Hazama narrowed his eyes. The rabbit currently occupying his seat did the same.

It was quite impressive, actually. The white creature came up to a bit above his ankles, but it apparently had no qualms with giving him attitude. As if to emphasise this, the bunny crossed its arms and looked away with a humph, to which the Human got the distinct urge to punt the creature across the room.

He got the feeling, however, that he would get some grief from Fluttershy over that one. She seemed oddly attached to this thing, and somehow thought that it could do no wrong. Hazama knew better, though. He knew that this rabbit was a creature almost as vicious as Terumi.

And now he was picturing Terumi as a beastkin with long, floppy rabbit ears and a cottontail. And now he was chuckling to himself. He could never have gotten away with thinking these things in his previous life, and the feeling was quite liberating.

It had been about a week since his arrival in this world, and still he had no real idea what he was going to do. He had no game plan, and lacked the knowledge he needed to formulate one. Taking over the world was a no-go, because it sounded ridiculously boring once all was said and done. Going on a killing spree was not the best plan either, mostly because he was still unsure of the capabilities the residents of the planet possessed.

There just wasn’t much to do, and he had expressed to Fluttershy the other day that he didn’t wish to go back to the town for a while, not until the Guards left.

They both knew that he was the one who’d dealt with the infected Humans, but neither of them addressed the topic out loud, obviously realising the awkward questions that lay down that path. She’d seemed understanding regardless but was somewhat concerned about leaving him at her house during the days where she’d have to leave. Not because she thought he would hurt or get hurt by any of her animal friends, but because she thought he might get lonely.

Lonely. Wasn’t that an odd thought? Someone in existence who didn’t want to slaughter him for his deeds or use him as a pawn in a larger game. This was obviously subject to change if the horse got even the slightest inkling of the things he’d done and almost done back in his own world, but it was still a weird experience.

The horse had overcome her anxiety over leaving him behind when she returned one day to find him playing a game of cards with her pet rabbit, happy that he’d found something to interact with.

She had no idea. No idea of the stakes involved in that game. The winner would claim the beanbag for the following evening, and the loser would have to take the floorboards. The rabbit was a damn good player, and had very few tells to speak of. It had chased him down to the last hand, where Hazama had pulled out the secret technique of cheating. Sleight of hand born from a long-ass time of slipping knives in and out of pockets in less than the blink of an eye had prevailed that day, giving him the card he needed to win the hand, and therefore the game.

That bunny. That damn rabbit was the most fearsome opponent he’d ever faced in a game of cards, beating out all the other Intelligence officers that had once worked under him except maybe the airheaded squirrel beastkin who wasn’t actually airheaded at all. But if that weren’t emasculating enough for his past underlings, the rabbit’s name was ‘Angel’.

To his dismay, however, the rabbit had absolutely dominated the next game, possessing extraordinary luck and cheating abilities. Hazama caught him messing with the shuffle once or twice, but after what he’d pulled last game he really didn’t have room to complain.

Let it never be said that Hazama had no honour.

That, and when he tried the first time he lost to ignore the rules and sleep on the beanbag anyway, he had found himself woken up by means of a gang of animals tossing bits of their food at him. Dry food, luckily, because he didn’t want to give Fluttershy another reason to try and wash his suit.

The evening after was a different story entirely. The mare in question had returned from the town yet again with news that didn’t bode well. The Guard, claiming that they had deeper suspicions that had to be looked into regarding the infected Human incident, were apparently extending their stay.

They knew he was here. Two of the armoured horses had come by the other day while Fluttershy was thankfully out in the village. In an entirely coincidental manner, Hazama had been upstairs in the bathroom, out of any window’s view. He could still hear them mumbling vaguely to each other, though.

When he’d told the horse later that day, she had nodded, as if she’d known it was happening. The Captain of the Guard, Shining Armour, had remembered the strange Human from last week, and had decided that he was one of a few ‘prime suspects’.

Shining Armour. Shining Armour. Hazama found himself constantly surprised by how irritating the naming conventions were. Everyone on this planet seemingly had a name that just happened to fit what they did or their personality. Fluttershy fluttered around, and was shy. The stupid bitch of a horse apparently called Rainbow Dash was rainbow coloured, and dashed fast, according to the planet’s standards. What if their parents named their son ‘Shining Armour’ and he’d turned out to be a baker or something?

He was being investigated by a creature literally out of a child’s fairy tale who also happened to have a fairy tale name. This was what he had been reduced to.

So that was essentially his week since the initial rush of insanity: playing cards with a rabbit, with some of the other animals very occasionally joining in; sleeping; showering; and lounging about while he thought about what the hell he wanted to do.

The Princess had yet to follow through on her promise to return to his dreams, but Hazama still had not let his guard down regarding what he did while asleep. No use in imagining kicking Ragna’s ass if the Alicorn (Fluttershy had told him the actual title for the ‘Pegasus-Unicorns’) was watching from the shadows and making judgements.

On the plus side to all this, the food on this planet was a hell of a lot better than the stuff back home. He had no idea how the yellow horse had managed to guess his favourite food, but after looking at him strangely for a little bit on the first morning after his shower, she had asked him if he would like boiled eggs for breakfast.

Weird and lucky guesses aside, far be it from him to deny the real version of his favourite food after dreaming about it.

She’d been very confused to see his usual method of eating eggs the first time, apparently not expecting to see him open his mouth and swallow the egg whole, shell and all. When she mumbled that it reminded her of watching snakes eat, Hazama refused to comment and instead ate another egg. Nevertheless, she continued to provide eggs in various forms every morning. Occasionally scrambled, sometimes fried, but usually boiled.

And now, after the entire week, he was being blocked from his seat by his greatest opponent on the planet.

‘I won, unfair-and-mostly-square, you little shit.’ Hazama wanted to say, tapping the steel toe-cap of his shoe against the floor, but the sealing magic inside his throat still held strong. He’d spent quite a lot of his free time (which was essentially all the time) studying the magic and how much different it was to Ars Magus. He had quickly come to the conclusion that even a slight activation of the Azure Grimoire would be infinitely more than enough to rid himself of the seal, but he had no way of doing so without his voice. Of all the facets of his being to get sealed, his voice was the absolute worst one.

Angel continued to glare from his seat, making Hazama more and more irritated as time went on. The rabbit had grumbled and groaned over losses before, but he’d always kept his word. He didn’t know what made today different, and he was intent on finding out.

He slipped a piece of paper in front of the rabbit, simply saying [Can you read?], to which the rabbit paused, blinking in confusion for a moment before nodding several times. In all of their games, Hazama had never once needed to communicate like this. Vague hand gestures and grunts of varying emotion were good enough so far. [Right. Then what on Earth’s your problem?]

The rabbit regarded him for a moment, looking up and down as it let out a tiny sigh, slapping its paw against its face. To Hazama’s bemusement, Angel started miming holding a hand of cards, even mimicking the intense stare that the two often sent each other when playing a particularly tense round. Then he made to pick up an imaginary card from the deck, before making an exaggerated swerving motion to put the invisible card at the bottom of the deck, and then picked another from the top.

Ah. He had thought that might have been it. The rabbit had looked very suspicious after he tried that cheat out, but he hadn’t been sure if he’d been spotted until Angel confirmed it. Without missing a beat, Hazama nodded while he scribbled another note and handed it over.

[Don’t get indignant with me when you do the same thing.] He’d written, to which the rabbit looked up and gave him a pair of wide, sad eyes in an attempt to profess innocence. Hazama snorted. [Your owner’s way better at that than you are, buddy. Just like I’m way better at cards than you.]

Angel wasn’t happy about that last comment. Fixing him with a glare worthy of Ragna’s most hateful moments, the rabbit whipped out a deck of cards seemingly from nowhere, and Hazama had to reconsider the tier list concerning sleight-of-hand experts. That deck had definitely not been anywhere within view beforehand.

He idly wondered if the rabbit would be more annoyed if Hazama allowed himself to write what he wanted to say properly, but for the sake of appearances he had to act polite, if antagonising, on paper.

Hazama was about to write a note accepting the impromptu challenge when a forceful knocking came from the front door, loud but still within the boundaries of politeness. Hazama quirked an eyebrow. It was too early for Fluttershy to return just yet, and she also wouldn’t be knocking at her own door, let alone so loudly.

Angel looked up at him, equally as apprehensive. They seemed to be on the same wavelength in thinking that this was suspicious. All of her friends would know that Fluttershy was in town today, so why would any of them come to the house? The answer is that they wouldn’t. And by the sound of the knocking, the visitor wasn’t here for a friendly chat.

A silent agreement formed between the two, a bond born from a week of intense reading of each other’s expressions. The rabbit was present or within earshot during all discussions that Hazama held with Fluttershy, and knew that the Guards were not particularly on his side. Apparently Hazama had made a good enough impression on the bunny to get the creature to cover for him whenever the guard swung by. That didn’t stop Angel from irritating the hell out of him at times, but it was better than getting revealed to the Guard.

Without further communication, the rabbit hopped up from the beanbag, allowing Hazama to immediately replace him with no complaint. If it was the Royal Guard, he didn’t want to be seen walking around, as that would imply that he had a reason to be doing so. Lounging around in a spot of obvious comfort was much better cover.

Sheathing the deck of cards in whatever hidden area that it’d pulled them out of before, Angel approached the door, where the Pony behind it was knocking even faster than before. The noise had disturbed some of the other animals around the house, a pack of harvest mice in particular scattering into various holes in fear.

Hazama used the time it took for Angel to reach the door in order to sort out his appearance, making his hat more slanted on his head, making his tie less straight, and undoing a button or two on his shirt. While it disgruntled him to have to do these things, it was all necessary to keep up the disguise.

Angel was only a few steps away from the door when a muffled curse or two could be heard outside, followed by a strange shifting sound that immediately put Hazama on edge. It sounded far too similar to that shitty vampire’s teleportation for his liking. The knocking stopped after the noise occurred, making the rabbit hesitate, looking back to check that the Human was in position.

Nobody moved, and silenced pervaded the room. Should they open the door if it sounded like the person there was gone? Did they risk it? Hazama looked at Angel for a few moments, then nodded in the direction of the door meaningfully.

Getting a nod in return, the rabbit pulled down on the handle belonging to the lower half of the door that Fluttershy had installed to let Angel specifically in and out of the house whenever he pleased.

The door swung open from below, revealing a pair of bare Human legs, stepping forwards and backwards in place as though unsure of what to do.

From Hazama’s viewpoint, Angel was visibly bewildered, staring up at the Human outside the door. This wasn’t what either of them had expected. A visit from the Royal Guard, certainly, but not a lone Human. Obviously its owner had been outside the door a moment ago, but had left, presumably with the strange noise from before.

Its lower half ajar, the upper section of the door followed suit, swinging outwards to reveal the full form of the Human.

It was definitely a girl, as its naked state could attest. She had waist-length black hair which had obviously been cared for very well, and the same animalistic gaze as any other Human on this planet that Hazama had seen. She was decently tall, about a head below Hazama himself, which was a fair feat given how lanky he was.

Very carefully choosing to ignore the more obvious aspects of the female’s appearance, he groaned deeply, a sound that quickly turned into an aggravated growl.

This Human was the same one from before. The girl that Fluttershy had been chasing after when she found him.

There was a string tied around her ankle, with a slip of white paper dangling off of it. Angel was quick to pluck the note, easily snapping the string. The rabbit turned, hopping up to where Hazama sat in order to present him with the paper as the girl called Polly stood at the door, frowning somewhat.

Hazama took the slip from Angel’s grasp when it was presented to him, and scanned it for information.

[Miss. Polly here is a good Human, but due to matters outside of my control, I have had to give her up, and was hoping that you would be so very kind as to take her in. If I recall correctly, you have recently acquired a male of fine breed over the last week, so you have my full permission to have them breed if you so desire. As you’ve already taken care of her before, I assume you have everything you need to put up with her.]

…

Hazama finished reading, looking up to see that the girl had entered the room, and was sitting on the floor a meter or so from him, legs outstretched and hands on the floor for balance.

Then, seeing that she had his attention, she spread her legs wide open.

Hazama promptly stood up from his seat and made his way towards the stairs, suddenly deciding that Angel could take the beanbag if he cared so much about it.

Hard Sell shuddered as he walked into the darkened area, a room so large that he couldn't even make out the walls through the blackness.

As expected, a disembodied voice came from seemingly right behind him, but he did not turn around. Following instructions to the letter was the only way he was going to make a good impression.

"You are rid of the filth?" it asked, in a tone so quiet that it would have put anyone to sleep if not for the undertone of disgust that it carried.

The Noble merchant nodded once, shakily. Keeping his eyes forward and taking a deep breath, he spoke into the darkness.

"I am cleansed of the filth and muck, glorious one."

The voice from before seemed to laugh softly in amusement, and suddenly he could hear clapping. Slow, at first, but loud and very close by. Then another pair of hooves seemed to join in. And another, and another, until the entire black room was a chorus of wordless applause.

This was the moment he'd been waiting for. What he'd given up his Human for. He hoped it would be worth it.

A spotlight lit up the center of the room, almost blinding to look at, revealing a stone pedestal. Draped on top lay a set of folded robes, and a mask facing downwards. Hard Sell gulped, trembling with anticipation.

The voice again, directly whispering into his ear this time. He could feel the breath flow over his fur, and shivered involuntarily.

"Then welcome, Brother."

Author's Note

Some confusion came from the appearance of the egg in the real world last chapter. It will be explained later, but all i'll say for now is that it's not a usual part of his skillset.

And to clear up something some of you may have thought about the music section: No. It is not supposed to go with anything in the chapter. The purpose is just to share good music from a good game. Obviously both are subjective.

So now I have 'Susanooh', the theme of Haku-men. Who...Probably won't get mentioned ever again, except in passing perhaps.