I think FRIEND is meant to be an amalgamate of two one-eyed mirrored cats, and its nine legs are actually two sets of four legs, converging at a middle ninth (tail).
One cat has a yellow eye, and the other a pink eye. It exists in a state of superposition/Schrodinger fuckery (yellow eye is the timeline with Noelle being used in the prophecy, pink eye is the timeline where Susie takes that role).
Either whatever happens results in the timelines converging and then looping back around, or FRIEND exists in an unclear state until one of the paths is taken.
If you go in between the paths, yellow and magenta mix in the CMYK subtractive color schema to make red...a red eyed cat? A red eyed man?