Maruki hummed, fingers resting lightly against his chin as he considered her words. She really was sharp—able to parse through the details and chase a theory with almost clinical precision. That glimmer in her eyes had shifted from tension to something far more familiar: curiosity. Good. If nothing else, at least for the moment, she wasn’t fully lost experiencing everything that had just happened.

He adjusted his glasses, the glint of his lenses briefly obscuring his expression before he spoke again.

"And the core of the mind can’t be unlocked unless it’s stripped of everything else, huh..." His tone was thoughtful, almost musing to himself. "That would suggest that every living being—human, animal, perhaps even certain constructs of cognition itself—possesses the potential for a Persona. A projection of the purest self, beyond societal influence, beyond learned behavior."

"It really is a shame that the study in cognitive psience is used so haphazardly," he shakes his head. "When it has the potential to change the whole world."