Cut From The Same Fur

~ Leila, Codename: Cutter ~

I woke up and saw that I was now in the medical wing. Again. That sure seems to be happening a lot lately.

What even happened? I was fighting that creepy shadowy fucker, then I subbed out with Infinity...

...Then I swapped back? Why don't I remember anything after swapping back?

I looked around and saw doctors and nurses rushing all over the place. They're probably still dealing with the thousands of wounded from the battle of Geo.

I feel fine now, so I'll let them do their thing and head out. I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and saw that it was past the eighth hour. I'm late for my training with Madame Artemis.

Oh well. I headed out of The Excalibur and towards Geotia Acadaemia.

Unsurprisingly, I was met with a very cross Madame Artemis upon arrival.

Madame Artemis: "You know, there are very few people with the audacity to show up late to something that I have formally scheduled."

Madame Artemis: "And forty-five minutes late, at that."

Cutter: "...There was an incident in The Excalibur."

Madame Artemis: "Oh? What happened?"

Cutter: "Some void monster bridged a dimension from the void all the way into The Excalibur. I went inside to help a buddy out."

Madame Artemis: "...Interesting."

Madame Artemis: "You fought against dimensional magic, then? How did you fare?"

Cutter: "Pretty well. All this shit you taught me was very useful, that's for sure."

Madame Artemis: "Good to see that your skills are serving you well, then."
Madame Artemis: "However, that fails to explain why you're late."

Cutter: "...It doesn't?"

Madame Artemis: "You are uninjured, and don't seem particularly tired, so it's unlikely that this incident happened this morning."

Cutter: "It happened last night."

Madame Artemis: "Sounds like you had plenty of time to recover, then."

Cutter: "...I'm not really sure what happened. My brain got jumbled by something, and then I woke up past eight this morning."

Madame Artemis: "Jumbled? How?"

Cutter: "I tried swapping my consciousness with someone else's using reality-bending magic so that they could defeat the void monster, but I don't have any memories from after I swapped back."

Madame Artemis raised an eyebrow.

Madame Artemis: "You're even more audacious than I thought."

Madame Artemis: "I hope you realized that what you attempted was exceedingly dangerous."

Cutter: "Ah, yea, I think I remember Minerva saying something about that..."

Madame Artemis: "Cutter, your consciousness is the thing that makes you, you. You should be very careful whenever you attempt to manipulate it. Lose it, and you'll have effectively killed yourself."

Madame Artemis: "You said your brain feels like it's jumbled. Let me have a look. Hold out your hand for me."

I did as she said, and she gently grabbed it. I then heard the chime of magic within my brain.

Cutter: "What are you doing?"

Madame Artemis: "Telepathy. I'm probing your mind to see what you did to yourself."