In the evening, Mr. Yaoyorozu left the mansion with Sai at his side. The car moved swiftly through quiet streets toward the towering silhouette of the Yaoyorozu corporate building on the far side of the city. By the time they arrived, the office floors were mostly dark.
As they stepped into the private office, Sai finally spoke. "So," he said lightly, though his eyes were alert, "what is this about? Why bring me all the way here?" He paused. "Is this because of Junsei?"
Mr. Yaoyorozu nodded, loosening his tie.
"I don't want him hearing us anymore," he said flatly. "After what he's done, I can't trust him. So tell me, what did he say?"
Sai let out a short breath.
"Funny thing," he replied. "He doesn't trust you. Or any of us, for that matter."
Mr. Yaoyorozu frowned. "And what is that supposed to mean?"
"Have you noticed how Junsei speaks when he talks about other people?" Sai asked. "He refers to us as humans."
Mr. Yaoyorozu nodded dismissively. "Yes. A habit, I assume. Something he picked up in the orphanage and never grew out of."
Sai shook his head slowly. "It's not that simple. He said he is not a human and he doesn't know what he is. But I think the truth is more complicated than that." He folded his arms. "He doesn't trust people. The way he speaks is a constant reminder to himself that people are different from him and dangerous."
Mr. Yaoyorozu asked. "Where are you going with this?"
"What he did wasn't ignorance," Sai said calmly. "And it wasn't cruelty. It was fear. He had a bad memory with that boy and sensed bad intentions. He was afraid, and he acted on that fear. You see murder. He sees a necessary act of survival."
Mr. Yaoyorozu's jaw tightened. "That makes him even more dangerous. I can't have that boy staying in my home." His voice hardened. "I'll wait for some time, then I'll either hand him over to the government or set him free in the forest."
Sai did not argue immediately. Instead, he said quietly, "I'm telling you this so you understand where things went wrong. He may look emotionless, but he's afraid of you and everyone else around him. And in a way, you scared him out of the forest. Now he's living on edge, fearing someone might harm him at any moment." He glanced up. "His reluctance to go to school makes sense. His refusal to interact with others does too."
Sai sighed, the sound heavy with something close to regret. "Can you imagine how hard it is for him to stay calm when he's terrified of everything?" He shook his head. "And despite that, he didn't harm anyone. Not until he truly confirmed that there were bad intentions."
Mr. Yaoyorozu fell silent, the anger in his posture slowly draining as Sai's words settled in.
"You were right about him," Sai continued. "He could have a bright future. If he becomes a hero, he could stand among the top one day. He isn't as dangerous as you think. Your first instincts were correct. We just failed to see the fear driving him. You wanted him to live like a human but unknowingly scared him into that life."
Mr. Yaoyorozu rubbed his temples and sighed. "So what? We keep him in school and pray he doesn't fall into another murdering spree?"
"Yes," Sai said simply. "We keep him in school. He won't do it again. He understands now that what he did was wrong and that it shouldn't be done."
Mr. Yaoyorozu studied him for a long moment, then said. "I am still hesitant about this, but I'll trust your judgement for now. However, if he does anything, no matter how small, I am not keeping him around."
He went silent for a moment, then a faint, incredulous smile crossed his face. "Who would have thought you'd be the one defending someone like that?"
Sai smiled back. "You gave me a chance. And what I did was much worse than killing eleven people and I was an adult back then." His smile faded slightly. "Wouldn't it be hypocrisy if I stayed silent?"
Mr. Yaoyorozu exhaled slowly. "So that's why you're fond of him. He reminds you of yourself?"
"Yes," Sai replied. "But it's more than that. You know how my quirk works. I can sense evil thoughts. Everyone has some. Even the young miss with all her kindness has evil." He met Mr. Yaoyorozu's eyes. "That boy doesn't. He has none. That day, he planned to kill people, and I still couldn't sense evil thoughts. That means he didn't see his actions as evil at all, only necessary."
Mr. Yaoyorozu frowned. "What if he can hide it?"
Sai shook his head. "I accused him of killing for revenge, and he rejected that completely. The only thing he objected to was the idea that he wanted revenge." A strange note entered Sai's voice. "He said revenge is a human thing and that he isn't like us."
Mr. Yaoyorozu said. "That's a strange thing to say. I wonder what his life in the orphanage was really like. What kind of child he was back then."
Sai said quietly. "Probably we will never know"
——————
Junsei lay awake long after the mansion had fallen silent, Sai's words circling his mind like restless birds. Sai was right. In this life, no matter how much Junsei resisted the idea, he was human. He wore a human body, spoke a human language, and for the first time thought beyond instinct.
His thoughts branched continuously, questioning himself, the world around him and his own existence. He had no clear purpose in this life, all he had was the growing uncertainty of his existence.
If humans truly belonged to a different root than the rest of life, then how had he become one of them? How did such a thing even happen? The question made his chest feel tight. And then there was the matter of why he was here at all. He had left the forest to survive, yes, but also to ensure the forest's survival. That much had once felt certain.
Yet the more he examined his own reasoning, the less sense it made.
During the countless lives he lived in billions of years, Junsei had sought only two goals: self-preservation and the spreading of life. Every creature followed these goals, from the smallest organism to the largest beast. And yet, he had acted for the sake of the forest, something larger than himself. And even stranger, the forest had protected him even before that. That was not how the world worked. It had never worked that way before.
His thoughts grew heavier and darker by every passing moment. He could not name what he felt, only that it was vast and suffocating. There was the emptiness inside him, the confusion filling his mind, and a sense of being trapped between what he had been and what he now was. And beneath it all lay worry. Not just for the forest he had left behind but all things living on this planet. That, more than anything, unsettled him. He had never felt such concern in any of his previous lives, this was not part of his thoughts before.
Then, without warning, a hungry desire stirred within his soul.
He wanted to go out and kill humans.
He remembered the euphoria, the rush of warmth and fullness when he had reclaimed life from humans. The way the emptiness had faded, if only briefly. That sensation had felt meaningful, as though something long broken had been momentarily repaired. As the thought took shape, clarity washed over him, sweeping away the fog of desire and doubt.
He whispered to the darkness, "Reclaiming life…"
Humans killed and took what did not belong to them. When he killed them, a fragment of what they had stolen returned to the world. The emptiness inside him was not some absence inside him or a flaw in his existence. The instinct he wondered for so long why he could not find, was one of the same as the emptiness inside him. All along, his instinct was there, it called for him to kill humans.
The more he thought, the more the pieces aligned. This was why he had been born human this time. Why he and all living things were acting differently now. He knew he and everything were part of a larger whole, and this must be the instinct of the whole, they had to survive, and to reclaim what had been taken from them.
He was meant to live among humans. To masquerade as one of them. To reclaim what he can from them. Humans were too dangerous, too efficient at killing. The age where creatures could rise up and stop them had long passed.
This body of his had a purpose. It was evolution's answer to humans. Nature's adaptation to the disaster.
Junsei's eyes began to glow, brighter than they ever had before.
At last, he understood.
He must have been born as a human due to the will of the world, he was given the power of life to fight for it. He would observe and learn from humans and in time he must reclaim all he can and protect all life from humans.