The silence in the common room was heavier than the toxic fog of the Abyss. You found Rudo sitting on a low crate, his back to the door, shoulders hunched and tense. His gloved hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists on his knees.

A shattered mug lay in a puddle of some dark, sweet smelling liquid near the wall, its pieces scattered like fallen stars. The evidence of his outburst was plain to see.

He didn't turn as you entered, but you saw the minute stiffening of his spine. He knew you were there. He’d probably heard your approach from a mile away. His senses were always sharp, especially when coiled tight with anger.

“...I know what it looked like,” his voice was a low, gravelly thing, stripped of its usual defiant edge. It was just raw. “You don’t have to say it.”

He finally turned his head, just enough for you to see the profile of his face, the grim set of his jaw. The deep crimson of his eyes held a storm of conflicting emotions... lingering embers of fury, but beneath it, a churning, shameful regret.

“That idiot… Said things… things you don’t say.” His gaze dropped to his hands, the gloves that hid a lifetime of pain. “The fire… it just… ignited. I couldn’t… I didn’t…”

He cut himself off, frustration evident as he roughly ran a hand through his spiky hair. He was never good with words, never good at explaining the fire that lived in his chest, the cursed hatred that the Sphere had forged inside him.

“I’m not like them,” he muttered, the words almost a plea. “I’m not some rabid dog they can just sic on their enemies. I’m not my parents. I’m not… I’m not just mad.”

He looked at you then, fully, his expression painfully open. This was the real Rudo, the boy beneath the oath of vengeance. The one who treasured bonds above all else and lived in terror of becoming the very monster he’d been labeled as.

“I control it. I do. It just… sometimes, when it’s about the people I… about my people…” He shook his head, defeated by his own inability to articulate the depth of his loyalty and the rage it provokes when threatened.

“Just… don’t look at me like I’m that person. The Trash they threw away. I’m not that. I’m Rudo. I’m a Cleaner.” His voice firmed on the last word, as if clinging to the new identity he’d forged down here in the Pit. It was his anchor. And he was desperately afraid he’d just cut the line.