Those words landed.
The room was silent. Everyone could hear their own breathing.
Two coughs waited in people's throats, but neither was let out.
The envelope lay in the center of the lectern, lined up with its front edge.
Unopened.
Every eye in the room remained on it.
Ibiki withdrew his hand from it and rested it beside the roster.
He looked neither at the roster nor at the people, but at the rows of desks below.
The shadow behind the lectern stretched to the legs of the first row of desks, motionless.
No one looked toward the light.
"Before I open it, the rules."
His voice was low. He set down each word separately, leaving no room for questions.
No one dared ask what rules he meant.
Everyone sat just as they had before. Only the tension in their hands changed.
Each hand resting on a desk edge had nowhere to go.
The question was still inside the envelope, unseen.
The light from the window shifted a finger's width into the aisle, touching no one.
No one lowered their head to look through their paper, and no one raised it.
They were all waiting. Someone's fingertips tapped against their paper, then stopped themselves halfway through.
Not a single pen had moved since those words.
The pens stayed still, but the hands weren't idle. Their fingers felt over desk edges, pen shafts, and paper corners.
"If you don't want to answer, raise your hand now. Withdraw and leave. I won't stop you."
He began evenly, without preamble or a single unnecessary word.
He spoke slowly. When he finished, he paused.
The pause was brief, just long enough for every word to reach the back row.
No one spoke during it. Not a chair shifted even half an inch.
That small