Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 11 Chapter 1 (section)

== 1.04 Daisuke Part 3 ==

Kii-kun.

As they came to the convenience store with the boy of that name, they found out that it was being investigated by the police.

Two boys who collapsed at the parking lot were taken away by an ambulance.

He could hear firefighter sirens. They probably came to extinguish the cars that were destroyed and caught fire.

“What happened to those guys? No way they’re dead, right…?”

Mixing among the onlookers, Kii-kun asked, looking really worried.

“Looks like they’re still breathing. I don’t know what will happen from now, though… Cough.”

Mikko spoke while coughing.

“…”

As far as Daisuke saw, the condition of Kii-kun’s two friends wasn’t good.

To him, they looked like what happened to a host when their Mushi got killed—they became Fallen.

However, unlike that state that Daisuke knew, the two boys had apparently lost consciousness immediately after the Mushi was born. That would mean those “legs” weren’t under the host’s control from the very first moment.

“What about that dark woman you talked about?”

“L-looks like she’s gone. —I-I’m not lying! That woman definitely did something! She was fine even after being run over by a car, so she definitely wasn’t normal…!”

According to Kii-kun, a certain woman did something to his friends.

A dark woman clad in tattered clothing.

Originally, there should have been only three of those called the Original Three who gave birth to Mushitsuki.

However, the dark woman Kii-kun had explained about matched none of them. Her appearance was different from Oogui, and Shinpu wouldn’t go fishing around in trash. Sanbikime had never been witnessed before, but the created Mushi wasn’t a Fusion Type anyway.

However, the “wings” and “legs” Daisuke saw—definitely resembled Mushi.

He couldn’t see past that contradiction.

“Do you have a cellphone?”

“Hmm? Yeah—”

He grabbed the cellphone Kii-kun took out and pushed in a number.

“The number you have dialed is presently unused. Please check the number and—”

He couldn’t reach the SEPB’s emergency address. Never mind the Central Branch, the East Central Branch that Daisuke belonged to was the same.

He pushed in the numbers of as many acquaintances as he could remember. Haji Senri, Ogata Akatsuki—

“The number you have—”

It was no use.

All numbers associated with the SEPB were completely shut out.

“…Are you aware that at present Akamaki City is engulfed in a strange mist?”

“Huh? N-no… A mist, you say?”

“What’s this, all of a sudden? Cough.”

Both Kii-kun and Mikko were confused.

Something was going on inside Akamaki City that became an enclosed miniature garden.

However, the people inside it were unaware of that.

Daisuke couldn’t think that the facts the Central Headquarters were completely silent and him being unable to use his Mushi were a coincidence.

Although he could see the omens of something odd, there was no one who could stop them—

“Kii-kun—have you ever been on a ship?”

“A ship? Right, I haven’t… I was on a plane, though.”

Kii-kun frowned as if not understanding what the hell he was talking about.

“…”

The moment he entered Akamaki City, Daisuke had definitely seen it within the mist.

Kii-kun had half his body in a horrible state and was dying.

And then, Mikko nearby spoke.

''—If I could return to the past—I would have probably killed all of you the moment we met…

He didn’t mistake it.

''—Kii-kun, Kasshi, Rui… as well as me… we shouldn’t have come here…

While crying, Mikko prophesized destruction.

However, Kii-kun and Mikko said they never met before.

If so, then what was that scene?

Just an illusion?

Or perhaps—a laughable thought passed through his mind.

On the abandoned ship where dead appeared one after another, the scene of the girl prophesizing destruction.

What if this wasn’t the present or the past, but instead something that would happen afterward—

“If ‘she’ isn’t here, I will go already.”

“W-wait a minute! What about those two? Would they never return?!”

“There are no cases of people waking up after becoming like that. Unfortunately… cough.”

“No way…”

“Cases? What do you know about that Mushi?”

Mikko who entered the national road while weaving through onlookers, Daisuke and Kii-kun followed.

“—It is my father’s fault.”

Mikko coughed.

“My father is a researcher. Originally, he was an accomplished psychologist, and he was also a doctor who conducted clinical experiments… due to my mother’s death, he immersed himself into certain research.”

“Certain research?”

“—Immortality.”

''Twitch.

Daisuke unconsciously moved his eyebrows.

“Research about the Undying, a person who’d never die… he started chasing after that silly thing. My father, who had even been called a genius, broke down, unable to accept my mother’s death. Everyone laughed at him and isolated him—but at a certain point, he obtained collaborators.”

Mikko frowned in pain. She was possibly angry, or perhaps sad.

“The Round Table… if they hadn’t become patrons to my father, half as a joke, and pushed this research on him, this wouldn’t have happened.”

The Round Table?

Daisuke only just barely stopped himself from emitting a voice.

He heard about them before from his superior, Goroumaru Touko. They were a limited-member club formed by the rich, that possessed vast influence.

“As my father obtained research funds, he dirtied his hands in inhuman experiments. Who Kii-kun met is one lab rat. She went through horrible stuff, and I took care of her. In the end she became able to give birth to monsters, but—”

Mikko looked at Daisuke. Her almond eyes narrowed in sorrow.

“I think of us as sisters.”

Kii-kun’s face stiffened.

“W-what… is that for real? Or is that from some movie?”

“Right, you should just go and think that. About your friends—I really am sorry.”

Grinning with just her eyes, Mikko started walking again.

Kii-kun stood there in shock.

“…”

Daisuke left the topknot boy behind and followed after Mikko.

''—If I could return to the past—I would have probably killed all of you the moment we met…

It wasn’t like he believed that scene.

However, what if—if a Mushi with the power of prophecy existed, it was possible that this was the meaning behind that mist.

There was no longer any information he needed out of Kii-kun.

Even if he wouldn’t get killed like in the prophecy, it was probably best to part ways here.

“Cough… Daisuke-san, was it? Why are you following me?”

“Because there’s still loads of things I wanna question you about.”

The Original Three were enemies to Mushitsuki.

Not one had been defeated as of yet, and he couldn’t allow himself to miss the omen about the possibility of a fourth one being born.

Once he managed to escape Akamaki City, he should return to report—

That path crossed his mind, but he soon rejected it.

He couldn’t take his eyes off of this girl called Mikko. Even if he took her out of Akamaki City, he had no guarantee one could safely pass through the mist.

“Are you attracted to me? I still find you disgusting even if you were to hide it, so please state it clearly. I’m sorry, I cannot see someone like you as a potential mate. However, even someone as creepy and hopeless as you who just got rejected by me, can be my friend.”

“What are you planning to do, once you find the dark woman?”

“Ow.”

Daisuke asked this while lightly slapping her, and Mikko rubbed her cheek.

“I want—to set her free.”

“…”

“I know where she is heading. Since she was brought from overseas—she is probably trying to head back there.”

Mikko made a small cough.

“Wait!”

A voice came from behind.

Kii-kun ran toward the two, his face on the verge of tears.

“D-don’t leave me behind…! I’ll go too!”

The boy appeared again to pursue Daisuke and Mikko.

Although it was something so simple—

''Shudder.

An inexpressible chill stabbed Daisuke from head to toe.

Kii-kun, who should have parted once was reunited with Mikko—

This inseverable connection caused a reasonless anxiety to swell inside him.

“…What? Got any business with us?”

Daisuke endeavored to speak in a cold voice.

“Me, too…”

“What are you talking about? …Cough.”

“Just like those two—that dark woman also did something to me.” 

Both Daisuke and Mikko stiffened their faces.

“Will I… also become like them?”

The boy entreating on the verge of tears, and the horrible corpse he saw within the mist.

Those two people that had a topknot overlapped in Daisuke’s eyes.