Editing Mushi Uta:Snowy Day of Dawning Dreams (section)

== Prologue: 0.00 The Others ==

There is the supernatural being called Mushi.

Having suddenly appeared a decade ago, they began possessing boys and girls. In exchange for eating their dreams—wishes of doing something or becoming something—they gave their hosts a variety of powers. They were named Mushi because their outward appearance resembled insects.

“…Hmm?”

Mushi and the Mushitsuki they possessed never came out into the light. They were being whispered and hated among the populace, but even so the government denied their existence.

About a year passed since eyewitness reports about Mushi and Mushitsuki were completely gone.

It wasn’t even that the Japanese government concealed it, but their existence simply vanished from people’s memories.

“What’s wrong?”

“Isn’t someone… running toward us?”

Nishito City, a provincial city in Japan.

Hugging with his girlfriend while walking through an empty residential land at night, the completely normal college student raised his face. White breath leaked from his mouth. His girlfriend from the same college also raised her face.

“Haa…! Haa…! H-help me!”

A girl appeared in the alley that still remained filled with the snow from these last few days. She had a striking appearance with two braids and glasses. It might be rude to state, but she looked like the kind of countryside high schooler one could find anywhere.

“I’m being chased by strangers! Can you please call the police?”

Having this girl suddenly cling to him, the youth put a hand into his college jacket’s pocket.

“Strange people? I-I got it!”

“I’ll report it now, so calm down!”

His girlfriend also put a hand in her pocket—and then the two college students both pulled out handgun-shaped stun guns.

“—!”

The braided girl pushed the couple away with astonishment.

As she tried to escape, the two disguised college students pulled the trigger. Bullets attached to wires were launched from the muzzle and a momentary flash dyed their sights in pure white.

As the light faded, they could see the form of the girl knocked unconscious—or at least they were supposed to.

Instead, they could see the shaking girl as well as a round mass that sprouted something like a white needle. The stun gun’s wires became entangled in the white needle of that object about the size of a small car.

“Tch…! She’s got much better reflexes than I thought…!”

“Watch out! Get away from the Mushi!”

His arm pulled by the woman playing the part of his girlfriend, he took his distance from the girl and the white object.

On the other side of the alley, where the braided girl ran from, a large vehicle emerged. As it parked to block the narrow alley, men wielding small arms came jumping out.

“Erase your Mushi! If you don’t listen to us, we won’t hold back!”

He gave her a sharp warning. He threw away his stun gun and readied the gun he received from the other men.

Being surrounded by so many guns, the girl paled. She was cornered against a wall, tears rising to her eyes.

“W-who are you people…? W-why do you want to—”

“Shut up! I’ll say this one more time, erase your Mushi!”

He warned her again.

“Why won’t you leave me alone…?”

A single tear slid down the braided girl’s cheek. Perhaps because she had been running, her breath was elevated.

No—that wasn’t it. The girl holding down her raging chest was clearly acting strangely.

The mass sprouting a white needle moved.

It was a bizarre object with six legs, moving slowly. Excluding the fact it had four eyes glowing red, it resembled the insect called a velvet ant.

“All I wanted was to grow my favorite flowers… I was happy with just that… so why—”

The velvet ant’s body grew larger, swelling like a balloon.

“Whyyyy!”

The girl shouted.

Forgetting to even pull the trigger, he looked up the now-massive velvet ant.

“I-it’s Maturing—”

Mushitsuki could gain special powers by letting their Mushi feed on their dreams.

However, there was a hefty cost. If the Mushi nestling inside them was killed, they’d become living corpses named the Fallen.

And that wasn’t the end of the curse carried by Mushitsuki.

Even if they kept their Mushi alive by giving it their dreams, at some point it would end up devouring their dream in its entirety.

Doing that, the Mushi would reach its adult form.

This was the phenomenon known as Maturation, and the hosts whose dreams got fully eaten—lost their life.

Once someone became a Mushitsuki, they would either become Fallen or have their dream eaten and perish.

Reaching either one of these results—was the fate carried by those called Mushitsuki.

“…!”

Gunfire echoed. His comrades with small firearms shot the velvet ant. 

“Gil!”

“It’s too late for this one! Shoot, Siamo!”

Being told this, he—Siamo—gritted his teeth. He pulled his trigger toward the velvet ant.

However, it didn’t even flinch.

“It’s no good, we can’t even make a dent on it with our current equipment…!”

“Aim for the host! Shoot her with all your stun guns and tranquilizers!”

“No, since she’s started Maturing, just knocking her unconscious won’t stop it…!”

What would happen after the Mushi Matured and separated from its host?

It was clear from the reports they obtained that Mushi became extremely destructive after Maturing. In that case it’d become a huge problem and there’d probably be many victims.

This sort of result was not the goal of Siamo’s group.

Their mission was to kidnap the “new species” of humans called Mushitsuki—and bring them back to their own country.

And they had to conduct that swiftly and yet secretly.

For now, at least.

“…”

Siamo’s group moved just their eyes at each other and nodded.

One of his comrades, the man Siamo called Gil, moved the muzzle away from the Mushi.

It now aimed toward the crying braided girl—

“—Why…”

And spat fire.

The wall of the residential house was dyed with fresh red.

As she girl slid down, collapsing to the ground, the white Mushi’s movements stopped.

The velvet ant opened its small mouthpart and wailed. As if to begrudge the fact it was only a step away from Maturing, it emitted a high-pitched scream and evaporated.

“Retreat! Hurry up!”

Following Gil’s orders, Siamo and company hurriedly got on the large vehicle.

Siamo looked at the girl drowning in a sea of blood from inside the running car. Gil struck his head.

“Get a grip, Siamo! This isn’t our fault! It’s because no one noticed our target was about to Mature!”

“—I get it, brother. No, Gil.”

Only Siamo kept thinking back to the dying Mushitsuki. Even the woman who played the part of his girlfriend already started talking to their comrades about their next move.

“The next ones are our real targets. I’ll be on a different team, but don’t lower your guard.”

“Yeah.”

“That woman just now was apparently a former non-combatant member of the organization called Mushibane, but the next ones are different. They’re survivors from the “Decisive Hashiba City Battle”. Expect to be going against a monster.”

In the townscape visible through the window, he could see houses adorned with electrical decorations.

Perhaps this country itself looked so restless because of that period of time approaching again.

“You can’t hesitate just because they look like children. We now figured out that even if there’s some unexpected trouble, it’ll turn out fine as long as we kill the host.”

He knew that the smile rising to Gil’s face was a patriotic one. Obviously, both he and Siamo loved a country different from this one.

“Let’s capture those endangered monsters and then grab a drink. Raise a toast to Merry Christmas and all that.”

However, Siamo simply couldn’t forget about the last expression of the girl who expired right in front of his eyes.

''I just had a small dream, so why—

Until the moment she was shot, the braided girl chanted this, her face full of tears.

That was a Mushitsuki.

Those possessed by the supernatural beings called Mushi—that would never grow in numbers again.

“…Yeah, I get it.”

Siamo had been taught they were beasts and monsters, but the braided girl he saw—

Looked like a plain countryside schoolgirl.



The number of surviving Mushitsuki:

287→286.


<noinclude>
</noinclude>