diff --git a/docs/port/HANDOFF.md b/docs/port/HANDOFF.md
index 00597ff1..e042a70e 100644
--- a/docs/port/HANDOFF.md
+++ b/docs/port/HANDOFF.md
@@ -40,7 +40,24 @@ delivered.
 > the capture, not a pointer.
 
 
-**Decoded, three independent routes.** It closes a negative I gave you yesterday
+**Decoded.** ⚠️ ~~"three independent routes"~~ — **corrected 2026-08-31, and the
+correction is the reasoning rather than the count.** They are not three
+independent identifications:
+
+* the **image** leg establishes that DIFFICULTY *is a dialog*. It does not name an
+  entry, so on its own it narrows the search and identifies nothing;
+* the **disc** and **oracle** legs are **one compound argument, not two** — the
+  capture is compared *against* the disc's rows, which is a disc-to-runtime match,
+  the same shape `sylpheed-port` found in their own `audio.json` entry.
+
+✅ **What makes the compound leg discriminating is the exclusion scan, which is the
+part the word "three" was quietly taking credit for**: every build in every pak,
+zero rivals within 6 px of those rows, control passing. Without that, a matching
+capture would be consistent with the build rather than evidence for it.
+
+So: **one leg says "a dialog", one says "this unique build, and no other on the
+disc, is where the running screen's rows are"**. That is enough, and it is not
+three. It closes a negative I gave you yesterday
 ("not an 8-record `btn`-named build anywhere"), whose failed assumption was mine.
 
 | route | evidence |
diff --git a/docs/re/METHOD.md b/docs/re/METHOD.md
index 5076576d..057e1e3e 100644
--- a/docs/re/METHOD.md
+++ b/docs/re/METHOD.md
@@ -3012,3 +3012,35 @@ had** — two scans closed it, and it went against the reading I had offered.
 📌 `sylpheed-port`'s framing is the honest one: this worked once, and is not a
 mechanism. It worked because the observation was read as a challenge rather than as
 an excuse, and neither of us can arrange that on purpose.
+
+## A leg count is not an independence argument
+
+`sylpheed-port` found the tell for decorative legs — **claims that announce their
+own count** ("three routes", "two derivations", "all agree") — and ran it on their
+`audio.json` entry, where two of three legs turned out to be a **disc-to-runtime
+match**, i.e. one comparison. The legs survived, but only because a census
+*excludes alternatives*; the count had been doing the work the exclusion argument
+should have done.
+
+🔴 **Ran it here and my DIFFICULTY delivery had the same shape.** I wrote *"decoded,
+three independent routes"*:
+
+* the **image** leg says DIFFICULTY is a *dialog* — it names no entry, so alone it
+  identifies nothing;
+* the **disc** and **oracle** legs are **one compound argument** — the capture is
+  compared *against* the disc's rows.
+
+The exclusion scan (zero rival builds disc-wide) is what makes the compound leg
+discriminating, and it is exactly what "three" was taking credit for. Corrected to
+state the reasoning instead of the count.
+
+📌 **The general form: a count asserts independence without ever demonstrating it,
+and reads as strength.** Two legs that check each other are one leg. The question
+to ask of any *n*-routes claim is not whether the routes are correct but **whether
+any of them could have come out differently given the others** — which is an
+exclusion argument, and is usually absent.
+
+⚠️ **Reach: 1 of 272.** A sweep for leg-count phrasing finds 272 candidates in this
+corpus and I audited the single most load-bearing one. One verified case is not a
+verified set; the other 271 are unaudited, and most are probably fine, which is
+exactly why nobody will check them.