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PROLOGUE

Once more she was back in the Black Cat's chamber. Once more there were the sounds of fighting around her, and once more the Baron and his fiancée lay dead on the hard rock floor. His blood was warm on her pants as she talked to the black-haired woman in the red sweater and short yellow skirt, who was kneeling beside her.

"I didn't make it to the hospital."

"You mean you're d—"

"Yes. That's why every time I kept healing someone else, I disappeared. That's why I never turned into a cat, because the Cat Kingdom magic has no effect on a ghost. I'm surprised you never asked me why I gained magic powers here, when you never did." The woman sighed. "I'm existing on sheer willpower, Haru. I don't want to leave yet. There's still so much—"

"You... but what about Seiji-sensei?"

"He doesn't know about this. I think I created this image of him to keep me company here." The woman lowered her gaze. "My real husband is back in my world. The last thing I remember is falling asleep in his arms while he was crying. I was trying to finish my story at his friend's house, because I somehow knew that day that I wasn't going to last much longer... I don't know what he's doing now. There are things that are still unclear even to me. But what I do know is that I can restore Baron and Louise to you." Her hand closed around the bluestone in her palm. "When I first came to the Cat Kingdom I didn't know who I really was or what I was doing there. Then gradually it all came back to me. The final pieces fell into place in a dream I had at Fort Lorum, just before we left for this island. That was why I changed my mind and persuaded Baron not to let you accompany him, because I was worried about you." She let out a guilty sigh. "It all so involving, so dramatic, so heart-breaking... so fun playing along. It was like being in a make-believe game, only the game was all around me. But now..."

"You're lying! I don't believe you!"

"Search your heart. You know it to be true." The woman looked up, and her dark eyes bored into Haru's. "I made you everything I never was: you are also the girl-child I never had. When I sent you into your first adventure in the Cat Kingdom, you proved yourself brave enough, a worthy person to pair with the Baron. And yet, look at us. We're both stubborn as donkeys, willful and disobedient."

She suddenly clasped Haru's right hand. "But everything's going to end now, Haru. You are going to live and be happy. If I have sinned against you and everyone else, I am going to rectify that now. Maybe just... think of me once in a while?" A tremulous smile appeared on her lips, then quickly vanished.

"Shizuku..."

"Beginning to understand, eh? Think about this: why should Baron be the only person I had a hand in creating?"

Everything fell into place. Haru reached out to stop her, and a powerful blast of magic lifted her off her feet and sent her flying across the Black Cat's chamber...

"Sensei! No!"

------oOo------

Haru Yoshioka bolted upright in her bed, panting. After a moment of confusion her eyes adjusted to the darkness of her moonlit room.

It was just a dream, she told herself. Just a dream. She wiped her forehead, and her hand came away slick with sweat. Reaching past her nightstand to a nearby chair, she yanked her towel off its backrest and wiped her face with it. Then she tossed it back and lay on her pillows, staring up at the ceiling and listening to the silence settling over everything like a thick blanket.

Just a dream. It was all just a dream. But Shizuku-sensei was real. Baron and Muta and Toto are real. I wonder, is this real? A moment of panic crossed her mind. Am I real?