Cat Reincarnation: A Serial Killer is Reborn

[NOTTHISWAY]

This is something of a reboot of the cat reincarnation story, this time with an actual plan of where to go that is a bit more coherent. Not sure if it'll be fully written out, but, if it gets enough episodes I'll put it in its own thread.

You work hard your entire life and then you die.

Such is life.

Lots of people believe in some sort of afterlife, whether it be a place where the dead go after they pass on, or in reincarnation. Some believe in cessation of existence. And me?

Well, I didn't much care what happened after we lived, I mostly cared about what happened during the time that we lived. So when the end came to me at the end of a smoking gun, I didn't really think about whether I'd ever open my eyes again, I just closed them and regretted only that I couldn't do more before I got a taste of my own medicine.

"Listen to this, Kuro! Today in class, Yoshiko just could not stop talking about her new older boyfriend!"

So you can imagine my surprise to find that there was indeed an 'after' life, and that mine, in particular, happened to take the form of a domestic animal. A cat, to be precise. A cat that had been abandoned by its own mother, and which had come perilously close to ending as abruptly as it came, were it not for the young girl walking into the room who had rescued me from death's door.

Her name was Marina, and she gave me the name Kuro because of my nearly uniform black fur. Somewhere around nine or ten years old, honestly hard to be sure since she hasn't told me how old she is and the Japanese school system is as alien to me as my country's would be to her, so I could only guess.

If I could ask her, I would, but as it turns out a cat has many advantages, a complex voicebox capable of reproducing human speech is not one of them.

"And she just wouldn't stop talking about how she was totally the cutest girl in class because she was the one he asked out! She's getting too big for her shorts just because some online star asked her out!"

My ears perked, and I stood from the cushion I had been lounging on. Shaking my body to get limber, I took a few tentative steps, touching onto the cool ground, then jumped off the cushion. I was lucky that I had grown reasonably quickly, because I went from the pathetic weakness of a little kitten to the grace of a grown cat in a mere few months under Marina's care.

As Marina put her bag beside her desk, she took out a workbook and put it on top of her desk, while I took my sweet time, leaping onto her bed, the mattress barely denting with my weight, and stepped over the bulge in her sheets where she had forgotten to move one of her plushies when she made the bed, and jumped onto her desk, almost knocking over a cup filled with pencils and fancy pens.

I also discarded the urge to bat at it with my paw, no matter how much noise and movement it made. I really did not expect just how intensely enticing the sight of small things moving quickly would be, I knew cats chased small things but I didn't think it was going to haunt me so much. I sat, brought one of my paws to my mouth, wet it with my tongue, and wiped at my face, before looking at her, trying to let her see I wanted her attention.

Marina, ever attentive, turned her look at me. Most of the world was dull during bright light conditions, but her shining blue eyes were something I could never ignore. It was the primary reason why I never left after I gained strength, her eyes are the only beautiful thing I've seen in this world.

"What is it Kuro?" she asked, tilting her head. "Do you also think Yoshiko is being too annoying?" she asked, raising her hands to grab my paws.

Marina's touch was soothing most of the time, but I find myself not particularly enjoying her affinity for my paw pads, as she takes my paws in her hands and forces me to balance on my hind legs, while she plays with them and presses her thumbs onto my paws, giggling as she does.

"Mrow..."

Luckily, she seems to understand that I don't particularly enjoy this act, so she lets me go after a few moments.

"Sorry Kuro, your paws are just so soft, they're the best, I can't get enough of them," she gushed, giggling as I cleaned off my paws from her unwashed hands. "Ahh, it's just- it feels like you can understand me sometimes, Kuro," she said, patting my head and scratching behind my ears, a place I normally cannot comfortably reach nor scratch as well as a human finger with a fingernail can.

I let her know how I enjoyed this by purring as she brought her hand forward to let me rest my chin on her palm while she gave me even better scratches between and around my ears, careful not to actually put her hands in my ears as I'd made clear that wasn't anywhere near enjoyable before.

"Hmhm, it's just weird you know? She started messaging him only like, a week ago, and they promised they'd be meeting in secret, she wasn't supposed to tell anyone, but she couldn't contain herself and blabbed in class, she was bragging all day actually!" she huffed. "Apparently they're meeting somewhere after school tomorrow, she's gonna miss cram school probably..."

Well then... something smells fishy here.

"Ah, but I should really finish my work! I'll get scolded if I don't do it in time!" she said. "Alright!" she said, grabbing her bag and pulling out a pencil case, taking a different pencil despite having quite a few on a cup on her desk, and starting to go through her workbook. "I'll play with you later Kuro!" she said, grabbing me under my front legs and depositing me on her bed.

Seeing as I wasn't going to get anything else out of her, I decided to curl up on her pillow and sleep on things.

Perhaps the best part of my reincarnation is that sleep comes easily, and though it is so light that even the slightest shift in my surroundings can wake me up, I also have an incredible ability to conserve and store energy, and I don't seem to need much in the way of exercise to remain healthy and strong. I suppose I am after all an apex predator in an urban landscape.

I woke to accompany Marina down for dinner, which was, predictably as it was nearly every single day, her sitting alone after setting the table for herself and her parents, eating on her own, cleaning up her dishes and leaving the food ready to be reheated for her parents to eat, before retiring to wash up and sleep, her parents would only arrive several hours later, would eat what she left, and then go to sleep.

Neither of them really seemed to even register my presence anymore. It was good. Better that than complaining about me.

The next morning, Marina's parents woke up first, and were gone before Marina could do more than get dressed to come down to greet them, she only waved at them as her father was picked up by a company car, and her mother took the family's own car to her job.

Not disheartened in the least by not being able to even exchange words with her parents in the morning, Marina cleaned up and prepared to go to school.

"Alright, watch the house while I'm gone, okay Kuro?" she commanded, as I sat in front of the steps that lead to her house. The hilly town had a lot of streets and houses on inclines, and Marina's house was one of them. The school was at the bottom of the hill, and Marina would put on her in-line skates and skate down that hill to get to school, sometimes joined by one of her friends who lived down the hill closer to school, and sometimes not.

However, I didn't wait in the house as she asked me to. Instead, I waited until she had turned to look forward, dutifully checking to make sure she wasn't bothering anyone by rollerblading down the hill, and then I used my superior cat agility, dexterity and speed to climb up the dividing wall that kept the large houses from touching each other and then leaped onto the next house over's tiled roof. The very traditional japanese look of the area came to my aid, because it gave me plenty of surfaces to jump and leap across buildings where Marina wouldn't be able to see me follow her to school.

I managed to sneak into school by jumping from a building past the wall that enclosed the school's grounds, it was an old and large building, a combined elementary, middle and high school from what I understand, hundreds of students across its many levels, though in theory it was three separate schools and had three separate buildings, they shared the sports facilities and a large auditorium.

Honestly it made me jealous that I attended a boring old school with none of that when I was young.

But that aside, the winding design of the school made it a little difficult to track my owner, though I eventually did find her, and I found her classroom just in time to catch who I believed to be Yoshiko bragging about having a date with a popular online personality.

Hm. I wouldn't really know if she qualified as cute. Even as a human man I hadn't much cared, my sense of aesthetics had always been quite poor, and as a cat, well, I have to admit, all humans just look big, clumsy and dumb to me, and I can definitely say her eyes are as dull as anyone else's. The school was a very old building but it had been modernized haphazardly, the very tall ceiling had been lowered and that created a crawl space too small for humans to fit in, but large enough for me and that rat I killed on the way to Marina's classroom, and my claws were just about strong enough to lift the panels to let me take a good look at the classroom.

Once I had a good grasp of her smell, I retreated, and waited until school finished for the day.

It was time to move and act. Rather than follow my owner home, I instead found my way out of the walls of the school, finding I could climb rough walls with the same ease I do the bark of trees, and followed Yoshiko, as she wandered away from school and into a somewhat rougher part of town.

Immediately upon hearing it, I knew what was going on.

Looking down from the roofs, I watched as Yoshiko walked to a somewhat secluded park, which made it easier to follow her as the trees in the park were closer together than the houses, and after a few moments, she sat on a bench and waited, while I climbed up the tree immediately behind the bench, and onto the branch directly above it.

As I suspected, it only took minutes for things to start going bad.

While Yoshiko was bringing up her phone - even little kids had smartphones these days, what had the world come to? - someone approached her, and it was someone Yoshiko clearly was not expecting, because she reacted with surprise when the man cleared his throat. He was a forty-something, overweight and almost comically ugly man, with ridiculously fat cheeks and beady eyes.

"Hey lil' lady, you waiting for someone?"

Yoshiko hummed. "Yes! I'm here with my boyfriend actually!" she said.

"Oh really?" the man asked. "Man, girls are sure blooming early these days, in my day," he huffed, clearly moving with some effort due to how fat he was, then he sat down beside her, pulled out his own phone, and showed a picture of her. A picture of her that was extremely inappropriate. "Well, if a girl was caught sending these sorts of pictures back in my day, her life would be ruined... what do you think'll happen to you if I send this picture to everyone at your school?"

"N-No! How could- where'd you get that!? There's no way, you-"

"Hihihi," the man snorted almost like a pig, "you sent it to me, silly girl, did you really think someone as famous as Baraou has time for someone like you?" he taunted her.

"B-But, how!? You- it was you, you were pretending to be Baraou all along!" she accused.

"Right in one!" the man laughed. "And now, you're gonna do everything I tell you to," she said, "if you don't want me to send all those amazing pictures you sent me and spread them all over your school- I'm gonna have so much fun with you..."

His voice was hungry, his eyes roved over her body, and he leaned over her, pushing her aside and almost off the bench as she recoiled in horror.

Well, I'd had enough of that.

One thing I hadn't mentioned?

I didn't just grow far faster than I'm supposed to, and I didn't just have an adult cat's grace and strength.

I'd say I'm quite a bit stronger than that, and the reason I could climb walls as easily as a tree is because my claws had no problem finding purchase in brick, mortar or concrete. So it's really not surprising that I have no trouble cutting through even a thick tree branch, doing it with a single swipe of my claws.

And the fake 'Baraou' had gone and sat directly under the branch I was seated on top of. For a man like me, this was simply too good of an opportunity not to take it.

The thick branch was about as thick as my entire torso, and quite heavy, and even though I didn't add much weight, I still rode it on the way down as I landed with the full weight of the limb of the tree I had just cut onto the back of the man's head. I hadn't noticed, but he was also balding, geez, reunite all the stereotypes why don't you?

He didn't even have time to protest as I struck him and knocked him down, and with a kick of all four of my legs, I managed to hit the right timing to send the man and the branch away, kicking him off the bench and jumping off of the mess just in time to avoid getting splashed by the blood that burst from the back of his head.

The crashing noises alerted the girl, who in terror threw herself off the bench, though I was certain she would've been safe if she stayed still, in her panic, she scratched herself a little, scrapping her knees and likely hurting her hands as well.

"Meow."

The girl's panic seemed to be cut by the absurdity of my entirely nonchalant meow, then I batted at the still unblocked cellphone. The screen was cracked, of course, it had fallen quite harshly after all, but more important than that...

"A-A cat?" she said, "wait- his phone!"

It seemed that I was right to bring attention to it, because she was clearly smart enough to realize what she had to do, grabbing at the phone and immediately deleting the pictures of her off of it, however, she quickly realized there were more. "T-There's so many, and, there's- different girls," she said, "I probably should give this to the police..."

"Mrow."

I couldn't quite say 'you should' as I wanted to, but I could agree in spirit.

"I- I need to call the police!"

Smart girl. That was good.

I wet my paw with my tongue and wiped some of the dirt that had gotten on me when I climbed the trees to follow her sneakily, before turning around and starting to leave.

However, as I began to leave...

I felt a chill down my spine, and I turned around just in time to see the guy that I thought knocked out or possibly dead suddenly getting up, muscles and fat bulging, the sound of ripping and tearing cloth heralding him bursting out of his clothes as he grew massively in size.

His skin turned a bright red color and he tossed the large branch off his head, swiping his hands as he roared and seemingly attacked blindly, shattering the wooden bench, Yoshiko screaming in terror and fainting, and one of the man's enlarged hands swiping just where I'd been, and by the way his fingers fused into his hand and his arms became long and multi-jointed tendrils that ended in spikes of bone...

I clearly wasn't looking at a human anymore.

His growls became more animalistic by the second and more tendrils burst from his skin.

Perhaps... I am not the only unusual being around. Though seeing what this man became after death, I'd say I definitely got the better end of the deal.

He turned to me and attacked me with one of his tendrils. I imagine that to a human, it looked quite fast.

But to me he might as well have been moving in slow motion. Overpowered actual cat reflexes go!

Good thing I dodged too because when the disgustingly slimy, spiked tip of his tendril arm hit the ground where I'd been stood, the paved path that crossed the park, it shattered, the concrete even becoming powdered from the impact, and I immediately began to perform evasive maneuvers.

This isn't looking good as more of his tendrils join the fray, smashing the ground even as I ran and weaved across them, dragging the man away from the unconscious girl even as he continued to grow, becoming a ball of wobbly fat supported on some ridiculously overmuscled legs.

And then, as the tendrils all struck around me, closing off my options to dodge, suddenly, a pink beam cut through the crisp evening air, and cut several of the tendrils, striking the mass of red fat somewhere in the torso and knocked it back, the monster screeching in agony and anger as it fell and rolled.

"In the name of the Healing Hearts, I won't allow you to lay a hand-err, tentacle! on that kitty!"

I turned to face the speaker. Her hair might be pink and she might be wearing a positively ridiculous looking poofy white and pink dress that looked more at home in a ballroom than a park, but there was absolutely no mistaking those blazing blue eyes, shining brighter than ever. That was Marina, and that was the moment I realized...

I'm in a magical girl show. The kind my older sister used to love.

I looked at her, and at the slowly recovering monster, and then I moved out of the way, as Marina rushed forward.

With a trembling roar, the monster got back on its feet and launched a half dozen tentacles towards Marina, but as I moved out of the way, she launched a pink beam at the monster, and annihilated it in a single attack, the red fat and muscle disappearing and leaving only the form of a naked fat man behind, face down on the ground. The wound on his head was healed, which I found to be quite annoying given how lucky I had to get in order to get a clean kill without anybody suspecting anything, but the noise had clearly attracted attention.

I was first to leave, but I saw Marina wasn't far behind.

She was at least smart enough to run away farther away from the direction of her house, rather than going towards it. probably searching for somewhere secluded to transform back. It gave me enough time to arrive to her house before she did.

As she arrived home, she proceeded to tell me all about how boring her day had been, but she seemed extra touchy and affectionate, and didn't even mention that she had been unusually late to arrive.

I don't think she was aware that the cat she had rescued from the monster was me, in the poorly lit park, she had just seen a black cat, and I am hardly the only black cat in the world.

At least, thanks to the excitement of the day, Marina didn't even last long enough awake to worry about the fact that her parents once again failed to show up for dinner, coming home late and not even checking up on her as she slept in her room.

Still, this bears further investigation.

Marina is a magical girl... and I'm starting to feel, it's no coincidence that she happened to find me in my hour of need.

Either way...

Today was a good day. One less monster walks the earth, and I'm not talking about the raging monstrosity with spiked tentacles. But this has only served to remind me. My break was long, but... there is no rest for the wicked.

And I'm quite wicked indeed.

Time to get back in the swing.

Oh, I never did say what I did before I reincarnated as a magical girl's cat, did I?

You see...

Before I died, I used to search for those that would abuse children, and, well... you saw what happened to the fatso back there didn't you?

As I slept in Marina's room, I wondered if there was any greater meaning to me reincarnating as her pet, of all things. Was I meant to be her mascot, like in those shows? Had whatever authority controls this afterlife seen my work, and thought it good enough to be given a second chance?

Whatever the case may be...

I'm not wasting this opportunity to continue my work.

After all... I'm the cat here, if I don't deal with the vermin, who will?

 

[NOTTHISWAY]

Marina's status as a magical girl didn't weigh too heavily on me really. What can I say?

What can I do about it? Nothing, that's what. My commitment to make the world a safer place for her to exist in won't change, but she didn't seem to particularly need my help to handle her business, and to be honest, she's been completely normal and not even mentioned it several days after the event.

What I can confirm, is that her little friend doesn't appear to remember the events that led to her almost getting assaulted. That's for the best, I suppose - I'd rather she not have to carry that in her memory.

I do, however, need to find something to do, and I have to find something that fits me.

According to the law, I am not a good person.

Mostly because I am a cat.

And also on account of my most favorite hobby in the world and my self assigned mission, but mostly the cat thing really. And speaking about being a cat, while eating, sleeping and stretching my legs is a life that I realize most people would envy, I am not satisfied with just that. Not when I've been reawakened. Not when I realize there are still monsters to hunt.

There are still predators who must be eliminated.

Unfortunately, they are not so easy to find.

In modern day, a lot of things have moved to the digital space, including communications, and along with that, people have discovered a hundred and more ways to hide their activity from prying eyes, to keep in private the things that would have them sought and destroyed by people for their disgusting, terrible and evil habits.

My paws make a very light noise as I walk, and I know humans can't hear it. As long as my claws are retracted, I'm quite stealthy in almost any environment, in the dark. The tiles that make up the roofs of most of the traditional structures in this town are a little slippery in the early days of the morning, wet from the morning dew that gathered upon them, the condensation from the night's chill.

But even so I can easily make my way across the roofs. I don't attract looks, cats walking about and jumping from dividing wall to dividing wall, from the wall to a roof, climbing easily up a wall. Nobody looks twice at me except those who simply like the sight of cats, which aren't few by any means.

But what's most important is that none pay attention to my movements nor do they think twice about the fact that I'm actively following someone.

A young man, in his early twenties if I had to guess. He stands out for sure, and if I had to guess, he is probably a member of the local gathering of thugs, which fancies themselves mafiosi, or Yakuza as they call them in this country. I've heard of these criminals, had my dealings with the Italians back in my home country, would rather not repeat them if at all possible, and I don't have any love for these knockoffs of organized crime pretending to be something they are not.

I've got it on good authority, those in authorized crime won't touch the stuff these people are peddling with a ten foot pole. Racketeering, vandalism, drug dealing, even murder, they would not bat an eyelash at, but none of the families back home, and I have a suspicion none of the families this far east, would ever find themselves peddling diddler feed.

And as for how I had found the man I'm following?

It might sound bad, but, well, I just followed a little girl in a park. Hey, it's fine for me to do it, I'm a cat. It's not fine for some twenty year old dude to stare intently into a playground for children where a bunch of little girls are playing around.

At first, I had thought him just a pervert, but seeing how different he is from the average man in the area, I decided to start paying some more attention. His hair is bleached blond, he packs quite a bit more muscle than the average and he has scarred knuckles, plus he dresses flashily, always with a button up and blazer but wearing ill-matched running shoes instead of the appropriate shoes to wear with such a getup.

He had some friends who were similarly thuggish, though they tended to wear more normal clothes, which marked him as something of a leader visually, and well, he was also the 'leader' in their little business.

And that business involved taking candid pictures of little girls somehow, which is the reason why I started following this man more intently, every time Marina went off for school or when she went to sleep, I'd set out and search for this man. I might not be a dog who can detect and follow someone across the city, but I'm more than sufficienty to find, track and follow a man who uses a tad too much cologne.

I've gathered enough information and today seemed to be my lucky day, because I finally learned what their organization was about as I tracked him down to a meeting point at a seemingly abandoned and closed down business, which had a large deposit building behind it. The group of thugs totaled five, and they were all present, near the center of the warehouse.

It was separated into four sections, and had four entrances, two large ones on what I assumed were the front and back, with huge shutters covering large doors and wide 'hallways', and two with personnel doors, in the middle of the broad side of the storehouse.

Each section was slightly different, one full of metal shelves, twelve meters from the floor to the ceiling, all filled with old boxes, rusted items and machinery, old tools and broken bits of technology I couldn't identify. one of them full of wooden boxes stacked on top of each other, one with tall shelves but empty, and the last one had a huge number of rusted and water-damaged metal tubes of many different sizes across its shelves.

I'm not entirely sure what this place used to be before, but what it is now, is useful.

After scanning the area, I moved across the tallest shelves near the metallic ceiling and observed what was happening at the middle under one of the few working lights. With the windows boarded up and blocked, the few working lights were the only source of illumination.

Not that it bothered me, if anything, I was more comfortable in the dark building than outside.

Or I would have been if I didn't catch sight of what they had brought into the building.

There was a setup in the middle for crude, homemade movies, and not the wholesome kind, with cameras, lights and a steel bed with a yellowed, dirty mattress.

On the mattress was a young girl, about Marina's age if I had to guess, and she had her hands tied, her mouth and eyes covered and her legs shackled to the bed. She was wearing only what looked to be her pyjamas, she had probably been kidnapped while wearing them, her long dark hair was frizzy and messy, she had bags visible under her blindfolded eyes and it became increasingly evident that she wasn't there of her own volition.

I didn't need to be told twice what was going to happen to her, should I not intervene.

So intervene, I would. The first thing I had to do was call attention off of her. And that meant doing something that caught the five monsters' attention... luckily, I had plenty of things I could do that would cause noise. I walked along the tall shelves and looked for something sufficiently light, but made of metal, and the tubes held the answer. I had to be swift, and luckily I could just run and leap along the shelves, they were close enough for that, and I could easily cover the gap separating the section I was in with the one with the tubes by walking along the metal rafter things that these old storehouses used, which supported the metal roof on top.

Once I was where I wanted to be, and taking one last glance to see that they were fiddling with the filming equipment, I approached one of the smaller tubes and pawed at it, making it roll until it dropped off the shelf.

It sounded like a fucking bomb went off. It was so loud as it hit the ground that I felt it in my bones. The quiet of the storehouse was broken alright, and one of the guys straight up jumped in fright, while another drew a knife, while blazer guy, my primary target, removed his sunglasses and started to scan the area.

They zero'd in on the rolling metal tube, which carried enough momentum to roll despite having become quite a bit less round from the impact.

My ears stopped ringing and I caught what they were saying.

"Something just fell," Blazer said.

Camera Man nodded. "Y-Yeah, just- that scared the shit out of me."

"Shut up, focus on the girl, the client was very particular."

Not enough yet I see. I can't just go in and start trying to slice them to ribbons, even if my claws might be able to do it, if one of them takes the girl hostage then it would defeat the point of attempting to rescue her from her fate in the first place. No, I have to split them up.

And pronto, because the biggest, fattest and ugliest guy of the lot, alongside the second ugliest but not by much, who was as skinny as the first guy was fat, both started to remove their clothes, leaving them in white shorts and sleeveless shirts, while at the same time they were fiddling with masks that covered the upper half of their faces.

The urge to just jump down and claw their faces off rose, but I held it in.

Instead, I just knocked another tube down, and tried to close off my ears, but it still stunned me more than a bit to be subject to that explosion of noise.

I almost fell off, and it became immediately obvious that I was getting their attention this time, because they immediately began looking around, this time three of them were brandishing knives as they started to walk towards where I was, while the two dudes in their underwear stood guard near the filming set.

I led the three with knives deeper by knocking more tubes off as I retreated, and they immediately began to sprint towards me, even as my entire body trembled and was wreaked by agony due to the intense noises, I forced myself to keep moving.

However, it was too much, and I slipped off the shelf, and only my reflexes allowed me to catch myself, bouncing between the two rows of shelves, and eventually touching down safely, though my paws definitely didn't like that.

"Gotcha bitch!"

"Wait, it's a cat?!"

Blazer jumped at me with a switchblade type knife in hand and-

And then he was knocked to the ground, landing in a heap, and I realized the other two had been knocked into the shelves and didn't seem to be moving.

"Good job, kitty," the girl with long dark hair I had seen before spoke.

I turned to look at her. In the penumbra of the unlit section, she was hard to make out, but what I could definitely see was the blazing red of her eyes, so similar, yet so different, from Marina's, a terrifying kind of beauty, the eyes of a hunter.

Her pajamas were exchanged with a black bodyglove and a set of black armor over it, not too dissimilar from the armor worn by modern law enforcement, a vest looking like it was made out of kevlar but with shoulderpads on it, and armored combat boots, fingerless gloves and vambraces. On one hand, she held a long bladed spear, a Naginata I believe, and the other was extended towards me.

"I'll get you out of here kitty," she said. "But next time, try not to mess with a Dark Heart's business, alright?"

Her voice was soft.

Once again, I'm involved in this magical girl business.

This is the second time I've found a Magical Girl, I believe, involved in this whole thing. Is it a coincidence? Or is there something afoot?

The girl clicked her tongue. "Too late... Run away now, kitty!" she shouted.

Glowing bright red lights sprouted from behind her, and I knew immediately that the people she had either knocked out or killed, didn't really care which myself, were already starting to mutate into the same kind of monster I had seen before.

Alright then.

I suppose I'll have to take this magical girl business a tad more seriously.

I would remember this girl... something tells me she's probably got a lot more information than Marina does, she seems to be a lot more well put together. I'm more than convinced this entire thing was a sting operation she set up...

And if my mission happens to coincide with theirs, well, I've never been above cooperation, especially with industry experts.

"Mrow."

She turned to battle, and I retreated to the upper shelves once more, using the agility of my cat body to its fullest extent, observing her movements. Marina fought almost exclusively by firing beams, but this girl was more my speed, slashing at her enemies with her bladed spear, chopping the monsters to bits as she became a swirling whirlwind of movement, her glowing eyes seeming to shine brighter with every monster that she reduced to shredded giblets, even as they grew massively in size, causing them to have trouble moving in the tight confines of the storehouse's shelf hallways.

She was definitely an expert.

I'll have to find a way to approach this girl and learn more about the situation.

Gotta learn what this Heart business is all about, because it appears Magical Girl Business is Serious Business.

Can't help but feel every part of me that has become accustomed to my existence as a cat protesting all the work that I'm sure is coming my way.

 

[NOTTHISWAY]

Marina could be an incredibly intelligent girl, when she applied herself and used her brain. Unfortunately, she could also be not just dumb, but spectacularly dumb. Some, I've heard, define insanity by saying that performing the same actions over and over again expecting a different result is the very definition of it.

But Marina isn't insane.

She's just infinitely hopeful. Once more after a night like any other, she did her best, to stay up for as long as possible, waiting until the very last minute, because her parents had told her that they would be home in time to have dinner with her, as they had many times in the months I've been living at this house, and Marina cooked up a whole feast for them, then sat on the dinner table, endlessly, for hours, until she simply could not stay up anymore, then ate her dinner very cold, and went to sleep.

Alas, not much else I can do but simply stay with her through the night. She didn't even want me to sit on her lap as she waited, because her parents disliked me being on furniture. At the end of the night, her parents arrived long after she had conked out for the night.

They didn't even care to check on her, they just reheated the food she made and ate it like it was nothing, before going to sleep. They both reeked of alcohol and perfume, and I had a bit of an idea of what they might've been doing to come back so much later than they had promised they would.

Through the night, Marina slept quietly.

The fact that she didn't even let out a single peep was only testament to just how accustomed she was to her parents' lies and abandonment. I stayed with her for the night, rather than going out to explore as I had intended to, and by the time I woke up as she began to stir, it seemed like the previous day's events had not even happened, she woke up bright and early, and once again, her parents basically rushed out of the house.

I decided that I would go with her to school. It wasn't too difficult to follow her and sneak in, people really don't pay all that much attention to a random cat wandering around a school building. I am quite glad that the prey I hunt does not possess the ability to pass for a house pet, because I too would most likely dismiss a wandering cat.

School was... boring mostly. It was very large and filled with kids, and that made it a perfect place for me to stalk and hunt. And yes, I do realize how terrible that sounds, but well, if you're gonna be looking for a certain ilk, you'd be looking for them in their hunting grounds.

That meant using my stealthy cat abilities to look around the school and observe the teachers. I don't know if I should be happy that I didn't find any overtly obvious predators in school, or if I should be annoyed that I'm going to have to put more effort into observation. Furthermore, trying to listen in on the conversations of students doesn't reveal anything as obvious and usable as a student being approached by an adult with unwelcome intentions.

Mostly just kids complaining about school, as kids often do.

Running around the school was at least good exercise, the place is genuinely immense, and way bigger than any school has any right to be, I don't even know how to describe it... or maybe it just looks that way because I'm the size of a regular house cat. Probably the latter.

It doesn't really sink in until you're in an auditorium.

Once I confirmed that Marina was having a nice day chatting with her friends and having fun, and not feeling particularly inclined to sneak into the locker rooms to keep watch over her as the students changed into their gym uniforms, I left the school and decided to wander the city, until eventually I found a nice and warm spot to nap on.

I was woken up, then, not by natural means, but instead, by the sound of clashing steel and beams of energy crashing into the ground and causing havoc.

Beams of pink light shot into the air not too far from the building I was napping on top of, and I could see arcs of blue light flying out at incredible speeds, mostly towards the sky as well. The pink beams were familiar, so I stretched my limbs and shook the sleep off of my body, then I was moving.

Running like the wind, stretching what should be the limits of a regular house cat and stepping into the realm of the superfeline strength, agility and dexterity that I possessed, as I leaped across buildings with contemptuous ease, far outpacing what any other cat could achieve, even bigger wild cats.

It didn't take me long at all to reach the place where the pink beams I was so familiar with from Marina's attacks were coming from, and I immediately realized what was happening when I found not just Marina, in that magical girl form with the puffy white dress, but also the other girl I had recently met.

The contrast between the two of them was all the more evident now, a light brown haired girl in a puffy white princess dress, with a staff, shooting pink beams at a dark haired girl in a dark blue bodyglove with black armor that seemed a cross of modern kevlar and medieval plate style, wielding a bladed swordspear that was firing off arcs of blue energy.

I moved swiftly, leaping around the houses to get closer and get a better view. They were fighting in one of the pedestrian only roads, which was basically something of an alley between houses, one of the remnants of the original small town that had grown much bigger over time.

The girl who had introduced herself as a Dark Heart was swinging her bladed spear around like it weighed nothing, her movements were not just swift, but also precise, and though she hadn't managed to score anything more than a glancing blow on Marina, it was clear that she was dominating the fight, forcing Marina to constantly be on the defensive, leaping, jumping and flying away from not just the slashes themselves, but also from the waves of cutting energy that were leaving cuts and gouges on the stone and concrete walls of the pedestrian walk.

I was actually forced to go on the move, to follow them.

"You, a Pure Heart, would dare show your face in my town, hunt Corrupted Hearts in my city!!" the girl shouted, her anger clear in her tone, positively dripping with venom as she swung her weapon threateningly, forcing Marina to raise her staff and block a series of slashing waves that would've chopped her to bits if they hit.

Marina then countered with a blast of pink light, though the Dark Heart girl moved so swiftly it appeared as if she just blurred to the side, dodging it entirely, then dodging the two follow ups with similarly swift movement.

Then she moved forward and swung her weapon, though Marina managed to throw herself to the side to dodge it, only to be caught as the Dark Heart girl kicked the rolling Marina, sending her flying and landing with her back against the wall.

"You have no idea what you're getting into," the Dark Heart said, tapping the butt of her bladed spear type weapon against the ground, then once again taking a combat stance, the blade in front of her and pointed down.

"What are you even talking about, aren't we on the same side!?" Marina responded. "We're both supposed to hunt those who've been overwhelmed by their corrupt desire, right?!" she shouted, "so why are you attacking me!?"

"We're not on the same side, we never really were," the Dark Heart said, softly, "your kind... I will never forgive you or your kind," she said, raising her weapon above her head and spinning it so fast it momentarily looked like the blades of a helicopter even to my dynamic sight.

There was obviously some sort of very bad blood between Miss Dark Heart and my human, Marina. It was also very obvious to me that Miss Dark Heart was significantly stronger, more experienced and skilled than Marina, to the point that she was tossing Marina around like a ragdoll in their battle, which was rejoined and forced into a quick melee.

While Marina managed to avoid the blade of the polearm Miss Dark Heart was threatening to disembowel her with, Marina's handle of her staff as a melee weapon was simply not good enough to fight off Miss Dark Heart, and so she found herself knocked around and slammed into a wall again.

"I'll take your heart," the girl said, "I'll cut it out of your body and take your powers with it," she said, "and then you'll be where you're supposed to be, just another civilian... out of my way," she said, extending her weapon, though she was a step too far away to actually poke Marina's chest with it.

Alright, I'd seen enough at that point.

Jumping off the roof I was watching from, I leaped into the deserted, out of the way alley between houses, and then touched down between Marina and Miss Dark Heart, my paw pads barely making any noise, yet testament to her incredible reflexes, Miss Dark Heart nearly swung on me as I touched down.

"Mrow."

"It's- Mr. Kitty? What are you doing here..? You shouldn't get involved in Dark Heart business, Mr. Kitty," the dark haired girl said softly, her gaze losing some sharpness as her eyes focused on me.

I purred, stepped up to her and then with a singular, mighty leap, jumped onto her shoulder, and then bumped my head against her cheek, my whiskers feeling a little tingly and my eyes a little bothered by the glow of her eyes as I distracted her with some good old cat affection.

As the level of her overt hostility dropped, her grip on her weapon lightened, and I walked around her neck and down her other shoulder, moving to her bicep before jumping off her arm. She might as well be a brick wall, so strong and hard that I didn't even move her as I jumped off.

I landed in front of her, between her and Marina once more. "Mrow."

"Mr. Kitty," she said, softly. "Are you..."

"K-Kuro..?" Marina asked, her voice weak. "N-No, run, you'll get hurt..."

"I see... is she your owner?"

"Mrow," I looked up at her, trying to convey how wrong she was. Marina was my human. I owned her, not the other way around. Get it right. My tail waved by itself before I regained control of it, and forced it down, sitting on my bottom and haunches and wrapping it around my paws.

She looked at her weapon, then at me, then at Marina.

"So you'll defend her, Mr. Kitty..? Like you helped me, I guess," she said. She took a step back, and pointed her weapon at Marina. "Listen here and listen well, Pure Heart," she said, raising her weapon and making a show of twirling it before making a threatening swing, "I don't trust you, nor your kind. I'll never forgive any of you for what you did," she said. "One day, I'll take your heart... until then, don't let any Corrupted Heart devour you," she said. "And you Mr. Kitty..." she said, crouching in front of me and petting me. "Good kitty..." she muttered, clearly distracted, as I rubbed my head against her open hand.

Then she realized what she was doing, stood up, cleared her throat and jumped away.

"We'll meet again, and it'll be our last, Mr. Kitty won't be there to defend you next time, Pure Heart!!"

"Mrow."

I would be where I needed to be.

"I- Kuro, I-" Marina choked up. Before I could say anything, not that I could say anything anyway, she looked at me with a face of pure shame, and then turned around and leapt away, in the opposite direction that Miss Dark Heart had jumped to.

Well.

That was a bit of an issue, wasn't it?

I don't think Marina wants to see me right now. I can't imagine what's going through her head, but after getting beat up so badly in a fight and running away, I think I probably represent a bit of a bad memory.

And more to the point, Miss Dark Heart clearly knows a lot more of what's going on. I really need to know what's going on if I am going to be helping my human deal with it as best as I can. On top of that, Miss Dark Heart's got one hell of a chip on her shoulder, and I happen to know quite a bit about having those.

While giving Marina time to cool off... well, I caught the scent of Miss Dark Heart, and all I have to do, is follow it to her.

There's rivalry afoot, and I want to know exactly where it comes from.

 

[NOTTHISWAY]

I've found a target. Tracking people down when I can't sneak into their online hangouts has become a bit more difficult than I expected. All this newfangled technology has made my life significantly harder than it has any right to be.

Unfortunately for the creepy weirdos I'm hunting, the fact that they're creepy disgusting bastards outside their online hangouts means I still have an ability to find them. I just need to go looking for the gossipy old ladies.

And no, it wasn't just a lucky catch because I went where there were some nice old ladies hanging out and talking mad shit about every one of their neighbors, who happen to think cats are cute and bought me some fishy snacks.

I'll have you know, I approached them because of their gossiping first, and the fishy snacks came later.

I'm digressing. The point is, in this town there are more than a small handful of creepy weirdos. Men who hang out in parks frequented by children aren't as common as they used to be, but one of the grannies had a lot to say about her nephew, who by her own account, seemed unusually close to her grandson.

Unfortunately, while eating the fish-shaped bits of fish-flavored cat food, and I can't believe this actually tastes good to me now, they also confirmed that the man was currently far away. Apparently he lived with his older brother, sister in law and nephew, and was accompanying them on a vacation.

I... am starting to wonder if he's the kind of weirdo I'm hunting, or just another victim of a highly stressful society, someone who couldn't endure the high stakes education system of this country.

...

I'll still check him up because the way the grannies talk, this dude is apparently a major creep. Call me a prejudiced bastard all you want, but I've been right more often than not when looking for overweight creeps with poor hygiene.

Well, that left me with nothing to do... until I spied something interesting.

As I was leaping across rooftops, thinking how it was about time to start heading back home to beat Marina there, I caught sight of a familiar head of straight, long black hair. My whiskers tingled, and as she turned, I saw the glowing of her eyes. Muted, but still there.

The bleak, dreary and boring world that was cast into shadow by the intense light of the sun couldn't dull the shine of her gaze. Much as it happened with Marina, I was captivated by the beauty of the light.

And like a laser pointer, I followed along, stalking after my target as I prepared to hunt.

And hunt, I did.

She was walking swiftly and with purpose. My paws made no noise even as I sped up and jumped across the street, making sure I was climbing up and onto the next rooftop, paws on the tiles, by the time the girl I was following noticed anything was off.

She seemed wary, but eventually, she must've dismissed the sensation of eyes on her as paranoia, because she brought me to her home. It was a fairly old house, an entire estate really, a large mansion, walled in with tall walls. The home was, as I inspect it, built more like a disguised fortress than a regular house, a rectangular structure with no weakpoints, tall walls, small windows...

Hm.

Well. No sense in staying out. The walls only had one gate. Based on the shape I assume it was a gatehouse at some point, but not anymore, there's some spots I can see where there used to be reinforced fortifications, probably to fit in a larger door resistant to attack, but now, it's a normal steel gate, that the black haired girl immediately starts working on opening.

She is the Dark Heart that defeated Marina, and who seems to share in my mission of hunting those that would prey on the weakest and most vulnerable among us.

She seems to be using two separate keys to open two locks, inserting one, turning it, then inserting the other seemingly in the same place. The second key glows the same color as her eyes to my sight, and I can see little glowing red and blue veins spreading from the keyhole on the gate, before she pushed the gate open and crossed it.

The moment she stepped through, I could feel my eyes slipping away from her.

It was irritating. Quite irritating. Almost infuriating ever. Every time I tried to focus, my attention slipped away. I saw something shiny. Movement caught the corner of my eye. A loud sound reached my ears and my head turned by reflex.

Before the rest of my attention failed me, I needed to move. I climbed down from the building I was perched on, and then moved towards the building. Even as I walk I can already feel my mind trying to come up with excuses not to go in there. But I can also tell, this effect, these thoughts, they aren't mine.

Something's fucking with my head.

And I do not appreciate it, not one bit.

I approached the wall and immediately set about climbing it, but for the first time since I woke up here for the first time, I found a surface my claws couldn't find purchase in. I can gouge concrete, slash steel and cut glass, but this wall, I couldn't even come close to scratching.

Annoyance surged through me, and I took a few steps back, starting to think about what else I should do, when I realized that I didn't want to give up just yet, and the effect was insidiously trying to slip thoughts of abandoning the task at hand.

I took the opportunity to give myself a running start, and through the speed I build, I managed to climb about three quarters of the way up, but that was just not enough, even though I easily cleared the height of a regular man, I couldn't quite defy gravity enough to make it up through the wall.

I had to jump off, and as cats do, I landed on my feet. Again, I began to drift into thoughts that had nothing to do with the task at hand, and immediately, I dismissed them. I moved towards the gate.

Cats... are liquid.

I know this. I feel this. I am this.

I just need to relax, and... check. My face isn't... it's annoying, uncomfortable and difficult, and for some reason every fiber of my being is telling me to go chase a stray sunbeam that caught my attention, but finally my face pops through the gap between the metal bars that made up the body of the gate, and after my head makes it through, my joints are more than capable of twisting and allowing me through.

I wonder if this is the sort of flexibility and agility a caver can only ever dream of. Letting the air out of my body and allowing my lungs to empty allowed me to push my torso through, and my hips had no issue twisting to put me finally all the way through.

If my head can make it somewhere, the rest of my body can as well.

I half expected to have to fight for every step I took, but... my mind was clear. My thoughts were unbothered.

And I wasn't alone.

"Mr. Kitty..?"

The girl was there. I can see the house more clearly now, and it really does resemble a castle. There's a stone base and a set of wooden stairs that lead into a wooden deck that surrounded the entire rectangle that is the house, the windows weren't just small, they were also murderholes. Six columns supported the entire structure, of irregularly shaped stone and mortar, walls that seemed to be polished wood, but which shone in an unusual way when the light of the afternoon sun struck them.

"What are you doing here..? How are you here, actually..." the girl muttered. "Did you follow me home?" she asked.

"Mew."

I tried to be as affirmative as possible in my reply, which she seemed to be satisfied with. "I see, I guess you must've slipped in behind me... I thought I felt some eyes on me, that was you huh?" she said with a small smile on her face.

I could see her a bit more clearly now as well, since the sun isn't glaring quite so hard anymore, and I can tell she's wearing a school uniform from a private, girls-only academy nearby. The uniform was a black blazer, white skirt and white socks combo that gave her the air of some young heiress, and with this castle of a home, it certainly matched.

Still...

I walked up to her. I had some questions, and no way to voice them. I got close enough to bump my head against her shin and calf, and she bent down to start scratching the back of my head and chin. She wasn't as good at this as Marina, but it felt nice to have scratches in areas that my paws simply couldn't scratch satisfyingly.

"Your fur's so nice," she idly noted.

"Reiko... so you're home..."

The voice of a corpse sent shivers down my spine, and I couldn't help but let my claws out and curl around the girl's leg.

I guess her name is Reiko?

She answers to it, in any case. "Grandfather," she replied. "I didn't know you were out here."

"Enough dawdling girl."

An old man, more wrinkles than skin, caught my attention. I hadn't felt him, seen him, heard him or smelled him. He seemed to have popped into existence as far as my senses were concerned.

And though dull, I could see a faint glow around his eyes. A pale pink that might've once been a strong red. Faded, but still present. Though he was bald, covered in wrinkles and wearing a large robe that hid his body, I could tell he didn't need that cane he was leaning on with one of his hands. The other was stuck inside his robe.

Something told me that old man was more than he appeared to be.

"Change out of your uniform already. Your bath is prepared."

"Yes, grandfather," Reiko replied, "I was just-"

"Go already. The water will cool," the old man said.

Reiko nodded. "See you later, Mr. Kitty," she said, crouching and scratching between my ears, before she turned around and left.

The old man watched the young girl, his granddaughter, climb up the steps into the deck and then open the screen doors into the house, again, I could see veins of color, this time exclusively red, spread as she touched her hand on the door and I knew there was probably a similar effect to the walls on the screen doors.

I sat on my butt, and wondered what I should do. I had a sinking feeling, trying to get in would probably result in the old man stopping me, which would be mighty suspicious...

"Why have you come to this land, Evil Spirit?"

"Mrow."

I turned to face the old man and tried to look confused.

"Cats care little for the words of mere men, Evil Spirit."

I would, if I could, replace the next Meow with a swear, but alas, I cannot express my frustration in such a way. Of course I forgot to act like a proper cat at such a critical moment.

"You've followed my granddaughter to her home... if in her duty as a Dark Heart she has angered you and brought about your vengeance, then I will hold nothing back," the old man said.

I heard the sound of beads on strings rubbing and hitting each other, and then he pulled his hand out swiftly, and threw what looked like a collar of beads at me. He threw it like a baseball star, or maybe even faster than that.

But to me, it might as well be in slow motion, and I could easily let my claws out and slash at it midair, cutting the strings holding the beads together and causing them to spread all over.

My eyes focused on the old man as he raised his walking stick, pointing it at me while he put his free hand into a weird pose, his thumb and ring finger curled into a circle while the other three were straight, right in front of his mouth.

"Mrrrrowww," I growled lowly at him.

If this old man attacks me again I'll sneak into his room and piss all over his pillows.

"Though my might as a Heart Knight has faded, I will defend my granddaughter until the flames of my life extinguish..!" the old man whispered, half hissing his words out.

I could see the same red of his eyes gathering in front of his weirdly positioned hand, and then traveling towards the tip of his cane.

Realizing he was almost certainly going to attack me like that, I moved swiftly, jumping towards him and then just jumping onto his shoulder, jumping off it, and making sure to leave a mark on his clothes, before landing, licking my paws, and brushing some of the dirt that got on me off of my fur.

I wanted to make it a point.

He froze, as he realized the point I made.

"I see... Have you not come to avenge yourself upon us, Evil Spirit?"

"Meww," I replied, continuing to wash my face with my paw.

"... Right, I suppose a cat can only communicate like so," the man said. "Then, perhaps- no, it can't be. It is said that they became extinct ages ago... if you are no vengeful Evil Spirit, then... A Guardian Beast..?"

I have no clue what you're talking about, old man. I'm just here because I need to know what the hell is going on and why your granddaughter Reiko attacked my human on sight.

I need to know if I have to smack some sense into you.

"At last... at last!! I never thought I would see the day, but here you are, the gods have not abandoned us after all, a Guardian Beast has come," the old man spoke, and- was he crying?

He was crying!

What the hell man!?

"Ahh, if only my child was here, if he hadn't-" he bemoaned, "if only that girl had lived long enough to witness your arrival, perhaps- no, no, I get ahead of myself," he said. "I must know... Guardian Beast, I must... why have you come? Have you chosen my daughter?" he asked.

I growled lowly at him.

"No... of course, a Guardian Beast wouldn't know," he muttered. "No, I must explain first. Come and follow me, Guardian Beast, this old man would be honored and humbled, should you choose to listen to his ramblings as he cares for his garden."

Finally. Hopefully this is actually relevant to what I need to know.

"It all started twelve years ago, when a Dark Guardian Knight, my very own son, fell in love with a Pure Heart, and chose to give his heart to her," the old man spoke. "It was then that things would start to change, and where this silent, cold war between Hearts began. It all began with their tale... let me weave you a tale of two hearts, o Guardian Beast..."

As we began to move, the old man began to speak, and with my ears perked up, I listened.

 

[NOTTHISWAY]

It was not a complex and complicated tale, it was one that I had heard a thousand times.

Star crossed lovers.

Or, in this case, heart crossed lovers.

"A Dark Heart and a Pure Heart coming together in matrimony was rare, but not totally unheard of. Not once, however, had it avoided an end in tragedy," the man said as he crouched beside a planter with an assorted selection of plans I couldn't identify even if I wanted to. "Yet, neither would listen to reason, nor to any who would try to split them apart."

He sighed.

"They joined together and their love bore fruit... Reiko, my granddaughter, is the proof of their union, a Dark Guardian Knight and a Pure Heart produced a child," he closed his eyes and pulled the watering can back and up, shaking it a little to test its water levels. Finding them satisfactory, I assume, he moved on to a planter not too far away from that. "But would that their tale would end there, it would've been a happy tale."

I stepped after him, avoiding the patches of wet ground on principle. I don't quite have the same intense aversion to water that other cats might, but that doesn't mean I like wet fur. I have other means to clean myself, thank you very much.

"My son's people abandoned him. Abandoned us."

The old man began watering the next set of plants liberally and without care, clearly more concentrated on his tale than on what he was doing.

"But what the Pure Hearts did was worse... They pretended to accept my son and my daughter in law, but in the end, all they did was drag them into a dangerous situation against a particularly powerful corrupt monster, and abandoned them to their deaths..."

He tapped his cane on the ground as he spoke.

"I recovered my son's sword and fashioned it into a spear for his daughter, but I could not recover my daughter in law's Heart..." he said, sighing. "Bearing a tainted heart full of rage and her father's sword, my son's daughter became a Dark Heart, seeking to rid the world of the corrupt - and what she sees as even worse than the Corruption we all face, the two faced Pure Hearts that took her parents from her."

I hummed. It came out as a purr.

So...

Revenge, then? I had no desire to continue hearing a personal tale, I had enough to know what I had to do.

"Mrow..."

"Guardian Beast, do not judge my granddaughter too harshly," he said, closing his eyes. "She had but a bitter old man and no one else. I could not guide her away from the hole I myself can't crawl out from, I bear much of the same hatred in my own heart, and the corruption gnaws at the edges of my mind... but if you could find it in your heart to stand beside her, to guard her and support her- then-"

My tail was shaking, and I forced it to become still.

I glanced at the old man one final time, and then I moved into his house. It was... big. Very much so. But I could just follow the scent left behind by Reiko, and eventually, I came upon her in a large, open room.

She had already changed out of her uniform and was wearing a much more comfortable outfit. I believe I've seen it at the Kendo club or something similar to this at least, those baggy black pants and a robe-like white top were similar, though she didn't have the shoulder or face armor on her.

Also she had her spear in hand, rather than a sword like those guys.

She was swinging it in simple patterns, something I remembered from my own lessons in weapon-based fighting. Most came from the streets, but once or twice I chanced upon someone who knew how to wield a knife or swing a club, and almost all emphasized that the fancy and crazy moves that you'd see on TV were worthless nonsense.

Simple, straightforward and effective movement was always more effective.

Beads of sweat rolled down her cheeks, she was moving fast but it was obvious she was already a little tired. Did I really have that much time to chat with the old guy?

I sniffed the air, and became a little embarrassed, right, she had just taken a bath. Sometimes the simplest thing escape us.

Even so, I walked up to her, and she stopped swinging her weapon. "Mr. Kitty?" she asked. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

She crouched down to speak to me, and as she reached for me, I moved swiftly, tapping my paw pad against her nose, and then bumping my head against her to mark her properly, leaving my scent on her and making sure all the other lesser beings knew that this was my human and thus under my protection.

"Mr. Kitty, your paws are cold and wet," she giggled. "Were you playing in the garden?"

No, I was learning about your past. "Mew."

"Well, I hope you had fun with grandfather," she said, smiling a little. "Will you stay?"

I walked between her legs and rubbed against her through her pants, trying to comfort her, I do believe people quite enjoy when cats do this. Honestly I've never been popular with animals so I don't know for sure.

However, I had to go.

"Meow."

"So... you have to return to that girl, don't you?" she asked, her tone a little forlorn.

"Meow," I bumped her leg with my head. You are also my human. I'll split my attention like a good pet owner. Promise.

"I see... then please come again, you're... warm and cozy?" she seemed at a loss. "That sounds weird," she said. "Sorry I'm not that good with words."

Good enough.

Walking off and out of the house, I made my way out. Coming in was annoying, but I could easily climb the walls from the inside and leave. I'll have to go in through the entrance, but at least I had a way in and out now.

Returning to Marina's house was a simple affair, and though it took long enough that I was starting to worry, I managed to arrive before Marina's parents did, not that such a thing was surprising.

At least this time she hadn't stayed up waiting for them all night long, as they had left her a note saying they had a thing at work and would be coming home late. What a disaster of a situation that such a thing is considered unusually thoughtful of them.

I'll take it as it is and simply keep Marina company as she washes the dishes and goes to bed, at least she wasn't in terrible spirits. It irks me that she's gotten so used to her hopes being shattered that a night where she doesn't get them up in the first place is one where she doesn't go to sleep on the verge of tears.

The next day was an early morning rush as always.

I slept through much of it, but in the end, I was woken up by my desire to do something productive and, lo and behold, luck was on my side, and my plans became accelerated.

Once again, Marina and Reiko had met each other while hunting the monsters that preyed on the vulnerable and defenseless, and fortunately for me, Marina had at least managed to improve enough from their last fight to at least not get instantly whooped by Reiko, though once again she was losing quite terribly.

Leaping my way across buildings towards them, I jumped between them, as Marina readied herself to fire a pink laser and Reiko advanced with her spear at the ready. They were fighting in the middle of a street that was empty at this time of the day, but they were still in the middle of a street.

That wouldn't do. I've heard it said that luck is opportunity meeting preparation. I am prepared, and this is indeed an opportunity.

"Mr. Kitty!"

"Kuro!"

The two looked at each other, glaring.

"This time, I won't-"

I moved towards Reiko, taking a few steps then jumping at her, landing on her shoulder and jumping off her shoulder with strength sufficient to knock her down on the ground. I had to apply enough strength that I'm sure I could leap an entire building in a single bound to achieve that, mind, and that was with her being off guard.

Landing on a nearby building from the momentum, I ran down its wall and towards Marina, and before she knew what was going on, I dashed between her legs, and while she was trying to catch me, I jumped and then landed on her back, throwing her forward and towards Reiko.

They were both on the ground then.

They were strong, fast and durable.

But they were humans, and that meant I had an intrinsic advantage as a member of a superior species. This is why you're supposed to worship us, children, make note.

"Whu, what's going on..? Mr. Kitty, is an enemy..?" Reiko muttered, pushing herself up.

"Kuro, what are you doing..?" Marina wondered openly, as she rolled.

"Mrowww..!!"

I turned my voice into a growl and then a hiss, housecats aren't really meant to roar like big cats do, but I can do something somewhat similar.

In this sort of situation, the usual procedure would be the two girls fighting each other and exposing their hearts, talking things out and reaching a common understanding. Baring their souls to one another and understanding their opponent deeply until they became dear friends.

But I really don't have the time or patience for that sort of asinine bullshit.

I stalked towards them, and when they became distracted I rushed towards them. Reiko reacted, reaching for her spear, but Marina just put her hands and arms in front of her body, crossing them over her chest, which gave me the opening I needed to hit her like a cannonball, pushing her into Reiko and knocking them both to the ground.

I stood on top of the pile of magical girls. "Meow!" I cried out in victory, before jumping off of Marina's back.

"Mr. Kitty, are you telling us... we're weak?"

No, you're not. You don't know how to fight for shit, but you could probably turn me into chunky salsa if you hit me. That's not the point.

"Or... what if he's telling us we need to work together?" Marina asked. "I-"

"With you? With a Pure Heart? Never!" Reiko hissed. "You traitorous scum, you-"

I approached her and batted at her face, making sure my claws weren't out as I did.

"See? He reacted to that! Kuro, am I right?" Marina asked.

"Meow!"

I tried to be as affirmative as I could be.

"But... no, Mr. Kitty, you wouldn't know, Pure Hearts are-"

"Are what!?" Marina challenged. "I don't even know what any of this is!"

"You... don't?" Reiko asked. "Isn't your family-"

"No! No way! My family don't even know I have this power!" Marina shouted. "Seriously, like, a year ago I was walking home from school and after I took a wrong turn I was in some cave somewhere, and a woman handed me this thing," Marina said, waving her staff, gesturing at the pink heart gem embedded on its tip, "and told me to use it to fight the Corrupt!"

"..."

Wow.

That is remarkably irresponsible.

If I knew that woman I'd probably yell at her for it. If I could speak.

"I... so you really have no idea what I'm talking about do you?"

Reiko seemed baffled.

"Of course not! Taking my heart? What are you, some Aztec warlord or something!?"

Both myself and Reiko turned to look at her.

"What? History is cool!" she defended herself.

"What's an Aztec?" Reiko asked.

"They were a warlike tribe from the land currently known as Mexico and they-"

"Mreoww!" I interrupted her.

"Right- we're going off on a tangent," Reiko said, shaking her head. "I... guess you wouldn't know what the Pure Hearts did to me, to my parents," she said. "You're... not really one of them are you?"

"I didn't even know there was an organization until you just told me!" Marina responded.

"Well... I feel like a jerk now," Reiko said. "I'm so sorry," she said, bowing her head. "I thought you were one of the people who betrayed my parents."

Good. Excellent.

I, a cat, don't have time for this overcomplicated and unnecessarily drawn out bullshit. If things can be solved with a conversation, then that conversation should be what we do first, before beating the tar out of each other, if and where at all possible.

I really have no patience for any of that petty human bullshit. Even less now than I did before.

That old man called me a Guardian Beast, and I suppose it's my role to safeguard these girls. And that means I need to get them to stop fighting each other.

"Can you tell me?" Marina asked, as the two sat on the ground, facing each other. "I really feel like it's something I should know," she said. "And I really don't want to fight you, I've been running lost and just hunting monsters before they hurt people. I really have no idea what's going on, I just want to help."

Marina was a good girl and she simply found something that gave her the ability to help people in danger and chose to use it... but that was very dangerous. Reiko, even if she was just as young, at least came from a family that was in the business, and knew what to do, how to do it and had the backing of her grandfather to do it.

These two becoming friends would certainly go well on its way to keeping both my humans safe.

"Okay... I guess I can explain," Reiko replied, pursing her lips.

I'll stay with them through this process and make sure nothing silly occurs like them getting into a fight over disbelief or anything like that.

Thus, like her grandfather before her, Reiko wove Marina a tale of two hearts, and spoke of her own feelings on the matter.

Weirdly enough, Marina wound up crying far more than Reiko did by the end of the story. As the two opened their hearts without needing to beat the tar out of each other first, I realized... there was no way Marina was going to make it to school.

Oh, well.

I can't honestly say I care all that much about that.

 

[NOTTHISWAY]

Truth be told...

I really can't help much.

Even assuming I were able to talk, I wouldn't know the first thing about how to talk to traumatized young girls, much less how to help them through their trauma. I didn't exactly study child psychology, see?

What I do know is that Marina and Reiko need time, time for themselves and time with each other. Obviously, things don't just magically get solved by a single conversation all at once, it never is that easy, but thanks to the Old Man's help surely they'll have the conversation they desperately need to have and Marina can learn a little about her powers.

Me?

I've got other fish to fry.

I've been loafing too long, and cat though I might be, there's only so much I can lie down on my laurels before I get the itch to hunt.

So hunt I did.

For several days, I would stalk and hunt and wait. Accompanying Marina and Reiko places would yield some results, not the most promising results at first but, results nonetheless. Admittedly in my line of work, getting results was always a bad thing.

I just had to keep an eye on anyone whose gaze lingered suspiciously on the young girls I was accompanying, anyone who seemed to be walking a few streets too many behind them as Marina taught Reiko how friendship works, especially as Reiko began to join Marina's classmates on trips to the arcade and the nearest playground.

Eventually I landed on a target, someone who kept showing up at places like the Arcade, who used the noisy playground as a place to supposedly read a book and rest, but whose eyes kept glancing at the children using it. After catching my target taking a few sneak pictures of the girls at play, I knew I had struck gold.

Or in this case, trash.

The next step, as it came, was to follow the suspicious person and potential predator. Normally, a difficult task that could set me up for some danger or even to be caught out myself, not too surprising since I'd be doing the weird stalking and following when I was presented with a target.

But that wasn't relevant as a cat.

So when Marina and her friends brought Reiko to a playground to teach her how to use the hang bars, which she knew only as a training device, I waited until my target showed up.

And there she was.

Hardly the sort you'd expect to see involved in this sordid, disgusting little business, but that was almost certainly by design. A sharply dressed woman wearing glasses, a skirtsuit and carrying a large tablet that she was reading from.

Her hair was up in a tight bun, and she had all the look of a businesswoman just taking a break.

But there was no nearby office building that matched her looks, she had come here with a purpose. That was the first sign of suspicion. The next was the fact that her tablet moved in odd ways, when she took pictures. It didn't take long for me to pay enough attention to notice her vile gaze.

So that day I followed behind her as she went back to where she came from. For a moment I wondered if she'd go to the part of the city where there were a handful of high rise buildings and office buildings, but she began to weave between alleyways and side streets and eventually reached a much smaller building in one of the residential areas of town.

It was a house that looked a little bit rundown, just enough that I could tell it was actually lived in, but not enough that the average person could tell anything was off.

Luckily, houses weren't really meant to be fortresses, and cats have a way of getting into even those, so it wasn't exactly a hard time following her in. The inside was in slightly better repair, dust and cobwebs here and there but otherwise clean, but not being exposed to the elements helped. It was a two story, two bedroom home, the kitchen didn't have many appliances, just the basics, there was furniture but mostly cheap stuff.

As I went past the kitchen and headed up the stairs in the living room, I began to hear noises.

I heard terrible noises.

Noises I was disgusted by... they were disturbingly familiar.

I remembered a time when a little boy sat alone in his room, with headphones on, with the music volume set as high as possible. Headphones that weren't his, headphones that belonged to someone else.

What that little boy had been hearing... was the sounds of a drug fueled orgy, and every vibration and thump on the wall continued to reach him, even as he sat on the ground, trying not to hear it, not to notice it, not to think about it, but it was no use.

My pawpads made no noise, but the thumping on the wall more than made up for it.

Brought me back to that moment.

That little boy wasn't alone.

The skittering noise of my claws against the polished wood floor was completely masked by the voices of the monsters.

Just like then.

Just like back then.

The door was cracked open, and I peeked in, just like then, I remembered the noises, the smell, the sight.

Just like then, a young girl, a pair of hands around her neck, a large man right on top of her, just like then a woman strung out on drugs thinking nothing of what was happening in front of her.

Her eyes were listless, tears flowed from them, and my gaze met hers.

She was no different.

I remembered the girl who had once been the sole good thing in the life of a little boy whose home was broken and who faced nothing but more torment in all places outside it.

There was once a little boy.

His mother was a drug addicted whore that had two children from different fathers, who knew neither of their fathers, a woman who traded everything she had for drugs, and sold her body for more when that wasn't enough.

His father, well, nobody knew who that man was.

And his sister was a ray of sunshine of a girl, the total opposite of who and where she spawned from. She assumed the role of mother and raised a young boy only a couple years her junior, while going to school and earning what little pocket change she could by doing things like mowing lawns or the like.

Despite their miserable existence, the little boy was almost happy by spending time with his sister, she would usually say that as soon as she was old enough, when she could pull it off, she'd take him and they would both go away and never have to deal with their mother, or the many men she brought home, ever again.

But that wasn't to be.

That little boy got a bad feeling one night, and while listening to music with the device that a neighbor had gifted his sister, he couldn't shake it.

Something told him he had to go. He had to see it. He had to do something.

So he got up, he found a cracked open door, and just as my paw pushed the door open, I saw it all. The only ray of hope in his life, lifeless, strangled to death in a drug fueled rampage.

My claws came out, like the knife that had ended that whore's life and which had brought punishment upon the predatorial monster she had brought into the little boy's home, they cut through the air, through skin and flesh and organs, just the same.

Blood flew and flowed and splashed all over.

The monsters had to die, they needed to die, it was imperative that I brought them to their end. I'd been too complacent. I'd been too lazy.

I'd been too focused on something else.

Throats tore, eyes cut, screaming was cut short, I ripped and I tore and I cut and I slashed and I attacked, everything that was within my reach, I would destroy.

I'd promised I would never let this happen again and here I am, letting it happen all over again.

I will kill them.

I will kill them all.

Only when every last monster is dead, only then will I be satisfied.

My fur is covered in red hot lifeblood.

Already I can see the woman I slew, she was only partially dressed and she still had a small bag with some pills in it clutched in her hand even as she bled out from the cuts I made... But she wasn't still, no, instead, she was starting to twitch and move and I knew she was about to mutate.

That couldn't be allowed.

Marina and Reiko could not be allowed to come hunting these monsters, to come and see what I had failed to stop. I couldn't allow it.

I wouldn't.

With as much strength as I could muster and moving as swiftly as my body allowed, I jumped on her and began tearing her to shreds, reducing her to shreds of purple flesh, cutting her organs, slashing them apart, until I finally found her heart, and bit down into it with as much of my jaw as I could, shattering it as it had begun to crystalize, the pieces falling apart.

Catching my breath was... simple.

My body wasn't that of a human.

Back then, I had passed out from the effort. Back then when that young boy died it was all he could do just to keep breathing even as everything fell apart.

But this time it's different.

This time...

The hunt is complete.

But I'm not yet done.

I've only slain the beasts, after all...

Approaching the victim, I put my ear to her nose, and could hear her faintly breathing. Her neck and throat would surely be bruised all over, and her mind may never recover. But she at least deserves to have the one chance that we never had.

Luckily, there was a very easy way to get people to call the police, and this time, I wouldn't have any trouble with people tracing any evidence back to me.

I just went to the front of the house and rubbed my bloodsoaked fur all over the walls, making it quite obvious something fucky was going on, and then I made a fuzz, screaming and hissing and making as much noise as possible, rushing away the moment people started checking things out.

The rest would be in the hands of the people.

I wasn't just about to run back to Marina's home covered in blood, though, so I had to actually clean myself, which... needless to say, would take quite a bit of time.

I don't regret it for one second though.

After this, I remembered I was supposed to check in on a particular family. And while cleaning myself, I began to make further plans.

I got careless. I was too comfortable.

Stepping up was the only logical response.

 

[NOTTHISWAY]

Routine is... Routine.

To hunt, to stalk, to find and to eliminate is old hat to me.

I seek, and I destroy. I don't find all that many people. Leads sometimes turn into nothing. I've only confirmed that a certain subset of old ladies is less trustworthy than I'd hoped, but on the other hand, I guess it's not a bad thing to confirm that a lead is a dud.

A certain family I had been waiting for returned from vacation, and when I went to spy on the "creep" with bad hygiene who was apparently stalking young children, I found out the guy was just severely autistic and genuinely didn't understand social cues. Sometimes things are like that.

Not much I could do about it other than simply continue to follow up on rumors, anything else was beyond my purview. Most of the common potential targets I check up on periodically. Teachers at schools and cram schools nearby, private tutors, any profession that allowed people to have uninterrupted contact in a position of authority with children...

But I didn't find much of anything. I've also found out that the monsters Reiko and Marina hunt don't just come from my own prey. While hunting, I've overseen how they've started to combat together, especially when the two of them ran into a particularly large monster that apparently was the form created by the combination of two monsters that they had beat individually moments before.

Their teamwork is improving with every fight, which is good, because it's starting to become necessary.

I observed from afar, watching as they fought, I could feel that their bond was growing, but approaching them once they were done would confirm it. Marina was far more chatty than Reiko, but both of them were warm with each other these days. Reiko seemed to have taken Marina under her wing and her grandfather was even teaching Reiko how to fight with a staff.

Everything seemed to be going relatively well. Months between hits was more the speed I was used to, and to be entirely honest, I could really use spending more of my time being scratched in the spots that are hard to reach and sometimes helping take down a particularly ornery and strong monster.

That said, there was one thing that only really seemed to be staying the same without any sort of improvement.

I lived with Marina still, she was the one to whom I owed my continued existence after all, and more importantly, despite her being the one whose parents lived still, she might as well be an orphan for how much her parents existed in her life.

That was until after a training session with Reiko, mostly focused on them learning how each other moved so they could work more seamlessly around and with each other. I found myself yawning because I couldn't contain my excitement, if you couldn't tell, about the daily life we were settling into.

While Reiko continued her session, training by taking swings of the imitation weapon that resembled the one she wielded while transformed, Marina went off to take a shower, and when she came back, with a towel wrapped around much of her head, she was brimming with excitement, bouncing on the balls of her feet, halfway skipping every other step as she burst back into the training room.

"You're very excited," Reiko stated, "did something interesting happen?" she asked, relaxing out of her combat ready stance.

Marina came up to me, and I relaxed as her hand reached under my chin and scratched that itch that my paws never seemed to be able to reach right.

"Yeah," she said. "I just got a message from my parents, they're coming home for dinner tonight," she said, excitement nearly bursting from her, I swear she could explode from sheer giddiness. "It's the first time in months that they won't be working extra late," she said.

Right, that. Marina's parents. The primary reason why I've made it a bit of a mission in itself to make sure I spend as many nights with Marina as possible, even when I'm neglecting the hunt, this has become a more important aspect of my life than I expected.

"I'm sorry, Reiko, I can't stay today," Marina said, grabbing me and shifting her hold on me until I was comfortably settled in her arms. Despite my growing size, I was only slightly bigger than a regular housecat still, so she could take me up.

"No, that's fine, I wouldn't want to keep you from your parents," Reiko said, a small smile on her face. "I know you don't get a lot of time with them."

"I- ah! I'm really sorry, I was so excited-"

Reiko shook her head. "I'm not offended or anything," she said, resting her polearm on her shoulder.

"Maybe you could come meet my mom and dad one of these days!" Marina said, her hands coming together, "I'd love to introduce you to them! Neither of them really knows anything about the Heart business and they just work at a typical company, but, uhm! I'd really like for you to meet them!"

Who could blame a child for wanting her parents to be involved in her life, after all? I wasn't about to, even if I thought that her parents didn't deserve her, it was not about what they wanted, but about what Marina wanted, after all.

"Uhm, sure?" Reiko replied. "Maybe some other day, it's rare you get time with them right?" she asked, idly. "So I wouldn't want to intrude."

"No no, it's okay, maybe some day we can have a sleepover at my house!" she said. "I'll invite the rest of my friends, we'll watch some movies, we can teach you all about pillow fights!"

"Maybe we can try out that console thing you told me about?" Reiko said with a smile.

Right, that.

According to the old guy, Reiko had developed a monomaniacal focus on her duties and tasks as a Dark Heart and had eschewed a social life and recreation, she didn't have a healthy balance in her life, and he was very thankful to myself for introducing her and Marina and helping them get along, since Reiko was much better recently.

That's what my work is all about after all, and at least this time I've done something beyond destroying those that would seek to ruin the life of the young and vulnerable.

"Sure! I'll tell Sana to bring some extra controllers!" Marina said with a giggle. "See you tomorrow for patrol?"

Reiko nodded. "See you tomorrow," she called, smiling in a way that I was noticing she did a lot more than when I first met her, a far more open and honest smile than before.

Marina and I then would leave the estate, and headed back to the small house that Marina lived in with her parents.

She let me go so she could actually fetch her keys and get into her house.

"Alright, Kuro," Marina said, as we stepped home and she put her shoes on the boxes, taking her slippers and sliding them onto her feet. She crouched and raised her finger, as if wanting my attention. "Mom and dad really don't like when you shed hair all over the place," she explained, "so please stay in my room while I sweep and clean the kitchen, okay?" she asked

She put her hands together in supplication.

"Just for today, stay in my room, okay?" she asked, opening one of her eyes as if to gauge my reaction.

Trying to display all the arrogance and haughty superiority of a member of my most august and dignified species, I turned my head away from her.

"Please! I'll buy you tuna!" she begged.

Well alright, if you're gonna be like that, how could my magnanimous self ever deign to be mean to a human who knew her place and her role in providing me offerings so well?

Even if I really didn't want to just sit out of the way, I followed her up to her room, where she set up my cushion bed. A cross between nerves and giddy excitement had her going out of her way to tickle me, though I had to bat her hands away from my sensitive and vulnerable belly.

Just because I'm on my side or back doesn't mean I'm letting you put hands on the most vulnerable part of my body, just be happy I let you see it at all!

She giggled as I batted her hand away. You're only laughing because you haven't tasted the full might of my counterattack!

"Mreowww!"

Succumb, human, succumb!

"Eheheh, your toebeans feel so nice!"

Stop laughing!

Wait.

What the fuck am I doing?

I glared at her and settled on the cushion, crossing my paws in front of my torso and curling up my tail around me.

I am a cat. I am dignified and tranquil and calm, I am not a lower creature that loses his shit over something silly. I settled and Marina smiled down at me, scratching behind my ears one final time before getting up and moving away.

When she was about to close the door to her room, however, I figured that was probably not a good thing for me.

"Meow!"

Trying to shout without hissing is actually more difficult than I thought, and it sounded entirely too close to a threatening growl for comfort, but it did catch Marina's attention, and she turned to me.

"Hey, none of that," she chastised me.

She went to close the door again and I didn't hold the growl in this time. I'm not sure that's a sound a regular housecat could reproduce but I don't really care, as my "meow" became a roar.

"Wh- what's wrong? Do you want me to leave the door open?" she asked.

"Meow."

She pursed her lips. "Okay," she said, "but just a little ajar!" she added.

I couldn't really shrug so I just settled down and let her go out, and as promised, the door was left only a little ajar.

I closed my eyes and used my superior cat body's inherent advantages over the inferior humans that I kept as my pets, by simply laying down and sleeping without having to spend many minutes trying to relax enough to sleep.

By the time I woke up, the scent of food was all over the house. But there certainly wasn't any conversation coming, and no noise. I could feel my tail raising and waving behind me as my displeasure coursed through me.

I had half expected this.

That was why I had Marina leave the door open. So I wouldn't need to make any extraneous effort in getting out of her room and going down to the kitchen where, as I expected, I found Marina.

She was seated on the table, with cold, untouched food in front of her. The house was spotless. The food smelled and looked delicious, but it was obviously cold now.

"Ah, Kuro," she said, as she snapped awake. Even the very light sound that the tips of my claws made on the wooden floor when I couldn't quite keep them in was enough to alert her. "You should've stayed inside, what if my parents see you," she said in a hushed whisper. "I-"

The sound of a car outside alerted me first, but Marina wasn't too long behind as she caught the noises of her parents being dropped off and the car that did so speeding away. Strange, since they had their own car, but, not entirely unusual.

Not for them, anyway.

Marina ran towards the entrance to her house, where her parents were stumbling into the just recently cleaned house with their dirty shoes still on, not even caring to have the basic respect to take their shoes off to not ruin Marina's hard work, even though their slippers were right there in the shoebox.

"Mom! Dad!" Marina shouted, all her energy coming back, a happy smile on her face as she greeted her parents, who looked like a taller, older and more boring version of her as far as I was concerned. "I- the food's a little cold but I can reheat it while you guys get changed and-"

Her father burped and her mother giggled a little stupidly. "Actually Marina we," her father swallowed, "we went out and ate before coming here, but you can eat if you want!"

Marina's parents were both in their thirties and, bucking trends, her father was actually the younger one of the couple, but they both had a somewhat generic look to them that made them bland and hardly memorable, plus I could never get a bead on their scent because I've never seen either of those two not reek of perfume or alcohol.

This time it was no different.

Were it not for their existence in Marina's life, I wouldn't even spare them the slightest thought.

"But, mom, dad, you, you told me, today we were... having dinner together," Marina said, her voice quivering as she did.

"Y-Yeah sweetie, I, uh, sorry things got so busy just as we were leaving, we..." her mother coughed. "We met for a reunion and, one thing led to another, it, it's not like we forgot or anything! We'll, I promise, next time!"

"Y-yeah," her father burped again, "next time we'll, uhm, yeah we'll go to a restaurant and, eat together, for sure!"

Marina hung her head for a moment, then faced up with a big smile. "A-Alright," she said, her fists clenched so hard her knuckles turned white. "Then I'll, be," her breath caught as she spoke, "looking forward to that, but... suddenly I'm not hungry anymore either," she said, turning around and walking towards her room, her shoulders and back trembling.

Her parents then finally remembered to take their shoes off, and as they set about doing that, Marina's Father finally noticed that I was sitting there, and my eyes caught his.

Marina's mother looked at me with an expression of displeasure, and hooked her purse on the coatrack on the house's entrance.

As I looked upon them, an overwhelming feeling of disgust and disdain coursed through me. These creatures... they simply did not deserve Marina.

Every fiber of my being burned with the distinct desire to voice my displeasure, and never did I despise my condition as a cat more than at that moment when I realize that I couldn't speak the word I so dearly wanted to.

"Scum..!" I hissed at them, before turning around and following Marina into her room.

They seemed to stumble and gape and point at me, probably disturbed that I expressed such open hostility to them.

I wish I could do more. But Marina won't be made happier if bad things happen to her parents. I really could only do one thing for her, and luckily, in her haste, she hadn't properly closed the door to her room when she went in. She hadn't even changed into her pyjamas before laying down on bed, face down, hugging her pillow.

There was... a lot of work to do. Many things I needed to direct my attention to.

But none of them needed me more than the sobbing girl clinging to me for dear life through the night.

 

[NOTTHISWAY]

I'm not too keen on young girls fighting monsters.

There's not much that can be done about it, however, because even if I could talk to them, it's highly doubtful that Marina or Reiko would listen to me if I told them to sit out and let someone else, someone adult, handle matters for them. It's not as if I could handle it myself.

Unlike me, they're naturally predisposed to searching and hunting for the monsters. I happened to more or less align my targets and theirs by sheer dumb coincidence. The Corrupted Hearts were humans overcome by their baser urges, who let themselves become consumed by their most disgusting desires. Usually, the more immoral they were, the more likely they'd be to turn into a monster.

I had initially thought that this was just the sexual desire of a certain kind of degenerate, but no, other immoral desires worked just as well, and I would learn this not long after following Marina to school because I was bored after not finding a target in many days.

Long sleeves during summer was a dead giveaway, no matter how much the girl claimed to her friends that she just liked how they looked. Glad once again to be a cat, because it made everything easier, I followed the girl to her home to check, and after hanging out there for a couple hours I found out enough to get a move on.

Even if her mother had no sexual intentions towards the girl, I had no more love for those that would hurt children to feel better about themselves than I did for those who used them for sexual gratification.

I had to return home for the day then, but I learned enough to know the woman was basically blaming her daughter for her marriage falling apart. A couple days after that, she sent the girl off for a weekend with her father, and then I moved in... luckily, being a cat, when I just showed up and meowed, she opened the windows to let me in and even offered me food.

I hadn't wanted to traumatize a girl who held misguided love for the woman who saw her as an outlet for anger, so I thought to end her life without leaving her as a pile of meat shreds. While the woman was busying herself watching some stupid program on the TV, I went to her kitchen. She had a relatively old stove, not the induction kind, but rather, open flames. Perfect. No need to do anything extraneous then, I just opened all the burners and let them fill the house with their lethal gas.

What I had not counted on was that the woman was a smoker. Of course, all my observation had been done when her child was at home, and apparently, she at least had enough of a good sense not to smoke with her children inside the house, but when the girl wasn't home... well, not enough sense to not do that apparently.

Which was the situation I found myself in, reminiscing about everything that brought me into the situation I was in as my life flashed before my eyes the moment I saw her pull her lighter out of her pocket.

She hadn't even noticed the smell of the gas by the time she thought to light up. There wasn't enough gas filling the house to set everything on fire, but there was enough to produce a small scale explosion that set her and a bunch of other stuff on fire around her, and more importantly, she ruined my attempt at letting her die in a way that wouldn't mangle her body.

Or at least, that had been what I thought initially even as the explosion threw me like a ragdoll, the force of it carrying enough that my unprepared furry ass was swept up by the shockwave, since I was seated just outside the only open window in the house.

In hindsight, and as I tried to collect my thoughts, I should've expected she'd come up to smoke in the kitchen, considering that seemed to be the only open window in the house ever, and there was no stench of smoke everywhere else. I'm getting soft, I would've caught that a couple years ago.

But it didn't matter, another abuser was dead and-

And then a screeching red and black skinned monstrosity burst through the wall of the house, wreathed in blazing fire and looking to spread that fire. I might've caused a way bigger issue than I thought. The explosion had caught the attention of the neighbors, but the fire was spreading and gas explosions were problematic for many other reasons.

I wondered for a few minutes if I should contain the monster myself, but almost like clockwork, Reiko and Marina showed up at the same time. If I didn't know better, I would've thought them a team for how well they fought together, Reiko taking the fight in melee, attracting and maintaining the monster's attention on herself, while Marina supported from longer range, with beams, bullets and sometimes divebombing elbow drops from a rooftop.

I really should find a way to stop Marina from watching wrestling shows.

But I can't stop watching myself, it was just all so over the top and incredible I was just as hypnotized by it as she was. Marina wasn't bad at imitation it seemed.

Reiko found the wrestling moves a lot less amusing, however, especially since the monster recovered from it.

Another thing I had noticed at that point?

The monsters were getting tougher, meaner and sturdier. In fact, the black and red woman seemed to sort of burst out of her own skin as it broke apart to expose muscle, growing spiky bone armor around her shoulders, waist and head.

The burning lady could even manipulate fire, turning it into whips, swords and hammers, attacking Reiko with them and matching her in physicality, even exceeding her speed and strength, though the experienced Dark Heart kept the monster at bay with clever movements, her polearm demonstrating why such weapons were the kings of melee combat by giving her all the leverage she needed to overcome her opponent and push her back.

Reiko even managed to strike at the unprotected areas of her body, chopping one of the burning woman's arms out and then blocking the follow up. Bones were already covering the cuts and a huge flaming bone spike grew from the stump of her arm as she continued trying to kill Reiko.

And then Marina finished the enemy off by screaming some corny name for her attack, which was a pink laser about the size of her, impacting on the screaming burning woman and erasing all of her monstrous overgrown flesh, leaving a naked woman.

The fight and its aftermath also confirmed another thing for me.

She hadn't died before transforming, and when she transformed back, she was not just alive, but healed from the burns she got from when she lit the cigarette.

That said, the firefighters and police were present. Marina and Reiko were distracted by the hard fight they had just gone through, and while the two were distracted, I jumped down from my perch on a rooftop.

"Meow."

"Eh- it's-"

"Mrow!" I turned around and gestured with my tail, as best as I could. It's not quite a prehensile monkey tail, but I can control it well enough to gesture for them to follow me as I take off running. Luckily, I managed to drag them away from the situation before the authorities could question them.

They managed to keep up with me even as I increased the speed I was running at to an appreciable fraction of my maximum speed. I'm also glad I literally can't laugh because it'd be hard to resist laughing as Marina faceplanted when I came to a sudden stop, bleeding off my momentum in a way only a small animal could, while Reiko slid to a stop and Marina tried to stop too hard.

"Kuro!"

"Mr Kitty!"

"Meeew," I responded, licking my paw and removing some of the soot that got on my face. I sat, then, and looked at them.

"Wait, why did you bring us here?" Marina asked.

Reiko seemed thoughtful. "I think I heard sirens," she said. "But we were busy and- did we just flee from the police?"

"I think we did. Oh man," Marina said, "you know usually I'm already long done and gone by the time the authorities show up! That one was a real toughie!" she said, crossing her arms and tilting her head in thought. "In fact, ever since we started teaming up, it feels like I've gotten WAY stronger, but so have the Corrupted ones!" she said.

"The Heart for this one was way bigger than most others, something's strange," Reiko said, "even though we've both gotten stronger, it feels like I'm struggling more than ever to defeat them..."

She shook her head, as if to dismiss the thoughts.

"I'll ask grandfather," she spoke, clenching her right hand into a fist. "If I remember correctly, usually there's a spike in the number and strength of Corrupted Hearts..." her eyes widened. "No, there's no way, no way..."

"Huh? What are you talking about Reiko?" Marina asked, tilting her head. "Is anything strange going on?"

"No- it's nothing, you don't need to-"

I jumped then, landed on her head, and then leaped off, kicking her in the back of the head as gently as one could manage, all things considered.

"Ow- Mr. Kitty, why are you-"

I jumped again, this time landing on her shoulder, and glared into her eyes.

"I-"

"I think he's telling you to tell me," Marina said, helpfully.

"This isn't a joke, this is-"

"Is it about your parents?" Marina asked. "Because it sounds like it might have something to do with that... I really should know about it," she said, stepping up towards Reiko, the touching image ruined by the red spot on her forehead where she had planted it into the ground.

Reiko looked aside, and Marina stepped up to her and grabbed her fellow magical girl's hands, raising them up to chin level for both of them.

"I promised, didn't I? I'd stand by you all the way to the very end, I won't be able to forgive myself if you make me step back now," she said, as I stepped off of Reiko's shoulder and landed, looking around for the first time.

Honestly, I had just sort of run away and not really checked where I was going. All three of us were more than agile enough to jump across buildings and streets. I seem to have taken us somewhere and I have no idea where this is.

It's an alley, I can tell that much, and the city doesn't have all that many alleys... Seems like there's a ramen shop directly at the mouth of the alley, this is probably not a coincidence. The smell's kinda strong here.

Can I eat ramen?

Fish ramen at least. Surely I can. It smells delicious.

I turned back around to see if the emotional moment between my owner and her newest friend was over, and they were still in the "looking deeply into each other's eyes" phase.

"... the Corruptor is the monster that my mother gave her life to defeat. If I remember correctly, a sudden increase in the power and quantity of Corrupted Hearts suggests a Corruptor is awakening."

"So is it like, a big huge monster?" Marina asked, stepping back, though she still held Reiko's hands in hers, now the two almost looked like they could be holding a bridge.

Am I becoming more of a cat? I'm getting distracted really easily lately, especially when I feel awkward like a fifth leg.

Is it done?

It's done.

"I see... but it's okay, we'll face it together," Marina said, squeezing Reiko's hands, "not just to protect the city, but also, to show everyone else that a Pure Heart and a Dark Heart CAN work together, that we really can become true partners!"

Reiko's face was as red as a tomato.

"You'll be there with me, right?" she asked.

"Y-Yeah," Reiko said, nodding. "I... don't know how well we stack up to Mother and Father, but, with your help, I think we can handle it... and then we'll show them all that, that dad wasn't wrong!"

"That's right! Plus, Kuro will be right there to help us, right? Your grandpa said Kuro's a Guardian Beast, our Guardian Beast!"

"O-Ours?" Reiko asked.

"Yeah! He said a Guardian Beast blesses an union between a Heart and her Knight, right?" Marina asked. "And I've never felt safer in a fight than when you're protecting me so...! So! I, I really want to stay together with you for a long time! That's why I ask of you, would you be my knight?"

Reiko was sputtering, her face was actually glowing and the heat on it was so potent that the air around her was warping like it was a super hot summer day. She was wobbly on her feet.

"Did I say it wrong? Did I mess it up? I didn't really get a chance to memorize the pledge so-"

"Y-You idiot!!!" Reiko shouted.

"W-What? Oh no! Did I do it wrong and accidentally insult you or something!? I'm so sorry!"

"You don't- of course you don't know," Reiko said, taking a step back, removing her hand from Marina's and planting it in her face. "You idiot, that's how a Dark Heart proposes marriage to a Dark Knight!"

There was a moment's pause.

"Oh. Ooooooooooh."

Marina was as red and hot as flame herself, then.

Okay.

That was pretty funny. Really glad I can't visibly and audibly laugh now because it would be impossible to hide it now.

 

[NOTTHISWAY]

I'm not going to lie.

Gymnastics is a lot more impressive than I thought it would be. I'm not really that used to watching this, I've barely even paid attention when the olympics were out but now that I'm seeing it in the flesh, I can't help but admit that I have absolutely no idea how these little kids are managing to do all these flips and jumps and hanging from the bars and rings and what have you.

And as for why I'm watching?

Well, I had to check on the new teacher of this gymnastics school, see if I have to take care of another one after I helped the previous one take his erotic auto-asphyxiation to the next level.

New one's clean as far as I can tell. I observed him for a couple days while Marina and Reiko were training together with the goal of being ready to face the Corruptor when it finally did emerge, and so far he's immoral, but not a degenerate, since he is vastly more interested in banging his students' mothers than he is in the students themselves.

No objections on behavior either. Absolute master of spotting and has reflexes I'm starting to suspect might be on par with mine, because he's caught three kids that bounced off with his hands and managed to help them land on his feet, caught a few more and bled off their momentum with his own body and managed to move the safety mat to catch five bad jumps.

I'm also starting to realize just how incredibly dangerous gymnastics is, especially with rambunctious schoolchildren that hadn't had good instruction.

Either way, with the monster destroyed and the replacement apparently clean, I moved on and went on to check on Marina and Reiko, who, again, were hanging out with Marina's friends. I followed them for a while, but they were just buying things.

Pedophiles don't grow on trees and contrary to the fears of some crazed people, there isn't one every few steps waiting to hound children, so there wasn't much for me to do and I had no interest in their talk about the latest pop starlet who had a scandal when it was revealed he had a girlfriend.

When I was about to turn to leave, however...

It began.

A man crashed out of a jewelry store, hands on his head, his scream of pain turning into an angry roar as hands and then arms burst out from his back, tearing through his shirt and cheap suit jacket, his skin turning green, his body lifting in the air as six hands acted like legs, turning him into a spider monster.

People started screaming and running away, but as Reiko and Marina nodded at each other, diving behind a dumpster in a nearby alley, the monster was followed by a screaming woman coming out of a well known fast food restaurant, rolling on the floor before her chest opened up into a massive mouth and she fell on her back, her arms and legs twisting into spiraling knots as she began to crabwalk, spitting fireballs from the mouth in her chest, while her tongue in her mouth came out like a spear.

Reiko and Marina burst out already transformed into the alley.

They've both changed, I notice, what they looked like from before.

Marina is the most noticeable, her previous attire was a dress not really suited to fighting, but it had since become an armored dress, with a vest that looked somewhat like the flak vest of Reiko's costume, and the diadem on her head had become a visor, while her hair was no longer flowing freely and instead was tied behind her head in a ponytail when she transformed.

Reiko, meanwhile, had added a few frills to her bodyglove, including a short but effective skirt, and the edges of her armor on her arms, feet and shins had been rounded out and there were a few patterns in silver decorating her armor now.

All their training together is paying off, as well, because the two immediately leap into action, Marina no longer just staying back and taking potshots, instead, they fall into lockstep and Marina manages to never fall more than one step behind Reiko, and Reiko always knows exactly when to wait to give Marina that one step of time to catch up.

Dodging attacks from the spider monster, Reiko rolls under it and spins around like she was a capoeira master, her weapon swinging like a whirlwind, choping the monster's extra hand-legs off, rolling out from under it just in time for it to come crashing down, while Marina leaped above it, her hands swinging her staff directly under her, and when she was in position, she launched a pink laser that struck the enemy and sent her flying high in the air, while the monster was slain on the spot, already shrinking back into human form.

A spear tongue almost went right through Reiko, but while that was happening, Marina fired from high up in the sky, which the crab monster reacted to by swallowing the beam with its huge mouth, only for Reiko to take that opportunity to rush in and put her bladed polearm through the monster's back slicing it nearly in half with a powerful spin.

The monster lit up and again began to shrink into the form of a human.

Reiko continued and finished her spin, slashing at the heart shaped crystal that appeared from the monster's corpse and Marina came down with a stomp on the other monster's crystal, crashing it like it was made of glass, which turned into light and was absorbed into her foot.

"Two at once... that's not normal."

I licked my paws and observed. The entire thing had lasted less than a minute, they had moved like a well oiled machine, but I could notice a slight hesitation... Marina should've had enough firepower that her attack should've ended the enemy outright. Reiko, on the other hand, was too willing to put herself at risk, going so close to her enemies, when she had a polearm that could put her in a more safe position.

Perhaps their trust in each other could produce that sort of mistake? It's good to rely on each other but if they're too reliant on one another then they won't be able to trust that the other will finish the job.

Thoughts for later, because more screams erupted, and the storefronts began to burst, and even some of the people who were fleeing crashed to the ground, clutching their heads or chests and then bursting into twisted, disturbing monsters, more spiders, more crabs, huge musclebound red giants, masses of spiked tentacles, etc.

Well then.

The girls were shocked at the sight.

I...

Felt liberated.

A weight was off my shoulders.

I don't like killing. Enjoyment of the act is not why I do what I do. I hate predators, I hate monsters, I hate those that would prey on children, I hate the worst of man, that would devour and spit out the innocent and vulnerable. I hate those who are like the people who took away the only good thing there was in my life, when I died then I made a promise that I would take as many down with me as I could.

But these?

These aren't my prey.

These don't create complicated feelings in me. These don't make me think about whether I should or shouldn't enjoy myself, nor do they cause me to become conflicted about whether I should be upset or glad not to find them when I hunt. But that didn't matter now, not with these monsters.

These monsters?

They won't die if I kill them.

So as Marina and Reiko are steeling themselves to the challenge of the dozen or so monsters that have taken over the shopping district, I leap off the rooftop I was observing from, and then dash into the gathering horde of monsters.

As they noticed and turned to attack, I turned it up.

No need to hold back anymore. One, two, three, four bounds until I was in melee range of the first monster, a fifth bound saw me jumping up to roughly face level of one of the large red skinned hulks, and then my claws went right through its thick, reinforced red skin, splitting it and causing a gushing rush of black and bright red blood to horrify onlookers before my claws went right through its chest and on the way out ripped its crystalline heart out.

I planted my back legs on the soon to be corpse that would return to being a normal and kicked hard, sending it flying away even as I did the same in the other direction, letting my claws out and spinning around, slashing the incoming rush of spike tipped tentacles to shreds and then continuing to go right through another monster.

A spider came close, while a crab rushed to me, and they quickly found themselves no match for my claws.

I don't like killing.

It's not something I enjoy.

But the hunt excites me.

This body is built for this. I am the true predator. They are nothing but prey.

I can feel myself growing with every splash of blood on my fur. Cutting through, slashing them, breaking them open and exposing their hearts, slashing, slicing, crushing, breaking.

They are nothing to me.

Humans overcome by their own desires, become monsters when they are overwhelmed by their own darkness. They are corrupted, some were even good people who suppressed and repressed everything until it burst out.

But to me they might as well just be wheat for the scythes that were my claws.

It became increasingly easier, even as more monsters appeared from all over the place. I left behind me a bunch of people, bodies, some naked, some covered in shreds of clothing, others bloodied as the spray of blood and guts and gore got all over them.

Weak!

Pathetic!

Just like all the rest!

Not one of them is a challenge, not one of them can offer even a momentary stop. The spiders are barely up to eye level as I catch one in my mouth and drink its blood as I chew on it, my jaws tearing through its weak, rubbery flesh before I spat it away.

A hissing and screeching roar heralds my leap into a throng of creatures, and my tail my claws and my head smash into all of them, shattering all of my enemies and leaving nothing in my wake but crushed bodies and broken hearts.

"Kuro!!"

I turn to face the small things...

I'm wreathed in the blood of monsters, my heart is thrumming in my chest and beating like a drum in my ears, every bit of movement is making me react, I find myself as twitchy as one can be.

The two girls approach me, their weapons in hand, Reiko resting her bladed spear on her shoulder, Marina using hers to poke at a pair of bodies. They were warm and breathing, I could tell.

I snorted, and blood came out through my nostrils.

"Are you okay?!"

Marina suddenly rushed like a bolt of lightning to my side, grabbing me by my shoulders, or at least close to them, and pulling me up to inspect me, heedless of the yucky gunk I was covered in. "They didn't hurt you did they?! Why I oughta-"

"He's fine, we're fine, and that was unbelievable... you were like a ball of fur and claws and destruction!" Reiko said, her eyes twinkling. "That was soooo cool!"

"Yeah! You were flying everywhere, leaping from monster to monster, cutting through them like a knife through butter! A very hot knife!" Marina said, standing up and raising me so that I felt like Simba. "You saved so many people, that was incredible!"

Did I?

Well, usually I kill people to save other, smaller people. But I am a superior being, it's only normal that humans recognize my awesomeness after all.

Speaking of which...

"Mewww..."

"Still... this was terrible," Reiko said, "with this many monsters coming out at once, the Corruptor must be about to awaken..."

Marina pulled me up to her chest and formed something of a basket with her arms, that I could sit on. The pink haired girl nodded. "This many monsters... it can only be the product of the Corruptor's power right?"

"Yes... it accelerates the development of the monsters by corrupting the hearts of the people. Anyone affected by it should go back to normal once the Corruptor is killed."

Marina nodded.

I got the feeling there was something I was missing here, something I wasn't privy to. I didn't eavesdrop on their private conversations, so I don't have any idea what it might be, but I have some suspicions.

Either way...

Thunder roared on a cloudless sky, and supernatural gray and black clouds began to form high above us. Near the far end of the shopping district was one of the oldest buildings in town, which from the rumors I've heard is a hotel that also houses a gambling den and might possibly be involved in prostitution.

The clouds were circling that building. Of course.

A corruptor, a creature of forbidden desire... would be in the place where those desires are allowed to run rampant, and where people are consumed by them more than anywhere else.

The end of it all was in sight, the eye of the storm was before us, and it was time for the girls to face their greatest challenge yet.

I could feel my fur standing on end, and the sense of danger is growing as I realize that what awaits us is absolutely nothing like the monsters I could fight with such ease.

It might be time for me to really embrace my role as these girls' guardian beast.

 

[NOTTHISWAY]

The hotel cum gambling house blew the fuck up and a gigantic column of red and purple light and black smoke erupted from the smoldering ruins, a gigantic hand, black with splotches of red scales and golden coins wrapped around it, raised from the rubble, grabbing onto one of the ruined walls and getting a firm grip.

A second hand burst with another explosion, a light and smoke show acting as the prelude for the hand that grabbed onto the wall on the other end of the first hand, and then the two hands, the size of houses themselves, pushed the remnants of the building apart, opening up a bigger hole from which many winged monsters erupted.

With the roar of tearing earth and the burp of erupting magma, the flying monsters cried out in horror and pain as they were incinerated in mid air, the ashes being blown away by strong, gale force winds that exploded as the huge monster used its hands to push itself out of the rubble of the building.

First, a crown of thousands if not tens of thousands of horns entwined and tied together, like the roots of a great tree, came up from the glowing portal-like light, and it was followed up by a humanoid red face that itself was the size of a two story house, vaguely human but elongated, eyes being just windows into a hell of yellow, orange and red flames that erupted from the holes, an open mouth filled with wicked, sharp and spiky looking teeth that seemed to jut out in random directions.

The shoulders and neck followed next, its muscles looked like cancerous tumors stretching the skin, which seemed to crack open to reveal bunches of black scales and golden coins, some of which hung from the torn flaps of skin, and as it continued to expand and rise, its muscles tensed and pulsed, throbbing grotesquely, as its entire torso was revealed, exaggerated musculature, with tens of abs and three pectoral muscles on each side of its body.

"Ew."

Marina had put it all in perspective the moment she saw the sky-scraper sized monstrosity, which seemed to be stuck in place as the hole it was in didn't seem big enough for it to get its legs through.

It opened its mouth and showed it had entirely too many teeth, five rows of them in its spiraling mouth. It let out a deafening, earsplitting cry that shattered every window around us and made the ground underneath us tremble, raising its arms and opening them before swinging them around, knocking buildings down.

"... can we really beat that thing..?" Marina asked, her voice small, frail even. She clutched her staff, trembling in place as she watched the monster rampage freely.

"It's not a matter of whether we can," Reiko replied, her lips meeting and drawing into a tight, grim line as she gripped her own polearm so tight and hard that her knuckles went white, stomping the ground as if trying not to let her legs tremble and quiver underneath her.

They weren't just afraid.

They were positively terrified.

"We have to," Reiko said, "we're the only ones who can even stand up to it..." she said, "this is the monster that killed my parents... the Corruptor..."

Raising its hands and throwing its head back to roar at the sky, the Corruptor trembled and shook in place, as a second pair of arms grew from its back, as if its shoulder blades extended into new limbs, webbed hands that looked like they would belong on an aquatic creature, the tips of each finger growing into wicked looking spikes, the two new hands swinging around and slicing entire buildings to ribbons.

"H-Hey, when we beat tha, that thing," Marina said, "the damage it does will, just go away right? Like the small ones?"

Reiko trembled. "Maybe?" she said.

Not a promising start.

However...

"Mrow."

They both turned to me, as I licked my paw and used it to clean my forehead, taking a few steps forward so I was ahead of them, as they both looked at the monster that seemed to be enjoying its random acts of destruction.

I stretched, sliding my front paws forward and raising my hind legs, raising my tail as well and fully curving my spine to get the most out of the stretch, feeling my entire body become more limber by the second as my claws came out of my paws and scratched up the hard concrete ground underneath me.

Standing back up, I took a few more steps towards the giant.

"Kuro seems ready to fight it," Marina said with a slight giggle, as the tension among us broke and Reiko followed with a sensible chuckle of her own. "Heheh, looking at him being so confident, it makes me feel like we might just be able to handle it after all!"

"Yeah... If I was alone, I'm sure I wouldn't be able to do anything... but if I have you guy s," Reiko said, raising her bladed spear and spinning it above her head before bringing it down in a wide slashing arc, as if to remind herself she still had her weapon. "After all this... There's nothing else we can do but go up there and fight it, right?"

"Right!" Marina said. "Just like always, I'll back you up!"

"Follow me in, and bring the firepower!" Reiko agreed.

I broke into a run, and they came behind me. Together, the three of us rushed towards the gigantic creature, and as we made our way there, our surroundings blurring around us as we charged towards it at full speed and strength, it noticed us early enough that its enormous fist came barreling towards us.

It wasn't fast.

Compared to Marina and Reiko, it was moving in slow motion.

And for me?

It might as well not be moving at all.

However, it came down onto us with the force of an angry god, and it produced an almost hurricane force wind just from the air displacement, almost throwing us off, but the fist came down onto us and all three of us jumped on top of it as it buried itself nearly halfway into the ground, creating a huge crater and causing an earthshaking tremor on the ground behind us.

The arm was moving very slowly as it began to retract, a good several dozen muscle groups activating in sequence, flexing and tensing and relaxing, as the skin broke and more splotches of black scales and giant golden coins were exposed as the muscles reformed and deformed under us.

My claws found easy purchase, and the sensible, rough terrain shoes that both Marina and Reiko wore managed to let them run with ease, all three of us dashed towards the creature's main body.

We got past the elbow just in time as it began to bend and shake its forearm trying to throw us off, and it couldn't move fast enough to stop us from reaching the shoulder.

By my estimation, we basically did the equivalent of running up a skyscraper's wall in about five seconds. Not bad if I do say so myself.

What was bad, however, was that Reiko leaped ahead of us and swung an extremely wide spinning attack that landed against the disgustingly throbbing veins of the creature's neck, chopping an opening into said neck, only for it to gush boiling hot blood that rapidly turned to steam, burning Reiko, and then closed up immediately.

"Reiko! Are you okay!?"

"Shoot it Marina!!" Reiko called out as she wiped the boiling hot blood from her costume and face, taking a step back as she moved out of the way.

Marina jumped into the air much like Reiko had, but with a much higher arch to her jump, and then while she was at the apex of it, she thrust her staff forward and unleashed a large pink beam into the same spot Reiko had hit, carving a hole into the creature, which again gushed boiling hot blood and steam and then closed up.

"That's not good," Reiko muttered. "Your attack dealt more damage than mine but it still healed."

"MROW!!"

My call got their attention just in time, my instincts alerted me and my eyes confirmed that one of its webbed hands was coming towards its shoulder, and would turn us into stickers if we didn't move. Luckily it was slow enough that we could disperse. Marina landed and then slid down the monster's back. Reiko followed, stabbing her polearm into the monster and catching Reiko by the hand, both of them descending along its back and away from the monster's shoulder.

And as for me, I had an easier time climbing the monster, so I rushed up its neck and managed to run upside down by digging my claws into its flesh, allowing me to make it up the creature's face.

However, when I tried to get up to its eye to inflict some damage, I realized that its eyes really were just holes from which flame was coming out, and more importantly, the impact of its webbed hand on its shoulder registered, and caused me to actually slip off, its skin simply wasn't strong enough for my claws to not just tear loose when its entire body began to shake like water from the force of the impact.

I began falling, but I didn't fall for long, as I was caught in mid air by its enormous hand, so big that there was no realistic way it wasn't going to catch me, as it made use of the fact that it had two arms on each side.

I had thought it a mindless, rampaging beast, but obviously it was intelligent enough to prepare that little trick.

I...

Might've been very thoroughly fucked at that moment. The impact of it catching me causes all the air to be pushed out of my body, and I can't even let out a shrill cry of pain as cats are known to do, and before I can catch my bearings, it's bringing me up and forward.

Like I'm nothing more than a small pill, it brings me up to its mouth.

It's no longer moving as slowly as before, right at this time it happens to speed the fuck up, just to bring me up to its mouth.

I've stared death in the face many times. I've died before, actually.

This isn't even entirely new to me, though I admit, I wasn't the one being shoved into the wood chipper the first time around.

Pro tip? It's not like in the movies, they actually will get wrecked by human bodies, it's painful but really not a good way to get rid of a body you don't need anymore.

As I'm thrown into its five circular rows of teeth, they begin to spin and rotate, the jagged monstrous maw already promising that this is going to suck. My eyes quickly adjust to the darkness as I'm thrown into its mouth, and as its throat opens up, I realize it's all teeth, becoming narrower and narrower, with more jagged and wicked looking spikes of enamel and bone.

"Meow..."

My voice echoes down its throat. It's covering its mouth with its hand, and the seal is tight. More importantly, hurricane force winds are starting to pull on me, it's sucking, it's actively trying to swallow me, and I can't do much about it, as I'm in mid air and being pulled towards the ever darker insides of the beast.

Well.

This is not looking good at all.

Not being one to give up, I began to put my all into trying to prevent myself from being swallowed, unfortunately, the only thing I could do was slow the inevitable, the surface of its many rows of teeth was extremely tough and slippery, affording me no purchase and making me fall further and further down even as its ridiculous insides continued to try to make mincemeat out of me.

I have to think of something fast.

I'm not about to be done in by some amateur horseshit like getting swallowed by a big enemy.

 

[NOTTHISWAY]

I'm about to be done in by some amateur horseshit as being swallowed by something bigger than I am. So much so that I slid down its immense throat and into its cavernous stomach. Now, the problem is, despite my eyes being very good in low light conditions, there was so little light down here that even I was struggling to see.

The insides of the monster were like a gigantic cavern, and its flesh was vaguely bioluminescent. The acid pools in its stomach were much brighter, but still not enough to illuminate anything around them. So, the good thing was, I could see the pools of acid, I could see the fleshy walls, and by process of elimination, I could tell where the bony spikes and spines were.

The walls of the cavern were pulsing slowly, not like a beating heart, very smooth movements, slow to my vision, but I knew that was just a function of their sheer immensity and my accelerated perception.

Big black spots in my vision, the only parts of the stomach that weren't luminescent at all.

But I can't tell what the surface of those things looks like, so I have to be very careful as I slide along the acid coated flesh walls, as I dig my claws into the stomach lining and run up it to reach one of the big black spots. It's not entirely black, there's some remnants of stomach acid that still faintly glow in my vision.

But that presents another problem, as I glance down to what would be the floor of the stomach cavity, and the roiling, bubbling pools of acid there.

That means the acid's gonna rise and get to this spike at some point. And that means I'll be in danger again.

The creature's movement starts becoming erratic enough to reflect into its insides, the world starts to shake and I have to stab my claws into the bony structure under me in order to not be thrown off it, already, the stomach acids are shaking all over the place and rising.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'm only in a small pocket of air within the stomach... Looking at the fleshy structures more closely, they've got uneven, irregular shapes.

Stomach cancer maybe?

How could that information help me? It might not even be true. Well, it's not like I had anything else to do. I waited until the pools of acid receded a little and seemed to calm, and then ran down the stomach lining, making sure my claws always found purchase as I did, and then I landed on one of the islands.

It burned to just stand on it, the stomach acid was very caustic.

Then I went ahead and... slashed at the tumorous growth looking thing, splitting it open, and the moment I did, it burst, sending me flying in the foul smelling air, though I was able to catch myself on one of the walls rather than smashing into it, scrambling to find purchase with my claws on the slippery inner lining.

Then I ran to another one, and slashed at it while running away this time, ensuring I didn't get caught up in the resulting explosion as it burst. Then another, and another, until I had gone through all the tumorous growths I had found.

There were so many that were small and too close to the stomach acid to hit, especially as it became more unstable, roiling and shaking more. The creature's movements were like earthquakes, its monstrous proportions making even the smallest move feel like the world itself was shaking.

The air was filling with even more foul and disgusting odors, it was like a stink bomb had gone off, rotten eggs, sulfur and corpses all combined into a single disgusting bouquet, and I can't even plug my nose closed.

But it was working. The stomach cramping began with sudden interruptions of the pulsing of the walls that were more violent and jerky with each one that happened. Soon the walls were beating in parallel rhythms, and the pools of acid beneath me already started to look like a boiling cauldron...

Just then, an absolutely massive impact shook the entire world and caved in one of the stomach walls, and that was the final straw.

Suddenly, a vacuum in pressure formed and the sphincter that closed the entrance to the stomach opened, and I was being pulled along at mach speeds through the extremely dangerous spiny and spiked tunnel that was the creature's upper digestive tract, until finally, I got back into the rows of teeth that were its maws, only to see the light for the first time as it opened its mouth and I came out flying like a bullet.

I was snatched out of the air by a black winged angel in a black long sleeved gown that was made of smooth silk that triggered all of my instincts to run my claws all over it.

"Got you!!"

That voice was Reiko's, and I looked at her. She had exchanged most of her armor for what looked like jewelry. Silver bands around her biceps and wrists, another around her neck, a coronet around her head and another around her waist, all over the black gown. The almost liquid fabric slipped easily around us as her wings beat, leaving behind a cloud of quickly fading black feathers.

We moved out of the way just in time for a torrent of glowing yellow barf to cover the space where we'd been not moments ago, a skyscraper-sized waterfall of monstrous vomit that melted an entire building to nothing as it landed, and caused untold damage both via the flooding and the fact that it was acid.

The creature seemed to recover quickly, however, and while still dripping vomit from its open jaws, it swung one of its many arms at us.

With another wingbeat, Reiko evaded the attack, and before a follow up could be thrown, a gigantic pink laser came down from the sky and struck it in the face, knocking it back.

I looked up to see Marina, in a featureless white gown, with golden bands around her biceps, wrists and waist, and a golden coronet on her head. From our position I could also see that she was wearing armored boots and thigh bands, assuming Reiko wore the same.

She had glowing white wings that left behind a cloud of white feathers as she moved out of the way from what appeared to be an eye beam attack that swiped the sky, leaving behind bursts of explosions as if it was an anti air flak laser beam.

Right.

So we coordinated somehow to cause it to vomit me out.

Somewhere along the way they must've found a way to transform into a greater form.

And...

Well.

Isn't that lovely.

There's stupid civilians in the middle of the battlefield, because of course there are.

"What are those people doing..!" Reiko hissed.

She couldn't see as well as I could, those were drunk people and-

Fucking shit.

That's Marina's parents right there.

The monster noticed them, and it swept with one of its three remaining arms, which I only just now noticed it only had three arms now, and threw its hand towards the drunken idiots, open as if to grab them to eat them.

Before either myself or Reiko could even think of what to do, Marina was there like a flash, catching the hand in mid air and blocking it with a long white rod that I figure was the staff she used to use, it had a heart shaped gem wrapped in gold at its tip so it had to be.

She was then pushed all the way to the ground and managed to dig her heels, breaking the asphalt under her until she was just meters away from the people behind her.

The impact was so strong it actually blew the pink out of her hair for a moment there.

I could see her turn around and bark something at the civilians behind her, but I couldn't tell what it was.

Almost all of them ran, but her idiot parents stayed behind, opening and closing their mouths like fish out of the water. No doubt they'd recognized their daughter. Shocking to me, I've been in that family enough to know they barely know her.

"We have to help!"

Reiko flew us both down and materialized her weapon, which had a black heart shaped gem set on the hilt of the blade of her spear, which had grown slightly and become a little more curved, with a silvery sheen.

I wasn't surprised by anything anymore, but her speed was still shocking as we made it to the wrist of the beast, and with a full power swipe of my claws and a swing of her spear, we cut the hand through, her weapon smashed the bone and my claws rent the flesh. The creature pulled its now handless arm back screaming, splashing burning blood everywhere as it did.

"Marina!! Are you okay!?" Reiko shouted.

"Y-Yes! I am! But- the civilians-"

"Don't worry about them now!" Reiko shouted. "They'll be fine if we take care of the monster!" she said.

"But... despite all the damage we did..." Marina panted, pointing her staff at the monster.

It was already regenerating, A burst of nasty fluids heralded the growth of its fourth arm, and the flesh was already forming into a new hand for the one that was cut off and was rapidly decomposing in front of us.

"I have an idea," Marina said.

"Is it a giant pink laser?" Reiko asked.

"Nnno?" Marina replied. "Maybe."

Reiko looked at her flatly.

"All I have is a hammer okay!" Marina shouted back. "Do you wanna hit the nail or not?"

"Can we at least make it another color? Purple. Purple's nice. You like purple right?" Reiko asked.

"Yes I like purple," Marina said, as she extended her staff. "Kuro, please buy us a little bit of time while we charge this one!"

Reiko put the gem of her spear against the gem of Marina's staff. "Alright Marina, I'll give you all I've got! Kuro, all my trust is on you!!"

Well. With that endorsement...

It was time that you really let loose.

Growling you allowed yourself to indulge in a little bit of a rampage. The monster recovered enough to take a swing, throwing a punch towards Marina and Reiko in the middle of the devastated entertainment sector, and me?

Well.

I wasn't playing anymore. It was time to reveal the true power of a house cat.

I burst into motion and met its punch with the strongest bat of my paw I could manage. It was many, many, many times stronger than I was.

But I wasn't punching it. I was doing what cats are best at... throwing shit off the table. I bated its punch away and instead of hitting Marina and Reiko, the creature turned a building into very fine concrete and steel mist.

It tried catching me, but I was wise to its tricks this time, when its hand came to me I was ready, easily slipping and clawing onto its flesh, allowing me to shred its open hand and leave it a mess of cuts.

Belly rubs are only for the people I trust, you shit!

It then tried to turn me into a pancake by bringing its other hand, as if to kill a mosquito by clapping... but it simply isn't fast enough to do that when I'm already expecting that! I ran off of the palm of its hand and the only thing it achieved was to make the wounds I inflicted on the palm bigger by smashing them open with its own hands. I leaped off the hand and onto the ground.

However, it was prepared, it had already raised two of its hands high in the air and would bring them down into a hammer blow that I couldn't bat away, and even if it did, the impact shockwave would vaporize me and everything in the city block most likely.

But...

That didn't particularly matter anymore.

Because with a twin shout of "Purify!", my humans finished charging and launched their attack.

It was, indeed, a purple beam as Marina had promised, and it was also roughly about the thickness of a house, it was two tones, one dark, one light, and it was spiraling like a drill at the tip, though it became more uniform the closer it got to Marina and Reiko.

It struck the creature's chest and ripped it wide open, exploding and throwing the creature back, enough so that it seemed to have broken its back on the huge infernal looking hole it couldn't move out of.

However...

I could tell immediately it wasn't dead. It was still moving. Its flesh was already knitting together.

However, what was exposed, was its core. A human being caught in a prison of flesh. The source of it all. The corruptor.

My paws almost didn't touch the ground, whether it be broken asphalt, concrete, debris, monster flesh or its destroyed internal organs. Everything burned, its blood burned, its acids burned, even the air burned.

But I made it. My claws found the throat of what appeared to be a well put together businessman who was still wearing a tailored suit.

If I had to guess, this man's infinite, endless greed was what caused it all.

This is what you get for putting my humans in danger.

My claws ripped his neck open, and he drowned in his own blood moments later.

And then...

He fucking exploded, and all I saw was red for a few brief precious seconds.

I felt... mighty.

Strong.

I felt it. The power. I can understand it clearly now.

To kill the corruptor is to become the corruptor. It can never die as long as it can find another host. And it has chosen... me. I can feel the corruption flowing into me. I can feel its whispers in my mind. To indulge. To fulfill that desire that burns within me.

With its power, I can have my revenge. With its power, I can slay them all. I can indulge in my wrath and eradicate them all...

Heaving, I spat out a hairball that had a pulsing glowing orb in it.

I have a human to look after, I can't just go murder crazy, don't you know cats have responsibilities for their humans?

Now, I had to deal with that before Marina and Reiko saw the corpse of the guy I just killed, because that part's still there.

I let my claws out and then slashed at the glowing orb. There was no great fanfare, no big explosion. It just... broke and then disintegrated into black smoke that faded into nothing. I think it made one last ditch attempt at possessing me but, ew, it was covered in wet hair and vomit, who wants something like that?

With that done, I began to head towards Reiko and Marina, finding my path starting to become obstructed as the power of the corruptor vanished and its effects on the world began to fade, the city's buildings returning to their previous shape.

This just reinforced that rejecting that thing was the right idea.

I can only imagine how frustrating it'd be knowing that the moment I died, all the people I killed using the corruptor's power would just come back to life. Such a shitty offer.

I found Marina and Reiko, and then I jumped into Marina's arms, and settled to rest after a tiring day.

"K-Kuro... you're..." Marina shuddered. "You stink!"

Reiko laughed. "So do you!" she called out.

There was a moment's pause.

Marina smiled, as she looked at the slowly repairing city.

"Let's go home," she said, "I think we could all use a bath."

Reiko took Marina's hand in hers, and I had to adjust to being held in only one of Marina's arms as she did. Not hard, I am a house cat after all.

Their wings stretched, and they flew towards the same direction.

I have a feeling there's a story there, but... I closed my eyes and simply drifted off to sleep. I was far past my activity quota already.

And as I fell asleep, I wondered... if they have a super form, do I have one too?

 

[NOTTHISWAY]

There are many kinds of abusers, and many a different kind of predator. Marina's parents were, perhaps, the single most common type of abuser known to the world.

They were neglectful and useless. They didn't care for her or about her, and their reaction to getting their lives saved by their child was not to come to the sudden realization that they had neglected a gem of a girl whose reaction to gaining great power was to immediately use it to help others. No, their reaction, instead, had been to make an attempt at monetizing their daughter.

After everything we'd been through, I yet again, once more, find myself comforting Marina as she sits on her bed, hugging her knees to herself. I sat just beside her, curled up into a ball and simply doing what I could do for her, which was what her parents didn't do. Be there, present.

Marina's parents had, in their infinite greed, decided to start pushing their daughter as an idol and hero. Many people remembered the huge monster and the two girls that had defeated it. While few remembered me, that was for the best, since being recognized would make my work harder.

Even if everything had been undone at the end, the Corruptor popping out in the middle of the city was extremely hard to hide. Apparently, that wasn't supposed to be normally the case, but the Hearts, both Pure and Dark, had abandoned the entire area and in their hubris had allowed something to gestate that never should've been.

One of Marina's hands left her self hug and she reached for my back, her fingers digging into my fur a little, letting me feel that her nails needed a trim, and sighing.

"This wasn't what I got my powers for, you know?" she said.

Speaking of which, I didn't even know where she'd gotten her power from. I've never really paid attention. My tail reached for her arm, but it wasn't prehensile enough to wrap around it, instead I just sort of pressed it against her wrist. I can't shake my tail from side to side very well but I can at least touch her a little.

"You're curious, Kuro?" she asked, smiling a little as I turned my head towards her, putting my paws under my body and scooting a little. "I guess I never told you what I wanted to do when I got my powers, huh?" she said, letting go of her knees entirely and letting her legs stretch over her bed. She grabbed me and put me over her lap, and played with my fur, giving me satisfying scratches behind the ears.

I couldn't help purring, it's my physiology, I don't get to choose when and when not to do it, most of the time.

"I wanted to be a hero, like the woman who gave this to me," she said, reaching towards her chest, her hand suddenly seeming to sink into the flannel button up she used for her pyjamas, sinking into her chest, glowing a bright pink, and then pulling out a heart shaped pink gem. "Hehe, it still feels funny when I touch it... can't believe this is really my heart..."

Marina hummed thoughtfully.

"They want me to go on TV shows... they said I couldn't go on patrol because it would look bad..." she grabbed my front paws and raised them, it was a little annoying but I found that it'd take too much effort to do anything about it. "But- Even if the Corrupted Hearts aren't as common as before..."

She sighed.

"What should I do, Kuro?" she asked, idly. "I don't know... I don't know what to do, I just- I just," she was turning red, closing her eyes hard, her lips quivering, "I thought, I wanted them to see me you know? I wanted them to look at me, to be proud of me, I wanted them to tell me that I was good, that I did good... I wanted to impress them but, but- but the only thing they seem to care about is money!"

She let go of my paws and brought her hands up to her face, rubbing at her eyes, sobbing a little.

"Where'd I go wrong?" she asked, looking at her hands, her eyes filling with tears. "I just wanted mom and dad to, to-" she was interrupted by breaking into sobs, "how come they won't even look at me!?" she hissed, bitterly and angrily, "no matter what I do, even if I work hard, if I do all my chores and, and my homework and everything..!"

She crossed her arms in front of her face and turned around, falling on her front on her pillows and shaking a little, grabbing one of her pillows and hugging it to her body, going a lot quieter than just a few seconds ago, clearly struggling not to cry, not to make noise.

I have a couple ideas as to why she might be doing that.

But none of them are good enough that I even want to think about them.

Marina was tired, exhausted physically and emotionally, from a day dealing with her parents non-stop, and they hadn't made it easy, I had watched from the sidelines as they fought each other and then teamed up on her to browbeat their daughter into agreeing with whatever they said.

Honestly, my opinion of Marina's parents has been eroding and becoming worse with every unfortunate interaction I've had with them, but it plummets every time I see them interact with Marina.

Perhaps it was better when they were completely absent, and isn't that terrible?

Slowly but surely, she started to drift off to sleep. Putting the covers on her was a bit of a chore, but I took it upon me with aplomb, using my teeth to gently pull the covers, bit by bit, until I could get them over her legs and then her tors, even as Marina's breathing became slightly more erratic and she moved a little more violently than she should.

I rested my paw on her face, and she slowly but surely calmed, her breathing never becoming truly even, but she did start very lightly snoring. She was asleep, peacefully, and not fitfully as before.

And then it was time for me to get a move on. I left Marina in her room.

I had to jump to catch the knob to her room door, but the good thing about that was, even when I jumped and landed, my paws made me land silently, and though the door made a lot of noise, Marina was so tired she was practically non-responsive to the outside world.

So I could get out of her room and then, in an admittedly more damaging move than I intended, I stabbed my claws into the grain of her door and pulled it closed.

And then, I moved towards the kitchen, where I caught Marina's parents talking hushedly to one another.

"-telling you! It's all the rage!"

Her mother was talking about something, I wasn't sure what. I sat just outside the room and tilted my ears towards it, to listen in on their conversation.

"And I'm telling you that's not it! Idols can never be seen with a man, not even their family, you fool!"

What?

What the fuck are they talking about?

I stepped into the room, slowly, stealthily, not that I needed to, because it was evident they were too enthused arguing with one another to pay any attention to their surroundings. They once again had refused Marina's food, stating they'd eaten outside, and my human's mother had even thrown the plate served to her in the trash bin.

The father planted a hand on the table, shaking it slightly. "Do you think I don't want to benefit from this too?" he hissed. "Her fame's fleeting and we need to squeeze it for all it's worth! We've been housing and feeding her for ten years, the least she can do is at least earn her keep!"

"Fine," the woman finally relented. "I'll need some money to go get my hair and makeup done professionally, luckily Marina's outfit comes with makeup on its own," she snorted. "Bit of a shame about her face."

I couldn't fathom what she might possibly be talking about.

"Blame yourself, it's your face," the man countered.

"Bullshit, if she had my nose and cheeks then maybe she could've-"

I'd heard enough. Honestly, there's only so much disrespect of my human I was willing to take.

My claws sliced through the air and through her hurtful words and more importantly, through the surface of the table, with the same ease, as I leaped onto the table, knocking a glass down.

"Shit!" the father cried, getting up and stepping off, before the contents of the glass could spill on him, causing the alcoholic drink to spill on the floor instead. "I knew we should've kicked this fuzzball out when-"

"Quiet."

"Eek! It spoke! I told you it was real, I told you-"

"QUIET!"

My voice thundered.

I wasn't speaking. Not really. I was projecting my voice, a close enough facsimile of speech. I am a Cat, we do what we want, I don't question how or why I can, I just do.

"I've had... enough!"

Doing it, however, wasn't easy or simple. I was struggling to do it, to say the least. I don't know how to use the power I have, and I don't even know for sure if it's mine originally or if it's just borrowed, but what I do know is that I need to put a stop to this.

"You do not deserve Marina..!"

The two were terrified, each one of them scooting backwards towards the walls of the small kitchen. "W-What, who, what are you..!?" the mother asked, her voice trembling.

"Evil spirit! It's an evil spirit!"

He wasn't wrong, I noted. Some would call me evil, be it for my methods or my goals. And I suppose, having died before, I would be something like a spirit.

My claws almost cut through the entire table, as I made a round trip of the table, glaring at each of them in turn.

"You... are... SCUM!"

The father recoiled, the mother started to reach for her phone. I moved swiftly, my claws cutting through the air as I moved fast, slashing through her phone's screen and batting it out of her hand, it was both broken beyond use and away from her hand.

I brought my face closer to hers.

"Worthless..! Worthless worthless worthless!" I hissed right in front of her face while shouting with the voice projection.

"No no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't-"

My paw cut through the air, my claws leaving a slash on the wall right next to her neck. She pissed herself, realizing that my claws, if they could do that to the wall, would probably go right through her skin and flesh.

While she was doing that, I turned to the Father, who was reaching towards the kitchen counters, likely to grab something, thinking perhaps he might be able to defend himself, but the moment he noted I could see him, he pulled back and dove to his hands and knees, putting his head on the floor.

A salaryman through to the end.

"That girl deserves better than you..." I spoke, letting a meow out from my mouth as I walked, slowly, stalking by circling the position of the table.

"M-Marina..!?"

I growled as best as I could, I don't have the throat of a big cat to make those sounds that could cause humans to shit themselves in fear.

So instead I had to improvise.

"You have... one chance..!"

"W-What?"

I turned to the mother. "Be better... or be gone!"

My head was splitting from all this projection. Honestly, I wanted to simply end them where they were. Abusers of any form were the worst.

But...

"You owe her your lives."

Not just from saving them from the monster's attack... but also because the only reason why I hadn't slain them already was that Marina would be sad if they died. And the entire point of slaying the beasts that prey on children is to avoid sorrow and pain, what good would it be to cause it myself?

"Don't waste this one chance..."

I hissed at them once more, leaping onto the table again.

"Be the parents she deserves, or remove yourselves from her life!"

With my last piece said, I turned around, and left the room, heading up to Marina's room again. I hadn't closed the door fully, so I could close it much more easily.

I slept with one eye open that night.

I've frightened them for now. But this isn't enough.

I'll have to request help from the old man to get Marina out of their hands and into a family that actually loves her. Her and Reiko have become something like battle sisters, perhaps they might appreciate being real sisters, if these two pieces of trash can't clean up their act.

 

[NOTTHISWAY]

It was the best of times to be a cat.

But unfortunately, a cat just can't get certain things done. A panther can do many things, but, unfortunately, eating a face wasn't exactly the most useful talent to have.

So learning I could transform, not just becoming bigger from absorbing energy around me, but also changing my proportions from those of a house cat to those of bigger, nastier and more lethal cats, well, that just wasn't good enough to solve the problematic situation we found ourselves in.

What was that situation?

Well, Marina's parents were still terrible people. Even actively intimidating them had only stemmed their bullshit for so long, and I've seen Marina becoming increasingly worn down by their demands, as they rode her coattails to fame and fortune.

I wasn't foolish enough to mistake her desperation to get even crumbs of approval and affection, dishonest though it might be, from her parents for consent. She would do anything they asked and even though initially they had been too frightened of my wrath to push her too much, eventually they seemed to regain confidence and now, they were pushing for appearances on TV all over again.

It was time to do something drastic, something that tested every moral fiber of my being, that pushed my tolerance to its absolute limits... it was time... to get legal.

Now, don't get me wrong.

Even I am leery of involving the bloodsucking leeches that are lawyers into any of my problems. I've been burned too many times by greedy pricks capable of condemning a child to an abuser's home just for a couple coins, to ever trust a lawyer again. Dealt with a fair few who participated in some of their clients' debauchery as well.

But there just wasn't another way to do this.

I've, unfortunately, found myself having to strain myself, to cast off this superior form of mine to instead take on the inferior form of the beings whose servitude I enjoy so much.

"How do I look?"

My voice was familiar to myself, but only so much. I couldn't, wouldn't, recreate the disheveled disaster of a man who had once been. I looked at myself in the mirror. Some details weren't correct. My pupils dilated and contracted as the light around me changed when the old human entered the room, tapping his cane.

"The tales of the Guardian Beasts taking human form served you well, I see," the balding old guy said, closing his eyes and chuckling. "You remind me some of my son," he spoke, idly. "Although I suppose," he said, looking me up and down, "that might just be an old man's nostalgia."

"Hardly, I used the pictures as a reference," I stated, as I looked into my eyes and tried to concentrate, willing my shape to remain consistent, even down to the way my eyes reacted to the light. A mere illusion, as I could literally feel my perception changing in real time chasing shadows and following dust caught in a sunbeam. "Beard? Or no beard?" I muttered.

"No beard. It'll make you look more professional."

Right. While I had used the old man's son as a source, I didn't look quite like him either, I couldn't quite figure out how to properly reproduce the asian cast to his features correctly so instead I looked like a mishmash of different features, enough to pass of course, but some might consider my ancestry suspect. "I think this should work."

I adjusted the tie sitting on my chest. I didn't know how to tie one, never had a parent to teach me see, but the old man graciously tied mine and even lent me one of his son's formalwear suits. Raising my left arm, I used my right hand to adjust the cuff. My form was slim, sleek, nothing like the haphazard, half muscle, half malnourished, all beat up collection of old wounds and scars I used to be. Even my skin was clear.

I already miss my fur.

Receiving an appreciative and approving nod from the old man, I got out of the bathroom and he followed me. The old man would then drive me to court, which, thankfully, wasn't too far. The lawyers met us there. Old acquaintances of the old man. So was the arbiter, for that matter.

The situation would unfold exactly as we predicted. My sole task was to look professional, trustworthy and reliable. While I didn't really have an identity to speak of, creating one didn't take that long, and I had a really important advantage. The meeting started off smoothly, I was shown the way in by the lawyers, who made some boring small talk as the other side arrived.

Marina's parents.

Immediately, a back and forth between the layers, outlying the nature of the deal, would go on.

Now, what had we done? It was quite simply the consequences of the actions of Marina's shitty parents coming to bite them. To begin with, getting evidence of their neglect was as easy as pie. While talking was a horrible chore, I had managed to do it enough to basically get the story with the lawyers, Marina's parents were terribly neglectful. The next step was to trace their steps and learn what they were doing when not caring for Marina.

Gambling, drinking, partying, even swinging, those two were jewels really, while everything they had done was, strictly speaking, legal to a degree, it was very badly seen, especially in a society in which having any sort of misbehavior made public was shamed even harder than the misbehavior itself.

The next step was to lock down the reason why they were so eager on making money off of Marina's popularity as a magical girl. Obviously, it didn't take long to figure out, just following them as a cat revealed they didn't just gamble, they lost gambling. Not just one, but both of them, had large gambling debts.

Throwing a camera on a collar, no matter how disgusted I was at wearing said collar, netted me all the blackmail evidence I needed. This, bit by bit, was presented to the parents and the lawyer, leaving them a sputtering mess, and getting them to agree to anything, if it would get them out of trouble. The option of being buried in legal and social debris or the option of, effectively, selling their daughter to escape their problems.

They sold their daughter.

I had half a mind to turn into a panther and eat their faces, when they talked as if they owned MY human. But I ignored that, restraining myself, and managing to get through, signing with the fake name provided to me by the lawyers, and effectively, transferring Marina's legal guardianship, after some legal nonsense and bullshittery, to a non-existent man.

I was actually a little disappointed with how easily they capitulated. It was... bad really. They just cared so little about their daughter, that the moment that getting rid of her became more convenient than keeping her, they just threw her away without even verifying my identity. I wanted, so badly, to arrange an accident for them. I wanted to ensure that the next time they were going to a gambling den something would curiously fall from a high ledge on their heads.

Every urge that a cat has to knock something off a ledge wanted me to wreck them.

But I held it in.

The next step was to break the news to her.

The old grandfather had already convinced Reiko to invite Marina over for the night, and after a lot of work, Marina had managed to get over her doubts and hesitation and, after becoming convinced there was no point in waiting for her parents because as usual they wouldn't come, she agreed to sleepover at Reiko's house.

It would be the first time, however, that we would meet like this, as I arrived with the grandfather at the large castle of a home. Marina and Reiko were eating dinner, Reiko was covered in flour, the kitchen was a mess, and the smell of burnt food was in the air. The dining room went unused, they instead were eating on the kitchen, alongside the mess they had left.

Marina was pretty deft in the kitchen out of necessity, but clearly, they'd been focusing more on having fun, than on cooking. Some sort of fried chicken meal, alongside what I suspected to be some sort of noodle based dish. Ramen, I believe.

"Children."

The old man's voice cut through the air, getting the attention of them both.

"Grandfather, I-" Reiko turned to look at him, then, she noticed me. Seeing as I usually look up at them, it's rare to have to look down instead. The uncomfortable feeling of the shoes constricting my feet, of the suit that didn't fit me quite right, became secondplace to the sensation of being scrutinized by the two of them.

I closed my eyes for a moment, and then stepped forward.

"Marina, Reiko," I said, trying to modulate my voice as best as I could. I still sounded a little bit low and gravely, growly even. It was better than hissing speech at least. "I suppose this is the first time we've met in these forms."

"Wait, in these-" Marina's brow furrowed and her nose wrinkled as she tried to put her noggin' to work. "Mister, you know us, but, I don't think I know you?"

"Of course you do," I said. "Of course, you wouldn't know me by the name of Gerald Chloe," I said, pronouncing my fake name in English, "but perhaps if I said it," I decided to be unsubtle then-

"Kuro!" Marina cut off, managing to catch on immediately when she tried to repeat the name I had given her. "Kuro, that's, that's you isn't it?"

"Kuro?" Reiko asked, her eyes opening wide and her hands putting down the chopsticks that were bringing a small piece of fried chicken to her mouth. "Like, our Guardian Beast, Kuro?" she asked.

"One and the same," I said. "Don't get used to this. I'm already itching to discard this cumbersome human form," I said, "but it was necessary for today," I said. "Marina," I said, stepping up to her, "today, something very important happened. And I need to talk to you about it," I said.

"Come along now, Reiko. They need a moment," the old man said.

Reiko looked at Marina, both of them wanted to say so much, but, it was important.

"We'll finish eating later okay?" Reiko said.

"Okay," Marina agreed. Reiko got up off her chair and then headed out of the kitchen with her grandfather.

And me, well, I sat on the dinner table, opposite Marina.

"Kuro, you look really handsome!" she said.

Not the first time she had said this, I suppose from her end, I look the same, cat or human.

"You'd look really good with some cat ears too!" she said with a giggle.

Thoughts for later. "Marina," I said, as I sat down, meeting my fingers, tip to tip. "Today, your parents renounced custody over you, and passed it over to myself."

There was a moment's pause.

"W-What..?" she asked, her voice small. "Kuro, what, what's that mean?"

"What it means is that your father and your mother no longer are your legal guardians," I said. "I am."

"N-No, no, that doesn't, that makes, my, my mom, my dad, I- I should-"

She got up, but I caught her as she wanted to rush off. I'm not good with comfort. I don't really know what to do or how to do it. I grabbed her arm and stopped her, even as she tried to walk out of the room.

"K-Kuro, let go, I, I have to, I have to go, mom and dad, mom and dad can't have, they wouldn't, they didn't, there's no way, I- they promised, they promised this time, a-after, after I went on TV, w-when I completed that, that tv deal, mom- dad- they would-"

While Marina, transformed, was strong enough to easily manhandle an adult, without the extra strength from her magical girl form she was only as strong as she looked, so I could easily use the form of a grown man to stop her, even as she tried to fight me off, even as she tried to break out of my grip, to escape.

Whether she was escaping me, or the cold hit of reality that was her parents abandoning her for real now, I didn't know for sure. "W-What happened, how- why!?"

"Your parents are in a lot of trouble. We offered them a way out. The price was you," I said. "They sold you."

"No no no no-"

She was crying already, her face turning red. She was in denial, but her struggles were growing weaker.

"There's no way, no way, no way! It's a lie! A lie! It's a liee!!"

I got off the chair myself, and tried to help her the way I had seen other adults comfort children. I can't do much, I can't say the right words, all I can do is just... be there, just, hold her even as she clings to me and cries. There's not much I can say to her, I don't know how to, I don't have the words, I don't know what... what she used to say to me those times, I've buried and burned that part of me.

She sobbed and balled her hands into fists and then pushed me, the surprisingly strong push almost shoving me off of her, but I managed to catch myself, and she huffed, angrily, a tremble running through her body as she stepped back. "N-No, no, no, I won't, I won't cry!" she said, sniffing and rubbing at her eyes with her hand. "S-So what!"

I frowned as she turned around, raising her hands and affecting a poorly imitated laugh. "This, this is, this isn't s-so bad!" she called, her voice trembling a little as she stepped towards the table. "L-Look at me! I did good didn't I?" she asked. "E-Even though, mom was never there t-to, to teach me how to cook," she said, "I learned anyway didn't I? E-even though," she coughed, her hands slamming against the table a little harshly, causing the bowls, cups and chopsticks on it to rattle.

"Yes, you did," I interrupted, trying my best to affect a smile, I wasn't very good at it.

She coughed, stepping off and slightly disturbing the table again, clenching her fists. "I did it... by myself! I became a- a Pure Heart, I helped everyone! I saved the city! I defeated- we defeated the corruptor," she said, shaking her head, "a-and, that's- that's all me! I didn't need them! Did you, did you know, they never even showed up to my birthdays?"

I did.

"Not even once!" she giggled a little nervously. "S-So! It doesn't matter! I don't need them!" she said, moving frantically, stepping back and forth nervously. "I don't need them at all!" she giggled. "I'll have my own family!" she called. "With, with Reiko, a-and Kuro, and grampy, and, and everyone, my friends, my family," she said. "Right?" she asked.

She was brittle, then. Fragile.

"Right," I said.

"So that's good! I'm good!" she called, giggling a little hysterically. "We're good!"

"Yeah..." I said, closing my eyes and sighing.

She turned around to walk past me but I stopped her. I was still crouched, and I caught her by the waist.

"K-Kuro, I'm fine, it's fine, I-"

I turned her to look at me. Her face was red, she was crying openly now, she was desperately trying not to break down.

"Why didn't they like me..?" she asked, her voice very small. "Was I... not good enough?" she asked. "Was it my fault?"

I pulled her into my body and carefully hugged her, as she broke down, sobbing, crying and screaming her rage and her despair all at once, wailing into my chest, as I could do nothing but feel her pain as if it were my own.

 

[NOTTHISWAY]

Nobody suspects a cat sitting on the floor besides a set of stairs of anything untoward.

So the man I was observing didn't think anything was afoot even as he walked past me and towards the stairs. He was wearing sandals, as I had predicted due to the heat, and when he stepped on the sticky, nearly dried spilled sugary fruity drink, the sandal he was wearing stuck to it, not completely, but, just enough that he lost his footing.

The next thing he did was attempt to grab onto the handrail, but I had already foreseen that he would try that, and so I had taken the opportunity to pee on the handrail.

Now, it was also nearly dry due to the heat of the summer sun, and that meant, when his hand grabbed onto the rail, it didn't slide along it to slow down his fall down the stairs giving him a chance to catch himself, instead, in his panic he grabbed hard and thanks to how sticky it was, rather than stopping himself, he actually lost his balance even worse, ensuring that rather than falling forward and being able to put his arms in front of his face, his grip on the handrail would cause him to turn around.

So the man spun as he fell and the back of his head impacted at the bottom of the steps.

Six steps down of a fall, but in his own panic he had increased the velocity of the fall with his flailing, hitting the ground hard enough that he would not be surviving that.

I licked my paws to get rid of the last remnants of the fruity drink I had spilled on the ground, and then departed. It took two attempts, a new record low for something this precise, and I'm impressed with myself, I must say.

Thus, I completed my work and left, leaving him for the other afternoon park walker to discover him, always an important step to make sure someone was around to inform the authorities of an accident occurring in a public place where children could chance upon a dead body.

I used my overpowered cat physique to take to the roofs to leave unseen, not that people overly cared what a cat was doing, and rapidly crossed them towards home at first, then remembering I had to go to school.

As I walked, I thought about how things had changed since I had needed to create my human identity. To think there'd come a day where I would say that I prefer being a cat than having thumbs. Sure, they're useful for sure, allows me to get back to setting up accidents for assholes, but, humans lack the fluff and fur necessary to comfort girls in their time of need.

Also I've found out I was always supposed to transform into a bigger form for combat. Apparently it's a common thing for guardian beasts like myself. I've found it unwieldy and its lack of agility problematic.

On the other hand, it is absolutely a better form to serve as a hug pillow for a certain someone to use, and I suppose that is as worthy a purpose as one gets. Also my 'battle' form cleans way easier than my standby form's fur so also good for that.

Marina and Reiko are growing up well. Though I had never intended to, I've had to take a more paternal position than I would've wished... with Reiko now joining Marina's class, they somehow combined their power to make me attend the sports festival, the first one since Reiko and Marina started attending the same class.

A part of me does wish they weren't growing quite so well. Them attracting so many gazes is... convenient, if I say so, for hunting a certain kind of prey, but at the same time, I would gladly give up that convenience if it meant they didn't get pests and monsters like the one I had just slain after them.

Once I was close enough to school, I jumped off the roof into the closest out of view alley and took the form I was used to. I don't know how exactly the thing with my clothes appearing as I take human form works, I only know that it does.

With the old man's resources and using the power of Reiko's family name, I'd managed to give myself an identity as a wealthy mysterious man that existed and had enough power and influence that people didn't question me.

The entrance to the school was open and being manned by a small group of students, with a teacher nearby supervising just for safety's sake, as the students simulated being in charge for the festival. They checked my ID and invitation to the festival, and I handed over a couple of bills in exchange for tickets.

Fundraising. How quaint.

Once that was done, I was directed to Marina and Reiko's classroom, where they had set up a traditional themed café. Apparently, the theme was maids and butlers. I was glad to see that their work was paying off when I stepped in, dodging around the chaotic decorations of the school hallways, navigating it as easily as I ever did since I've been here a lot as a cat.

I found their classroom, and after handing over my ticket, I was allowed into the 'café'. There was a hastily setup station in one of the corners of the classroom where they had a couple desks brought together to serve as a table where they had set up their coffee and snacks, which caught my eye as the light reflected off the metal surface of a thermos.

However, one of the girls, dressed in a long black dress and a white apron, approached me. Marina's hair was longer and her headdress kept it in an unusual do, but she would still be Marina.

"Kuro!" she said, a smile blossoming on her face as she almost ran towards me. These days the corners of her lips are curling up as they used to instead of that awkward stiffness. "You came!"

I hummed. Talking was still not my favorite thing to do, so I nodded in response instead.

"Come on- err, Master!" she said, correcting her tone, the exuberant demeanor being replaced by a slightly more controlled, more professional manner of speech. She couldn't quite manage sounding formal, mind you, but at least she tried. "Have a seat!"

The chairs weren't really meant for adults to use them, neither were the desks, but I could manage as she guided me to what was two desks put together to simulate a table, with a sheet thrown over it. It was a little ramshackle but nobody expected café quality from students, and the parents around me were clearly enjoying being attended to by their own children. There were more girls than boys in Marina and Reiko's class, but there were more boys serving.

Marina smiled brightly. "Coffee? Tea?" she asked.

"Milk?" I more asked than ordered.

She couldn't help the little laugh as she remembered after a few moments that despite what I may look like... I was still a cat. Not fond of coffee or tea, but milk, that was fine. Given I'd been lactose intolerant as a human, I am quite enjoying being able to drink milk again, which I hadn't since I was a child.

"Hmm! Where's Reiko now... I told her-"

"I'm right here."

Reiko was not wearing a maid's outfit. In fact, due to class insistence, she had her dark hair tightly pulled together into a low ponytail, her makeup was simplified and understated, and she was given a butler's outfit. As she approached me and Marina, I swear I saw several of the girls in the classroom look at her with hearts in their eyes.

She was growing taller faster than Marina, and now had about two fingers of height on her, which Marina was having trouble coping with.

"Good afternoon, Master, how may we serve you?" Reiko asked, affecting a proper and professional tone, even executing a perfect vow, gloved hands at the ready as if to literally take my order.

I reached to the top of my head and patted it. My instincts told me to bat her head, because every fiber of my being told me she was being a silly kitten that needed head bops, but thankfully my human thoughts were still functioning. Mostly.

"Marina, don't you have to do the thing now?" Reiko asked, subtly nudging Marina with her elbow.

"Oh right!" Marina said, "I'll be right back!"

She turned around and zipped away so fast you'd think she was already transformed into her powered up form.

Absent mindedly, I thought about the monsters they used to hunt so much. They never really completely stopped, but there was only one every couple of weeks these days, and it seemed like, almost as if it was a supernatural effect, people had almost entirely forgotten the events that had once shook the city to its core. With no scars to remember it by, and people's memories fading, only a vague idea of the magical girls' identities remained.

That was all for the better. Reiko bought me a cup of warm milk and a tiny plate with some biscuits on it, and I took a sip of it, trying to fit in with the jovial atmosphere, while eating one of the snacks presented.

It took a few minutes for both of them to return, and they called my attention.

As I turned around, I realized Marina and Reiko were both carrying a small cake. The frosting was uneven, the sponge was a little misshapen and the characters on it were so shakily written with such uneven strokes that I couldn't read them.

For some reason it looked like the single best cake I've ever seen in all my life.

I looked at each of them, Reiko was blushing, embarrassed, casting her gaze aside, while Marina had an expectant face, her cheeks slightly pink. As they placed the cake on the makeshift table, Marina pulled a candle out of her apron's pocket and Reiko pulled a long kitchen use lighter from her pocket, lighting it as Marina placed it on the middle of the cake.

"Heheh... it's been a year, you know!"

A year?

My confusion at Marina's words must've shown in my face, because Reiko explained.

"Since... you and Marina moved home and... since you," Reiko's face went even redder, she looked aside.

I was as confused as they came about what was going on, until it hit me.

"Thank you, Dad!"

It hit me like a truck.

It was the first time I'd ever heard those words.

And...

I think I liked it.

It was a good thing they already knew me to be a man of few words because I really was speechless, even as the students around us clapped as if to celebrate what they thought was a birthday.

After all that had happened and all that would happen, these are the moments that make it all worth it. I think I get it now, what I've been missing.

In my life I've had to deal with a lot of things, things I'd never wish on anyone. I've suffered, but... it's at times like now that I find myself thinking, if it was all to get here, it was worth it.

The cake was delicious, too.