Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 7th Episode 28 (section)

=== Part 1 ===

When he’d rescued a puppy, he’d been given a mouthful over it.

He thought his parents would praise him. However, he remembered the puppy being completely ignored while everyone in the house was in an uproar.

''—Why’s everyone being so loud?

Still in elementary school back then, he vacantly watched his nervous parents and brothers and sisters.

His father was a doctor.

As he worked in a university hospital, his father was very busy and would often leave the house on an emergency call. Whenever his mom made him deliver his father’s lunch, he became friends with all the children in the pediatric department. He concealed the fact he came to the hospital from his father and played with the children.

Hospital was a place where there were eye-boggling changes every day.

The patients that had melancholic expressions started smiling once discharged. There was also the reverse, smiling people who became depressed within a day.

His friends were the same. There were times when they played with him, full of smiles, and then vanished the next day.

The thing that did this to them—was apparently called “death”.

Fearing death, being happy at life being saved, and at times unceremoniously yielding to it.

This was his daily life.

That was why he admired his father, a doctor who saved patients, and wanted to become like him as well.

He thought that them being sick meant that he was healthy.

''I want to save lives—

His young heart wished for it.

That was why, when he’d saved the puppy and got home, he was proud with himself. It wasn’t a human, but it was still a life. And he saved it.

However, he was instead scolded.

The reason was simple.

He was hugging the puppy while covered in blood—

When he saved the puppy from being mauled by wild dogs, he protected it and got his arm bitten. He soon shook them off and ran away, but his arm was torn, leaving a deep wound.

The puppy was also wounded, but with all the excitement around, it was left untreated, and so remained unsaved.

He’d seen yet another life go.

Thinking about it, that was probably the beginning of his doubts.

What was “death”?

This one and only question kept clinging to him his entire life.



Sensitive to other people’s deaths.

Dull to his own death.

Other than embracing that messed-up view of life and death, there was nothing unusual in his life.

He advanced in school while surrounded by friends and creating lovers but then breaking up for some small reason. He had no inspiration to pursue the path of a doctor other than his father, and his surroundings also accepted this course as natural.

Therefore, his name held no meaning.

He never got involved in anything big and didn’t have the confidence to say that he gave anyone any large influence. As a medical intern in the middle of his twenties, there was no way he’d saved anyone already.

If his name held any meaning at all, it would be back then—perhaps it had some meaning during the moment he met the being that would become his companion.

And this, too, wasn’t his own name, but a different name that the girl called him—

“—Hi.”

On top of the hospital roof he came to have his break in, he turned around.

He felt like somebody called him, but other than himself, he couldn’t see anyone there.

“I’m here, I’m here.”

Wind blew.

With his unaccustomed white coat fluttering, he started walking toward that voice.

There was—something there.

“Hello. Nice weather we’re having today.”

On the roof’s fence was a “blue cocoon”.

Emitting a glow that wasn’t inferior at all to the noon sun, it pierced his eyes. He ended up laughing bitterly.

“Am I that tired? Maybe I need to go to the psychologist.”

“You mean that thing about doctors neglecting their health? It’s important to keep both heart and body healthy.”

The blue cocoon was talking. Every time it talked, its blue glow flowed in the wind, and its voice echoed directly in his head.

Not only that, but it talked with a voice that was none other than the man’s own.

[[File:Mushi_Uta_Bug_7th_p209.jpg|thumb]]

“I’m just a mere intern. Not a real doctor.”

In actuality, he was already exhausted from the overly busy internship. He barely slept and since he had no appetite, he was undoubtably suffering from a vitamin deficiency.

His tired brain rejected his thoughts wondering what the blue cocoon in front of his eyes was.

The cocoon that talked in his own voice spoke of the weather.

This situation was obviously not normal.

“You’re my delusion and yet you don’t know what I am?”

“I don’t know anything about you. I only think about how I hate you from waking me up from my pleasant sleep.”

“Wake you up? I do not remember making any sound.”

“It’s not by sound. Well, anyway. Will you take responsibility?”

“So pushy… alright, I’ll go book in a psychiatrist.”

“Ah, ah, wait a minute! Alright, let’s have a serious talk.”

“I came here for a break, so I don’t mind a conversation. Can’t you do something about your voice, though? It sounds awfully like me—no, sounds a bit younger. Since your way of speaking is adult-like, it makes me feel sick.”

“A bit younger? Hmm, this is the first case of that. But as long as it’s your actual voice there’s no problem. We’re definitely already resonating.”

“If you’re going to talk with me, at least let me understand you.”

The intern spoke toward the empty fence. —If anyone else saw this scene, it would be an instant red flag. Starting tomorrow, he wouldn’t go to the hospital for work, but instead be admitted as a patient.

“By the way, can you try touching me?”

“How sudden. Feels awfully suspicious.”

“I want to sleep again. Help me. C’mon, please.”

“I don’t really know what you want from me. It’s hard enough even just taking care of myself right now. Look at those shadows under my eyes.”

“If you combine with me everything will be solved. Your body will become extremely healthy and your recovery ability will be enhanced.”

“Combine, you said? So violent. I have to be careful.”

“C-crap.”

Seeing the shivering cocoon, he snorted.

“Is that all of your bargain? Even an advertisement wouldn’t say something like just ‘makes you healthy’.”

“Alright… then let’s do this. There’s definitely something you want to accomplish, right? I have a vast experience in life. I’ll help you with whatever you want until I fall asleep.”

“Something I want to do?”

Being told this, he could only think of one thing.

“Saving someone’s life—how about that?”

“You’re an intern, right? Can’t you do that already?

“People die when it’s time for them to die.”

“Not what I’d have expected hearing from an aspiring doctor. —That’s only something an elderly doctor having treated many patients is allowed to say.”

“I want—to overturn it.”

He didn’t know what to call that thing.

The number of lives he treated was small. He’d made many friends in the hospital since he was little, but there were many times where he couldn’t do anything.

If he had to give that thing a name, perhaps it was “fate”—

He continued getting beaten down by it.

“If this wish of yours is real, it might be called a dream…”

The cocoon spoke like a know-it-all.

“But it’s not like that—maybe because you already gave up on it long ago. Meaning, trying to become a doctor is just revenge against your unfulfilled dream?”

“…”

“If you become one with me—you can do it.”

He widened his eyes.

“You can do that a single time.”

“R-really?”

“Let me also say this. It’s just one time. However—”

The blue cocoon spoke.

“If you become one with me, you might suffer horribly.”

So it was something like selling his soul to the devil, then.

He closed his eyes and thought. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes.

“…”

“W-wait a minute! Why are you reaching for me! Think about it some more!”

“The heck? You were the one who invited me.”

“I did, but I also threatened you! I told you you’re going to suffer horribly!”

“—Just like you said. I aimed to be a doctor for no more than revenge. Anyway, many of my friends were taken away until now.”

He smiled bitterly.

“So I wanted to take revenge for them. Right—a minimal resistance.”

Right now, if the cocoon in front of him was not an illusion, he wouldn’t hesitate to depend on it.

That, too, was his minimal resistance.

Something of the same kind as death and fate.

He never liked any of that.

The enemy was strong and he suffered successive losses—so he had to win at least once before warming up to it.

He couldn’t hold this desire back.

“…You won’t live for long.”

“Rather than me, there are too many people who can’t live for long.”

His finger—touched the blue cocoon.

The cocoon’s glow dyed his fingers and began rushing from his arms to his body. His hair, ruffled by the wind, was dyed in blue.

“Good grief, looks like my host this time is also a freak. I really have no luck in drawing my lot.”

This time, an illusion appeared in front of him.

It was himself, with hair glowing blue. However, that figure was younger than him, with a face that looked to be around his teens.

“My name is Aria Varei. —I’m also called Sanbikime.”

Leaving a smile, Aria Varei’s figure burst apart.

He turned to smile at empty air. He could definitely feel something dwelling within him.

“A cool name. Unfortunately, my own name is as common as it gets.”

Among the Original Three, the one who birthed Fusion Type Mushitsuki Prototype Mushitsuki, Sanbikime—

Perhaps the young man who became the vessel for such a monster possessed a name at that moment.

However, that name was not the one of this man, who until yesterday had an average life—

“However, the patients—always call me Sensei.”

From a minimal resistance, he stepped into a life full of sin.

His life itself was not something he had to talk about.

If there was any story to tell, it would be about the monster called Aria Varei and the man nicknamed Sensei.

As well as the girl who had her dreams eaten by the being called Mushi—