Ren grimaces in understanding, which is again mostly visible in his eyes due to his mask. That's kind of how he feels too. It would be bad enough seeing it in anyone, but it's an Akechi.

"I ran into that. I couldn't tell him why the cognitions weren't real. He kept... checking out. So I couldn't make him okay with blowing them up. We cleared them all out in the end, I had to wait for them to come back." He sounds exhausted by the memory.

But Okumura's phrasing has raised a question. "You said someone made him into that. Like, a person did that? On purpose...?"