That brief exchange should excite the crowd. But even with Ryoma landing two clean shots on Masuda's face, the Cruel King Army stays deathly silent. Over a thousand of them, scattered around the hall, and not one makes a sound.

They stand like frozen soldiers awaiting an unspoken command. And that silence presses in on Masuda, making his confusion in the ring feel heavier.

Masuda tests the range again. Without realizing it, he actually adjusts his timing to Ryoma's subtle pendulum rhythm in the motion of sliding forward. An instinct flares, knowing he will reach him.

Dsh!

His glove taps Ryoma's guard.

Ryoma slides his lead foot back and snaps out a jab of his own. But the punch dies halfway, missing by just a few centimeters.

Masuda keeps his head moving, careful not to drift into Ryoma's reach, slightly changing angle from left and right.

He throws a few feints, shoulders twitching, testing reactions, staying alert. Then he extends his lead hand again, another probing left. And Ryoma answers in kind.

Masuda's jabs keep finding Ryoma's guard, each one landing with a muted thup. But none of Ryoma's jabs reach Masuda. Not one.

For a moment, the pattern settles. A read forms. Masuda believes his reach is longer than Ryoma, no doubt about it.

"This should be it… the limit of my safe zone."

He drops his left slightly, right knuckle tightening, ready to fire a one-two.

But suddenly…

Dsh!

Ryoma's jab reaches him anyway. Masuda manages to block, but the confusion flashes across his face, undeniable.

But he gets no time to analyze it. A heartbeat later, Ryoma shifts his stance and unleashes a flickering jab. He lunges in, angle changing mid-step, whipping a left around Masuda's guard…

Dsh!

It lands flush on Masuda's cheek from the side, making him confused even more.

Ryoma cocks his right, just a feint. But Masuda, too alert, instantly retreats two steps back, his breath sharp.

He resets, reassessing everything, doubting not only his own reach, but also whether he can read this opponent at all.

***

Masuda steadies his guard, but the doubt clings to him like a film he can't blink away. He inches left and right, small shifts, cautious angles, but never fully committing to step back in.

His head keeps moving, slipping on instinct, but there's a stiffness now, a hesitation in the rhythm. His shoulders twitch with feints, but each one lacks the certainty from seconds before.

Masuda's gaze keeps darting, from Ryoma's gloves, then down to that lead foot, then back up again. Over and over.

He doesn't even realize he's doing it. He does it by instinct, the need to read Ryoma carefully before he makes another mistake.

Ryoma's pendulum seems to pull his eyes in, that subtle forward-back sway lulling him into its rhythm like a metronome designed to disrupt his timing, his judgment, his nerve.

He wants to break in. But his feet still refuse.

"No… this is a trick."

"He's doing something to ruin my reading."

Masuda hovers just outside the pocket, moving his head, throwing small shoulder twitches, faint half-feints. But none of them carry the authority he opened the round with.

He looks wary. And that's when the commentators start to pick it up.

"Oho… look at this," the first commentator murmurs. "Masuda opened the round like the God of Destruction himself, charging in like he was ready to crack the whole planet in half."

"But now?" the second jumps in, voice tightening with incredulity. "Now he's hesitating, like the Cruel King's presence alone is enough to keep him from setting foot in that danger zone. That's not the Masuda Kokushi we know."

Back in the ring, Masuda takes another hesitant half-step left, eyes still glued to Ryoma's footwork.

His shoulders tense. He looks like a man approaching a cliff's edge, unsure if the ground beneath him is real.

For the first time all night, the God of Destruction looks unsure about stepping down from his throne.

***

For a while, no punches thrown, not from Masuda, not from Ryoma, who hasn't moved his rear foot from its spot since he anchored it there.

Then, when the timer in his field of vision ticks down to the last fifteen seconds, Ryoma finally moves.

He steps to Masuda, gears shifting up a notch, his pendulum widening. And with it comes that Soviet-style lullaby, soft slapping lefts, loose and rhythmic.

Pak-pak… pak!

Pak… pak, pak!

They pat against Masuda's guard and upper arm, harmless in power but impossible to time.

Masuda, still unable to read the rhythm, can only defend. Even when he punches back, Ryoma slides off the line, while flicking another slapping left in the same motion.

Dsh!

A light tap on Masuda's cheek, barely a touch, but aggravating.

And once Ryoma's rear foot settles on the canvas, his rhythm snaps, no more sway, no more lullaby. He steps in sharp and unloads a burst; a one-two and a lead hook.

Dug, dug!

The first two pound into Masuda's guard upstairs. And the third…

Bug!

…buries deep into his ribs.

Masuda fires back, but Ryoma is already gone, already stepping out of range.

And strangely, Ryoma simply lowers his gloves, and then turns his back, walking toward his corner with absolute detachment.

Masuda blinks, stunned for a second, and…

Ding!

Round one ends.

The Cruel King Army remains statues, thousands of them, frozen in reverent silence.

Only the neutral spectators break it, giving Ryoma a warm ripple of applause for a round he dominated with the kind of weight only a king could carry.

***

Masuda still stands there, stuck in place, replaying that bewildering first round in his head, entrained, almost swallowed, by the strange atmosphere surrounding Ryoma.

"Hey, Masuda!" his Second snaps. "What are you doing? Get back here!"

Masuda blinks hard, shakes off the haze, and turns toward his corner, trying to hide the confusion on his face, but failing miserably.

Because the commentators catch it instantly.

"He's rattled. Look at that… Masuda's legs aren't moving with purpose."

"That isn't the God of Destruction we're used to. Something about Ryoma has him genuinely unsettled."

And of course, none of it fools Kurose's eyes.

"I can see it on your face. You're confused," he says. "I warned you about that Soviet-style pendulum rhythm. Now you're feeling it firsthand."

Masuda sinks onto the stool, but the explanation doesn't clear the fog. It only seems to deepen it.

"Yeah, we studied his last fight," Masuda mutters. "But the style you called 'Soviet'… it wasn't like this. What he's doing now doesn't look anything like what he used against Sekino."

"Not exactly," Kurose admits, letting out a tired breath. "But the fact he can already change the shape of it means one thing: he's mastered the foundation. And remember… he only showed a glimpse of that footwork back in round six against Sekino. Not even a full minute of it."

He leans forward slightly, eyes narrowing. "We never got to see the whole picture, never saw how far he'd taken it. If this is what he's doing now… he might've polished it far beyond what we imagined."

Masuda drops his gaze, letting the words sink into the knot of doubt twisting in his chest. Kurose doesn't press him. He gives him space to breathe, or to digest the truth.

Kurose glances across the ring, eyes narrowing at Ryoma in the red corner; calm, detached, almost cold in the way he sits.

His jaw tightens, a cocktail of irritation and reluctant admiration coiling together.

A twenty-year-old shouldn't have this level of mastery, not enough to confuse a seasoned fighter like Masuda in the very first round.

But Kurose can't deny it.

Boxers who use Soviet-style fundamentals are almost nonexistent in Japan. He never had a proper sparring partner to simulate it for Masuda. And now they're paying the price.

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