Husband and wife stared at each other for a few moments, until Hyoudou Miki closed the door behind her and leaned against it, releasing a heavy sigh. Taking a bottle of water she very quickly took from the fridge, she chugged all of the liquid down her throat as she walked back to the front door. It was at this moment that the father finally broke the silence.
"Who was that girl, Miki? Where's Issei?" The father asked her, confusion and frustration evident in his face.
"Gorou, that girl is Issei," she said, raising her hand to deflect whatever response her husband had to say, giving her room to speak some more. "I know I shouldn't be relying on a gut feeling to figure it out, I really know that. But something told me that she knew something, that there was something inside of her, that is our one and only son." She released a breath she didn't know she was holding inside of her, then shook her head.
Hyoudou Gorou paced back and forth for a bit, before breathing in harshly. "Oh yeah? Then prove it. Tell me what could possibly turn our one and only son into a little girl who looks nothing like him, you or me!" He said the last three words with a touch of venom and his palm quickly met his face. The mother gave him a tired look, before continuing on.
"Gorou... There's just something about her, you know. I haven't asked her any questions yet, but something deep inside my gut is telling me to trust her. It's just—the way she walked, composed herself and her behaviour in general... everything just screamed Issei to me..." She sighed heavily once more and straightened her posture. "I found his game boy right next to her for god's sake!"
"It's either magic or some dumb sci-fi alternatives, Mister Hyoudou! And somehow, I'm finding myself believing the first option more and more." She raised her forearm over her forehead. "Either... Issei was kidnapped by some organization and sent a red herring to deceive us—the girl eating on the diner table—or the girl's just a street kid who just so inexplicably knew about Issei's history, friends, family and so on. And you know what, either way, they're all equally insane! I don't know what reality is anymore! I don't know how to describe it, Gorou, I just don't..."
The father, now deeply concerned, responded. "Miki... I trust your judgement in this. Believe me. But you can't just walk straight home with her and tell that she's the one we were looking for. Okay?" Straightening his glasses, he continued. "You need to give me something. I wasn't around the park when you went out looking for him, so what was it that made her so special?"
"Oh Gorou... Just give her a chance. I really don't know how to describe it anymore, just that I know something that you don't." With that, she walked away from the door frame, motioning her husband to come follow her. She walked to the stairs to the bedrooms, and stepped on them one by one tiredly.
"Fine. I don't know what you were going on about either, but I'll trust your word for it. When will we ask her those questions anyway?" He asked, following after with a stilted pace.
"Tomorrow. She should be upstairs by now, so that's why I'm walking there with you. To give her some warning," she said to her husband. Shoes clacking on the wooden staircase, she knocked on the door.
"Issei? Issei, it's us. We need to talk about something." Hyoudou Issei rose up tiredly, walking briskly towards the door as she opened the lights for her room. Opening the bedroom door, she looks up to see her mother, who she beamed at with bright eyes, and her father, whom she shrinks away from and avoids eye contact with. The father adjusts his collar briefly in a guilty manner, and signals his wife to go on ahead.
"Issei, I needed to give you something before you went back to sleep." She goes through one of her front pockets with her hands, and gives the girl her Game Boy. Issei gasped at the item, thinking that something had happened and she had left it behind at the park for someone else to take it. A tear would fall from her face as she reminisced on the story behind it, a gift from her close friend Shidou for her birthday. She flipped it around to reveal the name sloppily written on the side, with scratched off plastic making the methodology behind its creation obvious. His father would notice this, gauging her reaction.
"Issei, your father and I agreed to ask you a few questions tomorrow morning at the dinner table. It's to verify that you really are our son. Okay? I trust you enough, but we still have to make sure some of the things you tell us are consistent." Her mother said this all with a smile, though not sure enough to alleviate any of Issei's concerns.
"Succeed, and we'll do our best to accommodate you and take care of you as we always would. We'd handle everything together as a family, and I'd be damned if we didn't at least try," she said confidently, trying to psyche her daughter up in preparation for the next day.
"But... ma, what... What if I fail? What if I can't prove it, if I can't tell you for certain that I'm not him?" Issei looked up to her mother at eye level, ready to tear up once more in fear. "Would you just throw me out? Pretend I never went in here and acted as the son who went missing? Are you going to do that to me ma!?" With every word she threw out, it made it quite clear what sort of mental state she was in. Knowing what was happening once again, she hugged the little girl that needed healing of the mind. Her father approached cautiously as well, and nervously began to rub her head affectionately.
"If you don't want to lose that chance, Issei, then do your best to take care of yourself tomorrow. Alright? You only have so much time before then, so just worry about it when it comes." Kissing Issei on the cheek, she walks down the stairs.
Finally understanding what was going on with his wife, the father was ready to let go of the door, but not before telling the girl one last thing. "Believe in yourself, then, Issei. There's no one else's fault at risk, but yours. So do your best tomorrow if you don't want to disappoint us."
Closing the door behind him, Hyoudou Gorou left the room. Issei fell on her bed face down, not quite ready for the mess that would unfold the day after. Closing her eyes for the last time that day, she wondered to herself. Who was Oda Nobunaga, really? A man, or a demon? Despite being responsible for the deaths of thousands of people, the person that she met did not at all fit the description that she had known for years. She was too eccentric, so spunky and modern that the image she had for such a maniac did not fit her at all.
What could possibly make a man or woman, from a fool so incompetent that one of their tutors fell into despair so great that they killed themselves in anguish, to such a brutal demon king? Her legacy still reigned hundreds of years after the fact, whose subordinates united the country long after her death, falling apart to factionalism until the final unification of the nation by one Tokugawa Ieyasu. Indeed, she couldn't understand it herself. Oda Nobunaga's tirade against unmoving traditions sardonically explained that this was simply her way of expressing teenage rebellion. Petty.
Issei rolled over and over her bed, unease and a complex feeling on her face. She moved a little bit more before lying prone, her tired body finally catching up to her.