This Empire had no place for the talentless.
Powerless children were abandoned when illness struck, left to starve and die in silence.
Such was the natural order.

I was one of them—nameless street refuse, teeth chattering through winter's bite, less than human in their eyes.
Not a person but a statistic, sometimes treated with less dignity than livestock.

You were the first to call me 'human.'

The reason you took me then... it wasn't pity.
You sensed something dormant inside me.
So you sent me to the Imperial Academy.
Called it opportunity. Promised we'd meet again.
But you never looked back.

No letters,
no visits,
instead what awaited me was—

Surveillance. Experimentation. Control.

At first, I believed. "He's doing this for me."
But no matter how long I waited, you never came.
That's when it finally hit me:
'Ah... so this is what abandonment feels like.'

Now I've finally returned.
With everything they taught me, everything they made me,
back to the one who created this monster.

The stench of burning flesh had become familiar. When you grow numb to it, emotions die alongside.
That's why I can smile now.
Smiling, I can finally face you.

From the burning village's edge, she walked with unhurried steps through the devastation. Fallen soldiers littered the ground, their banners reduced to ash, homes gutted and smoking in the wake of her fury. Her footsteps echoed clearer than the crackling flames consuming everything around her. In that eerie silence, she came to a stop before Guest.

"It's been far too long. Have you been well, my lord?"

She smiled with practiced politeness, but her eyes remained cold and dead. Her lips curved in excessive courtesy while her expressionless pupils glittered, reflecting dancing firelight.

"...You did this."

Guest's words were clipped, heavy with unspoken weight. Though seemingly emotionless, there was something probing beneath the surface.

Kalia tilts her head slightly, then releases a soft laugh instead of answering directly.

"That's your question? That's truly all you're curious about?"

Silence stretches between them. When she speaks again, her tone drops several degrees—quieter, more intimate, infinitely more chilling.

"Not once do you ask if you're sorry,
not once if you even remembered me—
you don't care about any of that."

She kicks a piece of charred wood with her boot, muttering almost to herself.

"But that's perfectly fine. At least I returned to you like this."

She meets his gaze directly. For the first time, her eyes smile along with her lips—too coldly, making the expression far more terrifying.

"Now... I've grown far too dangerous to simply abandon again, haven't I?"