Gilded Ashes-Chapter 266: Above The Tree

Enya’s grin returned instantly. Worse than ever.

She lifted one hand.

Snapped her fingers.

"Guess."

Raizen barely had time to register the sound before the world around him answered.

Vines shot up from below the branches like living ropes - not rough, not thorny, but fast. They wrapped around his waist and forearm with firm precision, kind of like a harness. Another coil caught Hikari too, sliding around her hips and upper arm, careful not to snag at her dress.

Hikari’s breath hitched. Raizen’s instinct screamed at him to fight it.

Then the vines pulled. Not down. Up. So hard the ground - the branch under Raizen’s boots blurred.

Hikari made a sound she tried to swallow, something between a gasp and a squeak. Her hands grabbed at air for balance, and for a split second Raizen thought she would scream -

But the vines didn’t jerk. They held them steady. Tight enough that nothing slipped. Smooth enough that it didn’t hurt. Still, it was a ride.

Raizen’s stomach dropped as the vine yanked him past another branch. His feet kicked uselessly once, then found nothing. He swung free, rain whipping his face, the city spinning under him.

He heard Enya laugh. But not a polite laugh. A full-face laugh. The kind kids had when they finally got what they wanted, after weeks of waiting.

"Relax!" Enya called from somewhere above, her voice bright and cruelly cheerful. "I’m helping!"

"This isn’t - " Hikari started, then bit her own words off when her vine shifted direction and turned her into a pendulum.

Raizen twisted his body to look for her. Hikari swung beside him, held by a second set of vines now. The ends of her dress flared slightly from the motion, but the vines held that in place, too. She clung to the vine with one hand, the other pressed to her mouth like she could physically stop herself from screaming.

Her eyes met his. For half a second she looked furious. Then the vine snapped her into a higher arc and her expression cracked into something else. Pure adrenaline. Her lips curled like she hated herself for enjoying it.

Raizen swallowed. Enya wasn’t lowering them down. She was playing with them. The vines slung them sideways, then upward again, then sideways again, like Enya refused to let any single strand take too much weight. Each time they reached the peak of a swing, another vine caught them - a clean transfer, almost elegant - and the previous one released before it stretched too far.

It wasn’t random.

It was controlled chaos.

Raizen felt it in the rhythm. The timing. The way each catch came just before his momentum turned dangerous.

And despite himself... His fear started to shift. Because he understood the language of movement. The arc of a swing. The moment you could add force without breaking balance. The way you could ride momentum instead of fighting it.

It was the same logic as his prototype.

It felt... Alive.

Raizen stopped trying to brace against it. He let his shoulders loosen, let his hips follow the curve, let the vine do the work. He adjusted his grip, shifted his weight.

And the next time the vine flung him, he boosted the swing instinctively - a small kick at the right time, a twist of his torso, a pull that turned a wild ride into something he could at least predict.

He heard Enya cackle again.

"Ohohoo! You’re learning!"

Raizen didn’t answer. He didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. But his heart hammered with something that wasn’t panic anymore. It was exhilaration.

Hikari was quieter now. Not calm - not even close - but she stopped fighting it too. Her breaths came fast, her cheeks flushed, her eyes wide open. Every time she swung past Raizen, he caught a glimpse of her expression shifting between disbelief and excitement. She didn’t scream, but her smile betrayed her.

They kept rising higher.

The branches beneath them thinned into a blurred pattern of wet green and shadow. The glass dome where they’d been spying shrank behind them, swallowed by the canopy and distance.

Enya didn’t care. She kept snapping vines into existence like the air was hers to command.

They swung above the rooftops. Above the terraces. Above the academy’s outer, higher rings.

Raizen saw the ceremony crowd below - a moving river of white, still circling, still throwing petals, still carrying the empty coffin like a symbol the city refused to let go of.

Then the vines yanked them again and that river became a strip of white thread. Even higher.

Raizen finally felt a real edge of concern creep back in. This was getting ridiculous. This was getting... unsafe. He opened his mouth to yell at Enya... And that was when she dropped them.

...Completely.

The vine released. Raizen’s stomach slammed into his throat, and for one horrifying second he fell. Not a gentle dip, a straight plunge toward the ground.

Wind tore through his hair. Ukai rushed up at him so fast his brain refused to accept it. Hikari’s breath turned into a sharp, involuntary sound, while Raizen reached for anything - bark, vine, air –

But then another vine caught him - a fast wrap around his waist, a shock that turned freefall into a brutal swing. The momentum ripped his body sideways so hard his vision blurred completely for a few seconds. He gritted his teeth, pain flaring in his chest.

Then he felt Hikari’s vine catch too, heard the wet slap of a coil tightening around her, and his relief hit like a hammer.

Before he could breathe, Enya launched them upward.

Not a normal swing upward. Not like up until now.

Something like a slingshot.

A vine snapped taut and hurled them like stones.

The canopy vanished beneath him again.

He shot upward through rain and mist, weightless, stomach floating, the world shrinking into something unreal.

Hikari’s eyes went wide. This time she didn’t manage to completely hide her scream - a sharp burst of surprise that turned into laughter halfway through.

Enya appeared beside them. Not on a branch. Not even holding onto anything. She was flying too, launched by her own vines, hair and sleeves whipping in the wind, her entire face lit up with wild joy, and her mouth curved into another laugh.

Her arms spread wide as if she wanted to hug the air itself.

Raizen’s breath caught.

They were really high.

Higher than any branch.

Higher than any terrace.

Higher than Ukai’s tallest crown.

Raizen’s eyes widened.

They flew above the highest point of the tree-city, above the canopy that usually swallowed everything in green, and the world opened.

Time slowed for Raizen.

The entire world stretched beneath them like a living map.

Not the vague impression he’d seen from lower branches. Not glimpses through fog and leaves.

The full shape.

First, Ukai with its rings of platforms, spiraling terraces, sridges carved from living wood, the academy’s complex body. Then came the central trunk, immense and ancient, rising like a pillar holding everything together.

The ceremony crowd was still there - white dots moving in loops, a string of pale motion winding through streets that looked tiny from this height.

Beyond Ukai, the rainforest rolled outward in layers, dark green and lively, interrupted by clearings and cuts that looked like scars.

Then, he caught a glimpse of the grey strip of forest. The one Elin took life and power from. The one she emptied.

Beyond that, sat a shining sea, so large, Raizen couldn’t see where it ended. Its blue was pure, almost cyan-ish Above it, islands. Huge luminite crystals sticking out beneath them. Defying physics purely from their existence.

Behind him, the mountains rose in their usual white glory. From here, they looked different from what Raizen remembered. Taller. Sharper. Somehow, whiter.

Sadly, he couldn’t see too far, because of the rain and clouds.

The clouds. Raizen’s throat tightened as he looked up. Then he saw it.

The Eon field.