No.
Wrong!
The figure in the picture seemed identical to the her in her memory at first glance, but as Acheron's gaze lingered on the unfashionable braided pigtails and the faint differences between the brows, and as she carefully took in the girl's bearing, a subtle sense of wrongness quietly surfaced.
Was it... just a similar portrait?
As someone who had once set out alone and wandered the boundless Galaxy, Acheron understood the wonders of the universe better than anyone.
Countless similar worlds existed across the universe, and within them, countless people who looked alike yet whose fates diverged in subtle ways.
Under different starlight, she had once encountered strangers who resembled people from her past, and watched their lives slide along familiar-seeming tracks toward entirely different ends.
But to meet someone so similar to "her"...
This seemed to be a first.
Acheron's lips moved, almost imperceptibly. A thousand threads of words tangled at the tip of her tongue, and she didn't know which one to pick up first.
In the end, it became a low, restrained question:
"What... was her name?"
[Kiana.]
"...A lovely name."
Acheron's reply was soft.
She parted her lips slightly, wanting to say more, but the breath caught in her throat for a long moment before finally dissolving into a long sigh.
Stelle-Tom and Robin silently exchanged a glance.
The cat shrugged, vividly — utterly-confused.gif.
Neither of them understood why the atmosphere between Acheron and Caelus had suddenly turned strange.
This sudden oddness clashed sharply with the lighthearted mood from before, leaving the two onlookers thoroughly baffled.
"Miss Tom."
Robin chose her words carefully, aware that what she was about to say might come off as rude.
But she suspected it would be far easier to get the situation out of this simple, straightforward-looking cat than to extract any useful information from Mr. Jerry.
Stelle-Tom lifted her fuzzy cat head, looked at the elegant songstress, and grinned — a classic, slightly goofy toothy Tom smile.
[What's up~?]
She held up her sign.
Robin decided to get straight to the point:
"How did you and Mr. Jerry change your forms within this dream?"
A simple change in appearance would have been fine — there was more than one way to accomplish that within a dream — but her Harmony perception told her clearly otherwise.
After turning into a cat and a mouse, what had changed in these two was far more than appearance — the very essence of their existence had undergone some incomprehensible transformation!
Not to mention the absurd feat of Caelus-Jerry dragging her along, ignoring the dimensional barriers of the dream and crossing straight through Dream Bubbles!
Even native lifeforms of the Memory Zone, even Memory Zone Memes, were nothing compared to this!
No — ordinary Memory Zone Memes couldn't even compare to them.
Hearing the question, Stelle-Tom looked down, curiously examining her own fluffy, soft cat paws and body, tilting her head as if thinking hard for a few seconds.
Then she scratched her head with a paw and wrote on the paper.
[Quality answer: I don't know.]
The truth was, all she knew was that her ability to transform like this had something to do with whatever Caelus-cub had quietly passed to her when he kissed her earlier.
That power acted like a key, letting her unlock this cat form.
As for the key's principle, origin, or mechanism... she had no idea.
"..."
Robin's gaze met Stelle-Tom's round cat eyes, clear and clueless as a wide-eyed freshman's, for two seconds.
Silence.
Well, then.
She silently revised her earlier assessment.
Miss Tom wasn't just simple-looking.
She was, in fact, actually simple too.
[Speaking of which, you look really familiar!]
Stelle-Tom's round eyes suddenly lit up, like a long-shorted lightbulb finally getting power again.
She remembered the wildly popular livestream she'd watched together with Caelus-cub and Ah Qi.
"Ah! You're that, that, um..."
The blue cat waved her paws excitedly at Robin, but her little head stalled like an old, glitchy player — the keyword spinning wildly on the tip of her tongue, refusing to come out.
"Sunshine, Rainbow, Little Bird."
Having finished his exchange with Acheron, Caelus-Jerry leapt lightly and precisely, landing right atop Stelle-Tom's fuzzy head.
He plopped himself down without ceremony, his two short legs swinging idly, and casually grabbed Stelle's two cat ears, tugging them like reins.
"Isn't it 'Little White Horse'?"
Stelle-Tom's cat face scrunched at the tug, and almost by instinct, in that classic cartoon move of Tom grabbing Jerry, she yanked the tyrannical little mouse down off her head, gripping him firmly in her paw, and asked, confused, tilting her head.
"But she's clearly a bird."
Caelus-Jerry squirmed a little in her grip, working his arms free from the tight hold and resting them against her fingers.
"..."
"?"
Robin and Acheron both stared at the cat and mouse, their two stunning faces wearing matching expressions of bewilderment.
What in the world was any of this?
Didn't understand a word, -mnida!
[Since you're a songstress, why not sing a song together with us?]
Stelle-Tom didn't seem to notice the communication breakdown at all — her train of thought had once again leapt somewhere new, without warning.
With deft paws, she tied Caelus-Jerry's long slender tail into a neat little loop, then presented the mouse — cheek propped on his paw, cheeks puffed in helpless annoyance — like a ring being offered.
At the same time, she performed a mock, exaggeratedly formal gentleman's bow.
"Eh?"
Robin looked at the words written on the sign propped behind Caelus.
Did the writing on that paper erase itself automatically?
"Does Miss Tom enjoy singing too?~"
Robin quickly composed herself, her usual gentle, gracious smile blooming back onto her face.
"Sure~"
Even as she said it playfully, a nearly invisible flicker of trouble passed through the depths of her eyes.
"Using such a wondrous dream as a stage would truly be a marvelous thing. It's just..."
Robin paused slightly, her voice as lovely as ever, but laced with a subtle, gentle note of regret:
"It seems there's no accompaniment on hand here, doesn't it?"
The implication was a polite refusal.
But this wasn't an excuse to wriggle out of it, nor was it the reserve of a great Galaxy-famous songstress putting on airs.
Robin's love for singing itself had never faded, even after it became her career.
It's just...
She raised a hand and gently touched her own slender, pale, elegant neck.
As a songstress famous across the cosmos, her voice was the instrument she treasured most.
The last time she'd been caught in stray gunfire, it had already been a stroke of luck that her vocal cords went unharmed.
But this time, upon returning to Penacony to prepare for the all-important Charmony Festival, she'd discovered a severe problem with her voice.
The problem wasn't with her — not damaged vocal cords, not rusty technique.
As Penacony's Harmony singer, her voice was the Harmony that all of Penacony played together, the shared music of Harmony resonating from a billion heartstrings.
Only such a purely harmonious piece was worthy of being offered to the great Aeon of Harmony, or capable of drawing down the favor of a Harmony Emanator.
But now her voice had gone hoarse, barely able to make a sound.
That meant something might be wrong with Penacony's Harmony itself!
That was why she was here, in her private Dream Bubble, seeking peace of mind to search for the source of the problem and a way to fix it.
It had to be resolved before the Charmony Festival!
So far, she'd been channeling the power of Harmony, letting invisible energy flow gently around her body in place of her vocal cords' vibration.
Speaking was fine, but singing would very likely give it away.
Acheron, for her part, seemed entirely unbothered by all this.
Her original intention had simply been to get Stelle out of this potentially dangerous dream.
But now that they'd become a cat and a mouse, not even Nihility could corrupt them — let alone the dream itself!
Since they were safe, they could do whatever they pleased.
Stelle-Tom and Caelus-Jerry exchanged a knowing look, both raising a tiny paw and giving Robin a thumbs up, their eyes brimming with 'leave it to us' bravado.
Daijoubu! No worries at all!
A mere accompaniment?
Piece of cake~!
Then, under Robin and Acheron's baffled, dumbfounded stares, the cat and mouse's legs blurred into twin whirlwind afterimages.
With a whoosh sound effect, they vanished instantly through the doorway.
"Wait! Where are you two going?"
The words had barely left Robin's mouth
"Whoosh—!"
when the two whirlwinds came zooming right back!
Robin froze.
Stelle-Tom and Caelus-Jerry's arms were piled high with all manner of instruments — violin, flute, oboe, bassoon, timpani... there was even a grand piano that looked over ten times bigger than the mouse himself!
Robin was utterly stunned.
Wait, what?!
Where had all this come from?!
This was the boundary between reality and the Memory Zone — with no Dreamweaver having designed it, the dream's structure was unstable and defied normal logic; objects here had almost no continuity at all.
And another thing!
What's with those outfits you're wearing?!
The cat and mouse, bare a moment ago, were now both dressed in perfectly tailored, exquisitely fine pure black tailcoats.
Stelle had even put on a little bow tie.
Before her confusion could settle, Robin witnessed something that left her stunned.
Snap!
A brilliant spotlight beam, like something from a top-tier opera house, flared to life without warning, falling precisely on Caelus-Jerry, who had already leapt atop the piano's lid.
The mouse, in his fine little tailcoat, bowed gracefully to the two ladies like a proper gentleman.
Then he began dancing lightly across the black and white keys — spinning, leaping, chaining backflip after backflip.
Every nimble landing pressed down a key with precision, striking out a string of bright, rhythmic notes.
A mouse whose body wasn't even as tall as a white key was playing the piano!
Stelle-Tom was even more absurd!
She was tending to an entire orchestra's worth of instruments.
On her left and right stood the string section — first violin, second violin, viola, cello, and double bass, all tied down and fixed to stands with rope.
In front of her were the woodwinds and brass, rows of trumpet and bassoon mouthpieces lined up neatly.
Behind her was the percussion section — snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, all present.
Then Stelle-Tom went to work with both hands, each gripping a slender bow, drawing every string instrument's bow at once!
The violin's lilting melody, the cello's depth, and the double bass's weight wove together.
Her mouth flickered like an afterimage, darting rapidly between the woodwind and brass mouthpieces in front of her.
Her feet worked the pedals and pitch, stomping wildly between the drums and cymbals, while her tail simultaneously plucked the cello strings behind her.
A one-cat orchestra!
Whoa—!!!
Holy—!!!
Robin's eyes nearly popped out of her head, and her jaw nearly dislocated.
It turned out that even an elegant songstress, when utterly speechless and stunned enough, could only express herself with a mental swear or two.
She was basically a superhuman!!
No — a god of symphonic music in cat form!!
Acheron just stood there, dazed.
Stelle-Tom felt her blood boiling all over her body, brimming with strength, brimming with power!
"This feeling... is amazing!"
She screamed inside her head:
"If I'd had this kind of energy back when I was in the band on Jarilo-VI, I would've been the brightest star in all of CRYCHIC!"
A top-tier music master!
"..."
Robin had gone completely speechless — any words would have sounded feeble next to this godlike performance.
Top-tier music master, my foot.
That title wasn't even fit to carry the shoes of this cheat-code cat before her!
The melody the two of them — cat and mouse — played together carried a strange, stirring sense of exhilaration.
Robin's body swayed gently to the rhythm without her meaning to, breath rising to her throat, nearly humming along out loud.
But a stabbing pain stopped her from opening her mouth.
Yet as the performance built toward its peak — or perhaps because of the sheer power in the cat and mouse's playing — her breath broke through the blockage.
"Ahh~~?"
Robin's eyes went wide — she'd sung!
She'd actually managed to sing!
No noise at all, just the same Harmony music as always!
But once the piece ended,
when Robin tried to speak again, a stabbing pain like a fishbone lodged in her throat forced her to swallow the words back down.
No good.
Why? It had worked just a moment ago...
Could it be that she could only sing normally while Miss Tom and Mr. Jerry were playing?
The thought surfaced in Robin's mind, unbidden.
____
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