Gilded Ashes-Chapter 40: Rise and Sparkle

Two days after moving in, Raizen learned that there are exactly three ways Kori wakes people up.

The first is with tea.

The second is with a thrown pillow or two.

The third - the one she used today - is with a wooden spoon banging on a saucepan and with a cheerful declaration.

"Field trip, minions! Get dressed. We’re going to the Academyy!"

Raizen jolted upright on instinct, and his face collided with Hikari’s. She was already leaning over him, studying his face. It was starting to become a habit now...

Something soft ghosted the corner of his mouth and vanished, like a thought he couldn’t quite catch.

Then both of them went very still, like statues that hadn’t decided what expression to keep.

Hikari froze, eyes wide. Her hand hovered mid-air, lightly touching her jaw.

Kori kept clanging the pan from the doorway. "Rise and sparkle, disasters! We’re gonna be late!"

Hikari straightened so fast her braid smacked her shoulder. Raizen looked anywhere that wasn’t her - the wall, the lightbulb, the suddenly very interesting crack in the floorboard.

"S-Sorry!" She said, voice a shade too high.

"My bad!" Raizen said at the same time, as if he was talking to the ceiling.

"Clothes" Kori interrupted, violently swinging around with the wooden spoon.

"You’re Royal Scholars. Uniforms are optional. Wear whatever won’t get you arrested by the fashion police - and Raizen, if you wear those tragic hospital socks again I’ll actually cry."

He found his voice, belated. "Royal Scholars?"

Kori winked, with a wide smile. "You’ll see"

The stiffness in Raizen’s legs had receded to something that felt... Bearable. At least.

He picked clothes that were easy to move in - dark trousers, light elegant shirt, the first-stage badge pinned high on the lapel. It looked like a small star. Four points. Clean edges. Very shiny silver.

Hikari’s badge sat centered on a white collar, the silver gleam pulling the eye to her throat before it slid anywhere else. Arashi wore his proudly, as if it had been born on that jacket. Keahi hesitated long enough that Kori came over, took the badge from her hand, and fastened it with surprising gentleness right above her heart.

"There" Kori said. "Almost like royalty."

"Please don’t call us that" Keahi murmured, cheeks coloring.

Kori had barely locked the door behind them before she was herding them down the street with cheerful menace. "Woo! Cheerful stride, shiny spark. Let’s go meet the building that’s going to either turn you into legends or chew you into decorative mush." 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

They walked into the morning, a wash of brass light tipping every edge of Neoshima in warmth. The city stacked upward in terraces and spires, bridges stitching buildings to buildings. Even at this hour, you could hear the far-off rumble of suspended trams and the nearer, softer music of shop doors opening and the day beginning to come alive.

Kori led the four like a banner that had learned to walk. She cut through a market, then onto a bridge that arced toward the Academy. Raizen kept pace without accepting Hikari’s helping arm - not pride, just the stubborn decision that his steps would be actually his today. She stood in his peripheral vision anyway, a steadying presence he didn’t need and wanted all at the same time.

They turned a corner and the Lotus Academy rose up all at once.

It didn’t present itself like a school. It looked like a beautiful cathedral transformed into a castle that then decided to look like a palace.

Gothic-like arcs lifted into spires that wore banners with a simple lotus made of five petals, the Lotus Academy’s symbol.

The scarlet and crimson banners fell in clean lines from high windows, the lotus crown emblazoned in dark gold on each.

Fountains pattered down a long courtyard, their basins arranged in a line that pulled the eye to a grand archway, whose center had a shiny star. Not the full Vanguard crest, not yet - a four-pointed start of one.

Students poured through the place like a living current. Raizen started counting quickly and lost the count just as quickly. Dozens and dozens, a sea of uniforms with a subtle lotus trim. It should have felt formal, but it didn’t.

It felt alive. Organized chaos.

Normal students didn’t have the badge he had, the shiny star. They moved in groups and lines, laughing, arguing, hands full of books or practice blades wrapped in cloth.

Faces turned as Kori came down the central walk with her little parade of not-uniformed exceptions. You could see it pass through the crowd in waves - recognition, curiosity, the ugly itch of jealousy and the way it got smoothed out by Kori’s grin.

"Hi, hello, yes, please don’t throw yourselves at my feet" Kori said as they went. "I know you want to. But It’s still early."

"Those are the Royal Scholars?" someone whispered, not that quietly.

"They don’t even wear the uniform?"

"They don’t have to!"

"...Last year’s Scholars wouldn’t even look at us..."

Kori heard everything and pretended not to. She walked them under the arch and into the main quadrangle.

It was huge.

There, sunlight bathed in the square with a color like fresh honey and the sound of the small fountains bounced softly off stone.

"Welcome, my dear calamities" Kori said, sweeping a bow so deep it was a parody of respect that somehow still felt like the real thing. "...To the Lotus Academy. Seat of learning, training ground for the absolute best, home of too many libraries and not enough naps or sleep. Keep up. If you get lost, follow the smell of ink, the feeling of terror and maybe luxury"

Lynea stepped from a side path and fell into pace without being asked. Shiny black hair braided back in a line that almost reached for her ankles. Her badge sat on her chest - perfectly centered.

Raizen remembered her from the exam: The purple floating fragments. A fighting style as annoying as it could get...

"You’re late" Lynea told Kori, with a hint of pride in her voice.

"Well this group is still a concept" Kori said. "Concepts are never late. They arrive when they arrive and everyone agrees it was the right time."

Ichiro ghosted beside Lynea, silent like a thought you’d forgotten you were thinking. He nodded shortly at Raizen. Raizen nodded back. He still wore that long cloak, covering most of his body

Esen arrived last, walking backwards while talking to Feris in animated hand gestures. "I’m just saying, fate is great, alright? But so is a plan that doesn’t require the planets and stars to get along!"

"Destiny has structure" Feris contradicted smoothly. She had the kind of confident smile that makes you nervous for just existing. "You’ll see."

Esen said spotted Kori and immediately grinned. "Ah. Our illustrious chaperone."

"Teacher" Kori corrected him. "The difference is that chaperones care if you fall off things. I don’t!"

Feris’s eyes snagged for a half second on the small four-point star Raizen wore. She adjusted hers like she hadn’t paused at all. "Are we touring the halls or what?"

"We’re touring, indeed" Kori smiled.

Then they started moving towards the entrance.