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.

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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.