This series is glorious. Glad to see it resuming, and hopefully to the end that the author envisions.
I'd forgotten that we get the ending back at the beginning, and while I still have no way of actually knowing how we get there before we do, I suspect that it will involve Kanae growing a spine, more and more, asserting herself more and more until something snaps for her.
She's doing a lot more yelling these days, it seems, but it almost feels constructive now (well, for her, at least). This feels less like her lashing out in pained rage, and more like her asserting herself, filling in the space of the world that she occupies. Even here - lots of "I" and "Me" statements, but they're her proclaiming what should be, rather than passively stating what is for her.
Maybe I'm reading too much into that, but it sorta registers as a shift, that's been happening more and more. She's still beaten down, she's still in a dangerous place, but there's now fire and fight beneath that wasn't there at the start.
With that in mind - why chapter 1 makes it seemingly Hiroshi, I can't say - except that with his own crash-course involving his future, I'm almost expecting it to simply be a matter of "heat of the moment", rather than anything planned or explicitly intended.
With how he seems to be, wanting things "just so" and dropping partners and life decisions as soon as they become invconvenient--except for baseball, anyway--perhaps there comes a watershed moment where Kanae, with her newfound backbone and solidified sense of self, it could end up being a fatal meeting of "force & object"; especially if Hiroshi continues to spiral and the injury gets worse and he ends up cut out/cast aside by the one rock in his life that is his sport.
Guess we'll see. But if it's ramping up in 2 chapters' time with ~30ish chapters remaining from there, I think my only remaining question is if we get an "afterward" from where we came in, and what fallout awaits our cast in the wake of that incident.
Thank you for your work on this series. It's not my usual fare, but I've been enjoying it immensely and am grateful you're continuing with it.