Strikes to Shake the World [Ōetsu, Magnolia]

She had been told there was a test, one that would give her a job that would truly allow her to protect and serve the soul society. She hadn’t known what that test was, only told that to pass it, it would require everything that she had gained up to this point, all her might, all her strength, her heart, her soul.

The night before she had spent letting the extraneous thoughts fall away, the weakness that she had gained since coming here. She was doing this to protect everything she held dear, and the future she wished to see blossom. One by one, her fears, the doubts of her karma, those pains and woes that had leadened her heart were quashed and vanquished. Not conquered, but assuaged and unimportant for the time being.

When she opened her eyes, lightning danced, and a firmness lingered within that had been absent since she had fought the sects of her old world seeking liberation from their clutches. With a flash of lightning, she disappeared towards muken, where she had been told this test would be held.

When she had stepped through that threshold, into the infinite world beyond, her hammering heart, galloping like a herd of horses simmered, and the roaring in her veins dimmed to ice-calm clarity. Her golden eyes beheld a man who spoke to her, of not holding back, but little did he know for a chance to be in a position to protect this realm? She would crush anything, and everything that stood in her way.

Her lips curled faintly into a smile as the man scooped from what looked like a vat of goo a sword. Her hair whipping backwards as the man swung and a shockwave reverberated into the infinite white beyond. That smile grew exponentially, showing a bite of her canines, as that gloriously crooked smile of hers was accompanied by a little bit of static, a crackle across her skin.

”Very well then old man!” The voice was boisterous and tawny as it ground out from her throat.

That bit of static-electricity flickered again and devastation exploded around them as the air went fuzzy like snow on an old tv, building until brilliant blue flooded from the woman like a breached dam. It blotted out everything in sight as lightning ripped from the world above to crash against the ground below. The spiritual pressure of magnolia for the second time in this realm crashed forth completely unchecked and unabated, and even then, it was more than that time because now she willed it’s terrible majesty to rage, like an uncaged deity.

Normally she would use her fists, or the weapons she had gathered in her travels. It kept it fair, kept the fights from feeling meaningless and short. She kept that great spiritual pressure inside, kept herself from raging. Now though?

The twin zanpakuto on her hips, Raijin, a Zanpakuto from another reality slithered free. Lightning danced within her eyes as the words slipped from her mouth.


” From the Kiln of Lightning, Burst into the world Reijingu sandā no megami” Her words were a promise, and answer to his challenge. Her skin would bronze, and her beautiful scimitar would shift, turning into two jagged bolts of lightning that she held within her hands.

Her foot slightly shifted, her hair swaying as in a flash of lightning the woman appeared directly in front of Ouetsu, her right sword snaking around as a brilliant blue billowed across the surface of it’s blade. When it impacted Ouetsu, it would release a brilliant scar of blue reishi that would balloon in size until it turned into a luminous wave of power that would roar across the landscape.

Her foot then would snake out with the intent to capture and trip the mans balance if he had somehow managed to avoid that blow, intending to hook around the back of his feet and sweep them out from under him before delivering a bone-crushing below to his solar plexus with her other foot with enough force that it rang out like a peal of thunder.

The man was nimble, with almost cat-like fluidity as he bent back and under the blast of energy that flew out from his first blow, then he was airborne, flipping as his sword scythed around with the intent of severing the arm that she used to strike him with from her body. Magnolia’s response was to shift her footing backwards, putting her center of gravity on her rear facing foot which allowed her to bend back almost completely backwards , the scything blade missing entirely before the man began to joke about the ref lady.

That caused a snort to bubble forth from her lips, her body falling back, allowing the foot to fly over her head as she brought her twin swords scything around after dancing out of range. While it would look like they would miss entirely, having been out of sword range, her twin blades would rapidly extend, the bolts of lightning reaching roughly eight feet in length on impact, before they snapped back to their normal four foot length.

”Only if you ask nicely ya coot!” Her words were a savage, joyful thing as she leaped up, kicking out using Gatoringu Jindanda and demon shattering blows to send devastating shockwaves in his direction, each one causing booming explosions on the ground below.

Kicking off the air, she’d flash through the space between them swords poised at the ready to re engage him at close range.

They had disengaged, and Magnolia could feel the faint trickle of blood that ran down her abdomen. Oetsu had managed to slip beyond her guard, scoring her with a glancing blow before he had gotten away. As Oetsu spoke of showing him the goods, Magnolia at first said nothing, reaching down to feel the wound that lingered upon her, glancing down neutrally as her hand came away red.

She’d look up then, the humor and joviality slipping from her gaze as a heavy intensity filled it’s place. Like damascus steel, forged a thousand times until it became something more. The heavy chill of her battle intent, the same intent that had brought her to slaughter countless demons in world war four, and countless sect members in her own reality. It exuded it’s own pressure, and she raised her twin lightning bolts up.

”Raijin, shall we show him? “ Her voice was calm in her inner mindscape, that endless gloom of thunderclouds rumbling within her mind. From deep within, eyes glowed and lightning rumbled.

”To the ends of our power Magpie. Let us show him.” Raijin’s voice was a deep tenor rumble, like thunder within her mind and lightning soon began to crackle across her skin.

”Don’t die Oetsu.” Magnolia’s voice was soft as death, the force of her will dripping from every word as in the infinite world of muken thunderclouds began to form. Thick, dark thunderclouds that obscured the sky as far as the eye could see. Then it would begin to rain as thunder and lightning illuminated the darkness above.

“From the pinnacle of everything, return to the origin, and transcend your limits Shōten no ten no megami” Magnolia’s words seemed to echo, soft and yet carrying easily within the dreary shadowed storm that had formed from the manifestation of her spiritual pressure. Her eyes aglow like the lightning arcing above.

Then it began, thousands of bolts of brilliant bolts of lightning arcing from the clouds above, closer and closer, building strength, and ferocity as Magnolia’s spiritual pressure began to climb and change. Higher and higher, till the air became saturated in electricity. Transcending, and overcoming it began to billow out of her.

Then the lightning converged, crashing down in a solid pillar upon her form as the resulting shockwave exploded outwards with her in the epicenter. Her spiritual pressure was so thick that it could easily have flattened any structure near them if they had been in the soul society or even on earth. For a moment the world was blinded with the brightness of lightning, a streaming pillar of lightning obscuring magnolia from sight.

If that wasn’t enough, as her energy began to interact with the world around it, the familiar scent of ozone would rapidly began to expand outwards as the very presence of her spiritual energy interacting with the world caused the air to ignite, a rampant explosion of fire roaring out from the dizzying pillar of lightning. The surrounding three miles around her suddenly a sea of unending fire from the manifestation of her shikokai unto the world around it.

”Now, let me show you something truly special” Magnolia’s voice was steel as it softly slipped from the lightning that hadn’t fully dispersed from her form.

Now her energy which had exploded outwards like an unending tide had begun to compact, to purify itself and undergo refinement as she entered her unique state within her shikokai: Nirvana Ascension. The very air began to thicken as her spiritual energy began to shift and change, becoming denser, purer, and far more destructive. Her spiritual energy itself becoming dense enough that the air would become permentantly dyed in it’s sapphiric hue, which gleamed like polished metal as she entered the second nirvana.

Finally the unending stream of lightning abated and Magnolia looked forward, her form framed by the flames that flickered all around. A veil of lightning crackled across her skin as she held a halberd of jagged lightning within her hand. The air itself would feel heavy as the weight of her power and will settled down upon the surrounding landscape, like a mountain bearing down upon the world around her. She’d exhale, lightning Qi and steam spilling forth from her lips the mixture of spiritual energy and Qi surrounding her causing errant bolts of lightning to occasionally strike down from the sky above into the simmering sea of flame.

Like a spirit of thunder, when Magnolia slashed out with her zanpakuto a wave of unending lightning swept through the sea of flame, easily several hundred feet in length as it flew towards Oetsu, the spiritual energy within uncompacting as it flew towards the man at break-neck speeds, eventually turning from a slash into a explosion of energy that would arc upwards towards the endless thunderclouds above.

She hadn’t moved yet, letting the end of her polearm touch the infinite white floor below, her golden gaze looking out into the lingering flames, looking for where Oetsu had gone.