[Pride]

The loud grunts of the wolf filled the dark room. Hunched over, cracked visor on his eyes, as he reached the body of the weasel on the floor. 

An open med kit lied beside him, its implements and supplies scrambled all over the floor, getting dyed by the weasel's blood on the floor. The wolf's grunts grew few in between, replaced by sad weeps, that he tried to contain without much of a result.

His bloody clumsy hands, guided only by touch, trembled as he tried to apply some bandages that were soon overflowed by blood. Zalu's weeps grew deeper, tears overflowing his face covered in blood. He reached once again to the weasel's hand, sliced cleanly at the middle of his forearm, fingers locked in the position as if he was holding something. Zalu continued to touch the edge of the cut as he looked for something on the ground, reaching for a suture kit.

"Hey." 

Zalu directed his face towards the voice. "I... Yue taught me, I have to try! I can't let you lose your hand just like...!"

"It's okay. Just... I think that I bit more than I could chew." He said weakly, his purple eyes half-closed looking at the scrawny wolf crying over his sliced hand. "I can call someone over to get it re-attached, don't worry about it, Zalu. Just... I think I'm going to need a good chunk of painkillers for the next few days." He said with a weak grin.

Zalu continued to cry, clenching his teeth. "Why... What was your purpose with all of this! Why did you take off my visor if you knew it was dangerous! Why bring me here! I don't see Yue yet! WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME, MR. APOLLINARIS! I have nothing of your interest! I have nothing that I can give you apart from pain and death! That's all that I've ever been able to give to others!" He grunted weakly, his hands still holding Apollinaris' hand. "Just... Just why would anyone get involved with me... Just leave me locked down and alone... This is the only fate I can accept for myself." He wept once again, wrapping his fingers around Apollinaris' sliced hand.

Apollinaris looked at him, and reached at his face, holding it softly from the jaw, looking at his eyes through the visor. He felt his cold tears, and he smiled. 

"And that's exactly what I cannot accept." He said with a weak smile. His wound kept him from showing his usual charming and cunning self. And in this fragile state, he seemed to have put all his masks aside for a second. "While you've proved to be a case much harder than I had intended... I can see now that you're not only being oppressed by rules and orders from the higher-ups, but rather from your own nature."

"W-What are you even talking about! Oppression? This is how I was born! This is my curse and I accept it, and everyone else is willing to help me to carry it until the day I finally die! The day when nobody has to carry my weight anymore!" Shouted Zalu exhausted.

"...Do you enjoy this? Are you happy like this?" Asked Apollinaris, caressing his fur.

"...Of course I do. I mean, I have a girlfriend, we go on dates once a month in the facility. I have many friends with who I exchange letters after being revised by Heaven's Shield's ideological preservation committee. I was even allowed to get a new song to listen to on my last birthday! I am really happy like this and... And... Well, I like that. Just everything is safe, for me and others. No... Outbursts... No violence, no harm..." Zalu replied, holding the hand sadly.

Apollinaris just held his face with his hand. "...And I feel pretty safe here too, you know." He said with a soft smile. 

"W-What are you saying!? Look at your wounds! I cut your arm off! And now I can barely do a tourniquet on you and..."

Apollinaris reached to his visor with his hand. "And you did it so that you could recover this blindfold, didn't you? I wasn't wounded anywhere else after all." He said, Zalu not replying to that, and too late for the wolf to react on time. "Let's try that again"

Apollinaris pulled off his visor and held it on his hand. The room completely dark, only Apollinaris' eyes looking at Zalu's silvery eyes. 

Despite that, that triggered Zalu's transformation, albeit a smaller one. But instead of making him rageful and mindless, he just stayed there, looking at his eyes.

Apollinaris smiled, his purple eyes looking at him. For an instant, his tongue was about to say some words that he had said many times before, but instead of doing it, he just looked back at his eyes and saw curiosity in them. 

"Do you still want to slice my other hand off?"

"What color is that?" Said Zalu with a gruff, deep voice

"...What?"

"Your eyes."

"Oh... They're purple."

"Oh, like violets? I've touched them before, but never seen them."

"Heh, yeah, like violets."

"...They smell nice."

"...Hey."

"..."

"Nothing bad happened this time, didn't it?"

"..."

"I knew it. You can be free too."

"...Free from what?"

"From your curse, people that protect you, free from your fear too, and free from your death wish."

"...But for what purpose."

Apollinaris chuckled. "That's up to you to decide. The whole point of freedom is that you can follow what's in your heart and make your decisions around that." He nodded, looking at the wolf. "That one could take some time for you and it could be painful for you to find that but... Hey, you'll learn and meet so many things until then. Actually, is there anything that you want to do that you haven't been able to do before?"

Zalu continued to look at Apollinaris, his eyes without moving. "I think... I think I do now." He said, looking at himself reflected in his eyes.