Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 13 Chapter 5 (section)

== 5.03 Another OPS3 ==

According to the original plan, Ebina Yuu would be released safely here by now.

Because Fuyuhotaru—Anmoto Shiika—believed that she would defeat Oogui.

However, the reality in front of Yuu’s eyes completely broke her expectations.

“Shiika…san—”

Yuu desperately moved just her eyes, looking at Shiika crumpled on the ground. Purple scales flew all around Yuu, bewitching her such that her body didn’t move like she wanted it to.

“Oogui’s coming! Protect Ebina Yuu!”

Ignoring the unmoving Shiika, Oogui looked down on Yuu. Namie and the rest who were protecting her took counterattack positions.

“O-Operation 3… has failed…!”

She could hear Kabuto report to headquarters as he put his hand to the goggles.

“Fufu—so you still intend to stand in my way?”

Oogui brought forth again countless Mushi and set them on the Mushitsuki on the surface.

They’d never be able to stand up to the monstrous Oogui in either quantity or stamina. Although Mushibane’s and the SEPB’s Mushitsuki battled with their full powers, the lines protecting Yuu were being shaves slowly but surely.

“Shiika-san…!”

Even when Yuu called her, Shiika remained unmoving.

What on earth happened to her?

Currently—Yuu had no way of knowing that.

“Now, Yuu-chan. Will you tell me your dream?”

Oogui smiled enchantingly.

“M-my—dream is…”

Yuu’s mouth moved on its own.

“No, hold on!”

Aijisupa turned to her and shouted.

How could she hold on, though?

Since Shiika had failed, all hope was lost. At this rate, this would only create more nedless victims and they’d be cornered to complete annihilation.

There was no longer—any meaning to holding on.

“It’s—no good… the operation failed…”

She didn’t want to see Mushitsuki get hurt for her sake.

''I’ll just give up.

As she thought this, she was able to use her very last powers.

“So—go away, please…! Ubuki-san… Chiharu-san…!”

While still caught by Oogui’s rainbow-colored eyes, she shouted expressionlessly.

Ubuki and Chiharu danced in the sky, repeating their attacks on Oogui. However, she fluttered past their attacks, so the two were unable to inflict any damage. They then stopped in place.

“Don’t mind me…! Carry on the next plan…!”

The Mushitsuki fighting around her all turned to her.

Namie used her blood-stained face to glare at Yuu.

“—What do you mean, next plan?”

“What’s that?”

Even the ever-calm Aijisupa looked expectedly agitated. He stopped his attacks.

Lucifera looked to her phone and gasped.

“Ubuki-san! Chiharu-san! We’ve got the green light! Abandon this battlefield and move to the scheduled place.”

“…!”

Hearing the words “abandon this battlefield”, the Mushitsuki around gulped.

Even Ubuki and Chiharu themselves looked confused. They remained airborne, unmoving.

“However… bring Yuu over here as well, you shitheads! —Is what she says!”

If only Yuu hadn’t been enchanted by Oogui.

She probably would have widened her eyes.

Yuu would also head to that place. —That part was completely unplanned.

“—Gotchu!”

Responding with a full-blown smile, Ubuki transformed.

The black raven dragonfly’s wings, merged with her coat, explosively swelled to more than twice their size. Her face’s black pattern began permeating the turban covering her head. For a moment, the silhouette of a red queen bee floated behind the girl grimacing in pain.

“…!”

Including Oogui, the time of all combatants on the battlefield stopped.

At least, Ubuki flew so fast that it felt like that. A black lightning struck the surface from the sky, and by the next moment, Yuu was high in air.

Ubuki was flying while holding Yuu.

“Oh my, who could have imagined you’d snatch my meal and run away—”

Oogui’s voice was left behind them in an instant.

She felt no headwind. The wind was not just wind, but more like a thick wall. Even so Ubuki hugged Chiharu and Yuu and cut through that wall of wind.

“This is no good… if you use so much power at once—”

“I-if I don’t use my powers in such times, what else can we do…!”

Ubuki groaned painfully, and in front of her—

Something was seen for just a moment in the sky of Akamaki City.

It was a purple Mushi—and it looked like a mirror bug with a mirror embedded in its back.

“—You naughty girls.”

“Eh?”

The moment following this, Ubuki and her passengers were back at the museum again. Unable to understand what just happened, Ubuki’s movements stopped.

They had apparently returned in front of Oogui again, for whatever reason. All they could understand was that behind them there was the exact same mirror bug they’d seen before.

“So, will you tell me your dream? Yuu-chan…”

“Uh—my dream—”

“L-let’s skedaddle again!”

Ubuki came back to herself and accelerated again. Weaving through the swarms of pursuing Mushi, she flew through the skies of Akamaki City again.

“Aria… why do you and your children insist on getting in my way?”

Oogui’s whisper pursued them from behind.

Ubuki had the advantage in speed. The distance between them was gradually growing—

“Nnngh!”

Ubuki dodged the mirror bug appearing in front of her.

However, others kept appearing to block her path, she ended up colliding with one, and was pulled back to near Oogui.

“Can you please give Yuu back?”

The purple Mushi produced by Oogui tried grabbing Ubuki.

“Why you…!”

Chiharu was wrapped in a blue light. This glow permeated Ubuki and Yuu as well, allowing them to slip through the bodies of the Mushi blocking their way. Having escaped the encampment, Ubuki raised her speed again.

Aiming again to the scheduled place, Yuu’s group continued their escape.

Ubuki desperately escaped from Oogui and used Sanbikime’s powers to dodge attacks.

“S—stop this—”

Although she tried wriggling out from Ubuki and Chiharu’s arms, she no longer had any strength.

“You don’t need to care about me—”

Ubuki was clearly acting strange. She was shedding an excessive amount of sweat, and blood dripped down her bitten lips. She breathed violently and started hyperventilating.

Konomura Chami’s ability could strengthen the abilities of Mushitsuki. This power that was unknown even to Chami herself had a huge recoil. She was approved to use it for a few seconds—but Ubuki had kept using it for hundreds of times more than that.

“Along with that guy I took… Satou-san’s also waiting there! If we can just get there, we should be able to seal Yuu-chan’s dream again…!”

“Stop Ubuki-san—Chiharu-san—”

“…Ubuki-chan.”

Chiharu was also panting as she spoke. Apparently using her powers as Aria Varei burdened her as well.

“Sensei loved how you flew so freely in the sky—”

Ubuki’s face twitched.

“And he said you were a kind girl… Aria’s saying this.”

''Why all that right now…!

If her mouth could move freely, Yuu would have probably yelled this at Chiharu.

''If you say all this, Ubuki will—

“—Ahaha.”

Ubuki raised her speed even further. She immediately gained distance on Oogui.

“Ahahahahaha!”

Droplets flying from Ubuki’s laughing chin struck Yuu’s cheeks.

She felt that this warm liquid was not sweat.

“You can’t give up, Yuu-chan.”

Chiharu said this despite Yuu being unable to escape from Oogui’s charm.

“You’re not a Mushitsuki—but fight. I believe you’ll be able to save the Mushitsuki fighting so desperately this way as well.”

“—”

Yuu, who had already long since given up, couldn’t say anything.

She wanted to save Mushitsuki—

Despite this being Yuu’s dream, she somehow lost sight of its true meaning.

“Fight now, not to wish for your dream—but to grant it.”

Fighting.

As Yuu wasn’t a Mushitsuki but a completely normal girls, she thought those kinds of words were unrelated to her.

However, even the non-Mushitsuki Yuu had her own fight.

And it might be happening right at this moment—

“Yuu-chan, will you tell me your dream?”

“Ugh—Uuuuuuh!”

Desperately gritting her teeth, she rejected Oogui’s enchantment. She couldn’t actually grit her teeth, but that meant nothing.

For a split second, their speed plummeted.

Chiharu was about to exhaust her powers.

“—Uwaaaah…!”

Wringing the last of her powers, Ubuki regained her speed.

Seeing her like this, Yuu’s heart was strengthened.

Mushitsuki who fought while shaving their lives gave Yuu power even she didn’t know she possessed.

It was also like this back when the three of them—Yuu, Ubuki, and Shiika escaped Akamaki City.

“M-my dream is—”

Yuu’s mouth moved.

In the far distance, she could see a vast empty lot.

Seeing several people standing there, Yuu this time really did grit her teeth.

“I’ll never… tell someone like you!”

“—!”

Oogui gasped and stopped moving. Following this, many of her swarms of Mushi all exploded into purple mist and vanished.

Wriggling in Ubuki’s arms, Yuu looked at the vacant lot ahead.

Three people stood there.

One was Konomura Chami.

Chami was—angry. Yuu couldn’t see it from here, but there was no mistake the girl was grimacing in wrath. Ever since the three operations started—no, since she heard about the reserve plan from Mimic at the East Central Branch, she kept being blinded with rage.

Next to Chami stood Satou Youko. She opened her suitcase and Yuu could see it was turned toward someone in front of her.

The remaining person was—

“You told me you’d take care of the rest…”

Recalling her escape journey from Akamaki City, there was a person she’d recall along with Ubuki and Shiika.

That boy wiped Yuu’s tears after she risked her life to pass him the disk, and spoke to her.

—''Leave the rest to me.

Yuu and others fought just like back then, and finally—

“Kakkou-san!”

Arrived to him.

Unlike back then, the boy standing next to Chami and Youko did not wear his goggles. He looked neither strong nor reliable while facing Satou Youko, his face completely expressionless.

However, she never would mistake it.

This person was Kusuriya Daisuke—Blaze Class Rank 1 Mushitsuki, Kakkou.

Ubuki had found him while he was being transported and brought him here.

“We’re, here—”

The moment she landed in front of Chami, Ubuki collapsed while smiling.

“Ubuki-san!”

“So damn slow! Yuu, get treated by Youko already! —Chiharu!”

Dragging the collapsed Ubuki, Chami brought her away from Kakkou.

Chiharu approached her silent brother and hugged him.

“Daisuke—”

Youko pulled on Yuu’s arm. She moved to another place and opened her suitcase.

A strange mark had been drawn inside the opened case. It consisted of an X crisscrossed by an arrow.

The Coatl Head symbol.

Since Yuu had used this to get hypnotized, Youko used this to cast her suggestion on her, but—

“W-what’s going to happen with Kakkou-san…?”

She couldn’t remove her eyes from Kakkou and Chiharu right now. She asked Chami.

“If Oogui can bring back Fuyuhotaru to life, it wouldn’t be odd for Sanbikime to be able to bring Kakkou back to life too! Me and Youko already gave him as much stimulation as we could for that sake—”

Chami explained this, but just like Yuu thought before, both her voice and expression held clear anger.

“I don’t like this one bit, though… I did hear from Mimic about the plans to revive Lady Bird and wake up Sleeping Beauty—but why there’s nothing about Kakkou!”

Yuu didn’t really get the reason for Chami’s anger. She probably reached her own kind of boiling point.

“I’m also mad at Miguruma for creating such plans full of holes all over, but the East Central Branch—no, that shithead bastard is outrageous! Is he really gonna abandon his pawn at this point?”

As she hugged Kakkou, Chiharu’s body glowed azure.

“Ah, I found you… this is Daisuke’s dream—”

Following Chiharu’s whisper, Kakkou too started glowing in azure.

Watching over them, Chami yelled angrily.

[[File:Mushi Uta 13 p431.jpg|thumb]]

“I’m different from all of you! If you’re sayin’ you don’t need it, I’ll take it as my pawn!”

Yuu also heard about Mimic’s plans.

Mimic was going to revive Lady Bird, and Kanon would sacrifice himself instead of Sleeping Beauty.

Meaning—

“Now, all the Rank 1s are here…!”

As Yuu mumbled this—

Kakkou’s fingertips twitched.