Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 15 Chapter 3 (section)

== 3.00 The Others ==

“—Come, Taiki-san.”

Following the voice that called to him from outside him room’s window—

“…!”

Taiki jumped out of the window.

His room was on the second floor, but it wasn’t that high. They also had a lawn. Even taking in mind all these conditions—his own body very easily absorbed the impact of the landing. Taiki, who never gave any effort during gym classes and always focused on studying, somehow made it.

“Here!”

Her diagonally-cut bangs swaying, Ikarino Kirari spun her body. She leapt over the low fence, nimble as a cat.

“—”

Taiki looked up toward the window of his room. He jumped down due to a bad premonition and impulse, but he still couldn’t wipe away his anxiety. 

“Big brother.”

His sister Ririe looked down on Taiki expressionlessly. She was petite even among fellow middle schoolers, and although not very sociable, she was their smart youngest sister.

“Taiki-san, hurry up!”

From the top of the fence, Ikarino Kirari shouted at him.

He flinched from his own family and followed a complete stranger. —He knew perfectly well that this wasn’t a natural situation in the least. However, that impulse without a cause urged Taiki to move.

Turning his back to Ririe, he tried following after Kirari.

“…!”

The surroundings that were dark due to the blackout or whatever suddenly became bright.

Taiki soon realized what light source illuminated them.

It was the sky.

“What—is that…?”

Could he call it a rain of light?

A swarm of stars floating in the night sky became a large mass of light. While lighting up the city like lightning, the mass of light was slowly changing its shape.

It became a golden, glowing, divine shrine—

A gigantic shrine was now floating above Taiki’s town. Its tremendous size was likely several times Taiki’s high school.

And there wasn’t just one.

Even within Taiki’s vision alone there were three. Although they were so far away that he couldn’t see their shape, he could see other floating objects that emitted light of the same type.

“Ah…!”

Ikarino Kirari grimaced. She held her ears.

“These—bell sounds…!”

Bell sounds.

Yesterday afternoon as well, Taiki’s classmates said that they heard it.

However, just like back then, Taiki couldn’t hear anything. Rather than that Taiki had been more taken in by the mysterious shrines popping overhead, but hearing a sound from overhead, he came back to his senses.

It was from right next to Taiki’s room.

She probably put her head out due to all the lights and sounds. His middle sister Noa opened her door’s window, glaring at the mysterious shrines floating in the night sky.

“Noa…!”

Noa made no response at all to Taiki’s voice. She was just staring, her expression vacant.

Just as Taiki found Noa’s behavior suspicious, this time the front door opened. His parents came out and looked up to the shrine with the same expression.

He was paralyzed by this bizarre sight, but it wasn’t just his family acting strange.

“…!”

Even from the neighboring house and on the other side of the street the residents came out and opened their doors, one after another. Their faces were vacant.

''W-what’s going on? Is this real life?

Taiki was about to panic. It felt like seeing a nightmare, but the sensation of the grass touching his bare feet was too real.

“—Taiki-san! Quickly!”

Struck by this sharp voice, Taiki gasped.

Even while holding her head, Ikarino Kirari reached a hand toward him.

“B-but my family…!”

Unable to know what to believe in, he turned toward them.

“Don’t go, big brother.”

Ririe also reached toward Taiki. Taiki groaned.

“Taiki-san! There’s nothing you can do here!”

Ikarino Kirari was urging him, her face looking desperate. His family was acting completely abnormal.

Who should he believe in? Who should he go to? He didn’t even have to hesitate at this decision.

Even so, Taiki took an action unbelievable even to himself—

“—There are people waiting for you!”

Hearing those words, his body moved on its own.

Kicking the ground and running, Taiki took—

“We have no time.”

The hand of the grinning Ikarino Kirari.

Shocked at his own actions, Taiki turned to his house.

“…”

Ririe was staring at Taiki. Guilt stabbed his chest.

“—Sorry, Ririe.”

He couldn’t just abandon his family.

Right now, Taiki had no idea what made his family act so weird. Just like Kirari told him, he doubted there was something he could do by staying there.

He felt like it was the girl called Ikarino Kirari who knew the truth. If he could do anything for his family, it would have to start from asking her about the situation.

Because he had this intuition, he chose to part from his family for now.

“Get on, Taiki-san.”

A motorcycle was parked on the other side of the fence. Jumping down from it, Ikarino Kirari immediately rode the bike.

Taiki sat in the back just like he was told and Kirari grabbed his arms. She forcibly put them around her waist.

“Hold on tight.”

Saying this, Kirari revved up the engine.

It appeared to be an electrically operated motorcycle. There were no engine sounds and the motorcycle cut through the residential district like it was flying.

Kirari’s driving was excellent. As the motorcycle soundlessly slipped through alleys, it leapt out of the block where Taiki’s house was in no time flat.

Every window Taiki could see was open, and the residents all gazed at the shrines floating in the night sky.

“What’s up with that… what is going on…”

“Since there’s a blackout, they’d end up seeing these lights—”

For a moment, the girl grabbing the handlebars froze as though her head was struck.

“And… if they hear those bell sounds, everyone would end up looking up at the sky.”

Although there were no engine sounds, he could hear the girl’s voice well.

“The deluge of blackouts, as well as the deluge of light and sound—everyone in the country is probably being attacked by both of them right about now…”

The entire country was in a situation like this—

This sounded unbelievable, but he couldn’t laugh at this either. Although they were already far from his home due to Kirari’s driving, the lines of shrines floating in the sky were endless.

“A-are you alright? Why are only you…”

“It’s because I’ve gone through training to resist things like this before. The only ones not affected by this bell are probably those that went through special training like me—or Mushitsuki.”

“Mushitsuki—”

Taiki’s body stiffened.

In the first place, strange things started happening around Taiki ever since he started dreaming about Mushitsuki. All of a sudden Ikarino Kirari appeared in front of him and it finally became like this—

“Right, Mushitsuki. —Those Shrines are nothing more than triggers to create Mushitsuki.”

“Eh…?”

“It was probably originally the ability of one the Original Three—those Primal Mushi that gave birth to Mushitsuki. Since C absorbed the Church and the bell sounds, it became like this…”

Taiki paled. He couldn’t really understand what the girl was talking about, but she said things he couldn’t ignore. —That Shrine gave birth to Mushitsuki.

“No way… so my family’s also going to become Mushitsuki?”

“The originals could only make young people into Mushitsuki… but since C learned how to manipulate dreams and memories, she absorbed the Original Three.”

Ikarino Kirari was speaking.

“Even adults wish for things. C might be able to upgrade even simple wishes such as eating good food to dreams.”

“—”

“C’s goal is to create Mushitsuki and then make them into Revived that can come back to life again and again.”

Ikarino Kirari’s tone was detached.

“By doing that, she wants to fill the world with a new mankind—the Undying…”

He knew she was saying something very scary.

No—a world where no one could die was perhaps not scary, but actually good.

However, whether it was good or bad had nothing to do with Taiki right now.

His own family was in danger of becoming Mushitsuki.

Should he go back home? However, what could Taiki do even if he did?

Thinking this far, he noticed a contradiction.

“—What about me, then?”

He could feel the girl twitching a little.

“Why am I… fine, then? I’m not a Mushitsuki, but when I look at that Shrine nothing happens and I can’t hear the bell like you…”

“…”

“What does it mean? Hey!”

“There is—a reason for that.”

She sounded utterly convinced. Taiki felt his heart beating harder.

“Did you… do something to me?”

“The reason you are unaffected by the Shrine is different… but I did do something to you. I’m sorry.”

“Ha…? W-what do you—”

“The one who found you is the Mushitsuki called Konoha, but I was the only one who could approach you… because any Mushitsuki would get noticed by C. So I received something from a certain person and tried delivering it to you in secret. —And this happened before I acted the part of that journalist’s interpreter to see your reaction.”

Taiki couldn’t understand what she was saying at all.

“Eh…? Before the interview…? But we never—”

“I don’t have any distinguishing features other than my hairstyle… so if I hide that, wear a disguise and change my voice, I can infiltrate pretty much anywhere. I delivered you something many times, whether you were on the way to school or inside it. And every time I did that—you dreamt of Mushitsuki.”

“…!”

Receiving this impact that felt much like getting hit on the head by a club, he felt dizzy.

The origin of these dreams that Taiki worried about—was right in front of him.

“Why—h-how—”

“Because it was a request from the queen bee—from a certain Mushitsuki.”

For just a brief moment, her tone dropped as she said this.

“And because… doing this is my duty.”

“What—did you do to me?”

The moment Taiki asked this, the motorcycle decelerated.

They reached a certain corner of town illuminated by the Shrine’s light. Having stopped its engine, the motorcycle now approached a large, three-storied building using inertia alone.

“I’ll explain now.”

The residence’s garage facing the road remained half-open. As far as Taiki could see, that large house was wrapped in silence, and there were no residents peeking from the windows.

“…Including the reason you’re not affected by the Shrine.”

The motorcycle parked just as they slipped into the garage. Ikarino Kirari got off first.

While Taiki timidly got off as well, he felt the presence of a person there.

Within the dark interior of the garage there was something humanlike. —The golden light peeking through the half-open entrance illuminated their lower torso.

“W-who’s that…?”

Responding to Taiki’s voice, the person inside approached.

Revealed by the light was a girl who looked about Ikarino Kirari’s age. Perhaps having sustained some injury, her limbs were wrapped by bandages, and it looked rather painful.

That girl wearing a casket hat instantly reached for Taiki upon seeing his face.

“—Daisuke…”

The girl’s fingers touched Taiki’s cheek.

As this complete stranger took an unexcepted action—Taiki’s body was paralyzed. Her crying like this and forcing her wounded body to move in order to touch Taiki looked like it could be a famous scene from some movie.

“She’s Ayukawa Chiharu-san.”

Ikarino Kirari moved next to her, turning to Taiki.

“Ayukawa… Chiharu.”

Taiki didn’t know her.

However, the person called Chiharu appeared to be mistaking Taiki for someone. “Daisuke”, she called him—wait, did she mean his cousin Kusuriya Daisuke?

He’d also be the first to admit it, but Taiki had no distinguishing features in his appearance. He was of a medium build and height, and his hair was neither short nor long. He was a normal high-schooler who could even be called plain.

It’d be natural for him to be mistaken for someone else in this limited lighting.

“Y-you look hurt… shouldn’t you be going to a hospital?”

As Taiki said this, Chiharu’s expression froze.

“And she, err, seems to be mistaking me with someone, so she should at least rest until she calms down…”

He tried worrying about the girl.

However, as Chiharu raised her brows sadly, Kirari sank into a pregnant silence.

“…?”

Taiki frowned.

Chiharu bit her lips. Inserting her hand into her shirt, she pulled out a necklace from inside her collar. There was a gold ring hanging from the chain.

“I’ll bring you back to yourself now—”

“…!”

Inside Chiharu’s palm, the ring started glowing in azure.

Chiharu brought the glowing ring closer to Taiki—

“—”

Both Taiki and Chiharu’s expressions stiffened and they froze on the spot.

Why did they stop moving?

That was—because Ikarino Kirari stuck out something toward Ayukawa Chiharu’s temple.

“Kirari-san…?”

It was a gun.

And it was a large automatic pistol, the kinds of which he’d only see in foreign movies. It looked so heavy for Kirari’s thin arms it was a wonder she could hold it like that.

The moment after, a light burst at the entrance to the garage.

“—Big brother.”

As Taiki turned around in shock, he saw his little sister Ririe standing there.

“Kirari-san, are you… being controlled by C—”

Chiharu groaned, her voice hoarse.