"12th Up to Bat" is the twelfth chapter of the Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens manga and the sixth and final chapter in volume 2, concluding the first story arc of the series.
Synopsis[]
Zhang greets the killer of killers and begins to beat Xianming Lin, while Lin is too shocked to speak or react. Zhang gives the killer permission to cut off Lin's head, while Lin finally finds his voice and angrily asks the head how it could back out on its promise to help him.
The room is shocked as the Niwaka Samurai beheads Zhang instead, and the killer flies through the room, dodging bullets and eliminating the Kakyuu subordinates. Shinohara lobs a small grenade at him, but the killer hits it back like a baseball. Ryuuji Munakata overcomes his traumatic flashbacks in time to block the samurai's sword, but the killer pulls out another, smaller blade and runs Munakata through. With all of the mafia and hitmen in the room wiped out, the samurai cuts Lin's ties and removes his own mask, revealing his identity as Zenji Banba.
Hironobu Shigematsu enters the room, and his subordinates in the police force begin cleaning up. Together, Banba and Lin leave for Yusuke Harada's apartment, where they meet up with Jiro Tanaka and Kazuki Saitoh.
Banba calls Reiko with Hisashi Ivanov's cellphone, giving her a warning that he is coming. She finds a spider communication device planted on her clothing by Enokida and realizes that information who sold out his friends has sold her out as well. Reiko gives Yusuke a quick word of warning, shakes him off, and flees, but Jiro and Saitoh are waiting for her at the front door. When Banba and Lin enter the apartment, Yusuke bursts out of a doorway with a gun, and overcoming his fear of pitching, Saitoh grabs a signed baseball on display and hits Yusuke with it. Banba and Jiro are amazed by his pitch and enthusiastically invite him to join their baseball team, the Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens.
In a warehouse, Yusuke is bound to a chair. Lin beats him until his anger subsides, and his recorded confession is broadcast on public televisions. As José Martínez prepares to complete Yusuke's fatal torture, Lin's wounds reopen, and Banba carries him away.
Later, Saitoh has cosmetic surgery performed to hide his face, enabling him to escape from both Murder, Inc. and the news broadcasts that had painted him as a murderer. In the news are reports of Reiko's arrest and Mayor Harada's shameful resignation. After his face heals, Saitoh attends a grasslot baseball practice game as the Ramens' pitcher, and as he steps up to bat, the opposing team's pitcher hits him with a ball. Saitoh notices Jiro smiling nearby and notes the resemblance between the pitcher and the batter he had once hit in high school, ending his ability to pitch.