Sai regarded Junsei thoughtfully for a long moment. The boy stood still. His expression was neutral, as it often was, yet there was something searching in his eyes now.
"Those are very big questions to begin with," Sai said at last. "Why do you want to know them? What made you think of them?"
Junsei answered. "I want to understand why humans are different from everything else in this world."
Sai raised an eyebrow slightly but said nothing, allowing him to continue. Junsei paused, his brow knitting faintly as if he were struggling to shape his thoughts into a question.
"Do you feel emptiness inside you?" he asked slowly. "Like something is missing, and you need to find it to become whole? To be truly alive. I don't feel life in humans."
The question hung in the air.
Momo, standing nearby with the tablet still in her hands, felt a strange tightening in her chest. For some reason, his words felt ominous to her, it was as if he could see or feel something truly bad that no one else can. Something all humans suffer from and they don't know.
Junsei hesitated again, then continued. "Animals have a clear purpose. To live. To spread life. I can feel it in them." His gaze drifted, unfocused, as if he were listening to something beyond the room. "Their thoughts are simple, but they are complete. There is no emptiness inside them."
He looked back at Sai. "But humans are different. Why?"
Momo and Sai exchanged uncertain looks. Neither of them had ever thought of animals as having purpose in such an absolute sense, nor had either of them felt the emptiness Junsei spoke of. The way he spoke and the conviction in his voice left no room for doubt that he felt something no one else did.
Sai thought for a moment then said "You can communicate with animals, and even control them. Is that what you feel from them? That they are complete and they have a drive to live?"
"Yes," Junsei replied simply.
"And you don't feel the same thing from humans? Or maybe you don't feel it inside you" Sai continued.
"Yes."
Sai said. "That makes sense, in a way. Humans are different. Mostly because of our intellect. We think too much. We imagine too much. We feel deeply, often more deeply than we know how to handle. Because of that, each person has to decide their own purpose. Some want to help others. Some want power, or wealth. Others are content to raise a family, or create something that will outlast them. There isn't just one answer. And what you feel is probably due to your quirk, you feel animals but not humans, so you are confused about it."
Junsei absorbed this in silence. The explanation was logical for humans, but he was something else entirely, and they didn't know that. Sai's answer was not what he was looking for.
"And where do humans come from?" he asked.
Sai smiled faintly. "Most people will tell you that humans evolved from animals. That belief became stronger after the appearance of quirks, which forced people to confront how flexible life can be. Others believe humans were created by God and placed on Earth. Personally, I believe in evolution."
Junsei's expression did not change, but something behind his eyes sharpened.
He turned toward Momo and pointed at the tablet in her hands. "Can you teach me how to use that? I want to find answers."
Momo blinked, surprised by the request, then nodded quickly. "I can help you search, if you want."
Junsei met her eyes briefly. "Please."
Sai watched them for a moment, a small smile tugging at his lips, he knew Junsei was not convinced by his answers, but he didn't mind it. He reasoned that Junsei found everything around him new and confusing, and it was hard for him to see the quirk that he relied on for so long as wrong or confusing.
Sai believed with due time the boy would learn what he is missing and grow out of this phase. He won't continue to see humans as strange creatures and different from the world. So, with a quiet shake of his head, he excused himself and left the room.
Momo moved closer to Junsei and began explaining how to search, how to read, how to follow one answer to another. They began with religion and the theory of evolution, Momo sharing what she already knew. She was a believer of humanity's gradual evolution over time as a fact.
Junsei listened attentively. But he did not believe it.
He had been there at the beginning of time.
Not at the birth of the universe itself, but at the first moment he became aware. He remembered it clearly, the sudden emergence of emotion, of memory, of self. Before that moment, he didn't know how life was or what creatures lived in the world.
Since then, he had watched the world shift through ages so vast they defied human comprehension. Continents moved. Seas rose and fell. Life emerged, multiplied, adapted, vanished. Evolution was real, he had seen it, lived it, experienced it through countless forms.
But humans were different.
They appeared suddenly, as if from nowhere.
If they were an evolution like everything else, why had he never witnessed their gradual emergence? Why were they so disconnected from the life of the world around them? Why did they evolve so quickly, outpacing every other living thing?
In Junsei's mind, humans were not the result of the same process that shaped everything else. They were something else.
Without realizing it, his search shifted.
Religion replaced biology. Myths replaced facts. Stories replaced evidence. Different faiths offered different explanations, but they all shared the same core idea: humans were creations, shaped by a god or gods, and placed upon the world rather than born of it.
As he read, memories stirred.
The first time he encountered humans, there had been only a handful of them. Three pairs. Male and female, they had surrounded him with sharp wooden sticks. But now as he had a better understanding of humans, when he recalled their faces, he realized they had looked at him with wonder, hope and fear in equal measure, right before they killed him.
Were those the first humans? Adam and his children as these religious texts said?
Then there had been the long rain.
It had fallen without pause, relentless and unending, until the land disappeared beneath endless water. He remembered drifting across the submerged world, watching a massive vessel float by while everything else drowned.
The more he read, the more the old texts aligned with his memories.
And with that alignment came the belief that humans were not born of life like everything else.
They were the creation of a foreign entity called God.
That explained their difference, why he didn't feel life from them like everything else.
But it did not explain everything.
Why had killing them, years ago, filled the emptiness inside him?
And why did humans killing him and other animals brought him pain and suffering, when animals killing him or other animals never had?
The questions only multiplied as he searched. But one conclusion took root: humans were foreign to this world. They did not truly belong to it.
While Junsei searched for answers, the process began to change Momo as well. What had started as an attempt to help him understand the world slowly drew her into subjects she had never paid attention to before. Evolution, extinct species, the immense history of life on Earth, all of it fascinated her. And seeing Junsei so intent on learning, she began setting aside time each day to read with him.
Together they explored ancient creatures known only through fossils, animals that had vanished long before humans ever walked the land, and the ways people had shaped life through selective breeding.
Momo found it all endlessly fascinating.
Junsei did not.
Some of what they read repulsed him. Other parts were simply wrong.
There were creatures described that he had never known, and others whose colors were incorrect. A few of the dinosaurs they studied had once been lives he himself had lived, and he recognized them instantly, but the illustrations were wrong. One illustration in particular made him pause, the creature was shown covered in scales.
That was wrong. He had feathers.
Yet despite noticing these errors, Junsei felt no urge to correct them. What humans believed, or misunderstood, was not his concern. Still, their research led him to something he had never truly considered before.
Humans believed that microscopic organisms were also alive. That bacteria and viruses were living things. That all animals had evolved from them.
Junsei knew bacteria existed. He had always known. But he had never considered them alive. He could not sense them the way he sensed animals. They had no thoughts. No emotions. No memories.
And yet, if humans were correct, then these unseen entities were life as well. No different in essence from anything else.
Then why could he not feel them?
And what if his memories were incomplete?
He remembered the first life in which he gained awareness, but what if that was not truly the beginning? What if he had lived before that, as something simpler? Something without memory, without emotion, without self?
That night, after the mansion had fallen silent and everyone else had gone to sleep, Junsei sat alone in his room.
He closed his eyes.
For the first time, he tried to reach beyond what he could see.
At first, there was nothing. He couldn't feel them, but then he changed his method. Instead of trying to sense their feelings and thoughts, he tried to recall the feeling he experienced when establishing connection with other creatures, he could sense their life when he did that.
And as he did, slowly, something stirred. Blue smoke came from his skin as he began sensing the endless presences surrounding him.
They were alive, unmistakably so, innumerable and vast, yet empty of thought, feeling, or memory. When Junsei opened his eyes, the room was filled with tiny specks of glowing blue light, drifting softly through the air and clinging to surfaces.
This was his connection to life.
Junsei looked down at his hands and he noticed cracks spreading across them, a soft blue light emanating from them.
Junsei smiled. He didn't understand what those cracks were, but from them he felt a warmth and safety similar to the one he experienced when he was living in the forest, he felt truly surrounded by life.
He was not alone.
That night, he slept blissfully.