VISION GRID SYSTEM: THE COMEBACK OF RYOMA TAKEDA - Chapter 440: This Is My Ring

Chapter 440: This Is My Ring

The sound swells unevenly around the ring, questions and gasps colliding as the crowd struggles to catch up to what just happened. A restless murmur spreads outward, sharp and unsettled.

Ryoma backs off immediately, already turning toward the neutral corner. Jade straightens a beat later, eyes locked on Ryoma’s back, jaw set tight. His gaze hardens with irritation, not pain.

Jade draws a slow breath as he reins himself in. He’s been outplayed too many times in too short a span. The sting is in his pride. But this time, he refuses to let it drag him into recklessness.

The knockdown didn’t really hurt him that badly. He’s taken far worse. That was balance, timing, nothing more.

Still, the referee counts.

Two!

Three!

Meanwhile, the replay rolls on the big screen. Three seconds. One jab from Jade. And then the answer.

“He slipped outside the jab,” a commentator says, eyes fixed upward.

“And came up with the uppercut from underneath the arm,” the other fires back, barely keeping pace.

“Then Takeda finished it low to high with the right,” the first cuts in. “Body, then head. Perfect sequence.”

“And it happened in a blink,” the second adds, still stunned. “McConnel never saw the real shot until it was already over.”

In the red corner, the mood is wrong. It’s not panic, just a tight restless energy that doesn’t belong to a champion’s corner.

They know Jade can take more than that. Everyone here does. A flash knockdown like that shouldn’t shake them.

But what Ryoma did isn’t normal.

Mark Holloway keeps his eyes on the neutral corner where Ryoma stands. His gaze narrows, sharp and calculating, tracing the challenger’s posture, the way he doesn’t celebrate.

“So this is the kid they called the Chemeleon…”

He’s known Ryoma Takeda would adapt. Everyone who’s done their homework does. The kid didn’t get called the Chameleon for nothing. He learns fast, steals ideas, sheds habits mid-fight like changing skins.

Mark studied him for this bout, and he expected something new, something tailored. He just didn’t expect something like this.

Not the slip alone, not the uppercut by itself, but the nerve to thread it through that timing, under that arm, against a jab that fast. The sequence wasn’t reckless. It was confident, and certain.

One of the assistants exhales under his breath. “I didn’t think he had that in him.”

Another shakes his head, eyes still on the screen. “Jade’s jab is sharp. Slipping it that clean, that close… no one even tries that.”

Mark doesn’t look at either of them. “I knew he’d be good,” he says, voice low, clipped. “I didn’t think he’d be this comfortable.”

His jaw tightens, irritation rising. Ryoma didn’t stumble into that exchange. He set it, read it, took it apart.

And worse yet, he did it without urgency, without strain, like he’d been waiting for the chance to show it.

Mark finally glances back at his fighter. Jade is steady now, breathing under control, eyes clear, face looking composed and cold than agitated.

But Mark’s concern doesn’t fade. Because what worries him isn’t the knockdown. It’s the unpredictability Ryoma brings into this fight.

***

At seven, Jade finally lifts his gloves and turns toward the referee.

“I’m okay,” he says, voice steady. “I can still fight.”

The ref doesn’t need to study him. He steps back and cuts his arm through the air.

Box!

Across the ring, Ryoma pushes off the neutral corner. His eyes are already on Jade, measuring the way he stands, the set of his shoulders, the way his guard comes up without delay.

<< He still looks fine. Too fine. >>

The system’s voice cuts in, sharp and irritated.

<< I told you not to be so soft. >>

Ryoma’s mouth twists, a faint scowl flickering across his face. Not because the champion is still standing, but because the voice won’t let it go.

Around them, the commentators rush to fill the space as the fight snaps back into motion.

“And we’re back on,” one of them says. “McConnel beats the count without a problem.”

“But look at Takeda,” the other adds quickly. “That expression… he’s not smiling anymore.”

“He doesn’t look satisfied,” the first continues. “Almost like he expected more from that exchange.”

“Or like he knows it should’ve been worse,” the second says. “That knockdown was clean, but the champion’s still right there.”

Ryoma hears none of it. His focus stays locked on Jade, on the way the champion shifts his weight, on the small details that tell him everything he needs to know.

The count is over. The round isn’t. There’s still more than a minute before the bell, plenty of time, but still not enough to end the fight. It needs a lot more to knock this champion.

***

Jade stays orthodox, shoulders squared, feet planted just wide enough to claim the space in front of him.

He doesn’t circle, doesn’t retreat. Instead, he lifts his left glove and gives it a short dismissive wave, an invitation more than a taunt.

“Come on… If you’re going to do it, do it now.”

Ryoma doesn’t hesitate. There’s no feint, no drift, no patience this time. He steps straight in, because Jade isn’t denying him the distance.

The center of the ring swallows them both, and for a heartbeat, everything tightens.

Then they swing, and the arena erupts the instant leather starts moving.

Jade’s hooks come first, wide and heavy, thrown with the intention of asserting himself through force alone. He isn’t thinking about control anymore. He’s thinking about presence, about reminding everyone who owns this ring.

This is what the fight at the highest level looks like. When you can’t dictate the tempo, simply impose your presence through brute strength.

“This is my ground… My ring!”

But Ryoma stays compact. His right hook snaps out inside the arc, short and precise, beating Jade’s swing by a fraction.

Dsh!

The glove clips Jade’s cheek, sharp enough to turn his head just slightly. At the same time, Ryoma’s left comes up and catches Jade’s right, absorbing the impact cleanly on the glove.

And without pause, the same left fires…

Dsh!

A compact jab snaps against Jade’s face and is gone just as quickly, retracted on instinct. Ryoma’s weight shifts, and his right follows immediately.

Jade doesn’t step back. He tilts his head on reflex, unconcerned with defense now.

Ryoma’s glove still smacks against his ear.

BAM!

But Jade answers in the same breath. His left digs hard into Ryoma’s midsection, landing with full commitment.

Thud!

The exchange lands almost simultaneously, and for a split second, it looks like Ryoma took the worse of it.

His torso tightens as he absorbs the blow, breath forced out in a sharp hiss. Still, he doesn’t unravel.

Ryoma stays tight, disciplined. He blocks, slips, rolls, always coming back with something small and sharp. Jade keeps swinging with intent, trusting his power, willing to trade if that’s the price of landing something heavy.

The crowd loses all sense of rhythm. The noise spikes into something wild and uncontrolled, a wall of sound crashing down on the ring.

“This is chaos!” one commentator shouts.

“They’re standing right in front of each other!”

“Takeda’s beating him to the punch, but McConnel’s making every exchange hurt!”

In the red corner, Mark Holloway leans forward, eyes locked on the center. There’s tension there, but also trust.

He knows his champion can survive this. He’s seen him drag worse fights into deep water and drown the other man in it.