It’s dark, I hear breathing… What happened to me…?

My body feels very heavy.

Observing my surroundings, I see a faint light in a corridor leading to a door.

The memories of that night suddenly come back making my body go stiff.

I instinctively shrink under the quilt and pretend that I’m still sleeping.

A few seconds later, I hear the door open and feel my body tense up.

I have no time to take in the situation at all!

Did they take me away?? Am I at the trafficker’s den?!

I hear footsteps approaching me and subconsciously hold my breath.

The quilt was suddenly pulled, making me panic.

I don’t know what to do so I just scream and struggle to get away, but I’m quickly hugged.

“Calm down Tomoko, it’s me, mommy. You’re safe, baby, no one’s gonna hurt you.”

I feel a hand gently combing my hair in an effort to soothe me.

It took me a while to calm down and ease my struggles, coupled with the tireless repetition of the words the person hugging me spoke… My mother.

The tension in my body isn’t fading though, I want to cry in her embrace, but my body just refuses to move…

Mom seems to realize something’s wrong, so she places a light kiss on my forehead and loosens her hug.

“It’s okay, baby, take it slow. You’re safe here.”

As she takes some distance, my body relaxes a bit.

“I am sorry, Kaori. This is my fault.”

I tense up again upon hearing a third person’s voice.

Looking up, I see Theo look at me with guilt while clenching his fists so hard they go white.

“Now’s not the time for this, Theo. This was no one’s fault, we just need to take care of Tomoko now.”

“I-I… Yes, you’re right…”

Ah, right... Theo knocked down the kidnappers at the end!

“Wai-Wait! Theo, are you hurt?!”

I get closer in an effort to examine his body, but my body gets tense again, forcing me to stop.

“I-I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with my body…”

“It’s all right, Tomoko, it’s just an involuntary reaction due to shock. You just need to rest, sweetie.”

Mom softly smiles while reaching out to pat my head.

Nevertheless, her hand comes to a halt right before contact, seeing my body getting stiff.

“You’re fine now, sweetie. I will leave with Theo so you can sleep at ease. Use this button to call for someone whenever you want.”

Gesturing towards a small bedside table, they hastily leave before I could stop them.

Haah… This sucks...

Trying to act strong in front of me, huh...?

I can see your bloodshot eyes and shaking hands though, mom…

This room reminds me of the first day of this life.

There are white walls all around me, I didn’t spot them before as it is nighttime.

I should be in a hospital ward somewhere.

Okay, calm down a bit, me.

Giving my face a light slap, I start going over that night again in my mind, running away won’t solve anything after all.

So, I made the stupid mistake of wandering into a deserted alleyway alone in the middle of the night as a five-year-old child.

Getting distracted while experimenting with {Spatial Awareness} and trying to check if I can see through walls in the middle of the night certainly isn’t a great fucking idea.

Not only that, but I also froze as soon as I caught a glimpse of a weapon even though I could easily dodge it using {Spatial Awareness}.

If I hadn’t momentarily overcome my fear at a critical moment, God knows where I’d be by now…

How utterly idiotic and reckless of me to assume I would be able to act at such times.

I’d be dead meat by the first otherworld monster encounter, might even die at birth if I’m a non-human species.

Life and death struggles are going to be frequent if I want to become strong, I’ve always lived in a modern-day world, so my sense of crisis is essentially inexistent.

All right, this calls for a showdown with mom and dad after I’m back home.

I’ll tell them about my photographic memory and ask them to prepare all educational material up until high school.

I’ll finish reviewing it and then put all my efforts into any combat/self-defense arts I can practice.

Aikido and Kendo are probably the go-to for me.

My physical strength is too weak for anything else.

Looking back, I realize I’ve been slacking off quite a lot, I just wanted to spend as much time as possible with my family as it’s unclear how long it’ll take to return once I’ve been to the otherworld.

However, I can’t put it off anymore, I need to be fully prepared.

Short-term distancing is better than a long-term separation, I wanna be able to come back as soon as possible.

Not going is not an option either, if I stay, my soul will be polluted again over time.

That’s just causing my parents heartache and going back on my deal with Alkreya as well, which is impossible for me.

I’ll rest until I’m out of here, then it’s time for a hard grind.

Taking a quick look at mom and Theo through my sphere, I find them sitting right outside my room, I am sure they’ll come in again when I’m asleep.

I didn’t know how Theo had knocked down those men until much later, he apparently carried self-defense weapons on him habitually due to him sometimes traveling to dangerous zones.

He had a taser gun on him which he used for a quick zap followed by a swift chop to the neck knocking down the gangsters before they could react, the taser had to be disposed of though as self-defense weapons are illegal in Japan.

Such a stupid law, I wonder how many people fall victim to what I’ve been through due to such a thing.

What makes them actually believe that all humans are good at heart escapes my understanding, at least those three guys were the definition of what evil is in my heart.

Closing my eyes, I drift into a nightmare-filled sleep.

 

---------------Kaori’s P.O.V--------------

My daughter, Tomoko is a very mature child for her age.

When we decided to have children, we thought it would be a difficult undertaking, but we went through with it anyways.

However, our Tomoko was very smart since she was born.

She’d only cry whenever something was up, and we actually found her using different body positions for different situations.

It became more obvious when she started crawling and standing, she figured out that she was too weak to do so without any support almost as soon as she tried it.

She spoke her first words earlier than the average child, she even knew the actual meaning of the word instead of just repeating after us.

We tried teaching her more words and astonishingly, she was able to expand her vocabulary in no time at all!

That was an unforgettable day for us, I couldn’t stop myself from smiling all the time for the next two weeks!

From then on, we discovered that Tomoko doesn’t require much effort to raise from us.

Despite that, we still went through the trouble of merging our companies, effectively freeing up more time to accompany her.

Afterwards, and until Theo ended his trip, we spent our days shifting between me and Leo going to the company during the daytime while both of us accompany Tomoko at nighttime.

We watched over her all the way, her little adult acts, her unchanging face when praised replaced by jumping with joy the moment we are out of her sight, her trying to do some of her “experiments” that always ended in something getting broken, and many more.

Each time she got hurt due to some accident like a fall or bump, we’d always reproach each other for being careless and not paying enough attention to her, we felt heartache with each tear that dripped down her little face.

Halfway through her fourth year, she had somehow finished the entire kindergarten material, but we, nonetheless, decided to send her there anyways in an effort to let her socialize with people other than us.

Her trying to skedaddle out of it also did nothing but make our decision firmer, Tomoko MUST make friends her age or she’ll be negatively affected in the long run.

What facilitated that though, was Theo’s sudden return to Japan.

He was able to easily penetrate the social barriers she hadn’t even realized she had put up.

Using food to bait Tomoko is a piece of cake… Literally…

It only took her a single week to gather her courage and accept attending kindergarten!

We had expected at least an entire month to be needed for her to leave her comfort zone!

But then again, that’s where Theo’s charm lies, he’s so eloquent and resourceful due to his interactions with all types of different people on his trips.

Then, Tomoko surprised us again by making a friend on her first day!

This led us to discover her passion for music as well, we tested this by letting Leo put on some music on his work-from-home days while I hid with a camera nearby.

Lo and behold, she snuck by his door and listened while humming cheerfully with the tune.

She took the initiative with her new friend, Aiko Iijima because she liked her singing voice.

Every day is an unforgettable day with Tomoko and even though we know this was not a normal parenting experience, we don’t have any regrets, we love Tomoko with all our hearts.

However, we still fell into the same mistake we tried our best to avoid.

Tomoko’s too mature after all, and this is getting clearer the older she is.

There were sometimes when I thought Tomoko was a lot smarter than she usually shows, but I had chucked it all up to illusions.

My doubts came back and were actually confirmed today though, at her fifth birthday party.

The way she gets along with us is strongly reminiscent of how Aiko gets along with Iijima-san, the way she solved the problem between Aiko and her mother also showed how intelligent she is.

Connecting things together, I understood that Tomoko herself discovered her peculiarity and was actively suppressing herself and acting like a normal child around us, perhaps trying to just enjoy her childhood the same way other children do.

It was heartwarming yet at the same time heartbreaking for me, I can’t let my child suppress herself if she is uncomfortable and if it’s harmful then I would have to forcefully stop her, deciding to have a serious discussion with her tomorrow, we go on with the celebration.

I and Leo departed earlier without Tomoko because she wanted to grab some snacks on the way home, but oh was that a mistake.

It can’t actually be considered anyone’s fault, but I still blame myself for what happened that night.

My heart felt like it was stabbed by a sword when I saw her shaking in her sleep haunted by nightmares.

Her heartrending screams of fear when I hugged her, coupled with her tense body upon contact made it hard for even a seasoned businesswoman like me to keep my expression from changing.

I don’t know how to keep such a thing from happening in the future, I will hire someone to protect her secretly, without them reporting about her actions unless needed.

Intruding on her life would make our relationship tense when she gets older which is something I want to avoid, a child as smart as she is would certainly see through any excuses I make.

For now, I will take care of her at all times until she can finally show me that sweet smile of hers again.