In The Wolf's Den

When she waved her hand dismissively as Steiner's question he let out a chuckle and instantly winced while clutching at his ribs in a bit of pain. He would send his Tulpa away, it slowly faded from him like a 3-D image fading away to reveal the young man underneath, and he didn't look too good as a bit of blood was leaking from the corner of his mouth. It was quite possible that the high speed blow had caused some internal damage, but Steiner wasn't going to allow his new master to see him in such a state, so he wiped the blood off his hand, and put on his most confident face that he could. "Yeah, I'm not just going to stand still, and let someone wail on me when I could just dodge the attacks, and wait for him to tire himself out so I can counter attack.", Steiner replied to Mirja as he moved his arm from around his mid-section, and forced it to his side. He did this as a show of determination to prove he would do whatever it took to get stronger and to make sure that Mirja knew that he was fully committed no matter what.

She then began to talk about the next phase of Tulpaism and much like before, Steiner listened to her every word, and tried his best to commit all of it to memory for later use. He wanted to learn as much about this power as he could and it seemed as though Mirja was running him through all of the core concepts of this next phase in heavy detail and since she was doing as such he knew it was important. Unlike her other lessons, this one was a detailed analysis of what he had to do, and how he had to go about doing it so as such that made this lesson more important than the other's at least that is what he believed to be honest. After what seemed like over an hour of Mirja talking and Steiner listening silently, the only sound he would make was an occasional wheezing as he tried to keep his breath coming smoothly, Steiner learned what he needed to do for phase two. "I didn't know there was so much information about all of this, its kind of amazing....", Steiner said to her as he rubbed his chin in thought his arm back around his midsection, long ago giving up on the appearance of looking strong in front of her.

That is when Mirja handed him the little green pill and for a second he looked at the wolf with a great deal of confusion as to what she wanted him to do with it. She then told him to ingest it and for a second, Steiner almost did right on the spot, but then Mirja started talking about a powerful swordsman who lived in the country, and about how she could try to get him an audience. Steiner wouldn't mind it, though his style was self-taught, and was a combination of multiple pieces of differing styles patched together, it never hurt to have a second opinion after all! "As long as I'm not an inconvenience I wouldn't mind learning something from him. Thanks Mirja...bottoms up!", Steiner exclaimed the last part of his statement as he popped the little green pill into his mouth. At first he thought it was medicine, foul tasting medicine. He had after all experimented with different salves and different types of medication to heighten the healing process as he lacked the ability to heal himself without them. Most of them had tasted bad, but the realization that he had been poisoned started to hit him as he began to feel his heart rate begin to increase.

"Wha...what did you...what did you do!?", Steiner exclaimed as he fell to a knee groping at his stomach as he felt his stomach lurch. The initial effects of the poison felt like he had contracted some form of strep throat, stomach virus hybrid, but then that feeling escalated as his muscles began to spazz out. His blood felt like it was on fire and that blood circulated to his head which made him feel dizzy and caused his eyes to flutter. On the outside his muscles were seizing, his body was sweating, and his normal pale skin color had began to fade to gray. Steiner fell on his side, letting out a rather large groan as he did so. His eyes looked up at Mirja in confusion, why had she done this to him, and why was she just casually watching him like nothing was happening. The feeling did not fade as the intensity of it seemed to continue to ramp up as he rolled around on the ground for a bit letting out longer and longer groans as he struggled to think straight.

That is when he began to see things. The arrancars who had tried to kill him and had taken his powers from him surrounded him, laughing, and jeering at the fallen hero as he swiped at them with his hand that wasn't clutching his mid-section. He let out a frustrated growl as the laughing and jeering grew louder and louder, filling his head with memories of what had happened to him a year and a half ago. These were not pleasant and he was quite angry that he couldn't defend himself from the sound of their voices while he dealt with all of the internal pain. For a while longer this continued until Steiner shouted out at them: "Stop! For a moment there was silence until a voice like a whisper began to speak to him, it was right beside him, and at ear level so that only he could hear if anyone else were to attempt to listen.

"Focus...much like before you need to use your will. Remember Mirja's training, focus on the center of this pain, and use that will of yours to remove it. You can do it, Steiner...great things are awaiting you.", the voice said as Steiner looked up to see a familiar face. At this point he knew he was hallucinating, but the familiar face of his Ziamichi spirit hovered inches from his face, a smile crept across his face as he patted Steiner on the side of the head. "Val..us...", Steiner groaned at his former Ziamichi spirit who looked down on him and though it was an illusion he reached out for his former comrade who faded away from his view. In that moment the pain spiked and his heart rate jumped up several octaves. Steiner felt like he was dying and rolled on to his back, letting out a howl of pain associated best with that of a dying animal. His blood burned him from the inside and he felt like he was about to explode into flames right then and there. Yet, Steiner took Valus' words to heart and focused on the center of his pain, and much like before willed it to go away.

"I've got to live...I'm not finished yet!", Steiner howled as he asked, no, he demanded the poison to leave his body, and in that moment Steiner began to sweat the most that he had ever done in his life. His body was detoxing itself, he could feel it, and his body was screaming in relief while his will demanded that the poison that Mirja had handed him left his body. It was like he was in absolute control over what physically happened to himself and though his mind was exhausted from all the visions, and the poison's effect Steiner felt himself getting better. His blood stopped burning and his muscles stopped seizing while his skin returned to its' normal pale shade. One by one the toxic maladies that Steiner had been feeling began to melt away from his body through his sweat until finally there was nothing left to detox. Steiner lay on the cool grass for a few seconds as the summer breeze drifted over the fields and his eyes drifted over to Mirja who stood watching him regardless of how he felt. "We need to work on your teaching method...", Steiner said with a humorous grin on his face as he coughed rather loudly as he reached out to Mirja. "Some water you would be nice.", he said as he continued to reach out.

What Steiner hadn't realized was that the pain in his midsection had faded away as well, his bones inside were no longer cracked if one could see it, and instead were as good as new. It was as if somehow magically the damage had never happened in the first place.