Step one: Shut up.Step two: Hurry up.Step three: Don't vomit on the roof if you have acrophobia.
These weren't the carefully honed steps of an elite assassin. No, these were the desperate, borderline-panicked instructions running through my head as I clung to the edge of a crumbling rooftop in the middle of a chase I didn't remember starting.
Thirty seconds ago, I was a cat named Mochi.
Let's rewind.
The Body Situation
I was not dead. A promising start.But I was also not fuzzy. Less promising.
My limbs were far too long, my center of gravity was somewhere around help, and most insultingly, my tail was gone. Just—gone. As if it had never existed. As if I'd never once used it to knock a priceless heirloom off a shelf out of sheer spite.
Even worse, I was dressed in tight black leather—leather—and someone had strapped a sharp knife to my thigh like this was a reasonable thing to do. (It wasn't. For the record, knives go in drawers. Not on me.)
Still, the body moved. Smoothly. Efficiently. Dangerously. It had reflexes and muscle memory I didn't recognize—clearly someone else's gym membership had paid off. I felt strong. Capable. Trained. Which was deeply unfair because I had very clear, cat-shaped instincts: sleep, snack, world domination. Not somersaults and rooftop sprints.
I peered over the ledge. Below, candlelight flickered along the cobbled streets. A unit of guards—fur cloaks, shiny helmets, extremely stabby spears—were pointing and shouting.
One of them yelled, voice echoing up to the heavens:
"The Phantom Paws strikes again!"
Excuse me. The what now?
Had I—me, Mochi—become some kind of mythic rooftop ghost-cat? A whispered legend of the night? A dagger-wielding, moonlit menace?
…Honestly? I wasn't even mad about it.
The Enemy Appears
I turned to make a very dramatic exit and immediately slammed face-first into someone.
Tall. Hooded. Cloaked. A vision of mystery and menace. They caught me by the shoulders before I stumbled back—curse this bipedal balance—and their voice was silk stretched over steel.
"You're late."
I froze.
Their eyes.
One gold. One storm-grey. Not unnatural, but impossible to ignore. Something in me recoiled and reached in the same breath. A slow, sickening tug of memory that hadn't happened yet. Like catching a familiar scent and knowing it meant heartbreak was on the way.
It was them.
The enemy.The lover.The constant.
Their presence hit like déjà vu with a vengeance. A scar above one brow. A mouth shaped like it had uttered both love confessions and execution orders. Cheekbones sculpted for tragic backstory.
Everything in me screamed: Kill them! Kiss them! Possibly both!
Instead, I said—rather poetically, I thought:
"Who are you, and why do you smell like betrayal and pine needles?"
They blinked. Once. Twice.
"You're being weirder than normal."
So. Apparently we knew each other.
Fabulous.