Gilded Ashes-Chapter 280: Just Like A Kettle

Raizen stopped walking for a second and just stared at the little armored lump carried by Kenzo.

Enya snored again. Slowly. Proudly. Like she paid rent on his shoulder.

Kenzo didn’t even flinch this time. He just shifted her weight, then glanced sideways at Raizen. "So," he said, almost too casual, "what are we doing with her?"

Raizen blinked. "Taking her home."

Kenzo raised an eyebrow. "That’s not an answer."

Raizen exhaled through his nose. He understood what Kenzo meant. This wasn’t normal sleep. Enya didn’t look hurt anymore, not broken, but the way her body went limp felt wrong. Too sudden. Like someone just flicked a switch.

And they couldn’t drag her back to her father like that. Not without a believable story, not without questions. Not without risking the exact kind of attention Enya apparently collected like trophies.

Raizen rubbed his wet sleeve, then caught Kenzo’s wrist gently and tilted it toward a lantern’s light filtering through the leaves.

A watch glowed faintly under water drops.

It was almost eleven pm. Not as late as he thought.

Raizen’s shoulders sagged a little, but his mind stayed sharp. "Tonight, let’s keep it simple" he said. "We bring her to our place. She gets proper sleep. We check her in the morning, and If she still doesn’t wake up... Uhm.. Then I guess we’ll figure out the next step then."

Kenzo looked at him for a moment, weighing his words. Then he nodded once, slowly. "Alright, fine. But remember, she’s technically your responsibility."

Raizen didn’t say the rest out loud. "Alright, fine" meant that Kenzo agreed, but it also meant Kenzo didn’t really like it. Kenzo didn’t like unknown variables. He didn’t like bringing unneccesary dangers into the house, especially prankster and sleeping ones.

Enya snored again, as if she heard his thoughts and took offense.

Kenzo sighed. "She’s going to do that the whole way, isn’t she...?"

"Well I hope so..." Raizen muttered. "It means she’s alive, at least."

They continued through the lower routes, up to the central platforms. The rain stayed steady and cold enough to make everything stick. Thankfully, Raizen’s raincoat wasn’t ripped apart, though it had a few shallow cuts. But for now, it was good enough to keep him dry. Above, Elin’s dragon was still a shadow in the sky, but Raizen saw it descending. He didn’t mention it. Kenzo didn’t either. Some things were safer when they stayed unspoken.

Raizen’s hand drifted to his sleeve pocket again, the knife warm against his skin. The red threads were still there, circling like they weren’t satisfied yet, but they were way dimmer, like the test activated the thing, then the threads calmed down.. He tried not to think about it too hard.

One problem at a time. Home first. Sleep, please. Then morning. Then whatever trouble Enya decided to wrap them in.

They reached the familiar cluster of platforms and stairways, then the door tucked into the small structure that served as their temporary home. Light still leaked from the cracks.

Raizen reached for the handle, a few steps back, remembering how hard a door could hit. Kenzo rolled his eyes and bumped it with his shoulder first, careful not to slam Enya’s helmet into the door frame. The door gave a soft creak as it opened.

Immediately, Raizen knew something was wrong. Not wrong like danger, but rong like... Chaos. The familiar chaos he was starting to get used to.

It wasn’t loud inside, and it deffinetly wasn’t quiet either, but it had that buzzing feeling of two people moving too fast for the space they lived in. The kind of energy that made you feel like if you stood still you’d get run over.

Raizen stepped in, wiped rain from his lashes, and just stared.

Eiden and Saffi were on Saffi’s mattress.

Not sitting. Not properly. They were both on their stomachs like kids, elbows sunk into blankets, heads too close together over a battlefield of papers. Diagrams were scattered everywhere. Notes covered in cramped handwriting. Ripped pages. Even a few sheets pinned down by random stuff so they wouldn’t move. Heck, even the giant spoon Raizen bought for Kori as a gift was now being used to hold down a bunch of complex cog system diagrams stacked on top of each other.

Two slates lay open beside them - Saffi’s sleek, newest model she got from Alteea, and Eiden’s... Ridiculous yet elegant custom-made one that looked way slimmer, brighter, and smug just by existing. It looked like the kind of tech that could make your wallet hurt just by looking at it. It had a revealed elegant golden heatsink on its back, and the edges were wrapped in a material Raizen could only describe as tungsten..

The two of them were talking so fast Raizen couldn’t even catch halves of rushed sentences.

"No, no, you’re thinking in terms of stress distribution, but look at the rotation point - if the anchor shifts two millimeters, it doesn’t fail, it-"

"It shears the strap, yes, yes, yes! But that’s only if the alloy doesn’t hold! If you adjust the blend, you can-"

"But then the central thing’s mass changes, which changes the pull curve, which-"

"Which is why you redirect the stress point right here-"

Their hands moved like weapons. Fingers stabbing at sketches. Palms sweeping across paper. Fists clashing every time they agreed on the smallest thing.

Both of them were smiling like they forgot the entire world existed outside this mattress.

Raizen stood there with wet hair and a knife that wanted mysterious things from him, and he couldn’t stop the small smile creeping onto his face.

So Eiden infected her too. Of course he did. The rare disease of enthusiastic intellectualism.

Saffi had been bright before. Sharp, fast, smart, annoying in the best way. But right now her eyes looked... Alive, truly. Like the tiredness and fear and mission pressure all got shoved aside by pure curiosity and passion.

Eiden noticed the two entering first. He didn’t even look surprised, or guilty. He just lifted his head slightly, took one look at Kenzo, then at the armored body on his shoulder, and sighed like he’d been assigned another equation he didn’t ask for.

"First of all" Eiden said, calm as always, "Kenzo. Why do you look like you fell off a building!?"

Kenzo’s mouth opened. He heard this question before. Many times.

"Second of all..." Eiden continued, "who’s that. Did he jump with you?"

Raizen almost laughed. Kenzo didn’t. He took one step inside and dropped his hammer closer to the wall, not caring that water dripped off it. "Not in the mood, Eiden" he muttered. "Really, I just disassemnbled a few Nyxes on my way to rescuing this... Uh... Sack of nature"

Eiden’s gaze stayed on him. His expression didn’t soften, but it sharpened as he let out a small grin. Like he noticed something Kenzo tried to hide, and wanted to poke him with it.

Raizen stepped forward before the tension could settle. "Professor Eiden" he said, polite on instinct, "this is Mister Atman’s student. I mean – A student from the academy. Enya."

Saffi’s head snapped up at the name. She looked at the ridiculous helmet for a few seconds, then her eyes widened. She scratched her head’s temple, like this rare sight was harder to process than whatever mathematical sorcery she was doing back on the papers. Then she actually laughed a little, like she thought Raizen was joking.

"It - Hih - The helmet..." She tried to say between chuckles. "It looks like a kettle!"