"W-We are telling the truth!"

"Yes, we are your biggest fans, Suzuki-sama!"

"We haven’t told a single lie! If you don’t believe us, just burn off all our fur and make us bald cats!" the two ninja cats cried in unison.

They begged pitifully, desperate to erase Suzuki’s doubts. Yet, he didn’t extinguish his fire jutsu. Instead, the heat intensified, causing the felines to sweat profusely, inching them dangerously close to fatal dehydration.

They knew fighting was useless; against Suzuki’s overwhelming strength, any resistance was meaningless.

"At least we will die by Suzuki-sama’s hands, nyaa..."

"It’s a great honor, nyaa..."

The two closed their eyes, fully prepared to welcome their deaths.

Ah, if only we could have served Suzuki-sama as his cats... they thought simultaneously.

They braced for the end, but to their bewilderment, the scorching air suddenly cooled. They blinked, quickly recovering from the oppressive heat.

"It seems..." Suzuki looked at the two cats with a strange expression. "You told the truth. Explain to me how you became my fans. Or... is there even a need to explain?"

The two were still panting, but they nodded repeatedly.

"Of course, nyaa!" they replied. The absolute sincerity was clear on their furry little faces.

Still, Suzuki remained suspicious. It was hard for him to trust others, especially two small, talking animals.

And... unexpectedly...

This was his first failure since becoming the Manager and connecting with his alternate selves across the multiverse. The realization that his grand plans had nearly been derailed by two mere cats dealt a blow to his pride. But at the same time, it forced him to acknowledge his own shortsightedness.

No, let this be a lesson.

Suzuki quickly shifted his mindset. He wasn’t as invincible as he liked to think. Even a massive elephant could fall to a swarm of ants, just as the giant Goliath had been felled by David. Weakness did not equal helplessness.

I am the same way, he mused.

He decided to trust them, especially since the Manager hadn’t warned him about these feline watchers. Then again, was it really that strange for cats to observe him? They were everywhere—in his original world, in this world, and even lounging in the local daimyo’s estate, given the daimyo’s wife was a famous cat lover.

If they were normal cats, he wouldn’t have batted an eye. But this was the world of Naruto. Here, animals possessed ninja abilities, spoke human languages, and were often cunning, brutal, and powerful. One animal had even managed to fool the God of Shinobi into betraying and sealing his own mother.

What a foolish guy, Suzuki thought. Yet, he wasn’t much better, having let his guard down so easily.

"Tell me everything. Now."

Suzuki relocated them to his office inside a luxurious hotel. He sat across from the two cats—one pitch black, the other snow white. Despite their incredible stealth, they still looked like cute, harmless kittens. Nodding eagerly, they began to explain the origins of their fandom.

It started when their seniors and the cat matriarch ordered them to negotiate a weapons trade in this city. Their clan, famous for supplying specialized weapons to the Uchiha in the past, had intended to do business with the local nobility and underground organizations. But when the kittens arrived, they found that Suzuki had already crushed both factions.

"We were so surprised, nyaa."

"Yeah, we wondered what happened, nyaa."

Both the nobles and the syndicate were powerful and incredibly wealthy, yet Suzuki had dismantled them effortlessly. It all began when Suzuki burned down a local gambling den where he had met Tsunade. This sparked a turf war between him, the yakuza, and the corrupt nobles involved in the den.

They thought Suzuki would simply flee, which would have ruined the local factions’ reputations and businesses. Instead, he proved more ruthless than anyone could have imagined.

The kittens watched from the rooftops in awe as Suzuki ruthlessly took over the city’s corrupt infrastructure.

First, he targeted the weapon smuggling routes. When a heavily guarded caravan belonging to the city’s top syndicate passed through the eastern forest, Suzuki descended like a phantom. He didn’t just steal the cargo; he used fluid, high-level swordplay and precise jutsu to dispatch the guards in sheer seconds, leaving behind only the insignia of a rival yakuza gang carved into the trees.

Next was the merchant guild and the red-light district. Suzuki didn’t need to burn these to the ground. Instead, he employed devastating sabotage. He infiltrated the guild master’s heavily fortified estate, effortlessly bypassing sensory traps. He assassinated a few key, corrupt figures in their sleep and planted forged ledgers linking the local nobility to embezzlement and treason against the daimyo, casting suspicion on the local lords and triggering an absolute slaughter.

Divide and Conquer.

Rather than brutally murdering everyone himself, he only killed a few key targets to demonstrate his ruthlessness. The rest? He simply let them tear each other apart. Once the dust settled and the factions were utterly bankrupt or dead, Suzuki swooped in. Using his immense wealth, he bought up the gambling dens, the merchant stalls, and the smuggling fronts for pennies on the dollar. He rebuilt the city’s underworld overnight, hiring the desperate, surviving employees to work under his new regime.

To ensure absolute loyalty, he had them sign his signature Absolute Contract.

While he couldn’t perfectly utilize all the skills and bonuses from his alternate selves—like Suzuki of Arifureta or Suzuki of Tensura—he could replicate variations of them through the Manager. The Absolute Contract was his most vital tool for preventing betrayal. His version wasn’t as flawlessly binding as the ones from Arifureta or Tensura; it merely caused amnesia, forcing traitors to forget everything. But it was enough. With the Manager overseeing his network, his control was absolute.

Unlike his past self, this Suzuki was a master of medicine, jutsu, swordsmanship, and business.

And all the while, these two cats had been watching him from the shadows, speaking of his brutal takeovers with shining, fervent adoration, as if he were their god. It was akin to amateur investors worshipping Warren Buffett.

"So, what are you going to do?" Suzuki asked, leaning back in his chair once their story concluded.

"What do you want us to do, nyaa?" they asked, tilting their heads in confusion.

"I mean, you don’t actually think you can just walk away after learning so much about my business, right?"

"..."

Having observed him for so long, the cats knew Suzuki wasn’t soft. He was ruthless when necessary, though rarely unreasonable. He rewarded loyalty with good faith, but if crossed, he retaliated tenfold. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Knowing this, the kittens exchanged a glance and nodded. They dropped to their bellies, bowing deeply before him.

"Please make us your animal familiars, nyaa!" they pleaded in unison.

"..." Suzuki stared at them, speechless.