Now that Ryoma finally stops running around the ring, Sekino steps back into the center with a single intention: reclaim control, reclaim the point lead.
"He's exhausted… now I can rebuild my rhythm."
He begins pouring on pressure with the flickers, light and fast, angling in from every direction, each with a slightly different tempo.
Whsst!
Whsst! Whsst!
Ryoma rolls under the first, turning his lead shoulder to smother the next. Anything that threatens his face, he parries with a neat tap of his right glove.
He refuses to give ground, not with his legs anyway. He uses only tiny shifts of the rear foot, small rolls, a quiet L-step, and then he casually circles out as if strolling through an empty park.
"Wohoo… would you look at that?" one commentator bursts out. "Ryoma looks calm as a lake, making those veteran flickers look trivial."
More than twenty seconds pass with Ryoma spent almost no energy on his side, and still Sekino hasn't landed a clean shot.
