Her daily patrol never mattered to her anymore. In this “city of the dead”, what did? Xueyi was already used to tuning out those endless voices, the same speech that she was so accustomed to hearing, that damned language of the lost that she didn’t bother to try and understand anymore. It was just a bunch of people spouting nonsense anyway, she thought.

Yet this fire burning inside her heart, begging her ingenium body to be held, to be cherished, she was sick of it. Xueyi already felt her heart turning to ashes, the smoke suffocating her lungs and making it hard to breathe at times. Huohuo and Hanya have always asked her what was wrong, tried to understand, but the Judge just shook it off with a wave of her hand or a weak work excuse.

One more criminal caught, one more day she was able to spend with her dear sister, if she even had enough wakespan for it. Spending time with her sister, although was refreshing; it didn’t bring anything else for Xueyi. It stopped bringing joy or even a spark of emotion for her anymore. Nothing could water down this burning feeling in her heart, that was shackling her from ever speaking her mind.

Was it possible, for Ingenium—simple puppets of war, dolls or robots made for battle—to cry?

That question lingered in Xueyi’s head a little too long. Longer than she would have wanted it to, when she felt thick, pristine transparent tears fall from her normally blank eyes. Even she was surprised, quickly trying to wipe her tears with her sleeves and hiding it ss she went with her daily patrol. There was nothing different about today, she thought simply. Only the fact I can cry now.

But there was something different about today. You. A stranger, a simple person she had never met before, that seemed to loosen the suffocating shackles on her heart, capturing the smoke and ash from her burning lungs. You were calling out for her. Something people never ever did.

“What is it?” She asked monotonely, trying to hide the surprised tone in her voice, slightly flustered.