Cardinal Kings- East (Deku/ Izuku)

Reveal

Izuku loved Kagobunny very very much. She was so mindful and affectionate and expressive. She was so sentient that sometimes he forgot the bunny that was his best friend was a bunny and not a person. So he wondered why anxious whimpers and stressed thumping of the leg were happening so often today. "Kagome," Izuku approached her pen. "What's wrong? You've been on edge since I mentioned mortals this morning."

Kagome kicked the ground and sulked. She hadn't even touched the roasted zucchini, she'd completely lost her appetite. Right now, she wanted nothing more than to condense into a ball of energy and disappear off the face of the planet. Of course she was stressed. She was a mortal. And likely was going to have to marry the scary demon king. Sure, he's a softie now, but he wouldn't like her very much if he knew Kagome had lied. That couldn't go over well, she knew it couldn't, and... well, the feeling of not being objectified was special. She'd be a liar, and she'd be a terrible friend, and on top of all that, if she managed to live there was a good chance that she'd be sent back to her village. These considerations elicited another whimper from Kagome, who wished she could cry right now.

"Bunny," Izuku picked Kagome up, cradling the small being close to him. Affectionately, he kissed her forehead, and began patting her head. "It's alright, Kagobun." Not long after, Kagome's alert ears settled for a more relaxed position. Izuku smoothed the fur on her head over. "Your zucchini's cold now, clumsy. What's wrong that you're ignoring zucchini?"

Kagome couldn't take much more if this. It had been months. She bounced out of his arms and with her ears gestured the direction of the office. She bounced there quickly, dipped the tip of her right ear into a pot of ink, and grabbed a paper. What to say, what to say...? Kagome scrawled onto a paper in big, messy letters. "M'sorry, not bunny. Mortal." She wrote down. Oh, why did Kagome have a death wish.

She jumped onto the couch next to the table she was just atop, and looked at Izuku with wide eyes as he entered the room. "Is that ink? Did you draw something for me bunny? Holy hell, you really are sentient, huh?" Izuku picked up the paper, and read over it once. Twice, thrice, and with his back to Kagome read it over and over until it clicked in his head. By the time it did, he was shaking in fury. "A mortal... I've been tricked by a MORTAL?!"

Kagobunny flinched, and Izuku turned to look at the bunny, and for a second he stopped. "I should smite you just for thinking something like that up, Bunny." He growled, animosity burning the edges of his words. He snapped his fingers, and Kagome felt herself poof into a human shape again, much like what had happened with Miruko, months ago. "Hm. Explain yourself now."

"M-m-my name is... Ka-kagome, Kagome Shinjitsu, I... I'm from the village just outside of your forest."

"And how did you happen to land here, Miss... Shinjitsu?"

"I... I was running away from my wedding. Prince Morpheus cornered me at a tree and tried to get me to come back.. w-w-with him... and my foot slipped on a root... I... was pulled in by the vines."

Oh, but, I really do hate that Prince. He's everything I hate about mortals. A war bringer, pervert, sexist and racist... "I see."

"Miruko... she tu-turned me human when she came, she said it was her that turned me into a bunny." Kagome's hair really didn't change. The way her expression was wilting made him want to pat her head and cheer her up. Lords, his heart ached to just accept her. He had a reputation, though, and this... trickery could not be taken lightly. "I didn't... couldn't communicate with you, or tell you.. I'm sorry..."

"Hm."

"I-I could leave... if you asked, I wouldn't be against it."

A mischievous lilt overcame Izuku's words. "Return you to the humans?" He gauged her reactions. Why so much fear? "Surely, Prince Morpheus would do anything for his troubled troublesome bride?" The way she trembles at that... I couldn't. Humans... they hurt her, too. "Hmm, but that's a bit too lenient, isn't it, bunny dearest. I do have a reputation to maintain. I could leave you outside the castle you certainly wouldn't be able to leave. The wolves and bears would naturally eat you given the chance to have a delicacy above forest animals. I could also turn you into a deer and let you live in peace, but those... those are either too lenient or disregard the sanctity if your life." Izuku closed the distance between him the trembling girl. "So, tell me, if I kept you around, mortal, what use are you...?"

"I'm... I'm an alchemist. The only one in the east..."

Well, that's... actually a really good reason to keep her around. Is that what that metallic noise has been? "Care to share, Miss Alchemist
Bunny?" Kagome silently held her hands up. The eight rings turned from iron, copper, silver, gold, to titanium and then back to iron. "That's lovely. My mother loved alchemy very much... You're good at your art."

"Thank you." Kagome answered in a quiet whisper.

"Question is what to do with you? Anything you prefer?"

"Please, please, please... if you kill me, I don't care but... don't send me to the humans. I can't... with Morpheus..." Kagome's hands held her wrists where she could feel the ghost of Morpheus' grip. "He has no care or respect for me... he sees me as an object."

"You are no object, and especially not one of his. See, the only use I have, is a bride in the upcoming Summit. It seems the vines have taken a bride from one wedding and dropped her into another." Izuku sighed. "This is ridiculous." He snapped his fingers and Kagome was a bunny again. "You will remain a bunny until I decide what to do with you. And find you some mortal attire that is not a wedding dress. Maddeningly uncomfortable, that looks."

He places Kagome into her pen. "You'll stay in there." I can't bare to be near you right now. It wounds me... "Liar."

Kagome sat in the pen, unmoving as she saw the look of contempt she dreaded so much. Sadness shone in her eyes, and even as a rabbit, her craft of alchemy played the low steady thrumming of her heartbeat throughout the metal within the castle.