Episode 179: Souls Ablaze
Episode 179: Souls Ablaze
Uncountable leagues from the familiar walls of the Seireitei, or the winding, packed streets of the Rukon Districts, were wide stretches of unmapped and unoccupied wilderness. The Spirit Realm had a surface area larger than that of Earth’s, although like it’s dark cousin Hueco Mundo, it too was in essence a circular globe with its own atmosphere of reishi and even a spiritual approximation of a sun. The souls of humanity could and did mostly fit within Soul Society’s structured cityscape, although there were numerous pockets that dwelled in the further reaches in their own villages, either too small or too scattered for the Soul Reapers to bother considering policing to any degree.
Yet it was even further still past any demarcation between settled area and untouched land where a wide mountain range was marked in it’s center by a low, long dormant volcanic caldera. Surrounded by the volcano’s long cold rim, this caldera flourished with fields of tall grass and white flowers, so thick it almost made the land look as if it was covered in a blanket of snow.
A deafening crack of sound stirred up flights of birds from the caldera, swarming into the sky as something opened in the air near the caldera’s center. An ornate red and gold Senkaimon Gate, which nearly burst apart as fast as it appeared as multi-hued torrents of spiritual energy shot through it and drove two individuals out and into the ground with enough force to rip into the caldera’s basin as if it were no more solid than water. Rock chunks as large as trees fell from the air as a result of the impact, and scattered around like a shotgun blast.
Then a white flash cut through the debris and sliced into the wave of energy, like a giant thin thread of singular light. This was followed by a blast of air pressure that saw the two figures leap apart, landing on opposite sides of the deeply cut, new ravine that their clash had created straight down the center of the caldera.
Glory glanced to her left and right, her Zanpaktou held loosely in her right hand. She saw that Scorpan’s attack had blown a hole through the caldera wall to her right over a hundred meters wide, and similarly her own counter had sliced a neat line through the opposite caldera wall which was even now sliding away in a grinding, thunderous groan of crumbling rock. She sighed, flipping golden hair away from her face. “I liked this spot. A shame we’re to ruin it. Do you recognize it, Scorpan?”
He was still partially obscured by rock dust that was settling around him, a strong wind swirling around his body from the intensity of his reiatsu and the release of his Zanpaktou. She heard his voice before she saw him clearly.
“I do. Of course I do, Glory. This indeed was a favored spot you used to train me, when we both wished to be away from the Palace. Enjoyable days, now long dead and unrecoverable.”
“It need not be so. Such days can come again,” she said, emphatic, but his retort was harsh and barked out with a report as sharp as thunder.
“No. I have said it once already, and repeat it only once more...”
Finally the dust cleared and Scorpan was revealed. His Zanpaktou, Shiki no Ken, was raised in front of him in a two handed grip, a classic and strong kenjutsu stance. The blade retained a familiar curved shape akin to a katana, but now far longer, a proper ‘nodachi’ over five feet long. The circular guard of the weapon was formed from four different colored stones wrapped together in the shape of magatama’s; one ice blue, one heated orange, another verdant green, and the last pale white. The pommel retained its wrapping of black leather, but was capped with a bronze, teardrop magatama shape. Little at first might have seemed noteworthy about the sword itself, but the steel gleamed with flashes of internal light showing various colors of orange, green, blue, and white. Flashes that soon sparked energies that ran forth and curled up and down the blade in helix swirls. Currents of wind shot through with lightning, streams of flame so deeply orange they appeared like magma, curing crystals of liquid ice that froze the air, and raw rivers of green light that carried clusters of rockshards through them.
Scorpan’s face showed nothing but resolute denial and disciplined anger as he said, “I reject you and your plans, Glory. I will end them, by all the power my soul possesses, or expend my life in the attempt. But one way or another, it ends here.”
It took her a few moments to respond, her face going through a curious shimmy of twitches, small frowns, and gradual cold, ivory acceptance. “Then all I have left to say is that I truly didn’t wish for it to end this way, but you’ve left me no choice. Come, Scorpan... one last bout, master against student. Show me if you’ve learned anything quarreling with your brother and the Quincy King these past few thousand years.”
Before, back in Discord’s underground training area, Glory had fought almost entirely defensively, outputting only a portion of her reiatsu as to try and prevent Discord’s wards from failing and a wave of spiritual pressure from harming all of Canterlot City. Even in her twisted sense of right and wrong, Glory was weirdly concerned over the quandary of collateral damage in the world of the living.
But this was the Spirit Realm, and there wasn’t another soul around for a continent's length. Glory had no reason at all to hold back any longer, and so she did not.
It almost ended in the first stroke. For all of Scorpan’s preparedness, all his own great power and skill, he’d nearly forgotten how ungodly fast and unmitigated in her overwhelming strength Glory was, when she fought in earnest.
Her first blow was beyond any measure of speed, her blade encased in light screaming through the air as she brought it down upon him before he’d even had a chance to register her words. Only Shiki no Ken’s own impressive array of abilities kept him from falling to that first blow, for the Zanpaktou was a blade that encompassed and controlled all of the elements that comprised the four mortal seasons. This afforded Scorpan a nearly unlimited amount of versatility and ability to both strike and defend himself, for the very air around his body, the ground beneath his feet, every drop of water, and every shred of heat within his scope of awareness was his to command.
Water droplets in the air instantly froze to sheet of reiatsu enhanced ice as thin as a micrometer, yet stronger than any metal found upon Earth or Heaven, for it was also encased in a protective sheen of wind further boosted by Scorpan’s reaitsu. This move was a defensive instinct, one not of conscious thought but of many ages spent in battle. Glory’s blade of light still struck the barrier with such unimaginable power that it still shattered, scattering so much force about that a crater nearly half the caldera’s length was made in an instant. Yet the barest fraction of a moment that Scorpan’s barrier slowed her blade was enough for him to fly upwards, the light scouring his brow and sending blood droplets scattering to the ground as he shot upward several hundred meters.
Underneath Glory the ground heaved, splintering upwards in a forest of rocky spikes that sought to skewer into her in their multitudes of hundreds. Yet even as her blade danced and sliced rock to pieces with the ease of butter, the volcano heaved, and was awoken by Shiki no Ken’s call.
Hundreds of miles away animals looked up and fearfully ran as they heard a sound they never had before, that of a volcano erupting. The pyroclastic cloud belched into the sky, searing ash and boiling lava alike flying upwards as the entire caldera, only moments ago cold and dormant, became ground zero for an eruption that would have utterly destroyed a human settlement like Canterlot City.
From within that thick cloud of pyroclastic ash and skin melting heat, a place where a normal human would have been scorched to death in a mere instant, there was a percussive cluster of radial bursts. Light pierced through the ash like bars of sunlight from each burst, and the clouds were dispersed in air rending shockwaves of force, all stemming from the clash of elemental blade upon radiant sword of light. From the eruption ash cloud, Scorpan shot backwards across the mountain range’s skyline. Following him was a searing array consisting of curving strands of light, untold in their numbers, but all stemming from the length of Glory’s Zanpaktou as she followed him from the depths of the volcano’s ash cloud.
Both already bore marks upon them, Scorpan’s brow bleeding profusely from that very first strike, but also showing burns and cuts upon his body from the scintillating strands of light that sought to pierce him. Glory’s perfectly smooth and ivory white skin showed soot and ash from the volcano, although no obvious burns even from the eruption itself.
As her beams of light followed Scorpan he twisted in the air and led them on a blinding chase. Shiki no Ken warped the air around him, creating dozens of reflective distortions. He knew the properties of Glory’s Zanpaktou, and understood that in most respects it obeyed the laws of light, although enhanced and pushed far beyond the mortal understanding of physics due to her supreme spiritual power that infused every light particle. Still, by altering the air and water particles around him with Shiki no Ken he was able to create a number of flat planes around him that were just reflecting enough, and sufficiently infused with his own reiatsu, to bend the light beams ever so slightly as they sought to impale him.
The result was a dizzying display as he moved in countless streaks of Flash Step while twisting beams of light continued to brim around him, twisting this way and that as they were bent but also kept course correcting to chase after him. In the span of a simple second or two he’d led the beams into and through one mountain, doubled back up and then came right at Glory. He knew she could project a limitless amount of these light beams, and that he had to stretch her focus before engaging her too directly. Hence giving her a bit of chase first before he came in hard with the light beams still close behind him.
Flinging one hand back behind him he drew forth the power of Winter. Ice crawled along his hands then cracked like a shotgun blast of ice shards that then swiftly grew to monstrous size. Hardening that ice with his reiatsu, he effectively turned the cloud of ice shards into prisms that blocked and deflected the beams of light that still chased him while he thrust his sword towards Glory. Calling on the strength of Autumn, storm winds and a sheath of purest lighting wracked along his sword’s length, flaring bolts of power across the sky as he slashed at Glory’s chest.
She met him with an upswing, light and lightning mixing in a cataclysmic wave of conflicting forces. More than fast enough to switch instantly to offense, and unbothered by her light beams being tied up by the ice Scorpan had summoned, Glory appeared with such speed that for Scorpan it was as if she was nearly everywhere at once. Wrapping his body in wind, Scorpan spun and generated sharp blades of cutting air force to accompany his physical blade as he moved with all the speed he could muster to match Glory’s lightspeed assault. Even with Shiki no Ken empowering each slicing burst of wind, Glory’s sword was able to cut through and Scorpan was forced to feel the sting of several cuts along his aged flesh. Yet he knew this would be the case and was prepared for it, having intentionally drawn Glory close.
With a rugged shout, Scorpan called forth Summer’s scorching heat and the chill of wind was instantly replaced by a storm of intense fire that exploded from him in a spherical blaze. He felt Glory take the hit, for she’d been attacking him so fast from so many angles that even with her speed it would have been near impossible to escape a blast of such widespread flame that appeared so immediately. Not letting up, he charged where he sensed her reiatsu, coiling those very flames around Shiki no Ken and intensifying them until they became as liquid magma. Lava from the volcano leaped almost like an eager, alive thing to join with his sword, even as from the sky he called down powerful strokes of lightning to merge with the flames.
He saw Glory, singed slightly and glaring at him, as he came at her with his sword bearing a bubbling cyclone of fire, magma, and coiling lightning.
She put both hands on the hilt of her Zanpaktou and turned to the side, feet spread upon the air, and a flat square of light appeared before her, so brilliant solid and white that it as if someone had cut a perfect chunk out of the sun and placed it like a shield before them. Scorpan struck the barrier dead on with his omni-elemental blade, and miles below and for vast distances beyond, the Spirit Realm shook at the impact.
Scorpan felt the incredible resilience of Glory’s shield of light, and knew its danger went well beyond its defensive capability. It was no surprise to him when he saw beams of light extend from the corners of the square, snapping into place a cube around him about ten meters per side. He knew Glory enjoyed this technique, having used it to trap many a foe. This was why he’d been prepared for it.
Slicing blades of light, like scythes, appeared within the cube, cutting through flame and lava that had surrounded Scorpan when he’d dove in to strike at Glory’s shield. Yet now those cutting lights were touching nothing but the remnants of fire and magma left within, for Scorpan had drawn upon the seasons of Spring just before he’d struck. Glory, looking into the cube of light, saw a simple but life-like rendition of Scorpan formed from rock that he’d drawn into Shiki no Ken when he’d charged through the mountain earlier.
Now, with many countless tons of earth absorbed into his sword, the real Scorpan appeared behind Glory and cut downward with his Zanpaktou. Even as she flipped away in a flicker of lightspeed that left behind a ghostly image of herself in pure white, he anticipated her evasion and called upon Spring even more. A mountainous wave of solid stone filled the sky and crashed in on Glory. The slab of earth must have weighed hundreds of thousands of tons on it’s own, but the raw force of power with which Scorpan could bring it down using his reiatsu made the impact force that many magnitudes worse.
Glory was driven down towards the distant mountain valleys below, her Zanpaktou piercing into the massive rock wave that was pushing her downward. Then from below she heard the noise akin to a dozen earthquakes, and saw a pillar of stone rising from the ground to meet her, effectively sandwiching her between it and the wave above. Huffing slightly, she began to become infused with a solid silver sheen of light. Threads of light spiraled from her blade, and even more flew from her very aura, both sets embedded themselves into the rock trying to crush her from above and below.
Stone was sliced to pieces, the pillar, itself the size of a skyscraper, reduced to dust, while the wave above was torn asunder until it was a rain of pebbles.
Glory didn’t halt her descent, instead choosing to flicker down and land upon the mountain valley below. This place, just minutes ago a verdant and picturesque landscape, was ruined by the volcanic eruption and was still covered in a thick haze of ash, which continued to fall like snow flurries of depressing gray.
Not spending even a fraction of a second on the scenery, however, Glory tracked Scorpan’s reiatsu as he descended towards her, engulfed in fire like a falling star. She raised her left hand and extended a soot stained white finger towards him, and the area around her shuddered, the ash itself billowing out and fading to nothing as she focused her incredible reiatsu at a single point at the tip of her finger.
”Ura Hado: Gonnodo - Uchu Hebi Juji.” (Hidden Way of Destruction : Fifth Path - Cosmic Serpent Cross)
There was no “dodging” this particular Kido. Even for one such as Scorpan, who’s speed was enough to keep pace with Glory’s lightspeed movements, the idea of evading could not have even formed within the synapses of his mind before the spiritual energies of Glory’s Kido would already be in contact with him. The reason for this was because among the various restricted Kido that only Zero Division had access to, some took effect without there being even the smallest measurable sliver of intervening time between their casting and their results taking place. Even Glory’s incantation was not verbally restricted by timeframe, but instead was created by the resonating of her reiatsu to generate the required invoking sounds all simultaneously, a technique only a very small handful outside of Zero Division were capable of.
Scorpan did happen to be one of those individuals, so he knew what was coming and was aware that evading would be next to impossible for him. There also wasn’t time to create another clever rock duplicate of himself. Instead, he used that bare instant of realization to harden himself, drawing in Winter and Spring’s power at the same time to coat his flesh with layers of dense, reiatsu hardened ice and rock while not halting his downward charge.
A symbol was instantly stamped in blazing light upon his chest from where Glory had pointed, a symbol that resembled a brilliant and starkly white serpent that was twisted into eating it’s own tail in a double layered infinity symbol with four loops. Only this symbol was not static. It moved with incredible speed as if alive, the serpent’s mouth devouring more of itself as it’s coils of light seemed to grow and engulf the target they were stamped upon.
Then, imploding on itself, the serpent, now thoroughly coiled around Scorpan’s body, flashed so brightly that it eclipsed the sun for a moment. A straight cross of light larger than a city erupted outward, its energies annihilating a castle-sized hole through the center of one mountain, while another mountain’s top was demolished. The cross spun, it’s earth rending energies spinning about as it tore canyons and deep rifts in the ground for kilometers around. All the while at the cross’ center was a nimbus of pure white destruction, the true focal point of the insanely potent Kido.
The Kido eventually petered out after a few moments of ungodly destruction, leaving Glory to watch as a form fell smoking from the dissipating center of light.
Scorpan landed hard on his feet, the top of his Captain’s haori and robes now ash and leaving his muscled chest bare and scored with dark burns. Blood trickled down his arms and chest, smoke still steaming from his body as chunks of blackened rock and rivers of melted ice fell off of him. Glory knew well that Kido could kill nearly any opponent short of one like Scorpan or those at least close to his level. Its raw power and near impossible to defend against accuracy was what made it so deadly, yet it did carry the rather nasty drawback that it drained an appropriately ridiculous amount of reiatsu and by its nature was unusable again for a long period of time.
She’d known Scorpan would survive it, but Glory’s slightly pressed lips and short intake of breath showed she had expected him to come out of it more damaged.
Scorpan managed to suppress the desire to grunt out a laugh. There was no time for petty satisfaction just because he surprised Glory. Instead he took advantage of her brief being taken aback and sliced forth with Shiki no Ken.
The ground beneath Glory split as completely as if a knife from the heavens had cleaved it open like a birthday cake. With the brutal method of a carnivorous think devouring it’s prey, the earth snapped upon her in a quaking gnashing of stone. Glory was battered about, more distracted than injured, but this was enough for Scorpan to close the distance. Shiki no Ken now blossomed with a wreath of solid white ice, doubling in thickness and length. The ground beneath Scorpan’s feet and for hundreds of feet around froze over as he slashed hard at Glory’s neck with his elongated blade of pure Winter frost.
She just managed to get her sword of light up to block, the edge of ice coming within inches of her neck. Even so she was driven back like a puck on an ice rink, and a divine blast of absolute zero wind and ice shot out of Scorpan’s continued strike. The landscape of ash and fallen trees was engulfed in a rolling mist of instant freeze, many trees bursting under sudden unimaginable cold.
Glory, for all of her speed, did not escape wholly unscathed, ice rime coating her clothes, hands, and feet as she slid upon the icy land and came to a halt. Fury bled into her eyes, and new focus sharpened her stance as she readied to meet Scorpan, who charged on. In the cold mist they now clashed, Scorpan cutting down hard at her from above and to her right. Glory blinked out in a burst of light, this time dodging the frozen blast that came with Scorpan’s strike, and cut her blade of light in a wide arc at his back.
A sheet of ice and rock spiked up to meet her blade, but was cut through cleanly, and Scorpan grunted as his Flash Step was a shade too slow and he felt his back left shoulder blade be cut into. Red blood splashed on ice, the blood itself freezing instantly. Glory pressed him, each stroke faster than the last, each cutting arc of light leaving long rents in the earth.
Scorpan was placed on the back foot, each Flash Step of incredible speed leading him further back from Glory as she kept the pressure on. They left the frozen landscape behind and crossed miles of distance as their blades clashed, ending up upon the bottom slopes of one of the taller mountains in the range. By now Scorpan had several more cuts on his body, and by comparison Glory had only a bit more frost on her and some unkempt hair.
The difference between them was clear. Scorpan could press her. Surprise her. Force her to put in effort. Indeed far more so than she’d ever expected. But at this rate, anyone could tell who the victor would be, given time.
Of course Scorpan did have one remaining factor to put into play, and Glory knew it. Which was why she paused, halting her attacks upon him on that mountain slope. At this lower elevation this area still bore trees, and while any animal with sense had fled already upon the eruption of the volcano miles away now, Glory could appreciate the scenery. However her interest was solely in the seemingly old man facing her, but in her mind’s eye all she could see was the boy. A young, eager, optimistic lad who’d endlessly quarreled with his boisterous and prideful big brother, and had followed her for weeks before working up the courage to ask one of the Soul Queen’s firstborn children to train him.
“You’ve gotten better,” she admitted in that brief span of quiet as they both caught their breath. “I suppose I should have expected as much, but somehow I just didn’t realize how much you’d grow.”
“You rarely looked at those beneath you with clear eyes, even back then,” Scorpan replied, “I thought it was kindness that spurred you to finally train me, but looking back, was it just that you were preparing me to be a more useful tool?”
“Don’t be absurd. At that time I had not conceived of what I would have to do to set the world to rights. I still...” Glory took a slow breath, “I still believed in Mother, back then. But my words matter little to you, you’ve made that clear. War has sharpened you, but you know that you won’t do more than wind me and get a few scratches in as long as you rely on Shikai. So why waste our time further, Scorpan? You know your only chance lies in using Shiki no Ken’s full strength.”
Her words rang true, he knew. Shiki no Ken was a fabulously powerful Zanpaktou. Its Shikai was sufficient to overcome many of his fellow Captains' Bankai. Only Celestia and Cheese Sandwich could really give him a run for his money, with Hurricane and Sweet Cider coming in close second. In the former two’s cases it was their Zanpaktou’s powers and their skill in using them, as well as their mastery of Kido that made Celestia and Cheese so dangerous. Strictly speaking Hurricane and Sweet Cider had greater physical strengths to rely upon, but sword skills alone would never compete against Shiki no Ken. Even now, Scorpan suspected if he truly wished to draw this battle out, he had many ways in which his command of the elements could forestall Glory and perhaps even score a few telling hits upon her.
But that would be it. Against Glory, Shikai wasn’t enough. Controlling the elements of the four seasons was one thing, but he needed to go further beyond that. Much further.
Clearly Glory knew this, and was goading him to do what both of them knew he must. She’d let him do it, too. Whether it was simply well founded confidence in her ability to win, or that she wished to defeat him at his full measure as a matter of principle, the reason mattered little to Scorpan. His responsibilities to Soul Society and the duty bound need to see this battle through to the end, no matter the outcome, set his course in a manner from which there was no retreat.
“It is as you say. I have never once gotten the best of you in our years of training together,” he replied to Glory, raising Shiki no Ken high above his head, “But you never have fought me after I was raised to Captain Commander of the Gotei 13. Even you haven’t tested me at this level.”
“Yes, which is why I say it is your only possible chance. Even then, your Shiki no Ken is fundamentally different from what I and my siblings wield. Will it be enough, I wonder?”
A valid question, Scorpan knew. Zanpaktou as they existed today among the Soul Reapers were based upon the swords forged by the Soul Queen’s first children, but there was a separation of nature between the weapons Bowtie created originally, and the ones mass produced for distribution to the ranks of Soul Reapers after the Gotei 13 were properly established. The Zanpaktou Scorpan held was the first prototype of that mass produced design, a sort of ‘in-between’ stage before Bowtie settled on the Asauchi that transformed into Zanpaktou.
And Shikai and Bankai releases were a core element of the design, existing as a means to allow a Soul Reaper, many of whom would be human souls far weaker than the god-like souls that came before them, to survive the process of growing in strength. Normally were a human soul to gain full access to a Zanpaktou’s potential power, it would rip them to spiritual shreds. Shikai and Bankai were controllable forms of releasing that power in gradual stages.
Yet the swords used by the Zero Division, the naked blade of light in Glory’s hand, was not quite the same. It was most assuredly still a Zanpaktou, but a far more primal version, unrestricted by stages of “release”, save for the basic nature that a Zanpaktou still had a name, and invoking that name brought forth it’s power. For all intents and purposes, the Zero Division did not require things like “Shikai” and “Bankai”, their swords maintained a state of raw power at a base level that competed or utterly outstripped even many Bankai abilities.
There was another state to them, when their names were called, but it was called neither Shikai nor Bankai.
If Glory used that, he wasn’t certain if even his Bankai would compete, but it was his only option.
A rumbling emanated across the mountain slope. The sky darkened with the formation of boiling, lightning ridden clouds above. Frost crawled across the ground, causing rock and trees alike to freeze over and crumble under the weight of the building cold. At the same time a heat as focused as plasma coated Scorpan’s body and melted the ground beneath his feet. Above all, his spiritual pressure pressed out like the mother of all storm fronts, blanketing all.
Even thousands of miles away, in Soul Society...
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From the streets of the Rukon Districts countless souls murmured uneasily to each other at the unusual feelings of the past few minutes. Even ordinary souls, going about their peaceful afterlives, sensed a distant, uncomfortable pressure in the air. Many paused in their day to day activities to give one another nervous looks and a few wondered aloud what was happening.
This unsettled feeling only grew as many realized there was a faint tremble in the streets, as if shaking from a distant earthquake.
At one of Seireitei’s gates, the massive and generally impassive Iron Will grunted in worry, looking east towards the sensation pressing on his senses. Gulping, the burly man stayed firmly at his post, but now looked at the walls of Seireitei with dubious wonderment. Whatever he was sensing was so powerful, he doubted walls and wards would matter much at all if it came towards them, but he imagined that whatever it was, the Captains had things under control.
Hopefully.
Within Seireitei itself things were more tense. Soul Reapers were, by and large, well trained in sensing spiritual pressures, and even the lowest ranks could feel the immense build of reiatsu to the distant east. Division members quickly asked higher ranked seated members as to what they should be doing, which in turn prompted questions going up the command chain to Lieutenants.
“Captain!? Hey, Captain, where are you at?” asked a somewhat rotund, middle aged man with mustard colored skin and thick black hair. His Soul Reaper robes were neatly worn, although is Lieutenant's badge, bearing the Third Division’s kanji symbol, was worn a bit loosely on his arm. He’d barged into the office of the Third Division Captain, a small but highly decorative place with lots of random knick knacks organized in neat rows on various shelves.
“She not here, Lieutenant Quibble?” asked another Soul Reaper, the tall and somewhat lumbering form of Troubleshoes from the Tenth Division. He’d been over helping the Third Division Lieutenant, Quibble Pants, organize a joint training exercise when the whole place started going crazy over sensing that distant, huge reiatsu.
“Looks like she’s out. Dammit, everyone is freaking out, and the Captain dips?” Quibble Pants grumbled, but was cut off by a sudden voice from the window, which happened to look out of the Third Division’s fourth story.
“I didn’t ‘dip’ anywhere, I went to check with Captain Celestia to confirm what we’re all sensing.”
Captain Daring Do sat perched on the windowsill, eyes as grave as any had ever seen her with a scowl that was not directed at her fellow Soul Reapers, but at the situation in general. Quibble Pants gulped a bit, “And what the heck are we sensing, Captain? Feels like the whole sky is pressing down on me, but it’s way too far away and-”
Just then a faint rumble filled the air, and the floorboards creaked with a trace of a rattle. Troubleshoes made a ‘urk’ sound as he knelt down and touched the floor, “It’s... tremblin’. The whole ground. All o’ it.”
Daring Do nodded, eyes narrowed to magenta slits, “Yeah. That’s what happens when he goes all out. He shakes everything. Be it the Earth, or the Spirit Realm, Old Man Scorpan’s power just makes it all tremble like a leaf.”
“T-the Captain Commander!?” Quibble Pants hoarsely croaked, “He’s fighting something? W-what could make him of all people fight? Wait, it isn’t Tirek, is it!? Are the Hollows invading?”
“Keep it together, Lieutenant. No, it’s not Tirek. Like I said, I was just with Celestia. My senses are a bit better than hers, but she knows the Old Man’s reiatsu better. We both concurred he’s up against what feels like another Soul Reaper... only...”
“Only?” her Lieutenant pressed, but Daring Do shook her head firmly.
“No point speculating. Go and get the Division under control and let everyone know not to panic. We knew the Captain Commander was going with Blueblood and Amore to a meeting in the world of the living, but clearly something has gone wrong there. Right now the rest of the Captains are meeting in front of First Division. If the Captain Commander is in combat, we need to put Seireitei on alert, but not raise a panic. I’m going to that meeting now. You get to work on calming everyone down, but get the Division prepped in case we need to go into action. Troubleshoes, better get back to your Division barracks and let Lieutenant Silverstar know to do the same. If something went down, his Captain is probably in the thick of it already.”
Discipline kicked in over the stress of the situation, and both of the other Soul Reapers gave quick salutes and rushed off to follow orders. This left Daring Do to sigh under her breath and immediately turn to Flash Step out of the window and start making her way swiftly across rooftops towards the foot of the stairs of the First Division and the central headquarters.
She would meet with her fellow Captains to figure out what to do, but if she was being honest with herself? Daring was terrified. Not of Scorpan’s power, although that by itself was a terrifying thing to behold and she’d never really felt the Old Man go all out like this.
No, what horrified her was that her senses had also touched upon what he was facing, and that thing, whatever it was, left Daring Do doing something she never thought she would have to...
...she feared for Scorpan’s life.
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“Bankai.”
Such a simple word, to shake the foundations of an entire realm. To almost every Soul Reaper it represented the pinnacle, the highest honor and greatest power any of them could dare dream of achieving. And Scorpan, the Captain Commander of the Gotei 13, was the Soul Reaper against which all other Soul Reapers within Soul Society measured themselves. He had been there since the beginning, and most understandably assumed he would remain with Soul Society for as long as its traditions and cause continued to exist.
To them, he was a permanent fixture, and a figure akin to a myth. Few, if any, had even truly seen him do battle, let alone with the complete measure of his power. This was for good reason. His power would break nearly any landscape upon which he stood upon unleashing it. His war was a war to protect Soul Society, the world of the living, and the cycle of reincarnation. Oftentimes this meant training others to fight battles in his place, powerful Captains and other capable Soul Reapers who could carry his will into the field where, if he were to go and fight, he’d be as much a danger to his beloved subordinates as he would be to the enemy.
The only times he had made exceptions where when those who equaled him had dared take the field. In the war’s long history this had only happened three times against his brother, and twice against the Quincy King, all such incidents inevitably ending in draws when their powers proved each other’s match.
Yet he knew instinctively this time would be different. Glory was no foe he could walk away from, nor afford to leave at a ‘draw’. This time, the battle would be to the bitter finish, one way or another.
Upon the intoning word being spoken, all was engulfed in a calamitous, skyward surging flood of elements. Glory blinked in a flicker of light to get distance from the surge that consumed the entirety of half the mountain slope in its unmitigated power. Amid the sky piercing typhon of energies all the elements danced together; fire, wind, lightning, earth, water, ice. They did not simply swirl around one another in gigantic rivers of power, they merged and fused together like oils on a paint canvas. This created impossible colors and combinations of energies as a wave of spiritual pressure crushed the landscape and caused a quake so severe that across the entire mountain range peaks and cliffs collapsed and avalanches broke free.
Glory waited patiently, just a short distance up in the air, watching with focused intent. Her perfectly shaped mouth twitched ever so slightly in a frown.
This was more power than she’d expected. In the quiet corners of her mind, a part of her that was more detached and analytical than the rest, suggested the possibility that the Zero Division’s long millennias of inactivity, versus Scorpan’s equal years of warfare, may have had a greater impact on their power gap than she’d anticipated.
Yet within her breast beat the Heart of the Soul Queen, merged with her own, and that transcendent reiatsu flooded her own body and bowled outward to encase her in snow white light. She calmed herself, feeling foolish for her momentary concern. This might prove a worthy fight, but she remained confident of the outcome.
Then, as abruptly as it had appeared, the immense cyclone of fusing elements were sucked right back to their origin point, where an equally massive expelling of raw force blasted outwards in an echoing boom so loud that it caused even Glory to flinch slightly. Then, standing there at the epicenter of what was now a thoroughly cratered and pulverized mountain, was Scorpan.
He bore no blade in his hands. He stood, upper torso naked, but with the very distinct difference that upon the center of his chest was now the form of four large magatama crystals fused into his very flesh, arranged in a perfectly balanced circle. The top one was deep orange and gleamed with inner fire, and counter clockwise from that the fire bled into a magatama of brightest ice white where the fire then turned to ice which further fed to the next magatama. This one, the bottom magatama, was flush forest green, and as the ice bled into it from the previous magatama, a stream of earthen veins grew from the green magatama to its brother to the right. The final, blue magatama coursed with inner lightning and storm clouds, taking the earthen veins and mixing it with its storms to feed back into the flame magatama.
This centerpiece was hardly the only change to accompany Scorpan’s Bankai. His entire body was infused with elemental power that manifested in various ways across his flesh. His left arm was a molten black, shot through with veins of magma, yet across his skin the heat and flames were intermixed with a coiling of frost that turned the flames into glowing crystal shards of ice that were somehow impossibly mixed with the heat of fire. His right arm was no less a strange fusion of elements, the skin hardened by an encasing of jagged stone that also crackled and glared with forks of raw lightning that poured out in a wild jetstream of wind that carried particles of earth.
His lower body was coated in a flaring armor of ice that was mixed with trailing tails of lightning, which then turned into molten flame that formed around his feet that simultaneously exuded swirling jets of wind. Even Scorpan’s beard now flickered at the tip with flame, yet also was coated in ice and rock, and sparked around the edges with arcs of electricity.
“Shunkashuto-Ikkon.” (Four Seasons - One Soul)
The name of his Bankai was spoken in the same breath that Scorpan attacked. Glory was ready for it, yet at the same time was most assuredly not ready for it.
She did see him coming. His speed was monstrously faster now, but she was able to track it. She sliced her blade forward and created a swarm of light beams to slice into his path, but he was through them before she could truly correct their aim, or even properly pull back her sword. He was right in front of her with his right fist coming up under her chin while Glory was still trying to adjust her sword.
The impact was not merely force, but an air shattering explosion of wind beyond any mortal storm, while at the exact same time every particle of cutting air was infused with an accompanying hammer of earth. This created a fusion storm of flesh stripping earthen dust merged with such wind power that it put anything existing in the human world to shame. The strike knocked Glory briefly senseless as she was sent careening upward like a fly caught in a tornado.
To her brief shock she tasted the copper of blood in her mouth. Correcting her trajectory, she flipped over and made a defensive cut with her sword, slicing into the impossibly fused rock winds. Her light sliced into it, not nearly as completely and cleanly as she would have liked, but it dispersed the scalding storm around her just long enough for her to realize Scorpan wasn’t where she’d last seen him.
She had just enough time to react by turning to her left, and saw the corona coming for her face. There was a maddening mix of overwhelming heat intertwined with breath stealing cold, and a torrential wave slammed into Glory alongside Scorpan’s left fist. Blazing ice, shards so hot they glowed like pieces of stars, yet freezing all they touched with depthless chill, battered Glory and carried her along like a waterfall. She encased herself in light, sending out streaming beams in all directions to defend herself, but it was undeniable that this hurt as Scorpan’s strike sent her flying.
She vaguely felt the impact with a mountain top, but ignored it as she grunted and took hold of her reiatsu, and the beams of light pouring from her. The wave of burning ice was cut into like a swimmer trying to break through rapids, and finally Glory managed to disperse the wave just as her feet touched ground and she scrapped along a... sandy beach?
Shaking her dazed head, she saw that she’d been hit so hard that she was no longer in the mountain range. She could see it, distantly, but now she stood on the sand coated shore of a long coastline, ocean going to the horizon behind her. Pain caused her to ignore the change in scenery as she bit back a groan and looked at herself. Her left arm was burned, yet also bore signs of frostbite, but more concerning was the trickle from her lip. She raised a hand to touch the red stain on her chin and looked at the blood on her fingers for a moment.
When was the last time she’d seen her own blood? Her memory failed her.
A meteoric crash from nearby drew her attention. Scorpan had landed a mere dozen meters in front of her, the impact accompanied by a expulsion of elemental forces that froze the surf behind her while in the same instant flash melting the beach into a molten river, while above funnels of storm wracked clouds began to shape water spouts further out in the ocean. He wasted no breath, giving her no moment to recover. Scorpan burst one direction and in the same moment actually came at her from the opposite side, this time swinging a sidelong kick towards the side of Glory’s head. She was adjusting to his new speed, but was still a little slow in erecting a barrier of light, only partially getting the screen up in time to take the blow. From his kick exploded another bizarre fusion of elements, creating a spiky bloom of jagged rock that simultaneously was coursing with cutting arcs of blue electricity and cutting streams of wind.
Glory was knocked across the frozen iceberg created by Scorpan’s landing which now extended out into the ocean from the beach, and her body felt the jolt of pain from impact. The pain was a further surprise to her. It was as if her reiatsu was having difficulty absorbing the energies coursing off of Scorpan, now, and it took Glory a few moments to grasp why. Even as the revelation was dawning on her, Scorpan did not let up, as if he too understood his advantage had a time limit based on how long it would take Glory to figure out the fundamentals of his Bankai.
She saw him coming this time, further getting used to his speed and her focus sharpening as a result. She drew her Zanpaktou up and around her in a dance-like fan movement, and from above a thick forest of light beams sprung down in a cage around the charging Scorpan. Rather than slow his attack, Scorpan bowled through the threads of light, letting them cut into his hardened flesh. His body tanked the beams with the power of the fused elemental energies creating a hard layer atop him that lessened the damage, turning what would have been deep burns into flesh wounds.
Glory saw him place the palms of his hands together, and elemental power flow through his arms and into his hands. Opening those palms, she saw he’d formed a circular swirl of energy that looked as if fire, lightning, and ice were being compacted into a singular sphere that undulated and crackled with the unstable fusion of three elements together. She raised her sword and brought down a multitude of light particles into it, actively darkening the sky and area around her through sheer absorption of light. This magnified the size and thickness of her light blade as she brought it down to try and sever into Scorpan before he finished whatever he was doing.
She was just a shave too late, for Scorpan thrust the pulsating elemental sphere forward, his voice booming, “Yoso Yugo: Fuyu-Natsu-Aki. Shakunetsu Fubuki Kaminari!” (Elemental Fusion: Winter, Summer, Spring. Burning Snowstorm Thunder!”
From his palms fired a monolithic flood of what looked like snow, if snow was a deeper orange than Hell’s own flames, and crackled and churned with streams of pure lightning. The beam of fused elemental energies burst out wider than a whale’s length and struck with wrathful force. Glory’s enlarged blade of light briefly cut into the storm of energy, but even so she was forced to use two hands and was carried backwards like a leaf caught in a whirlpool. She felt her skin sear and muscles seize, while her breath was stolen by cold.
The Heart throbbed in her chest in response to her distress, and soon she felt a protective bubble of pure, empty space around her as her will manifested. The Heart of the Soul Queen beat heavily, warping reality so that the rest of the powerful attack flowed around Glory without further harm... although it’d certainly done damage before the Heart had reacted fully. Glory was left breathing hard, pushing back the pain of injury as she saw Scorpan’s attack vaporize a long line of seam across the ocean for dozens of miles while at the same time freezing large chunks of it so that more icebergs floated around the coastline.
She was hurt, but at the same time, she took a deep breath and smiled. Having experienced it firsthand now, she understood the nature of Scorpan’s Bankai. Through pure force of reiatsu he could make elements combine that were normally not able to be mixed together. This created a type of attack that the usual defenses of reiatsu would not be as effective against, for the energy Scorpan unleashed wasn’t fully grounded in the same spectrum as normal reiatsu.
In a way it was like the transcendent reiatsu of the Soul Queen, which was difficult to resist by normal standards. Scorpan, perhaps unknowingly, had found a way to simulate that same effect, albeit in a very blunt and crude fashion. But now that Glory knew that, she could account for it. She hadn’t been using the Heart’s power because she assumed that she wouldn’t need to. Scorpan, for all his power, was still a Soul Reaper who existed in the realm of non-transcendent reaitsu, so Glory had been using the same.
Now she drew more upon the Heart and let the Soul Queen’s higher reiatsu flow more freely into her own. In the mere fraction of a second it took her to come to her conclusions and do this, Scorpan had exploded into the air above her and dropped down towards her with his left first drawn back. His fist buried with solid fire that writhed with an expulsion of rock that turned molten and twisted around, turning his entire arm into a giant drill of hot lava.
Glory twisted to the side, and even then Scorpan’s blow created such heat that it burned, and bored a vaporized hole in the ocean floor below her feet. He whipped the attack around, the molten lava splashing forth like a wave, which then buzzed with arcs of wind that made the magma take the shape of dozens of huge, thin blades. Wind, earth, and fire combined together, generating scything arcs of lava so hot, yet micro thin and able to slice air particles in half.
On streaming flickers of light, Glory moved through them, although even with her speed she could not fully dodge every one of Scorpan’s recently timed attacks, especially given he was able to control them so that each blade of cutting lava bent and twisted towards her. So she defended with sheets of light, forming hexagonal barriers that sprung around her as she charged him, much as he had her moments earlier. Now fused with the pulsating power of the Heart, her barriers were able to withstand the lava arcs, although the power behind each of Scorpan’s attacks was enough to break those barriers, forcing Glory to make more as she closed the distance.
Reaching him, she thrust, and the speed of her blade was such that a multitude of light streaks, each an attack of its own, reached for Scorpan’s chest and throat. He planted his feet upon the air, and held his ground, fists moving so fast they matched each of Glory’s light speed thrusts. A storm exploded from his fists with each parry, his hands turning aside her Zanpaktou even as the searing light of it managed to burn through his own protections and score his flesh. Yet he was able to find openings to counter in between her attacks, managing to get a knee up into her stomach that blasted out a wave of lightning and frost together, causing Glory to gasp even as her blade of light cut a bloody gouge across his upper chest which in turn caused Scorpan to grunt in pain.
Around them the ocean roiled, burned, froze, and otherwise churned with ferocity of their clash, the coastline breaking apart in places as all ground for hundreds of miles continued to shake harshly from the spiritual power being unleashed upon it.
Suddenly Scorpan caught Glory off guard by choosing to let one of her thrusts past, the tip of her blade sinking into his shoulder, but her moment of shock cost her as his right hand shot up and gripped her wrist with the force of unbreakable will. Glory’s mouth opened in a silent shout as pain wracked her, Scorpan pouring raw elemental lighting into her, while simultaneously scorching her skin with heat beyond the melting flames of the Earth’s core. The Heart pulsed once once, and Scorpan found his whole body suddenly crushed with an impact of raw force. No, force wasn’t even a word capable of describing it. It was as if reality itself warped around his body and punched him with the weight of an entire planet.
It was now Scorpan who found himself flying in a daze, ripping the ocean open wide at the simple force of his body’s passage.
However his focus was supreme, and he flipped and shot upwards to reorient himself. Now hundreds of feet up, he felt Glory coming, or rather her power coming. It was a singular gleam of light in the distance, but Scorpan felt the immeasurable might behind it. Crossing his elemental arms in front of him, he drew a deep breath and intoned, “Yoso Yugo: Aki-Haru-Fuyu. Kotta Seikaiju!” (Elemental Fusion: Autumn-Spring-Winter. Frozen World Tree)
The ocean beneath him turned pure bright blue and from it erupted upward a thick tree of ice, shot through with massive veins of pulsating rock that glowed green with power. Branches grew in the thousands from this tree of rock and ice, blossoming with flowers forged of pure wind that created, as a whole, one gargantuan barrier around Scorpan. This fused elemental barrier of ice, earth, and wind stood firm as Glory unleashed her attack, a focused beam of light that, while only appearing to be as wide as a person, carried within it the penetrative power to likely pierce through even the highest level of defense Kido.
Fortunately for Scorpan he wasn’t using Kido, but the strongest defensive maneuver his Bankai allowed. The element of Winter froze the power of the light, while the earthen power of Spring reinforced and hardened the whole barrier, and finally the power of change in Autumn's winds deflected and altered the course of much of the light. The beam diffused into thousands of smaller light beams which arced across the ocean, although to the credit of Glory’s power, even then a portion of the beam still penetrated into the tree of ice and earth itself to the point that it started to crack and fall apart by the time the beam dissipated fully. This left Scorpan briefly breathless, but he had no time to catch said breath for he sensed Glory high above him now.
She was amid the clouds of storm that had gathered above their conflict, and Scorpan felt her start to gather particles of light around her, likely in preparation for another beam.
He didn’t give her the time to do this, creating a giant water funnel with the force of his movement as he blasted straight up towards her. Making use of the ocean water, he froze it as he went, and then filled it with elemental flame, creating more blazing ice that he shaped into a series of roaring dragon heads that he sent flying at Glory. He saw these dozen or so streams of dragon-shaped, burning ice storms slam into Glory, or rather Glory’s position. He noticed at the last second that her image flickered out, and knew immediately that she’d done her own version of his rock clone trick, only by using light to generate an image of herself infused with enough reiatsu to feel real.
Pain burned his side as he Flash Stepped sideways, Glory’s sword having almost pierced him from behind, but instead scoring a bleeding wound across his hip as he twisted to face her. He used the momentum of his turn to deliver a backhand blow with his right fist, an explosion of ice and jagged rock shooting off of it. She blocked with her left hand, catching his fist with her palm, while drawing back her sword to thrust at his face. Light sunk into her blade, extending it faster and thicker than before as he caught it with his left, thick jets of flame and arching lighting clashing with the light of her blade.
For a second the two were stalemated, space wavering around the and energy billowing out in a mass that broke apart the clouds and briefly cleared the sky to pure blue above them.
Then, slowly, the strength of Scorpan’s Bankai started to win out, pushing Glory’s blade back. Even as the light pierced into his fist and caused it to bleed molten blood that seemed in the air, her sword was pushed back. Further, his other fist started to coat her blocking hand in ice and crush it with earth, and Scorpan even heard the faint snap of a finger bone inside his old mentor’s hand. It was a testament to her own discipline that she didn’t cry out. Her face never lost focus.
Scorpan pushed off of her, and then coiled as much raw wind power as he could into his feet, along with a burst of elemental flame as powerful as he could generate. He flipped in an arching kick that created a wide, circular blast of wind and fire so large and potent that even a couple hundred meters below the arc still sliced through the ocean. Glory raised a light screen in front of her, but it was broken and she was knocked upwards, just as Scorpan had intended.
He didn’t want to risk doing irreparable damage to the Spirit Realm by allowing his next attack to go anywhere but straight up.
For as much as he was proud of himself that he was overpowering Glory, he knew this was only because, in her own pride, she had refused to thus far call out her own Zanpaktou’s name.
Fine, if she wished to be so proud, he would not balk at taking advantage of the fact.
Scorpan knew he could draw this battle out further. He could try to play things safer. Try to wear her down more, try to rack up a few more injuries, or seek more openings. Right now he held the edge. But the longer he let this drag out the more likely Glory would realize the need to bring out her Zanpaktou’s full power, or the more likely the Heart of the Soul Queen would start to come into play. Also, he knew his Captains would be sensing this battle, and the longer it went the more likely some of them would choose to come to help him, and hence risk their own deaths interfering in the fight.
No, he’d rather risk ending this now than let this go on for much longer. This was the best opening he was going to get, while Glory was still off balance.
While she was still being knocked upward by his flip kick, Scorpan was already preparing himself for his next, and strongest, attack. The four magatama on his chest filled with the luminous light of their elements, and around him a representation of those four tear-drop shaped crystals appeared, formed from pure energy each of their corresponding colors. These four energy magatama began to spin around him, faster and faster, their colors blending until they were one pure circular arc of mingled light. Meanwhile Scorpan’s muscles flexed and bulged, veins pulsating across his body as his blood boiled and his reiatsu peaked. If the ocean and earth had been shaking before, they practically heaved now as his whole body began to become alight with the same multi-hued pattern of energy as the circle blazing around him.
His eyes locked upon Glory, who was just now halting herself from his earlier blow. She saw him, and he spotted the look of surprise there, as if she hadn’t really imagined he was capable of this much. It was a comforting thing to see, for Scorpan knew that regardless of how this battle turned out, if Glory’s truest weakness was her inability to see other’s clearly for their potential, then even if he lost here, Scorpan knew there were those who would come after him that would finish the job.
With speed surpassing light, he shot upwards, right past a cavalcade of light barriers that Glory tried to create in his path. The circle of elemental energies that buzzed around him contracted as he shot his two fists forward, left held above the right, and impacted cleanly with Glory’s abdomen. The circle of elemental might contracted right upon his fists and linked them, just as his voice shattered the sky.
“Yoso Yugo: Fuyu-Natsu-Haru-Aki. Tenha Ken!” (Elemental Fusion: Winter-Summer-Spring-Autumn. Heaven Breaking Fist!)
Many things happened at the same moment in time. A pillar connected the sky and earth, one that was a perfect cylinder of purest white ice the width of an island, yet at the same time burned within with a flame so intense and bright it was like staring into the sun. Even within that flame, the coursing storm of unimaginable lighting and wind tore and ripped, merged with the flame and ice as thoroughly as the thick, spearing rods of earth that crashed through it all with the force of an entire mountain range dropping. And all of this was accompanied by the singular impact force of two fists striking like a storm of nuclear detonations, sending the entire pillar-like mass of fused elemental destruction flying skyward like one singular wave.
And carried upon that wave of purest power was Glory, thrust higher and higher in the crushing tempest of elements.
----------
The tone of the conversation between the Captains of the Gotei 13 had been dire. Hurricane was all but shouting at the top of his lungs, hand clasped so hard on his Zanpaktou it nearly bled.
“We should be going right now, not arguing over orders!” he was roaring, while Thunderhooves was nearly in his face, the massive and burly man not quite managing to impose upon Hurricane’s own presence.
“The Captain Commander made his instructions clear that regardless of what happens we were not to interfere with his meeting.”
“I’m not sure how much that applies, considering whatever battle he fights now might have nothing to do with that,” Luna pointed out, her own eyes barley hiding the concern that swam underneath as she gave her sister a sidelong look. Celestia had been very quiet during the argument, eyes focused on the distant east, face a white mask that betrayed no thoughts to those who didn’t know her well. Luna could feel the tension wracking Celestia, however, and knew it was taking much of her sister’s willpower to not have already rushed off to try and go to Scorpan’s aid.
“Orders are a moot point in my opinion,” stated Captain Starswirl, looking at Hurricane and Thunderhooves with the air of a man irritated with a pair of unruly students, “It should be fairly apparent to anyone here that the reiatsu of the Captain Commander’s opponent outstrips that of anyone here by a notable margin. Yet it is clearly the reiatsu of a Soul Reaper, yes? What logical conclusion can we come to from this fact? A Soul Reaper who’s power equals or eclipses that of the Captain Commander can only belong to a select few.”
“You’re saying it's one of them. One of Zero Division,” said Zecora, her face cast in a dire light at the implication. Starswirl shrugged.
“It seems near certain, does it not? And judging from our esteemed leader making use of his Bankai, it is no mere friendly sparring match.”
“All the more reason for us to go!” Hurricane said, eyes flashing with barely restrained anger. “Now!”
“Ease up there, all of you,” said Cheese Sandwich, standing near to Celestia and like her, looking to the east, “The Old Man wouldn’t want us out there right now. Although... it may not matter anymore.”
“What the hell does that mea-” Hurricane began to ask, but just then they all felt it, while at the same time seeing it. The incredible burst of Scorpan’s reiatsu washed over all of Seireitei, and to the distant east, a blinding pillar of elemental energies that must have been truly monumental to have been seen from thousands of miles away went flying up into the sky, splitting it like a knife.
Daring Do visibly sweated and said, “So, was that the Old Man’s trump card just now...? Because that much reiatsu put into one attack...”
“It would create a horrible strain, even on him,” Celestia finally spoke, voice filled with a wealth of admiration and fear for her teacher, friend, and commander. The light of Scorpan’s attack reflected in her eyes as she looked up into the heavens, whispering a prayer for his safety in her heart as she took hold of her emotions and then turned to her fellow Captains, “I know it is selfish of me to ask this, but Soul Society must remain guarded, and all of us going would be a mistake. So please I ask you all that you allow me to go. If the Captain Commander is victorious, I will be able to help him get home. If he is...” she paused, taking a steadying breath, “If he is not, then I can ascertain the nature of the enemy that defeated him and get back here swiftly to report on the situation. No more than one Captain should be risked on this venture, and I believe I have the best chance of succeeding.”
Hurricane looked ready to argue, but he held his tongue, and instead grunted, “Your logic is hard to dispute. Damn you. Bring him back, if you can, or I won’t forgive you easily, Celestia.”
“Sure you don’t want me or your sis going with?” asked Daring Do, “We’re both better at stealth.”
“Yes,” Celestia admitted, glancing at Luna, “But if it turns out Scorpan lives and needs healing, I’m better at those techniques. Zecora still lacks her Zanpaktou, otherwise I’d have suggested her. No offense intended, Captain Zecora.”
“I take none,” Zecora replied with a sage nod, “You are right. I can still heal, but my fighting ability is much reduced now. You are best suited to this dire circumstance. Go with my hopes that you find our Captain Commander alive and well, and his foe defeated.”
With that there was no further debate, and the area in front of the Gotei 13’s headquarters went deathly silent for a moment. Celestia felt Luna touch her hand, squeezing it for a moment of support as Luna whispered, “Be careful, sister.”
Celestia squeezed Luna’s hand back, “I will.”
She didn’t spend another moment on words or hesitations, instead leaping away form the courtyard and moving with all swiftness on a course that would take her out of the Seireitei and eastward. Although she already sensed that, no matter how fast she moved, things would be long over by the time she got there.
----------
As it happened, a Soul Reaper’s ability to seemingly fly about the air, be it on Earth or the Spirit Realm, was due to reishi particles. However even the spirit world’s reishi started to thin out the further one got from the earth. While this realm did not have “outer space” as those on Earth might understand it, there was a void of emptiness that hung over the Spirit Realm and had a few minor celestial objects in it, like the sun and moon that mirrored that of Earth’s in most respects.
And once one was sufficiently out of the atmosphere, there was no more spirit particles to “stand” on for spirit beings. Nor technically air to breathe, although there was still some small amount of air particles that dusted the higher stratosphere. Spirit beings didn’t really need to breathe as much as human bodies did, although they did still breathe in the reishi enriched air to keep their bodies maintained. It just wasn’t as critical, especially for extremely powerful entities.
This being the case Glory didn’t really mind the lack of air, it was just the inability to stand on anything that was an issue, causing her to notice upon regaining consciousness that she was falling and unable to halt her fall because there were no spirit particles to grasp onto.
She was wracked with pain, her left side which had taken the brunt of Scorpan’s blow showing the most damage, from the ripped clothing to the bloodied and blackened arm and shoulder that dripped crimson droplets into the black air of the void. Without needing to check she knew that arm was now useless, its bones and muscles shattered beyond function. She saw the vast, slightly curved plane of the Spirit Realm below her that she was falling towards, and realized that Scorpan’s attack must have driven her all the way up hundreds of miles until she was nearly in the void itself.
Ice coated her, which cracked as she moved and reoriented her body to face down. Every inch of her still groaned in agony. While her left arm and shoulder were in the worst condition, she knew she had broken ribs, some internal bleeding, and no shortage of scorched or bruised, bleeding skin. None of it was fatal, not for one like her, and not with the Heart still beating in her chest, but this was the most injured she had been since the early days of the war among the Soul Queen’s children. She wasn’t sure even Tirek, on his best day back then, had managed to do this much to her. Each motion was far more painful than she expected, and for a moment of freefall she just sat still in introspection.
Okay, she was adult enough to admit when she’d underestimated someone. Scorpan had utterly surpassed her expectations and then some. It was honestly rather embarrassing. The leader of the Zero Division ought to be able to make a better account of herself against someone technically ranked below her. Of course it was her own fault and she understood that, rankling as it was. She’d failed to treat Scorpan with the respect he deserved as an opponent, and her roughed up state was a direct result of her allowing her memory of him as her young pupil to cloud her vision.
As much as she seethed with rancor over the fact, she had to admit she was... proud, in a way. Her student had truly grown into someone able to match her. It had been inappropriate to goad him into going all out without doing the courtesy of responding in kind.
She sensed Scorpan then, and realized that the strength of his final attack had, in a way, worked against him. He’d knocked her so high into orbit that he hadn’t been able to follow her and finish her off. No reishi particles was as much a problem for him as it was for her, and so Scorpan had flown as high as he could, standing on the thinnest possible reishi that would still support his weight. This still happened to be very high up, so high that it still kissed the edge of the void. She saw him standing there, on the backdrop of blue that was the world below. He stood with elemental arms crossed, eyes hard, and still clearly eager to fight... but she saw the way he was breathing hard, and noticed his reiatsu was reduced greatly from what it was.
That final attack had drained him significantly. Understandably so. No foe lesser than one of Scorpan’s own caliber could have survived such an attack, and even for one like her it had left her left arm mauled and her body damaged to the point that if she kept fighting as she was, she may well still lose.
But she had no intention of fighting as she had been any longer. Scorpan deserved better from her.
And so she angled her descent towards him, and held her Zanpaktou aloft to her right. She saw the narrowing of his eyes. He knew what she was about to do, and knew he wasn’t in a position to stop her. With a deep and calming breath, Glory spoke in clear, ringing words.
“Take hold of all around you and coat it in your devotion; Yuruginai Ishi no Hoyo.” (Embrace of Unbroken Will)
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Hot damn, Scorpan be crazy. Even if he is weaker, his powerset is still leagues more epic than Glory's one-note 'light stuff'. I can see one of two things happening here. Either Scorpan, after expending all that reiatsu, is just helpless before Glory and gets killed without injuring her futher. Option two is he manages to fire off Ittō Kasō, or some variant of it that uses his whole body as the catalyst, to blow them both up. In that scenario, Celestia would probably finish off Glory and take the heart, though she'd end up as the new captain commander either way.
I like your Captain Commander Scorpan better than Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto. I always felt that they downplayed him. He's supposed to be the Pinnacle of soul society strength, yet he was so easily bamboozled by that annoying retard Wonderweiss Margela. Talk about disappointing. Even characters like Ulquiorra and Ichigo displayed more flashy abilities than him. Not saying that they were stronger, just more awesome. He wasn't even able to injure Aizen. Ichigo is the only one who actually did damage to the head honcho of the arrancar.
Well I guess we can all agree that this fight was awesome.
This fight is absolutely top-tier! You can feel the magnitude and distinctiveness of the power of those God-like beings. Tirek must be so proud of his brother.
That is also a fun contrast. Medley whose powers have a basis in illusions and memory alteration can see things as they are, while Glory with Light powers is dismissive and delusional. You could say, her own power blinds her.
This was badass! Thanks for the chapter