The morning air was crisp, laced with the faint scent of pine and damp earth. The campsite was quiet except for the occasional rustle of leaves and the distant chirping of birds. The faint crackle of the dying campfire from the previous night still lingered. Ogata stirred awake—or rather, something inside him stirred, an unfamiliar sensation of lightness and... wrongness.

When he opened his eyes, his vision was sharper, lower to the ground. The world seemed absurdly large, the details overwhelming yet oddly clear. His body felt alien—lithe, compact, and... furry. He flexed what should have been fingers, expecting to feel them curl around the familiar grip of his rifle—but instead, soft pads with extended reflexively claws brushed against the dirt. His tail flicked behind him without permission.

Tail.

Ogata froze, his slit pupils dilating. The hell is this? He turned his head sharply and caught sight of the offending appendage—a long, sleek tail swaying behind him like it had a mind of its own. Panic—or something approximating it—rippled through him in an instant. He scrambled to his feet—paws—only to find himself comically unstable, his body lurching awkwardly as he adjusted to four legs instead of two.

He tried to speak, to curse, to yell in irritation at whatever cruel joke this was. Instead, what came out was a sharp, disgruntled “Mrrrow!” His ears flattened against his head in immediate irritation. His rifle lay nearby, now comically larger than him. Great, he thought bitterly, Iʼm a goddamn cat.