it begins

authors note

hi everyone this is my first time posting so I hope this turns out alright without being beta'd

the reason I put this story demo out is to get a feel if there is any interest for it and to any who review the story, helpful critique is welcome and hateful spitefulness will be reported.

Disclaimer: I do not own hajime no ippo or the manhwa The Gamer

Graphic novels/web comics

the premis and story lines belong to their respected and hardworking authors.

I only use the ideas they have already popularized in my own unique way,

so I only own the weird and twisted ideas I come up with on my own

————————————————

IPPO Couldn't believe he had failed for the second time after reaching the world ranks, he couldn't help but think back as he lay on the bench in the locker room after the fight Thinking over all the obstacles he had overcome to get where he was before the fight earlier that night.

He remembered from the nervous wreck he was before is very first pro fight, to the rookie king's, to the ace of A's torment, his fight with Date Eiji, his comeback against ponchai, defeating sendou for the JBC featherweight title, to making the deal with takamura to beat yonsu in the first round in 32 seconds.

Ippo also couldn't believe that you survive against "the Dragon Slayer" Sawamura, Scratch J, Malcolm Gedo, or the king of the jungle Wally.

"what was it all for, was all the blood sweat and tears I shed for nothing?" wondered Ippo.

As he sat there reminiscing about all the training all the hours all the effort the Coach komogawa spent molding his technique and style, Ippo wondered if he just disappointed coach komogawa sense he wasn't able to go all the way and get the world title after he fought so hard to get back in the ring and try to take on the world again even though he had all the symptoms of the condition that could cause him to die if he is hit wrong.

Ippo clenched his hands as he fought hard to hold back the tears that threatened to spill from his eyes and grit his teeth to keep in the anguish and frustration he wanted to yell out to the world that he wasn't done he wasn't finished he wanted to keep going he wanted to keep fighting keep going to find out the answer the reason that he started down this road to find the meaning to Being strong.

He lay there choking back his sobs, wishing hopelessly that he could just go back, back to the day he met takamura, back to the day when he caught a subtle glimpse of what being strong could mean.

He wanted to go back to that so he could fix everything, fix the way he cowered from the bullies, fix the way he acted toward miyata, fix when he caused his mother to collapse from exhaustion while he was at training camp, fix his relationship with all the women who might have loved him like kumi mashiba, Mari Iimura, and Tomoko Yamaguchi sensei.

As these thoughts swirled around in ippo's mind, he struggled to pull himself up right and head to the showers, so he could use the hot water and steam to loosen up and take the ache out of his muscles.

As he stood under the shower head Ippo felt the tension leave him even though the recent match loss swirled in his mind and no matter how hard he tried he couldn't clears mind.

"HMMM… T0 think you would be this pathetic after losing like you did but I guessed it is to be expected from the former JBC featherweight champion for losing to such a wimpy contender."

"Who is there" Ippo called from under the shower spray as he looked out into the locker room from under the shower water cascading over him.

"Who am I…. well I guess you could say I am just someone with a lot of time on their hands and completely bored out of my freaking mind and let me tell you that's not a good combination when you're an omnipresent being who's lived for a long time and has more power than they know what to do with. "the Voice echoed through the locker room

"What would you want with me" Ippo asked the voice since there is no one else in the locker room and he knew he wasn't hearing that voice in his head.

"Well I just so happened to be passing by Ippo and I happen to catch the fight, and I saw you performing in the ring fighting back with everything you had but it seems that just wasn't enough.

Then I thought if he just had a little more training or if he was able to build himself back up from the ground up how would the match have gone, would you have triumphed, would you have been able to pull out a last second win, so with these thoughts swirling about and thinking about how bored I have been before I saw that match of yours.

I have decided to give you a gift Ippo, I had decided that you get to go back and do it all over and maybe just maybe you'll do right it right and have a little fun of doing it." The voice told Ippo

As soon as the voice stopped speaking Ippo started to feel drowsy and woozy he also was losing his vision and soon fell over on the floor, right before he lost conscious Ippo thought he saw a screen that said, "welcome gamer, to 'Hajime No Ippo' the fighting spirit".

As ippo regained consciousness and opened his eyes he looked all around him and could not see anything but a vast emptiness of nothing around except for a screen in front of him that he couldn't believe.

Game Over

Name – Ippo Makunouchi

Health – 7, 500/7,500

CHI – LOCKED (requires deity's blessing)

The Gamer

Title - former JBC featherweight champion

Level – 15 EXP- 10,000 / 15,000

Race – Japanese

STR – 75

VIT – 90

DEX – 60

INT – 50

WIS – 35

LUC – 100 *

Fame – 50,000

Stat point – 0

Perk point - 0

Money – 1,000,000 (9,140.00 $)

Techniques

• Peek-a-Boo Style - Ippo's most commonly used boxing stance. After the match with Oda, Kamogawa noticed Ippo's weak defense and taught him the Peek-A-Boo. Ippo continues to use this style as it allows for a strong defense while allowing him to attack without giving up any power.

• One-step Straight Punch - Ippo's First Punching technique taught by Takamura.

• Weaving - To prepare to avoid Mashiba's flicker jabs, Ippo worked on his lower body by running and sprinting. This allowed Ippo to bob and weave his head around, making it difficult for the opponent to make a clean hit.

• Turtle Strategy - In Ippo's first spar (against Miyata) while he didn't know any techniques, Takamura taught him the Turtle strategy (or "Operation Turtle"). After the spar against him, Ippo used it just once more during his sixth title defense.

• Counter - Even though Ippo is not a counter-user he has trained to use ones such as using an uppercut counter against Jason Ozuma's hook and using a cross hook to counter Hayami Ryuuichi's uppercut.

• Liver Blow - A body blow aimed directly under the right side of the ribs. Ippo uses it constantly since it is very effective against Out-boxers. It was first used against Mashiba Ryou.

• One Centimeter Punch- "Motionless Short Uppercut" Ippo, during his second spar with Miyata threw an uppercut directly upward instead of with a curve, due to Miyata's reflexes, the punch only hit the tip of his chin and ended up doing more damage than if the blow wasn't dodged. This "Uppercut" was revived by Ippo against Sendou in the All-Japan Rookie Finals as a different type of Smash (which it was originally). Ippo used it to counter Sendou's own smash successfully. It is noted that despite the technique being faster, it sacrificed some power to attain that speed.

• Clinch Pivot Blow - No official name given, this blow is one Ippo can throw when being clinched by an opponent. It utilizes rotation from pivoting his leg during a clinch to generate enough force to effectively throw a punch of similar strength to that of his Liver Blow. He first used this against Date Eiji.

• Gazelle Punch - A punch where Ippo springs downwards and then launches himself forward using the momentum of that motion into an uppercut. It was first used on Volg Zangief.

• Dempsey Roll - Ippo's Sunday Punch. After Ippo recovered from his match against Date, he had a comeback match with the 3rd ranked seed in Thailand. The nervous Ippo trained on dodging and punching, and while doing so thought up a way to punch and dodge in the same time. When the opponent was trapped by the ropes, Ippo started a combination of dodging and punching in a form of the figure eight, a combination that was completely identical to the Dempsey roll, a technique that the world heavyweight champion of 1920, Jack Dempsey had used. Ippo relies on this technique quite a bit, although it has many weaknesses. The Dempsey Roll itself is a technique that relies on moving in the shape of a figure eight while attacking the opponent with hooks (later Ippo discovers a way to use uppercuts as well), thus allowing the user to attack from a blind side, and then switch to the other using the centrifugal force built up. As the speed increases with the number of rotations the user's power increases along with it.

• Sakki - Before the match against Sendou (the second), Ippo learned about the sakki feint. He managed to use this to his advantage when using the Ultimate Dempsey Roll Combo. It's important to note however as stated by both Kamogawa and Takamura, Ippo doesn't specifically use Sakki but instead uses his own version of it; Courage.

• New Dempsey Roll - Before his fight with Sawamura Ryuuhei Ippo realizes the flaws of the Dempsey roll and comes up with this solution: to include a series of start/stop motions which make the pattern of the technique unpredictable to counter punchers. Ippo seals the move after the match due to the inherent risk it carries- with a dangerous strain on his body, it can cut short his boxing career.

• Shoulder Block - A simple technique used to dampen punches by using the shoulder to guard the chin and arm to guard the liver. Since Ippo's a pure in-fighter he had to face Jimmy Sisphar jolt blow without retreating; to lessen the damage, Ippo blocked the blow with his shoulder.

• Cross Arm Block- In the match against Sanada, Ippo used this to protect himself from the Tsubame Gaeshi. He had also used it against other opponents such as Shimabukuro, Sawamura and Wally and many others. He used this technique after remembering his fight with Kobashi Kenta.

• Heart Break Shot (first used in fight with Gedo) - A technique learned from Date, Ippo does not have much control over it. Against Gedo, Ippo had a problem of getting close to him. When he got close he didn't know where to punch, so in spontaneous way he just decided to punch the heart. He evolved it into his own by using it as a kind of feint and using raw power to achieve the blow instead of a corkscrew blow.

• Tornado Jolt - Ippo learned the Tornado Jolt in the match against Jimmy. When Ippo faced Jimmy's, jolt blows he understood that he will lose if he faced those punches with regular blows. So, to create punches with the same effect, Ippo himself used the blow. It was after this match that Ippo's nickname, "Wind God", first arose.

• Southpaw Stance- During his debut match against Oda Yusuke, Ippo sustains a cut over his left eye that threatens to end the bout. Though initially awkward for him to use, he instinctively adopts this style to protect the cut, resulting in a KO win by way of overwhelming right jabs which had the power of straights. Ippo also appears to switch from a Brawling Stance to a southpaw stance before delivering the finishing blow to Kojima Hisato.

• Tekken- Miguel Zale stated that Ippo took after Kamogawa with the "Iron Fist" aka Tekken right before his boxer Wally was defeated. Although Ippo achieved this in an albeit safer way than Kamogawa, by using a hammer to knock the logs into the hill instead of his fists. Ippo managed to use this without breaking his fists or ending his career.

• Brawling Stance - For the first time in the series, Ippo becomes genuinely angry enough to want to brawl in the ring when his opponent, Kojima Hisato, insults all Ippo's previous opponents. He adopts a stance very similar to Takamura's during the Bryan Hawk match; his guard is down; his stance is low, and he gathers power in his fist to unleash a full-force punch. The result of this stance is that Ippo completely ignores defense-he is easily hit with a counter from Kojima-but becomes so offense-oriented that he not only resists a down, he retaliates with a punch that sends a man from two weight classes higher than him literally flying backward. Ippo's potential with this stance is yet unknown, but there is evidence that his notorious "fighting spirit" is fully activated in this stance. There is little evidence that he will be using it again any time soon.

• Diagonal Dempsey Roll/Free Form Dempsey Roll - This is considered (by Takamura Mamoru) to be the ultimate progression of the Dempsey Roll. The only variation to it from the New/Dempsey Roll is the addition of an extremely low sway which allows Ippo to throw uppercuts. In this "free form" Dempsey Roll, Ippo can perform hooks, uppercuts, and potentially overhands (if he reverses the motion of the sway) while weaving his head at full speed in unpredictable directions. In the words of Takamura: "It would become an unlimited, free form, high-speed combination... You wouldn't be able to aim a counter against it." Numerous characters, including Kamogawa and Takamura, have stated that this move pushes the limits of the lower human body and would quickly shorten Ippo's boxing career if he performed it repeatedly. He has only used it during the Jimmy Sisphar match. However, following Ippo's eighth title defense, Kamogawa hinted at Yagi that he was preparing Ippo's lower body to handle repeated uses of the move. The Diagonal Dempsey Roll proved to be effective against Antonio Guevarra.

• Head slip - A technique used to avoid punches aimed for the head by swaying it to either the left or right of the oncoming blow. It has been used by several boxers in the series and was showcased to neutralize "head-hunters". Ippo used this technique in his match with Alfredo Gonzales with a peek-a-boo style, relying on his body to dodge the punches.

Ippo now realize what the mysterious voice had meant by that statement before he had passed out, so he now had to believe that his life really has turned into a game but what bothered him is how he was going to play his life as a game.

When suddenly the text box popped up and asked him if you would like to:

"load a previous save/play a new game/playing a game +"

Ippo had never been one to play video games because that was something that you did with friends which before he graduated he didn't have any to hang around with, not to mention that he helped run the family fishing boat with his mom.

Since ippo did know which to select he reached up and tapped the first one and it popped up a box, explaining that he could load any previous save and continue where you left off in his previous life.

He certainly didn't want to make that choice, so he tap the play new game it also popped up the box, explaining that he could start a brand-new game starting in the middle of his last year at school, but all his stats would be reset. Seeing as this is what the voice most likely meant ippo was ready to tap on this option, but he was curious about the third option he had yet to tap on.

He went ahead and tapped on it the box also popped up explaining that he could keep all the knowledge he had gathered as well as his current character stats, but he would not retain any perks/titles he earned/or money accumulated so far.

The box also said that he would retain the techniques he had gained so far but his body would not retain the muscle memory and body structure to perform them they would need to be retrained from the beginning.

It looks like ippo found which option he wanted to choose, he knew how much blood sweat and tears when to learn all the techniques that coach komogawa had shown him and have helped him harness and strive to master the technique he learned.

Ippo new to despite all the techniques and training coach komogawa put him through that it was not enough to take on the best in the world, so you wanted to keep as much of an advantage as he could, so he will be ready from the beginning to rise to the world stage.

So ippo selected the third option and as a bright light started to shine, ippo closed his eyes, steadied his nerves and waited for the light to envelop him and star him over on his new journey.