Chapter 12: Weakness

Cahaya POV

I then looked at the wolf girl on the ground and barely heard her mutter a 'why' of incomprehension, while I cleaned my hands and tail, blood is annoying to clean if dried. I learned that from experience.

I put two tourniquets made of their cloth on their injured arm/wing both moaning in pain as I did. I don't want them to potentially die of blood loss. What I'm doing is not the safest nor the healthiest for them but who cares, not me for sure.

"Do you want the truth or some flowery words to make you feel better?", I asked while she looked up and gawked at me, her eyes going wide open like she saw some ghost. I snapped my finger in front of her teary eyes, making her blink out of her daze.

"Thru-truth please...", she stuttered while staring into my eyes. She looks like a lost puppy with her ears and her tail down.

"You were weak at the moment and they were strong at the moment, as hurtful and unfair as it sounds.", I said blankly, making her tail and ears droop before her nose scrunched with her muzzle in interest.

She stared at the two twitching and sobbing body next to me, then gagged practically puking before looking away.

"First time seeing such a gory scene?", I asked her while giving her my hand to grab. She nodded and took my hand, I w

yanked her up making her gasp in surprise. She is light.

She was clearly sickened by the view of their injury and a bit of worry could be seen in her blue eyes. She stopped crying, I gave her a handkerchief  then she asked, with worry and a bit of satisfaction at their fate laced in her voice, "Ar-re they going to be alright?"

"They won't die and someone else will take care of them, you don't have to worry about them.", I responded dryly while I started to slither away. I felt her step on the ground, she was following me.

"W-wait!", I turned my head to look at the wolf behind me, "Thank you so much for saving me! I'm Juno, a grey wolf freshman and a new member of the drama club, in the dance team.", she said with a small bow.

"Ah! So you're the new member the male talked about, well I'm also a freshman, the name's Cahaya a naga.", I introduced myself, making her stop in her tracks.

"You are Cahaya!?", she exclaimed aloud, and her tail began wagging.

'Why is she so surprised and happy?', I thought while my gills twitched.

"Yes? There aren't many like me and I'm pretty sure I'm fairly known in Cherryton for many reasons.", I said while pointing at my more than unique body.

"No it's the first time I saw you, I was ill, so I didn't see you at the inauguration. And you're extremely popular with girls so I heard a lot about you, Cahaya-san.", she cheerfully revealed, strolling past me.

My eyes grew wide and my body froze, 'What! How? But what! I didn't know this! They usually ran away! That explains why a lot of animals looked at my body so weirdly!', was my incredulous thought while she giggled at my reaction.

"So the Purple-eyed Knight of Cherryton Academy is a normal teen behind this mask of politeness and violence.", she said with a smile while walking backwards in front of me.

I decided to change subjects, "So why didn't you just beat the two students who were bullying you?", I inquired bluntly.

She was startled by my question then looked down for a few long seconds before answering, "If I fought back, that would have proved to them that they were right, that large breeds of carnivores are dangerous we are the same as criminals… and should stay alone and I can't… *sob* will myself to fight back. It hurt me… but I just can't.", she started to 

sob and use the blue handkerchief I gave her.

"Hmm, sorry to make you feel like this.

I may not understand your feelings or reason for what happened. But their beliefs shouldn't be important to you or even be important to anyone else for that matter. 

Animals who attack others due to the actions of a few and species stigma aren't part of society nor should be tolerated in it, they are the plague of our society and should be considered a danger to it and be euthanized if incorrigible.", I paused, she looked at me like I was insane, which I likely was, fur on her cheeks moist, she didn't utter a word.

It's the reason this world humans were so successful and ironically inhuman.

They purged their species of racism, sexism, homophobia and more, by extreme violence and also by making a common enemy, the other sapient species, us. An entire species that worked in perfect harmony with one goal in mind, conquest. 

Something terrifying, that was only thwarted by the alliance between the traitors of its species and all the other sapient animals. 

"You shouldn't let yourself suffer for others' moral compass, I know it's easier said than done, it will be hard, very much so. But you will need to do that if you don't want to suffer like this again or if you don't wake to reality and choose to continue being weak you won't have the right to have a say in what happens to you.", I finished with a smile, staring intensely right into her eyes.

She nodded, this time she did look better as if a weight has been lifted from her shoulder. She lifted her muzzle, looked right back into my eyes then muttered, "Thank you.", her tail gently wagging.

"No problem, see you later.", I waved and slithered away.

'She is interesting…'

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Third POV

Cahaya, Legoshi, Aoba, Tao and Bill all wear casual cloth, they're all outside of Cherryton Academy. They were in the City Hall fast food of Zebuth.

"And what happened?", enthusiastically asked Tao a black panther, to Bill.

"Then she said, 'You are so selfish in bed that you make me feel so empty. And she started crying. She doesn't make sense at all. But I love her stripped ass", he joyfully explained his story, making both of the two virgins uncomfortable, affecting Legoshi way more than Cahaya with how he couldn't hide it in his body language.

Bill suddenly asked the wolf next to him while putting his arm on his shoulder, "So, when will you say goodbye to your virginity?", surprising the shit out of Legoshi, "Let me tell ya, I can smell your virginity from 50 kilometres away and you too Cahaya and that's surprising with how popular you are supposed to be with the lady.", the hybrid finished his fourth burger version XXL for large Carnivore in one bite and he was still a bit hungry.

"Funny thing is I didn't even know this until Juno told me when I met her three days ago. And I'm only 15 years old, I've got more important things to do than to think with my dicks, unlike you apparently.", he explained, then finished drinking his soda.

"Ah! So you know the new girl do you think she is ho-", he was shoved away by the wing of Aoba who cried out in outrage, tears threatening to fall, "Dicks?! As in more than one?! I thought we were under the same curse together but now you're with them and you're even worse than them!", his cries were heard by everyone in the fast-food restaurant for all species.

Legoshi spat his soda from his nose on the table making a mess, while Tao with Bill laughed their dicks off at the suffering of their dickless friend. Cahaya heavily sighed at the scene in front of him. It was only 2 p.m, it was going to be a very long day.

They passed the day playing arcade games, bought stuff and explored the city so much that they were essentially lost. 

It was getting increasingly darker, and they were entering the more shady part of the city, no animals were in sight.

Tao asked, "Where is the station?"

Aoba was on his phone looking on Zoozle's map for the train station, and announced, "We are lost."

Cahaya looked with half-lidded eyes at the surprised tiger and said, "I told you, we should *yawn* have turned back earlier.", while he was thinking, 'Tired… of everything and so hungry.'

"Hey! It wasn't my fault. If Aoba is a bird why are we lost, doesn't he has a magnetic sense thingy?", he defended himself, visibly appalled by the claim and decided to blame his feathery friend who glared back at him.

"Bill, do you seriously believe all birds can do this?", Cahaya criticized the tiger who whistled and looked away in embarrassment, while the bald eagle nodded in agreement at what the naga said. 

The grey wolf stopped walking, "Legoshi, what's wrong?", asked Bill. Said wolf walked and crouched in front of an old and hideous saiga antelope in the corner and politely asked, "Excuse me. May I ask for some help?"

The herbivore looked up with his nearly blind eyes and slowly said, "Ay. Sure.", while presenting his two skinny hands, fingers missing, replaced by scars, the price tag attached by strings on his fingers making an audible but quiet sound of clicking wood, he added with a crooked smile, "Pick any finger you like."

'This smell is that of a carnivore's smell and saliva.', thought a transfixed Legoshi. Cahaya tasted the air, his eyes growing wide open in excitement as he looked at the truck next to them. He whispered with a hiss, "The black market.", then gazed at the merchandise of the antelope but this time with unhidden disgust. 

"These are the leftovers, but it should taste the same.", said the tramp while examining with his hand the muzzle and fangs of the young and paralysed canine. 

The abruptly truck moved away with a loud engine sound, Aoba looked in the direction to see to his shock the entrance of the black market.

While Legoshi was spacing out, continued to let himself be molested, until Bill violently shoved him aside, making the wolf yelp in surprise.

He exclaimed in enthusiasm at the antelope while putting a paw on his shoulder, "Hey, old man you're selling your finger for 70,000 right? Are you sure I can eat your finger if I pay you 70,000?"

He then turned around and proposed in the same tone, "Hey, let's get a bite each! We can split-", *SLAP* and was slapped by an angry wolf.

"What the hell do you want, dumbass!?", Bill yelled at Legoshi who yelled back, "Cut it out! Have you lost your mind?"

"You're the one who lost your mind?! We are in the Black Market, your ego is meaningless here!", the tiger shouted and punched the wolf.

"Calm down you two.", lazily said Cahaya's threat hidden in his voice, while saving Legoshi from Bill's punch with one hand, making the tiger fur stand on end, remembering things he wanted to forget and the reason why the amphibian was authorised to go out of the campus with them.

Cahaya was no herbivore, he was an apex predator, a monster that only another monster could hope to compete with. That he was sure of it.

"Guys don't eat those things' fingers, they are as disgusting as they can be and seem way too costly.", he just said way too casually, adding to that a toothy grin showing hundreds of small sharp teeth that they had never seen before, shocked all of them except for Bill.

"Legoshi, like Bill, said we are currently in the Black Market, animals can and will eat meat, your opinion and morals will not change anything.", Cahaya said seriously, his black pupils now slightly dilated.

"But you're a herbivore!? How can you say that and be okay with it!", cried out the wolf, not understanding anything and feeling something was wrong with Cahaya.

"Pfft-hahaha, true, amphibians are considered herbivores by land animals but that doesn't make us similar to them in the slightest.", the hybrid explained, not stopping the yawn from escaping his snout and thought, 'I should have gone to the sea… hmm I feel dizzy.'

Nobody had time to digest what it entailed because Bill added with smugness, having already calmed down, "You remember how people looked out there. They look happy and peaceful. That is thanks to the Black Market. Don't you get it? Grow up already."

Legoshi recalled how calm carnivores were so calm and he didn't like it, he mumbled with the start of a growl, "Is that what it is? Is that what it means to grow up!", and he ran, unable to accept reality.

Cahaya looked with his now fully dilated pupils at the wolf running away until he was way out of his sight, then he shot like an arrow after his prey.

Disappearing from his previous spot and leaving a small dent mark on the paved ground with dust, to the bewilderment of two and horror of one who couldn't even react to it, he saw how the amphibian catapulted himself, he hoped for the wolf that he can run fast and was very lucky.

Cahaya after his last moult had more problems controlling himself, since today was an exhausting day, he was mentally tired and very, very hungry.

The smell of the Black Market meat and the way Legoshi ran away, like a prey. 

All of this made his instincts win over his already hazy mind, meaning he wasn't fully in control anymore, he like felt he was imprisoned inside his own body and he hated this feeling of helplessness, that reminded him of his death where he was similarly trapped inside his own body, completely powerless and weak.