Toru stood out alone on Shitoko 045, one of the city's sprawling expressways. All around him were the shattered frames of crushed vehicles, and the upturned body of a partially flattened semi truck.

The fiery aura of around forty Category C Flaemis made the usually cold, grey, concrete structure look like the inside of a raging oven. Above the moaning throng of Category C, a single black Kasha looked down on the lone man, its teeth bared mockingly and menacingly.

All around, the beaten and broken bodies of troops from the first division lay still, some trembling, others trying to crawl to safety despite their injuries. His usual partner in these situations, Natsuki, was nowhere in sight, and only the thrum of the fourth division's Osprey helicopter, circling high above the chaos, signified the presence of a friendly element.

All the preparations of the last few days had come down to this moment.

Toru extended his right hand to his side and fixed his eyes on the empty grins from the hostile spirits before him, squeezing the grip of one of his treasured Walther P99s in his left hand. The right sleeve of his uniform was rolled up to reveal a thick silver band on his right wrist, the bracelet came to life with shining gold scripture and began to glow and smoke as if it too were on fire.

Toru braced himself for the onset of pain, and the palm of his right hand began to glow an eerie, blood red.

-

One day earlier.

Toru opened the door of Kiriya's office, in the middle of the labyrinthine Ministry of Defence complex, and stepped inside. The room was well lit, but simple and rather small.

Mami, the new operator for the fourth division, stood by the side of Kiriya's desk, in her hands was a clipboard for taking notes. Toru and Natsuki had been introduced to her on their return to the building in Shinjuku, by a very excited Masaki who seemed to have gotten exactly what he was wishing for. Sadly for Masaki she hadn't shown even the remotest sign of interest in him, though that fact hadn't disheartened him at all.

Kiriya himself was sitting at his desk, originally staring at the far wall, and now at Toru. His serious contemplative expression became a twisted self-satisfied smile at Toru's entrance.

"Chief." Toru acknowledged his commander, and stood before his desk.

"Toru," Kiriya began straightening himself, and giving a nod to Mami to turn on the display behind him. "It's good to see you back."

"What did you want to ask me?" Toru enquired, "Natsuki and I were going to head out on patrol."

"Looking for 'him'?" Kiriya asked slyly, the serious determined nature of Toru's tone of voice already belying the answer to that question.

Toru said nothing, but frowned at the way Kiriya was treating the whole thing like a game.

"About that..." Kiriya began. "Mami, if you would."

Mami obliged, and on the screen a satellite image of a rooftop snapped into being. There were two figures, Toru's eyes jumped to one of them immediately. Even though the image was top down, the unkempt mop of silver hair and unusual clothes were unmistakable, it was 'him'!

"Where is he?!" Toru demanded, planting both his hands heavily on Kiriya's desk.

"We don't know." Kiriya admitted, his expression suddenly serious again. "But Toru, this isn't a fight you should just rush into. If you're not prepared, you will certainly die."

"We've taken out human type apparitions before, what makes this bastard so different?!" The infuriation in Toru's voice was more than evident.

"This one is a Category A of tremendous power. We also believe it has the ability to create other Category A through the use of the Sesshouseki, the stone it implanted in Aoi."

Toru grit his teeth and stared at the image of child on the screen, the other figure was off her feet, her silver white hair draped along the ground beside her. In all likelihood she was dead, at least that's what Toru assumed, but she was the smallest part of his concern.

"Do you hear what I'm saying, Toru?" Kiriya continued, "Had you delivered Aoi's body to the Ministry of Environment as they had asked, it could almost certainly have gotten us killed hunting something so powerful."

"So what are you saying, we just let that bastard go?!" Toru shouted, his composure slowly slipping away from him.

"NO!" Kiriya stood, slamming his own hands down on the desk, bringing his bespectacled face as close to Toru as possible. "Do you think you're the only one that wants revenge for Aoi?!" Kiriya seethed. "While you've been nursing your pride, the rest of us have been working to ensure we're prepared, to make sure that YOU don't run off and get yourself killed hunting something you can't handle!"

Toru was taken aback by Kiriya's outburst, and hung his head trying to force down his own simmering emotions.

Kiriya straightened and walked over to the other side of the room, away from Toru and Mami.

"We've come up with a plan," Kiriya started to recount, his voice regaining its usual serene quality, "I believe it will help us to perform on a level with the Ministry of Environment, and any Category A we might come across."

Toru turned to face his commander, who was now looking out of his office window, into the courtyard of the MoD building.

"I'll do anything. Anything to make sure Aoi's death doesn't go unanswered." Toru replied.

Kiriya turned his head to grin knowingly at Toru. "I know you would. That's why the preparations have already been made." Kiriya turned and nodded to Mami, who left the room at a brisk pace. "Masaki is waiting for us in the lower basement, and so we'll begin immediately."

As they left the room, further down the corridor Mami was talking fluidly with Natsuki, who was carrying her helmet under one arm. The two of them seemed to have become quite friendly very quickly, and it made Toru glad to see Natsuki was finally warming up to her team mates.

Kiriya led Toru in the opposite direction toward an elevator, it was an old, small elevator, the kind that squeaked and scraped worryingly as it moved. Once inside, Kiriya produced a key from his pocket, and inserted it into the lowermost recess of the elevator's control panel.

Toru was reminded a little nostalgically of Aoi's surprising possession of the keys to their old school building, he found himself smiling at the memory now rather than instantly remembering the torture of her death shortly thereafter. He shook his head as the elevator doors creaked together, and made a conscious effort to quash the memory before it led him down a path he didn't want to tread.

The elevator squeaked onwards, further and further down, Toru was beginning to wonder exactly how deep the the complex ran or if the elevator was moving deceptively slow. He had always preferred to use the staircase, something he had a little more personal control over.

His thoughts were interrupted as the metal box shuddered to a halt, and the doors creaked back open. Toru had expected to be greeted by a dark room, with barely acceptable lighting conditions, which had always been Masaki's preferred working environment. It was unexpected then, when the walls were alive with a tremendous amount of dancing blue light, as if it were being refracted through a pool of slowly churning water.

"Yo!" Masaki said cheerfully from a little ways inside the room, standing from a bench filled with tools and charts detailing mantra and scripture, and the effects the different types of wards had on spirits.

"You're just in time," he said picking up a slim metal bracelet from his workbench and waving it at the two of them, "we're good to go, Chief."

"What is this?" Toru asked walking inside the sub level, eager to find out what was causing the kaleidoscope of light on the wall.

"This is the future of Tokusen Four." Kiriya grinned with pride, and followed Toru toward Masaki's workbench.

Toru stopped suddenly as he reached the edge of a wall blocking the interior of the room from the view of the elevator, his mouth agape at what he was witnessing.

"Chief!" Toru gasped in utter amazement, and a slight quiver of fear.

"Ah," Kiriya began looking the area up and down, "This is-"

-

"Seiryuu!" Toru exclaimed closing his fist over the red light from his palm as if to grasp it.

The Category C and the Kasha visibly shrank back as they felt the change surge through the air around the expressway.

A thousand tiny droplets of water formed in the air around Toru, each of them shining with an inner blue light. More droplets materialized and were plucked from the air, all of them rushing to fill a single space at Toru's side.

The column of water grew steadily, five feet, ten feet, fifteen feet, and rapidly onwards creating shining blue column of water that twisted and coiled like a serpent at Toru's side. The water gradually took shape, the tail end of the column thinning, a long row of ridges forming along its back, four three pronged claws elongating themselves from the under side of either end of the column, and finally the monstrous shape of a dragon's head crowned by two horns that resembled the branches of bare winter trees, and sporting a pair of long whiskers that trailed from just below the tips of its nostrils.

The serpentine, water dragon swirled a few times in the air, before its body slowly began to harden the water transmuting itself to the texture and consistency of wood, and just as quickly the the wooden cocoon cracked and split, falling away to the dual carriageway below.

Left in its place, the scales and features of a perfect mythical dragon, shining blue scales, a green mane of hair, and a deep blood red underbelly. The enormous serpent was absolutely calm, its extremities billowing and flowing like the gentle rush of a river, waiting for its master's command.

Toru drew the second Walther from its holster at his back, and flicked the safety locks on both firearms to their released positions.

The Category C slowly began to inch their way toward the Ga-Rei Seiryuu and its new master, obviously nervous at the sight and intense aura of this unknown adversary.

"Go!" Toru shouted to the spirit waiting patiently at this side, which roared deafeningly in response, not at Toru but at the Kasha which was waiting on the other side of the wrecked collection of automobiles. The Kasha roared defiantly in response, but it had not even taken a single step before Seiryuu had advanced on it, coiling its massive body around the Kasha's head and sinking its teeth into the monster's brain cavity.

The Kasha bucked its head from side to side trying to throw the dragon off, side stepping and thrashing its body, unwittingly crushing the Category C that were unfortunate enough to be within reach of its massive feet.

Toru's twin Walthers were making short work of the Category C heading in his direction. The mani bullets, their potency enhanced dramatically by the emanations seeping into them from the Sesshouseki in Toru's palm, cut through the bodies of the Flaemis, disintegrating them in a single shot no matter where the bullets connected.

One of the Category C rushed at Toru, attempting to strike from his blind spot, but Toru felt it coming. He tossed the pistol in his right hand into the air and reached out toward the apparition with the Sesshouseki in his palm.

The Flaemis didn't even make contact, it ran into the area of effect created by the radiation of the stone and shattered, scattering pieces of itself along the expressway. Toru caught the falling pistol, and resumed shooting at another group of of apparitions approaching from his front.

The Kasha howled one final time as Seiryuu finally crushed its neck between its coiled body. The Kasha staggered and fell to its belly, dead and without having taken so much as a step toward the tasty human destroying the Category C that had led it here. Seiryuu roared triumphantly and twisted into the air, then darted down to the rear group of Category C, scooping a group of them up in its massive maw. Steam rose from the dragon's mouth as it devoured the monsters inside, swallowing them completely.

The last of the Category C found themselves either blown apart by Toru's dazzling display of marksmanship, or torn into chunks and eaten by the ravenous Ga-Rei Seiryuu.

Kiriya watched the entire battle from the office of the fourth division's mobile command centre. The perspective being shown from a camera mounted onto the circling Osprey.

"Hahaha! Magnificent! Absolutely magnificent!" He crowed, and applauded the battle alone while Mami watched quietly from his side, a look of utter amazement etched onto her face.

As the final Category C was crunched between Seiryuu's demonic jaws, the Osprey levelled its flight path and began its descent to the highway below. Seiryuu coiled itself up and drifted over to Toru, satisfied by its work and pleased with the contents of its belly.

Toru marvelled at the beast that bowed its head to him, almost as if it were thankful to feast on the other spirits. The Seiryuu reared its head up high one final time, and dissipated back into water droplets which drifted on the night air and finally disappeared out of reach, as if the magnificent serpent had never been there at all.

The rear doors of the Osprey clanked open as it landed, Natsuki and Masaki rushing out to meet their team mate, who was still standing a little stunned at what he had just done.

"Toru, that was incredible! That was totally incredible!" Masaki gawked, as he surveyed the disintegrating pieces of the last Category C, and the slowly fading body of the giant Kasha.

"Toru!" Natsuki called to him, her face too lit up in elation.

Toru turned slowly to face the two of them, the look on his own face a little confused. "Na...tsuki..." He managed to get out before his legs buckled underneath him and he collapsed to the tarmac.

Natsuki rushed forward to catch his body before it hit the concrete, he was a little heavy but she was strong enough to keep him up. Her expression instantly changed to the same look of confusion and fear, she placed her hand on his forehead and her eyes widened in shock. "He's burning up! Masaki!"

Masaki was confused as to why, he hadn't anticipated anything like this happening. He looked at the bracelet on Toru's right wrist, and while it had stopped producing smoke, the scripture was now glowing white hot. Masaki reached out to touch it, and withdrew his finger instantly when he felt it burn the tips of his fingers.

"We need to get him back right now." Masaki threw Toru's arm over his shoulder, and he winced in pain as the white hot bracelet made contact with his mid section.

Natsuki helped him lift Toru to his feet, and the two of them hurriedly moved him inside the Osprey.