Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 6th Episode 22 (section)

=== Part 2 ===

The inside of the limousine was even more spacious than Arisu thought.

The seats stretched on both sides of the long vehicle were soft and the table at the center was laden with a full bottle and empty glasses.

A single black cat curled its body on the floor. Completely unlike the limousine overflowing with richness, it looked like a stray cat with dirty fur.

The tinted glass that blocked all sights from the outside did allow them to see the town’s scenery clearly passing away from inside the car. The red setting sun illuminated the faces of Arisu and the rest even more than the ceiling lights.

“I apologize for suddenly talking to you.”

The uniformed girl lowered her head politely.

Sitting directly in front of the girl were Arisu and Daisuke. Kasuou sat a little bit further, grasping the bottle and directly drinking from it. Erii was sitting silently next to Kasuou and looking at them.

“My name is Akasegawa Nanana.”

The cat slowly roused its body, curling up again at the feet of the girl introducing herself. Nanana reached out gently, petting its back.

Erii raised a surprised voice.

“Akasegawa Nanana…? No way, the new Chairman of Akasegawa Group?”

“Do you know her, Erii?”

Arisu also knew the name of Akasegawa Group. If she recalled correctly, it was a large company that had many businesses under its umbrella.

“They’ve talked about it in the news recently. The Chairman of the Akasegawa Group had a sudden, mysterious death—”

Erii was about to speak but closed her mouth when she saw Nanana’s face. Confirming that she did not change her expression, she opened her mouth again.

“—Ever since his death, his granddaughter became the new Chairman… At the same time, because the employees and organizational systems underwent reform, it had quite considerable effects on the business world. I believe the name of the new Chairman is Akasegawa Nanana…”

“Until recently I was just a normal student; I’m Chairman in name only. —For now, at least.”

Nanana brought her line of sight up from the cat. She gazed at Arisu’s face intently.

“Also, no matter how much influence I have, my family is but an upstart. We are a far cry from the ancient and noble Ichinokuro line.”

“…”

“Seeing how you reacted when I have called out to you, I thought you knew me as well. But if you haven’t seen any news about me, where have you come to know me?”

Arisu’s heart leapt.

''—I want to remain the Kind Magician inside her alone…

Arisu had seen Nanana during a certain event at the hanging gardens in the city. Since the Mushitsuki woman had protected Nanana one-sidedly, the girl herself wouldn’t know about Arisu.

Recalling the girl who fell to protect Nanana, the pain in her heart was reborn.

“No, but you… how come you know about me?”

Asked back, Nanana smiled. Spinning her stick, she pointed it outside the window—at the Morpho butterfly who landed on the side mirror with its wings fluttering in the wind.

“That butterfly is no mere insect. This species does not exist anywhere on earth. —I just so happened to see it flying near you while on campus, and I apologize, but I have investigated many things.”

Daisuke, who’d been listening quietly this far, clicked his tongue. He would frequently warn Arisu to hide the Morpho butterfly, but since it wasn’t originally her Mushi, Arisu couldn’t freely control it, obviously.

“That’s a Mushi, right?”

Nanana looked into Arisu’s eye and spoke in a tone that indicated she would not take no for an answer.

“Haa, Mushi and Mushitsuki and all that… as if there’s anything like that—”

“Alright, that’s enough of that. I’ve actually met one Mushitsuki many times and she helped me. I’m not going to let you say that they don’t exist.”

Nanana paid no attention to Daisuke trying to laugh it off.

Arisu bit her lips.

The Mushitsuki Nanana was talking about was the Kind Magician beyond a shadow of doubt. Having become a Mushitsuki following her first meeting with Nanana, that woman had incessantly met up with Nanana and protected her.

“Also, as I’ve been checking on you since a while now… I can also guess at the others’ identities. You belong to the Special Environmental Preservation Bureau, right?”

“…!”

“Every time I attempted to investigate Mushitsuki, these people stood in my way. My investigators were warned each and every time, but this is my first time meeting you directly.”

Even faced with Daisuke and the rest narrowing their eyes, Nanana did not flinch in the slightest.

“I wish to speak to Arisu-san. Will you stay silent for a while?”

“Tellin’ me to shut up? Hey, you have any idea who you’re talking to?”

“You’re just a delinquent, Kasuou. —Ugh, you stink of alcohol!”

“Of course, if you’re also Mushitsuki then I have no problem.”

Grinning, Nanana turned back to Arisu.

“What I want to know is the method to become a Mushitsuki. If you teach me that… I intend on greatly rewarding you. I promise to grant any of your desires, and the range is quite large.”

Hearing from the side, “Then get me a limited-edition strap of Carnivorous Army!” “Kakkou-san, this person is embarrassing, so could you please shut her up?” Ignoring them, Arisu asked a question.

“And what are you going to do with that information?”

“I’m obviously going to become a Mushitsuki myself.”

Hearing Nanana’s unhesitating assertion, the faces of all Mushitsuki there stiffened.

“I want to become a Mushitsuki.”

Arisu felt a chill running through her spine—perhaps because the eyes of Daisuke, Kasuou and Erii looking at Nanana changed.

Perhaps in response to the oppressive atmosphere that suddenly befell the inside of the car, the black cat twitched and rose.

“Listen here, you bastard—”

There was the sound of breaking glass. Opening her blue eyes wide, the bottle Kasuou had been holding was crushed by a black mist.

“Do you even understand what you’re saying?”

Nanana’s expression lit up. She happily clapped her hands.

“Yahahah. So you are a Mushitsuki? Will you please tell me how you became one?”

“—”

“I do know that these things called the Original Three turn people to Mushitsuki! How can I meet them?”

These words apparently really pissed off Kasuou. The blond girl rose from her seat and tried reaching with her arm covered in mist toward Nanana.

“H-hold up, Kasuou! S-stop her, Erii! Daisuke, you too!”

“R-right…!”

Arisu tried restraining Kasuou along with Erii. However, the one who made her stop from trying to rip Nanana apart was Daisuke’s calm question.

“Why do you want to become a Mushitsuki?”

The boy, acting completely cool and with his arms crossed, looked at the smiling Nanana.

“Even if you only know Mushitsuki from rumors you wouldn’t one to become one. They’re possessed by monsters, have their dreams eaten and die before long.”

“But they become able to use magic, right?”

Nanana questioned without a moment’s delay.

“It’s unfair, all of you monopolizing something so convenient! I also want to try using that kind of power!”

Daisuke’s eyes changed. Erii also widened her eyes and she let go of Kausou’s arm from behind her back. Kasuou leaned forward.

“You bitch, you think this power is magic?!”

A dry voice made the cat’s ears twitch.

The one to have slapped Nanana’s cheek was not one of the Mushitsuki there.

“…?”

Nanana, with her cheek turning red, looked quizzically at Arisu.

Still in the pose of having slapped the girl, Arisu had tears in her eyes.

This wasn’t an action brought out of anger. The ones who should be angry were Daisuke and the other Mushitsuki.

Arisu wasn’t a Mushitsuki, so what she felt—was an unfathomable sadness.

“You—”

There was a Mushitsuki who called Nanana her benefactor.

That woman used her own powers to protect Nanana. And as a result—she died instead of Nanana, thus going through an ending that was incomprehensible to Arisu.

And the girl herself, after being protected by that Mushitsuki, so easily said that she wanted to become one too—

“Was this what you thought about the Mushitsuki that protected you…? Just a person with a handy power… are you saying that’s how you saw her?!”

Nanana frowned. She puffed her cheeks, flustered.

“Is that wrong?”

“…!”

“Let us get off.”

To stop Arisu from swinging her hand again, Daisuke pressed the button installed on the wall. It was probably intended to communicate with the driver on the other side of the soundproof glass.

The driver peeked in the back mirror.

“…You miser.”

Along with this dissatisfied parting remark, Nanana nodded to the mirror.

The limousine, that drove around the town a few times under the pretext of getting them home, stopped noiselessly. The man in the passenger seat got off first and opened the back door from outside.

“If you want to know how to become a Mushitsuki…”

The moment before Daisuke got off the car, he turned once to Nanana.

“How about asking the Mushitsuki who saved you?”

“…!”

Nanana, holding her cheek, looked shaken for the first time. Unlike how she feigned innocence so far, she exposed her true face, full of anxiety.

“Ah…”

A black shadow slipped between Daisuke and Arisu as they got off.

“Crochet!”

The black cat jumped out of the limousine, vanishing in town. Nanana’s small shout was probably its name; she pushed Arisu and the rest aside and followed it.

“…”

“Arisu?”

She hesitated, but Arisu decided to pursue Nanana. Traversing the sidewalk, she rushed to a narrow path where the last glows of the sun didn’t reach.

It would be easy to just part from Nanana like this. However, Arisu was the only person to have been the final moments of the Magician, who’d been protecting Nanana.

Arisu had also yet to convey to Nanana something important.

She found Nanana standing near the mewling cat near the path entrance. On the other side of the alley, she could see a road with passing vehicles.

Her heart thumped loudly.

She felt as though the Morpho butterfly increased in brightness.

It was a dirty back alley that could be found anywhere. For Arisu, this was her first time there.

If so, then—why did her heartbeat hasten?

“This is…?”

“Maybe this is Crochet’s previous home.”

Nanana did not try to make the black cat go back against its will. She crouched near it, gently petting its head.

“Crochet’s from this town. While I’ve seen it many times when I came to Akamaki City, I ended up following it… I took it to many places. First time here, though.”

“…”

“Have you decided to tell me how to become a Mushitsuki?”

Turning back, Nanana was grinning.

Arisu regulated her breathing and answered.

“Why have you come to this city so many times?”

“Because my beloved Mushitsuki was here. When I’ve first come here—she wasn’t there, but… this is the first time she hadn’t been in contact with me for so long… if she called me, she obviously would be there.”

“…”

“Is it bad to want to be the same as someone I like?”

Seeing Nanana’s carefree smile, Arisu finally noticed.

Nanana was just like the cat she was petting. Losing her one and only relative, she also lost sight of the Mushitsuki she trusted from the bottom of her heart.

She didn’t know what position Nanana had. She couldn’t even imagine what this unwanted status had brought onto her.

But the Magician, who was supposed to support her after being left all alone, was gone—

“If I was a Mushitsuki, and if I was the Mushitsuki who protected you—”

Her clenched fist was shaking.

Arisu was neither a Mushitsuki nor Nanana’s protector. Did she really have the qualifications to speak the truth?

“I probably wouldn’t have wanted you to become a Mushitsuki…”

“Yahaha.”

Innocently—and with an unchanged expression like a mask—Nanana wrung out laughter. She used a light voice, like that of someone laughing with friends.

“What do you even know?”

Arisu did know.

Arisu knew about the Mushitsuki who used her life to protect Nanana. Arisu had received her memories and watched half of her life.

That was why she couldn’t tell Nanana the truth.

Arisu couldn’t take away the Mushitsuki who served as Nanana’s last pillar of support when she’d been so desperately looking for something to cling to—

“I want to know how to become a Mushitsuki… just the knowledge of how to meet up with the Original Three. If you tell me, I can make every wish of yours come true.”

“Do you really—”

''Want to become a Mushitsuki?

What Nanana wished for was not that, but simply to meet a single Mushitsuki—Arisu thought this and was about to voice it.

However, she then noticed the presence of a person behind her and turned.

They’d probably come after Arisu and Nanana. Daisuke, having dragged Kasuou and Erii along, looked around him with brows raised.

“Daisuke?”

“This place…”

The boy’s behavior was strange. “The graffiti on the wall, those scratches on the power pole—” he traced his hands on the wall, crouching on the dirty ground and was apparently thinking.

“No way—this is where Hanashiro Mari had talked to the Undying Mushitsuki…?”

It wasn’t only Arisu who widened her eyes. Erii and Kasuou also looked at Daisuke with surprise. Nanana alone looked puzzled.

“Eh…? W-what does that mean?”

“This is the same place I’ve seen through Kororo’s past reading. Hanashiro Mari had been here, asking someone if it’s true they can’t die… and that was definitely—”

“W-wait a moment, Kakkou-san! Does that mean Hanashiro Mari had found the Undying Mushitsuki? And in Akamaki City, no less?”

“Hey, hey, this means that Undying bastard’s somewhere in this city.”

“This is my first time hearing this! Why haven’t you told me, Daisuke!”

Arisu could not remember the latter half of Kurisaka Ayuyu’s past reading. Because she’d been assaulted by a sensation similar to drowsiness halfway through.

Even while grabbed by Arisu, the stunned Daisuke kept thinking.

“So had she really…? There’s no way… no matter how you look at it, this is—”

“What are you talking about, Kakkou-san? If you’d told us about it we could’ve investigated!”

“No—don’t investigate this.”

This one sentence uttered by Daisuke caused Arisu and the rest’s expressions to harden.

“You’d better forget about the Undying Mushitsuki. This might be… much more of a trouble than I thought.”

“What are you saying…? What’s the trouble with—”

Arisu tried pressing Daisuke, but she noticed that Nanana was acting strange.

She absently looked at behind Arisu and the rest. Tears welled up in her eyes.

Following Arisu, Daisuke and the rest also noticed the abnormality.

Purple scales were wafting inside the gloomy alley.

“You’re finally here…”

Nanana’s soft voice was filled with delight.

“Right. After all, I wanted to become a Mushitsuki so much—”

Arisu felt a chill run through her spine. A bad feeling rushed from head to toe like a lightning strike.

“No fucking way…”

Kasuou raised a hoarse voice. Erii was unable to let out any voice and stared out of the alley with eyes of pure shock.

Arisu and Daisuke slowly turned around.

Ahead they could see the figures of people crossing the large sidewalk.

“—”

The thing that first leapt to Arisu’s sight was eyes with rainbow-colored pupils behind round sunglasses.

Even inside the massive crowd, that tall body clad in a crimson long coat was conspicuous. Even so, none of the people walking by even turned to look at this woman who dressed out of season.

The scales glowing in purple flowed from the road to Arisu and the rest.

“Oogui—”

Arisu mumbled.

One of the Original Three—

The Prototype Mushi who gave birth to Minion-Type Mushitsuki—

The being called Oogui sneered calmly at Arisu and the rest.

“You’re going to make me a Mushitsuki.”

Next to Arisu and the rest standing in shock, Nanana was crying.