"Caelus-cub?"
Stelle spun a full 540 degrees in midair, dropping from the ceiling in a smooth half-crouch landing.
Her gaze locked instantly onto the small brown speck on Robin's chest, gold eyes wide with disbelief.
"Why... did you turn into a mouse?!"
"Turning into a mouse, fine, whatever!"
Stelle sprang up from her half-crouch like a fired cannon shell, closing the distance to Robin in an instant.
Her expression twisted from confusion into something closer to fury, features scrunching together as she glared, eyes practically bulging, at the deep and inviting valley of snow-white skin framed by the elegant gown.
It was the look of someone watching their layabout twin brother, who never lifted a finger for anything, suddenly show up driving a Land Rover.
"What in the actual hell is going on here?!"
What really set her off was the sight of the little brown mouse nestled between that faintly glowing, silky expanse, propping up its cheek with one tiny paw, leaning lazily against the soft cushion, tiny tail swaying in idle contentment.
She'd been slogging away, carving a path through the crack between dream and reality — and what was Caelus-cub doing?
This guy was cozily curled up in the warmest, softest spot in a beautiful girl's arms, living his best life?!
Could she let that slide?! No.
Caelus-Jerry felt that scorching gaze practically roasting him alive. He frowned, shrugged with an air of total innocence, then lifted a tiny paw and gave it a careless wave.
Not a single sound came out of him, but the thick scent of mockery — "Skill issue, who's fault is that?" — rolled off him instantly.
The hands hanging at Stelle's sides went rigid. Her fingers splayed into claws, trembling as they curled, slowly folding into fists.
She'd been provoked!
Faced with this Caelus-cub, appearing as Jerry and lounging in 'paradise' no less, Stelle triggered the power within her soul almost on instinct.
Hmmm—!
A brief but blinding ring of mysterious light flared, and the Galactic Succubus — as unpredictable as a sanity-shredding horror when active, as still as the moon goddess when at rest — vanished without a trace.
In her place stood a humanoid cat, standing upright on two feet.
The cat was short-haired, mostly blue-gray, with white paws and feet that looked like it was wearing white gloves and boots.
Big round eyes, and Stelle-Tom split her mouth into a wide, sharp-toothed grin.
"Eek!"
As if by instinct, Caelus-Jerry, amid Robin's startled shriek, planted his feet against that warm, soft, cream-pale expanse for leverage, flipped nimbly, and shot toward the ground like a fired pellet.
The instant he landed, he flung both hands forward, hunched his body low, and bolted in a panic.
He kept glancing back as he ran.
Excitement gleamed in Stelle-Tom's eyes, her feral grin stretching even wider as she took off after the mouse in great bounding strides.
Robin stood dumbfounded, Acheron equally stunned.
And so the chase between cat and mouse began.
Just as Stelle-Tom's paw was about to swipe the very tip of his tail, Caelus-Jerry leapt in fright, his eyes, nose, and mouth springing outward like coils before snapping back into place with a comic 'boing.'
The moment he hit the ground, Caelus-Jerry didn't look back — his two stubby little legs became high-speed motors, leaving behind a blur of unprecedented speed.
Ahead lay an ornately decorated low tea table.
A glint of cunning flashed in Caelus-Jerry's eyes. Without hesitation, he slid across the floor and squeezed precisely into the gap between the table's underside and the floor.
The gap couldn't have been more than three centimeters high — even a mouse shouldn't have been able to move freely in there.
But Stelle-Tom, blind with the thrill of the chase, didn't slow down at all. With enough momentum to smash the table and mouse together into rubble, she barreled straight at it, head down.
"Ah!"
Robin instinctively covered her eyes at the sight, unable to bear watching the poor kitten slam headfirst into the solid table.
A few seconds passed... but the crash and the yowl of pain she expected never came.
Robin carefully peeked through her fingers, eyes opening bit by bit.
And then she saw...
An extremely abstract geometric shape.
The blue cat, round head included, had compressed her entire body — by sheer force — into a flat, sharp-edged rectangular block.
She looked exactly like a moving brick that happened to have a cat's head.
At the base of this cat-brick, a bare centimeter of clearance remained, from which little wheel-like feet wriggled and skittered rapidly across the floor, pushing her forward.
The driving force behind such desperate self-compression waited just ahead—
"Nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh~~!"
Caelus-Jerry had, at some point, already popped out from the other end of the tea table.
He yanked his mouth wide open with both hands, tongue stuck out shamelessly, jeering at Stelle-Tom.
"!!!"
Visible steam billowed up from the top of Stelle-Tom's head. Her whole body flushed red before your eyes, her color shifting from blue-gray to an enraged sauce-brown.
She surged forward with a sudden burst of speed, kicking up a trail of dark smoke, barreling ahead like a runaway steamroller straight for that infuriating little cub!
A crafty glint flickered in Caelus-Jerry's eyes.
He slammed on the brakes and, with lightning speed, thrust out one tiny leg — thinner than Seele's pinky finger — directly across the cat-brick's path!
Bonk—!
The furiously wriggling cat-brick tripped hard over the thin little leg, instantly losing its balance. Still holding her perfectly rectangular shape, she went sailing forward, slamming flat onto the polished floor.
Carried by the momentum, limbs splayed out in a starfish shape, she slid on across the ground.
Bam!
She finally crashed into the wall, snapping back into her original form.
Caelus-Jerry propped one hand against the nearby wall, shaking his head at the flattened cat-pancake on the floor with a look that screamed, 'Tsk tsk tsk, little sis, you call that trying?'
"..."
"..."
Robin and Acheron were utterly stunned, their brains buzzing with static.
What in the world was going on?
Was she dreaming inside a dream right now?
After all that chaos, Stelle-Tom's rage had reached a boiling point.
Her gaze snagged on a decorative broom in the corner. A vicious glint flashed in her eyes as she snatched it up like a metal baseball bat, charging at Caelus-Jerry again with home-run-swinging force.
"Wait!"
Robin cried out, though sadly it did nothing.
Over the next few minutes, Robin and Acheron watched, helpless, as the once artfully decorated dream room descended, at a heartbreaking speed, into something resembling a war-torn ruin.
"Boom!"
"Crack!"
"Clang—!"
A cacophony of teeth-grating shatters, crashes, and explosions filled the air without pause.
Priceless furniture instantly became flying debris, exquisite wallpaper was torn to shreds, and the gorgeous crystal chandelier lay smashed into a sparkling heap of trash on the floor.
The air reeked of scorched material and sawdust, scorch marks scarred the walls, and a few stubborn little flames still crackled and smoked here and there.
The whole room looked like it had been through a war.
On either side of the room, without anyone quite noticing when, scattered sofa cushions, a toppled bookshelf, and shattered coffee table panels had been piled into two surprisingly well-constructed tactical barricades.
Behind one barricade crouched a fully-armed British Shorthair with a ferocious glare, a pot dug up from who-knows-where perched on her head as a helmet.
Facing off across the wreckage of the battlefield was an equally fully-armed little brown mouse, wearing a comically small bottle cap as a helmet, in the middle of an intense firefight.
Had time... sped up?!
Robin watched, jaw hanging open.
Stelle-Tom grinned wickedly and, from who-knows-where, pulled out a round black grenade.
She lit the fuse, wound up her cat arm, and hurled it with all her strength at Caelus-Jerry's barricade.
The instant she threw it, she clamped both paws over her fuzzy cat ears and dove flat to the ground.
Robin blinked in a daze.
"Where... did she even get that grenade from?"
No one answered her question.
Caelus-Jerry, well-prepared, produced a giant frying pan out of nowhere in an instant and struck a perfect batting stance.
Clang!
He knocked the grenade right back the way it came, landing precisely at the feet of Stelle-Tom, who had just lifted her head, face frozen in shock.
You too?
Robin's internal scream went unheard by anyone.
Where does everyone keep pulling frying pans from?
Boom!
The deafening blast, along with fire and smoke, swallowed Stelle-Tom whole.
When the smoke cleared, a soot-black, still-smoking charcoal-grilled cat remained standing there, only its wide, staring eyes — startlingly white against the charred black background — still moving.
Stelle-Tom's whole body shuddered like ash being shaken off, her scorched fur instantly restored to its glossy blue-gray sheen.
"Stop! Stop it right now! Please stop fighting!"
Robin rushed to intervene.
She'd never imagined a cat-and-mouse spat could tear an entire dream room apart!
Even dreams need basic ground rules!
Maybe it was because a winged, ear-adorned beauty had intervened, or maybe they'd simply worn themselves out — Stelle-Tom put out the fires of battle and, sulking, lowered her weapon.
Amid the smoke-choked ruins, Caelus-Jerry poked his head out from behind his junk-pile barricade, fuming, and pulled out pen and paper from behind his back. A few quick scribbles later, he crumpled the paper into a ball and hurled it hard at Stelle-Tom.
Unfolding the paper revealed bold, sprawling handwriting:
[Are you sick in the head? Why are you chasing me?]
[And here I traveled across mountains and rivers just to find you, you ungrateful little brat!]
Stelle-Tom's cat paws caught the wad of paper. After reading it, she instinctively scratched her head, a flicker of embarrassment crossing her face.
But! Talking tough in front of Caelus-cub was practically written into her bones!
She snatched the pen and paper right back, baring her teeth, and scribbled a furious reply:
[You started it with your mocking first!]
[That was me showing concern for you!]
Acheron and Robin stood right in the middle of the wrecked "battlefield," watching numbly as a cat and a mouse waged an intense written correspondence war using paper-ball artillery.
The expressions on their faces cycled through a rich variety.
The mouse calling the cat 'brat'?
What kind of bizarre relationship was this?
"Um..."
Robin carefully cut in.
The cat and mouse froze mid-motion, both turning in unison toward the galactic superstar.
Robin pointed at the upright cat gripping the pen and paper, then looked at Caelus-Jerry, eyes full of questions.
"Who is... she?"
The moment Stelle-Tom heard this, she jumped in before Caelus-Jerry could react, seizing the pen and, with a touch of self-satisfaction, scrawling a line on the well-worn paper before holding it up triumphantly.
[Hi there~]
Stelle-Tom held up the paper, smile dazzlingly bright.
[You can call me Stelle, or you can call me Tom.]
Hands clasped behind her back, body tilted slightly forward, the corner of her mouth curled in a flattering little smirk, her narrowed cat eyes seeming to sparkle with stars.
This was one shameless little sycophant of a cat.
Robin quickly shook her head, tossing aside a thought that was equal parts fitting and rude, and forced her face into a polite, courteous smile.
"Hello, I'm Robin."
Mm-hmm-hmm!
Stelle-Tom's head nodded like it had a motor installed, her expression eager and pleading, as if she'd just met a beautiful stranger she desperately wanted to impress.
Looking at the pure, harmless, adorable blue-gray cat in front of her, Robin momentarily forgot that its true form was human.
Charmed and a little smitten, she reached out on instinct and gently stroked Stelle-Tom's fuzzy little head.
"Purrrrr..."
She kept petting, hand moving in gentle strokes.
Far from resisting, Stelle leaned into the touch with obvious pleasure, rubbing her face against Robin's palm, eyes narrowed in blissful contentment.
"Ah! Sorry, sorry!"
Realizing belatedly what she was doing, Robin's face flushed bright red, and she yanked her hand back as if shocked.
"I didn't mean to! You're just... just too cute..."
Just as Stelle-Tom was about to shake her head wildly to say "It's fine! Please, keep going!" — her cat body suddenly went rigid. She blinked.
Wait, no.
That sensation of the angel's palm gently stroking her... it was still there!
It was the empathy bond!
In an instant, Stelle-Tom switched into full "Serious Tom.jpg" mode, eyes sharp as blades, whipping her head around to scan the room for that spare little brother of hers.
Her gaze locked on immediately — Caelus-Jerry was being held steadily in the palm of a certain purple-haired big sister, being examined with keen interest.
Stelle had briefly spoken with her earlier and learned her name was Acheron, apparently some kind of wandering swordswoman who patrolled the seas.
Caelus-Jerry, meanwhile, was carefully studying this "capable of anything" Mei.
Looking closely, her features were nearly identical to the Mei he'd pulled — the sense of them being very different was purely an illusion created by hairstyle and demeanor.
Acheron carried a colder, more detached air.
"Hello."
A crisp, slightly languid voice came from the mouse in her palm.
The sudden voice caught Acheron off guard. She raised one elegant eyebrow, her cool voice carrying a barely perceptible note of surprise:
"You... can talk?"
In a dream, a talking billboard wouldn't even raise an eyebrow, but this mouse had stayed silent from the moment it appeared until now, and she'd assumed it simply couldn't make a sound.
"I can. This form just isn't fond of talking."
[Why are you here?]
Caelus-Jerry switched to writing instead.
"Probably... lost my way."
[Lost your way?]
[6.]
Acheron didn't understand what the number meant.
"Do you... know me?"
Caelus-Jerry's tone was so familiar that Acheron assumed he must know her — she often forgot things, so forgetting someone she was actually close to wasn't out of the question.
Rather than rely on memory, Acheron was more accustomed to using 'feeling' to grasp at things.
The moment she focused her senses on the adorable little mouse in her hand, the stillness in her heart — quiet as an ancient well for so long — erupted into raging waves.
"Wait! What exactly are you?!"
Nihility's power couldn't touch him! How was that possible?!
She had walked far down the Path of Nihility. Because of that, no matter what, she had to accept that although the process itself could prove the meaning of existence, everything, in the end, returned to [Nihility].
But this little mouse in front of her — his fundamental nature couldn't be encompassed by [Nihility]!
That wasn't possible!
How could such a being exist?
As her thoughts churned in turmoil, the paper thrust in front of her made her mind suddenly go blank.
[I know you a little — you look a lot like my wife.]
"?"
Acheron tilted her head, confusion crossing her face.
[Do you know this person?]
Caelus-Jerry snatched up the pen and started sketching rapidly on the paper, the pen moving fast enough to leave afterimages.
A few seconds later, a vivid, lifelike portrait of a girl had leapt onto the page, its detail rivaling a high-speed printer.
"!?"
Those cool, distant eyes suddenly narrowed sharply. Acheron's thoughts were violently cut off, her heart and mind shaking to their core.
The girl in the portrait, smiling brightly, eyes clear, with a hint of a guileless charm... that was her!
It was her!
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