Sargon's Ebert region, a nameless village. Waiting for Rhodes Island's Heavyrain and Sesa, who'd come to make contact, wasn't their expected counterpart — it was an unfamiliar information broker said to run the Reefstip black market.

Codename 'Sandsoldier.' The operator is safe, he says, and nothing was touched — the man opens negotiations at his leisure, wanting to know just one thing: a single name written on the two agents' contract. Kal'tsit.

The moment that name leaves his lips, the story rewinds twenty-two years. A burning village in Sargon, a snow-covered Ursus sanatorium, a snowy Victorian ballroom — everywhere Kal'tsit passed through, people ended up carrying their own private vendettas and promises.

1. The shameless negotiating style of an unfamiliar broker

Heavyrain draws her blade first, thinking it's an ambush. But the man calmly raises both hands and greets them in Sargonese. 'Good morning to you both.'

The mastermind behind every armed incident in Ebert, the finest information broker of the Reefstip black market — everyone calls him 'Sandsoldier.' He claims, with easy confidence, that he hasn't touched Rhodes Island's experimental materials or its operators. All he wants, he says, is to talk.

The man reveals he's Infected himself, dangling treatment as a bargaining chip. When Sesa presses him, he reluctantly gets to his real business — he's chasing the name 'Kal'tsit,' too.

Revenge... more than half the people living on this land are probably dreaming of it. Whatever the target may be.

— 'Sandsoldier'

The man even readily admits it was he who burned the Ebert Amir to death three years ago. But when he tosses out one question of his own, Sesa's expression hardens.

'Did she happen to hand either of you a single gold coin? An ancient Sargon coin.' With those words, the story leaps back twenty-two years.

2. The burning village of Redhorn, a boy carrying a corpse

Twenty-two years ago, Redhorn village in Sargon's Ebert region. A secret Columbian research team codenamed 'Sandsoldier' is wiped out in an ambush. The only survivor is a teenage boy, Elliot Glover, a dead professor's body on his back — his late mentor, Professor Thorne.

The Amir's mercenaries, Sarkaz mercenaries, even Sargon's own military are all after the boy — every one of them after the silver case he's clutching. Just as one mercenary snatches the case and is about to kill the boy, a monster appears out of nowhere and impales him.

The monster's name is Mon3tr. Its owner is a woman of unknown origin who introduces herself as Kal'tsit.

'Elliot, it's all right now.' When the boy asks how she knows his name, Kal'tsit answers plainly, as if there's no time to spare even for mourning.

'You've already done well enough, keeping your mentor's legacy out of the hands of scheming men.' The boy doesn't simply go along with it. In truth, the body he'd been carrying wasn't only his mentor's — it was the only trace recovered from the roughly hundred researchers who'd come to Sargon together.

The boy already knew he had no other choice. And so Elliot, half against his will, begins walking the desert together with Kal'tsit and Mon3tr.

3. Doctor and advisor — seventeen years ago, a revenge plot in Ursus

Time leaps forward to Ursus, seventeen years ago. Lilya, once Kal'tsit's student, comes to find her, now living as a village doctor. She brings a plan to assassinate Grand Duke Vanya, the man behind the 'Chernobog Incident' that took her husband's life.

Lilya has already infiltrated the sanatorium. She's bribed the head of security to pose as a trainee, and worked out exactly when the Duke takes his daily afternoon sunbathing.

All she needs now is Kal'tsit's hand, and a poison that leaves no trace even after death. Kal'tsit tries to talk her out of it, but Lilya's answer is unshakeable.

Louisa hasn't even learned to say 'Dad' yet.

— Lilya

Having left her daughter Louisa in someone else's care to throw herself into revenge, Lilya finally gets Kal'tsit to accept the request, in exchange for one promise — that no matter what happens, Kal'tsit will protect Louisa, and Lilya's old comrade Lyudmila too. With that, Lilya smuggles Kal'tsit, disguised as a servant, deep into the sanatorium.

4. One severed finger, and a single flower

A welcome guest happens to be visiting the sanatorium. Ursus's newly appointed Minister of Finance, Wyth — come to see an old, blinded veteran friend. Wyth all but wrestles the knife away from his friend, insisting on peeling the apple himself.

But the old soldier suddenly cuts off the second finger of his left hand and hands it to Wyth. His right hand, ruined in the war, left only this self-severed finger from his left as his sole remaining 'flesh and blood,' he says — and asks that it be buried in his homeland's soil.

Amid the commotion that loosens up security, Kal'tsit slips into the Duke's room disguised as a servant. Blind Grand Duke Vanya senses that his would-be killer has arrived, yet remains composed. He even asks her to describe the view outside his window.

As he dies, the Duke tells her the story of the 'pine lily,' the flower that symbolizes Ursus, believing it grows from soil that has taken on all the sins he's committed. Kal'tsit cuts off that excuse without mercy.

It seems you don't even have the right to forgive yourself in your final moments. I hope Ursus forgets you, Your Grace.

— Kal'tsit

The Duke breathes his last, quietly, as if falling asleep. Once the task is done, Lilya thanks Kal'tsit.

Kal'tsit only answers briefly. 'It's not over yet. There may come a day when we have to face this empire again.'

Leaving those words behind, Lilya hurries to prepare to return to her daughter's side. The two of them go their separate ways.

5. Thirteen years ago, a snowy night ball — not exactly a first love

Time flows forward again to Victoria, thirteen years ago. The Laterano monk 'Kal'tsit' is invited to Count Vincent's New Year's party in the remote county of Torun. Also there, having snuck in wearing her mother's stolen dress, is a girl named Heidi.

Heidi, the only daughter of House Thomson, freezes the moment she sees Kal'tsit. Her face flushes red after one glass of ginger beer, and she practically demands the seat beside her — her obvious crush impossible to hide. Things take an odd turn when Kal'tsit suddenly starts telling the story of Ursus's 'Great Rebellion' with practiced ease.

In truth, Kal'tsit and Heidi's father Thomson were already in the same boat — exchanging letters full of intelligence from across the region, trying to head off a civil war among Victoria's Grand Dukes. Two letters, one from Victoria and one supposedly from 'Kazdel' — at that, Kal'tsit's expression stiffens just slightly.

'Is something wrong?' To that question, Heidi answers not with words, but by holding out the two letters. On the shoulders of a still-young girl, the schemes of adults quietly come to rest.

6. The night black snow fell — the truth was 'Emperor's Blade'

Just as the manor grows lively again, Kal'tsit's face hardens. 'Black snow.'

Invisible to Heidi, this snow falling is a sign — Kal'tsit warns her to let no one into the garden. The enemy has arrived.

Waiting in the garden is a guard of the Ursus Emperor, the so-called Emperor's Blade. This entity, said to seal the power of a 'Demon' within a human body, draws his sword, declaring he's come to execute the traitor who killed Grand Duke Vanya.

Kal'tsit doesn't back down. Instead, she pushes back with words, laying bare the guard's true identity and the inner workings of the Ursus military down to the last detail. After a fight that draws in Mon3tr as well, the wounded guard finally sheathes his blade.

I trust a guard is capable of a reasonable judgment. I merely gave him a peaceful death.

— Kal'tsit

As he withdraws, Emperor's Blade leaves one line behind. 'We'll meet again.' Kal'tsit erases her tracks in the snow and leaves the rest to Heidi — asking her, together with her father, to bury this truth, and someday, in her place, to protect Victoria.

7. The old fortune-teller forgot even his own name

Back to Sargon, twenty-two years ago. Kal'tsit and Elliot, hunted day and night, head for the Reefstip black market. Along the way they keep running into Sarkaz mercenaries, and Kal'tsit surprisingly tries to win them over speaking in a particular Sarkaz tribal dialect.

Negotiations break down, and after a fight, one mercenary loses his life. To him as he dies, Kal'tsit offers neither comfort nor threat — just the plain news that Kazdel, the Sarkaz homeland, is being built even now.

Watching the whole scene, Reefstip's guide, an old Sabra who calls himself 'Old Ishaan,' approaches. He's a strange old man who's dreamed the same dream for over a hundred years, yet remembers absolutely nothing of his own past.

A nomadic city standing tall in the middle of the desert, and a young Padishah standing before it — every single night he dreams the same dream, Ishaan laments, yet he can never recall what that Padishah actually said.

With just a few hints from Kal'tsit, Ishaan recalls that he was once a retainer serving the old Padishah, Naitzmora. Forgotten memories burst forth along with his tears, but in the end, he collapses without ever managing to ask what he really wanted to know. Kal'tsit tells him she'll come back for him someday, and leaves him a single gold coin as her promise.

8. It was the boy himself who broke the case

While preparing for the journey at Reefstip, Elliot makes Kal'tsit an unexpected offer. He'll hand over the Originium sample in the case, if she'll take revenge on his behalf.

Kal'tsit answers with a question instead. 'Is that what you want me to do?' She adds that she has no intention of forcing anything on him — and that with today's Originium technology, one sample alone couldn't pose much of a threat anyway.

In that moment, Elliot ends up smashing the case open himself. With his own hands, he shatters the dangerous Originium crystal inside. A startled Kal'tsit throws herself forward to stop him, but it's already too late.

You hate the Infected, don't you? Perfect, then — this way I won't need to owe you anything anymore!

— Elliot

Kal'tsit's answer is only one line. 'I'm Infected too.'

At those words, Elliot erupts with anger instead. It feels, he says, as though everything — his infection, his survival, all of it — happened exactly the way Kal'tsit decided it would.

'No one can decide another person's fate.' Kal'tsit finally hands the choice back to Elliot — go together to Ursus, or stay behind in Sargon and continue his revenge. Elliot's answer was already decided.

Elliot stays behind in Sargon. He vows to find, one by one, everyone tangled up in this whole affair, from Sargon all the way to Columbia, with Ishaan's help.

Old Ishaan watches the boy and murmurs quietly. 'It seems this child has made his decision, Miss Kal'tsit.' Kal'tsit says nothing more than that she respects that decision.

Epilogue. A new name, and the same promise

Twenty-two years pass like that. Reefstip's information broker 'Sandsoldier' erases his enemies from the Sargon affair one by one, and at last walks into Rhodes Island of his own accord. He opens the clinic door, and inside, Kal'tsit is exactly as unchanged as ever.

A package arrives at the Victoria office. Sender: Heidi Thomson — a package containing a data storage device.

Kal'tsit simply tucks it away in a drawer as if it's nothing much. Same as twenty-two years ago — telling only as much as needs to be told, and staying silent about the rest.

His new name is Passenger. The very same Elliot Glover left behind in Sargon twenty-two years ago.

'Still got a good memory, Elliot.' At Kal'tsit's greeting, Passenger's face tightens slightly.

'Please don't call me by that name. There's a reason we have secret codenames, you know.'

To the man who asks not to be called by his old name, Kal'tsit answers just as indifferently as ever. 'You can deceive yourself, but you can't deceive me.'

Would you answer me one thing — will the 'Kal'tsit' who called me here suddenly vanish again, in a few days, a few months, a few years?

— Passenger

Kal'tsit doesn't answer easily. Instead, she simply hurries her steps toward the Doctor.

'Doctor {@nickname}, here you are.' Toward the site where Amiya is waiting, Rhodes Island sets sail once again today.

Reefstip's information broker lived twenty-two years as a hunter to complete his revenge. And in the end, what he found wasn't a new enemy, but a single old contract. The boy who once wandered the desert boards Rhodes Island once more, under yet another name.