The Author's Extra: My SSS Skill Turns Souls into Anything!

The ceiling of the infirmary was plain white.

Alden had been looking at it for long enough before shifting against the pillow, his body delivering a detailed and unwelcome report on everything that had happened to it in the last several hours. He filed the report. There wasn’t much he could do about it right now.

"How long was I out?"

"Long enough," Seris said.

He looked at her.

She sat beside the bed, hands folded neatly in her lap, wearing her usual mask of composure. But tonight, something shifted beneath it—a shadow that had taken root while he was unconscious and refused to leave.

He couldn’t name what it was, exactly.

"Is he gone?"

A pause.

"He’s gone."

Alden exhaled slowly. "Good."

He closed his eyes.

The infirmary was quiet enough that a clock somewhere across the room was audible. Soft light from the windows.

"You planned that from the beginning."

He kept his eyes closed.

"You figured it out?"

"Eventually." Seris shifted in her chair. "The condition you added before the fight — it wasn’t arbitrary."

He didn’t answer.

"You knew that if you kept refusing to fight back, he’d lose control. And once he did, the academy would have grounds to remove him." Her eyes moved over him. "You also understood that beating him wouldn’t actually solve anything. He’d still have his position. His authority. Everything he uses."

She paused.

"But suspended was different."

The clock ticked somewhere.

"You willingly let him beat you unconscious," she said. "Deliberately."

Alden opened his eyes. He looked at the ceiling.

Then slowly pushed himself up against the headboard.

Seris watched him carefully.

He could see it — the questions sitting behind her eyes. She was choosing which one to ask first, the way she always chose things, with more deliberation than the composure she projected would suggest.

"Why?" she said.

Alden looked at her. "Why what?"

"Why did you do any of this?" Her voice had come down quieter. "I never asked you to."

He stared at the far wall for a moment.

Then he shrugged.

"Honestly?" A pause. "I’m not entirely sure myself."

Seris frowned. "What does that mean?"

"I mean it." He looked at her. "When I saw you earlier, back when Augustus showed up in the corridor... you were trembling."

Her expression stilled.

"Barely. Almost nothing. If I hadn’t been standing right next to you, I wouldn’t have caught it." He rubbed the back of his neck. "But you were."

He looked down at the bandages on his arm.

"I’ve seen you deal with a lot of things without blinking. Someone draws a sword at you and you redirect it looking bored, sighing about it like it is a scheduling problem." He paused. "But with him, you looked uncomfortable."

Seris didn’t respond.

"And I remembered the other things I’d noticed between the two of you. The blank expression you wore when he walked away before the ceremony. The way you stepped forward to explain yourself the moment he appeared." He shook his head slowly. "I don’t know exactly what’s going on between you and Augustus. Maybe there’s something I’m missing. Maybe there’s context I don’t have. It’s not my business."

He let that sit for a moment.

"But watching him talk to you like you had no choice in any of it—" His eyebrows came together. "It just didn’t feel right."

Seris looked at her hands.

"So." He glanced at her sideways. "That’s what made me angry, I guess."

He gave a half-shrug that pulled at something sore and he ignored it.

"That’s the honest answer."

The clock kept ticking.

Seris was quiet long enough that the quiet became its own kind of conversation.

Then, very quietly:

"...You really are strange, Alden."

"How so?"

She looked at the bandages covering him, the swelling on his jaw, and the wrapped temple. "You went this far to give me some breathing room, but you let yourself get beaten unconscious for something that gives you nothing in return." Her voice had that careful quality again.

"Nothing at all." Alden listened. Then his expression shifted. "Hey, Seris. Want to see some magic?"

She stared at him.

"...What."

"Just say yes."

Her frown deepened. "We are in the middle of a serious conversation and you just—"

"Say it."

She pressed her lips together.

"Fine," she said, with the patience of someone who has made peace with certain things. "What is it?"

Alden smiled.

The notification materialized in his vision, gold text against nothing, floating there with complete indifference to the context.

[Sympathy EXP +30]

[Level Up!]

[ 52,971 +30 EXP: +53,001 / 53,000 Level: 32→ 33]

[Level: 33 — EXP: 53,001 / 59,000]

Black smoke seeped from his skin.

Seris’s eyes went wide.

The mist curled outward from his arms, shoulders, and chest, thin and purposeful, then sank back in. Wherever it touched, the bruising faded. The swelling at his jaw pulled back to nothing, and the soreness that had been sitting in every muscle since he hit the arena floor simply ceased to exist.

Within about thirty seconds, the battered person in the infirmary bed looked like someone who had slept well and had things to do.

Only the bandages remained.

Alden spread his arms slightly and gave her a look of moderate self-satisfaction.

"See? I’m totally fine now."

Seris stared at him.

"What did you just do."

"Remember my skill? Whenever I level up, the healing comes with it sometimes." He said it like it was a feature of mild interest. "I’ll keep the bandages on for a while — if I walked out of here looking perfect after what happened last night, people would ask questions."

A flash of surprise crossed Seris’s face before she spoke.

"Just like I always think," she said at last, with the precise tone of someone who has officially given up on being surprised, "you’re completely unpredictable. Every time I think I understand something about you—"

"—I do something strange?" Alden supplied.

"Yes."

"That’s because I’m complicated."

"Don’t get ahead of yourself."

His grin softened into something quieter as his eyes met hers.

"At least now you can breathe a little easier until you graduate." He paused. "One more year, right?"

Seris nodded, quiet.

"Good." He pointed at her. "But don’t misunderstand."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Just because I did this doesn’t mean I’m suddenly on your side." His expression stayed easy but his eyes were direct. "You’re still a vampire. Your father still has plans I intend to take apart. And you’re still—" he waved a hand— "a villain, more or less."

Seris looked at him.

"So keep that in mind." He leaned back against the headboard. "I’ll be watching you. Don’t start thinking this changes our arrangement."

She was quiet for a moment. Then the corner of her mouth moved.

It wasn’t her usual teasing smile, or the quiet smirk she wore right before backing him into a corner. It was something smaller—a expression with no performance attached to it.

Alden noticed immediately.

"What’s that expression—"

Seris stood from the chair.

She crossed the small gap to the bedside, and before Alden could finish his sentence, her arms were around his neck.

He went completely still.

The warmth was real. There was no hesitation in her warmth, only the steady resolve of someone acting without a second thought. She pulled him close, resting her cheek lightly against his head.

Alden’s hands stayed suspended on either side of him.

He stayed completely still, neither pulling away nor saying a word.

Something warm had reached his face without his permission and he was very aware of it and there was nothing he could do about it.

Seris’s voice came out low.

"Thank you."

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