Gilded Ashes-Chapter 302: Might Not Be

They didn’t speak on the way back.

Raizen led. Saffi followed. The route was different now - they couldn’t go up through the original trunk, not with guards positioned along the platform’s edge, so they tried moving laterally, through the lower rings of Ukai. Branch to branch, trunk to trunk, working their way through the lower net of old, overgrown wood until they found a section far enough from the hall that no guard light reached it.

The climb back up was slow. Raizen’s arms screamed. His fingers barely closed around the handholds anymore - the cold and the exertion had turned them into stiff, clumsy things that he had to watch carefully to make sure they were actually gripping what he told them to grip.

Saffi climbed beside him, accepting his helping hand every time. Eyes open this time.

They reached street level on the far side of the residential ring. No guards here. Just dark platforms under the faint light of hung lanterns.

Raizen leaned against a railing and breathed. His shirt was soaked through. His hands were shaking - not from fear anymore, just from cold, exhaustion and the kind of adrenaline crash that made everything feel slightly unreal.

Saffi stood a few paces away, arms crossed, hugging herself.

The silence lasted a full minute before she broke it.

"So the aircraft is a mobile vault" she said. Quiet. Methodical. Putting the pieces in order like she was filing them. "The Echelon stores sensitive materials inside it. It rotates - never stays in one place, always ready to relocate. The guards know the schedule. They’re part of the operation."

Raizen nodded. Water dripped from his hair.

"And Eiden’s crate arrives the day after tomorrow. He’s overseeing it personally. He even told the guards it’s more valuable than their lives." She paused. "Then it must be that his files are around there, too."

"The staff... Something not even the Echelon understands" Raizen repeated. He turned the phrase over. The Echelon - the highest authority in all of academic and military structure - didn’t understand what this staff could do. And they were moving it in the middle of the night, on a stealth aircraft, under armed guard.

"What kind of staff even is that?" he murmured.

Saffi shook her head slowly. She didn’t have an answer.

Raizen pushed himself off the railing. Stood straight, and tried to figure out what really just happened.

"Eiden shook off the drugs like it was nothing" he said.

Saffi looked at him.

"It was more than a normal dose" Raizen said. "I watched Kenzo go down in minutes. Eiden had the same food, and even I went to sleep."

He could still hear Eiden’s voice. "Sorry I’m late." Not groggy. Not slow. Clear. Loud. Present.

"That’s not normal" Raizen said. "That’s not willpower, or tolerance, or whatever. The drugs worked on Kenzo. They worked on everyone. They should have worked on Eiden."

Saffi’s arms tightened across her chest.

"So either he has a resistance we don’t know about" she said carefully, "or he knew."

The word kept spinning inside of Raizen’s mind.

He knew.

Knew the food was drugged, but ate it anyway. Pretended to go down, tricking him. Let Raizen think he’d won. Then got up, walked to the platform, and ran the operation on schedule. Whilst knowing they were exactly on the lower platforms.

And told the guards the fog wasn’t thick enough.

Raizen felt something shift inside his chest. Not fear, exactly. Something colder. The realization that every move he’d made tonight - the drugging, the sneaking, the climbing, the eavesdropping - had all happened inside a space that Eiden controlled. That maybe Eiden had let it happen, for reasons Raizen couldn’t figure out. Had watched it play out the way someone watches a student take a test they’ve already graded.

Saffi sneezed. She was soaking wet as well.

Raizen nodded, feeling a bit bad for keeping her in the rain like that.

✦ ✦ ✦

The hallway was dark. Their footsteps were silent on the wood - practiced now, after hours of creeping. Rain tapped softly against the windows. The building was still.

They managed to reach the room without getting caught. The window was still open - where Enya had entered, where they’d been pulled out. Rain had gotten in. The floor near the sill was wet, and their mattresses were damp.

Saffi stepped inside. Raizen followed.

Then he stopped.

"Wait here a bit" he whispered.

He moved down the short hallway. Past their door, past the washroom, to the end of the corridor where the kitchen sat, and beyond that – Eiden’s bed.

He shouldn’t get too close. He knew that. Whatever game Eiden was playing, whatever test this was, the smart move was to go to his own damp bed, pretend nothing happened, and figure everything else in the morning.

He stretched his neck, and saw faint shapes in the dark: a folded blanket, a glass of water next to the mattress.

And Eiden.

On his back. Blanket pulled to his chest. Eyes closed. Breathing slow, deep and even – just like every sleeping person did. The perfect image of a man who’d been asleep for hours.

His shoes were by the door. Dry. No - not dry. Dried. There was a difference. Dry shoes had never been wet. Dried shoes had been wet and then carefully, deliberately made to look like they hadn’t. The leather was slightly stiff in the way leather gets when it dries too fast – Obi taught him that. The soles had been wiped clean - but the edges, where sole met upper, still held the faintest dark line, just a tiny bit of mud.

Raizen stared at the shoes. Then at Eiden’s sleeping face.

Then he stepped back very quietly. Saffi was now sitting on her mattress, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them. She looked at him, whispering. "Well?"

Raizen sat down on his own mattress. The damp fabric soaked through his already-wet clothes, but he barely noticed. A soft surface to lay on was just what he needed and more than he wanted.

"He’s asleep" he whispered back.

Saffi studied his face.

"No he’s not" she answered.

Raizen looked at the ceiling.

"Mmmyeah..." he agreed. "He might not be."