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A pounding heartbeat, a splitting headache, the innocent and cruel voices of children gradually turning into an intelligible conversation.
“Don’t let it get away, catch it!”
“No, I’m scared it’s gonna scratch me!”
Suddenly, a scolding voice resonated, stopping the child from throwing the stone he had in his hand.
“What are you doing?!”
“Run!” The faint-hearted children scattered. A tall figure approached, covering him in its shadow, and he retreated back into the large wicker basket.
Why was everything so big! He was dizzy with a sense of insignificance he had never felt before, when a force grabbed him by the back of the neck and lifted him up. He flailed and struggled, four furry white paws slapping the man in the face.
“There, there! Don’t be scared…”
His outstretched pointed claw lifted a strand of flame-colored hair and his pupils suddenly narrowed, heart falling in his chest——
Niwa?!
“Meow?”
He heard himself let out a kitten cry, and his small body was helplessly taken into the man’s arms.
“No one will hurt you.” Niwa stroked his head. He raised a paw and touched his pointed ears, and a glaring black cat reflected in Niwa’s kind eyes, mirroring the same gesture.
It was over, he must have eaten one of the poisonous mushrooms of Sumeru.
Niwa Hisahide had gone by himself on an errand to Narukami Island and had come back with an extra cat in his collar.
The kitten was just two or three months old, with distinctive purple eyes, its entire body a muted black with purple-gray hues, except for its four white paws. It was not in the best of spirits and kept its head down looking at its own paws, not touching the leftovers placed out for it.
The soul in the black cat's body vaguely remembered that it was previously in Sumeru, investigating the remains of a civilization that was said to be even older than Khaenri’ah. Hearing from the locals, there had been echoes of ethereal songs deep within the ruins, haunted by the ghostly souls of maidens sacrificed thousands of years ago.
The Wanderer didn't believe in ghosts and gods, and he had seen plenty of evil things. He had gone all the way deep into the ruins, and found a large flower glowing blue at the end of the chanting. It twitched, its stem as thick as his waist, and in the middle of its fleshy petals, the blackened heart of the flower had turned toward him…
When he woke up again, he had turned into a cat. No, he preferred to believe that he was dreaming that he had turned into a cat.
“Niwa, where did you get this cat?”
Someone poked his ass with a finger, and the black cat looked up. It was Katsuragi, who was a little younger than he remembered. He meowed weakly in response.
“I was running an errand on Narukami Island. On the way back, I saw a group of children bullying it, so I took it with me.” Niwa picked up the kitten and looked at it again. “Why isn’t it eating?”
“Probably hasn't been weaned yet.”
Niwa thought it made sense, and found a nanny for the black cat——the calico cat next door.
The calico cat in its woven straw bed raised her eyes lazily and made no move to reject him, agreeing to share her milk and feed an extra mouth.
“Go ahead and drink,” Niwa guided him to bite the pink bump on the mother cat’s belly, but the kitten gagged and resisted.
Niwa could not force it, and as soon as he let go of it, the kitten retreated into a corner, facing him with its bony back. The black cat thought he would be able to wake up from his dream after sleeping in a place where no one would disturb him, but when it opened its eyes again, it was still a cat.
By the next day, his hunger was becoming more and more apparent, and he had to admit that this was not a dream that he could wake up from by starving himself. From a distance, the black cat picked up the scent of rice in the dark. He found a small bowl of cold leftovers in the corner——shame on whom! The black cat strode proudly on its weak paws and jumped onto the table.
The house servant made a move to shoo it away, but Niwa stopped her.
“Meow~” the black cat let out a drawn out meow, and nudged a pieces of fish with its paw.
“Oba-chan, get him a bowl.”
“Young master Niwa, it's not polite, how can a cat eat at the table!”
The elderly woman had watched Niwa grow up and considered him family, and so after he begged a few times, she begrudgingly compromised. Niwa chucked a piece of fish into the bowl. The black cat ate it clean, in a reserved manner, and touched the bowl of rice with its white paws.
Niwa was dumbfounded. He’d never seen a cat that ordered its own food and waited for someone to serve it. It did not fight or grab, ate elegantly, and its whiskers were pristine even after eating.
Narukami Island was deserving of its title as the residence of the gods, if even the stray cats on its land were so enlightened.
“I'll give you a name.” After it finished eating, Niwa hugged the satiated black cat and teased, “How about calling you Kuro.”
“Meow——” the black cat said no.
“Ah, I see you like the name, then it’s settled, Kuro!” Niwa scratched its chin and sides, and the cat could not stop itself from reacting. Buried in Niwa’s freshly washed cotton clothes, it started purring.
So warm, so comfortable… damn it! he didn’t want to be touched anymore. He was a cat with a complex heart, and the more comfortable he felt, the more alarm bells rang in his mind. He turned around, slapped Niwa with its paw, and jumped off his knees to hide back in the corner.
It's all a dream, you don't know when you’ll wake up, don't let yourself get softened by pets and tenderness, the black cat said to himself, over and over again.
The Wanderer was already determined to move forward, and had accepted that his past was bound to fade away as life went on. Therefore, he could not indulge in this. Letting himself be taken by this beautiful dream of times past would only add to the desolation and emptiness he would feel upon waking up——he could not let that happen.
In his first year as a cat, he acquired an unpleasant name and earned the right to eat at the table like a human, but he always kept a distance from the people around him, detached and wary of deeper connections with anyone in the dream.
The year after he became a cat, the house servant who had been taking care of Niwa died. The elderly woman was very old, and her originally strong body had collapsed after a slip on the mountain road.
Niwa took care of her and stayed at her bedside for a month, and the elderly woman gave him instructions for a month. From food, clothing, housing and transportation, to Niwa’s marriage, to the fact that she did still care about “not serving food to the cat at the table, as it would lead people to believe the Niwa family had no manners”, she explained everything she could in great details, and only then passed away peacefully.
Niwa’s family line was a small one, and its extended members lived far away—and so when she passed, Niwa found himself alone in the world for the first time in his life.
He gave the elderly woman a courteous and simple farewell, completing the funeral in the endless winter cold without shedding a single tear, until he returned to his cold home and looked at the black stove. Only then did he cry, confronted with the lonely silence, long held back tears rolling thick and warm on his cheeks.
Intermittent sobs stirred the air in the room, and Niwa cried until his ears rang and he went numb. The black cat had to meow loudly several times before its voice penetrated through Niwa’s grief, and finally caught his attention.
“Meow——” The black cat's paws smacked one of the bowls with a clang.
Niwa stared blankly at the black cat's purple eyes for a bit. He then wiped away his tears and pulled himself together just enough to cook two bowls of noodles. With his empty stomach now filled, he felt a little bit more himself.
“Thanks…” Niwa said, his forehead resting against the cat’s. He had to keep going, if not for him, for his little companion. What would this little thing do without him, when it couldn’t even catch a mouse?
The black cat softly pressed against Niwa's sobbing neck. It forced itself to forget about dreams, reality, these distant things——to think of nothing, just temporarily lending some comfort to this person boiled into a lump of noodles in front of him, if only at least for a moment.
In his third year as a cat, the black cat gradually stopped resisting getting close to humans.
He had now grown from a kitten to an adult cat, and the dream still showed no signs of letting him wake up.
He had a change of heart. If this was a dream with no end in sight, and the life expectancy of a cat was only a dozen years, perhaps he would wake on a day when the end of its life was near.
The black cat gave up on resisting, and ate itself into a round ball of fluff, living the life of a happy and well-loved cat.
He was like Niwa’s shadow, sleeping on his lap during his leisure time. When Niwa was busy, he would lick his paws and groom his fur, observing him beat iron, and listening to him discuss with his friends and colleagues about the efficiency of the furnace and which alloys to blend their steel with.
He was still arrogant, and only allowed a few people to pet his velvet-smooth fur.
At the end of that year, news came from Narukami Island of the upcoming official appointment of an armory officer in Tatarasuna.
In his fourth year as a cat, Niwa Hisahide became the shogun’s new armory officer, deservedly so.
Niwa was from a long line of swordsmiths and was a diligent and upright man himself who, even before he was given the title of armory officer, had led and coordinated the forging and production over hundreds of swordsmiths and armorers in Tatarasuna, with professionalism and compassion. The fact that he was in charge of the Tatarasuna arsenal was the result of popular expectations.
On the night he received his official seal, a dinner was held at the private residence of the Shogunate’s military inspector Mikoshi Nagamasa, to congratulate him on assuming his new position.
Mikoshi Nagamasa, Miyazaki Kaneo, and Katsuragi were seated on either side of the guest of honor, and they talked about their ideals and ambitions over a glass of sake. The moonlight shone bright, the sake was fragrant, and the illuminated courtyard was filled with the traditional music of Tatarasuna.
In the stillness of dawn, Niwa, who was so drunk that he had passed out, came back to his senses. The black cat, who hadn't slept all night, had jumped on the bed after everyone left and sat firmly on Niwa’s chest, staring at his flushed face.
“Kuro-chan, you are too heavy…” Niwa panted from the weight on his lungs. Two hands grabbed the black cat to lift it up and then sideways, setting it down to fumble around in the sash of his kimono, “I'll show you something nice…”
He pulled out a roll of blueprints to unfold, fishing over with a smile the black cat that had settled in his armpit. He tapped the paper with his finger. “Look, genius design! But there are still many flaws… still needs to be improved…”
He had drunk too much, otherwise he would not have been attempting to explain to a cat the subtleties of the drawing and how they were going to forge the blade. He completely missed the black cat's narrowed pupils, frozen in front of the drawing as if made of wax.
The Daitatara Nagasama.
The black cat recognized the prototype of the divine weapon that was once wielded in his own hands, shrouded by moonlight like a menacing shadow.
He had always felt that his days of being a cat were strange and peaceful, but perhaps it was just that the history of his own involvement had not yet unfolded.
The black cat heard the sound of gears spinning as they closed.
One winter day, in his fifth year of being a cat, Katsuragi found and brought back a young boy dressed in fine clothes from a collapsed cave.
The plains were cold and windy, and Katsuragi could not leave the boy alone with the foraging crows waiting for their opportunity among the sparse trees. He had led him back to the village, but had found himself in a difficult position.
“What's going on here?” Niwa opened the door and saw the two people outside of his house.
“My wife is going to give birth soon… My house really can’t take a fourth one right now, Niwa-sama, can you let him stay with you for a few days?”
The young boy stood a few meters behind Katsuragi, raising his eyes to observe his surroundings. He was all dressed in white, and his delicate profile was striking in the setting sun.
Niwa agreed to take the boy in and instructed the kitchen servant, “Add a set of dishes tonight… Oh, and make some warm soup, thanks!”
“Very well, master.”
He settled the boy in the dining room and went to the courtyard to tinker with his newly arrived instruments. The boy sat restrainedly on his knees, his eyes rolling in their large sockets, curiously surveying his surroundings, when a black ball of fluff suddenly jumped onto the table.
Thump!
He was startled as the eyes of the ball of fluff emitted a frightening purple glow that pierced right through him.
“His name is Kuro.” Niwa walked into the room to ease the seemingly confrontational atmosphere between the boy and the cat. “What's your name?”
“I… don't have a name.” The boy replied in a whisper.
Niwa froze for a second, but chose not to delve deeper at that moment. “Let's eat first.” The boy's long eyelashes fluttered, showing a hint of confusion.
Niwa grabbed two seaweed rice balls, put one in the cat bowl and one in front of the boy, and said “eat” once again.
The boy mirrored Niwa’s gesture and speed, awkwardly shoveling food in his mouth. After a bowl of hot soup, it was unclear whether it was the candlelight or the heat of the food that had finally colored his pale porcelain-like cheeks red.
“Thank you…” the boy drew an imitation of a hollow smile.
“You're welcome.” Niwa replied warmly. “Are you from Narukami Island? Were you separated from your parents in Tatarasuna?”
The boy averted his eyes and stammered. The black cat did not have much of an appetite, eating only half a bowl and jumping off the table to hide.
The next day, Niwa went to the forge early in the morning as usual. At sundown on his way home, from afar, he saw a white figure crouching under the fence of his house.
“What are you doing here?”
The boy sniffled and lifted his head out of the crook of his arm, looking frazzled under his purple veil, several claw marks clearly visible on his face and neck.
As soon as Niwa had left the house that morning, the black cat had begun to scratch and bite him furiously, driving him from his room to the living room, and continuing to attack him until it had finally chased him out of the house completely.
The boy had tried several times to return home, but was beaten out by the cat guarding the porch. He didn't know where he could go and had to wander around the yard. The villagers’ probing eyes and pointing made him uncomfortable, and like a lost child, he had crouched down and tried to shrink himself smaller and smaller, until he was discovered by his returning host.
Without much explanation, Niwa figured out what was going on from his pitiful appearance. He led him back home. The black cat was about to put up its tail to rub Niwa, but when it saw the boy behind him, it blew up the fur on its body again.
It arched its back and shone its claws murderously towards the boy, who immediately retreated behind Niwa and grabbed the corner of his tunic in fear. Niwa held the crazed attacks of the black cat at bay while reassuring the boy “Don’t be scared”.
And then to the cat, “Kuro! Stop it! I’m not going to like you anymore if you do that!”
“Meow meow meow—” The black cat wouldn't relent.
The two people and the one cat chased after each other indoors, attacking and defending, people falling over and cat hair flying around. Finally, Niwa grabbed the disoriented black cat by the back of its neck and carried it to the utility room.
“Kuro, you too were a stray when I picked you up, be nice!”
Without giving the black cat a chance to scramble out, he slammed the door shut, and a piece of dust flew up and settled onto its fur. It stared dead at the door panel, cursing angrily in his heart—
Stupid Niwa! Let him stay and you'll meet your demise!
In order to avoid further conflict, Niwa took the boy to the forge during the day and let him sleep in his room at night. The black cat had wanted to drive the boy away, but had inadvertently brought him and Niwa closer together instead.
Niwa did not understand how the originally well-behaved black cat had turned into a vicious demon as soon as he had seen the boy, and simply could not live in peace with him. He brought the matter to the attention of his colleagues.
“It’s not jealous, is it?” Miyazaki Kaneo, the vice armory officer, paused his hammering.
“Kuro is a male…”
“Male cats can be jealous too. Imagine, you originally rescued a black cat as your only pet, but now there is another white cat to grab your attention away from it…”
Niwa interrupted him, “What black cat and white cat… He’s a person, not a pet.”
Miyazaki Kaneo smiled and instructed the others to take the half-finished product from him and continue its forging, then pulled Niwa aside. He glanced at the young boy who was helping to shape the material not far away, and came closer to whisper, “Niwa-sama, do you really think 'he' is a human?”
“Strange demeanor, unknown origin, they say black cats repel evil, could it be because of this…”
“That's enough.” Niwa frowned, “That child… isn't something harmful, even if it's not human.”
“I hope so.” Kaneo Miyazaki replied with a quirk in his lips.
The forge and the village were full of people who thought like Kaneo Miyazaki about the boy—the Kabukimono, as they called this strange outsider. Niwa carefully guarded the young boy from gossip, teaching him all kinds of general knowledge of life and forging, helping him to integrate into Tatarasuna as fast as he could, and the two became more and more inseparable as time passed.
One day, Niwa took a small team, including the Kabukimono, into the mountains to investigate the new mine. On the way back, the skies fell heavily, and Niwa was drenched by cold rain for several days, and fell ill on the day he arrived home.
His whole body was feverish, his eyelids and cheeks burning to an abnormal red, and his coughs shook the room. The Kabukimono was terrified. “Your forehead is so hot, Niwa-sama, what's wrong with you? Please don't die…”
“It's okay, I won’t die——” Niwa said hoarsely between coughs. He stroked the boy’s hair and continued, “You can help me by going to the village doctor to get some medicine…”
After the boy hurriedly ran out of the house, the black cat that had been sitting in the cold for some time came out of its corner. It did not sit its butt on Niwa like it used to, but carefully touched his forehead with its fleshy paws and let out a long meow.
“Kuro-chan…” Niwa was feverish and only half-conscious, vaguely feeling a wet hot little snout sniffing his face.
The black cat meowed in response, pacing anxiously back and forth——why wasn't the boy back yet? It sat on the window sill and looked out towards the courtyard, and when the black cat was about to go to the village to look for someone, the Kabukimono finally came back with a few large paper bags.
He came to the empty kitchen and stared at the herbs and stove, suddenly remembering that the house’s eldest worker had taken leave to attend a funeral, and he had to cook the medicine himself with no experience in caring for the sick. He rolled up his sleeves and scooped a bowl of water from the water jar and was about to pour the herbs in when, “Meow——!”
The black cat yelped and struggled to pick up a piece of firewood longer than itself and threw it into the stove, “Meow meow!” (Heat the water!)
The Kabukimono understood what it meant and started a fire to bring the water to a boil under the guidance of the black cat. While the medicine was simmering on the fire, the black cat nibbled on the sleeve of the Kabukimono’s clothes and brought him to the rice barrel.
“Meow meow!” (Cook rice porridge!)
The black cat and the boy made a temporary truce, and they dared to teach and learn, meowing in unison with the clanking of pots and pans.
Once the medicine was ready, the Kabukimono raised up Niwa to feed him medicine, the young man barely drinking some and drifting right back to sleep. When he woke up again, he saw the plate of porridge next to his pillow, and the boy and black cat sleeping at his side.
The sunlight gently poured into the room, the wind chimes swaying under the rafters. The half-sleeping black cat was stretched out with its belly turned over, its outstretched fleshy paws poking at the boy's soot-stained flank, and its tail, which had been partially burned in their endeavor, swayed from side to side on the tatami.
Mind still foggy, Niwa wrapped his arms around the boy and the black cat to thank them. The black cat, sandwiched between the Kabukimono and Niwa, let out a long and relieved purr, dazedly praying for the years to go slower and slower.
In his sixth year as a cat, the hard-working, enthusiastic and graceful boy was gradually accepted by the people of Tatarasuna. The black cat sat high and watched with cold eyes as the boy was cheerfully running around every day, doing unending errands for the shallow praises of others.
It was disdainful of the smile that the boy put on his face to please everyone, disdainful of the cheap emotions that he was so easily drawn to. The boy was like a white sheet of paper in the sun, too easy to see through.
For instance, now, the boy hesitated to push the door in, too scared of disturbing the cheerful atmosphere inside the house celebrating the birthday of a distant relative of Niwa’s. There it was, that boring inferiority complex and cowardice at work again.
“Meow—” the black cat jumped down from the roof and yowled at him with his two pointy teeth showing.
“Shh——Kuro-chan, don't scream!” The Kabukimono panicked and held the black cat, but the more anxious he was, the louder the black cat purposely meowed.
Niwa heard the black cat's cry, stepped out with his wooden sandals and pulled open the door to find the embarrassed boy, “What happened to Kuro… eh? Kabukimono, you’re back, come in!”
The Kabukimono had to follow Niwa into the house and saw the child with the same wisp of red hair on his head. He looked only seven or eight years old, openly and cheerfully accepting the blessings of his family, jumping into the arms of Niwa and asking him to spoil him with a newly forged sword as a birthday present.
The Kabukimono thought that he would never learn to express his love and needs as openly as he did, nor would he have the opportunity to let himself do so. He bowed his head despondently, drinking bitter tea one cup after another, feeling more and more out of place in the joyful atmosphere of Niwa’s family gathering.
When the guests left and he silently cleaned up the dishes, Niwa came to his side, stroked his hair and asked, “What's wrong, Kabukimono? You’re moping.”
“I'm not moping.” The Kabukimono averted his eyes.
“Do you want to celebrate your birthday too?” Niwa directly poked at what had been gnawing at him, and sure enough, the Kabukimono’s originally brooding eyes immediately gleamed like they were lit up by fireworks.
“I can have a birthday too?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“But I'm not…”
“Anyone can have a birthday.” Niwa picked up the cat watching them, who set its paws in a fortune cat position as it yowled in discontentment. “We’ll celebrate kitty’s birthday too, eh?”
“So when will my birthday be? I don't remember when I was made… or, well, born.”
“Other memorable days can also be birthdays.” Niwa suggested, “I remember that we met on a certain day at the beginning of the year, how about making that your birthday?”
The boy nodded and hummed happily.
The round pupils of the black cat reflected the incomparably beautiful and heartfelt smile of the Kabukimono. That day, he and Niwa sat in the small courtyard, recalling exactly when they met and which day was suitable for his birthday until very late at night.
In his seventh year of being a cat, a lot happened.
First, at the end of the previous year, after months of casting and polishing, the highly refined Nagamaki went through its final quenching round. Mikoshi Nagasama gave it the name Daitatara Nagasama, and in the following year, it was decided that a ceremony would be held for the blade, which represented Inazuma’s highest skill in swordmaking. The birthday of the Kabukimono fell on the same day as the ceremony.
That day was of great importance to both Tatarasuna and the Kabukimono, and was destined to go down in history and be remembered forever.
As night fell, torches lit up the outline of the coast, reflecting with the sky full of brilliant winter stars. In the distance, the brass bell rang out, and the rhythm of its echo lingered, announcing the solemn opening of the ceremony.
Most of the people in the village went to the beach to watch, and in Niwa’s house, only a few ghostly candlelights remained with the statue-like black cat.
It did not need to be there, its ears sensitive enough to catch the drumbeat. It could imagine on the shore, lit by scattered starlight, the Kabukimono dancing with his wide white sleeves, hands wielding the blade and drawing solemn and deadly arcs in his dance.
The black cat tilted its head to admire the splendid fireworks at the end of the ceremony. At that moment, it was jealous of the splendor, brightness and attention of the fireworks, and infinitely regretted knowing how it was all fated to end after witnessing a moment of such beauty.
As beautiful as the Kabukimono that day.
Laughter came from far and near, and the black cat saw a white-clad Kabukimono pushing open the courtyard door amidst a crowd of people. The birthday banquet after the ceremony was to be held at Niwa’s house.
The house servants lit the lamps all around the room, illuminating the flushed face of the Kabukimono. He hadn't washed off the dancer's soft and feminine makeup and was surrounded by gifts and blessings, yet the one thing that shined above everything was the heartfelt joy on his face.
When Niwa presented him with the hand-made rice cakes and asked him to make a wish, he folded his hands and said——
“I hope I can have a second birthday.”
Katsuragi laughed out loud, “What kind of wish is that!”
“Quick, close your eyes and make another wish, in your head this time.” Niwa interrupted. Both the Kabukimono and the black cat in the corner of the room took a moment to carefully think, eyes closed, and made another wish.
(I wish that I can live with the people of Tatarasuna and Niwa forever and ever.)
(I wish time could stop at this moment.)
The sky turned white, the sun rose above the horizon, the black cat sitting on the eaves of the house all night long, and its wish did not come true.
……
That fall, Niwa became busier, and on the days he was not at home, the Kabukimono would return to share the household chores after doing whatever he could at the forge.
Recently, he had started another project——knitting winter scarves for the workers at the forge. Kabukimono sat with his face bare against the wall, fingers working fast, knitting a scarf with the stitches taught to him by his neighbor's grandmother. The half-finished piece of dangling wool jiggled, capturing the black cat's attention fully.
The black cat reminded itself to be proper and dignified, all the while assuming the posture of a predator ready to dart at its prey. Every time it couldn't repress its cat instinct and wiggled its butt to jump up to grab the wool, it wanted to hit its head against the wall and die.
At first, Kabukimono scolded the black cat and told it not to make trouble——but once he realized how fun it was to tease it, he stood up and playfully flung the wool in his hand to entice the black cat into grabbing it.
“Come on Kuro-chan, catch!”
He was wearing white split-toe socks and jumping and twirling with the black cat on the tatami mat, on a side of the room where the sunlight was pouring in, like a carefree white butterfly fluttering around. Suddenly, Kabukimono’s eyes caught a glimpse of a strange man standing by the window, unable to tell how long he had been watching them there.
The boy's smile froze and he dropped his wool and took a few steps back and hit the wall.
“I'm sorry, did I scare you?” The man lowered his gaze and took off his hat, “I am Escher, a mechanic from Fontaine.”
The black cat’s pupils narrowed to a pinpoint, and every hair on its small body stood up.
……
The black cat exhibited clear hostility towards the mechanic from Fontaine. He kept a firm eye on the man’s movements, not letting him have a chance to be alone with Kabukimono, and sneaked around, trying to disrupt his meeting with the administration of Tatarasuna by any means necessary.
When Niwa, Mikoshi Nagamasa and the others found that the drawings intended for discussion with Escher had once again been scratched and shredded into long strips, and their writing blurred and soaked in cat urine, the inspector got furious.
“Niwa-sama, control your cat!”
The black cat that had not yet escaped the scene of the crime was caught and locked in a cage, and several people gathered around to denounce it.
“Kuro-chan didn't use to be like this…” Niwa frowned and asked patiently, “Kuro-chan, why are you always causing mayhem?”
The black cat did not even raise its head, lazily licking its hair and not showing an ounce of guilt or repentance.
“Could it be that it's in heat?” Katsuragi stroked his chin and said, “Cats in heat do tend to make a mess.”
Inspector Nagasama thought it made sense, his finger reaching into the cage and flicking the black cat's bell, “Hurry up and have it neutered!”
The black cat immediately turned its head, showing its teeth and waving its claws at the inspector. Niwa hurriedly took the cage into his arms, “Mikoshi-sama, I was lax in disciplining him, I will cage him during this time and won’t let him out again.”
The black cat lost its freedom from that day onwards, howling in its cage day and night. It was not easy for the Kabukimono to see its sullen, miserable face, but he did not dare to let it out under Niwa’s strict orders.
The cage was covered with a black cloth that blocked out the light, and it was difficult for the black cat to judge the passage of time. Soon enough, its will became dull and its cries became hoarse.
In the dead of night, the black cat's ears twitched as it heard footsteps approaching, and the black cloth covering the cage was lifted.
Covering him in his shadow, the light-haired Fontaine mechanic looked at the black cat with interest. All the exhaustion and languor left its small body as it bowed its back and hissed at him, its two pointed ears pressed toward the back of its head, murderous intent marring the purple of its dilated pupils.
“Kitten, when have I ever offended you…?” Escher asked with curiosity, “Could it be that… you can sense something?”
He asked casually, not expecting the black cat to actually calm down and make a distinctly human nodding gesture, eyes animated with a strange light.
Escher's eyes widened. The black cat reached out and pawed at the cage lock, “You want me to let you out?” The black cat nodded again.
“Fascinating.” Escher flashed a playful smile and opened the cage. The black cat, having regained its freedom, ran a few steps into the night and then turned back, its round purple pupils staring at the mechanic.
It beckoned him to follow.
Escher followed, and the black cat led him into the mountain.
The road was slippery and muddy after several days of rain, and the black cat, like a spirit in the dark, climbed up and down with ease, turning back every few steps to make sure Escher was following.
It circled around and led Escher into a cave.
“Where are you taking me?”
The black cat, of course, did not answer. It kept going down deep into the damp and cold cave, leading Escher through a very narrow tunnel, to the very bottom of the cave. There, the black cat stopped in its tracks.
Water dripped from the stone and the black cat's pointed ears twitched, its pupils slightly narrower, its lips pursed into an enigmatic curve, like an inscrutable statue sitting in a shrine.
The sound of water dripping against the stone walls became louder and louder, and Escher heard the crashing of turbulent waves getting closer. His senses prickling, he looked back to the way they had come from, just in time to see that the underground river, engorged with several days worth of rainwater, was rushing towards them.
The rushing flood filled the lower cave in an instant. The world fell silent, and the black cat swayed in the water along with the rotting vegetation and gravel. Before the last trace of air in its lungs ran out, the black cat saw Escher generate a circle of air bubbles around him, splitting the flood and standing firmly. He shed his disguise, a pair of scarlet eyes looking at him through the suspended particles.
It took the cat's life for it to beg for death to take them both, and still he could not kill him.
The man reached out and scooped the black cat into his air bubble, but its eyes were already lifeless.
Seven years as a cat, only to die by drowning.
Consciousness rushing along with the torrent and flying over, it watched from above, at Niwa holding a torch and roaming the hills to find him, at the Kabukimono finding its empty cage, stunned and blaming himself over and over——saw the Tatarasuna small boats coming and going, the sun rise and the moon sink under the mountains, while the sea remained still.
As the images and his senses whirled around like a violent storm, his consciousness gathered and returned to another dimension of time and space.
The feeling of sticky juice continually trickling onto his body became clear, and the Wanderer opened his eyes to the black hole of a huge mouth, densely packed with serrated teeth and dripping foul-smelling saliva on him.
He remembered that he was drawn here by the song from the depths of the ruins, and had fallen into a long dream in front of the giant flower. It seemed that he had been hypnotized by the song of the carnivorous plant.
The Wanderer gathered his strength and a wind blade swiped at the flower crown that was trying to swallow him. The giant flower hissed and roared, and its thorny vines broke through the earth like whips and came at him.
“Although you unknowingly helped grant me my birthday wish…” he said, dodging the attack nimbly, his body taking to the air and gathering the power of anemo below his feet——
“A dream of becoming a cat for seven years? That’s just pathetic!”
The corolla and vines of the strange flower were cut into pieces, and the thick stem fell to the ground with a crash. The Wanderer landed gracefully, and the ancient underground ruins that had become silent again accommodated him with a flood of memories.
Were they really just dreams? The coldness of death, the regret under the fireworks, the anger, joy, sadness experienced by the cat, and the memories of the Kabukimono, all intertwined with each other in a mess that stood against the rules of time… he shook off his aching head.
The Wanderer decided to make a trip to the Sanctuary of Surasthana to have Buer check the state of his brain and the Irminsul.
……
Snow clouds loomed over the constant winter night, bare tree branches outside the window pointing to the sky, and a glance at them brought forth a sharp, prickly chill.
Pantalone withdrew his gaze from the view and continued to work on his papers.
Bang Bang Bang——
His pen continued to scratch on the paper with a rustling sound, the knocking lasting for several long seconds before stopping abruptly. The door was pushed open from the outside.
“I didn't say come in.” Pantalone stopped writing and looked at the man with the mint-colored hair in front of him.
“Isn't an unlocked door an invitation for the uninvited?” The thin lips showing under the mask pursed into a smile.
A scholar more eloquent than a politician and a banker combined, Pantalone thought. He cut to the chase, “Go ahead, what's the matter?”
The Doctor pulled out a stack of papers and spread them on the table, tapping at the big and red “REJECTED” stamp on them.
It was the project application form that Pantalone had typed way back, and he knew what the Doctor was coming for. “If you're here to get funding approved for your ill-conceived research, you might as well leave now.”
“Pantalone, for some time now we’ve all noticed that something has changed, something is not right, and I am sure you feel the same way.” Dottore said as he pressed his hand against the paper.
“There are several things wrong with your application, not to mention the ridiculously large 'miscellaneous' expense that has been coming out of our coffers every year, the destination and purpose of which is still unknown.” Pantalone raised an eyebrow at him and attempted to light his silver pipe, only to realize his lighter was empty.
“The research I intend to do will open up new paths to solve our problem.”
“Would you like me to go over what your research topics are——” Pantalone put down his lighter and picked up the papers to read, “Traceability and evolution of the felidae in the Inazuma region, Potential for human brainwaves to synchronize with feline brainwaves——Cats? What do cats have to do with your lost funds?”
“Our memories and our lost funds may have been stolen by a cat, an Inazuman black cat.” Dottore said in a completely serious tone.
“How stupid do you think I am?” Pantalone tapped the table with his pipe.
“I’ve had strange dreams and a gut feeling that won’t go away. The cat is the key to it all, I just know it.”
“Dottore, did you crack your skull and damage your brain last time you made a segment?” Pantalone bit down on his pipe and snorted, “Anyway, I'm not going to approve this.”
“Have you heard of our recently launched biomedical engineering project and the production line it is currently in the process of implementing?” Dottore suddenly changed the subject.
“I know of it, yes. Does this have something to do with cats, too?”
“No, it has something to do with you, Regrator.” Dottore smiled knowingly, “That company raised a large amount of debt with the Northland Bank for their production, and if that production doesn't go smoothly and commercialization fails, they won't be able to repay it. Guess who is providing them with technical support?”
Pantalone instantly understood what he was hinting at and scowled. “Are you threatening me?”
“No, no,” Dottore said, pushing the document in front of Pantalone, “Call it a cooperation of sorts. Regrator, for the sake of your business to have one less debt incident, and for me to find out the truth and uncover whoever messed everything up, you'd better approve this.”
Dottore came closer and pulled out his own lighter to light Pantalone's pipe.
The firelight softened Pantalone's taut profile a bit. He squinted and took a deep drag of his pipe, “You better make good on your word!”
Pantalone held up the square stamp, and Bang——printed a big red APPROVED on the cat research project.