VISION GRID SYSTEM: THE COMEBACK OF RYOMA TAKEDA

Yanagimoto straightens fully at last, drawing himself tall as he looks down at Shimamura on the canvas. The uncertainty that haunted him earlier is gone now, replaced by something solid and familiar, a confidence rebuilt piece by piece.

When he turns and walks back toward his corner, his gaze lingers on Shimamura, not in contempt, but in calm assurance.

In the booth, one of the commentators exhales into the microphone. “That round changed everything. You can feel the momentum swing back to the champion.”

His partner follows, voice steadier but edged with disbelief. “And look at Shimamura. He’s up, he’s walking back on his own… but he’s empty. Whatever he had left, he left it in that round.”

Several rows back in the spectator stand, Nakahara watches with a quiet ache settling in his chest.

He was the one who drove Shimamura from the gym, yet there was never hatred in that decision, only fear of what the boy was becoming.

Of all his fighters, Shimamura was the one he held closest, closer even than Ryoma, because he saw too much of himself in him.

His thoughts drift to a far older wound, to the day his wife left with another man and carried her bitterness into their daughter’s heart.

Mother and daughter had also shared the same contempt toward him and his gym. But Shimamura, despite being so young, understood his struggle and accepted his honesty.

When the gym emptied and the lights grew dim, it was Shimamura who stayed behind, stubborn and earnest, a naïve grandson who refused to leave his old grandpa alone.

He can still hear the boy’s voice, bright and untested.

Let them go, old man. If they can’t endure it, they don’t belong here.

Shimamura had smiled then, full of belief, promising.

I’ll become a Japanese champion. I’ll make this gym big. You won’t be alone anymore.

Now that child stands only a step closer to that promise. Just one step, but the belt still feels impossibly far from his reach.

Nakahara’s attention shifts as Aki exhales, her voice heavy with doubt.

“There’s no way he lasts to the final round,” she says. “There’s no way he wins this.”

“The blue corner should think about stopping it,” Tanaka adds grimly. “Four more rounds is too long.”

Nakahara looks back to the ring, to Shimamura already slumped on the stool as the blue corner swarms around him, hands frantic, voices overlapping in urgency.

After a moment, he speaks quietly. “There’s still a way.”

The three journalists, along with the fighters gathered around him, turn in unison, their expressions tightening as they wait for him to continue.

“If he still has the drive,” Nakahara continues, eyes never leaving Shimamura, “and if he remembers that stupid talk we had back at the gym, back when he was this exhausted… then there’s still a way for him to win this.”

In the blue corner, the rhythm collapses. Hands rush in without coordination, towels snapping, water splashing, voices piling over one another instead of aligning.

“Stay still… breathe,” Coach Tadayuki says.

Ozaki is already at Shimamura’s legs, Shoyo at his face, Hisaki fumbling with the towel.

“Your breathing’s off,” Ozaki mutters.

“Too many body shots,” Hisaki says, half to himself.

Shoyo clicks his tongue, bitterness slipping through before he can stop it. “If you’d just used that drunken crap earlier, maybe you wouldn’t look like this.”

Shimamura scoffs weakly. “Easy for you to say.”

Shoyo freezes, jaw tightened, hard. The words hang there, heavier than intended.

All this time, Shimamura had spoken down to them with that same arrogance, and they swallowed it because he always won. Seeing him like this now, slumped and gasping, something ugly finally pushes back up.

“This is on you,” Shoyo says, voice tight. “You never listen. You’re too full of yourself.”

Shimamura’s eyes widen, and then soften. He looks down, unable to argue, because the thought has already been tearing at him.

The regret is unmistakable now, bare on Shimamura’s face. Shoyo sees it at once, and his own expression falters, remorse flickering through him as he realizes he may have struck at Shimamura’s pride when it was needed most.

Then Shimamura exhales. “Yeah… If I knew it would be like this, I shouldn’t have left Nakahara’s gym.”

Ozaki straightens at once, looks offended. “So that’s it?” he says coldly. “You badmouthed him for months, took our help, and now that you’re losing, you regret joining us?”

Hisaki’s shoulders slump. “If that’s how you feel,” he says quietly, stepping back toward the ropes, “then what were we to you?”

Shoyo says nothing more, but he also slips through the ropes, disappointment written plainly across his face.

Shimamura’s brows twitch, irritation flaring. That wasn’t what he meant. He was just regretting his own mistake for being too arrogant, not about regret joining them.

He knows it’s a misunderstanding. But exhaustion pins him down. So he just keeps quite, no longer has the strength to explain.

Ozaki stands, hands dropping to his sides. “If this gym was a mistake, you can leave,” he says. “I don’t care even if you win the belt.”

Then he turns to Tadayuki. “If you keep him, I’ll be the one who will leave the gym.”

Coach Tadayuki says nothing. He exhales once, looks down at Shimamura, then turns away, the weight of the round settling heavier than any order he could give.

But then, a quiet sound slips out of Shimamura’s throat.

“Kukuku…”

It’s a short, breathless chuckle, and in the tense blue corner it lands wrong. Ozaki stiffens, and Tadayuki glances back once, disappointment deepening as he takes it for arrogance surfacing at the worst possible time.

But Shimamura isn’t laughing at them. His mind drifts back to a cramped gym and a stubborn old man who always blamed himself first.

Nakahara, who would scratch his head in moments like this, afraid of being left behind, yet never willing to abandon his fighter.

Small-minded, full of insecurity, too gentle to crush hope, too fearful to dream for himself.

The chuckle fades. Shimamura lowers his head, the memory weighing heavier than the pain.

If Nakahara were here, he wouldn’t be turning away.

No… he never abandons his fighter.

At last, a single memory surfaces, clearer than the pain. It was a summer dusk, the gym washed in orange light, and he had been even more spent than this.

“No more, old man,” he had groaned, sprawled on the canvas. “There’s no way I can throw anything meaningful when I’m already like this.”

Nakahara still held the mitts out. “Come on, kid. One more session. If you’re like this in the middle of a round, your opponent will punish you.”

Shimamura had stared at the ceiling, breath ragged. “Then I’ll just give up. Thinking about winning in a state like this is stupid. There’s nothing you can do.”

The old man had paused, then smiled. “What if I tell you… there’s still something else you can do?”

Then suddenly, referee’s voice cuts through the arena.

“Seconds out!”

It snaps him back to the present.

Something flickers behind Shimamura’s eyes, fragile but alive. He pushes himself up, the familiar grin creeping back, not arrogant now, but eager.

“Hey, Tadayuki,” he calls.

The coach stops at the apron and looks back.

“I’m going to try something dangerous this round,” Shimamura says. “Don’t even think about throwing the towel. You hear me?”

Tadayuki gives no answer. He steps down from the apron, already turning away, concern spent, victory forgotten, wanting only for this night to end.