Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 15 Chapter 3 (section)

== 3.06 Daisuke Part 4 ==

Daisuke woke up from his head being hit.

“Hey, Kusuriya. We’re moving classrooms.”

His classmate Tachibana Rina was smiling at him. He’d apparently fallen asleep on his desk.

While rubbing his eyes and raising his face, he could see fellow students streaming out from the classroom of Class 2-F of Ouka High School.

His next class was an elective subject of Art. Since it was Rina’s specialty, she looked fired up.

“Dai-kun’s awake?”

“Yeah, but I wanted to see how long it’d take him to wake up.”

“Akatsuki… did you have that sort of personality?”

“It’s fine, Senri. Let’s just leave him alone and go ahead?”

Just like Rina, the four classmates peeked into his face.

Haji Senri, Ogata Akatsuki, Endou Iori and Sunakozaka Azu.

Daisuke looked at their faces absentmindedly.

Watching his friends wear rich expressions and smile—he returned a pained smile.

“…Maybe I should ditch class. I’m still so sleepy.”

“Do it if you want to? You’ll get scolded by the teachers, though.”

Saying this abruptly, his friends all went out of the class with Rina in the lead. Only Iori stayed behind. “C’mon,” he said, grabbing Daisuke’s arm to force him to rise from his chair.

Leaving the classroom with Iori, they reconvened with Rina and the rest in the corridor.

While shivering at the coldness of winter, Daisuke looked outside the window.

He could see the bare trees and the students heading to the school gym by cutting through the courtyard.

“You’ll come for karaoke today, right?”

“Oh… sorry, I have plans today.”

As he rejected Iori’s invitation, his friends all smirked.

Rina also turned aside and smiled.

“We need to get that girl a personal alarm. Three of them.”

“Oh, I see…”

This time she had no retort, just accepting it with an amiable smile.

After that, Daisuke went through art class properly. He submitted his picture which was below average in class and attended his next period.

At lunch break he chatted with his friends and attended afternoon classes properly too.

After going through normal classes like usual, he wore his coat to head home and found a petite girl waiting for him at the entrance to the classroom.

“—Well then.”

His friends turned around as he said this and left first.

They all exchanged words of farewell.

Burning their figures into his sight, Daisuke left the classroom in a fast pace.

“Sorry for making you wait, Shiika.”

“No problem.”

Anmoto Shiika, who was waiting for Daisuke, wore a carefree smile.

Walking together out of campus, they were blown by the winter’s cold wind. As they shrugged and brought their bodies closer, Daisuke and Shiika shrunk the distance between them.

Going into town, they saw many colorful, glittering illuminations.

“It’s almost Christmas, huh.”

As Shiika mumbled it, her profile seemed excited at seeing the decorative lights filling town.

“Yeah. Iori and the others said we’re going to have a party at Senri’s house.”

“Rina too?”

“Who knows? That girl seriously has too many friends. I’m sure her schedule for Christmas is packed full.”

“Wow.” Daisuke was joking, but Shiika seemed to show serious admiration. He almost ended up grabbing her hand without thinking, but recalling the existence of the personal alarm, he stopped himself.

Daisuke and Shiika went to an arcade and played with the prize corner, then just bought some sweets and went on the road back home early. Since the days were getting shorter, they also had less time for dates.

He walked through the residential district, escorting Shiika back home.

They walked, the setting down creating long shadows behind them.

As he turned his gaze aside, his eyes suddenly met with Shiika’s.

She smiled happily.

Daisuke returned that smile.

“…How many times will you show us the same illusion, C?”

“C will use whatever she can to eliminate her enemies.”

Shiika erased her expression. Watching Daisuke with doll-like eyes, her mouth moved mechanically.

“By overlapping the mental pollution abilities of Genius and Shinpu, I created an effective attack method to interfere with the deep subconscious. At present, I managed to affect all enemies.”

It certainly worked.

He knew it was an illusion from the very start, but couldn’t get out of it.

Apparently even C was aware that he hadn’t been completely affected.

“This is not an illusion. I can recreate these exact environments in the new world as well.”

“By manipulating our memories, right? I already rejected that as Taiki.”

“Taiki did reject it. However, what about Kakkou—Kusuriya Daisuke?”

“…”

“You are very tired. You must want to rest.”

Daisuke gave no answer.

Kusuriya Daisuke and Anmoto Shiika—or rather, C who took her form—walked back shoulder to shoulder.

Whether Daisuke really had a home to go back to in here—he didn’t know.

C had called this illusion an attack, but he felt no pain. In fact, he was even filled with relief that he didn’t need to fight anyone.

“Do you know why until now some people became Mushitsuki while others didn’t?”

Daisuke remained silent and unanswering.

“People have desires. Since they have instincts, that is natural. Even hunger can become a dream. Perhaps even those who aren’t human, like animals—perhaps even a cat on the side of the road might be holding potential to become a Mushitsuki.”

“…”

“But do you know what is a dream strong enough to become Mushitsuki? One so strongly wished for that it can even control people’s life and death?”

Although Daisuke and C were enemies, they kept walking the road without fighting.

What waited ahead?

Ahead of these Mushitsuki walking toward the future—he could see nothing but the road continuing on and on.

“That is—a dream that cannot come true.”

It was Anmoto Shiika’s voice, but she spoke in an inorganic tone.

Daisuke slightly narrowed his eyes. But he said nothing.

“Because it can’t be granted, they wish for it strongly and can even reject death. —Miguruma Yaeko hypothesized that the Primal Mushi called the Original Three are people who anticipated this fate.”

“…”

“While getting in contact with Shinpu, C—Horiuchi Erii also noticed this. She was unable to accept this truth, threw away her personality and ran away.”

“…”

“C takes Mushitsuki who can’t grant their dreams, fixes them in the form called the Undying and saves them from destruction. I am not an enemy of Mushitsuki. I actually—love Mushitsuki.”

“…”

“You should have realized this long ago, right? Both about dreams being unfulfillable, as well as me not being your enemy.”

Daisuke smiled.

Neither affirming nor denying C’s words, he said only one thing.

“They can be fulfilled.”

The girl in the form of Shiika looked at Daisuke’s face.

There was a car honking from somewhere.

“At present, no Mushitsuki who fulfilled their dream exist. —If such a Mushitsuki ever appeared, they would be a defect to the Mushitsuki system. An irregularity that can be called a bug. It is unknown what sort of being this Mushitsuki would transform into.”

His expression unchanging, Daisuke just kept walking while listening to C’s words.

“They even have the potential to be reborn as a frightening monster the likes of which humanity had never seen before.”

“…”

“Rather than risking the creation of monsters, evolving into the Undying is the right choice for Mushitsuki.”

Daisuke shook his head to the sides.

Raising his face, he looked around this world that had neither battles nor conflict.

“I don’t care about the Undying. It’s just that for me, the Revived—those who conveniently lost their pain and anything else—don’t look like normal people.”

This time C was silenced.

“It’s not like I wanna fight either, and I am tired. —Even so, I don’t want forget what happened to me or to others. I want to decide doing something for myself while not forgetting that. Because I believed doing that is what a normal person would do.”

Right now, Daisuke wasn’t walking in a created path like he was now.

His path that included him fighting, getting hurt and hurting many people was already soaked in blood, but even so—it was the proof of the person called Kusuriya Daisuke having lived.

“Those standing in the way are Mushi and the Original Three. Also—if you are going to take that and decide by yourself to make people into Undying…”

Daisuke looked at the girl walking right next to him and spoke.

“It looks to me as if ''you’re'' the one who’s becoming a monster.”

Shiika’s expression looked frozen—or perhaps it was just Daisuke’s imagination. Perhaps in reality she simply couldn’t understand his words and was trying to analyze that truth.

“I’ll make my dream come true.”

Daisuke’s heart was beating.

And that heartbeat—was no illusion. Relying on this heartbeat he certainly felt, he focused his consciousness.

His face became not that of Kusuriya Daisuke, but of Kakkou.

Convinced of the breakdown in negotiations, the girl transformed into not Anmoto Shiika, but C.

“By doing this, just by fulfilling my dream—I will become a mere human.”

It was already too late for C to swing her electric-clad arm.

Trusting his own heartbeat, Daisuke retrieved the sensations of his real body.

And—he howled.