Kensei turned a corner in time to see Maya collapse. He ran over to where Hiyori was staring in shock at the crumpled figure of her friend. Kensei picked her up and turned to Hiyori.

"What happened?" Kensei asked.

"I really have no idea. One minute she's fine the next...this."

"Let's take her to Kisuke. Maybe he'll know what to do."

With that that the two headed off towards Kisuke's shop.


Meanwhile Maya was still floating in darkness. Suddenly something appeared in front of her. It resembled a large screen and it was showing her the most infuriating parts of her past, only fast forwarded. It showed images of the hollowfication of her friends. Then her time in squad 12 as a test subject for Mayuri. As she watched she felt the helplessness she had felt at the time. She felt rage at her own stupidity and incapability to help herself or her friends. And as those emotions started to bubble up she felt as is she was being consumed by fire.

'You should learn to use that fire inside of you.'

Maya whirled around to see the shape of a tiger wreathed in flame standing behind her. It was the size of a small pony and gave off an intense heat, like an inferno. It was staring at her with gold/yellow eyes full of patient.

'Who... are you?' Maya asked.

'I am...Dakila.' The tiger replied.

Maya stared back at it for a few more seconds before shaking her head.

'So what do you want with me?' Maya asked.

'I'm here to train you to use the element of fire.'

'How is that possible?'

'It's something that happened when you hollowfied. By mixing light and darkness together in one person it gave you the capability to use all 6 elements which are the building blocks of reality.' Dakila explained.'You already mastered 2 of them: light and darkness.'

'You mean Hotaru and my hollow?'

'Yes.'

'What are the others?'

'That information is not mine to give. If you cannot figure it out then you will discover them as they come to you. But now I must teach you this hidden power of yours.'

Maya nodded and took a stance. The tiger sat down and suddenly they were in a large cavern with targets scattered all over. Dakila now stood next to Maya.

'Try to hit those targets with a fireball. You must focus on that intense feeling of anger and your determination to help your friends. It is the fuel to your fire.'

Maya nodded. She focused her energy into her hand and soon a fireball had formed and she shot it at the targets. She had always been good at controlling her spiritual energy, she was known as a master of kido because of it. No incantations or words of any sort needed. Dakila even looked impressed.

'Your very good. Let's try something a little harder. Try to control the fireball after you've released it.'

Maya nodded again. She created another fireball and shot it towards a target. When the target moved out of the way though she focused her mind on the fireball and a few yards off it turned a zoomed towards the target again, this time destroying it. Once again Dakila seemed impressed.

'There is only one last thing I will show you. Focus the fire into your core, compact it, then release it in one huge explosion of fire.'

Maya nodded, walked to the center of the cavern to avoid hitting Dakila, then focused on the task given to her. As the energy started to form she compacted it into a tight ball. Then when the energy was becoming dangerously high, she released it all in one blow. When the smoke from the explosion cleared she could see Dakila standing a ways off. Though she felt faint she got up and made her way over.

'You've done well. Whoever trained you in controlling your spirit energy did a vert good job. Though I will leave you with this warning: do not use that unless you absolutely have no other choice.' Dakila said. 'Using that technique is exhausting as you've probably already noticed. And it is very destructive. Do not use it close to your friends unless you are certain to be able to prevent it from annihilating them.'

'Wakata'

And with that everything faded.


Wakata means I understand I think.