Sairei is the power of the mind. Not having a good memory or even being smart, because there are plenty of saireishi who are complete morons who would forget their head if it wasn’t attached to their necks. No, sairei is the ability to hear another person’s thoughts and, with enough power and training, even change another person’s thoughts.
While properly using sairei takes time and effort, the ability is born. It’s like walking. If you’ve got the ability for it, it isn’t hard, and soon you get to the point where it’s hard not to use it. If a person nearby has a loud, emotional thought, saireishi have to work to not hear it.
Conscious, obsessive thoughts are the easiest to read. If I’m constantly thinking ‘I’m hungry, I’m hungry, give me food now,’ a saireishi will have to try to block out that thought. Then comes conscious thoughts that are more complicated. If I’m taking a math test, a saireishi could have a peak into my answers and work, but that would require looking. Subconscious thoughts are harder still. While taking that math test, I’m probably writing stuff down. Writing numbers and symbols are so easy that I don’t think about them. If a saireishi had to understand the numbers and symbols I wrote, that would take even more effort.
Similar with memories. If there’s something I’m thinking about at the time, a powerful and emotional memory, like that math test I thought I would fail but totally aced, a saireishi could easily see that memory. Less important memories are harder to find, like all those days I sat in math class. The hardest are memories I’ve forgotten. Those memories are still in my mind, but only a talented saireishi could find them.
Sairei is inborn. There is a gene for it, so if you’re saireishi and you have kids, your kids will probably also have sairei. It’s not a dominant gene, though, so saireishi are usually only allowed to have kids with other saireishi. Each alignment closely guards its saireishi. The Neutral hasn’t got any saireishi, and yes, they’re as annoyed about that as you assume they are. The Light, Gray, and Dark have saireishi, and even the Unattacheds who run Capitania have saireishi, but the Neutrals get none. They whine constantly about that.
The life of a saireishi is controlled at all times. Their parents are saireishi. They grow up surrounded by saireishi and as few normal people as possible. Young saireishi in particular can have trouble distinguishing their own thoughts from other people’s, so having normal people around can fuck up child saireishi.
That’s why saireishi stick together. They go to school together, learn how to use their power together, only become friends and lovers with other saireishi. They don’t get to pick their job. I guess they can decide whether to use their power in a military context, an interrogation context, or even a mental health context, but there’re only so many options. A saireishi can’t just decide that, say, they want to be an artist and don’t want to use their power.
A saireishi can’t change alignment. A saireishi can’t decide to go on vacation. A saireishi can’t move. A saireishi has to have children and only has a limited number of people to have kids with.
I don’t feel sorry for normal saireishi. They still have a better life than I do.
