Chapter 810 Return to a Normal Life
Seeing their reactions, Kisuke instantly felt a bit of guilt. They still missed their precious daughter, their only child, very much and despite their accepting stance, they became extremely excited when they heard that Aika came back with him.
Honoka grabbed Haruto's clothes and gestured for him to sit back down, but even her perfect smile couldn't hide how she's feeling and asked, "W-where is she? Why is she not with you? Is she alright?" But as she progressively questioned Kisuke, more and more negative thoughts entered the couple's mind and increased their anxiety.
"Please rest assured that she's safe. I didn't bring her with me for a reason, but you'll see her soon."
The couple instantly guessed that it has something to do with the other thing that Kisuke mentioned aside from apologizing personally and calmed themselves down to properly listen to him, "Go on, please." Haruto asked Kisuke to continue.
Directly getting to the point, Kisuke answered, "I want Aika to return to her normal life. Without any of this supernatural stuff, either temporarily or permanently."
"I'm sorry, but I don't understand." Honoka creased her brows. If Kisuke wanted to return Aika to a normal life, she knew he probably had a way to do so. What she's confused about were the last terms, 'temporarily or permanently.
"To explain, I sealed all of her memories that are related to the supernatural world. Along with those, were the entirety of her abilities, reducing her to a normal high school girl once more."
"Are you going to do the same to us?", Haruto asked while feeling a bit apprehensive.
Contrary to their expectations, Kisuke shook his head, "No. It's because I want you to watch over her with your newfound knowledge."
At that point, Honoka finally understood what Kisuke really meant to do and said, "I see. So Aika would be able to break those seals of yours if she truly wants to, hence either temporarily or permanently. Am I correct?"
Kisuke nodded at her, "You're absolutely right. As time progresses, those seals would grow stronger and stronger until to the point where Aika won't be able to recognize them anymore, nor have the power to break them."
"And how long would that be?"
"Around a year or two. After that, I'll come again and ask the both of you if you want me to seal your memories too if that's what you want." The reason why the seals could grow stronger was that as time passed, those memories were being buried under new ones and would ultimately be forgotten.
"How about the blank those sealed memories will leave? And why seal and not erase?"
"I'll answer the second question first. Sealing memories means blocking the perception from accessing certain or all information. Its main advantage is that it's way safer for the target once applied, but its disadvantage is that it's incredibly hard and complex to implement, that it may cause unnecessary complications and that it's technically just a temporary measure. In addition to that, if not provided with a good excuse, it's easy for the target to realize the missing memories and it could be quite stressful since no information would be created in place for that used space."
"Erasing memories, on the other hand, is simply purging information from the mind directly. And for that purged information, the mind would automatically adapt and sometimes create memories of their own to compensate, resulting in an at ease mind without any additional effort and therapy. While this is incredibly easy to do compared to sealing, the more memories that are erased, the more the mind is burdened and it may even cause debilitating conditions. Though this kind of measure is certainly a permanent one."
"As for your first question, we'll create a story that she transferred out of Kuoh Academy because the two of you were assigned work out of this town. After a year, you were free of your work and she wished to transfer back. But before she could do that, she got into a traffic accident. While not a very serious accident, a wrong hit on her head caused her amnesia, making her forget the entirety of her second year. We can easily support this story by asking the Belial House to process all the documents needed for this."
Honoka and Haruto became quiet once more as they needed some time to digest everything that Kisuke had just said.
A minute or two later, Honoka broke this silence, "I can understand what you want to happen... However, why? Why does she have to go through this?"
Kisuke sighed in response, "She's currently at a very important juncture of her life. Whichever path she wanted to take would bring her to entirely different futures. However, she's having an inner conflict of not knowing where to go and the inability to move forward."
A small smile then emerged from Kisuke face, "This may seem counterintuitive, but by making her forget one part of her life, things may become clearer for her, and maybe this time, she'll be able to take a step forward, even if it's just a baby step."
"Are you really just 18 years old?" Haruto suddenly asked, "I feel like I'm talking to a fellow old man. Or are all Devils like you?"
Kisuke chuckled while replying, "Wisdom isn't caused by age."
"But there's a correlation." Haruto immediately fired back.
"Let's just say that I'm a bit special. Aside from lifespan and natural ability to use Magic and understand all the languages on Earth, Devils aren't very different from Humans in their ways and society."
Meanwhile, as Haruto distracted Kisuke for a bit, Honoka was able to rearrange her thoughts. This has always been the case for the couple. While Haruto is the brawn, Honoka does all the thinking for complicated and complex matters without breaking her husband's trust.
Kisuke, of course, instantly noticed this and just entertained Haruto with his whimsical questions.
'This is a great situation for us...' Honoka thought, '...It should be and we should just go with this without any further questions asked... But I don't like how he's just discounting my daughter's feelings...'
"But..." Honoka spoke up with great hesitation and the two men stopped their talk. She didn't want to say it because Kisuke might pull back from this and they wouldn't have a chance to escape this inexplicable world that contained terrifying beings, as just obtaining knowledge about them was already a curse to normal people like them.
However, she understood her daughter the most and despite talking to her through a hologram, she also somewhat understood what she's going through, "But... Aika would surely hate you if she were to remember all of this. She might despise you for this stunt you're going to pull on her and might even push her away from you. Are you fine with that?"
Nevertheless, Honoka still viewed Kisuke as a 'child' and underestimated him, "I'm fine with that.", Kisuke replied with a light smile on his face.
This answer, however, gave Honoka a wrong impression and she was instantly pissed. But before she could say anything, Haruto suddenly raised his arm and stopped her, "Haruto... Aren't you going to say anything!? This man doesn't really care about our daughter!"
Though instead of replying to her anger, Haruto calmly faced Kisuke, "You still have places you need to go. Don't worry about us."
Kisuke stood up and said, "Thank you for having me. In about an hour, I'll teleport Aika to her bedroom, so be sure that it's free." He then directly left the house without saying anything further and teleported after gaining some distance.
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