Hexball: Tokei Hex Edge Hokuto 6–4 (1 Corner) — Ritsu Kishiura Scores Multiple Sides for a Second Straight Match

Hex League round two was played on the night of the 14th at Bayside Arena, where Tokei Hex — winners of the previously reported opener over Fukagawa Pelicans — beat Hokuto 6–4 (1 corner). Organizers put attendance at 17,400, a slight dip from the opener's 18,200 but a solid turnout for a weeknight.

Hokuto led early, scoring at 12 and 24 minutes to take a 3–1 lead into halftime. "We took the opener's lessons and pushed forward from the start," Hokuto's attacking unit said afterward. The tide turned in the second half.

Tokei Hex's Ritsu Kishiura pulled one side back soon after the restart, then added two more late, one with a corner attached that proved decisive. Having tied the league record with three sides in the opener, Kishiura has now scored in two straight matches. "The three sides in the opener got praise, but on one match alone people say 'she'll fall off next time.' Scoring again tonight was my answer to that," Kishiura said afterward, laughing that there had been no tail check this time: "Hands only, properly, today." She added: "Conceding three sides in the first half genuinely stung. But spending in the second half is the team's rule."

Hokuto fell to 0–2 to start the season, having also lost a close 4–4 (3 corners) opener to Naniwa Six on corner count. "Not holding the first-half lead was on us. But finishing both matches by a narrow margin is something to build on," the captain said, noting Hokuto has scored four sides in each of its two matches — no worse, by their own reckoning, than any other club in finishing power.

Tokei Hex opened 2–0. "The Fukagawa match was decided in the second half, the Hokuto match was about clawing back a slow start — different games, but we delivered in the second half both times," the manager said. Chasing a comeback after finishing third last season, the club travels to Owari next.

Elsewhere on the 14th, Fukagawa Pelicans and Naniwa Six drew 5–5 (2 corners), splitting a point each under league rules for a tied corner count. Owari extended its win streak, with the new signing from Kan'yo scoring three sides for a second straight match.

As previously reported, the student wall-racing quarterfinals are set for the 16th at Kameido Second Wall, and the pro wall-racing league's title-deciding final round for the 18th. The school tail-tag league, which opened with Edagawa Metropolitan High's win, has its second round set for this weekend.

Also in the stands at Bayside Arena, as at the opener, was wall racer Rui Migiwajima, 17, watching with a friend. "The moment I saw Kishiura's second side, I knew the sound. Last time it was the eighth tier, tonight it was the tenth," she said, describing hexball scoring in the vocabulary of her own sport's wall tiers. Asked about her own title-deciding match on the 18th, she would only say, "The wall only ever asks me whether I slept properly," declining to elaborate further.

Two matches into its 22-match season, the Hex League has Tokei Hex and Owari tied atop the table at 2–0. A veteran commentator cautioned against reading too much into it: "This is a sport where a first-half lead often gets overturned. Two matches is too early to talk about trends." The league is expected to spend the rest of September still sorting out each club's true form.