Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 7th Episode 26 (section)

=== Part 2 ===

It became night, and Arisu came to Kurobishi Town’s suburbs, near her hometown of Akamaki City.

“T-this…”

The moment they got off the white limousine, Arisu and Daisuke stood in shock.

There were vast premises on top of the green hills. The structure separated into several different buildings was like a hospital, but unlike those seen in the city, they were flatter and structured like a pancake.

“Right, you can tell at a glance, right?”

Nanana said from within the limousine.

“There’s ''apparently'' a Mushitsuki here.”

Just like she said—Arisu knew at a glance that sight in front of her eyes was abnormal.

Perhaps due to some electrical problems, the lamps all around the area flickered on and off. The lights in the facilities themselves were also blinking, and whenever the light turned on in one window, the next moment it turned on in a completely different window, like some creepy relay of lights.

The most abnormal thing of all, however—was the sphere-shaped fog surrounding the entire facility. These spheres all floated in air, and whenever they touched one of the lamps, the metal-made pillars were dyed black and slowly crumbled down. It was as though they were infected by some disease the moment they touched the balls.

“Apparently?”

As expected, Daisuke was accustomed to this. As he immediately regained his calm and asked back, he opened his sports bag. He took out his SEPB equipment long coat and goggles, as well as a gun, and equipped them.

“This rehabilitation center had been bought by Akasegawa Group.”

The number of spheres surrounding the vast facility were beyond 100 or 200. No matter what route they took, they’d definitely bump into one of the spheres even after running only a few steps. Since these were the size of volleyballs and moved without any logic, it looked be hard to weave their way between them.

“With these state-of-the-art facilities, I thought of turning it into a rehabilitation facility serving businessmen and politicians, but now it’s like this. All employees and patients were safely evacuated, but no one comes here anymore. According to what the employees said, one of the dead patients’ relative caused all this. She was apparently a girl who’d enthusiastically come to visit… perhaps she turned into a Mushitsuki when that relative died.”

“Also—she’s out of control.”

The equipped Daisuke spoke in a low voice. His atmosphere of an average boy transformed into the combatant Kakkou.

“Judging from the fact she became a Mushitsuki due to negative circumstances, as well as this ability… she’s probably a Special Type. If I knew where our target is I could shoot her from outside and get it over with, but if that’s impossible it’s going to be an issue. It’d probably be unwise to touch those spheres. Whether or not we can blow them away with physical abilities… my compatibility is the worst.”

Analyzing the situation, Daisuke clicked his tongue.

“Why has the SEPB not heard of this?”

“This isn’t a joke. If we moved the SEPB, the business world will know of it. If that happens, those first-rate misers will give up. So I’d like you to take care of this discreetly. Will you do it or not?”

“We’ll do it.”

Arisu brought out her rod, swung it and extended it.

“We’ll obviously do it!”

“My, how boring. I thought you’d be more cautious, but you unexpectedly have some guts.”

“You’ve left this like this for such a silly reason? There’s no other place like this, right?”

Since the Mushitsuki inside the facility was out of the control, she was continually wasting her powers. If they left her like this, she would soon have her dream completely eaten by her Mushi and die.

“Yahah. Why are you so mad? Relax, this is the only place.”

The limousine’s door opened. The powered windows opened, and Nanana saw the pair off with a smile.

“Then, I’ll leave it in your care. I’ll be evacuating to somewhere far. Oh, right, try to keep damages to within a 20% of the facility.”

Along with the silent engine noises, the white limousine went down the dark road.

Daisuke’s shoulders sagged and he sighed.

“I never thought I’d have to capture a Mushitsuki outside of my mission. It’s really a bother.”

“This isn’t the time to be complaining! Let’s quickly save the girl inside!”

As Arisu attempted rushing over after saying this, Daisuke grabbed her arm.

“Don’t just recklessly charge there! Do something about your habit to act before thinking, idiot!”

“I ''was'' thinking! I’m the one that has to go there! Right?”

Daisuke was at a loss for words.

“You said you have a bad affinity against this ability, right? Even Neiko or Erii couldn’t take care of this ability in this large of an area. Even with Kasuou, we can’t tell what’d happen if she touched those spheres, and we can’t just keep looking for the host forever. Or do you have any idea?”

Arisu’s words likely struck the mark. Daisuke fell silent and then spoke as if wringing out his voice.

“Never mind the facilities, she could make this entire hill her territory.”

“Really? Then, we can leave it to—”

“But if we do that—it wouldn’t end pretty for the Mushitsuki inside.”

“—So we’re settled.”

The silver Morpho butterfly alighted on the rod held by Arisu. Its body split explosively, fusing with the rod to become a silver lance.

Heading for the rehabilitation center, Arisu swung her spear to the sides.

Silver scales blew, erasing the black spheres floating around the gate. —This opened a path into the facility for a moment, but soon other spheres came floating to block the path.

“Looks like it’s impossible for you to follow me.”

Turning back, she smiled at Daisuke.

“I’ll go alone.”

Scales spouted from the silver spear, wrapping Arisu’s body.

“I can protect myself with scales, and the spear will tell me where the girl is. —If I wrap you in these scales, you wouldn’t be able to use your powers, right?”

“…”

“Or maybe—are you worried about me going alone?”

Daisuke said nothing. Although he usually was decisive when it came to battle, he looked to be hesitating.

Arisu bit her lips.

Until now, he always called her a burden. And it was true. Not only was she being protected by him, she even dragged his legs and exposed him to danger.

However, it was also true that Arisu was the only one able to break this current deadlock.

“—This is like when I captured Kasuou. Our enemy’s probably powerful. You also know that enemies are scary when they’re cornered.”

Seeing Daisuke sigh, Arisu felt a stab of pain in her chest.

However—seeing that Daisuke put his gun away, she widened her eyes.

“Don’t try to defeat her meaninglessly. You can simply find the enemy.”

“Eh?”

“If you appear in front of her, she’ll focus on you. When you do that, those spheres will definitely vanish. At the same time, I’ll follow the sounds of battle and come to you.”

Arisu’s expression sparkled.

“No matter how strong she is, she’s definitely not Harukiyo-level. If I’m worried about anything, is that you’ll destroy everything around you.”

Saying this, Daisuke shook his hand as if shooing her away.

“—That is a needless worry.”

Arisu smiled. She kicked the ground.

“It’s just a building. If I break just one or two rooms, we can say it’s within 20%.”

“I’m telling you to reflect on your actions…”

Her back pushed by the boy’s exasperated voice, Arisu passed through the main gate and leapt inside the premises.

The black spheres touched her, but the silver scales protecting erased those.

As Arisu kicked at the asphalt-covered ground, her leg took a silver pattern. She leapt over the plaza’s flowerbed with her strengthened legs.

“Mari! Where’s the Mushitsuki?”

The spear responding to Arisu’s call pulled her toward a building on the inner right side.

“So she’s there.”

Clad in the silver glow, Arisu rushed through the building directly.

Speaking honestly—she was also scared of leaping into danger alone.

However, Daisuke let her go.

Perhaps he was finally acknowledging her. —Just thinking this made her anxiety vanish. Daisuke said he wasn’t worried. These words were as strong and reliable as having him by her side.

“A strong Mushitsuki…”

While passing between buildings, she mumbled to herself.

The other day, when Harukiyo encouraged her to “do her best”, she also thought that.

There was power in the words of powerful Mushitsuki.

When they said it, it seemed like they could do anything.

Right, therefore, no matter what kind of—

“Ugh…!”

As she got closer to the Mushitsuki’s presence, the black spheres grew in intensity. Part of the spear that touched a sphere that went through the scales began to blacken.

Immediately the Morpho butterfly spear activated another ability. Calming scales that made the enemy’s ability sleep stuck to the spear, melting away the blackening.

“Looks like the entire center caught this disease…”

Increasing the density of the scales protecting her body, Arisu accelerated further.

The walls held in place with steel concrete were being shaved by the blackness. Almost all plants around the building blackened, wilted and died.

The Morpho butterfly spear led her to the round facility at the very end of the premises. It had probably been abandoned when the patients were evacuated. She leapt inside the open doors, entering into a lobby with a sofa.

“Is she above?”

There was an elevator in the back of the lobby with the blinking lights, but the lamp indicating the floors was gone. It was probably nonfunctional.

Being pulled by the spear, she flew into a corridor, running around and looking for stairs. As she turned toward the smell of water, she saw a glass wall and a pool of warm water. It was probably a rehabilitation facility.

Finding the stairs, she aimed for the higher floor.

Although she stumbled due to the sudden lack of light, the spear’s reaction brought her to a certain floor. Rushing through a corridor full of doors, she checked them one by one.

All rooms had examination machines in them. They were separated into X-ray rooms or CT scanners.

How many rooms had she investigated already?

When she opened the double doors blocking the end of the corridor, she saw a girl.

“—”

Although she ran out of breath, she found herself gasping. Cold sweat erupted all over her body.

She could tell that this was an operation room.

However, the entire room—was filled with black mist.

Rage, sadness, hatred, and despair.

Inside the mist that condensed all negative emotions, a lone girl was standing.

“…Ma…ri…?”

For some reason, the girl that turned her back to her—overlapped with the figure of her deceased friend.

Perhaps it was also due to her height, figure and hair length resembling Mari’s. However, it wasn’t just that. The atmosphere of despair projected from her entire body was just like Mari’s figure she’d seen when Ayuyu used her ability.

“…”

The girl slowly turned to Arisu.

Her face—was both like and unlike Mari’s. The bad complexion and expression dyed by only despair were just like Arisu’s dead friend. Her attention was caught by a withered four-leaved clover in her hair.

The girl slowly spread her hands. She was gathering black mist around her clenched fists. —Slipping through the legs of Arisu as she stood at the doorway, the spheres surrounding the entire facility were being sucked into the girl’s fists.

“No matter how hard he tried—”

Arisu’s body froze with a twitch. The girl’s much too low voice that leaked from her lips gave her a chill.

“No matter how much he trained—”

''Pow.

Arisu shook again. The creepiness of the sound of bone striking against bone grasped her heart.

“No matter how virtuously he lived—”

''Pow.

The girl struck her fists in front of her chest. Every time she did this, black spheres gathered to her fists, condensed, were spread around and wrapped her fist again.

“The person most important to me still died.”

''Pow.

“Life is afflicted with poison from the very moment of birth.”

''Pow.

“No one can be healed of it.”

''Pow.

“Since we’re all going to die someday, is there any reason to live?”

''Pow.

“If we’re all going to die anyway—if it’s nothing but suffering—I want to ease it all, as soon as possible.”

''Pow.

“I’ll ‘save’ each and every one from the disease called life.”

The Mushitsuki girl stopped hitting her fists, slowly assuming a boxing pose.

While her fists and legs were being enveloped in black mist, the silhouette of a clover sawtooth stag beetle rose behind her. All the spheres scattered around the premises condensed and her limbs transformed to four tusks. These could probably pierce through the scales protecting Arisu.

However, even when faced with the girl’s overwhelming murderous intent, Arisu thought about something else entirely.

How many Mushitsuki had she met so far?

Until now, all Mushitsuki she met worried and suffered. Even the Mushitsuki girl in front of her had her own circumstances that turned her into a Mushitsuki, and she was suffering even now.

Why was that?

Why did all Mushitsuki have to—

“—try it…”

Mumbling in her mouth, Arisu grasped her spear.

The girl kicked the floor, launching herself toward Arisu who stood upright. She slid to her chest with unwasted movements, striking it with a fist clad in black mist.

Along with the impact, Arisu’s body bent forward.

“…!”

The Mushitsuki girl raised her face with a start.

Arisu’s hand, covered in a silver pattern, stopped the girl’s fist.

“You say we’re all going to die anyway—”

A lone tear fell atop the girl’s stopped fist.

“You say you’ll ease it all for us—”

The girl’s remaining fist aimed for Arisu’s flank. However, Arisu’s hand stopped that as well.

“Hah!”

Having her superhuman physical strength sealed, the girl now tried a bursting knee kick. Arisu took it head on, and her chin flew.

“—Then try it.”

Blood dribbling down her mouth, Arisu looked down at the girl.

“Hah! Hah!”

The girl’s kicks struck Arisu’s body from zero range.

The silver pattern separated from Arisu’s arm stopping the fist and her body receiving the kicks. Encroached by the black disease, it seemed to struggle and rampage. The blowing silver scales seemed to get cancelled by the other girl’s black pattern, vanishing.

“My Mushi!”

The Morpho butterfly’s skin being torn and the girl’s kicks caused Arisu’s body to be engraved with wounds. Yet the tears that rose to the corners of her eyes were not due to pain.

“Will never lose to the likes of you!”

Why was it?

Why did all Mushitsuki suffer?

Weren’t they supposed to be people who were possessed by these Mushi while having a grand dream? Weren’t they supposed to embrace a hope and be born anew?

“I’m not a Mushitsuki and I’m so weak I couldn’t even save my friend, but—”

All Mushitsuki were fighting against something.

What were they fighting against?

“This Mushi is much stronger than you! After all, it belonged to a person who was unable to live despite wanting to live… and yet never gave up on it!”

She, who wasn’t a Mushitsuki—

Had herself decided to keep getting involved with Mushitsuki in order to look for Mari’s will—

And what should she really do, upon meeting them?

“I’ll ‘save’ them…!”

The shouting girl cried again. Even while her power was being cancelled by the scales, she kept kicking recklessly.

“I’ll blow away all sick life…!”

“If you really think that death is salvation, why are you still alive!”

“UwaaAAAhhh!”

“Why are you fighting me now!”

The girl’s kicks stopped.

“You can just turn back and run away… so why are you heading forward!”

The Mushitsuki girl bared her canines and glared at the shouting Arisu. While shedding large tears, she groaned with hatred.

“I’ll… defile anyone and everyone with poison.”

“Is that—your dream?”

Dreams weren’t necessarily pretty things.

Arisu, who’d met up with many Mushitsuki, knew that.

“But—”

The girl said that she lost someone important to her.

Perhaps it was inevitable, embracing this backwards dream within her sadness.

“Try thinking of the one precious to you.”

However, letting the dream born from sadness end in sadness—was much too cruel.

“Do you still think the same even while imagining that person’s face?”

“…!”

The girl’s expression distorted in hatred crumbled. Power left Arisu’s arms.

The time she visited Mari’s empty hospital room, Arisu couldn’t think of anything.

She even begrudged the world that didn’t let her best friend live.

But now, when Arisu tried imagining Mari’s face—she could only think of the happy moments she spent with her.

“’Save’ him—”

The girl’s expression crumbled. The black mist covering her listless fists was changing in color.

“I wanted—to ‘save’…”

The spheres covering the girl’s limbs became pure white.

“I just wanted—to save him…”

As Arisu received that fist, the white spheres infected her body. The illness caused by the black mist encroaching the Morpho butterfly was being healed by the white glow.

“Uuuh…”

The Mushitsuki girl used the healing power for just a split second. As if immediately exhausting herself, she fell toward Arisu.

Burying her face in Arisu’s chest, she began sobbing with her shoulders shaking.

She somehow stopped the girl’s rampage.

However—this didn’t mean she had saved the girl who was now crying softly.

“…”

Hugging the trembling girl, Arisu bit her lower lips.

The pain of the girl who ended up becoming a Mushitsuki actually started only right now. She had to keep living, all the while suffering from the fear of getting devoured by her Mushi.

If only Arisu was stronger.

If she was as powerful like Daisuke or Harukiyo—or perhaps that girl in command of a ladybug—could she have saved those suffering Mushitsuki in front of her eyes?

Managing to avoid a fight now was also not thanks to her own power. It was the power of the Morpho butterfly that Mari had left to her.

What could Ichinokuro Arisu do while not even being a Mushitsuki?

“…!”

The Morpho butterfly emitted a blinding light. At the same time, the entire facility shook.

Sounds of destruction and vibrations were approaching Arisu—and suddenly the wall of the operation room exploded.

Seeing the figure appear from within the broken concrete, Arisu doubted her eyes.

“Move, Arisu!”

Appearing there the handgun-wielding Kusuriya Daisuke, as well as another person—a girl riding a giant Mushi that resembled a ladybug.

“I won’t hand her over to the likes of the SEPB!”

“Rina—”

She was Rina, the girl Arisu had previously met in the SEPB’s Central Headquarters. The girl who’d supposedly escaped from the Headquarters full of SEPB members now appeared in front of Arisu again for some reason.

“W-why are you here—”

“She appeared the moment all those spheres vanished around the center! She apparently thought of getting this Mushitsuki before the SEPB.”

He probably came there while fighting Rina. Daisuke stood in front of Arisu and the Mushitsuki to block Rina’s path.

“I will not allow you to use Mushitsuki as tools of war! Give her to me!”

“Uh…!”

The Mushitsuki girl, still mentally unbalanced, feebly let go of Arisu. In response to her pent-up nervousness, she took a ready stance while stumbling.

Arisu shouted at Rina.

“S-stop! If you stimulate her right now, she’d really exhaust herself!”

“Hunter…!”

Seeing Arisu, Rina’s expression turned harsh.

“She’s already fine… so retreat, Rina!”

Daisuke and Rina were completely ready for battle. If Daisuke pressed the trigger, Rina would immediately counterattack with a shockwave. If that happened, they would hurt the Mushitsuki girl as well.

[[File:Mushi_Uta_Bug_7th_p107.jpg|thumb]]

Arisu instantly leapt in front of Daisuke’s readied gun.

“Wha…! Move, Arisu!”

“So you’re allied with the SEPB, then, Hunter!”

Rina’s ladybug spread its wings.

However, Arisu did not flinch.

“If you really want to fight no matter what—”

The readied Morpho butterfly sphere started spouting glowing scales.

“To protect this girl—I will take on the two of you.”

“…!”

Daisuke and Rina both widened their eyes in shock.

The girl riding the ladybug passed her gaze from Arisu to the Mushitsuki girl.

“—”

Seeing the girl doing everything to get ready, Rina grimaced. Realizing that Arisu wasn’t bluffing, the ladybug folded its wings.

“Come to me! We’ll be able to save you!”

Having given up forceful methods, Rina reached her hand toward the Mushitsuki girl.

However—

“…!”

Rina widened her eyes.

The Mushitsuki girl walked on her unsteady legs—toward Arisu.

Arisu was just as surprised at her by this action. She soon recovered and covered the girl.

“Rina…!”

Rina glared at the entreating Arisu.

The ladybug stepped back while making the air tremble heavily.

“—If you do anything bad to her, I’ll never forgive you.”

Leaving this low voice behind, Rina and the ladybug vanished on the other side of the wall. The voice of her breaking obstacles was heard distancing.

Feeling relieved after avoiding battle—wasn’t quite how Arisu felt.

She’d always wished to meet the girl called Rina again. She couldn’t just lose her here.

Arisu spurned her aching body, running toward the hole in the wall with spear in hand.

“I’m leaving her to you, Daisuke—”

“Hah? Hey, where’re you going!”

“I want to talk to Rina.”

“Talk—what? I can’t let you do that!”

As Daisuke tried pursuing her, Arisu swung the spear at him.

Scales sealing Mushitsuki powers blew between Arisu and Daisuke.

“Wha—why, you…!”

“I’m sorry! But I feel like this is my only chance. Don’t worry!”

Leaving behind the angry Daisuke, Arisu followed the departing Rina.