6. Teiya

First, it was uncomfortable.

Then it started to hurt.

The pain moved from the top to the bottom, slowly.

As the pain subsided, the warmth did too.

Cold.

Very Cold.

Why is it so cold?

Something's wrong. Something doesn't feel right.

No more pain, but everything is cold.

Suddenly...

*Smack*

Pain, once more.

A deep breath.

And...

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA."

"She's Alive! She's Alive! Oh Great Ghyzar, we give you our thanks for safely seeing this child into the world!" the woman holding the baby cries out.

"Ha- Hand him... Hand him here, please..." came a weak voice from nearby, a woman lying weakly in a bed. The nurse complied with the request, handing the babe, freshly cleaned up and wrapped in a blanket, to her mother. The mother tried her best to sit up, only to fail, settling on a slightly more propped up position with the help of a man.

"She's so.... Beautiful... Dear... What should... We name her?" the mother says, her words labored from her severe exhaustion.

The man holding her smiled at his wife before answering gently, "We've already decided, haven't we? Since she's a girl, she's our Teiya."

"Teiya... So sweet..." the mother gently strokes Teiya's head, as the child winds down, her cries finally dying out after nearly a minute. Looking gently at the child in her arms, the mother suddenly hands her to her husband. "Since she's okay... I'd like to sleep some... I'm exhausted... Please take care of her today, honey..." As the father took Teiya into his arms, she mother fell asleep. Neither he nor the nurse were worried or surprised. They had already determined there was nothing wrong with her. But a thirty six hour labor would destroy the energy of anyone.

At the behest of the nurse, the father hands Teiya back over to her. That's when the nurse pulls out an instrument from her at-home delivery kit; an apparent scanner. Shaped like an infrared thermometer 'gun', she points it at Teiya's abdomen and turns it on. After a few seconds, it started to click like a Geiger counter, first slowly, then much more rapidly, until finally the scanner stops emitting clicks altogether and just displays an error message.

"Oh... Oh dear," says the nurse to herself, instantly alarming the father.

"Is something wrong?" he asks immediately, the worry very visible on his face.

"No, not exactly," she starts, before he impatiently cuts her off.

"What do you mean not exactly?"

"Well, what I just used is a mana aptitude detector. Most people have just a click, maybe two, a second. These people have no hope of controlling mana. But so much mana is flowing through your daughter, that my hand scanner can't read it. The only option is to take her to the hospital to be scanned. The problem is, now that my scanner has been surpassed, it's been automatically flagged. Someone will soon show up to escort your daughter, with or with you, to the hospital for a proper test. If mages weren't a potential national security threat, this wouldn't be necessary, but ultimately you shouldn't see this as a bad thing. So long as your daughter grows up into a law abiding citizen, she'll simply be trading some extra restrictions in exchange for new possibilities others don't have."

"So... So what does all that mean? I'm tired, just say it simply," said the father. Being awake so long, and now being jerked about a bit emotionally, he knew he wasn't going to quickly get to a rational deduction, so he just demanded it outright.

"Well, Alan, I'll do you a favor, since I've known you two for a long time. I'll stay here to explain to Feirin when she wakes up. When the Mage Authority people show up, cooperate and go with them. Your daughter might be a future mage, a human weapon so powerful her existence is a deterrent to other nations; someone truly valued. Oh. And there will be soldiers, don't be surprised." The look on the nurse's face is quite serious. With a hesitant nod, Alan takes Teiya from the hands of the nurse and waits near the door, watching through the window onto the road, while the nurse returns to Feirin and starts cleaning up as best as she can without disturbing her. Teiya, meanwhile is peacefully sleeping in Alan's arms. Despite the questions burning in his mind, he didn't want to disturb his wife either, and the nurse was doing what needed to be done.

In the dark of the late night, it's easy to see the unique, special issue green headlights of the Mage Authority. Three vehicles pull up to the house, clearly guided here by the mana aptitude scanner, and stop, shutting off. The lead and trailing vehicles are both solid black humvees, with a contingent of soldiers each, while the middle vehicle is an elongated ambulance shaped vehicle, in all black with a green stripe on the sides. From the middle vehicle emerges several people, who quickly walk up to the front door, with an escort of a soldier from the lead vehicle.

The group appears to be made up of two dressed in black scrubs with a green stripe down either side, apparently nurses or doctors, two who were dressed in business attire, and the one soldier escort. Opening the door for them, Alan politely greets them and lets them in. They follow Alan into the house, not particularly warm, but not impolite either. The medical looking people give a quick examination of Teiya to ensure that she's fine for now, while the business looking people explain the situation.

As the parents of a child with a high mana aptitude, they would receive certain considerations and stipends in exchange for agreeing to the mage training programs. Although, the words 'agree to' may be euphemism for '**** to', there's not much else to expect with governments and power to grab on to. Soon, Alan is escorted into the middle vehicle, as the doctors take care of Teiyu. A few more tests and general care are administered to the child, but even the vehicle's detector isn't strong enough to properly measure. Although it was already planned, the hospital visit became even more necessary.

During the short ten minute trip to the hospital, Alan is allowed to interact with Teiyu as long as he doesn't interfere with the doctors, and as soon as they get to the hospital, he's also allowed to stay with her into the hospital. A quick trip in, and past a security gate into a special testing room, and the baby is placed in an MRI-like machine. Soon, the detector is turned on. Within a minute, the first results come in, and the technician displayed them on the screen for the group of observers: A reading just above what hand scanners can handle, one at the top ten percent of newborns with useful mana affinity.

Certifying the test three times according to protocol, the team of people start moving once more. Teiyu is brought to a special ward, with Alan being given visitor privileges, and soon after a blood draw for genetic testing, she's settled into a relatively normal hospital routine for a newborn. No more than an hour later, Feirin appears, wheeled in by the staff. Clearly, and understandably, she was incredibly stubborn and insistent on coming to the hospital to be with he baby, no matter the state she was in. And so, the fate of the whole family was changed that day.

The early years of Teiyu's life weren't too much different from the average child. The primary difference was a focus on an 'optimal' infancy and toddlerhood, to create a great foundation physically and intellectually for future developments; the whole reason newborns are required to be scanned at birth, by law. While Teiyu's parents were allowed to be her caregivers, they did also follow all the requirements and recommendations. Outside help provided teaching.

By the time she was eight months old, she was walking. By two years she could speak better than most six year olds. By three years, she could read at a third grade level. By the time she reached four, the normal age to start preschool, she was already at a sixth grade level in most subjects, and in the top 5% of athletic accomplishment for her age. By the time she was five, her school progress started slowing, as magic lessons were added in. Therefore, she was equivalent of a seventh grade student. By nine, she was done with high school level curriculum. With the next couple of years came a chance to work on hobbies and creative skills, while magic concepts that have been figured out were explained.

Unfortunately, there was nearly a year spent grieving the tragic **** of her parents. One day, while they were at home, a junky broke into their expensive looking house to steal something valuable. Not finding anything easy to steal and also worth something, the junky soon changed tactics and barged into the bedroom they were sleeping in, not realizing someone was in the house thanks to the covering sound of a television left on. He threatened them for money, which they quickly handed over, but because he felt disrespected, he killed them both. At least, this was the version of events the junky confessed too after being arrested. Afterwards, Teiyu became a charge of the Academy itself, after she declined new adoptive parents, not wanting to 'replace' hers in her heart.

Soon enough, Teiyu turned twelve years old. After a couple more months came the 'mana baptism', a phenomenon that happens exactly thirteen years after conception, if a strong enough foundation and mana affinity exists. The mana of the heavens and earth frenziedly enters the body of the potential mage and changes their very essence, fusing into their being and allowing the intentional manipulation of mana, rather than just the unintentional absorption and radiation of mana that happens before hand. Upon completion of the baptism, the person officially becomes a Mage Apprentice. It is at this point the mage is able to finally begin training.

However, Teiyu had a flaw, one which none of the other newly created apprentice mages. Despite her near perfect aptitudes with physical and mental training, and her great mana affinity, her soul was merely a construct built around a sliver of a complete soul. As such, when she began to try to actually manipulate mana, it was as if she were severely numbed; like trying to read braille while wearing leather gloves. With enough effort and focus, she could barely manage it, but her magic skills were some of the worst of all those in the program.

Over the next nine months, she found herself the target of bullying and derision, as she soon became known as the worst apprentice in the program, even behind the known slackers and those with the weakest aptitudes. Eventually, the derision at her position combined with simmered jealousy others had towards her from years of her being treated as one of the elite candidates, leading to Teiyu to find herself 'accidentally' having fallen out a fourth story window and landing in a coma.

A/N: So Cassandra will be taking over the life her soul clone Teiyu created. Because of what I'm accustomed to from various different novels where the protagonist seized possession of a body, narrative will refer to the protagonist of this novel as Cassandra, but anyone in world will refer to her as Teiyu; actions taken before taking over will be referred to in narrative as having been done by Teiyu. This isn't two characters or a split personality.