This Extra Hates Bad Endings Chapter 37: Oddity

I found myself standing in the ruins of a palace.

It was burning.

It was also freezing.

Great marble halls stretched endlessly around , their once pristine floors fractured and split open, veins of molten fire glowing beneath the cracks. Above, the ceilings were broken and collapsing, massive slabs hanging precariously as flas licked upward in slow, wavering motions, as if even the fire itself was struggling to exist properly here.

Layered over the inferno was ice.

Frost clung to shattered pillars, creeping up them in crystalline veins that glimred faintly blue against scorched stone. Ice webbed across blackened walls, spreading unnaturally fast, as if trying to reclaim everything the flas touched. The snow drifted lazily through the air, soft and weightless, lting into steam before it could ever reach the ground.

Fire and ice coexisted in defiance of all reason. Neither winning nor yielding.

Figures moved through the palace, blurry silhouettes rushing past fallen columns, clashing steel against steel, bodies stumbling and collapsing onto the frozen marble.

None of them reacted.

None of them even noticed .

They could not see .

I should have been afraid.

I should have panicked.

Instead, I was calm.

Unnaturally so.

As I stood there, mories surfaced uninvited and vivid. The sea of flowers. The golden glow. The coffin at the altar within was my own face staring back at . The blood-curdling scream. The way the world had glitched, collapsed, and died at my touch.

What disturbed most was not the mory itself.

It was the fact that rembering all of it did not shake .

At the center of the great hall, beneath a fractured do where embers and snow fell together, a fierce fight was unfolding.

The sa boy stood there.

No, he was not a boy anymore.

He was a teen now, his figure taller, broader, closer to my own. He stood with his back half turned toward , posture tense, movents precise and controlled, like soone who had fought this battle more tis than he could rember.

In his hands was a massive scythe.

The sa weapon that had decapitated before.

Across from him stood a figure whom I could only assu was a king, a figure draped in a long, flowing cape, its edges frozen stiff and scorched black. A crown sat crookedly atop his head, cracked and dulled. He wielded a spear, its tip crackling faintly with frost, ice crawling along the shaft each ti he tightened his grip.

His movents were sharp, but it was obvious what was happening.

He was losing.

The scythe moved with terrifying grace, its wide arcs tearing through the air itself. Each swing warped space around it, freezing fire mid-flicker and shattering ice into static-like fragnts that vanished before hitting the floor. Every clash sent shockwaves rippling through the hall.

Off to the side, sothing else moved.

A teen lady.

She crawled across the broken marble tile, dragging herself forward with trembling strength. Her long hair trailed behind her, matted with soot and frost. One of her arms was gone, torn away completely. She had sealed the jagged stump with hastily ford ice, frost crystallized thickly around the wound to stop the bleeding.

Where her arm should have been was only jagged crystal and blood that refused to fall, suspended unnaturally before evaporating into mist.

Her mouth was open wide.

At first, no sound ca out.

Her screams were silent, eyes stretched wide in terror and desperation, face contorted as she tried to call out.

Then her voice returned all at once.

"Please.... I can still fix this...No. No. NOOOO!!!!"

Her plea echoed through the hall.

The boy turned.

Just for a mont.

He hesitated.

The king saw the opening and took full advantage of it.

He lunged.

The spear slashed across the boy’s head, too fast to react to. Blood sprayed in a thin arc as part of his ear was sliced clean off, dissolving into glittering frost.

The boy did not scream.

Instead, the scythe twisted in his hands.

tal groaned and folded in on itself, reshaping mid-motion. The curved blade straightened, and the shaft was shortened. The weapon beca a sword.

And without hesitation, the boy drove it straight through the king’s chest.

The crowned figure froze.

His cape fluttered once, then stilled. His crown slipped from his head, striking the ground with a sound that echoed far longer than it should have.

The girl scread again.

This ti, it shattered the air.

She slamd her remaining hand into the ground.

Crystal erupted outward violently, jagged and uncontrolled, racing up her body. It wrapped around her missing limb, constructing a crude spear-like arm, edges serrated, glowing faintly blue with unstable energy.

The marble floor beneath her exploded.

She launched herself forward at a terrifying speed, body screaming through the air, crystal arm drawn back to strike.

Sothing inside snapped.

The sa jolt.

The sa pull.

Before I even realized what I was doing, my feet were moving.

Just like before, my body no longer felt like my own.

I was running.

Desperately.

My feet pounded against the marble, frost shattering beneath each step. I reached the boy just as he was pulling the blade free from the king’s chest.

I grabbed his coat.

Yanked him backward with everything I had.

He staggered, dragged off balance, forced away from the dying king-

But the girl did not stop.

She could not stop.

I turned.

But I was too slow.

The crystal arm tore through my torso and burst out of my back in a spray of ice and blood. The impact lifted off my feet, my lungs emptying in a soundless gasp as the world snapped out of alignnt.

For a fraction of a second, everything ceased to exist for .

Then...

"K̷̛͉͓͚͙͕͛̿̒͝R̵͚̪̙̲͐̔̿̇̈́ͅR̴̨͖̩̻̍̈́̾̾͠Ḁ̸̠̳̬̒̇͌̐͠A̷̛͓͙͖̩͂͐̇͆A̸͕͎͕͍̋͊̕͠Ä̷̛͇̮͓͎́̎͝A̷͉̟͛̒̏͘ͅA̷̖̤͔̅͂̄Ā̸̛͇̘̈́̐A̸̝̠͗̓͠A̵͖̻̬͋͑̐H̵̛͍͕̰̐̓H̵̬̻̗̄͂̿̇Ḧ̷̛̠̯̲́̿H̴̫̩̯͗̅̽H̷̛̼̙̠̿͆!̸̬͉͍̾̐͝!̷͕̿̒!̷͍̟̈́͌!̷̬̄̕!̴͕͗͠!̸͎͗̎"

Another blood-curdling scream jolted in place.

It echoed again and again, layering over itself, scraping against frozen fire and shattered stone until it beca unbearable. With its sound warped, the palace seed to recoil from it.

The boy scread.

A raw, gut-tearing scream that shook his entire body.

At the sa ti, the girl scread too.

Both of them convulsed violently, bodies locking and spasming as if sothing unseen had sunk its claws into their nerves and twisted hard.

The crystal arm was still lodged straight through my torso. Frost crawled outward from the wound, spreading through my chest, my ribs, my spine. Every breath scraped like broken glass.

I was in pain.

Pain so vast it swallowed thought, and yet the girl scread as if what she was experiencing eclipsed even that.

I forced my hands against the crystal embedded in .

My fingers slipped in blood.

I scread as I wrenched myself free.

The pain detonated all at once.

I crashed onto the ground, the impact knocking the last air from my lungs as blood poured freely beneath . The crystal clattered away across the frost-covered stone, breaking apart into shards of light that flickered and vanished.

I coughed.

Blood splashed across the ice.

"No..." I choked, my voice barely a sound.

I dragged myself forward.

My arms shook violently. My nails scraped uselessly against the floor as I crawled toward him, leaving streaks of red across frost and ash.

Then his body began to break.

His form glitched violently.

He split into flickering copies of himself, overlapping, desynced, tearing apart, and snapping back together as if reality could not decide which version was real.

Then his body shriveled.

Right in front of , his flesh dried and collapsed inward. Skin tightened against bone, cracking audibly as it overtook what remained. His fra turned brittle.

And then it fractured and collapsed into dust.

Gray.

Lifeless.

Just like before.

Just like the flowers.

My breath was shattered completely.

"No... no, no, no, no. Not again."

My voice broke apart as I clawed at what remained, trying to gather him, trying to hold him, trying to save him, trying to do anything that mattered.

But my hands dug only into fine gray dust.

It poured through my fingers like sand.

The more I touched it, the less there was.

I coughed again, blood burning my throat as it spilled freely onto the floor.

"Nooooo!" I scread hoarsely. "Not like this. Not again. How many tis? How many tis do I have to watch this?"

My vision blurred, the palace folding inward at the edges.

"How should I..." I gasped. "How can I... how should I save you?"

Fire froze in place.

Ice shattered into nothing.

Sound stretched thin and tore apart.

"Matt!"

A voice cut through the void.

"Matt!!"

Hands grabbed my shoulders, solid and real.

"Matt!! Are you okay??"

I jolted awake with a strangled gasp, heart pounding violently as I sucked in air, drenched in sweat.

Soone was leaning over , face pale with worry.

"Matt!! Matt!! Are you okay??" Nagi worriedly asked.

The echo of that scream still rang in my ears.