Chapter Ten: A Daring Escape
"Stop the music!" the Cat King shrieked, hearing the question. The band immediately did as they were told, and the couple on the dance floor had stopped moving. Baron was pleased by the look of wonder in his partner's eyes. "You have never entertained this castle before. Just who exactly are you?!" The king was panting slightly, and had stood up in order for his voice to be at its full capacity. Louise was also on her feet, an intense look of distrust on her pretty face.
"Apologies for my belated introduction." He took off the plumed hat and tossed it aside, his eyes never leaving Haru's. He idly wondered if her hair has always smelled like lilacs, or if that was Louise's doing. "I am precisely who I appear to be." He carefully took off the mask so that Haru would be the first one to see him. She inhaled slightly, her eyes blinking in astonishment. Then he turned to face the king and the cat court. "I am Baron Humbert von Gikkingen. I have come for Haru." And thus, he delivered on his promise to make the young lady smile. Her grin could have easily lit up all of Tokyo.
"Baron!" The relief was evident in her voice. He wasn't expecting her to throw her arms around his neck and hug him, but he wasn't about to complain when she did so.
So this is what her embrace feels like…not bad at all.
"Can this be?" The brown cat was obviously enjoying the drama, but the same could not be said of the king and his mother.
"How did he get out of that shop?!" Louise hissed, her green eyes turning into slits.
"He won't have Haru! Guards, seize him!" The Cat King was nearly frothing at the mouth, he was so angry. Cat guards that had varying shades of green fur flowed in from behind every curtain, overturning tables and spilling mice and poultry everywhere. The guests started to scream as they fled the tables and ran for the curtain that the brown cat had started calmly broadcasting.
"The emergency exit is located over here. All guests please make a calm retreat into the exit."
Baron wrapped his cloak around Haru protectively while she stepped closer to him. Three of the guards hurled star daggers at the cat doll, who calmly deflected them and threw his steel mask, forcing the cat-woman at his side to bend with him so he could throw hard enough. The mask took out all three of the guards before shattering the glass window. Baron wasn't surprised when the pieces remerged to form a real white cat lying on the ground, but Haru was.
"Nice trick," She complimented him, her eyes still wide with shock. He smiled warmly at her.
"Wait until you see the finale."
"Give back my daughter-in-law, you scoundrel!" The Cat King tried to join the guards in attacking Baron, but security cats managed to subdue him so that they could take him to safety. Louise was dragged away by the veiled cats, still screaming for Baron's blood. The large white cat started moving around slowly as the orange cat led Haru to a tabletop to stay clear of the oncoming violence.
"Yesss...movement at last." The guards didn't seem as pleased.
"Renaldo Moon's escaped!"
"Run for your lives!"
"No, we have to take him down!"
"Then you do it!"
"Now, boys." The large cat had gotten on his two hind legs, an evil grin spreading across his face. "There's plenty of me of me to go around." Then he tackled five cats at once, and had them out for the count within minutes. Haru turned to Baron in surprise.
"That's your cousin?" They were nothing alike. He nodded, and faced the open window that he had shattered.
"Come on, Toto..." he said through gritted teeth. She turned to the window, expecting another cat to come to their aid. She was surprised to see a giant crow fly through the window instead.
"It's about time you got here, bird brain." Muta wasted no time with the last guard, which he threw on top of a ridiculously large pile of comatose green cats.
"I'd have gotten here sooner, if your gigantic body hadn't been covering up the window-"
"Not now!" Baron had grabbed Haru's paw and started running for where Toto had landed. "You two can greet each other later!" He picked the young lady up by the waist and set her on Toto's back before climbing on himself. "We need to focus on getting out of here."
"I'm all for that idea. Hey, what's with the girl?" Muta strode over to the window and was now eyeing the cat at Baron's side. "Didn't you learn your lesson from last time you tried to help a female?"
"Haru has made it plain that she wanted no part in this." Baron watched her face as he said this, and she had nodded in agreement. Toto took off, snatching Muta by the paws as he cleared the window. The cat woman gasped and held onto Baron, who had one arm wrapped around her and one holding onto Toto's feathers. She blushed, but since the orange feline didn't protest, she kept her arms around his neck. To distract herself from her current position with Baron, she addressed the white cat dangling from the other side of the crow.
"So what did you do? To get the cats that terrified of you?" Haru had been rather curious. Muta chuckled darkly.
"After Chicken-Legs here and Baron were turned into inanimate objects, I decided to punish the rest of the Cat Kingdom by eating all the fish in the sea." She stared blankly at him.
"And you pulled it off?" Her voice was disbelieving.
"How can you see his huge body and doubt that he could do it? He could join a sumo wrestling team and gain the top spot within a week!" Toto made a beeline for the tall tower on the other side of the castle.
"Watch it, Beak boy! Obviously I did it, or I wouldn't have gotten trapped into that stupid window. Come to think of it, how are you two moving again?"
Haru craned her head to the cat-man firmly holding her. She had been wondering the same thing. But before Baron could answer, Toto lurched in his smooth flight, and he cried out in pain. A spear had gone straight through one of his dark wings, and he started to spiral to the ground.
"Hold on!" Baron would have grabbed Haru closer, but she was practically sitting on his lap as things were. She closed her eyes and kept her grip on Baron as Muta screamed.
"Don't crash, Worm-breath! Don't-" he was cut off as Toto made a surprisingly soft landing, having Muta underneath to cushion his fall. Baron and Haru slipped off Toto's back to observe the damage. Both of them had come out without a scratch, but the white cat more resembled a squashed marshmallow, and the dark crow was breathing unsteadily, holding his wing away from his body at a strange angle. The spear was still sticking out of it.
"Steady, Toto." Baron gently eased the bird off of Muta, who grumbled. Haru looked around her, seeing that they had landed in a farther corner of a labyrinth that circled a ridiculously high tower.
"Course, no one's worried about m-Toto!" The fat cat rolled off his back and was now at the crow's other side, his face stricken with fear.
"Muta, do you think that if Baron and I hold him still, you can take out the spear?" All three of them turned to Haru, slightly surprised. "We don't exactly have a lot of time before they send more guards after us." The white cat was shocked.
"What, no hysterical cries? No weeping at Toto's pain? Just what kind of girl are you?"
"A practical one." Baron had already positioned himself on the end of Toto's wing as he answered for Haru, who walked up to the crow's head.
"What good would any of that do? Just pull it out so that we can doctor his wound." She firmly wrapped her arms Toto's neck and locked her position with her feet. Muta stared at her for a few more seconds before gripping the spear at the pointed end. Heaving a bit, he pulled it the rest of the way out, earning another cry from Toto.
"AUGH! Can't you at least try to be gentle?!"
"How about the next time you have a stick in you, I just leave it there. How does that sound?" Baron and Haru ignored the banter as they inspected the bleeding hole in Toto's wing.
"A first-aid kit would be useful about now," Baron murmured.
"Yeah. Are you too attached to that cape?" He looked at her sharply. "If we rip it up, it'd make a good sling for him." Baron smiled at her and shrugged it off, his hat, cane, and bag falling out of its folds. Instead of handing her the cape however, he gave her the bag.
"Muta and I can handle the sling. You need to change out of that gown." Staring at him in surprise, Haru opened the bag.
"My clothes? How did you-"
"I swear I'll explain everything later, but time is of the essence." She nodded and ducked behind one of the walls to extract herself from the ball gown.
"Where'd you find that girl, Baron?" Muta had taken one end of the cape and started using his claws to make one long strip of it. The cat doll tore off the black outfit, revealing his white suit underneath.
"Actually, she found me. Inside that antique shop we visited the day we arrived in Tokyo, you remember?"
"Barely. No wonder it took so long for you to get out of there. That place was a dump."
"It took this long because the old Cat King cheated. He made me and the table invisible, so that my chances of getting out were cut even slimmer."
"Did Haru find you two months ago?" Toto asked as Baron started winding the makeshift bandage around the injured wing.
"Yes. How'd you know?"
"I started being able to move about the same time, so it seemed natural."
"Lucky." Muta held up Toto's wing as Baron placed the strip ends at the back of Toto's neck and tied it securely. "I couldn't move at all, being trapped inside that stupid window. Wait, if you were invisible, how did this girl find you?" Haru walked around the wall, her denim outfit perfectly in place, although she left her hair loose.
"Your guess is as good as mine. Do you think you can walk, Toto?" He asked, though his eyes were on the slim blue figure approaching them. The crow stood up.
"Should be able to, as long as we keep a steady pace."
"Where are we going?" Haru wasn't thrilled over the prospect of running the maze with no destination in mind. Baron answered her.
"We need to get to the tower. The portal to the human world is at the top." She craned her head back at the monstrosity that dwarfed them.
"Wonderful. Is there a time limit?"
"Yes. You have to get through the opening before the sunrise."
"But it's already noon!"
"It's always noon here." Haru glanced at the watch she had just slipped back on her wrist and started to panic.
"That only gives us about three hours!"
"I told you time is of the essence. Let's get started." They began walking the maze.
"What did you do to attract the Cat King's attention anyway, Chicky?" Muta called up to Haru, who was walking beside Baron in front of him and Toto.
"Muta…" Baron said warningly."
"It's fine, Baron. I like it a lot better than babe in any case." She turned her head to face the huge cat.
"I jumped in front of a speeding truck."
"You what?"
"That reminds me, Haru. I would really appreciate it if you would restrain from doing that in the future." Baron cast a slightly annoyed look at her. "You nearly gave me a heart attack when you swiped that cat away from being killed." The white cat snorted.
"Figures, too nice for your own good. You should have left the cat be." Muta grumbled. "No good ever seems to come from sticking your nose into other people's business."
"It's a little late to be saying that, wouldn't you say?" Toto never liked girls who wept over everything, so Haru had already earned his respect.
"Trust me, I think I'm going to be keeping a healthy distance from both vehicles and real felines after this is over." Baron had to grin at her slight emphasis on real felines. They kept trying one route after another until another thought struck Haru.
"Wait a minute; you must have heard me talking with Hiromi after I brought you home. Why did you ask me to dance?" Baron just smiled at her again, causing her body temperature to rise.
"I highly doubted that someone who loves music as much as you do could truly be that terrible of a dancer. Although I am curious as to how you managed to put a man in the need of a hospital and another couple in need of ice-packs." Toto and Muta looked questioningly at her while Haru blushed a deep crimson and sweat-dropped.
"But I am sure that is a story for another time. Let's turn here." They did, but Haru barely noticed. He knew all of the little silly things that she did when she thought she was alone, and had a front row seat to all of her klutz attacks.
"Uh, Baron, listen. I apologize for anything I might have done or said that-" He cut her off by gently pressing a finger over her mouth.
"Don't. I admire a young woman that speaks from the heart."
"Yeah, it would have been helpful if Louise had done that," Muta muttered, completely missing the newest blush that crossed Haru's face.
