Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 14 Chapter 2 (section)

== 2.09 Harukiyo Part 9 ==

It seemed to be a private laboratory on board of a large, remodeled transport ship.

Since they had samples of all living beings there, it was just like the Ark spoken of in the Old Testament.

Harukiyo was inside a room that had even stricter guard than anywhere else there. He saw the youth, who was restrained on top of a table that looked like an operation table, and the girl standing next to him.

“I will give you my love.”

The youth and the girl couldn’t see Harukiyo.

That was natural, since this scenery came from the youth’s memory—from Alpha, who was under C’s mental attack. It was his past.

“Why are you looking so relieved, you suicidal bastard?”

Harukiyo crossed his arms, glaring at the sight in front of him with a grin.

“This woman is, without a doubt, the worst shithead you’ve ever seen.”

So she really was involved in this right from the very beginning—

He had somewhat expected this, but now Alpha’s memories gave him evidence that turned it into conviction. The hatred he felt toward this girl multiplied many times over than it was before.

“My name is Miguruma Yaeko. Do you understand me? Mi-gu-ru-ma Ya-e-ko.”

“Mik…ko…?”

Alpha, who couldn’t understand Japanese, apparently only heard the very start and the very end of her name. Due to the breathing apparatus he wore, his mumble fogged it over.

“Mikko—well, that’s perfectly fine. I’ll teach you a little of our language.”

The smiling girl—Miguruma Yaeko—and the taciturn Alpha.

This was the worst encounter for all Mushitsuki who came later—no, perhaps in all of human history.

Rather than Alpha’s birth itself, it was his meeting with the girl that was the true miracle.

Two people who never should have met just happened to encounter each other beyond national borders.

This was—the moment everything began.

“Yaeko. I told you not to come inside here on your own.”

Appearing after saying this was a middle-aged man dressed in white. His nervous-looking wrinkles were prominent.

Next to the white coat-wearing man was another person. A youth, about twenty years old, dressed in a luxury suit. He had a playboy-like appearance and a severe face, so it looked unbalanced.

“Sorry, Father.”

As Miguruma Yaeko apologized obediently and was about to leave, the man wearing the white coat further yelled at her.

“And do stop entering my room without permission. It looks like you’ve been rummaging through my articles and papers, but it’s probably boring for you to look at such things that you can’t even understand.”

“Right, Father. For a person of my station—it was awfully boring.”

The playboy oversaw the girl obediently repeating her father’s words and leaving the room.

“Your daughter sure seems smart, Professor.”

“Not at all. She can’t even understand a single theory of mine or my underlings… she did receive some education, and yet… ah, what a waste… Well, but even this stupid daughter of mine can look after our specimens, including this one… since I want to use as little outside people as possible… she has to be at least that useful… yes…”

While glaring at Alpha, the white coat man mumbled to himself.

“Now, now, no need being humble. And she is a beauty. Her narrow eyes—her almond eyes are just like yours, Professor.”

The youth who gave this compliment looked familiar to Harukiyo.

Or, to be more precise, he’d seen a smile that resembled his before.

“Yup, I know who you are—the Chairman of the Round Table, Ichinokuro Ruisu.”

[[File:Mushi Uta 14 p247.jpg|thumb]]

Saying this as if in a groan, Harukiyo glared at him.

However, none of the two people noticed this glare full of rage.

“Is this person... the one you’ve told me of?”

“Indeed... he is now under anaesthesia, so he won’t go wild... However, since you only told me very suddenly that you wanted to directly see the specimen, it should take a while more until this takes full effect, though...”

“It’s not me. It’s the members who agreed to put out funding. As for me, well, I’m the Chairman in name, but in the end I’m still a greenhorn who gets used for such errands...”

“No, without your business industry connections, not even the construction of this laboratory would have been possible, I’m sure... do you also hold an interest in the Undying...?”

Undying.

Hearing this word, Ichinokuro Ruisu kept silent. Neither denying nor affirming the professor’s words, he simply looked down at the silent Alpha on top of the operation table.

“’Everyone’s connected somewhere’.”

Harukiyo grimaced and groaned in a stifled voice.

A girl wielding a silver spear rose to his mind.

“It’s really like that. —So that’s how you were ‘connected’ to this from the very beginning…”

He cursed the girl who wasn’t there.

This youth called Ichinokuro Ruisu that was right in front of Harukiyo’s eyes…

He probably couldn’t have imagined the effect that his own actions would have.

Since he was no seer, that was natural. However—

“You shitty father. What you’ve done… took your daughter away from you.”

Not heeding Harukiyo’s verbal abuse in the least, Ichinokuro Ruisu removed his eyes from Alpha.

“Does this person—really hold the possibility of the Undying?”

“Yes, many people have died around him… and many times, at that… even as thousands fell victim, he kept living in the end… apparently, the locals referred to him as the child of miracles… in fact, those around him always increased their chances of survival, and I confirmed them even managing to flourish… well, people other than him have their limits so they still died in the end, though…”

“Just this is… well, how do I say it—if you’ll allow me to be direct, it sounds like a cock-and-bull story.”

“Have you seen the calculation regarding the chances of survival of the many ‘disasters’ that happened in his life thus far…? This is clearly past the limits of statistics…”

“The power to resist what’s known as death—the mental power wishing for life, affects the body and other related things, thereby raising one’s vitality. That’s your theory, Professor, right?”

“It’s not just a wish for life. It should be called a will to bet everything on your wish… you and the Round Table have given me the research funds and a place to conduct it because you believe, right?”

“Yes, it might sound masochistic, but the rich who tire of their position and honor are burning with desire for the Undying. —For some reason, it’s always like this from the olden days.”

“…”

“In every era, those with authority always sought it, but they were always deceived, and even while they knew they grabbed only fakes—this never changed.”

“…I beg your pardon, but is it possible you are hoping that the research you yourself had invested into, fails?”

“Perish the thought.”

Finally averting his eyes from Alpha, Ichinokuro Ruisu headed to the exit.

“No matter what you do here, neither the authorities nor any opposition will meddle here. —We all aim for the result, no matter what shape it takes.”

“Thank you very much…”

As Ichinokuro Ruisu and the white coat man exited the room, the surrounding scene started undergoing a dizzying change.

Events in this sealed laboratory area continued flowing like a video on fast forward. These were obviously the experiments Alpha had experienced.

“According to history, people searched for the Undying countless times—huh. What a load of bull.”

While Harukiyo watched those scenes, he spat this.

“Hey, suicidal shithead. So, after all those disasters you just found yourself involved with games played by the rich and swindlers throughout all of history?”

Alpha underwent torture under the pretext of research. At times he was wounded, at times he was psychologically abused, and at times they dangled items he wanted in front of his eyes while restraining him.

Exhausting both body and soul, his memories also became fuzzy. The scenes Harukiyo could see in front of his eyes had noise running through them from time to time, but there were also clear parts.

''—Alpha… that’s how they called you. Despite there being no Beta or Gamma.

Only his meeting with Miguruma Yaeko—no, the girl called Mikko were carved into his memories, crystal clear.

Between his meetings with all the researchers, the girl visited him to take care of him and his surroundings. Every time she met Alpha, she “educated” him.

She kept whispering words to stimulate his survival instincts.

''—Recall your birthplace.

Mikko’s whispers gouged into him deeper than any of the experiments made by her father.

Her Smile of Shackles that charmed all those who saw it did not allow Alpha to reject.

''—You have nothing at all. And yet you still desire, right?

Every time Alpha heard her words, he would shed a single tear.

''Recall your now gone place of birth.

''A place where you have no father, mother, or any neighbor, a place no one even remembers the name of.

''—Even so, until the day you return there… you can’t die, right?

The girl speaking to Alpha also spoke about other guinea pigs from time to time.

The several other guinea pigs apparently came from similar environments. Miguruma would sometimes stoke their hunger, their possessiveness, and at time she would stir up their nostalgia just like with Alpha.

Following this, Mikko unleashed a few of the guinea pigs and ran away from the lab.

''—I am about to go release my other family… but I won’t let you go.

After leaving, Mikko announced her farewell to Alpha.

Wearing the smile of a saint, she whispered to him.

''—Because you’re special.

Alpha bawled his eyes out.

He unleashed his feelings for his life and the people in it—he cursed, raged, hated, despaired and cried.

And something that had been restraining him until that point—cracked open.

“So even before the Original Three were created…”

Witnessing that moment, Harukiyo mumbled.

“You were a Mushitsuki?”

The thing that suddenly appeared there was trying to destroy the laboratory.

It was an object that looked like an enlarged human eyeball covered by a hard membrane.

“No—is this even a Mushi?”

Harukiyo knew about this object that floated in air while unleashing rays of light to burn the facility down.

“I did wonder about that during the meteor shower night as well. The Eye used by Oogui… it clearly looked like a human eyeball, and there were those Mushi that were only body parts. I’d never seen them until that point. But I just thought they were other Minion Types created by her—”

The laboratory taking form on the large ship was being demolished.

Even the in the white coat—Miguruma Yaeko’s father had been unable to escape this destruction, and he saw him expire.

“What came first, the chicken or the egg? Including me, everything thought it was the chicken—the Original Three.”

It wasn’t just Harukiyo.

There was no doubt that even Kakkou and the people relating to him thought that.

Therefore, they made defeating the Original Three into their ultimate goal. Therefore, they defeated multitudes of Mushitsuki.

However—

“The egg came first.”

The rampaging Alpha was thoroughly destroying the laboratory—

“—”

Light engulfed the world.

Everything mixed into one, and the light blinked as if forgiving all of them.

Harukiyo had never seen something so beautiful.

As the light vanished, they were on top of the boat.

Someone was battling someone.

“—How many thousands of years it had been, aiming for the Undying? And there it goes and happens by a complete fluke.”

Harukiyo somehow surmised who were those who were fighting.

The unleashed Original Three as well as the Mushitsuki who tried stopping their release.

“Dunno if it’s real or not, but it means you’ve dug out a complete unknown.”

Since Harukiyo hadn’t been there, he could only understand this.

However, through Alpha’s eyes and memories—

“Woa—AaaAaAAAAaah!”

Alpha was howling.

“Rui, it all happened just like you said. We must end everyone who remains here.”

The goggle-wearing boy was dying.

“—Indeed so.”

Ichinokuro Arisu lowered his gaze.

“This is all YOUR FAULT!!!”

“Let us part here.”

A familiar face parting away from Miguruma Yaeko—

He saw the moment the world changed.

It now became a world where the supernatural beings called Mushi would keep on being born inside boys and girls.

“I see—so it’s impossible to know who you are no matter how you think about it.”

While seeing Alpha get taken away by Ichinokuro Ruisu’s mercenaries, Harukiyo spoke.

“But as long as you exist, it means that the moment Mushitsuki were born might repeat itself.”

That was Alpha’s sin.

Harukiyo finally understood the reason he wanted to die.

“Yep, sure is a huge sin. You make so many people unhappy by your mere existence.”

And now that he understood, he was angry.

“If it was me though—I wouldn’t acknowledge that.”

Spitting this, Harukiyo noticed something strange at that moment.

“—WooAAAAAAH!”

The restrained Alpha howled, shaking off the mercenaries.

Behind him stood a small figure.

It looked like a small girl—who wore a tiara adorned with heart and crown symbols.

Harukiyo sneered and readied himself.

“How dare you do whatever you like in my own turf. —That’s what you’re tellin’ me, eh?”

The long journey to unveil Alpha’s sin.

C’s dark gaze told him enough to realize he hadn’t reached its end yet.