The school bell chimes, indicating the end of the school day. In Akabane Community High School, there are many different and unique personalities that stand out radiantly, with scholars that climb to the top of the academic ladder to the athletic prospects who seem to have a future set out for them. However, like light and darkness, there ought to have been a shadowy side rarely talked about in school, the misfit outcasts and the wild factions of delinquents.

At the centre of it all, Inoue Tatsuya (family name first), roamed the lively halls of the school as people met with their friends or lovers, or those who wished to rush to their club activities or home. Alone with his thoughts, he slowly made his way home on the path paved on a riverbank. He let out a worried sigh as things were unfolding quieter than they normally were, but he was relieved at the same time. Though this sense of security didn't last for very long.

"Tatsuya, are you not going to say anything to us, huh?" Kotsuka Masaru scoffed as Tatsuya carelessly walked past Masaru and his band of delinquents.

One of Masaru's lackeys grabbed hold onto Tatsuya's shoulder and pulled it towards him, and in a flash, Tatsuya was on the ground. 

"What had hit me?" Tatsuya thought to himself, not fully grasping the whole situation. He heard a familiar voice then got knocked down. As he sat upright, he stared blankly at the floor in a daze.

"Pfft... Look at him, he's pathetic, he won't even stand up for himself,'' one lackey remarked, only for the rest of the gang to laugh hysterically. "This fucker probably doesn't even know what had hit him."

 Tatsuya was then unexpectedly met with a swift kick to the chin, sending his consciousness spiralling. What was happening to him? Then the realisation finally hit, it was just that time of the routine he thought. As Tatsuya slowly rose from the floor, he was struck in the liver, causing Tatsuya to convulse violently on the spot, puking his guts out on the floor.

 Yes, Inoue Tatsuya, was not one of those who excelled well academically or athletically. 

Starting from a young age, Tatsuya had been made fun of by his peers for various reasons. Though the bullying had definitely had their own adverse effect on him, he grit his teeth and clenched his fists and lived life normally for the most part. How the public had viewed him has moulded him into believing that this was merely a part of normal life, and that everybody has gone through it at one point in their lives. That's simply why he had never stood up for himself, as he thought it was completely natural.

"How disgusting!" gagged another one of Masaru's lackeys. "He wouldn't even fight back even if his family depended on it." 

"If that was the case, I feel bad for his mother for raising such a failure of a human being,"

"Wouldn't we all?"

They all began laughing hysterically at how seemingly pathetic Tatsuya's life seemed to have been. But when they mentioned something about his mother, he felt something snapping inside of him. Insulting him and beating him was one thing, but directly insulting his mother was another. Tatsuya stood up slowly and weakly and attacked one of them with a punch to the chin, however, the lackey slipped under the punch and the lackey landed a clean blow to the body, then another lackey stepped in and held him in place.

"You've got a lot of nerve standing up for yourself," declared Masaru. "To think that you weren't actually spineless as we thought you were."

With a clenched fist, Masaru threw a deft and nasty punch directly at Tatsuya's face, unsurprisingly breaking his nose as a result. Masaru held his hand tainted with blood towards one of his followers, who immediately started wiping it clean. 

"Nail him with another one!"

"Teach him a lesson he'll never be able to forget!"

"Make him regret crossing paths with us!"

Masaru responded to the words of his men by positioning himself, poised for another punch. Time felt as if it had stopped all around Tatsuya as he looked at an obscured silhouette of Masaru in the top-corner of his vision. He's going to punch me again, I've had it coming… I'm sorry mom, I was just too weak… But the punch never came. 

Behind Masaru, a tall man with an astounding build, black slicked back hair, stood there menacingly, grabbing hold of Masaru's forearm tightly and with relevant ease.

"Hey, what do you think you boys are doing?" scoffed the man as he stared directly into Masaru's eyes.

"Huh?! Do you wanna have a go at it?!" provoked Masaru as he glared at the man with a disgusted expression. "Guys, get him off me!"

Masaru's followers did as they were told to: to get this man off of him, but they couldn't. His grip was too tight, and trying to push him off balance felt like pushing against a concrete wall. Irritated, the man released the hold on Masaru's arm and cracked his knuckles shortly after. The man then poised up in a stance that the delinquents almost immediately ascertained. It was the infamous peek-a-boo stance, developed by the legendary coach Cus D'Amato, who coached and was corner man for Kevin Rooney and Mike Tyson.

Each follower would make an attempt to punch the man, with the first one missing a punch that was heavily telegraphed from his unnecessarily large wind up. The man ended up bobbing under the punch and delivered a devastating right hook at fifty-percent of his might that knocked the lights out of the lackey almost instantly. Then the next one came, this one showed signs of experience from street fights but he hesitated, giving the man the first move who landed a perfect textbook one-two combination, and knocked him out almost instantaneously as well.

At this point, all the lackeys, including the one holding onto Tatsuya ran away, leaving only Masaru left standing. Obviously enraged, Masaru lunged at the man, only to be pushed aside. 

"You're never going to hit me with that," the man stated. It seemed as if Masaru's ego had been hurt from the comment.

Without saying a word back, Masaru regained his composure and tried again, but to no avail. However, Masaru displayed his tenacity in trying to close the distance between them, but he would get interrupted by swift jabs that connect cleanly, disrupting Masaru's flow and rhythm. But after taking a few jabs, Masaru managed to close the distance between them and grew cocky.

"This is the end for you, behold, my super elegant and powerful punch-"

Unfortunately for Masaru, the man would not fall for punches with such a big windup. The man ducked under the wide punch and Masaru's face was met with a flurry of compact and quick uppercuts that each packed a strength to be reckoned with. And in what seemed to be about five seconds of straight torture, Masaru's swollen face eats the dirt below.

"Why do you look so down? You're being graced by my presence right now! Rejoice!" the man exclaimed loudly, patting Tatsuya's back. "Look, you did well there, at least you weren't getting bullied without fighting back, I hate those types of people the most," the loud man stated, observing the injuries that Tatsuya had sustained. "We can probably give you some bandages at the gym, follow me." Then the man took off running.

"W-Wait!" Tatsuya yelled as he tried to keep up with his pace.

As they both walked into the boxing gym, Tatsuya looked around to see posters that were all about the next fight of the man who brought him here. It read: "Tachibana George v.s. Ohtani Yasuo; Inter-Japan Middleweight Championship Title Match." 

"Yo George, who's the new guy you brought?" one of the trainees asked while shadowboxing.

The man, or George rather, bursts out laughing as he recalls how badly beaten Tatsuya was and pats Tatsuya's back with unnecessary force. Causing Tatsuya's back to arch the way it was hit. 

"He got beat up in a fight…" George tried really hard to hold in his laughter as he said that but couldn't help but burst into a fit of laughter yet again, his loud obnoxious laugh resonating within the entire boxing gym itself.

"Contain yourself, George, is this how the current Japanese middleweight champion is supposed to act?!" The chief of the gym gave George a good spanking with the punch mitts. "Very sorry about that, we'll see if we could do anything for your wounds." 

"Thank you," Tatsuya thanked as he stared blankly, captivated by the dedication and hard-work that the trainees put in. Maybe one day I can be like one of them… One day… But then he found something eye-catching, maybe he might be imagining it but is one of those trainees sitting still? No, he's not just sitting still, he's observing those around him. Tatsuya thought it was strange since he only thought boxing was only hard training and then the fight.

"You're all set to go," said the chief. 

"Thank you very much," Tatsuya bowed as he picked up his things and headed straight for the door when he got called over. "New guy, come here for a second," it was George, who for some reason stuck a really terrible drawing of Masaru on the sandbag. "Try hitting 'im." 

"Erm… I'm not sure…" Tatsuya hesitates but the trainees push him towards the sandbag. Feeling pressured, he felt like he had to stay there for a little longer so that he wouldn't let down the trainees. "Fine, how do I punch it, like this?" Tatsuya then proceeded to throw an absolute mess of a punch, barely pushing the bag forwards. 

"Wrong… Step into it first, then lock your hips and turn your right foot out, rotate your torso along with that momentum and carry it over to your fists and then, BAM!" George punched the heavy bag, causing it to sway back more than what many heavyweight boxers could do despite being middleweight. The sound of the impact resounded throughout the room, echoing within the walls. "Now you try!"

Tatsuya then stepped into position and poised his hands up like a boxer's. Then trying to punch in the steps that he was instructed: "Step in, lock hips, twist right leg out, rotate torso, punch." Tatsuya's punch disappeared into a blur, then an impact could be heard blaring from the bag as it was pushed back. "There, was that better?" The room was dumbfounded.

"Well it was nice of you all to have me here, thanks for your time," they watched in silence as Tatsuya left, he second guessed himself if he had done something to get them to react that way.

"Bring that boy back here tomorrow, George," said the chief.

"Okay,"

After Tatsuya had had his dinner, he rushed to his computer where he watched boxing matches from the internet, wanting to know what it felt to be strong like them, thoughts like these flooded his mind but only one of them stood out the most. The question he wanted answered the most was: "What does it mean to be strong?" He lavishly called it a day and hit the hay, sleeping snuggly in his futon.