Undercover Investigations (Sal Only)

"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.