Soul Spark

22 - Hunter Crow

They reached the city. They emerged from different sides, and thus ended up in relatively different parts of it.

Hiroshi, whose newly acquired wings gave him tremendous speed, making him even faster than the Heisei’s fighters chasing him down, ended up going too deep - reaching the southern areas. Sakuto, Ichika and Yumichi, riding upon a shadow-made dragon, arrived in the eastern part since they were coming all the way from Warsaw, at their maximum speed.

The Heisei was in the North, carried by Ichigo and his wings, attempting to catch up to him. The majority of the city was overrun by voidflames and soldiers fighting, but it appeared relatively uninhabited now. The majority of the population there, as well as in other major cities, migrated to the countryside to try and hide from the onslaught of voidflames.

But many parts of it were in ruins.

“Come on, anything yet?” Zawadski asked, as they decided to land for a few seconds. The buildings around them weren’t too tall, Ichigo didn’t have to fly too high up to get a good birdseye view..

“Nothing yet.” Ichigo said. “I think he’s up close, though. I can feel a presence roughly...that way.” Ichigo said, pointing in a specific direction.

“So that’s gotta be him, no?” Yuuka asked.

“Sakuto, status report?” Jian used her earpiece. The presence they were talking about started growing more and more, on the brink of flaring up.

“Nothing so far.”

Jian sighed as she terminated the call.

“We continue searching. And we keep on investigating every corner of this place until we find him.” Jian said. “We need to secure his safety before he is here.”

“Then we better hurry up.” Zawadski said, jumping up on the roof of a close by building. He took a good look around, only one thing caught his attention.

“Hold on...the hell is that thing over there?”

“It’s from the direction that the presence is coming from. Wait, could it be...?”

“Captain, you might wanna come up here. Take a good look at this.” Zawadski said, almost instinctively taking a step back. The rest of the squad jumped up next to him, and Jian took aim.

All that Zawadski saw was a glowing white dot in the distance.

However, once Jian properly took aim and managed to identify the target, her confident expression was overrun by that of utter terror.

“Retreat-”

The area was torn up, as if a force specifically tailored to be a destructive calamity, devouring all that it saw in front of it was cast upon the city. The large explosion rocked the place, causing a small quake to occur. The Heisei, petrified and shaken, came face to face with the harbinger of the soulful world.

Kaito, now closer to them, waved his hand again. Another chain of destructive eruptions took place, the buildings being torn apart like they didn’t even exist. As the smoke went down, he attacked with no remorse.

He leapt almost right in front of Ichigo. Before the latter could properly put his guard up, Kaito struck him in the face hard enough to send him flying. Chasing him down, as Ichigo’s body pierced through a set of buildings and landed back first by the wall of one, Kaito quickly broke the distance, grabbed him by his head and ripped it off.

Six wings left. As he arose from the dead following a bright spark, Kaito prepared to repeat the exact same execution as much as necessary to get rid of the annoying soulful. He felt something very strong hit him in the side of his stomach. He turned to see the soulful that he had appointed to be the captain of the unit.

“How convenient.” Kaito said to himself.

Ichigo tried to clasp his hands, his presence flared up. He tried to use the moment to free himself.

“ ✦ Divine Ring Of- ”

Kaito summoned his blade and unleashed a slash strong enough to cut his body in half, as well as wipe the building behind him and everything else in roughly two kilometers in the slash’s way. Five wings left.

Jian tried to take aim, but she couldn’t shoot just yet. Too little power behind it. Kaito, calmly, swung his blade again before feeling something strike and almost snap his knee. Zawadski joined the exchange.

Kaito slowly turned to face him. Zawadski felt a cold drop of sweat slowly travel down his neck. He, after dying and resetting roughly a hundred times, finally managed to avoid a lethal overhand right from Kaito. The follow-up left body kick took around twenty or so resets.

“All of you, treacherous parasites...” Kaito said. “Where is he?”

“We’re the ones looking for him.” Ichigo said, getting up and taking off. “And you’re never going to see him.”

“We barely kept up with him when we had three times as much manpower, multiple plans and so much preparation...and we still couldn’t get the job done.”

“Now, he’s most likely at the height of his power.”

“...”

“No. Unfortunately, he’s not even there yet.”

“Scatter!” Ichigo yelled, clasping his hands again. Kaito, calmly, extended his hand and pointed at Ichigo. A pure white lightning bolt emerged on his fingertips, ready to lock onto its target.

“ ✦ Divine Acclamation Release. ✦ ”

“What? When did he even activate it?!” Zawadski yelled out loud, jumping at Kaito again. After multiple saves and loads, he realized that there’s really no way to get close to him without getting incapacitated.

Kaito pointed at Zawadski now.

“Ah shit...it’s this attack.” Zawadski thought. “It’s the one that killed everyone back then. I...”

Thankfully, Ichigo and Jian covered him. Ichigo fired a beam of light strong enough to burn Kaito’s hand away, and Jian shot him in the back of his head. The hand was damaged and charged, but the head remained intact, with only a partial bruise being visible.

“Did you assume I’d forget who I am fighting?” Kaito asked, his voice now sounding more thunderous, more intimidating. He kicked Zawadski away and focused his flames into his hands, conjuring a pure white flaming arrow and firing it at Jian’s location.

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“Captain!” Yuuka yelled, tackling her away with all her strength. It saved her from the direct impact, but the blast still hurt the two of them badly.

“It’s all four of them...”

“I’ll get rid of Yuuka Hoshikawa first, and then wear down the old elemental and the captain. The prick will lose his desire to fight me after that.”

Kaito took off. Or at least, he tried to. Every time he tried to soar, he felt that his actions were being reset, over and over. He turned around to see Zawadski standing behind him.

“There. Stalemate.” He proudly said. “You’re not going anywhere.” For origınal chapters go to novelꜰire.net

Kaito tried to push through it, but kept on getting his position reset, over and over. Having had enough, he accumulated enough soul prowess in his hand again to try and activate divine purge. Zawadski, having enjoyed the satisfaction of holding Kaito off for even just a few seconds, was playing with something not even he was sure he could handle. A first time for him.

“ ✦ Divine Ring of Exorcism!!! ✦ ”

The golden light blasted Kaito from the skies. It was not only powered by most of Ichigo’s soul prowess, but also the fear he experienced seeing how vulnerable his friends were - even the ones who were effectively unkillable. And it actually got across - starting to slowly burn away at Kaito, ripping small wounds all over his body.

“Everyone, while he’s in it, retreat!!!” Ichigo yelled.

“How the hell are we gonna do that, he’s gonna catch up to us!” Zawadski said, watching the pillar of light, about to run off. However, something odd was felt by him. Kaito...wasn’t where he was supposed to be.

Jian and Yuuka were also following the advice to get out. But the white crow, escaping from the light, cut them off. He caught up with them relatively fast. Jian shot at his foot, destroying it. But it was regenerated quite easily. She tried to swing at him, but Kaito caught her left arm and, pushing her away with a shove-kick, ripped it off.

She screamed in pain, wanting to enact revenge almost immediately. She took aim, but so did Kaito, preparing to launch a flaming arrow at her. This time, it was point blank. No escape.

“Don’t ever touch my captain again, asshole!!!” Yuuka yelled, concentrating all the fruits of her connection into her fist and dashing at Kaito with alarming speed. She struck him in the stomach, and the attack, strangely enough, was very successful. It broke a few of his ribs and dealt significant pain, but once again, Kaito’s regeneration was not one to be competed against.

“Do you see this, Yume?” Kaito thought. He released a spray of white flames in front of him, knocking both of them back quite a bit. “They betrayed me.”

“But you never did. You’re still here, with me.”

“You...like this spectacle, right? This is your dream. This is what you’d want to see.”

Jian, missing her limb and heavily bleeding, needed to take some time to properly regenerate an injury that bad. But she saw a sight that horrified her. Kaito blitzed in and grabbed Yuuka, jumping high up and throwing her into the roof of a nearby building. Jian tried to take aim, but couldn’t make a difference in time.

On the rooftop, Yuuka tried to recover from the attack, as Kaito’s flaming hands scarred her quite a bit. She prepared to counter-attack, but didn’t notice that Kaito was already dangerously close to her.

“Come on then, you’re no match for my kittens! Go!” Yuuka exclaimed, more pink mass assembling around her fists, as well as feet. She expected Kaito to continue his slow walking rhythm, but Kaito quickly closed the distance. Yuuka tried to greet him with a hard overhand, but stepped to the side. Using his wings to push him around more, he was now behind her.

And he impaled her in her stomach.

Zawadski, seeing the sight, quickly climbed to the same rooftop, desperately wanting to make a difference in what his subconscious was starting to accept as an irrecoverable predicament.

And Ichigo was hovering, looking at all of it. He saw the horrendous injury Yuuka endured, he saw the blood leaking out of the gaping hole in her stomach that was only occupied by Kaito’s fist, he saw the blood slowly dripping off of her lips. He saw the pure flames starting to eat their way through her. He felt Kaito’s gaze

“These are not my soldiers.” Kaito said. “The Heisei that carried out my tasks...these are not the Heisei soldiers I know of. Something...or someone, changed them.”

He summoned his blade in his other hand and released a terrifying flying slash - strong and fast enough to decapitate Ichigo. Four wings left. Zawadski rushed in, but another such slash struck right in front of him, obstructing his vision and collapsing the building he was standing on.

“Yuuka!!!” Jian yelled, taking a shot at Kaito, trying to blast his hand off. She succeeded, at least, in making it weak and damaged enough to the point it couldn’t properly hold Yuuka anymore.

However, she failed to account for the fact that Kaito would not only grab her with his other hand, but also be reminded to kill her off even faster. Yuuka’s presence slowly began rising, but there was no point. Until...

“HIROSHI, OVER HERE! QUICK!!!”

The almost primordially, throat-destroying scream caught Kaito’s attention. For just a few seconds, he was frantically turning his head, trying to find the source of the callout. He sharpened his senses, trying to feel his son’s presence in the area. And only a few more seconds later did he realize, that the distraction was a bluff. The catalyst of the realization was a loud sound going off close to her, just a few times.

It was the sound that he introduced to the Heisei. As a warning to stay out of its effective range, a signal was to be sent through every Heisei uniform, in order to indicate the activation of...

“ ✦ DIVINE ACCLAMATION!!! ✦ ”

“ ✦ DIGITAL OVERDOSE!!!!!!! ✦ ”

The acclamation’s shocking and corrosive power struck Kaito point blank. The latter, instinctively grabbing his ears, let go of Yuuka, who, already having lost a significant amount of blood, plummeted down. Jian rushed to her and grabbed her, and Ichigo, grabbing Zawadski, flew towards them.

“There’s no way...”

Ichigo, going for the pickup, pondered over the bitter realizations he came to during Operation Godkill.

“Digital overdose isn’t enough to kill him, not at all. But it does force him to stop for a bit.”

Kaito was experiencing a headache that would’ve driven most people mad. He barely got his own eyes open, perceiving parts of the world through the awful mental corrosion. The overwhelming majority of his soul prowess was healing and protecting his brain, but the remaining amount was still dangerous enough.

“ ✦ DIVINE RING OF EXORCISM!!! ✦ ”

Ichigo fired off the attack with as much power as he could. It blasted Kaito hard, since he focused on defending his brain, the rest of his body was relatively less protected. The burns and scars started getting deeper, he was in more pain...

“Yuuka! Come on, hang in there!” Zawadski said, as they all escaped with Ichigo’s help.

“Heehee, I’m...fine...” Yuuka said, her voice low and a little hoarse. “Captain...”

“Worry about yourself.” Jian said, holding in her own squirms of pain. She held onto Ichigo with one arm, and tried to focus as much as possible on actually healing the missing one.

“Sakuto, he’s here. He’s onto us.” Ichigo said, tapping on his earpiece. “You guys gotta get here, fast. Use the crystal on him.”

“We’re chasing Hiroshi now, we have eyes on him.” Sakuto replied from the other side. “We’re almost there.”

“Good! Then get that little shit and come towards us, we got two badly wounded!” Zawadski yelled into Ichigo’s earpiece.

“Don’t...do that please.” Ichigo complained. “Oh and also...”

“Hm?”

“Good bluff back then.” Ichigo said.

“Kaito said that he didn’t recognize us...”

He thought of the people he carried, all three of them trying to treat their own injuries on his back. He sighed.They flew towards the direction of Sakuto’s presence, which he intentionally flared up...

“I see, so he’s here too...” Kaito thought to himself. “And among all of them is Hiroshi.”

“Searching for him alone might be troublesome.”

He raised his hand. A collection of soul prowess assembled in it, and a group of voidflames was summoned next to him. Twelve, to be exact. But they were unlike any other.

They had a pair of crow-like wings like Kaito, and a pure white halo above their heads. Their bodies appeared better reinforced all around, their presences were surprisingly high. All the voidflames across the world ceased to exist to allow for these to live. They were armed too, they all wielded spears - with long handles and sharpened soul prowess-borne essence at the tips forming their blades.

“Fetch the central element.” Kaito commanded, and the voidflame angels took off.

“It is almost here...”

“Yume.”

They scattered across the area, heading towards the next highest soul presence. Which, in this case, was...