Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 12 Chapter 3 (section)

== 3.02 OPS2 Part 3 ==

What should he tell Sleeping Beauty once she woke up?

He’d been thinking about it for a long, long time.

And yet—he found no answer.

“Oh, another transmission from the surface.”

The bearded man spoke.

“As one of the operations to defeat C, our actions will be named as Operation 2. Also, she says to please complete our operation within 48 hours. How should I reply?”

The facility called Prison that was located underground Higano City.

It was a simple place. Corridors of standardized length as well as a standardized number of rooms crowded together. Harukiyo felt like rather than a jail, it could be called an ant colony.

“Just ignore her, bearded old man.”

“Hey! My beard is really sexy. —Understood. I shall even send back something fitting like a love confession.”

Harukiyo and his several companions were walking through the Prison’s corridors.

Ume, who had a hairpin of a pumpkin monster. Sakaki Haruka who wore Gothic Lolita fashion. Witch, who rode a trolley and wore a pointy hat. The suited man, Santa Claus, who pulled that trolley. Maria, who had long, blonde hair. Finally, Lop-Eared, clad in a hoodie worn low.

They were merely companions, not Harukiyo’s comrades. Since he’d never even investigated their names, he only used nicknames for some of them. Ever since they ended up knowing each other, it was the kind of relationship where they just somehow went along with Harukiyo.

“Ah, that good-for-nothing freeloader nuisance fell again.”

Ume turned back. Lop-Eared stumbled, rubbing hurt knees.

“Seriously, Harukiyo. Let’s just leave this kid behind. I mean, it’s going to take us a lot of time just to get to the coordinates Miguruma sent us.”

Harukiyo ignored Ume’s complaints that he sounded for the umpteenth time already. He called out toward Lop-Eared who was sniveling in fatigue and pain.

“Hey, get up already. If it’s tough you can hitch a ride along with Witch.”

“Eh, wait…! Wait, please wait! Is that kid a boy? A girl? If he’s a guy, I’ll die of shame if he rides along!”

“I’d also like to avoid any more weight here. Please change with me, Harukiyo.”

“Idiot. If it’s too much trouble just throw it away.”

“N-no, no way! Don’t throw me! I’ll die if you leave me in a place like that, you know? Are you fine with that?”

“C’mon, you’re being heavy in a lot of senses. Honestly… just ride your broom already.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! If I kept flying all the time I’ll die of overwork!”

“You sure are a handful, Witch-san. Now I understand why you were bullied in school.”

“S-stop it, stop it! Do not speak of that in front of Harukiyo…”

“At least our relations with her are good. Her abilities are too varied that I can’t understand ‘em though. —Hey, if you’re hurt, we’ll have Witch heal ya.”

“Eh? Behe. Ehehe, you there, come over here. Let me rub a nice medicine for you. If you rub this poisonous green stuff, any wound will—ouch! Why did you kick me, Maria! Ow, you definitely broke a bone… this is no good. I can’t walk anymore…”

“Fuckin bitch.”

While having small, carefree talk, Harukiyo’s group kept advancing through the Prison.

Sleeping Beauty’s whereabout, indicated by Miguruma Yaeko were in the lowest layer of the Prison.

Although calling it a low layer, the structure differed from Akamaki City’s Underground Fort. There, you could simply reach the bottom by burrowing down, but here the road that connected the lower layers was a gentle slope downwards, so you had to advance in a route decided by order corridors. Yes, it really was like an ant’s nest.

“By the way, you have any idea how long is it going to take to reach the coordinates at this pace? Harukiyo, can’t you just zoom ahead?”

Ume’s important question was given a calm answer by Harukiyo.

“I don’t wanna waste more power than necessary to wake Sleeping Beauty.”

Everyone clamored.

“Seriously? I can’t even imagine an opponent Harukiyo’s so careful about.”

“Ooh…”

“He held back on playing with that caterpillar monster and came there. Otherwise it’d be boring.”

“Also, it’s probably not going to get solved easily even if we got there quickly.”

He could feel his companions puzzled behind him.

“Just like Ume said before, I already went around here with Maria before. But we haven’t noticed anything. If we go there again now, I doubt we’d just find Sleeping Beauty. It’s completely meaningless if we can’t find the reason for that before we reach our goal. It’s odd how Miguruma’s not handin’ out any information other than the location.”

Miguruma Yaeko shouldn’t want to involve Harukiyo in the current fight more than necessary.

Meanwhile, Harukiyo wanted to retrieve what he forgot in the past.

Present and past—as a tacit condition to not cross those two, they supposedly used each other.

And now, Miguruma was trying to drag his past connections to the present—

“Whatever that woman’s trying to do, each and every part of it is evil. The one thing I have no doubt out is that she’s using some unorthodox method to hide this.”

“Then it really does seem likely there’s a traitor among us. Maybe a spy won over by Miguruma?”

Hearing Ume’s words, the party once again got excited.

“…Santa Claus… you’re suspicious…”

“Yup, this Santa old man seems the most suited for this. And he’s not even trying to show his abilities yet.”

“Indeed, I do like mysterious older women… but Miguruma Yaeko alone is someone I would not want to get close to, and that is the honest truth. And speaking of abilities, aren’t you just as suspicious, Witch-san? It’s probably the least understandable ability among all Mushitsuki. You probably fit Miguruma’s tastes.”

“Right, I am the culprit! —I really do want to say this, if it continues being this boring. I mean, it’s not like we’ve shown each other all of our abilities. All of us are suspicious, aren’t we? And those who didn’t come here are also suspicious.”

“You wait.”

Maria cut off the conversation. She pointed ahead and spoke.

“A enemy.”

“An enemy? At a place like this?”

Ignoring Ume tilting his head, Maria grabbed Harukiyo’s arm. She pressed it against her ample bosom.

“Hmm? Squish, huh? Soft?”

Shaking her head at Harukiyo’s doubts, Maria pulled on Santa Claus’s cheek this time.

“…Hey! Why me?”

“Whack! Or maybe… something stinging?”

After Witch said this, Maria pointed at her and nodded.

Harukiyo turned toward the corridor again.

“What, so it had nothing to do with your boobs.”

“If that’s the case, then can you remove your hand already? You two really are pervs.”

Ume spoke bitterly with half-open eyes.

As Harukiyo’s group stood there waiting, a swaying figure appeared.

It was a petite girl. As she walked swaying from side to side, blue electrical sparks appeared at her fingertips.

Harukiyo raised an eyebrow.

“Sure looks like it can sting… but she feels familiar.”

The unknown girl crossed her arms in front of her chest. The moment after a pale light glowed within her open palms, the walls to her sides burst.

Electrical cables that were buried within and fragments of the walls began gathering midair to form something rod-shaped.

“…Electromagnetism…”

“Is she trying to attack us? Also, not like it really matters, but this girl’s complexion sure is bad…”

“Stinging and electromagnetism—right, I remember.”

“Eh, eh, is she your ex or something, Harukiyo?”

The Mushitsuki girl who controlled electromagnetism formed a spear made of iron in her hands. It had a sharp tip and was large enough to block the whole corridor.

“A member of the Annihilators. If I’m not mistaken, she was called Biribiri—”

Before Harukiyo finished speaking, the girl swung both arms.

By repulsing itself from both walls, ceiling and floor, the iron spear lunged ahead as though sliding.

As the corridor was so narrow, Harukiyo and the other had nowhere to escape to.

“Welp.”

Along with Ume’s casual voice, a large object appeared in the corridor.

It was a mirror bug that looked to be more than 3 meters long. The iron spear was sucked into the massive mirror attached to the Mushi’s back and vanished.

Following this, the iron spear then leapt out of the mirror bug and assaulted the girl.

Having her own attack reflected back to her, she tried evading. However, since she had no room in the narrow corridor, her flank and shoulder were grazed by the metal fragments and she collapsed.

“Not yet.”

Ume sneered. Another mirror bug appeared ahead of the flying spear.

“How long can you escape this game of catch using your own attack?”

As he said this happily, he saw Maria next to him glowing in gold and gasped.

“Eh, Maria-san, wait a—you too, Witch!”

Witch brought out a small wooden wand from her hat. She waved it toward the girl.

The next instant, a loud roar shook the Prison.

This violent tremor and roar assaulted the electromagnetism-user girl—

“This is so dangerous! You were about to hit my Mushi as well!”

“I sorry, I sorry.”

“Let me have some exercise. Also, you can spare one, right? You have several, right?”

“Yeah, but still,” Ume replied to her words, sulking.

A large cavern was formed in front of Harukiyo’s eyes. That place was a corridor but seconds ago.

Had she been blown further away or was it for another reason? He couldn’t see the figure of the electromagnetism girl anywhere.

Harukiyo walked in an unchanged pace at the corridor that now became exposed ground.

“I did hear Biribiri got herself killed or became a Fallen somewhere, though.”

“Eh? Then what was this, a ghost? Might be the first one I ever saw! Oh, what a waste. If she was a ghost, I wanted her as a pet.”

“…Shinpu…”

“Oh, right. Shinpu could control corpses, yeah. …Huh? Wasn’t Shinpu defeated, though?”

“According to Miguruma, that was just Shinpu’s personality, and apparently the power itself was absorbed by C. Meaning, this was C’s minion.”

“Oh man, so it wasn’t a ghost. But why C’s bothering us?”

“Don’t wake up Sleeping Beauty—this means C is saying this, right?”

At Witch’s words, Harukiyo unconsciously leaked a laugh.

“Hah. I wouldn’t find it odd for that brat to think so—but this is different. C’s personality’s already long gone. From the time the mist over Akamaki City cleared up.”

The others all looked puzzled, furrowing their brows.

“What do you mean?”

“That mist was like the death throes of whatever humanity remained in C. Save me, save me, if you don’t look here, I’ll vanish… that sorta thing.”

“So C… wanted to be saved?”

Ume bit his lips. It was a rare expression for him.

“Who on earth was she asking help from? —Well, that goes without saying.”

“C’s death throes… or it might be a dying message, but it probably reached its recipient. So that’s why he completely vanished for a time.”

“…Kakkou-san.”

“Didn’t manage to save her, though. Anyway, it’s too late. Whether she was trying to get the culprit to kill her, or wanting to pass along some secret—C had called Kakkou to her.”

Then the mist cleared, and the final part of C’s personality was gone.

Harukiyo came to know of Miguruma’s experiments using C while looking for Sleeping Beauty. He made no attempt to put a stop to it despite being fully aware because he had no reason for doing so.

“C right now doesn’t have the will as before. So it’s impossible for her to get in our way for some emotional reason.”

As Harukiyo sapt this, Maria grabbed his jacket.

“A enemy.”

“Agaiiin? Not really interested if it’s not a ghost, though.”

“Eek! Stop this, stop this. Don’t pull on my hair, Maria! Do-do-don’t shake my head, eeek!”

“Pulling and shaking? Oh, this means it’s controlling something?”

Maria nodded vigorously at Santa Claus.

“…It’s literal…”

Haruka mumbled.

Appearing ahead on the corridor was a swarm of strangely-shaped figures. Computers, monitors, and all manner of electrical devices at hand were gathered to form a human shape.

“A Mushitsuki controlling dolls, huh. Can you tell where the host is, Maria-san?”

“O.K., old man.”

“Hey! Why was that last part in Japanese? Just tell me already.”

Maria gave Santa Claus certain coordinates.

“If C’s standing in our way, it means—that hiding Sleeping Beauty is connected to her.”

His expression unchanging, Harukiyo kept walking.

The swarm of puppets started rushing toward them.

“Because that brat keeps the same orders from before.”

A loud explosive sound and vibration shook the Prison.

The origin of this explosive sound wasn’t from nearby. It was heard from afar.

“So the Guardian hiding Sleeping Beauty is the same as these guys—a Revived.”

The moment before it attacked Harukiyo who was mumbling to himself, the swarm of dolls lost its shape. They all fell down like a row of dominos and stopped moving.

Stepping on the scattered electrical devices, Harukiyo’s group advanced.

“Woah, it’s hard pulling the trolley over this. Just walk on your own, Witch-san. —Oh, I delivered a ‘present’ to the Mushitsuki controlling these, so it is fine now.”

“…We realized that…”

“You attack as fast as ever, Santa Claus. Tell me how you did it.”

“If you’re a bad kid I will show you someday. Firsthand.”

Going over all the appliances, Ume then directed a question at Harukiyo.

“If the Guardian’s a Revived, isn’t it odd? Wasn’t it just recently that C’s experiment was a success? It’d make more sense saying that they used the hidden Shinpu’s fragment to make them into a Guardian. I mean, even the Annihilators used fragments, right?”

“Nope.”

Harukiyo said.

“Nothin’ to do with either the Annihilators or the Fragments. I wouldn’t let a Mushitsuki who could do that go. Ever since the night of the meteor shower, I’ve been on guard…”

Right, it couldn’t be.

However, Harukiyo still didn’t know who the Guardian in charge of protecting Sleeping Beauty was.

“Old man, look at the coordinates Miguruma said. Should be in your range.”

Receiving Harukiyo’s words, Santa Claus closed one eye.

“No, it’s not in my range at all, but… if I go out of my way it might just work. Well, who is it?”

After the battle between Mushitsuki on the night of the meteor shower, Sleeping Beauty vanished.

The one who hid her was Miguruma Yaeko.

Among all those Harukiyo met, she was the sole woman whose plans he could never read.

“—Can I say something?”

Seeing Santa Claus’s expression as he said this with a bitter smile corroborated Harukiyo’s bad feeling.

Harukiyo came all the way here in order to wake up Sleeping Beauty.

However, some incomprehensible mysteries still remained—

“There is nothing… not only is there no space for hiding something, it looks like nothing more than a corridor.”

Their remaining time was limit.

The time limit of 48 hours given by Miguruma Yaeko—

What would happen, were he be unable to find Sleeping Beauty within that time?

Once again, Harukiyo couldn’t even begin to estimate this result.