Cats Just Have to Pick on the Black-Clay Monster

At 17, Dazai Osamu was making yet another attempt to kill himself when a cat dropped out of the sky and staged an accident in front of him.

The cat was pitch-black all over, except for its four white paws. It had a soft meow and wasn't afraid even when Dazai pointed a gun at it. It even let out a gentle little mew. It was the kind of cat Fukuzawa Yukichi had dreamed of meeting his whole life

if Dazai hadn't heard it using cat language to curse him out, calling him a filthy black steel-wool scrubber who belonged in the sink.

After a friendly exchange (?), Dazai finally accepted the fact that a cat had decided to stick to him.

The cat was called Wuyun. It claimed to be a cat god from another country. Not only did it demand offerings from Dazai, it also forced its way into binding their lives together, sharing his ability, and could even imitate his appearance.

Dazai merely shrugged and listlessly went looking for his next place to attempt suicide. It was just a cat, after all. What did any of this have to do with him? This world was rotten to the core...

Until he received a video call from one of his subordinates.

The subordinate was trembling, his hand shaking like a sieve, but Dazai could still make out the cat wearing his face and grinning wickedly. It shouted at a certain short guy in a hat with utter confidence: "Human, come and serve the great Cat God!!"

Dazai: ...

He abandoned his suicide plan and sprinted a hundred meters back to the mafia headquarters. Before Wuyun could use his face to do anything even more bizarre, he finally captured the cat and brought it to justice.

Wuyun: 0v0

*

Dazai had been raising a cat for over a year, through his eighteenth birthday, while Mori Ougai grew ever more wary of him, and even as Oda Sakunosuke said he planned to leave the mafia to write novels and raise children in peace. All along, Dazai thought Wuyun was just a cat with a somewhat unusual ability.

Until the carefully planned explosion came. One cat staked its life to pull five children and Oda Sakunosuke out of the abyss, rewriting everyone's fate at the cost of being left on the brink of death.

Dazai finally learned that Wuyun really was a Cat God from another land. It didn't save anyone else. It saved only him.

Notes:

This book is also known as Chuuya Says If I Use Dazai's Face to Act Cute, He'll Give Me Three Dried Fish.

The cat is a real cat, not a human or a god, just a cat with a somewhat special ability.

I'll add more if I think of anything.

Theme: God won't save you, but a cat will