Monsters Song (Closed)

He hadn't had a dream for months, no silly subconscious playing midnight games inside his skull causing all kinds of freaky mischief while his high brain was attempting to refresh and recuperate from a hard days work.

He didn't really miss them, like he didn't really miss the tangled mess of human emotions. A small price to pay for his new Friend, the unseen creature lurking where he imagined his soul to be. That witty, cool, customer who whispered dark nothings in his ear and made him feel like the world was his for the taking.

That was, until tonight.

It began like any other approach to sleep. Lie down, close your eyes and hey presto unconsciousness. What came next however was not ordinary, it was as far from it as you could get. The first thing that gave away that blindingly obvious fact was the distinct impression that he was being watched. That someone was peering into his skull while he slept and poking around with no respect for his privacy.

The next was the glimpses of imagery that he was positive weren't his. Was his lodger trying to tell him something? Was that a man in that brief flash of subconscious gibberish, a mere shadow of a broken memory flashing up and gone again. Was It afraid...or worried...he was getting something, it was concerned. Distinctly he felt that danger rising, welling up from whatever dark subbasement this Nightmare Parasite resided in and as it flooded his mind he awoke.

Sal's Zanpakuto was already in his hands before his mind even fully surfaced from the depths and his eyes darted around the abandoned office, one of many in this area of the city, and found nothing. This didn't make him relax, that feeling of impending danger watching from the Shadows was still there, still giving its silent alarm to his survival instincts.

He pulled himself up onto his haunches, his Zanpakuto gleaming in the broken light from the street lamps outside, and gave the room a thorough sweep with his senses. Nothing stirred, there were no whisperings of a spiritual power nearby. Even this didn't settle his nerves and he got onto his feet in the near darkness and approached the window to the right of a dusty desk.

It was quiet outside in the little side street the window looked out on but as his gaze slithered along the street someone stepped from a doorway further up and looked directly up at him and walked away. Now this may have just been sheer coincidence, the guy may have the graveyard shift at work....but that didn't explain why when their eyes had met Sal could SEE shadow wreathed wings flare up behind this person....or why he had smiled.

What the hell was that? Sal asked his primordial accomplice but he only received that strong feeling of danger and mixed in with it...outrage?

He shook his head to bring himself fully from the haze of sleep and rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. Sleeping on floorboards might be good for the back, or so they say, but he would have killed for a double bed and soft pillow.

That wasn't going to happen, he couldn't very well crash in someones bed when one of the fleshy sheep could come waltzing in at any moment. They couldn't see him but they might get a bit freaked out by the stuttered buzz saw noises of his snoring. So unless he was willing to wipe out the abodes occupants he would have to make do with disused buildings that were long due for demolition.

He slipped on his inverted sheath, positioning it diagonally so that its end rested on his left shoulder blade and its opening, where his sword would sit, was on the back of his right hip, and sliding Claidheamh Mor into it before picking up and donning the long black coat he had obtained on his travels.

The feeling of unease wasn't shifting and so he wound his way down the disused stairs and exited onto the side street, heading in the direction his mysterious watcher had gone. It was better, he felt, than sitting around at any rate even if the chances of locating whoever it was were very slim.

"I knew you'd come...." The voice was soft, nonthreatening, catching him unawares as he turned a corner into another side street, above him hung a mesh of Christmas lights suspended from the buildings on either side, twinkling gentle in the darkness.

His blade came up and found the speakers neck instantly, the honed edge hovering just above the skin, ready to behead his watcher should things turn sour. Sal's eyes focused upon the face, partially hidden by a white hooded zipper, and noted the feminine flow of the exposed lower face, the supple lips painted in a soft blue lipstick. Even so...his sword remained in the kill position.

"What do you want." The words were sharp, direct and lacking anything bar animosity toward the woman.

"I just wanted to see for myself if it was true," She began her hands reaching into her pocket, slowly, and withdrawing a pack of cigarettes. "If another had broken through the veil and found a worthy host."

Sal's brow creased in confusion for a moment before the light dawned, she was talking about the thing inside him...

"What is it...and what does it want with me?"

"I see..." She said, sounding disappointed. "You haven't fully communed with him yet. " She regarded him with unseen eyes taking the measure of him from head to toe. "He is Abaddon, the Fallen, the Betrayer..."

The name seemed to stir the creature inside him, the names she called him by, the titles used made it cry out silently the roar echoing through Sal's soul. Outrage, a need for understanding, these were the feelings he was receiving.

"What did it, He, Betray?" Sal asked, his curiosity growing minute by minute.

"The Twelve of course...who else?" He words hit him with a fresh wave of confusion.

"What the hell do they have to do with some Specter" The Exile snarled.

"That's what they are, all of them, vessels for the Dark Ones." She spoke as if he were a child and although he was irritated by it she was right on the money, he felt very ignorant of some very useful facts right about now.

"Tell me everything you know...." He commanded, but she gave a small chuckle.

"I can't, but Abaddon can. Speak with him, Shinigami, learn from him...maybe together you can bring an end to the cycle of Genocide."

"I don't know how!"

"That...i can teach you, its rather simple, more so for you." She began and stepped out of the shadows she had been partially concealed in, letting the hood drop he saw that she had medium length red hair, not bright neon red like all the kids seemed to have these days. It was darker, natural, yet when the light brushed across it, it shone like copper.

Her eyes were, unfortunately, a light green, flecks of silver playing around the iris which, although peculiar, made his heart beat that little bit faster. He wanted her...which could prove troublesome.

"Then teach me..."

They found themselves back at Sal's humble abode, taking up seats at a dust strewn conference table in one of the many rooms on the floor. Sal gazed across at her in the bland light from a lonely, shadeless, lamp on the floor in the corner of the room.

"I still don't fully understand what is going on here..." He began. "Personally i think I've walked right off Insanities edge and found a new one further down.." His eyes played across her face in the partial light that didn't fully illuminate the whole space.

"I thought much the same, once upon a time..." Her words clicking something into place within his mind.

"Wait...there's one of these things inside you?"

"Essentially." She said with a mysterious smile that only resolved to make her seem all the more appealing.

"So..how do i speak to him?" Sal asked, finally.

"I don't really know what they are...i only know that they have some relation to Zanpakuto, in that they exist within the dimensions that Shinigami's Zan's do...so in essence...find your way to your Zanpakuto. Abaddon will be there...although...you may have trouble..." She said, almost all in one breath.

"What kind of trouble..." He responded with suspicion.

"That depends on your Zanpakuto..." Again, with that mysterious smile.

"I'll give it a shot..." And he did, closing his eyes to the world he let his mind settle into the ebb and flow of his spiritual power, diving into the raging torrent within him and finding the rapids that would sweep his mind to the Eternal Battle field, where the damned ones fought without end and fell by the millions to the power of Claidheamh Mor.


When his eyes opened he was not in the dusty conference room, long bereft of rent paying tenants, he was standing in the midst of a thick noxious smoke, obscuring his vision the black mist gave only fleeting glimpses of the battle field that lay beyond, the broken light of various infernos in the distance while an unbearable heat assaulted him from all corners.

Something was very wrong however, because there was no noise, no screams of anguish and terror, no metal meeting meat, simply the crackle of the sparse fires and a lonesome wind playing endlessly upon his desolate soul.

He stepped fourth into the eye stinging smog, hearing only his own foot steps crunching upon, and he looked down, yeah, as he expected, bones. He had walked for several minutes and found nothing, no sign of the viscous and blood thirsty Zanpakuto that called this his domain or the shadow dweller who had recently taken up residence here.

Ten feet or maybe more, he wasn't keeping count, but after awhile he heard the unmistakable sound of metal upon metal, rapid 'pings' upon the wind that could only be a heated sword battle and as he orientated himself toward the sound the smoke seemed to lift, parting like a veil and before him was his Zanpakuto. Wreathed in flame, standing 9ft tall, clad in an unholy armor from head to toe and wielding the largest blade he had ever seen.

This wasn't a surprise to Sal, he had been awed and terrified by the sight of that monstrous form many times in the past. Standing ten feet away, that was the surprise.

It was unlike anything he had witnessed in any dimension he had visited. Standing as tall as he was, 5'11", and built exactly as he was, athletically, muscular but not overly so, like a professional swimmer or martial artist. The things entire body however seemed to be covered in a black, almost metallic, substance, that rippled and shifted in the lights from the fires and the eternal symphony of dying stars that filled the void over head giving the unnatural skin an organic look like it was an entirely separate being from the thing wearing it.

Its head had no hair, in fact it looked like someone had stripped a skull to the bone and poured this ebony liquid over it, while the face was bereft of a nose and the eyes glowed a neon green that seemed to cast an inner light of their own over the grizzly monstrous face. It's mouth was lip less, showing rows of viscous silver teeth that seemed to be locked in a permanent grin of amusement that only added to its demonic demeanor. It was the brilliant white pattern upon its face that drew his eye however, glowing like metal straight from a furnace, like someone had took a brand and plunged it against the black skin.

The white markings bore an unmistakable likeness to a symbol that every human knew, that for Omega, Ω. The semicircle was rough however, jagged and serrated along its curve like someone had carved it with a ragged blade and it was wide, easily passing through both eyes in its arch, the small lines at the bottom of the symbol tipped slightly in a diagonal slant and ending with points at the base of the jaw in either side of the mouth, about two or three inches away from the silver maw. The top of the semicircle was split, a gap of about an inch just above the middle of the brow, and again jagged points traced up the forehead and across the bald head joining up at the base of the skull on the back of the ebony head.

Its weapons, as far as he could tell, were the clawed black hands, the nails seeming extending from the very finger tips and incredibly sharp.

Norongachi wasn't sure what to so, step in, clear his throat or simply watch. The choice was taken from him when Claidheamh Mor lashed the gargantuan flaming blade toward the ebony creature. The sword sizzled the very air on its sidewards arc and its target made no move to evade instead claws swept out and sparks danced between the pair as the gleaming, fire branded, claymore met the void black claws. The hulking powerhouse had been blocked, and with one hand no less.

Now it was the creatures turn, dashing forward like a predator, low to the ground, movements unpredictable yet entirely fluid it practically danced across the gap between them, its claws whirling out in a dervish of blindingly quick and unimaginably powerful strikes that Sal, himself, could never have kept up with. Claidheamh Mor was another matter and with foot work as impeccable as the precise deflections, blocks and parries that harmlessly, and calmly, stripped the threat from his foes assault all the while working in a zig zagged semi circle at one moment losing ground only to retake it with the next defensive move. The creature leaped backwards, bounding like it weighed nothing, and landed soundlessly ten feet away.

"Again... The titan of fire said, his voice booming and metallic like the clang of a hundred blades.

Sal could only watch with awe as the pair reengaged, claws carved the air in blindingly fast movements, assaulting the Zanpakuto from all angels and the quickness of the creature had Claidheamh Mor on the defensive once again.

It, Abaddon, lashed out almost playfully at the Lord of War, claws testing defenses as he moved fluidly around the flame wreathed warrior, dipping low and striking, leaping and striking, he was a literal dynamo of rapid and powerful strikes that left no gap for a counter offensive. One such strike knocked the massive blade aside and just as quickly the other clawed hand launched forward, fingered extended like the tip of a spear.

They found nothing but air, an evasion so fast that Sal could not follow, one second the raging master of battle was there and the next he was gone, reappearing behind the creature his sword embedded in its side so rapidly that Abaddon had no idea what had happened until he was bouncing and skidding across the bone littered ground from the awesome power of the strike.

"Bloody hell..." Sal said, his jaw hanging open, he had never expected such speed from the heavily armored Claidheamh Mor.

"So you finally show your face Norongachi...." Sal stepped forward, standing a few feet from the Zanpakuto.

"I've been busy..." The Glaswegian responded.

"I am well aware of what you have been doing," The armored head responded and then nodded toward Abaddon, who was on his feet again, the large gash in his side seemingly healed. "As does he..."

Sal turned his attention to the frightening visage of Abaddon who had joined them now, the glowing green eyes seeming to pierce his skull.

"We meet at last.." Sal said, his face carved of emotionless stone.

"I've known you far longer than you have me..." The jagged maw of silver teeth barely moved as the words were spoke.

"As comforting as that is, I'd like to know exactly what the fuck is going on."

"When you have finished, we have much to discuss Norongachi." Claidheamh Mor said and then hefting the blade onto his shoulder he walked away from the pair.

"What are you?" Sal asked when they were alone, Claidheamh Mor having stalked off to skewer a puppy or something equally entertaining.

"A watcher, a specter, a ghost..." Abaddon began, his voice was rough, like his vocal cords had been sand blasted, giving each word a deep, dry, and menacing edge.

"There is a space, between the dimensions, where we reside in the darkness...we cannot enter the world unless we are called. Great pain, suffering, trauma or strife creates cracks in a beings soul and it is through those cracks that we enter, forming a symbiotic relationship with our host or...in some cases taking over completely." he finished and the green light of the pupiless eyes seemed to dance and shimmer, casting a misty glow across the utter blackness of the featureless face.

"What do you want?" Was the next most obvious question that crept into his mind.

"To finish what i started six thousand years ago." The Nightmare rasped.

"Stopping the Twelve?"

The white masked head nodded and his green eyes seemed to take on a sadder depth to them, his lipless mouth opening slightly and closing like he were trying to find the proper words. "It must end before they drag all the worlds into the Void."

"I'm doing what i can...all I've done since i landed in this pile of shite is fight. I'm only one man, and it feels like I'm chucking grains of sand at a giant." Sal sighed.

"When you are strong enough we will fight as one, the three of us. Until then, know that i will do what i can but before we venture further i suggest you learn from the Armored One, you will need all his power for the battles to come."

Sal walked away from Abaddon, leaving him to whatever it was a blackhole clad creature did in solitude, and made his way across the war torn soil. The mud underfoot caked together with blood, skeletal remains from a thousand different beings intermingled into a sprawling bone yard that sent chills up his spine.

He had never travelled far in Claidheamh Mor's world, he'd never really had the courage, he guessed, to find out what lay beyond the fires, the screams or the mangled body parts. Now he had no choice.

His gut told him that his Zanpakuto was away in the distance, beyond the broken fires and the volcanic mountain peaks at the south end of this vast and unfathomable track of his soulscape.

Norongachi sped off his feet pounding into the fragile bones of ages past and finally his feet left the broken field in a single bound, his reiatsu converging under his feet, unseen, to form a bridge of sorts that aided him in his apparent flight.

The world that he had known, the killing fields, became small and almost insignificant. Their fires mere pinpricks against the ever present darkness that not even the exploding celestial bodies above could fully penetrate.

His feet moved soundlessly on this skyway, sliding through the low hanging thunderclouds, that crackled and rumbled unto eternity, like a wraith, unsure of where he was heading but positive it was where he needed to be.

The fires faded away and soon the onyx peaks of the mountains were approaching. Their sides slick and reflective, casting back distorted images of the area around them and of what stone they were made of he really couldn't say but being this close to them was disturbing, unnerving even, like they had a presence unto themselves.

The sharp razor honed rock stretched far to his left and right and was almost seven soccer pitches in width, at its thinnest point that he could see, bisecting the geography of the landscape like a titanic serpent straight from the age of myth.

The peaks rose higher as they raced to meet the middlemost and by far the most impressive spire of stone he had ever seen. Upon its surface, upon the backdrop of the reflective rock, were blue veins of what he could only assume were an ore of some kind. Perhaps a metal, that blazed like a lightning trail whenever the clouds light up around it creating the grandest and most awe inspiring visual effect he had yet to witness.

He circled closer, adjusting his footing upon the invisible floor, and followed his gut. He was soon rising up this middle most peak, the black stone showing a warped and blurred reflection of his progression. The stone vanished as he reached the peak, what should have been a jagged point was a flat plateau and in its centre were four massive obelisk's spread out to form a football field sized square. Unsurprisingly Claidheamh Mor stood in the centre of this square and waited patiently.

Cold. That was the first thing he felt as his feet touched down on the shimmering ebony rock. It wasn't an external chill, some dip in the climate due to the altitude. It was inside. Like he had swallowed a block of ice and it was rapidly flash freezing every vein in his body.

Something wasn't right here, he thought, fully aware that he was actually within his own psyche, that all this was as material as a thought. He had no idea why, but he looked down at the rock underfoot, crouched onto one knee and let his hand brush the dark glass surface.

It was uneven, it wasn't as smooth as he had originally thought. Here and there pieces jutted from the main body and it was as his fingers pressed to hard on once of these pieces and it broke away that he could see what it was.

It was a bone. A finger, if he was any judge, separated just above the second joint. It was...almost entirely transparent, literally like glass and utterly black.

"Failures" The Armored War Lord spoke, finally, after silently observing the Glaswegian. "None could best me. Countless remains make up this mountain, and those around them. Will you be any different, i wonder?"

"So its time...." Sal responded, giving the glass bone one last look before throwing it aside.

"Yes, to prove your worth."

Sal couldn't stifle the quiet chuckle that escaped his lips and the flaming stars set in the red helm burned with a greater intensity.

"Lets finish it. Finish it all..." Sal said, quietly, knowing that the great battle was upon them.

The twelve were ready and he was not.

There was no ominous rumble of thunder. No flash of lightning. No well timed down pour. There was a stillness, which Sal thought far worse. Even the dying celestial bodies were quiet. Their fates long since sealed and the sky a black roof that stretched to infinity.

They clashed. The swords clanging and sparking with the initial flurry of strikes. It was hard to imagine that such massive blades could be wielded with such dexterity but the pair, Sal and the Lord of War, controlled the towering weapons like they were an extension of their own bodies.

The Armored Claidheamh Mor was not playing games this time. The same speed that he had kept in reserve when fighting Abaddon was being used to its fullest against its Wielder. The sound of metal cutting air, of swords colliding, shook the mountain top and Sal was rapidly losing any Ego he had when it came to his Sword Mastery.

The hulking metal monster crashed its Flaming Claymore down upon Sal's sealed Zanpakuto and the Glaswegian thrust the flat of the steel blade upwards horizontally to meet the attack. The gambit worked, in the sense that he was not cleaved in half, but such was the power of the strike that he was slammed off his feet, flipping head over heels so fast that the ground and sky merged into one nauseating blur of motion.

'Fuck this!' Sal thought after his 26th rotation, and stabbed the Katana into the Glassed rock, flipping onto one knee and pinning the silent giant with a stare.

Sound the Funeral Bell, Claidheamh Mor!

The ground around him cracked and shattered, the transparent shards rising up briefly into the air like lint and then they were consumed in the fire that ripped from Sal's body, pouring from eyes and mouth to coat his body, to dance across the now gargantuan Claymore in his hands and turning the Glaswegian into a literal towering inferno.

Norongachi was positive The Lord of War was smiling under that full faced Helm as they clashed with renewed vigor. Sal sending a slash from the left that his foe deflected but had failed to see the boot that lashed out toward the armored midsection, boot met metal and...surprisingly the boot won.

The 9 foot killing machine stumbled backwards from the ferocity of the blow and Sal was upon him instantly, the red haze had fallen across his senses. He was no longer afraid, no longer thinking any thoughts higher than 'Kill this bastard'. He was primal now, all instinct and cunning, like a crazed animal backed into a corner.

Sal's weapon carved a blazing trail in a diagonal slash from the right, that his enemy barely deflected, and spinning 180 degrees linked a secondary strike from the left. Claidheamh Mor caught the attack on the flat of his blade and the pair locked, struggling against each others might.

Norongachi was, quite literally, snarling like a rabid dog. Anger was always his greatest motivator and he'd gained a fuckload to be angry about over the last few years which didn't bode well for the Zanpakuto who was now the sole focus of that festering rage.

There are several things one can only learn in the heat of battle. The most important of which, as far as Sal was concerned, was: There are no Rules.

The head butt made the metal of Claidheamh Mor's helm sing and the blisteringly fast elbow that collided with the left hand side of its 'face' forced the song to play out all the more.

The Giant could only take the blows, Sal had shifted to quickly to unarmed combat, discarding his claymore, that he had no time to respond. The punches rained like hammer blows, the powerful kicks threatened to shatter his impenetrable armor. A good two minutes passed with the Lord of War being pummeled mercilessly by the much smaller Norongachi and that was a lifetime in Combat.

Enough!

A simple command, given with such authority that the gods themselves would have obeyed. Flame rose to the Lord of Wars commands, spiraling up like a Hellish serpent and slamming into Norongachi, the heat so intense that the glassed rock under foot began to bubble and melt under the blast of unnatural flame that torched Sal's clothes, pushing him backwards so that his boots skittered and slid to halt the fire serpents advance.

Sal managed to catch the hilt of his Claymore as he was forced near it and with a vicious slash the fire abated, leaving his exposed chest raw, blistered, but other wise unharmed. If it were not for his abnormal spiritual energies he would have become another transparent rock upon the mountain top.

No time to think. No time for a witty one liner. He had less than a second to respond as his enemy launched screaming jets of fire at him, his sword dancing into the air to repel the onslaught. The fire had grown, it seemed to take on a life of its own under Claidheamh Mor's commands and to Sal, his eyebrows all but lost in fray, it looked like a Hydra, a molten multi-headed monster hell bent on reducing him to ash.

Sal hadn't made much use of his ability to manipulate the most destructive of elements. Like all humans, dead, alive or somewhere in between, he had both awe and a primal fear of the flame. Somehow, the ferocious nature of it scared him. Once he had used it, purely by chance and had almost wiped out a good portion of Glasgow. He didn't have the control, he told himself, he couldn't tame his own nature never mind such a pure destructive force.

Now he had no choice. The Hydra's power was growing, the writhing mass of deadly heads had doubled and then tripled and now they were beyond his ability to defend against with sword alone.

The fire that danced around Sal seemed to stir with renewed vigor, the flames shimmering with excitement as his mind took hold of them. The molten Hydra lashed out, thirty heads with snapping maws of brimstone that were intent on finishing the Job and at epicenter of this tangled wave of destruction, stood Claidheamh Mor. His hands casually resting on the pommel of the massive Claymore.

"Oh no prick, you don't get an easy victory!" Sal roared and slashing his palm upwards a wall of Fire erected itself between the Hydra and himself, the pair colliding with a deafening 'WOOMPH' and then exploded backwards to rejoin the blazing shrouds of their wielders.

Sal didn't hang around, he launched himself forward, his sword lashing out as he closed to within striking distance and rising up behind him was a tidal wave of fire that cascaded down upon the Zanpakuto precisely as his strike connected.

The Lord of War was not so easily felled, he had thrown up a barrier of flame to deflect both blows. It was all so quick that Sal didn't stand a chance, he knew that the moment the his lost his focus in the blinding light of the defensive Fire.

The enemies blade moved like a whisper, appearing from the intense head between he and Claidheamh Mor, slashing him across his torso and up to his right shoulder spinning him with its momentum. The first time he noticed he had been impaled was not the pain, no that was taken care of by the shock, it was when he looked down and saw his guts spilling across the five foot blade.

"I...lost..." Was call Sal could think to say, through the spurt of blood flowing down his chin to join the growing pool at his feet.

"Unworthy..." The Zanpakuto said, coldly, and in an instant Sal was consumed in a pillar of flame. His skin blistering and blackening, peeling away from the bone, fat popping and crackling, his eyeballs exploding and the very enamel of his teeth melting away.

Sal awoke in the derelict that he called home. In one piece, no chargrilled body parts in sight. There was just an emptiness, even the girl had left. He was alone. Truly alone, there was no whisper from his Zanpakuto. He couldn't feel the heartless monster, he couldn't feel anything. It was gone...he had failed.

"No..." He began, quietly. How could he stop them without Claidheamh Mor's power! Who could stop them, would want to join this fight except him!?

"NO!" He screamed and picked up the dull Katana that had been his power, his comrade and his greatest enemy since his death so many years ago. It was empty, he could feel nothing from it, no taint of dark power. It was just a sword.

"ANSWER ME! DON'T YOU FUCKING ABANDON ME YOU BASTARD! NOT WHEN I NEED YOU MOST! DON'T MAKE ME FIGHT ALONE! I CAN'T DO IT ALONE!" The words were harsh but he was pleading, scared, he couldn't face this life without that constant terrifying presence in the background, spurning him onwards to get up when he could barely stand.

"I WONT LET YOU! DO YOU HEAR ME YOU UTTER ****! I WONT LET YOU WALK AWAY UNTIL THIS IS DONE!" The fear had utterly left him and rage had returned. He gripped the blade of the sword so tightly that it cut deep into his palm, the blood flowing down the steel like a river.

"What were all those lessons for!? Why did you push me so hard to make me a killer if you were just going to turn your back! I have a death toll higher than any genocidal dictator and you will fucking answer for that! You won't get away from the debt you owe me! YOUR POWER IS MINE AND MINE ALONE AND YOU CAN'T ESCAPE ME!" The words came with more venom than a rattle snake and the blood kept pouring down the blade.

There was no response, just the echo of his voice, bouncing off the bare walls, and then he remembered how he had come to acquire the fearsome Lord of War. The blade piercing his heart in the cave of the Fallen in Soul Society. Would it work? Was it worth losing his life, again?

Too fucking right...

He sunk the Katana into his chest right up to the hilt, felt every nerve along the way scream out in utter anguish as they were severed and then there was the stuttered beating of a heart cut in two and the life leaving his body. The supernatural bindings that kept such a spiritual body together slowly releasing their grip.

Everyone has one final thought before death, no matter how quick, and Sal's was 'Its been one hell of a ride'.

The ground quaked beneath Sal's dying body, the plaster falling from the ceiling and eventually the roof falling in completely in a shower of broken timbers and mortar.

This is a bit dramatic... He thought, absent mindedly and then he felt it. The fire, the sweet scorching flame of sheer power coursing through his veins.

The Glaswegian sat bolt upright like a puppet on strings and gasped as the sheer volume of pure unadulterated power rejoined his body. The Katana in his chest withdrew and its blade broke, extending to its more familiar form of the massive Claymore. Flame belched from its blade, screeching fire that filled the room as the sword imbedded in the broken concrete flooring and then from the Flames a heavy footfall did he hear, and the swords of carnage, blades crashing, shields splintering, the howls of pain and torment.

Sal's body gave a violent shudder as he struggled to bring his Spiritual power under control, his breathing labored as the wound was healed by the caressing fire, and he looked up and smiled.

"We aren't finished yet....not by a long shot" He said with a smile, his brown eyes full of life for the first time in two years. He'd simply been going through the motions, dead inside, lost and very much alone, shut down through all the battles and carnage.

"We'll never be finished. There is always another war to fight." The Lord of War said and Sal had never been so pleased to hear that fear instilling voice again.

"Why did you come back...i failed your test." Norongachi asked, getting to his feet relishing in the renewed energies coursing through his body.

"You were dead long before our fight." Claidheamh Mor said, the bulk of his flaming armor eclipsing the pale moon in the sky above. "And there is no honour in such a victory."

The giant materialized his own, much larger version, of Sal's Zanpakuto and took up a fighting stance. Sal let his fingers curl around the handle of his Claymore and took up his own stance. The pair stood motionless for a moment and then the building exploded in a spire of ethereal flame, the twisting column of destruction rising higher and higher above the sleepy streets of Glasgow and occasionally a flare would snap off and then dive back into the main body.

The pair clashed within the core of this tower, swords clanging, thrust deflected, no ground given, no end to their desire to cause grievous bodily harm to the other. Sal, landed a glancing cut that shattered the very edge of Claidheamh Mor's shoulder pauldron and the Lord of War in turn traced a thin line across Sal's right cheek.

The massive blade of Norongachi's enemy moved like it were a fluid, a beautiful and utterly viscious creature that knew exactly where to strike, where to defend and when to counter. He wasn't even sure if he could win, he didn't care, he had that feeling back. The scent of carnage in his nostrils, that flurry of adrenalin in his heart. He was Sal again.

Sal spun to the side of a straight thrust and twisting partially down the inside of the offensive attack. He thrust out a gut kick and as the Armored fiend shifted back he launched a flaming missile that imploded against the heartless metallic helmet.

The claymore sung the songs of battle as it whistled through the air, seeking desperately only that which could quench its never ending thirst. It found air and Sal found himself without wind in his lungs when a fist imploded his gut.

Shackles of fire coiled themselves around Sal's limbs and stretched them wide, constricting and burning at the same time he struggled to keep his focus, mind working like a predator looking for an escape. He found none.

Claidheamh Mor's strike was precise, a slash to the neck, what he wasn't expecting was Sal's Claymore to meet its edge, suspended in thin air it matched the secondary and the follow up attempt. The Giant was mildly confused when the sword attacked with a ferocity to match its owner, dancing through the air, promising death if their foe was not careful, and all the while casting a wreath of flame across its metal.

Sal watched from where he was, quite content it seemed to remain bound. His eyes followed every movement, eyeballs darting almost manically to follow the rapid movements of the possessed blade and his enemy. When the distance was right, he turned his attention to his bonds, and with a force of will razors of fire leapt fourth and cut his bonds and then rejoined the blazing aura around his body.

He sped onward, snatched up Claidheamh Mor by the handle and rejoined the fight. Their blades met in a shower of sparks and they were almost eye to eye.

"I see you've finally learned the capabilities of mastering the Flame..." The Lord of War said testing his might against Sal's.

"You could say that." Sal said with a smile and let his eyes wander for just a moment to look over Claidheamh Mors shoulder at the rising shards of fire that were lunging inwards at the Zanpakuto's back.

The dying stars that lay behind the eye slits in the the cold Helm less than an inch from Sal's face intensified and with it the heat and intensity of the molten veil. The woven lava daggers were simply disintegrated by the resulting spiritual forces that plowed out into the night.

There really isn't any defense against such a brutal force, you just have to hang on for dear life and pray you have your wits about you to react and that's all Norongachi could do. Battle against the power sent to destroy him, harnessing his latent ability with fire to counteract those of Cliadheamh Mor's..


The raging cylinder of flame that rose like a spire from the scorched earth some hundreds of feet below contracted, the energy it held being stolen by the pair, until all its mass was collected in a perfect, blindingly hot sphere between them, one side struggling to over come the others dominance.

The Armageddon sphere belched out a flare and lurched toward the Glaswegian, the resulting struggle to regain the balance made him lose his grip on his Claymore that fell, spinning down to the ravaged landscape.
He planted both his hands against the sphere, half closing his eyes and wincing against the intense heat on his face. The Giant, his shivering shadow just barely visible through the crimson orb seemed unphased by the calamitous battle of wills.

Only so much matter, ethereal or otherwise, can be contained in any one place and the amount of spiritual energies being pumped into the small space between the two combatants had reached critical. Sal's only warning that he was about to be hit at point blank range by a super nova was the sphere vibrating, and the flames suddenly flowing a dark crimson.

The world went white. Utterly blinding, retina scaring, white and Sal was caught on the outward edge of a rapidly expanding eruption of god like proportions. He hit the ground and went straight through it, plowing into the earth as everything for miles and miles was atomized by the erasing wave.

He had no idea how long he way there, in the dark cool earth, his flesh red and blistered, his clothes turned to ash, but he knew he had to get up. He climbed naked out of his earthen womb, clawing doggedly at the soft soil and then the broken pipes and wires that ran under the city until finally his hand gripped the slagged upper crust, where the blast had annihilated the earth and it had cooled into a slick, glass-like surface.

What his eyes beheld was unimaginable. He had single handedly wiped out a vast swath of the Cities west end. He stood, utterly starkers, tackle swaying in the wind, hairs singed all across his pale athletic body, and stared, open mouthed.

He wanted to say 'Holy shit' but all that came out was a choked 'Gnhh..', he couldn't get his head round it. It was his job to protect these people and how many had he killed...

"Ugh!.."

Sal's head snapped to what he thought was a large blackened section of rubble. It was the Lord of War, still alive.

Anger isn't rational, Sal Norongachi is case and point, nor is blame and Sal couldn't see yet how this was his fault not the merciless warlord, he could only blame him and the anger bled outwards and flame came to its call, converging around his body, casting the terrible grimace in a terrifying light.

He half staggered, half limped, to the fallen 9ft giant and looked down upon him. The Armour was all but ruined, half the chest plate was gone, an arm obliterated too and half a leg reduced to a molten puddle that had fused to the ground. The helmed head looked up at him and true to form its good arm made to slash with the Claymore still gripped tightly in its gauntlet but the blow met Sal's wreathed hand and the Glaswegian snatched it from his fallen foe, the arm falling back to the ground pathetically.

Sal looked the blade over, it was almost as tall as Claidheamh Mor himself, at least 8ft tall and it was far thicker than his own, rather insignificant blade, and its blade was a deep red, almost rock like, fissures and cracked of neon yellow snaked across its surface like the edges of an active volcano.

Norongachi didn't even stop to worry about the moral implications, he drove the sword upwards, having to actually jump on the spot to fully utilize its length and plunged it into the Zanpakuto's head, burning it as far as he could between the bright eye slits.

The maimed Armour quivered as the blade grinded into it, fire belched from the splits and joined between the heavy demonic metal and then it began to separate. First a piece from the side literally magnetized to Sal's body and welded itself there, Norongachi screaming as it melted into his flesh, then another piece, and another until Sal Norongachi was howling from the agony. The Armour branding him with its presence, the demonic curse forever lodged in his body. Spiritual energy howled around him as he tried desperately to tug the plates from his body but they would not be moved and other joined them to quickly.

Norongachi's heart hammered as fear took him, as this vampiric metal sought his body, he flailed desperately as the plates flew toward him, at the spiraling tornado caught raging around him. They kept coming, quicker and with more agony until he roared into the night, his voice bouncing across the wasteland around him. It took less than 5 seconds before his body was covered, before he struggled to move under the weight of the armour and then the part he dreaded came. The helmet.

The Glaswegian tried to turn and run but his body was locked by an inescapable force, by now the spiritual fire was at its most climatic, boiling the sky over head, casting a brilliance that touched the very atmosphere. The lifeless helm rose up from the ground,the dark eye slits flaring to life and he heard it, clearly, a hard proud voice.

"Raise Hell.."

This was not his punishment, this was his reward, Claidheamh Mor had given everything he was to him. He stopped struggling, and let a bloodied smile slide across his face as the helmet turned and split down the back before boiling the skin of his face with its touch.