Gilded Ashes-Chapter 39: Domestic Bliss

He found the photos by accident.

After a few minutes of sitting, listening to Kori list all the ways the broken couch might betray them, Raizen’s eyes drifted to the back wall.

A narrow shelf ran across it, holding a line of small frames. Some were newer, bright and clean. One in the middle looked different - sun-faded at the edges, plastic a little cloudy, corners worn like it had been picked up a lot.

Seven people stood shoulder to shoulder in that one.

The background looked like a training ground, but older - bare concrete, same cloudy sky, something that might have been the Academy before all the glass and luxury. No uniforms, just gear that somehow fit each of them perfectly.

Kori was there. Younger. Hair a little shorter. Same mischievous grin. Tape on her knuckles even then.

Three faces had been scribbled over with thick black marker. The ink lines were hard and deep enough to leave grooves in the picture.

But it didn’t ruin it. It just... Turned it into something you couldn’t ignore.

Raizen found himself standing in front of it without realizing he had stood up. Hikari came to his side, quietly. Arashi’s gaze slid over from where he leaned on the wall.

"Who are these people?" Raizen asked.

Arashi straightened a little. Not too much , but closer to formal than he had been a second ago.

"The Phalanx" he said. "Well... The ones who are still alive, anyway."

Kori appeared between them as if she had been summoned by the word.

She took the frame down, thumb resting on a splintered edge.

"Teachers will make you memorize the official version in class" she said. "Dates, operations, victories, all that. I hate that version."

Her tone changed slightly. Not serious all the way, but close.

"Then what’s the real version?" Raizen asked.

"We were the City’s answer when answers were needed urgently. We ran the hardest missions when nobody else could. Stood where nobody else wanted to stand. Of course, we were not the strongest individually." Her mouth twitched. "Except me. Obviously."

Arashi made a quiet sound that was almost a laugh.

"Obviously" he agreed.

Kori lifted the frame, pointing at someone without quite touching the glass.

"Lotus Academy headmaster" she said. "Third seat. Old even then. Carries a legendary sword... That has no name, unlike other legendary weapons I’ve seen."

"Legendary weapons!?" Raizen blurted.

"Weapons crafted with the highest purity Luminite. The most amplifier, most strength, most rumors and legends about it."

"Then why didn’t this "legendary sword" have a name?" he asked again.

"Because he says swords don’t need names, they just need work. If he wants to cut a building, he can. When he tells you to duck, you are already halfway down if you value your life."

Hikari leaned in, eyes on the small, serious man in the center. "Third Phalanx..." she repeated.

"Third" Kori nodded. "The numbers are not a rank or leaderboard. Not really. We ranked for strength, yes, but also role. Every single one of us had its own perfect role."

Her finger moved. "Kenzo. Fourth. Big guy with the hammer."

The man she pointed at had a grin so wide it almost looked like he was just joyfully showcasing his teeth. To top it off, a hammer on his shoulder that could have been mistaken for a piece of heavy construction equipment.

"Hammer the size of your ego when you are fifteen and think you can’t die" Kori said. "He laughs with his whole chest. Hits with his whole being..."

Raizen felt a smile tug at his mouth and did not bother to hide it. Kori talked about Kenzo with a tiny bit too much color in her ears.

"Osamu" she went on, tapping another figure - a tall man with a shield so broad it almost completely covered him.

"Sixth. Shield that is more like a wall than shield. This man is what loyalty would look like if it could pick up a bus."

She skipped herself on purpose, letting her finger hover over the next blurred face before drifting back.

Arashi didn’t let her.

"And the second..." he said, all polite cruelty.

Kori glared at him without heat. "I don’t like talking about myself."

"Oh, but you love talking about yourself!" Arashi responded. "You just don’t entirely enjoy being accurate."

She sighed and flicked her eyes to the photo again.

"Second... Me." she said. "Currently the strongest alive because apparently that’s what numbers and people say. None of that matters. What matters is that I am very good at winning."

Raizen started at her younger photo for some time. She looked even more dangerous and chaotic. He was starting to feel glad he didn’t meet her a few years back.

"Anyway" Kori said too briskly. "That is enough ego for one afternoon. Headmaster he looked at this year’s candidates, exam and results, and said: "ah, chaos. Perfect!", so he’ll be expecting you soon."

Hikari’s gaze slid to the three black scribbles. She didn’t ask straight away. She gave the quiet a moment.

"But... what about the others?" she said at last.

Kori’s shoulders settled. "Gone" she said. No jokes. No details. Just the word. After a few seconds of awkward silence, she set the frame back on the shelf, tilting it to match the others.

"When it is time to know" she added, softer, "you will see for yourselves. What terrors Nyxes actually are."

Raizen looked at the younger Kori in the photo - chin up, mouth already tilted, as if asking for trouble. He looked at the real Kori, with laughter and grief both hanging off her shoulders.

Kori clapped once, breaking Raizen’s thoughts.

"Tour continues" she announced. "Attic, before the couch eats you. No, I am not joking, its folding mechanism is evil."

They took the stairs at a way slower pace. Raizen’s body still complained, but less than earlier. His irritation had worn down now.

The wood underfoot creaked in small, friendly sounds - the sort of creaks that meant the stairs had carried a lot of people and were not planning to break today.

Kori went ahead, flicking on a switch at the top. Warm light blinked into life.

The attic was small, but it did not feel cramped.

The ceiling sloped down in a gentle line. Two beds sat under it, mattresses neat, quilts folded in careful rectangles. A round window near the far wall peered over the courtyard outside. A few vines had found the frame and were starting to claim it.

A whole row of boxes lined one wall. They were stacked with unnecessary precision and covered with gray cloths and strips of blue tape.

"This is beautiful" Hikari breathed.

She stepped closer and instinctively straightened the edge of one quilt. She stopped mid-motion, realized what she was doing, and pulled her hand back.

"It’s small" Kori said. "But it’s pretty cozy. The first three nights, you will probably think the sounds are strange. On the fourth, you will realize it’s just the same Neoshima noises as always."

Raizen set his bag by the bed nearest the window. If he couldn’t control how long his body held in a fight, he could at least control how he moved when nothing was chasing him.

"Alright, then!" Kori announced. "I’ll let you explore the 2 square meters around here, and in the meantime, I’ll go cook something! You must be hungry, that hospital food looked... Not-so-appetizing"

From below, Arashi’s voice drifted up faintly.

"You are banned from unsupervised cooking, Kori. Remember that one time-"

"They were perfectly clean noodles" Kori yelled back. "I only made one experiment."

"You somehow made pasta taste like laundry" he yelled, even louder.

"It was a very refreshing experience."

Keahi’s dry "No, it was not" floated up right after.

Raizen felt corners of his mouth rise.

Kori leaned against the doorframe.

"Tea is ready whenever you want it" she said. "Food, too, in a bit. Or both. Keahi will pretend she does’t like acting like your mom, but don’t believe her."

Hikari moved to the round window and looked out.

Neoshima’s towers climbed, cutting into the clouds.

"This feels... different" she said, soft.

"The good kind of different" Raizen aprooved.

She nodded once, then they went back down together.

The living room felt more like theirs than it had ten minutes ago.

The couch seemed to sag in a slightly more welcoming shape. The plant in the corner threw a long shadow up the wall that looked a little like a crooked hand.

Kori leaned on the back of the couch.

"Alright" she said. "House rules."

Raizen sat. His legs thanked him. Hikari sat beside him, knees close together, hands on her lap, as if she was prepared to stand the second anyone needed anything.

Arashi kept his spot near the wall, arms folded, expression relaxed. Keahi hovered by the kitchen doorway with a spoon in one hand.

"Curfew is stupid" Kori began. "Noise is fine until someone complains. If you need to cry, the stairs are great. Acoustics make it sound like a storm, so we can all pretend it’s weather. If you need some quiet time, I will yell at Arashi until he dramatically leaves, and then even more dramatically returns with ice cream."

"That is a slanderous oversimplification" Arashi protested.

"And yet" Kori replied.

She snatched a piece of candied ginger from the jar on the table and pointed it at them.

"I own a deck of cards. Some are missing because we once used them to gamble over the last dumpling and it ended badly. You are free to try again. You’ll fail, trust me. Keahi always wins."

"It’s just probability" Keahi muttered.

"It’s witchcraft!" Kori shouted.

✦ ✦ ✦

Lunch came together with small clinks and clatters.

Rice bowls. Grilled vegetables. Something with a light sauce that smelled like garlic and mild heat.

Keahi moved between stove and counter, plating without drawing attention to herself. When she handed the bowls over, she did it with a quick glance and then eyes down, as if looking too long at someone accepting food was embarrassing.

"Thank you" Hikari said the first time.

Then again.

And again when Keahi refilled water.

Keahi’s shoulders rose closer to her ears each time. "You already said that three times."

"You want me not to apologize?" Hikari asked, trying not to laugh.

Raizen took his bowl, dipped his head once.

"Thank you" he said.

Keahi just nodded.

Arashi poked at his food like he was judging it for a competition.

"The presentation is excellent" he said eventually.

Kori flicked a single grain of rice at him.

"Obviously, it’s excellent! Keahi made it."

"It’s not... Looking so... Not good!" he added, quickly, when Keahi turned her head a fraction his way.

Conversation looped as they ate, as it always did, back toward the arena.

"That feint you did" Arashi said, looking at Hikari. "High guard, then reverse grip, then twist. On the bridge. I saw you with the shockwave guy... Esen"

"It was just a normal feint" Hikari tried.

"It wasn’t normal, stop pretending!!" Arashi whined. "Nobody has that much control."

Hikari ducked her head and pretended her rice suddenly needed full focus.

Keahi looked at Raizen.

"That dash" she said. "Did it feel like actual lightning? Like fire?"

Raizen thought about it, chasing the memory without letting it crush him.

"No" he said. "It felt like a path... Like a shortcut that took me extremely fast. But what you see, really, is just blinding golden light-"

Kori snapped her fingers.

"Tripping very stylishly" she said. "Got it."

"That’s not what I said" Raizen frowned.

"It is what I heard" Kori said. "My version is funnier. I win."

The conversation kept going.

It kept going with small comments, short jokes... The kind of talk that didn’t feel like something bad was about to happen.

After a while, Arashi set his chopsticks down.

"Hey, Kori" he said.

"Mmm?" she answered through a mouthful.

"Who is going to be our teacher at the Academy?" he asked.

He kept his tone casual, but the question settled the air a little. Even Hikari’s hand paused halfway to her mouth.

Kori tried to answer while still chewing.

"Obioushlee, eesgohna be -"

Keahi clicked her tongue. "Swallow first."

Kori made an exaggerated show of swallowing, setting her bowl down with both hands.

"Obviously, it’s going to be me."

Silence.

Then three reactions at once.

Hikari’s eyes widened.

Raizen looked between her and Kori, as if checking that this was not, in fact, a joke.

Keahi blinked slowly, processing the idea of Kori as a formal teacher and clearly coming up with several questions she did not ask.

Arashi just smirked, like he had expected that answer all along.

"Obviously" Hikari said, a small laugh slipping out with the word.

"Obviously" Raizen echoed.

"Obviously" Keahi and Arashi joined in, almost in unison.

Kori leaned back on her hands, satisfied.

"Congratulations" she told them. "You survived tiny Nyxes. You survived each other. Next you get to survive my schedule."

Raizen met Hikari’s gaze over the table.

There was tiredness there. Relief. A single thread of fear.

They had made it this far.

Now they knew whose shadow they were stepping into, and whose voice would be yelling at them to move their feet.

Raizen knew this comfort wouldn’t last.

But for now, in this small, crowded room, with tea on the counter and laughter still shaking the walls, it felt real enough to keep.

The Lotus Academy...

With Kori as their teacher.

...Great.