Gilded Ashes-Chapter 268: Who Needs A Band-Aid

Raizen chuckled under his breath and shook his head. He didn’t even try to argue back this time. There was no point. Hikari said things like they were obvious facts, then looked at him like he was slow for needing them explained.

They sat on a wooden bench tucked under a little roof - barely a roof, really. Just enough to keep the seat dry and keep the rain from hitting their hair directly. Everything outside that narrow strip was wet. The street stones shone with reflections. Water ran down the edges of nearby stalls in thin, shiny lines.

The rain was back, Echelon field was gone now - disabled, released, or simply turned off. Whatever miracle held the clouds at bay earlier didn’t exist anymore, and Ukai went back to what it liked best: mist, rain, and green swallowing the world whole.

Hikari leaned her elbows on her knees and watched the street like she watched everything - calm, attentive, like she could predict the next second if she tried hard enough. Her hair stuck slightly to her cheek from earlier. Raizen noticed it and looked away before he could stare.

For a while, the two of them just listened. Rain tapping on wood. Rain ticking on metal. A distant murmur of the city still living the day.

The ceremony ended hours ago. The white crowd thinned out. The music faded into normal life.

They still didn’t meet up with their people.

Raizen didn’t find Kenzo, Eiden and Saffi again before the crowd swallowed him. Hikari didn’t reunite with Keahi either. They kept missing each other by minutes and corners, like Ukai enjoyed separating people just to see if they found their way back.

It should’ve bothered Raizen more.

Somehow... It didn’t.

Hikari turned her head toward him. "Thanks"

Raizen blinked. "Hm? For what?"

"For today." Her voice stayed even, but her eyes softened in a way that made the words land heavier than they should’ve. "It was... Fun."

Raizen chuckled quietly. "Fun is one hell of a way to describe being thrown into the sky by a kid"

Hikari’s lips twitched. "Enya was careful."

"She made a slide network in midair." Raizen tried to contradict her.

"She didn’t kill us" Hikari answered, like that was the standard.

Raizen looked at her. "Is that your definition of careful?"

Hikari shrugged, then shifted slightly on the bench. The movement was small, almost accidental. Their shoulders ended up closer. Not touching yet, but close enough that Raizen felt the warmth through damp fabric. He didn’t move away.

For a second, Hikari’s gaze dropped. Not to the street. Not to the rain.

To her own hands.

Her fingers curled once, then relaxed. She inhaled like she wanted to say something else and didn’t know how.

Raizen waited.

Hikari’s lips moved. Quiet.

So quiet Raizen didn’t hear it.

He caught the shape of the words more than the sound, and the way her eyes flicked away after, like she didn’t want him to notice she even tried.

Then she cleared her throat and sat up straighter like nothing happened.

Raizen didn’t push it. He understood enough.

The day started wrong between them. Cold. Mission-focused. Her distance cut sharper because it came from her. Now she sat here under a little roof, rain behind her, and tried to stitch something back together without asking him to forgive her out loud.

It was very... Hikari.

Raizen let the silence settle. He rested his hands on his knees, fingers loose, and only then did he notice the shallow cut across his palm again. It wasn’t deep - just a thin line that stung when the rain touched it. He didn’t even remember when it happened. When he grabbed that jagged edge, maybe... Or the rough edge of a branch. Ukai kept taking little pieces out of him when he wasn’t paying attention.

He flexed his fingers once, more out of habit than pain.

Hikari’s gaze flicked down.

It happened so fast Raizen almost missed it - her eyes narrowed slightly, then her whole focus shifted like the street, the rain, and anything else didn’t matter anymore. She reached out before he could react and caught his hand, careful but firm, turning his palm up under the roof’s shadow.

Raizen blinked. "It’s nothing."

Hikari didn’t look up. "It’s bleeding."

"Nah, It already stopped" Raizen explained, trying to pull away.

Hikari tightened her grip until Raizen’s wrist started hurting a bit. She was not in the mood to argue.

Her thumb brushed the cut, wiping away the thin smear of dried red. The touch was gentle, almost clinical, but the intent behind it wasn’t. There was something in the way she held his hand that felt like she was fixing more than a scratch.

Raizen swallowed. "Hikari, you don’t have to - "

Then he went still, mostly because he didn’t know what else to do.

Hikari shifted closer, bringing his hand a little higher, out of the angled rain’s reach. Her other hand hovered above his palm, fingers spread as if she searched for the right angle.

She closed her eyes.

Then she tried something.

Raizen felt it - a faint pressure, like a thread tugging against his skin from the inside. Not pain. Not heat. Just a strange insistence, as if something invisible pressed its palm against his.

A thin, pale glow flickered under her fingertips. Weak. Unsteady. It didn’t bloom outward the way luminite did. It struggled to exist at all.

Hikari’s brow tightened immediately.

Raizen stared at her hands. "WHA- You’re using Eon without a weapon!?"

Hikari’s jaw set. "Don’t talk."

Raizen actually laughed once, short and breathless, because it didn’t make sense. He’d seen people fight without weapons. He’d seen people use Eon with nothing but raw talent. But every time, there was luminite somewhere - a ring, a necklace, a stone embedded in something. Amplification. Structure. A channel.

Hikari had none of it right now.

And she still tried to make Eon obey.

The glow trembled and almost died.

Hikari inhaled sharply through her nose, like she caught herself before she lost control. Her shoulders rose slowly, and her fingers pressed closer, not touching the cut, but close enough that Raizen felt the weird warmth from whatever she was doing.

"How are you-"

"I told you to shut up!" Hikari hissed through her teeth.

After a few seconds, she decided to answer Raizen’s half-asked question. "Kori taught me to use Eon without amplification."

"Without a tool? Or anything?"

Hikari kept going. "It’s really hard, but doable. Now, will you let me do my thing, or will you keep interrupting- agh..." She inhaled sharply, as she tried keeping the glow steady.

"Sorry" Raizen excused himself quickly.

Rain ticked on the roof above them. A drone buzzed somewhere in the distance. The world kept moving, but the space under the roof narrowed into just the two of them and that small line on his skin.

Hikari’s breathing changed. Slower. More forced.

Raizen watched the effort hit her body in real time. The muscles in her forearm tightened. The tendons in her wrist stood out more, and her veins started to swell slightly. Her fingers shook once, barely, but she steadied them like she refused to let anyone see.

Raizen leaned forward. "Hikari, stop. It’s not worth it."

Her eyes opened halfway. She didn’t look at him. She looked at his palm with the same stubborn focus she used when she fought.

"It’s small" she said quietly. "That’s why."

"That’s not - "

She pushed again.

The pale glow brightened for a second, then twisted into something thinner, more precise. A narrow line of light moved along the cut like it traced the wound’s edges, searching. Raizen felt a subtle heat now, like sun on skin through cloud cover. It wasn’t comforting. It was work.

Then she swallowed, and her focus sharpened.

The glow stabilized. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

The cut tingled. The sting faded. The skin pulled together in tiny increments, like invisible hands pinched it closed from both sides. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t instant. It was slow enough that Raizen could feel every step of it.

Hikari exhaled through clenched teeth.

For a moment the glow flared, then dimmed, leaving only a thin pink line where the cut used to be.

Hikari’s hand hovered over it for another second, like she didn’t trust it to stay closed.

Then she pulled back.

Raizen saw the fatigue hit her like a delayed wave. Her shoulders dropped a fraction. Her fingers curled into her palm once, as if they cramped. She blinked twice, too slow, and stared at the street ahead like she suddenly needed to remember how to breathe again.

Raizen caught her wrist lightly, instinctive. "Hey. "

Hikari’s eyes snapped to him. For half a beat, she looked almost startled. Then she pulled her hand away and tucked it under her sleeve like nothing happened.

"I’m fine" she said immediately.

Raizen stared at his palm, then back at her. "Yeah, yeah, whatever you say."

"It’s just annoying" she muttered.

"Annoying" Raizen repeated.

Hikari finally looked at him properly. Her expression tried to be flat, but it didn’t quite work. There was a faint flush on her cheeks that wasn’t just from the cold.

"Without my staff, it’s..." She paused, like she didn’t want to admit the truth out loud. "It’s weird. It’s like I’m the weakest being in this world."

Raizen’s mind snagged on the phrasing.

It’s like I’m the weakest being in this world...

He remembered Elin’s voice in that marble room. Conceptually. Rejected. Eon healing was one of the hardest things to handle, and the limits were harsh.

Raizen lowered his hand slowly. "You didn’t have to do that."

Hikari’s gaze dropped to his healed palm, then to her own sleeve. She didn’t answer right away. When she spoke, it came out a bit jollier. "Great way to say thanks!"

Raizen didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t force words. He only nodded once, slow, like he accepted it properly. "Thanks..."

Then, he let out a sharp, teasing grin. "Who needs a band-aid, when you have Hikari?"

She scoffed at that, but couldn’t hide a tiny smile.

The rain kept tapping above them, steady and endless, and for a while they just sat there under the little roof, breathing in the wet air and looking at anything that wasn’t each other.