"I think, ultimately, the issue is... what is it you give up, when you remove that? Peoples' values conflict. There's innately going to be situations where some people are going to be more content than others. In order to resolve that... Maruki, fundamentally, has to change people, with or without their consent. He has to wipe clean whoever they were, and replace them with a version of themselves that's less... complicated. It's not that Maruki, specifically, shouldn't have that power. It's that nobody should. The ability to enforce that, on the broad scale, is... terrifying."

He looked up to meet her eyes. "I saw your Awakening, Kasumi. It was... eye-opening. I'm not confident that what you remember is how it happened, based on... the way that memory played out. Jumping around, like a badly-cut film. Segments that felt... inserted. I don't know."