probably why they were so bad at baseball as well as combat.

He supposed he was one of them now, even though he saw battling as a means to an end and that end was playing more baseball! [color=6ecff6]“So what if you’ve never played? I’ll teach you! And it’s not meant to teach you how to fight, it’s meant to teach you how to be a team player and the benefits of hard work and determination! And it’s fun!”[/color]

It was no use. It seems nobody wanted to join a club for the actual club activities anymore; clubs were like the factions of the school, or small armies for the club leader or president. The Thai transfer student seemed to think the same as he asked if Ichiro was going to forcibly recruit him even if he said no; ah, yeah, there were some clubs who did that weren’t there? He even prepared for a fight, his leg turning and his weight shifting to his back leg as his forward leg lifted slightly.

Ichiro’s IES allowed him to calculate trajectories, or to put it another way the ‘path things would take’. It worked best on objects already in motion or objects about to be set in motion, like a ball leaving a pitchers hand or about to be struck by a bat, with the former being the easiest and the latter becoming clearer the closer the moment of motion was. What it wasn’t good with was potential movement; his skill alerted him to the possibility of Kasemchai’s attack but not what it would be as about a thousand alarms bells went off to let him know the dozens of ways the Thai student could kick him in the head if he so chose.

It was dizzying.

[color=6ecff6]“Alright then.”[/color] Making a swift decision Ichiro leapt away from Kasemchai, creating as much distance as possible and sliding to a stop a few feet away. At the same time he twisted his hips and turned his upper body, moving his left hand from his side to join his right around the grip of his Slugger, moving into a batting stance with practised ease.

[color=6ecff6]“Batter up!”[/color] A glowing red orb, approximately the same size as a baseball appeared in the air in front of Ichiro, hovering for just a moment before gravity took hold of it, falling for just a moment before the gleaming red bat struck it with as much force as Ichiro could put into a single swing. The Clean Hit surged towards the Thai student, a simple attack to kick off this fight with a bang.

[@HereComesTheSnow]