"Just one step."
"Do you dare come over?"
Ishizaki stood outside the line.
The tips of his shoes were almost touching the rain-polished edge of mud.
Sudo's shoulders suddenly went rigid.
His fists clenched tight as well.
His toes were only a palm's width from the line.
One little step forward, and that would be enough.
The three minutes they had just won back would vanish with it.
"Say that again."
The words squeezed out through his teeth.
His anger had already risen to his throat.
Instead, Ishizaki's grin widened.
"I said, just one step."
"Aren't you usually pretty good at charging in?"
"Why aren't you charging now?"
Inside the white rope, several gazes bore down at once.
Yamauchi clutched the record board, his whole body stiff.
Ike Kanji had just stopped moving.
Karuizawa had also held down the outer half of the girls' line first.
Yamauchi's fingers around the record board had turned white.
The half-step Ike Kanji had been about to take never landed.
If Sudo really stepped out, the previous rounds would all sink into the mud along with him.
Gu Heng didn't go up to pull him back.
He merely stepped out from behind the tree roots and stopped half a step behind Sudo.
"Hirata."
"Here."
"Open the terminal."
"Yukimura, record it publicly."
Hirata understood almost instantly and raised the terminal to his chest.
Yukimura flattened the board in his hands, his pen hovering over the first line.
"Twenty-two seventeen."
Hirata's voice wasn't loud.
But it was steady and clear.
"Inside the designated line: Class D's Ken Sudou."
"Outside the designated line: Class C's Ishizaki."
Yukimura's pen immediately followed.
The smile on Ishizaki's face stiffened for a moment.
"What are you recording that for?"
"Evidence," Gu Heng said.
"Don't you like standing at the edge of