Kenji

After that great party, we finally made our way back to our room, our legs sore, and our bodies tired. Despite the joy of the evening still lingering in our chests, all I wanted to do was collapse into bed and sleep. Ray always said, "Train hard, work hard, eat well, and sleep well." Right now, I craved the last part most. As we entered the room, I let out a heavy sigh and sank onto my bed, my head hitting the pillow with a soft thud. But before sleep could fully claim me, there was something I needed to understand.

"Yushiro." I called, my voice barely above a whisper.

There was a brief pause before I heard his voice, light and teasing as ever. "Sup, my dear brother?"

Good. He hadn't fallen asleep yet.

"I think you should explain what you meant by 'test.'"

"Really? Should I?" he responded playfully, like he enjoyed keeping secrets.

"Yes, you have to. Taka and I don't know what's going on," I said, my voice more serious now.

Taka remained quiet, but I could feel the curiosity bubbling under his silence, like he was just as eager for answers.

"Well, remember when we first entered the Division base? We were ambushed, right? That was the first test. It was meant to check our reaction to sudden situations," Yushiro explained, his tone calm and casual, as though he were recounting a simple fact.

"Huh? Really? I thought they were just messing with us," I replied, trying to process what he was saying.

"That's what it looked like at first," Yushiro continued, his voice dropping slightly in thought. "But after that, when the Captain attacked us, it was to gauge our fighting abilities."

I nodded, recalling the tension of that moment. It had felt like a test, but it wasn't something any of us had fully understood at the time.

"The next step was to figure out if we were trustworthy—if we could pick up on the little details around us, the things that could give away important information," Yushiro said, and I could hear the faint pride in his voice. "That's where I started noticing things."

"Like what?" I asked, my attention sharp.

"The map behind the bar," Yushiro replied, his voice quiet as he recalled it. "It didn't have the full details. Some paths were missing, there were towns and cities with no names, and some areas weren't marked at all."

I furrowed my brow. "Wait, how could they miss that? They're Division Knights—shouldn't they have a complete map of their patrol routes?"

"That's exactly what I thought," Yushiro said, his tone one of quiet realization. "It's strange, right? For Division Knights not to have a complete map of the area they patrol every week?"

I felt a flicker of understanding. "Wait, what if they didn't put a full map out because they're worried about enemies getting their hands on it?" Taka's voice cut through the air, calm but sharp with insight.

"That's exactly what I thought too," Yushiro agreed. "But then, I noticed how some of our seniors would look at the map whenever they needed to explain something. They were referencing it in ways that didn't quite add up."

I could sense Yushiro grinning, though he was still on the top bunk across the room. He had a smugness to him, but it was earned. I had never noticed these things before, but now it felt so obvious. That disappointment I'd sensed earlier—it made sense now. Yushiro had been quietly observing everything, making connections I hadn't even considered.

"That's true," Taka mumbled, sounding impressed.

And then it hit me. "Right—those actions were their way of giving themselves away."

Yushiro clapped his hands in mock applause, pleased with my realization. "Exactly. And do you remember our first mission? We were supposed to either go get lunch or clean. Remember?"

"Yeah," Taka and I said in unison, recalling the uneventful task that had felt like an odd choice for our first assignment.

"We took the lunch gathering mission while you two took the cleaning one," Yushiro said, his voice taking on a slightly more serious tone. "But for me, that cleaning mission wasn't just about cleaning. It was a chance to explore the Division base, to see what was hidden."

"But we weren't allowed to go past the fourth floor," Taka added, making the connection.

"Exactly." Yushiro paused. "And on our free days, we weren't allowed to go far from the base either. But do you remember that time they gave us a map with a specific route, but we decided to take a different one instead?"

"Yeah," I said, the memory surfacing. We had taken that chance, curious to explore more than what they'd allowed us.

"But what was the point of all that?" I asked, feeling the exhaustion from earlier creeping into my voice.

"The point was," Yushiro said, his tone lowering to a near whisper, "they were trying to limit how much we could know. Keep us in the dark about certain things."

I frowned, confused. "But if they were trying to limit how much we could know, why send us on missions so far from the base, to other villages and towns?"

"It does seem like a contradiction, right?" Yushiro said. "But here's the thing—the missions we got that sent us far away from the base? Those were assigned directly by the Captain."

"Huh? Weren't we always getting missions from the Captain?" I asked, not following.

"No," Yushiro said slowly. "Do you remember the time we got that mission to go to the Emerald Forest? Without our weapons?"

"Yeah," I responded, the memory of being unarmed in the forest hitting me with the full weight of its danger.

"Exactly. That mission wasn't from the Captain, though. Our seniors—specifically Blade—took over. She said, 'We'll take over your missions.'"

"Ah," I said, the pieces starting to fall into place. "So, the Captain wasn't the one testing us after all. It was Team 08."

"Exactly," Yushiro replied, satisfaction in his voice. "And everything we've been through was part of their test to see if we could be trusted, to see if we were worthy of being in the Division."

I didn't know what to say at first. I was impressed—this was the third time Yushiro had completely blown my mind with his sharp thinking. Taka felt the same; I could sense his awe.

"Why would they do all that, though?" Taka asked, breaking the silence that had settled between us.

Yushiro sighed, his voice tinged with the weight of the answer. "While you two were off enjoying yourselves, I asked Miss Annette about it. She told me that the test was a way for us to get recognized by the Division. It was a way for us to earn our team number and become official members of the Division."

"That's cool," I said, my eyelids heavy now, the exhaustion finally catching up to me. "Good…night, Shiro."

Before I could say anything else, sleep claimed me, the quiet warmth of the room wrapping me in a peaceful embrace.