Believing She Has Been Reincarnated into a Baseball Game, My Little Sister Is Aiming for the Koshien, While I Give It My All to Keep Her from Finding out That It’s Actually an Ntr Game - Chapter 53

I woke up in a house called the Hyakunogi family—coincidentally sharing the same surname as my mother’s maiden name, but with people I didn’t recognize. It happened four months ago (though I found out later it was the first day of spring break before I entered Netora Academy). Seeing myself back in a healthy body, all smooth and plump, like before I got sick, I could only feel confusion.

My name in this world was Riko Hyakunogi. People who claimed to be my parents and an Onee-chan treated me as though we had always been together. Apparently, we had a very close sisterly bond, but to me, she was a beautiful stranger—though her name sounded eerily familiar. When I took a closer look, I realized that my supposed Onee-chan, Maika Hyakunogi, vaguely resembled Maika-chan from my original world.

Terrified by the inexplicable situation, I spent a few days bedridden in this unfamiliar house. Maika Hyakunogi was concerned for me during that time, but even her kindness felt eerie. She believed, without a shred of doubt, that I was her real little sister, and she would often tell me stories about her boyfriend.

At first, none of what she said registered with me, but when she mentioned her baseball player boyfriend’s name—Kyugo—that’s when a certain possibility dawned on me.

Maybe this world was inside the baseball game my father had created.

But, whether due to some mistake or a lack of suitable characters for the relationships I had requested, this world’s ‘Kyugo’ and ‘Maika’ were in an actual romantic relationship. They weren’t in some superficial, short-lived affair—he was genuinely her boyfriend.

It seemed, though, that ‘Kyugo’ didn’t value ‘Maika’ as much as she valued him. When Maika Hyakunogi talked about him, she had the eyes of a girl in love, but there was also a hint of self-deprecation. It looked like they had a clear-cut relationship with Maika being the one on the lower end.

Perhaps, in the narrative my father had created, Kyugo’s role was to mistreat Maika. Maybe my requests hadn’t come across clearly to him.

Well, it wasn’t like I had made the request seriously in the first place. I never expected a casual comment would end up shaping my second life.

The reason I ended up in this situation, though still unclear, was probably because my father had named the younger sister character Riko Hyakunogi. And somehow, I ended up becoming a character with the same name as myself.

It was devastating.

What on earth had my father done? I had finally died and become my niisan’s number one, but now I was brought back to life in a world without him.

I cursed my father endlessly from my bed until I suddenly realized something.

I could no longer watch over my niisan as a ghost, but whether I was a ghost or trapped in a game world, the fact that “Riko is dead” remained unchanged for him. My position as his one and only would never waver—meaning, I was still his number one!

I whispered a small apology to my father in my heart.

It took me five days to reach this conclusion. During that time, a boy came to visit me.

A boy who seemed around my age, with no particular distinguishing features, introduced himself as the Demon of Koshien.

I thought it was a joke, but he knew about me from my previous life. He knew about the time I first visited Koshien Stadium when I was four, and everything about me, my niisan, and Maika-chan since then.

Most importantly, he knew about the promise my niisan and I made at Koshien.

I had no choice but to believe him.

The demon, who had taken on the form of a boy named Makoto Nomo in this world, said:

“I used the power of the demon to grant Riko-san’s wish.”

He explained that in order to fulfill the promise my niisan and I made at Koshien—that my niisan would take me there and I would be reborn as his sister over and over again—the conditions needed to be met, so he had brought the deceased Riko to this world.

Again, I offered my father a small apology in my heart. It wasn’t his fault; it was the demon’s doing.

But then…

“Had to be met?”

This was the question I asked in return, confused by his choice of words.

The demon awkwardly averted his gaze from me.

Despite speaking with such authority and confidence, it turned out that the demon himself didn’t fully understand the situation.

Upon further inquiry, it became clear that his mysterious power only extended to granting miracles related to high school baseball. He had no awareness of being able to bring people back to life or having a tangible human form.

Yet, the fact remained that the demon had been reborn as a baseball boy in a world without Shohei Otani, and that in his neighborhood lived the plump little girl he had been watching over in his previous life.

By the way, I eventually realized that the demon had been something of a stalker, and it grossed me out, but I tried my best not to show it.

One more thing I discovered was that the demon didn’t know this world was part of a baseball game.

Well, of course, he wouldn’t. The demon had mentioned that he accidentally entered this world when he peeked into a paper bag left behind at the Tigers’ clubhouse by a player, which happened to come from a game shop.

It was only because I had some prior knowledge that I recognized this as a game world. Otherwise, with the scenery and societal norms around me being indistinguishable from the real world, I wouldn’t have suspected anything either.

So, while the demon’s power was certainly involved in this reincarnation phenomenon, the world itself, created by my parents with awareness of our existence, played a significant role as well.

The name Makoto Nomo was likely inspired by the demon—just like how my niisan had been named. Makoto Nomo might even be the main character of the game my father had created.

After explaining everything I knew about the game to the demon, he confidently declared:

“Kyugo will come to this world soon too.”

Just like me, Kyugo would reincarnate as this world’s Kyugo.

He was bound to be reincarnated while the high schooler Kyugo Yamada, who was qualified to go to Koshien, was still alive.

Guiding a chosen baseball boy to Koshien—that was the demon’s power.

That’s when the thought struck me, and I began to sweat nervously. I tried to reason with him, using the word “reincarnation” which I had only recently learned the meaning of.

I explained that I had only reincarnated into this world because I died in the previous one. So, wouldn’t my niisan only reincarnate after he passes away in the other world, which might be decades from now?

The demon coolly refuted my logic.

“I didn’t die, yet here I am, reincarnated in this world. Kyugo will also be led here by my power, without having to die. After all, this reincarnation is meant to fulfill the promise made at Koshien. If Kyugo’s reincarnated form was some old, dying man, that wouldn’t work, would it?”

I lost it.

What had this demon done? I had finally become my niisan’s eternal number one, yet now my niisan was going to be brought into this world too, living alongside me again, which would ruin everything!

Glaring at the demon, I suddenly realized something.

Wait, but if it were just my niisan and me in this world, wouldn’t I still be his number one? With Maika-chan not around to compete, I would remain my niisan’s favorite!

I quietly apologized to the demon in my heart.

But then, a chilling thought occurred to me.

If my niisan reincarnated as ‘Kyugo,’ given that my father had given him the same name, wouldn’t that girl—Maika-chan—also reincarnate as ‘Maika Hyakunogi’?

Actually, that was probably inevitable. The demon knew about the promise between my niisan and Maika-chan at Koshien, after all. If there were conditions for the promise to be fulfilled, then they were certainly in place.

Moreover, Maika-chan was the kind of Onee-chan who always did exactly what I didn’t want her to do—whether intentionally or not, she’d managed to realize about 80% of those things.

In other words, for me to remain my niisan’s number one, I would have to die again. I needed to return to that two-year period when I was dead so that my niisan would live out his life without me.

I furiously told the demon my request.

The demon assured me that he would act in this world to fulfill my wish.

It was as expected of a stalker—or rather, his desired outcome matched my own.

When I listened to his plan and motives, I agreed with him. Our interests were aligned, and we sought the same conclusion. In other words, there was no option but to cooperate.

I began preparing for the day when my niisan would come to this world.

I extracted every piece of information about Kyugo Yamada from Maika Hyakunogi and even used the spare key she had to investigate the Yamada house. It was during this time that I realized I could possibly continue pretending to be my niisan’s little sister in this world as well.

The sudden reincarnation into this strange world would undoubtedly confuse my niisan. He hadn’t even downloaded this game, as indicated by the purchase history. My niisan, who knew nothing about this world, could easily be manipulated with information convenient for me.

I could pretend to be his little sister in this house while our parents were away.

Of course, such a lie would eventually be exposed. But that didn’t matter. Our plan only required the lie to hold up for about four months, until summer.

Even if the truth came out partway through, I could always recover from it.

Still, at least in the beginning, it would be more convenient for our plan if he believed I was his sister.

If my niisan believed that Riko had reincarnated and become his little sister once more, then naturally, he would set out to fulfill his promise to take me to Koshien in this world. He would dedicate himself to making it to Koshien.

That was the goal of our plan.

And then, the moment suddenly arrived.

A week after my encounter with the demon, a shift occurred in my mind.

The face of my Onee-chan in this world suddenly turned into Maika-chan’s, and I could no longer recall the face of my previous Onee-chan at all.

The face of Kyugo Yamada, whom Maika Hyakunogi had shown me in photos and videos—a somewhat intimidating and scary figure, if I remembered correctly—changed to the kind, loving niisan who had always adored me.

My niisan was in this world.

Even though I hadn’t met him yet, my brain had accepted it as if it were a fact I had known all along.