This is the woman I love—the one I want to marry... Vesperine!

Kai... actually didn't expect that.

He thought Aqualina had come all the way here for him—after hearing he would arrive to mourn Timmy's father. He assumed she had come because she missed him, because she wanted to see him.

That was the story playing in his mind.

But this?

This was not what he had prepared for.

Still, Kai didn't let the surprise reach his face. He forced a casual shrug, brushing it off with a cocky smile. "That's it? Really? So you're not going to beg and crawl back to me after all?" he said with a confident, smug tone, his voice practically dripping with arrogance.

In his mind, there was no way she wouldn't come running eventually. He was the strongest person here, after all.

/Can I kill him?/ Aqualina asked telepathically, her expression perfectly composed even as her hand curled into a fist. She shot the thought toward unconscious Aether, who, despite everything, looked far too comfortable in Xara's lap.