The hidden door slid open.
Cold, filtered air poured from the inside. Beyond the threshold stretched a white corridor- rounded corners, no seams, pipes or rust. The hum here was clean and even, like the sound of modern machines that ran on electricity instead of steam.
On either side, clear panes overlooking training bays.
In the first, a track coiled like a ribbon. The sections could tilt and lift at will. Pistons under the floor pushed panels up or dropped them, so a driver learned to read a road that changed mid-turn.
In another, a climbing wall made of small, adjustable tiles. Under the glass you could see little motors and rails; tiles slid, clicked, and re-locked in new patterns.
Farther down, the shooting lane. multiple shooters, different scenarios, different guns, different training, same range.
The Rust Room just went on and on, as if the training would never make you good enough.
Above every room, behind dark, thick glass, rows of monitors, and a bank of complex controls: sliders for speed, force and difficulty, barely labeled toggles (all of them locked under covers), and a red STOP that had been pressed enough times to shine.
Humans ran everything. You could hear them: low voices, small gasps, pencil taps, the calm of people who watched pain for a living.
Takeshi stopped at the very first room. It didn't have doors, as if anyone could step inside
"As far as I can recall, this is the gym" he said.
The room did, in fact, look like some kind of gym. Racks stood on every wall, holding weights in all shapes. Nothing sagged. Nothing squeaked. Everything looked underused - new, even - the sort of place that made effort feel like an everyday routine.
Someone was upside down in the center of the floor.
One arm locked, shoulder over the wrist. She dipped - nose to the floor, push, again.
One-hand handstand pushups as if gravity had just given up trying to argue with her.
Short silver hair swung with each rep, a clean bob cut that framed a face full of mischief and trouble. When she finally noticed them, she spun midair, landing lightly.
The young woman blinked once.
"Tin arm. One eye." Her grin cracked wide. "You're supposed to be dead."
"Kori! Nice to see you alive, too." Takeshi responded, and his voice warmed up the tiniest bit.
She crossed the distance in three steps and punched his shoulder - the flesh one - hard enough that Raizen flinched for him.
"You don't send a note for a decade and then stroll back in here with two strays?"
Her eyes flicked to Raizen and Hikari. "Cute. You get them from a shelter or did they follow you home?"
"Strays bite" Takeshi said. "They want to learn."
Kori raised and eyebrow as if she just heard the worst joke in human history. "Wanna learn what?"
"Well...How not to die." Came the answer.
"Hmmm... That's a popular course."
A pair of students, if you could call them that - worked in the background without turning. The same age as Raizen and Hikari, they didn't look older than 16.
Kori's students, by the look of their focus. The boy stood at a lane firing a compact pistol into shifting light.
Targets flickered and vanished every moment. The girl moved in front of a mirrored wall, practicing cuts with a steel claymore, her stance corrected by red lines that skated across the glass and beeped when her hips drifted too much.
They didn't even glance the newcomer's way. The Rust Room taught you to notice without looking.
Kori finally broke the silence.
"We should start with introductions, I suppose? I'm Kori. I break bad habits, bones and egos. Especially egos."
She pointed at Raizen's bandaged hand. "That still attached?"
"Barely" he admitted.
Takeshi softly grabbed her shoulder, in a friendly manner. "They don't want safer lives, Kori. They want sharp ones. Give them edges."
Kori's grin widened. "I always do! You know that, old man!"
Turning back to the two, she slightly stopped smiling: "Let's see what you're made of."
"Wha- right now?" Raizen started asking.
"Why waste time, dear?" Kori answered, while walking, quicker now. She kept talking as she pointed. They followed her in silent amazement.
"Everything here teaches one clean lesson at a time, no fancy lore. Track teaches you to commit through fear. Tile floor fixes footwork. Shooter lane kills the twitch in your trigger.
"How many-" Raise started, but Kori interrupted him immediately.
"They're too many to list all of 'em right now. Spoiler alert: You'll gonna have to master them all, if you want a place in this world"
She tapped the glass of a booth, and the woman inside glanced up.
"Mina! Wake up darling!" Kori shouted.
"Tag two new under "guest". Baseline vitals only. Keep a running map on movement."
Mina quickly flicked switches, calm and curious. "Guest profiles spinning. Map in movement.... I suppose agility? What will it be?"
"Give me Reflex room Three. Load the basic starter set. Caps on force to non-break. I don't want splinters. Yet."
"Reflex Three, basic, no bones broken" Mina repeated, fingers quick. "Ready when you are."
"Come on, youngsters!" She exclaimed while leading them through to a door stamped R-3
Inside: a white box.
Frosted glass floor. Blank walls. A platform marked A at one end, B at the other. A single black camera in the ceiling.
"Looks empty..." Raizen said.
"Don't insult it. That emptiness can beat the soul out of you" Kori replied, grinning again.
She tipped her chin toward the booth window high on the wall.
From behind the thick glass, Mina's voice came clear. "Reading baseline. Boy's pulse high but steady. Girl's... Low. Too low. Odd."
Kori rolled her shoulders. "Good. We're starting easy. Get from A to B in three minutes. Floor shifts. Walls argue. Hesitation hurts. So don't waver."
"Huh? No lesson before this? How am I supposed to know-" Raizen protested
"You aren't supposed to know. Just act on your instinct!" She flicked her fingers. "Mina, bring it up on my count."
"Standing by."
Raizen looked at Hikari. She nodded once, with a hint of doubtness. They stepped onto the start platform.
"Five" Kori called. "Four... Oh, just go already!"
Nothing moved. The two could hear their own breathing.
Then, suddenly, the floor dipped a breath and white beam snapped from the left wall and forcefully kissed Raizen's cheek.
His vision went white, then red at the edges, for a split second. He staggered, not being able to see anything around him.
Hikari yanked his collar and pulled him down. A second beam swung the space where his head had been.
"Don't help me! I can stand!" Raizen shouted, full of embarrassment.
"Eyes up, Raizen" Kori laughed. "Nyx claws swing ten times faster. You would have been dead… Like what? Five times now? Don't let the room lead. The rythm is yours to set."
Raizen ducked the first swing, moved two steps, ate the second bar on his shoulder.
Up in the booth, lines moved up and down monitors - heart rates, blood oxygen levels, a little map of where their feet had moved.
It was kind of impressive. Raizen didn't wear any monitors or anything, yet all the vital information was carefully analyzed. Sensors were everywhere.
Mina leaned closer to Hikari's monitor. "Is it a bug…?" she whispered to herself.
The room stacked hits in a fast, everchanging rythm - low-high-mid-mid-high - too much to read if you didn't react immediately.
Hikari slid through gaps almost effortlessly. Raizen tries to copy her, took a bar across his forearm, but quickly adapted.
He just kept going.
Raizen swore in his head and forced his legs to keep pace. Hikari's facial expression became blank - precise motion without noise, like she never had any feelings. Simple, cold, efficient.
Mina double-checked the data on other monitors.
"Latency's strange on the girl. Like, very strange."
"What do you mean?" a second tech guy asked.
"Predictive metrics at seventy when baseline reads one-thirty..." Mina murmured. "Her reaction time is around 122 milliseconds... She's moving like she reacts to something she hasn't even processed yet. Like it's pure instinct, or muscle memory"
Kori wasn't listening. She was too focused on every small motion, amused every time Raizen was slapped by a beam.
To her, it was funny to see him always wiggle back up, with an uncanny persevearance.
Looking at Hikari, way ahead, she frowned.
As if she didn't want anyone to hear, she mumbled:
"Takeshi… Just what the hell did you bring me?"