Gilded Ashes-Chapter 297: Neoshiman Aircraft

Enya opened her mouth.

Then immediately closed it.

Opened it again.

"I - okay, so, the thing is -" She gestured vaguely, like the answer was somewhere in the air between them and she just had to grab it. "I figured you’d mess up, right? Because - well, you’re... You, and the vials were - but that’s not why I -"

She stopped. Frowned at the ground. Tried again.

"The fruit was already - I’d been growing it before I left, actually, because I thought maybe - not that I knew you’d -" She exhaled hard through her nose. "Okay, I can’t - I don’t know how to say this without it sounding too-"

"Enya." Raizen’s voice was flat. He sighed.

"It doesn’t matter."

She blinked.

"Seriously" he said. "It’s fine. You helped. Thank you." He looked at her - still in her combat gear, still slighylu damp, still standing under a tree in the middle of the night like this was a completely normal thing to be doing. "But isn’t your dad worried? Really, now."

The shift was small. A slight pull at the corner of her mouth - not quite a smile, not quite a wince. Something crooked, almost apologetic.

"Ehh... heh..." She rubbed the back of her neck. "He might be..."

Raizen looked at her for a few seconds, then frowned.

"Come on. You have to go."

"But -" 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

"If I see you in any place you’re not supposed to be tonight" Raizen interrupted her, "I will personally make sure Professor Mina never lets you participate in another Nyx hunt."

Enya’s eyes narrowed. She looked at him the way someone looks at a bluff they’re not entirely sure is a bluff.

Then she rolled her eyes. A long, dramatic, full-bodied eye roll - the kind that said "I don’t want to leave and you’re being annoying about it". But she turned, threw a lazy wave behind her back and started walking. And within a few steps, a vine curled up from the wet earth, caught her ankle gently, and launched her up into the dark canopy above.

Gone.

Raizen watched the branches settle. Rain dripped from the leaves where she’d passed through.

Saffi was already fixing her hair, at least trying to make it look slightly more presentable.

✦ ✦ ✦

The two tried moving quietly.

Ukai at night, under heavy rain, was a different thing than Ukai during the day. The color was gone - the vibrant green turned to a black-ish shade of green, the warm brown wood dulled to grey shapes in the dark. Lanterns still burned along the main pathways, their golden light catching in the raindrops and scattering into soft halos that didn’t reach too far. Everything smelled the same, though.

Saffi walked half a step behind Raizen, watching his hand keeping the umbrella tilted against the angle of rain. She her hair back tight and her expression settled into her focused mode. The anger from earlier wasn’t entirely gone - Raizen could tell by the way she hadn’t looked at his face once since they started walking - but she put it somewhere out of the way. The mission came first. Everything else after that.

She spoke low, barely above the sound of the rain. "I tried to ask Alteea more before we left. About the signals, or any hints she had."

Raizen kept his eyes forward. The path curved ahead, following the base of a massive trunk. "And?"

"Nothing else besides some "Eon field" she was talking about. Echelon rain barrier? Yeah, I think that’s how she called it" She paused. "So the files should be inside the building."

Raizen didn’t respond right away.

The path opened slightly, and the hall came into view - or the shape of it, at least.

But there was light outside.

Raizen slowed down. His hand came up - a small gesture, barely visible - and Saffi stopped beside him.

Guards.

Two of them, walking a slow circuit along the hall’s perimeter. Flashlights in their hands, casting moving pools of warm light across the wet ground. They wore standard Ukaian patrol gear - light armor, short weapons, the kind of equipment that was more routine than threat. But they were there.

Raizen pulled Saffi behind the curve of a thick root, almost causing her to fall. They crouched. Watched.

Another pair of guards rounded the far corner of the hall. Same pace. Same route.

Raizen’s jaw tightened.

When he walked back alone from the Ruler’s house - through the outer rings of the city, past residential platforms and empty walkways - there was nothing. No patrols. No security. Not even a locked gate! The Ruler of Ukai, living without a single guard at his door.

But here, Echelon’s meeting hall. Patrolled. Watched. Circled.

"The files aren’t in there" Raizen murmured.

Saffi glanced at him with a sharp look. "What."

"The Echelon aren’t foolish enough to leave important files - artifacts, documents, whatever - sitting in a meeting room." He watched the guards pass. Their lanterns swayed.

"What are you saying, Raizen?" Saffi frowned."

"Everything is moved. Constantly."

Saffi was quiet for a few seconds. He could almost hear her thinking - running the logic, checking it against what she knew. Then she nodded slowly.

"That’s an option too" she said. Her hand dipped into her pocket and came out holding a small device - compact, dark-cased, no larger than her palm. The scanning tool Alteea had given them before they’d even set foot in Ukai. She turned it over once, checking the display.

"Full battery" she mumbled. "Still functional."

The guards continued their circuit, unhurried. The hall sat dark and silent.

Raizen was about to say something else when the sound hit.

It came from above - cutting through the rain like a blade through paper. A deep, sharp sound. It couldn’t be like the organic hum of an Ukaian beast. Not the sound of the oversized service drones that floated between Ukai’s platforms during the day.

Saffi froze.

Her fingers tightened around the scanner. Her eyes went up - not searching, not guessing. Recognizing.

She knew this sound.

She spent enough time near Alteea, around Neoshiman hangars, workshops and launch decks, to know the difference between engine models the way most people knew the difference between voices. And this one - the specific pitch, the cadence of the thrust cycle, the way it cut out the other sounds, the quietest model -

This was a Neoshiman aircraft.

Here.

In Ukai.