"What is your door world like?" Kumagai asked.
"What?" Serizawa asked.
"A field, or a jungle. A bit of both," Hisako replied hurriedly.
"A building. A weird building. All upside-down and inside-out. Not fun," Serizawa said.
"Mine is also maze-like," Kumagai said. "So Mochizuki-san, you and Serizawa-san are going into your door."
"What about you and the Trapdoorers?"
"The Trapdoorers are joining you. I need to clear the door so we can let our reinforcements in. We're going to Trapdoor them, and then you're going to lock them in with you."
"For how long?"
"Give me fifteen minutes. I just need fifteen minutes without them in my way."
Serizawa eyed Hisako anxiously. "Can we be safe that long in your door?"
"I don't know. We can try. I don't think walkers will be an issue. I have, like, two at best," Hisako explained.
Kumagai held her gaze for a moment, searching with concerned eyes, before nodding. "Alright then." She stood. "I'll continue. Your method of Trapdooring will be up to you."
"Alright," Hisako replied nervously.
How in the world was she meant to do that? It was clear the Trapdoorers wanted Hajime dead, but they were probably smart enough not to follow him into a Doorkeeper's door. They were cocky and competitive, though.
"Don't die, please. It'll leave a bad mark on my reputation," Kumagai said seriously–likely the closest thing to a "stay safe" as she could offer.
"Stay safe," Hisako said. Serizawa echoed it.
"Hajime is counting on you," Kumagai reminded them, then left.
"Hey! There!"
Noboru's shout echoed across the walls of the ziggurat. Hajime began to shake again, and Hisako stood boldly.
With a wave of her hand, her door appeared right before the stairs. It would be difficult to miss it. She threw it open and located the Trapdoorers.
Noboru was scaling the stairs fastest, but Miu was accelerating quickly towards Hisako above him. The other woman was just a few steps behind, her rapier held aloft carefully.
"Hajime-san."
He looked up at her, eyes wide and wet. He stood after a moment and ran toward her. She caught him by the hands.
"Everything will be okay," she told him, voice low but firm.
He nodded, and she guided him to the door. He looked at her once more, searching for something, then he disappeared into her door. She watched him, wondering what he'd searched for and if he'd found it.
She turned back to the Trapdoorers. They stopped on the level below, antsy and tense.
"Are you afraid of doors now?" she mocked. "Or just Doorkeepers' doors?"
Noboru and Miu fumed red. The other woman gave an ugly scowl.
"As if," Noboru snapped.
"In the end, your friend was probably afraid of a Doorkeeper's door. A little too late, unfortunately; maybe you should learn where he failed."
It unsettled her nerves to parade their friend's death in such a way, but she knew that all that mattered was that Hajime survived.
Serizawa rose to move to the precipice of her door.
"You're not leaving here without killing Hajime-san," she told them, voicing her assumptions with as much conviction as she could.
She figured that while it wasn't literally true, they wanted to confirm their kill, and maybe they didn't know that the door could be defeated without them even seeing Hajime again.
"We're not leaving here without killing you," Miu screeched.
She dove, wings angled and glinting wickedly. Hisako rushed in, right on Serizawa's heels. They burst out into the open field.
Hajime was staring at the endless sea of grass in wonder, looking about for any notable landmark. It was not in vain, however, as it should've been; Hajime's dark obelisks rose from the ground, crooked and crumbled, but still there.
"Duck!" Hisako cried.
Serizawa and Hajime hit the deck a moment after her, and not a second too late. Miu exploded out of the door, razor-feathers slashing out and trimming a wide swath in the grass.
"Run!" Hisako hissed quietly.
Hajime raised himself into a crouch and ran as best he could. Hisako watched him, and she swore she could sense where he was, even after the grass had long since swallowed her view of him.
Crawling further into the wild, she heard Noboru and the other woman enter the door, then exclaim in dismay at the vast expanse perfect for hiding in. She pulled her phone out and set a silent timer for fifteen minutes.
She felt her door close, and she hunkered down to absorb the feeling of people moving around in her world. She counted the presences, feeling the world stretching to load in each place where they were.
Hajime, Serizawa, herself, Noboru, the other woman, and one more.
She looked up, seeing Miu circling like a vulture overhead.
The way the other figure was moving was not like that, and she doubted she could sense Miu in the air as well as she could sense the others on the ground.
No, the last figure was the tiger. She was sure.
The tiger slithered through the grass evenly, stalking prey. They were following Hajime–the weakest of the herd.
Of course.
Hisako raised herself above the grass and whistled sharply, setting Toraichi down gently. She felt each figure jerk towards her. The enemies began to run her way, and the tiger sped into a sprint.
She wondered how one "controlled" their door. Defeating her door not so long ago didn't feel like "control," it felt like acceptance.
When the tiger reached her before the others, she had to put her theories to the test.
The tiger burst through the grass to her, and when they bowled her over, she didn't fight back.
Frenzied eyes burned through her, and spittle dripped from a tense, snarling maw. Their heavy, prickling paws held her down at her shoulders, claws threatening to tear at her reinforced uniform suit.
When they recognized her, their face calmed. She raised a hand, slowly, watching for any signs of an impending defensive attack.
The cat flinched once, but settled, and Hisako continued. Her hand finally reached their head, fingers grazing their colorful forehead.
She petted with a little more conviction, scratching gently and moving her hand further, past the ears and down the neck to the bunched, muscled shoulders.
Their eyes softened, watching to learn rather than to defend.
"I'm back," Hisako whispered.
She felt her enemies approaching, careful but quick.
"Do you want to defend your home with me?" she asked, stroking over their ears. "You and I–aren't we made from the same thing? My heart is your home?"
The tiger, of course, did not answer, but their eyes flicked up, detecting the enemies.
"Let's fight together this time, okay?"
The paws retreated, stepping off of her and allowing her to rise and grab Toraichi. She checked her timer quickly.
Still twelve minutes left.
Noboru found them first. Hisako felt the shifting of her world and was ready, but nothing could properly prepare her for a wall of spears appearing.
The spear-clones disappeared, the light copies dissipating into the sunlight after the attack ended, and then the real spear swung out, and Noboru with it. Behind his swing, the shaft replicated, forming a physical after-image.
His war dance advanced quicker than she could dodge back. She pulled Toraichi up to knock away the spear, but he twisted around the weapon and kept striking.
She was able to yank herself backwards with her power, but not before the tip of the spear pierced her collar. With his strange ability, the attack repeated several times, like a jackhammer, before she could get away.
She felt a spark of despair at the burning punches of pain, but as she skittered back, heels bouncing on uneven dirt, she realized the wound wasn't dangerously deep.
She flexed her shoulder carefully, feeling out the pain, ensuring there wasn't any disabling damage done to the bone or muscle.
A flesh wound, she concluded. She didn't need Serizawa's aid, but she took a moment to gather her bearings and re-find where everyone was.
She glanced down at her phone, counting each shifting signature. Barely under twelve minutes. She bit her tongue, then remembered Miu–she needed to visibly locate Miu.
Her eyes caught the flash of blades just in time. Her mind split in a million directions–different courses of action, different strategies, different movements.
Her animal instinct kept her from freezing up uselessly; she dove forward in a roll that Kanzaki had taught her when re-teaching her how to fall.
Miu smashed into the earth where she'd stood, what remained of her wings flaring. The blades flashed out like a fan, mowing down a swathe of grass. The splay of blades from the cut wing arced out recklessly, nearly overextending and nicking Miu herself.
Hisako whistled sharply–she didn't want the tiger facing Miu; she wasn't sure how a Doorwalker would fare against her poison.
The tiger seemed to understand, because she saw vivid stripes retreating towards Noboru, who was running towards them.
Hisako let Toraichi fade into the world, then ran back at Miu. Of the three remaining Trapdoorers, Miu felt the most dangerous but also the most approachable in terms of Hisako's combat ability.
Miu was unrefined, like Hisako, but Miu was a glass cannon with one big trick. It really was an excellent trick, though, Hisako had to admit.
Miu, like before, wasn't ready for a direct attack, but she did have the mind to pull a blade from her broken wing and bear it in her good hand.
"Whoa!"
Serizawa's howl disrupted Hisako's attack. She twisted her heel, changing the direction of her charge to splinter away. Miu flinched back, then her face twisted cruelly.
"Fleeing, Doorkeeper?" she jeered.
Hisako sensed Serizawa's frantic running, as well as something else churning up her world, before she saw it. The tiger had also disengaged Noboru–they were all disengaging and regrouping, it seemed, and for good reason.
It was hard, in a field of nothing but grass and some of Hajime's obelisks, not to notice a jungle sprouting as aggressively as an inferno, complete with vines lashing out at Serizawa from trees growing as quickly as he could run.
The other woman's Awakened ability, Hisako realized. Hisako had figured it had something to do with plant life, and she'd suspected her door was a far better battlefield for her, but she hadn't imagined this.
A huge area of the field was becoming a jungle too dense to traverse. Hisako turned on her heel once more, looking over her shoulder just in time to see Serizawa swallowed up by the growth with a cut-off yelp.
Hisako felt the tiger continue racing into the jungle and, as the rapid spread of the jungle subsided, Hisako slowed and turned back once more to slip into the jungle.
Miu swept into the air nearby, shouting aloud in dismay as she was forced to circle above the thick canopy.
Hisako chuckled to herself as she pushed through thick undergrowth; was this what her exam team had been like?
No, though they'd stepped on each other's toes, they hadn't outright ruined each other's combat styles.
The tiger was making more headway–enough headway to circle back and guide Hisako as she climbed and slithered over and under tangling limbs to progress.
The cat had blood–likely Noboru's–on their muzzle and paws, and they made a soft, deep cat-noise Hisako wasn't familiar with.
"Hello again, Tiger-san," she hummed, brushing down the bloodied fur with her gloves. "Could you go ahead and help my friend Serizawa-san? He's dressed like me, but he has a tie."
The tiger gave her a languid blink before jumping back into the shadows and slinking toward the epicenter of the forest.
Hisako was starting to understand the new shape of her world. Though the forest had looked like a completely opaque circle of jungle, it wasn't solid. It was more like a donut, with a thick outer circle and an empty middle–an arena.
And the arena moved. The woman had grown the forest quickly to ensnare Serizawa, then thinned it down around him to trap him in a duel. Hisako wondered if the woman knew or cared that she'd also locked her allies out.
Either way, Hajime was practically home free, hunkered down in an area of the field far from the attention of the Trapdoorers, all of whom were focusing on the jungle-arena. Hisako could feel Noboru trying to hack his way through stubbornly, to minor success, off to her right.
In a gap in the vegetation wide enough for Hisako to fully move around in, she withdrew her phone.
Seven minutes to go.
She shoved her phone away and slid down a branch into the arena.