Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 14 Chapter 2 (section)

== 2.11 Harukiyo Part 11 ==

He came back half-dead from his fight against Sleeping Beauty in the SEPB’s underground facility.

Thinking back, he’d used up most of his stamina at the time.

From there they retreated to the surface, he protected the semi-trailer carrying Alpha, and was attacked by C.

He was once more affected by C’s mental pollution attack, and even in the world of the past he accrued a lot of damage.

Even if this was Harukiyo—it was his first time to be fighting for so long.

“Why didn’t you save me, Harukiyo! I don’t wanna die!”

“Harukiyo… you jerk…”

The bisected Ume and Haruka who shed tears of blood clung to Harukiyo.

“…”

Harukiyo grabbed Haruka’s head with flaming palms and struck Ume’s face.

“—GYAAAAAH!”

Watching them screaming from the corners of his eyes, Harukiyo leapt.

Exiting through the hole created in the ceiling, he stood on top of the cargo.

“Well, I doubt those two would actually die.”

The semi-trailer carrying Alpha ran on the highway. However, the flat road was dyed black, the buildings they went past were purple, and the vast sky was dyed green.

He knew at a glance that this wasn’t reality.

“With a normal Mushitsuki, I could just snap out of it… but I really played inside for too long. It’s my own damn mind, but it’s already been dyed by C’s colors.”

Around him there were no body doubles or Revived.

Had she intended to simply lock up the exhausted Harukiyo in this world and wait for him to exhaust himself?

“…!”

As he watched over this abnormal world, on the road ahead appeared a human figure.

From the fact her silhouette had a skirt, she appeared to be a girl.

The girl who seemed to be C’s new assassin leapt at him.

No, rather than saying she leapt, it was more like she rammed Harukiyo while flying.

“Wh—”

Harukiyo was about to sweep her off with flames, but he froze upon seeing her face.

She hugged his unmoving body. The momentum made both of them fall to the ground.

“Guh… you bitch—”

“Why didn’t you save me—”

As Harukiyo rolled on the asphalt, the girl ended up straddling him.

She was the braided girl who’d been his classmate. He had fancied her at the time, but she was supposed to have died during the bus accident.

“I died because you were there, and yet…”

As the girl hurled curses at him, sparks of flames began climbing her tattered uniform.

“Tch—”

Harukiyo clicked his tongue. He protected against the falling impact with a heatwave cushion, but the semi-trailer was driving away, leaving him behind.

“—You just had bad luck. I did what I could.”

Sneering, Harukiyo reached out with a hand toward the braided girl.

The Great Yama tiger beetle made of flames erupting from his arm annihilated the girl’s upper torso. Throwing her remaining lower torso aside, Harukiyo stood up.

His entire body wrapped in flames, he kicked the ground. He rode the heatwave to chase after the semi-trailer.

“A semi-trailer on the highway… since it’s somewhat similar to reality, seems like this means that my mind hadn’t been fully infected yet.”

Rushing after the trailer taking a huge curve, he tried leaping to it with one jump.

“If I can’t get out on my own, I’ll use whatever I can. If I use that suicidal bastard who’s already gotten out as an intermediary, I should be able to find the exit—”

However, the moment before he leapt, Harukiyo’s legs suddenly felt weighted down.

“Haru… why’d you abandon us…”

“Help… it’s so hot, Haru…”

The pair of brother and sister who grew up with him in the childcare facility clung to his legs.

However—

“—I didn’t abandon you at all. I was just a step too late.”

Increasing the vigor of the flames enveloping him, he instantly burnt away the siblings clinging to him.

“Haha!”

Along with this confident smile, he started running again.

Yet another person appeared in front of him to block his way.

“I wonder… why have I saved a child like you…?”

It was the nurse.

Although he was still a baby, her face had been etched and burned into his memory perfectly.

“There were other babies… so why did I have to save someone like you, who only spreads misfortune…”

“You just drew a bad lot, right?”

He started burning down the very woman who’d saved his life before.

All of it—was an illusion born from Harukiyo’s mind.

C was simply raising up the phantoms of dead people in order to corner him.

It was a stupid prank. The flame devil would never get affected by fakes like that.

“If you wanna kill me you’d better bring something far more interesting, C.”

“Why did all of us die, while you alone…”

“Waaaah, waaaah…”

Former classmates as well as babies in the same maternity ward, as well as fellow residents in the childcare facility.

As well as other people who lost their lives in “disasters”.

As many people as Harukiyo could remember were trying to block his path.

“I keep telling you it’s not gonna work—”

Without flinching in the least, he kept burning down all of them and ran after the semi-trailer.

He kept chasing it.

Although the other party was a vehicle driving full speed ahead, Harukiyo was a Mushitsuki referred to as the strongest. As he transformed into a flame sphere, he would catch up in no time—supposedly.

However, no matter how much he ran—

The distance to the semi-trailer didn’t shrink down in the least.

At some point, he heard whispers at his ears as the braided girl clung to his back again.

“Did you really think about saving me…? Haven’t you given up immediately?”

“Shuddup.”

Harukiyo’s single word made the girl at his back turn to cinders and crumble.

So even that semi-trailer was C’s illusion—

This doubt passed through Harukiyo’s mind.

If so, then the vehicle he saw ahead was a trap.

If he continued this game of tag like that, Harukiyo would only tire himself.

On the other hand, C probably wanted a war of attrition. Since she lost her personality, she couldn’t get mentally fatigued, and Akamaki City held enough of a supply for her source of power, electricity.

“Haru… back then you just wanted to save yourself, right…?”

“You thought of us as obstacles, right…?”

Since there were doubts in his mind, the dead kept their momentum.

“Well, you’re definitely obstacles now.”

Not minding this at all, Harukiyo burnt the wall of dead and kept going straight ahead.

The nurse crawling on the ground tried grabbing his legs.

“Do you begrudge me…? If I hadn’t saved you, you wouldn’t have to live like this…”

“I’m grateful to you. My life’s so fucking fun.”

Using his leg accompanied with an explosive wind to crush the nurse, he raised his speed.

It was natural to doubt. He’d have to focus on reaching the trailer first.

Although he was the one who called for C’s interreference, this was inside Harukiyo’s mind and memories.

This world was supposed to prioritize Harukiyo.

If he thought he would really catch up, there wasn’t any way he wouldn’t—

“Seriously—it’s a piece of cake.”

As Harukiyo wrapped himself in the most powerful flames, he ran toward the semi-trailer on the highway.

Victims of “disasters” clung to him one after another, but he burned all down.

Even so—he simply couldn’t catch up.

“Why do you think you can’t catch up…?”

How long had he been running for?

He even had the feeling like he spent hours or days chasing that semi-trailer.

“Shouldn’t you leave us behind…?”

How many of the dead had he buried already?

He had the feeling that he killed many, thousands of them, even.

“If it’s not your fault, you can just go ahead and leave us behind…”

Even so, he couldn’t shake off the dead.

His braided classmate put her arms around the running Harukiyo’s neck.

“I told you already—”

He glared at the girl with tired eyes with black bags under them.

“—This won’t wooooork!”

Howling, the Great Yama tiger beetle of flames boiled all the dead filling the highway.

Even as he ran through the empty road—he couldn’t catch up to the semi-trailer.

The nurse stood in his path again.

She did nothing, only stared at Harukiyo while shedding tears.

Harukiyo tried burning her off just like he did so far—

However, he simply couldn’t swing down his clenched fist.

The nurse smiled and hugged Harukiyo happily as he passed next to her.

“You’re finally… not able to kill us anymore…”

“Haru… you’re finally looking at us.”

“Obviously, because we all died because of you, Haru…”

Even the siblings from the facility clung to Harukiyo’s legs.

“—”

Both mind and body exhausted, Harukiyo had already spent his powers denying their words. He was deathly pale, but couldn’t allow himself to stop running.

“Of course you can’t shake us off, because you’re actually—”

The braided girl appeared on the road ahead. She spread her arms as though to invite him for a hug.

“A normal person.”

Harukiyo couldn’t dodge his classmate. She embraced him.

“Yes, you were also a normal baby when you were born…”

“Flame devil? Aha, what’s that! You’re just Haru!”

“You wanna apologize for killing us, right? You’re a good person, Haru!”

One after another, the dead people swarmed at him, increasing the weight on Harukiyo’s body.

Finally, his legs chasing after the semi-trailer—

Stopped in place.

“You do know that it’s your fault we’re all dead.”

His braided classmate caressed his chin with her fingers as he stopped in place, feeling faint.

“If you acknowledge your sin, you wouldn’t want to live anymore—so you’re just bluffing.”

As Harukiyo came to a stop, it felt as though his feelings and memories came spilling out of him.

His consciousness started fading and he didn’t even notice himself kneeling down.

He felt sleepy.

The nurse, the siblings and his classmate wrapped Harukiyo with a nostalgic warmth.

He wanted to surrender himself to the warmth of his first love, yielding to the impulse of falling asleep.

“There’s no need for you to pretend being a devil and live that sorta of painful life…”

Like a lullaby, his classmate’s whisper made Harukiyo’s eyelids feel heavier.

“—You’ve had this dream since you’re a normal person, right?”

A dream.

The dream he’d wished for before—

“You ‘want to get punished’.”

That was Harukiyo’s dream.

It was the shackling sense of guilt that continuously existed in his heart.

“Your mere existence in this world makes people around you die—that is your sin. You acknowledge your sin but never wish for forgiveness… you don’t want any sort of self-satisfaction, but merely want someone to punish you…”

“…”

“All so you could finally—stop pretending to be a devil and die as a normal person… just like those who died because of you.”

Harukiyo’s heart was on the verge of completely spilling out.

The final drop stopped inside him.

His dream, that he was on the verge of forgetting—remained inside him still.

“Yeah, that’s right. Thanks to you—I now remember.”

Harukiyo’s eyes lit up with a small fire.

However, with that very last scorch before it got extinguished—

“I wanted to receive punishment—”

He created a fiery carpet that swallowed the dead filling the highway.

The classmates, the nurse and the siblings clinging to Harukiyo all raised screams.

“So I’ll live—”

As Harukiyo sneered, his right eye, left arm, and right leg—fully became flames. He kicked the ground along with an explosive wind, rushing ahead while leaving a trail of flames in his path.

“As long as I’m alive, the fact I’m alive—is no fucking sin.”

Chasing after the semi-trailer that he already lost, he dashed through the highway.

Harukiyo’s left eye transformed to flames.

Following this other parts also transformed to masses of flames one another after; his shoulder and his back.

“If you’ve got any complaints, bring on anyone at all. Try and punish me—”

His body—his heart was becoming lighter.

He didn’t need to think of anything else.

It was fine for just granting his wish to remain in his head.

Right now, the cause of his running and what he was chasing—was completely irrelevant.

“And I’ll burn anyone and everyone who stands in my way—”

The flame devil madly dashing on the road couldn’t see the semi-trailer anywhere.

No matter how fast he went.

No matter how far he ran.

While being swallowed by flames, Harukiyo simply kept running forever and ever.

“If you’re not a normal person, then—you’re just flame.”

Without minding his classmate appearing ahead, flaming Harukiyo just burnt her to a crisp.

Next the nurse appeared.

“So this is your true form.”

The siblings appeared.

“You burn everyone who approaches…”

“And so you keep burning even stronger…”

“—”

Harukiyo howled.

This howl shook this other world’s space. Had he himself emitted it, or was it the raging Great Yama tiger beetle eating his dream? He couldn’t tell.

“—Confirmed signs of Maturation in Special Class Rank 1 Harukiyo.”

In front of him appeared a fairy wearing a golden tiara.

“There is no need to dispatch the Dove. I can just keep accelerating his own destruction—”

As if noticing something in the middle of the speech, the fairy turned—and her body broke to pieces.

“—”

Harukiyo also sensed that being and stopped in place.

Even the dead people surrounding him turned there with scared faces.

In front of Harukiyo—ahead of the large curve in the highway—stood an abnormal figure.

Standing atop a tall lamp was a person wielding a smoking automatic pistol.

Stimulating Harukiyo’s nearly lost memories, that person—looked as tattered as though he’d already experienced death, for some reason.

“So you—haven’t had enough of living, then.”

The boy looked down at the devil of flames and muttered so.

He was a Mushitsuki who was already supposedly gone, the one called a demon.