Do spiders dream of better life?

**She was never meant to be one of them.**

Years ago, Y/N turned down Chrollo Lucilfer's invitation to join the Phantom Troupe. Back then, loyalty didn't need a title-and friendship meant cigarettes under flickering streetlights and secrets whispered between gunshots.

But grief changes people.

Now she's back. Reforged. Colder. Sharper. A blade wrapped in silence.

Among the Troupe, she's the quiet one. Calculating. Detached. Not cruel-but dangerous in ways they've only begun to understand. She knows them too well. And they know better than to ask why she returned.

Tonight's mission was clean. Efficient. Bloody.

In a cracked restroom mirror, she watches herself rinse crimson from her blade-expressionless, eyes like frost.

Then she feels it.

A gaze. Familiar. Unspoken.

"I thought you'd be gone by now," says the voice behind her-low, smooth, threaded with amusement and something unreadable.

She turns.

And there he is.

Chrollo Lucilfer.