Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 13 Chapter 4 (section)

== 4.02 OPS3 Part 17 ==

“Wait! Yuu-chan!”

Shiika rushed to Yuu, grabbing both thin shoulders.

“It’s too early! If we fight Oogui now, we won’t be able to save Erii…!”

Yuu looked up the sky and mumbled to herself. She couldn’t hear Shiika’s calls.

Lucifera turned to Satou Youko.

“Satou-san! Can you seal Yuu-san’s dream?!”

“—I can just about buy some time.”

Holding her briefcase, Satou Youko rushed to Yuu. Now that she had her hair pushed up and her face was exposed, her entire impression changed from before when she had a thin presence.

All Mushitsuki were agitated by this unexpected development. They became restless and noisy.

Aijisupa grabbed Lucifera.

“What’s going on, Lucifera! Why did she suddenly start dreaming like that? Did your group do something?”

“W-we have not done anything! I can only think that Erii…”

“Erii? I haven’t heard anything about her being capable of this!”

Being questioned violently, Lucifera looked about to cry.

“Erii—C can interfere with a person’s brain’s electrical signals and touch their dream.”

“…!”

All Mushitsuki became speechless.

“Ubuki-san… Karasu-san saw something like that happen.”

“Ubuki did?”

Lucifera turned only her face toward the surprised Shiika.

“Snow-san. You, Ubuki-san and Yuu-san all ran together from Akamaki City, right? —The disk you had back then contained a record of the experiments conducted by the Central Headquarters.”

“—”

She’d never forget it.

Shiika, Shirakashi Ubuki and Ebina Yuu. They came to know each other and after risking their lives in their escape from Akamaki City, found the data disk.

Seeing its contents, Ubuki raged.

Why was it that Ubuki was so mad at the time—Shiika realized the reason for it for the first time.

“Why have you said nothing about something so important until now…!”

“Because I thought Erii took Yuu-san hostage and wanted to save her! If Yuu-san called Oogui, it wouldn’t end just with it being dangerous for her!”

“Erii—C can summon people’s dreams, and then the Original Three make them Mushitsuki…”

A bad feeling was quickly swelling up inside Shiika.

“Then what’s going to happen if C absorbs the Original Three…?”

It wouldn’t be just people with latent dreams like Yuu.

If C could just freely create dreams on her own, she’d end up involving even normal civilians—

“What is C trying to do…?”

She ended up voicing her thoughts.

However, that voice made all Mushitsuki in the sports ground silent.

Right now, Shiika stood at the forefront of many Mushitsuki. By the time she noticed she’d forgotten that fact, the Mushitsuki all froze.

“Change in plans! —We’ll intercept Oogui here!”

As if to erase Shiika’s blunder, Namie raised her voice.

“Let’s switch it up! All that’s changed is the order we’re doing things! Recall, Aijisupa, fall back and protect Fuyuhotaru with your lives! All other combatants are to take positions just like we trained, and follow my orders!”

Hearing these strong orders, the Mushitsuki all regained their calm. They hurriedly formed lines again.

“Let’s finish this with a quick fight before C senses us! The enemy can use all sorts of abilities, but we’re not going to lose, number-wise! It’s going to be tough regardless, but you can just keep teasing Oogui! If we dangle the bait in front of her, she’ll tire of the fight and use that power!”

Namie’s voice echoed between the Mushitsuki all hurrying to form interception position.

“Fuyuhotaru’s power!”

Shiika’s heart leapt hard.

“If that happens, neither numbers nor strength would mean anything! We will retreat and switch with Fuyuhotaru who preserved her powers!”

Although their tension was restored by Namie’s orders, the Mushitsuki all acted quickly. They formed the positions to intercept Oogui in the blink of an eye.

“Then—it will be a duel between Fuyuhotaru and Oogui.”

Everyone’s gazes instantly gathered on Shiika who was waiting behind them.

Shiika’s heartbeat kept growing.

She was neither strong like Kakkou nor had leadership like Rina. All she could do was destroy.

Even so, she’d inherited Kakkou’s and Rina’s dreams.

She carried the hopes of all Mushitsuki.

Therefore, Shiika—would accomplish what only she could do.

“Oogui will probably use my power, but it’s not me.”

Shiika did her best to speak in a strong tone.

“I’ve been helped by countless people until now. So while I’m here, my power doesn’t belong to me alone.”

Thinking about it, Shiika had never fought out of her own volition.

She’d always been running away, but now she was heading to battle for the first time—

Inheriting feelings and wishes, all in order to fulfill the promise ahead.

“I will never lose!”

Shiika’s voice was followed by the Mushitsuki’s cheers. Some of them probably thought she was trying to incite them.  Now that both Kakkou and Rina were defeated, they felt that the lone surviving Rank 1, Shiika, supported them.

Defeating Oogui—

All Mushitsuki in the dome were focused on that feeling when it happened.

“Wait—”

This restraining voice came from Aijisupa.

While everyone looked up, expecting to see Oogui’s arrival, he alone was looking at the surface.

“Where’s Ebina Yuu?”

Eh—

Several gasps of astonishment overlapped. Shiika made one of them.

Yuu was supposed to be behind Shiika. Satou Youko had opened her suitcase, showed its contents and performed some sort of process. More than 10 Mushitsuki surrounded them as a defensive ring to protect them.

As Shiika turned around, she saw exactly what she saw before.

“…Yuu-chan?”

However—Ebina Yuu alone wasn’t there.

Other than that, nothing changed. Satou Youko and others all just stood there calmly, doing nothing.

“Hey! —Ugh.”

As Aijisupa rushed toward Satou Youko, there was an electric crackle and his hand was blown back.

From the ground surface, a pale blue electrical discharge transmitted through their bodies—

“…!”

Everyone in front of Aijisupa collapsed to the ground. The reason they were completely unmoving was probably because they lost consciousness.

“To the entrance!”

Roused by someone’s voice, all members turned to the entrance of the dome.

Ebina Yuu was standing there.

No, those sharp eyes looking at her and commanding several C-butterflies meant it was—

“Erii…?”

As Shiika mumbled this, Erii flew out of the dome to the outside.

“Chase her! Bring her back! Don’t lose her!”

Namie hurriedly issued out orders, but apparently they couldn’t preserve their calm.

“She pretended to be calling Oogui and escaped…! What’s that brat thinking about?!”

Just like most other Mushitsuki, Shiika was frozen with shock.

It was just like Namie said. She simply couldn’t understand Erii’s aim.

“At the very least, she doesn’t look like she wants to save herself.”

While biting her nails, Lucifera fiddled with her phone.

“Why’s Erii… at this rate, not only will we not be able to move Sanbikime into Chiharu-san, we won’t be able to beat Oogui either. Reaching the deadline without accomplishing anything would be the worst…”

Her bad hunch was becoming reality.

Time was moving second by second, and yet—things were not going well.

Shiika and all others waiting in the dome were being eaten by anxiety and tension.

“—Erii changed direction again!”

Receiving contact from their comrades who rushed after Erii, Namie yelled in annoyance.

“We have no time! We need to send more people after her!”

How much time passed since Erii escaped?

Receiving the contact from those who went in pursuit, she escaped them, she struck them back, her direction changed again; things repeated like this.

“This is no good! If we just keep on sending more people, Erii’s just going to play with them and cause us to spread our forces thin! Even if we capture her, she might try to escape again. At least until we figure out where she’s heading to, we should keep on going like this…!”

Lucifera tried stopping them, but the Mushitsuki were all at the edge of their patience.

As for why—

“The space debris is coming down soon.”

Akasegawa Nanana appeared next to Shiika.

“Nanana! I-it’s dangerous, you can’t be…!”

“Since Erii—Ebina Yuu isn’t here, nothing’s going to happen here, right? Honestly, I prepared so much money and yet it’s all gone to waste.”

While spinning her cane, Nanana spoke calmly.

“Will it fall on where Erii is? Or another place? Also, when and where will Oogui appear?”

“…”

Even asked all that, Shiika had no answer.

Dawn was approaching.

There was no more time until the time limit of 48 hours.

Time was just passing with no one able to do anything—

“The debris has started entry! Its trajectory is being calculated!”

Kabuto shouted.

Now that it became like this, Shiika and the rest lost the chance to stop it—as well as their goal.

“The calculation’s done! —It’s about to fall inside Akamaki City!”

“So it’s really where Erii is, then.”

“But there’s nothing prepared for Erii there.”

Aijisupa and Namie exchanged glances.

Regardless, Shiika and the others who were so far away couldn’t do anything.

Just when she thought this—

“No, that’s wrong! The place of the estimated crash is… a place to the east of here!”

It suddenly appeared then.

The start button to let Shiika and others move.

And the one who pressed it—was Nanana’s murmur.

“East? What is even there—”

She started speaking, then widened her eyes.

“Alpha…! The museum hiding Alpha!”

“Eh—”

Lucifera went speechless. Even before she heard Nanana’s words, it looked as though she became speechless upon gazing at her cellphone screen.

“N-no way… Erii’s aim is—”

Speaking in a shaky voice, Lucifera raised a strained face.

“She’s going to crash the space debris right on Alpha and kill him…”

“—”

Everyone there gasped.

“Even if Erii herself couldn’t kill him, if the museum became a battlefield with Oogui, she might end up killing Alpha with Fuyuhotaru’s ability—”

While no one was able to utter a single word, Lucifera kept going as if in delirium.

“I don’t know why she’s going so far against Alpha—but there’s no mistake he is someone far more important than we realized—”

Perhaps because sunrise was approaching, the twinkling of stars in the night sky was gone.

It was the black right before getting dyed in white.

Underneath the sky dyed by daybreak, and much too suddenly—

“Erii used herself and Fuyuhotaru in an attempt to attack Alpha, Oogui and even Sanbikime—and turn everything to zero.”

It was as though time only now resumed its flow.

As if this was the signal to begin the final fight.