It had seen someone else fail that way and learned, or the sim wanted him to work a little harder for the second cut.
He didn't mind. He liked honest work. He set the knife and waited for the step that would open the place he had picked.
The first drop in a pattern is always the most dangerous because you haven't proved to yourself that you chose right yet.
He cut when the foot lifted. The joint gave the way joints do when they aren't meant to carry panic, and the body folded.
He braced for the other to spin, and it did, too fast for comfort. His shoulder took a glancing hit that threw heat down his arm and made his fingers want to open.
He kept them closed by name, not by force. Hand, he told it. Knife. Move.
He didn't look for a clean stance. He went ugly the way a fighter does when the room is too tight. He slammed his weight into the plate face and shoved it against the wall.
