The fourth round begins, and Takasugi steps out clean, but the difference is there now, impossible to miss if you know what to look for.
His posture is still composed, his guard still disciplined, but the sharpness from earlier rounds doesn't return in full. The bounce in his step is less elastic. His feet still move, still circling, still searching for space. But there's a fraction of a second where the rhythm doesn't quite reconnect the way it used to.
He hasn't taken many clean body shots. But the pressure from the previous round lingers, carried in his breathing, in the tension of his shoulders, in the way he no longer moves as freely as before. A single minute of rest wasn't enough to clear it.
Across from him, Satoru steps forward again, unchanged. And that alone keeps the weight of the previous round from fading.
