VISION GRID SYSTEM: THE COMEBACK OF RYOMA TAKEDA

While most of the city is still asleep, Ryoma Takeda stirs. Consciousness returns to him in fragments, slow and unwelcome, as if his body is reluctant to admit the night is already over.

Light reaches him first. Not sharply, not all at once, but as a pale pressure behind his eyelids, as if someone has turned the world back on without warning him.

Ryoma’s eyes flutter, resist, then open a fraction before he closes them again. The light is wrong, too white, too even. It’s not sunlight, not the harsh glare of an arena either.

It presses at his temples, seeps inward, makes his head feel thick and heavy. The ceiling swims into view, featureless and unfamiliar, lines blurring at the edges.

“… A hospital?”

The thought comes without panic, more like a box checked. The smell confirms it; clean, sterile, layered faintly with something chemical and dry.

Pain follows, rolling in after awareness like a delayed tide.

There’s the deep soreness first, the kind that settles into muscles after a fight, after everything has tightened and released too many times.

His shoulders ache when he shifts them even slightly. His forearms feel thick and itchy, like they’ve been packed with sand. His ribs protest the shallow inhale he takes, a dull spreading throb along his right side.

Something pulls uncomfortably at the corner of his mouth when he swallows. Behind his eyes, there’s pressure, like a heavy presence, as if his skull is filled with damp cotton.

Ryoma lies still, cataloguing it all the way he always does.

Location. Intensity. Cause.

Then a flicker of memory surfaces; his weight shifting forward, a counter that failed, Jade’s glove breaking through.

The image stops there, like a tape abruptly cut. Nothing after.

His gaze drifts. A faint interface settles at the edge of his sight like usual. The system’s HUD is still there.

04:27 AEST

West Melbourne, Australia

His eyes move again, slow this time. He finds Aramaki slumped in a chair beside the bed, head tipped forward, chin tucked into his chest, arms folded loosely. He’s asleep, mouth slightly open, breathing deep and even.

Ryoma watches him for a moment, then looks away. He doesn’t want to wake him yet.

He pieces things together quietly, and comes to one final conclusion.

“So… I lost,” he murmurs, more to himself than anyone else.

The words don’t hurt as much as he expects them to. Maybe the disappointment will come later. For now, it just feels finished.

But then, Aramaki shifts, stirs, blinking himself awake. His eyes focus quickly. Relief crosses his face the moment he sees Ryoma’s eyes open.

“Hey,” Aramaki says softly. “You’re awake.”

Ryoma manages a small smile. “Yeah. Guess I overdid it.”

Aramaki leans forward, one hand braced on the arm of the chair. “How do you feel? Headache? Nausea?”

“No,” Ryoma answers. He pauses, then adds, “My ribs are filing a complaint, though. And my mouth feels like I tried chewing gravel.”

That earns him a quiet huff of laughter. “Sounds about right.”

Ryoma shifts, then winces. “Remind me to stop volunteering for body shots. I think he took that personally.”

“You invited him,” Aramaki says dryly.

“Still rude,” Ryoma replies. He glances down at himself, at the blanket pulled neatly over his torso. “I’m guessing I didn’t make it back to the corner.”

“You did, but without a mouthpiece,” Aramaki says, laughing lightly. “Don’t try to sit up yet.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Ryoma says. “Everything below my neck is unionized against movement.”

Aramaki chuckles again, softer this time. The tension drains from his shoulders a little.

“You scared us,” he says.

Ryoma’s smile flickers, then steadies. “Sorry about that.”

They sit in companionable silence for a few seconds. Ryoma stares at the ceiling, letting the ache exist without fighting it.

“At least,” he says eventually, voice light, “I was fighting the undefeated OPBF champion. That counts for something, right?”

Aramaki snorts as he stands. “Yeah, right… The undefeated.”

There’s something in his tone; fond, skeptical, almost amused. But Ryoma doesn’t look at him closely enough to question it.

Not even about the detail he managed to the corner without the mouthpiece Aramaki mentioned earlier.

“I’ll go call the others,” Aramaki says. “Let them know you’re up.”

Ryoma nods. “Tell them I’m still alive. Just… heavily bruised.”

Aramaki pauses, then smiles. “I’ll tell them exactly that.”

As he steps out of the room, Ryoma closes his eyes again, breathing carefully around the soreness, letting the quiet settle.

The room settles again once the door closes. Only then does the throbbing in his hands sharpen, pulsing with a persistence that feels wrong.

At first, Ryoma dismisses it; knuckles always complain after a fight. But the ache keeps growing, deep and insistent, spreading up his wrists.

He frowns and slowly pulls his arms free from beneath the blanket. To his surprise, both hands are wrapped tight in white bandages.

Ryoma stares at them for a long moment.

“…That’s new,” he murmurs.

He searches his memory, but finds nothing. No punch he remembers throwing hard enough to earn this. The thought lingers, uneasy and unfamiliar.

Did I really hit him that hard last night?

The quiet stretches, and with it, the thoughts Ryoma has been avoiding finally find space to settle.

Excuses line themselves up without effort. Short notice. Jet lag. Being thrown in as a replacement just because someone needed a body to keep an event from collapsing and bleeding money.

He pictures the contracts, the polite urgency in the calls, the unspoken understanding that he was there to fill a gap.

All that… for a loss.

He scoffs softly at himself. “Playing the hero… As if that had ever worked out cleanly.”

Ryoma lifts his left hand, the one that hurts less, and rubs at his forehead, thumb pressing between his brows.

“I should have listened to the old man,” he regrets, and exhales. “Now my perfect record is gone, tarnished by impatience.”

Just then, the door opens. Muted voices spill in, layered and half-overlapping.

“Told you he’d be awake by now.”

“Don’t crowd him, this is still a hospital.”

“He looks fine, though…”

Ryoma lowers his hand, blinking as Nakahara steps in first, followed by Sera and Hiroshi. Kenta brings up the rear tall frame awkward in the doorway, trying and failing to keep his grin in check.

For a moment, Ryoma just watches them, struggling to catch up.

Their energy doesn’t match the room, or his own thoughts. They talk over each other, voices hushed but bright, trading remarks about coffee machines, time zones, who forgot to charge their phone.

Nakahara finally notices Ryoma’s stare and grins, wide and unapologetic, like a toddler proud of a secret.

“Look at you,” he says. “Back from the dead.”

“Still hurts,” Ryoma mutters. “So I’m not impressed.”

That earns a few quiet laughs.

“You scared us,” Hiroshi says, folding his arms. “Don’t do that again.”

“Yeah,” Kenta adds. “At least give some warning next time.”

Before Ryoma can respond, Nakahara sets a hard-sided briefcase at the foot of the bed. He flips the latches open. Inside, resting in black foam, the OPBF belt gleams.

Ryoma stares, once, twice. Then he looks up at them, confused, heart starting to beat faster.

“…Am I,” he begins, voice unsteady, “still dreaming?”

No one answers right away. They just keep smiling.