Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 6 Chapter 5 (section)

==5.00 Shachito Part 7==

The scent of spring started wafting in the sea breeze blowing through Holland City.

Influenced by the reorganization of the studies program, the closing ceremony of Horanto High School was held earlier than usual.

All of the students gathered in the gymnasium seemed to want to enjoy their spring break as soon as possible. They were impatiently listening to the principal's lengthy speech.

Shiohara Shachito was also one of these students.

He gazed at the principal standing on top of the stage with a grinning expression.

"…"

His cellphone vibrated in his pocket. Stealthily concealing it in his hand, he checked the LCD screen. 

He received a message.

Its sender was someone whose existence he had forgotten about for the past couple of days.

—Tonight's the premiere. Will you not come watch it?

Masaki Rio.

''I think I knew her'', remembering only this, he operated the buttons with accustomed finger movements. 

''Delete this mail?''

''YES.''

By the time he had returned it to his pocket again, he already forgot all about the girl known as Masaki Rio.

"A message? Who was it from?"

"Hmm? Some girl I used to know. But I instantly deleted it though?"

As his friend asked in a hushed voice he replied to him with a light tone. Including Shachito, several male students stifled their laughter.

Glaring at the indecent behavior of Shachito and the rest, the principal sighed. He closed his speech, seemingly tired, and dismissed everyone.

"So lucky. His speech went for so long."

"He probably thought Shachi laughed about his head right? I mean, no matter how you look at it…"

"Haha. When the new school term starts, he should put a bird nest on it."

The students all started heading for their own classrooms.

Shachito also passed through the main corridor, trying to enter the campus.

Yet seeing something yellow fluttering on top of the school roof, he stopped without thinking.

''Thump'', his heart throbbed.

As if a switch had been pressed—

As if he had been flipped outside out—

Shachito's pupils, that were cloudy until now, retrieved their light.

"Inu—"

He was about to exclaim in a loud voice without caring about his surroundings. Yet he realized it was simply a plastic bag that flew with the wind and got stuck on the lightning rod. 

It wasn't the yellow raincoat that would invite Shachito to a battle.

"Shachi? What's wrong?"

"N-no, it's nothing. It's nothing, really…"

Even while feigning calmness on the surface, Shachito's chest was assaulted by violent heartbeats.

Shaking his head, he also shook off the illusion of the raincoat-clad girl.

"You won't cancel out at the last minute like you did before, right? We're going to hang out with the girls we met yesterday today as well."

"There's no way I'm not going. After I finally found the perfect girl for my tastes in a long while."

Glossing over his disturbance with a faint smile, he followed his classmates in small steps.

"Ouch…!"

He bumped into another student. A dull pain ran through the shoulder he put his arm on.

Although it was just this, Shachito's feet became paralyzed with fear. Grabbing the fence, he was barely able to avoid collapsing. Without noticing his abnormality, his classmates kept walking ahead.

Suddenly becoming helpless, he felt fear.

The world Shachito lived in wasn't supposed to be this frightening.

Going off the corridor to the courtyard, he waited for the crowds of students to pass.

"It hurts…"

He looked up at the plastic bag fluttering up on the rooftop.

—Shachito had retrieved his previous peaceful life.

He had gone through the "final test" in the abandoned factory, yet it felt like something that happened long ago. That day, when he came back to himself, there was no one in the factory. Never mind those Mushibane people, but there was not even any sign of that girl in the raincoat.

Ever since then, Shishidou Inuko made no appearance in front of him.

He couldn't think he'd passed the test.

It was probably the exact opposite. Seeing how pathetic and pitiful Shachito was in front of her eyes, she probably realized that her expectations were mistaken.

Thus Shachito returned to his peaceful daily life.

Even if it wasn't brought by fulfilling his promise to become stronger than Inuko, nor as a punishment from her—it brought him only dejection and apathy. 

Effectively Shachito had fulfilled his original goal.

But even so—

"Inuko…"

Shachito had recovered even his "pain".

The fear that had once tormented him was reborn every time he felt pain.

Every time he saw something yellow, every time he felt pain, he would recall Shishidou Inuko.

And as he recalled her, he would come to his senses as the broken Shachito.

The girl who had taught him how to fight with his Mushi had not gone so far as to teach him how to fight with "pain".

"…"

He looked at the crowds of students moving toward the classrooms.

Once he joined them again, he would turn into the Shachito of "this side".

He would break again—

Turning on his heels, Shachito kicked the ground. Cutting across the courtyard, he went through the main gate and into the parking area.

Pulling out his So1o, he straddled it without even wearing a helmet or goggles. The shrill engine sounds reverberated throughout Horanto High School.

"Don't screw with me—"

Grimacing, he started riding towards the town center.

What urged Shachito was not anger; it was pure fear and panic.

"Are you really going to throw me away when I'm like this…!"

The daily life Shachito had thought of as belonging to "this side" was completely twisted. The Shachito of "that side", recalled by battle, was his genuine self.

He had forgotten pain so that he could forget his dream.

He wanted everyone except him to be hurt and suffer—

It was the worst possible dream.

His dream of wishing to have a beautiful dream was like a curse, an egotistic desire.

And in order to recall this dream he had continually destroyed countless dreams until now—

"Are you really going to disappear after making me remember all of this…!"

Shachito remembered it all.

And what made him remember were undoubtedly the battles Inuko had put him through.

Shachito could retrieve his real self only when he was on a battlefield—

"Inuko…!"

Searching for the Vespa-riding girl, Shachito wandered around the town center.

The crossroads where he had first fought a Mushitsuki.

The back-alley where he had met Inuko.

The building where he had fought Inuko.

"Inuko…!"

Shachito desperately searched for her, but there were no signs of her anywhere.

"Why, Inuko…!"

He was afraid of going back to his normal life.

Returning to his twisted self again was scary.

—No.

"Is it because I was unable to become a warrior…?"

Living itself was pain.

Shachito, who had turned to a Mushitsuki with the worst dream, became twisted due to living by forgetting his dream, enjoyed destroying other people's dreams, and thus degraded into the worst kind of person.

"So you're abandoning me—"

If he were to be distanced from battle, he would destroy someone's dream again.

Yet since he feared pain, he could fight no longer.

Was there any reason for him to live?

"INUKOOO!"

Unable to withstand it any longer, he shouted in an alley without any pedestrians. He made a mistake in handling the motorbike, so the wheels slipped on a water puddle. He was thrown from his seat and crashed into the ground.

"…Ouch… it hurts… Inuko…"

Shachito curled his body, shaking, with tears spilling from his eyes. 

Without Inuko, he would go back to his broken daily life again.

That was unbearably scary, and it made him feel helplessly guilty.

"What am I supposed to do… Don't abandon me… Inuko…"

A berserker who couldn't fight—

The remains of the man who had been unable to bear his dream writhed pitifully in the gloomy alley.