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Section 1
## Illustrations
## 1. "Heirs of This Planet"
Taiwan edition. Reprinted from Light Novel Kingdom. Scans: TennosAthena Touch-up: Ah Chuan
On the way home I looked up at a sky thick with color, and just as I was thinking, "It will fall again today," a few tiny black shadows appeared in the sun. Against the light, black dots hung in the air, as if that blazing star had been opened with countless little holes.
I stopped the hand that guided the wheelchair and gazed up at them from the road. A moment later the cars stopped too, and the sound of the town sank quiet with them. When the roadside trees swayed in the spring wind, the black dots in the sun began to drift.
What was coming down was—fluff.
White puffballs like dandelions fell without end, as if spilled from the border between red and yellow in the evening sky, strewn across the whole city. For that stretch of time every car was forbidden to move. They could only stare, waiting for the fluff that fell through waves of light both mild and cold to finish drifting past.
The fluff that covered the entire sky came down in masses upon the ground and the rooftops, and the sidewalk where I stood was no exception. The neatly planted street trees looked heaped with a thick layer of snow, and the ground was gradually dyed a blank white.
When the fluff falls, of course, it makes not a sound. The scene around me changed, silent as a film run on fast-forward, into another face entirely. It looked for all the world like snow that did not belong to this season drowning the town. The feeling was awful.
I have lost count of how many times I have seen this picture. It may well play every day, and still I cannot get used to it.
Beyond the rain of fluff, a hazy moon had already risen into the dim yellow sky.
If one looked down on this planet from space now, ...
## 2. "Names"
I used to call her Big Sister. She even threatened me once, and told me to just call her "Sis."
In the end, right up until we parted, she was still "Big Sister" in my heart. This is a matter of what one calls her.
After Big Sister left my sight, she became a curse tangled around me. Every evening when the Lightfluff came down from the sky, it forced me to think of her. Now the things that make me think of Big Sister have moved from the sky to my side. The hour is no longer only evening. It is the whole day.
But however alike they are, that is still not my sister. Big Sister no longer exists anywhere.
"Good night."
"Hello there, little one. The moon is beautiful tonight."
The one I can call a sister now is probably this neighbor. Even if the greeting sits a little wrong.
"I suppose so." I agreed without so much as a look. I had meant to look, but Xiaohei's head happened to block the view, so I could not tell what sort of scene the moonlit night made. In her hand she was also carrying a pot of no small mouth.
"I made a little food. I wanted Piaopiao to have it."
"Oh... I'm sorry to trouble you..."
Xiaohei's name for her is subtly different. I had no reason to refuse, so I took it with thanks.
"You don't have to return the pot." After saying this kindly, Xiaohei left. I shut the door at once. In the end I never had the chance to see the beautiful moonlight she spoke of, and I did not want to go out again, so I went to the kitchen to set the pot down.
Xiaohei and the others all use talk of the weather in place of ordinary greetings. I hear they were originally weather girls on the news. Their wish to talk about the weather is probably the habit of the job, still with them.
I set the pot...
## 3. "Observation"
Some people believe the Lightfluffs are the heirs of this planet.
If there is an inheritance, who exactly is it inherited from? And whose was this planet before?
"...Hey. Shouldn't you come down now?"
I said this to Caimei, who had floated up near the living-room ceiling. The fluff that never finishes falling has Richie bouncing with delight, but the one who sweeps is me. Since everywhere I looked was fluff, I began to observe the fluff, and found a feather stuck into the head of an enormous puffball.
Then Caimei suddenly turned back into human shape. The fluff gathered, and scattered. When she landed she seemed to have jarred her foot numb, and she sat down hard on the floor. Richie ran after the stirred-up fluff in high spirits.
Does this count as playing?
"..."
If this planet were inherited by things like this, the original masters would surely have a headache. Caimei sat on the floor and only tipped her head back to look at me. From the hair pouring down like a waterfall, tufts of fluff flew out.
Can she not restrain this shedding of fluff, even a little?
"Lightfluff 773—"
When she had said this much she remembered she had a name, and said it again:
"Caimei?"
She tilted her head slightly, watching how I would take it. Once the form of address changed, the feeling of a person suddenly grew much stronger.
It seems that the moment a number is added, it stops sounding like a name at once... I see. I see.
Perhaps that is why Snowwind does not seem like a Lightfluff.
"...You can just use 'I' to stand for yourself."
I taught her a convenient word. She murmured "I" once under her breath, then swallowed it with a gulp.
After this ritual-like gesture...
## 4. "W.Arms"
Here is the problem. Suppose Caimei really is Big Sister's incarnation... what would be wrong with that?
I was only frightened, for a moment, by a fear that had no concrete shape at all. Once I had steadied a little, I began to try to parse the true face of the fear. Is meeting again someone you once parted from forever a bad thing?
I left the house before sunrise, hid in the shop, and slipped into the dark. After that, Caimei still sat blank and unmoving, and answered me nothing. I could not get a single question out either. I left the pictures and the great stack of drawing paper at home and fled. For some reason, the moment I imagine this scene, my mood sinks as if I had accepted something utterly hateful. I do not understand it. I keep feeling as if I have broken something.
"..."
Have I really met Big Sister again?
There is no evidence now that Lightfluffs possess memories of the past. If they truly did, the voices of the faction that affirms the Lightfluffs would surely carry more weight in their appeals. So is Caimei an exception? I cannot deny that either. No one knows when an exception is born, or from where. It is an exception precisely because it differs from the old standard... Assume, for now, that Caimei really is an exception.
Then, aside from making it even harder for me to deny the link between Caimei and Big Sister, would it cause me any problem? Big Sister is someone I lost, and will never see again. The new words she might have taught me, the conversations stacked into memory, are all far out of reach. All of this, Caimei has overturned.
"...But..."
I do not wish for Big Sister to return to life.
This may only be because I dislike the feeling I had when I lost her being changed. That feeling, inside me, has...
## "Periodic Report on the Second Civic Living Zone"
Among the deployment regions of extant humanoid machines, the last sighting of a humanoid life-form was eight years ago. Whether they have gone completely extinct is still under investigation. After these ten consecutive years of investigation, the probability that humanoid life-forms still exist in the Second Civic Living Zone may be judged to approach zero. We request instruction from higher authority on whether to continue the investigation.
Separately, the procedure upon discovery shall follow established protocol: immediate custody and investigation. If resistance is met, arrest shall be carried out, with the prevention of flight as the priority. If arrest fails, every possible means of searching out the target again will be considered.
It has been confirmed that, after the removal of humanoid life-forms, urban sanitation is maintained at a high standard. The efficiency and effect of cleaning operations also exceed the performance figures recorded for humanoid life-forms. The number of traffic accidents in the evening hours, though it enjoyed a brief lull, has lately shown a rising trend again. The present likely cause is overconfidence in driving produced by the repeated accumulation of experience. If observation shows no improvement, hard adjustment carried out through periodic inspections will be considered, at which time assistance from other cities will be required.
In addition, the attitudes of some citizens toward the Lightfluffs are growing more radical, and this is likewise a problem in urgent need of handling. Whether one approves of the Lightfluffs or not has deepened the opposition, and there is fear it will lead to a worsening of public order in the city. This unit takes hard adjustment as its course of action, and will proceed to dispose of matters according to the degree of deterioration. We hope higher authority will allocate a sufficient budget to hasten the elimination of the problem.
Since Machine Year 74—that is, since the Lightfluffs came ten years ago—whenever evening clouds do not block sunlight from striking the ground directly, the phenomenon of fluff transferring into the sky above that place can be observed. On our side...
## Afterword
This time, of course, it is a romantic comedy as well.
I'll let a little slip here: that recent photo of the author is actually something I made with my own hands...
Lately I played Xenogears again. It really is wonderful. Deliberately keeping my level as low as I could so I could buy an Ether Double nearly did me in. I was still playing minigames in Aveh, hauling in Aquasol to sell. Is there a better way to make money? Also, by the time this book comes out, I ought to already be playing the new Super Robot Wars. That one is fun. Probably. I really hope Xenogears can join the war someday.
When people bathe they all squat down, I suppose, but recently I slammed my knee hard into my chin, drove my front teeth straight into my lower lip, and made a complete scene of it. Since I figure this is something a lot of people do, please be careful. Just put it down to my legs being too long.
Another time, I got a nosebleed in the shower. The blood ran all over me in an instant and gave me a terrible start. Saying I was startled does not go far enough. At the time I was scared to death.
That is the end of the status report. I am well, and I will keep writing.
And speaking of which, the year had barely begun—New Year had only just started—when I heard Lord Neithart's voice (note: a character from the PS2 game Shadow Hearts: Covenant, famous for voice acting so extreme it breaks the scene), and I was rather glad. I remember it was a car commercial. I knew it the moment I heard it. The presence really is something. Looking back, that voice can actually be heard in a great many places, and it still leaves me rather glad. Thank you all for buying this book.
With every book I write, after the writing...