VISION GRID SYSTEM: THE COMEBACK OF RYOMA TAKEDA - Chapter 409: The Chameleon in Plain Sight
Chapter 409: The Chameleon in Plain Sight
In Japan, New Year arrives in layers rather than explosions. The trains run a little quieter. Store shutters roll up with fresh banners. Radios trade out countdown chatter for polite greetings and steady voices wishing health, prosperity, and endurance.
January 1st, 2017.
The streets wake slowly, but the city is already dressed for someone.
Ryoma’s face looks back from everywhere.
On the side of a bus rolling past Umeda Station. On a towering billboard above Shibuya Crossing, his figure frozen mid-motion; sweat-dark hair, taped hands, eyes forward.
Even delivery trucks bear his image; Ryoma in motion, muscles taut, bottle tilted.
SURGE BLUE
For the moment you don’t slow down.
Inside convenience stores, the flat screens loop the same commercial. Phones in people’s hands play it again both in social medias and YouT*be advertisement.
The ad opens with the sound of waves. Ryoma runs along an empty shoreline at noon, feet digging into wet sand. He stops, then shadowboxes against the wind, shoulders loose, fists snapping back to guard.
His voice comes in low and steady:
“A fight isn’t just twelve rounds. It’s every morning you choose not to stop.”
Ryoma pauses, lifts a bottle from the cooler at his feet. Clear blue label, with white lettering.
Aqualis Isotonic: SURGE BLUE
He drinks, wipes his mouth with the back of his glove, then he looks out toward the horizon, calm, hopeful.
Then his voice comes out again:
“Endurance isn’t about being unbreakable. It’s about recovering faster than the pain.”
The logo fills the screen.
HYDRATE. RESET. MOVE FORWARD.
By the third day of January, people barely register it anymore. That’s how deeply it’s sunk in. Ryoma isn’t just a boxer now. He’s a presence, a face of discipline, of modern grit.
It’s the kind sponsors like, and the kind fans trust.
And somewhere beneath all of it, the real Ryoma keeps moving.
New year. New arc.
And the ring, patiently waiting, hasn’t changed at all.
***
Meanwhile, the Boxing Spirit Weekly newsroom is already in motion before noon, a single floor buzzing like a disturbed hive.
“Oi… Tanabe! Did you get the photos from Korakuen yet or not?”
“I told you, I’m waiting on the agency! Ask sports desk, not me!”
“Who’s covering Tachibana Gym?” a voice cuts across the floor. “I need confirmation. What’s going on with Yanagimoto? Is that Shimamura fight official or still just talk?”
Another desk answers without looking up. “It’s official. Mid-May. The JBC signed off on it yesterday.”
A brief pause settles over the floor. Chairs creak, keyboards hesitate, and a few heads lift, listening for what comes next.
“Then what about Kobayashi Ayano?” someone cranes his head over a monitor, baffled. “He just won the Class-A tournament. Doesn’t that put him next?”
A dry snort. “Postponed. At least six months after the Shimamura’s fight. And even then, no guarantee it’s Yanagimoto. You know how Shimamura is. He could just beat the champion.”
A beat, then someone adds, almost as an aside, “Ah, that’s right… I heard he trained with Coach Nakahara in the past.”
“Yeah, that Nakahara Gym,” the previous man mutters, already half bored. Then, louder, turning his chair, “Hey, Aki… You’re on Nakahara’s camp, aren’t you? You got anything from them yet?”
For the first time in minutes, Aki stops typing. Her fingers hover above the keys.
Around her, the newsroom keeps moving, phones ringing, voices overlapping, but for a brief moment, everything narrows to that question.
Nakahara Gym. Ryoma. Kenta. Ryohei. Okabe. Aramaki. Every one of their pros is riding momentum now, each of them headline-worthy in their own right.
Aki exhales softly as she looks at the names lined up in her notes. She can’t help feeling grateful for the choice she made back in 2015, when she decided, almost on a whim, to follow Ryoma, and by extension a gym that barely registered on anyone’s radar.
Back then, Nakahara Boxing Gym had no titles, no pedigree, nothing that demanded attention. It was easy to ignore. Easier to dismiss.
And yet, here they are now. A small, once-forgotten gym that has grown into a presence the boxing world can no longer look past. Not a fluke, not a one-man story anymore. But a force, steadily carving its place, demanding to be taken seriously.
She exhales quietly, eyes still on her screen, and then looks up.
“Not yet,” she says. “But I will.”
She is back on her desktop, fingers move fast across the keyboard, eyes steady behind her glasses, the chaos fading into background static. On her screen, Ryoma Takeda’s name sits at the top of the draft, already bolded.
OPBF Update — Takeda Climbs to No. 4
She rewrites a sentence, trims it sharper.
Following his decisive victory over Paulo Ramos, Ryoma Takeda has officially risen to fourth in the OPBF lightweight rankings…
She pauses, then scrolls back to her recorded notes from Ota Gymnasium, fingers hovering for a moment before she types.
Asked whether Ryoma Takeda’s decisive victory signaled an imminent push toward OPBF contention, Nakahara Gym head coach Kenji Nakahara left little room for ambiguity. He reaffirmed that the move into OPBF competition had never been exploratory, but intentional.
According to Nakahara, the bout was not merely about defeating Paulo Ramos, but about forcing recognition—for his fighters, and for the gym itself. He emphasized that the result should serve as a statement to the broader boxing community, one that challenges the long-standing perception of Nakahara Gym as a marginal stable.
Aki exhales softly as she finishes typing. A challenge, clear and unmistakable, aimed at whoever answers first.
But of course, the landscape is already shifting.
The Japanese Lightweight champion, Sinichi Yanagimoto, has accepted a mandatory challenge from Shimamura Suzuki (currently ranked 3rd in Japan Lightweight Division), with the bout scheduled for mid-May.
Meanwhile, the OPBF champion, Jade “Outback Reaper” McConnell, is set to defend his belt on February 25th against Hirobumi Sagawa, the division’s current number two.
Two champions. Two locked doors. No easy path.
Aki types it all in anyway, clean and restrained.
With both title routes temporarily occupied, Takeda’s immediate opportunity remains uncertain—but his presence at the top level is no longer something the region can afford to ignore.
She leans back just enough to crack her neck, finally letting the noise of the newsroom seep back in.
Someone calls out from across the floor.
“Aki! After this… can you confirm Takeda’s sponsor deal timeline?”
She raises a hand without looking. “Five minutes.”
Her eyes return to the screen.
Ryoma’s face is everywhere now, rankings, ads, headlines. And somehow, she knows, this still isn’t the peak.
Aki slows her typing for the final paragraph, choosing her words with care.
For years, Nakahara Boxing Gym had been easy to overlook; too small, too quiet, too far from the usual centers of power. That excuse doesn’t exist anymore. Not on paper, and certainly not in the ring.
Then she lines up the facts, letting them speak for themselves.
Kenta Moriyama, welterweight—ranked 4th nationally, 5th in the OPBF. A late bloomer refined into a contender.
Ryohei Yamada, super lightweight—Class-A tournament champion, scheduled for a Japanese title fight in May 2017.
Okabe Shuji, featherweight—Class-A finalist. His loss widely criticized by pundits as one of the most controversial decisions of the year.
Tatsuki Aramaki, super featherweight—undefeated since joining Nakahara Gym, now ranked 5th in Japan, momentum firmly on his side.
And at the center of it all, the youngest of them.
Ryoma “The Chameleon” Takeda—ranked 4th in Japan and the OPBF, widely hailed as the country’s most gifted boxing talent of the decade. The fighter who started this rise back in 2015, when the gym had nothing but belief.
Aki leans back in her chair, eyes scanning from the headline down, proofreading every line once more before giving a small, satisfied nod.
She saves the draft, and then hits publish.
