Chapter 112 Rebirth Of The Ice Phoenix | The Woman

--Present Day, June 30th, 2032: Head Mansion--

Evalyn woke up at 5 am the day after her confrontation with Haiden with a complex expression.

Kaze gave her the day off from training that day, so she stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, calmly letting her chest rise and fall.

"Why am I so obsessed with control?" She whispered pensively, looking at her hand and clenching it into a fist, "And how does that man find such an ugly trait desirable?"

He didn't mask his presence the night prior when she boldly demanded Haiden become loyal to [her] only and disregard the emperor if necessary.

The demand wasn't a slight against Kaze or his authority.

It felt as natural as breathing, rolling off her tongue and making her feel whole. As if she had done it for her entire life.

Yet once she exited her trance, she heard him and felt true fear wave through her. Only then did she realize what she had done.

Evalyn immediately ordered Haiden to cultivate silently, assessing her skill and listening to him simultaneously.

The quiet allowed her to hear the declaration he spoke that night.

--

"Evalyn Skye is who she always was, and there is nothing wrong with that.

There is no person in this plane or the next more beautiful. It's strange that I still feel that way after over five millennia."

--

Somehow her ugly display of obsession was endearing to him.

"Is he just a psychopath with horrifying fetishes and bad taste in women?" Evalyn asked in self-deprecation, "Or... am I focusing on the wrong thing?"

She had asked Haiden to be exclusively loyal to her and to challenge Kaze's authority if ordered.

That felt like treason. And yet--

"Despite declaring my lack of trust and challenging his authority, he didn't rebuke me." Evalyn whispered.

"He'll kill someone for a verbal insult, yet he treated my offense as if it were natural and desirable. That's not a fetish."

Her eyes glided to the left, and she thought deeply about it.

Evalyn's eyes widened abruptly. "Unless... Kaze has decisive trust in me.

I doubt he'd trust me with his life, but he trusts I'll do well and never betray him."

Confidence. Trust. Those were the common denominators in their relationship.

"Kaze gave me absolute authority at the party." Evalyn whispered with a beating heart, "He let me meet the Lockheed students after spending a week building trust with him without blinking.

He didn't ask me about my strategy or my actions.

I've been a naive woman who couldn't save my mother, yet he trusts me to make decisions for the faction?"

Evalyn's mind raced as she thought through past conversations, trying to find clues of why he would trust her despite not being the [Ice Phoenix].

"Wait, he handed me the task of building this faction after one half-hour meeting." She chuckled bitterly. "And here it is, lavish and decadent to his liking...."

A few seconds passed before--

"Trust isn't the point!" Evalyn laugh-scoffed in vexation, "Why the hell does he love me?

The new me or the old me?

Because I'm highly competent?"

After only a second, she growled in annoyance.

No! Of course not! Daniel was a competent business leader, but Kaze walked over him like he was an ant!

"Why!? Why would he love an exponentially more toxic version of me!?" Evalyn cried in annoyance, running her fingers through her hair.

"I've lost all interest in his charm and body, but now...."

The blonde shot up in her bed with a frustrated expression. Her hair was sticking out straight in five directions, proving that she needed to shampoo her hair after a week of training sessions.

She didn't care about her hair, however.

"I'm clinging to his attraction to my toxic, horrifying personality developments." Evalyn groaned, letting herself crash against her bed again, "If I didn't have that... I'd feel... broken."

Her eyes trembled, thinking about how disturbing her personality had shifted.

She had killed people en masse.

Manipulated them.

Made them submit to her.

Traumatized them.

She destroyed her body in training.

Let her mock fights take her to the edge of death.

Her first strategy in dealing with the Lockheed students was granting anyone who wanted to leave their wish.

Evalyn abandoned the idea because the action would be interpreted as murder, as Haiden and Regina didn't know what was on the other side of the walls.

It didn't occur to her that she was casually weighing the pros and cons of killing acquaintances she had known for almost two years until she rejected it!

Killing them felt logical and necessary--it stopped there. Hard stop.

Their relationship never factored into her strategy. It was horrifying!

"I hate myself; my thoughts, actions, and mindset disgust me and make me tainted." Evalyn muttered bitterly, "So how are you okay with me, Kaze?

Do you find we're compatible now that we're both mass murderers? Like a shared love for movies but an attraction to trauma and killing instead? Hah... what a joke!"

The blonde aggressively sat up again and ignored her hair sticking out of her head from multiple directions.

When a lock fell in front of her eyes, she blew it out of her eyes.

It was cute.

It was seriously cute.

Doing something cute after everything she had done made her feel sick.

She didn't deserve to be cute.

Is that a joke?

Good people have that right.

Bad people are just manipulating people with such heinously false mannerisms.

It made her feel like a psychopath, praying upon the masses.

Gross.

"Gah! Why can't I just feel cold and murderous?" Evalyn growled loudly in frustration, "Heh, I'm not even concerned if the maids will hear me.

It's almost desirable. Everyone would know that Evalyn, the murderer, is a murderer and fear her.

They wouldn't love her and call her beautiful! Say she'd be perfect if she smiled more!"

She threw the covers off her in protest, rolled out of bed, and walked over to the light switch.

After flipping it on, she looked down, and her eyebrow twitched.

She wasn't wearing a shirt or bra, as she found both of them unnecessary and uncomfortable while sleeping.

So her perfectly proportionate c-cup breasts with hard, mid-tone nipples were on proud display.

That didn't bother her.

Instead, below her breasts, she was wearing cute, silky pink panties with a small, cute bow that was tastefully discrete.

It was only slightly lighter than the color of the panties, and she was impressed by it. However--

"Heh. Even wearing pink panties like I'm secretly feminine behind my thick wall of toxicity seems disgusting now." Evalyn laughed murderously, "I guess black it is."

She stomped over to her drawer, where the maids stored her panties.

When she opened it, the corner of her mouth twitched aggressively.

Pink.

A wall of pink.

There were thirty pairs of pink panties in her size with different shades and styles.

Twenty were simple light pink cotton panties with fine details like bows or lace at the elastic mark.

They were all very desirable, similar to the one she was wearing.

However, the other ten were a mix-bag of pink and white stripes, pink polka dots, white polka dots on pink, hot pink lace, light pink flower lace, hot pink spanks, and other types.

The variety left her face twitching in frustration.

She glanced around one more time before--

"That fucking asshole!" Evalyn yelled unreservedly.

The blonde grabbed one of the pairs of panties to stretch and rip it, but a magnetic desire not to destroy something so cute and feminine prevented her from doing it.

"That man's a serious piece of work." She chuckled murderously, "How didn't I realize that Kaze stocked all of my clothing here?

Putting aside how creepy these clothes fit me, he didn't buy me a single pair of white or black underwear?

But he got spared no time or expense picking out pink pairs!? Is he proud of it!?"

The blonde didn't know how loud she was, so she didn't hear footsteps down the hall.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

Evalyn was startled by the sudden noise and that someone was listening to her mid-morning crisis. "... who is it?"

"Kaze Lexicon, I'm checking in to see if you need someone to yell at." A charming voice called out from the other side of the door.

Her eyes flashed with crazed murder. "Are you fucking stalking me with that sketchy spatial technique!?"

"Stalking you? Stalking you?" Kaze scoffed in pure disgust, "Are you mad, woman?

I could hear you screaming that a man was an asshole in my room over three hundred feet down the hall.

Don't accuse me of stalking you when your voice could wake the dead."

Evalyn's face heated up in severe frustration. She was at fault for accusing him of stalking when she was yelling....

However! His lack of stalking didn't change Kaze [stocking] her underwear with exclusively pink items!

"What do you want, Kaze?" She scoff-sighed in frustration.

"As I recall, I did say that I'm here in case you needed a man to vent your frustrations on." Kaze chuckled in amusement.

"So long as you don't accuse me of crimes, you can release all your grievances."

"Hoh? You're giving me permission?" Evalyn asked with crazed eyes, grabbing a massive handful of pink panties, stomping over to the door, and opening it violently, "Can you explain this, then?"

Kaze glanced at the ball of panties in Evalyn's hand, then suddenly glanced at her bare breasts before locking eyes with her.

"While I have no problem answering your question, I'd rather not block ice daggers because I didn't let you reassess this situation.

Evalyn looked down at the panties in her hand but met her bare breasts instead. Her face flushed bright red to the tip of her ears.

"Is everything okay, Mr. Lexicon?" Marilyn, the black-haired flight attendant, turned aid and asked from down the hall.

The secretary was concerned by the yelling and about the clothing she stocked.

Panicked, Evalyn grabbed Kaze with her left hand and pulled him into her room, shutting the door behind them.