"Ippo! Did you remember to grab the extra-large life jacket?"

"Yep!" Ippo held up the life jacket with a smile as he handed it over to Takamura. Who accepted it with a grumble and reluctantly put it on. He was trying to use the argument that Ippo and his mother weren't wearing life jackets, but the Makunouchi family had practically spent most of their lives on a fishing boat, so they knew when they needed a life jacket or not. And since Takamura struggled to stay on his feet while Ippo and his mother were able to run around the ship with no problem, he was a little bit bitter about the life jacket.

Hiroko smiled fondly at her son," And what about the extra bait?"

"Right here!" Ippo hauled the ice chest onto the ship proudly, his friends right behind him as they rolled his eyes and called him a mama's boy. His friends at the gym decided that they wanted to go on another fishing excursion, so here they were. It was just going to be the Makunouchi family with Takamura, Aoki, and Kimura, the coach and Yagi said that they had to figure some stuff out with some upcoming matches so they stayed behind at the gym.

Ippo walked into the small cabin with his mother, getting ready to perform the final pre-trip checks before they left.

"Flares?"

"Right here, replaced them last week so they're still good,"

"Good, how's the weather?"

"Clear sky's all day, it's a little bit windy but I'll radio a weather update once noon rolls around."

"Ok, and our life jackets?"

"They're still here, mine is getting a little bit small so I'm going to have to switch it out with one of the bigger ones."

"Ok, I'll remind you to switch it when we get back home. And the life raft?"

"Still strapped down, same place as always."

"Good, ready to go?" Hiroko looked over her shoulder at Ippo, who was flipping through some papers and looking out the windows, checking on his friends. At her words, he turned around with a smile.

"Yep." Hiroko smiled fondly at her son as he left the cabin, telling his friends to get away from the ledge. She watched as some of them started to poke fun at her son, making him both scowl and blush as he slapped their hands away. Shaking her head fondly, she slowly pushed the throttle forward, making the boat slightly jerk forward before smoothly pulling away from the dock.

Her attention drifted over to her son as he laughed at his friends, who were hanging onto the railings for dear life. Ippo was standing in the middle of the deck, and since his friends needed the railing to just stay on their feet, it left him almost untouchable. It brought joy to her heart to see her son so happy. For years, he was so quiet and timid, never really coming out of his shell or bringing friends over. But, much to her relief, he started to open up a little bit more when he started boxing, he was more confident than his school days, although she hated it when he came home bruised up, she would always support his decision to become a professional boxer.

Pushing the throttle forward, she led them into the sea, although the wind was pushing against the boat and making it a little bit harder to steer it, she already knew.

It was going to be a good day.

"Ippo! Life jacket! Now!" Hiroko struggled to get her life jacket on, between trying to keep the ship parallel to the waves and the unforgiving wind, she needed to keep her hands on the steering wheel and throttle as much as possible. The wiper was moving as fast as possible to keep her field of vision clear. Through the unrelenting rain, she could see the bright orange of the life jackets being ushered to the cabin and the adjoining storage area. She gritted her teeth in worry and annoyance when she saw Ippo, who still hadn't put on his life jacket, trying to get his friends to safety. Even if they fell off the boat, they still had a high chance of survival because they had their life jacket on.

Ippo would drown within minutes if he fell into the water.

She still didn't understand how the weather turned sour so fast. Ippo check the weather, she checked the weather and it was supposed to be the perfect day for some boat side fishing. The best warning they got was when the waves got rough and the wind picked up. And before she knew it, they were in the midst of the storm. She couldn't even turn the ship to backtrack and get out of the storm. All she could do was point the stern of the ship towards the waves so they wouldn't get capsized.

Hiroko turned on autopilot just for a minute. Just long enough to grab her son's life jacket and to practically force it onto him when they ran into each other outside.

Ippo helped Aoki off of the railing and pushed him towards the cabin, where he would be able to join Kimura and Takamura in the small storage room they had down there. He was squinting through the rain and wiped his hair away from his eyes. He was hanging onto the railings, he had fallen off the ship when he was younger and that was enough for him. To make matters worse, he was wearing the life jacket when he had fallen in. Now that he wasn't, it was like that fear was quadrupled in him. He was halfway towards the cabin when he saw another flash of orange. "Mom! What ab- "

"Your life jacket! Now!" her scowl made him shut up

He would have forced them into the cabin if he knew what would happen.

It was like a movie. Everything was in slow motion as a giant wave loomed over them, a wave that was far too big for a storm of that magnitude. He still remembers the absolute horror he felt before pushing his mom towards the cabin. They both scrambled for the cabin, all thoughts leaving their head as they tried to get to safety.

As soon as his mother was inside the doorway, she turned around to pull him in with her.

Their fingertips grazed each other as they locked eyes. She could see the hidden fear in her sons' eyes, that look all children gave their parents as they looked to them for guidance, so they could figure out what they had to do.

That was the last emotion she would see from her son before the wave crashed onto their boat and washed away her only child.

"IPPO!"

She didn't recognize the shriek that came out of her voice. She longed to run out and try and find her son in the storm, her motherly instinct was screaming at her to try and find Ippo. But she could already feel the ship drifting off course, she could feel it start to turn, making it prone to being capsized.

So, she forced herself to take control of the boat again, she forced herself to prioritize the three other lives that were on her boat

And she forced herself to drive away from where she last saw her son.

He made a face of disgust when he felt the gritty feeling of sand in his mouth, even more when he realized that it was completely coating his face. Coughing and spitting out the sand, he slowly pushed himself onto his knees. He shook his head as the rest of his senses started to wake up. He could feel the sand that was under his hands, the dampness of his clothes, and the crashing of waves. Scratching the sand out of his eyes, he slowly opened them.

The muscles in his eyes burned as they adjusted to the bright light of the beach. There were all sorts of torn-up vegetation on the sand around him. Looking around more, he could tell that there was some sort of major storm that had hit the area recently. As his vision cleared further, he realized something.

He had no idea where he was, nothing looked familiar to him. He would have mulled over the epiphany longer but something else caught his attention.

He wasn't sure why, but there was a cap stubbornly wedged into the waist of his pants. Confused, he took out it and observed it.

It looked to be a rather old cap, with a piece of torn cloth sewn into the front of it, it seemed to have some sort of writing on the cloth, but it was torn away. It seemed to be a piece of trash, but something told him that he just needed to keep it.

Looking around, he noticed that it was early in the morning, the sun was barely starting to peek over the horizon, and based on the buildings nearby, he was on a coast-side city.

He tried to push himself up onto his feet with shaky arms.

He blinked in surprise when he realized that he was back on the sand again, the sand was digging into his cheek. The sudden exhaustion that he felt was barreling into him. The headache that he was subconsciously ignoring came back with a vengeance.

His weak and shaky hand tried to find leverage to push himself back up, but he was so tired. Exhaustion was pulling on his eyelids, and he didn't bother fighting the sleepiness he was feeling.

He heard the bass of someone's voice, but he was too tired to open his eyes again.

Takagi walked into the hospital with an unlit cigarette in his mouth and badge in hand. The staff cooperated with him well and led him to the room where the unidentified man was being kept. He was trying to enjoy his afternoon that would have gone well if he wasn't assigned to the current assignment. He tried to take the scowl off of his face. He was lucky that he was there in the hospital as a visitor and not as a patient.

"How is he doing?" the doctor and himself pressed themselves against the wall as a patient's bed was being pushed down the hall.

"He's completely healthy, he seems to be some sort of body builder so he's healthier than the average person, but he hasn't woken up yet. He does have a head injury, we don't know the damaged it caused, and we won't know until he wakes up. But otherwise, he's just utterly exhausted." Takagi hummed in response. It had been a little bit over a day since they got the report of the man being found washed up on the beach by a couple, and since the rest of the police department was busy, he was the one that had to come out and start to investigate the unknown man.

"I see, and he doesn't have any I.D?"

"Nope, all he had was the clothes on his back," the doctor opened up the door and led the detective onto the small room.

Takagi rose an eyebrow. He was much younger than he thought.

The man was sleeping peacefully in the bed, he had thick eyebrows and thick, dark messy hair, a single-arm was out of the blanket as the IV line ran into the crook of his arm. "Hm, do you know how old he is?"

"Well," the doctor looked through the paper on the clipboard," He seems to be in his early twenties, I would put him at around 21, 22." Takagi hummed at that, compared to his 50 years of living, the man was just a kid.

The kid's hand caught his attention though. He carefully picked up the kids' hand to get a better look at it.

"Something wrong?"

"No," he ran his thumb over the back of the kids' hand, feeling all of the calluses that covered his knuckles, turning his hand back over, he found more calluses on the kid's palm. He frowned at the sight of his hands. It was common for fighters to have calluses like that, someone who used their hands as their primary weapon. And looking at the way his arm was built, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that the kid practiced some sort of martial arts" have you looked into the nearby gyms?"

"Gyms?"

"Yeah, this kid probably did some sort of martial arts, you can tell by the calluses on his hands. "Takagi set the hand back down a just ignored the doctor as he took out his polaroid camera and took a picture of the sleeping man. As soon as he was done, he walked towards the door while waving his hand around. "I'll go ahead and visit the nearby gyms, I'll be back if I find out anything."

Now to just visit the thousands of gyms in Osaka.

Joy.

Hiroko stared listlessly at the door, her legs were pulled up to her chest and her arms pulled her legs closer as she just stared.

On the other side, was her sons' room.

It still felt like her son was alive. As if all she needed to see her son again was to open his bedroom door and check on him like she did every night. It felt like he had just left on one of his training trips and hadn't returned. Or when he left for a match and just hasn't come back yet.

All she could do was stare, as she hoped that her precious Ippo would open the door and give her a sleepy greeting, or hum of acknowledgment.

She thought nothing would be worse than the pain of losing her husband. And until that point, nothing was worse. Her precious son had helped her through the pain when they first lost Kazuo, not only did his existence help her through the pain, but the fact that she still had a part of her husband in their son helped so much. Because in a way, it was like Kazuo was still with them, Ippo shared a lot of similarities with his father. So even though her husband was gone, there was still a part of him with her and it was a part of Kazuo that was living and thriving.

And now Ippo was gone.

Even thinking about the words still felt odd. As if it wasn't real. Logically, she knew that her son was gone, she knew that even the best swimmers would be hard-pressed to survive a storm like that with a life jacket, and her son had fallen in without one. But emotionally, she still couldn't accept it, she could still feel the feeling of her son's hand pushing her towards the cabin.

It was like her husband's funeral all over again. She needed to see her sons' body to accept the truth, but she didn't even have that liberty as well. As her sons' body was lost to the depths of the ocean, just like Kazuo's was.

Now, she was truly alone.

God, she hated that word.

A sharp sting to the back of his hand made him wake up. He pulled his hand out of whatever was holding it, eager to get that pain to go away. It's not like it hurt that much, it's just that it wasn't ideal to wake up to when everything else was aching in their own way.

"Sir?" a hand touched his forearm and gave it a gentle shake," Can you hear me sir?" another hand slipped into the loose grasp of his own.

"Squeeze my hand if you can hear me sir." Squeezing the hand, he tried to open his eyes. He heard a sharp gasp when he opened his eyes, the hand leaving his forearm as he stared at the nearby nurse who was standing over him.

Before his eyes could even focus on the man's face, the nurse was shining a bright light into his eyes.

"Sir, can you tell me where you are?" turning his face away from the light, he let the nurse do whatever he was doing while he answered.

"N-no." there was a sharp hum of disappointment.

"Do you know what happened?"

"N-no, I do-don't remember." the nurse helped him sit up and held a cup of water to his lips, which he eagerly drank. Smacking his lips, he looked around the small room and realized that he was in the hospital. Which made sense, since there was a nurse and all right next to him.

"Sir," the nurse looked extremely distressed as he looked into his eyes, this time, not shining a light into them," Can you tell me your name?" he stared at the nurse for a long time at the question. But he just couldn't answer the man. Every time he tried to remember something that he should know, like his own name, nothing came to mind.

"Sir?"

"N-no, I don't remember." A look of surprise flitted across the nurse's face before he smiled, he gave him a gentle pat on his forearm.

"Ok sir, I'll go and call the doctor, someone else will be coming in shortly to talk to you." He could only sit there as the nurse politely bowed to him before leaving the room.

He would say that that was odd if he knew what was going on. Besides, it's not like it was weirder than him being unable to remember his name. which was something he felt like he should be a lot more concerned about, but for some reason, he wasn't. something was telling him that he had something that he was more worried about.

It certainly would be nice if he could remember what he had to be worried about. It would be even nicer if he could remember his name so he could figure out if he was worried about.

How was it that he was awake for less than 10 minutes and his life was already a mess?

He was peacefully doing one of those old-school nonogram puzzles (something that he was oddly good at) when he nearly got a heart attack.

"Makunouchi!" he jumped out of his skin when someone slammed his door open by a tough-looking guy. He had a wild hairstyle and an almost feral look to his eyes. The only thing he could do was hold his puzzle book to his chest meekly.

"Uh, excuse me?" the man bounded into the room with a distressed-looking man in a suit right behind him.

"Hey! I told you to stay with me!"

"Do you have any idea how upset I was when they told me you were dead! Geez wait until everyone finds out! WAIT!" he just stared at the feral man as he grabbed onto his shoulders and made eye contact with him.

"Have you even told your mom?!"

"I-I'm sorry…who are you?" the man's eyes widened while the guy in the suit stepped up and pulled the man away.

"I thought you told me that you knew who he was?"

"I do know how he is! I can't believe you don't know who he is!"

"uh, excuse me…?"

"Well if you know who he is, why don't you tell us?!"

"um…excuse me…?"

"That's Ippo Makunouchi! He's japans featherweight boxing champion! He just defending his title for the third time less than two weeks ago!"

"I'm-I'm what?" the man in the suit gave him a surprised look before turning to the wild man who was just staring with an incredulous look.

"See! He doesn't know what you're talking about, you have the wrong guy. Now come on big guy," the man in the suit stepped forward and attempted to lead the other guy out of the room, an action that he got a shrugged-off hand and a scowl for.

"I know what I'm talking about, look, you lost your memory right? Before you ask, this guy told me." Ippo nodded in confirmation, something that made the wild man let out a sigh of relief before he turned to the man in the suit.

"Listen, I know for a fact that this is Ippo Makunouchi, if you don't believe me, contact the Kamogawa gym in Tokyo and the JBC. This is the guy who beat me in a boxing match, I know who I'm talking about." The man in the suit stared at his younger counterpart before reluctantly agreeing.

"Fine, Ill be right back, don't do anything crazy Sendou." The wild man, who was now dubbed as Sendou, gave the man in a suit a smile and a fake salute.

"Got it, thanks Takagi!" Takagi rolled his eyes before closing the door. Sendou turned to Ippo with a frown.

"Do you really not remember anything?" Ippo gave him the smallest shake of his head, which make Ippo sigh in disappointment.

"Man, that sucks, but hey, at least you're not dead." Ippo gave him a weak smile.

"Yeah…I guess." Sendou almost frowned at the way his friend was so timid and reserved. But at the same time, he understood why he was like that. After all, he would be pretty freaked out if he woke up on the beach with no memory.

"So, what are do you doing?" his friend lightened up just the smallest bit.

"Oh, I'm just doing this puzzle…"

"Cool, want to explain to me how to do it, it looks hard."

"Oh sure, you do it like this…" honestly, Sendou wasn't interested in the puzzle the slightest bit, but he was trying to get his friend to unwind a little bit. The last time Ippo was this nervous was when his fans spotted him in the audience of one of his matches and Sendou got secondhand embarrassment when he heard about it.

Right now, he just pity's the person who has to go to his mother and tell her that the son she had been mourning for the past week was alive.

The three of them exchanged looks as they walked into the office. The air in the gym had been tense since Ippo had died. All of them had gone through their grieving period, Takamura was the most upset out of the three of them.

He could still hear the terrified shriek of Ippo's mother when he was washed overboard. And her cries as she drove them out of the storm. He truly believed that if he had stayed out there for just a few more minutes, his precious friend would still be with them. he would still be there, hitting the punching bag as he got ready for his fourth title defense match. The match had already been canceled as the JBC tried to figure out what to do with the sudden death of their featherweight champion. If he had just stayed a few more minutes out on the deck, Ippo would still be here to tease.

Aoki and Kimura felt the same, despite their differences, the three men all had the same train of thought.

They had failed the Makunouchi family.

Coach scowled at the way the three men almost dragged their bodies into the room before turning the landline towards them and pressing the speakerphone button.

"Detective Takagi, this is Coach Kamogawa, can you repeat what you just told my coworker?" The coach was using former language towards the detective, and when they all turned to Yagi, all they got was a dazed look.

"Ah yes," the voice sounded tired," a few days ago, a man was found washed up on the shores of Osaka. But since he got a rather nasty hit to his head, he cant remember a single thing." They all looked at each other, as they weren't sure how it was related to them.

"But after consulting with a local boxer, Takashi Sendou," they all exchanged confused looks at the mention of the featherweight boxer. " he identified the man as your boxer, Ippo Makunouchi-" the detective's voice was cut off by both the surprised shouts to the boxers and the picking up of the receiver, they could only stare at each other as the coach relayed the faxing machine number to the detective before giving the man his thanks and hanging up.

The silence was deafening at that moment.

"Coach! Is he-!" kimura was silenced by a single hand.

"Wait, just…wait, lets not get our hopes up." They fell back into silence again.

Despite his words, the elderly coach was the first one at the faxing machine, practically ripping the paper out of the tray as soon as it was done.

It was quiet for a second, and then for another.

A dry chuckle sounded loudly in the small room.

"That brat," the coach turned away from them as he thrust out the paper towards the men," I should have known he would pull something like this." Kimura was the first one to grab the paper and Aoki and Takamura weren't far behind, they crowded him and looked over his shoulder to look at the paper.

It was a black and white photo, but they could still recognize the young man that was staring back. The young man was sitting next to Sendou as he looked at the camera with a tilt to his head and a slightly confused look on his face. There was a bandage wrapped around his head but there was a spark of life in his eyes that they thought they would never see again. But before any of them could celebrate, Kimura brought up an excellent point.

"Who's gonna tell his mother?"

"Hey Ippo, put these on, we're going on a trip."

"Huh," Ippo barely managed to catch the bag of clothes that were thrown at him, he looked into them and was somewhat surprised to see a set of clothes along with some shoes," where are we going?" Sendou leaned against the wall with his eyes closed as he answered his rival.

"Home, some of your friends will meet up with you at the train station with your mom."

"Really?"

"Yep, I just have to take you there and it'll be home sweet home."

"Awesome," Ippo pulled the shirt on and looked down at himself. It was a regular black t-shirt that fit him perfectly, it was a little bit snug around his arms, but it was still comfortable. The short sleeves made the muscles on his arms pop, while the jeans also fit him well. It seemed like jeans were meant to be baggy, but with the size of his thighs, it was snug around them. but again, it was still comfortable and it was enough to make the muscles in his legs stand out.

Ippo gave a pleased hum at the clothes before leaning down to put on the shoes. His hum was prompt for Sendou to open his eyes, who was glad that his predictions were right (he had a feeling Ippo would look tougher if he stopped wearing his baggy clothes.)

"Yep, I already checked you out so as soon as youre done, we can leave. "

"Okay." Within minutes, Ippo was done getting dressed and was just about to walk towards the door when Sendou stopped him.

"Hang on, your hair is a mess man." Sendou tried to push back Ippos hair and somewhat comb it out with his fingers, only for his fingers to get tangled.

"Ow."

"Sorry, let me just," he pulled his fingers out of Ippos hair and took out the comb he carried with him. Without giving Ippo any warning, he tried to brush Ippos hair.

"Ow!"

"Hang on, stop being a baby! Geez whens the last time you bru-"

*snap*

Sendou fell silent as he stared down at the broken comb. Ippo fell silent and when he tried to look up at Sendou, his head was pushed back down as Sendou tried to get the broken part of the comb out of the champion's hair. Which would have worked.

If it wasn't tangled halfway to hell.

"I uh…I'll pay for your haircut…?"

"Sendou!"

The comb had gotten tangled enough where the only way to get it out would be to cut it out. and since it was his fault he had gotten the comb stuck, Sendou just quietly led Ippo out of the hospital and to his usual barber. The entire time, Ippo was giving him a look that showed his annoyance and his disappointment in Sendou.

On the bright side, Ippo looked a little bit more intimidating with his new haircut. The top was shortened to match the new length after the comb was cut out, and his sides were shorter that gave him a cleaner look overall. Doesn't mean that the amnesiac liked the change.

"My hair…" Ippo walked out of the barbers with his hands on his head. And if Sendou didn't feel bad, he did when he saw Ippo like that.

"Its not that bad, it suits you!" Sendou cringed when he saw the annoyed glare that Ippo gave him and just let silence fall between the two of them.

Ippo followed Sendou to the train station. After Ippo had reluctantly agreed that the new haircut fit him, the two of them were doing small talk. Ippo had finally come out of his shell and was having his normal level of conversation that he would with the fellow featherweight.

Before long, they were on the bullet train to Tokyo.

"Hey," Ippo looked at his counterpart as he stared out the window," how did you even get all the way over here, last I heard, you fell off of your familys boat during a nasty storm without your life jacket?"

"Well, im not really sure, I remember just the feeling of being underwater and that's about it." Sendou pursed his lips at that.

"Really? Shame, it was a miracle that you survived you know?"

"Really?"

"Yep. Not a lot of people can fall off a boat without a life jacket during a storm and live to tell about it, you should be proud. "

"I think I would be a little bit more proud if I could remember anything. "

"Ha! You do have point there, but its going to be a while until we get to Tokyo so im just going to take nap."

"Ok." Sendou glanced over at Ippo, who was more confident than he remembered (honestly that was probably due to Sendou encouraging him to speak up and to say his words with pride), But either way, he was just happy to see that his friend was still in the world of the living and closed his eyes for the nap.

Here's hoping that everything is going to go well.

"Takamura, what are we doing here?" Hiroko was tired. After a long day of her customers giving her condolences and work, all she wanted was to rest. Even though her version of rest was staring at her sons' bedroom door, that was all she wanted.

So when Takamura, Aoki, Kimura, and her son's boxing coach came to her house and insisted that she goes with them, despite her refusals, she wasn't exactly in the best mood.

"Well…I think it would be best if Coach explained it to you." Coach, who noticed the very obvious redirection, let out a heavy sigh as he took Hiroko to the side.

"Well, ma'am, there is no easy way to tell you this, but," the Coach took out the faxed paper and handed it over to her, who took it with watery eyes. She was able to recognize her son anywhere, and the sight of her son was making her poorly restrained emotions well up again," Ippo di-"

"Hey!" Coach cringed at the way he was cut off and turned around to scold whoever yelled like that.

Sendou was running up to their small group, a wide smile on his face as someone trailed behind him.

"Sendou! Why did you leave me behind like that?" Ippo ran up behind Sendou, keeping up easily with the boxer. He tilted his head in curiosity when he saw a small group of people just staring at him.

All of them were staring at him with wide eyes with their mouths hanging open, he had to fight the urge to pull down the cap he kept to break eye contact with them.

"Um, hi?" his words seemed to break their trance.

"""Ippo!""" the only thing he could do was let out a small yelp as the three men crowded him. he let out another shout of surprise when he felt his feet leave the ground as he was hoisted up onto the tallest mans shoulders.

"You lucky bastard!"

"We thought you were dead!"

"Ippo!"

"What? Wait wait no!" Ippo yelped as he fell backward off of the man's shoulders, the only reason he didn't fall was because the man had a solid grip on his legs.

Ippo stared up at the old man and woman who were just staring at him.

"Uh, hi? Oof!" he let out a sound as the man let go of his legs and made him drop onto the cement, making him land on his back.

Groaning, he sat up while rubbing the back of his head, he flinched back when he felt someone pull up the brim of his cap. When he opened his eyes, he was staring at a very familiar pair of brown eyes.

"Oh Ippo," a sense of nostalgia and longing rose in him as the woman pulled him into a tight and unforgiving hug. He was extremely confused, he had no idea who these people were. But at the same time.

It just felt right to be in the woman's grasp.

"Welcome home." A smile spread across his lips as he melted into her embrace and wrapped his arms around her.

"…I'm home."