(Untitled)

[1stguardian]

Who: Dante and Ichigo
When: Afternoon, Day 63
Where: Outside of Mario Bros initially, and then around town
What: Clearing monsters out of the fog
Rating: PG-13 for language and violence?

Comments

[tries_too_hard]

It was probably telling that it didn't even occur to Dante that meeting strangers for the purposes of wasting baddies and then maybe getting drunk was a bad idea. It did occur to him, nevertheless, that it was possible that the kid might get in over his head. In light of that, Dante was only more determined to get his ass out there and find...

Whatever his name was. Spiky.

Rebellion balanced against his shoulder, Dante strode along leisurely. His coat, red as it was, and his bare chest were already spattered with blood, and the grin her wore spoke only of cocksure battle-lust. There was still some devil in him, after all.

"Yo, Spiky," Dante called out on sight of the kid, not batting an eyelash as the peculiar darkness clustered around his arm. It looked almost like a trigger to him, even if he didn't smell like any kind of devil himself. "Sure you don't want to back down? No shame in it."

But he knew the younger man wouldn't. Backing down wasn't an option for either of them. Dante could just tell.

[1stguardian]

Sighting movement in the fog, Ichigo tensed, prepared for the attack of yet another bizarre looking bug-monster. But the dark shadow resolved itself into something human-shaped, and when the filaments of mist pulled back, they revealed a normal-looking guy. Well, mostly normal, Ichigo amended, after he got a better look at his new monster killing buddy.

A normal guy didn’t walk around with a big ass sword on his shoulder. Or have white hair despite looking like a teenager. Or eschew shirts in favor of outlandish red leather coats. Ichigo knew that for a fact. Minus the shirtlessness, he did the same sort of things, and he wasn’t normal either.

Being called Spiky earned the cocky bastard a scowl. The offer to back down only deepened it, and when he was close enough to hear him, Ichigo scoffed. “Fat chance, Red.”

He wasn’t the best at coming up with nicknames, but all he could see of the guy was that stupid coat. “But if you want to admit defeat already, I’m not going to stop you.”

[tries_too_hard]

A normal guy didn't snatch two guns from their holsters behind his hips, didn't spin them effortlessly, or bring the two weapons forward arms crossed before catching the handles and pointing said guns at nothing. Not for show, anyway, but the guns twirled again, and Dante shoved them back in their holsters.

"Just make sure you can keep up. Kinda hard to keep you alive if I leave you in the dust." And Dante winked, with a smirk, drawing that over-sized sword.

His chin tipped up, that asshole smirk melting into a true grin. "Now, let's get this party started."

[1stguardian]

Had he not followed it up with the insinuation that he couldn't take care of himself, Ichigo would have been impressed by the show with the guns. He could barely load the one he'd taken from the ruins of the gun shop, and he hadn't tried to fire the thing. He certainly couldn't twirl it around like he'd been born with the thing attached to his hip. But those six words - kinda hard to keep you alive - ignited a spark of offended anger in his gut, and he turned to the guy, scowling.

"No one keeps me alive but me, asshole."

Hefting the blade, part of him surprised by how weightless it was after carrying Zangetsu all over the place, Ichigo stalked forward into the fog, pausing just before he disappeared into it completely to glance back expectantly over his shoulder.

"Try not to get lost. I'm not cutting a decent battle short to come fish your ass out of some deadend alley."

[tries_too_hard]

"Touchy bastard," Dante snorted, but no sooner had Ichigo started into the fog than Dante started after. Like hell he was going to leave the overzealous punk to wander into his death. Had enough blood on his hands, he didn't need to see this kid's there too.

Propping the sword against a shoulder as he followed, Dante swaggered without care, seeming to pay no attention to his surroundings, just the kid in front of him. "You wanna speed it up, kid? I'm gettin' bored already."

[1stguardian]

For a second, Ichigo's teeth clenched, the hand holding the sword tightening around the hilt. Or whatever it was. He still wasn't sure. Not really a sword, but not insubstantial, if the trail of monster carcasses was any indication.

"You want some speed, huh?" Glancing back over his shoulder, Ichigo tossed him a smirk. "Come on, then. Let's go."

It wasn't shunpo. Just like it wasn't pulling reishi together to walk on air. But it was like that, and it happened just as effortlessly if he didn't think about it too much. A tensing of his legs, and Ichigo pushed himself into the air, taking half a dozen steps until he paused to look down at the other guy.

"Well? You coming or what? We get above this fog, we'll find the damn things."

[tries_too_hard]

It figured he's run into the guy that could walk on air, and the disgruntled frown that curled his mouth, for just a moment anyway, proved his feelings on being one upped. But his chin raised, and he shot back the arrogant.

"No, thanks. Think I'd rather find them the old fashioned way." He sniffed. It might have been an offended impulse, but no sooner had he done so than his turned to the right. Dante didn't even wait for Ichigo, instead veering off into the fog. It was more than an idle direction, however, as he was following his nose.

"You wanna walk on air, that's your business. Me? I'd rather stick to the ground."

[1stguardian]

Yeah, right. Sure. Whether it was or not, Ichigo took it as a point in the unofficial contest he'd decided he had going with the guy. But he didn't persist in it, turning with a shrug and ranging out across the air above him, eyes narrowed as if they could pierce the veil of fog through willpower alone. They couldn't, but that didn't stop him from trying

[tries_too_hard]

Dante fell quiet as their attention turned to the mist, the faint rustle of his jacket with each step his only sound. But the shadow that passed in front of Ichigo jerked the half-devil's head up, and Ichigo had no sooner landed beside him than the sword dropped off Dante's shoulder. He feet planted and Dante tore off after the shadow, a smile born of arrogance and mad revelry tore across his mouth.

"Fuck yeah! Let's get this party started!" he exclaimed, heedless of volume, but the headlong rush of flapping leather was less than quiet in its own right. Whether he saw something, or sensed it, or smelled it, or chased a phantom, Dante shot off into the fog with a purpose.

"Hey, kid!," he shot back. "Keep up!"

[1stguardian]

Watching Red's back disappear into the fog, Ichigo was forcibly reminded of one blue-haired, pain in the ass Espada. That too thrilled yell of fuck yeah! had a lot to do with it. But the careless disregard as he bolted off after something that was no doubt extremely dangerous also helped the comparison along.

"Idiot," he muttered under his breath.

Sure, he did a lot of stupid shit. And yeah, he ran off without proper planning and preparation all the time. To attack Soul Society. To attack Hueco Mundo. To deal with the Vizard and the Fullbringers. But when he wasn't the one running off half-cocked, Ichigo could see how dumb it was

[tries_too_hard]

Dante scoffed! He'd show that punk bas -- well, okay, he couldn't really just blow his trigger on a goddamn race. So instead, he just shot back, "Might be quick, Spiky, but I'm the one with stamina."

...Any indecent connotation the rejoinder had was completely lost on Dante.

The half-devil in question was more focused on that dark shape they were gaining on. It was half obscured by what might have been the side of a building but --

Dante hauled up short, his arm shooting out to catch Ichigo back at sight of the thing. What he'd mistaken for wall was actually one of its arms, and his nose twitched after a moment.

"'S a fucking demon," came quiet, half under his breath. This was important. This was. Shit. This was bad.

Dante tossed a smirk in Ichigo's direction. Cocky, resilient, he offered only, "I got this."

[1stguardian]

The look he started to shoot the white-haired idiot for checking him like that was cut off as the dark shape moved again and he saw... Ichigo blinked, squinted into the fog as he waited for what he was seeing to make sense. It looked like a building. One of those huge things he'd seen in when he went into Tokyo. But buildings didn't move. Giant fucking skyscrapers didn't move.

Except this one did.

"Demon?" It was a low murmur under his breath, more to himself than to Red. Demon, that was what? Some kind of monster from Hell?

Hell.

"Like hell you do," Ichigo retorted, tossing the other guy a vicious, nasty smile that was mostly directed at that thing in front of them. His fingers tightened on his sword, his gaze slipping away to focus on the thing as the grin grew wider. "This son of a bitch is mine."

He didn't wait for a response, just charged forward. He didn't know how to fight a building, and he didn't care. This was personal. He'd figure it out as he went along.

[tries_too_hard]

Dante snatched after the kid's sleeve. He didn't know what he was getting himself into, and if Spiky kicked the bucket it would be no one's fault but Dante's. Besides, this was personal... This was...

But off the bastard charged, and Dante, though he snorted, ran after him. He'd been trying to save the bullets, but he needed to get and keep the demon's focus and he needed to do it immediately. So Dante drew Ebony with a twirl and fired as near to the creature's eyes as he could get. It meant that he had to hold back, let Ichigo run on ahead, but the half-devil figured it didn't matter as long as he got big ugly's attention.

Which he did. However, though the dug a massive hand into the ground to pull itself in Dante's direction, it only opened its mouth, something white and blinding charging in it, before its head snapped foward and a beam of that light cut through the air, singing the tail end of Dante's red leather coat as he flipped away.

[1stguardian]

Focused as he was on the demon building in front of him, Ichigo couldn't quite stifle the wince as the gunshot rang out. He may have been carrying one of the things around the last few weeks, but he didn't know how to use it and he'd only ever heard gunshots on TV and in movies. Certainly never up close and personal. It made his ears ring, and he shook his head to try to clear it.

Didn't work, but by then he had more important things to worry about. The giant monster in front of him, for starters, and he gave up worrying about his hearing as he leaped onto the hand it was using to drag itself toward Red. If he'd stopped to think about what he was doing, running up a monster's arm in his human body, he might've faltered. Maybe. But all he knew was that this thing had come from Hell, he had a vendetta against Hell, and if he didn't kill it, it would probably kill the poor guy who'd followed him out into the fog

[tries_too_hard]

At the end of the day, they did more than piss it off. Wrenching his blade out of what might have been the creatures arm, Dante settled the blade back in its sheath with a puff of a sigh and drooping shoulders. Tired wasn't the word for it, because get his adrenaline pumping and he could do that all day, but sweaty and oddly sated, Dante kicked the concrete remains of the head of the demon, and folded his arms behind his head as he rocked on the balls of his feet.

"Not too shabby there, Spiky." He turned a carefree grin in Ichigo's direction. And the words might have been arrogant but his posture was loose and his tone was far from belittling. "You sure catch on fast, kid."

[1stguardian]

"Ichigo," the former shinigami corrected him, as he braced his foot against a hunk of concrete and wrenched his sword out of it. "My name's Ichigo." The look he shot the guy from beneath hair limp with sweat and drying blood was vaguely annoyed. "And I'm not much younger than you, old man."

He let the fullbring fade, replaced dark robes with jeans, a t-shirt, and scuffed sneakers. The shrug he offered took some of the heat from his previous words. "You take on the world often enough, you learn to adapt."

Ichigo took a few steps in his direction, pausing to glance at the dead thing before turning dark eyes to blue ones. "This is what they're like? The things that live in Hell?"