A New Kingdom to Rule

Dust to Dust

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The walk back to the office had been quick. Distracted by his deep thoughts the young King hadn't paid much attention to the change in temperature around him, or the roaring of new flames as another business had been set alight beside him. His head remained angled down with eyes tunnel-focused on his path ahead. Everything else around him was just extra annoyance- extra unnecessary fuel to his growing anger.
Storming through the barricades and straight to the main office, Shoto stopped for no one. Gave no pleasantries and no manners.

Inside the office, simplicity and secrecy were the main goals. Papers were recorded in case order  chronologically and stacked on the shelves with leather bound covers protecting them to imitate normal reading books from the library. Two bookshelves stacked side by side on the far end of the room took up the entire wall, with every other shelf being empty for the next case.
A worn down coffee table carved from a dead fallen tree was placed rather oddly under the window. Quills, ink and mugs cover its top in a rather organised mess. Three chairs made from the same wood had been dotted about their locations never set in place for long.
A rug made from expensive wool covered the running floor boards that tilted toward the window, as though they too were eager to leave the dullness of the the room behind. The room wasn't built to be attractive or soothing. It was boxy, it was bland and made with one purpose.
Two attentive guards guarded the door at all times, one inside and one out. Neither batted an eyelid as the King approach, instead the merely nodded and parted to make way for him.

Once Shoto's hands forcefully made contact with the wooden door, he used his energy to push them open letting them slam on the walls behind and causing Iida and a few others to jump and hold their swords in their hilts ready.

"Your highness! We weren't expect"

"We have a problem. No, they now have a problem."

Shoto marched forward ignoring the potential threat the guards and the unfinished sentence until he was just a few feet from Iida. Holding out a hand he displayed what was left of the stained blood from the previous victim. Iida's chin rose as he puffed out his chest.

"Yours?"

"Does it look like I'm bleeding?"

"Whose?"

"Not his."

"His?"

"Midoriya, he was with me. Then he wasn't and she replaced him. We need to find him."

By now Iida had passed Shoto a cloth to clean his hands as he took a seat, wiping the smudges from his glasses. The other guards exchanged cautious glances between them but remained silent. Tension was building and each of them would rather swallow their own tongues than break that right now.

"Iida, he was with me when we went to visit Momo. She had the prisoner for questioning. We went to see her. Now she's hurt, Midoriya is missing and this girls got something to do with it!"

"Toga."

"What?"

"The girls name, Himiko Toga. Sources tell us that she's working with the rebels. That they have possibly tripled their numbers and now call themselves The League. Run entirely by two young men."

"Worked. Not working, I took care of that part."

"You killed her?"

Shoto merely looked down his nose at the sitting guard before him. Eyes unapologetic for the act he had just confessed to. That was his answer.

"I see."

Iida finished with his glasses and pushed them back up the bridge of his nose until they sat back into the little indented marks. Then looked up to his superior.