Noir is an intelligent black cat with amber eyes who lives in a warm, watercolor-like world. His favorite spot is the top of an old bookshelf in his owner's study, which serves as his private 'castle.' One afternoon, Noir's owner discovers a mysterious golden bookmark—a magical item that causes the story within a book to slightly overflow into reality. When a sudden wind carries the bookmark out the window, Noir embarks on his first adventure outside the house. Following clues through the town,
Noir the Cat and the Vanished Bookmark - "Episode 2: Sumimaru"
The Heian Era. In the glittering capital of Kyoto, where refined aristocratic culture bloomed in splendor.
Deep within the Imperial Palace, from behind a hanging curtain, a beautiful black cat gleamed with amber eyes.
Her name was **Sumimaru**.
A sleek cat with the lustrous sheen of a raven's wet feathers and short fur, she was a noble court cat said to have been so deeply favored by the Emperor that she had been granted the Fifth Rank. This is the tale of one fateful night when Sumimaru, who prowled through the city's darkness behind the elegant affairs of men, encountered a mystery most strange.
*"Sumimaru and the Stolen Melody"*
That evening, the Imperial Court held a grand moonlit banquet at the Seiryōden—a gathering of refinement and elegance.
Among the assembled nobles, exchanging cups of wine and composing poetry together, there was one notable absence: Minamoto no Hiromasa, the young genius court musician who should have been the evening's centerpiece.
In truth, Hiromasa stood pale and trembling in the shadows of the garden hedges. He had been robbed of the precious flute "Hafutsu," gifted to him by the Emperor himself. Without it, he could not perform before His Majesty, and the shame of such disrespect could cost him his life.
Sumimaru passed silently by the musician's feet.
*"Mew,"* she seemed to say—*what a pathetic man.*
With a single glance from her amber eyes, Sumimaru raised her short tail sharply and melted into the darkness of the night.
Sumimaru already knew what had happened.
Just before the banquet began, she had seen a suspicious dark shadow slip from the palace roof into Hiromasa's chamber. From that shadow had drifted the faint, ominous stench of a *mononoke*—a supernatural being.
Sumimaru slipped between the attendants in their layered silk robes and dashed along the crimson corridors like the wind itself.
In the moonlight, her black fur seemed as if darkness itself had come alive and was moving through the halls.
Following the scent, she arrived at the abandoned Aradono—a dilapidated wing of the palace no longer in use.
There, beyond the curtained doorway, a spirit of otherworldly and terrible beauty—the **Spirit of Sound**—was raising the stolen flute to her lips. This creature coveted the beautiful music of humans and sought to steal all sound from the capital itself.
The instant the spirit was about to play, Sumimaru dropped silently from the rafters above.
*"Fsssshhhhh!"*
With a sharp hiss, Sumimaru's amber eyes blazed with terrible brilliance.
The startled spirit nearly dropped the flute. Though black cats are sometimes deemed harbingers of ill fortune, Sumimaru's black fur held within it the sacred principles of yin and yang that repel all evil. Her overwhelming nobility and piercing gaze paralyzed the creature with dread.
The spirit revealed its true form and attacked as countless black tendrils of mist.
But Sumimaru moved with lithe grace, her sharp claws shredding the darkness. Her short fur offered no resistance to the wind, her movements quick as lightning.
When at last Sumimaru leaped toward the spirit's heart with terrible force, the Spirit of Sound could not bear the radiance of those holy amber eyes. With a shriek, it scattered into the night sky as mist and smoke.
Upon the floor lay the beautiful bamboo flute, "Hafutsu."
Sumimaru gently took it in her mouth and raced back through the nocturnal palace.
She landed silently before Hiromasa, who still stood dejected in the garden, and carefully laid the flute at his feet.
"This is... 'Hafutsu'! Did you retrieve it for me, Sumimaru?"
Hiromasa reached out with tears of gratitude to embrace the black cat, but Sumimaru deftly evaded him and began grooming her fur with indifference.
Soon, the clear, resonant notes of Hiromasa's flute rang out from the Seiryōden.
It was a melody so terribly beautiful it seemed to move even the moon itself.
As the assembled courtiers fell under the spell of those exquisite tones, Sumimaru had already returned to her favorite spot—a privileged seat in the shadows near the Emperor's own chamber.
Curled into a ball with her eyes closed, she purred softly in contentment. Her short black fur, catching the palace lamplight, shimmered like the quiet depths of a moonlit sea.
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