Ichigo Kurosaki moved carefully, each foot step measured, his breathing, no more than the slightest murmur in the still air, his arms raised in order to protect any of his vitals at a moment's notice. For in the ruined old house, old to fire years back, one mistake could be his last.
A feeling, a jolt moving up his spin, and Ichigo dove to the side just as a large grey blur rushed past the space right where he had been standing just moments before. The monster stood up at its full height, just short of seven feet tall, his eyes were small black beads in its large distorted head, its fanged jaws hanging partway's open as it looked at the orange haired boy with pure loathing.
"Found you." Ichigo said as he secured his footing and reached behind himself, pulling out a short silver chain. The monster eyed the chain warily, but did not pull back. It lifted up its arms, revealing leathery wings underneath the clawed fingers and gave a ear splitting scream the shook dust from the rafters.
Ichigo was moving out of the way before the creature had even lunged, feeling the dance of battle taking over him as his spun his arm in a wide arc, catching the monster across the face with the silver chain. The metal vibrated as it came into contact with the beast's skin and the thing let out a howl of pain. But pained as it was, it was still going to put up a fight.
Ichigo took a half step pack, lifting up his left arm and gritted his teeth as the clawed finger ripped over it, pulling apart the clothe of his coat and getting into the flash of his lower arm. The pain was their, but the boy looked past it, gazing towards the opening that had been made for him. He lunged forward, smashing himself into the monster's chest, pushing its legs out so that they fell together, him on top of the monster.
Pinning its wings to the sides with he's knees, he began to smash at its face, again and again, with the silver chain. Each time it tried to move its wings, to push him off, he would just lean further forward and hit harder.
The struggle continued for only two minutes, thought Ichigo was still panting from exhaustion. The beast's face so blooded from the beating that its grey skin seemed to have been dyed red with its blood. But finally, the silver had taken its effect, the monster was to weak to fight back anymore. "Hey you bastard." Ichigo growled to the creature. "I hope you can understand me." From behind his back, the boy drew a short but sharp knife. "I want you to know why you are going to die."
The monster looked up at him, its beady eyes full of something akin to fear. "D...don't... ple..." The monster rasped, seeming to have some ability to speak, even in its injured state.
"This if for that little girl you killed. This is for Mary! You bastard!" Ichigo cried as he drove the knife down into the monster's throw, ignoring the blood that sprayed outwards from the wound. He pulled it down, cutting the monster open from the throat, down to the middle of its belly. The creature squirmed, blood pumping out of its mouth as it tried to get rid of the liquid that know filled its lungs. But it didn't last, and the beast lay silent.
(((
A group had gathered outside of the ruined buildings doors, the say why it would in any city when such a racket came from within. Karakura might have been different from other cities in a lot of ways, but this was not one of them.
Gasps filled the crowd as the door swung open and a young man stepped out. His body was covered in blood and at his side he dragged a large grey thing, even more bloody than himself. Throwing it down in front of the crowd he moved to the side and leaned up against the building, his hands working quickly at his own arm where a small trickle of blood came from an open wound. He was tying something around it, an bandaged that he had been carrying with him.
Though hardly any of them where looking at that. Most where looking at the creature. "A vampire, here?" Went one middle aged woman, holding her child close and trying to shield the struggling boy's eyes from the corpse. Several others echoed the sentiment.
"Out of the way, let be get a looksee here!" The bellowing and authoritative voice of Ivan, the local guard captain. "Oh bleeding hell!" The dwarf spat as he finally got his way into the inner circle and saw the seen. "Get on out of here, there be nothing to see, just scatter, all of ye! Trevers, get some of the boys and get that thing out of the streets."
The gathered people didn't seem happy, but they knew better than to test the dwarf's short temper and started to move on with their lives. "It looks like ye did it again, Ichigo." Ivan said, spitting to the side onto the vampire's dead boy. "How ye keep doing this, I have no idea."
The boy shook his head, layers of dust falling out of his orange hair. He was young, only fifteen years old, though he had the height and broad shoulders of a full grown man. He was fit from his job down at the docks unloading crates from the ships coming from the open seas. His expression was like stone as he looked straight past the guard and towards a girl standing a few feet away. A short half elf child, with pale brown hair and green eyes.
"I got him for you. You can rest easy now, Mary" Ichigo said calmly. The girl smiled and nodded, sparks of golden light dancing around her as she disappeared from Ichigo's view, as she passed on.
"Mary? Ye mean the shoe maker's daughter than went missing a fortnight ago?" Ivan asked, when Ichigo nodded the dwarf's face screwed up and he started into a string of dwarven curses. "Damn it all! Back in my day, creature's like this one didn't come into the cities. They'd be too scared to come! They only haunted the woods, trying to wait for some poor fool to cross its path! But now! We got drowners grabbing women from the inside the harbor! There are ghouls coming out of the woodwork! All kind of creepy crawlers down in the dumps! And now vampires! Fucking vampires!" The dwarf raged. "All the creatures are starting to come out of the dark places and are hanging about our humble little villages, and some daff nobles and eternal flaming morons killed off most of our Witchers!"
Ichigo grumbled, his right hand on his bleeding left arm. The dwarf winced, looking and feeling rather foolish. "Oh, right. Ye need to get that look at I'd beat. Should I do it. Better if ye're at least patched up before yer pa give it to ye good and proper like."
"That would be good, thanks Ivan." Ichigo said, holding out the arm to the dwarf to take a good look at. "Hows the family?" Ichigo asked through gritted teeth as the dwarf none so gently took the bandage off and began to clean the wound with some whiskey he had on hand.
"Ga! Same as they ever were. My wife is still going on about how we should be move further north before all this rebel nonsense gets us into a sorts. She says she's got relitives up there that help out, but that's a load of hog if I ever hear it. Her family hadn't spoken to her since we married. Didn't exactly like that their pretty daughter had child with a dwarf." Ivan grunted. "She be worried that our boys be taken away, like so many other mutts. But that won't happen here, I tell her, not less they feel like dragging away the whole town."
Ichigo gave a small smile, he enjoyed the dwarf's rantings. Not to mention that he was mostly right. So few people in Karakura were full blooded human. Most people there had at least two or three different bloods in them. Ichigo himself had no idea what he was. His dad was mostly human, but had dwarf and druid in his family tree, and him and his sisters were never told exactly what there mother was. Given the small points on Karen's ears and his own quick strides, there was definitely some elf in there. Karakura was a sanctuary of the mutts of the world, its culture unlike any other settlement because of it.
"Well, it isn't anything pretty, but it will last until yer pa does it up proper." Ivan said giving a sharp nodded as he let go of Ichigo's bandaged arm.
"Thank's Ivan. Now at least I won't faint from blood loose while the old got is trying to strangle me." Ichigo said, giving the bandaging a look over before standing up. "I'd better head back know. He's probably already heard about all this. Shouldn't put it off."
"Ichigo!" Ivan shouted, stopping the boy. The dwarf looked to the side to where the guard boys were moving the vampire's dead body. "We... we really should give ye something for ye..."
"No Ivan. I didn't kill it for money. My family's well off enough as it is." Ichigo said, cutting the dwarf off. "We've been over this. I'm not a Witcher."
Ivan gave a half laugh. "Ye right about that. One difference is that we actually got ye." The dwarf joked as he looked up into Ichigo's eyes. "But... every time I look into your yellow eyes, I half expect them to go all cat like. Ye know?" The dwarf then shook his head. "Doesn't matter! Ye got the job done, you need some kind of reward!"
"Give it to Mary's parents." Ichigo said with a sad expression. "Tell them... I'm sorry." With that, the boy started to walk back home, half holding his injured arm and not looking back.