Hisako stared at the Doors, but she found no difference in how they felt or looked.
The other officers seemed a lot more confident as they racked up Doors. Students put little country-flag tags on each claimed Door. In mere minutes, most officers finished selecting their Doors and were already venturing inside.
Eiji seemed similarly lost, Aniello bounced between them at his own pace, and the Intelligence Doorkeepers had left the warehouse with the other talkers.
Hisako sighed as she grazed her fingertips over a comely, homey Door.
The only Door she'd ever felt down to the bone was Yasu's, but was that because it had been open, because it was so strong, or some other strange reason?
She pulled back from the Door; the more intimate it looked, the more upsetting its story was, in her experience.
She sighed. It was all intimate, though, wasn't it? Her Door was far from her home, yet it had cut deep within her.
She tapped the Door. "This one, please."
Aniello tagged it.
She sighed and looked down the line. "And the next four available ones."
"Sounds good," Aniello said, a smile growing.
"What's your selection strategy?" Eiji asked.
"Like I said last night: just choosing as many as I think I can take in a day. If they're easier or harder than I thought, I'll choose differently tomorrow."
"Good idea."
Eiji walked off. Aniello caught up to him as he selected his Doors, then returned.
"All done?"
"Yes."
"You can start whenever. Good luck."
Hisako nodded. "Thank you."
She grabbed the small brass handle of the first Door and pushed it open. On the other side was a home? A hotel? It had a little desk and a wall of keys. She stepped inside and closed the Door behind her.
True to Cesco's word, the Door remained. She watched it, eyeing it warily as she stepped away. She left the tiny atrium-lobby and found old rooms, sunlight streaming through windows with nothing behind them but sky.
She tried opening one but found it wouldn't budge, even when she unlatched the lock. With her face pressed against the glass, she confirmed it was just a house in the sky.
The floor creaked behind her. She summoned Toraichi to her in a blink, whirling on her heels.
At the end of the blade was a painting. A person, painted into the world in chunky, vibrant oils. She moved and her being shimmered, texture rippling and paint shifting.
She had delicate, beautiful features and rolling dark locks. Her pastel sundress fluttered with her movements, making the softest of sounds. Her eyes, smudges of dark paint, were oddly dull, but when she blinked, it was a near-perfect likeness. Moving and staring, the illusion was broken.
She spoke, a soft question from stuttering lips. Italian. Hisako internally sighed.
"Do you speak English?"
She asked again—same intonation, same words.
It was a question, Hisako thought. She shook her head.
The woman asked again. Broken record.
She wasn't real, Hisako reasoned. It wasn't rude to ignore her, more or less. She strode past the woman, through the ancient sitting room to a kitchen.
She froze at the sight of multiple painted people working within. They looked up, staring and speaking amicably in Italian. Were they welcoming her in?
It seemed appropriate for a nice traditional hotel.
She turned around, back to the first lady, and, startled, backed against the wall with Toraichi rising to protect her.
Gone was the beautiful painted woman. The canvas fabric of her person had torn open, and a ghastly, skeletal hand was reaching out, all pink with sinew and dried gore. The fingertips were gnarled, sharp bones caught mid-swipe toward the back of her neck.
"Wow." She chuckled breathlessly, hairs on end and skin suddenly buzzing.
She glanced at the kitchen painting-people. Besides the subtle breathing and minor movements, they'd moved too, just a little bit. She turned her head and then looked back quickly—they'd advanced again.
She laughed again, with a bit more nerves. "How scary…"
She looked down at Toraichi, then at the monster ripping from behind the painting.
She swung, and the painting split as easily as a real canvas would. From the depths, the monster lunged in a blitz attack. The lights flickered off in the building, and the sky outside was suddenly dark.
She lashed out on instinct, seeing the gleam of bone under moonlight. In a heartbeat, the day was back, and a fine black dust was dissipating where the monster had been.
Her chest heaved, and she looked back at the other Doorwalkers.
"This isn't so bad," she told them. "For me."
She cut them down too, and the monsters didn't appear.
The villa was a straightforward Door. She ascended the two floors, clearing more painted guests and staff, and then found the attic.
The attic housed a vast collection of oil paintings. Many had plaques, commemorating the subject—important people in the local area; the most lauded, loyal employees; and a long line of owners.
The final confrontation was a flurry. Monsters lunged from her blind spots, but since they could only appear from there, it wasn't that much of a blind spot. They were clever enough to attack all at once, and clever enough to sometimes dodge the wide swings, but she was ready.
Toraichi wove through the air, swinging back and forth with twists of her elbows, hunting down each Doorwalker.
When it was over, she stood, out of breath and with a few scrapes, amongst a sea of destroyed paintings.
***
When she walked out of the third Door, someone was waiting for her in one of Cesco's trackside chairs. He sat in casual clothes, but a pin on the breast of his rough jacket bore the Australian flag overlaid on a monster skull and crossbones.
"Ready for lunch?"
She blinked; he was speaking Japanese. "Y-yeah."
"You've already conquered three of your five Doors," he continued in English. "Cesco said you would be interesting."
"Cesco told you about me?"
"I like to keep tabs on my neighbors and their people," he replied. "And I find it odd that even though Japan is trying to curry favor, they sent a bunch of Keepers that don't ride."
Hisako frowned. "True."
"They haven't set you up for failure—they're too desperate. So, they've shown a card nobody wants to show."
"That they're wrong. Ignorant of a better play."
He nodded. "Or they think you're an even better card to play."
Hisako couldn't help but laugh at the idea.
He raised a brow. "I'm serious." He stood up, pulling the chair closed with him. "And now you've shown your biggest card."
She paused, mouth ajar, then pressed her lips tightly closed. He was right—she'd all but just admitted her doubts.
He gave her a two-fingered salute and strode out the heavy metal door.
She frowned. Would he tell other people? How would that go for her? Maybe she wasn't confident, but she'd already cleared three of her five Doors for the day—that had to mean something to the other officers.
After arriving late to lunch, she asked Aniello who he was.
"One of the Australians?" he asked, a bit giggly. "There's only one this year: Bandit. He waited for you outside the Door?"
"Does he do that often?"
"He's been lounging all day—he didn't even reserve any Doors. He was watching some people, but he didn't wait for anyone else." Aniello shrugged. "Maybe Cesco said something to him."
"Cesco-san?" Hisako echoed.
Aniello shrugged again, focused on shoveling pasta onto his plate. "Those two talk a lot—right now, Cesco is trying to convince Bandit to take a student or two in the Outback for fire season. The Service Officers in Australia do a lot more than normal officers—it's a great opportunity to learn, really."
"So they… gossip?"
"I think they've got a bet going," Aniello replied easily.
"I feel like that's a bad thing for some people."
"Oh, yes, always, but we're always ready for trouble."
Hisako glanced at Eiji, who'd raised his brows and paused his lunch. "What kind of trouble are you talking about?"
Aniello waved his hand dismissively. Instead of speaking, he made a "meh" sound around a full fork, then continued humming meaninglessly while he chewed.
Another student—the older student who'd told them about the war—leaned into their conversation. "Don't worry yourselves."
Hisako nodded slowly. "I appreciate it, but that is not, uh, reassuring."
"Cesco plays these games all the time. It only ever affects him, the other person, and their people. You won't be dragged into it. Worst-case scenario, they put you on a bike."
"A bike?" Hisako echoed. "I've never even driven a car!"
"Ehh, it is not so difficult," Aniello promised. "But really, nothing bad will happen."
Hisako went back to her meal but paused. "How many Doors did all the other officers pick?"
The older student answered: "On average, five to six Doors. Most are halfway through. Today is a pace day, though. I'd expect the range to change going into tomorrow."
"You think people will choose more?"
"Of course. Near everyone is conservative day one of these types of things."
"Near everyone?"
Aniello gestured with another full fork toward the Spanish officers—their affiliation was on their sleeves in the form of a colorful ribbon.
"Spain brought a heavy hitter. She took ten Doors and has already done six. Signora Valeria Carrasco. It seems that Spain came to play," the older student whispered.
"Play for what, though?" Hisako asked. "It didn't seem like people knew about Cesco-san's favor."
Aniello glanced warily at the older student. "Eh, Cosimo…"
"Especially over Cesco, Italy and Spain… compete," the older student—Cosimo—explained. "It is normal to see a Spaniard fight hard here, but it is all in the spirit of competition—of rivalry."
Hisako internally sighed. She'd left one political minefield she was only just beginning to grasp in Japan, and had fallen into an even more volatile one in Europe.
She ate, eager to re-energize. If Spain had sent someone who tested the water with ten Doors, she'd aim to keep up with them. Three Doors hadn't been so bad so far, especially with Eiji being able to reverse her back to brand new, but maybe she'd gotten lucky.
At the end of the day, she'd have a better verdict on how much she could handle.
When she finished her lunch, she went right back to the Hall of Doors.
***
The next two Doors weren't too difficult either. She was starting to find patterns in them—local cultural elements, norms, pressures. The locals wilted in the shadows of their ancestors and were trapped in their legacies, it seemed.
It wasn't so different from home.
In the end, nobody was waiting for her. The sky was dark; she saw the distant lights of the dining tables outside, and she could hear the clamor of the diners.
She limped down the walk—the first of the final Doors had featured a rather collapsible setting, and she'd fallen through a few floors while fighting stone monsters. Twisting an ankle and fracturing a few bones was inevitable, but that didn't make the slow trudge to Eiji's side any more bearable.
Aniello exclaimed sharply in Italian when he saw her. "Hisako! What in the world!"
She waved, and Eiji hurried up to help her sit down next to him. He put a hand on her shoulder, subtly trying to heal her; only the people closest to them noticed the healing light.
"What happened?" Aniello asked, leaning in to hiss quietly, eyes wide. "What's happening?"
"I'm getting healed, don't worry," she sighed.
"Eh, you know that you should be more careful, no?" Aniello asked. "There's no, uh, need to be so injured. It's not, uh, that… Ehh. Maybe you push too hard too early, you know?"
"Eiji can just heal me back to normal."
"It is good to play for the team," Aniello said. "But you shouldn't rely on another officer's ability to pull you out of trouble." He cleared his throat carefully, then spoke even more quietly. "In war, on the battlefield, very quickly, you can become alone."