VISION GRID SYSTEM: THE COMEBACK OF RYOMA TAKEDA

By night, the spacious living room of Ryoma’s mansion has been turned into a makeshift strategy room.

Several laptops, notebooks, bottles of water, and half-finished Surge Blue are scattered across the low table, while Ryoma sits on one side of the sofa with Aramaki, Kenta, and the rest of the coaching team gathered around him.

The footage is already deep into the third round, where Liam O’Connell is still dictating the pace, constantly marching forward and forcing Umemoto to deal with his pressure.

He fights like the aggressive pressure fighter everyone expected, willingly stepping into exchanges and keeping Umemoto occupied with a steady stream of attacks.

But whenever Umemoto tries to fire back, Liam slips out of Umemoto’s attacking angle, steps off the line, and immediately changes the geometry of the engagement.

”We all know what kind of fighter Liam is,” Sera says. ”He doesn’t rely on constantly creating distance with footwork, and he’s perfectly comfortable staying in the pocket and forcing exchanges. But Umemoto still struggles to force his combinations through.”

He pauses, glancing at Nakahara. ”That tells us something important. At the world level, Umemoto’s ring IQ still hasn’t really been tested.”

Nakahara folds his arms. ”Sure, Umemoto’s never the kind of fighter who solves a fight like a chess player. His strength is in his fighting sense.”

On the footage, Liam suddenly steps forward, forcing Umemoto to give ground under another burst of pressure.

Then, as Liam commits to the exchange, Umemoto shifts his weight, catches the first punch on his guard, and fires back the moment Liam enters his range.

”There,” Nakahara says. ”Even when he’s struggling to catch Liam, he never wastes the moment when Liam comes to him.”

For the next several minutes, they barely talk. Even Ryoma looks bored, and that is partly because he has been deliberately trying not to overthink his strategy the way he normally does.

His psychiatrist has warned him that his ability to notice tiny details, combined with his tendency to overthink everything, becomes a problem once it passes a certain threshold. The simplest way to avoid that, at least for now, is to learn how to ignore things that do not matter.

And looking at Umemoto, there is very little reason to turn him into a complicated problem. He is a simple fighter. His strengths are obvious, his approach is direct, and there is nothing particularly mysterious about the way he fights.

Ryoma does not want to dig any deeper than that. His eyes occasionally drift away from the footage, sometimes toward the bottle of Surge Blue sitting on the table, sometimes toward Nanako joking with Kaori and Fumiko in the living room a little farther away, or toward the household staff chatting casually around the dining area.

Even when his sharp eyes begin following their conversation by reading their lips, Ryoma quickly looks away again before his mind can start turning the meaningless details into something worth analyzing.

Then Ryoma notices that the mood around him has changed. When he turns his attention back toward the television, Umemoto is busy defending himself against another sustained assault from Liam.

But there is something different about the final minute of the fifth round. The exchanges have become far more intense, leading to that one moment when Umemoto did something completely unexpected.

As Liam begins to whip a right hook, Umemoto suddenly lunges forward, dropping his head and torso while driving a heavy overhead punch.

He does not try to avoid Liam’s punch. He lets the hook meet his head as he throws himself forward, using his entire body to drive through his own shot.

”Whoa, whoa, whoa… what is he doing?” Aramaki blurts out.

Kenta winces at the impact. ”He’s not even trying to get out of the way.”

Both fighters are caught in the exchange. Umemoto buckles from the impact, while Liam stumbles backward, his posture collapsing as the overhead crashes into him.

Nakahara immediately turns toward Sera. ”Run that exchange again.”

Sera rewinds the footage and plays it back. This time, they watch Umemoto’s movement more carefully.

”See how he’s lunging at him,” Nakahara says, his eyes fixed on the screen. ”He’s moving toward Liam’s right side.”

The footage shows it clearly. Umemoto drives himself toward the side of Liam’s body, cutting off the space in which the right hook can develop.

”Liam’s hook doesn’t have much room,” Sera says.

Nakahara nods slowly. ”And look at what he does with his weight. He’s driving all of his weight forward and down as he throws that overhead. He isn’t just putting his arm into the punch; his whole body is coming down behind it.”

It is a remarkably simple movement, almost crude when viewed from a distance. Umemoto does not calculate a complicated sequence or deliberately construct some elaborate trap.

He simply closes the space on the side of the incoming hook, takes away its room to generate force, and throws his own body into the punch from a forward and downward trajectory. And the simplicity is exactly what makes the exchange difficult to read.

”It’s a dual exchange,” Sera says. ”But the impact of those two punches is completely different.”

Just a beat later, Umemoto already forces a deep left hook into Liam’s body, the punch folding him down onto the canvas.

”Yes, the impact in that dual exchange was different,” Nakahara says. ”Now the question is whether that was just luck. Umemoto took the risk, and happened to come out of it with the advantage. Or…”

”No,” Ryoma cuts in. ”He clearly saw it.”

Aramaki turns toward him, blinking in disbelief. ”You’re serious? If he really saw that coming, why would he insist on doing something like that? Wouldn’t it have been better to step back and counter here?”

Ryoma shrugs. ”Like Coach Nakahara said earlier. He’s not the kind of fighter who likes to think through complicated things, especially in the middle of a heated exchange like that.”

Nakahara nods. ”He did see it coming. He just decided to follow his instinct. He had the strength, the reaction, and the courage to take that risk.”

Without saying anything, Ryoma snatches the remote from Sera and skips ahead to the seventh round.

”Why don’t you see this,” he says.

The footage shows Umemoto trapped against the ropes, with Liam pressing him at close range. Yet somehow, Umemoto looks remarkably calm.

He does not panic under the barrage, choosing which punches to block, which ones to catch on his guard, and which ones he simply has to take.

Then again, Ryoma skips forward without saying anything. This time, Umemoto is trapped in the corner.

Liam continues pouring punches at him, but Umemoto remains just as composed, reading the incoming attacks and protecting himself even though he cannot find a clean opportunity to fire back.

”He’s clearly in the zone,” Ryoma says, slowing the footage down. ”Look at the calm on his face. That concentration in his eyes.”

The entire room falls silent, everyone leaning closer toward the screen as their attention locks onto Umemoto with renewed seriousness and curiosity.

Then, right in the middle of Liam’s barrage, Umemoto does exactly what Aramaki had suggested earlier.

Even with his back trapped against the ropes and barely any room to move, Umemoto waits for the right moment, pulls his head back just enough to let the punch pass, and immediately fires a sharp counter. And this time, he does it without having to sacrifice himself just to land it.

”There,” Ryoma says, glancing toward Aramaki with a faint smile. ”Just like you asked.”

Aramaki scoffs, giving him a slightly teasing look. ”For someone who keeps saying you’re not interested, you sure as hell studied him.”

Ryoma shrugs, letting out a tired little sigh. ”I’m actually trying pretty damn hard not to overthink him. That’s what the psychiatrist recommended. And even without that, my eyes were going to catch all those details from the live broadcast anyway. So what the hell am I supposed to do?”

”So, what do you think?” Nakahara asks.

”He’s clearly much stronger than when Ryohei beat him,” Ryoma says. ”And after this fight with Liam, I’m sure he’s developed even further. But that doesn’t change his character. And honestly, I don’t want to overthink every possible way he might have evolved since then.”

Afterward, Ryoma stretches his arms and gives a lazy little yawn, wearing an almost deliberately indifferent expression that makes it obvious he wants to end the session.

”Have you already worked out your strategy?” Sera asks.

The question makes Ryoma pause just as he is about to get up. His brows lift for a beat before he finally straightens.

”Nope,” he says, then turns away from them. ”You guys are the coaches. For once, why don’t you figure all that shit out for me? I’m tired. I want to rest.”

Kenta and Aramaki exchange a quick glance, then shrug at each other, apparently willing to accept Ryoma’s sudden change in attitude without making too much of it.

Nakahara and Sera, however, exchange a much more serious look, neither of them able to treat the change quite so casually.

”Well,” Sera says, rubbing his forehead. ”I mean, that’s what we’re supposed to do anyway. I don’t mind figuring it out, but… I’m worried he might have taken his psychiatrist’s advice a little too literally.”

”Stop overthinking things she said,” Nakahara scoffs. ”Funny advice, considering that super analytical brain is probably the best weapon that bastard has.”