Just doing my job... I hope [HENREX]

As the midnight sky poured its rain onto the empty streets of the New York slums, police sirens wailed through the air surrounding one of the more isolated cul-de-sacs. Right smack dab in the center of the street was a corpse, run clean through by some sort of massive weapon. It was sword-like, though it was far too big to be any ordinary sword. Unfortunately the rain washed away any tracks the killer might have left, or at least made it more difficult for them to be found. There weren't many places the killer could have gone either. It was one road that led into a dead end. Unfortunately this case would most likely be dismissed as a Hollow attack, as the wound seemed entirely too unlikely to have been caused by another person. Or so Ellie hoped.

Standing over the body was the head investigator of New York's police department. One would think that this kind of job would have died out what with the Vanguard but there's an increasingly large amount of people who have little to no powers. The Vanguard are only so many, they can't cover every little inch, and even if they could they wouldn't cover every little petty crime. That, unfortunately, was Ellie's job. A sigh escaped her lip as she stared at the corpse, unsure of whether to continue the case for just a few more hours or just hand it over to the local Shinigami instead.

Reaching into her pocket with a dead tired sigh, the brunette pulled out a box of cigarettes and flipped it open to pull one out with her teeth. Stuffing the box back into her pocket while shaking her head, she then proceeded to pull out her lighter, flick it open, and quickly light her cigarette before flicking it back shut and depositing it back in the pocket of her dress pants. A sigh came from the woman as she let the wonders of nicotine do its magic, not caring about the long term effects it would have on her later in life. She needed the stress relief now, and she didn't care about how she was going to end up when she was 50 something. There was an 18 year gap between then and now, she wasn't going to make decisions based on her current behavior. One would call it waiting, but to her it just seemed like procrastination. She should fix her smoking habits now, but she was procrastinating on stopping her procrastination habits. A vicious cycle it was, but she couldn't care less.

"Jerry." the woman said after exhaling a large puff of smoke from her mouth and nostrils. "You might as well hand this over to the reapers."

A man to her left gave her a nod and immediately whipped out his phone to call what one would assume were people more fit to hunt a loose Hollow than some lowly police were. It made Ellie feel weak, but again, she didn't care. It was bound to happen. It seems that circumstances arise to choose those who are spiritually powerful, and that not everybody can just be as strong as those in the Vanguard and the like. It didn't bother her, but she couldn't help but think about it whenever a situation like this came up. Another deep exhale left the woman's lungs, along with another absurdly large puff of smoke as she turned on her heels and started walking away.

"I'm off." Ellie said aloud so her coworkers around her could hear and was greeted with several farewells in response. Everyone else was already packing up and heading out as well, so she probably wasn't the first to figure out that this was a job for the Shinigami and not them. The outskirts of New York was almost always like this, but some of them lived closer to this area than the reapers did. Ellie was not one of those people, but she still got called out because she was one of the only investigators in the whole city that was up at this hour. It was almost 1 AM now and she was eager to head home, but she had a decently long car ride ahead of her. It wasn't fun, but at least she'd get some time to think on the way home.

Opening the door to her car, the head investigator started to reach up to fold her umbrella, but the sound of footsteps approaching her made Ellie turn her head lazily in curiosity. Surely enough, it was one of the Shinigami that was requested to hunt down the Hollow that had committed the crime. "Already?" she started to say, "That didn't take long now did-" The woman was unfortunately cut off by the boy she saw taking the cigarette out of her mouth and... voiding it? That was what Ellie assumed it was. Her eyes squinted and she reached into her pocket to repeat her procedure of placing another cigarette into her mouth and lighting it once more. "I wasn't done using that, kid." the woman said, the lightest hint of venom in her voice. "Don't do it again."

A sigh escaped from the woman which translated to a puff of smoke into the boy's face. "There was a hollow around here yes. The wound that the victim suffered was new, he couldn't have gone far. If anything he's probably still lurking within the nearest several blocks, maybe a tad further. Can't you Shinigami sense them or somethin'?" Ellie wondered, taking the cigarette from her mouth to flick off some of the excess burnt tobacco. "Best go get it before it gets outta range then."

This whole time, Ellie had been looking this boy over. She had never had the chance to see a Shinigami up close, but as far as she could tell it was just a spirit with some powers and a sword, or something like that. Speaking of which, why did they use swords? Guns would be plenty more efficient anyways, right? Or did guns not work? That would mean that swords wouldn't be particularly effective either unless the sword itself was something special. Ellie never cared to delve into the affairs or... anything about Shinigami. Yet as she thought about it more, she could also feel herself caring less and less with each passing moment. Another sigh escaped her lips and she turned to her car, folded her umbrella and placed it in the passenger seat.

"Either way, good luck kid. Happy huntin' or whatever the hell." the woman said before closing her car door. Taking a deep breath and exhaling, Ellie reached into her pocket and pulled out her keys so she could start her car. The rumble of the engine was welcoming to her, and she rolled down her windows just a crack so the tobacco smoke could escape. She didn't care much about shortening her lifespan but she wasn't too thrilled about not getting fresh air. She'd start to feel nauseous after a while if her car filled up with smoke too much.

Putting her car into gear, the woman sighed and proceeded to take off, not bothering to offer this kid a ride to wherever so he could get out of the rain. She didn't want to wheel some stranger around anyways, let alone some cocky kid who made her waste a cigarette. These things took up a decent amount of money in the long run, but it wasn't anything her job couldn't cover. Still, it was frustrating, but she was slowly coming to get over it. Whatever that kid did wasn't her problem. Or so she thought at the time. Unbeknownst to Ellie, the same Hollow that Henrex would be looking for, was also following her now. Its presence was hidden, as it was biding its time now after seeing the Shinigami. It would have to play it carefully if he wanted to get what he was looking for.