A/N: Well, here we are again dear readers. Is it sad that I got more reviews during the time I wasn't writing then I got for the time I did write?

I'm gonna say yes, but you can each decide the ultimate answer for yourself, and yes well I do appreciate the Story Favorites and Alerts, I am infinitely more gracious with regards to reviews as it coherently establishes your opinion of my work in a format which is more personally then just an increasing number on my story stats.

Don't suppose I have much else to say at this point, I'd move onto Reviewer response time, but nothing phenomenal there, so ON WITH THE STORY!

Bleach

The Devils Cry

Chapter 9: How the Devil Makes Friends

Morning came as it always did for our favorite half demon, in a cold sweat and too damn early. Suffice to say he was not a morning person so much as a morning zombie. Of course biologically speaking the man didn't really have much of a reason FOR sleep, but a combination of apathy, boredom, and an empty wallet didn't really leave him much else to do to pass the time.

Well besides his part time job, but he really hadn't had any luck in that department yet…

Groaning slightly he rolled over to smash his alarm clock out of habit, before remembering he 'd already tossed it's crushed carcass against his wall somewhere.

Sitting up on his bed now, yawning and stretching the sleep out of his system, Dante's eyes fell on the stand next to his bed appraisingly…contemplating his morning ritual.

Inevitably he snorted, more than a little disgusted with himself, getting up now determined to face the day with the crutch of the revolver to slow him down. It wasn't the first day he had skipped, in fact it was almost normal now for him to get up in the morning and not tempt fate.

Still though…he did need something to get his mind running.

"Coffee," he graveled out to himself, as he rose from his bed and trudged down stairs in his best 'legion of the undead' gait…

Which reminded him of his current guests just long enough to make himself decent, throwing on a pair of pants and a white shirt he had on hand to laze about the house in.

"Morning," he heard someone say as he descended his stairs, a gruffness to it that could only be Ichigo's.

"Wazs'goodbouttit?" grumbled and slurred Dante as he meandered over to the corner of his loft with the line of counter tops and neglected appliances that passed for his kitchen.

"I didn't say it was good, I just said 'morning'," countered Ichigo, his voice firm but strangely hushed, prompting Dante to notice the fairer of his two guests was still asleep…

In response the half demon lazily turned a half lidded glare to reguard the strawberry loafing on his couch…

"Coffee," he said again simply, this time for Ichigo's benefit, as he shuffled through the cuboards, haphazardly throwing the few sparse boxes there in over his shoulder until he discovered the much lauded coffee grounds, pouring them carefully into the coffee pot, the only part of the kitchen that didn't have a noticeable layer of dust on it.

The coffee brewed with agonizing slowness even as the smell of it taunted the groggy demon hunter.

"Mmh, what's that smell?" called a feminine voice from the other side of the room, followed by a meek yawn a gradually dawning of where exactly she was.

"Coffee," was all Dante said, as he poured himself a cup.

"Coffee?" questioned Rukia.

"Coffee…" said Dante again, growing just a bit irritated at having to repeat himself so many times, sitting down in the plush chair behind his desk, "…help yourself," he said charitably as took a savory drink of the cup in his hand.

"Uh…I'm not so sure that's a good-," began Ichigo, before Rukia cut him off by somewhat eagerly pouring a portion of the black heavenly smelling liquid into the surprisingly clean cups on the counter, drinking even as Ichigo finished, "-idea…"

Rukia, to her credit, managed to keep a straight face for a good three minutes after her initial taste…before momentarily blanching, coughing just a bit into her hand, "Well that's quite…strong," said, choking on the last part as she looked at the remaining deceivingly pleasant smelling 'coffee' in her cup with something akin to dread.

"Yes," said Dante with no small amount of satisfaction, as he leaned back into his chair, propping his feet up on his desk as he leisurely drank from his mug, "Yes, it is."

Gluping nervously, and instantly regretting how much she had decided to pour for herself, Rukia made her way over to the couch, tentatively sipping from her mug so as not to seem rude .

She only just set the mug down, when Dante's steel door abruptly slammed open, letting in a great bear of man, holding a pistol as oversized as him. Without pause, hesitation, or consideration the seemingly crazed intruder brought his pistol to bare and wildly fired off round after round after round in virtually every direction.

Ichigo was the first to react, tackling Rukia to the ground, and shielding her with his body as the cascading cracks of gunfire drowned out all the sound around the pair of them.

And then just as quickly as it started, it was over, as the stranger's gun clicked dry the only noise in the deafening silence.

"Hello Ryu," leveled out Dante, whom had moved very little during the whole crazy episode holding the shattered remains of his coffee mug that had been unfortunately destroyed by one of the wayward bullets, "I take it the doorbell is broken again…"

The giant of a man finally seemed to notice that the room he had just unloaded his revolver into was NOT infact vacant, turning to casually regard Dante with a single eye...

"I knocked."

"The door is half a foot of reinforced steel, you could have knocked with a grenade launcher and we wouldn't have heard you…"

"Well I didn't bring my grenade launcher…so I figured it was best to just let myself in and announce myself."

"YOU ANNOUNCE YOURSELF BY SHOOTING THE PLACE UP!" exclaimed Ichigo, rolling off of Rukia, noticeably avoiding eye contact in the meantime, and raising to point an accusing finger at Ryu, "DID IT EVEN OCCUR TO YOU TO SEE IF ANYONE WAS HOME FIRST!"

At that a seemingly solemn look of deep thought crossed Ryu face, as he placed his gun in the holster at his hip, and pulled a cigar from a pouch in his jacket and lit it up, taking a deep contemplative inhale before slowly exhaling out of the corner of his mouth. He paused for a moment more, before removing the cigar, and locking his single eye on Ichigo's.

"Nope…" he said finally, replacing the cigar and smoking it casually as Ichigo abruptly responded in the only manner that seemed appropriate to that, facevaulting straight onto the floor.

"Dante, who is this?" ventured Ryu to Dante, clearly not amused at the teen's presence, "And more importantly, why is he inside the security perimeter?"

"That's Ichigo, and his lady friend-"

"-not his lady friend-" interrupted Rukia abruptly as she rose and dusted herself off from the floor.

"-whatever," interrupted Dante right back, "He's Ichigo, she's Rukia, they're my classmates, I kicked his ass last night-"

"-lucky shot," grumbled Ichigo, as he too rose and dusted himself off.

"-several of them, but it turns out it was all just a mutual misunderstanding so I was letting them sleep it off at my place to show there's no hard feelings."

"Hmm," said Ryu, looking lazily about the trash strewn room, nudging and empty pizza box next to his foot, and disrupting a pile of now moldy tomato juice cans next to that," how charitable of you…"

"So who the heck is this guy Dante?" said Ichigo, more than a little irked at the unnecessary gunfire still ringing in his ears.

"He's my landlord."

"I'm his landlord," answered Ryu exactly the same time as Dante, stopping before saying the implied 'and nothing else.'

Which totally wasn't suspicious at all…

"Riiight…" said Ichigo, eyebrow cocked only slightly at that.

Ryu for his part had ceased showing any attention at all to the young man, his singular eye focused now solely on Dante now, narrowed slightly, as if he was expecting something.

It took a second for it to click.

"Well, Ichigo," said Dante abruptly, as he swiftly maneuvered to Ichigo's side, warpping and unwanted arm about his drapping, and rather forcefully leading him towards the door, motioning for Rukia to follow, "It's been loads of fun savagely savagely beating your ass, and everything-"

"-lucky shot," angrily insisted Ichigo, forgetting his confusion in his irritation.

"-whatever, the point is…" said Dante, before swiftly opening his door, and ungraciously throwing Ichigo out of it, "Get out of my house."

He was polite enough to allow Rukia to let herself about before slamming the door on both of them.

"A simple 'GO HOME' WOULD HAVE SUFFICED ASSHOLE!" exclaimed Ichigo, swiftly getting up and kicking Dante's door.

"Forget it Ichigo," sighed Rukia, reigning her charge in, "leave him to his business, ours with him is concluded."

It was Ichigo's turn to sigh at that, stepping down from Dante's stoop to join Rukia on the street.

"Yea I guess," he said, a bit dejected as they both turn and started making the walk home…

"What's with that face?" said Rukia, annoyed now at Ichigo's expression.

"What face?" said Ichgio incredulously.

"That annoyingly pathetic face you were making a few minutes ago…"

"Say WHAT!"

"Denial doesn't become you Ichigo," she said simply, turning to regard him as they walked, "Come on, whats up?"

Ichigo couldn't make bring himself to look at her at that, finding something terribly interesting about the sidewalk to his left…

"He could have killed you Rukia," he said finally, still not looking at her, "Hell," he laughed bitterly, "By rights he should have killed me, and there wouldn't have been anything at all I could have done about it…"

A morbid curiosity compelled to find her eyes at that, and discern what he could from them, he had always found Rukia's eyes to be so expressive, like a book of poetry.

Truthfully he didn't know what to expect, but right at the top of the list of 'unexpected' was a very brutal punch to the face, flooring him where he stood.

"AGH DAMNIT, RUKIA WHAT THE HELL?" he shouted up, for once, at her incredulously.

A long suffering sigh escaped Rukia, as she leaned down to Ichigo's height, for once, and very abruptly yelled, "DUMBASS!"

Ichigo could only blink in mute horror at the expression of pure infuriation on Rukia's face…

"Ichigo," she said with surprising calm now that the initial 'dumbass' was out of the way, "Think for a second…how many sword fights have you ever been in?"

"Uum…," began Ichigo dumbly, before abruptly finding his voice, "That would actually be my first."

"That's right, and how many sword fights do you suppose Dante has been in?"

"Uuh…well…probably considerably more than one," offered Ichigo lamely.

"Exactly," she said simply the smolder in her eyes cooling to a look of gentle understanding, "It wasn't because you lack power or determination, it was just a matter of experience, and that will come in time."

She smiled then, that grin of absolute assurance he had only associate with annoyance up until now, "And when it comes, I have faith you'll be able to fight circles around someone like Dante."

And before he knew it, Ichigo…found himself smiling too, a lazy lopsided grin that was decidedly out of practice, but there it was, clear as day for Rukia to see, he hadn't quite stopped scowling, but it was foot in the right direction.

"The moral of the story here is a simple one," she began again, her voice and eyes traitorously calm, "When I say we wait. We WAIT! AM I CLEAR!"

It took a moment for it to register that Rukia wanted an answer, when it did click he did not hesitate.

"Yes, we're clear."

"Good," she said simply, straightening up, and walking off in the direction of home, "Now get yourself up off the ground Ichigo, you look ridiculous."

"Well," grumbled Ichigo to himself, as he stumbled to his feet, and joined Rukia, "At least I'm of average height."

"What was that?"

And thus all was as it should be.

Meanwhile, Dante heaved a relieved sigh as he slid the unnecessarily large locks of his unnecessarily large door shut, having just thrown the derelicts out on their ass.

"Well now that the kids are gone, what have you got for m-AH" said Dante, before Ryu abruptly walloped him upside the head.

"What were you thinking letting Civilians in here Dante?" said Ryu, expression going from solumenly indifferent to a refined fire in moments, "Do you realize how many firearms I've got stashed in this place?"

"Oh don't be such a women," said Dante dismissively, navigating around his 'landlord' to take his favored seat behind his desk, "I've got all the guns stored away nice and safe like someplace they would have never stumbled upon."

Ryu glared flatly at Dante in cold disbelief, before slightly reaching his hand out to the closet door next to the front. With a simple twist the door opened, and an indiscernible pile of guns of all manner of make and model poured haphazardly from the ajar door to not inconsiderable pile at Ryu's feet.

Dante blinked.

Ryu stared.

"Well…I'm sure they're all unloaded anyway," said Dante, scratching his face sheepishly.

At random Ryu picked a gun from the pile, a machine pistol of some kind, taking it up, and pointing it at the right wall, pulling the trigger to unleash a controlled spray of hot lead drilling yet more holes into the interior wall…

"Lucky guess," said Dante simply, silently glad his place was reinforced to withstand such little things as live gunfire.

"I'm sure," said Ryu, dropping the matter entirely, as he deprived the weapon of its clip, engaging the safety, and replacing it gently on top of the pile.

"Let's get down to business," he said, marching up to Dante's desk and dropping a folder he had been holding in his off right on top of it, "We've got an assignment for you."

"And here I was thinking you were paying me a social visit," said Dante sarcastically as he greedily pulled the file across the desk, "So what do we got, I hope it's big, this dry spell really has been pissing me right the hell off."

Ryu slapped Dante's hands away like a mother scolding an insolent child, not an entirely inaccurate metaphor really, calmly opening the case file before offering a clinical description of the contents there in, pointing to a rather gruesome picture of mutilated body parts strewn about a blood splattered alley.

"The police discovered this scene early this morning, local shopkeeper called it in after investigating the smell, vic count at present is unknown, and for the most part unidentifiable, though going by the markings and piercing decorating the chunks, and the fact that they were loitering inside a friggen alley seems to suggest they were not contributing members of society."

"Tragic, get to the part where this involves something's ass I'm supposed to kick."

"Blood splatter, and arrangement of the pieces," continued Ryu, soldiering on as he was apt to do, " indicate a singular perp standing in a central location cutting them all at the same time, which is too say faster then any of them could realize they were all being cut into pieces."

He took a long drag on his cigar at that to let that crutial piece of information sink in.

"The cuts were perfectly clean straight through the body Dante, the bone did not slow this guy down at all."

"Guy?" ventured Dante, curious now, "Not it?"

He pushed a few of the files around at that, passing a blurry mess of a black and white picture of a distinctly human male.

"Camera's were rolling at both ends of the alley, this is the clearest frame they got of the suspect," he said, chewing on his cigar thoughtfully, "Frankly we're lucky I got an insider on the local police force, otherwise they might have processed this as a normal crime, and we'd have to explain to the lieutenant how Karakura ended up with so many dead cops on our watch."

"Hmm," said Dante barely listening, as he picked the blurry picture to get a closer look. Something seemed indiscernibly familiar about this guy, "And we're sure this is in our jurisdiction?"

"Trust me, I saw the bodies myself, no human did that," said Ryu with a grim finality.

"Right then, what's our first move?"

Ryu took a heavy drag on his cigar at that looking at Dante straight in the face with a perfectly even expression as he slowly exhaled.

"Eh," he said, with a bit of a shrug.

Dante, to his credit, resisted the urge to facevault.

"I'm sorry? I think I have something stupid in my ear."

"Look Dante, we've never dealt with something like this before," said Ryu simply, "Usually these bastards just come straight to you, or loitering in some godforsaken slum until they murder enough derelicts to catch our attention…"

"This," he said , indicating the photos, and the paper work he had brought with him, "This is completely unheard of, there is nothing in the manual that even suggests they're capable of something like this."

He sigh heavily, taking another long drag from his cigar, before stubbing it out on Dante's desk, "So yea, we're gonna wait until they make a more decisive move on this one, mean time I'm gonna get in touch with some experts, and you are gonna go over this shit until your reciting it in your sleep."

"A more decisive move?" snorted Dante in disgust, "For all we know they're next move is gonna be opening a portal to FRIGGEN HELL downtown."

"And for all we know they're not, and until we know otherwise we're gonna do as I say, comprende?"

"Yea yea…don't suppose I really have a choice, not like this guy left his street address at the crime scene."

"Speaking of which, you should probably go check out the crime scene today, get a good look at it with your fancy ass demon eyes of your, might catch something the cops missed."

"Right right, anything else sire?" said Dante, rolling his eyes.

"Yes as matter of fact," said Ryu, turning to leave as he flicked the ashy stub of his cigar into the corner of the loft, "I expect this room to be clean the next time I come back, it's a friggen disgrace."

"Sure, and maybe I'll throw in a free hot oil message and we can sit around talking about our feelings for a few hours."

"Nah, I can do without that."

"Go to Hell Ryu."

"Seen it," he said, slamming the steel door in his wake.

Alone now in the sanctity and solitude of his own home, Dante went to the fridge, finding a single lonely can of tomato juice left. Sighing the long suffering sigh of the hunger and poor, he took his last source of subsistence back to his desk, and poured over the notes and pictures diligently.

Say what you will about Dante, his cleaning habits, or lack thereof, his social graces, or lack thereof, or his humility, etc, but the man took his job seriously and rather enjoyed it too boot.

Once more he felt a certain, connection to this case, as if it were important somehow.

Hours passed swiftly, and his can of juice swifter still, until he resolved he had learned all he could with paper, and needed to see the scene himself. He grabbed his jacket and guns, but neglected his sword. Ryu said they were doing subtly, so 50 cal hand guns would have to suffice for now.

The late day was warm, but cooling fast as Dante walked about Town, silently reminding himself to ask Ryu for some funds to buy a new bike the next time they spoke.

He was going to be pissed, especially considering how much the first one cost, but it wasn't his fault that giant spider thing smashed it into oblivion.

Though he did have to appreciate the fact that walking certainly gave him time to think, it wasn't something he liked to make a habit of really for personal reasons, yet it was something he always ended up doing.

Probably so it wouldn't be so damn quiet.

He always hated the quiet.

Somehow that lead back to Ichigo and Rukia, an interesting pair if he had ever seen one, and he had seen some pretty interesting pairs, and he had to admit a certain…fascination with them.

All his life, even as a child he had powers, and they had isolated him, say what you will about the 'acceptance of people' but for better or worse he was just not the same as them and he never would be. And once more he knew it too.

He figured that was the way it would always be…

But maybe that was just him imposing that everyone else…maybe it was just a matter of trying.

"Argh…why do these things always have to be so damn complicated," he grumbled to no one in particular.

Monday came swiftly for Dante, he had visted the crime scene twice in the interim, both times turning up nothing. Not so much a hair rise on the back of his neck.

Just blood stains and a lingering stench of death were the only signs something had died in that alley at all.

Still though at least it had given him time to plan his move today.

The lunch bell rang as the students filed out of the room, Dante moving in their wake, smiling confidently with resolve.

He made it too the roof, spotting Rukia sitting amongst the girls, he had already ruled that option as 'possibly fun but too damning for anything to come of it.'

Instead he turned to Ichigo's group, the boy in question, two others whose names he didn't know, and the unmistakable bulk of 'Chad' as he was called.

Swiftly and assuredly he moved over to them and without so much as an introduction he took an empty spot to Ichigo's left.

"Hi there, I'm your new friend," he said simply, "Deal with it."

There was a moment were no one besides Chad did anything but blink, before all eyes turned to Ichigo…possibly for his approval.

He sat where he was for a moment weathering the incredulous stares of his friends for a moment before turning to regard Dante, and then finally decisively shrugging his indifference.

"Alright then," said Dante, getting the gist of what had just transpired, "So…what's the word on the local babes?"

And thus was a new group dynamic born…

A/N: Wow it is 8:30 a.m., that is a new 'allnighter' record for me folks.

You know, as I've been writing this over the years (Ha), I've noticed that the earlier chapters, as in all the ones before the most updated one, kinda suck.

Which I suppose is a good thing, as it indicates my personal growth as a writer, but I also understand it's a bit off putting for new, and old(really old at the rate I update)readers. That said I'll probably have to fiddle with them some more later, for now though I've got work to go too, le sigh.

As always read and review, let me know if I've got all my characterizations down, and for your information, the character of 'Ryu' was in fact the prize of one Drane10, and I sincerely hope I depicted him to Drane's satisfaction.

S.P.(As in 'Shamelss Plug)

If your looking for a corner of the web to rp in, and you like my writing/wholly original fantasy worlds, check out my profile and click on the 'homepage' button, for a little internet project myself a few cohorts of mine have been working on.

It's very early, and a little dead right now, but we're looking for new people interested in running open ended campaigns set in this world we've constructed. If your interested, swing on by, register, and drop a 'Hi how are you?' in the 'Discussion & Debate' thread. Look forward to seeing you there, and the first person to guess who I am on the sight, as my screen name is different, gets a prize.

Seeya in another year…unless you wanna just go to the site so you can harass me 24/7 (wink wink nudge nudge)