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.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

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.