Episode 181: From Ashes
Episode 181: From Ashes
Miles of landscape crossed beneath her like river rapids. Captain Celestia neither stopped nor slowed for nothing. Every thunderous Flash Step tore away hundreds of miles to her destination, as she was unconcerned with anything other than speed. Even now she sensed the Captain Commander’s reiatsu, somewhere high above, and still all too distant. It remained strong, but she could tell it was struggling, flagging, against...
Against a sky painted white.
When Celestia looked above, she still couldn’t quite grasp what she was seeing. It was as if, stretched from horizon to horizon, the once blue skies of the spirit realm were encompassed in a stark coating of white so complete that it was as if someone had taken a continental paint brush and slathered a gleaming pearl emptiness over everything. This was no overcast sky, for there was no texture of clouds, no variation in colors to denote grays. Just unbroken, pure white that bleached out color and left everything beneath it covered in a harsh, unpleasant light that radiated a disturbing reiatsu that was so thick it was like it permeated every other spark of reishi the light touched.
Celestia had no idea whom Scorpan was fighting, but their power was sickening to behold. Her only comfort was that despite this unnatural horizon of pure white, she could still feel her mentor’s reiatsu within, struggling against it. Which meant Scorpan still lived, and was fighting. And as long as he fought, hope remained.
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Moments earlier...
Scorpan had some idea of what to expect. He’d witnessed this before, if not been the target. When Glory brought forth her full power, it was rare to see anyone besides his brother stand up to her, and Tirek was only able to do so because of the unnaturally monstrous levels of reiatsu the ruler of Hollowkind had to resist the effects of Glory’s Zanpaktou.
Scorpan knew he wasn’t as strong as his brother in that regard, so his ability to resist what was coming was in question. He instinctively hardened his spiritual energy around himself in a defensive posture, as everything around him turned such brilliant white that from his perspective, it was as if all the world now was just a blank, empty canvas.
Glory’s reiatsu was everywhere now, so pinpointing her real location took a moment, and was only possible because Scorpan was so intimately familiar with her spirit energy that picking out the ripple of power amid the overwhelming sensation of her energy being literally everywhere was possible. He spun and Flash Stepped back in a microsecond, right fist smashing forward. A spiral torrent of ice and flame combined together and speared out in a branching wave of red hot icicles.
Yet droplets of white, like ink from a brush, splattered upon the flames of ice and the color spread like an infection. The elemental energy of the attack became as ivory, solid and drained of all color, a dead thing of white that cracked and fell to dust a moment later.
Glory stood there, and her sword, her form, were no longer things of light. Light couldn’t encompass what was there, an energy that did not belong in the world of the physical or spiritual, but transcended it. The sword looked like a bubbling extension of frothing, churning white liquid power, vaguely containing a hilt and Glory’s hand upon it. But this seething mass of power that crossed out all existence around it crawled up her arm, her shoulders, the side of her face, and wrapped around her chest like a constantly shifting serpent. Where it touched her body, it too became a vivid white that was not so much a color, but an absence of existence. Or rather, an existence so overpowering that it whited out all it touched.
Even her voice was changed, vibrating through the air in a resonant hum.
“Saisho Ichigeki: Sengen.” (First-Stroke: Proclamation)
He saw her draw her arm back, sword perpendicular to her face, and he readied himself to evade. Her speed was such that her motions all seemed to happen at once, drawing letters on the air in instantaneous, dancing patterns of liquid white. Each motion made the world of emptiness around him ripple and churn. Scorpan threw himself wholly into dodging as every single such ripple produced a brush stroke of slathering white energy that rained upon him like a torrential downpour.
Spinning himself, kicking out with both legs in a tornado-like movement that he had once taught to Celestia, he generated a earthen cyclone of molten magma fused with crackling currents of air and veins of pure ice, all steaming together in a defensive vortex of elemental power.
”Yuso Yugo; Yuki-Haru-Natsu. Kotta Kazan Bofu!” (Elemental Fusion: Winter, Spring, Summer. Frozen Volcanic Windstorm)
Pouring as much reiatsu as he dared into the technique, the let the spinning cyclone of mixed elemental energy engulfed him. Yet he felt Glory’s power pelt into it, the rain of overriding power causing even the storm of elemental fury to start turning into dead, ivory stillness. It protected him, but in moments what was an impossible tornado of fused elements was frozen still in dead silence, drained of all color and power as it crumbled around him in chunks of white dust.
Glory was immediately in his face, the droplets of white from her blade splattering like paint as she brought it down at him in a blindingly fast stroke. Scorpan didn’t dare try to block with his bare hands, instead encasing his left fist in a hardened gauntlet of ice and earth as he tried to dodge and deflect. It was a painful, jarring feeling through his arm as mere contact with that unnatural blade of white turned the gauntlet around his fist to empty, porcelain matter.
He could sense the details of it, the way her power infested the reishi of his own elemental potency. It was as if her power simply washed his away, drained it of all its individuality and purpose, stilled all of the spiritual motion and mechanics of his own power to a single, uniform pattern.
It was only because of how powerful his reiatsu remained while in his Bankai state that her blade didn’t cut right through to the core of him and transform him instantly into such a drained, bleached white statue of nothingness.
In the span of an instant she struck him again and again, so fast and precise that it took every ounce of Scorpan’s skill to summon defensive elemental energies around his body while he dodged and deflected. There was no chance for him to turn the tables and switch to offense. All he could do was block, and each time he did he felt his power drain a little more, and Glory’s unnatural blade get a little closer.
Abruptly she backed off, taking him off guard as she appeared a short distance away and dipped her sword low to the ground, as if sinking into a pool as the blade partially appeared to vanish into nothing.
“Daini Ichigeki: Hinan.” (Second Stroke: Denouncement)
She flicked her sword arm and tore the blade upward. Everything became a titanic tidal surge of white rapids, a true tsunami of crushing liquid light that would cross out all before it. It filled all the space in front of Scorpan in its frothing madness, and there was no possible way to dodge, no matter how swift he was, for this attack filled the world for all that he could see before him.
Drawing in a deep breath, his barrel chest of muscles blooming outward with it, he planted his feet apart in a wide stance and slammed his fists together in front of him as he brought forth his reiatsu to burn deeply in his stomach, then let that power fill his lungs. His chest burned fiery orange, and at the same time frost and lightning coursed up his legs and into his chest, then mixed with the fire and flowed down his arms as his breathed out a long shout.
“Yoso Yugo: Aki-Yuki-Natsu. Mon no Shugo Shishi.” (Guardian Lions of the Gates)
From his breath a stream of lightning, flame, and frost billowed out in a thickly expanding mist that then rapidly coalesced into the forms of three gigantic creatures. Each one was a burly crossbreed of lion and canine traits, with broad heads of wild, elemental eyes and huge tusks. Their curled manes snapped with fire and lightning, while their bodies were formed of solid ice interspersed with forks of electricity, while their paws sported claws of solid flame. Immediately these three creatures, each one as tall as a tree and wide as a yacht, planted themselves defensively in front of Scorpan and howled as one.
Streams of fused elemental lightning, fire, and ice burst out of their mouths in beams that slammed into the onrushing wave of liquid light. It all froze upon the moment of contact, petrifying to drained white stone that cracked apart in a mere second. Yet the beams did created a divot in the wave, and when the wave hit the three summoned beasts, they hunkered down around Scorpan and shielded him from the onslaught.
When it passed, they were turned to ivory statues, falling apart and crumbling around him, but Scorpan himself managed to escape... almost unharmed.
Some of the unnatural lahar and splattered through and got on his left hand. He felt Glory’s power pierce into his flesh and spirit, and saw his hand turn to solid, unnatural stone, shining white. He clamped down with his own reiatsu, forestalling any further incursion up his arm, but his hand was now useless, and he could tell his elemental power could no longer flow properly through it.
“It's over.”
Glory’s statement held no joy in it. She simply began to walk towards him, her sword trailing a long river of liquid light that shimmered behind her, “Even if you struck me right now, it would not be enough. The harm you did was impressive, Scorpan. You deserve to feel pride for that. If we continue, you might hurt me a little more, but you’ve lost the ability to land a decisive blow.”
“I thought you intended to take this seriously, now. Why then talk at all? You should know a battle is not decided until one combatant or the other is no longer capable of fighting.”
His words were punctuated by him raising his right hand and creating a dense sphere of flame, surrounded by an encasement of thick stone, that then vibrated with arcs of surging blue electricity. He hurled this sphere at her in a fastball pitch that created multiple, circular shockwaves with its speed.
Glory barely made a motion with her sword, bisecting the sphere and transforming it into white stone that flew to either side of her. She blinked a bit, however, as she noticed that Scorpan had kept the flames packed so tight inside the sphere that when her power froze the object, only the outer layers of earth and lightning were turned white. The fire inside had just enough time to explode, twin detonations from each half that was on either side of her.
She was engulfed in thick explosions of bright fire, and Scorpan was already charging in, thrusting his hand out.
He grabbed Glory around the throat. She was essentially unharmed from the flames, but that had only been meant to distract her for the millisecond he needed to get close. Holding her tight, he readied himself to speak the incantation of a Kido, one that he hoped might pack enough punch at this distance to properly wound Glory further.
But he never got the words out. Glory had anticipated his move. She had been taking the fight seriously, now, and knew he’d try to do something like this. Her sword had already thrust out, a clean stroke that went right through Scorpan’s chest even as he’d grabbed hold of her. He tried to speak out the Kido, or even focus enough reiatsu to invoke it without the words, but Glory’s power was seeping through him like a virus. His body didn’t even bleed much, just a small few droplets of blood that themselves rapidly turned white and cracked apart into ashen dust as his chest started to become petrified.
“I was speaking because I meant what I said, Scopan,” Glory said, her face still as a mask, but a small tear crawling down her face until it, like his blood, turned to frozen white and crumbled apart, “It’s over. You fought well. Bravely. Proudly. You protected your ideals and stood for your beliefs until the very end. My only consolation at having to be the hand that ends your life is that, once my plans succeed, I can personally gather the fractured pieces of your soul and reforge you in the new world to come.”
The sorrow drained from her voice and became hard as she drew close to him, eyes inches from his, “But my new world will come, Scorpan. You failed to stop it. As shall anyone else who stands in my path.”
The spread of her infectious power through his body continued, reaching his neck, but Scorpan did not look away from Glory’s gaze. The magatama in his chest, fueled by the strongest cores of his power, remained their true colors even as his chest turned into pale white stone, and Scorpan focused all his remaining will and drew upon that reiatsu. He took all remaining scraps of power he could and brought that spirit energy to bear to stave off Glory’s power, if only for a second. Steam billowed from his body from an aura of intense heat, and across his still uncorrupted flesh lines of furious, blood red energy appeared like cracks in the earth.
For the one second of time he’d bought himself, the Captain Commander of the Gotei 13 put all he had into uttering past cracked, bloodied lips a final Kido invocation.
“Hado Number Ninety Six: Itto Kaso.” (Flame Sword Burial)
The cracks of raw red power spread further then, glowing bright, and filling the white space with a sanguine gleam. Then all was consumed in a scarlet flame that rivaled the sun.
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Celestia felt it all. Scorpan’s loss of reiatsu, so sharp and quick it frightened her. Then the sudden, bursting uptick, followed by the sky’s white expanse being stained red as if by a titanic splash of blood. From the sky descended a wide, ruby bloom of destructive spirit energy. An explosion of power shaped like the tip of a katana, but large as a mountain. It shot downward from the heavens and impacted the sea below, creating an explosion so potent that it heaved up a large tidal wave where it didn’t instantly vaporize water all the way to the seabed.
She felt the cold in her own heart upon seeing it. She knew that Kido. Itto Kaso. A sacrificial spell, designed to be a last ditch effort to kill or cripple one’s foe when all other avenues to victory were closed. It used the invoker’s own body as a catalyst and burned both it and the user’s life force to generate an explosion of focused power that would be magnitudes greater than any normal Kido that didn’t punish its wielder in such a manner. How much of one’s body one sacrificed was up to the user as well, with even just using a single limb generating a ludicrous amount of destructive force.
But for an explosion of that size? How much had Scorpan just sacrificed of himself?
She halted on top of a hill not far from the beach, watching as the tidal wave from the explosion rolled in and filled the foothills with so much water that each hill became a small island. Almost immediately afterward it began to rain from the sheer volume of water that had been kicked up and vapor that had been sent cascading into the atmosphere. Celestia looked to the sky, stretching her senses, her hand trembling on the hilt of one of her Zanpaktou.
The sky... it was still white.
But only for a moment. The expanse of unnatural brightness that encased the sky began to recede, concentrating upon a single point in the sky. There, it glinted like a star, which then began to descend. Celestia’s eyes narrowed and her hand drew her twin blades. Fear and outrage clashed inside her heart as she watched that star lower in the sky, and then angle towards her.
It was weakened, but she sensed the reiatsu of Scorpan’s foe, clear and still quite potent. Of Scorpan’s spiritual pressure she barely felt the tiniest flicker remaining, and it was all she could do to control herself as the beacon of light fell to a hill across from hers.
There she saw the light fade around the shape of a woman, one Celestia had never seen before. Pure white skin was charred all over a tattered remnant of a Captain’s robes. Blonde hair was burned and bloodied, and the woman’s near perfect face was a marred mask of bleeding burns that still somehow didn’t quite tarnish her otherwise unnatural beauty and aura of authority. She was breathing hard, mouth dripping blood. Her left arm was twisted and broken. Her Zanpaktou was sheathed at her side, while in her right arm she cradled a cracked body of partial stone and partially blackened, burned flesh.
As the woman set the body down, Celestia recognized Scorpan, and she gasped. Her mentor was missing his right arm down to the elbow, and his left had a broken shard of what looked like marble or ivory in place of his hand. His Zanpaktou was broken and turned to scorched slag, laying on his chest, which in turn was mostly cracked stone. Only his legs and head up past his throat was still flesh, and even then it was burned to near cinder.
It would have been impossible to even think he was alive, if not for that tiny flicker of reiatsu inside of him, but Celestia sensed it was moments from fading.
“Surprising me right until the end. I should have expected nothing less.”
The woman’s words shook Celestia out of her shock, and in a rage she shouted, “Who are you!? What have you done!?”
The woman looked up as if only just now realizing Celestia was there. Despite the horrific damage covering her body, the woman still spoke clearly, and her eyes of purest blue were focused and keen. Recognition sparked in them and her burned lips twisted in a look partway between smile and sneer. “Ah, one of the half-breeds. Daughter of the Dragon, are you not? Quetzalcoatl's spawn, as I recall. Is your half-sister not here with you? As I understand it, you two are usually joined at the hip.”
“Answer my questions!” Celestia demanded, and let her reiatsu surge out in a threatening explosion of power that scattered rock and water from her hill and covered her in a fierce aura of raw white and gold energy, “Or better yet, get away from him before I reduce you to ashes.”
If Celestia’s display of spiritual pressure bothered the woman, she didn’t show it as she looked down at Scorpan, and sighed. “In honor of your will, Scorpan, I’ll ignore the girl’s yapping. I’m tired. I’m going home. When I see you again, it will only be after I’ve fixed Mother’s mistakes and reassembled you, and all of our lost brethren.”
The woman stood and turned her back to Celestia, drawing her Zanpaktou in a shine of light. Celestia blinked, unsure whether to use this as an opportunity to strike at the woman while her back was turned, or to go to Scorpan’s side to try and save him. In that moment of hesitance, the woman had inserted her blade into the very air, creating a gold and red Senkaimon Gate of incredible, ornate quality.
“Wait! I’m not letting you walk away!” Celestia said, and prepared to Flash Step forward, getting halfway there when she was halted in her tracks by a rasp of a voice.
“...Don’t...”
It was Scorpan, who had cracked open one bloodshot, bleary eye, "You cannot... beat her yet..."
The woman paused, the Senkaimon Gate opening before her, revealing beyond the bright red walkway of a grand, heavenly palace beyond. She only briefly tilted her head to look back at Celestia. “He’s dying. Listen to his last words if you must. I’ll listen to his apology after I undo the insanity of the past. But take this as a message back to your Gotei 13. Any further interference and Soul Society itself will be shown no clemency.”
The woman entered the Senkaimon and it closed behind her, vanishing. Celestia shook herself, then went to Scorpan’s side, sheathing her blades and dropping to her knees next to him. She held out her hands to begin performing a healing Kido, but her horror was complete, for she couldn’t begin to fathom how to save him. The damage was beyond anything even Captain Zecora could have healed, and that wasn’t even accounting for the unnatural way parts of his body were turned to that pure white, ivory stone.
With a will beyond compare, Scorpan turned his head towards her, his damaged eye focused on hers. Shockingly, his lips turned into a small smile of comfort. “Crying does not become you, Celestia.”
She shuddered, head shaking, “What do I do? I can’t heal this.”
“Then do not try. Accept this. I fought with all I had, and could not win... but that does not mean we have lost.” There was a shocking amount of fire in his eye, as if he was burning out that last flicker of energy inside him like a bonfire, “Listen closely. That woman was Glory, leader of the Zero Division. They have vile plans for the world, and must be stopped. You... Celestia, you must lead the Gotei 13 now. Ally with Discord and Sunset Shimmer. Do whatever it takes... to protect Soul Society, and everyone in it.”
The enormity of everything he was saying was striking Celestia like a hammer to the heart, but she did her best not to break down completely and listen to his words. It was almost too much, but she’d been carrying heavy burdens her entire life, and so she accepted this as well, even as it nearly broke her soul in two to do so. “I... I will do as you ask, Scorpan. I swear it, although I don’t know if I am ready, or even able...”
“You are,” Scorpan replied, eye closing as his smile turned proud, even as his voice faded and grew weaker with each word, “You and your sister... are the future of Soul Society. I have nothing to regret, leaving it in your hands.”
With those words still lingering, his body drew no more breath. Celestia held him, and saw his body begin to fade into motes of bright blue light. Yet this was unlike the way normal souls faded after death, which was often just a few motes and a quiet fading. Scorpan’s was a soul of the olden days, and what was occurring upon his death was a scene Glory herself had witnessed every time one of her siblings had fallen.
There was an incredible cracking noise, like a cathedral's many windows breaking all at once. Scorpan’s spirit body fractured into shards of blue in a sudden, violent burst. Each shard then broke again, and again, each shattering creating a noise that was at once both heart rending and beautiful all at once. Celestia watched with wide, tear streaked eyes as the soul of her mentor, leader, and dear friend broke over and over again as every shard of his spirit body eventually splintered into thousands of smaller pieces that then rocketed across the sky like shooting stars.
She knew then that Scorpan would never reincarnate as himself. That what she’d seen was his powerful, ancient soul becoming the seed for thousands of smaller souls that would be born. It was painful, terrible to behold, yet she saw a certain comforting rightness to it.
All that remained of Scorpan was the empty husk of his Zanpaktou. Celestia reverently gathered the pieces of the broken blade and wrapped them in strips of cloth she tore from her own robes. Then, drying her eyes, she turned back towards Soul Society.
There was mourning to do, but even more so, work to be done.
Scorpan’s death would not go unanswered, and whatever it took, Celestia would see to it that Zero Division would be brought down, even if that meant assaulting the Soul Palace itself.
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Sombra had been aware of the drastic change in spiritual pressure within Discord’s training grounds. He was familiar with those wretched Gates of Hell himself, and was grateful the composition of his own soul and powers allowed him to safeguard his Quincy from such a fate, for the most part. He was still painfully aware of Radiant Hope’s presence, and did all he could to put her from his mind, knowing she was likely as safe as possible by simply not engaging. According to his senses, she was with the other two Soul Reaper Lieutenants and those two elder Bounts, all wisely staying out of the conflict and having found a hiding spot near the training ground’s exit.
However he was worried at how close Twilight Sparkle was to those Gates. He felt her try to help that girl, Rarity. Even as he was focused upon trying to contain Minty within his prison of reishi, he paid careful attention to the struggle of those girls against the Gates of Hell. He’d suspected it was a doomed effort. Powerful as they were, as strong as Twilight herself was, the Gates were an extension of Hell itself, a living prison fueled by the power of every soul it had ever jailed in its depths. Sombra imagined even the vaunted Zero Division themselves would not find it easy to escape Hell’s chains, once unleashed upon them.
So it was that he was not surprised to sense Rarity’s reiatsu vanish along with the Gates. Potent as Twilight was with her Quincy skills, amazing Schrift, and magical power, there wouldn’t have been any way to extract Rarity from the Gates’ grasp, at least not for long.
Sombra had other problems to deal with, at any rate, for he felt Bowtie’s reiatsu fly towards him and was only just barely in time to spin his bow of merged blades around to blanket they sky with a carpet of black arrows. Bowtie, having been charging in behind Sombra, created a powerful pressure wave with a single swing of a hitless sword that Sombra noted wasn’t his original Zanpaktou. That pressure wave was strong enough to cut a path through the center portion of Sombra’s arrows, causing many to veer off course into the ground where they exploded in crushing spheres of warping, dark space.
Without a word, Bowtie vanished with a divinely swift Flash Step that got around Sombra and went right for the sphere of reishi that the Quincy King had been keeping in place to hold Minty.
Sombra threw out a hand, and a carpet of seeming shadows rose around the sphere as he began to warp space around the sphere, intending to transport it away, but Bowtie was faster, shoulder checking the sphere with enough force to rocket it across the training grounds like a pinball, where it smashed into the far eastern wall with enough force to crack even further. Sombra frowned in annoyance as he saw the shell begin to break, black oily mist seeping out as Minty’s power finally began to break through.
Then Sombra noticed an even more concerning issue. Discord’s wards had been sliced through cleanly by something. When had that happened? He’d sensed a surge of power from that girl, Sunset Shimmer, but he hadn’t seen what she had done. The wards were failing, falling apart like a building no longer able to support it’s own weight, and the confluence of spiritual pressures within the training grounds began to billow outwards.
“No!” Sombra realized the danger the people of Canterlot City were in, and much as he regretted it, he withdrew the last of his reishi from the sphere imprisoning Minty and instead directed all of his power upward and outward. A blackness expanded from him and shot up like a fountain, engulfing the ceiling and flowing out in a thick tide of raven dark void. In seconds Sombra had surrounded most of the training grounds in his power, extending a field of containing willpower and reishi to try and soften the auras within. He couldn’t possibly stop the combined spiritual pressures of multiple Zero Division members, Discord, Captains of Sweet Cider’s caliber, not to mention those girls, including Sunset Shimmer... who's reiatsu only growing more erratic by the second.
It put Sombra in a bad spot, for to use all of his power like this left him in a state where he couldn’t readily defend himself, but the alternative was to allow the full brunt of all this spirit energy seep out into the city and start crushing the souls of the citizenry. He imagined that even with his protective blanket of power softening the blow, that people across the city had to be feeling the effects.
Meanwhile Minty emerged from the flaking remains of the reishi sphere that had held her, and with a lopsided grin flew up with her parasol to greet the waiting Bowtie, “Thanks for the save, bro! Now where’s that Quincy Pauper? I still need to melt his abominable face off.”
“We’re done here,” Bowtie told her, “Our tasks are done, and we return to the Palace now.”
“Whaaaaat!? No way!? But there’s still so many stupid, stupid people here that need punishment!”
Bowtie leaned down in front of her, and wagged a finger in her face, “No buts, Minty. I’d indulge your desire to play any other time, but not when Glory is... unaccounted for.”
“Oh, you worried about her? She’s just discipling little Scorpy. It’s no big. But whatever, I can see when you’re getting in a freakin’ mood. Fine, we’ll go, but only because I’m getting hungry and know I’ll get a chance to kill that wannabe King soon enough anyway.”
Sombra sensed the two move, seeing them vanish from near the wall and reappear near the floating, golden pillar that had brought the Zero Division here, still hovering over the broken remains of the mesa. He didn’t understand why they would be so willing to depart if it was clear they could probably finish off everyone present, but Sombra was not about to look this particular gift horse in the mouth. He maintained the protective bubble of his power around the training grounds while turning and leaping across the air, heading for where he sensed Coloratura was engaged in battle with Blossom.
He was pleased to see one of his elites holding her own against a member of the vaunted Zero Division. While Coloratura was not as dedicated to her skills as Night Light, or possessed of such a potent Schrift as Sapphire Shores had been, nor had the absolute raw talent and magic of Twilight Sparkle, what Coloratura did have was an unparalleled combat instinct that was married perfectly to her passion for music.
It was apparent in the way she moved, dancing with the smooth motions of a true diva as her hands flowed over the glowing blue keys of her “bow”. The curved set of piano keys formed from reishi gave off an ever resonating beat that rocked the air with an endless series of coiling blue reishi streams. Within this reishi, the power of Coloratura’s Octave took hold of every oscillation of sound and bent it to her will, making the reishi streams into sonic rivers of spearing force.
Destructive, yes, but this alone would not have given one such as Blossom difficulty. His power, as far as Sombra could discern, was quite similar to Coloratura’s. His Zanpaktou was returned to the shape of a fiery red saxophone and he played with great energy and enthusiasm, his power flowing through each note that generated a constant sleet of exploding reshi particles, as if every musical note could bring out such passion from the reishi particles that they couldn’t help but fuse together and detonate in flowering blossoms of fusion.
Looking at him and Coloratura fight was like looking at twin stars trying to eat each other, endless streams of blue, sonic reishi colliding with similar lines of detonating red fusion light. And Sombra could tell that Coloratura was making use of her Octave to interfere with Blossom’s musical assault, weakening the notes he was using to excite the reishi particles to explode, although in doing so she couldn’t work up enough power to break through and attack Blossom directly. Indeed, while it appeared to be a stalemate, it was only a faux one. Sombra could tell that Blossom had not gotten serious yet, and was just playing around.
Of course Coloratura hadn’t used her Vollstandig either, but Sombra doubted if both of them went all out that the outcome would end in favor of his Sternritter. He imagined out of all the Quincy only he, and perhaps Twilight once she had full command of her magic and own Vollstandig, would match these Zero Division monsters.
With a burst of power from his own Absolute, he coated the area between Blossom and Coloratura with a thick sheet of warped darkness, letting their attacks flow into the void space beyond.
“Whoa, coming to play yourself, Mister Quincy King?” Blossom said, and Coloratura bowed to him.
“A duet, your Majesty? I’d be honored.”
“Another time, perhaps,” Sombra said, eyes narrowing at Blossom, “Your fellows are departing. Do so as well and I shall not pursue.”
“Hah! Aren’t you the ‘honorable’ one? As if I don’t know you’re using the lion’s share of your power to protect the city above. Oh well,” Blossom shrugged and tossed his saxophone up, which then turned in a burst of flame back into a katana that he sheathed through his sash, “If it’s time to go, it’s time to go. Nice tunes, Lady Coloratura. If you ever tire of serving this humorless King of yours, I’d have space for you as one of my Attendants.”
“Never in your wildest dreams, cretin,” Coloratura replied, “My loyalty to my King is beyond question. We’ll finish our song another day.”
Blossom just winked at the two Quincy before flying off, “By all means, I’ll be looking forward to it.”
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Battles were flagging everywhere at the same time.
In the west of the training grounds, Sweet Cider and Gaia were both standing wounded amid a field of rock that now teamed with hundreds of blades that had planted themselves across the area. Where any blade touched, steam rose as if from a forge, and the ground hardened and became as dark and gleaming as iron.
Facing them, a more lightly wounded Ito-Kiri stood with one metal clad foot propped up on a rock that itself was transformed into iron. She held a pair of different sized katana in her hands, while other blades continued to cover around her in a cylinder of sharpened death. She tapped one blade upon the iron transmuted rock, and sparks danced up from the touch, the heat in the entire area increasing, “Hope you’re learning something, Soul Reaper. Treat your Zanpaktou with respect, and it’ll burn all the hotter for you. Use it like a tool, and her edge gets dull and chips. I’ve forged so many sisters I may have lost count, but I love each and every one of them, so you’d best do a better job listening to Kizuna, otherwise I’ll break you in half.”
Sweet Cider stood firm, despite the blood making her grip on Kizuna and Hearthstone both slick, “You talk a lot o’ crap fer a lady that ain’t downed either me or Gaia, yet.”
“Ahem, for the record, I’m not actually asking you to fight any harder,” said Gaia, her left hand holding a thick sphere of green energy as she readied another Cero, “In fact, feel free to leave whenever you want.”
Kiri looked more than willing to continue the fight, if the violent light in her eyes was anything to go by, but the Zanpaktou spirit looked up abruptly and frowned, “Hmph. As it turns out, you’ll get your wish, Hollow. My master and his siblings are departing, and I go with them. Of course if you wish to try to stop me, I don’t mind having an excuse to cut you both down, but otherwise we can postpone this for another day.”
“Fine by me,” Sweet Cider said, spitting and jutting her chin in the direction of the floating gold pillar, “Go on then, git!”
At Sweet Cider’s flippant attitude, Kiri turned her nose up and gave a loud, distinct “Hmph!” before leaping away with speed equivalent to a highly talented Flash Step. Once she was gone, Sweet Cider let out a breath she’d held and nearly fell over, drained by the fight. She felt warm hands on her waist and arm as Gaia wrapped that arm around her shoulder and held her up.
“Not our finest hour, today,” Gaia said, looking back in the direction where Sweet Cider could sense the spiritual pressures of her daughter and friends. Gaia was wearing a deeply furrowed frown of disquiet, “And I don’t know if it’s over yet.”
Given what Sweet Cider was sensing, she agreed. There was something unstable about the reiatsu she was feeling. Not from Applejack, but from Sunset Shimmer. She also noticed that Discord’s wards were down, and it was only a shell of power that felt like it was coming from the Quincy King that was containing the various reiatsu inside the shop.
----------
In a side alley a number of blocks from Discord’s shop, Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo huddled together and peeked out onto the street. Alerion had gone back inside the Bount Crest on Scootaloo’s scooter, but Applebloom and Sweetie Belle still had their Fullbrings out, just in case. However what had their worried attention was not a new enemy, but the sight of multiple people collapsed on the street and sidewalk.
“What’s happened to ‘em?” asked Applebloom, but her brow was sweating and she had a bad feeling she already knew.
“Don’t be a dope,” Sweetie Belle said, equally sweating, “You got to be able to feel it too!”
Indeed, there was a thick and crushing aura of spiritual pressure that now wafted up from the area of Discord’s shop. It had come in a sharp burst when a blade of black fire had shot up into the sky briefly, and it was then that so many people collapsed in the street, knocked unconscious by so much conflicting spirit energy that normal souls couldn’t withstand it. Thankfully that burst had deadened to a lesser buzz as something had happened to contain it, but the three girls had no idea what.
“S-so what do we do?” asked Scootaloo.
Gulping, Applebloom rolled up her sleeves and headed out onto the sidewalk, going to the first collapsed person and turning them over to check on them, and once satisfied they were still breathing, she dragged them to the side in a comfortable laying position. “We help folk out of the street. Nothing else ta do but whatever we can that helps!”
Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo looked at each other, then both nodded, and immediately joined their friend, going from person to person to check to make sure they weren’t wounded from collapsing, then pulling them away from any precarious positions.
Meanwhile all three silently hoped that the situation would be resolved soon, and that everyone back at the shop would be safe.
----------
“And that’s my time, looks like.”
Discord risked a glance towards Medley. After sending her memories of the six girls after him, she’d hung back and ceased trying to engage him. Indeed her stance was remarkably relaxed for someone who’d been giving him such trouble only a moment ago.
Of the six copies of his precious protégées, he’d only managed to take down Applejack. Despite being the most physically powerful of the six, she had such a straightforward attack style that it made it fairly easy for him to catch her in a field of his unraveling chaos power. While such a field of energy would have normally only disrupted Applejack’s senses, or muscle control, or caused her own powers to go wonky, it confirmed to Discord that his abilities were highly effective against Medley since this memory copy became far more unstable when hit with his power. Her whole body had grown flickering with static, and behaved equally erratic after being struck, something that normally wouldn’t have happened, at least not without a much heavier dosage of his power.
It still wasn’t easy with all of the girls coming at him at once, but he’d cut down Applejack’s clone, which was still an unpleasant experience, all things considered. But now the memories simply halted in place, and like wafts of smoke that vanished in an instant at Medley snapping her fingers.
“You think you can just leave?” Discord asked, and Medley actually laughed at him.
“Your wards are trashed, and only the Quincy King is keeping the locals from being pulverized. Keep fighting if you want, but you care about this city, Discord. Us leaving is the best thing that could happen for you right now, and you know it.”
She walked past him, utterly unconcerned, “Besides, you feel her, right? Your star pupil? Can you feel her soul right now? Without you, she’s probably about to make some serious mistakes. I suggest you get to damage control. I’ll be sure to give Glory your regards.”
He held up his Zanpaktou as she made another step, the blade almost but not quite touching her neck. His eyes were obscured by the brim of his hat, but his mouth was giving a most scathing scowl. “I’m not sure I care much about what your game is, Medley. Glory has crossed the threshold of going back, and nothing will ever get me to concede this world to her. Tell her that. Make it crystal clear.”
“Heh... sure thing,” Medley said, giving a little wave before disappearing in a quiet burst of speed.
Discord didn’t spend another second of thought on her. He began to rush for where he felt Sunset Shimmer was, with all the swiftness his Flash Step could take him.
----------
Her heartbeat was a pitch black roar in her ears that matched the consuming wave of midnight flames that surrounded her. Sunset Shimmer had no immediate awareness of her friends around her, of Applejack’s concerned “Sugarcube?” or the way Pinkie Pie was on her knees, eyes watering as she whispered, “Rarity...”
Sunset didn’t hear Rainbow Dash’s scream of frustration as she smashed a lightning bolt into the ground, “Dammit all! We almost had her out of there! Fluttershy, why did you stop trying to pull her out!?”
Sunset also didn’t register Flutteshy’s quiet reply of pained, but resolute words, “I felt it, Rainbow. Hell’s... spirit. It was already a permanent attachment to Rarity’s soul, and it was too strong for us. Rarity knew that. That’s why she told us to let go.”
“Screw that! Screw that goddamn noise! We should have all tried harder!”
“It’s not that simple,” this was Twilight speaking now, having flown down alongside Sugarcoat, although Sunset wasn’t responding to either presence as Twilight gave an anguished look at her friends, “Fluttershy is right. I was sensing it too, the collective energy of Hell. It was overwhelming. Even my Variable wouldn’t work on it, and believe me I was trying.”
“But... is she really gone for good?” Pinkie Pie asked, “Really, really? We can bust her out, right?”
“Well,” said Twilight, adjusting her glasses, “I did use a spell at the last minute that I hope might help, but I don’t know if it will even work between here and Hell, although in theory-”
Whatever Twilight’s theory was, her words were interrupted by an unnatural, deeply guttural howl of rage. This sound tore the air with its furnace of fury, something a human throat shouldn’t have been able to even replicate. It came out in a bloody wave from Sunset’s throat as she slammed Hokori’s brand of obsidian fire into the ground where the Gates of Hell had vanished. All of the girls, Twilight included, had to leap away from the blast of black flame that erupted upwards from the impact, disintegrating stone in a flash and sending a pillar of darkness flaring upwards.
“Whoa! Sugarcube, watch where yer aimin’ that fire o’ yers!” Applejack shouted, “I git it, we’re all mad, but-”
Sunset still head nothing. Just the roar. Just the anger. Just the image of Rarity’s face disappearing behind the merciless Gates that took Sunset’s friend away from her. The cutting agony of failure to protect what she loved was like a hot poker right through her chest. Inside her mind were twin voices, trying to reach her.
Get a grip, Sunset! shouted Hokori, You keep this up and the black flames will consume you!
Listen to her, Sunset, said Hikari, You can’t afford to lose your balance between your Light and your Pride. I know you are wounded by this loss, but please, calm your flames.
She did hear those voices, but it was just... too much. This pain, this boiling rage, she couldn’t contain it inside of herself! She had to have a target to vent it on. Something, someone, anyone to blame for what had happened that she could justifiable unleash all of this horrid pain and anger upon! And even in her uncontrolled state she could sense them. The Zero Division! Not all of them, but she didn’t need all of them; just one.
By now the black fire covered not just her right hand and arm, but burned across the right side of her body, and fully engulfed her Bankai’s wings, turning them solid onyx. The pain was a lake of agony on her skin, but it didn’t matter. In her mind, she saw Bowtie, his Zanpaktou performing the Konso ritual on Rarity, and sensed his reiatsu with his comrades nearby. She had her target.
With another howl, her black wings exploded in jets of voidfire, and she blasted off with such speed and intensity that it created a fresh crater within the one she already stood. There was no transition. She was where she wanted to be in a nanosecond.
Bowtie was standing beside Minty, and a freshly arrived Medley. Blossom was flying down towards them, bearing a few light wounds from his scuffle with Coloratura, while the Quincy in question had already disengaged and gone to her King’s side. This left the four Zero Division members all in the same area, right in front of the towering pillar of ornate gold that had ferried them here.
“I’m telling you, Glory’s too soft to go through with it,” Minty was saying to Medley, twirling her parasol around while floating upside down, “Bet you anything she just let Scorpan walk.”
“I wouldn’t be so certain,” Medley was starting to reply, but then her eyes cut left towards the direction Sunset was coming from, “Bowtie look-”
He turned, just in time for Sunset to simply appear before him in a burst of dark fire, her sword already making an upper-cutting slash that frothed with an ocean of rage-fueled flame. There was a flicker of darkness, then a towering cut of pure black, as if a deity wielding an ink brush simply painted a sharp blade of flaming void from the ground to the sky. This pillar of absolute destructive flame punched a hole through the ceiling and burned a fresh path through the top of Discord’s shop, and both Sunset and Bowtie went with it, high into the sky above Canterlot City, leaving all gaping and blinking behind them.
Bowtie found his chest singed and cut by the blow of surprisingly strong flame-based reiatsu. Even with Ito-Kiri in his hand, blocking the blow just in time, he felt the singe of the injury. His senses for war, heightened beyond any sane measure, was already leading him to grip his blade in both hands and block Sunset’s follow up attacks. The splashes of black flame rushed across the sky with the span of a dozen strikes in a moment, Sunset roaring as she hammered at Bowtie’s defenses, each blow driving him back while the two screamed across Canterlot City’s skyline in a hyper-sonic rush.
Like an impenetrable wall, Bowtie kept his guard up, and in an instantaneous snap he retaliated with a single strike. Ito-Kiri cut a blinding metallic line and was joined by a cascading rush of dozens of blade strikes as a forest of metal blades burst into being around Sunset. She heaved Hikari around in tandem with Hokori, trying to block them all, but her armor was cut and pierced and she was hammered backwards, feet digging a trail of flame across the air as she came to a halt in front of Bowtie.
His eyes regarded her with a note of respect, not dropping his guard for a moment, “A most impressive display, Sunset Shimmer. Even consumed by rage, without technique, your blows carry the weight of a warrior’s soul.
“Shut up! Shut your murdering mouth! You’re going to pay for what you’ve done! Here! NOW!”
A pulsation from her chest made her briefly grunt in further pain, and the black flames became tinted with a hellish orange light. Ignoring it, she charged in, raising Hokori high and brining the blade down in a twin cross-strike that created an X-shaped wave of black fire that flew right towards Bowtie. He turned to the side and sliced horizontally with Ito-Kiri. A massive iron wall appeared, like a castle’s thick ramparts, all forged of solid metal. A sound like a hammer striking an anvil accompanied the wall’s appearance, and Sunset’s black flames struck it full on. As powerful as Bowtie’s reiatsu within this wall was, the destructive, consuming nature of the black flames still disintegrated a good chunk of it, and a blast of the black fire, still tinged in Hell’s orange cinders, reached towards a somewhat surprised Bowtie who had to Flash Step away just as he felt the burn.
Appearing higher in the air, he looked at his singed arm and frowned, “I see. I thought it odd you could sever any of Hell’s chains. Even Captains wouldn’t find it easy to break a few, let alone as many as you did. Somehow you’ve absorbed a small flicker of Hell’s power for yourself. How?”
“Mabe you’ll find the answer in Hell yourself, after I send you there!” Sunset spat back, flying in an instant jet black streak of flame towards him. By now the pain wracking her body was nearly unbearable, but she let it fuel her fury rather than distract her from it. As she came in at him, Bowtie adjusted his stance and sheathed his Zanpaktou, but clearly not in an act of surrender but rather preparation for a strike.
She didn’t know what manner of attack was coming. From what she’d seen, his Zanpaktou was able to instantaneously forge any number of iron objects, be they blades, barriers, or whatever else. Like a more metallic version of Rarity’s Fullbring. It seemed... kind of basic and underwhelming for a member of Zero Division. And she’d already seen her black flames could melt through even thick barriers he created.
I can beat him. I can make him pay for what he did to Rarity.
Ignoring the pain, she gathered her power in her sword and tried a similar maneuver she’d used on Tirek.
”Kuroihi Moegara!
Instead of letting the focused black flames extend out in a wide slice form her sword, she pulled them inward, letting them concentrate and burn hotter around the blade itself as she let her wings vent out an extra portion of the power for an extra fast and powerful Flash Step that essentially turned her into a dark, light speed rocket. Whatever attack he threw at her, she’d penetrate it, and shove her sword right down his damn throat!
She didn’t fully hear Bowtie’s words, or even track his motion as he drew Ito-Kiri in one sky shattering stroke.
”Katanakaji no Giho: Oritatami.” (Bladesmith Technique: Folding)
Time dilated. For a frozen instant it looked as if millions of identical blades to Ito-Kiri extended both impossibly high into the sky and straight down into the earth, and then folded upon one another over and over again in a single millisecond as all these millions of blades became one in a single strike. What was both one and several millions of blades all simultaneously struck, edge upon point, against Hokori.
Then as she blinked, Sunset found herself standing on the air past Bowtie, or perhaps he had passed her? She couldn’t quite fathom what had just happened, at least until she felt the pain in her left shoulder as her chest armor split, about a foot distance towards her hip, and blood sprayed through the air. She tasted the blood in her mouth and spit it out, stumbling but not quite falling as she forced herself to turn around and face Bowtie, who was glancing back at her with an even greater look of respect in his eyes.
“You continue to impress. That technique has split in half Hollows in the same power category as what you know as Espada now. Yet not only are you still alive, but your armor is still mostly intact.”
A small rip appeared in his own right shoulder, and a shallow but still noticeably bleeding cut began to stain his robes. Bowtie looked at the wound, grunted dryly, and then he turned towards her, “You and your friends are proof positive that Glory is right to fear the power of magic. It clearly does not belong in this world, if it can grant a mere child such extraordinary ability.”
Sunset raised her sword and shield, eyes near feral, but before she could do anything else a number of forms flickered in around her.
“Enough!” Discord said, standing right between Sunset and Bowtie, with his prismatic blade of chaos pointed at the Zero Division member. Meanwhile Sunset’s friends rushed around her.
“Sunny! You’re hurt! You gotta stop!” said Pinkie Pie, eyes imploring, while a mimic of Pinkamena’s head appeared at the tip of one of the pink tendrils rising from Pinkie’s aura, “Look I totally get wanting to rip this dude to bloody chunks, but not if you get torn apart in the process.”
“Please, Sunset, those flames are burning you up,” said Fluttershy, extending a series of golden hands from her halo, “I have to heal you.”
“You guys don’t understand! I have to take him down! I have to make him pay!” Sunset said, the anger still roiling inside her like a wounded beast, roaring for further release. The black flames surged, and the heat was enough to clearly start effecting her friends. But even so they didn’t back up or relent, even as it was obvious they were in pain. Fluttershy leaned in further, forcing her golden hands both ethereal and physical around Sunset, and soothing power flowed into her body. Sunset wanted to resist this calming, soothing feeling. She didn’t want to stop. If she stopped... then Rarity...
Rainbow Dash had one of her arms, Hikari’s side, holding both the shield and Sunset’s limb, “I’m all for kicking this dude's ass, but not if you burn up in the process! We’ll get him another day, Sunset! I promise. Just cool your jets, girl. Please!”
Applejack’s armor steamed form the heat of Sunset’s black flames as she held firm onto Hokori and Sunset’s right arm, but the farmgirl’s expression, tear stained, was hard as age old oak. “Nobody wants ta crush the Zero Division more n’ me right now, sugarcube. Rarity is one o’ my oldest friends, an’ the idea o’ what she’s facin’ right now, it boils my blood hotter n’ i can put ta words. But we need ya, Sunset. We need ya clear headed, leadin’ us, cause without ya we’re all lost, gal.”
Their words sunk into her, and Sunset felt each of them as a warmth inside her chest. There was a sensation of flowing, cool resonance, like the feeling of soft sunlight touching the trees during the first rays of morning. From each of her friends pooled colored lights, pink from Pinkie, yellow from Fluttershy, blue form Rainbow Dash, and orange from Applejack. And also, a violet stream, which came from behind as Twilight Sparkle arrived, breathless.
“Oh good, she’s okay! I mean, kind of okay. Those wounds look bad. Um, Sunset it might be a good idea to shut off those black flames, or maybe just turn them down a little? Huh, we all seem to be glowing...”
Sunset’s mind was being dunked in cool water, and suddenly she could feel not just her friends, but Hokori and Hikari’s presence much more strongly than before. Finally feeling more in control of herself, she realized the utter agony she was in and let out a pained, choked sob as she forced her power down. The black flames subsided. Indeed her Bankai subsided, and her Zanpaktou reverted back to a fully sealed state as she got her power control. Looking at her Zanpaktou, she saw that the flames had burned hot enough that the blade had been partially burned, and she whispered, “I’m sorry... Hokori no Hikari... i really screwed up.”
Hmph, I’d say so, said Hokori with a sense of irritation that gave way to relief, But at least you did put a few wounds on that arrogant bastard. I’ll forgive you, as long as you promise you’ll learn to control our flames properly next time and defeat him in full in your next encounter.
Hikari’s voice was soft and understanding, if also carrying a motherly tone of admonishment, We understand your pain. Your anger. It is justified, but do not let it blind you any longer. Against the foes we are to face, you cannot afford to lose sight of what matters. Fear not, we’ll be here for you, when you’re ready.
“Thank you...” she whispered to her blade, then louder, to her friends, “Thanks guys, I... kind of lost my head for a second there. Aaggh...”
She hurt all over. She didn’t even want to look at her right hand or arm. Fluttershy’s power was seeping through her, keeping the worst of the pain at bay, but the fact that she still hurt this much even with Fluttershy’s help was testament to how badly injured she was. However, despite this, she felt a continued warmth near her chest, and realized it was coming from the Hogyoku that Discord had given her. She’d kept it firmly tucked in her robes with her pretty much at all times, but hadn’t paid it much attention with all that was happening. It almost felt like it had opened up to the spirits of her friends and absorbed something from them, just as it had when she’d broken some of Hell’s chains.
Was this a good thing or a bad thing? She’d need to let Discord know, but right now there was the more immediate issue of Bowtie.
He hadn’t attacked, and merely looked at her, her friends, and Discord with a shrewd and pragmatic expression of steel on his face. “It seems that this matter is resolved.”
“Not even close,” Discord replied, “But the immediate conflict is ended for today, as long as you all get out of my damn city.”
Just after Discord’s words, there was a whoosh of air as the massive pillar that had transported the Zero Division floated up from below and halted behind Bowtie. Within the glowing golden depths of the doorway into the pillar, the other Zero Division members, except for Glory of course, waited.
“Everything done here?” Medley asked, and Bowtie nodded.
“Yes, it seems it is.”
He turned and began to walk into the pillar’s entrance, but paused just once to glance back at Sunset, “On the day that you seek to finish matters with us, Sunset Shimmer, come to my domain within the Soul Palace. I will grant you a true duel, with my full strength, if it will satisfy your desire for retribution for your friend.”
Sunset didn’t reply, just silently glared back at him. He seemed to take this as sufficient answer, and entered the pillar, upon which the entrance vanished without so much as a visible seam in the pillar’s surface. The pillar then shot up into the sky, then punched through a golden hole in the air, sinking out of this realm and traveling across the bounds of reality to the Soul Palace beyond.
In the silence that followed, Sunset sagged in her friend’s arms, feeling the fresh weight of the burdens now upon her.
----------
Within the confines of the Soul Palace, just beyond the Gates of Heaven, a landing platform of cherry red wood extended in a perfect circle. It was here that the great pillar rose from the infinite sky below the floating magnificence of the palace and came to a halt. From the pillar the four members of Zero Division emerged, stepping onto the platform and walking towards the short bridge that would take them to the central avenue between the Gates of Heaven and the palace proper.
"That was a halfway pleasant excursion," chatted Blossom, "Got to stretch a bit, meet some new faces, including some potential candidates for preservation."
"Meh, I wasn't that impressed with them," Minty yawned, lazily floating along, "I wonder if Bubbles is back already? She usually stays out and plays unless I give a deadline."
"You have a poor record when it comes to keeping track of your flock..." Bowtie grumbled, and Minty giggled at him.
However their banter died as Medley, who'd walked ahead of them, paused at the bridge and breathed out a rather emphatic, "Glory!"
They all looked to see that their fifth sibling and leader was laying face down on the bridge, blood printed footsteps leading from the gate in long, red smears. They were all at her side immediately, Minty's previous look of good humor evaporating in an instant as she extended a hand and from it a cavalcade of glowing threads of reishi extended like a web to wrap around Glory and turn her over.
"Oh..." said Glory, "You're all back. I must have dozed off."
"Dozed off, my ass!" Minty said, looking over Glory's injuries, which all of the Zero Division could now see were quite extensive. Minty no longer wore the slightest hint of amusement or joke on her face as she extended those threads of incandescent pink reishi into Glory, to which Glory herself let out a soft hiss of discomfort. Medley and Blossom got on either side of her and helped her sit up, while Bowtie stood back and watched with a flat look of barely contained worry.
"You allowed Scorpan to inflict this much harm on you?" Bowtie asked, to which Glory gave him a look that attempted to be piercing and prideful, but the effect was rather ruined by the way she gasped in pain.
"I did not 'allow' it. Scorpan fought... well," she said, and Medley took immediate note of the weight in Glory's voice.
"You killed him," Medley said, and Glory gave the barest of nods.
"He would not relent. I owed it to him to... fight to the finish. It matters not. We will remake him, as we will all the others once the Zero Plan is complete...ugh, but I need rest first."
"You need more than rest," Minty scoffed, but her reishi threads worked diligently inside Glory and her eyes were utterly focused upon the act of examining and beginning the process of healing her sister, "I can tell what happened here. Damn fool, you invoked your Zanpaktou with a damaged Soul Sleep."
"What are you talking about?" Glory asked, halfway past teeth clenched in pain.
"I mean that whatever Scorpan hit you with, it targeted your Soul Sleep, and you put additional strain on it by invoking your Zanpaktou at full power, doofus," Minty said, voice every inch the disgruntled doctor as she poked and prodded at Glory's injuries, some of the superficial ones already starting to heal, "Even with my skills you're going to be out of action for at least a week. We're talking full dunking in the Blood Pools, plus daily work with my Kaido. You'd better not even think of straining yourself in the meantime, otherwise I'll have to nail you to the ground myself."
"That sounds all very excessive," Glory began to say, but Medley and Blossom both hauled her up at the same time, much to her chagrin.
"You heard Minty. She's the healer, and healer's orders go," Blossom said, heaving out a sigh himself, "Still, hard to imagine you got this banged up taking down little Scorpan. Kid must have become an impressive fighter without us noticing."
"Of course he would," Medley said, "He's been fighting while we've been up here. It'd be foolish to think he wouldn't have gotten stronger during those thousands of years. In many ways, Glory got lucky to get off with just these wounds." She eyed Glory dead on, voice dropping to a quiet whisper to Glory, "You see what I meant, right? That this won't be as easy as you thought?"
Glory looked back at her and gave the smallest of nods, "Yes, Scorpan made that apparent. As did whom I suspect is his chosen successor. Tell me, did you succeed in dealing with the girl?"
"Within the bounds of Jigoku as we speak," confirmed Bowtie, "The unity of those six girls' magic should be weakened now."
"And Discord?" Glory inquired, to which Medley tapped a finger to her own head.
"Not to fear, in sifting through his memories during our skirmish I gleaned just enough that I can craft a halfway complete simulacrum. One with enough knowledge to help us fine tune the rituals to utilize Jigoku's gathered spirit energy to recreate the souls of those we've lost."
"On that note, I noticed that girl, Sunset Shimmer, absorbed a small sliver of Jigoku's energies when severing some of the chains," said Bowtie, expression stiff as wood, and quite unamused, "Not long after her flames were tinted with hellfire. That concerns me greatly."
"It doesn't matter," Glory said, wincing as she was carried along by her siblings towards the palace, "They have no way to assault us here, and even if they did, without any further magic from that cursed magical realm, they can't obtain enough power to threaten us. The Zero Plan will proceed, and come to fruition. Nothing will stop that, now."
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There’s that counterweight
Amazing chapter, thanks!
Well... Maybe at least Tirek will be willing to team up? I can easily see him going Yamamoto all when he killed Driscoll. But would he team up with Quincy or the Coalition?
She's gonna use it as a bargain chip at some point. It won't do anything, but she will try.
Now that's unexpected! And big Q himself. One of the most important and possibly the nicest Deity in the pantheon. Cool.
As the saying goes "Better rule in Hell than serve in Heaven". Sunny might take it a step further. Wonder if she'll get another spirit in her head. Or two if the girl's magic means anything. It's getting cramped in there.
Called it.
Also, there's no way we would have gotten a powerset quite like Glory's in the original manga. That would have required Kubo having drawn backgrounds to remove.
I hope they rescue Rarity soon. Glory is setting herself up to fail.
So Glory’s power is to Bleach all it touches.
I’d say the implicit wordplay was deliberate.
11505413
Oh… oh I see it now. That’s… extremely clever
To Squad Zero: My name is Sunset Shimmer and I'm not afraid of all of you. I know you're cowards! and the moment you sent my friend to hell, I've decided that all of you just died, I'm gonna go get the bodies. There is no politics of Soul Society, Hueco Mundo nor the Quincies here. Just good old fashioned revenge!
Pure speculation, and god I'm so torn between wanting this to happen and not happening but.... potential foreshadowing of Sunset getting a hollowfication..?