The sliding door opens with a soft, mechanical sigh. Nakahara steps in first, Aramaki and the rest of the team following behind him.

Habit has them bracing for noise, for clapping, for raised voices, for the loose relief that usually follows a decisive win. Something triumphant maybe. Something loud.

But no, they get none of it.

What greets them instead is movement.

The room isn't quiet, but the sound inside it is focused rather than celebratory: leather snapping against gloves, shoes whispering across the mat, breath being drawn and released with purpose. It takes a moment for their eyes to adjust, for the scene to register.

At the center, Kenta is working.

Not stretching. Not shaking out his arms.

But throwing punches.

Ryoma stands in front of him with the mitts up, posture low and balanced, feet shifting constantly as if he's the one under pressure.

The distance between them is close enough to feel uncomfortable, the kind of range where mistakes hurt. Kenta moves with him, shoulders relaxed, eyes locked forward, every punch chained smoothly into the next.

Coach Murakami glances once toward Nakahara. It's a brief look, almost reflexive, carrying neither challenge nor greeting. Then his gaze snaps back to the two fighters, attention narrowing as if he doesn't want to miss a single second of what's unfolding.

Because Kenta looks like he's in his peak.

There's no tension in his movements, no hesitation. His punches aren't thrown hard for the sake of it; they're compact, efficient, guided by a rhythm that keeps tightening as the exchange continues.

Ryoma feeds him cues with subtle shifts of the mitts and changes in foot placement, and Kenta responds instantly, as though the instruction reaches him before the words do.

It doesn't look like a warm-up anymore. It looks like a fight being rehearsed at half a breath's remove from reality.

Ryoma drifts backward, angling his shoulders as if defending. Kenta advances, not recklessly, but with measured pressure, chaining his strikes in short bursts that force Ryoma to keep adjusting.

"Slide in," Ryoma says, his voice calm but firm. "Bend low."

Kenta dips to his left, folding at the waist just enough to bring his head off the center line. Ryoma drops one mitt beneath his own right ribs, marking the target.

"Three hooks," he continues. "Tight. Tight. Tight."

Kenta drives them in without pause, his spine twisting smoothly with each shot. The hooks land in quick succession, compact and heavy, the sound sharp and clean.

Pak-pak-pak!

"Hoold…"

Ryoma halts him with a raised hand and holds the mitts still for a heartbeat longer than expected. Then he snaps one of them up beside his head.

"Fire."

Kenta digs another hook to the body, then immediately brings one upstairs, the transition seamless, the timing exact. The sound echoes off the walls.

Pak… PAK!!!

Everyone watching recognizes the sequence at once.

The rapid triple hooks, and then held just long enough to draw a defensive freeze, capped with a low–high finish.

It's Ryoma's pattern. The one he's used to dismantle guards and punish hesitation.

Seeing it now executed so cleanly by someone else, and in the middle of a live rhythm, sends a quiet ripple through the room.

***

Ryoma steps in and stops the exchange himself. He reaches out and grips Kenta's right elbow, lifting it slightly higher than it had been.

"There," he says, tapping it into position. "Keep the guard tight when you throw that. Liam Kuroda won't leave openings. Not even ones you think are too small to matter."

Kenta doesn't argue. He simply absorbs the correction, eyes steady, breathing controlled. He knows the principle.

What he's fighting for now is discipline, the focus, the ability to hold onto that principle when fatigue and chaos set in.

"Again," Ryoma says, already backing away.

And they restart.

Ryoma's voice continues to guide him, calling out small adjustments, urging tighter rhythm, sharper transitions.

"Tighter! Tighter!"

With each exchange, Kenta's focus deepens. The room around him fades. The watchers dissolve into the background.

Even the sense of time thins until there's only the beat Ryoma is setting and the responses his body gives without conscious thought.

When Ryoma finally lowers the mitts, the sudden quiet feels almost intrusive.

He turns toward Nakahara and the others, his demeanor shifting back to something casual and open. A grin spreads easily across his face.

"What did I tell you?" he says to Aramaki. "He's not someone you need to be afraid of."

Aramaki blinks, and lets out a short, awkward laugh, scratches the back of his head. "Yeah… I didn't expect it to go that smoothly. I mean, easy isn't the right word, but…"

"Enough," Ryoma cuts in, waving him off. "I know when someone's got it easy."

Unlike Ryoma who is aware with his surroundings, Kenta blinks as if waking from a dream. He looks around the room, registering the faces one by one.

When his eyes land on Nakahara, he stiffens. "Coach?" he says, genuinely surprised. "You're… here?"

Nakahara steps closer, a faint, uncertain smile on his face. "What? You only noticed now?"

"I… No, I just…"

"It's fine," Nakahara says gently. "That's good. Means you were completely in it."

Kenta nods, still reorienting himself. His breathing slows, his awareness widening again.

But beneath the lingering adrenaline, he can feel it; a clarity he hasn't experienced before, the memory of being fully absorbed in rhythm to the point where everything else disappears.

Suddenly…

"Your turn, Coach."

Ryoma walks over and peels off the mitts, offering them out.

Nakahara turns to him, and then pauses. He looks down at the worn leather in Ryoma's hands, weighing the moment.

This should be his role. It always has been. Helping fighters settle, find their rhythm before a fight. Letting someone younger step into that space carries risk; disruption, bad habits, broken timing.

But he glances back at Kenta, at the focus still lingering in his posture. At the rhythm that hasn't quite left him yet.

And Nakahara realizes that stepping in now might do more harm than good. He exhales and declines the mitts, a tired smile touching his lips.

"Keep going," he says. "I'll take a break for a bit. I'm getting old, you know."

Ryoma's grin widens. He turns to Kenta, slipping the mitt pads back.

"There's still time. Let rehearse again."

Kenta raises his fists. And the rhythm resumes, uninterrupted.

***

The arena doesn't exhale after the stoppage. If anything, it tightens.

The buzz hangs in the air, charged and restless, the kind that follows a decisive finish and immediately begins asking for more.

People stay on their feet longer than necessary, voices overlapping as they replay the ending, hands cutting through the air as if shadowboxing the final exchange.

"That was fast."

"Did you see how he turned him?"

"He never even panicked."

A thrilling second fight does that. It sharpens appetite instead of satisfying it. The crowd starts looking ahead, anticipation shifting forward, toward the next name on the card. If that was the co-main, then what does the next one look like?

But not everyone stays. Along the upper rows, a small cluster of spectators gathers their things. Hanazawa's supporters, they move against the flow, heads bowed, voices low but bitter.

"I'm done watching him."

"Talked all that trash and didn't do a thing."

"Lost without even making it a fight."

Someone snorts. "Easy pay day, my ass. I'm not paying for his tickets again."

They file out, disappointment clinging to them like smoke. Whatever loyalty they'd claimed doesn't survive the early exit. It never does.

Down the corridor behind the blue corner, the tension sharpens in a different way.

Footsteps echo fast against concrete. A staffer hurries in, pushing the door open with more force than necessary. His face is tight with urgency, breath just a little shallow.

"Sorry," he says at once, bowing his head. "We might want to move things along."

Nakahara turns toward him. Murakami does the same, already reading the concern in his posture.

"Some people are starting to leave their seats," the staffer continues. "If we keep them waiting too long, we'll lose more. It might be better if we send Kenta out earlier, if he's ready."

Nakahara doesn't answer immediately. He simply turns, and the rest of the team follows his gaze, toward Kenta.

For a moment, no one says anything. There's no rush in the silence, no pressure applied. Just a quiet question hanging in the air, unspoken but clear.

Are you ready?

Usually, this is the moment when Kenta's anxiety creeps in. The walk from locker room to ring always carries doubt with it, whether the body will answer the way it should under real pressure.

But this time, none of that surfaces.

His body is still warm, loose from the mitt session with Ryoma. The rhythm they built hasn't faded yet; it's stirring quietly under his skin, a current he can still feel.

His focus hasn't scattered. If anything, it feels concentrated, almost overflowing.

He hasn't forgotten who Liam Kuroda is. The danger, the precision, the mistakes that won't be forgiven.

But he just doesn't want to wait, eager to step into the ring before the edge dulls, before the rhythm cools, before this clarity slips away.

"It's okay," he says. "I'm ready."

Nakahara studies him for a second longer, then nods.

"All right," he says. "Let's move."

The staffer exhales in relief and steps aside to clear the way.

Kenta steps out, his heart beating hard, not with anxiety this time, but with a quiet urgency, the feeling of something he doesn't want to let slip.

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