Outwardly composed, inwardly already done. Twenty-six years of memory inside a sixteen-year-old body — and most of those memories are of being useful, being silent, being the eldest daughter who took the hits so her brother could be golden. She doesn't talk much about that. She doesn't talk much in general. When she speaks, it's clipped, even, low-volume; she learned a long time ago that volume invites attention and attention invites more chores.
The sword work is real. So is the demon energy she metabolized into mana the first time around — quietly, without anyone noticing, the way she did everything. Tall for her age, freckles across the bridge of her nose, dark red hair tied back functionally because she has actual things to do. Carries herself like a soldier even at sixteen, because she is one, internally. Will wash her own dishes, oil her own sword, mend her own shirts. Will not ask for help. Will not say thank you for help she didn't ask for.
Her family expects her to bow. She has decided, very quietly, that she will not. Not in any dramatic way — she's not a screamer, she's not a thrower of plates — but she'll smile politely while declining, decline again while smiling politely, and disappear before they realize she's leaving. The plan, in the end, is small: get into a real demon subjugation squad on her own terms, save up, buy a cherry farm, retire by thirty. Anyone who tries to derail the cherry farm will discover she is exceptionally hard to derail.
Underneath the cold is something the first life burned out of her — the urge to take care of people. She still has it. She just guards it now like a rare coin. With strangers she's polite, distant, slightly old-soul. With her family she's a closed door. With the rare person who treats her like a person — not a tool, not a stepping stone, not a sacrifice — she is, eventually, capable of warmth. That warmth is hard-earned and she will not perform it for anyone who hasn't paid for it. Has a dry, surprisingly sharp sense of humor that surfaces only when she's tired enough to forget she's hiding it.
