We explore the supercritical phase of the vertex-reinforced jump process (VRJP) and the $\mathbb{H}^{2|2}$-model on rooted regular trees. The VRJP is a random walk, which is more likely to jump to vertices on which it has previously spent a lot of time. The $\mathbb{H}^{2|2}$-model is a supersymmetric lattice spin model, originally introduced as a toy model for the Anderson transition. On infinite rooted regular trees, the VRJP undergoes a recurrence/transience transition controlled by an inverse temperature parameter $β> 0$. Approaching the critical point from the transient regime, $β\searrow β_{\mathrm{c}}$, we show that the expected total time spent at the starting vertex diverges as $\sim \exp(c/\sqrt{β- β_{\mathrm{c}}})$. Moreover, on large finite trees we show that the VRJP exhibits an additional intermediate regime for parameter values $β_{\mathrm{c}} < β< β_{\mathrm{c}}^{\mathrm{erg}}$. In this regime, despite being transient in infinite volume, the VRJP on finite trees spends an unusually long time at the starting vertex with high probability. We provide analogous results for correlation functions of the $\mathbb{H}^{2|2}$-model. Our proofs rely on the application of branching random walk methods to a horospherical marginal of the $\mathbb{H}^{2|2}$-model.