The Extra's Rise-Chapter 96: New Year’s Party IV

'Ha, she's making me use my head,' I thought, rubbing the back of my neck as my mind wandered to Cecilia. It wasn't exactly comfortable, this new version of her. She'd always been an annoyance, sure, but she'd never outright tried to crush me. That was the thing—if she had wanted to, it would've been laughably easy for her.

Back before my contract with Luna, before I scraped my way to high Silver-rank and unlocked the potential of Lucent Harmony, I was, objectively speaking, nothing. No connections, no influence, no power beyond a desperate ambition and whatever scraps of strategy I could muster. Cecilia Slatemark, with her towering influence and an arsenal of cunning that made my tactical maneuvers look like child's play, could have squashed me like an ant.

But she didn't. Not once.

And I'd been puzzling over that for longer than I cared to admit.

Was it disinterest? Amusement? Or something else entirely? The pieces weren't fitting neatly together, not the way I liked them to. It was maddening.

Then again, there had been one moment like this in the novel...

I paused, the memory creeping in like an uninvited guest. A brief mention, barely explored. Could that be it?

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'Is that possible?' I thought, the mental cogs clicking in a way that left me both intrigued and unsettled.

I sighed, shaking my head as if to clear it. "Whatever," I muttered.

Before I could descend any further into the labyrinth of speculation, the door to the balcony slid open. Someone walked past me with a grace so fluid it was almost disconcerting. A faint, sweet scent—honey and something sharper, like frost—drifted into the air.

She didn't stop until she was leaning against the balcony railing, her silver hair catching the glow of the anti-gravity lanterns like strands of moonlight.

"Arthur," Seraphina said simply.

"Seraphina," I replied, straightening slightly. Her presence always demanded a certain level of composure, though I never quite knew why.

For a moment, the silence stretched. Seraphina wasn't the type to fill empty space with unnecessary chatter, and it was clear she wasn't in a rush to explain her sudden appearance. Instead, her ice-blue eyes lingered on the horizon, thoughtful.

"You know," she began, her voice as calm as ever, "Cecilia has deflected quite a few nasty rumors about you."

"Rumors?" I echoed, my brows knitting together.

"Oh, you know the sort," she said with a faint shrug, tucking a strand of silver hair behind her ear. "Whispers that you cheat in tactics, that you rely on underhanded illusions to fool exam proctors. Baseless, of course, but people are quick to believe anything if it gives them an excuse to tear someone down. And Cecilia—well, she crushed them before they could even reach your ears."

That threw me. I blinked at her, processing the words as if they were written in some foreign language. "Why?"

"She herself probably doesn't know," Seraphina replied, her tone betraying no judgment, only observation. "Or at least... didn't."

My eyes narrowed slightly, studying her as if the answer to this riddle might be hidden somewhere in her serene expression. "What are you suggesting?"

Seraphina sighed softly, as if I'd asked a question she didn't particularly want to answer. "Don't look at me like that," she said, her voice carrying the faintest trace of exasperation. "Even I am lost in this web we find ourselves in. I'm only commenting because... well, perhaps you might be able to offer her a path out."

Her words landed like a stone in the pit of my stomach. A path out. Out of what, exactly? The games she played? The labyrinthine strategies that defined her very existence? Or something deeper, something even Cecilia herself might not fully understand?

I opened my mouth to respond, but no words came. Seraphina, as usual, had managed to leave me more unsettled than I'd been before she arrived. She didn't wait for a reply, simply turning her gaze back to the glowing garden below.

And for the second time that night, I found myself staring at a girl I thought I understood, only to realize I didn't understand her at all. Seraphina, the silver-haired enigma wrapped in calm precision, had once again thrown me into the deep end without so much as a warning.

She sighed, the kind of sigh that made you feel like you'd just failed a very important test you hadn't realized you were taking. Her violet eyes, typically serene and detached, now brimmed with something else entirely. Disappointment. That stung far more than I cared to admit.

She raised her slender fingers to her forehead, pinching the bridge of her nose as if she were trying to ward off a particularly persistent headache. "Arthur," she began, her voice steady but with an edge that hinted she was holding back much more than she was saying. "I don't know what it is, but whatever you're thinking right now... well, it's rubbish. Utterly dreadful. Change it."

I blinked, caught entirely off guard. "Excuse me?"

Her gaze snapped to me, sharper now, like the edge of a blade honed to perfection. "You heard me. Trash. Garbage. Whatever synonym you prefer. It's clogging your head, and frankly, it's painful to witness."

"I—" I started, but she didn't let me finish.

"Stop," she interrupted, raising a hand as if to physically block the feeble excuses forming in my throat. "You're overthinking everything, aren't you? Trying to categorize people, fit them into neat little boxes so they make sense. That's what you're doing right now, isn't it?"

"I wasn't—"

She tilted her head, and the sheer weight of her unimpressed expression made my words die in my throat. "Let me guess," she continued, her tone impossibly calm but somehow more cutting than any shout. "You're thinking, 'Cecilia is this, Seraphina is that, Rachel fits here, Lucifer fits there.' You're trying to assemble a puzzle that doesn't exist because you think it'll give you control over a situation you don't understand."

That hit uncomfortably close to home. I opened my mouth again, but Seraphina just shook her head, silver strands of hair catching the faint glow of the garden below.

"And that," she said, stepping closer, her words dropping like hammers, "is exactly what makes you like Lucifer right now."

My eyes widened as if she'd slapped me. "I'm—what?"

"Like Lucifer," she repeated, her voice steady but her gaze piercing. "You think you can control the world, manipulate it to fit your understanding, just like he does. The same single-minded determination, the same arrogance in thinking that everyone around you is a piece to be placed. It's infuriating."

Her words hit like a cold wave, and for a moment, I felt the ground beneath me wobble. I had spent so long thinking of Lucifer as an opposite—someone I had to surpass, someone whose methods I would never emulate. And yet here she was, telling me I'd been walking the same path, albeit in a subtler, quieter way.

"I..." I began, struggling to form a coherent response, but the disappointment in her expression cut through me again, sharp as a knife.

Seraphina stepped past me, her movements quiet yet deliberate, like a breeze that carried the faint sting of frost. As she walked by, she paused just long enough to glance over her shoulder. Her face was as composed as ever, but there was something in her eyes—something that spoke of expectations unmet and a hint of frustration she wasn't used to showing.

"Figure it out, Arthur," she said, her voice softer now, almost like a whisper. "Because if you don't... well, you'll just end up like him. And I don't think you want that."

And then she was gone, her footsteps disappearing into the muted hum of the party beyond the balcony door. I stood there, the silence pressing down on me like the weight of her words.

'I was like... Lucifer?' The thought echoed in my mind, unwelcome and insistent. Of all the things Seraphina could have said, this was the last I'd expected. And yet, as much as I wanted to dismiss it, I couldn't. Because deep down, I knew there was truth in her words.

And truth, like her disappointment, was something I wasn't ready to face just yet.