8. A New Day

"..hahaHAhaha..."

Unexpectedly, the nurses watching the second floor nurse's station hear sudden laughter coming out of a room. It's barely six AM, so there are no visitors yet, nor is the TV available at this time entertaining enough to actually make someone burst out laughing. Getting a rough idea of which room the laughter came from, one of the nurses checks on the roster, only to discover that it was a marked Coma patient's room.

"Hey, that's coming from Room 2-77, right?" she asks the other nurses. "Because that's where the system is saying that poor comatose girl is."

"...Yeah, it's definitely coming from that room. Most of the other doors down that hall are shut. Has she woken up?" responded another.

"...That shouldn't be possible, given the damage, but she is a Mage. Maybe that accident last night was related?"

"Oh, you mean that sudden fierce gale that slammed all the doors on the ward shut, that the patients keep mentioning?"

"Yeah, apparently the window in her first room, 2-76, was shattered outwards, half the stuff in the room was sucked out, and she was pulled off her bed, until the sensors detached. Otherwise, with all the commotion, it would have taken us a lot longer to find out where... Whatever it was happened."

"Oh, that's weird. Were you part of the cleanup?"

"No, I just heard all that from the night shif-."

"AHEM," comes the throat clearing noise from the Head nurse, who just rounded the corner. "Is standing around chitchatting your jobs, ladies, or is it to do your job by checking on the patients and completing your rounds? You should be honored to even be able to get this job, here! NOW GET TO IT!" She quickly chases the nurses under her out, excluding two to keep the desk staffed. Caught out in their procrastination, the nurses hurriedly move away from the desk and start their rounds proper, with two going for room 2-77. Seeing this, the Head nurse scowled, assuming they were intending to chat in the room, but let it be for now; she still has her own duties to administer as well, and they're at least more productive this way.

The two nurses entered Cassandra's room to find her sitting up and looking around. She quickly notices the two and looks over, smiling. The two nurses are a little more surprised than they should be, considering they came here following an outburst of laughter, but the girl they believed couldn't possibly be out of her coma yet is awake and appears clear headed at first glance.

"Oh, Good Morning... Reita? No... Reiya? Er.... Teiya! Yes, Teiya," says the younger of the two nurses, a little flustered. The two nurses begin to approach as the older one takes over and begins speaking in warm voice. "How are you feeling? When did you wake up?"

"I'm feeling fine," answers Cassandra, putting her hand on the back of her head. "Woke up with a headache, but it went away quickly enough. That was about ten minutes ago or so, I guess?"

"Hmm..." says the Older nurse, "Well, considering what happened, I can't say I'm surprised you had a bit of a headache, but if it's already gone away, we can only keep an eye out for it in the future. How about..." The nurse continued to go through a whole series of diagnostic questions, as she grabs the charts from the end of the bed. Towards the end of the little test, at the insistence of Cassandra, she even proved she could walk just fine, no signs of weakness despite being on the bed for fourteen days. The two nurses find themselves flummoxed by the display. Not only a total lack of movement for two weeks, but a four story fall in the first place also caused significant damage, and yet there isn't even any sign of the scars on her scalp.

"Well..." the older nurse begins again, hesitantly. "I know that full mages can heal like this, but I've only heard of a couple of rumors of mage apprentices managing to do so..." Indeed, the hospital was exclusively for the use of the Mage Authority training and educational complex, so unlike the average person, these nurses were much more well versed with mages. They can easily see that other mage apprentices they've treated don't heal this well, but it wasn't exactly a hard rule that it couldn't happen. It had only been a mere twenty years since the Mana Origin Event had brought mana to the Earth, and there was quite a bit that wasn't yet known about mana affinity or mages.

"Oh," responds Cassandra, putting a worried look on her face. "Er... So... Can I, you know, leave the hospital?"

"Ah, well..." a slightly pained expression appears on both nurse's faces, as the older one speaks. "Even though you're apparently well now, there's safety protocols to follow. We have to keep you for a couple days to ensure your health. After all, you're valuable to the state; we'll take punishments if you're not actually well and we clear you. However, the doctor will probably release you in just a few days, assuming there are no problems that come up!" She flips to the last page and reads the notes there, getting a sour look on her face, before politely excusing herself and the younger nurse.

Cassandra returns to the bed and flips on the TV, when she suddenly feels an urge to use the bathroom. Realizing she fortunately has a dry diaper on this time, she closes the door before removing it and tossing it to the other side of the bed, out of sight of the door. Entering the attached bathroom, she quickly does her business, before returning to her bed to watch TV. Nothing really seems that... Interesting. Given her first memories are of the twenty-second century, all the special effects are subpar, none of the locations are really interesting, and the lack of VR effects really dull it. **** viewing frames are trash to a twenty-second century viewer who could watch any part of the AI simulated movie universe they wanted.

That said, it's still marginally better than staring at a wall, somewhat like a subpar book to her tastes. Not long later, food was delivered. What was unexpected is that the feeling of being valued actually does come through here: she can't remember many meals in her first life that were better than this 'mere' hospital food. Thinking about it, most of the food offered by the Mage Authority in this facility is at least this good, by Teiyu's memory.

'Throw in unlimited internet and a free top of the line DiveVR every few years, and they've bought my loyalty...' Cassandra thinks to herself as she scarfs down the food, before pausing. 'Shit, I don't think DiveVR is here...' She continues eating her meal quickly enough. Before long, she's finished, and a few minutes after that, the tray is taken away by a nurse.

"Good Morning, Ms. Yivera," Just as she was starting to pay a little more attention to the TV show, a doctor enters the room while greeting her by her last name. The fellow has a nothing special face to him and an easy to forget name, barely making an impression on Cassandra. He quickly went through a serious of diagnostic questions, and used some smaller, portable devices to do some quick scans on her. Seeing nothing wrong, he prescribes for her to rest another two days in the hospital.

Pretty quickly, those two days pass by, in a boring monotony. The only break to the boredom was when Cassandra was pretending to sleep and practicing her fine mana control. By the time she 'woke up', she had just perfected emulating the her former strength as Teiyu, a necessary step in not letting on about a huge, potentially dissection-worthy, improvement overnight. Only once she had the power to defend herself would it be okay to start displaying ability. It was pretty obvious to her already that her aptitudes were far higher than Teiyu, who was a mere tenth of her soul; the maximum safe amount to divide out for a soul clone. Teiyu was already upper middle, so would Cassandra be near the top?

As an orphan, that may be dangerous. She already knew about the various corrupt political dynasties that had their hands in the Mage Authority as a way to build connections and strengthen their power. How many would see a powerful nobody, out of their control, as a good thing? Even if she joined any of these groups, she would be at best a powerful servant in exchange for protection and becoming more thoroughly hitched to their post. More importantly, she would probably be married to one of their sons in hopes of getting mana sensitive heirs. As a twenty-second century Woman... Er... Kind of, anyways, she wouldn't accept any spouse she didn't pick herself.

Soon, she receives her final meal in the hospital, which she manages to eat in a much more controlled manner than the first one, before a nurse brings her a new set of clothes and uniform for her institution. The uniform is mostly a darker grey with icy blue accents, matching the color of unattuned mana. Of course, as what is ultimately a military institution, she received uniform pants instead of a skirt. Over top of everything else came a hooded cloak, reaching just above the ankles, in the same color. Seeing this uniform, Cassandra only had one thought.

'An entire nation's magic academy is a bunch of mage cosplayers? The hell is with this world?!'