Welcome to Gaia! ::

Daven lay on the bed he found himself on. The fight had really hurt him. He wasn't going to be back in the Sereitei any time soon. Good thing he left the letter for Yuki, but it was still going to be a long time before he could go back.

He hoped that she would be alright, and that everyone was going to be able to handle him not being there.

It had been months. Months spent learning to walk, to transform without pain, to learn how to move and just learning to be a person again.

He was messed up, he knew that. It would be a long time to get his skills back, but it would happen.

He spent every day in the dojo, learning his body again, moving, crouching, standing, springing and more. He had to learn to move again, to fight again. If he went into battle like this, he would really die.

He made a mental note to never get blasted like that again. Having all his flesh burned to a crisp like that was absolutely no fun. It stripped all his fur off and sent it someplace. He looked silly bald. First the skin had to heal, then his hair follicles had to grow again, then weeks of itching while his fur grew back in.

Good thing he had learned those healing kidous from 4th as well as he had. They were probably responsible for saving his life.

He dropped into a meditation. It was odd, but in his hybrid form, he didn't have any fur anymore. He was able to get his tails to grow fur, and his head, but the rest of his pelt didn't have any hair. It felt, odd. Humans must go crazy feeling everything like this.

His full fox form had his normal fur, so that was good, at least if he had to he could transform into that form and stay warm.

There was no pain now. He could move with the same freedom he had before. He had called in a number of favors from the Kitsune to recover as he did, and some of them he knew he would owe for centuries.

That didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was killing all those Espada. He had to work to learn to do that.

He reached out with his senses again trying to feel his teacher. He had a new teacher now, one that had mastered stealth and subtrufuge, one who used the night as his ally, struck and faded away. Everything was his weapon, and Daven tried not to use any of the skills he learned from Kidorui Genso. He relied on his senses and his hands.

He still had claws on the end of his fingers, they could kill just as anything else could.

He smelled his teacher behind him, off his left flank. He reacted and tumbled out of the way and lashed out with the chain end of the Kusari Gama he had nearby and smiled a bit when the ball wrapped itself around something. He pulled and then felt the edge of a blade against his neck.

The Ninja Master said "You have learned to use your senses to distinguish between a false copy and a true person. You know I can change my scent. You rely too much on your physical senses. You fail again."

Daven sprawled in the dirt from the foot planted in the base of his back.

He bowed in abject humility. "Yes, Master. I will do better."

Daven returned to his previous position and fell into his meditation again.