Novel Full Chapter 524: The Surgeon and the Whirlwind
Chapter 524: The Surgeon and the Whirlwind
Nakahara’s expression shifts instantly. The playfulness vanishes, replaced by a heavy, professional seriousness. He fully understands the gravity of Kirizume’s accusation.
“You know Serrano secured this title fight by winning the Class-A tournament,” Kirizume continues, stepping closer. “If he wins tonight, he’ll be expected to defend his belt against the top contenders. There’s no world where he fights your Aramaki at Yoyogi as a champion. By coming here to scout a challenger, you’re effectively betting on Serrano to fail.”
Nakahara maintains his composure, his voice steady. “I believe in Serrano’s ability. We have both waited a long time for the Serrano-Aramaki clash, and I know Serrano wants it as much as we do. My only wish is for that fight to happen on a much grander stage… perhaps even as a title bout.”
“That is a far-fetched story, Nakahara,” Kirizume counters coldly. “So, I’ll ask you again. Why are you here now?”
“Because I believe Serrano will win,” Nakahara says, his eyes boring into Kirizume’s. “And I plan to challenge Miyamoto Rikiya after the dust settles. So, I’m asking, if possible, not to break the champion too badly. I’d like him to be in one piece so he can fill the undercard with Aramaki at Yoyogi.”
A collective gasp ripples through the crowded locker room. The cornermen from the other gyms exchange stunned glances. Kirizume lets out a dark, mocking chuckle, though his disdain remains sharp. “You realize where you are, don’t you? Speaking about Miyamoto Rikiya like that in this room… everyone here will take that as a blatant, unforgivable insult.”
“They’ve already painted me as the villain of Tokyo,” Nakahara says, his tone indifferent. “I’ve stopped caring about the portrait.”
He turns on his heel, his coat swirling as he walks toward the exit. But as he reaches the heavy metal door, he pauses, looking back over his shoulder.
“But if luck isn’t on your side tonight, Kirizume, and Serrano loses… I only hope he leaves that ring in good condition. Because if he doesn’t have a belt to defend, I’ll be waiting to sign him for a fight against Aramaki.”
With that final, chilling ultimatum, Nakahara exits the room, leaving the air vibrating with a mix of fury and unspoken fear.
***
The lights of Korakuen Hall cast a harsh glare over the expectant crowd. In the blue corner stands Leonardo Serrano, the challenger, a chaotic fusion of Naseem Hamed’s wild insolence and a newfound disciplined orthodox shell.
Across from him, the champion, Miyamoto Rikiya, is the picture of Cuban-inspired perfection. At twenty-seven, he is a veteran of the international stage, a man whose jab is a measuring stick and whose footwork is a geometry lesson.
Among the sea of spectators, Nakahara watches by himself. His face is half-covered with a black surgical mask, his eyes narrowed and unblinking.
To the fans around him, he is just another face in the crowd, but his presence is a silent weight in the arena, the architect of the very chaos that is about to unfold.
“The bell rings for Round One,” the lead commentator bellows. “And immediately, we see the clash of philosophies! Rikiya is establishing the distance with that world-class Cuban jab, while Serrano remains tucked in a tight, uncharacteristic high guard.”
Rikiya glides forward, his lead foot slicing the canvas with surgical intent. He fires a double jab…
Pop-pop!
…testing Serrano’s high guard.
Serrano doesn’t dance. He hunkers down, catching the blows on his forearms, his eyes peering through the narrow gap of his gloves.
And then, he suddenly lunges with a sharp straight. But Rikiya’s Cuban pedigree shows; he slips the punch by a hair’s breadth and counters with a stinging hook to the body.
Thud!
It’s a high-speed chess match that forces Serrano to clinch just to disrupt the momentum. But Rikiya pivots beautifully, landing a short uppercut that snaps Serrano’s head back before the challenger can reset.
“Beautiful adjustment from Miyamoto!” the lead commentator roars. “That’s elite ring IQ on display. He baited the clinch, pivoted off the line, and punished Serrano before the reset. That is championship boxing!”
***
For the first four rounds, the fight is a clinic of technical superiority. Rikiya is the conductor of this orchestra. And Serrano, surprisingly, stays in his orthodox stance, absorbing the impact on his gloves, losing the rounds on points but refusing to yield his structural integrity.
“Serrano is playing it safe, almost too safe!” the lead commentator bellows. “He’s losing every round, but he isn’t taking any real damage. Is he waiting for something, or is Rikiya simply too fast for him to handle?”
Rikiya is comfortably ahead. Across from him, Serrano’s face is reddening, despite his eyes still eerily calm.
In the last minute of the round, Serrano finally drops his lead hand, his right still high under his chin. He weaves his torso in a serpentine arc, and then fires a lead hook from his hip that whistles past Rikiya’s nose.
“A glimpse of the ghost!” the co-commentator shouts. “Serrano is starting to show his true colors!”
Rikiya resets his stance, but his eyes narrow with a flicker of genuine irritation.
The disciplined orthodox Serrano he had been outclassing for fifteen minutes has vanished, replaced by a twitchy, rhythmic ghost that refuses to stay still.
“There it is…” Rikiya’s jaw tightens behind his mouthpiece. “The ugly, erratic dancer everyone warned me about.”
Serrano’s sudden shift in posture is an affront to the structural beauty Rikiya has spent a lifetime perfecting. To a practitioner of the Cuban school, this isn’t boxing; it’s a circus act.
“He thinks he can unsettle me with this street-performer nonsense?”
Rikiya feels a surge of cold veteran pride. He hasn’t spent his career mastering the sweet science just to be tripped up by a man who fights from his knees.
He tests the air with probing jabs, watching intently as Serrano’s torso liquefies, slipping punches with a fluid sway from his hips.
You aren’t Hamed, and I am certainly no amateur.
Rikiya doesn’t rush, using the final seconds to calibrate his internal clock to this erratic, newfound rhythm.
At the last second, Rikiya suddenly closes the distance until their shoulders collide. With no room for Serrano’s fluid sway, the champion digs in a punishing body blow.
Thud!
Serrano fires back, but…
Ding!
The bell rings, ending round five.
Serrano’s jaw tightens, his momentum robbed. He bristles with the visible irritation of a predator denied his strike, stalking back to his corner with a scowl of unbridled disappointment.
As Rikiya walks back to his corner, he watches Serrano over his shoulder, his eyes narrowed in cold assessment.
Go ahead, boy. Drop your hands. Show me your chin.
I’ll make you regret every inch of that arrogance before the night is over.
***
In the sixth round, Serrano emerges like a whole different creature. He fully discards the orthodox discipline like a heavy coat. His hands drop to his thighs. His chin is exposed, wagging provocatively.
He begins to bounce, not back and forth, but in erratic stuttering rhythms that defy the Cuban rhythm Rikiya has established.
Rikiya lunges with a stiff jab, but Serrano isn’t there. Serrano’s torso snaps back at a forty-five-degree angle, his spine seemingly made of rubber.
“He can’t find him!” the commentator screams. “Rikiya is swinging at smoke!”
Rikiya resets the distance, but Serrano suddenly explodes, leaping from a low crouched angle while launching a soaring lead uppercut.
It catches Rikiya flush on the cheek.
Dsh!
The champion’s head snaps sideway, his legs momentarily turning to water. Rikiya tries to clinch, but Serrano is gone, spinning away with a mocking grin.
Serrano fires punches from his knees, from behind his back, and from leaping lunges that force Rikiya into a desperate high-guard. The champion is being dismantled by an anomaly.
“Miyamoto is drowning in the chaos! He’s a surgeon trying to fight a whirlwind!” the lead commentator screams.
“Serrano isn’t just hitting him; he’s insulting the very concept of boxing!” the co-commentator yells back.
For the next three rounds, Rikiya can’t find his rhythm, his vision blurred by the sheer absurdity of the target.
He is busy trying to lock onto a ghost that refuses to materialize, his gloves hitting nothing but the displaced air where Serrano’s head used to be.
***
By the ninth, Rikiya is breathing hard, his ribs bruised and his confidence shaken.
But he is a veteran of eight international bouts for a reason. He realizes he cannot out-chaos Serrano. So he decides to stop looking for the knockout.
He tightens his stance, narrows his focus, and begins to play the most dangerous game in boxing: the pure pragmatic scoring.
“Rikiya has shifted gears!” the commentator notes. “He’s no longer engaging in the wild exchanges. He’s poking, prodding, landing light clean touches and circling away. He’s trying to steal the decision!”
It is masterfully dull. Every time Serrano lunges with a spectacular leap, Rikiya parries and then lands a stinging counter-jab. And then he clinches, denying Serrano the big moment while accumulating a mountain of small, clean points.
Even as Serrano lands a heavy overhand that stings Rikiya’s shoulder, the champion simply resets and lands two light straights in return.
***
The bell for the eleventh ends, and Rikiya raises a weary glove. He’s won another round, but his breath is liquid fire.
In the red corner, Coach Okada leans in frantically. “You’re ahead, Rikiya. Even a draw keeps the belt. Ninety seconds, Rikiya! Don’t be a hero. Just move, clinch, and let the clock bleed!”
Rikiya nods, resting his head heavily against the turnbuckle. He draws a deep searing breath, his eyes fixed on Serrano with a look of sharp irritation.
“Damn brat… I didn’t expect a circus act like him to push me this far.”
Across the ring, the blue corner is a portrait of pure tension. Kirizume isn’t giving instructions; he’s spitting venom.
“You’re losing on points, Leo! Forget the dance now. KO is your only option. You’re younger, stronger predator. Stop being an artist and start being a butcher. Turn this into a slugfest. Break him, or don’t bother coming back to this corner!”
Serrano’s eyes, normally playful, turn dark and hollow. He doesn’t nod; he just stares at Rikiya’s weary form.
When the bell for the twelfth rings, Serrano simply storms out, a coiled spring of pure aggression.
He storms forward, closing the distance until their chests collide, and unleashes a violent flurry with a total reckless neglect for his own defense.
Dug. Dug. Bug!
Thud! Dug. Dug. Bugh! Bugh!
But Rikiya refuses to engage. He doesn’t even entertain the thought of a counter-punch. He plays it safe, smothering the explosion by instantly clinching to kill Serrano’s momentum.
“Serrano is throwing everything he has!” the lead commentator shouts. “This is pure desperation now; wild, reckless, no regard for defense.”
“But Miyamoto refuses the bait,” the co-commentators replies. “He smothers it in a clinch and bleeding the clock!”
The moment the referee pries them apart, Rikiya pedals backward, re-establishing the distance and buying more precious seconds off the clock.
Desperate for a KO, Serrano hitches his weight and then uncoils a leaping Gazelle punch. Rikiya pulls his high-guard up to shield his jaw, a textbook defense.
But Serrano’s trajectory stays low, and…
BAM!!!
It isn’t a headshot. It’s a pinpoint, airborne hook into Rikiya’s exposed liver.
The air is sucked out of Rikiya’s lungs. His face turns the color of ash as he drops to one knee, clutching his side in absolute agony.
“A DOWN! THE CHAMPION IS DOWN!”
High in the stands, a thin, cold smile spreads beneath Nakahara’s mask. He watches Rikiya’s face drain of color, realizing the veteran’s calculated safety has just become his death trap.
“So, it’s decided then… Aramaki against the fallen champion.”
He doesn’t wait for the referee to finish the count or the final bell to ring. He simply rises from his seat, adjusts his coat, and walks into the shadows of the corridor, leaving the carnage behind as if it were nothing more than a solved equation.