Di was getting well acquainted with the time honored detectives tradition of midnight chases. While Ayakashi's reign had seemed to do much to deter petty crime in the city it had also seemed to give rise to a new breed of criminals. Perhaps driven to insanity by the harsh laws that the Kage had put in place they were both smarter and at the same time more unstable than the average villain. Di was not sure if this was exactly what one could call a good trade off – Iwa and Kumo certainly had less crime per capita but Kiri's crime was of a decidedly bizarre nature.

Hearing his partner – now going by the moniker Hound call out to him Di responded by replying with a quick

“Got it”

Consolidating the Chakra within himself, Di's form shifted and rippled into his true draconic state. A cocoon formed of scale like plates engulfed the detective before blowing away to dust. Catching the night breeze Di rode the swell of wind up the side of the building as if he were on a cresting wave. Landing on the roof of the abandoned parole office Di looked around for any signs of the miscreant thief.

His acute senses alighted on black feathers covering the roof. It was a fair drop down to the ground and Di didn't think this man was any sort of trained shinobi. He must be hiding somewhere around. Whiskers twitching Di stalked among the protuberances marring the top of the roof. It seemed that several vagabonds had set up camp here pitching tents and even hanging their washing out to dry. No sign of the homeless now though. And then the theif struck Di from above.

Sharpened metal talons slid across his scales opening up a slight gash in his side from the sheer force of the impact. Worse a flock of black birds had noisily begun to peck and claw at his eyes forcing Di to thrash his head in an effort to disentangle himself from the cawing cloud. Lashing out with a front claw Di smashed a number of the birds to the ground where they lay unmoving.

Di could still feel the form attached to the metal talons clinging to his back and so he struck his midquarters into one of the metal ventilation shafts. The figure was clipped and launched from DI's back but the dragon never heard it strike the ground.

Instead the detective was bearing witness to a man bedecked in a costume of black feathers flying on what seemed to be makeshift wings of black feathers. Shark metal talons gleamed off his arms and legs. Around him fluttered the flock of magpies their incessant caws adding a maddening backdrop to the scene.

Taking in a breath Di called out to his fellow crimefighter

“Hound – he's up on the roof. You had better come quick because the lunatic has seemed to have built a flight suit that actually works. I'll keep him occupied but with his birds I'm not sure I can hold him long."

(511 Words)

The magpies caws began to sound like jeers as their master plunged his wicked talons for Kirei. For half a second it seemed that the birds were too engrossed in watching the avian thief in his attempt to murder Kirei to fully occupy Di. Had even the beady eyed birds become tainted with this man's deranged agenda? Di lowered his antlers and sliding down the gust of wind like a child on a water slide smashed the horns into the thiefs side dislodging him from where he even now plunged his hand for the Hounds throat.

Momentum caught both man and dragon and lifted them across to the expanse that was the buildings side. There they met in the air each slashing at each other with taloned limbs. Claw met claw as magpies began to hover around looking for exposed areas where they might be able to peck and tear. Di had read many accounts that stated criminals who were cornered tended to fight back all the harder but the amount of resistance this man was showing was astonishing.

The Magpie as Di had mentally dubbed the crook was not a heavy set man and indeed most of his bulk was made up of his flight suit. This attire was comprised of canvas metal buckles and massive amounts of black feathers which had created the trail that led Di and Kirei to the hideout. It also seemed to have some kind of inbuilt padding meaning the suit acted like a sort of light armour.

From the corner of his eye Di saw something shiny come out of the blue and smash into the side of his head. It felt like he had been clobbered with a mace akin to the sort one would find in the barbarian settlements in the wilds. Di's guess had not been too far off the mark either. As it turned out it was the replica sceptre that had been used to make the attack. Wishing to make a convincing forgery the piece was made with real metal and was consequently quite heavy. Dragon skulls were blessedly thick and resistant to impact or Di might well be taking a tumble to the ground below with a major concussion.

The next blow with the weapon was caught with a taloned forearm. The Magpie was strong for his size and covered in wiry muscle but now that Di had actually managed to get a decent grapple brute strength and weight were beginning to tell. Di jerked the offending hand so that the replica sceptre flew back clanking onto the roof near Kirei. Delivering a punch that rattled teeth to the Magpies skull Di was somewhat shocked when the man had the wherewithal to kick out with both his taloned feet crashing against scales and driving the wind from the dragons lungs. Slipping free the theif began to taunt Di in a mixture of guttural slurs and impromptu bird noises. The magpies flock persumably wishing to join in added their own caws to the mix. The Magpie had made one fatal error though. He had turned his back on... The Hound!

(522 words, 1033 total)

As Di had hoped Kirei using the false scepter  connected solidly with the back of the Magpies head. The baleful bird whirled and fell to earth Kirei using his ninjutsu to create an earthen slide so that the pair of humans wouldn't take the full brunt of the impact. For his part Di simply glided down as would a feather caught on the faintest of breezes. The nights work had been much more intense than he had expected. Thieves, like any other criminal could be dangerous but Di had not been expecting the full bird getup and an accompanying retinue of magpies to harass him.

Had the man really made it himself? It was hard to credit that the thing would even function but the suit for all it's cobbled together looks was surprisingly effective. Di didn't know a huge amount about ninjas but this seemed the kind of thing that they would be interested in when it came to expanding their surveying and reconnaissance capabilities. That didn't matter at the moment though as the crime fighting Duo needed to take the thief into custody so that he might be punished for his crimes. Di wasn't sure what he thought about Aya's methods in running her justice system but as long as he was in Kiri he would attempt to follow the law to the best of his abilities.

From there things began to wrap up quickly. Di went over to check on Kirei to make sure that the rock slide hadn't actually done any damage upon collision. Thankfully the young ninja seemed for the most part totally unharmed. Di took took some time to reflect on his gratitude for Kirei. Kirei was headstrong at times and tended towards an optimism that Di somewhat admired. But he had a very loyal core to his being and was totally unafraid of putting himself into the line of fire for his comrades.

The walk back to Kiri's main district from the fireworks factory was an uneventful one. Several drunks and vagabonds attempted to pry into the nature of the unconscious form that Di carried with some help from Kirei.  Getting to the Anbu station the thief was promptly arrested and sentenced to whatever punishment the state of Kirigakure deemed most befitting of his crimes. As Di said his goodbye to Kirei he found himself gravitating to the area where his apartment was. Di liked it a lot because it was open at all hours

The morning sun came to chase away the last vestiges of Darkness, Di was already hard at work. Compiling the records of the case so that future generations  may learn from their exploits. Di hoped that children could read one of these and records get something legitimately positive, out of the true cases that he was recording within.

Of course Di didn't know they would have turned out so bizarre or he might have simply turned them into a fiction novel. If someone read this what would they think of Di and the Hound?

Lunatics maybe but both dedicated to justice in their own way

(518 words  1551 total) Exit

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