Chapter 1012 - 1012: Three Sides of the Same Man

That afternoon, Ronin finally breaks its silence, attempting to steer the public narrative as carefully as possible, this time without Ryoma's presence to absorb the attention.

It is not easy. The questions keep coming, often deliberately provocative, demanding patience and considerable mental endurance.

What was supposed to be a short afternoon of damage control stretches into hours of questions and accusations.

And by the time Nakahara finally reaches his apartment, the sun has completely disappeared below the horizon.

"I swear, this whole damn situation is going to drive me insane."

Kenta lets out a quiet laugh from behind the wheel as he brings the van to a stop in front of the apartment building.

"Maybe you should stop saying that so often. Someone might actually take you seriously."

Nakahara simply shakes his head, steps out, and closes the door behind him. While Kenta drives the van toward the parking area, Nakahara continues muttering under his breath as he climbs the stairs toward the apartment.

"One of these days, I'm really going to need to see a psychiatrist."

At the top of the stairs, however, a woman is already waiting for him. The moment their eyes meet, she gives him a polite bow.

"Good evening, Nakahara-san. My name is Miyahara. A psychiatrist. I hope my visit isn't an inconvenience."

Nakahara stares at her. For a moment, he can only wonder whether the universe has actually been listening to his complaints.

Then the name registers, and his expression changes as recognition begins to settle in.

"Could you be the same psychiatrist who has been treating Ryoma?"

Miyahara nods. "Yes. And that's actually why I came here. My visit is related to Ryoma."

"Is there something serious going on with him?"

"Nothing like that. I simply want to understand Ryoma better. This time, I'd like to learn more about him through the people who know him closely."

Nakahara nods slowly. After a moment, he continues toward the apartment door at the end of the stairs and unlocks it.

"Alright. We can talk in my place."

Until now, Miyahara's role had been straightforward: Ryoma came to her, and she provided psychiatric consultation based on what he chose to share.

But this visit is different. She is not here in her usual capacity as his psychiatrist. She has come because her curiosity about his case has grown beyond what ordinary sessions can satisfy.

In the apartment's modest living room, Miyahara sits listening as Nakahara and Kenta share everything they noticed about Ryoma, particularly from the weight cut through the day of the fight at Edion Arena.

Miyahara does not write anything down. She simply places a recorder on the table, leaving it running while the three of them talk naturally.

"And for some reason," Nakahara says in the middle of his testimony, "I felt like I was seeing that naive kid again, the one I hadn't seen in years."

"Hmm?" Miyahara rests her chin on one hand. "Did he do something stupid that night?"

"No, no, it wasn't like that," Nakahara says. "How should I put it..."

He falls silent for a moment, searching for a way to explain his perspective without making it sound ridiculous. In the end, he finds himself drifting into memories from years ago.

"When Ryoma first came to my gym, he was still in his third year of high school," Nakahara begins. "But that wasn't when I first knew him. I used to see him around the neighborhood even when he was a kid. He'd often be walking back home with dirty clothes, sometimes with tears running down his face. You know the kind of kid you might see after getting bullied at school."

"Oh, he had a past like that? He never mentioned any of it to me," Miyahara says.

Kenta chuckles. "Considering what he's like now, there's no way he'd ever tell you about that."

"So, when did you first feel that the change in him had truly begun?" Miyahara asks.

"That's a hard question," Nakahara says. "For starters, I was pretty shocked when I learned that he had somehow become an Interhigh champion in high school. Then he did it again. And when the entire city was trying to recruit him, that kid came straight to my gym, which, in almost every respect, was hardly the kind of place you'd expect a serious prodigy to choose if he wanted to build a career in this sport."

"Is that when you discovered a different Ryoma? When he joined your gym?"

Nakahara sighs and shakes his head. "Maybe my expectations were too high, and that left me a little disappointed. He was simply too kind and gentle to become a professional boxer."

Miyahara blinks in confusion. "But you said he was a two-time Interhigh champion."

"Professional boxing is different from amateur boxing," Kenta cuts in. "In high school, you can win through technique and points. But the professional world is much more brutal. A fight doesn't end after three rounds. You can build up as many points as you want, but your opponent can still hurt you before the final bell. That's why you have to learn how to hurt your opponent, not just outscore him."

"The Ryoma I knew back then..." Nakahara continues. "He was too influenced by all the bullying he'd experienced, in a way that made him overly empathetic. He knew how hurt it was, so he didn't want to hurt others. He thought he only needed to become strong enough so nobody could hurt him, without ever needing to hurt anyone himself."

Kenta chuckles again, recalling something stupid about the young Ryoma. "He was always bragging that he'd become world champion by collecting points all the way to the final round without having to hurt his opponent. That's the kind of soft, kindhearted naivety we are talking about."

Miyahara remains silent for a moment, her expression distant as she tries to reconcile the boy they just described with the Ryoma she knows now. The two images seem almost impossible to place inside the same person.

"So that boy is now known as the cruelest boxer in Japan?" she murmurs. "Now I'm curious. When, exactly, did that cruel side begin to emerge?"

Nakahara and Kenta do not answer immediately. Both seem to be tracing their memories, trying to pinpoint the exact trigger to Ryoma's changes.

"That fight against Jade McConnell?" Kenta asks.

Nakahara shakes his head. "That was definitely the moment when he crossed the line. But the change itself didn't begin that night."

"What about the fight with Serrano?"

Nakahara lets out a quiet sigh. "He wasn't that cruel that night. But I knew there was already something different about him."

Kenta falls silent for a moment, then suddenly blinks as though a memory has finally surfaced.

"That's right... that spar with Shimamura," he says.

Nakahara's expression shifts, and this time, he cannot bring himself to disagree.

"Shimamura?" Miyahara asks.

Nakahara's expression darkens again. "He was my grandson, and the best fighter I had back then. You could say he was almost the complete opposite of the naive, soft-hearted Ryoma."

"Exactly," Kenta says. "The main reason Shimamura couldn't stand him was that naivety. He used to bully Ryoma around the gym because he wanted to beat that softness out of him."

As if they have reached the darkest point in the same memory, their expressions become noticeably more serious.

When they exchange a glance, there is an unmistakable sense that they have both arrived at the same realization.

"That sparring..." Kenta murmurs.

"Yes," Nakahara says with a slow nod. "His last spar with Shimamura. That must have been the trigger."

"Did something happen that day?" Miyahara asks.

Kenta nods, his expression growing darker. "Shimamura hit him with a brutal counter. After taking the punch, that kid suddenly seemed to become someone else."

"Now that you mention it," Nakahara says, "it was similar to what happened when he took that counter from Jade McConnell in Melbourne."

Miyahara can only listen in confusion. They have started jumping between names and events that mean nothing to her, referring to points in Ryoma's history that he has never once mentioned during their sessions.

"Somehow," Nakahara adds, "after taking Shimamura's counter to the head and going down, Ryoma got back up, and his entire demeanor had changed. It was almost like he was possessed. The spar became so brutal that we had to stop them."

"Do you remember, Coach?" Kenta asks. "After that day, for more than two months leading up to his professional debut, Ryoma barely spoke to anyone. He became incredibly quiet. He stopped greeting people, and even his smile disappeared."

Nakahara nods slowly. "Yes. 'Sure.' 'Okay.' Those were the only words he ever said to me. Nothing more. But after his debut, he suddenly became expressive again."

"Did the naive Ryoma come back?" Miyahara asks.

"No," Nakahara shakes his head. "It was something completely different. He became much more open and expressive, impatient at times, and occasionally bitter. The day after his debut, he came into my office and impatiently started talking about becoming champion within a year."

Nakahara gives a faint, almost nostalgic smile. "Somehow, I could relate to him. You know what it's like to get older, look back at all your regrets, and suddenly want to do everything right and do it as quickly as possible? That was Ryoma after his debut. He suddenly became mature, composed, and calculated. He's easily agitated at times. But when it mattered most, he always managed to adapt to whatever the situation demanded, that I forgot he hadn't even reached twenty yet."

He turns back to Miyahara. "And that naive kid I used to know? I never saw him again. Not once, at least not until the night he fought Umemoto Kimitada."

Miyahara remains silent, but uneasiness begins to settle behind her composed expression.

Until now, she had only considered the possibility of two distinct personalities within Ryoma. But the accounts she has just heard suggest something far more complicated.

The naive and gentle Ryoma, the cruel and sadistic Ryoma, and a third personality who is more mature, adaptive, and calculated, almost like a transition between the other two.