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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Lanzen_Jars on 2025-11-04 23:28:46+00:00.

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Content warning: Violence

Chapter 244 – Priority

The world around her was tinged in white as Shida’s vision zeroed in on the man before her. Her mouth went try, and a ringing began to fill her ears as her senses blocked out everything but her target.

Within just a few seconds, her entire world narrowed down to nothing but that endlessly familiar face.

The sudden appearance of the Captain had taken her off guard, and before her aware mind had the chance to act, her instinct had already taken over. Her claws extended from her fingers while her ears stood up and her eyes flitted all over the primate’s massive body while looking for openings.

The offworlder was a lot larger than the primates that her ancestors used to chase through Dunnima’s tree tops, but the primal part of her brain assured her that the vital parts were one and the same, and they could be taken out all the same – if she only found the right moment to get at them. And so her vision sharpened; her eyes locking in on the Captain’s every movement. Every spread of his nostrils, every twitch of his eyes, every little shifting of motion as he carried his weight.

However, those instincts proved to be a problem very soon when they made it abundantly clear that they had not been evolved or adapted for life in a modern world as she very quickly noticed the man reaching back for something, but only caught onto the fact that it was a problem when her active thought finally forced itself back to the wheel – a moment too late to actually do something about it.

Unable to prevent the man from drawing his weapon, Shida immediately lowered herself into a tense posture; her legs bending like springs to get her ready to bolt out of the way as soon as that barrel would threaten to actually be pointed her way.

Her jaw clenched as she internally scolded herself for her mistake, but there was no taking it back now. Instead she had to plan for what would happen moving forward.

If she did things right, she knew she could move quicker than the primate could think and thus avoid getting shot even at a range like this. However, for that to actually be the case, she would have to finally pull herself together and focus the hell up instead of letting herself be puppeted around by her damn meat-suit!

Logically, she knew that. However...

“It is hard to believe that you would look at me with such eyes,” Uton said in a quiet murmur. His words would've barely been audible over the ringing filling her head had it not been for her ears being entirely focused on every noise that he made.

The Captain’s dark face looked like it was...hanging down...almost entirely limp, with barely a hint towards something like a proper expression. It was tired, if anything. So much so that his eyes weren’t even all the way open, remaining half-hooded as he looked at Shida.

Not that she cared as she glared back at him. Her eyes...she could only imagine the look he was talking about; the one she was now regarding him with. She could only imagine, but she felt it.

Felt how wide open her lids were pulled. Felt the way her pupils dilated. Felt the sting of her eyes drying as her body refused to blink.

Her claws were out. Her ears open. Her hair stood on end while her tail kept low and still.

She must have had the look of someone who wanted to kill him – because that was what her body craved. To get its claws on him. To sink them deep into his flesh and to not let go until he stopped struggling. To open up that person who had brought her and others so much pain and to dig out an answer for every single question she had until nothing was left over but the dirty, messy truth.

Nature had written death into her instincts, and as they stood face to face, it tried to cash in on that promise with a murderous cocktail flowing through her veins, tempered only by a vague sense of duty that flowed as an intangible thing somewhere in the back of her mind which barely allowed her to focus on the very real threat that the Captain’s gun presented to her.

In a snap, her eyes tore away from the primate’s limp face and onto the weapon, keeping tight track of its dangerous end. Even though it wasn’t technically pointed in her direction yet, she would not be caught off guard again once it inevitably would be.

A growling hiss escaped her inadvertently as soon as she pulled her tightly pressed lips apart.

“Why don’t you get it over with and pull that trigger?” she asked sharply with her eyes still attached to the weapon in his hand.

Her mind flashed back to that moment in the middle of the crowd, shortly after the shots fell, when Sky came up to her and…

“Come on.” she growled out, pressing the words through her teeth while her legs tensed further as she noticed the Captain’s shoulders shaking at her words. “I know you want to. Not like it would be the first time.”

Uton’s flaccid expression gradually darkened; his cheeks beginning to quake as his lips seemingly worked against each other. His already hooded eyes closed a little bit more as his gaze was directed downward in obvious guilt.

A pang went through Shida at the sight of his pain. However, even the last stubborn remnants of attachment to the man her soul stubbornly refused to shake only served to ignite her wrath even further as she realized he had the gall to still feel bad about his own actions now. Even now, after everything he already did, and countless chances to walk away from it all.

“I didn’t want any of this,” Uton said quietly, his voice low as he kept staring at the ground, seemingly unable to even look at her even though he was literally trying to hold her at gunpoint. “This wasn’t how I wanted things to go. Not how they were supposed to go.”

Shida could see his hand clenching harder around his weapon, and she had to hold herself back from spitting on the ground.

“This is all your doing,” she brought out, her shoulders cracking as her muscles strained to get her body moving against her permission; instinct pushing her to act while his eyes were averted. However, she knew better than to do that. Because, for everything that had happened that led to the hate coursing through her in that moment, she still knew that man well. Well enough to know that there was something off about this. “Years after years, you have worked towards this. Don’t pretend like anyone forced your hand now.”

Uton’s nostrils flared broadly as he forced a sharp breath out.

“You don’t know-” he attempted to say, but Shida wouldn’t make it that easy.

“I know enough!” she cut him off and her body twitched to move in a burst of energy so violent that she had to compensate for it by taking a step forwards before catching herself again. “I don’t care how this may have started, I know that no one could force you to go this far over this long of a time! If you went along with it until things got this bad and you never did anything about it, then you are complicit. Nothing else.”

She then had to scoff at her own words because she knew very well that even that was giving him far too much credit already.

“Not that I even need to reach that far to know what a miserable piece of shit you are,” she went on, another scoff escaping her along with the words. “You can’t even look at me while trying to lie to my face.”

She could see a jolt go through Uton’s body at her words.

“Of course I can’t!” he exclaimed, his eyes clenching shut for a moment as signs of life returned to his face. His flaccid features tightened, his cheeks and lips pulling back and wrinkles forming on his face as it morphed into a snarl. Finally, he opened his eyes completely and lifted his head up to look at her. “Do you have any idea what you- … What this is doing to me?!”

In a harsh movement, Uton shifted his weight, pulling it back to lift himself up from his tripedal position to instead rise to his hind legs; standing much taller while simultaneously freeing up his not-armed hand to reach for his chest, his thick fingers digging into his visibly thinning fur.

“You are right. Years after year went into this!” he said loudly, urgently, and swung his arm with the weapon around in wild gestures, almost as if he had forgotten that he was even holding the firearm for a moment.

Shida twitched slightly as the muzzle swept her, her strained nerves nearly causing her to bolt as it turned in her direction.

The weight of her own weapon dragged heavily on her hip where it was attached. A weapon she wasn’t even technically supposed to have right now because of that man before her, but one that had been entrusted to her either way. Too bad her instincts hadn’t been primed to reach for that either…

She was faster than him, yes. But the Captain didn’t exactly earn all of his many awards for nothing. Trying to draw on him now wouldn’t end well for her.

“Years after years in which I have tried to find a better way! Tried to be better! Tried in every little way to reach out and see what holes I could find that I could fill with compassion! … And where has it brought us?!” Uton continued with his tirade. At his last words, he suddenly whipped the ...

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