Theme: "Hit"

Naturally, one might think of hitting a baseball, but Kaori doesn't play baseball. I considered taking the easy route by depicting a "hit" in a different sport, but I wanted to stick to the theme's baseball roots. During the spring of her third year, at the opening ceremony of the school she was temporarily attending, there was a scene where she swung her sword—*Sukezane*—to slice a baseball in mid-air; I decided to recreate that moment here. The figure is posed as a left-handed batter, but since it is a *tachi* (long sword), a backhand swing is also a valid possibility. The moment of the cut can only be conveyed through the sword's positioning relative to the target; simply specifying "deep" or "behind" didn't work and resulted in the blade just clashing awkwardly against the object. GPT Image 2.5 wouldn't listen when I asked for a horizontal *tachi* swing, so I finally got the desired horizontal angle by describing the target as a "thin board." This image is the result of about thirty attempts. https://openart.ai/suite/create-image/gpt-image-2-5, GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst, 3:2, Quality: medium, 1536x1024, $0.0447=6.87yen/piece