The nekomata, Matatabi, bared its fangs at Ishiki Kujo.
"Don't lie to me, brat."
Ishiki, unfazed, replied calmly, "I don't need to lie to you, do I?"
To be honest, Ishiki wasn't dead set on taming Matatabi. If it worked out, great—it could become a powerful ally. If not, well, a chakra battery the size of a house cat was still useful.
Of course, the drawbacks were real. Matatabi's distinctive appearance made it hard to hide. Without Highway Star suppressing it, the Tailed Beast would revert to full size and become a walking billboard for trouble.
So if Ishiki really wanted to "raise" Matatabi, he had to make the beast willing to follow him. Only then could he apply certain seal formulas to keep it compact, manageable.
Matatabi eyed him with deep suspicion. It didn't trust this human—not one bit.
But the situation didn't leave it with many choices. Either it died alongside Yugito Nii…
Or it left her behind and followed Ishiki.
And the future Ishiki described… it wasn't just hypothetical.
Matatabi knew it was real.
It had lived through that cycle—death, rebirth, captivity—again and again. And every time, pieces of memory vanished.
Sometimes large pieces. Sometimes small.
The only constant was its earliest days… the time it had spent beside the Sage of Six Paths.
"…Fine. I'll believe you," Matatabi said at last, voice low. "But if you're lying, I'll self-destruct, and I'll make sure you regret it."
"No problem," Ishiki replied with a smile.
"Matatabi!" Yugito cried out, panic twisting her face.
"I'm sorry, Yugito." The cat didn't look at her—just turned away.
"You never truly considered what your choices meant for me," Ishiki added, gaze calm. "Even now, knowing you're doomed… you still think only of the village."
Yugito's fatal flaw, in Ishiki's eyes, was her inability to empathize.
She didn't truly bond with Matatabi.
She'd seen it as a power source, and built just enough of a relationship to wield it.
But real connection? Mutual freedom?
No. She was still a tool of the Hidden Cloud.
And Matatabi saw that now.
Its loyalty to her… had cracks in it from the very beginning.
She never asked what it wanted.
She just assumed it would always obey.
Matatabi turned to Ishiki.
Maybe… just maybe… this human was different.
Ishiki's consciousness returned from the seal realm.
He reached out, and with one sharp pull, a surge of flame-shaped chakra burst from Yugito's body—cool to the touch, but burning blue.
It shimmered in mid-air, morphing into a compact form: a twin-tailed blue-flame nekomata.
Matatabi, at the size of a household cat.
Yugito, now empty of her Tailed Beast, collapsed to the ground.
Her eyes rolled back, face pale.
She had watched it all unfold, helpless inside her own mind, ever since Ishiki broke the seal.
Her fate was sealed: either die, or die with Matatabi.
She tried to scream. She hated them both.
But that hatred didn't matter now.
"You want me to bury her?" Ishiki asked, glancing at the tiny Matatabi.
"I'll do it myself," it replied.
A wave of flame surged from its tiny body, engulfing Yugito's corpse.
In seconds, all that remained was ash.
The wind stirred, and Yugito's remains scattered into the trees.
"I promised her," Matatabi murmured. "If I ever left her… I'd give her a great fire, so she could drift freely, unchained by this world."
There was sadness in the voice. But it came laced with venom too—bitterness buried beneath the ceremony.
Matatabi had never really belonged to anyone. Not even to Yugito.
"…What now?" the little beast asked, turning to Ishiki.
It had accepted that there were no suitable hosts nearby. That was one reason it agreed to follow him.
"Your true form is way too conspicuous," Ishiki replied, unbothered. "If you fully restore yourself, people will notice. So for now, Highway Star will suppress you."
Matatabi's feline grin twitched. "Tch."
"I'll find a sealing formula that can regulate your chakra," Ishiki continued. "Eventually, you'll have freedom of movement. If I can figure out a jutsu that lets you change size, I won't need to restrict you at all."
"Until then," he smiled, "you'll live in the President's house."
Matatabi blinked, confused. "You're not going to seal me inside someone else?"
"Nope," Ishiki said.
"Not even a turtle?"
"…Okay maybe the turtle," Ishiki joked, eyes twinkling.
The flames on Matatabi's body flared with fury.
It knew about the turtle.
It had been locked up inside that ridiculous ruby room for days, trapped with that smug old reptile.
And now this lunatic wanted to seal it inside a turtle?
Outrageous.
"Hey, can't you control your own size?" Ishiki asked as they approached the red jewel on the President's back.
"No," Matatabi huffed. "Once my chakra regenerates, I revert to my original form.
If I could control it, you think I'd get caught by humans so easily?"
"Well," Ishiki chuckled, "leave it to me then."
He collapsed onto the sofa inside the red jewel dimension.
Matatabi sulked nearby, pouting in flames.
Ishiki pulled out a scroll and opened his sealing technique notes.
Pen in hand, he began to sketch his ideas—
A new seal.
A new bond.
And a new future.
Matatabi, compact and grumbling, would be the first Tailed Beast in history…
To be kept as a pampered lab subject.