Chapter 121

Short Summary
Mitamura finds Saikawa and reveals his relationship with Tokuchi. Saikawa tells the team about Tokuchi’s contract.

Long Summary
Tronpos ' CEO Mitamura finds Saikawa ‘hiding away’ at a bar. He assumes the employees of Saikawa Group are hostile towards him for getting the company in such a bad state. He asks Saikawa what he plans on doing about the promise he made to him, and reveals he’s guessed Saikawa took a secret loan from Ron Wood. Saikawa looks shocked. Mitamura asks him why he didn’t use his bank for the loan, but Saikawa is reluctant to answer.

Mitamura reminds Saikawa that he was originally going to sell the Lycaons for ten times the pre-tax profit of the season. He speculates he was doing some ‘dirty business’, like adjusting the players’ salaries, to increase pre-tax profit. Saikawa denies it, but Mitamura gets more specific, suggesting he’s been giving performance-based salaries and Tokuchi has caused a big loss for him. Saikawa stops denying it and Mitamura admits he knows about the One Outs contract and the ¥50 billion loan. Saikawa asks him how he knows so much and Mitamura laughs, claiming it’s only natural he should know as Tokuchi Toua is an ‘assassin’ he sent. Saikawa yells out in shock.

Mitamuru tells Saikawa about the day he met Toua- March 4th, a month before the start of the season. He’d been discussing the purchase of a baseball team with his staff, and knew Saikawa was using dirty tricks to increase the selling price of the Lycaons, when Tokuchi walked in. He said he'd heard the Lycaons were being sold to this company next year. Mitamura denied it and told him to leave, but Tokuchi said he knew about the sale price being ten times the pre-tax profit and about Saikawa’s desperation to increase it.

He revealed he’d be joining the Lycaons this season and was to discuss his salary with the Owner the next day. Since Saikawa is ‘stingy’ and Tokuchi is an inexperienced player, he had a plan to suggest a performance-based salary: for every out, he’d get 5 million, and for every run he’d pay 50 million. As even the player with the highest ERA would lose out with this, Saikawa would be sure to agree.

Tokuchi asked Mitamura if he wanted to team up. If they provided information and financial support, Tokuchi could drain Saikawa’s funds, which would make the pre-tax profit decrease. Mitamura said he was interested, but there was one problem- they didn’t know if Tokuchi was skilled enough to pull that off. He turned to one of his staff, a batter at University, and told him to have a go against Tokuchi. He told Tokuchi he was to get 20 strikes, and if his batter got one hit, he loses. The staff member said their advantage was too great but Tokuchi chuckled and accepted the challenge.

Mitamura admits he came up with this plan to drive Tokuchi out of his office. But not only did his staff member fail to get a hit, his bat didn’t touch the ball once. He agreed to team up with Tokuchi.

Saikawa hangs his head. Mitamura tells Saikawa he’d been deceived all this time by Tokuchi and him. Saikawa starts banging his fist against table, cursing. He tells Mitamura he won’t get away with this and vows to destroy the both of them.

Kurumizawa announces to the Lycaons they have a fax from Saikawa. Ideguchi tells him to throw it out but Kurumizawa says its contents is shocking. He reads it out to them. Saikawa says he is deeply sorry for the state he's put the team in but has a confession he needs to make- the reason for his poor management is Tokuchi’s excessive salary, which is now 33 billion yen. The team being run into the red is the fault of his ridiculous performance-based contract. The fax says is there's something they can do- a press conference concerning the sale of the team is to be held tonight and they can reveal this secret to the press. Companies will be more willing to buy the team if they know they’ll generate a profit so long as Tokuchi’s not on it.

Several of the team members shout out their relief at being saved, but a shocked-looking Kurai says that’ll mean abandoning Tokuchi.

Saikawa sits at his bar and chuckles, wishing death on Tokuchi and Mitamura.

Characters

 * Saikawa
 * Mitamura
 * Kurumizawa
 * Ideguchi
 * Imai
 * Tokuchi Toua