"Reader's Transformation into Kari Kamiya"

You find the camera on a perfectly ordinary weekday, the late afternoon sunlight slanting through your thin drapes. It shouldn’t be there—definitely not on your old desk, gleaming silver, with a pale yellow cord looped just right, as if waiting for someone to pick it up and slip it over their neck. You pause, hesitation crimping your thoughts, but curiosity wins, as it always does.

The camera’s surface is cool as you lift it and slip it on like a necklace. It rests against your chest, surprisingly heavy for its size. The moment the cord settles onto your skin, a pulse of warmth and blinding white light washes over the room. It’s not painful, but it’s absolutely overwhelming—your vision blots out, mind ringing like struck crystal.

And then, everything changes.

Your body seems to shiver and slide, things shifting in ways that logic can’t touch. You shrink rapidly, your limbs pulling closer, your perspective of the world shifting higher and higher up. Your hands shrink in your sight—fingers growing graceful, delicate, devoid of the callouses you once knew. Your skin smooths out, your muscles softening, your body curving with impossible speed as you rapidly lose height and the room stretches taller, the ceiling distant, your desk now huge.

A tingling starts at the crown of your head, as your hair tickles down the sides of your face, growing longer and settling into a soft brown bob. You reach up, brushing familiar (yet not-familiar) bangs aside, fingertips brushing against a glossy hairclip on the left. Your eyes—did your eyes always seem this big and brown? Did they ever glint like this, with the clear light of something animated and bright?

A rush flows through your limbs, and with it, your clothing twists and shifts—your shirt melting into a pink-and-white sleeveless turtleneck, gloves forming down your arms, pink and flawless, with cutouts over your palms. Yellow shorts and a thin brown belt weave themselves onto your hips, the weight of the camera now perfectly comfortable. Your socks and boots reassemble themselves before your eyes, pink and gray with black soles settling snugly on feet that no longer fit your old shoes.

A sudden soreness—sharp and impossible—twists between your thighs and your chest tingles, swelling out gently into new curves. You gasp, expecting your old voice, only to hear a clear, musical tone issue from your lips. Instinctively, you touch your throat, but there’s no Adam’s apple anymore. Your jaw and chin are soft, delicate, impossibly expressive. Your chest... you press and your fingertips find only new softness, the contours of a girl’s body with the lightest formation of breasts. Below, where you expected to feel familiar anatomy, there’s only smooth, alien comfort—a truth as shocking as it is undeniably *right*.

“No way... I’m... I’m a girl?” you whisper, your voice so much higher, almost sing-song. In your head, a gentle voice—your voice, but softer and warmer—answers, *Yes. You always have been, Kari.*

*No—that’s not right,* you try to tell yourself, grasping at old threads. Your name, your family, your life. You clench your fists, try to conjure up the details, to speak the truth you remember. “My name is—”

*Kari.*

The word echoes, undeniable. You shake your head, panic in your chest, fighting off the flood of foreign memories—riding your bike through Odaiba’s sunny streets, laughter with Yolei, Tai’s gentle hand ruffling your hair, the whisper of digital wind as you hold hands with Gatomon, your Digivice sparkling against danger.

“My friends... my... family... Someone, help!” you call, voice trembling. Instead, a different set of faces return—Yolei’s bright mischief, Davis’s enthusiasm, T.K.'s gentle words. And somewhere, just beneath the surface, the golden warmth of Gatomon’s purring reassurance.

You claw at the fading remnants of your old self, but the new memories bloom, rushing in with the warmth of sunlight: the way Tai always watched out for you, the glow of your crest, the importance of light, the shadow always lurking at the edge of your heart. Your thoughts swirl, edges blurring, the reality of your old life slipping away with each heartbeat.

*You are Kari,* the voice insists, a tide rising in your mind—a gentle, irresistible truth. Sweetness, innocence, the desire to help others rise up from your center. You remember being ill as a child, the quiet pride you felt watching Tai excel, the fear and pain of darkness, and the strong, binding connection of friendship.

You try to say your old name one last time, desperate, but all that comes out is, “My name is... Kari.”

The words feel right, slipping onto your tongue like your favorite turtleneck. In their echo, the memories of a mundane, masculine life dissolve—a strange, uncomfortable dream. Had you ever really been anything else? The idea of that old form, of being a boy, is unsettling, weird, a cosmic joke.

“Why would I..." you murmur. "That’s just... gross.” The thought of being anyone but Kari—of not being a girl—twitches at the edges of your mind, but you push it away with a little shudder. All you are, all you’ve ever been, is Kari Kamiya.

And your world—your *real* world—unfurls around you: bright, anime colors; Odaiba alive and bustling beyond your window; Gatomon’s tail curling by your side. You pick up the camera, grinning, and the digital egg flickers into your mind. For a moment, you think you remember something else—a strange shadow of a life—but it’s fuzzy, insubstantial, like the fragments of a fading dream.

You laugh, light and relaxed, and Gatomon looks up at you with playful golden eyes. “Feeling alright, Kari?” she asks, her voice gentle.

You smile, heart fully light now, “Of course, Gatomon. I’m always okay, when my friends are here.”

And in the gentle sunlight, surrounded by the warmth and brilliance of your true friends, you know this is real—this life, this love, the power of light within you. You are Kari Kamiya. You always have been.

And you are, at last, content.

This story was generated by user DylanVsFizzarolli7 with assistance by one of OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model; prompts used to help generate the story are shown below.

Images were generated with OpenAI's AI system, DALL·E 2, or uploaded by the user.

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