A/N: ~ Things have been pretty crazy, please take care of yourselves. Wishing you and your loved ones good health! ~

Hello friends! Here it is, last chapter. Thank you for reading this far, I really enjoyed reading the comments! :)

The first thing that happened on Saturday was that Renet pounced on Mikey like a cat on a yarn ball in Mr. Murakami's.

"MIKEY!"

Well, okay. It wasn't exactly the first thing. But it was pretty much what woke Mikey up from the warm and blissfully lazy morning he was having, kick-starting his Saturday.

Mikey's day had started with him being showered with attention from his brothers, because apparently getting bit by a powerful yokai who made other people's memories of him disappear made him very popular in the Hamato household. Leo had made a special breakfast of pancakes in the shape of cat faces, topping them with a heapful of syrup and whipped cream, which was awesome. Donnie had patched up his bite with some ointment and the super large Band-aids that were usually reserved for Raph and his specific slew of injuries, which was exciting in its own way. And thanks to the guilt that Raph felt, Mikey had wheedled in a lot of favors from him, including but not limited to having pizza for dinner and a movie night for all four of them. Although, to be fair, persuading Mikey's brothers for Saturday pizza nights was never a big challenge.

He hadn't, however, been able to convince his brothers to let him go to Mr. Murakami's alone. From the looks of it, it seemed like there was a new Hamato law, set in place by Leo: make sure Mikey isn't alone, at all times. Not that he minded much.

That's why all four Hamato brothers were at Mr. Murakami's, which was bustling with activity for lunch. Casey was busing tables, now that he worked at Mr. Murakami's part-time. He'd shot Mikey a grin when he'd seen him enter. The news played from the old television set by the wall, in the corner by the heater. Laughter and chatter filled the restaurant. Leo and Raph had just gone up to the counter to order something when Mikey heard Renet.

He had just barely stood up before Renet was giving him the mother of all hugs, squeezing him with all her strength. Mikey could barely feel his ribs.

"You're okay!" Renet cheered, tightening her hold on him even more.

"Can't breathe," Mikey rasped. From somewhere behind him, he heard Donnie chuckling into his mug of coffee.

"Oops! Sorry," Renet said, letting him go. "I have so much to ask you - "

At the same time, Mikey said, "I have so much to tell you - "

They broke off and laughed. Renet saw his brother. "Hi, Donnie."

"Hello Renet, how are you?" Donnie asked gesturing for her to take a seat.

"I'm way better this morning," Renet admitted. "Yesterday was weird."

Klunk jumped into Mikey's lap, so he mindlessly scratching between the cat yokai's feathery wings. "You can say that again. Or write it in Sharpie. Or maybe carve it into stone somewhere."

Mikey earned a little laughter, but the mood was thick. It was as if there was a loaded tension burdening in the air. Not especially from Donnie, but from Renet. She was looking at Mikey differently, as if memorizing his face and features, soaking in the details of his presence.

Then she took a deep breath. "Mikey, I am so sor-,"

"Not your fault! So don't say it," Mikey insisted.

Renet shook her head. "I remember your face from when you realized that I had no idea who you were. It makes me feel awful now, knowing how you must have felt. Friends don't forget friends."

"It's all forgiven if one of those friends gets chomped on by a yokai ghost thing!"

Renet's face paled upon seeing Mikey's big Band-aid. Mikey told her everything - from the point in time that he'd been bitten, to everyone forgetting him, and then him going home and coming back to meet Leatherhead, then going home and everyone remembering.

"So that's what happened," Mikey told her in a much more casual tone than he would have been able to make twelve hours ago.

Renet had to take a moment to digest all that, but then she was giving him what she knew. "Baxter's back too, by the way!"

"With his family?"

"I heard from my mom, who knows his mom. The story they're going with is that Baxter ran away and then came back," Renet said with an incredulous shrug. "It happened last night."

"Same time as my case," Mikey whispered.

"Coincidence?" Renet asked in a low tone.

"Can't be," Mikey responded.

"So what happened? One minute I'm brushing my teeth, and the next, I remember you again!"

"That's what we're trying to figure out," Donnie said from across the table, getting their attention. "Considering there was another case similar to Mikey's… that means there must have been a bigger force at work."

Mikey snapped his fingers. "Something we didn't do."

"Right. But that could literally be anything, given the fact that we don't know much about how all this works," Donnie said.

Mikey smiled despite himself, watching his brainiac of a big brother frown and try to figure it out. Maybe he was still running on leftover giddiness from the huge relief of last night. He was really grateful he had his brothers and a home again.

Leo and Raph came back to their seats.

"We just told Casey our order," Raph said. "So if you get the wrong thing, you know who to blame it on."

"Hey, Renet," Leo greeted amicably. "How are you?"

"Good, thanks," Renet said, sitting up straight at the sight of the head of the Hamato family. "Sorry I just barged in on your table. I won't stay long."

"You kidding? You're welcome to sit and eat with us," Leo said.

"Oh, no, you don't have to, like, oblige me."

"Aw, c'mon. You know it's not like that, Renet. It's more like we're obliging these three," Mikey told Renet in an exaggerated whisper, making her giggle.

Klunk's wings stretched out, knocking over a glass of water just then. Renet's hand immediately shot out, but Donnie had faster reflexes and caught it.

"What was-," Raph started, just as Mikey apologized, pushing Klunk's wing out of the way.

Klunk squirmed and for a moment Mikey thought that he was going to jump out of his lap to stretch more properly, but then Klunk curled himself inwards before making himself more comfortable on Mikey's thighs.

Leo's eyes were sharp. "Is Klunk with you right now?"

Mikey lowered his hand slowly. "Yes?"

"Mikey," Leo said warily. But whatever argument he was going to start, he didn't.

"Anyway," Donnie said, "We were just talking about what happened last night."

Leo's face took on that disturbed and worried look again. Raph scowled. Renet lowered her eyes to the table.

They probably feel so violated, Mikey thought. He couldn't imagine how he'd feel if someone reached into his mind and pulled out something important. What if he had forgotten about his brothers? Mikey wasn't sure how he would even be the same person without the memories of them.

"Order up, Hamatos!" Casey called from the counter. They all looked up to see him with two trays of food.

"I'll get it!" Mikey said, jumping up.

He hurried over to the counter.

"Mikey, your brother's terrible," Casey told him dutifully.

Mikey nodded, like this was expected. "Raph over-complicate the order for you again?"

"You know it," Casey said. He frowned at something over Mikey's shoulder, and Mikey turned to see Klunk sticking his face into another table that already had food. "I love your guys' weird cat, but can you get him off the table?"

"Klunk, down boy," Mikey called.

Klunk's ears twitched, as if hearing his name, but otherwise ignored him. Casey groaned.

"Sorry," Mikey said with a small smile. "You're not the only one who isn't a fan of Klunk right now. Or any yokai, for that matter. Leo's wants me to be more careful."

"Did something… supernatural happen?"

"You got that right. It all happened on Valentine's Day," Mikey said. "You didn't, like, randomly forget about me yesterday, did you?"

"What?" Casey frowned. "No? I mean, I wasn't thinking about you."

"Interesting."

"What - does that offend you, man?"

Mikey laughed. "No."

Casey smiled, but still looked confused.

"It's a long story," Mikey said. "And we don't -" He broke off, staring at the TV. It was displaying an reporter standing in front of some blackened trees, but it was the headline of the story that she was covering, at the bottom of the screen, that got his attention.

"Casey!" Mikey exclaimed. "Turn up the volume!"

Casey looked at him bewildered for a millisecond, but then grabbed the remote from his side of the counter and turned it up.

"Yeah, I'm here in the woods behind Laird Middle School," the reporter said. "It seems as if there was a fire set last night at this scene, burning down these large and old trees. The fire was seen and reported by passing civilians last evening around midnight last night."

Mikey felt his gut drop down in his stomach as he heard the news. Distantly, he heard Raph call to him. Mikey's eyes remained glued to the television.

"The level of ash indicates that these trees were completely burned to the ground in what authorities are calling a freak forest fire - as it was an isolated, contained event. The other trees nearby haven't even been singed."

"I can't believe this," Mikey whispered. "They're… gone."

"What's gone?" Casey asked. "Oh, crap. The middle school confession trees?"

As the reporter went on to talk about how the trees around the area were more than fifty years old, Mikey ran through his thoughts. Someone had burned the trees last night. The same trees connected to Lady Love. Did that mean… was Lady Love destroyed, too?

What could have caused that?

Wait.

Leatherhead.

It couldn't be, could it? Mikey felt a presence behind him. He turned to see Renet, who'd come up to him. His brothers were still at the table, watching the news as well.

"No way," Renet said, her eyes bugging out. "That's where we were yesterday."

"You guys burned the confession trees down?" Casey asked in shock.

"No!" Renet said. "We were - it's a long story."

"Why do you keep calling them that?" Mikey asked, taking his eyes off the television to glance at Casey.

Casey raised an eyebrow. "You don't know the story of Lady Love?"

"I mean, sure," Mikey said with a shrug. "Everyone knows that she used to go to the school and then she died and that's why she haunts the woods."

"Yeah, but do you know how she died?"

"No," Mikey and Renet said.

Casey leaned in dramatically. "They say," he said in a low voice, "That she was a typical schoolgirl back in the day. She fell in love with a weird classmate who collected spiders and made them fight each other to the death."

Mikey shuddered. Renet gasped. Casey grinned and went on.

"She confessed her undying love for him under those very trees, and they started going out. Then, she mysteriously disappeared a few weeks later. They found her body in those very woods, dead as a doornail. When doing the autopsy, her body was covered in spider bites. But not just any normal bites, no. These spiders were vicious. They'd been drinking her blood," Casey said, his voice getting lower and scarier for effect. "So basically, this guy fed his girlfriend to his pet spiders."

Renet clamped her hands over her ears. "NOoooooOOOo," she cried. "Enough creepy stuff! I don't want to hear this!"

Mikey felt light-headed and felt like throwing up. Casey immediately snapped out of it, swearing under his breath.

"Sorry! Sorry! Oh, man, I didn't know you'd be actually scared. Crap."

Mikey's hand went to his neck, over the Band-aid, and tried to get the image out of his mind. So when Lady Love had died… she'd come back, part spider, part girl. Hungry for love.

If Mikey hadn't felt so woozy, he might have been able to appreciate the thematic consistency of it all.

Collecting himself, Mikey laughed to ward away the guilty looks Casey was throwing them. "I guess ghost stories are a lot spookier when you've actually seen the ghost."

Casey did a double take at that. "You're kidding. You guys saw Lady Love?"

Renet cleared her throat, and started telling him the recap of what had happened yesterday. How they'd skipped the Valentine's Day Dance and gone into the woods.

Mikey shuddered without meaning to. He could still feel the way Lady Love had touched him, talking softly. Nothing about her was terrifying when she'd been gentle, but at the same time, it was so unsettling. Mikey had felt so unsafe, so hopeless.

Casey's mouth was open by the time Renet got to the part about Lady Love trapping them and then later biting Mikey.

"I know it's the middle of the day, but I'm really freaked out just thinking about it," Renet said, blinking away tears before they came down. Her voice shook. "Lady Love was scary. Yesterday was a whole bunch of bad. I've been seeing yokai pretty much my whole life, and I've never seen one that powerful or malicious."

"Do you guys need to… I mean, see someone about this?" Casey asked quietly, no teasing in his voice.

"Who could we see? We don't know anyone who knows more than we do," Renet said.

"Maybe we do," Mikey said slowly. "What about Leatherhead?"

"Who?" Casey asked.

"The hunter," Renet said. "The guy who saved us, and the Baxter kid. Lady Love called him a hunter."

"Sick. There's a yokai hunter?"

"Yeah," Mikey said. "If anyone has answers, it's him."

"We don't know where he came from, or where he went," Renet said. "Or if he's from here or not."

"We don't know anything," Mikey agreed.

"I don't know why you're taking so long to bring our food over to the table," Raph said, walking up to them.

"Sorry," Mikey said, still distracted as he turned back around to help Raph.

"What were you guys talking about?" Raph asked. "Casey, get back to work."

"Wow, absolutely not, Raph."

Raph just snickered as they returned to their seats.

"What took you so long?" Donnie asked.

Mikey grabbed a bowl of noodles. "Someone burned down the trees," he said. "That's how it broke the curse, or whatever you want to call it. I think someone might have destroyed Lady Love."

Leo, Raph, and Donnie froze, taking in this information.

"Was that what was on the news?" Raph asked, shocked. "The place where you kids were hanging out yesterday burned down?"

"Just the old trees that everyone in middle school uses as a place to carve their initials into," Mikey said.

"That's the outside factor that broke the curse," Donnie realized in a hush. "The destruction of a yokai or a location that it inhabits. Theory still to be further investigated."

"No more investigating yokai," Leo said. "Not even Klunk, for that matter."

"Not even Klunk?" Mikey asked, blinking.

Leo shook his head. "Not even Klunk. I'm sorry Mikey, but all this yokai stuff just is too dangerous."

"But Klunk's not even mine," Mikey said.

Leo's eyes landed on Renet. In a voice that wasn't at all harsh, he said, "Renet, I don't want to be that guy, but is there something that can be done about Klunk being around you two all the time?"

Renet straightened automatically. "Yessir. I'll… uh…"

"She can't get rid of Klunk!" Mikey said in shock.

"Not what I was saying," Leo said. "I was merely suggesting you two distance yourselves from him."

"O-of course, I understand," Renet said, turning to look at Klunk. "Uh…"

Klunk just stared at her, as if challenging her.

"Leo," Mikey said sharply. "You're basically telling Renet to give up her pet cat."

Renet mumbled "He's not really my pet" but it went mostly unheard.

"That is a yokai," Leo said sternly. "I don't want you around him."

Mikey bit back his retort. He didn't want to cause a scene in front of Renet, but what Leo was doing was so uncool.

"I should be getting back home," Renet said. "We'll hang out soon, Mikey. Without Klunk. It's probably a good idea for a while."

Mikey looked at her in surprise. "You sure you don't want to have lunch with us?"

"My mom's made something at home," Renet said, Klunk rising to follow her. "But don't looks so down, Mikey. We solved a mystery today! Yay!"

"Arguably, we didn't solve squat," Mikey said with a grin.

"Arguably, we sort of did," Renet called cheerfully in a sing-song voice, waving as she left.

Renet disappeared out of view, and Mikey and his brothers ate their lunch together, different topics threading into the air. The topic of yokai was, for now, gracefully pushed underneath a metaphorical carpet.

Mikey, however was getting an idea. His curiosity was sparked. If he wanted more answers, Leatherhead was the one to ask. Technically, that wasn't breaking one of Leo's rules. He wasn't investigating yokai if he was investigating a yokai hunter.

Loophole, baby.

But that would be the plan for a later time.

At the end of the day, Mikey brushed his teeth and got ready for bed. He was about to climb under his covers when Leo popped into his room.

"Hey," Leo said. "All ready for bed?"

"Yeah," Mikey said, breaking into a huge yawn.

"About Klunk…"

"I know," Mikey said, raising his hands as he flopped back into his pillows. "You think he's not safe. I get it, it's fair of you to think that after everything that's happened."

Leo sat down next to him on the bed. "I just want you to be careful."

"Right. No more hanging around Klunk. He's really not even a pet, he's too much of a free spirit. Heh. Get it?" Mikey said, looking away with a forced smile.

"Hey, look at me."

Mikey looked at him. Leo's eyes were patient and calm and full of love.

"Just until we find out more. I love you so much, you know that?"

"I love you."

Leo leaned down to hug him, and Mikey clung onto Leo like a monkey before letting go and getting tucked in.

"Good night, Leo," Mikey called as his brother closed his door after him.

"Night, Mikey."

Mikey closed his eyes, and then opened them, grabbing his phone off the nightstand.

Hey, you up? He texted Renet.

She responded immediately. Hi. Yes!

Mikey's fingers hovered over the screen, wondering what to say to her. Finally, he decided on calling her.

Renet picked up. "Hi, Mi-"

"I'm sorry my brother told you to get rid of Klunk. That wasn't fair to you!" he said in a low voice, as to not alert his brothers.

He could hear Renet sigh from the other side. "He's not wrong, Mikey. I'm sort of weirded out by the yokai world. If Klunk flew away for a little bit, I'd be okay with that."

"But you love Klunk."

There was a long moment before Renet replied.

"Yes, but I'm spooked a little. He's a nice yokai and I know that his worst attack is his farts, but it's like after you watch a scary movie and then you're afraid of every little think in your house."

"Where is he right now?" Mikey asked.

"He's in my room, licking his butt."

Mikey almost laughed, but he could hear the tiredness in his friend's voice. "Are you scared of him?"

"I'm… I don't know what I am. Cautious? Leo wasn't wrong, Mikey," Renet said. "And I got complacent, too. I know that yokai aren't all nice."

"Renet - "

"Maybe Klunk's desensitized us, though. Maybe we just assumed we'd be safe since he's safe."

"Renet."

"I've been seeing them my whole life, so I should have been able to keep you away from danger. I should have seen the red flags."

"Don't do that. Please."

"I'm just saying."

"Well, stop just saying. This isn't on you! If anything, it's on me. I'm sorry I ruined your Valentine's Day."

"Oh, come off of it -"

"I know you probably wanted to go to the dance."

"What? No," Renet said, and Mikey could hear her laugh.

"But you were telling me about the chocolate fountain and the Twizzlers," Mikey protested. "How can you not be upset about something so awesome?"

"Yeah. Oh, please. I don't care about the dance! I wanted to hang out with you. You're my best friend."

Mikey felt his heart swell. "You're my best friend, too."

"Aww," they both said over the phone, then laughed.

"I meant to give you something on Valentine's Day, but then we got distracted," Renet said. "You know how you love chocolate and I like Twizzlers?"

"Yeah?"

"Well… I have something pretty amazing here. I'll probably give it to you tomorrow or on Monday. They might be really bad, I don't know, I've never actually tasted - AHH!" Renet's scream jolted Mikey into full-awake mode and he was sitting up in his bed.

"Renet?" he asked, frightened. "Are you okay? What happened? Are you hurt?"

All he heard was Renet's gasp of, "I'm okay! But where did he - ?"

Something flashed above Mikey in his room, and down plopped a furry, feathery pile of Klunk.

"Klunk just disappeared," Renet said into the phone in a rush. "He grabbed the candy I was going to give you right out of my hand and disappeared!"

Mikey stared with wide eyes at the cat yokai that was on his bed, yellow eyes glowing.

"Klunk?"

Klunk had something in between his jaws. Mikey reached out, shocked, and took the package before Klunk disappeared in a quick flash.

"He's back," murmured Renet on her side.

Mikey held up the bag Klunk had given him. Chocolate Twizzlers.

"I got them," Mikey said with a wondrous laugh. "I think he can teleport."

Renet's surprised laughter filled his ear.

"Good night, Mikey," she said.

"Good night."

Mikey set the chocolate Twizzlers on his nightstand as the call ended. He closed his eyes, settling underneath the blankets, and faded into sleep.

For once, it was blissfully dreamless.

A/N: I have never tried Chocolate Twizzlers and do not know if they're good or not.