Ryna, the nekojin girl who had awakened me from my eternal slumber, awaited a reply to her question, "Where did I come from?" - I copy her sentence.

A simple question, yet it carried the weight of my existence.

Where, huh? Could I simply say Earth? From the year 5547? The land of green valleys and sapphire skies—a place that was swallowed by war at the command of the beasts' fate? No, that wouldn’t fly. That place is long gone—no, worse than that—it never exists!

Could I tell her the story of a soul trapped within its own monstrous vessel? Of the days when I was alien even to myself, rampaging through realities I neither understood nor belonged to? No, that wouldn't be a proper reply.

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What could she make of the truth? That I am a being now older than time itself? A relic of destruction, surviving long after even the stars had burned out?

A sigh escaped me, unbidden and heavy.

No answer would ever truly explain. No truth could be neatly packaged into words that wouldn’t shatter. And so, I chose the only answer that felt right.

"...Home."

The single word slipped past my lips. A word so simple, yet heavy with the weight of lost worlds, endless journeys, and of a longing I had long thought dead.

Ryna blinked, her feline ears twitching as if listening not just to the sound but to the meaning beneath it. She didn’t press further, only nodding as if home was all the explanation she needed.

And maybe, in this moment...

It was...