Extra is the Heir of Life and Death

I sat there for a while after the silence stretched between us, my head still pounding faintly from the argument. The air around me felt heavy, as if the shadows themselves were listening in on our conversation.

Bastard's voice still lingered in the back of my skull faint, quiet, but unmistakably there. Like a heartbeat that wasn't mine.

'You said you found a fix,' I finally said, my tone sharper than I intended. 'What did you mean by that?'

There was a pause. A deep, deliberate kind of silence, the kind Bastard always used when he was deciding how much truth to hand me.

Then, finally, he spoke.

{It's simple. I'm going to take the nightmares you've been having, all of them, and force them to change their destination.}

I frowned, my fingers drumming against my thigh. 'Destination?'

{Yes. Instead of haunting you, they'll come to me.}

For a second, I thought I'd misheard him. 'You're serious?'

{Completely. I'll drag them into my consciousness and keep them there. That way, your mind won't collapse under them. The corruption that's been festering in your emotions and mind will die out naturally.}

I stared at the ceiling for a moment, watching faint streaks of light dance across it. My thoughts slowed. He'd take them?

All of them, the nightmares, the horror, the screaming memories that never left me alone.

'And what about my emotions?' I asked quietly. 'They're… a mess. You saw what happened.'

{Sacha will handle that.}

I blinked. 'Sacha?'

{She's already helping you. That's why she wasn't there when you were… slipping. She's been inside your mind field, regulating it, trying to dull the feedback from the locks.}

I let out a small breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. So that's why she wasn't there.

'She was helping me,' I muttered, almost to myself.

My own daughter was helping me fix my problems while I was acting like a pathetic bastard. How disappointing.

{She still is.}

His voice had softened, barely, but I caught it. For a being as caustic as Bastard, that small drop in tone said more than any apology could.

Silence stretched again, filled only by the faint hum of the mental link between us. I wanted to ask him if he was sure. If this plan wouldn't hurt him, or worse. If he even had a limit to what he could handle.

But I didn't.

Because the moment I thought it, I could feel his conviction. It radiated through the link like a quiet inferno, unshakable, absolute. Bastard didn't do "maybe." He didn't try things. He decided. And once he did, there was no stopping him.

If I asked him whether he was sure, he'd probably mock me for wasting breath. And maybe… I deserved it.

So I pushed down the concern bubbling in my chest. It was useless anyway. Concern didn't change anything. It wouldn't help him. It wouldn't fix me.

I sighed and closed my eyes, running a hand through my hair. 'Alright,' I said quietly. 'Do it.'

The words left my mouth heavier than I expected. Not defiance, not surrender, just a simple truth.

'I trust you.'

For a second, the link pulsed. A flicker of warmth rippled through my mind, faint but real. Bastard didn't reply right away, and I thought maybe he was processing that for once, not with a snarky comment or a jab, but silence.

Then, finally, he spoke again.

{Good. Then let's begin.}

His voice was steady, calm, and certain. The kind of calm that came from something unshakable inside him, a conviction carved out of something far stronger than logic.

And I wasn't about to ruin that. Not with my hesitation. Not with something as useless as concern.

I took a slow breath, let the tension drain out of my shoulders, and waited for whatever came next.

I stayed sitting on the bed long after Bastard said those two words.

{Let's begin.}

Nothing happened at first. The room was still silent. I sat there, hands resting loosely on my knees, staring at the faint cracks in the ceiling as if they held the answers. The sunlight filtering through the curtains shifted slowly across the floor, dragging shadows with it. Time felt strange, slippery, almost weightless.

I waited.

A minute passed. Then ten. Then what felt like an hour.

Still nothing.

No burning pain, no mental surge, no voice in my head chanting nonsense. Just the same quiet hum of my breathing and the faint sound of wind outside.

Then, at last, Bastard's voice broke through the silence.

{It's done.}

That was all he said.

I blinked once. Then twice. 'That's it?'

{Yes, that's it. You were expecting fireworks? Trumpets? A choir of angels singing my name?}

'You didn't even do anything,' I muttered.

{Shows what you know.}

I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck. Everything inside me felt… normal. The same dull emptiness as before, the same quiet hum of energy in my veins, the same faint ache in my head. Nothing had changed. No difference at all.

If Bastard hadn't told me he'd done it, I wouldn't have believed anything happened.

Still, I forced myself to trust him.

Because, despite everything, his attitude, his arrogance, his endless sarcasm, Bastard didn't lie, well... not about things that mattered.

So I sat there a little longer, feeling the weight of my own heartbeat settle back into rhythm.

Then, just as I started to relax, his voice came again loud, smug, and unmistakably him.

{Well, it's been a pleasure, really. I'm sure you'll miss hearing the great me whispering words of wisdom into your fragile little mind.}

I groaned. 'You're unbelievable.'

{Unbelievably magnificent, yes. But let's not dwell on that—you might start crying.}

I rolled my eyes, even though there was no one to see it. 'You're not actually leaving, are you?'

There was a long pause. Too long.

Then, with a voice that sounded almost amused, he said,

{You won't be hearing from me for a while, Sebastian. Try not to lose your mind without me. Literally.}

Before I could respond, I felt it, an odd pull somewhere deep inside my skull, like a thread being yanked loose. The mental link between us trembled, flickering faintly like a candle about to go out.

'Bastard?' I called, frowning.

No reply.

Then, all at once, the thread snapped.

The familiar weight of his presence vanished, leaving only silence behind. No snarky remarks. No arrogant laughter. Just… nothing.

The room suddenly felt too big, too quiet.

I exhaled slowly and leaned back against the wall, staring blankly at the floor.

'Yeah,' I muttered under my breath. 'Sure. I'll try.'

But even as I said it, the silence pressed harder around me, cold and heavy—like the world had lost a voice that, somehow, I'd gotten used to hearing.

I lay back down on the bed, the mattress dipping slightly under my weight. My mind felt… blank. Not calm just... empty.

Like all the noise had finally drained out of me, leaving nothing but silence and the faint echo of thoughts I couldn't quite reach.

I stared at the ceiling for a long while, eyes half-open, the dim light tracing across the cracks in the plaster.

There was a certain hollowness in my chest, the kind that didn't hurt, but still managed to ache. My eyes felt heavy, my body heavier.

With a soft exhale, I pulled the blanket around myself, curling slightly on my side. Maybe, if I just closed my eyes, sleep would come. Maybe, for once, my head would be quiet.

The room was still.

Then—

A faint shimmer of light broke through the air above me. A swirl of blue mist gathered from nothing, rippling softly like breath on glass. It twisted and folded in on itself, glowing faintly against the dark ceiling before taking shape.

My lips curved into a small smile even before I saw her clearly.

The mist parted, and from it stepped a small tiger cub, white as fresh snow, her fur lined with thin, glowing veins of icy blue that pulsed gently like living frost. Her eyes, sharp and bright, shimmered like pieces of frozen sky, curious and unmistakably warm.

She landed lightly on my chest, her weight soft but grounding, her little paws cold against the fabric of my shirt.

"Welcome back, Sacha," I said quietly, the smile in my voice barely there but real.

Her ears twitched, and she leaned forward, pressing her tiny nose against my chin.

{It's good to be back, Papa.}

The warmth in her voice, even if it was only in my head, melted something inside me I didn't know was still frozen.

I let out a tired, quiet laugh, the first genuine sound I'd made all day, and rested a hand gently on her back. Her fur was cool to the touch, almost soothing. The faint glow from her markings painted pale blue streaks across my blanket, the soft light dancing in the quiet dark.

"Yeah," I whispered, eyes drifting shut again. "It's good to have you back too."

For the first time in what felt like forever, the silence didn't feel so heavy.