
by Miyabi-kazari
In the neon-soaked sprawl of the Eight-Hundred-Eight Cyber City, AI poets generate tens of thousands of “perfect” haiku every second— cold, flawless, and utterly empty. Miyabi, a wandering haiku duelist, rejects that perfection. Armed with nothing but an ink brush and the words born from human wavering, she travels the city seeking opponents worthy of her verse. Alongside her follows Kareno, a damaged mass-produced droid who— for reasons unknown—refuses to leave her side, and whose steps are beginning to resemble those of a human. In underground arenas, abandoned temples, and forgotten alleyways, Miyabi faces rival poets, AI haiku masters, and hunters who fear the power of true words. Each duel is a poem. Each poem is a blade. And each blade cuts through the illusion of a world that has forgotten its own beauty. She seeks only one thing: the lost “aesthetic” hidden within the mysterious bookmarks scattered across the city. But the AI that rules the network cannot understand her wavering verse— and that makes her the most dangerous anomaly in the city. --- Author’s Note: This tale was first crafted in Japanese. To share it with English-speaking readers, I use AI only as a translation aid— never for writing, only for bridging languages.
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