Misao takes a sharp breath before the timer above begins. She steadies her hands in a sword stance, years of practice polishing her skill from how she holds it. An unease fills her gut using this but breathing exercises clears her mind for a brief moment before her and this doll moves in for a clash of blades. From its strength alone, she struggles but seeing how soulless it is...
"It's not... A person." She had to reaffirm to herself, It's too human-shaped and... Misao only hesitates for a moment. As they exchange clashes between their blades, a simple opening allows her to just slice the neck of that doll. "I-I did it!?"
It begins to twitch and with only the back half of its neck keeping that head attached. The doll blindly swings its swords towards Misao with unnatural strength. She tries jumping back but her foot gets absolutely crushed by that sword, there's not even a sharp edge to it. The pain shoots through her whole leg.
"Uncle, sorry... I'm a massive greenhorn to fighting and the world at large, Can't even beat such an awful fighter..." Misaso closes her eyes while bracing for another impact but something strange happens. She gets a vision of a flame, a brilliant red one. Her body almost moves by itself, not someone or something else does it but herself doing a slash by reflex. "Whoa- Huh???"
That doll... It's body was bisected improperly by Misao's sword, she couldn't believe her eyes when she opened them. It struggled to move as she felt her arms become numb, the stress from such unforeseen strength almost damaging her own body. Her form buckles from this rush and dizziness set in.
"Ah, good job, Misao, you've beaten- Oh, she passed out." Ling speaks over the intercom before seeing Miaso just fall over. She scratches her ear looking at the slashed doll husk. "How did she do that... Uh, let's get some medics in that room."
"Ling, after that could you go check on the fragment for me? The Barriers strength lowered for a moment." Even says before setting his tea on that metal tray from one of the dolls who gave him it. He walks towards the door at the end of the hallway. "I can take it over from here."
"Hmm, yeah, this test is the fast part, it should be over now!" Ling snaps her fingers and all the dolls shift to mostly an inactive state as she walks towards a Staff Only door. She reaches into one of her pockets to pull out a small sewing needle. "Let's hope it's nothing but some error, See ya."
"Mhm, it would be bad for the recruits if the barrier failed." Even touches one of his hologram screens. At this moment, all those timers turn red and let out a loud buzz! "However, the omens today says otherwise, Ling, I've alerted the A graded agents to be on standby."
Meanwhile, Rollo finds himself on the floor? He groans in pain looking up at the beeping timer and relief washes over him. He got one second above the needed time! His body feels heavy standing up but a sense of confusion takes his expression looking at his training doll.
It's smashed up mask isn't how he'd last seen it. In fact, before blacking out only a flash of red after getting hit on his jaw. He rubs a sore spot on his face looking at this still doll. So, this thing was made by a code user?
"Man, if a code is this dangerous then I'm going to be so cool with mine." He grins staring down this construct. He turns attention to some nurse dolls who entered the room. "Huh, they come in all kinds of designs."
The Nurse moves over and places a hand on Rollo's head. A warmth passes through his body like a splash of invisible water. This feeling makes him numb for a few moments but that pain just fades away naturally when everything comes back. He looks at his hands while flexing his fingers in awe of this strange ability.
"This is seriously cool!" Rollo's eyes light up in excitement at the weird powers of codes. He watches the nurse doll walk out of the room. "Welp, I guess it's time for the other test for phase 2."
He watches as that nurse doll makes her way towards the door but weirdly, they're moving more robotically than the training dolls. That's strange to him since she moved pretty human when treating him earlier.
"Just how do these dolls work." Rollo says to himself scratching his chin with a gloved hand. His attention is soon pulled away by a holographic screen appearing in front of him. "Ah... The written test."
This was to test the knowledge of potential keepers' and how much they'd need to share with them as a few facts are true about this world. People know distortions like someone knows a tornado or rain, it's just a natural part of life at this point. There are deeper details about this but for someone like Rollo... This is a soul draining process because he knows these things.
"What are the distortion classes? First, Second, Grander, Calamity! Gods, this is going to be a long thing..." Rollo groans while leaning back and his head hanging back as this feels mentally painful.
"Ah... I wish that studying was my strong suit..." Misao laments in her testing chamber next door to Rollo's. Her head spins at the sudden series of written questions. It's like her soul wilts at this test's vibes. "Uncle was right, my head is a leaky bucket!!"
While the various tests for the recruits go on in these chambers, something happens around the outside of the fortress-like office. A woman wearing baggy pants and a pink hoodie with SHEEP EATER in bold letters on it walks along the railway passing through the forest. She crews on something while approaching that massive building. A sword rests at her hip with purple wrappings on the hilt.
"Bleh, this gum barely lasts long..." She grumbles before spitting it out into the dirt around this railway. A quick pat into her pocket just gets her an empty box of bubble gum. "Of course... Veit's gonna pay if I have to buy the cheap gum."
She tosses the empty box to the side looking towards the Keeper's fort. There's a smirk on her face, some ominous winds blowing past and shaking the trees letting off glassy leaves fly across the area. An evil presence approaches the East Office...