I know that Russell is Akida's enemy now, but maybe to add to the pain of the betrayal, what if Russell used to genuinely like Sharik at the beginning but after learning that Sharik was cursed, when the boy's curse awakened for the first time and revealed the truth, he no longer did? Maybe in those first 3 years when Russell and Akida used to be friends, he was viewed by the Fernández family similarly to how Denzel is currently - a friend of the family or honorary uncle (But Denzel will replace him, of course). From what you said about him before, Russell must have been the first person if not the only one, the biggest reason why the Fernández family was able to acclimate to the Japanese environment, helping them every step of the way in the process of becoming naturalized citizens. Combined with the species relation (wild ass and zebra), it fully cements why his eventual betrayal of the family cut so deep, why Akida's anger burned so hot. With his cowardly behavior on full display in this chapter, Akida may have wondered if he ever knew the donkey at all or when Russell had changed so much.
Now because I said that Russell may have had a good relationship with Sharik at one time, I imagined that Sharik may have initially thought there was nothing wrong when he was with Russell at the start. But then once Russell began to punish and torture him excessively, Sharik may have been unable to properly respond to Russell's actions due to the shock and fear from its suddenness paralyzing his body and mind. In fact, besides Sharik not resisting because of his nonviolent personality and feeling he deserved this punishment, he may have also let it happen because he felt he betrayed Russell's trust by committing the murders. I also imagined that Sharik never told anyone about what Russell was doing to him, and neither did he want to (he might have tried to hide it). He would have stayed silent out of shame and felt afraid of not being believed, because at that time, no one but him knew what Russell was really like - the Russell he suffered under was not the Russell everyone knew.
When you said that Akida didn't find out about what Russell did immediately because he was on the day shift, I wondered if it meant that Russell was working on the evening or night shift, so he and Akida hardly, if not never, crossed paths. And when you said that the beating Russell gave Sharik when Denzel came to the rescue happened on the 5th day, I had another unsettling thought: What if for the first 5 days, Russell was the cop assigned to guard Sharik in his holding cell?
Perhaps when Sharik first saw Russell on that first day, he felt at ease, thinking that he could feel safe with him just like how he felt safe with his father. But then when the abuse began - maybe starting with verbal before transitioning to physical - it escalated over the coming days, getting more and more violent and creatively sadistic until everything came to a head on the 5th day. It may or may not imply that if Russell had been with Sharik for all of those 5 days, he could have been beating and torturing the boy for 5 DAYS STRAIGHT! (That is unless Russell's beating of Sharik happened only on the 5th day)
I also thought that if Russell had watched Sharik during those first 5 nights, he wouldn't have been receptive, understanding, or consoling to the boy whenever he woke up from his nightmares or reacted in fear towards his hallucinations. If anything, he would've yelled at Sharik to cut it out and go back to sleep at best or entered his holding cell to beat him into silence at worst. Either way, Sharik's sleeping problem wouldn't be helped but instead get worse. And if Russell also chaperoned Sharik for bathroom and shower breaks, could he have kept him handcuffed for the trips there and back + gave him little to no privacy while he was in the bathroom or shower? If Russell had been watching/looking at Sharik for all those times, Sharik may not only have suffered his verbal and physical abuse but also felt degraded further by the donkey eyeing him while he was naked or in other vulnerable positions. At least Russell didn’t choose to assault him in the bathroom or especially the shower (Though I wouldn’t be surprised if he did).
Sharik was topless when Russell beat him on the 5th day, so that would mean Sharik was still wearing pants and thus wasn't stripped down to his underwear or completely naked. However, was that unique to only that day or was he like that with Russell for the past 4 other days? And you think Russell would have tied Sharik up when assaulting him, binding at least his wrists to the bars of his holding cell (Was it all done in the holding cell or another different room?) or anything attached to a wall? I’d imagine that Russell tied Sharik with rope he brought, Sharik’s discarded clothes/prison uniform, or even just handcuffs. Also, did you think that Russell also muffled/gagged Sharik every time he tortured him - stuffing/shoving things in his mouth or tying his mouth shut to make sure no one could hear his cries and screams of pain?
I know you said that Russell was stopped by Denzel before he could attempt to zap or grope Sharik, but I still couldn't help but imagine the scenarios where Denzel would have caught Russell in the act - what Russell was ABOUT TO DO to Sharik. I thought of 2 of them, both happening after Russell gave Sharik the worst and hardest/most painful beating he ever experienced, having beaten him so bruised, bloody, and swollen that Sharik was left crying uncontrollably and on the verge of passing out:
Denzel catching Russell holding and pointing a taser directly at Sharik, even holding it so close to the boy's body that it was almost touching.
Denzel catching Russell grabbing and pulling at the waistband of Sharik's pants and underwear with one hand, with his other hand over the opening and ready to slip underneath.
Then again, if it’s still true that Russell did neither of those things like you said, it was probably a good thing for him. Because if he actually did either of them, not only would there be nothing left of him after Akida was done beating him to a pulp, but Rokuro and Thaysuk would have allowed him instead of holding him back, and Denzel would have even joined him in thrashing Russell. (Denzel might have considered Russell to be the one exception to his honor code of never resorting to murder - he probably thought of beating up or even killing Russell after knocking him out but only didn’t because he knew that getting Sharik medical treatment was more important…) And it would have made Azumi’s medical checkup go differently - it would give a different context to the scars she saw on Sharik’s body when he took his clothes off for her (doing that could have made him really nervous) and Sharik could have refused to get naked for the checkup on his sexual development.
I further thought that while Akida tried his best to keep Sharik company during his day shifts, they were probably minimal as his work + day shift schedule didn’t allow him to stay with his son for extended periods. But ever since learning of Russell’s cruelty against Sharik, I can imagine that Akida would have requested for a shift change from days to afternoons or nights so he can have more time to be with Sharik than he ever could on days (It could explain why it was nighttime when Akida found Sharik harming himself with the bathroom mirror). It’s likely that while he would allow comrades he confidently trusts like Denzel or Rokuro to watch Sharik (as long as it’s anyone but Russell, really), he would still insist on no other officer except himself because he doesn’t even trust himself to keep his own son safe. It’s all because he knows that he himself wasn’t there when his son was brutally tortured and only heard about it, so he’s compensating for that by being on the shift(s) where he can keep an eye on his son as much as possible.
Also, when Sharik had first seen Bludgeon in the mirror at the police bathroom which led to him smashing his head into it, did it happen after he was saved from Russell’s beating or before? Which of the 10 days (except for the 5th) was it? Either way, since that episode required him to go to a hospital and Sharik had already been rushed to a hospital after Denzel rescued him from Russell, that would mean that Sharik had been hospitalized twice within those 10 days! The fact that Sharik was sent back to the police station after he was done being treated for both times already felt sad enough too! I’m imagining Akida clocking in for his shift and questioning why Sharik is not in his holding cell when he went there to visit him again, but after hearing what happened to his son, he instantly ditches work and runs straight to where Sharik was being treated for his injuries, then later returning to the station to find out the complete truth and then confront Russell.
When it came to Akida finding out about what Russell did, seeking him out, and then beating him up, I just kept envisioning the scene where Legoshi rushes at Bill during the 2nd Adler performance and giving him a relentless beatdown - that’s how I think Akida’s aggression against Russell went, what it looked like (I also thought of the part in Fullmetal Alchemist where the main protagonist Edward Elric angrily pounded a guy named Shou Tucker for what he did to his own daughter Nina, then stopped by his brother Alphonse when he wouldn’t let up). I also imagined that while Akida was not born cursed, the curse was still in him in a way - a part of him, even if permanently dormant. I would think that when Akida flew into a primal rage and attacked Russell, he was able to channel at least a bit of the curse’s power and strength into his punches through the force of his own willpower alone.
Russell used to be a close friend of the Fernández family, and indeed it was thanks to him that they were able to acclimate and adapt to their new home and become naturalized citizens, even teaching them some cultural quirks and how things were different from their home in Mexico, for them, the wild ass had become part of the family. During those times, Russell was fond of Sharik, and he saw him as quite an upstanding colt, but he was quick to identify the signs of the Curse of Madness on him, especially his neon-green eyes, even so, he just dismiss it as a weird recesive gene, and he was quite the honorary uncle for Sharik and Oliver. The fact that they were both equid species did really made the treason hurt like a fire burn, and Akida´s resulting pain was almost as strong as his primal anger towards Russell. That question of if he ever knew him all that well resonated in his head for weeks, even after the trial when Sharik was sent to the mental hospital.
Yeah, Sharik at the start thought he would be safe with Russell taking care of him, but he too was betrayed by the resentful coward the wild ass turned out to be. Once the abuse began, Sharik was paralyzed by what you describe, and he did feel that he deserved such punishment for the murders and because he did believe he betrayed Russell's trust by hiding the truth, but this last part was due to his already growing state of depression. He hid what had happened to him even from Rokuro and Denzel out of fear that even they wouldn't believe him due to the good reputation Russell had back then, on top of that, the wild ass forced him to remain silent, something he did with past cursed prisoners.
Yeah, they didn't hang out at work all that much due to the difference of shifts, although Akida did occasionally work at night whenever he was on the hunt for some criminal group. Fortunately, the worst of the abuse was only during the last 2 days, and the physical escalation occurred during the 5th day.
•Russell wasn't consoling or understanding to Sharik at all, and it began abusing him verbally by screaming at him to shut up whenever Sharik yelled out of fear due to his hallucinations and nightmares as well as hitting the bars of the cell to "keep him in line", and as the days passed, this escalated into physical aggresion during the 4th day, starting with shovings and slapping him whenever nobody was close by, escalating once more with the 5th day beating.
•The way he yelled at him whenever he was suffering from his nightmares and PTSD induced hallucinations made his sleeping problems all the worse, which correlate to what he said in the first chapter when he told Azumi that he couldn't even conceive sleep without assistance. Russell didn't trust Sharik at all under his custody, so he kept him handcuffed whenever he took him to the bathroom and back; it did also mean that Russell kept a close eye on him while the zebra was bathing, which was a degrading experience for him and Sharik was afraid he would attempt to do something to him when he was vulnerable, but the wild ass decided against him, for he wanted to torture him while touching him.
The shirt was the only clothing he removed from him in order to beat him on his abdomen, and it only happened on the fifth day since it was when Sharik was mentally unwell enough so as to not run away or try to fight back and he did handcuffed him so he wad further incapable of defending himself, Russell hold nothing back against the poor boy. He didn't gagged Sharik since he wanted to hear his screams, thinking nobody would hear him as in that particular night most of the personal went home early or were bussy... oh, how WRONG he was.
While his physical resistance was able to halved the damage he received from the beating in the rest of his body, he ended up quite badly wounded with a lot of bruises and bleeding cuts, and due to how much damage he suffered on his belly scar, he was unable to even stand up, crying uncontrollably as you said. Denzel catched Russell just in the moment the wild ass was about to hit him in the head, and after knocking the donkey out with a tail swipe (and also crashing him to a nearby wall due to the force of the hit) he did in fact considered to make an exception out of him and to break his legs brutally, but he decided against this as saving Sharik was more important. Denzel carried Sharik on his arms gently but firmly (so as to not let him fall) and rush to the hospital at an incredible speed for a crocodile, all the while Sharik, now seeing that he was safe, hugged him tightly around the neck, begging him to not leave him, which the crocodile assured him that he would not let anybody else harm him.
Oh, he did. He even started his shift a bit late due to gaining as much time as possible in order to do so. When he discovered what happened, he immediately requested a temporal shift change to night-time so that he could to both have more time with him and to protect him. He let Rokuro and Denzel to take care of Sharik when he needed to take a break or whenever he was needed elsewhere (this also included Thaysuk) but for the most part, he insisted on being the one to be assigned to him in order to compensate for all the time he wasn't present to protect him and to do precisely that to the full extent of his capabilities. He also petitioned that Russell wasn't allowed anywhere near the holding cell, and Oberon granted the petition almost immediately.
The first appearance of Bludgeon occurred during the 8th night, the same night he had a nightmare similar to the one in chapter 3, with the main difference being than this one took place on an actual battlefield. Yeah, it was sad to see him having to return to the holding cell, but it was the law, and they couldn't bend it for him, best they could do was to make the bed in there as comfy as possible so he could rest as best as be could. That was basically what happened, and Akida gave Sharik one of the biggest hugs ever after witnessing how badly beaten he was, and apologizing profusely for not being there, even though it was clear that Sharik didn't blamed him at all.
While similar to the scene of Legoshi attacking Bill during his rage outburst, what Akida did to Russell was much more aggressive. In true zebra fashion, he charged and tackled the wild ass into a wall and proceeded to beat him violently in absolute fury, barking in pure rage and even biting Russell on his shoulders as he proceeded to punch every inch of his torso and face, he was so brutal than even large carnivores (his colleagues that arrived after hearing the commotion) didn't dare to intervene out of fear; in the end, just when Russell passed out bloody and with broken teeth, Rokuro moved forward and grabbed Akida's right arm to put an end to the beating, telling him that it was enough and to not let himself be control by revenge or anger, which the Burchell zebra did for the sake of his son, Russell then was the one sent to the hospital. While a good assumption, the curse didn't intervene in that, it was just his nature as a zebra stallion and the rightgeous fury of a loving and caring father.
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Azure_Umbra on Chapter 4 Sat 11 May 2024 08:17PM UTC
Last Edited Sat 11 May 2024 11:42PM UTC
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The_Last_Ferructus on Chapter 4 Tue 14 May 2024 03:21AM UTC
Last Edited Thu 20 Jun 2024 10:03PM UTC
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