Hisako's legs moved on their own, but Kumagai's moved faster.
They were both lurching into a mad dash. It seemed to startle the attackers, and, to Hisako's surprise, they hurried into the door after their victim.
Kumagai put on a burst of speed that Hisako didn't have in her. The senior Doorkeeper reached the door first, grabbing the edge before it could shut, and then leaping in after them.
Hisako hesitated when she reached the door, and Serizawa caught up a moment later.
"We're supposed to wait for backup," Serizawa said, but he didn't sound too fond of the idea.
"Backup is on its way," Hisako replied. "But they won't arrive for another twelve minutes."
"The door will still be here, right?" Serizawa asked.
Hisako chewed on her lip. "I don't know. Kohaku's disappeared when they went in it, but I was able to summon it back, but I think that was only because I knew them and had seen the door before."
Serizawa made a pained expression. "There are four of them and only one of her."
He was either trying to convince Hisako, who didn't need convincing, or himself.
"We're going in."
Serizawa nodded, eyes closing briefly. "Yeah."
Hisako pulled the door fully open. They stepped through.
And then gasped as a sweltering heat overtook them, and their eyes were blinded by the sun. Hisako felt the door behind them vanish, taking with it the cool darkness of Pacchi.
The door world was a desert oasis. Sand stretched on for miles, but Hisako could see where the world ended, and an oasis flowed upward in reverse waterfalls into a sandstone ziggurat brimming with greenery and flowers.
It would've been breathtakingly beautiful if not for the sight of Kumagai battling the Trapdoorers with the civilian cowering in fear beside one of the stone obelisks lining a path through he oasis to the ziggurat.
Two doors had appeared as Kumagai wrestled with one of the Trapdoorers–a taller, burly man in a hoodie and baggy work pants. One was a wooden hatch small enough to climb through and camouflaged against the sandy ground beneath them. The other was a metal shutter-door open like a threatening maw.
Intwined in twin grabs, Kumagai jerked and twisted violently, trying to throw the man toward the hatch. The man kicked and punched, trying to knock her off her feet and drag her into the shutter door.
The other three–a man and two women–looked like they were spectating and egging the two on, as if it were some kind of show. They hadn't seemed to notice Hisako and Serizawa's arrival.
"The-the civilian," Hisako said. "We have to make sure they're safe."
There was no place to hide in the desert landscape, even in the relatively lush oasis, so they simply slunk around the fight to where the civilian was hiding.
Unfortunately, the civilian mistook rescue for another attack and screamed, lashing out with kicks and flailing arms.
The scream was what did them in. The spectating attackers were startled, and so was Kumagai, who froze and locked eyes with them briefly.
The burly Trapdoorer sprang into action, tossing Kumagai over his shoulder and rolling into the shutter door.
In a rattling, loud slam, the door shut, and the pair were gone. Both Kumagai's hatch and the man's shutter door vanished like a mirage.
Hisako's heart began to sing in anxious pain, and the desert sweating increased. The three remaining Trapdoorers laughed as Hisako and Serizawa rose defensively, pulling the civilian up with them to flee.
"You need to bring your door back," Hisako desperately whispered to the man, though she knew he knew nothing.
She did her best to guide them toward the ziggurat. It was likely the final area of the door, given its prominence and seeming importance.
The poor man was shaking as they dragged him. His dress shirt was sticking to his skin, soaked with sweat, and his tie had been torn from his neck somewhere between the street and the oasis.
"I-I don't know what that means," he swore between gulping breaths.
"The door–the one they pushed you through–can you focus on it and bring it back?" Hisako asked gently. "You need to picture it."
A look over her shoulder showed that the attackers weren't chasing, but stalking. They followed at an even pace like patient predators, flanked by the ominous obelisks.
It made Hisako's heart sink; the Trapdoorers had far more experience fighting others inside doors than her, and they seemed all too pleased at their prey's behaviors.
They hit the ziggurat, and Hisako stopped them, staring down the attackers.
"I-I didn't really see the door before they came up to me!" the man exclaimed.
Serizawa put a calm hand on his shoulder. "Deep breaths. What's your name?"
"Hajime," the man whispered.
He wouldn't stop looking at the slowly approaching attackers. It was making Hisako feel like she needed to vomit.
Hisako grabbed him by his other shoulder. "Hajime-san," she said. She poured what confidence she had as a Doorkeeper into her words. "You will survive this. We're getting out of this together."
Hajime shakily nodded.
"Trust us," Serizawa added. "This is what we do."
A lie. Hisako bit her tongue and tried her best to square her jaw. A lie, and a good one at that–like a promise they had no hope of keeping.
Hisako's door burst into reality, washing them in light and giving Hisako Toraichi. The blade was a comforting weight in her hands, but it didn't outweigh the unfathomable heaviness in her stomach.
Serizawa's door opened up as well, rising from the dunes next to him. It was a modern, white door with a glass pane in a vertical strip. It was sleek and familiar, and it reminded Hisako of some of the offices she'd helped build.
The door cracked open, and Stinger coiled out to Serizawa's waiting hand, like a friendly snake.
One of the Trapdoorers stepped out in front of the others–a short woman with soft features and a cruel smile painted with rosy lipstick. Behind her, her door flared, appearing first as a complex design of wire, then growing painted glass with the sound of crackling ice.
The door decomposed as soon as it opened; the glass smashed away, and the wire bent again, forming wings that budded with horrible white feathers. They hovered behind her shoulders, flowing in the hot breeze. As the feathers shifted, Hisako saw dark metal gleam between long feathers.
"Two on one," Serizawa weakly half-joked.
The woman lifted, hovering over the ground. Her wings beat rhythmically, creating little twisters of sand.
Proactive, not reactive. Hisako lurched forward.
Toraichi flew at the woman, faster than the Trapdoorer could've expected for such a large blade.
Hisako knew she could only surprise the woman once, so she threw Toraichi with all her strength.
The blade spun and caught the woman at the shoulder, cutting a deep laceration through the muscle and clipping her left wing and nearly shearing it in two. Hisako's breath caught–she'd actually hit the woman, and it'd caused real damage.
The blood that sprayed from the wound made her breath catch differently. Her body felt weak for a moment, and the sight of it sickened her. She'd just badly cut a human being. Toraichi flew back into her hands, and her fingers gripped it as if they would never let go again.
The woman's reaction was the opposite–she howled in fury and began to rush them, wings angled violently. Her uninjured arm cradled her wounded shoulder.
The other two Trapdoorers jeered, laughing at her folly.
"Great job, Miu!" the man crowed. "You're doing great!"
The woman–Miu–snarled, her pretty lips twisting ugly, and the uninjured wing flared. A volley of metal shards flew out, twisted and sharp.
Hisako jerked back, already wired and ready. She pulled Toraichi up, using the flat to shield Serizawa and Hajime. She shielded herself as well, but one of the shards splintered against Toraichi and grazed her arm, drawing blood.
She winced, but the pain was minimal, like a mean paper cut.
The look on Miu's face changed from frustrated to victorious in an instant. Hisako's blood went cold–she turned to check on the other two, but froze when Toraichi dropped.
Her whole arm had gone numb, and a toxic, lethargic feeling was spreading from the wound. She couldn't hold Toraichi up with only her right arm.
She didn't think she'd have to worry about that soon, though, because her left leg was about to buckle.
"Serizawa-san," she whispered. Her tongue was dead in her mouth, and her jaw wanted to fall from her face. Her eyes wouldn't roll to meet his.
The healing light was out in a moment. With the poison in her veins, she could fully feel the power of his ability. The weakness left, burned out by the warmth, and she watched as the skin split by the attack closed, spitting out a few drops of something clear and shiny–the poison.
The Trapdoorers laughed uproariously.
"A healer?" Miu said, as if it was the most exciting thing she'd ever seen. "This may actually be a good fight!"
Hisako did her best not to shiver, but Hajime's flinch-cower gave away that she'd failed.
"Let's see how well your healer can keep you going!" Miu exclaimed.
"Leave him alive, Miu," the other woman ordered. "We could use someone with his skills."
Hisako shook off the dregs of the poison. Maybe it was mental, but she still felt drained to the core.
"Was that despair?" a dark part of her asked–a hopeless part of her. A part of her she'd given up when she'd told Amajiki she wanted to save Kohaku.
She gripped Toraichi and took a deep, ragged breath. The blade was a reward of her growth, and her scars a mark of her conviction. She was a Doorkeeper now, and Hajime needed to be rescued.
She had fought monsters and godlings, and she was sure that letting Hajime die would torment her soul worse than losing and dying to Miu.
"Don't give up on me, now, girly!" Miu sang. "If you give up, I'm killing your old man and that salaryman!"
"I'm going to win!" Hisako roared.
The words were a promise to herself; saying it aloud made it real and imbued her with the responsibility of following through, with Serizawa and Hajime as her witnesses.
"You're not," Miu chuckled under her breath.
Hisako grit her teeth till her jaw ached with a stabbing pain, and lifted Toraichi. She stepped forward once, then twice, mind turning.
Fujioka had started her swordplay education, and Kanzaki had started her close combat education, but Miu's long-range attacks involved neither.
"We need to separate," Hisako told Serizawa as she slowly advanced. "I can't guard all three of us."
"And if you get hit?" Serizawa asked.
Hisako ignored his question. "Get him to reopen his door, or get him to the top of the ziggurat to clear his door. We need the backup."
Serizawa's breath caught, then he grabbed Hajime by the hand and began to run up the ziggurat with him.
Miu cried out in surprise and started forward swiftly. Hisako jerked the blade up and lifted. Together they rose, and Miu hesitated before following.
With them both in the air, Hisako hoped she'd be able to dodge and block easier, but she had ceded into Miu's likely zone of combat.
Miu came in close, diving through the air like a hawk at Hiskao. Hisako didn't block the attack; she dropped down and completely avoided it.
Above her, she watched as the wing swung out and an array of blades swung out with the attack, cutting right through where Hisako had been a moment ago.
Her shoulder wound seemed to be little to no bother to her–she didn't use her arms, after all–, and her metal wings didn't seem to need to be intact to function. Hisako figured she'd just have to hack them off entirely.
She flung Toraichi up, hoping to catch the attacker off guard with a new rendition of an older attack.
Miu twisted mid-air, throwing her wings about awkwardly to draw the blades out to block Toraichi. The second Hisako saw the surprise in her eyes, she began to rise.
Miu sent Toraichi spinning away the moment Hisako reached her. She wasn't ready for Hisako's attack yet.
She was fighting for her life–she wasn't going to play clean. She just needed to strike and leave.
She knew what would work; she'd done it before.
She threw her hand out, fingers outstretched in her black gloves. Miu seemed to realize what was about to happen at the last moment, as she tried to twist away or right her wings.
She managed to dodge partially, but she couldn't save both eyes from Hisako's attack.
Hisako's fingers hit the right eye, pushing into the orbital socket in a stabbing strike. She internally gagged as the soft tissue of the eyeball bulged at the intrusion and then popped loose.
The second she knew the job was done, she reversed her power before Miu could counterattack, rocketing herself down to the ground where Toraichi awaited.
Miu screamed bloody murder above, hovering shakily as she curled in on herself, hands over her wounded eye. Her wings stuttered in the air, and Hisako prepared to throw Toraichi again.
A familiar voice chuckled, a little raspy and breathless. "Wow. You really do go for the eyes."
Hisako's head lurched up. Everyone looked, save for Miu, who whimpered and cried far above.
Kumagai had emerged from the shutter door, which had reappeared while they were watching Miu flail. With her, she dragged the limp form of the other Trapdoorer, and she was painted with his blood.
"I like it," she said with a smile.
The shutter door shattered into a fine shimmering mist, done.