It took nearly five hours to prepare Izuku for the ceremony. First, there was a purifying bath. The water had been bitterly cold, and he'd been required to bathe alone (something the young imperial prince had never done before). Even so, Izuku hadn't cheated, carefully scrubbing every inch of his body.

After the bath, his manservant had helped dress him in his silk kimono, carefully wrapping left over right. The only time Izuku had ever worn the other way around had been at his mother's funeral. Elaborate hills and clouds spread across the green silk. His hakama pants had been fastened with a fancy bow. A maid carefully tamed his curly hair until it looked passably presentable.

Izuku clutched his notebook to his chest as he left his chambers. He hoped he would be able to bring it along. Being alone in the shrine for hours with nothing to do sounded dreadful. Besides, Izuku wanted to record every last moment of this once in a lifetime experience.

Tomura waited in the hallway, playing with a Kendama: a ball on a string. His gaze had taken on a laser focus. He loved his games so much, he didn't even notice Izuku's approach. Today, Tomura wore his ceremonial robes too, with the golden skeletons on dark cloth.

"Hello," Izuku called tentatively. Tomura had only been Izuku's brother for a few years. Father said that Tomura was one of them now, though it was rare for that to happen to someone not born to it.

Grunting, Tomura dropped his ball. He looked up with a growl, but his face softened when he saw Izuku. He reached down and ruffled his little brother's curls. "Don't look so nervous. I went through the same stupid ritual, and it was boring."

Izuku sighed in relief. He would take boring. Holding up his notebook, he asked, "Can I bring this?"

Tomura squinted. "I dunno. No one let me bring any games. You should tuck your notebook inside your coat to hide it."

That was Tomura: reckless and prone to doing whatever he wanted. A lot of courtiers whispered about Tomura not being good enough for the royal family, because he'd been adopted. Tomura had reacted by flouting custom with a cold smirk. He seemed to enjoy reminding his detractors that he still held the higher social status.

Izuku did not break the rules just for the fun of it. But he didn't want his older brother to think him a wimp, and he did want to keep his notebook, so he carefully slipped it into the folds of cloth, using his belt to hold it in place. Tomura rewarded him with an approving grin and a wink.

Yoichi strode around the corner of the hallway. "Are you ready?" Beautiful white cranes flew down his sky-blue kimono. His pants were the same green as his eyes.

Izuku nodded. Suddenly words had deserted him. A flood of fear washed over him. What if he failed the ritual? Was it possible to fail? He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

With a soft smile, Uncle Yoichi knelt down. "It won't be scary, I promise. You should smile. Today is a very special day."

Although Izuku had many questions, he blurted out, "Will it hurt?"

Yoichi shook his head. "Not at all. It's natural. Your instincts will take over."

Izuku glanced sideways at Tomura, who played with his Kendama again. He whispered, "It hurt big brother the first time."

Despite the attempt at secrecy, Tomura overheard. He said, "I was a weird case. Not born that way like you. Besides, who told you that I got injured? I was fine. I'm tough."

Izuku didn't believe a word of it. He'd been there the day his father had carried Tomura home, hollow-eyed, emancipated, and covered in blood and dust.

Yoichi said, "No pain at all, I promise. I'm a dreadfully delicate flower, yet I was fine, even with my weak body. You know I can barely survive a tangle to my hair. Anything I can do, you can surely do."

The court might refer to Yoichi as a jade ornament, but Izuku knew better. His uncle was a dagger wrapped in silk. Even so, when Yoichi mimed being shocked at finding a tangle in his hair, Izuku giggled.

Yoichi held out his hand. "Come on. I'll be with you the entire way to the shrine."

Izuku took the offered hand.

Emperor Hisashi met them at the gates. He cut a majestic figure in his black robes coiling with red-eyed golden snakes. Yet his stern face softened when he saw Izuku. Stooping down, he kissed his son on the forehead. Hisashi was overflowing with love for his family, even if Uncle Yoichi sometimes complained the love was as smothering as the coils of the snakes on his royal robe. "Aren't you the cutest little prince? I could eat you up!" His jaw unhinged impossibly far.

Izuku laughed. He'd always enjoyed this little trick of his father's. Yoichi rolled his eyes. "If you're done showing off, big brother, let's go. We can't be late for Izuku's big day."

The ceremony took place in an isolated forest. A shrine stood at the top of a grassy hill. Only the imperial family knew this location. To preserve the secrecy, they didn't even bring bodyguards. Despite his high status, Yoichi acted as the priest. He'd brought a harai-gushi, a wooden wand with attached folds of paper. Yoichi shook the wand over Izuku, barely touching him. Then Izuku washed his hands and mouth with salt and water from the sacred well. He winced but still swallowed the salt down.

"You made me stand under a waterfall for hours," Tomura complained.

"You needed a lot more purification than little Izuku here," Yoichi said with an arched eyebrow.

"Stop playing with that." Hisashi snatched the Kendama away from Tomura. Although Tomura might be insolent with even nobles, he lowered his head when his adopted father scolded him. Tomura cared very greatly for Hisashi's approval.

Izuku rubbed his cold hands against his robe. "Is it time?" He felt embarrassed at the squeaky pitch of his voice. He glanced up the hill. It looked like a very long way up. "What if I'm…too weak to…" He couldn't finish the sentence.

Hisashi knelt down and took Izuku's hands with a gentleness that would have shocked his court. "You're going to be magnificent. Never doubt it, my son." He lowered his voice. "Your idiot uncle had to go through the ceremony twice, so you can't possibly mess it up worse than him."

"How dare you tell him that, Hisashi!" Yoichi squawked. "I was sick that day. And the cold water made me even sicker. I passed out. It wasn't my fault."

Although Izuku restrained his laugh for his uncle's sake, he did feel much better. Even if the worse happened—that is to say, nothing happened—now he knew he could try again.

With renewed heart, Izuku turned to face the hill. He heard his father chanting softly behind him. He walked upward.

Izuku had never been so alone before, surrounded by bodyguards and servants his entire life. His feet ached. Dirt covered his fancy sandals. He picked up his pace when he spotted the red torii gates leading to the shrine, because it meant he was almost there.

At the top of the hill, Izuku dared look behind him. The height made him dizzy. He could not even see his family below. Quickly, he turned his head back.

The shrine was a lovely wooden building with a curved, tiled green roof. It was far less fancy than the golden imperial shrine in the palace. Yet the shadows curling around the edges seemed a bit too long. The air felt heavier here, as pregnant as a storm cloud about to erupt. The age of this place carried such weight that it bore down on Izuku's head. As if moved by an invisible hand, the shrine door swung open. He could not tell if it was his imagination that dust seemed to tickle his nose and haze his vision. Briefly, he lost time. He blinked rapidly.

When Izuku's vision cleared, a dirty man with a pockmarked face scowled down at him.

This was definitely not part of the ritual. No one except the royal family was allowed in this place. Izuku turned to run.

A dozen scrawny men in tattered clothes were already behind him. They wielded hoes and rusted swords. One hissed, "Is that really the prince?"

"Out here all alone." The man in front smiled, gap-toothed and horribly smug. "The royal family left their treasure completely unguarded. He'll be worth a ransom large enough to let all of us live like royalty."

There was nowhere for Izuku to run. He had only seconds to think. He yanked his notebook out of his kimono and threw it down the hill, with a prayer to the power in this place to let it fall where it needed to be.

Then the man lunged forward and wrapped a sack around Izuku's head, plunging him into darkness.

Tomura hated having nothing to do with his hands. He eyed his adopted father, wondering if Hisashi would notice if he got out his Kendama again. Perhaps Tomura could hide behind Yoichi. Although Yoichi pretended to be proper, he could be counted on to abet any mischief aimed at his older brother.

Wind rustled through the trees, sounding almost like…paper? Tomura's eyes snapped to a familiar notebook with a blue spiral cover caught in the branches of a young, short cherry tree.

Lunging forward, Tomura grabbed the notebook and waved it. "This is Izuku's! He took it with him."

"He dropped it?" Yoichi frowned. "It's an odd breeze strong enough to carry such a heavy book down the hill."

Hisashi inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring. "Something is wrong."

The whole family moved as one.

As Hisashi ran up the hill, he was already changing. His robes tore open with a horrendous ripping sound, and his snake-headed belt went flying. A giant golden snake emerged from the tatters. Glowing red eyes rose above the tree tops. Uwabami were large enough to crush regular snakes—or people. The force of his furious hiss shook the hill and sent the trees bending backward.

Yoichi transformed seconds later, his hair turning into feathers, a beautiful white crane on long legs shaking off his robes.

Tomura's transformation ripped his very body open, a skeleton emerging with hollow eyes and giant swinging limbs. The starving skeleton or Gashadokuro stood five times as tall as a man, with red flames burning in his eye sockets. Yet he moved with shocking silence. It was an ability to allow him to catch prey.

By unspoken agreement, the royals split up to search faster. The hunt was on.

Whoever had dared attack the imperial family had not come prepared for the divine beasts.

When Yoichi found the first bandit, the man was already running away. But Yoichi was in no mood for mercy today. He ripped the kidnapper's head clean off his shoulders with his daggerlike beak.

Divine beasts were on an entirely different level from mere animals. Yoichi smashed through a tree to reach the second kidnapper. His claws ripped the man in two.

Yoichi's brother often accused him of being overly softhearted, but against those who had taken his nephew, he would not hold back.

Following the trail of footsteps, Yoichi reached a fallen sack sprayed in blood. Izuku's kimono stuck out, but there was no child there. And Yoichi realized what had happened.

Screams came from further down the hill, along with the rending of flesh, but Hisashi kept moving upward. Tomura could be trusted to annihilate the small fry. Hisashi had his kidnapped son's scent, and nothing could move him from this path. Trees crushed under his massive bulk. At some point, Hisashi crushed fleeing bandits too. He did not even look down. These foul kidnappers were not worth eating. (And besides, they looked like they might be carrying lice.)

Finally the smell of blood overpowered Izuku's scent. A human lay dead on the ground, his forehead caved in. His lips were half-parted as if in shock. Sobbing came from the tree above.

"Izuku?" Hisashi called. If he made an effort, he could articulate human speech while in this form. "Are you hurt?" He raised his head up next to the tree.

A green bunny curled up in the branches. From the roundness, the bunny was only a baby, although already ten times as large as an ordinary rabbit.

A jade rabbit, what a fine form! Although humans assumed that herbivore animals would be weaker, this was not the case with divine beasts. Each possessed different powers, and a rabbit could grow to be as strong in battle as a snake like Hisashi. In addition to his enhanced power and durability, Izuku would possess the ability to banish illness and encourage crop growth across the empire. It was an excellent and useful ability for a prince.

Yet it broke Hisashi's heart that his son had transformed for the first time like this, in pain, terror, and desperation to survive. Tomura, a rare former human who had become a yokai, had also been transformed through the deeply traumatic deaths of his birth family. But Izuku should have found his other form while sitting in the peaceful shrine, surrounded by carvings of his ancestors. It shouldn't have happened in a way that would surely become a bad memory. Hisashi hoped every last bandit devoured by Tomura had died slowly. He wished he could bring them back to life and kill them again.

Hisashi's head darted around, examining the bunny from all sides. He found no trace of blood on Izuku's fur…but there were bloodstains on his feet.

Izuku sobbed, "I-I kicked that man…he was trying to grab me…and he stopped moving…I didn't know I'd be so strong…I didn't mean to…did I k-kill him?"

Hisashi realized that his son was not crying out of pain or fear, but out of shocked guilt. Just like his uncle, Izuku was too kind. The kidnapper had deserved a slower death for daring to lay hands on a prince.

Smoothly, Hisashi lied, "I saw that man run past me with a bleeding forehead."

"Oh!" Izuku cried in relief.

Hisashi shifted back to his human form. Heedless of his nudity, he gathered the green bunny into his arms. Someday Izuku would grow too large to carry in human form, but not quite yet. Hisashi took care to shield Izuku's eyes away from the corpse on the ground. Later, he would make sure to confirm his story with Yoichi and Tomura: that the three of them had killed all the bandits.

In his excessively long life, Hisashi had committed many sins. He would bear this sin for his son.

Later Izuku would remember only flashes of the journey home. He'd been overwhelmed by his new form and so many scents and sounds. Also, he'd been in shock from his ordeal. Under his fur, he had bruises where the men had grabbed him.

Back in the palace, Izuku's father washed him with warm water. He tried not to look at the bandit's blood filling the bath.

Yoichi had prepared pure shrine water and delicious bok choy suited for a rabbit's palate. Tomura tried to make Izuku smile with his ball.

After Izuku had eaten, Hisashi tucked him into bed. Not his usual bed, but his father's giant one. Hisashi, Yoichi, and Tomura all crawled into bed and curled up against the bunny.

Surrounded by his family, Izuku finally felt safe enough to turn back into a human.

OMAKE TIME!

Yoichi: Cranes can be dangerous birds.

Hisashi: Not as dangerous as swans.

Yoichi: I can't be a swan, I'm not evil.

#

Tomura: I feel ill.

Hisashi: Did you eat the bandits?

Tomura: In my defense, I'm always starving in my other form.

Hisashi: I told you not to put filthy things into your mouth.

#

Bandit: I've always wanted to die in a horrific way, and one day I woke up and asked myself how to make my demise extra painful.

Hisashi: And that's how I imagine someone decided to kidnap my son.

#

Tomura: Father, did you bully Uncle Yoichi as children since you were a snake and he was a mere crane?

Yoichi: He tried! I used to pick him up with my beak like cats pick up their young by the scruff of their neck. Then I'd toss him on my back and fly off. He'd be completely helpless when I got him in the air.

Tomura: That's hilarious.

Yoichi: You and Izuku haven't yet grown big enough to stop me from doing the same to you.

Author's Note: Rin is the creator of this AU and drew stunningly beautiful art to go with it. I was inspired by how cool the Shigaraki royal family look in their formal wear. Delete the spaces to get the link:
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