Subaru Natsuki's Journey

The journey back was chaos from start to finish.

Subaru Natsuki finally dragged himself back to the Earl's Manor, his head still swimming.

The moment he saw Hane, he hurried over. Then he spotted a tiny figure sitting on Hane's shoulder and stopped short.

The figure looked vaguely familiar, but Subaru couldn't remember where he had seen her before.

Beatrice noticed him staring, gave a little huff, and turned her head away.

Before Subaru could speak, though, a blue blur darted past him.

It flashed out from behind him and landed on Hane's other shoulder.

"Master, Matatabi missed you so much!"

Matatabi rubbed his round blue head against Hane's cheek as he spoke.

"All right! I've only been gone a few days. Why haven't you gone back to the Empire?"

Hane stroked Matatabi and tossed a pill refined from the God Tree into his mouth.

Matatabi swallowed it and immediately grew dizzy with delight, swaying his head and tail.

The other eight Tailed Beasts, noisy a moment ago, lined up in front of Hane. They sat neatly and looked up at him with their most obedient expressions.

Their looks seemed to say he couldn't favor Matatabi alone. They wanted some too.

Hane was speechless.

In the end, he couldn't resist their pleading eyes. He took eight pills from his storage space and fed them one each.

The Tailed Beasts had grown shameless. Their strength hadn't improved much, but each had become better at acting cute than the last.

In an instant, the other eight were just as blissed out as Matatabi.

When the effects wore off, the Tailed Beasts felt wonderfully refreshed. Each could sense that his soul had grown much stronger.

Matatabi, however, came to his senses and bared his teeth on Hane's shoulder. That was his cat food!