Gilded Ashes-Chapter 67: Don’t Run!

Kori knocked on the doorframe with the back of her knuckles.

No clipboard. No training jacket. A cute light gray sweater, hair in a loose tie, and a hint of color on her lips - the kind of detail that meant she remembered human beings sometimes dress to be pretty, not just practical.

"You four" she said to the four in the main room. "Get ya shoes. We’re going out."

Raizen blinked, raising his gaze from the book he was buried in for the past few hours. Hikari’s face lit up and she stopped bouncing Ichiro’s rubber ball against the wall. Arashi squinted, suspicious. Keahi did the thing where her mouth didn’t curve but her eyes smiled instead.

"No drills?" Arashi asked, still squinting.

"No drills" Kori answered. "Consider it a... Hmm... A field lesson, yes. You can’t fight for a city you never bother to look at."

They got ready faster than for any morning stretch.

The other four royal scholars met them at the Academy gate – Esen scratching his head, Feris spinning on her heels, her light dress spinning in the wind, Ichiro still quiet, but wearing a new cloak from a softer material, Lynea with only three her fragments tucked close.

The eight – nine, with Kori - started walking, but not through the front gate without training bags or bruises to show for it. It felt strange. It felt good.

The Hive spread out around them - Neoshima’s inner ring, where most of the city actually lived. Elevated balconies with laundry hung in neat lines. Children drawing colored halk games on the pavement. Couriers on humming motorcycles threading between pedestrians, crates stacked on the back like careful towers. Filtered sunlight cut between the tall buildings.

Hikari walked beside her, fingers trailing along a low garden fence. "I like the flowers" she said, quiet, like admitting it cost something.

"Talk louder. You can like flowers" Arashi hudged her hip. "Nobody’s going to arrest you."

Raizen kept his hands in his pockets. His eyes tracked corners and exits out of habit - the reflex of someone who spent too much time in the Underworks, where a wrong turn was a mistake you couldn’t afford.

"Feels almost normal" Keahi whispered. Then she cleared her throat. "For a city with a monster watchtower like that" she pointed at the Council Spire.

The Council Spire rose ahead of them. You didn’t need directions. The building marking the center of Neoshima always found you first. White stone, dark steel and glass, it rose until it looked less like architecture and more like an argument the city was making with the sky.

At the top, the Lighthouse. Glass walls all around. Dozens of intricate antennas. The thing that would noticed first if something outside came towards the lotus city.

Raizen stared up at it. The scale made his chest tight in a way he couldn’t name – awe, maybe.

"It looks like it’s watching us" Hikari said, leaning into his shoulder without seeming to notice she was doing it.

"Well... Technically it is" Esen shrugged.

Kori let them stare for a few seconds. Then she spoke, hands pointing at the base. "The city’s Ruler – Solomon - sits here and does whatever paperwork the city needs. The Council below him writes it."

"And the Lighthouse?" Lynea asked. "I heard about it"

Kori glanced up. "When the Nyx signals go off, pilots launch, Vanguards dispatch, and everyone else working there hold their breath."

Then Kori clapped once. "Enough monuments. Let’s go meet Neoshima when it forgets to be serious."

They took the northward road and the city started changing around them.

The air shifted first. A drum line testing rhythm somewhere ahead. Oil cracking in a pan. The smell of frying batter sliding under their noses and pulling them forward. Paper lanterns strung across the avenue in low, bright arcs. People walking faster. Talking louder. Music leaking from big speakers and colliding with other music.

The Glowline didn’t look like the rest of Neoshima. Not even close

Banners between stalls. A dozen food carts competing for the loudest sizzle. A bathhouse with a mural of a laughing dolphin and a line already out the door. Dancers on a corner in outfits that made no practical sense but looked awesome anyway. Streetlights painted in colors that made you smile.

Raizen started walking slower. His mouth was open and he didn’t realize it. Everything he knew about joy was small - fishing at the edge of his village, on a cliff, games he made up with scraps together with Obi in the Underworks, quiet moments stolen between training sessions.

But this? This was loud. This was bright. This was colorful. This was whole streets full of people who decided that today was worth celebrating just because it was today.

Esen locked sights with a claw machine with a prize window full of plushies shaped like animals and beasts. He pressed his face to the glass. "This is a monument to poor decisions and I am going to make all of them."

"You’ll just lose" Feris said.

"Absolutely" Esen answered, already fishing for coins in his pockets.

He lost. Three times. On the fourth try, Ichiro put his hand on the ground and the claw machine tilted the tiniest bit, pushing a soft pink plushie whale right into the claw, making it drop. Esen stared at it. Then stared at Ichiro. Ichiro’s face gave away nothing.

"That’s cheating" Arashi said.

"That’s teamwork" Ichiro mumbled.

Esen hugged the pink whale to his chest, then gave it to Feris with a smug face. "Her name is Delma and I think she’ll live a better life in your hands."

Hikari stopped dead in front of a stall selling sugar-glass flowers on sticks. She just stood there, eyes shining, mouth watery. Kori followed her gaze, nodded to the vendor, and eight bright candy blossoms changed hands. She handed one to everyone. Hikari held hers like it might shatter if she exhaled too hard.

Keahi bit hers immediately. "It’s good."

"You’re supposed to – it looks so good, I don’t even want to-" Hikari started.

"It’s sugar" Keahi answered, crunching. "I’m eating it."

They drifted deeper. The Glowline didn’t need a map - it pulled you by the nose and the ears. Steam here. Music there. A stall selling fried donuts the size of your fist. Another selling ink sketches of your face done in two minutes. Arashi sat for one. The artist gave him cheekbones that could cut glass. Arashi looked at his own image for a long time, then bought three copies.

"Your ego really doesn’t know any limits, does it?" Lynea said, and the fact that she said it - dry, easy, without thinking about it - made Raizen realize something had changed in her. She held her candy flower in one hand, and she looked, for the first time, like someone who was just having a bad day, a huge improvement.

Which is exactly when they saw Kenzo.

He was halfway out of a shop’s doorway, talking to an old man who kept nodding aggressively about something. No hammer on his back. Shirt misbuttoned - one off, which for Kenzo counted as total chaos. A ledger in his hand. The look on his face was that of a man who was not expecting to see anyone he knew.

"Kori" he said, and the surprise turned into a smile before he could stop it.

"K- Kenzo" Kori fumbled, and the way she said his name could have fueled a week of Academy gossip. She straightened her sweater, touched her hair. Did both things too fast for either to look casual.

"What are you doing here?" Raizen asked.

Kenzo lifted the ledger. "Someone has to check the shops from time to time. Back-door latches. Counterfeit seals. People get sloppy when -"

"So you’re on a date with paperwork, huh?" Esen said, before Feris elbowed him.

Kenzo looked like he’d rather fight a Nyx bare-handed than hear about paperwork ever again. Kori rescued him - sort of. "We were taking a walk. A free-day walk. Just - seeing the city. Showing them around. You know."

"Good, good" Kenzo said under his breath, passing his gaze over all eight scholars. "You all forget to be kids sometimes."

The eight exchanged a look. It happened fast. The kind of fast that looks like coincidence if you’re not paying enough attention. And if you were - you could guess what they were already plotting.

Arashi coughed into his fist. "Kenzo, it would be a real shame if civic duty went unsupervised."

"Right" Raizen completed, completely straight-faced. "Someone should walk with you. You know, better efficiency... For example-" 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Kori’s eyes narrowed instantly. "No-"

"Yes" Ichiro said, barely above a whisper, which somehow carried more force than anything else.

Lynea caught on half a second late. She lifted the candy flower to her mouth to hide the smile she didn’t want to show.

"We’ll be fine" Keahi said. "We have maps. I do. Three of them. Plus the slates."

She didn’t have any maps. Her slate tablet was abandoned on the couch.

Arashi gestured at the street. "This is the safest place in Neoshima right now. All crimes have to get in line behind those dumplings."

Kori opened her mouth. The eight were already backing away. Identical grins. Perfectly coordinated.

"Wait - no - you can’t just -" Kori tried.

Then, seeing there was no point, she stopped. Straightened her back. Found her composure again.

"Behave, all of you" she said. "I don’t want to pick you up from the Warden Station."

"We always behave" Arashi lied.

"Don’t run" Kori added.

But the eight were already running.