The scoreboard churned like weather. Names climbed, fell, vanished, all with seconds difference. Somewhere up in the stands the host kept yelling, the crowd kept laughing, and in the lanes below the laughter started to curdle.
Two candidates cut across Raizen's lane, eyes on him, not the Class 2 prying open a door behind them. Another pair broke from a fight, angled toward a rival with a fat number on the board. Nobody said it out loud, but it was there in how they moved - take a head off the leaderboard and everyone else climbs.
The host caught the change and grinned anyway. "Awww, sportsmanship is… optional. Friendly reminder - points for Nyxes, not for kneecapping your neighbor. Unless your neighbor is a Nyx. Which… Uh… I guess it does happen? Rarely?" The joke didn't land everywhere. Steel rang against steel in a corner where two contenders decided the quickest way up was to cut the rung someone else was standing on.
