The bat walker swooped again, at Rao, really diving this time. Hisako skidded on her heels, Toraichi bursting into her hand.
The second she had a tight grasp, she wound her arm back and threw Toraichi, her power guiding it forward.
Like a boomerang, it spun wickedly through the air. The bat, alone and too committed to trying to grab Rao, didn't notice.
Toraichi bit through the wing, shredding it and violently grounding the creature. They hit an obsidian woman, destroying it and collapsing in a wounded pile beneath another statue. It didn't fade away, but it also didn't rise again.
Hisako pushed back into her dash, her hand out, guiding Toraichi back.
The sword reached her hand, and she allowed it to fade away. Ghostly tangles of roses burst along her wrist before fading like ash along her arm.
She had never felt more alive; more in control of her own destiny.
"This is unbelievable," Strömberg sighed.
Toshiaki glanced at him critically. "They're not done yet," he said, careful to control his tone.
"It's a waste of my time. They've already failed."
Toshiaki kicked a cracked shingle on the rooftop they were perched on. It skittered down the side of the roof, then down into the streets, where it shattered on the flowered square below. Toshiaki clutched the lantern harder as he peered over the sharp drop.
"What's the rush?" Toshiaki asked sharply. "What is more important than guiding the next class of Awakened to become Doorkeepers?"
The fire glared at him as much as a flame could. "We're seeing a significant uptick in Trapdoorings in all regions. I have a meeting with Intelligence Divisions from a few other countries."
Toshiaki fell silent.
"How significant?" he asked finally, quietly.
"Each region is up over one hundred percent. The average single-shift patrol now experiences five Trapdoorings every ten doors they encounter."
Toshiaki looked down at the examinees, a feeling of dread welling within him.
They were making a mad dash towards the cathedral, ignoring fights. Toshiaki approved–a distraction ignored was a door cleared more efficiently.
He spoke quietly, throat tight. "If they pass, they will move onto patrolling."
"I know. That's why they don't deserve to pass."
"Some of them are ready."
"But as a team, they are not."
Toshiaki rubbed his face. "We cannot fail all of them."
"They're not ready."
"We are not ready," Toshiaki hissed. "Yukio. If the Trapdoorings are increasing, that means there are more rogue Awakened. We need to help them grow quicker than ever before to prepare for what comes next. That means the failures will be remediated and the successes will be promoted, regardless of how a unit operates as a whole."
Strömberg lowered his head. He watched Sasaki shield Serizawa as his weapon coiled out from his form, fending off a monstrous wildcat. Rao threw a clone back to make it a three-on-one, and the cat fled.
"You make the final decision. I'm just the administrator," the flame rasped hollowly.
Toshiaki bit his tongue harshly, scowl surging across his face. "I value your input!" he protested. "I do. I just believe that everything is changing so fast right now. This is when our enemies strike. We cannot be caught in such a vulnerable state and undermanned."
"So you'd rather send lambs to lions? This squad would not survive a non-Awakened's door, let alone a rogue Awakened's Trapdooring. They have already failed. They have no chance of defeating the final Doorwalker, not anymore."
Toshiaki sat down heavily on the edge of the roof. The light of Strömberg's flames danced across the neighboring buildings, casting an eerie, warm glow on the otherwise cold, still city.
"It's not done yet," Toshiaki said hoarsely. "Just wait."
"We will have to step in, or they will die."
"Not yet," Toshiaki echoed.
Even to his own ears, he sounded like a broken record. This was how it started, wasn't it? Just one more chance, just one more try. Just one patrol, just one fight?
Dead Doorkeepers did not get those things.
Strömberg voiced the thought that his brain couldn't bear to formulate: "You are gambling with other people's lives, and you have no control over who wins or loses."
Toshiaki hung his head. "Please."
What was he even asking for at this point?
Strömberg obliged. Their forms vanished in a burst of flame, and then they were standing before a broken-down, grand organ, high above the main floor of the cathedral.
Below them, shattered pews had been arranged in a massive nest of splinters larger than people, bristling and lethal for all except the maker of the nest.
"Oh," Toshiaki breathed as he realized what he was looking at. "What have you done?"
The massive shape lying in the nest was breathing. This was the final Doorwalker. He couldn't tell which end was the head; all he could see were the feathers, snaking limbs, and wicked talons. Was it a bird?
Something slammed against the main doors, sending a shockingly loud bang through the entire building. Toshiaki's breath caught in his throat.
"Yukio!" He flinched when the creature woke, speaking perhaps louder than appropriate.
A head rose, then another, and another, each on a snaking, long neck. Three sets of eyes fixed on the doors, which now were rattling with the force of more bodies trying to shove them open.
"They're here," Strömberg whispered. He looked up at Toshiaki. "Are you sure you don't want to end things now?"
Toshiaki bit his tongue. He tasted the tang of iron. "Let them try."
Strömberg raised a hand, and the doors came open at the next loud slam. Five bodies pushed their way through, pressing in unison against the heavy metal of the double doors.
"They can certainly try," Strömberg said.
Who is more cruel? Toshiaki asked himself. The one who kills them, or the one who sends them to be killed?
He clenched the key to the Medical Division headquarters in his hand, ready to open a doorway at any moment.
"You can stop the Doorwalker whenever?"
"At any moment."
"Everything will be okay."
"Of course."
Strömberg didn't sound sincere.
"Stop the walker at the last moment."
"The last?"
"Right before Medical cannot save them anymore."
Strömberg fell silent. "Why?"
"Because they have to be ready for me to send them past that. That is what is asked of a Doorkeeper," Toshiaki whispered. "I cannot ask less of them."
He closed his eyes and exhaled shakily.
What was he doing?
"What is that?" Serizawa whispered.
Between the magnificent stone arches of the crumbling cathedral, there was a fence of spikes in a whorl. Emerging from the whorl was a giant shape. A silver beam of light from the bell tower above painted the creature white, but the feathers were undoubtedly a bony gray color.
The feathers, Hisako realized as they filed into the cathedral slowly, were not like feathers in the real world. She'd seen many birds–many pigeons of similar color–but feathers were never dull like this creature's. Instead of reflecting light, they seemed to absorb it, giving the creature an unnaturally flat look. The being was alien, even to the monstrous gothic world.
Hisako's eyes rose, guided upwards by the shape of the creature and the rising stone walls. The windows had all been broken. The glass portraits of whatever the people had worshipped now laid shattered in piles of painted glass below. When the creature spread their wings wide, the tips of their feathers punched through the open windows and scraped against the stone loudly.
Finally, her eyes rose along the snaking necks and reached the head.
Necks. Heads.
Her heart stopped.
There were three heads.
The one in the center rose the highest, standing tall and menacing. Their head was a poor facsimile of a bird. Their face was bald and scaly, and their beak snapped open to whoosh hot breath on them, revealing teeth that would better fit a human than any other creature. Their dark eyes were on the front of their head, making it uniquely unsettling. The creature also had ears, big and pointed like a hound's.
The other two heads were the real reason Hisako had frozen.
Their necks were feathered and their faces were bare, but they were not avian. They were human.
A woman's face, painted and flushed, stood atop a wilting neck. The sagging posture didn't make the neck look broken, but rather weak. Her hair tumbled in luscious, slightly curled locks, and when she blinked her heavy lashes, Hisako saw elegant brown eyes.
She was, undoubtedly, the mother in the photograph, and the other head, sitting on an even shorter, even weaker neck, was the father.
The father looked just as alive as the mother, but he looked even more despondent, with his eyes completely lidded and his face slack and drooping.
"Oh god," Yasuda whispered. "What is it?"
The creature rose to its full height. Hisako followed the heads and noticed a figure standing just above the bird head, hiding up on the choir and organ platform.
Strömberg's flames illuminated Fujioka's horrified, pale face.
Hisako's heart squeezed in her chest. Her lungs felt all of a sudden too small. Her eyes fell to the spike wall.
A nest.
The creature's nest looked like a medieval war fortress, and it would work just the same on them. The diagonal placement of the wood would keep them out unless they burned valuable time to clear out a way into the nest.
The creature stepped forward, ending Hisako's concern over the barrier but igniting a new concern.
Now that they could see the entire creature, Hisako could see it was some kind of quadripedal person-bird chimera. It was feathered, but the feathers became smaller, like fur, down the limbs. Instead of birdlike feet or mammal paws, the creature had talons in the shape of hands.
"What in the world," Rao breathed.
A sparsely feathered hand on the rear leg curled over the edge of the nest as the creature completely left it. The being had no tail, but it also had hind legs that were not bent like those of a dog or cat, but those of a person, forcing it to crawl awkwardly.
It began to rise further, and Hisako didn't have to keep watching to know that it was standing up on hind legs, long necks ducking like a snake to keep from hitting their head on the ceiling of the cathedral.
"Who wants to bet that it wasn't always so big?" Rao chuckled weakly.
"The walker ate the parents," Serizawa whispered. "Our failure was their power-up snack."
"If it bleeds…" Sasaki trailed off, hands clenched, and her rings gleamed.
"If it bleeds, it can die," Yasuda bit out with conviction. "Don't chicken out now, everyone."
Hisako bit her lip. "You're right, both of you. The moment we could really get hurt, they'll stop the exam."
"Right," Serizawa breathed, tension leaving him. "Right. We've got this. We have to try. The worst we can do is fail, and then we try again later, when we're even better."
Hisako nodded. "Yasuda-san. Could you…"
Yasuda leveled her crossbow at the creature as it slowly considered them, as if trying to figure out why ants were swarming in odd patterns by their feet.
"Maybe not the heads that look like people," Serizawa suggested.
Yasuda snorted and loosed a bolt. It arched high and sluggish compared to the last fights. They all watched as it pierced part of the bird-face's beefy neck.
The creature screamed from all three heads, startling everyone. Hisako saw even Fujioka sway in surprise, the flame of Strömberg dancing suddenly.
The bird's head screeched, and the human heads screamed out in pain. A hand-talon came up the wound, and they saw blood transfer from the feathers to the hand. The bolt was too small for the blunt fingers to grab with their clumsy attempts.
The father's head, being the closest, lifted to look at the wound. When he saw the blood, he began to sob, chilling Hisako.
"This is messed up," Sasaki bit out.
They all agreed in their unnerved silence.
"Well, the walker is easy to wound," Hisako thought aloud.
"They bleed," Serizawa confirmed. "So we can win."
"We'll win," Sasaki snapped. "Maybe we'll have nightmares later, but we'll win."
Hisako let out a startled laugh. Her body was still shaking with humor as she summoned Toraichi.
"If anyone ever wanted to slay monsters as a child, I hope you're happy," Rao grumbled. "I hope the rest of you wished for something a little better."
"What's better than slaying monsters?" Sasaki laughed.
Yasuda chuckled. "Yeah, Rao-san, what is better?"
Rao scoffed. "Unlike you two, I dreamed of being a champion. Serizawa-san? Mochizuki-san?"
Serizawa shrugged. "When I was a kid, I wanted a garden with every plant ever. Unfortunately, that's not possible."
Hisako chuckled. "Sorry, Rao-san, I also wanted to slay monsters."
Rao rolled his eyes but chuckled anyway.