Homeless Bunny 28

  Tianyu Yue

  Velvet Scartina, young mistress of the Lunar Pace, panted breathlessly as she slumped forward, hands braced on her knees and ears drooped with exhaustion. We’d gone through the martial aspects of training for the day, leaving her feeling like a wrung-out towel.

  She had a gift, the marvelous ability to mimic anything she’d seen before. With but a gnce, she could copy everyone’s fighting styles, condensing years of effort into mere moments. By the time we’d finished sparring, she could move as gracefully as Weiss, strike as decisively as Pyrrha, and insert herself with perfect synchronicity in a duet with either of the twins.

  Yet, she still could not master the Lunar Revel.

  Oh, the forms were perfect, divine even. She’d come to me with an already excellent foundation. Her physique was both strong and graceful, with little wasted fat or unneeded muscle. Her limbs were flexible and she possessed the naturally enhanced awareness of the supreme existence that was us bunnies.

  But though she could copy the motions, she could not fully integrate the Lunar Revel into her fighting style. It was expected. The martial art was what I’d made after decades of marriage to Luo Hao. It was an art designed for bunnies, by me, the supreme bunny. I couldn’t cim perfection, but even my beloved praised it as an art that transcended mortal understanding.

  Naturally, there was more to the Lunar Revel than mere posture. Good form was important, but Velvet could not wield magic, or in her case, aura, in the specific ways needed to bring out the full potential of those forms.

  In that sense, Lie Ren, my brother-in-tea, was a godsend. The naturally meditative boy had a highly developed understanding of his own aura and the ways it could be maniputed. He was even able to unch his aura in a destructive pulse that rivaled Nora’s highest yield grenades.

  As far as single-instance attacks went, excluding myself and Amber for obvious reasons, I was fairly certain that Ren had the strongest ace up his sleeve, provided he could make physical contact.

  I’d asked Ren to take up the task of teaching Velvet. She’d thought her workload would shrink when she showed off her Sembnce, demonstrating her ability to copy my forms. Little did she know, she’d only just stepped onto the starting line of the celestial martial dao.

  I reached out and gently caressed Velvet’s ears. It was a highly intimate motion, usually reserved between lovers among faunus from what I understood, but she deserved it. The comfort and peace, the sheer wholesomeness brought about by my supreme ear-scritching technique, it would soothe her soul for what was to come.

  “You did well, choco-bun,” I spoke softly.

  “Thanks,” she panted.

  “Now we can get to the important training.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Come along, Velvet. I have much to teach you.”

  “I-But-You… Why?” she asked, that single word carrying a mountain’s worth of dismay.

  “You are the Young Mistress of the Lunar Pace. There are certain skills I must pass down to you,” I replied calmly. I saw her eyes widen. Her bare thighs tensed as she prepared to flee. As, she could not so much as twitch before I had her by the scruff of her neck.

  “This is unfair. I didn’t ask to be born a bunny!”

  “Yet, here you are, blessed with the most splendid of bloodlines. You must conduct yourself accordingly.”

  “Help… I’m being kidnapped…”

  The rest of my students, lying in varying states of exhaustion around the gde, looked at Velvet, then at me. Then they found something else to occupy themselves with.

  Wise.

  X

  Velvet Scartina

  “You could have just said you wanted to teach me to cook, you know,” I compined as I carefully memorized his movements. He was making a lovely, vender-infused, vanil cream cheese frosting for a carrot cake I definitely wanted to remember.

  “I did. I said we’d move on to the important training,” he replied. “What’d you think that meant?”

  “I’m a huntress-in-training! You’re a huntsman-in-training! How is cooking more important than actually training?”

  He paused his stirring and pced a hand on my shoulder. With a gaze as serious as a heart attack, he said, “You are a bunny before you are a huntress. You are the Young Mistress of the Lunar Pace. Do you know what that means?”

  “How should I know? It’s a made up title you gave me because we’re both bunny faunus.”

  “No. It means you are my representative on Remnant. Just as a calm ke mirrors the moon, and so imparts a fraction of the moon’s splendor and serenity upon the world, so too must you reflect my glory. Be as the calm ke, choco-bun. Learn and grow, that you might one day illuminate the darkness.”

  “With cooking?” I asked skeptically. Tianyu was strong, phenomenally so, but this was ridiculous.

  “Food is life. Cooking is art. Cuisine is history,” he intoned solemnly. The air hummed as he spoke those words, as if they were cosmic truths, not a weird bunny-chef’s life motto. “All that lives must be nourished. Therefore, the art of nourishment is the supreme art which embodies the essence of life itself. The record of such artistry is the record of society, of history. Do you understand, choco-bun?”

  “I… I get it. I still don’t see what being a rabbit faunus has to do with cooking.”

  “You’ll learn in time, little bun.”

  “I’m taller than you.”

  “We can get back to aura training.”

  “Please guide this unworthy bunny along the culinary dao,” I replied robotically. “This one is but a humble vessel, ready to be filled with your profound wisdom.”

  “Oh, good, you can learn.”

  X

  It was an exhausting but rewarding afternoon. Tianyu taught me how to make his special carrot cake from scratch, with that floral cream cheese frosting that I couldn’t get enough of. It was easily the best thing I’d ever put in my mouth, and I knew how to make it!

  I couldn’t wait to go home. My family wasn’t impoverished or anything, but we weren’t exactly wealthy either. And with five siblings, my parents had their work cut out for them. I just knew they’d love this recipe. Maybe, I could even get Tianyu to come and tea–

  I froze.

  Tianyu considered me a “young mistress,” whatever that was. He seemed to think that I should learn martial arts and cooking, just because I was the only other rabbit faunus in Beacon. Apparently, there was this “Lunar Pace” organization that I was supposed to join, maybe when I graduated? So what would happen when he found my five little brothers and sisters?

  Would… Would they be “young masters” and “young mistresses?” Would he draft them all into his hellish training? Would he try to make an army of rabbit faunuses? He already had an army of actual rabbits according to Weiss and Amber so… that was a worrying possibility…

  I shook my head so fast my ears flopped around. No. Absolutely not. I was the big sister. I had a duty to protect my younger siblings. I joined Beacon on a schorship so I could make tons of money and give them the luxury to pursue whatever they wanted in life. I didn’t want this kind of life for them.

  Tianyu must never meet my family, no matter how divine his carrot cakes were.

  The door burst open, revealing my team leader in all her “bullet-chic” fashionista glory. I was wondering when she’d track us down. “YOU! BUNNY!”

  “Which one?” Tianyu and I said in perfect sync.

  She stalked towards Tianyu like she was walking down a catwalk. Now that I thought about it, that was how she always walked. “You. Pillsbury Doughbunny.”

  “Me~” he sang back. Then he recoiled in confusion. “Wait, is that a thing here? Does Pillsbury sell shitty frozen pastry dough?”

  “What are you talking about? They own the biggest bakery chain in the world.”

  “Oh… Oh my, this truly is the worst timeline. I knew Remnant was a culinary wastend, but… Pillsbury? Next you’ll tell me Nestle runs the biggest charities on Remnant,” he said, aghast at the idea for some reason. Nestle donated a lot of water purifiers if I remembered right. What was wrong with that? “Whatever, kudos for the creative insult. I don’t think anyone’s ever called me the Pillsbury mascot before. You’re a very brave woman.”

  “Why, thank you. I do put some thought into my putdowns,” Coco replied with a smirk. She did. I knew she did because I saw her pocketbook of sassy comebacks.

  Style was perhaps a little too important to my team leader.

  Tianyu cut her a slice of carrot cake and slid it over. “Okay, you’ve found me. What do you want?”

  “Look, I’ve been patient but you can’t keep bunny-napping my teammate.”

  “I mean, can’t I?”

  “You can’t!”

  He looked at me meaningfully, then back at Coco. “I seem to have succeeded.”

  “She has to train, you know.”

  “My training is superior to your training,” he said simply. And… And he was kinda right. It’d only been a few days but I could feel myself improving. Strength, speed, flexibility, bance, technique… I’d reached something of a pteau since coming to Beacon, but no longer. I felt like a fresh trainee again. “By the time I’m through, she’ll be strong enough to decre war on humanity on her lonesome and win. Such is the true greatness of the Young Mistress of the Lunar Pace.”

  “I don’t want to be that strong,” I muttered, only to go completely ignored. I slumped a little. I’d never been good at dealing with strong personalities and both Coco and Tianyu were as strong as strong got.

  “We have missions coming up!”

  “So you’ll get choco-bun back when you need to set off,” he said.

  “And the Vytal Festival!”

  “Good. She can demonstrate true bunny superiority. Faunus. Human. It matters not, for all shall bow before choco-bun, she who is to be the avatar of my will on Remnant, the prophet of all things fluffy.”

  “You can’t just keep stealing my teammate away whenever you want!”

  “Of course I can. She was a bunny long before she was CFVY. It’s clear which has precedence. Her destiny is written in the stars and I shall illuminate it for her with the light of the moon.” Tianyu smirked teasingly. “Oh, I see how it is. You’re not worried Velvet isn’t getting her workouts. You’re just lonely because she isn’t spending time with you anymore.”

  Coco lunged and pulled me into a hug. I felt her cheek nuzzle up against mine. “Yes! She’s my bun! You can’t have her!”

  Then, in the blink of an eye, I found myself on the other side of the table. Tianyu pulled me into his p, never mind how silly we looked given I was more than a full head taller than him.

  “You say that, but she’s already mine, Coco. You’re too te. She must embrace her destiny.”

  “No, I really don–” I tried to say, only to find a forkful of carrot cake daintily deposited into my mouth. “Mmph!”

  I tried to tell him off, I really did, but I couldn’t help myself. Instinct took over and I bit down. It would be a travesty to waste the glorious treat.

  And then it started. My whole body shivered with delight. A wave of pleasure hit me like a tidal wave. Though I’d come to expect it from all of Tianyu’s cooking, I couldn’t stop my body from reacting anyway. It was like trying to hold back a tsunami with a box of tissues.

  A truly indecent moan left my mouth against my will. It was downright pornographic, as lewd as Bke sounded whenever she had any of Tianyu’s tuna dishes. I felt my face burn with humiliation as the greatest carrot cake in the world made every hair on my body stand on end. I just knew my ears were doing their happy wiggles.

  “See?” he said smugly, wrapping his arms around my tummy possessively. “She’s already mine, Coco.”

  “N-No, that’s not right,” she stammered, her own face turning red with what had to be vicarious embarrassment on my behalf.

  “The proof is in the pudding. Or the carrot cake, as the case may be. Face reality, Coco. Choco-bun likes me more.”

  “I-It’s not a contest,” I managed to squeak out.

  Then Tianyu reached up and grabbed my ears. It was a perfect, two-pronged assault. One would have been overwhelming enough, but both his cooking and ear scritches?

  To my eternal shame, I couldn’t resist. I folded like a house of cards before a hurricane as a soothing wave of warmth radiated down from my ears to the tips of my toes.

  I felt safe and fulfilled as Tianyu’s dexterous fingers ran along the edge of my ears. It was comfort. It was peace. It was the ptonic ideal of warmth and affection. For a moment, I abandoned my mortal shell and transcended, becoming one with the dao of fluffy.

  “Shhh, just embrace the fluffy, choco-bun,” he cooed. I couldn’t see his face but I could imagine the smug smirk he must have been sending Coco’s way. “You see, Coco? I can give her something you never can.”

  “I-I can pet her too!” she excimed. But the protest sounded weak. She saw the wholesome puddle I’d become and was grasping at straws.

  “You are not a bunny. You will never have the intimate understanding of her physiology, nor can you truly appreciate the divine dao of ear scritches.”

  Tianyu spoke like a king decring his royal edicts onto the world. He delivered truth bombs more viciously than Nora swung her hammer. Each word gouged at Coco’s heart, revealing the absolute reality that she could not change.

  I could see the despair in her eyes, the realization that I would never be as at peace with Team CFVY as I was in this moment. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t her fault she wasn’t a bunny faunus.

  “I-I’m sorry, Coco,” I whispered, but even that was accompanied by a scivious moan. “I can’t… I can’t resist him…”

  “Vel-Velvet, no…” Coco gasped. “You can! You can fight him! Fight the fluffy! Come back to us!”

  “I’m… sorry…”

  “Noooo!”

  “Yes, Velvet,” Tianyu whispered into my ears. His voice was sweet, dulcet like the finest singers on Remnant. It was sweet poison, flowing into my ears and fogging my mind. “Embrace the fluffy. Let the fluffy flow through you. Become one with the fluffy.”

  “Yes,” I moaned. “I am bunny… Bunnies are fluffy…”

  “That’s right. Unlimited cuddles. Unlimited ear scritches. Carrot cakes. The Lunar Pace is kind to bunnies.”

  “No! You can’t have her!” Coco shouted, mustering one final shout of defiance. “I can cook! What? Don’t look at me like that! I can learn! Velvet, nooo!!!”

  Then it stopped.

  Tianyu was caressing my ears and feeding me carrot cake one moment, only to vanish and reappear in front of Coco. He pced his hands on her shoulders and stared her down.

  I didn’t bme Coco for freezing. He had that effect on me too. There was something hypnotic about his big, gorgeous, crimson eyes that had a way of holding someone in pce.

  He wore a wicked grin, teeth bared like a wolf salivating over a young, naive calf. “You have an interest in cooking, Coco? Why didn’t you say so? I would be delighted to take Team CFVY on as line cooks.”

  I whimpered. I was weak. I could not resist the fluffy. And now, my team would suffer alongside me.

  On the plus side, more carrot cakes.

  Author’s Note

  Did Tianyu just NTR Coco so he could get more line cooks? Yes, yes he did.

  Also, I keep getting comments on QQ from people asking why I post in the NSFW section even though all my stories are SFW. Now, I can legitimately say I’ve included NTR in my stories so those guys can get off my back.

  Yes, I’m this petty.

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