The others stiffened into some kind of semi-uniform parade rest. Hisako lurched into it, copying their stance after a moment of surprise, and closing a hand on a wrist comfortingly.
"Doorkeepers Amajiki, Matsuda, Nakano, Saitou, and Iwai. Please confirm your mentees are taking the exam under the administrator, Chubu Division Lieutenant Toshiaki Fujioka," Strömberg intoned.
Amajiki raised a hand. "Mentee Hisako Mochizuki, confirmed."
A tired-looking man older than Amajiki gestured to the crossbow woman. "Chouko Yasuda. Confirmed."
"Eiji Serizawa," a shockingly young-looking woman said, nodding at the poor man Yasuda had been speaking with. "Confirmed."
Serizawa bowed politely, which was deeply awkward in his parade rest with his hands clasped tightly together behind his back.
"I've brought Hibiki Rao." An elderly man bearing an ornate crest on a simple ring gestured grandly to the man with the katar. "He will be undergoing the exam. Confirmed."
"Confirmed." Finally, an exhausted, drowsy woman half-leaning on Amajiki flicked a hand at the woman with the rings. "Miyu Sasaki."
Hisako's eyes flicked to Amajiki without her consent–a knee-jerk reaction to the name. Amajiki's eyes met hers, and she knew that Miyu Sasaki was some relative of Nanae's.
She took the second to attach names to faces, and faces to mentors. It was all important. Mentors were their entry into the world, and they were shapers of knowledge and ideas in the new world.
"All participants confirmed," Strömberg said. He looked at Toshiaki.
"Confirmed," Toshiaki said.
Toshiaki shifted to face solely those taking the exam. The mentors shuffled off. Amajiki waved playfully to Hisako, but she didn't break the parade rest the other students had fallen into.
"The objective of your exam is to neutralize the door, as a Doorkeeper would. This is a mock mission with an unfamiliar team. Vice Captain Strömberg has designed a door world in which you will be tested. All the qualities that are valued in a Doorkeeper will be tested and examined today," Toshiaki explained.
Rao raised a hand. Toshiaki gestured politely.
"What constitutes a passing score?" Rao asked.
Toshiaki nodded. "A fair question, but one I can't exactly answer, unfortunately."
"Failure to clear the door," Strömberg said simply, "will constitute not-passing. Your performance will be observed, and those deemed unfit by Vice Captain Toshiaki and I will fail. Should you fail, remedial training will be provided before you can retake the exam."
Hisako chewed at her cheek.
While Toshiaki and Amajiki had both said she had more experience than most, she wouldn't let that get to her head. She was to be in unfamiliar territory with unfamiliar companions. She also knew nothing about Strömberg and his door, unlike her last two doors.
She wondered what kind of grasp the others had on their powers. She imagined they would at least be semi-familiar with their weapons, like she was.
During her recovery, she hadn't been able to get familiar with throwing herself around with her ability, under Moon's orders.
"You're not going to tell us anything else?" Yasuda asked casually.
Toshiaki shook his head, shaking his small mane of black and purple hair. "This is a mock mission testing your field capability as a Doorkeeper. Oftentimes, Doorkeepers enter doors blind, not knowing what to expect."
"Isn't this a bit… difficult for beginners?" Serizawa asked after raising his hand.
Toshiaki glanced at Strömberg, as if searching for an answer. "The world has been carefully created to suit your level while still providing a challenge."
Strömberg didn't look like he was paying attention. He'd glanced down at his wrist, where a thin watch on a string of tough-looking beads sat on a tanned wrist.
Toshiaki stared at him for a beat longer, until the man noticed and lifted his head.
"Are we ready to begin?" he asked.
Toshiaki frowned slightly but nodded. "Yes, please." He turned back to them. "Are you all ready?"
They nodded and voiced their confirmation aloud.
"Yes," Hisako said absently.
There was something more. Maybe it was just Strömberg being distracted and Toshiaki being uncertain, but something niggled at the back of her mind.
Though Toshiaki hadn't admitted there was a "trick" to the exam, Hisako was sure the brief rubric he'd explained was far too simple.
In both her door and Kohaku's, there had been more than just "go forward until you reach the end"; there had been a compromise to understand the door and the wielder. In both doors, she could only progress through understanding and open-mindedness.
Doors were puzzles, not obstacles.
She glanced at her new teammates. They looked generally eager–Serizawa seemed apprehensive–but none seemed as caught in thought as she felt.
She steeled herself as Toshiaki gave Strömberg some space, probably to open his door.
All she knew for sure was that Toshiaki believed she was the most prepared for the exam, and she trusted that he put his faith in her.
She stepped forward, astride with Serizawa, ready to open her mouth and comfort him, when Strömberg's door opened.
It didn't open like she'd seen other doors open. Instead of a door appearing behind the tall man, it exploded around him in a metallic snap that made her flinch. In an instant, a steel gate stood where Strömberg had been, and he was nowhere to be seen.
The gate swung open with a loud creak that shattered the silence. Hisako released the breath she'd realized she'd accidentally held when Toshiaki gestured them forward.
"Best of luck," Toshiaki murmured as they began to file through.
Hisako end-capped the line of examinees, and Toshiaki stepped through behind her.
The sunny warmth of the training field was sucked from the air as she did. The atmosphere went from breezy and pleasantly light to a heavy, foggy chill under an impossibly large moon.
Silhouetted against the massive orb in the sky was a gothic city worthy of legend. Spindly spires reached like skeletons into the sky, riding on a city climbing up a rocky peak. Houses on houses on hills lined with rugged stone bricks, grown over with something deathly green, ivy-ed up the levels with each tier, becoming grander and grimmer as they ascended.
Lanterns flickered all the way up, illuminating damaged stone streets and cracked, dirty windows. Some danced from a being carrying it, flashing as they swung in lanterns, appearing and disappearing behind their owner or a structure whose form was swallowed by the dark.
Serizawa had stopped shortly after entering the door, so Hisako ended up standing beside him to avoid running into him. They stood on a stone bridge over a meek moat full of sludgey dark water. The others waited ahead, at the wrought-iron gate into the city.
Toshiaki stepped through, and the door mangled loudly down into a handheld iron lantern caging a large flame inside. Toshiaki lifted it to eye level, and the flame licked out at the bars.
"You may begin at your own convenience," the flame rasped in Strömberg's deep voice, "but I have important duties to attend to, so I'd appreciate some urgency."
Toshiaki clicked his tongue, half amused and half scolding. "Take your time, please. This is an exam not to be rushed through."
A warning and an inadvertent clue, Hisako thought.
Strömberg kept his tongue reluctantly held. Hisako almost huffed in amusement but refrained from doing so on Toshiaki's part.
"Ready?" she asked Serizawa.
Serizawa blinked absently for a moment before he realized she was speaking to him. "Oh, yes. Of course."
He stepped towards the others, and she followed. Ahead of them, the others entered the city. Toshiaki lifted Strömberg's lantern and, in a flash of flame, they disappeared, leaving only a fleeting but intense warmth. Hisako hurried her pace.
Hisako scanned the city wearily as they proceeded.
The streets were truly crooked, and the buildings towered above in spindly, leaning forms. It was as if the city wanted to close in around and ensnare them.
Ahead of the group was a clearing where firelight licked at the wider main street, bobbing in the unsteady hands of what could only be Doorwalkers. She glanced at Serizawa, who'd paled a bit but had a determined clench to his jaw.
"Ready for–"
Hisako cut herself off as she froze at the sight of a lit window down an alley. It caught her attention not only because of the light but because the alley itself looked important.
The cobble walk became more unruly and ghastly with overgrown tufts of grass pressing through the ground. Furthermore, a brilliant white flower caught her eye, glowing in the moonlight on a vine that climbed around the window.
She took a step towards the alley, seeing just the phantom of a small figure near the window. A child, the hint of a soft, crying voice–
"Mochizuki-san!" Serizawa cried, urgently but quietly, like he was trying to remain calm but failing.
Hisako's attention snapped away from the child in the window and to her teammates.
Serizawa had pulled his weapon into his hands and stood in an uneasy but ready position. The others, already well into the clearing, had begun to engage in combat with a crowd.
The walkers looked similar to Kohaku's in a way, but they looked more human. They were ragged and worn, nearly undead in their lanky pale form, but they wore ragged commoners' clothes and bore rusty tools as weapons.
Hisako crouched down, readying, and wondered what the walkers were meant to be. Perhaps this was some kind of vampire's kingdom, and they were all thralls or plagued victims. She found the idea amusingly cartoonish.
Traversing Strömberg's door was turning into something of a fairy tale.
She jumped up, launching herself into the air with her power. It was a bubbly, freeing feeling that made her heart bubble with warmth.
She flew up, over the arched entry to the main street, and above still, then she began slowing her ascent to arm herself.
Her door flashed briefly to appear for her, handing over her blade, and then she was plummeting down forcefully, intentionally more forcefully than she naturally would.
"Above!" she shouted in warning as she clung to her blade, intent on plunging it and herself down into the mayhem.
Instead of the team disengaging from the melee like she'd expected them to, they only tightened their ranks, her warning unheard.
She shouted once more. "I'm dropping! Clear a space!"
Once again, she was ignored by all but Serizawa, who'd entered the battle from the gate, slinging his rope dart from a safe distance.
The moment before impact, she activated her ability once more, effectively double-jumping and killing her momentum to land near-gently on one of the walkers, piercing it with her sword.
The body of it slumped and collapsed into a rolling cloud of ash, then she braced herself in a powerful half-crouch and swung carefully. Yasuda was somehow firing off bolts in close range, ducking and dodging about, and Hisako had to twist her blade and body to avoid hitting her.
Rao was the only one out of range should she use the blade fully, and he had his back to her unhelpfully.
"You stay back," Sasaki giggled, appearing as a pair of walkers exploded into dust between them. "Looks to me like you're the one hogging all the space with that big slab of metal you call a sword."
Her hands were flashing at the rings, tassels of magic flashing around and striking down walkers with frightening ease.
Hisako bit her tongue and gave another half-aborted swing, dusting a handful of walkers too crowded together to dodge. They were thinning out quickly–quickly enough that she obeyed and staggered out of the clumsy fray, clearing her way as she did.
Serizawa was out of breath, reeling his weapon in to sit at his hip again. He gnawed at his lip anxiously, watching the others wipe out the remaining walkers. Hisako stopped near him and stared back at the others.
Yasuda was punching bolts through heads rapidly, blowing one walker away in one moment and crouching below another to do it again. Her ability must've had something to do with it, because Hisako never saw her stop and reload.
So she was a close-combat sort of fighter.
Rao was slashing away, punching holes and ripping tears with his weapons. Another close-combat fighter.
Hisako gritted her teeth.
Sasaki was another close-combat fighter. She slung lashes of energy from her hands while warding off attacks with light shields.
Hisako sighed and squeezed her sword's grip tightly in frustration.
Sasaki and Yasuda didn't have to be in the thick of it; meanwhile, Rao and Hisako's weapons could only be used in closer combat. Serizawa seemed to enact his ideal role in the team out of sheer hesitancy to step forward, but Hisako wouldn't complain–he was playing his role perfectly.
The last of the walkers on the main road fell, and the others turned to look at her with annoyance. Hisako's face twisted in confusion.
"What were you doing?" Yasuda asked. "Lollygagging and then trying to dive in like that?"
She sounded genuinely upset. Was she serious?
Hisako's face sharpened. "We need to talk."