This story follows canon. Prior apologies for any discrepancies.

Disclaimer – I do not own Diamond no Ace

How it Began

"I am Mitsuhide Akeshi, your new coach..."

He was an old, retired man. Fortunately agile enough that he didn't need a cane yet. Though you could hear his knees creaking with every step like an old oak threatening to fall at the lightest breeze. Mitsuhide was very healthy all things considered. But an 85 year old man shouldn't be working, especially if he didn't even have to. He didn't need the money –not that this job was giving him enough to live off of anyway– and yet here he was, coaching for a bunch of babies. He only took this job because his wife said he was being a cranky old man with too much free time on his hands.

'Find something to do or you're making your own food from now on!'

An ominous threat.

He smiled. His wife was always cute when she got angry. It made her look 30 years younger too. 'Oh Mitchiko-chan, I miss the days you could chase me around the house with your duster for tracking in mud again.' At least then he had a chance of getting away, now she just threw the closest things to her at him.

A cough from one of the young boys standing in front of him brought him back from his musings.

"It is to my understanding that this school hasn't had a coach for the baseball team in over 5 years. So, it is safe to assume that you second and third years have probably not had any proper instruction since joining…" Mitsuhide felt silly. Only 5 of the 15 kids were actually paying attention. The others were either looking elsewhere and picking their noses or having a… burping competition?

"…"

They really were just a bunch of country bumpkin babies with the attention span of a potato.

'Ahhh Mitchiko-chan! What did you make me do?! I'm not cut out for this!' Did kids even know how to throw a baseball at this age? What was he like back then?

Definitely on the taller side, these brats barely reached his chest. And he was slouching!

He cleared his throat intentionally loud. 'Ooo look! three more just looked up!'

"We'll start by going around, saying your name, year and what position you play." two more looked up, he was making progress! "We'll start with You! Shrimpy with the girly belch!"

The kids standing next to the boy laughed and nudged at the brown haired boy who turned red in the face. The kid tucked his head to his chest and his shoulders were shaking minutely.

Mitsuhide was just beginning to think he might have taken a step too far when the kid… exploded.

"Who'reya calln' a shrimp ya overgrown wrinkled raisin! My burps are the manliest of manly burps you will ever get ta' hear!"

One of the kids standing next to the screaming boy nudged him stage whispering, "What are you doing? You're not supposed to yell at the teachers. What if he kicks you off the team?"

'Was he allowed to do that?' Mitsuhide thought to himself. "An exhalent point." He decided to just roll with it. "If you don't introduce yourself with your grade and position in the next 10 seconds, I will have to expel you from any further participation for as long as I am coach." He used his glare from the days of his prime and zeroed in on the kid who paled and looked as though he was about to wet himself… Actually, they all looked like they were about to wet themselves. 'hehe, still got it.'

"You're not saying anything shrimp. Does that mean you want to quite? It's already been 5 seconds."

"W-W-W-W-Wait! Wait! No! I want to play! Um! Um! 7th grade! Um! O blood type! Um! Um! Um! Oh! Pitcher! P-Please don't kick me off the team!" The boy finished with a ninety degree bow.

"And your name is...?"

"Sawamura Eijun!"

Over two years later

Coach Mitsuhide stood in the shade of the dugout, watching the start of his team's 4th game. This was how far the team managed to get last year. They had been just two points away from making it into regional championships, but couldn't get passed the opponents curveball. None of them knew how to hit one and the school couldn't afford to buy the equipment to allow them to practice for it. Still, it was further than Mitsuhide had expected them to get. The team was a tad above average at best, but what really made the difference was whenever it looked like the team was in a pinch, the pressure seemed to only make them stronger. Their drive fueled by their fiery wills, pushing them through. And at the very center was their ace. Lighting the fire of determination in their bellies and inspiring confidence in them that they could go as far as they wanted with him leading the way. They all looked up to their captain and ace as their pillar of strength.

'It's hard to believe it's already been two years.' He had only been planning on coaching for a few months too. But here he was, coaching Akagi in its last season. There were only 9 players left on their team at this point. The whole line-up comprised of only 9th graders since that was all that was left of the school.

He snuck a glance towards the stand, looking for the woman who had confronted him earlier that day.

"Why am I coaching? Isn't it obvious?"

The woman just raised a brow and crossed her arms. "Someone of your caliber who's been retired from this line of work for over 50 years suddenly decides to work again not only in an easily looked over district but also for a school that's about to get torn down. No. Your intentions are not very clear."

"Well there's no hidden agenda, if that's what you're wondering about. The school just happened to be down the street from my house and I was getting bored. So I thought I'd teach these brats how to play baseball. They're all just here to have fun."

"Was it 'just having fun' that led your team to almost make championships last year? What are you hiding, Iron Grip Mitsuhida-san?"

"I've got nothing up my sleeves!"

The woman's glasses glinted as she adjusted them, giving the man an unimpressed look.

"Honest! Look, you'll just have to see for yourself in today's game. You didn't come all the way from Tokyo just to sightsee did you?"

"Mitsuhide-dono!"

A tick mark appeared on his head as he looked down at the team's 'pillar of strength'. No matter how many times that hyperactive brat called him out like that, it still irked him to no end. And no matter how many times he yelled at the brat to stop him from calling him that, the message just couldn't get through the kid's bull-headedness.

Sawamura Eijun, with the rest of the team standing behind him, kneeled down like a samurai in front of its master with his head bowed. "We are about to go forth into battle, won't you please give us your blessing?!"

He was about to smack the back of the kid's head like he always did, but when he saw the fire burning in all of the kids' eyes he thought, 'why the heck not?' And decided to indulge in his wannabe mini samurai.

With his stricter voice he called out. "You have my blessing!" While simultaneously thinking 'I feel stupid.' But the looks on their faces was worth it. "Now huddle up! We'll be batting first. Swing wild on the first pitch. You know what to do after that. Baichu, if you can, corner the pitcher. You'll be the one to set up first impressions on the other team. Our opponents have a stronger offense then they do with their defense, but that doesn't mean we can let our guard down. Follow through and plant your feet. Now fists in!"

Their ace and captain, Sawamura, stepped into the middle of the huddle and bent down grabbing a fistful of dirt. He stood up and began speaking as he let some of the dirt fall on the fists one by on. "Who are you?!" He asked one of his teammates.

"A warrior!"

"What is this field?!" He asked another.

"Our battle field!"

"How do you fight?!"

"With my bat!"

"Do you fight alone?!"

"No!"

"How do you defend?!"

"With my glove."

"Do you defend alone?!"

"No!"

He pumped his fist up. "How do we fight?!"

"As one!"

"How do we defend?!"

"As one!"

"Let's make this battlefield ours!"

Everyone yelled and crowded in the middle with all of their fists pumping in the air. The siren went off in the background and the game began.

In the bleachers, Takashima Rei watched as the game played out, contemplating the talk she had earlier with Akagi's coach. "See for myself, he says."

It was already noteworthy that the team had managed to make it this far with just the bare minimum members. But what did he mean before, was there something special about this team? Or had they only gotten this far because they had him as a coach? As far as she could tell with their batting, there was nothing that really stood out.

"Strike three, batter out! Change sides!"

They seemed pretty average in that sense. Her eyes traveled over to the zero lit up next to Akagi's name on the score board. Maybe they had a better defense. Rei watched as a brown haired boy stepped onto the mound expressing a large grin on his face as he set himself up for warm up pitches. 'A south-paw then?'

The first surprise came when the first batter started making his way towards the batter's box. The pitcher turned towards the outfield and raised his arms in the air before screaming out, "I'll be sending balls flaying, so thankyou everyone in advance for your support!"

"We're right behind you Eijun!"

"Do what you do best Eijun!"

"We've got your back Eie-chan!"

She commemorated the pitcher to be able to make his teammates look at him the way they did. It was almost as though the whole field had grown a bit brighter.

"Batting first, left fielder Hideyoshi-kun."

The pitcher nodded to the catcher's signal and began his wind-up. First pitch was a fast ball, away and low. The next was a ball, away and low. He threw the third pitch. 'He has a basic form and his speed is pretty go-hmm?'

"Strike!"

The catcher threw the ball back at the pitcher. 'Was that a breaking ball? No, it was too fast for it to be that. But it had sharp movement at the plate.'

The batter was struck out and the second batter hit a pop fly to third. When the third batter came around, Rei began to notice there was a little more to the pitchers form than she first thought. 'That last pitch had his arm almost all the way up, but I remember him throwing something that was almost a side-arm pitch too. Does he just have bad arm control or is it intentional? Is his range that large? No decent coach would let their pitchers pitch strenuous pitches when they're this young.'

And then he threw a change-up.

"Strike! Batter out, change sides!"

'So he does have a breaking ball. And it drops very sharply at the plate. It's almost like a sinker.

Rei had heard of a few pitchers that had tried to throw at multiple angles. But most pitchers would have a hard time with it because it would feel so unnatural. A pitcher had a set range of where they could swing their arm down with next to no strain. And in most cases, their bodies could only handle a small range that would give them at most two different angles they could throw in. One of the pitchers at the high school she worked at, for example, was a side-arm pitcher because the way the muscles in his scapula were shaped put him in more strain if he threw it vertically like many pitchers. It was the same for other pitchers the other way around. They tended to stick with the way that felt the most comfortable because their arms would be built for the least resistance in that range. However, this kid looked to have a wide range of the angles he could throw at. That could be a very useful weapon if it was mastered.

And as the game went on, she realized he had to be controlling the angle his arm swung down. Otherwise that boy would have to have had inhuman luck.

The game ended at 1-3 Akagi. A mistake by the infielders at a crucial moment lead to the other team getting the first run in the fifth inning. She expected the pressure to be too much for a team that didn't look to get very far in tournaments. But then their team member carrying the ace number seemed to just smile even bigger, yelling at the opposing team to be prepared for an 'epic' counter attack in the next inning. Declaring loudly how he trusted his team that they could pull through it together. His teammates roared out in agreement and a new brighter and hotter fire was burning within each of them. And now they were all sporting the same feral grins.

Then, in the next inning, Akagi scored a run. Then another in the 7th inning and again another in the 9th.

'A pitcher with that kind of influence on a team huh?' She thought wistfully. "Sawamura Eijun, I wonder what sort of pitcher you would become if you joined Seido?"

If you have any requests that are not pairings I would be glad to hear about them. I look forward to writing out the plans I have for Sawamura's skills that have not been shown yet.

Originally this story was going to be about Sawamura going into the same team as Todoroki Raichi. Though that meant I couldn't write much about Seido. It was going to be call the 'Ultimate Duo', but I didn't want to make a bunch of OC's. They don't show enough for me to go on to create accurate characteristics of the team members they did show. If anyone wants to use this idea, please, by all means. Just let me know so I can read it. I'm really curious how it would have turned out if I actually got to writing it. I have part of the beginning written out if you want it too.

What to look foraward to: Sawamura pitches to Miyuki for the first time