Undercover Investigations (Sal Only)

Kurama had been assigned a secret assignment not four hours ago and he had already been briefed and shipped out. The details on this job were a little sketchy, even he wasn't exactly sure what he was doing. Apparently an informant from the world of the living, unnamed of course, had given a shinigami a message as he was patrolling the Glasgow region. The message had been delivered to the Squad Ten headquarters and looked into. Now Kurama was being ordered to go in undercover, as if being invisible to humans wasn't low-key enough...

He was to were a gigai and constantly monitor his own spiritual pressure to make sure he kept it as suppressed as possible. He was to spend up to two weeks in glasgow and search for anything out of the ordinary, reporting such events to the soul society via soul phone. He wished he had more to go on than that but the heads always did work in mysterious ways...

"Oi! Move yer arse!" Kurama had just stepped out of an alley onto the sidewalk of Union Street, and already he'd been noticed by one of the locals, or rather, he'd just been bashed upside the head by one. Kurama fell on his ass, completely caught off guard by the drunken Scotsman. As the man stumbled passed, Kurama got back to his feet and rubbed his jaw... 'Nothing broken... What an asshole though...'

(OOC: The time is about 10:00 PM)

Sometimes you are just drawn to places and for the destitute, the luckless and the down right shunned the back alleys can seem like the only place left in the world where peace can be found. Amidst last nights trash, the piss of the drunken revellers and the rats these people gather. Drawn to one another as a moth is to a flame, to stave off attack but more importantly loneliness.

Sal was no different, even as intangible as he was in this body he found himself here, huddled against a moss covered alley wall watching the bums chatter round a burning trash can for warmth. He listened to their tales, the slurred stories of the street and some small part of him was sated. They could not see him, they could not hear him, but at least there were those who had been abandoned, damned, left without a place to call home. They, in their tattered rags, were like him.

He pushed off from the wall and with a forward shrug of his shoulders readjusted his long trench coat. It was time for his rounds, this was his city. He would see that it was kept that way, from Shinigami or worse...

The bright lights of Union street hit him first, the whizzing cars shooting up and own the busy street, the sound of laughter and merriment but always the sinister sounds of anger, hatred, violence. It was something you didn't notice when you were alive, or perhaps you blocked it out, but it was everywhere and if you thought about it no where on this planet was safe any more.

He crossed the street through the traffic without looking, what did he care, he was already dead, and onto the other side where The Goose stood, one of his old haunts from times gone by, and turned right waling up Union street toward central station. It was about a third of the way up he saw the assault occur.

He did what he always did, he watched, he could do nothing else. He watched that man get punched in the face and fall to the sodden alley floor and stored that impotence away. the feeling that he could effect nothing that mattered in the world.

"You're in the shit now, but you'll survive. You lucky bastard..." He said to the man even though there was no chance of a response.

"Yeah, just surprised me for the most part..." The Shinigami had replied without even looking at who'd spoken to him. He spit on the ground to be sure that there was no blood in his mouth, apparently this gigai was made stronger than most. What the hell kind of mission was the Investigation Squad planning for him that would require this kind of extra armor anyway? Kurama turned to see a man of about average height, which was still about three inches taller than himself, average weight, and had a zanpakuto strapped to his waist...

"Fuck." 'Good job already blowing your cover to the first person that came your way dumbass!' Kurama had to think fast, this guy knew now that he could be seen but not what the boy was... "I'm Kevin Bates, wandering psychic and self-proclaimed detective. Nice to meet you..." At least under the disguise of a psychic, the man wouldn't suspect him of being a Shinigami, especially since he was still masking his spiritual pressure. His gigai seemed to be suppressing any kind of energy he was giving off as well... Kurama seriously should have asked more about what he was getting himself into that required such a high-tech gigai...

Sal's brown eyes could have punched a hole through titanium with just how hard his stare was at the moment.
What were the odds of a Psychic crossing his path. He didn't like coincidence, it generally meant he was about to be screwed.

He turned his attention away from Kevin. "Good for you." Was all he growled and stepped around the man and began the meandering patrol of the cities back streets. Glasgow was no Karakura Town but every city had its vermin and it had become his personal mission to exterminate as many as he could. Hollow weren't the threat in the Second City of the Empire, they were prey all the same for the plague that had infected the heart of Scotland.

Where would he find them tonight....somewhere public, somewhere busy, somewhere they're prey gathered in large numbers. In Glasgow that was one of a thousand pubs, clubs, bars, and theatres. It was an eany meany miney mo situation most nights. Sometimes he got lucky and hit a big horde, on other nights only one or two Hybrids were slain. One less wolf walking amongst the sheep in any case.

The cries of a Hollow sounded out nearby, very close actually, and its dark spirit pressure foretold its coming, gave hints of direction. That direction...was here. Sal looked up and saw the white masked creature gazing down at him, perched on the roof of the leftmost building in the alley. Its black eyes stared at him curiously and then its grey horned head moved to the Psychic.

"Your night just got worse Mr Bates..." Sal said and began walking again, Hollow weren't his job anymore.

'Of fucking course!' Kurama thought to himself, 'Well, let's see what other toys this thing comes with...' Kurama sprinted towards the alley wall and jumped off of it onto the adjacent wall. Using the alley, he jumped back and forth from either wall until he'd reached the roof top. The hollow wasn't too developed, thank god. Though without his zanpakuto, this fight would be very dangerous. The grey horned beast howled with delight as it noticed its snack coming towards it. The creature lurched towards the edge of the roof to meet Kurama when the snack did something unexpected. It grabbed the hollow's horned and stepped up onto the thing's mask. There wasn't much, other than punching and kicking at the Hollow, that Kurama could do. He was having little effect other than severely pissing the creature off. It bucked and kicked like a bull would at a rodeo, trying desperately to fling the boy off of its head. After having little luck in removing the pest from his mask, the Hollow began jumping from rooftop to rooftop, hoping to shake him loose once again. After it had moved a few buildings away from where they had originally encountered, it decided to try and jump down into a new alley. It landed with a ground shaking, thud. An impact that sent Kurama flying into a wall, and it on its back beside a large dumpster. The two were not injured and back on their feet to combat once more.

Seeing as how his first attack had been unsuccessful, and that they were of sufficient distance from the soul reaper now, Kurama decided to try a kido. "The mountains weep for those who have trudged their paths let their sorrow seep through! Hado #42! Avalanche!" The kido had no effect. It was one Kurama had not yet learned and was hoping to try out soon. The Hollow took a few steps forward, licking its lips. "Hado #42! Avalanche!" There was still no effect... He wasn't letting enough of his spiritual energy out to preform the act for he knew there may have been a chance that the soul reaper might sense him. He could try other, weaker levelled kidos, but this one seemed the most natural looking and he could more easily pass it off as a weak building crumbling do to the hollow's constant stomping around. He couldn't give up, he'd just have to risk letting his spiritual energy out for a few seconds...

"Oh wait! Of course! Spirits of the mist, hide your servant from the unwelcome eyes of others... Bakudo #36! Obscuring Mist!" Out of nowhere a large amount of mist began pouring into the area around him. It wasn't like fog, his sight was still completely unobscured but he could feel large amounts of reishi swirling around him. Anyone else would think the wind was merely picking up, but to the spectators of the fight within, shit was about to go down."Alright you mother fucker! I've got two minutes with you. That just so happens to be one minute and forty-five seconds more than I'll need..."

Kurama released as much of his spiritual energy as he could, which was still only about half due to the gigai's suppressing qualities, but it'd be enough for the fourth seat officer. "Now then! Let's try this one more time... The mountains weep for those who have trudged their paths let their sorrow seep through! Hado #42! Avalanche!" The buildings on both sides of the alley shook with great ferocity, crumbling brick by brick until large sections of the buildings began to rain down on the hollow. A giant antenna from on top of one of the buildings came spiralling towards the beast, the tip aimed directly at its mask. Bullseye! The antenna pierced its mask and destroyed it, leaving only the rubble of the buildings where the creature once stood. Kurama quickly sealed his spiritual energy back within the gigai and dismissed the cloud of mist from around him before it spread to its full distance. There was no way that the soul reaper hadn't heard this so he had to figure out how to explain it once he'd gotten here... 'First thing's first. There is no way a normal person would have survived that without a scratch...' Kurama jumped up the alley wall as he had a few minutes ago and allowed himself to slip and fall, crashing into a fire escape, and and landing next to the pile of rubble below. He banged his head and tore up his leg on a piece of metal, he even landed on a brick, sending a jolt of pain up his back. For a Shinigami of his level of power, this was a light bruising at best, but for a human, this counted as moderate wounds...

He could sense the Shinigami coming to view what kind of destruction he and the hollow had wrought on his city. Kurama double checked that his spiritual energy was completely sealed before closing his eyes and appearing knocked out...

OOC: This is also a kido app, why not... 841/520 for Avalanche...

Approved

Sal did have a conscience, despite appearances, and although it had been dulled and made quiet by the hardships of the past it was still there and now it was whispering in his ear. He tried to ignore it but it niggled at him, gentle and persistant until he swore under his breath and about turned, heading directly for the Psychic and Hollow.

He was upon the high rooftops of the city center when the buildings ahead exploded. He swore some more, much more loudly, and made with all haste to the epicentre or the blast. He landed on the crumbling roof and slid down the shower of debris. He spotted the Psychic down below, unconscious, and with a loud crack a chunk of building, bigger than himself, fell toward the Human.

He pushed his speed to breaking point, which wasn't very fast by Shinigami standards, and managed to get under the falling half a roof, landing he positioned himself over the injured Human and faced the descending danger.

It came within a foot of its rapid descent, spinning and tossing off smaller particles of stone, and Sal braced himself. He thrust out both hands and caught the gargantuan piece of masonry, grunting and straining as gravity and momentum tried to force it on top of him and the wounded Psychic. He didn't budge, every muscle in his body fully focused on the task of stopping and holding the heavy chunk of rock. After a second he succeeded and with more grunts of exertion set it aside before leaning against what remained of the alleyway wall and catching his breath.

"When you wake up," Sal said pushing off from the wall and making his way over to Kevin and squatting down beside him. "Be aware that if there is a next time you'll be catching the building..."

'Jesus, how long has it been?! Ten minutes? Twenty? Srew it, I'll say I'm quick to recover...' Kurama flickered open his eyes as some one would do when they've just regained consciousness. He'd seen it happen once or twice before so he knew the first thing some one did was try to sit up. He did so and groaned as if he was in pain... He rubbed his head and looked around to see the man from earlier sitting beside him, though he had already known he was there the entire time. It's not hard to sense some one who is beside you when that person isn't making an attempt to hide the fact that they were a soul reaper.

Having to suppress your spiritual pressure this long was annoying at best. He felt confident that he'd be able to hide it completely for at least another few hours without the man catching on. Kurama would just have to keep his guard up and watch himself...

"So... Did you kill the poltergeist?" He continued on with the psychic story for it seemed to be working so far. "I guess I owe you my thanks, the ones I'm used to aren't usually that big..."

To say Sal Norongachi was academic was like calling a nun a full time prostitute, but that didn't mean the woman didn't flirt with sinful thoughts. Sal wasn't dumb, he just wasn't intelligent so when confronted by a bulldozed building, an unconscious psychic and no sign of a Hollow the hamster starts running in its wheel and the gears begin to turn.

He looked Kevin over, letting his eyes scrutinize his expression, and gave a mental 'Hmmmm' before standing up and responding. "You tell me, i can't sense any Hollow in the vicinity. So you either got very lucky or there's more to you than meets the eye Kev." He finished.

"The mere fact that I have the power to see you is strange enough isn't it?" Kurama joked, "Why do you gotta make me out to be some kind of freak?" He hoped that this man would agree with a simple solution to what happened if it were offered... "Looks to me like the thing landed a bit too hard when it was trying to throw me and fell. I guess the side of the building came down on it, taking me out in the process... As you said before... I'm a lucky bastard... Hopefully my luck keeps up if I'm going to be following you around." He said it more as a statement than a question. He was determined to learn more about this Shinigami, it's not like he could stop the boy from following him...

"What's your name anyway? Where I come from, if you tell some one your name, you get theirs in return..."

"Its a coincidence," Sal responded. "and don't get yer knickers in a twist. If you had seen half the things I had you would rank a rather beige normal.." Sal snapped and listened to the explanation, it was a sound theory but he'd never come across a Hollow drunk enough to be killed by a building.

"Its Sal and who in the hell said anything about you following me Kev?" He responded with a raised brow.

"As I said..." Kurama began as he stood up, dusting himself off, "I'm a detective. I research strange things, and you sir, if you beg my pardon, are strange." He smiled and looked around the alley, he pretended to take a quick inventory of his wounds before his turned back to Sal. "Besides. I owe you the next falling building. My turn to catch it right?" Kurama hoped this man wasn't one of those overly-asocial loner types. He really wanted to get to know more about this man and why the hell he was patrolling this area as if it was his duty. He was obviously a rogue shinigami, that was for sure...

Maybe he'd know something about what went on in these parts. It was his mission to investigate the strange happenings here anyway... Might as well let the guy help, as long as he remained oblivious to Kurama being from the Gotei 13...

((OOC: Post longer so I can pump out a better reply than that! XD))

"What case are you working on, Detective Bates?" Sal asked, utterly unconvinced. He walked out of the ruined alley, there'd be police and paramedics en-route and he didn't want to be around when the fuzz showed up. Whether they could see him or not, another remnant of his previous life. Some things never really leave you.

He took a left and continued up the street, he didn't even bother to check if Kev was keeping up. If he was that interested he'd bloody jog if it came to it. A roving psychic detective, what were the chances that in the blackest possible moment he'd come across a neutral party in this whole mess with whom he could fully communicate. He still didn't like the coincidence of it but a tiny part of him hoped it was exactly like it seemed.

He adjusted his coat, pulling it around his body as a fierce Scottish wind tore down the street, and tried to clear his head of the last few minutes nonsense. The horde he'd been tracking were somewhere in Merchant City, many drinkers had vanished from the upmarket pubs and restaurants in that area now he just had to stake the place out. If there were Hybrid there his sense would be filled with the strange static they emitted, that feeling of the unnatural.

He hung another left and then a sharp right, which brought him out onto Merchants Square. Black Friars, a popular pub among the student population of Glasgow, lay to the left on the corner while across from it was an O'Neils, an Irish themed bar. Where would be the best place to lay in wait, he wondered.

Kurama studied the city as he walked behind the soul reaper. It wasn't hard at all to keep up with him, his gigai seemed to be retrofitted to emulate his own speed. "I'm currently freelance. Though my last case involved hunting down vampires." Kurama could only imagine that would be what the less-spiritually-attuned would refer to Bounts as. They did suck reishi from people so it did fit in a way that they be linked to the old Transylvanian horror movie villains...

He picked up the pace a bit so that he was walking beside the man. "You don't look like you are one of them... So, if you don't mind me asking... What the hell are you anyway?"

"Evening dress and the whole 'I vant to suck your blood ah ah!'?" Sal asked with an arched brow when really you could have classified Hybrids into that particular myth. Kev didn't need to know what though.

"Wait a minute, you're a psychic detective and you don't know?" That voice of doubt got louder. "You've been psychic since about what....you were six or there abouts and you don't know about the world after this one?" He finished with a hypervelocity stare that could have punched through an Arrancars Hierro.

"Kev, cut the bullshit okay. I think the games are up and one way or another you'll tell me who you are and why after all this fucking time Seireitei has sent someone for me..." He said and stepped out of the small archway they had been standing in.

He kept his eyes on Bates as he took several steps backwards and then he glanced upwatrds at the dark roof of the archway. His senses had been screaming at him for a good five minutes now but could the man sense it? It had taken months before he could accurately determine where a Hybrid was.

"Look up Kev, if you want to see why i'm here." Sal said and from the shadows above the human viridian orbs did shine in the dark and grotesque ape like arms stretched out for him, the skin an olive green and scale like in texture ending in solid silver talons.

O.O <--- Kurama

"Wha- What the fuck is that thing?!" Kurama had never seen anything like this beast in his life, probably not even in his past lives. In an involuntary action that felt similar to shitting himself, the Shinigami lost all control over his own spiritual pressure. Releasing everything that was not being suppressed by the gigai. Though even with most of his spiritual pressure held back, it was now obvious to Sal that this man bates, was at least a seated Shinigami from the Soul Society...

Unable to think, Kurama tried to calm himself. His arms seemed to have started shaking at the sight of the horrid creature. His hand instinctually fell to his zanpakuto, or at least, where it should have been. He cursed under his breath as he realized that he was unarmed, nevertheless, he took up a defensive stance. If worse came to worst, he'd have to find a way to separate himself from his gigai without leaving it to be shredded by whatever the fuck that thing was... Hopefully his arsenal of kido would be enough until then. Why the hell didn't he bring any soul candy?!

"That Kev, is your worst nightmare..." Sal said making no moves to aid the Human.

The Hybrid detached from the roof and landed on all fours in front of Bates, its posture like that of a four legged spider, its breath casting plumes of steam in the frigged night air and its silver fanged maw dripping saliva onto the cobbled pavement underfoot where a small hiss could be heard as every venomous dribble burned into the stone. That was how the virus spread, through bite, through the venom, devouring the soul from within until it was but a husk, mutating the genes and keeping the body in a state of waking death. Forever.

It looked up at Kevin with a quizzical gaze and then it lashed out, the strike did not come from the prominent forelimbs but from the back, the Hybrid arching up onto its large hands and kicking out like a contortionist with its clawed feet. It then lauched back onto the roof for a moment, stuck, and then sprung back down the silver tipped fingers flashing out toward Bates like daggers.

"You have exactly 30 seconds to answer my questions. Who are you really, why are you here and what do you want from me?" Sal said over the commotion. "Oh and he has friends, lots of friends, and they are on their way."

'Shit! Well I guess this is what I'd been looking for, except I didn't expect it to find me first...'

Kurama dodged the first attack out of sheer instinct. Simply jumping to the side as the freak show kicked out at him. It sprung back onto the roof and then proceeded with a second attack, this time a pounce. The Shinigami tumbled out of the way as the strange creature swiped ferociously where he'd stood only seconds before. "God Damn it! Do something will ya?!"

Kurama whirled around to see the creature readying another attack. All the while Sal waited for him to spill his story. In the distance Kurama could hear more of the things heading this way, a faint smirk touched the other man's face. The creature pounced again. Moving his foot back to ready his next dodge and he realized that the creature was cornering him. "Alright, you want to know who I am? I'll show you!" Kurama leapt out of his gigai and drew his zanpakuto, slashing at the thing in the same movement. It went flying out of the alley and smacked hard onto the road.

Kurama's spiritual pressure erupted and sent a cool wind through the alley. With the already frigid air, a light dusting of snow began to fall around him. It wasn't as powerful as what Sal could muster but regardless it was stronger than any force that he'd probably run into thus far. The creature scrambled back to its feet and glared down at the Shinigami. Two of its friends appeared, one on either side of him, each smiled the sickly smile of a predator...

The Fourth Seat Officer lowered his blade and held it straight out in front of him. "My name is Kurama Himura, I am the Fourth Seat Officer of Squad Ten, Investigation Detachment." The creatures began sprinting towards him. "Bow before the Frozen Sage, Kurounin Aisu!" His zanpakuto transformed into a gleaming ice blue nodachi, the air around him felt dry as all the moisture turned into a sheet of ice on the walls and ground. The things scrambled across the slippery ice, still not deterred...

He raised his blade and called forth the first of his abilities, "Aisu Shaddo!" Shards of ice crystallized around him and began spiraling around him. The trio sprang towards Kurama, almost slowed as they soared through the thick, cold air. The shards responded defensively, protecting their master with such intensity that as they drove themselves into the creatures' skin the beasts froze before even hitting the ground. As they eventually fell, they shattered into thousands of small bits of ice and snow, never to harm another person again.

He turned to Sal, zanpakuto still in hand. "I'm not here for you, sorry to say... I'm actually here for these things. So, plan on helping me out or not?"

Well...that wasn't quite as shocking as he imagined it to be. Shinigami was on the list, along with half a dozen other nefarious supernatural organizations that he had pissed off over the years.

What did surprise him was that they'd actually sent someone, after how long? 2 years....it was laughable. He'd pretty much fought and contained, or to his knowledge contained, their fuck up since the beginning and now they sent someone. Not a battalion, not even a captain, but a lone Shinigami, a 4th seat of the Court Guardians. He felt mildly offended for the Hybrids, they were being grossly underestimated.

Sal watched the unsealing and unleashing of the icy doom that consumed the Hybrid trifecta and snap-froze them instantly, reducing them to broken slithers of ice that skittered across the frosty sidewalk.

"That was real Pretty Shinigami....problem with flashy is that...well...it gets noticed." Sal said and as if on cue, the street lamps lining the road flickered one by one and went dark.

Sal heard nothing bar his own breathing, feeling the sting of the artificially cold air entering his lungs. He couldn't even see his own hand, they were in total darkness, even the moon had been blotted out by a thick gathering of black cloud.

He backed up slightly, and edging his way backwards step by step until he felt his heel hit the buildings wall. They were out there, watching, he could feel it.

"The bastards were expecting us..." He said quietly in what he hoped was the Shinigami's general direction. "In light of recent events...i think i will lend a hand." Sal snarled finally and drew his blade.

Sound the Funeral Bell! Claidheamh Mor! The chant was punctuated by the peel of a far away bell, tolling with each word and then the sound of fracturing metal filled the silence there after.

Sal flexed the heavy Claymore in his grip before closing his eyes, which was pointless really as it was just as dark when they were open, and called up his reservoir of spirit power letting it flow down the connection linking him to his Zanpakuto.

His eyes snapped open and from the brown orbs spewed an unnatural flame that spilled out like a fluid flood of flickering crimsons and oranges, covering his body from head to toe before finally dancing its way along the length of Claidheamh Mor and ceasing its advance. In the light cast by dancing fire Sal could finally see Kurama, what he also saw was a gathering larger than any he had seen, lining the rooftops all around them, the slick green bodies scaling the buildings like grotesque ugly spiders their claws embedding in the masonry as they worked their way down.

"I'm going to need stitches..." Sal muttered to himself and hefted the flaming claymore up into a fighting stance.

Two things buzzed in his mind as he studied his situation. One, it was quite possible that he might die tonight. Two, it was quite possible that he might turn into one of these things. He wasn't sure which was worse...

One thing was certain though, he wasn't going to let either happen without a fight. He knew the road didn't end here for him, there was still more to his journey, this was just one more obstacle in his way...

Kurama spent the spirit energy necessary to reform his blade. At the same time the destroyed shards slowly began to rematerialize and join the group that continued to spiral around him. He allowed his reiatsu to flow freely from himself, further chilling the already frigid air around him. He could here the disgusting sounds the creatures were making as they tasted his spirit in the air. Kurama took a defensive stance, readying himself for the creatures' eventual assault...

"Touketsu Reiki." He spoke clearly, the last of the moist air around him instantly condensed on his skin, soaking his hair and robes. The sky seemed to suddenly turn white as hundreds of thousands of snow flakes and ice shards formed, catching the moonlight and casting it about as if each were a prism or lens. As the snow fell, the winds began to pick up, a blizzard would be upon them in seconds...

Kurama felt his energy being replenished, so much so that he couldn't contain it all. This environment was perfect for some one with his abilities to do battle in. He released another wave of reiatsu which completed the already partially frozen walls and ground. Nearby windows cracked and underground pipes, which were used to to the fierce weather of the region, froze over. Sal himself would even find it hard to last more than a few hours in these conditions...

The beasts had finally decided that they'd waited enough and sprang at the two men. The first came at Kurama, who did seem to attract a lot of attention with all the powers he was releasing. It launched itself from the roof with its claws stretched out in front of it. It snarled as if fell towards the lad, longing to find out what he tasted like. Kurama waited until it was within range and slashed at the beast, it was an easy kill to be honest. The thing was dumb enough to actually pounce on him, he barely had to swing at the creature, its momentum did most of the work. Unfortunately the others wouldn't be as careless, they had already begun scaling the slippery walls towards the two soul reapers. About five heading for each man with more staring down at them, this was going to be a long night...

They all knew him, he could see the cold malice of recognition in each one of their bright green eyes as they looked down upon him. He looked back at them with the same cold content all the while his senses screamed unnatural, should not be.

The flames flickered across his body and although he did not feel the cold wind that inexplicably came swirling about them he could see its effects on the area. A blizzard of ice and snow fell from the sky, swirling around the Shinigami, the wet ground freezing outwardly from his feet. Just up the street the metal of a fire hydrant groaned and then cracked the watery flow it had been built to contain burst into the air but its freedom was short lived as it froze into a jagged pillar of ice.

The blizzard that swept across them seemed to avoid the Glaswegian, his own spiritual energies as well as the heat from the flame disintegrating them as they came within his inner most sphere of influence. He flexed the grip upon his Claymore and prepared, the beasts were gathering. Their greatest strength lay in numbers, they swarmed like wasps, scrambling over the fallen to decimate their enemies and now would be no different.

Five of the hulking green ogre like creatures came at him first, the vanguard for the bulk of their numbers, and Sal leaped back as a simian like arm extended like it were made of elastic and gouged a fissure into the road beneath him with its claws. His answering strike severed the arm before it could retract and the howl filled the night air, his flames clinging to the stump, burning away at the flesh and no matter how much the Hybrid slapped at the flames they would not extinguish until the creature were fully ablaze.

Its four companions came in from three sides, two came head on while the other two from left and right. His blade whistled out to meet the powerful strikes, his body twisting and turning with choreographed ease deflecting and parrying each strike from his attackers with deft footwork that with a dip and a turn placed him in the kill zone to slash upwards with Claidheamh Mor and cut another Hybrid down before flipping to the side to avoid a strike.

He landed on one knee and the three made the error of crossing paths, if only for a second, and it was the only opening he needed. A jet of fire slashed across them, turning torso and limbs to ash it cauterized the remainders of their bodies that fell to the frozen ground in pieces.

The rooftops teemed with unnatural life and like a hideous tidal wave they surged downwards towards him, flowing across the street on all fours, fluid and deadly the front most row screeched into the air, claws raised.

Sal saw it almost in slow motion, surrounded as he was, these hideous ogres ready to rip him to shreds....but he was not the same man he had once been. The power difference from Sal in the beginning and Sal now was astronomical and the dancing fire that engulfed his body answered its masters call, a sword of flame shot outwards from his shroud and cleaved 360 degrees around him, extending where needed, sharper than any metal, it decimated dozens in a single strike.

Sal focused his power for the second wave, his energy overflowing into the spiritual flames making them grow and swell, snap and hiss, in his mind he visualized a Hydra, much the same as Claidheamh Mor had when they fought within the confines of his soul. Around him the fire bent to his will, submitted to his vision and in a heart beat he was in the midst of a multi-headed beast, over twenty feet tall the heads rose. The creature was without features, it had no eyes, no scales, such minute details were far beyond his scope of power, but the body was there, the flaming maw, the heads that now numbered twenty and were continually growing.

He lashed his sword forward and the heads answered, his monsterous creation lunged forward, the long necks plunging into the hoard impacting upon the ground they dispersed like napalm, showering those around the blast points with agony.

Again and again the mythical serpent struck, all around him the Hydra had its fill and the world was aflame, fire that would never cease to burn engulfed the street, ate away at limbs and bodies, shrieks of torment the symphony of his prowess. When it was done....the world was filled with smoking bodies, his nostrils stung with the rancid smell of cooked flesh, ash danced upon the wind and made his eyes water.

He looked to the Shinigami and then at the destruction he himself had wrought with his own elemental powers. They were polar opposites in nature, both spiritually and mentally, yet he felt a kinship between them. There would be another time, of this he was certain.

"Its been fun Detective but I think I've outstayed my welcome." With that he tilted the point of his weapon at the raging infernos around him and the flames snuffed themselves like they had never existed. He turned to the night and then with a burst of preternatural speed, he was gone.