A Good Night For Rain

Working towards Hohou Master

Takasugi skidded around the corner of the street, fringe plastered to his face as his eyes darted to and fro - it had to be here somewhere, he had felt it not a minute ago. Rain poured from the heavens in a great torrent, coating the tarmac underfoot liberally. It was difficult to see more than a few meters and even harder to keep ones footing steady. It hadn't been raining a minute ago, either. The 1st Division Captain suspected foul play, but it was difficult to be certain when he had spent the last hour chasing what he suspected to be a unique menos on the cusp of evolving into an Adjuchas class around the streets of London. When he closed his eyes to blink away fat droplets of rain, he could almost visualize his target as a small ball of numerous negative souls, but it was all he had to go on and a theory at best.

And then there was a matter of... location. London. Not quite as close to home as he would like, but similar enough after dark at least in some areas of the vast city that he was reminded of a certain past trip to his inner world. It had been raining then, too. He swore under his breath. He hated rain. He hated London. And he hated that he had not been sent to put down a Quincy. Instead, he was wasting his time fending off some nasty beastie that should have stayed put in Hueco Mundo. And it was raining.

He shook himself like a great dog, sending flying droplets everywhere. It truly did not seem to want to stop. His shihakusho clung to him like a second skin and restricted the movement of his limbs. Civilians milled around him with drawn umbrellas, carefree and unbothered. He had heard the British had a stiff upper lip and their weather was terrible, but this had to be some kind of joke.

Brushing his hair out of his eyes, he gathered reishi beneath his feet and set himself an inch from the ground. Enough to not have any contact with the slippery pavement and enough to distract himself from the pulling and sheering of thick, soaked, heavy fabric.

There. He felt it again. A huge ball of condensed souls, squashed into a tiny form. That had to be a unique menos, for the regular size were as large as a skyscraper and couldn't be so easily hidden. Checking the GPS on his cell, he watched as the tiny red dot moved slowly from one street to another, entirely bypassing the solid row of buildings between. His target seemed to be in no rush at all, it didn't make sense that he struggled to come face to face with the damned thing.

The reishi at his heels pulsed, and with a wide spray of water droplets he was gone. Chasing the monster on foot without his shunpo should have been enough... shouldn't it?