VISION GRID SYSTEM: THE COMEBACK OF RYOMA TAKEDA

Meanwhile, Ryoma is still keeping himself isolated inside his mansion, remaining in the middle of his recovery. The fight with Umemoto is easily the most brutal fight he has endured since Jade McConnel, the damage is still clearly visible on his face.

The swelling around his eyes has begun to subside, but dark bruises remain around them, spreading faintly toward his cheekbones. Several small cuts have already closed, leaving thin scabs and discoloration across his brow and cheek. His lower lip is still slightly swollen, with a small split that has yet to heal completely.

In front of him, Phantom Ryoma is holding an inverted yoga pose, his body balanced effortlessly on his forearms while his legs extend upward toward the ceiling.

”That’s what happens when you feel sorry for your opponent,” he replies, maintaining the position without the slightest sign of strain. ”You could have ended that fight since the fourth round. But in your naivety, you kept thinking you could play it safe until the final bell, never realizing that every combination and sharp counter you threw with half your heart was slowly awakening the monster inside him.”

Right now, Ryoma is in one of the recovery rooms inside the gym building behind his mansion, a quiet space specifically designed for meditation, yoga, breathing exercises, and other practices that help calm the mind and relax the body after training.

There are only two reasons he comes here. Either he needs to calm his mind while recovering, or he comes here to argue with Phantom Ryoma. By now, he is certain that Phantom is the same entity behind the cruel voices he has been hearing inside his head.

”Don’t try to make excuses,” Ryoma says. ”We both know you and I can’t lie to each other.”

”Ah, isn’t that progress?” Phantom Ryoma replies with an amused smile. ”It seems you’ve finally accepted that I’m part of you.”

”Stop changing the subject,” Ryoma cuts in coldly. ”We had dominated that fight for more than nine rounds. No matter what kind of monster I awakened inside Umemoto, you should have been capable of avoiding those insane exchanges. I know you still had enough performance left to support your footwork until the final bell.”

Phantom Ryoma begins to chuckle, clearly amused. ”Do you hear yourself? The old you would have felt deeply insulted just by considering such a cowardly approach.”

”This isn’t cowardice,” Ryoma replies. ”I was being calculated. Like Nakahara said, I’ve been pushing my body for the past two years with that brutal schedule. And in less than three months, I still have to defend my title again before facing Elliot Graves in the unification fight afterward. This isn’t about feeling sorry for my opponent. It’s a calculation for my ambition to become undisputed.”

”Of course,” Phantom Ryoma says. ”Just make sure you beat your next opponent without any half-assed measures.

This time, he doesn’t follow it with a chuckle. He ends his inverted yoga pose and sits down on the floor, looking at Ryoma with a small, cold smile.

”Otherwise, I’ll do it for you again, my own way.”

”I know exactly what your real intent was that night,” Ryoma says. ”You weren’t trying to win the fight. You were making sure he couldn’t return to the ring, eliminating any possibility of him coming after me for revenge in the future. You even seriously considered killing him.”

”Well, I’m glad you actually understand me.”

The two of them stare at each other in silence for several moments, with Ryoma still struggling to understand exactly what this entity is and what its true motives might be.

The silence finally ends when the cold from the ice pack pressed against his lip becomes too uncomfortable to tolerate.

Ryoma pulls it away and briefly looks down at it before turning his eyes back toward Phantom Ryoma. But the spot where Phantom had been sitting is already empty.

He looks around the room, finding himself completely alone inside the enclosed space. For several moments, he remains still, staring at the faint reflection on the glass wall. He almost expects the reflection to suddenly move or react on its own, just as he has experienced so many times before. But nothing happens.

Eventually, Ryoma gets to his feet and walks toward the exit, his composed demeanor completely undisturbed by the argument he had just now.

***

For two days after the brutal fight at Edion Arena, Hayakawa was still dealing with the gentle, polite, and somewhat fragile Ryoma, like a boy struggling through the aftermath of severe mental trauma.

But he cannot pinpoint when that version of Ryoma began to fade. What he does know is that, over the past few days, Ryoma has somehow started to resemble the first version of himself Hayakawa ever knew: composed, calculated, difficult to read, and seemingly always assessing how to remain in control.

Only when Ryoma is about to enter the mansion through the back door does Hayakawa finally move to follow him.

When he reaches the living room, he finds Ryoma already sitting in front of the large flat-screen television, watching a recording of a professional boxing match with cold concentration, barely blinking as his eyes remain fixed on the screen.

”Watching that fight again?” Hayakawa says. He takes a seat on the sofa and leans back comfortably before continuing. ”And here I thought you only needed to watch a recording once to remember everything.”

”It’s not quite like that,” Ryoma replies without taking his eyes off the screen. ”Photographic memory doesn’t mean I can press a button once and record everything perfectly. I still need to focus and pay attention.”

”So you can’t actually remember every detail after seeing something only once?”

”I’m not a robot with machine performance that stays exactly the same all the time.” Ryoma lets out a quiet sigh before continuing. ”Actually, I already remember everything that happened in this fight.”

”Then why are you still watching it? Why not just replay everything in your head?”

”I can do that,” Ryoma says. ”I can replay the entire fight in my head while thinking through different strategies. But it’s much easier to do that while watching the recording like this. It puts less strain on my mind. And besides, you never know. Your brain can deceive you. You might misremember a detail or overlook something the first time you see it.”

Hayakawa lets out a quiet scoff. Hearing Ryoma talk about the possibility of his own brain deceiving him sounds almost absurd coming from him.