Chapter 529: Lifelong Wish Fulfilled

Nadia blinked. "What? What do you mean, Mika? What are you talking about?"

She had an inkling of where this was going, but she was still confused. Mika, however, was on a roll, his words coming faster now, more enthusiastic.

"Just think about it, Nadia. Think about how people lose sensitivity to things over time due to over exposure."

He raised a finger.

"For example, think of a person taking an addictive drug for the first time."

Nadia nodded, picturing it.

"The first time someone takes a drug, they feel an immense sense of ecstasy. Their entire world warps. They experience overwhelming happiness, excitement, euphoria rushing through their veins."

"It makes them feel on top of the world."

He held up two fingers, then three, then four.

"The second time, the third time, the fourth time—the experience remains similar. But eventually..."

He frowned as he clenched his fist.

"...over time, as they take that drug again and again, their sensitivity to it changes. The same dose no longer produces the same effect.

It becomes weaker. They need more to feel the same thing."

Nadia nodded thoughtfully. That was exactly how addiction worked.

She had seen it before, in soldiers who had become dependent on pain medication after the war.

Mika continued, leaning closer with intense, shining eyes.

"It’s like that with many other things too. Alcohol, cigarettes, stress—anything, really!"

"The more you’re exposed to something, the less sensitive you become to it."

"Just think of a kitten being adopted by a new owner. At first, it’s scared. It hisses. It tries to scratch."

He waved his hand like a feisty cat.

"But as time goes on, as it gets more exposure to that owner, as it realizes he’s a good person trying to take care of it, the kitten becomes friendly. That anger and fear dissipates."

He leaned in again, his gaze fervent.

"That’s the principle. Exposure to something eventually decreases your sensitivity to it."

Nadia’s eyes widened in realisation.

She was extremely smart—she understood exactly what Mika was saying. And she realized where he was going with this. How it all linked back to her.

A look of revelation appeared on her face. Her heart began to race.

" So you mean—what you did—it was—"

Mika nodded, his eyes bright with triumph. He reached across the table and held both of her hands in his.

"Exactly, Nadia."

He squeezed her fingers.

"The reason I did everything today—all of it—was to decrease your sensitivity to your own blessing."

He leaned in, his voice dropping into a tone of absolute, authoritative clarity.

"In the past, your entire strategy was built on suppression. You suppressed your emotions, which in turn suppressed the blessing."

"But that is the absolute worst method you could have possibly used."

He gravely shook his head.

"If you had continued down that path, you would have spent the rest of your life trapped behind an emotionless mask, an eternal statue."

He paused, letting his words sink in.

"But if you do the exact opposite—if you allow your emotions to break free, to show more and more expressions, and also let your blessing be used more and more—you’ll eventually decrease your sensitivity to it. Your blessing won’t activate as strongly when you show your emotions."

He squeezed her hands.

"That’s why I did all those strange, bizarre things to you. To make you experience the most extreme emotions possible."

Nadia’s heart was pounding. This was...this was insane. But it also made sense. Terrible, beautiful, horrifying sense.

Mika continued, his voice earnest.

"At first, I thought about what could evoke the most extreme emotions in you. The first thing that came to mind was...if you thought I had died."

Nadia gasped. "Mika!"

He held up a hand quickly. "It’s alright. I knew that method was too extreme. If I actually died or even if you just thought I died—it would probably split the world in two. I wouldn’t even be able to control the fallout. So I didn’t take that method."

Nadia let out a massive sigh of relief. Even if it had been a fake death, she truly would have been mind-broken if something like that had occurred.

"But eventually." Mika said, his eyes firming with resolve. "I came to a second-best method."

He paused.

"I decided to do certain things to you that I would never normally do. Things that were taboo."

He shook his head.

"Small things wouldn’t work—acting out of place, being a bit rude. Those emotions are too small. They wouldn’t affect your sensitivity at all. I had to go big."

His eyes gleamed.

"After all, taboo is what evokes the strongest emotions. Doing things you shouldn’t do—cheating, committing crimes, and most importantly..."

He hesitated, looking almost ashamed.

"...incestuous acts."

Nadia felt her cheeks flush.

"That’s what I grasped onto." Mika continued. "With that motivation in mind, I did all those things to you today. The kissing. Playing with your breasts. Even..." He blushed in a guilty manner. "Even fingering you."

Nadia’s face was burning now, but she didn’t look away.

"By doing all of that." Mika said as his voice grew. "I hoped to get a massive reaction from you. And luckily, it worked."

He gave a bright smile.

"You created so many waves of energy that if I hadn’t put up enough barriers, it would have been enough to devastate at least half the continent."

Nadia couldn’t deny it. She knew he had been setting up barriers all over whenever her emotions broke out.

If those barriers hadn’t been in place, most of the continent would have been ruined just from her sheer emotional reaction alone.

Mika’s face was satisfied.

"Once those emotions erupted out of you, all I had to do was set up barriers to stop them from leaking out. Basically, it allowed you to feel those extreme emotions over and over again—without actually causing any destruction."

He reached out and gently touched her cheek.

"Normally, you would never be able to do that. But because I was suppressing your powers, you were allowed to let loose. And by letting loose, you were giving yourself exposure to your own blessing."

"And by doing that, your sensitivity to your own blessing lessened—slowly but surely."

He chuckled in satisfaction.

"You were reaching peaks of emotional extremes over and over. That sensitivity decreased again and again...until finally, you started changing."

He pointed at her.

"Haven’t you noticed? You’ve been able to show much more emotion. Just now, you were pouting. You were blushing. Your eyes were bright when you were excited."

He gently caressed her cheeks, tracing her lips, noting how they curled. He stroked her eyelashes, poked her nose.

"Everything about you has slowly started to change. You’re becoming much more human."

Nadia sat there, her mind completely blown away.

Everything Mika had said made sense.

The exposure therapy. The desensitization. The barriers that contained her power while allowing her to feel.

It was brilliant—a solution that had never occurred to her, to any of her sisters, to any of the experts they had consulted over the years.

And he had done it all for her.

Mika finally took a massive breath, as if he had just finished a long and exhausting speech. He leaned back against his chair, a loving smile on his face—one that was also mixed with guilt.

"I will admit that the method I used was extremely crude." He said quietly. "Something a son should never do to his mother...even now, I feel so bad for it."

He looked at her with clear, honest eyes.

"But I don’t care. It worked. And my dear mother—" He caressed her hand once again. "—the same mother I love so much, is finally able to show emotion again."

"No matter what I sacrificed, what I did, or how taboo it was...I’m just glad."

His voice grew thick with emotion.

"I’m genuinely glad that you’re finally able to smile again, Nadia. I’m glad...I’m just so glad that I was able to fulfill my mother’s greatest wish and make her the same person she used to be in the past."

He finished, looking at her with such kindness that it genuinely looked like he had done all of this for Nadia’s sake, which was actually somewhat true.

One half of his reason was of course selfish.

He wanted to bring her along for his ride, make her see him as a man, throw her into emotional turmoil over what she should do.

But the other half was sincere. He truly wanted her to show more emotions.

He had been thinking about this method for quite a while but could never find a way to implement it.

Now, with everything already in motion and him actively trying to seduce his own mother, he realized this was the perfect moment to do both at once.

So yes, he looked genuinely full of kindness and gratitude right now.

Because Nadia was finally able to show emotions and his lifelong wish to help Nadia out was complete.

But Nadia...

Nadia was overwhelmed at the moment.