Episode 43: Apples to the Core
With an emergency situation declared classes at the Soul Reaper Academy had been canceled for that day, but there were still a few students and teachers walking the Academy’s tall, hallowed halls to take care of pertinent tasks they didn’t think could wait a day. The students at the Soul Reaper Academy wore robe shirts and wide, hakama-style pants in similar fashion to proper Soul Reaper uniforms, only the student’s were predominantly white in color with red or blue highlights depending on their gender; red for the women, blue for the men. Even without classes there were still a number of chores that needed doing, and as such several students were cleaning one classroom when a massive pressure wave of force blew out the windows and they all felt an overwhelming amount of reiatsu pulsing like an earthquake from nearby. Several rushed to the windows to see what was happening, wondering if this had anything to do with the mysterious ‘emergency’ that’d shut down the Academy for the day.
What they saw was a glowing storm of golden energy and flowing waves of force radiating off of a space near one of the training courtyards in the distance. Despite the sheer distance the courtyard was from the Academy buildings, the students could feel yet more force blast by like gusts of typhoon force wind.
All the students could do was look at each with fearful, worried eyes, wondering what kind of monsters were battling it out so close by?
Sparks exploded from the armored plating of Applejack’s right boot as her mother’s blade parried her kick, the force sending her reeling backwards. Her eyes widened, glancing at her leg where she could see the armor gashed, blood trickling from the open wound. Yet she didn’t back away, or seek to gain distance from Sweet Cider, but instead blasted right back in, unleashing a brutally quick and powerful series of punches enhanced by the rocket powered thrusters firing from her elbows and shoulders. Her fists were a mind boggling blur, making Applejack for a few seconds look like she had a dozen arms instead of just two.
Any one of those punches were on par with the blow that had knocked Troubleshoes out cold. Sweet Cider deflected them with equally swift swings of her huge, machete-like blade, the steel blurring as she used one arm to meet each of her daughter’s punches with hard steel. Meanwhile every clash of fist upon blade created waves of force that tore into the ground around them in growing cracks through the hard white stone.
Applejack growled in frustration, redoubling the speed of her punches, trying to break through her mother’s guard, but it was like trying to punch through a solid wall. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her mother ball her free hand into a fist, and then smash it towards her while still parrying Applejack’s own punches with her sword. The fist flashed in with meteoric speed and force, and Applejack pulled back, crossing her arms to block. The impact still nearly knocked her senseless and Applejack felt herself propelled backward like a ball shot form a cannon, the world spinning around her.
With no small effort she managed to right herself in mid-air and with rocket thrusters blasting from both palms and boots she flew skyward in a high arc. She then thrust both her heels down towards Sweet Cider, and using her palm thrusters to stabilize herself, she fired twin beams of golden power straight from her boots down at her mother. The beams impacted with full force, creating a sizable explosion of flying chunks of rock and dust and shaking the ground like a localized earthquake.
Breathing heavily, Applejack tried to spot her mother amid the debris, not at all believing for an instant that such an attack would’ve done much to hurt Sweet Cider. This proved true a second later when Sweet Cider literally appeared in the air right beside Applejack, grabbing Applejack’s right arm in a tight, steel grip.
“Gonna suggest ya start fightin’ harder, kid.” Sweet Cider said, “‘Cause right now I ain’t even sweatin’.”
Before Applejack could respond she found herself being twirled around with massive force, and then thrown bodily towards the ground. Unable to do more than slightly slow her fall with a few bursts from her thrusters, she impacted the courtyard with enough force to shatter the stone and create a foot deep crater. Dazed and dizzy, barely catching her lost breath, Applejack felt more than saw Sweet Cider crashing down towards her and with a rocket blast from her shoulders she propelled herself out of the crater just in time to avoid her mother’s cleaving Zanpaktou, which sunk into the crater with enough of an impact to make it another few feet deeper. Then Sweet Cider, chasing after Applejack, swung her sword in an uppercut that sent a shockwave through the ground, blasting a huge line of destruction through the stone for nearly the entire courtyard’s length, leaving a rift in the ground meters deep.
Applejack had barely rolled aside from that attack, and responded with an energy blast of her own, thrusting out her left fist and firing a focused golden beam from the back wrist nozzle of her gauntlet. The beam crashed in on Sweet Cider, who raised her Zanpaktou to block it, causing the golden energy to part like a water stream around the blade’s blunt, thick edge.
“Dang it kid, if ya had the guts ta fight me one one one, ya should’ve least made sure ya had more fight in ya than this.” Sweet Cider said, before vanishing with the speed of a Flash Step. Applejack barely had an instant to feel out where Sweet Cider’s spiritual pressure was going before spinning around to face her mother appearing behind her, blade slashing downward.
She blocked the blade with her crossed forearms, feeling the force jarr and strain her down to her very bones, feeling muscles stretch and nearly tear from the force of the blow. Her knees nearly buckled and she felt the armor in her gauntlet parting under the force, almost down to her skin. Yet somehow she managed to hold the blow at bay, and despite the fact that her mother was only using one arm it was taking all Applejack had just to hold that blade back. In a risky move she twisted to the side, letting the blade cut a bit deeper into one of her arms, so she could pull back her right leg and then with a deep throated yell she kicked out full force into Sweet Cider’s stomach.
The blow actually knocked Sweet Cider back a fair distance, and for the first time Applejack heard her mother grunt in actual strain, as if the kick had actually managed to hurt. Still, Applejack was left sweating rivers, breathing heavily as she took up a fresh fighting stance, while Sweet Cider still looked hardly winded.
I gotta dig deeper! More an’ more ‘till I got enough fer one blow that’ll be hard ‘nough ta git through ta her!
Applejack reached into her core, at the very heart of her spirit energy. Like dredging from the bottom of a drying well she started pulling up every shred of power she could yank out of herself. Gold streams of energy flowed over her in bubbling waves of aura, her armored boots and gauntlets starting to turn bright like metal heated for a forge.
“Ya can’t keep standin’ there pretendin’ ya don’t remember a single damn thing ‘bout us!” she seethed past clenched teeth as she faced Sweet Cider. “Somewhere in that thick skull o’ yers ya gotta know! I ain’t just me, but all o’ us! Ya don’t ‘remember Big Machintosh!? What ‘bout Applebloom!? Granny Smith!? ‘Cause we sure as shootin’ didn’t ferget you n’ pa. Couldn’t have. Ya both left... such a damn big hole behind when ya’ll died.”
She wasn’t even embarrassed by the hot wetness falling down her cheeks, equal parts pain from the memories of losing her parents, and the terrible frustration of looking at her mother’s eyes and not being able to break through the facade of looking at a stranger instead of the woman who’d raised her and been the core of her whole world as a child. Sweet Cider, for her part, had a tense look of growing confusion sprouting across her cherry red features. It reminded Applejack of the way Big Mac looked when he was getting ponderous about a particularly obstinate problem on the farm.
“I don’t know how many different ways ta tell ya I don’t remember bein’ yer ma, kid.” She raised her Zanpaktou almost quizzically before her, holding the blade before her face as she examined it with curious eyes. “All I know is my blade seems ta have a mighty need ta take ya on. Its edge ain’t never felt this thirsty fer a fight before, so if nothin’ else... I’ll admit there’s somethin’ different ‘bout ya.”
In truth, though Sweet Cider wasn’t about to admit this aloud, there was more to it than just the eager desire pulsing inside her Zanpaktou to fight Applejack. No, perhaps even more unnerving to Sweet Cider than that was the fact that with every second of this battle she was feeling something different than any other battle she’d fought. Usually when she was having fun in a battle it was because she was finally unleashing the boiling rage that she usually kept penned up tight inside her. Fights like that were an excuse to let off that steam, and enjoy the relief that came with it.
But this was different. Here, exchanging blows with this girl... Sweet Cider found herself having fun. She felt happy, but not because she was letting out her anger. In fact she didn’t feel angry at all. The feeling that ran through her with every beat of her heart as she fought this young woman was a strange sense of contentment, and something else. Something more. Almost like... pride?
Sweet Cider shook her head and swung her sword out in frustration, the gesture causing a shockwave that tore up a large chunk of the courtyard beside her.
“Not like it matters. Ya ain’t even put a decent bruise on me yet, hayseed, so don’t git ahead o’ yerself!”
The words alone struck Applejack like physical blows, though not for any insult in them but for the memories they struck across her mind like flint striking sparks across stone. Hearing her mother’s voice, speaking such familiar phrases, yanked Applejack’s mind back to a dozen different memories of home.
”Ha! Yer quick little hayseed, but don’t git ahead o’ yerself! Ya gotta try harder n’ that ta fool yer ol’ ma!” said Sweet Cider with a full, rich laugh as she leaned over the edge of the apple-cart, smiling down at Applejack as the small child, barely six, giggled from her hiding place among the heaps of apples.
“Heheh, ya found me mamma! Again! Why’re ya so good at hide n’ seek?” the little girl asked as she was lifted, laughing out of the cart by her mother, who ruffled her hair playfully.
“Well yer Granny Smith played lots o’ hide n’ seek wit me when I was a little hayseed myself. I know all the good hiden’ spots ‘round here, an’ since yer such a smart little cookie I know ye’ll find ‘em too.”
“Let’s play again! I’ll beat ya this time mamma!” Applejack said, bouncing on her feet as her mother set her down. Sweet Cider adjusted the stetson on her head, kneeling down to get eye level with Applejack.
“I’m sure ye’ll beat me one day, AJ. Yer growin’ like a’ weed, gettin’ bigger every day. When yer a grown woman ye’ll probably be taller n’ me.”
Applejack giggled, hugging her mother, “Nah, ma, yer the biggest. And bestest.” She remembered believing those words, too. In little Applejack’s mind there was nothing and no one bigger and stronger than her mother. Larger than life and infallible. The eternal stone that would always be there to rely on.
Sweet Cider’s smile was bright as the morning sun as she ruffled Applejack’s hair again, chuckling in the distinctive, drawling laugh that Applejack would one day inherit herself.
“Ya think that now, but soon ‘nough ye’ll hit that teenager growth spurt an’ then I’ll blink, an’ ye’ll be a woman grown. Gonna be the proudest day o’ my life when I see ya all grown up, my little hayseed. But fer now, yer my little AJ. C’mon, git on hidin’, I’ll count ta ten.”
With a squeal of delight, Applejack ran off to find a new and better hiding spot while her mother counted...
The memory swirled away, along with others of similar happy times. But as painful as it was to remember what her mother had once been like, and to see the confusion and lack of recognition in Sweet Cider’s eyes now, the memory had given Applejack an idea. Which was one idea more than she’d had a second ago, at least.
“Alright ma, how’s this fer tryin’ harder!” she said emphatically and cocked her right arm back. Then with a golden burst of energy to empower the punch, she slammed her fist straight down into the ground. There was an explosion of dust and rock, obscuring Applejack from Sweet Cider’s view.
Sweet Cider narrowed her eyes, her gaze flicking left and right as another explosive impact occurred within the cloud of dust thrown up by Applejack’s punch. Then another, and another, each time in a different spot. Sweet Cider could sense Applejack’s spirit energy moving around quickly, no doubt aided by those thruster-like jets of energy from her armored boots and gauntlets. In less than a minute Applejack had punched the courtyard several dozen times, creating a lingering, thick cloud of rock dust along with a field of uneven ground filled with broken hunks of rock, some more than large enough to hide behind.
“So that’s yer game?” Sweet Cider muttered, “Hide n’ seek?”
She laughed under her breath at the absurdity of it, yet at the same time there was something uncomfortably familiar about this. Stretching out her senses, she tried to pin point where Applejack was, only to find that the girl’s spirit energy could be sensed all over the place. Frowning, Sweet Cider guessed that every time Applejack had punched the ground she’d also unleashed a controlled blast of spirit energy, the result being she’d saturated the whole area with traces of her power. This made temporary decoys of spirit energy that would make it hard to tell exactly where Applejack was, as long as she kept her own spiritual pressure down.
Clever girl. Sweet Cider thought, that sense of pride inside her flaring up again, irritatingly. She was about to give a good, hard swing of her Zanapaktou to clear the air when she sensed a stir of movement behind her and spun around just in time to block an incoming chunk of rock the size of a large dock, backhanding the boulder with her free hand. She sensed a flicker of spiritual pressure from Applejack, but the girl suppressed it quickly.
“This is yer big plan? Toss rocks at me from hidin’?” Sweet Cider called chidingly as another rock flew in from another direction, one she just as easily batted aside as the previous. “Yer a smart cookie, kid, but this ain’t gonna win ya this fight!”
The third chunk of stone that came sailing in was twice the size of the previous ones, not that this mattered much to one of Sweet Cider’s raw physical prowess. She slashed with her blade, cleaving the large chunk of stone in half. It was only when both halves of stone flew by her that she caught the flicker of blonde hair and felt the sudden, massive spike of spiritual pressure.
Applejack had been clinging to the back of the rock, having jumped onto it the second she’d thrown it, a feat of speed and agility only doable with her Fullbring enhanced body. In Sweet Cider’s brief moment of distraction, with her guard down at close range, Applejack poured all of her power into a devastating straight kick with her left boot that managed to catch Sweet Cider straight in the jaw.
The force of the impact, and Sweet Cider being sent sailing out of the dust cloud, actually cleared much of the cloud itself, leaving Applejack standing, panting in plain view as her mother tumbled end over end across the stone courtyard until she impacted with the wall connecting to the wide, central street cutting through the Seireitei towards the Gotei 13’s main headquarters.
Back at the Soul Reaper Academy the students who’d been watching the spectacle from the windows all exchanged excited and equally fearful glances.
“Holy crap did you see that!?”
“Who’s fighting down there!? This reiatsu is overwhelming, I feel like I’m gonna throw up.”
“Uh, shouldn't we be, like, getting one of the instructors or something?”
“Pretty sure they know what’s happening. Whoever’s fighting down there ain’t exactly being subtle.”
“I think that’s one of the Captains that just got tossed into the wall.”
“Shit, for real!? Who could knock around one of the Captains like that!?”
While the Academy students speculated in wild fascination for the spectacle taking place, Applejack herself hadn’t remained idle. The moment her kick had sent her mother flying she’d activated all the boosters along the back of her boots and gauntlet shoulders, creating jets of golden energy that sent her blasting forward in a streaking stampede towards where Sweet Cider had impacted with the wall.
Sweet Cider had hit the thick stone obstacle like a wrecking ball, crunching into it and getting lodged in the stone. Rubbing her sore jaw and spitting out a bit of blood, Sweet Cider actually let out a whooping laugh. So the girl could throw a decent hit! The feeling left Sweet cider grinning, although it still baffled her as to why she felt this way. She was so wrapped up in wondering about this feeling that she almost didn’t see Applejack coming in at her like a torpedo, fists outstretched.
Applejack hit her mother dead on in the stomach with both fists first, and continued to fly on powerful washes of golden thruster energy that took both her and her mother ploughing through the wall in a shower of exploding stone chunks. The ground shook as the huge, ten meter high stone wall that separated the central street from the surrounding district of the Seireitei cracked down the middle, then an entire section splintered apart in the explosive force generated by Applejack smashing her mother through the wall and onto the street beyond.
The two impacted in the middle of the wide, smoothly paved stone street, its expanse stretching out to either side of the two women in a straight shot either to the east towards the Seireitei’s eastern gate, or west all the way to the tall mountain plateau and the shining white fortress of the Gotei 13’s headquarters. The walls on either side of the street were lined with much taller watch towers, straight and square towers of white stone that were spaced out about a hundred meters apart. Some of these towers were occupied by alert Soul Reaper sentries, more than a few activating alarms as they saw part of the wall explode and the two women fighting it out right in the middle of the main street.
“This rattlin’ anything loose yet!?” Applejack roared, jumping up and smashing a potent punch towards her mother, who took the blow head on, letting it smash across her cheek, before pulling back her own free hand to ram her fist into Applejack’s own face, staggering the younger woman back and causing blood to spew from a split lip.
“How the hell am I supposed ta know!? Hah, all I know is I’m finally startin’ ta enjoy this!” Sweet Cider said, licking her lips as she started swinging her sword with more reckless and wild abandon at Applejack, who met the attacks straight with a combination of haymaker counter punches and powerful, thruster boosted roundhouse kicks. Each impact of Applejack’s armored limbs upon Sweet Cider’s massive blade caused impacts that rocked the surrounding area and made flares of golden spiritual energy to wash off the two women like two colliding tides.
With a heaving, wordless battlecry Applejack fired off thrusters from her palms to rapidly spin around her mother’s flank and spun into a kick, unleashing an energy blast that Sweet Cider deflecting into the wall in a golden stream of destructive power that all but cut through the meters thick barrier. But Applejack was already circling around to Sweet Cider’s other side, unleashing another energy blast from the opposite direction, forcing her mother to spin about faster, getting off balance as she parried the second energy blast. Finally, Applejack used this to leap in close while her mother was still off balance and thrust clasped together fists into her mother’s chest, and fired her now signature ‘Roarin’ Apple Cannon’ twin blast at point blank range.
The combined energy beams hit Sweet Cider in a fire hose torrent, pushing her back even as the energy splashed off of her spirit energy hardened body. The beams thrust her back all the way to the opposite wall they’d originally broken through, right into the base of one of the tall watchtowers. As the energy beams dissipated, Applejack stood on shaking legs while drawing in ragged breaths, her armored boots and gauntlets steaming like super-heated metal trying to cool off.
As bits of rubble still fell off the tower wall where Sweet Cider had impacted, the tall woman grunted and dusted herself off. The energy blasts that had hit her had torn away part of her uniform and bruised up her skin, even creating a few bleeding abrasions. It was more damage than she’d honestly expected to take, fighting this young woman who kept insisting they were related. Sweet Cider fought back the urge to keep grinning with glowing pride as she eyed Applejack with a new light of respect.
“Lemma ask ya somethin’ straight, kid. Let’s say ya did git me ta remember bein’ yer ol’ lady... what do ya expect ta git outta it?”
“What? What kind o’ stupid question is that!?” shouted Applejack, “You’d remember yer my ma dangit! You’d know who I am, and...” she trailed off, blinking. Sweet Cider sighed.
“Yeah, exactly. And what? Ain’t sure ya figured this out yet, but yer still livin’, and no matter if I’m yer ma or not, I ain’t alive. Not like I’d be comin’ home fer a big happy ending. Ya still gotta deal wit me being’ dead kid. No matter how ya slice it, yer ma ain’t comin’ back ta life.”
Applejack’s eyes turned wide and bleak, the edges of tears beading around them as she realized that her mother was right about that. Come the end, even with all of this, she couldn’t turn back the clock. She couldn’t bring her mother back. And even if she did get Sweet Cider to remember who she was, what then?
And yet while that future was a huge, yawning void of unknown consequences, something in Applejack flared up, refusing to back down from that unknown. Blinking away her tears, Applejack’s determination redoubled as she glared fiercely at her mother and held up her clenched right fist, blood dripping from where several previous parries of Sweet Cider’s blade had cut the armor and the flesh beneath. The blood dripped down in apple red droplets.
“I don’t matter what happens then, ma. I don’t care if ya can’t ever come back, if ya never wanna even look at home again, or if ya decide ta stick with the Soul Reapers. What matters ta me is that ya know who ya are, and then decide fer yerself what you want! This blood is yer blood! It's what ya gave me, runnin’ through my veins! All the strength I got, dealin’ with all the trouble and doubt I gotta take on runnin’ the farm an’ lookin’ after Big Mac an’ Applebloom and Granny Smith... it’s all from you. You an’ pa. I ain’t gonna let ya spend the rest o’ eternity not even knowin’ that much. And I’m willin’ ta bet my life on makin’ ya remember, fer both o’ us!”
Sweet Cider gazed at the drops of blood falling to the polished white stone, and then at the ironclad resolve inside Applejack’s eyes, eyes that mirrored Sweet Cider’s own. She stepped away from the wall and towards Applejack.
“If it's that important to ya... I guess I owe it to ya not ta treat ya like a little kid no more. If it’s my blood ya got pumping through that heart o’ yers, then ya can take me goin’ all out.”
She turned her Zanapktou to point towards the ground, gold light playing across her arm and down into the sword like flowing water. Applejack felt a disgustingly intense burst of spiritual pressure rise up from her mother and the Zanpaktou, and braced herself for what was coming. Sweet Cider’s voice echoed like thunder.
”Sever; Kizuna!” (Bonds)
Applejack felt a force hit her like being smashed by a runaway dump truck, throwing her all the way back into the wall behind her and pressing her against it. She felt like her lungs were being crushed by the ocean of spiritual pressure that blasted out around her mother in a golden flash of light. When the pressure eased up and Applejack could breathe again, and the glow faded enough for her to see, she stared at Sweet Cider with a visible gulp.
The gigantic slab of metal Sweet Cider’s Zanpaktou had become could hardly be described as a sword anymore. Twice as tall as the already massive Sweet Cider, the blade was like someone had cut off a jagged portion of pure bronze and hammered it into the rough shape of a blade. It was barely tapered, and its ‘point’ was really more of a broad, flat head with just a hint of unrefined edge to it. The ‘hilt’ was just a more narrow and long chunk of bronze that sprouted out of the blade, raw and not even wrapped in anything resembling a proper grip. An iron chain, several dozen links long, hung from the end of the bronze handle, somehow seeming out of place to Applejack’s eye. Even Sweet Cider had to stretch her arm up to grab that handle and heft the giant blade over her shoulder. Even that small movement caused a shockwave powerful enough to cut the tower behind Sweet Cider, and Applejack could feel the unrelenting energy coursing off of the transformed Kizuna.
Applejack took a deep breath, her mind working furiously to try to think of how to even begin attacking that. Sweet Cider just barked a laugh and shook her head.
“Don’t think. Ain’t no point. Kizuna don’t got any fancy schmancy powers ya gotta worry ‘bout. She’s good at just doin’ one thing.” Sweet Cider raised the stupidly large blade over her head, thick streams of gold spirit energy soaking into and saturating the blade. “She sucks up my spirit energy like a’ hungry sponge and lets it out in the most direct way possible.”
Applejack felt the sudden, raw breath of mortal danger shooting down her spine, her instincts screaming at her to dodge just seconds before Sweet Cider slammed the blade down. The unbelievable pressure wave of unreleased spirit energy absolutely destroyed the street, the wall, and a good chunk of the Academy training grounds behind it in a blast that could’ve been seen from practically any part of the Seireitei.
Applejack, having barely used her thrusters to throw herself to the side in time, still felt the edge of that pressure wave like being slammed by a falling steam roller. She rolled and tumbled down the street, dizzy and bleeding, and staggered to her feet to stare wide eyed at the destruction she’d just narrowly avoided.
“Lands sakes... yer outta yer damned mind, ma. Ya tryin’ ta knock Seireitei outta commission through sheer property damage!?”
Sweet Cider cracked her neck, “Ain’t no one but you in the blast zone, an’ not like this can’t be rebuilt usin’ Kido in a couple o’ days. I’d be worryin’ less ‘bout Soul Society’s construction budget an’ more ‘bout yer own health, missy.”
With slow, measured steps Sweet Cider started walking towards Applejack. As this happened Applejack noticed two things. First was that the bronze gleam of metal from Kizuna had a strange resemblance to the bronze portions of Applejack’s own Fullbring. And second was that the spirit energy coursing off the Zanpaktou had a familiar feeling to it, not unlike what Applejack felt from herself and her friend when they activated their Fullbrings. That’s when her eye was drawn to the iron chain, so seemingly out of place, dangling from the hilt of Kizuna.
That chain... I feels like its got a’ different kind o’ energy than the rest o’ the blade. It ain’t like other Zanpaktou...
She had no more time to think on it because Sweet Cider suddenly burst into swifter motion, appearing at Applejack’s side, swinging down that colossus of a sword down. Applejack didn’t even think about blocking, only evading as she once again used the thrusters of energy from her boots and palms to fly aside as Kizuna crashed down hard into the ground. The resulting impact of force sent huge chunks of the street flying skyward, one clipping Applejack and making her spin out of control to smash into the ground. Groaning in pain, she forced herself back up just in time to take a kick from her mother to the face that sent her rolling across the ground, fairly certain her nose had just been broken.
“Just stay down. Ain’t no more shame in callin’ it quits here. Ya fought hard, girl, but this is over.” said Sweet Cider.
“No...” Applejack said, blasting off the ground and flying straight at Sweet Cider. She kicked, and Sweet Cider moved Kizuna in the way like a giant shield. Applejack felt a horrific pain up and down her right leg as the impact on the Zanpaktou was not only blocked, but it felt like all the force was sent back, and then some, jarring through her leg. Metal bent on her armored boot and she felt the bone in her leg snap. Applejack screamed, falling back, unable to put any more weight on that leg as she hit the ground.
Before she could do anything else, Sweet Ciders foot came crashing down on her chest, pinning her to the street. She felt her mother’s weight, both physically and spiritually, pressing down on her as Sweet Cider loomed above, face a stone mask, though one cracking with a wavering shine of concern and doubt.
“Give up dagnabbit! Ya done good, girl, but you can’t win this! Don’t make me...” Sweet Cider took a deep, shuddering breath, “Stop makin’ me do this fer lands sake!”
Despite the fact that her consciousness was now swimming in a deep current of agony, Applejack’s vision locked in on the iron chain swinging from the end of Kizuna’s hilt. A notion took root in her, a final gamble, all or nothing. Even with a broken leg, she ought to be able to pull off one last attempt to get through to her mother.
Past gritting teeth smeared with blood, Applejack looked up at Sweet Cider with unflinching eyes. “Ya still don’t git it. I can’t give up on ya.”
She dredged up the last of her energy, pouring it into her armor, building the growing force behind the thrusters as the ground started to shake.
“Right now, Applebloom’s probably in school, wonderin’ where I’m at. Ya ain’t seen her in years ma, ain’t seen how much she’s grown. She’s got these crazy friends she’s alwasy gettin’ inta trouble with. You’d like ‘em.”
Both boots and gauntlets started to turn bright hot, glowing with the heat of a smelting forge. Motes of gold light started to spill out from beneath where Applejack was pinned and Sweet Cider could now feel the tremors in the ground from the built up of energy inside Applejack.
“Big Mac’s in the field every day, doin’ the work o’ ten men fer the farm. Did ya know he gave up goin’ ta college so he could keep the farm runnin’ after you n’ pa died? He won’t talk ‘bout it none, but sometimes I see him lookin’ at old college brochures. He keep ‘em hidden under his bed. Kinda wish it was dang Playboys instead. It’d hurt less ta see.”
Applejack reached up and grabbed the foot Sweet Cider was pressing her down with, and golden energy started to flow out from beneath her in a growing tide of power as she pushed upwards, forcing her mother’s leg back with the slow, steady power of a rising shuttle launch as thruster energy, melting the ground beneath them, pushed upwards.
“An’ every single damned night I see Granny Smith lookin’ up at the sky ‘fore bed! I know she’s lookn’ up there thinkin’ o’ both you an’ pa! Rememberin’, prayin’, hopin’ you n’ pa are n’ a better place an’ that yer watchin’ over the rest o’ us Apples!”
Gold streams of power shot out of every nozzle on Applejack’s armor, with enough force to lift Sweet Cider bodily off the ground, and broken leg or not, Applejack rose up too, pushing her mother into the air higher and higher. Then she cocked her arms back, both her and mother in free fall for a moment, before she rocketed up and with bursts of golden power started to punch, and punch, and punch, pouring every shred of regret, anger, frustration, hope, and unmitigated love for her mother in every single strike.
“Yer an Apple, mother! An’ Apple forever, down ta the core!”
Higher and higher they went, shockwaves of energy exploding from every impact of Applejack’s fists onto her mother. The punches came faster and faster until it was like she was a singular storm of fists, dozens of strikes raining onto Sweet Cider in shining golden impacts over and over again as they both flew up into the air on a torrent of thrusting streams of energy.
Even when the gauntlets shattered apart in flecking gold shards of metal, Applejack didn’t stop punching. Even as the thruster nozzles on her boots started to melt and distort, she kept pushing higher into the sky, shoving her mother into the blue expanse. They burst through the clouds, Applejack still punching, until the bones in her hands started to crack.
“Now! Remember damnit!”
Applejack’s vision narrowed down to a single point; the chain on her mother’s Zanpaktou. She grabbed it with both bleeding hands, and bracing her one good leg on her mother’s chest, she tore with all her might. She felt the iron bands strain against her, felt her blood slick palms slipping on the iron, but she only gripped tighter as she and her mother hung suspended in free fall. A feral roar ripped its way from her throat as Applejack threw every last ounce of strength left in her body towards the sole task of breaking the chain in her bloody grip.
Then with a metallic snap the chain broke off of her mother’s Zanpaktou, and Kizuna suddenly radiated a soft and shimmering gold light.
Sweet Cider, who’d been stunned by Applejack’s assault, felt a torrent of energy shifting inside her Zanpaktou. It was as if two colliding powers were now flowing out of her blade, and her confusion lasted only as long as it took for that energy to flow into her. With it came a literal flood of memory, mental images crashing through her skull at speeds beyond thought.
The two women started to fall back to the distant ground below, Applejack so near to unconsciousness that she barely felt the air tugging at her. Then, suddenly, she felt herself being held tight, cradled against the warm body of her mother. With pained slowness she was able to turn her head to look up. Sweet Cider was holding her with her one free arm as they fell, looking down at Applejack with shocked eyes. Eyes that sparked with recognition. Applejack saw glints of light reflecting off the tears that got caught by the wind, carried away from her mother’s eyes as she looked down with recognition at her daughter.
“Applejack?”
That one word, spoken with wonderful familiarity, and filled with confused trepidation, left Applejack utterly exhausted as she started to weep in pure relief and joy, burying her face in her mother’s chest.
“Uhhuh.”
“You’ve... gotten taller.”
All Applejack could do was nod her head and bawl into her mother as they fell. She was so beyond tired, and relieved, that she couldn’t even bring herself to care how they landed. Somehow, held in her mother’s arms, she felt like everything was alright now. It didn’t matter what came next. Everything was going to be alright now, because the Apples were together.
For Sweet Cider, her confusion was only matched by fresh feelings of resolve to protect her daughter. Pride surged through her as she looked upon the injured girl in her arms. Applejack had grown so big, strong, and beautiful, it nearly made Sweet Cider’s heart burst with want to just crush her daughter in a big bear hug. If only her and Applejack weren’t so injured. Applejack more so than her. That final flurry of punches had left Sweet Cider bruised up, bleeding from a split lip that matched Applejack’s, but ultimately it was all superficial damage. Had the fight gone on a few seconds more, or if her memories hadn’t come back at that precise moment, then the outcome would’ve been entirely different. Sweet Cider’s old memories hadn’t overridden anything. She knew everything that had happened between now, and the death of her and Hard Nail. She still remembered being in the Rukongai, and being recruited by the Soul Reapers, and all the time she’d spent as Captain of the Tenth Division. Only now she also remembered the rest of her life, like a series of doors opening up to old familiar rooms in her mind.
The chain that had been attached to her Zanpaktou was the only blank. She didn’t know where it had come from, only that it hadn’t been there when she’d first learned Kizuna’s name.
Sweet Cider’s eyes narrowed. The Captain Commander had some explaining to do, but first things first...
As they fell back to the level of the towers surrounding the walled street to the Gotei 13’s headquarters, Sweet Cider adjusted her grip on her daughter, holding Applejack protectively close as she thrust out Kizuna. The blade bit into the closest tower, ripping down the length of the tower’s stone surface, arresting her and Applejack’s fall until they halted about ten meters off the ground. Sweet Cider easily jumped the rest of the way down, landing lightly.
Slowly setting Applejack down, she also let Kizuna return to its sealed form. The Zanpaktou gave her a strange sense of reluctance to re-seal, as if worried for her. Sweet Cider could feel the odd mix of spirit energies inside the blade, both her own, but somehow both different. One was her Soul Reaper power, but the other energy she suspected was tied to her Fullbring, the one she’d had and used to fight alongside her friends so long ago. The memories were still a tad jumbled in her head, but she remembered everything that had happened that led to Xcution’s end. It still felt like pieces were missing, but Sweet Cider was more focused on the now than on the past.
Right now her daughter needed medical attention.
“Ya dang crazy kid.” Sweet Cider muttered, wiping tears from her face, “Tearin’ yerself near apart just tryin’ ta git through my stubborn skull.”
Applejack, not even trying to move now that she was laid out on the ground, just chuckled drly, “If it ‘twere the other way ‘round ya would’ve done the same.”
With a laughing sob, Applejack added while looking down at her wounded body, “Guess I might’ve overdone it a’ tad.”
“Don’t ya fret none, little hayseed. I’ll git ya ta the Fourth Division and healed right up. After that... well, we’ll git ta that business once I know yer in proper care.”
“My friends-” Applejack started, but Sweet Cider put a finger to her mouth.
“Hush up. Yer ma ain’t gonna leave that posse o’ nutty friend o’ yers high n’ dry, but your health comes first. I just got ya back, AJ. Ain’t lettin’ ya bleed out.”
Having sheathed her Zanpaktou, Sweet Cider gently took up Applejack in her arms once more. She felt several spiritual pressures approaching, no doubt reinforcements summoned by those witnessing the battle, but Sweet Cider had no intention of sticking around to chat. Her mind was already tumbling down possible paths to take once she got her daughter to the Fourth Division for treatment. She’d have to figure out how to explain things to Captain Zecora so that Applejack wasn’t put under immediate arrest. Then there was figuring out how to help those crazy girls.
Her memories had changed things, but they hadn’t changed the fact that Sweet Cider still knew someone had been pulling the strings of all this trouble in Soul Society. If she wanted to protect her daughter it was all the more reason to uncover the truth and put an end to all this chaos.
Looking down at Applejack, Sweet Cider patted her head. “Ya wear my hat pretty well, ya know that?”
Applejack didn’t respond, however, having fallen into unconscious slumber in her mother’s arms. With a loving smile, Sweet Cider jumped into the air, making her way towards the Fourth Division. In her haste, she didn’t notice the figure hiding amid the rubble of one of the broken walls, watching her go with keenly interested eyes.
----------
The figure, wearing a heavy, black button up coat and hood, stepped away from the rubble of the wall and quietly sneaked around the wall back towards the side with the Academy, while troops of Soul Reapers arrived at the site of the fight that had just finished. The figure stayed out of sight and quickly, with remarkable speed, ran along the wall, then flickered across the open space of the street, still unseen, and landed on the other side to jump down to the street level of the noble district.
A small beeping noise came from within the figure’s thick coat, and with a slim pink hand the figure pulled out a cell-phone shaped device and held it up to its hood, speaking in a scratchy, female voice.
“What is it? I’m kind of trying to be stealthy here. Y’know, covert, quiet... yeah, everything’s good. The fight’s over. I nearly had to step in. Freakin’ Sweets never was good at holding back... no I wasn’t going to compromise the job. She wouldn’t even remember me. Geez you’re in a complainy mood, aren’t you? Are things going good on your end?”
The figure flitted among the houses of the noble estates, getting deeper and deeper into the noble district, leaving behind the commotion and rising smoke from the battle. The voice on the cell-phone spoke a bit more, and the figure giggled.
“Oh I bet you’re enjoying that. Try not to go overboard. They’re gonna figure out eventually that something’s up. Yeah I know, just long enough to get what we need. Here’s hoping your ‘friend’ doesn’t screw up her end of things. Anyway I’m almost to my target, so I’m gonna let you get back to doing your thing. Yeah, yeah, I won’t mess up my end either. The hell do you think you’re talking to?”
The figure hung up the cell phone, muttering, “Putting this damn thing on vibrate...”
Putting away the cell phone, the figure paused under the shadow of one noble estate’s rooftops to peer at another estate across the street. The same estate Applejack had come from. The figure licked her lips, and reached into her hood to adjust a pair of goggles over her violet eyes, strands of thick blue bangs falling across her face.
“Alright then, showtime.”