Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 8 Chapter 1 (section)

== 1.03 The Others ==
Inside the café near the station, Kirari checked the contents of the manila envelope she'd received.

Confirming the number of bills, she handed over receipts in return, bowing.

"Thank you for using our services."

The man sitting on the other side of the table said "No no, you're the one who's helped me" while laughing. His worn-out suit and head full of white hair seemed fitting for someone like him that worked in middle management as a public servant.

"I don't know which big shot is giving that lecture, but they asked us to change the place so suddenly. Just handling construction and obtaining equipment and manpower was trouble enough. If you hadn't been helping us we would've never made it in time for the opening. Seriously, the higher-ups can't just order us to—"

The middle-aged man complained while drinking coffee. "Excuse me," Kirari said as she lowered her head and took the cup in front of her, filling it with iced water.

"It really is a thankless job. Damned if you do, damned if you don't…"

She had received many requests from the man in front of her, who served as the general affairs subsection head. Although her jobs from government offices were few, the payment was assured so it helped her a lot.

However, she knew that it would definitely not continue for long.

"By the way. It's hard to say… we've asked for your help in the shopping district event, but can we cancel that?"

Consequently, when the man suddenly broached the topic she wasn't surprised in the least.

"…Understood. If you ever need me again, call for me."

Without even asking the reason, she meekly lowered her head. The man bent forward, whispering to her.

"Miss Handyman. Have you done something to the Akasegawa Group?"

"…"

"Just between you and me, I've been receiving some pressure. Having those sharks suddenly come to us made even my bosses shake. Do you have any idea?"

"No… sorry for causing you trouble."

Kirari bowed again.

She did have an idea. However, in addition to what happened in the past, she didn't want to complain and cause problems for him.

"Well, once the heat is off I'll ask you again in secret."

Saying this and smiling amicably, the man indeed didn't look like he would make it far in his career.

She felt guilty for taking advantage of his goodwill, but Kirari flung a question at him.

"May I ask you a question?"

"Hmm?"

"There was the explosion incident at the electrical substation… right now, how is the public treating the matter?"

"Oh, that incident… why are you asking?"

"It's a personal matter, but it relates to something different… of course, if it troubles you I will ask no further."

"Hmm. About that, those disaster prevention guys complained about it. Although there weren't any casualties, the police and some fishy people forcibly dug out the materials and took them away—"

The light-mouthed public servant was able to present some information even while keeping it vague.

Hearing his tale, Kirari said her thanks and rose from the seat.

"Oh, and another thing. I don't know if it's some sort of charm or whatever, but they're finding the increasing graffiti troubling. I wanted to ask you to take care of that as well but…"

The man said to her back just as she was leaving. While he was looking out of the windows, his eyes focused on some girls leaving a strange mark on a nearby power pole.

A diagonally-slanted arrow and two lines crossing it.

That symbol was God's charm and could make any wish come true.

"It's Coatl Head."

Kirari said, smiling.

"If you have children, they definitely know about it."

"I'll try asking… I wonder if that could serve as a topic for one of our rare parent-child talks."

As he grabbed his walking stick, the man's expression became a slightly happy smile.

This night, if the man spoke with his children—then those children would talk about it tomorrow with their friends.

And so it would spread.

The marking fad would spread anywhere and everywhere—

"Coatl Coatl Para Emile."

Leaving the café, Kirari passed by the girls reciting the chant near the power pole. Holding the manila envelope, she headed toward a supermarket near the road.

Yet her thinking ground to a halt and she stopped in place.

Paying her bills would probably mean that she could kiss goodbye even the money she'd just received. However, she was late on her payment anyway and she thought of a different way to spend it. —Also, since she'd already received another investigation request on a different matter, she could use the money from that to pay the bills.

Today she could splurge a little bit, buy some nutritious food and go back home. There was also the wounded Kusuriya Daisuke, and since she just finished her work and had an empty stomach she wanted to reward herself.

As she was walking the curtain of night fell and the neon signs around town started lighting up. Her cellphone suddenly rang.

"Hello, Handyman Kirari☆ speaking."

The screen displayed an anonymous number, but she knew the person on the other side.

"Oh, Munakata-san… it has been a long time."

Munakata Kaiji. He was acting as a patron for the Mushitsuki resistance group known as Mushibane. As an entrepreneur, he was well-known only to the people in the know.

"Yes, yes. This isn't a mistake… the boy with that large bag, right. I have introduced him. Yes… is that so. Please tell him to do his best. —Have you found out anything about Haemori Ak—is that so… no, thank you very much. Huh? Snow Fly-san wants to…? No, being greeted by her… I'm not such an important—"

Mushi and Mushitsuki.

Kirari had become involved with these special beings a long time ago.

Well, it was only a handful of years ago.

Yet in those few years Kirari met countless Mushitsuki. Even now, because she was involved with Mushitsuki that much, she had been able to make contacts in many places.

All of it started in middle school, when she'd met a certain Mushitsuki.

"Sorry, I know that Mushibane's also going through a huge change right now. Yes, yes… Munakata-san, how is your health…? Oh, I see."

Noticing some engine noises, she looked ahead, the cellphone still held to her ears.

An abnormally long white limousine parked near Kirari. A black-suited man coming out of it grabbed her arm.

"Please do take care of yourself. Yes, well then—"

Without moving, Kirari said her goodbyes to the other side, and then ended the call.

"Get inside, please."

Not letting her even reply, Kirari was flung into the car.

The door was closed with a thud and at the same time, the limousine started moving.

The interior of the car she'd been taken captive on was almost too spacious to think it was actually the inside of a car. There were long seats on both sides and a table in the center. Visible throughout the soundproof glass in the front were the figures of the driver and the man who forced her inside the limousine.

Kirari scowled at the smell of alcohol filling the car.

"Yaha. Long time, Kirari."

Not including those beyond the soundproof glass, the only ones inside the car were Kirari and another girl her age.

Since she was wearing a party dress, perhaps she was getting back home from some event. The large ornaments decorating her long hair were the same color as her flushed cheeks. She had drowsy eyes as she leaned back on the seat, and near her legs was a walking stick in the shape of an upside-down J.

There was a bottle on the table, and the liquid both inside it and within the glass the girl was holding in her hand was expensive-looking red wine. —Minor drinking was against the law, but no cops would probably be able to arrest her.

[[File:Mushi Uta 8 p119.jpg|thumb]]

While kicking the wine opener that fell on the floor, the girl cackled.

"Aren't you as dirt-poor as always?"

Akasegawa Nanana.

The girl that served as the Chairman of the large company that held many businesses under its umbrella—the Akasegawa Group.

"…"

In contrast to Nanana who sat on the driver's side, Kirari sat in the opposite rear seat.

Inside the wide limousine, the two people sat in opposite sides. —That distance exemplified the changed relationship of the two past friends.

"You look to be well, Nanana."

Kirari, who wore cheap clothes, smiled toward the expensively-dressed Nanana.

"Everything's going swimmingly well; the economy is so good it's a bother."

"I see."

"It looks like your economy is worse than ever, though. Was your job cancelled?"

"…"

"Yahaha. What's up with that weird face? Are you laughing? Are you crying?"

Seeing Kirari make a complex expression, Nanana clapped her hands and laughed.

"Well, I got in your way, of course."

"…"

"Even so I followed the rules in my own way. I didn't hurt you directly and I won't get involved in matters of life or death. Because I find you important, you know? We're friends, after all."

Right, friends.

Kirari not receiving her middle school graduation report, being unable to enroll in high school, being unable to work anywhere so that she had to run an unlicensed handyman business—all of that was because she was standing in Nanana's way. 

Being robbed of her future was also because of Nanana.

"That's right."

Kirari smiled.

Even now, she thought of Nanana as her friend. —Even if she knew Nanana calling her a "friend" was a farce.

"Yahahaha."

After flailing her limbs and laughing for a while, Nanana looked at Kirari with teary eyes.

"Aren't you an idiot?"

"…"

"If you'd just told me where the Kind Magician was, we could have stayed friends."

Once, when Kirari had been a middle schooler—

There was a Mushitsuki.

She was a Mushitsuki older than Kirari who had the ability to swap her five senses or her mind with other people.

That Mushitsuki kept using her ability to help strangers. Because she'd always receive pain from other people, every time Kirari met her, her body was covered in wounds. She obviously worked without reward, and even those people whose pain she took didn't know about her.

The girl herself said that this was the only possible thing she could do.

She could do nothing else.

She said that the one who made her notice that was the girl called Akasegawa Nanana.

That was why that Mushitsuki would protect Nanana from the shadows, and Nanana also called her the Kind Magician in admiration.

"…"

It wasn't just Nanana who admired her.

Kirari also admired the Kind Magician.

Or perhaps it would be more precise to say that she sympathized with her. She resembled that Mushitsuki in everything—starting from her not being good at talking and being unable to make a decent living.

That Mushitsuki had taught Kirari many things.

Among those were hand-to-hand fighting, underground knowledge—even lock picking and hacking became useful once she started working as a jack-of-all-trades.

It wasn't just that. Fighting against Mushitsuki, resisting mental attacks and the like, have all saved Kirari from predicaments countless times.

"Won't you give up already? Isn't your complexion bad? Don't you want to have a proper meal?"

Just like her name entailed, the Kind Magician was very kind, and a powerful Mushitsuki.

She had offered up her body for complete strangers and her benefactor Nanana.

Yet just once—she had made a mistake.

Kirari knew the result of this sad news.

Perhaps the Kind Magician herself also knew her fate. That was why she'd taught everything to Kirari.

One day, the Kind Magician suddenly vanished—

Kirari, who knew that reason for it, still hadn't told anything to Nanana.

And Nanana was angry.

Following this betrayal, her friendship turned to hatred.

And Kirari—lost both her friend and her future simultaneously.

"You're helping Mushitsuki secretly… did you think I don't know about that?"

Nanana changed her expression. Since Kirari kept her mouth shut, she apparently changed her method of attack.

"…"

Kirari, who didn't know her parents, had lived in a certain facility, but it had been closed down after the donor organization helping it had shut down.

Immediately after losing everything, Kirari had been saved by the Kind Magician and got taught many illegal methods. Making her livelihood through theft, she met Mushitsuki by coincidence, and ended up helping them.

However, after being found by the Special Environmental Preservation Bureau—she met the person called Haji Keigo.

When the youth with the cynical smile saw Kirari, he looked like he was scheming something. They didn't speak much, but he gave Kirari living expenses. For some reason not even Nanana could stand in his way. She still remembered how vexed Nanana had been back then.

Ever since, Kirari spent her days as a handyman, and also helped Mushitsuki in need. Now, in addition to her vast connection network, some Mushitsuki even heard rumors and came to her by themselves.

Perhaps if she hadn't met the Kind Magician, she'd been able to live as a normal girl.

One could also say that Mushitsuki were the root of evil that stole her future.

Even so she kept helping Mushitsuki—

Perhaps because of a single, worthless reason.

"You keep worrying about Mushitsuki even now, right?"

Her past friend spoke, wearing a malicious smile.

"Aren't you also worried about the incident at the electric substation? Maybe it's related to Mushitsuki as well-"

Kirari's heart skipped a bit.

She carelessly let it show on her face. Nanana grinned.

"Yaha. I knew it. If you tell me where the Kind Magician is, I'll help you."

The Mushitsuki born in this town rose to the back of Kirari's mind.

That Mushitsuki had a problem that was incomparable to any of those she'd met before.

And it was also—a Mushitsuki that must never be allowed to exist.

She hated her fate for having met someone like that just this once.

It was a hopeless event that she couldn't deal with. However—

"…"

"Is something weird?"

Seeing Kirari's smile, Nanana grimaced.

It had all ended already.

That Mushitsuki that shouldn't have been born was already gone.

No one, no matter who they were, could reveal their gravestone.

By disappearing from the world, that Mushitsuki could be said to have been saved—

"So stupid. Helping strangers and even Mushitsuki… one day they're going to kill you."

Nanana spoke hatefully.

It was true.

By saving Mushitsuki, she would gain nothing. And so she affirmed it.

"Yes, it is stupid."

"Yes, it's stupid. Stupid, stuuupid. Yahaha. Stupid Kirari!"

With her drunkenness, Nanana flailed her limbs and raised laughter.

"I'm too stupid, so I can't even pretend to be stupid. …Unlike you, Nanana."

The movements of the clamoring Nanana stopped in place. —For the young Nanana to survive in the business world controlled by ambition, she knew how to deal with things in unorthodox methods.

Even though she knew there was nothing she could do.

Even if she knew she was being stupid.

Kirari probably kept saving Mushitsuki—for the same reason like that friend in front of her.

And for her it was a hopeless reason.

Nothing more than a simple, single emotion.

"Say, Nanana."

Along with her smile, Kirari inquired.

"Do you hate Mushitsuki?"

Nanana—the girl who, despite always scheming these obstructions, never stood in her way when it had to with Mushitsuki—turned around. Perhaps due to her excessive laughter, there were tears in her eyes.

The girl who came to like Mushitsuki just like Kirari spoke in a hoarse voice.

"—I loathe Mushitsuki."

The limousine stopped in a road near Kirari's office.

When she got off, the limousine left immediately.

"…"

Seeing off the white car, Kirari felt a certain anxiety.

Although she'd been able to act strong in front of Nanana, her bad premonition wasn't gone.

According to what she heard from the general affairs subsection head, it was obvious that there were people investigating the explosion incident at the electrical substation.

"People are trying to find the Mushitsuki of the Substation Ruins…"

Mumbling, she gazed at the townscape visible from the road.

Mixed with neon lights, she could see the symbol drawn in fluorescent colors here and there.

The charm that could make anything come true, Coatl Head—

Kirari hadn't started being cautious only recently. Ever since the incident at the substation, she never let her guard down.

Because of this, she was convinced.

"''There are multiple groups''… at the very least, more than two forces are hiding in this town—"

Kirari could definitely feel the presence of the invisible searchers.

And all of them were probably dreadfully cautious and shrewd.

"What are they trying to do, searching for a Mushitsuki that's no longer here…?"

The Mushitsuki born in this town was gone.

Even so, if there was someone who was trying to expose their tomb—Kirari would continue hiding it.

Forever.

She wouldn't let anyone touch that gravestone—

"…?"

Having returned to the office, she tilted her head.

Underneath the starry sky, there was a single shadow that stood there as if waiting for her.

Waiting for Kirari under the building of the office.

She knew the meaning of that action.

"Do you have a request?"

Grinning, Ikarino Kirari received her client.

<noinclude>