Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 11 Chapter 3 (section)

== 3.00 Armageddon ==

Welcoming Daisuke and the rest who got out of Castello was the large head of a Mushi.

A moment before it clamped its mouthpart full of sharp fangs down on Mikko who was at the front, the camo suits around tore it with gunfire.

“Wha—”

The one to first raise his voice was Kii-kun.

“Why are there Mushi outside Castello!”

Although unable to let out any sound, Daisuke and Mikko, Rui and Kasshi also froze in shock.

They had supposedly eliminated all the Mushi created by the cloaked man.

Even so—outside the fences enclosing the premises there were several Imperfect Mushi running wild. Waiting there, Rui’s soldiers fought them with live bullets and were barely holding out.

Daisuke clicked his tongue.

“So there were survivors…!”

“Cough… no, this is—”

Mikko stared at the direction opposite of Castello.

Daisuke followed the girl’s gaze.

Several Imperfect Mushi came running from the road connected to Akamaki City. Rui’s soldiers hurriedly intercepted them, but it was a situation where a new one could come at any time.

Turning toward Rui who put a cellphone to his ears, Daisuke asked a question.

“From the direction of the city…? What’s going on—Rui!”

“…Apparently, large numbers of Mushi are rampaging all over Akamaki City.”

Rui lowered his cellphone and spoke in shock.

“W-why! Haven’t we caught all the guinea pigs?”

“Wasn’t the man we caught the last one?”

“I do not believe it possible… but perhaps something happened to the research facility. Perhaps another one was unleashed into the city…”

The masked girl’s forehead had cold sweat.

“No… way…?”

Kii-kun turned speechless.

“—I have not seen this… is something getting twisted…?”

Daisuke did not miss Mikko mumbling this.

It was for sure that Mikko was hiding something, but he didn’t have the time to pursue it.

The situation he was scared of was happening.

It was what Daisuke—no, the SEPB wanted to avoid the most.

The large-scale rampage of wild Mushi and the panic caused by this.

Just like Rui thought, if Imperfect Mushi were unleashed to Akamaki City, it was already too late.

They could no longer hide Mushi’s existence, and there would definitely be victims among the fleeing people. The infective fear would bring a second disaster, and at the worst, it was possible for military forces from abroad to appear as well.

Daisuke gritted his teeth.

“Rui! Can you call outside Akamaki City?”

The youth who still stood in place wordlessly pulled out his cellphone. So he was telling him to try.

He hurriedly pushed in a number.

However, no matter what branch he tried, he couldn’t connect to the SEPB.

“—Shit! Why doesn’t it go through! Rui, someone like you definitely knows about the Special Environmental Preservation Bureau, right? Why can’t I connect to any of them outside Akamaki City?”

This wasn’t the time to be hiding his identity. He expected that a Round Table might have some connection to them—

“Special Environmental…? I don’t know anything like that…”

The youth didn’t even try to take back the cellphone Daisuke was handing back to him.

“It shouldn’t have been like this… I didn’t mean for it to be like this…”

Rui always acted so sociable and bright, but now he was pale.

“We just wanted—to buy the Undying—”

He apparently noticed just how serious the disaster created by the Round Table only now when the situation became irreversible. Since he didn’t even know about the SEPB, Rui was probably just another subordinate among the members, but even so, he wasn’t sinless.

“Haha… what the heck’s this… am I looking at the end of the world…?”

Kii-kun’s groaning voice spoke of the scene before his eyes.

Creepy monsters came to attack one after another.

Even when the armed forces intercepted them, they were gradually losing their members.

That scene was enough to make one sense destruction.

“Cough… I have to go.”

Mikko suddenly spoke.

“Inside that place—the ship—sleeps the worst Mushi.”

“The worst Mushi…?”

Kii-kun’s voice asking this back was dyed by cynicism.

Daisuke could understand how he felt. Was she saying there was a situation even worse than this?

“It was what my father and the Round Table viewed as a result… that Mushi—is subconsciously connected with the person who created it.”

“…!”

Daisuke’s heart leapt.

A person subconsciously connected with a Mushi—

Was that not, without a doubt, the thing called a Mushitsuki?

“Since it is dangerous, it is made to sleep with medicine… but if something happened to the facility and the person administrating the medicine was gone—it would become irreversible.”

Mikko coughed.

It would become irreversible.

Was that also a prophecy?

''—Kii-kun, Kasshi, Rui… as well as me… we shouldn’t have come here…

Everything started from that prophecy he saw inside the mist.

In that scene, Kii-kun and Kasshi died, while Mikko and Rui were arguing.

He still wasn’t certain that this showed him the future.

However.

The bad intuition born inside Daisuke kept swelling, ready to burst at any moment.

''—If I could return to the past—I would have probably killed all of you the moment we met…

He couldn’t allow these people to go to the ship.

Daisuke felt as if someone was whispering that to him.

“…!”

While gunfire echoed, vehicle engine noises were mixed within them.

An expensive car appeared from the road. Weaving through the battlefield of the camo suits and Mushi, it made an emergency brake near Daisuke’s group.

Flying from within the car was a suited old gentleman with a young girl in his arms.

“So you were safe…!”

Rui strongly hugged the girl handed over to him.

She was probably his beloved daughter. Not knowing the joy of her father, she was peacefully sleeping in his arms—or so he thought, but she opened her eyes.

The toddler looked at Daisuke with sleepy eyes and reached to him. She was a cute girl with jewel-like, sparkling black eyes that she probably inherited from her father.

“…?”

Daisuke frowned.

The girl looked like she wanted to say something—but closed her eyes again and fell asleep.

Well, he didn’t care about Rui’s daughter. However, she’d become a good excuse.

“You should leave, Rui.”

Daisuke’s words caused Rui’s back to twitch.

“For your daughter’s sake.”

[[File:Mushi Uta 11 p135.jpg|thumb]]

“...”

There was also the ominous prophecy.

He wouldn’t speak of murder just like Mikko in that scene.

However, thinking of this low chance, it was probably better for at least one less person to go there.

“—Sorry...”

Rui’s shoulders shook and he mumbled in a hoarse voice.

That was the expensive suit youth’s declaration of surrender.

“This is the obvious choice as a parent.”

Kasshi spoke resolutely and Rui turned to him.

“Kasshi... won’t you remain, too?”

A strange silence befell the two.

If Kasshi responded to Rui’s suggestion, perhaps Daisuke himself should also add something—

“I have to make sure if something happened.”

“I see...”

“But after I’ve done what I need to—“

Kasshi lowered his gaze a little.

He looked at the small sleeping girl in the youth’s arm—it might’ve been Daisuke’s imagination, but—for an instant, the boy’s mouth looked like it loosened.

“If I feel like it, you can come see me again.”

“...She’ll definitely be happy too.”

Rui smiled, looking really happy.

“Have a good one, Rui... cough.”

Mikko started walking.

Daisuke and Kashi followed her.

Unexpectedly, Kii-kun also stepped ahead. Daisuke stopped him.

“Kii-kun—“

“No... I’m going too.”

“It’d be safer going with Rui. You realize that, right?”

“I’ve been dreaming about myself dying for too long... I can’t take it anymore...”

Daisuke furrowed his brows.

Kii-kun acted strange. His scared expression was the usual, but his voice was shaking.

“I understand... that I need to go ‘there’ in order to save myself...”

“...? Do as you please.”

Giving up on convincing him, Daisuke turned ahead.

''—If you can’t understand it from my words, I just need to get you to step down in the middle.

Daisuke would head to the abandoned ship alone. He couldn’t be picky about his methods now.

There were those who were resolved to continue on this path.

There were those who held what was important to them and stopped in place.

Each with their own feelings, they parted in this place with echoing gunfire.