Naia opened her eyes as soon as the first rays of dawn started peering through the windows. Silently, without making a single noise, without the blankets even rustling, in an eerie ghost-like manner, she rose from the bed and entered her bathroom. She looked at the mirror and resisted the temptation to scrunch her face, to clench her jaw in frustration.

She had been on the same mission for fifteen years. Not one moment, not one instant, had she ever broken the facade she had put on. She had been diligent beyond what would have been expected of her, and she had gotten close, so tantalizingly close to her objective. However, for all she served without questioning, for all she had done for the Water Rider Academy, Principal Kaimana hadn’t given her what she had been angling for all this time.

Naia took a deep breath and then splashed her face with cold water. She went into the kitchens of her school building, which she financed with a few missions she took throughout the academic year. She smiled at the cooks, found a light plate assembled for her, and ate while making light conversation with the servants. She had cultivated a flawless image for herself—kind, well-disposed, and interested in the well-being of others beyond what any other elder had done. And she knew she was almost as strong as a real elder, perhaps already stronger than some. But all of this clearly didn’t matter to Principal Kaimana.

As customary of her routine, Naia left the kitchens half an hour later and went to the training grounds. As she walked the halls of the school, she pondered whether it even made any sense for her to still be here, to keep up the appearances when the old man was already at the end of his natural life. When she knew that he would soon breathe his last breath, and so all these years that she had spent trying to infiltrate the Sundered Seas Covenant had been wasted. All this time that she had put into trying to further the mission of the Equilibrium cult was gone.

Considering the recent change in plans that had been communicated to her by none other than Maui, she truly knew that there was nothing she could do to help. Maui had decided to change his approach, to do something almost unthinkable considering how much power the academy still wielded.

However, Naia had been born in poverty, and it hadn’t actually been Kaimana finding her, as most believed throughout the academy. If she had had to wait for Principal Kaimana, she would have died ten times over. She would have starved because the nobles responsible for her territory didn’t clear the dungeons as they were supposed to, meaning that most of these little creatures ran unchecked and routinely drove the inhabitants out of their places. This didn’t allow them to cultivate food or to really build up any resources. So most of the time, they barely survived on scraps.

Naia was just a kid, just ten years old when her savior came. When he found out about her talent, he was still in shambles after Yalena's death. That drove him to find someone who could wield the talent to infiltrate the academy and tear the system down from within.

But Naia felt like she had failed her savior, Maui. Even though Principal Kaimana had nominated her as his assistant, and she was sure she would be nominated an elder before the man died or perhaps right after his death, she still knew she wouldn’t enter the man's inner circle. That much had become clear beyond reasonable doubt.

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But perhaps the Deep had rewarded her for her commitment by dropping an unexpected opportunity into her lap. When Maui had told her that none other than his daughter would come to the academy, he had told Naia to keep an eye on her from afar but more importantly, to look for an opportunity. To find someone close to his daughter, Talia—Maui and Yalena’s child—would become a very important pawn. The most important in what was about to unfold in the Great Archipelago. But to control her, to make sure that she would do as told, they needed leverage. And leverage had fallen right in her lap.

She smiled as she saw a blonde girl practicing in the training grounds barely an hour after dawn. Naia smiled at the attempts at conjuring the shield spell, the Sheathotter. It consisted of circulating many smaller shields, barely the size of a palm, superimposed in a scale-like formation in several layers, all interlocked with one another. It was an extremely defensive spell that could only be mastered by someone with tremendous mana control and a masterful grasp over the fundamentals of casting, something way beyond what a second-year student should have been capable of.

Surprisingly, Naia saw that Fiora had already managed to conjure an entire layer together and that she was trying to create the second. However, joining the two would be a challenge even for the talented blonde.

When the time came, she would be the most important in making sure that Talia did what she needed to do.

“Good morning,” Fiora said, bowing her head as soon as she saw Naia, letting the conjured Sun Water dispel.

One of the many things that Naia found remarkable about the girl was that Sun Water was more apt for offense than defense. But when Naia told Fiora that she would be learning a fully defensive spell, the girl didn’t even blink. She had accepted and got to work immediately. The fact that there were only two months of lessons before they would start hunting in dungeons clearly motivated the girl beyond her usual commitment.

Naia saw a younger version of herself in Fiora, a girl ready to do anything to experience a better life, to build a better future. Something that those puny nobles couldn’t even understand. Principal Kaimana, coming from his position at the top, couldn’t really understand what it was like to live among the last of the last in Great Archipelago of Na Moku Kai. To experience famine. To not know where the next meal would come from.

She respected him in so many ways, but she also knew that he would never understand, that he would always oppose the greatness of Maui’s own plans. The same plans that had once been Yalena’s, and that only Maui fully knew at this point.

"Remember to maintain equal pressure between the layers," Naia told the girl.

The second layer she was trying to create over the first scale-like shield would require much more control, especially if she wanted to conjure it in a split second during battle.

As Naia watched her student struggle with the technique, she couldn't help but feel a twinge of... was it regret? She had grown genuinely fond of Fiora over the months of training. The girl's progress had been remarkable, and her unwavering spirit was refreshing in a world of entitled nobles.

“Fiora,” Naia said after the blonde had depleted all her Mana, “we have to talk about something.”