A/N: This is just a fun idea of another way Baron and Haru could have come in contact in the Zinging in the Train idea.

Birthday Bash 2020

Prompt 5: Ghosts

xxXxx

"…o… ooo… eee…"

Haru turned her head away from the practice field. "Did you hear that?" she asked Hiromi.

"Hear what?" her best friend asked as she performed her stretches while holding onto her lacrosse stick.

The brunette pursed her lips as she tried to listen harder. "I'm not sure. That kind of high whisper through the trees?"

"…. oooo… ssseeee…"

Hiromi closed her eyes for a moment before shrugging. "Sorry, Haru. All I can hear is the other team getting served," she reported with a naughty smirk.

Haru frowned while stepping closer to the chain link fence. "How can you not hear it?" she asked a little incredulously.

"Luuuu… ssseeeee…"

Haru blinked as the sound slowly became more like speech. She laced her fingers through the chain link fence and gripped it tightly as her large brown eyes searched in vain for where the sound could be originating from. "Now that's just silly! Now it's starting to sound like-"

"Lucy!"

Without warning, everything turned black. Haru wasn't sure if she had closed her eyes or had a thick blanket thrown over her, but nothing was distinguishable anymore.

She tried to flail around in vain, but nothing seemed to matter. It had to have been her wild imagination, but Haru could almost swear to the idea that she was falling right through solid matter. Even though she couldn't see anything, she still had the sense that she still falling, falling, falling…

Falling… Haru was screaming, but no one could hear her. No one was around to hear her.

Suddenly she was thrown up into the air while still screaming, and her eyes could see directly below her.

She was staring at a very old grave, liberally strewn with varying flowers and plants in the very definitive shape of a coffin.

"What the actual heck?!" Haru screamed in surprise, realizing that she wasn't falling back to the ground. Not only that, but she could see right through her outstretched hands! Even the strands of transparent hair now flowing over her shoulders had a white tinge instead of her usual brown, and she was in a long shift of a white dress, though Haru couldn't understand why.

"Finally! It worked!" a crackly hag's voice exclaimed in triumph.

Haru twisted herself in the air enough to gape at the company surrounding the grave.

… This was a dream. There was no other explanation. She must have passed out during practice.

Count Dracula tilted his head with a sound of confusion. "Somehow, I didn't think that would be the first thing she'd say."

"Be nice, she's probably really confused right now," Frankenstein assured him, though he just looked happy to see her.

"You think?!" Haru demanded while taking in everything other than the monsters surrounding the heavily flowered grave.

This was actually a really beautiful spot to be buried. Lots of trees, a mountain in the distance, and the full moon overhead was surprisingly beautiful.

About the only thing really marring the spot was a set of railroad tracks just visible through some of the trees.

"Lucy," one of the monsters called in such a worshipful tone that Haru had no choice but to look at the one monster standing apart from the most famous this world ever knew.

If she currently had breath, she'd have lost it at the sight of him. Almost without thinking about it, whatever passed for her form floated down in front of this unusual creature as the world flashed purple around him in her eyes.

He was probably a werecat, most of his true color washed out by the moonlight except for his amazing green eyes. She couldn't even tell if his nice suit and top hat were white or a soft grey.

"Wow, you're cool," she breathed in complete appreciation, secretly grateful that she didn't have the ability to blush right now.

That seemed to startle him as much as it flattered him. "Don't you recognize me, Lucy?" he begged, reaching out to grab her hands, but his own just passed through her without so much as a ripple.

She blinked in surprise. "I'm not Lucy," she apologized as gently as she could. "Wait, that was you I heard calling, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was me!" he confirmed, though his confusion only continued to grow. "What do you mean you're not Lucy? You wouldn't have heard my call if you weren't. Do you really not know me?" he begged like he was about to cry.

"I'm sorry," she apologized again, trying to touch his shoulder to comfort the werecat. But her hand went through him just as easily as he had gone through her.

It was strange. Why did she feel such a… closeness to him?

"My name is Haru Yoshioka. I don't know how I answered the call instead of your Lucy."

That made his head snap up to look at her again. "What?" he asked slowly.

"My name is Haru Yoshioka," she repeated herself. "I live in Japan with my mother." She suddenly stiffened and looked at Dracula, who was standing next to a young lady about her own age that could have easily been his daughter. "Just in case this isn't a weird dream, the book got everything wrong about you, right?"

The vampire could only nod. "Only a handful of names were accurate, yes. Precious little else other than some of my abilities."

"Mom will be happy to hear that when I tell her. One of her favorite hobbies is ripping open all the plot holes in that book," Haru couldn't resist smirking a little before noticing that the werecat's hand was trying vainly to turn her attention back to him. She turned it toward him again anyway.

"Are you trying to say that you were reborn?" the werecat begged her.

"… Are you trying to say that you knew me in my previous life?" she asked in surprise before telling him the date to be certain.

"Yes…. Yes!" the werecat cheered, laughing happily as if all his problems were solved with just that revelation.

Haru looked at the flower-strewn grave again as a shudder racked through her soul. "Is that mine?"

All the monsters cringed, but it was the mummy that spoke first.

"Yep. You died a hero's death over a century ago."

"And she might again if she doesn't return to her body immediately," the little witch realized with horror. "Quick, jump back into the grave before the link between you and your body is permanently severed!"

Haru nodded and got herself to hover over the grave while preparing a swan dive.

"But how will I find you again?!" the werecat almost screamed before she could disappear again.

Haru looked at him. "My name's Haru Yoshioka, I go to Jirashi High, class 7B. Anyone good with a computer will be able to find me with that kind of information. I'll be expecting to see you again so I can scream at you for scaring me like this."

Without waiting another minute, she made the swan dive back into the grave.

This was just as scary as the first time she could see nothing and feel nothing except the suggestion of passing through solid matter. Last time, she didn't know where she was going or why. This time, she knew where she wanted to go, but there was now a ticking clock to make sure that she wouldn't so much as get brain damage from being technically dead for a few minutes.

'Come on, come on, come-'

Haru's eyes snapped open with a thunderous gasp for air.

The first thing she saw was the gym teacher with both of her hands over Haru's heart, though she jumped back in surprise.

"Yoshioka! Do not scare us like that again!" she demanded, putting one hand on the girl's shoulder to keep her from sitting up. "Don't move. An ambulance is on its way."

"I don't need an ambulance," Haru gasped, but the teacher shushed her.

"I don't care if you think you need it. You, young lady, are going to stay right there until help arrives. Hashima-san, you're in charge of making sure she doesn't move."

"Happily!" Hiromi answered, tears running down her face as she laid down next to where Haru had fallen and wrapped one arm around her friend. "Don't you ever do that again! You and I are going to be besties until we're old hags, and you are not allowed to cut that short!"

"I swear I'm fine!" Haru protested, but no one listened to her.

Not the principal.

Not the paramedics on the ambulance.

Not even her mother when she was called to the hospital.

The doctor was pursing his lips a few hours later as he looked through his notes as Naoko held her daughter's hand. "This really is baffling. According to my tests, there really is nothing wrong with Haru."

"Well, teenagers don't just collapse unconscious and lose pulse and breath over nothing!" the mother protested, keeping a firm grip on her daughter's hand as she lay in the hospital bed.

It was all Haru could do not to scream in frustration. She knew full well how it happened, but she'd get locked up in a much worse hospital than this if she tried to tell anyone. Even telling her mother about it without a monster physically there to back her up would be a bad idea.

She couldn't help but fight back a smirk thinking about when her mother would find out that Dracula was a real person. That should make her feel better about all this.

But what about that werecat? She suddenly felt incredibly guilty that while she had managed to tell him her name, she hadn't so much as asked for his.

"I think it would be a good idea to keep her here overnight for observation," the doctor continued, making more additions to his notes. "There's a few more tests that need time, and I'd rather not discharge her for something to happen during the night."

Naoko shuddered in horror before tightening her grip on her child. "I'm sure insurance will cover us," she asserted, though only Haru could feel the tremor in her hand.

"I am sorry about all this fuss," the teenager apologized again, but the doctor shushed her with a gentle smile.

"It's no one's fault, Haru. Sometimes the body just does strange things."

'You're telling me,' she fought not to say out loud.

"But that doesn't mean we're not going to try to find answers," he assured her before politely taking his leave.

Naoko wasn't able to resist the need to hug her child around the lines connecting her baby to various machines to make sure that her insides were all working the way they were supposed to. "This isn't right," she whispered while trying not to cry. "You're strong and healthy. There was no reason for this to happen."

Well, one. Haru remembered how the witch was holding some unidentifiable things in her hands, but the werecat had seemed like the one most eager to talk to her. What was their history in her past life?

He was important. Haru felt that in her very bones. Even now, every time she closed her eyes, all she could see was his face after finding out that she was currently alive.

Haru couldn't help a gentle smile as she thought about that face. He'd come for her. If she was important to him this long after her death as Lucy, he'd know where to find her soon enough.

"Haru! Is everything okay?" Naoko suddenly panicked as the machine measuring her pulse began to speed up.

"Yep!" her daughter answered with a blush. "This is all just a formality. I guess I can force myself to stay here long enough for everyone to stop worrying."

"You better believe I'm worried! If I lost you…" Her mother couldn't even force herself to finish the sentence, holding onto her child even harder.

'You won't,' Haru longed to say, but couldn't. "Mom? Could you get my laptop from home? And my phone charger? I promise not to push myself, but I don't want to be bored, and I do have some homework I feel up to finishing."

Her mother sighed. "Sometimes, Haru, you're too practical for your own good. All right, but I won't be long," she promised, kissing her daughter's hair before leaving the room as well.

Haru tried to force herself to relax. Although her head still felt a bit foggy from the experience, she was certain that it was just a good nap from completely disappearing.

Actually, a nap sounded heavenly right now. She nestled herself more comfortably under her blankets and let herself start dozing off.

Just before sleep came, there was a polite knock on her door.

"Yes?" she called out while trying not to sound grumpy.

The door opened a tiny crack to reveal a hospital volunteer. "Haru Yoshioka?"

"That's me. How's your day?" she asked politely.

"Very well, actually," he responded with a smile, opening the door the rest of the way to come in.

His reason why was immediately recognized in the form of the most beautiful bouquet Haru had ever seen, with roses and bleeding hearts intermingled with other flowers she couldn't even guess the names of.

But she recognized at least some of them from Lucy's grave.

Haru couldn't resist smirking. 'I knew it wouldn't take him long to find me.'

"These arrived for you just now," the volunteer announced while carefully setting the glass vase next to the window where she would be able to see them just fine. "Did you want the envelope?"

"Yes, please," Haru answered while eagerly holding her hand out.

He set it in her hand with a smile. "You must have someone special to get you this so quickly after being admitted. Did you need anything else?"

"Some water would be nice," Haru admitted, though her real goal was to get him out of the room before opening the envelope.

He nodded and closed the door after himself.

Haru hurriedly opened the envelope and card to see what the werecat had to say for himself.

Dearest Haru,

I assure you I know how to use a computer. Don't be too surprised if your hospital bill gets mysteriously paid before the day is out. I assure you that I will make my way to you in a few days, since our dear friends managed to beat into my head that showing up so quickly after your malady will create unwanted questions.

D. says he'll be happy to answer any questions your mother has to help soothe her nerves. I'm certain she isn't taking this well, and you heavily hinted that she is an open-minded individual.

Expect a text next time you touch your phone,

Baron Humbert von Gikkingen.

P.S. That's Baron to you.

Haru beamed happily, laying back and resting the note over her heart. "Baron," she said out loud, enjoying the sound of it.

She didn't even care that monsters were real, after all.

Because as much as her rebirth meant to him, just learning the werecat's name answered a need she hadn't known was lacking.