The fires were gone, leaving nothing but her slightly raw, naked skin in its place.

Of course, the fire around them was still raging on, but she couldn't bring herself to care about them, her attention was solely locked onto her flame-free limbs.

As she tried to keep herself from crying in relief, turning her hands around to get a good look at her palms, the teacher rose up from the ground, studying the roaring fire before the sound of ruffling fabric brought Cecilia out of her relieved disbelief, forcing her to look up at him.

He'd taken off his jacket, holding it down to her as he almost pointedly refused to look at her.

"Put it on." He said, looking very much like a colored statue with how little he was moving, not even a twitch. "You can't go home in the state you're in."

The state she was in?

Confused, Cecilia glanced down at herself, past her hands.

Knowing now what such things might do to her, Cecilia had to keep herself from screaming.

She could actually still feel the flames churning underneath her skin, just waiting for the one moment she lost control and rage once again.

Her clothes were absolutely ruined, burned to a little more than charred, shredded remains, covered in burns and ash, some patches still burning or embering, things she was forced to quickly bat away with her own hands, which actually made to ruin her blouse even more than it was before. Her bra was just barely spared, her body was covered in ash, bruises, and dried blood, and yet, there wasn't one single spot on her naked skin that showed any form of burn that she had been so sure she would have been covered in.

She looked like she was dressing up as a burnt victim but someone had forgotten the wound prosthetics to complete the illusion.

This wasn't possible.

Was she going crazy?

No… that couldn't be right…

She glanced around her at the still raging fires surrounding them, the heat of said flames feeling considderably less warm than they had been when directly on her skin, but it was deffinately there.

They were deffinately there.

Hesitating, Cecilia reached out and snatched the jacket from the teachers grasp, quickly holding the piece of cloth in front of her chest like the only piece of protection she would be able to get in this situation.

And it probably was.

Taking a deep breath, she looked up at the teacher.

She most likely would have been blushing furiously had she not been white-faced from terror at the moment.

"How is this possible?" she asked slowly, fingers clenching around the strangely tectured fabric held to her chest. She had spoke more to herself than anyone else. Taking a deep breath, she spoke again, looking intently at the teacher. "What's happening to me?"

He knew.

He had to know.

He obviously had a better idea of what was happening to her than she did.

"I can't answer that right now." The man answered quickly. At her frown, he let out a sigh of annoyance, shaking his head before he glanced out through the flames. "It's not a conversation for a burning alley." He explained.

Reaching down, he grabbed hold of her arm.

It was a gentle enough grab, but the mere factor that her skin was still very raw from the flames caused her to flinch at the contact, pain rushing through her arm as the man pulled her up to her feet, making sure that the jacket wouldn't fall from her hands.

Howver, standing up wasn’t as easy as she would have liked, her knees buckling under her weight the second she got up.

She hadn’t realized just how exhausted she was.

"Come on." The teacher spoke, much quieter than he had done before. "Let's get you home." He glanced out through the fires into the opening of the alley. "I can hear the AESD closing in, and we need to be gone before they arrive."

That she could understand.

She could deffinately understand it.

There was absolutely no way the two of them could possibly explain the state she was in considdering where they would be found. She had a rather vivid image on how they could or even would react to the sight of her, she had many of them, and most of them would end up with her in some kind of laboratory.

No… not going to happen.

Turning her back to the teacher, Cecilia allowed her grip on the jacket to loosen, allowing herself to slip her slender arms into the sleeves of the strange, almost skin-like material, buttoning up the whole thing. It didn't surprise her when she found herself almost drowning in the size of the garment, the lenth of which ending at her mid-thigh and the sleeves almost entierlycovering her hands.

But, as it covered up her now almost non-existed blouse, she didn't complain.

A pair of hands landed just below her shoulders, turning her around to see the teacher. He gave off this certain air of anxiety, something that Cecilia soon joined in on as the AESD sirens slowly reached her ears.

Hand once again returning to her arm, The teacher steared her out of the alley.

They wandered straight through the flames, once again, acting as though they weren't even there, even though they were desperately trying to latch onto her socks but apparently, they weren't all that successful as the two of them managed to step out onto the street with no stubborn flames eating away at what remained of her clothing.

Soon enough, the two of them entered the spot in which Cecilia had first been taken.

It was strange for Cecilia to see the place after having been surrounded by fire, and she became even more curious about the teacher when he bent down to pick up her bag from the ground. At a place where she knew she hadn't dropped it. She frowned a bit at the sight as she could have sworn that her belongings had spilled out of the thing when she'd dropped it, but everything was perfectly packed.

Walking with a hand on her shoulderblades and her bag thrown over his shoulder, the two of them moved down the street, trying to appear as though nothing was wrong despite her body covered in bruises and blood, despite her hair being even messier than it has ever been, and despite the tworn and burnt state of her socks.

Before long, the Automatic Environment Safety Department vehicle zoomed past them where were walking, but thankfully, the sensors on the vehicle didn't pick up on the fire residue that was most likely lingering on Cecilia's beaten body.

They did catch some attention from the people they passed, but thankfully, they didn't decide to do anything.

Most likely, it was due to the fact that she was being lead by a man she was more or less clinging to, a man whom had obviously given her his jacket. So whatever had happened had obviously already been dealt with and she was in no more need of any help.

It was strange, haing to trust the man she'd been very weary of since the moment he had arrived at her doorstep.

But… he knew what was happening to her.

She had no other choice but to trust him.

She would let him talk, but she reminded herself that she would always have the right to refuse anything he might try and make her do.

She would not do anything without having been given a solid enough explanation.

----------------------------------------

A few minutes later, the two of them finally stopped in front of the Brandet Hoursehold.

Before Cecilia could reach out towards the gate with her hand, Salafay stopped her, turning her towards him instead, bending forward to meet her eyes in a way that she wouldn't have to strain her neck.

"Go inside, go to your room, lock the door and focus on your breathing." His words were an order, and yet his tone was distinctively gentle, still, she could feel the fear building up inside of her. The pressure of her flames increasing underneath her skin, like a shaken soda bottle just waiting for the cap to be loosened.

Half-paniked, Cecilia found her voice.

"Where are you going?"

"Stay calm." The teacher quickly ordered the soon-to-be frantic girl whilst giving her a sharp shake to momentarily shock her out of her frightened state. "I'll be back within an hour at the very most, so you will have to remain calm on your own for as long as you can."

The strange look in the man's eyes made Cecilia frown despite the fear still bubbling inside of her.¨

"What are you going to do?" she asked quietly, almost scared to know the answer.

Her question earned her a curious look from the man.

They didn't know one another, he had made several attempts to try and get to know her but she had always pushed him away every time he tried. Even the ink hadn't done much to make her lighten up around him, and yet she had managed to somehow tell some sort of intent on him with one look.

The revelation of that one skill the girl possessed almost made the man smirk.

"It's best if you don't know." The man answered, the corner of his mout twitching as he stepped away from her. "You just remain calm and I'll be back as fast as I can."

Stepping away was probably his worst decision at the moment, for the moment the distance between them was pushing a meter, her breaths started to come out in more hecting, hiccuping spasms, boarderline hyperventilating as he took yet another step.

Quickly, he was back in front of her.

"Breathe." He ordered, more firmly this time. "You'll do fine." He then gestured to the house with a jerk of his head once he noticed the terrified girl had gotten her breaths in more of less controll. "Now go."

He didn't leave any room for debate, turning around and walking away from her, leaving her in front of the gates of her house with her fingers tightly clenched around the straps of her school-bag as she desperately tried to keep her breathing in order like the teacher had instructed.

Slowly, Cecilia allowed her one hand to loosen in order to open the gate as she moved towards the house, each step looking even more painful than the one that had come before it.

Once entering the house, it didn't take long before Jennifer came out from the kitchen and spotted the state her daughter was in.

Cecilia knew her mother, she may not be all that close to her but she knew her. She blocked her mind from her mothers frantic questions, moving past her towards the staircase, expertly avoiding the older woman's flailing limbs as she tried to stop her in order to get an answer out of her.

Cecilia didn't want to talk.

She didn't think she could talk.

She almost ran up the stairs, sprinting to her bedroom where she threw the door open, bolting it behind her and for extra security, using voice command to ensure that her mother wouldn't be able to access the automatic emergency unlock system in order to get in.

She shouldn't have rushed, that really hadn't been a good idea.

The fires were now pulsing underneath her skin.

Gasping to keep her breaths at least moderately level, Cecilia pulled herself up the stairs and walked over to the bedside table as she almost yanked the pendant from her neck. Gently, she picked up the no-doubt priceless music-box from the surface and incerted the side of the pendant into the key-hole, giving it a good amount of turns before letting it go.

Thankfully, the pendant hadn't become disfigured in the heat of the fire.

She wouldn't have known what to do if she hadn't been able to wind up the music-box again.

The dancer immediately began spinning to the light, soothing melody that immediately filled the room, the movement of the device in her hands sending a nostalgic ease through her body, the melody itself filling her body with the cooling calm that it had so desperately needed.

With a heavy sigh, Cecilia settled down on top of her bed, eyes still pinned on the spinning figurine.

Memories of when she was younger filled her head, from younger than five and older than seven, the times she had spent with her father after he had come home from work one day and handed her that very music-box. He'd wind it up every night and allowed the melody to wash over the both of them before he had begun singing on the lullaby the melody had gone with, his deep husky tone souding rather odd with the light nature of the melody but Cecilia could still recall herself falling asleep to the sound.

She didn't know the lullaby. He had stopped singing it when she was about six and it had been in Italian so there was no way her young mind would be able to translate the text to American, she couldn't even remember the words.

Her mind and heart filled with the memory, Cecilia allowed herself to collapse onto the bed, gently settling the music-box back onto it's designated spot as she snatched Shiro-bunny from the edge of the matress, holding the plushy tighly to her chest as she allowed herself to cry in the aftershock of what had happened.

It was too much.

Why did it have to be her?

"Papa…" she whispered slowly into the room, not wanting her voice to over-voice the melody. "What's happening to me?"

----------------------------------------

43 minutes had passed since Cecilia came home.

And for the entierty of those 43 mintues, Jennifer had been pacing back and forth in front of her daughters door, the first five of said minutes having been spent furiously banging on said door in a desperate attempt to get her child to open up and let her in, to talk about what had happened.

But alas, Cecilia had refused the woman who gave birth to her any entry.

What could have possibly happened to mess the girl up this much? Jennifer had seen her come home in a mess before but she had never been in that much of an emotional mess, always insisting that Jennifer would drop it every time she would insist on calling the principal to put an end to everything the students put her through.

Cecilia had always said that getting through the day proved that she was stronger than they believed her to be.

And Jennifer had seen that.

Her daughter was strong, much stronger than any other teen she'd seen enter her bakery.

To see her strong little wild-flower so broken and de-thorned like that…

Jennifer furiously nibbled at her thumb-nail as she paced, mind racing at the many different possible scenarios her beloved daughter could have gone through to have ended up in that state, one even worse than the other.

There was one scenario however that she absolutely refused to put on her long list of possibilities.

At one point, she even found herself outside of her daughters door, knocking.

“Ceci…!” she called out, but she received no answer.

She knocked again.

“Ceci, Sweetheart?” she asked again, leaning her ear against the wood, seeing if she could hear anything from the other side, but all she heard was the light, soothing melody of the lullaby Carl used to sing to Cecilia when she was younger.

This only served to worry Jennifer even more.

If she was playing that, it deffinately, deffinately, wasn’t good.

She was getting desperate.

“Hey!” she called out, forcing a cheerful tone as she knocked once again. “How about you and I whip up some dill dip and watch a movie?” she forced a smile to her mouth, putting her hand against the wood. “When was the last time we had a movie night huh?”

No answer.

“Sweetheart?” her voice almost broke at the silence.

She swallowed her worry, allowing herself to nodd.

“Alright...” she breathed, pushing herself away from the door. “I’ll be downstairs if you need me, okay?”

Once again, there was no answer.

----------------------------------------

The sound of the front door opening down-stairs knocked Jennifer out of her thoughts, her attention snapping away from her daughters bedroom-door to the staircase, the brown eyes she shares with her daughter hardening at the knowledge of who had just returned.

Her daughter hadn't come home alone, the jacket she had been wearing proved that.

Anger boiled up inside of the woman's admittedly small stature as she rushed down the hallway, almost jumping down the entire staircase, landing just in time to see the teacher close the front door behind him.

"Mr. Salafay!" the tiny woman bellowed as she stormed over to the teacher. "What the hell happened to my daughter!?" she screamed her question right in the man's stupidly handsome face.

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Of course, her Carl was several times more handsome.

"Brandet-san…" the man muttered as he took off his hat, his long fingers running through his already messy hair all the while an exhausted sigh slipped from him.

"You sure you want to know that?"

Jennifer watched, fury rising inside of her as the man put the hat back on, making her take note of his lack of jacket and his rolled up sleeves. She shook her head to get her mind back on track.

He was trying to throw her off?

Was he seriously trying to make her change the subject?

The rage inside of her just kept building, pushing to the breaking point.

Jennifer was not the kind of woman that would fall for any form of trick of that nature.

"Mr. Salafay…" Jennifer found herself almost growling as her face formed into a glare that she directed at the man in front of her. "I watched my daughter, my only child, walk through that door almost 45 minutes ago looking as though she'd just been run over by a hover-modile!" she pointed a frantic finger towards the staircase before she screamed at the top of her lungs. "WHAT HAPPENED!?"

The teacher looked her over, then, with a sigh, he put his hands into his pockets.

"I'm not really sure." He answered, making Jennifer drop her hand. "I found her like that in an empty alleyway on the way back from the school." He didn't look at the woman as he moved to roll down his sleeves.

The action cause Jennifer to briefly wonder what had made him roll them up in the first place.

Slowly, the pieces of the puzzle that had presented itself to Jennifer the moment Cecilia had came home began to fall into place, and if her anger could become even worse than it already was, than it just did.

"Those fucking bastarts…" she growled, surprising the teacher at both her curse and the absolutely murderous expression that now took over her normally gentle, kind, and happy features. "She's just starting to piece her life together and those demons go and do that to her!?" the woman stompted her foot, her fist clenching at her sides as her whole being spoke of silent muder.

For a moment, Remoyama honestly feared for the lives of the perpetrators.

His lip twitched, his smirk almost slipping onto his face at the woman's reaction.

"Brandet-san." He spoke up once he finally got controll of his facial muscles, putting a hand on the woman's shoulder to make her turn back towards him. "Please calm down." He spoke much like he had done with her daughter just over an hour earlier.

"How can I!?" The woman screamed in a reaction that almost perfectly mirrored the reaction of her child. "My daughter is broken!"

Much to her annoyance, the teacher rolled his eyes at her words.

"No, she's not." He argued firmly, emotionless eyes piercing her own. "If she's your daughter, then you should know that she's must stronger than that." His voice was almost annoyed, the fact that his eyes were still locked with hers starting to make the New-American woman uncomfortable. "She just needs someone to remind her of that fact."

Taking a few deep breaths, Jennifer felt her anger slowly fading away.

Body shaking, she joined her hands together in front of her before allowing them to fall against her skirt, she resigned herself to the words she would have to force out of her mouth no matter how much she really, really didn't like them.

But truth be told, she didn't have any other option.

"Then you'll have to talk to her." She mumbled out with a heavy sigh, shoulders trembling under his hand. "She won't even let me into the room." Her voice hiccuped as she spoke, her eyes clenched as she desperately tried to keep herself from crying.

"That was my intention." The teacher stated before he rounded the woman and made his way towards the stairs behind her, only to stop before he took the first step up.

"Don't worry." He said, not turning around towards her. "I'm her teacher now, I can take care of her when in school."

Jennifer's thumb-nail once again found its way it between her teeth.

"Please do." She whispered, watching as the teacher started walking once again, disappearing up the stairs.

Once again, Jennifer felt absolutely useless where her own daughter was concerned.

----------------------------------------

Salafay stood in front of Cecilia's bedroom door, looking at the artistic name-plate as he tried the door-knob. Of course, he found that the door was bolted from inside, no doubt to keep her mother out. He wouldn't be surprised if any and all automatic emergency unlock systems were disabled as well.

Well, the teacher was not her mother.

Speaking of said mother, he could feel her eyes digging into his back from where she was watching him from the dop of the stairs behind him.

Releasing an annoyed sigh, he raised his hand to firmly rap on the door.

"Cecilia." He called out into the silence of the other room, his voice deffinately coming in muted on the other side. He could only hope that she actually heard him. "Open the door."

Sure enough, it barely took more than a few seconds before the sound of the door softly unlocking rang through the air, allowing the teacher to open the door and step inside, only for it to immediately lock up again once he closed it behind him.

A good move, he thought, as there was no telling weather or not Jennifer would try to enter after Salafay had entered.

For a moment, the teacher just stood there, allowing himself to listen before he moved, and what he heard caused his eyes to momentarily widen.

That melody… it couldn't be, could it?

Walking up the stairs, the first thing the teacher noticed was the messy head of golden-brown hair burried among the multiple soft pillows lying at the top of her bed, her arms tightly wrapped around the white plush rabbit as her legs pulled up so that her tiny body had the form of an N.

He could feel that the room was a lot hotter than it usually were, a clear indicator that the girl's nerves weren't entierly within her control.

He threw a glance towards the bedside table where the music-box was located, the porcelain ballerina figurine slowly spinning as the device released that gentle tune into the room.

Her father must have gifted her with that…

"Your mother's really worried about you, you know." The teacher stated as he stepped up to the bed, watching as her slender shoulders drew in even further around the plush rabbit. He could practically feel the heat radiating off of her, just waiting for the moment where she would loose controll of her emotions and burst free.

"I think she would be even more worried if I were to burst into flames right in front of her." The girl shot right back at him, her voice coming out muffled through the plushies head.

The teacher watched as the girl allowed one eye to be visible, an eye holding a surprisingly steady look.

"Talk."

Her voice held the undertone of an order.

A voice that put the teacher in a situation in which he had to fight in order to keep his smirk at bay.

With a little work, she would be more than capable of surviving.

Crouching down in front of Cecilia, ignoring the questioning look on her face as he reached out his hand, gently grabbing hold of her chin to get a proper look at the dried up cut on her jaw. Letting his eyes wander over the visible bruises.

“Is your bullet wound bothering you?” he asked, glancing down to her stomach.

“No.” she answered stiffly. “I do have SOME luck.”

She shocked him by hitting his hand away from her face, eyes narrowing.

“Do not try and change the subject.”

He had to fight his smirk once again.

"What do you want to know?" he asked, keeping the amusement away from his voice.

The teacher watched as her fingers clenched around the plushie, once again burrying her face into it's head as she took one deep breath after the other, her legs drawing in even closer to her torso. The heat surrounding her body began to once again build at a frightening pace.

"What happened back there?" she asked, voice shaking.

"Nothing to worry about." The teacher answered calmly.

Apparently, that wasn't the right thing to say as the temperature spiked within seconds. As black eyes moved over the girl, delicate-looking hands started to glow a bright orange color.

Quickly, the teacher settled himself down on the bed, the matress dipping down violently enough to make Cecilia's tiny body shake from the movement. The man grabbed hold of her shaking wrists, violently yanking them from where they had been wrapped around the plushie that was just moments away from meeting it's end.

"Cecilia, look at me." The man ordered, turning the girl around as he yanked her into a sitting position, forcing her to do what he asked of her. "What you're going through is completely natural."

Cecilia's eyes widened in what could have been confused for shock, but otherwise, her face seemed to be conforted in a strange kind of glare as she stared at the man in front of her.

"Natural?" she repeared, voice laced with a silent kind of disbelief. "What part of spontaniously combusting and coming out without a blemish could possibly be considdered natural!?" her voice grew and grew in volume with each words that passed through her lips, and then…

Her fingertips sparked.

It was a visible enough spark that both of their attentions immediately snapped to her hands, and the sight really didn't help with Cecilia's already frazzled nerves.

Immediately, The teacher moved his hands to her upper arms, giving her a shake.

"Breathe." He ordered, looking her firmly in the eyes. "You're right." He added, now sounding a lot more calming than he did before. "It's not natural." He agreed, but the tone he was using told Cecilia that there was more to it than that, and she was right. "For anyone outside of your bloodline."

This caught Cecilia off guard.

Momentarily forgetting her fear, she blinked at the man.

"Wha-?" he didn't allow her to finish.

"Tell me Cecilia." The teacher said, hands moving away from her upper arms, though he kept his eyes firmly locked with hers. "Have you ever been burned?"

Again, all Cecilia found herself capable of doing, was blink.

"What?"

The teacher wasted no time in enlightening her.

"Have you ever reached out to touch a flame when you were younger, or put your hand on a stove when it was on, or even picked up a cookie that had just come out of the over?" he looked her deep in the eyes, looking almost desperate for her answer. "Have you ever experienced the feel of extreme heat?"

Cecilia opened her mouth on reflex, almost rolling her eyes as she prepared herself to tell him that, of course she had, but to her surprise, the words caught in her throat. She couldn't get them out, and the more she thought about what he had asked her, the more difficult finding the words became.

She didn't remember much from when she was younger, but she did know for a fact that, even though she knew that she shouldn't touch fire or anything really hot as to not develop the serious injuries that could sometimes open the skin it was bad enough like she had seen on Viola a multidute of times or any other employee at the Crescent Bakery through the years, she couldn't recall one time when she herself had that type of injury.

And yet… one time, when she was nine, she had accidentally moved to take out a pan from the oven, forgetting to put on oven-mits in her rush to get to decorate the cake. Her mother had absolutely panicked when she'd seen her and rushed her over to the sink where she ran cold water over her hands for what felt like half an hour, spending the entire time comforting her, calling her brave and strong for not crying out in pain when she'd touched the pan like anyone else would have done.

Except…

She hadn't been in pain.

She had stood there feeling her hands almost go numb under the ice-cold water feeling absolutely confused as to why her mother had reacted the way she'd done.

It wasn't until days later when Viola did the same thing that she'd realized how she should have reacted and she refrained from trying to take anything out of the oven ever since.

Now that she knew this… she felt as though she had missed out on an important childhood experience.

Slowly, other memories returned to her.

Playing directly with candle flames and wax for hours only for her mother to chew her out because she could, "hurt herself", and she had been confused them too because, at most, it had felt like moving her fingertips through something lighter than water but thicker than steam.

The first time she'd really felt any form of heat was when her arms were burning, and even then, now that she thought back on it, even that experience hadn't been painful.

Finally, she looked back up at the man.

"No…" she answered, voice low, eyes wide in disbelief.

The teacher nodded at her response.

"I thought so." He stated, lip twitching a little. "Everyone on your father's side of the family has a greater towards heat and fire than what normal people would considder natural." He watched with satisfactory as Cecilia's brown eyes widened. "Of course, just how resistant they are depends on how direct the ancestry, but it is still there." He leaned closer to Cecilia, a strange glimmer in those onyx orbs that made Cecilia feel a bit uncomfrotable. "I suspect that you have a lot more energy than anyone in your class right?"

That was an understatement, and something that she'd figured out herself a long time ago.

Several days when going to school, no matter how little sleep she'd gotten the night before, she always managed to keep up her usual behavior whilst blinking at the students who had gotten a lot more sleep than her almost falling out of their chairs after their desks automatically forced them awake when they leaned over them.

She'd never been dead-tired unless she'd been awake for days on end, but she'd never been really bothered by it, in fact, it was welcomed.

"Yes…" she slowly answered the man.

Now, he openly smirked.

"Another perk of your bloodline." He stated. "It is suspected that is it to make sure your family's energy sourses doesn't burn out as quickly as some one elses would have." He gave a brief gesture with his hand in the air. "See." He said, sounding less serious than before. "To you, it is completely natural."

Despite herself, Cecilia found herself nodding to his words.

"The only real down-side to this trait with be the increased sensitivity to foreign materials and rouch touches." His hand shot out to gently grab her by the forearm, holding it up as the sleeve of the blazer slid down to reveal her skin littered with horrible-looking colorful spots. "Bruises are easily formed." He stated as he pulled the sleeve back up, covering up the bruising again before he smirked up at her. "You're basically all spawning from that pea-princess in that short fairy-tale."

The princess and the pea. He's making jokes now?

"Th-that doesn't explain the fires." Cecilia forced the words out of her, stuttering slightly from the force and shaking violently at the last word even though she had been the one to say it.

That wiped the smirk from his face.

"Right, the fires." He repeated, despite clearly noticing the tremmor that shot through the girl sitting in front of him at the word. "It is actually the last stage of a three-level power sourse." He explained, holding up three fingers in the air. "A more generalized term for the flames on their own is actually," his eyes narrowed as he paused for effect. He must be doubling as a drama-queen somewhere. "Raw Anima."

A mix of Italian and American, a language that Cecilia was more than aquainted with, not to mention fluent, so it took no time at all for her to translate the word in her head.

"Raw Soul?"

"Yes." The man answered immediately, sounding quite pleased that she knew the word. "We call it that because that's what it is." He explained. "Anima, in principle, is the manipulation and utilization of your soul's energy, and Raw Anima, is the materialization of said soul." He put a hand in front of his chest, almost as if he was trying to point on exactly where the soul was located. "Everyone in your fathers bloodline are naturally connected to this power." He let his hand fall back down. "Of course, not everyone is capable of actually producing it, but everyone is born with the potential of it." His eyes narrowed as he stared off into the air, his demeanor turning annoyed. "Some of them simply don't want to activate it."

Cecilia found herself frowning.

It sounded as though the man was personally offended that someone would not want to activate a power such as the one running through her bloodline.

But, for the moment, Cecilia couldn't bring herself to care.

"Then how come I didn't get this choice?" she found herself asking before she could stop herself.

Leaning back, the man let out a sigh.

"Sometimes, one isn't given." He looked at her with an expression that spoke more than she could gather in such a short period of time. "During times of great emotional stress, a Cuor DiLeone can be forced to awaken instinctively in order to protect themselves." He gaced at her almost pointedly as he said this, and this time, Cecilia understood the meaning behind the look perfectly.

Also…

Cuor DiLeone.

The sudden pure Italian words rushed over Cecilia, filling her with the strangest sense of almost foreboding familliarity.

"Lionheart?" she repeated, eyebrows furrowing. "What's with all the Italian?"

The man only smirked again at her knowledge.

"Cuor DiLeone is the term of which the people of your bloodline is refered to as a whole." He explained, leaning forwards again, resting his arms onto his knees. "DiLeone, being the last name the majority of your family and ancestry go by to more or less declare their lineage." He shook his head, giving Cecilia the impression of annoyance once again. "It's quite difficult to tell the main branched from the side ones anymore because of this." He glanced at her from the corner of his eye once the explenation was done. "You didn't know you were Italian?"

"Of course I knew I was Italian." Cecilia quickly deffended herself. "But a different name?" the man nodded. "I still have relatives there?"

The man raised an eyebrow.

"Why yes." He answered. "Quite a few of them in fact, you're so spread out it's impossible to keep track of you all should one find the need for it."

For a long moment, Cecilia just sat there, staring.

She had been begging both of her parents to tell her about their extended family for years but the both of them had never wanted to tell her a word, and now she suddenly discovers that she's got a small army of relatives on her father's side in a different cuntry?

How does this happen?

Shaking her head, she gathered up as much composure as she could.

"You keep repeating the word 'ancestry'." She pointed out, giving the man a look as though daring him to brush it off.

Thankfully, he did no such thing.

"I am." He answered as though it were as easy as breathing.

"Why?"

The teacher took a deep breath, silently telling Cecilia that this was going to take a while.

"Anima was first introduced to the world 400 years ago by the founder of your bloodline, Matteo DiLeone." He began. "He was well respected in his time even without the power he possessed and he mostly used it whenever it was deemed absolutely necessary. According to records, when he did use it, he was a force to be reaconed with." He stared off into space again. "It is described that the silent fury of the founder was the most frightening sight anyone had ever seen in their lives."

Cecilia took a moment to absorb this information.

She had an ancestor like that? Just how did someone like that look like?

Her hand moved up, brushing her hair behind her ear without her really noticing she was doing it, it was surprisingly steady despite the fact that her shoulders still hadn't gotten rid of that persistent tremmor.

She had to swallow before she managed to find her voice.

"Why can we do this?" she asked timidly.

"That is an excellent question." The man immediately responded. "Matteo never left any records on how he came to have the power, and many has tried to recreate it in other bloodlines with little success over the years." He actually let out a chuckle at this. "Most of the time, the subject burns up before the power can actually settle." Seeing the almost horrified look on Cecilia's face, he quickly changed the subject. "All that is known is that he passed on this unique talent to his descendants." He gave her a pointed look. "To you."

She blinked at the sudden statement.

"Why me specifically?"

The amusement almost radiated off of the man.

"Beacause, Cecilia." He spoke with a silent chuckle. "You're the latest to be born of the main branch."

Cecilia's eyes went wide, the words caught in her throat as the meaning behind the sentence fully registered.

"I'm… in direct relation to…" it was too much. The thought of her, the girl with the brain that had refused to fully develop at a young age, be related to a man whose anger had frightened what sounded to be hundreds of men. It just couldn't be true.

She shook her head free of the comment, sorting it away for later when she could probably handle the information better.

In stead, she focused on another thought.

"You mean to tell me, that there is a multitude of people running around Italy lighting themselves on fire?" she asked slowly, not looking at the man. "Papa included?"

"No."

The answer had come so quickly that Cecilia flinched at the sharpness of it.

"But… you said-" once again, she didn't get to finish her sentence.

"I said that those of your bloodline are born with the potential of using Anima." He elabourated. "However, the norm when using Raw Anima is for the person to use a specially developed object or weapon that they would use as their "match" of sorts in order to materialize their flames as they are holding it." He glanced down at the girl's hands as she once again began to fiddle with her fingers. "Flames such as these are painful to the touch no matter how resistant you are."

Dread washed over Cecilia the more the man spoke.

"So… what I am really is unnatural." She mumbled.

To her surprise, the man rolled his eyes.

"Not at all." He said, making her look up at him in confusion. "Matteo, your ancestor, first activated his flames directly through his skin as well." Cecilia's eyes widened once more. "Only none of his decendants were capable of doing so without ending up with permanent scarring for as long as he lived." He took a deep breath before he kept speaking, the reaction to his own words caused a question to form in Cecilia's head. A question that she had to file away for later considdering the man looked as though he was only going to keep talking. "Not long after he died however, the second case of skin-released flames were documented." He pierced her with a meaningful look. "The gift you have is perfectly natural, it is just very rare. Only one of your kind can exist at the same time, you have to die before another can be born." Cecilia could feel a sense of foreboding creep up on her. "We call this person." The man paused for effect, Cecilia was seriously tempted to frown. "The Phoenix."

The Phoenix?

Seriously?

"This…" Cecilia mocked the man with her pause despite the tremmor in her shoulders. "All sounds like the premise to a fantasy novel."

"I suppose it does." The man replied with a smirk. "But you know very well that it is real." Cecilia glanced down at her hands, her skin beginning to tingle. The sensation made her furiously rub them as her skin began to glow. Seeing this, the man grabbed her by the upper arms. That was starting to become something of a regular occurrence. "The fires are natural Cecilia, they cannot hurt you if you do not loose control over them." He looked her right in the eyes. "They are yours."

Well, that was all well and good when you said it.

"I'm scared of them." Cecilia admitted in a breathy whisper.

"Don't be," the main ordered. Now it was Cecilia's time to roll her eyes, that was easy for him to say. "No really." The man spoke up, capturing her attention. "If you don't fear them, they can't controll you."

Cecilia found herself frowning.

This was too detailed, to informative.

"How do you know all of this?" she found herself asking before she could stop herself.

The man smirked that stupid, almost victorious smirk.

"I make it my job to know things." His job? "Also." He fiddled with the cuffs of his shirt, looking very pleased with himself. "I was sent here to train you, to held you during this particular moment in your life."

Cecilia blinked.

"Train me?"

"Yes." The man nodded. "I took up a class in your school so that I would be able to overview your progress outside of the house without having to appear like a stalker."

He had becoma a teacher because of her?

Even though he said it did it to not look like a stalker, right now, he felt like one.

"That's why you were so adamant about me joining your class." Cecilia mumbled, fingers fiddling as she spoke. "It's a class specifically for learning Anima."

The teacher smriked a little as he nodded, confirming her words.

"I named it, Anima Apprenticeship, but as I couldn't let any outsiders know what it was really about, it shortened it to A.A." he explained. "The principal was surprisingly accepting of every condition I put forward."

He wasn't entierly truthful.

He didn't believe the principal was surprisingly accepting, he had probably counted on that fact and had planned every step of the way in order to cement a place on the school faculty. It was just the feeling she got when he talked.

Of course, this feeling also brought forth a question Cecilia had temporarily put on the shelf as the time hadn't been right for it.

Now however…

"Who are you, really?" she asked slowly, leaning way from the man sitting in front of her, her eyes narrowed. Of course, the man didn't react the way one would imagine.

It just made her curiosity grow.

"The name I have chosen for myself, is Lucian." The man answered, a smug expression spreading over his features.