Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 6th Episode 24 (section)

=== Part 4 ===

Something warm was always smoldering inside his heart.

What he felt the moment he was born was the joy of living.

What he felt every day he’d survived the countless “disasters” was attachment to life.

What he felt by becoming a Mushitsuki was rage and hatred.

Everything around him was only things he couldn’t accept.

Even so the world was fun and beautiful. He loved this world, but did the world hate him? Perhaps he wasn’t even allowed to live—he thought this even if he didn’t like it.

Right, he kept thinking about this tens of thousands of times.

Leaving his hometown, becoming a Mushitsuki, parting with Sanbikime on Aoharima Island.

After finally shaking off the SEPB’s pursuit, even now that he reached Akamaki City—he hadn’t reached any conclusion.

“…”

Sehateno Harukiyo was submerged in the sea of flames.

The place that was a public sports ground a short while ago now became a dome of flames glowing bright red. Firefighters outside were probably desperately trying to extinguish it, but the wall created from the flames born from his burning heart would never be quenched by a few measly water guns.

Suddenly a ripple appeared in the wall of blaze.

Most likely the SEPB finally appeared. They were probably at their wits’ end about how to try and handle this Mushitsuki-created whirl of explosive flames. If they left him alone, it was obvious that it’d be difficult to hide this from the public eye.

“…”

Still sitting in the burning stands, Harukiyo made no move.

He could feel that the Great Yama tiger dwelling inside him was quickly devouring his heart—his dreams. If his “guest” did not arrive soon, he would destroy himself and die.

But he didn’t care about that at all.

Harukiyo always lived while risking his life.

He just did it again.

“…”

The illumination used for night games was melting from the base. Slowly bending, they eventually fell to the grass burnt to a carpet of ashes. Part of the lightbulbs melted, dripping and flowing on the ground.

As far as he looked, he could only see flames.

Flames.

Flames.

He was already used to seeing that red, burning energy.

From the moment his life began until this very moment, it always was on Harukiyo’s side.

The moment he got out of his mother’s womb, the nurse escaped the hospital to protect him. In his deepest memories she was brave, and her attachment to life was incredible. That she directed that zeal toward the newborn and not herself was a pity.

After that in the orphanage, it wasn’t only the orphans but everyone there. There were weak and strong, but only Harukiyo survived.

Among his middle school classmates, there was a pretty girl he liked. She had strong feelings of wanting to live, and was an important resource for Harukiyo, as she might have possessed the strength he wished for. However, in the end—she died in Harukiyo’s arms. That girl somewhat bore a strong resemblance to the nurse that saved his newborn self.

The flames that burned everyone around Harukiyo.

The flames that let only him survive.

But the true flames—

“Were these flames—just me?”

He ended up thinking it.

Burning away all humans but him, he survived.

Using the lives of others as fuel, he became stronger.

His very life—was like a flame.

“Is everything my fault?”

This self-questioning repeated itself thousands, millions of times.

His existence was hated by fate. He was cursed.

He had no intention to think about such outrageous things.

He just had a bit of a bad luck.

An inborn bad luck.

However—he would raise his voice to speak.

He was always trying to live. Never mind the moment he was born, but also the time the facility burnt down, the time his classmates died, he always kept living and tried saving those near him.

But as a result, he always ended up being the sole survivor.

He couldn’t save anyone. He alone lived.

Was that—his sin?

Every time he survived, his heart was scorched again and again, and it kept smoldering.

“I don’t feel like either condemning myself or being condemned with words alone.”

However, one day the ill feelings scorching his heart begun to change.

He would never forget this.

It happened when he came to know of Hunter.

Hanashiro Mari—the moment he heard her name.

They turned into an impulse that moved him much more than anything.

A single girl, whose face he’d never seen, caused his chest to burn with yearning.

His feelings burning for the Mushitsuki called Hanashiro Mari had invited him to this land—

“—Because of that, I’ve investigated about her again and again.”

Harukiyo widened his eyes.

It was because he saw a spot open up in his created wall of scorching flames.

Piercing through the wall of flames—was a smoking, writhing, black-colored insect.

It was a tardigrade with numerous small but thick legs.

“Hanashiro Mari became frantic and started looking for the Undying Mushitsuki, right?”

No person should have been able to approach this hell.

Even if they were a mere Mushitsuki, this didn’t change.

If they were able to step inside—then they were a monster with power beyond humans, just like Harukiyo.

Appearing at this domain that rejected all civilians was truly a monster.

Swarms upon swarms of tardigrades gathered, transforming—changing into a human arm.

“Now I’m really fuckin’ jealous—”

Harukiyo stood up, sneering with joy.

The human arm made of tardigrades extended even further. Piercing through the wall of flames, the tardigrades gathered again, forming a black suit and sunglasses with lenses of differing colors—and then a human face.

''Kuha—

The boy who recovered his form by the assembled tardigrades exhaled white smoke from his mouth.

“This place is—really humid.”

Harukiyo calmly welcomed him.

“Who the hell are you? Give your name.”

“I am the Special Environmental Preservation Bureau Central Headquarters Director, Ichiku Mikitaka.”

The boy used his cleaved, yet to be fully-formed mouth to sneer.

“I’ll try guessing what you’re thinking right now. ‘I’m so grateful to you for accepting my invitation! Could we have a nice little talk?’—right?”

“Completely wrong.”

Harukiyo raised his right hand. The flames wrapped around his arm, transforming to a howling Great Yama tiger beetle.

“First I’ll kill you!”

Explosive wind blew through the playground buried in flames.

Oscillating the air, the Great Yama tiger beetle was launched toward Ichiku Mikitaka like a cannonball. With a billowing shockwave blown around, the whirl of hellfire swallowed the sunglasses boy whole.

Mikitaka, who only got the upper half of his body through the wall of flames, broke and scattered helplessly. The many tardigrades splashed around like water.

“This is a no-entry zone for people who aren’t Undying.”

His eyes twinkling, Harukiyo smiled.

He had business only with the Undying Mushitsuki that Hanashiro Mari had been looking for.

That was why Harukiyo had created this domain.

There was no way the SEPB wouldn’t know about a Mushitsuki that Hanashiro Mari had been looking for. And if they knew about them but concealed them—there was no doubt that this being was part of the organization itself.

His prediction was right on the mark.

This space that the SEPB couldn’t ignore.

The hell that only someone Undying would be able to enter.

By preparing this stage with those two conditions, Harukiyo, who wasn’t as patient as Mari, managed to induce the person he was looking for to show himself.

“I see. How convenient—”

The moment after Mikitaka’s voice echoed from somewhere.

Piercing through the wall of flames, a black tsunami crashed into the inside of the playground.

A tidal wave of innumerable black grains—a massive swarm of tardigrades.

Even while the tardigrades’ bodies were being burned, they clung to the surrounding flames. Even while they were raising smoke and their bodies shriveled and melted, they sank fangs into the fire.

They were—eating Harukiyo’s flames.

“It was worth it to come here and test your ‘nature’.”

The boy’s voice came from behind Harukiyo.

As he turned around he could see Ichiku Mikitaka with half of his body restored by the swarms of tardigrades. His arm made of assembled beetles reached toward Harukiyo.

“Haha!”

Roaring with laughter, Harukiyo swung his left arm.

The whirl of surging flames and heat bisected Ichiku Mikitaka’s body. Then, the high-pressure explosive wind arriving with a short delay blew away the remnants of the boy’s body along with the spectator seats behind him.

Something suddenly firmly grabbed the base of Harukiyo’s throat.

Turning around, the Ichiku Mikitaka created from the tardigrade swarm was there. The boy’s hand lacking a middle finger and pinky was holding to Harukiyo’s neck.

Harukiyo’s body was thrown to the side. Hurled by superhuman strength, his body collapsed on the spectator seats, rolled on top of the ashen ground, crushed the melted illumination and stopped.

“—‘Nature’, was it?”

The lighting equipment was blown off by explosive wind. Harukiyo instantly rose up. Since he’d defended using a normally invisible heatwave, he didn’t get even a single wound. As long as his body wasn’t covered up by tardigrades, he could instantly shut out almost any physical attack.

“You’re nothing but talk, eh?”

While rapidly retrieving his human form, Mikitaka loosened his shirt’s collar. —Although he was still raising smoke from all over his body, he did it as if it would help with the heat.

“The only ones allowed here are the Undying, right?”

His lungs perhaps burned, the boy’s exhaled ''kuha'' breath was white.

A black mountain rose behind Ichiku Mikitaka. As if to start the counterattack, the gradually rising pile of tardigrade leapt toward Harukiyo to cover him.

Undying—

These words came out of the mouth of none other than the Undying Mushitsuki himself.

A strange discomfort made Harukiyo’s mind operate in full throttle.

“Oho, then you bastard—”

As Harukiyo mumbled this, a spark fell in front of his eyes.

There was another small spark, and another, and yet another, and the next moment—arrows of explosive fire began to fall from the sky.

Like the rain of fire that destroyed the cities drenched in sin, Sodom and Gomorrah.

This explosive rain, the great disaster depicted in the Old Testament, destroyed the pushing tardigrades one after another.

“Aren’t you Undying?”

What allowed Harukiyo to live until today was not only his physical power.

Always thinking of methods to extend his life, he possessed thinking power that allowed him to bring out the only answer.

“I’m Undying.”

''Kuha'', Ichiku Mikitaka opened his mouth wide and laughed. The surface of his regenerating sunglasses reflected the pillar of tardigrades bursting out of the ground.

“Even if we’re speakin’ of Undying, there are several types, yeah? Being unable to be killed and unable to die are different things, right?”

The swarms of tardigrades who appeared by cutting through the grounds were caught by the fangs of the howling Great Yama tiger beetle and chewed back.

“—Well, doesn’t matter anyway.”

He spat in a cold tone.

He understood all sorts of things in this short time. Inside the truths noticed by Harukiyo, he probably also exposed an outrageous secret.

But above all else, one simple truth sparked his rage.

“Nothing interests you bastard! Not even a single hair of mine! Not even for a single moment!”

The swarm of tardigrades were pushed back by explosive flames.

“I knew it at a glance! Just looking at you gives me heartburn! Those eyes… the eyes of a man who’s actually dead despite living, just like someone I saw on Aoharima Island!”

“I also saw it countless times. Meaning, guys like you.”

''Kuha'', Ichiku exhaled smoke. The flames of hatred toward Harukiyo lit up in his eyes.

[[File:Mushi_Uta_Bug_6th_p293.jpg|thumb]]

Harukiyo and Ichiku Mikitaka crossed their gazes, exposing both of their disgusts.

“I fucking hate guys like you!”

“Just because you’re a Mushitsuki, I also hate you.”

The crimson blazing column and the tidal wave of tardigrade.

Their clash continued.

“I have no fucking interest in you, but Hanashiro Mari’s a different story! Why had she been looking for a useless guy like you?! If you don’t tell me, I’ll kill you!”

“Hmph. Is that a threat? How will you kill someone immortal?”

“Trial and error until I manage to kill you! I’ll haunt you ‘till I die and kill you!”

As he fought with his full strength for the first time in a while, suddenly a certain person rose to Harukiyo’s mind.

There was one Mushitsuki who managed to forcefully hit through Harukiyo’s flames and land a hit on him. The boy called Kakkou. Thinking about it, he also was a Fusion-Type Mushitsuki just like Hanashiro Mari.

That boy was strong. And it wasn’t the kind of strength one easily obtained, but one that came from piling on training and experience, and an obstinate will. It wasn’t the kind of strength gained by losing something or born from genius, and it would never break down.
 
In that alone—Kakkou was no good at all.

As long as that boy had a reason, he would fight anyone. But the reason for fighting Harukiyo was meaningless. Harukiyo hoped from the bottom of his heart that one day the boy’s heart would break and he’d gain enough cruelty to kill everything he laid his eyes on. He expected more from his future.

Like he thought, the only one Harukiyo had to direct his hot feelings at was Hanashiro Mari.

“I see. How annoying of her.”

Ichiku Mikitaka, half of his body ash, sighed as if truly bothered.

“The ghost of Hanashiro Mari managed to summon even a devil from hell. —It’s a bit too much for my liking.”

The body that was getting worn down was rapidly restored by the tardigrades. He probably wouldn’t succumb to threats, but Mikitaka who retrieved his human-like form opened his mouth.

“It’s certain that Hanashiro Mari was a target of interest. Truly, I also went directly to ascertain her nature—to the extent I even gave her an uncharacteristic warning.”

“So you really have met her! Why was Hanashiro Mari looking for you?!”

“Hanashiro Mari—wanted to live.”

Suddenly.

Harukiyo’s arm controlling the Great Yama tiger beetle stopped completely.

“That was that pitiful girl’s dream.”

Wanting to live.

A truly simple and pure wish.

Everything in Harukiyo’s life that he wished for, sought and did could be aggregated into that single idea.

“Because of that she was interested in me, the Undying. —She’d apparently heard about me from Sanbikime.”

“Ha…”

That wish belonged to none other than Hanashiro Mari.

He could truly—only think of it as fate.

His life painted by his own flames, and the “disasters” assaulting him, were just bad luck.

Those words did not fit these sorts of stupid incidents.

The boy called Sehateno becoming involved with Hanashiro Mari was an incident fitting the label of fate. 

“I knew it! As expected from Hanashiro Mari! She wasn’t someone just living for the sake of it! She’s never even thought of dying! Haha! I ain’t happy at all! I already knew all this in the first place!”

“I feel the same. Although she’d already left the world, she came back to it through the Morpho butterfly. And I’ve excavated her nature there.”

“So as expected… that’s Hanashiro Mari?”

The personality of Hanashiro Mari borrowing the body of Ichinokuro Arisu.

That was the real deal.

Regardless of the fact that they were friends, she wore a cold gaze while using Arisu to live.

Harukiyo felt his body tremble with joy.

“She’s quite the woman! Not even dying killed her! And she doesn’t feel like dying at all! Using her own best pal to come back to life is truly inhuman! From her point of view, someone like me who’s a complete outsider is less than a freaking worm! Haha!”

“—Looks like I have miscalculated you.”

As if frozen.

Harukiyo’s smile stiffened.

“That woman chose the angel’s medicine. Thinking this was my mistake.”

Conversely Ichiku Mikitaka was now the one who opened his mouth in a wide smile.

The angel’s medicine—

Harukiyo knew that term.

Because he’d read the picture book left in Hanashiro Mari’s sickroom, “The Magic Medicine”.

“So had she chosen the devil’s medicine?”

A magician came to visit Patricia in her sickbed.

The magician said thusly.

Here is a medicine I’ve gotten from an angel, and a medicine I’ve gotten from a devil. If you drink the angel’s medicine, in exchange for losing your most important person, your illness will heal and you will keep living. If you drink the devil’s medicine, you will probably die on the spot, but your most important person will always stay at your side to console you. Come now, which will you drink?

“No, that’s wrong, too.”

Patricia spoke thusly.

I want the devil’s medicine.

The magician granted Patricia’s wish.

Patricia fell into an everlasting sleep with all of her important people watching over her.

However, Patricia was not lonely. After all, as she was sleeping on top of the hill, the people important to her were watching over her, forever—

“That woman—”

Ichiku Mikitaka’s ice-cold voice pierced Harukiyo’s pounding chest.

“She hadn’t chosen anything at all, right?”

It was as if cold water was thrown on the flames dancing in Harukiyo’s heart.

Instantly the sense of exhilaration inside him flickered.

“Oi… there’s no way that’s right.”

“Ha! When I’d met Hanashiro Mari, she was hesitating!”

Mikitaka sneered. For the first time he raised his voice, ridiculing Harukiyo.

“What about you? Look at that Morpho butterfly! Look at Ichinokuro Arisu! Look at Hanashiro Mari’s flickering ghost! Does she really look like the unwavering Mushitsuki you spoke of?”

“Don’t screw with me… stop fucking with me! That’s Hanashiro Mari! My eyes are not wrong! She was Hanashiro Mari! The fact that the Morpho butterfly still remains is proof! She’d chosen the angel’s medicine! She’d chosen to take over Ichinokuro Arisu’s body and keep living!”

“You’re just telling yourself that! You’re just fooling yourself! Have you ever tried facing that thing for real, like you’re doing to me here? Probably not! Because that’s—”

He never loosened his grip at all.

Even so, just a bit, Harukiyo’s flames pushed by the tardigrades—

“Awfully weak.”

Mikitaka’s sneering words gouged into Harukiyo’s chest.

“She doesn’t even have the overwhelming power she possessed while alive! And she’s not even cruel while possessing Ichinokuro Arisu! It’s an unstable, half-hearted possession! Is that really the Hanashiro Mari you’ve spoken of? Do you think she’s strong enough to withstand even a single attack from you?”

“This is still… not over! Watch out, Hanashiro Mari would soon—”

“Do you think she can revive? Through that unstable Morpho butterfly, no less!”

“—”

Harukiyo was shut up. He stayed silent.

“That Mushi is the remnant of someone who wished to live until her very last moment? Right now you could easily kill her. Or are you saying you’re going to protect that thing and wait until Hanashiro Mari can be perfectly revived? Nope, no way. That is merely—the residue of Hanashiro Mari’s dream! You just need to accept this!”

“Shut… up.”

A hoarse voice leaked from his throat.

—''Hanashiro Mari’s gone.

The words Kusezaki Ume had said rose to his mind. Harukiyo had laughed them off, but now he couldn’t do so.

The reason being—it was just like Ichiku Mikitaka said.

When he’d heard that Hanashiro Mari was dead, he’d felt disappointed.

But coming to know of the Morpho butterfly’s existence, he found yet another possibility.

Even so, the Morpho butterfly was actually—

“It means that even Hanashiro Mari was but a mere Mushitsuki!”

Why was she weak?

It plagued him with doubts.

It went without saying for Ichinokuro Arisu, but even Hanashiro Mari borrowing her body couldn’t hold a candle to Harukiyo.

No, he couldn’t say it just yet. Soon she’d retrieve her full powers. —He told himself this and kept waiting even now. But inside his heart, he’d already thought of “that”.

Was Hanashiro Mari—really going to revive?

“Holding a dream beyond one’s station, hesitating, giving up in the middle and dying—that’s a Mushitsuki! Hanashiro Mari was the exactly the same! Nothing strange about it!”

“Shut up…”

Even if she could take over Ichinokuro Arisu’s personality.

In the end, was that truly Hanashiro Mari?

The cruel Hunter that Harukiyo came to know of when he’d first become a Mushitsuki—

The strongest Mushitsuki that Sanbikime had told him about in Aoharima Island—

Would that Hanashiro Mari really come back to life?

“She never thought of anything other than living? She never thought of dying? Ha! That Mushitsuki called Hanashiro Mari wasn’t anything as grand as that! Even now she lingers, unable to choose between death or life, she’s just a half-hearted Mushitsuki beyond any salvation, nothing more!”

“I TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP!!!”

A storm of flames exploded with the shouting Harukiyo in its center.

Blowing the spectator seats to smithereens, the ground itself was lifted up. All the illumination was completely melted and boiled.

The large Great Yama tiger beetle crunched Ichiku Mikitaka’s body. With its leftover momentum, the flame Mushi rose to the sky, howling.

“—How pitiful. And just like a Mushitsuki.”

He heard the voice of the boy who was definitely a Mushitsuki himself from the wall of fire wrapping the entire sports ground.

The tardigrades gathered, restoring Ichiku Mikitaka’s form a step before the wall. But he soon stuck out one arm into the wall, piercing the curtain of flames despite getting torched.

“Right now you are just like a child getting excited over an egg that will never hatch.”

Harukiyo turned, glaring at the Undying Mushitsuki with scorching eyes.

“Are you satisfied, inviting me here? For now, I’m satisfied after seeing your nature. —I’ll let you off the hook for now. Vanish this conspicuous domain and go away.”

“What was that, fucker…?!”

“Perhaps—letting you watch over the egg until it rots might be amusing.”

The swarms of tardigrades gathered into a single point like a receding wave, smashed through the wall of flames and vanished.

Harukiyo stood inside the sea of fire created by himself.

Again—

This feeling that he’d known ever since his birth.

No matter how much he thought, how much he fought, how much he struggled—when he came to, he ended up standing alone in a daze.

And deep within his heart, the only thing that remained were the smoldering remnants of feelings.

“Hanashiro Mari—”

His clenched fist was shaking.

Splitting his lips by biting them, the blood dripping from him boiled away before reaching the ground.

Even his own blood did not remain where he stood.

“So you too—”

Harukiyo had his doubts from the start.

Would Hanashiro Mari truly revive with her full, complete powers?

At the very least there was a possibility. The two personalities of Ichinokuro Arisu and Hanashiro Mari became somewhat vague.

But that small hope had been dashed by Ichiku Mikitaka.

The boy told him that, when he’d met Hanashiro Mari during her life, she was hesitating—

“Don’t screw with me! Are everyone liars and swindlers?! Hunter, you were called? You weren’t none of that! Hanashiro Mari was in Akamaki City? She was already fuckin’ dead! Hanashiro Mari will come back to life? Even that I only saw a glimpse of!”

Every time Harukiyo shouted the wind blowing from him grew hotter, and the sports ground itself transformed.

Had she held doubts about her own dreams?

Such a half-hearted person was not in the least the opponent Harukiyo had been looking for.

“Fucking shiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!!”

The blood running down his lips spread into the air with every scream, boiling away.

He remained alive alone once again.

Not to mention that this time it was victory by default.

No, it wasn’t just that.

“Then why—”

The feeling resembling burning love that was born inside him.

There no longer existed anyone for him to clash that new emotion against—

“Why have you called me…?”

He thought of it as fate.

He didn’t care about the “disasters” that attacked him this far.

However, only his meeting with that Mushitsuki girl was neither his will nor a coincidence.

“Why have you called me, Hanashiro Mari…”

The hot air hanging over still boiled the clear droplets dripping down his chin.

If she was no longer there, was there any meaning to Harukiyo to come to know of her existence?

That Morpho butterfly.

It had called to Harukiyo.

Other than inflicting punishment to Harukiyo, was there any other meaning in calling Harukiyo to this region?

Just by him living, other people would go up in flames.

And every time it happened, he became stronger.

He possessed so much useless energy, beyond his need and control, so what was she trying to give to him, other than punishment?

Other than accepting punishment, there should be no other meaning.

“—I can’t accept it.”

Harukiyo started walking.

The sin of fooling him should bring certain death.

Who could be made to pay for it?

There was only one who could.