New law of Beast Taming

"That was nice of you to pick me up Eclipse. But I cannot help but wonder why you did that. Huh! Can it be that you finally recognized how magnificent I am and decided to devote your life to serving me? I always knew that this day would eventually come."

The kid gave Amane the blankest stare she had ever gotten in her life. He looked agitated but his eyes gave away the worry he felt.

"Nonsense. Don't put words in my mouth like that. Who would teach me the art of beast taming if anything happens to you? My life is currently dependent on you."

The kid was not wrong but Amane was sure that he was not telling the whole truth as well.

She had a lifetime's worth of experience handling children who were dangerous and dishonest. She could read what the child did not want to say.

"I see. But you have frowned up quite a lot in the past few days. You look nearly six years old now and you even managed to get my Griffin out all on your own. It seems like you are ready for more hard-core training."

'Yes, get bigger and better so that I can live a carefree life when the time comes.

Amane watched the kid shiver as soon as she suggested it. He looked back at Amane with suspicious eyes but she just smiled back innocently at him.

"I don't want to agree with you. Every time I do what you want I get a feeling like I am being dragged into a trap I will not be able to escape."

Had the kid not been looking directly at Amane when he said that, she would have let out a chilling laugh.

The kid she had picked up had fangs and good instincts to recognize the danger he was in. It would help him survive in the future when he would have to take care of Amane's affairs.

'I lucked out picking such a good kid up.'

"Don't make that face, please. It makes me scared and I don't like that feeling."

"What face? I am merely smiling at you in happiness. Don't tell me that you are scared away by my smile?"

The kid shuddered as he commanded the Griffin to land. It was not Yoko's smile that made him afraid but something else behind her.

"Y-Yoko, you are back home. Do you know how much trouble this little kidnapping caused us? Our stocks went down quite a lot and-"

"We are all happy to see you back home Yoko. Don't mind my father's mouth. He was really worried about you as well."

Her uncle looked anything but worried about Yoko. instead, he looked uncomfortable but worried for the family business.

'It was too much to expect for Akabe to be worried about me anyway. But Sakura looks like she lost some sleep over this issue.'

There were visible dark circles around Sakura's eyes and her hand had some ink strains that could only be the result of spending too much time with the pen writing.

It seems like she had been busy while Amane had been away.

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"Sakura, accompany me for the next few hours. I want to know what happened at the time I was not here. I want everything reported to me. Eclipse, you come with me as well."

Amane gestured for Sakura to follow behind her as she helped Eclipse down from the Griffin. Her uncle looked like he wanted to join in as well but the Griffin held him at the bay.

The servants looked between each other, deciding on whether to follow them or not but Amane made their choice for them.

"Don't disturb me for the next few hours if you value your life."

The servants stopped cold at her words, not daring to follow Amane into her wing. Her command had obvious meaning - the beasts would be left to roam free tonight in her wing.

To go there without an escort would be like courting death. And no one was brave enough to do that.

As soon as Amane entered her wing, she felt her breath ease and her shoulders drop down in a relaxed manner.

"Did Hibi make it home alright? I kind of left him to roam in the middle of the Lyco forest."

"He made it back alright. He's in your room along with that phoenix chick you adopted."

It was Eclipse who said that. It was a given that he had found Hibi since he was the only one other than Amane who approached the beasts in a relaxed manner.

"Yoko, I hope you know that it was not my father or one of the elders who initiated your kidnapping this time."

Sakura sounded anxious when she said that. Had it been anyone else who said that these words must have sounded suspicious but Amane did not find Sakura suspicious from her body language.

She was more concerned and worried about this situation than to be hiding something.

"I know it was not one of them. No one here would risk causing this much unbalance in our market which just stabilized and we have begun to make a profit. These pests would have waited for a more suitable time to do that."

The Tsurugi family had just changed their way of doing thighs. This was a delicate time when nothing could go wrong.

No matter how much those elders on the council wanted to replace Amane and put a puppet up there, even they knew that they had to wait for the right time to do that.

So it was easy to eliminate them from the list.

Well, that, and the lack of response from the police solidified Amane's beliefs in not being a Tsurugi clan member. They did not have as much approach as the main house to go against them in terms of having contacts.

"Let's think about it later. I want to really sleep tonight and then mentally prepare myself for the hard day I will have to face tomorrow. Lady Suzuki will be visiting us so we need to get things in order."

Sakura had a sorry look on her face at hearing that. But lucky for her, she would be out at school when the Divine Guild's leader will drop by.

"Well, then we should leave you to sleep now. Have a good night's rest so that you have enough awareness tomorrow."

'Stop sprinkling salt in my wounds. Just leave me alone now so that I can go to sleep.'

Thankfully, Sakura and Eclipse did not stay around for long. They knew when they were not needed and decided to make a graceful exit.

Unlucky for Amane, not everyone was as sharp at taking hints as these two.

Or well, shameless enough to ignore Amane's hints outright as her guest did.

___________________________

"Lady Suzuki, please let go of my arm. I don't think it's proper for you to hold on to my arm like this."

Amane was sure that everyone could see her tired face as she all but dragged her body toward the chair arranged in the garden.

It would have been easy and consumed much less time if Carlie let go of her arm. But the other female refused to do anything like that.

Instead of freeing Amane, Charlie only held on tighter at the complaints she heard. She was behaving like she did when she had been younger.

"Leader, maybe you should let go of Lady Tsurugi now. She is not in any condition to support your weight right now."

Thankfully for Amane, she still had some people on her side who seemed to be worried about her. Helios was an unexpected help but Amane welcomed him anyway.

Now if only Charlie listened to him, Amane would not be in this tough situation right now.

"Let go of Yo~ko~! I don't want to do that. I am sure Yoko doesn't mind me holding onto her like this, do you, Yoko?"

Either Charlie was doing this on purpose, or she had not heard a thing Amane had said this far.

And one look at Charlie's smiling face would tell you which one of these two was true.

"B-But she just asked you to-"

"I said I.AM.SURE.LADY.YOKO.DOESN'T.MIND."

"Don't dig into it Helios. You won't be able to win if you fight with the leader now."

If Amane felt like dying right now then Sean looked ready to bite the bullet. His beautiful face was sunken and tired as well.

He had not slept the night before and Amane felt like she had found a soul similar to herself when it came to Charlie.

'I still don't like him that much though.'

And it was the truth.

"Lady Suzuki, no, Charlie, can you let me go now? My arm had begun to give me problems and I feel like my circulation was cut off."

Charlie looked stunned for a solid minute and everyone else had gone quite as well.

Helios even opened his mouth to say something before Sean put his hand on top of Heliso's mouth to quieten him down.

They both had horror filling their eyes as if Amane had done a grave sin and she was about to die now. But it had nothing on the mix of emotions that was swimming inside Charlie's eyes.

"I-you called my name."

'Ugh! Don't tell me no one calls you by your name now. Did I mess up?'

"Is there a problem?"

Amane wanted to rage but she spoke quite coldly back at Charlie. A lot of people flinched at her bold move, their eyes eager to see what would happen next.

"No, I liked it. You are free to call me by my name from now on."

Charlie looked happy, to say the least, but Amane ignored those emotions. She did not want to read too much into them and then confuse herself.

It was better to keep things simple for now.

"No. It was a slip of the tongue this time. I assure you that it will not happen again."

Amane would make sure that this does not happen again. There was no need to deepen her relationship with Charlie more than it already was.

"Awwww, come on. You can make that mistake again. In fact, I would like it if you make that mistake a lot from now on. I want you to call me by my first name when we meet next after my trip to the southern islands."

"A trip? Wait, you never said anything about this trip before? Where did this come from? Is it even scheduled?"

Sean sounded surprised at the sudden announcement. And he was not the only one who looked surprised at this sudden announcement.

Helios and the rest of the members of the Divine Guild looked surprised as well. It seemed Charlie had dropped this news on them all of a sudden.

"It is not a scheduled trip but one that came up all of a sudden. I will be absent for a month and my secretaries will handle all my work in the meantime. I just wanted to come here before I had to leave to see Amane's face one last time."

Amane wanted to say that she was flattered but she did not feel anything of that sort.

"So, when are you leaving for this trip of yours?"

Amane asked, wanting to know when she would be rid of this pest from her back.

"Not me but us Yoko. You are coming with me on this trip. It will be fun with just two of us and the wildlife around us. We will be leaving this evening but don't bother packing your stuff since I will provide it all for you."

"You cannot decide that on your own. I am fully recovered yet and I also need to manage the Tsurugi records and-"

Charlie just smiled her radiating smile. Her message was clearly saying 'don't worry about it' but Amane had a feeling that it was not a reassuring message but rather a threat which said 'don't be a fool and come along peacefully. Or I will make thighs difficult for you.'

From the start, Amane did not have a choice but she had to try and object.

"So, can I reject this offer?"