Chapter 123

Short Summary
The Lycaons play what could be their final game against the Mariners. The new owner of the Lycaons is announced.

Long Summary
55,000 people show up to watch the game between the Lycaons and Mariners, potentially the former’s last. Ideguchi shouts to his team they’re to burn the memory of the Lycaons being the strongest at the very end. Brooklyn laughs at them and says he’ll show everyone how inferior the Lycaons are, and they smile at him mockingly.

Tokuchi, who saw the press conference, is now watching the game from his car. He says aloud, ‘Show me how much you can do without me.’

The Mariners excellent batting overwhelmed the opponent and they secured 10 safe-hits in the first 6 innings; but the defence held their own and both sides remain scoreless. Brooklyn breaks a bat angrily. Thomas arrogantly assures him they’ve had bad luck and it’s only a matter of time until they score. Takami disagrees and says the Lycaons are simply strong. He points out that every single first pitch to Brooklyn today has been his favourite throw, because they were certain he’d let it go by. Then while he’s waiting for a pitch of the same course, they strike him out. The fielders also tricked Tomas into attempting to steal third by pretending they’d lost sight of the ball, and he had to rush back to escape a tag-out. Takami says the Lycaons weren’t like this before. They’d lose the game before it started by being convinced they couldn’t beat the Mariners. Now, they’ve held them scoreless. He claims it was Tokuchi who made them like this. In the ninth inning, Kurai ‘the Speed King’ is sent on to relieve and strikes out all three batters. On their turn to attack, Kojima hits a home run and the Lycaons win the game.

The Chairman of Ron Wood Capital calls a press conference to announce the new acquirer of the Lycaons. The team watch on TV. He says after Ideguchi’s speech, they received a hefty amount of queries. Unfortunately the deadline had already passed and none could join the bid. Kurai starts crying. The only company in the bid is Tronpos, but another individual buyer has expressed an interest. He offered triple the measly amount of Tronpos, so they decided to go with him. Mitamura screams in outrage. The press start getting rowdy, wanting to know who it is, and the Chairman says he’s come in person.

Tokuchi walks in and declares himself the new owner of the Lycaons. Mitamura screams at his TV, calling Tokuchi a ‘fucking backstabber’. Tokuchi says it was ridiculous for the CEO to talk of dissolving the team without thinking of the fans and he won’t let anyone mess with the Lycaons now that he’s the owner.

Characters

 * Ideguchi
 * Kojima
 * Takami
 * Tomas
 * Brooklyn
 * Ron Wood Capital Chairman
 * Mitamura - CEO of Tronpos
 * Tokuchi Toua