The ship eased into Dolle Harbor as if the storm had never happened. Fishmongers shouted prices. Gulls swooped and argued overhead. Applicants poured down the gangplank in a rush.
The Captain waited at the end of the plank, coat still damp, eyes on Renzo, Gon, Kurapika, and Leorio. "You kept your feet," he said. "Good. The next test is quieter. Zaban City is full of noise and wrong turns. If you want the true path, look for the biggest tree. Beneath its roots, you will find the way." He tipped his chin and walked back to his crew.
Gon's eyes shone. "The biggest tree."
Renzo nodded. "We follow that."
Kurapika adjusted his cuffs. "Agreed."
Leorio looked at the road where a bus idled, a man waving applicants aboard. "Agreed that we take the bus like sane people. Have fun hugging trees."
Renzo's gaze stayed on the forest line. "Suit yourself. Meet us if you realize you are going in circles."
Leorio grumbled but climbed the bus steps with his briefcase. Gon, Renzo, and Kurapika slipped off the main street and into the trees. The sound of the harbor thinned. The air grew cooler. After a short walk the forest opened and a single pine towered into the sky, trunk wider than a wagon, roots curling like stone ropes.
At its base stood a hunched old woman with a cane. Her eyes were sharp in a nest of wrinkles. She blocked the path with a small, satisfied smile. "Stop. To continue, you will answer my question. Only those who answer truly will pass."
An applicant in a headband smirked. "I have no time for tricks." He tried to shove past. Her cane tapped the ground.
"Then choose," she said. "Your mother and your lover are both in peril. You can save only one. Who do you choose?"
The man's mouth worked. "My mother," he said at last.
"Wrong," the old woman said, and the word struck like a gavel. Two silent men stepped from the shade, seized him, and led him away down a side path that swallowed him whole.
Leorio jogged into the clearing then, out of breath and flushed. "Bus was a scam. Driver kept looping. I jumped off." He took in the scene. "What did I miss?"
The old woman's eyes moved to them. "Your turn. Mother or lover. Five seconds."
Gon stared, jaw tight. Kurapika's face did not change. Leorio's mouth opened.
Renzo caught his sleeve. "Do not answer," he said softly.
The seconds stretched. The old woman's smile returned. "Very well. You may pass."
Leorio tore his sleeve free. "So the answer was to stand there like a statue?"
"Silence was the answer," Kurapika said. "There was no choice to make without context."
Renzo met the old woman's gaze. For a breath her eyes seemed pleased, as if they recognized something. Her cane lifted and pointed deeper among the roots. "Then continue."
They rounded the pine and found a narrow path to a cabin tucked in the shadow of the tree. Smoke drifted from the chimney. The door hung open. Inside, a man lay against the wall, shirt soaked red, breath ragged. A woman screamed as a tall, insectlike beast smashed through the back room and seized her in long limbs. It turned its masked head, chittered, then leaped through the splintered door and fled into the trees with the woman in its arms.
"A Kiriko," Kurapika said, eyes narrowing.
"Help her," the injured man gasped. "Please."
Gon and Kurapika were already moving. "Leorio, Renzo, take care of him," Gon called, and disappeared through the doorway after the beast.
Leorio dropped to a knee at the man's side. "Hold pressure here." He pressed both hands over the wound.
Renzo knelt on the other side and looked close. The cut was long, the blood bright. There was too much red for the depth. The edges were even. No tearing. He sniffed. The copper scent was there, but lighter than he expected. He lifted the soaked cloth a finger's width and saw the skin underneath intact in a strip the size of a leaf. A staged wound. He let the cloth fall.
Leorio glared up. "Do not just stare. He is bleeding out."
"He will not die," Renzo said calmly. "Not today."
Leorio blinked. "What?"
"Wrap tighter. If it is real, tight is good. If it is theater, we play along." Renzo slid a clean strip of cloth from a shelf and handed it over. The man watched them with wide eyes that did not look like a person bleeding to death. Renzo set two fingers on the man's wrist. The pulse beat steady.
Beyond the cabin, branches snapped. Gon's shout echoed. Renzo moved to the doorway and peered into the trees. The forest funneled into a narrow ravine. A shadow leaped. Gon's staff slammed down. The insect mask jerked. The woman tumbled from the Kiriko's grip. Kurapika slid under and caught her by the waist, turning so they fell together, safe. The Kiriko sprang away and vanished into the canopy like smoke.
Gon and Kurapika returned with the woman shaken but unhurt. Leorio finished the wrap and sat back on his heels, sweaty and pale. "We kept him alive," he said, looking up for praise.
The man's breath evened. His hand fell from his side. He stood easily. The red on his shirt flaked at the edge like paint. Renzo did not react. Leorio's jaw dropped.
The woman brushed her hair back and inclined her head. "You kept your priorities straight," she said.
The air in the room shimmered. The injured man's skin rippled. The woman's face shifted. Their shapes stretched and folded in on themselves without pain. In a smooth breath the couple became tall, masked figures with long limbs and glimmering eyes.
"Kiriko," Kurapika said again, voice flat.
The taller one nodded. "Navigators," he said. "We needed to see what kind of people you are before we showed you the way."
Gon stepped forward. "So we passed?"
"You chased to save," the female Kiriko said to Gon and Kurapika. "You did not hesitate." She turned to Leorio. "You chose the wounded." To Renzo her eyes lingered longer. "And you kept your head. You saw through the act, but you did not expose it. You worked with your partner instead of grandstanding."
Leorio pushed his glasses up, face flushing as relief mingled with irritation. "You could have told us."
"If we told you," the male Kiriko said, "you would have learned nothing."
The old woman from the clearing stood in the doorway now, cane resting against her shoulder. "Those who answer quickly rarely think clearly. Those who do not answer at all often see the trap. You four may proceed."
Renzo felt his shoulders loosen a fraction. Gon grinned at him, eyes bright. Kurapika gave the smallest of nods. Leorio shook out his hands and tried to look like he had known from the start.
The male Kiriko moved the cabinet aside to reveal a narrow stair leading down into darkness. Cool air drifted up, smelling of stone and earth.
"This path will take you toward Zaban City," the female Kiriko said. "There are other turns ahead. Choose with the same care you showed here."
They filed into the hidden stair. The door swung back into place. Torches flickered in brackets along the tunnel. Their footsteps echoed in a rhythm that matched the beat of Renzo's breath. He kept his Ten close, a thin skin of awareness against the quiet.
At the rear, Leorio bumped his shoulder. "Did you really see through it?"
Renzo nodded. "The cut was too clean. The pulse was calm. He watched our hands more than his blood. A man dying does not watch like that."
Leorio huffed. "I hate that you are right."
"Keep breathing in fours," Renzo said. "It helps."
Leorio tried it and did not complain.
The tunnel bent left and right, then sloped upward. Somewhere above, the crowd who had taken the bus shouted at a dead end. Here, the air stayed cool and clear. Renzo touched the wall with his fingertips, feeling the roughness, the damp. Every step forward set his vow deeper.
The Exam had not begun in a hall with a number. It had begun on the ship, in the storm, in a question with no answer, in a cut that did not bleed. It would keep beginning, over and over, until they reached the real gate.
And when it did, he would be ready.