Noritada responds with a relaxed shrug, his confidence unshaken by Kirizume’s warning. It feels less like defiance and more like certainty, as if the outcome he wants is already a given.

When Serrano’s sparring session finally ends, he steps lightly onto the canvas apron and calls out to him.

"Alright, Serrano. Enough of this for now. Come down. Time for the part you actually enjoy."

Serrano’s entire demeanor shifts the moment he hears it. The fatigue from sparring doesn’t disappear, but it immediately loses importance.

His shoulders loosen, his expression brightens, and the irritation from earlier sessions fades as if it never existed.

"Finally," he mutters, almost childlike in relief. "I thought I was gonna die doing that boring shit forever."

He hops down from the ring with an energy that doesn’t match the punishment he just took, rolling his shoulders as if resetting his entire mood.

"Now this is what I came for," Serrano says with a grin, glancing up at Noritada. "Don’t go easy on me just because I just got beat up, yeah?"

There’s a lightness in his tone now, almost playful, like a kid who just escaped a long math lesson and found his favorite art class waiting outside.

The training that follows is nothing extraordinary on paper. No new method, no complex system, nothing that would look revolutionary from the outside.

It is just footwork. A single weight plate is placed on the canvas as a fixed reference point. Serrano is told to move around it, treating it as his center of rhythm.

Pendulum steps. L-steps. Z-steps. Diamond steps. Shuffle steps. One after another, each pattern repeated until it settles into his body.

Noritada doesn’t interrupt him much. He even allows Serrano to wear earphones, letting him move to whatever music he prefers, as if rhythm itself is part of the exercise.

At first, Serrano follows each step as instructed, switching between patterns like he’s ticking off a checklist.

Then gradually, the structure loosens. Noritada gives him permission to blend them freely. No fixed order, no strict transitions, just movement flowing into movement, one rhythm bleeding into the next.

Soon, the drill stops looking like training in any conventional sense. It looks like Serrano is dancing around the plate, his feet tracing patterns that belong somewhere between boxing and instinct, guided more by music than instruction.

***

Even after Noritada manages to lift Serrano’s mood through the earlier session, it does not change the underlying reality of his training.

Boxing is still not something that feels purely enjoyable to him. It is work, structure, and expectation, even when the process is made lighter.

Once the session ends, Noritada gestures toward him from the edge of the ring.

"Take a look at this guy," he says casually.

Serrano raises an eyebrow as he wipes sweat from his face. "Who?"

"Miguel Cabello," Noritada replies. "Watch him. One of the best Cuban-style boxers right now. You might pick up something useful from him."

Serrano exhales, then shrugs as he pulls out his phone, adjusts his earphones, and scrolls through the search bar without much urgency.

"Cabello, huh..." he mutters to himself. "Let’s see what all the noise is about."

A few taps later, highlights begin to play. Miguel Cabello’s movement appears on screen, and Serrano’s expression subtly shifts.

The way Cabello controls distance, the way he changes rhythm without breaking structure, the way every exchange feels both fluid and deliberate, it draws Serrano in more than he expects.

Not the highlights themselves hold his attention, but the way Cabello seems to exist comfortably inside every phase of boxing without ever looking restricted.

He leans back slightly, watching in silence. And as he continues browsing, he actually drifts into commentaries and discussions surrounding Cabello’s upcoming fight with Ryoma.

There are predictions, analysis threads, and speculation about hidden pressure behind the scenes, as if something is being positioned to prevent Ryoma from reaching the WBO title.

"Tch! People really have too much time on their hands," Serrano mutters under his breath, dismissing the conspiracy talk as he scrolls past it.

His impression of Ryoma remains unchanged; skilled, dangerous, even, a fighter capable of adaptation, of borrowing styles and bending himself to match his opponent.

But in Serrano’s eyes, that is still not enough compared to the one he just witnessed. Because what he sees in Miguel Cabello is something else entirely.

A complete expression of Cuban boxing; fundamentals refined into structure, structure loosened into rhythm, and rhythm expressed with freedom. Not bound by rigidity, but not chaotic either. A system that breathes instead of restricts.

Ryoma may be adaptable, able to replicate and absorb what he studies inside the ring. But what he lacks, in Serrano’s eyes, is the instinctive freedom that Cabello carries naturally, the ability to move without needing to imitate, adjust, or calculate.

***

Despite his earlier dismissal, Serrano never really stops following anything related to Ryoma. Cabello fades from his attention almost as quickly as he discovered him.

By chance, he comes across a recent article discussing his upcoming title fight against Aramaki. It briefly revisits their shared history from the 2015 Rookie King East Block, framing the matchup as a long-delayed continuation of a rivalry that never truly ended.

"Ryoma Takeda, Tatsuki Aramaki, and Leonardo Serrano all participated in the 2015 Rookie King Tournament East Block. Ryoma Takeda, now regarded as the current face of Japanese boxing, emerged as the East Block champion, though he did not compete in the All Japan Rookie King Final due to circumstances that remain largely unexplained.

What makes the bracket particularly notable is the overlap between the three names. Ryoma Takeda defeated Tatsuki Aramaki in the opening round of the tournament, before going on to defeat Leonardo Serrano in the East Block final.

Now, years later, Aramaki is set to face Serrano once again, this time with Serrano holding the position of current Japanese Champion.

There is also growing speculation that Ryoma Takeda may be present at ringside, possibly serving in Aramaki’s corner team in some capacity, adding another layer of tension to an already long-standing connection between the three fighters."

Serrano’s jaw tightens as he reads the article, not because there is anything written with ill intent, but simply because the sequence of events it lays out drags something uncomfortable back into his mind.

To make it worse, the page embeds a video directly in the middle of the article, linking to one of his own uploads on his YouTube channel, the same recording of Ryoma giving him a "Boxing 101" lesson inside the ring.

It is the very footage that helped turn Ryoma into a global sensation as viewers and subscribers spread it across platforms until it became one of the defining moments of his rise.

As Serrano is still trapped in the pull of the past, Noritada suddenly appears and casually drags him back into the present.

"So, what do you think?" Noritada asks.

Serrano blinks, slightly shaken, before quickly swiping the screen and closing the browser.

Noritada studies his expression for a moment, then narrows his eyes. "Don’t tell me you are actually intimidated by him?"

"Who?" Serrano replies immediately. "Ryoma Takeda? No way."

Noritada squints, clearly confused at how the name even entered the conversation.

"No, I mean... I told you to watch Miguel Cabello earlier. Did you actually check his highlights?"

"Miguel Cabello?" Serrano repeats, blinking a few times as he tries to refocus. "Ah, yeah... I watched him. Until I ended up stumbling into some story about him and Ryoma Takeda."

"Ah, that story..." Noritada gives a small shrug and a dismissive nod as he turns away again. "That kid’s been getting too much attention lately. But he’s just all hype. Nowhere near Cabello’s level."

Serrano stays silent, but something twists in his chest, because the fact is that he was the one who started the hype around Ryoma Takeda.

And he feels the responsibility to end it, and to erase the mark of humiliation Ryoma left behind.