Transmigrated as an Extra: Awakening of The Ex‐Class'-Chapter 83 : Preparations for the School Festival Part 8

That thought... scared her.

Because it wasn’t her. Ivvy wasn’t like that. She didn’t want to be like that. Her mother had taught her forgiveness and compassion, and that’s why these feelings were new to her.

But the pain was so great, so absolute, that the lines between what was right and her hatred were beginning to blur.

"No... you can’t let this change you."

She hugged herself, her nails digging into the skin of her arms, trying to contain the trembling. She closed her eyes. She tried to remember her mother’s voice. The smell of the flowers when they first bloomed. The soft spring breeze on the rooftop. The gentle song of the petals opening at dawn.

But all of that was being overshadowed by an internal murmur. A voice that came directly to threaten her mentality, a broken part. That screamed: "Make her pay."

She stood up with difficulty, staggering through the charred remains of the plants. The entire garden looked like an open wound. Smoke descended on her eyes, yet she couldn’t cry anymore. There were no more tears, only an emptiness that would begin to rot if she didn’t fill it with something.

She walked through the ashes, touching the dust and burnt wood of what had once been her garden. Each touch tore a piece of her heart out.

"I’m sorry," she whispered, her voice breaking. "I couldn’t protect them..."

And guilt fell upon her like a slab.

Why didn’t she feel it sooner? Why didn’t she protect the only thing she loved? How could she let Amanda take everything from her?

She sat on the black ground, hunched over, as if trying to make herself small again. As if she believed shutting herself off from the world would be enough to prevent it from being destroyed.

The battle in her mind intensified.

A part of her still wanted to believe in goodness, in life, in the light that once sustained her. But another part... was pushing her toward the abyss. It told her that enough was enough. That suffering would always be with her. To accept its hand, and the power she needed for revenge would be hers.

"No... not yet," she thought.

She gritted her teeth tightly, her face covered in ash and dried tears. She knew she was on a dangerous brink. That one more step in the wrong direction... and there would be no turning back. And yet, a part of her, broken, wounded, wanted to cross it.

But then, beneath a slab of stone that had collapsed, she saw something.

A small green leaf.

Trembling. Fragile. But alive.

Her heart leaped.

Desperately, she crawled there and gently dug it out. It was one of her smallest flowers, a shy plant that had grown in the shadow of the larger ones. Somehow, it had survived. A single stem amidst the ruin.

Ivvy held it with both hands, her eyes brimming. And that was when she understood: there was still hope.

Pain, yes. Rage, yes. But also... possibility.

She couldn’t let Amanda win by destroying her from within.

She couldn’t let hatred turn her into just another shadow.

As she held that tiny life, tears overflowed like torrential rain, silent sobs.

***

Amanda was alone in her room, lying on a luxurious bed covered with velvet curtains. Despite the silence in the hallway, deep echoes resonated in her mind. The memory of the fire devouring the rooftop returned again and again like a twisting spiral. She didn’t need to see the scene to enjoy it. All she had to do was imagine Ivvy’s face, her broken expression, that look of utter loss... and a chill ran down her spine.

A crooked smile spread across her face.

"This is how it should be," she thought, stretching like a contented feline.

The room, dimly lit by the light from a crystal chandelier, was filled with a low, throaty laugh... but it wasn’t hers. There was something else. A voice lurking, but she couldn’t hear it with her ears, but with her soul. It had always been there, whispering, saying things that no one but her could hear. But that night, it felt more present than ever, stronger, more demanding. As if she were in ecstasy.

Amanda sat up slowly and walked directly to the small desk opposite her bed. She opened a drawer with fingers trembling with emotion and took out a small photograph, wrinkled from use. She held it between her fingers with a disturbing tenderness. The eyes that gazed at her from that image were cold, a deep, almost hypnotic shade of blue. His black hair framed a serene face, oblivious to the chaos he was causing. Cyan. The only man she truly desired. The one who didn’t bow to her charms, nor tremble at her threats. That... made him unique. Made him hers.

"You saw her too, didn’t you?" Amanda whispered, turning to the portrait. "That ash-covered pig. That useless woman pretending that pain made her special."

She clutched the photo to her chest, rubbing it against her skin, as if seeking to merge with it. Her breathing became more erratic. She lay down on the bed with slow movements, charged with an emotion that oscillated between the obsessive and the disturbing.

Her fingers caressed the image as if it were the most precious object in the world. Her eyes were open, but they didn’t see the ceiling. They saw scenes constructed in her mind, moments that never happened, but which to her were as real as the fire she had lit. Ecstasy mingled with madness. Desire, with a more sinister power that she no longer tried to hide.

Soft, muffled moans escaped her lips, while the silhouette in her shadow grew more pronounced, satisfied. In that closed room, Amanda wasn’t just another noble student. She was an abyss in the shape of a woman, reveling in the pain of others, nurturing something dark that had long claimed her as its own.

And in his mind, only one name repeated itself, over and over again, like an endless obsession:

«Cyan vesper.