Settling the Ranks
"So, White. I didn't betray you."
Bariya lay on the bed and stroked White with a small, gentle hand. The great tigress had made herself into a pillow beneath her.
"Huff."
White snorted.
It didn't amount to much of a protest, not while she was still dutifully serving as that pillow.
"Besides, you're far too big for me to carry around like this."
"Nnngh."
Even White couldn't bring herself to deny it. Her face fell, and she went limp with sorrow. Bariya patted the firm muscle as comfortingly as she could.
"More than anything, there's a reason I have to keep this one with me."
She scooped up the black cub curled at her side.
"Grr."
Robbed of his rest, Blackie wore a thoroughly sulky face and lashed his tail back and forth.
"Blackie, are you really from the Rendel family?"
He was a beastkin. He must have heard every word of the conversation just now, and yet he gave no particular reaction.
Could it be he wasn't a Rendel after all?
"What's your name?"
Close as he was to a Divine Beast, Bariya could speak with him even in animal form. But Blackie had never once told her his name.
"Or do you actually like being called Blackie...?"
Was that his taste?
"Pfft."
The snort suggested otherwise.
"Then why won't you tell me your name? And why won't you take human form?"
A full day had already passed since she first met Blackie at the auction house and brought him to Caliph. An ordinary beastkin would have slipped out of animal form long before now, yet Blackie showed not the slightest sign of it. He didn't even look as if he were suffering, so he wasn't forcing himself to hold the shape.
"There's no way he's a Divine Beast, or something like me."
As the daughter of a Divine Beast, she could recognize their distinctive energy, and she felt not a trace of it from him. The people of Caliph, so unlike the way they had looked at Bariya, felt no fondness for Blackie at all. They watched him with open wariness.
I thought there was no beastkin stranger than me.
He was hardly ordinary either.
"Well. If you don't want to, there's nothing to be done."
Bariya set him down on her stomach and stroked him softly.
"You probably don't trust me yet, and this place probably doesn't feel comfortable either. Do it when you want to. I was the same."
When she was first dragged to Caliph, Bariya had kept her wildcat form so her identity would not be exposed. Only after she learned that Caliph hated hyenas every bit as fiercely had she shown her human shape. Blackie needed time too.
"I will never throw you out or starve you just because you won't shift or speak, so don't worry. I truly hate that sort of thing."
Hurting a child—one shouldn't do it to an adult either, but especially not to a child—people who did that deserved a thorough thrashing. Bariya had no idea how old Blackie was, but she was certain he was younger than she was, and she patted his rump.
"Kyack!"
He lost his temper at once and bit her small finger. It didn't hurt in the least. It only tickled, like the nip of a baby cat that hadn't even grown its teeth.
Bariya grinned.
"Those teeth are sharp, and yet you won't leave a mark on me. You like me, don't you?"
"Kyak! Kyack!"
"Hehehe. Deny it all you want, it shows. You little rascal. If you like me, just say so."
She burst into bright laughter and scrubbed Blackie's face all over. He flailed and unsheathed his claws, but not a single one reached her.
Bariya liked this mysterious black tiger very much.
"Grrrr!"
White, who had been watching the whole display, lost her temper and promptly took Blackie's face in her mouth.
"Aaah! White! Blackie!"
Startled, Bariya frantically hauled him free, but his face was already soaking wet.
"...Kraaa!"
Blackie stayed frozen for a long moment, then launched himself at White.
"Hey! You can't use your poison right now, so you can't beat White! And White, you don't get to crush him just because you're bigger!"
No matter how she tried, the two tigers, eyes gone wild, showed no sign of stopping. In the end White caught Blackie's tail in her teeth, and Blackie kicked her with his hind legs—and Bariya could endure it no longer. She unleashed a wildcat's roar fit to rival a lion's.
"You two! Can't you hear me!"
At the powerful pheromone, rich with the scent of green grass, both tigers froze in startled silence. Bariya stood on the bed with her arms folded and glared down at them, eyes blazing.
The society of predators had always been a world where the strong devoured the weak. A firm hierarchy was what kept the peace of a household. For the sake of that peace, Bariya was more than willing to use force.
It did not take long at all before both tigers submitted without so much as a squeak.
"Hah. Don't you dare act up from now on."
She sat before the two of them, their spirits thoroughly crushed, both kneeling, and gave a small nod.
A perfect resolution.
"Hah—hah!"
Darius tore down the corridor of the estate, his face desperate. He loathed the sight of a noble hyena dashing about so undignified, but this was no time to worry about that.
"Move! I said move! Get out of the way!"
He even shoved passing maids and servants aside at random, sending them sprawling. Right now there was only one thought in his head.
The family head has found Bariya!
Late at night she had come to him without warning, spouted a load of bullshit, and vanished without a sound. By the time he fainted and opened his eyes again, it was already well past noon. When he first saw the sunlight pouring through the window, Darius wondered whether the night before had been nothing but a bad dream.
Of course he did. She had slipped past the family knights standing guard, strolled in alone, spewed garbage, and left again—and no one had noticed until she was gone. She had even knocked everyone out, himself included? It was impossible.
Yes. I had a nightmare. That couldn't have been real.
The moment Darius smiled and rose from his seat, hundreds of strands of hair pattered to the floor. He screamed.
Only then did he stop fleeing reality and was forced to admit it. That damned thing had torn out his hair and disappeared.
He kicked the still-useless knights awake and roared at them to find Bariya at once. The one small mercy was that she had not, as she claimed, returned to Caliph. A knight who had secretly visited the Caliph Estate reported that everyone there was moving in a frenzy, and that Sabrina herself had manifested in animal form and bolted out of the estate. They were clearly searching for Bariya, who had vanished so suddenly.
It stung to the bone that he had let slip the very one who walked in on her own two feet the night before. Even so, it was still an opportunity. He immediately deployed every person he could move and threw himself into the search. This time he would find her for certain. Once he did, he would educate her so thoroughly she could never spout insolence again, and he would break her mind. He had sworn to make her a tool for him alone.
And yet days passed, and he could not so much as catch a glimpse of Bariya. Before, when he chased her, she had left traces like the child she was, and he had found her quickly. This time he could not find even a trace. In the end he took the risk of spreading her description, and all that appeared were worthless lookalikes.
As time went on, a terror like the blade of a guillotine already at his neck crept over his whole body.
It had been about five days of that when, astonishingly, the news that Bariya had been found did not come from his knights, but from the main house where the family head resided. Darius dropped everything at once and ran straight there.
Had the family head truly found her? If so, that was a relief. Even if he himself had failed, at least that blood was no longer wandering loose outside. That was what Darius thought.
"Hoo."
Arriving at the family head's office, he quickly straightened the hair and clothes disordered by his run, then knocked.
"Family Head, it's Darius."
"Come in."
At the voice from within, Darius faltered for an instant. He had naturally assumed that loathsome younger brother, Rozan, would be with him again, just as last time. Unable to hide his confusion, he stepped inside.
To his surprise, Rozan was not in the office. Only the family head, Belodic, stood by the window with his back turned, just as before.
And one thing more. Contrary to every expectation, Bariya was nowhere to be found.