The Cat Returns

Haru is the typical harried schoolgirl, running late and easily embarrassed. Machida is a boy she's interested in, but he already has a girlfriend.

Haru and a friend of hers are walking from school when they see a cat carrying a small parcel in its mouth. The cat is almost run over by a truck but Haru saves its life.

The cat can stand on its hind legs and even talk. Later Haru and her mother are talking and her mother says that Haru, when she was very young, said she could talk to cats.

That night, regular cats get together to watch a procession of walking cats. Haru gets up and sees this strange procession going by her house.

The procession includes the King of the Kingdom of Cats.

The cat whose life she saved that day was Prince Lune, the son of the King of the Cat Kingdom. She is given a scroll and one of the cats says that, starting the next day, many joys would befall her.

She had broken her lacrosse stick while saving the cat, and the next morning a bunch of the sticks mysteriously appear at her friends house (I think). Her yard is also filled with cat-tail plants, and a bunch of cats follow her to school. She finds her locker filled with small boxes, each of which contains a mouse, and the cats chase them off.

It turns out the cats didn't realize that she doesn't eat mice, doesn't really like cat-tail plants that much, and doesn't like the smell of catnip. A cat she talks to after school tells her this and invites her to visit the Kingdom of the Cats.

It seems that Haru is supposed to become the bride of Prince Lune.

Then she hears a voice telling her to find a large white cat at a crossroads, and it will take her to the Cat Business Office which will help her. She finds one and it leads her to a place where they are a number of businesses/houses which are very small.

She meets "The Baron,", and a gargoyle with a soul. They meet in the Baron's residence and the three offer to help her.

They offer to help her but before they can do anything night comes and the cats come and take her away.

She and Muta, one of the cats helping her, end up in the Cat Kingdom. Haru has become smaller than Muta now. A white female cat appears and tells her she must run away right now. The cat also tells her that she doesn't belong there, but before she can leave other cats show up and take her to see the King.

Things get even stranger when Haru turns into a cat. The cat that warned her before reappears and tells her she has to escape by sunup or she will remain a cat. To escape, though, she has to go through some ruins and climb a tremendously tall tower.

They manage to escape, at first, but the King blows up the lower part of the tower. The Prince has arrived, though, and joins the group. He wants to marry Yuki, the female cat that warned Haru. She also turns out to be the same cat that, as an orphan kitten, Haru gave some fish-shaped cookies to.

The rest of the story deals with Haru attempting to escape and return to her own world and become human again.