The medic gives a small bow, ready to leave. But Ryoma calls out again.

"Wait, please. What… what happened to her?"

The man pauses. His expression shifts, uncertain whether to answer. Then he sighs softly.

"There are signs consistent with an overdose," he says carefully. "We're still running tests to confirm what substance it was, but…"

Before he can finish, Kaede steps forward. She hesitates for a second, her hands clutching something inside the pocket of the coat draped over Ryoma's shoulders. Then, slowly, she pulls it out, a small pill bottle, half-empty, the label slightly worn.

Her voice wavers as she speaks. "I… found this. She was holding it before she collapsed."

The medic looks at her, then takes the bottle carefully, eyes narrowing as he reads the label.

"It was in her hand," Kaede says quietly. "She tried to hide it when I came in. I didn't know what it was, so I kept it."

The medic nods, his tone turning brisk but not unkind. "This helps. Thank you."

He slips the bottle into a small plastic bag, marking it with a pen, and then gives Ryoma a short reassuring look.

"This will make things clearer. Whatever happens next, you brought her in time. That's what matters most right now."

Then he bows slightly and turns back toward the treatment room, disappearing behind the sliding doors.

The silence that follows is heavy, the kind that presses on the chest. Ryoma stands there, motionless, still staring at the door as if his mother might walk through it.

Nakahara exhales, long and unsteady, and finally mutters, "You did good, kid."

He rests a hand on Ryoma's shoulder, firm but steady. "Leaving the hall like that… you made the right call. You knew something was wrong, and you moved."

Ryoma's lips part, but no words come.

Nakahara squeezes his shoulder a little tighter. "You got her here in time. She's gonna be okay, you hear me? She will."

***

The next morning, in one treatment room of different hospital, Serrano wakes with a groan. His eyes are half-open, his face throbbing in sync with his heartbeat. His nose feels like it's full of fire. When he tries to breathe, the sound is a dull whistle.

He blinks until the white of the ceiling stops spinning, and then turns his head. One of his partners as content creator, Takayuki, is slumped in a chair beside the bed, his neck bent, mouth slightly open in sleep.

Serrano clears his throat, voice rough. "Hey, Takayuki…"

Takayuki jerks awake, blinking hard. "Ah… hey, you're up?"

"Where… where am I?" Serrano mutters, trying to sit up, but the pain pins him back down. "What happened to me? How did I get here?"

"We are in Tokyo Medical University Hospital," Takayuki says, rubbing his eyes. "You were stretchered out after the fight last night."

Serrano stares at the ceiling for a long second. Then, quietly he mutters, "So I lost."

Takayuki doesn't answer.

"And Daigo Kirizume?" Serrano continues, his tone sharpening. "He just left me here?"

Takayuki hesitates. "…He went back with Shigemori and the others. Said the paperwork was your problem."

Serrano exhales through his teeth, the sound half-laugh, half-snarl. He turns his head slightly, voice dropping.

"What about my parents? They know?"

Takayuki shakes his head. "Should I call them?"

"No." Serrano's tone snaps, flat and cold. "Don't tell them anything. Hell, they're probably still in France."

The room settles into silence again, only the faint beep of the heart monitor fill the air.

Then Takayuki shifts in his seat, uneasy. "Um… there's something else I should probably tell you."

Serrano turns his head slowly. "What now?"

"It's about the last night live stream."

Serrano's face goes blank. Then the corner of his mouth twitches, not quite anger, not yet.

"What about it? You let them see how I was beaten?"

Takayuki raises his hands a little. "Relax, relax. I cut the stream on second round, right before you were down in the corner. I told our viewers that Korakuen officials didn't allow filming inside the tournament."

Serrano lets out a slow breath, eyes closing in relief.

"Good. That's good."

He exhales again, more calmly this time.

"If they'd seen the rest, our whole channel would've been done. One clip of me getting flattened by some Japanese kid and we'd be a meme by morning."

Takayuki nods, but doesn't look convinced. "Still, people are already asking what happened. The comments are flooding in. We'll need to post something, some kind of explanation, or we'll lose credibility. You can't just disappear."

Serrano chuckles lightly, still leaning back on the pillow. "No one cares. Our subscribers are mostly from the States and Europe. They don't follow Japanese boxing. We'll make a short video later. Say it was an exhibition. A cut feed. Whatever. It'll blow over. We create new contents, and they will soon forget it."

Takayuki doesn't argue. He just nods, looking at Serrano's swollen face, wondering if the man actually believes what he's saying.

Serrano closes his eyes again, muttering, "It's just a small event, man… no one's gonna care…"

But the irony is, he can't be more wrong.

Online, the chaos has already started.

The live stream they cut halfway had ended abruptly. The result: chat replay overflowed with confusion and anger. Within hours, Serrano's channel comment section has turned into a storm.

"Where's the rest of the fight?"

"You promised full coverage!"

"He got wrecked, didn't he?"

But then, comes the twist, a Japanese subscriber posts a link. It's an amateur video, a shaky, handheld video, shot from the stands, uploaded by a local spectator.

And the clip spreads fast. At first, only within small groups of Serrano's channel subscribers, then on Reddit threads, then Twitter and YouTube shorts.

Headlines start appearing, one after another:

"Viral YouTuber Known for Exposing Fake Martial Artists Gets Humbled in Tokyo."

"Serrano KO'd by Unknown Japanese Rookie."

People only click expecting humiliation. What they care is only how Serrano got humbled. But they find something else entirely.

They find Ryoma Takeda; precise, unhurried, his movements stripped of showmanship, every jab a correction, every counter a lesson. He dismantled Serrano with the cruel finesse of a man teaching by example.

Clips of the knockout spread across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, spliced, edited, replayed in slow motion. Some users call him "The Silent Prodigy." Others tag him using his stage name "the Chameleon."

From meme about Serrano's reputation into the rise of a new star from Tokyo. People from across social media now care more about who is Ryoma rather than who is Serrano.

Within days, Ryoma's name climbs trending lists. The full fight footage, mirrored and subtitled in half a dozen languages, passes half a million views.

In Japan, the official Rookie of the Year Tokyo Block broadcast airs the same weekend. Commentators call his composure "unnatural for a rookie." Sponsors begin asking who represents him.

And far from all that noise, in a quiet luxury house in Setagaya, Serrano sits alone on his bed, his bruises fading but humiliation fresh.

Every time he refreshes his feed, another clip appears, his own downfall in a dozen angles, a dozen languages. He turns off the screen, but his silence feels heavier than the noise.

Then his phone buzzes, a call from Takayuki. Serrano stares at the name for a long second before answering.

[Hey, man… We need to post something. People are tearing the channel apart. You've gotta respond.]

Serrano says nothing, only exhales, slow and bitter, before hanging up.

It began as a plan to disgrace Ryoma before the world, maybe even steal his spotlight. But Serrano ended up launching Ryoma's name abroad, at the cost of his own.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

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