Gilded Ashes-Chapter 37: Obviously!

The smell came first for Raizen.

Not smoke, not dust, not even the bitter bite of blood that had rimmed the edge of his last memory.

Antiseptic and lemon, cool air that flowed through a clean vent, and the soft thrum of modern machinery hidden behind walls.

Not like the Underworks... The sound is clearer.

Light pressed against his eyelids. After a few seconds, he pried them open.

A white ceiling waited above him, not plain white but veined with very thin threads of glowing wires that each pulsed in a slow, reassuring rhythm. Every pulse sent a faint blue reflection skimming the polished floor.

Somewhere, a diagnostic machine clicked and whirred. A second, gentler rhythm whispered at his bedside - his vitals scrolling in patient, green patterns, beeping at every spike.

He tried to turn his head and his vision sloshed, heavy and blurry. The pillow crackled under his cheek. A weird cool weight slid a little on his forehead.

"Careful..."

A familiar face was right above his.

...Just like the first time he saw her awake.

Hikari leaned back from his face into a chair, looking like she clearly lost a battle with sleep. One knee pressed against the bed frame, hair not quite contained, pale strands with the same black ends softening the angle of her cheek.

In her hands, she held a sealed foil medical packet and a few squares of fresh cooling pads. She peeled one of them, slow and gentle, then lifted the old pad from above his brow with two fingers and replaced it with the new one.

"There" she murmured, like she was convincing the air. "You were getting too warm again."

Raizen blinked until Hikari came into focus and the ceiling stopped looking like it was quite literally falling on him.

His throat felt like he had swallowed an entire desert. He gathered the edges of his voice and found something that sounded like him.

"I was dreaming..." he said. "About winning."

"You did win, stupid!" The corner of her mouth twitched, a smile between relief and scolding. "And you beat me with a very surprising move, I have to say! You dashed like lightning itself." she continued.

"And then...?"

"Then you very dramatically lost to consciousness. Fainting was not a great follow up, but I guess that winning against 3-4 of the strongest contestants made you push your limits... Nothing usual from you, I suppose..."

He let the cold soak into his forehead. The last images braided themselves at the back of his head again. Hikari’s staff lit by blue veins that chased every swing. Her absolutely dominating the fight, until... The golden flash of speed that felt like tearing through space itself. The arena cracking, a roar under his feet. His dash landing without throwing him into the wall. His blade right at her neck. He hated that. Then... Her suit lights flooding from dark orange to red.

"I feel... Really heavy" he grunted. "Like someone just poured iron into my bones."

"That is because you used your body faster than your body was designed to. Again." She flicked a glance at what looked like a medical tablet on her lap, thumbed it awake, and scrolled through a crowded list.

"You were out eighteen hours and fifty-nine minutes. Dehydration, muscle strain, mild luminite amplification and Eon overuse. That’s what they told me... And I quote, please stop frightening my instruments with your intensity."

"You... Kept a log?"

"Oh, but of course! I tracked your every hour." Her chin lifted a fraction, then immediately dipped, as if she realized she was a bit too proud.

"I didn’t know what they would need, so I wrote down everything I saw or heard... When you moved, what you said... You don’t talk much in your sleep by the way... Kinda disappointing."

"What... What did I say?"

She pretended to consult the tablet, just to dodge eye contact. "Well... A lot of grunts. At one point, you were begging for water. Mostly random things...

Then, pink rose at the tips of her ears. "...And my name, once."

"Hm?" Raizen raised a brow.

"Probably to tell me to go away because you were busy being unconscious."

He smiled. Same old smile. It tugged at his face and made his jaw hurt. "Thank you"

She didn’t respond. She smiled back, and that answer was enough. Hikari was strangely open, when it was just them two. She talked freely, and quite a lot.

The room around them was gently alive. A translucent window showed the curve of the Academy’s tall, elegant towers, the city hazed with morning light.

They could finally look out the window and see the cloud blanket, the sky.

Neoshima stretched out beyond the glass like a blueprint perfectly brought to life: Towers and buildings of reinforced glass and smooth steel shot upward in elegant spikes. Walkways threaded between buildings like suspended bridges, reflecting dim gold where sunlight reached.

The bed’s rail was folded down, and a white warm cover sat carefully tucked at his hips. A bag of clear fluid hung from a slim armature, slowly dripping.

Hikari threw the old gel pad in a disposal bin from the other side of the room.

Then, she tugged the blanket into alignment like a soldier setting a uniform seam. Her hands were steady, but her eyes kept flicking to his face, checking breath, color, and something else he couldn’t describe.

"Does anything hurt?" she asked. "Do you feel sick? Any stabbing, burning, buzzing, or the strange feeling like your limbs are ringing?"

"Ringing?"

"Enough to notice. Eon overuse can leave something that feels like a slight hum in your bones, like the energy’s resonating." Hikari frowned, like explaining what Raizen was supposed to feel was weirder than him actually feeling it.

"Hm... No, I don’t feel anything like that, why?"

"That dash looked like it shook the air around you... And then also your insides. You completely destroyed the nearby building! Aaand... You didn’t really look like you were enjoying it, which I suppose is how winning often looks, in your case."

"It felt like opening a weird door I didn’t know was there." He tried to lift a hand and discovered his arm had a personal beef with him. He settled for flexing his fingers.

"Gold light in the corners of my eyes. A ton of heat behind my knees. Then there was nothing between me and where I wanted to be." he continued.

"Naah, that’s totally not terrifying at all" she said, deadpan. "Please don’t do it again until you can... Fully handle it..."

"Alright, fine... Anyways, it was the first time I ever tried... Dunno, it just came to me..."

Hikari took in a breath and set the tablet aside. For a second, her awkwardness leaked through the seam of her concern. She reached as if to adjust the blanket again, then changed course and smoothed hair from his forehead. The gesture surprised both of them. She withdrew her hand and busied herself with the empty foil.

"I thought you wouldn’t wake up this early" she said to the packet. "I mean, I knew you would, logically, but..."

But logic and fear aren’t friends. He turned his head. It cost him a burn across his neck, but he did it anyway. "Well, sorry I scared you."

"Don’t be sorry." Her eyes finally met his. "Win again. Just... Don’t put yourself in danger like that. Ok?"

Before Raizen could answer, a chime ticked from the doorway. The glass door hissed open.

Kori stepped in, accompanied by the pleasant cooling wave of hallway air and the smug of someone who knows she has good news and jokes better than anyone.

She wore Academy standard - dark jacket, cuffs pushed up, collar straighter than Hikari’s cuts.

Her knuckles weren’t taped, like Raizen got used to seeing them. They were actually pretty smooth and... Surprisingly lady-like.

The medics behind her gave up trying to stop her and retreated with dignified resignation.

"Oh look!" Kori announced. "Sleeping Beauty: the Original and Sleeping Beauty 2.0!" Her eyes took them both in, bright with mischief. "Am I interrupting something, or can I continue being my charming self?"

Hikari straightened so fast her chair squeaked. "We were discussing... Um... His medical data."

"Hot. Literally, and metaphorically." Kori said, then approached the bed.

Up close, she smelled a bit like laundry powder and sweet cinnamon. She took a bite of a pastry she got out of a paper bag.

"So. You two broke the arena. Half of it. I am billing you emotionally."

"Did we win anything besides emotional debt?"

"You won me not chewing you out for another thirty seconds, yeah" Kori grinned. "Also a lot of applause, some very dramatic gasps, a new fan club, a spot in the Academy... Stupid stuff like that"

She waved her hand, holding the pastry bag. "And you, Raizen, won the right to sleep through three separate debriefs. Heroic, as your very devoted nurse documented."

Hikari’s ears turned a suspicious shade of pink. "I am not a nurse."

"You are a terrifying, polite hurricane" Kori corrected. "Which is close."

Hikari opened her mouth, closed it, and selected a safer target. "How much did we break?"

"Enough that the maintenance crew got to use the big machines and foam sprayers" Kori said happily. "Don’t worry though. They get paid for that. And the setup was already scratched, old, crooked and rusty."

She took another bite, then caught the way Raizen was watching her like someone at the edge of a mystery. "You want to ask something, so ask it."

"The leaderboard" Raizen said. The word waited in the air. He had not realized how badly he wanted to hear it until it was there. "Where did everyone land? Who passed"

Kori kept chewing thoughtfully, swallowed, and flicked crumbs from her fingers. Very official, very ceremonial, very... Kori-like.

"Sooo! Let me see... At the top, Raizen. I have to admit, you impressed me there! I’d guess you unlocked a solid... What? 20%, out of your blades? Anyways. Then, Hikari, right under you..."

"Me!?" Hikari’s jaw dropped, like she was actually surprised.

"Yes, you. Don’t ask stupid questions. Next, Arashi." Kori tipped an invisible hat. "Keahi after him, then Lynea. Very clean, very efficient, I don’t think she even scuffed her boots. After that, Ichiro with his own share of personal modifications to the arena."

"I saw him control the earth!" Hikari protested.

"Well, you’ll get to meet him in person and interrogate him about it. After him... Esen, who tried three new strategies in ten minutes and all of them worked. Then Iris." Kori rolled her eyes.

"Iris?" Raizen and Hikari asked at the same time.

"Our little mage with the healer ability. Don’t know where she learned that, but she has a good heart, using her luminite to patch strangers mid chaos. Somehow, that made her rack up a ton of assists."

Hikari made a small grunting sound. "She did keep the casualty count low."

"Which is why she is in, and why I am buying her a donut later. After that, I’m going to help her grow a spine."

Kori licked sugar from her thumb. "After Iris comes Saffi, by special recommendation. She did not fight and will not fight. Her test is different."

Raizen raised an eyebrow. "Different how?"

"Different like it’s none of your business and she will tell you if she wants a thousand questions. Which she probably won’t, at least not until she figures out whether you are feral or just very intense."

She popped the last piece of pastry into her mouth and spoke around it without dignity. "And finally, crawling in at the bottom, Feris."

Hikari blinked. "She survived the cutoff?"

"Somehow" Kori said. "She farmed enough points early by tackling anything that moved and swinging that stupid mace around. Then she picked the wrong person and got cooked by Raizen. But points are points. She’s in."

Raizen could still feel the echo of his dash in the soft ache of his calves and legs. He didn’t quite enjoy the memory. He didn’t hate it, either. It just sat there, heavy and complicated.

"Who missed by a hair?" he asked.

"Two faces you won’t remember... It really doesn’t matter. They lost" Kori said, back to her usual funny spirit.

For a few seconds, silence, and two very disappointed looks.

"Come onn, Don’t make that look at me! Destiny is very fond of circles - let’s hope you’ll meet them again" Kori protested.

Hikari picked up the tablet again, more to fidget with something than to read. Her shoulders had dropped a bit since Kori’s arrival. She checked the cooling pad, then Raizen’s pulse like she didn’t trust the machines entirely, then sat.

For a moment the three made a perfect triangle - patient, watcher, jester.`

Kori watched Raizen finish a cup of water. When he set the empty glass on the table, she nudged it into perfect alignment with the edge like she couldn’t help herself.

"Right" she said, tone brightening. "So. You are officially in. That means less dying in public and more slowly dying in controlled environments where qualified people can laugh at you and then help."

"Do we stay here tonight?" Hikari asked. The question was quiet, but it held a line of hope. "In the medical wing?"

"Not unless you intend to sleep nineteen hours like this log over here" Kori said, pointing at Raizen.

"We can arrange somewhere else" Hikari mumbled, already pivoting. "Maybe we could try and return to the Underworks, careful so nobody sees us. Then we can wake up early so we can be on time at the Academy. Then we won’t be tired and then Raizen won’t faint again-"

"I am not going to faint again" Raizen puffed. "At least, not too soon."

Hikari gave him a look that translated to "Just you dare!"

"Where we will be staying, then?" she repeated, more specific this time. She glanced at Raizen and back to Kori.

Kori crossed her legs, looking at them as if they were a puzzle, then grinned. She lived for moments like this - the small drumroll before the cymbal.

"At my place, Obviously!" she said. "With Keahi and Arashi."

Silence.

Hikari blinked. "Obviously?"

"Obviously?" Raizen asked at the same time.

Kori hopped off the bed footboard, smug and satisfied.

"Obviously. Great. Then pack your dignity and your things, the few things you have. Keahi cooks once a week and it’s generally war, Arashi sleeps like he is posing for a painting, and my couch bites... Eh, you’ll eventually get used to it."

She threw a lazy wave behind and backed toward the door. "So... What can I say, Welcome to Neoshima!

Kori took three steps, then hesitated.

"Oh, and Raizen? If you are going to invent new ways to break physics, please warn the medics first so they can at least mentally prepare, you know?"

"Kori... You’re killing me-"

The glass partition whispered shut behind her before Raizen could finish his sentence. He sank deeper into the pillow. The weight in his limbs hadn’t left, but it felt more merciful this time.Hikari rested her chin lightly on her hand, watching him like he might decide to disappear again.

"We’re really here" she said.

"Yeah" he breathed. "We made it."

She exhaled, a quiet sound that curled into a laugh before she could stop it. Raizen found himself laughing too, even though his ribs didn’t love the idea.

"Obviously, huh?" Hikari said again "At Kori’s place..."

"Obviously" he echoed, agreeing.

The morning outside the window shifted brighter.

"It’s going to be chaos."

A soft breeze rolled through the window vents, carrying the scent of steam and the pleasant metallic scent of the city

Raizen closed his eyes just for a moment, letting the quiet settle.

Soon, the Lotus Academy would open its doors.

Soon, they would step into a life they had only dreamed of, from the underground tunnels.

Soon, they would finally take the first step in defeating the nightmares.

Soon, they would start keeping the world lit.

Hikari would be there.

Keahi. Arashi. Kori. Them, too. He hoped that the others would be friends, and not competition.

He remembered the other names.

Esen. Lynea. Feris. Ichiro.

All of them climbing toward a future sharp enough to cut.

His fingers curled weakly into the blanket.

"We’re not done" he murmured.

Hikari smiled - small, determined, unshakeable.

"No" she agreed. "We’re just getting started."