Disclaimer: Neko no Ongaeshi (The Cat Returns) © Studio Ghibli/Hayao Miyazaki, and is used without permission.

Author's Note: The title given when I first release this, even with the Japanese text, will reflect this story's status as a sequel to The Cat Returns, but is not the true title, which you'll have an idea of by the end of the first couple of chapters. What I will state is that the cat that returns does not have to be Baron, it could easily another cat that will be returning.

I will admit to borrowing some elements from Catsafari's Bureau Files over how Creation Magic works, mainly the fact that excessive use of magic has the potential to cause a Creation to unmake itself, and expanding that to cover also items created and/or owned by Creations, in that all creations imbue a small amount of themselves into their possessions, similar to how everyone leaves a small amount of themselves in how they decorate and furnish their home, creating something unique.

猫の恩返し二

The Cat Returns 2

Chapter 1: Endings And Beginnings

The Bureau, Over A Decade Before Haru

Baron sighed. He could tell it was getting late, from the fact he'd had to get out his reading glasses to finish his paperwork, having got terribly behind on it, due to several cases happening back-to-back, and he didn't want to disturb anyone. He heard a creak, along with a muttered comment about needing to oil the hinges. He kept decorum, not wanting to mention that the creak was effectively etched into the hinge's design at this point. It was similar to the Police Box design of the TARDIS. Nothing would stop that hinge creaking. Period.

"Humbert, Do you understand what sleep is?" Louise asked as she slid out of her alcove, picking up the stack of cards he'd just finished writing, plucking a pen from next to her, before sighing, "I don't know what's worse… That ballet teacher at Kinkan Island or The Cat King. Both of them try to chat me up… Anyway, I do enjoy visiting Ahiru, even if she can't stay human for very long… You did a good thing to give her what she got though… She got the bad end of the stick, being Made by him..."

"Yes, Yes, We both know that anything Created by Drosselmeyer is plagued by disaster and failure..." Baron grumbled, "He blocked any attempt to change her back permanently, declaring the end of the book specifically said she turned into a duck forever, and that was how he Created her. He was furious that she managed to turn his tragedy into a bittersweet tale. Never mind what we did to unravel, slightly, the finality of that ending..."

Louise nodded. An epilogue, which gave Ahiru a chance to finish her time at Kinkan Academy, ending with her turning back into a duck on her wedding day, gave her a bittersweet ending, a small amount of creation magic making her change just after the ceremony, which annoyed Drosselmeyer immensely. However, they had managed to placate him, after a lot of shouting, with the fact that, as Baron had pointed out, the impact was not lessened, since it meshed well with the new bittersweet tone of the ending.

"Before, Ahiru's story was unresolved, she'd done everything but her reward was beyond her grasp. A few pages, where she gets everything she worked for, and more to boot… but the unwavering fact that she's only got a limited time left still hangs over her..." He'd stated, firmly and politely, "Once her plot is resolved, she can't avoid the inevitable, but she at least got to live the fairytale lifestyle… If another Creator takes over your legacy, she might change back, but our job is done,"

The cards she'd been reading went into her pocket, after she'd done a few more annotations, and he knew they'd be up on the cork board beside the entrance to Louise's Tea House by the end of the week. After a brief pause, she pulled herself up and into the padded space beside her, then it closed back up, and there was a soft click. After a few more minutes, he was upstairs sleeping. Creations, even those in a close relationship, didn't sleep with each other often. It was not like with mortal beings, where they always tried to create a successor. They did not… often die, so didn't need to.

The following morning, Baron looked towards a set of lights, the discreet part of a security net over the entire Refuge. noticing two of them light up green. A green light was expected operation, whatever set it off being exactly what was expected at that moment in that location. A yellow light meant abnormal operation, like two or three people passing through the same area. A red light meant a sizeable group or heavily laden, which guaranteed intruders. One went out as he collected the newspaper and mail, the other was acknowledged as Baron tipped his hat to Toto, who lightly bowed to him.

The only other part of the security system allowed him to seal the archway into and out of the Refuge, the Creations inside waiting until the lights turned yellow then went out entirely. Many Creation settlements had been lost when they didn't keep a weather eye on the people moving near to it's location. Louise opened up her sleeping area, getting her clothes out of the drawer she put them in, at Baron's behest, before wrapping her arms around him, giving him a light kiss, reminding him of why he didn't mind.

"What did I do to deserve such a great lover?" Louise purred, Baron smiling.

"Baron, I have news from the outside. They're replacing the roof area on some of the paths into the Refuge!" He heard someone call, cursing, since it would mean, at best, false signals for hours. He looked towards Toto, who headed out to fly over the paths, check for anything out of the ordinary, ready to plan for replacing the security net.

"We will be closing the Refuge except to essential travel for the next few hours, due to the security net being disrupted by routine works..." Baron stated, "I will need to be reapplying the enchantments in affected areas for the entire period, since, otherwise, I will not be able to tell when foot traffic reaches normal levels..."

"We can't close down today. I have deliveries planned, and it's not easy to reschedule!" One of the shopkeepers stated, Baron sighing.

"Hopefully, your delivery will not be using the normal entrance..." Baron almost snapped, but kept his decorum instead, "I already will be having Toto talk me through gaps in the security net..."

He then sighed, going to the security system, turning the key to 'Lock', then 'Test', several light bulbs not lighting up. This was worse than he thought. He could hear a lot of dissent about the sealing of the Refuge. As he looked through his letters, he cursed, cycling it back, having to ignore the lights. He'd need to be operating the Bureau from a different location for a few hours. He gave Louise a hug, sending her off before he began the process of moving to the Cat Kingdom to help deal with a fish thief, telling the people who had business outside the refuge how to manually seal it.

When he got back, terribly late and with a new Bureau member, due to the nature of the exile of 'Muta', he found the Refuge had been found by opportunistic thieves, likely having noticed it due to the entrance being wide open and the construction work being way too close for comfort. There was practically nothing left, Baron sighed as he closed and locked Louise's crawlspace, looking towards where she had been working. He'd reapply the enchantments later, moving them from being on things like roof tiles that could be disturbed by normal works, before closing.

Unlike how he'd planned to be doing it, with Louise talking him through it spot by spot, he had to do the checks manually, and took twice as long. Not that it mattered. He sent a missive out, stating the Bureau was no longer able to take calls, due to the fact the Refuge was badly weakened, and he didn't know how long it would be before it would be up to full strength.

He spent the following months thinking about what he could have done to protect the Refuge better, like doing the upgrade he'd just done much earlier, while finishing his seemingly endless supply of paperwork. He'd deal with the repercussions of what happened when the time came...

Ever since that day, Toto and Muta were omnipresent, Muta guiding people to the Refuge if they looked like a genuine client, which were few and far between, while Baron had magically hidden, from both sight and memory, the crawlspace, while he collected his file cards in a compartment on his desk. He knew that, other than what paperwork he had in the Bureau itself, Almost all of the Bureau's golden age was now nothing but a collection of random smudges on large rectangles, with smaller rectangles with squiggles on them.

Baron knew that from seeing a prominent Creation's former home. He had been lost during one of his misadventures, and those who were in his home had to watch as pictures of him with his friends were reduced to vague suggestions of their contents, certificates of his accomplishments reduced to the logo and a few lines of squiggles. Some of the items were granted new magic from new owners, but the unclaimed manuscripts, that he'd hand-written, were lost, along with the house itself.

His lethargic non-existence had been broken when the Cat King had stuck his nose into mortal affairs again, and he found himself dealing with a spirited young individual who was bogged down by the mundane nature of the world. He could tell that Haru was not just some normal girl, just from the fact she didn't even react in any meaningful way to the fact cats talked. The Doolittle Phenomena hadn't appeared in someone in years, named after a man who found a parrot Creation, the original Polynesia.

She was practically a resident of the Cat Kingdom in a lot of ways, and he'd found himself having feelings that were less than professional. He sighed, looking at the most recently finished file card, the first new one in months. The magic of the desk effectively typed the name of the client, the summary of their problem and left the summary of the case to Baron and Louise to write out, the space she'd once used now effectively absent. What made him pause was when he read the top line, where Haru's name was. It read 'Yoshioka, Haru L'.

"Curious..." He mused, "Will have to ask her about it in the future,"

He didn't want to consider what remained unsaid. The Refuge was stubborn about being found after the theft, due to the vandalism and damage that was done. If he was honest, He doubted he'd meet Haru again. It was too much to hope for. Their paths were not likely to cross. He filled in the card, summarizing the case and writing the code for the longer file within his records on the back of the card. He then stamped down on it with the stamp to mark it resolved, whereupon it would join the others in the drawer, and…

Nothing happened, The card wasn't even marked. He did his standard test card, 'Von Gikkingen, Humbert', 'Missing Person: Von Gikkingen, Louise', writing about the theft and how she was confirmed dead. Again, the stamp failed. He tried his older test case, filling in the name of the Cat King, 'Food Disappearances', and filled in about his discovery of his current associate. The stamp worked perfectly, the card not disappearing only since it was known to be already filed, several dozen times over, until he came to accept Louise was gone.

Baron frowned at this. The same thing that typed the names, except on the test cases, was how the stamp worked. He didn't claim to fully understand the magic, it was an extension that had appeared after Louise vanished. All he did know was that all the stamp did normally was print 'Resolved' on the card, then the card was filed. He took out a dusty old stamp, the companion to the first one. He expected the stamp of 'Reopened. Unresolved.' on the bottom third of Haru's case when it didn't resolve, but not the minor case of Louise's disappearance.

He did two new cards, identical to the original ones, but didn't fill the card in, his way of polling the magic to get why it was not resolved. Haru's card read 'Look Outside...' cryptically, while the other, equally cryptically, stated, 'The Refuge Has Been Found...', shocking him at the implications of the second card's message. He then heard an argument starting outside, getting up and heading to the door, barely noticing the creak of something falling open. As he was about to open the door, the argument stopped dead.

When he opened the door, he was surprised to see Haru, in what was clearly casual attire, having placed Muta on a table with a plate next to him, half a slice of cake being still left, as Toto was busy himself with a pot of bird seed. Look Outside, indeed… Apparently, Haru had returned to the Bureau...