"Dance, Sode no Shirayuki."
A crisp, commanding female voice echoed in the freezing air.
The surrounding temperature dropped sharply to absolute zero, and a beautiful, pure-white trail of ice began to extend rapidly along the concrete ground. The exact microsecond the frost touched the rotting Evil Spirit, it aggressively encased it in a massive, pillar-like icicle.
The entity was completely frozen, entirely unable to move.
Standing to the side, rubbing his bruised neck, John Constantine watched in shock as a young petite girl dressed in a flowing black kimono—a shihakushō—materialized from the shadows.
She swung her blindingly white blade, effortlessly shattering the icicle. As the spirit fell to its knees, freed but weakened, she stepped forward and reversed her grip. She pressed the flat bottom of her sword's hilt—the kashira—directly against the Evil Spirit's forehead.
A kanji symbol glowed briefly. Brilliant white light covered the Evil Spirit's body, and the wisps of corrupted black mist drifted away, dissolving into the air.
A Hellbound spirit was thus instantly purified and ascended before his very eyes, sinking peacefully into the floor.
'She didn't banish it to Hell,' Constantine realized, his eyes widening. 'She... she just sent it somewhere else entirely. If she has such advanced, effortless exorcism methods... then what the bloody hell were all those complex Latin spells and rituals I learned before for?'
In the moment John Constantine lost himself in an existential crisis regarding his occult career, the girl sheathed her white katana and walked over to his side.
"Are you an exorcist of the Human World?" she asked, her large violet eyes studying him.
Constantine nodded blankly.
"I am a Shinigami. A God of Death," she announced with profound dignity. "Lieutenant of the 13th Division of the Gotei 13. Rukia Kuchiki. If you encounter any more feral spirits or Hollows later, you can contact me. I will help you deal with them."
Saying this, Rukia reached into the folds of her traditional black robes and pulled out a sleek, modern smartphone, complete with a small, cartoonish bunny charm dangling from the case. She tapped the screen and showed her number to Constantine.
"Are Gods of Death really so avant-garde nowadays?" Constantine blinked, staring at the screen. "You guys use cell phones too?"
"Who are you looking down on, you bastard?!"
Rukia Kuchiki became instantly annoyed. With blinding speed, she chopped John Constantine directly on the forehead with the side of her hand.
"This is called keeping up with the times!" Rukia scolded him, hands on her hips.
Following the catastrophic magical aftershocks of the Washington battle, the Soul Society had finally managed to forcefully occupy a stable territory in the deeper realms of Hell. But because there were far too many demonic competitors in the Marvel underworld—like Mephisto and Lucifer—the Shinigami couldn't efficiently secure and purify any souls before the demons snatched them.
To fill this quota gap, the Gotei 13 had dispatched numerous Gods of Death to the World of the Living to find a solution starting directly from the source.
This was the exact reason Rukia Kuchiki had appeared here in Los Angeles.
After forcibly exchanging contact information with a grumbling John Constantine, Rukia turned to leap back into the spiritual plane.
At this moment, Tony Stark, who had been watching from behind a concrete pillar, hurried over, his armor retracting.
"Wait! Ms. God of Death!"
Tony had heard the conversation between Rukia and Constantine crystal clear. Since this Shinigami actively wanted to hunt down and deal with these invasive spirits, then why couldn't she simply cooperate with the Avengers?
Supernatural incidents had been flooding Los Angeles recently. Whether it was S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Avengers, these localized incidents were incredibly thorny and resource-draining for them. After all, despite their immense firepower, they didn't have effective, mass-scale means to combat the supernatural.
But now, the perfect contractor had appeared.
"Ms. God of Death! We should talk—"
"My name is Rukia Kuchiki," she interrupted him sharply, her brow furrowing. "What do you want?"
Facing Tony Stark's casual address of 'Ms. God of Death', Rukia felt compelled to correct him. Shinigami was simply her profession. Calling her that, when she bore the proud surname of one of the Four Noble Houses of the Soul Society, was somewhat offensive.
Tony Stark paused slightly, reading the room. He immediately deployed his charismatic businessman persona.
"My apologies. Ms. Rukia," Tony corrected, offering a charming smile. "I think both of our sides can cooperate on a massive scale. We provide the planetary surveillance and intelligence, and you provide the supernatural force. Wouldn't this be much faster and exponentially more efficient than you manually looking for traces of these evil spirits yourselves?"
Tony held out his hand. "Let me introduce myself formally. Tony Stark, leader of the Avengers."
"I know exactly who you are."
Facing Tony Stark's outstretched hand, Rukia reached out and gave it a firm shake.
The face before her was not unfamiliar to the Soul Society. The previous, apocalyptic great war against Meliodas had not only been watched by those in the real world. Several major factions in Hell and the Soul Society had been observing closely.
They were actually all profoundly grateful for the "gift package" sent by Meliodas's destructive rampage. Sending millions of souls into the afterlife all at once had allowed the Lords of Hell and the Soul Society to eat their fill. Several key members of the Avengers, naturally, had also fallen into the watchful eyes of these multidimensional observers.
"Your idea..." Rukia narrowed her eyes, calculating the logistics. "...I think it's quite good. But I cannot make this strategic decision on my own. Wait a moment."
After hearing Tony Stark's idea for cooperation, Rukia was indeed heavily tempted. The 12th Division's Department of Research and Development didn't have many active operatives stationed in this universe yet, and their monitoring technologies had not yet been fully calibrated to Earth's frequencies. The current Soul Society had no way to effectively monitor the entire Human World.
If they could directly plug into the Avengers' and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s satellite intelligence system, the speed at which the Gods of Death could secure souls would receive a massive, unprecedented boost.
Thinking of this, Rukia took out her cell phone and began dialing her Captain.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the city.
Johnny Blaze had just finished his newest, death-defying challenge: leaping his motorcycle across the length of an entire football field over spinning helicopter blades.
This impossible feat had officially cemented him as the undisputed number one motorcycle stuntman in Los Angeles.
Yet, the constant, deafening cheers at the stadium didn't make Johnny particularly happy. Leaving his crew and the flashing cameras behind, he rode his bike to a quiet, dimly lit dive bar alone.
"This doesn't look like the victory lap of our big star."
Johnny, who was sitting at the bar staring blankly into his bourbon, hadn't noticed at all that a beautiful woman had sat down on the stool beside him.
It wasn't until the lady gently snatched the glass from his hand and spoke those words that he snapped out of his daze.
Johnny Blaze turned his head, a heavy hint of surprise in his eyes.
"Roxanne." Johnny blinked. "How did you know I was..."
"When you're in a bad mood, you always like to come here to drink in the dark," Roxanne Simpson interrupted him, a soft, knowing smile on her lips.
He wanted to say something more, to push her away for her own safety, but Roxanne's palm was already reaching out, gently caressing Johnny's scarred cheek. The two looked deeply at each other, Roxanne's eyes full of unwavering love.
"You know you still have me, Johnny," she whispered. "We can face absolutely anything together."
After saying that, Roxanne pulled Johnny Blaze up from the stool, her eyes flirtatious and warm. The two walked out the door into the cool night air and got onto Johnny's customized chopper.
Just as he was about to twist the throttle and roar into the night...
A red-haired woman in a sleek black tactical bodysuit stepped out from the shadows of the alley, calmly blocking the motorcycle's path.
"Sorry, ma'am," Natasha Romanoff said, her hands resting casually on her belt. "I might need to take up a bit of your boyfriend's time. There are some highly classified things we need to discuss with him."
Natasha pulled out her S.H.I.E.L.D. badge and flashed it before their eyes. Then, she looked directly at Johnny with a disarming smile.
"Johnny, don't worry. We're not here to look for trouble."
Seeing that Johnny's expression had instantly turned guarded and agitated, Natasha spoke carefully to soothe him. If Johnny Blaze's transformed state was truly as powerful as their intelligence files suggested, she and Clint would be absolutely no match for him in a direct fight.
The place for their talk wasn't far. Under Roxanne's worried gaze, Johnny told her to wait and followed Natasha into a black SUV parked across the street.
Hawkeye, who had been waiting in the driver's seat for a long time, reached back and handed a thick manila folder directly to Johnny Blaze.
"If the stunts you pulled tonight were done by any ordinary human being," Clint said, looking in the rearview mirror, "they would have died countless times over by now. But you're still alive, without a single broken bone."
"And there's this photo," Natasha added.
She pulled a glossy, high-resolution photograph from the file and placed it directly before Johnny's eyes. On it was clearly a picture of him riding down a desert highway in the dead of night.
Except, he was transformed. From the spiked leather jacket, to the flaming skull, to the Hellcycle leaving a trail of scorched asphalt and hellfire—everything was captured vividly by a S.H.I.E.L.D. drone.
"What exactly are you trying to say?" Johnny asked, his voice low and raspy.
Seeing that his deepest secret was entirely exposed, Johnny's mood actually relaxed quite a bit. He leaned back against the leather seat. He hadn't used this demonic power to do anything evil. He only punished the guilty. Even if the government came knocking, he wasn't panicked.
"As expected," Natasha said, tapping the photo of the flaming skull. "You are the second-generation Ghost Rider."
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Give me powerstones.
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