After being summoned by Kanako, I spent the fourth period in a daze, lost in thought.
Our school is relatively flexible when it comes to choosing credits and scheduling classes. Depending on the person, some students might only show up in the afternoons, while others pack their schedule into the mornings and leave the afternoons free. Today, my classes ended with the fourth period. My plan was to grab a quick bite to eat and then wander around Akihabara or Jimbocho before heading home.
But then Kanako told me to come to the prefab classroom during the fifth period.
The fifth period is the first slot of the afternoon.
In that case, I figured I’d buy a yakisoba bun and some milk at the school store, head up to the prefab during the lunch break, and wait for Kanako while eating.
Kanako knew I didn’t have a class during the fifth period. In other words, she had a handle on my schedule. I don’t know how she found out, but she had certainly done her homework.
I hate the school store. It’s always crowded, and the students there are practically bloodthirsty. While I stood back, watching them from a distance and waiting for the crowd to thin out, most of the decent food was already sold out. But by some miracle, a single yakisoba bun—my favorite—remained. Overjoyed, I fished the loose change out of my pocket, handed 330 yen to the lady behind the counter, and walked away with a yakisoba bun, a carton of milk, and a croquette bun for good measure.
When I reached the roof, everyone was huddled over their lunches, slurping through straws. I pushed past them and headed straight for the prefab shack. I opened the door, and just as I thought the room was empty, I saw Kanako. She was already there, sitting in the corner with her legs crossed and her arms folded.
“You’re early. I’m gonna dig in,” I said.
“Go ahead.”
“Did you already eat?”
“Yes.”
“Then I won’t hold back.”
“By the way, are you ready for the All JA Contest?”
I felt like I’d heard that somewhere. “The All… what?”
“The All JA. The amateur radio contest held every year in early April. We did it this year, too.”
“Uh…”
“You know, the one where we set up the antennas on the roof, line up the transceivers in this room, and go at it for twenty-four hours straight, from 9 PM one night to 9 PM the next?”
Wait. Twenty-four hours? Like a school camp in a classroom?
“Was that a thing?”
“‘Was that a thing?’ Honestly, you… you’re the ultimate ghost member. Next year, you’re participating. No excuses.”
I see. So that’s how it was. This room was, at least once a year, the headquarters for the Computer and Electronics Club’s contest entry.
Perhaps the room had been built specifically for the Radio Club in the first place. There was an era when amateur radio contests were held almost every week. Even now, somewhere on this giant, round planet, some kind of contest is always happening, but back then, amateur radio was far more popular. It had actual practical utility. Our school took the activity seriously, raising donations from alumni to build this prefab shack.
But eventually, the practical utility of radio vanished, and the room was forgotten.
At least, that’s how I imagine it.
“If you don’t get your license by the All JA Contest at the latest, you’re going to be kicked out of the club,” she added.
“I know, I know. But seriously, you call me all the way up here just to talk about amateur radio?”
“Yes. That’s partly why.”
“Is there something else?”
“There is.”
“Then stop beating around the bush and just say it.”
“Right. I’m not sure what order to tell you this in. But to start with the conclusion: I’m actually not from Earth.”
“Huh?”
“I am Princess Kaguya, come from the world of the stars.”
“What is this? Haha. I get it. You’re doing that thing again. You’re talking about your cosplay, right?”
Kanako had suddenly become obsessed with cosplay—if I recall, it was around the second year of junior high. We had already grown distant by then. Since we were in a state of mutual silence, I only observed her from afar. But in a truly sinful turn of events, Kanako had once again begun to drive the boys of the world mad with her youthful charm, dipping her toes into the world of “almost-underground” idols.
“You’re not telling me you’re the lead singer of some folk group called Princess Kaguya, are you? Or are you telling me to come see you at the winter Comiket because you’re cosplaying as Princess Kaguya? Or maybe it’s some event at the maid cafe where you work part-time in Akiba?”
“It’s not like that. It’s the truth. You probably won’t believe it, though.”
“You said you came from a star world. I thought Princess Kaguya returned to the moon.”
“That’s just how your ancestors perceived it. As for the name ‘Kaguya-hime,’ I didn’t name myself that; people just started calling me that on their own.”
“Wait, wait. So you’re telling me—no metaphors, no exaggerations, in the most literal sense—that you are the actual Princess Kaguya who visited Earth in ancient times?”
“Yes. And I have returned.”
Since this was getting interesting, I decided to play along with Kanako’s tall tale for a while.
“Hmph. Let’s see. The first time you and I met was…”
“First year, Class 2, at Kōtō Ward Shinonome East Junior High.”
“Right. Shinonome East. I was born and raised in Shinonome, and you just happened to move there right around the time you started middle school.”
“That’s right.”
“We were twelve or thirteen at the time.”
“Yes.”
“But Princess Kaguya is supposed to be from about a thousand years ago. And she was an adult woman, right?”
“No. Princess Kaguya wasn’t an adult. She was still a child. But in Japan back then, early marriage was the norm, so a swarm of suitors crowded around me even though I was only twelve.”
“Are you serious?”
“I am. For example, Empress Teishi.”
“Empress… what? Who’s that?”
“Do you know The Pillow Book?”
“Oh, Sei Shōnagon.”
“Right. Empress Teishi was the consort of Emperor Ichijō, the woman Sei Shōnagon served.”
“I think I remember hearing that.”
“Empress Teishi performed her kamiage—the hair-lifting ceremony—and wore her mogi—the ceremonial robe—right when she was twelve. She entered the palace at thirteen.”
“Hold on. What the hell are kamiage and mogi?”
“I’ll skip the tedious explanations, but basically, they were the rites of passage for girls back then, equivalent to the gempuku ceremony for boys. You stopped wearing children’s clothes and started wearing adult clothes; you changed your children’s hairstyle to an adult’s.”
“Hmph. So it was like a coming-of-age ceremony.”
“Exactly. Anyway, that’s why all those men were hitting on me when I was barely ten.”
“So basically, they were lolicons?”
“Who knows. I don’t know if that concept even existed back then.”
“Okay… let’s assume for a moment that what you’re saying is true. So, Princess Kaguya was twelve at the time, but she brushed off all those suitors and returned to the star world. But why on earth did the twelve-year-old version of you appear in Shinonome a thousand years later?”
“To be precise, it was 1,548 years ago. At the time, Japan was in the Kofun period. My name is even recorded in the Kojiki—the ancient chronicles—as Kaguya-hime-no-mikoto.”
“Whether it’s a thousand years or 1,548, let’s put the specifics aside. Why did you have to reappear in this era, after all that time?”
“My home planet is three hundred light-years away from Earth. I went there and then came back, traveling through spacetime. To me, the journey felt like a mere instant, but during that time, over fifteen hundred years passed in the blink of an eye on Earth. I’ll spare you the detailed theory.”
“Special Relativity?”
“Something like that. You know the story of Urashima Tarō? Or the Legend of the Heavenly Feather Robe? Those were all true. They were my comrades. Those legends were just altered over time and passed down as fairy tales.”
“Your comrades?”
“Councilors.”
“What’s a Councilor?”
“To be more formal: members of the Galactic Federation Council.”
“Galactic Federation? Huh. So, what’s the name of your home planet?”
“An exoplanet that you humans haven’t discovered yet.”
I realized that Kanako was starting to weave a very intricate web of logic.
“So, why did Princess Kaguya decide to flutter back to the present? Didn’t she get bored of Earth’s men and leave in disgust? And what on earth does this Princess Kaguya want with me—why did she summon me here today?”
“Wait, Takuya. Don’t rush. I’ll tell you everything in order. We came to Earth on a mission, then returned to our home planet to report the situation to the Council. It turned out that the state of this planet had become a major issue. Because of that, I’ve come back to Earth once more. Yes, to carry out a rather significant task.”
“On a special mission from the Council-whatever, then?”
“Precisely. For a very long time—over a hundred million years, in fact—Earth has been under the surveillance of the Galactic Council. The Council periodically sends survey teams to observe the evolution of life and collect samples. Five hundred thousand years ago, a survey team took some of our common ancestors and colonized several other planets. My home planet is one of them.”
“Is that planet similar to Earth?”
“To be precise, it’s a planet that was terraformed to mimic Earth. In the galaxy, planets capable of sustaining life are limited. They are incredibly precious. And planets that actually harbor life are even rarer. Therefore, in case a planet is destroyed by something—a giant meteor strike, for example—and its life goes extinct, they create an artificial duplicate of the ecosystem on another planet as a backup. Earth was one of those protected targets.”
“So that’s the Galactic Council’s job too?”
“Yes. That’s why my home planet maintains an ecosystem almost identical to Earth’s. From the massive blue whale down to the smallest virus, everything has been copied exactly.”
“Even the harmful bacteria and viruses? Why go through the trouble?”
“To a certain extent, yes. Otherwise, the ecosystem wouldn’t function.”
“Sounds like Noah’s Ark.”
“In a way. However, we also preserve species that have already gone extinct on Earth. Because of that, strictly speaking, our planet’s ecosystem is no longer identical to Earth’s.”
“Like what? T-Rexes and Mammoths?”
“Yes. They still exist on our planet.”
“Wow. That’s incredible. What about the Anomalocaris?”
“Anomalocaris. The Cambrian creature that went extinct about five hundred million years ago. Unfortunately, Earth was a blind spot for us back then. We didn’t collect any of those samples.”
I’ve met people like this before. People who take a single seed of an idea and expand it into a grand, meticulously detailed world-view.
“So, what you’re saying is that while you’re not an Earthling, you’re still the same species—the same humanity—as us.”
“Hmm. Well, essentially, yes. We are the same species. Though in my case, the circumstances are a bit special. After all, I’ve lived on Earth for almost terms of my entire life. So, in a way, I am an Earthling too.”
“I guess so. Though, to be clear: the first twelve years were spent on Earth fifteen hundred years ago, and the remaining three years have been spent on modern Earth. Is that correct?”
“Roughly. Now, because we lived apart for five hundred thousand years, a significant gap emerged in terms of ‘race.’ In terms of biological diversity, that was actually a good thing. Various subspecies emerged, and over longer periods, they branched off into entirely new species. Speciation is vital for the diversity of an ecosystem.
However, fifty thousand years ago, we committed a grave mistake.”
“What kind of mistake?”
“The humans we sampled five hundred thousand years ago weren’t the only ones.”
“Meaning?”
“We sampled Neanderthals as well and let them inhabit our planet.”
“So you’re saying that on your planet, Neanderthals live alongside humans?”
“Yes. Neanderthals are, without a doubt, a subspecies of humans—Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. We are the subspecies known as Homo sapiens sapiens. You might also call us Cro-Magnons. But since it gets confusing, let’s just stick with ‘Neanderthals’ and ‘Homo sapiens’ for now.”
“Right.”
“The Council eventually sent us Homo sapiens back to our ancestral home. Since we had developed sufficient intelligence under the Council’s protection for five hundred thousand years, they entrusted us with the periodic observation of Earth. Essentially, they told us to manage our own species from now on.
However, the survey team that visited Earth fifty thousand years ago interbred with the Homo sapiens of terms—specifically, the subspecies you call Homo sapiens idaltu—and created a new species: Homo sapiens sapiens.”
“This is getting more and more tangled. So, you’re saying that you are a subspecies of humanity that split off and evolved independently five hundred thousand years ago, while we ‘Cro-Magnons’—Homo sapiens sapiens—are a hybrid race born from the crossing of the subspecies that stayed on Earth and your people?”
“Exactly. Homo sapiens sapiens did not naturally evolve as a subspecies from Homo sapiens idaltu. We are an artificially created subspecies.”
“But where is the ‘grave mistake’ in that?”
“Wait a second, Takuya.”
“What is it?”
Kanako suddenly stood up, strode past me, and pulled the door open with a sharp rattle. Standing there alone was a man in work clothes, his face twisted in a servile expression.
“You… Were you eavesdropping on us?”
“Come on in, Negishi-kun,” Kanako said.
“I get it. You heard what Kanako and I talked about in the hallway, so you thought you’d sneak a peek at us meeting, didn’t you?”
“No, I was just passing by!”
“Cut the crap. Don’t play dumb with me.”
While Negishi and I were arguing, Kanako quietly slipped behind him, sprayed some liquid onto a gauze-like cloth, and pressed it over Negishi’s mouth and nose.
“What the—?!”
Negishi turned and stared at Kanako, but before long, his body went limp and he collapsed. I rushed to catch him so he wouldn’t hit his head.
“Hey, Kanako!”
I was about to ask her if she hadn’t gone a bit too far, but she cut me off.
“Things like this happen all the time. I just made him inhale a drug that wipes short-term memories before they can be transferred into long-term ones. He’ll wake up soon and just think he nodded off for a bit. In the old days, we could leave things alone and they’d somehow get brushed under the rug. But nowadays, if someone posts about it online, it goes worldwide and destroying the evidence isn’t so easy anymore. Oh dear, look at the time. I have a makeup class after this. Can we finish our conversation another time?”
“Uh… yeah, sure.”
“And I’m sure you already know this, but you must never tell anyone what I’ve told you. If you do, that person will end up just like Negishi-kun here. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Hey, Takuya. Do you think we could meet up this Sunday in Akihabara or Asakusa?”
“Like a date?”
I had never done anything like that with Kanako before.
“Which do you prefer? You can decide. Akihabara or Asakusa.”
“What’s with those subtle choices?”
“Somewhere nearby is fine, right? Hurry up and decide.”
“Asakusa, then.”
“Okay. If it’s Asakusa, well, it’s a bit cliché, but how about meeting in front of Kaminari Gate? Early afternoon.”
“OK.”
“See you Sunday, then.”
With that, Kanako left Classroom H601, leaving me and the unconscious Negishi behind.
Negishi woke up shortly after.
“What happened? Anemia?” I laughed it off.
“Where am I…?”
“What do you mean ‘where’? You’re in Classroom H601.”
“Ah… right.”
“Are you feeling sick, Negishi? You look pale. Want me to take you to the nurse’s office?”
“No, I’m fine. You don’t need to do that.”
“Hmm. If you say so.”
“Wait, what did I come here for again?”
“Don’t ask me. Didn’t you come to see me?”
“Why are you here?”
“I was supposed to meet Kanako here. She said she had something to tell me. But she had something to take care of and already went home.”
“Right. Maybe that was it. I came to see you and Himuro-san. I had something important to talk about…”
“About the illumination lights?”
“Ah… Yeah, maybe that was it. Did you talk to Himuro-san about the illuminations yet? The school festival is next week, you know. We really need the main decoration. As long as you give us the idea, we’ll make the rest. Please talk to her about it.”
“Alright. I’m seeing her again soon, so I’ll ask her then.”
“What time is it now?” Negishi looked at his wristwatch. “It’s already two o’clock? Ah, I have to get to my club activity!”
Negishi unsteadily pushed himself up to his feet and left Classroom H601 as well.
This is an experimental, AI-assisted English translation of my novel: The Advent of a Celestial Maiden （天女降臨）, but only the very beginning. You can read the full story of the original Japanese edition at KDP.