Blood and Echoes

There was a tension in the air of the night.

Renji Kisaragi was still crouched, like a snake poised to spring.

The assassin standing before him, bleeding but still smiling, was unlike anything he had ever faced before.

The Phantom Reaper had witnessed death in dozens of ways, but this… this was something else.

Those red eyes held a twisted appetite, a hunter relishing the thrill of the chase.

Ayame clutched her dislocated arm, breath ragged but resolve unyielding.

Sora's hands shook, psychic energy dancing like static in the air.

The contest had already claimed too much, but it was far from over.

The assassin shrugged his shoulders, the stab in his side still leaking blood, and yet his grin never shook.

"I was right," he mused. "You're worth every second."

Then he vanished.

A blur someone faster than a shadow cutting through the dim glow of the broken streetlights.

Renji's alert instincts screamed as he lifted his blade, narrowly intercepting an execution-level strike.

The impact created a shockwave that sent cracks spiderwebbing through the pavement below them.

The killer rolled over in the snow, lashing out.

Renji narrowly dodged, but the force left him staggering backward.

He had no time to recover himself before the enemy was upon him again a storm of steel and death.

Ayame darted forward despite her wound, her dagger arcing in the air.

The assassin seized her wrist in a quick motion and wrenched her forward with strength that defied the laws of nature, driving her to the ground.

She almost suffocated, her body becoming a source of agony.

Sora's eyes flashed white, and an invisible force gripped the assassin's limbs and held him fast.

For an instant, Renji glimpsed an opportunity.

He moved.

His blade hummed through the air, driving towards the assassin's throat.

Then the impossible.

The assassin smiled and contorted his body inhumanly, breaking bones as he twisted. Sora's grip broke like brittle glass, and before Renji's blow could connect, a savage counterstrike followed.

A knee slammed into Renji's gut, and his breath was blasted from his lungs.

His body folded, and pain erupted in his ribs.

Before he could respond, the assassin seized his face and threw him to the pavement.

The earth split below the crash.

Blood dripped from Renji's brow, his vision swirling.

He had underestimated him. This was not just a skilled killer this was otherworldly.

"You're slowing down," the assassin said to him, standing over him.

"Not like the Phantom Reaper I've heard of."

Renji gritted his teeth, pushing himself to stand.

His body protested, but surrender was never an option. Not now. Not ever.

Ayame, cracked and bleeding, dragged herself to her feet.

Sora huffed heavily, gathering whatever energy remained in his body.

They weren't done yet.

The assassin tilted his head.

"Still standing? I like that.

Let's have some more fun with this."

He flicked his wrist; a sign had been given.

From the rooftops, from the alleyways, from the shadows they came.

Dozens of killers, masked and armed, their eyes shining with murderous intent.

They'd been watching, waiting.

A murder spree was about to unfold.

Renji tightened his grip on his sword, Ayame steadied her stance, and Sora wiped the blood from his mouth.

Then chaos.

Gunfire erupted, bullets ripping through the night.

It was a weave of a scalpel on blood, a dance of destruction as Renji slipped into the storm of death, limbs and lives falling beneath his steel with surgical precision.

One stroke split a man from shoulder to hip.

Another turned to confront him, but before he could pull the trigger, Renji's blade found his throat, silencing him for good.

Ayame was a virtual tornado of daggers, even injured.

She wove between foes, slicing through meat and muscle.

A man lunged for her, and she ducked, driving a blade up through his ribs and twisting.

Streaming blood, and she went without hesitation to the next target.

Sora may be weaker than usual, but he was not defenseless.

Bodies pulled from the earth, bones breaking, throats crushed by an invisible hand.

His nose bled, his vision faded, but he wouldn't stop.

He pressed down heavier, blasting a merc into a de-racked car, denting the metal with the power of the impact.

The assassin watched, amused.

Then, he moved again.

Renji saw him too late.

The assassin pounced, his blade slashing deep into Renji's flank.

A searing pain flared, but Renji retaliated, twisting to thrust his own sword into the assassin's gut.

The assassin didn't flinch.

Instead, he laughed.

Renji's stomach twisted.

This wasn't a routine human response to anguish.

Then something changed.

The assassin's body shook, and his smile widened.

His pupils expanded; his breathing became irregular.

His wounds were still there, still bleeding, but they didn't seem to mean anything.

If anything, they excited him.

A monster.

"This is the most fun I've had in years," said the assassin, gasping. "Time to take this to another level."

Then

A gunshot.

The assassin's head jerked away, blood spraying from his temple.

He lurched, blinking in astonishment.

Ayame stood behind him, smoking pistol in hand, her eyes betraying nothing.

The assassin's body swayed.

He touched his temple; he stared at blood on his fingers.

Then

He grinned again.

"Ah," he sighed. "That almost hurt."

The bullet hole in his head started to seal up.

Renji's stomach dropped.

Regeneration.

The assassin shrugged, blood-soaked, uncloaked, indifferent. "Looks like we'll have to play some more."

More mercenaries closed in.

Renji squeezed tighter and drew a haggard breath.

They had to end this fast.

Or they wouldn't live to see the night.

Blood soaked the battlefield.

Smoke wafted through the night, mixed with iron and gunpowder.

Renji, Ayame, and Sora stood back to back, bodies starting to ache, breath getting ragged.

The assassin tilted his head, grinning, even though he was wounded in the left shoulder by a bullet.

"Regeneration," Renji said, muffling his voice, his grip drawing tight on his bloodied sword. "This just got worse."

The assassin cracked his knuckles, bones popping.

"You should be proud," he said. "Not a lot of people get to see this side of me and live. Well … for a short time, anyway."

Suddenly, he lunged with spiking speed. Renji had no time to respond.

The blades collided, sparks bursting off of them, but the force caught him off guard, sending Renji skidding back, his boots grinding against the pavement.

Ayame made the mistake of trying to dart around him, dagger aimed at his open ribs, and the assassin spun out of the way as if he was dancing.

Before she had the chance to react, his hand shot out and clamped around her throat.

Sora's eyes burned white with psychic energy. "Let. Her. Go!"

Some invisible force struck the assassin, and he was smashed against a wall.

The collision shattered the concrete, sending dust pluming.

Ayame coughed, grasping at her throat, but there wasn't time to recover. The other mercenaries were coming closer.

A spray of bullets ripped the air.

Renji's body moved on its own, bathing incoming shots with his weapon.

Ayame ducked behind a wrecked car, reloading her pistol with trembling fingers. Sora, exhausted but on his feet, sent forth another wave of telekinetic energy through the room, bodies to the back and shins flying like ragdolls.

The assassin rose from the rubble, untouched.

The wound had already been closed; the sadistic grin remained.

"That was fun," he admitted. "But you're going to have to work harder."

Renji was already moving.

His sword struck, quicker than a blink, headed directly for the assassin's heart.

But the assassin was ready for him.

He seized the blade between his hands, his strength monstrous.

Renji's eyes widened.

"Too slow," the assassin said, barely a whisper.

A punishing knee to the gut knocked Renji across the field.

He tore himself through a storefront window, glass exploding around him.

Pain detonated in his ribs, but he made himself to move.

He couldn't stop not now.

Ayame shot at the assassin's head.

One shot. Two shots. Three.

The bullets found their target, but the assassin barely budged.

His body spasmed with each hit, but the injuries closed seconds later. He turned to her, amused.

"That's not going to work," he mocked.

Then, he was in front of her.

Before she could respond, he seized her wrist and twisted.

Her bones creaked and shattered as she screamed.

The gun fell from her grip.

Sora roared in fury.

He unleashed a telekinetic blast so powerful it cracked the pavement below them.

The assassin was hurled backward into a lamppost with enough force to bend the metal. But even that wasn't enough.

The assassin rose, complaining that he was more stiff than tired from a nap.

"I hate to say it," he said, brushing off his blood-stained jacket, "but you three are nothing if not determined. But it is not enough to stay the course without the means to do so."

Renji stood in the debris, his body bruised, but his loyalty to the cause remained solid. His mind raced.

This was a losing battle.

The assassin would just keep coming, no matter how much damage they dealt. They needed a plan to get out  and fast.

He glanced at Sora. "Can you still see into the future?"

Sora's nose had started to bleed, and his vision had become blurry.

But he nodded. "Barely… but I see one way out.

Renji didn't hesitate.

"Then we follow it."

The assassin charged again.

Renji cut his momentum, crossing blades in a feathering of blows.

Ayame still managed to grab her fallen dagger and lunge even with her broken wrist. Sora pulled together the last of his strength, preparing to telekinetically attack with a fury of desperation.

The assassin's laughter resounded amid the chaos.

"Let's see how far you can go!"

The spree of killing was just beginning.