Author's Note: That's the problem with making a story up as you go along, and embarking on an ambitious venture with imperfect knowledge: when an excellent idea suddenly comes along and holds you entranced by its sexiness, you're hard-pressed to find a way to fit it in what you made.
This is such a chapter. The idea in it arrived late while I was writing this story (I have since scolded it and told it that being unable to jimmy Howl's door is no excuse), and I have no idea at all if it fits the milieu. What I do know is that by including it, I have probably invalidated some of what I have written before, despite my best efforts to integrate it. I apologize in advance. I will go back and revise this, my longest fanfic to date, and hopefully things will turn out better in the revision.
So now I present to you the third-to-last chapter in this... thing. It is essentially my answer to the question 'What is the relationship between Haru and Shizuku? What is The Cat Returns to Whisper of the Heart?' I hope you enjoy it.
SHIZUKU'S SECRET
If you will practice being fictional for a while,
you will understand that fictional characters are
sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.
- Richard Bach
In the listening quiet of your room,
You whisper your secrets to the mirror.
You sigh as you brush your hair,
You shed tears as you think of your broken dreams.
But do you ever stop to listen,
Do you ever pause to hear,
Do you ever cease and contemplate,
The whisper of the mirror back.
"Baron!" Haru said imploringly as the tears trickled down her cheeks. "I didn't give you up just for this to happen to you!" She shook the dead one by the shoulders. "I'm sorry I was jealous of Louise! Come back! Don't leave me here..."
The hand at her shoulder squeezed. "Haru, don't cry. There's no need to cry."
"Why not?"
"This is a fairy tale."
"So?"
"In a fairy tale the good guys always win, and justice always triumphs."
"Sensei . .. you know, I'd hit you right now, if I didn't feel it to be disrespectful to Baron and Louise."
Shizuku let out a sigh. "I understand. But you don't, so please, before you do that, listen to me." To Haru's surprise she suddenly bent down and began to unbutton Louise's artilleryman's jacket. "She took it from me and wore it, to spite me," she explained, reaching in and producing her bluestone necklace. "Everything's my fault. Everyone who's died or been hurt . . . it's all because of me. Do you remember what I told you, back when we were still at the Cat King's Castle, about how I got here?"
Haru wiped her eyes. "Yes." Only a few weeks ago? It seemed like a year or more had passed.
Smiling a little, Shizuku lowered her voice. "I remember you wondering why Seiji and I weren't turning into cats, like you did. I'll make everything clear to you now, but you must promise never to tell anyone what I'm about to tell you."
Haru nodded.
"You remember what I told you about me getting sick with pneumonia in the mountains in Italy, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Haru . . . I didn't make it to the hospital."
A tiny flash of dread hollowed out the pit of Haru's belly. Her hands grew cold.
"You-you mean you're d-d-d—"
"Yes." Shizuku ignored the shocked expression—and the growing understanding—on the younger woman's face and kept talking and explaining, revealing the contents of her heart. Finally she whispered, "Whoever said that the Baron was the only person I had a hand in making?"
In that instant everything dropped into place for Haru. She knew what Shizuku was about to do with herself and the bluestone. Her hands shot out to grab the older woman.
Shizuku looked at her with mingled sadness and understanding. You're so sweet, she sent into Haru's mind the instant before her fingers would've touched her. Knowing that I caused all this, and yet you still want to save me . . . Think well of me, my dearest.
The sudden blast of magic sent Haru flying clear across the room, slamming her into the rock wall and knocking the breath out of her. She slid to the floor, momentarily stunned.
The trio of Seiji, Muta and Phaecis were interrupted in their fighting by what had happened to Haru. Turning to look at her, Muta and Phaecis completed their swings and managed to clobber each other over the head with the shafts of the spears they were using and fell unconscious to the floor. Seiji, standing near them, was unsure whether they were dead or had merely knocked each other out, but had no time to think about it, because a bright light suddenly drowned everything in whiteness.
Seiji, I'm sorry, came the ghostly voice in his mind. Please don't be angry with me.
"Why should I be angry at you, Shicchan?" he asked, turning round and round, searching for her, bewildered at her words.
I'm going to leave you now, otto-san. Goodbye. I love you. Please tell Haru and everyone else I love them too.
Haru struggled to her feet, remembering the Baron's words. "Stop her!" she shouted. "Sensei!"
It was too late. The light vanished, and they both saw Shizuku slump over the Cat. Somehow the swords had been removed from both his chest and Louise's, and the lovers lay side by side on the stone floor, hands clasped together, along with their sheathed weapons.
Seiji could only stand where he was, uncomprehending, as Haru walked as fast as she could back to Shizuku and the Baron. She fell to her knees and picked the older woman up. Her body was pasty white and cold and heavy now, as if the death in it, long suppressed, was showing itself at last.
"Sensei," Haru said brokenly, hugging Shizuku's limp form to her. "Sensei... okaa-san..." And she wept again, this time without reservation.
------oOo------
Many things happened outside too, on that day. Full accounts and commentaries are still available in the libraries of the Cat Kingdom, and in the house of Zeniiba, but none save a few are allowed to see them. Some of the things chronicled in them include how the people on the Baron's so-called party list had arrived and swept through the remaining pirates and robots like an avenging wind and rescued King Lune, Gabriel and even the soldiers of the Cat Kingdom garrison—whom everyone had written off as dead, yet were still alive, kept in suspended animation in the Black Cat's Freezer along with the Swordmaster and the monarch; how San and Ashitaka put their differences aside and charged into the mountain along with the others so martially (and magically) inclined, to find the Baron and Louise; how Haku, in his dragon form, went berserk on the battlefield, crushing all the automatons he could reach in his white-silver coils, and how terrible his unleashed wrath was; how Rin, Sheeta, Mrs. Kusakabe, Gina Pagot, and especially Chihiro worked heroically on board the Matatabi and Conquistador, assisting the overworked cat surgeons as they tried to save the lives of the wounded; how Sheeta's normally placid Laputan mecha had defended the transports against the hordes of flyers that attacked them; how the pirates of the Mamma Aiuto gang, at the behest of the beloved owner of the Hotel Adriano, gave up their avarice, landed their rickety Dabohaze flying boat beside the Matatabi, and turned over the medical supplies they were smuggling against Il Duce Mussolini to the sailors of the Cat Kingdom; how the Crimson Pig (now belonging once more to the Homo sapiens branch of the biological family tree), Donald Curtis, Pazu and Dora and her sons, aided and abetted by the headset radios engineering whiz Fio Piccolo had smuggled out of Tokyo the last time she had been there, had tried to blow open the huge door at the mountain's peak, the secondary entrance leading to the Freezer, and failed; how at the last Nausicaä arrived with Asbel in the Eftal Gunship and Kushana came in a Torumekian Royal Corvette with Kurotowa and Chikuku, Charuka and Selm, and a small section of her fanatically loyal toriuma-riding cavalrymen and two tanks, and how the wind-rider and Asbel finally blew the door open with the Gunship's huge rocket projectiles and the Queen-Regent of Torumekia finally sealed the victory over the Phaecis Gang by leading her men and the few remaining Cat cavalrymen onto the field and destroying the robots, which had, at the death of the Doctor, gone berserk and started attacking anyone and everyone. There was also the near-mishap of Nausicaä falling out of the Gunship's rear seat as Asbel rolled the craft inverted to avoid one of the Doctor's robotic flyers, and her brief meeting with Angel—who saved her as she did once before, by catching her in her arms as she fell out of the sky and bringing her back to Mehve on its towline behind the Gunship—but since that encounter seems to be a private one to the Child of the Wind and has no bearing on the story of the Baron and Haru, it will not be spoken of further here.
Machida was one of those who entered the mountain. His fighting skills and aggressiveness were no match for those of, say, feral San or compassionate Ashitaka, or the Lady Eboshi (even one-handed as she was) or Henri (one of Dora's sons, who had been instructed by the avaricious old hag to keep an eye out for the treasure they had come for), nor did he have any magic to defend himself with, like Zeniiba or Yu-baaba, but out of love for Haru he risked going inside. There were so many who accompanied the Princess Mononoke he had no need to fight anyway. Adding to the ease with which they penetrated the pirate lair was the general craziness of the few surviving constructs of the Doctor and the scarcity of the remaining pirates, most of whom had been slain or wounded in the battle at the antechamber.
When he burst into the Black Cat's chamber behind San, Ashitaka, Zeniiba, Kaonashi, Yu-baaba and Cameron, Machida saw her kneeling beside a body on the floor covered from feet to shoulders with a black cloak. Also in the funereal scene were those whom he would later know as the Baron Humbert von Jikkingen, the Baroness Louise von Arno, and Seiji Amasawa, who knelt at the head of the woman on the floor, crying uncontrollably. It was so solemn a scene that though his heart jumped at seeing his girlfriend alive and well, he couldn't find it within himself to approach her.
Zeniiba walked slowly to the Cat's side and knelt down. In low tones they spoke to each other. After a few minutes she got up and went back to Machida and the others. Like him, they had stopped short at the sight and refused to come nearer. All save Kaonashi, who walked to the foot of Shizuku's body and stood there like a shadowy, expressionless statue silently warning everyone else away.
"We're too late," the old witch and sorceress said. "We're too late." In hushed tones she began to explain what had happened.
------oOo------
Muta groaned and rolled, feeling the elephants dancing around in his head with their boots on. He felt the hard floor behind him and suddenly remembered Phaecis and Loriel. He opened his eyes and sat up.
He was still in the Black Cat's chamber. Sitting leaning against the wall a few feet away from him was Phaecis, who was also awake, with his paws and jaws bound. Standing guard over him were two Cat Kingdom soldiers and two human soldiers whose like he had never seen before. Only a bit of their eyes showed through their grim dull-gray ceramic armor.
A paw touched his own. He swiveled his head—slowly.
"Loriel!" he gasped, convulsively reaching up and grasping the hands of the cat standing beside him. "You're alive."
The Captain looked at him with her dead-white eyes and nodded, smiling enough to make a bit of her fangs show—not that it mattered to Muta anymore. She pointed to the bandage at her throat. Can't speak, she mimed with her paws.
"It doesn't matter!" Muta exclaimed, crushing her in a hug. "I can do enough talking for both of us!"
Loriel let out a plaintive wheeze as Muta squeezed the air out of her lungs. She rapped his head sharply and, after he had let her go, gestured for him to keep quiet. She pointed behind her.
The room was filled with people. Humans, mostly, though the Nekobus was also there. How it had managed to enter the Black Cat's chamber Muta had no idea. They seemed to be holding a meeting of some sort. Certainly someone was speaking, and everyone else had their full attention on her.
"So we must decide who to send," a voice said, continuing its speech. "It's not right that we should leave this soul lost between two worlds. Think of what shocho would say if he found out."
"Heck, I think he already knows," another voice interrupted.
"Knowing him, he probably does. But how can we help her? I don't think I can," said one, a stout-bodied man in khaki flying garb and leather helmet, wearing round sunglasses that hid his eyes, and smoking a cigarette that glowed in the half-lit dimness of the room and sent tendrils of smoke up in the air.
"I can't either," said another, an old female tanuki wearing a violet-bordered silk kimono decorated with summer leaves and flowers, and with her white hair done up in a gingko-leaf hairdo. "I came to bring word from the Cat King's Castle, not go on a journey like this."
"The how I and Yu-baaba can take care of, if Sheeta and Chikuku will consent to help. Since Howl isn't here—"
"He is now," a voice called from the entrance, and everyone looked. The handsome wizard with the black hair came striding into the room with a white-haired young lady at his side.
"Sorry I'm late," he apologized. Muta thought he could see several female eyes light up at his appearance. "I've been rather—busy, if you know what I mean."
"Fool!" Yu-baaba said. "You shouldn't have left until well after things in your world had ended."
"But the little cat's request was so heartfelt... Was I wrong in coming?"
"No," the first voice replied. "Forgive my sister. She's a bit grumpy since she had to split the treasure we found with Dora and Pazu and Sheeta and Lune and everyone else."
Muta heard Phaecis growl. The soldiers guarding him immediately pointed their halberds and carbines at him, and he subsided.
Standing up, the fat white cat lifted Loriel and placed her astride his neck. He was taller than the others, so he could see the center of the gathering. On a rude bier lay Shizuku, with her black cloak draped over her body like an ill-omened shroud. Four lit torches stood at the corners of her bed, and provided much of the lighting in the room. He was shocked at the sight and began to step forward, but Loriel pulled his ears and waved at him to stay where he was.
He saw a young man in casual clothing and a mangled baseball cap raise his hand. "I will volunteer," he announced in a calm voice. Immediately after he had said the words the teenage human girl in jeans and bloodstained pink shirt standing beside him spoke.
"I'm going with you."
The lad—or at least he looked like a lad—turned and faced her. "No, Chihiro. It's too dangerous."
"But—"
"It isn't for you, and you know it," a mean-looking old woman with exaggerated Salvador-Dali-esque features snarled, cutting her off. "You'd never make it through. Shizuku's mind would only swallow you up."
"Then–then how about you, Owner, or Grandma Zeniiba?"
"We can't," answered Zeniiba. "We have to keep the gateway open for whoever goes in."
"Chikuku can help find Shizuku," said a small, bald-headed boy wearing thick brown-colored robes and a tonsure.
"No, you have to help us keep the pathway into her mind open. Even with Howl here, we will be hard-pressed."
"I can't help thinking," commented a young lady with shoulder-length brown hair and in blue garb, "that we are doing her violence by invading her mind and spirit like this. If she should choose this path, who are we to disturb her?"
"My thoughts exactly," said a man in similar clothing. He was pale-haired and standing beside her, mimicking her pose, almost like a double, only one of a different gender.
"Then would you consign her to remaining forever lost to her world and ours, Princess of the Valley of Wind, Person of the Forest?" Zeniiba asked. When the speakers remained silent, she added, "I didn't think you would. In any case, whoever goes in won't go to force her to come back if she doesn't want to. Instead, he or she will ask her a single question."
The brown-haired girl nodded. "Then I'll go."
The old woman Yu-baaba suddenly lifted her head, and even from the back Muta could see the flash of her eyes. "I think you two are the right ones for the job," she said in approval. "Haku has lived long and learned much. He is also one of the dead, even to us kami, so he should remain immune to her charms. And if the one who withstood the Nothingness can't make it through to her, none of us can."
"Please." It was King Lune. He was wrapped in blankets and shivering. "Must we do this here, in this desolate place? I can offer you the hospitality of my castle, where Elder Oroku has come from."
"That is kind of you," Zeniiba said. "Yu-baaba? Howl?"
"Suits me just fine," Yu-baaba grunted. "I'd rather be somewhere cushy than here."
"I've got no problem with that," Howl agreed.
"Then we'll take you up on your offer, King Lune. In any case, we can't do the ceremony right away. We still have to gather some ingredients for our spells. Amasawa-san—buck up, stop crying and be a man—you must come with us."
"I think you should leave him to his grief," said a black-haired woman in her thirties or forties sharply. Muta would later know her as Mrs. Kusakabe. She had her arms around the weeping man's shoulders.
"Why should I go with you?" asked Seiji.
"Because if you want your wife to come back to this world, you must be the one to persuade her to do so."
"Loriel," Muta whispered, "I don't understand what's going on."
The vampire looked down at him, and with her upside-down face in his sight mouthed Haru. Explain.
"She's okay?"
The Captain nodded.
"Thank Heaven for little mercies."
"The rest of you can go back to your homes," Zeniiba announced. "Unless, of course, you'd like to help us search for the ingredients."
"I'd like to stay, but the Hotel Adriano won't run itself for very long," answered an elegantly-dressed woman with a marked bulge to her tummy. True to the nature of the world they were in, though she was speaking rapid-fire Italian, she could be understood by everyone. "I'm afraid I'll have to decline."
"I too," said the man in the khaki flying suit, taking another drag from his cigarette.
"Me too," said a perky brown-headed girl in overalls. "Uncle Whiskers needs help, with those fascists being in power and bullying everyone for orders and all."
"And where Miss Fio and Miss Gina go, we go," thundered a large man with a bristling beard and moustache and a flying cap on his head and goggles covering his eyes—most of his head, actually. "Right, boys?"
"Right!" the men around him chorused.
"Whatever you do," called a tall, square-chinned man with a thin moustache and dressed in a dark-blue flying suit and brown boots, "stand downwind of us. I wouldn't want Fio to start smelling like you just because she stood too near you guys!"
"Hey!" the body of men shouted. Fio stopped them from mauling the man by simply smiling and shaking her head, and the members of the Mamma Aiuto gang were forced to swallow their pride and remain where they were. They did, however, collectively stick their tongues out at Donald Curtis.
"Naturally, I'll help look for the ingredients," said an old woman wearing a black dress and holding a deck brush in her hand. "That's what I do nowadays, anyway. And what I'll be doing for the next couple of months, considering the amount of reverse-transformation potion all you people drank."
"I'll help you, Grandma Kiki," said the young girl standing beside her. She too had her own broom and was also dressed in black.
"Lily, you can't. You know you can't miss another day of school."
"But Grandma . . . ." whined the girl.
Muta slowly made his way around and spotted Haru beside her boyfriend—her human boyfriend. They were seated in a corner of a room, and Machida had his arm around her as she leaned tiredly against his shoulder, both of them listening to Zeniiba speak. She was bloodstained and battered, and he wore a very unhappy countenance.
"Uhm," the fat cat muttered to the Captain, looking pointedly in Haru's direction. "I don't think we should disturb them just about now."
He went looking for the Baron instead, and found him and Louise standing at the edge of the crowd. He gave the Cat a mighty blow to the back. "Old friend, welcome back to the land of the living!" he loudly proclaimed. That caused Zeniiba to stop talking and everyone to ponder his bulk curiously.
"S-sorry," he apologized. "Didn't mean to disturb you. Please go on."
Zeniiba started talking again. Muta turned to the Baron.
"I'm glad you're back," he said quietly. "And you must be Louise."
"Yes, I am," answered the blond-haired cat still wearing the black costume. Her voice was very gentle and melodious, but still retained a bit of Teutonic hardness. "I am very grateful for you helping Humbert come to my rescue."
"It was no problem. I haven't seen that much fighting since I was a young cat. I hope I don't see its like ever again."
"Muta . . . ." the Baron began.
"What?"
"Shizuku gave herself up so we could live again. I'm very happy to see you, but . . . I think you can understand how hard it is . . . how hard it is for us to be standing here listening to everyone talking about her . . . ." His gaze fell to the bloody tear in the middle of his waistcoat.
Muta nodded and fell silent, his mind churning as he listened to Zeniiba and the others continuing to speak.
------oOo------
From: Haru (neko-moeeeh (a) tomo. il1. ne. jp)
Sent: Friday, Aug. 5, 2005
To: Naoko Yoshioka (nyoshioka037 (a) kai. nexus. co. jp)
Subject: Hi Mom.
Hi Mom. It's me :) Don't be confused by the different e-mail addy. I'm just writing to tell you I'm with Kei now. Please, don't worry about us any more. We're fine, but I'm not coming home just yet. He and I have some things to settle. I hope you understand.
Love,
Your Haru.