Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 11 Chapter 4 (section)

== 4.03 Daisuke Part 13 ==

“Come inside.”

Miguruma beckoned Daisuke to inside the neighboring room.

“How is the situation above ground?”

It was apparently a warehouse. A space with steel shelves was lit by emergency-use pale light.

“Please report the branches’ movements to me, Kakkou.”

Miguruma fiddled with the cans laid on the shelves. They were apparently already prepared to be besieged like this.

“…It’s only a matter of time before we can’t keep up with citizen evacuation. We also lack the firepower to deal with the Caterpillars. We need to think up of a plan for the branches to rescue the Central Headquarters from the Stronghold.”

Daisuke reported as the combatant Kakkou.

In front of him was the Vice-Director, Miguruma Yaeko.

There was no trace of Mikko he’d seen in the past world. —Or so he wanted to say, but now that he looked at her, her eyes and voice certainly had traces of Mikko.

“It will fail. The branches currently lack the power to break through this, and there’s no commander to get in contact with. —If we had your branch head it would’ve been different story, though.”

Miguruma grinned. Daisuke couldn’t understand what was so funny.

“Meaning that we can’t do anything?”

“I did not say this. I have an idea. However, strangely enough...”

Miguruma looked at him.

“Several of my strategies—involve the Rank 1s.”

“…”

“Already one of those is meaningless. You shouldn’t have come here, but instead gathered members on the surface. I told you this inside ‘that world’ as well, but you really are stupid.”

That world—

Meaning, the world of the past.

He already knew it from her words before.

Being dragged into that illusion wasn’t just Daisuke, but Miguruma as well, apparently.

Daisuke had shared seeing the moment the Original Three were born with the woman in front of him.

With Miguruma Yaeko—the masked girl called Mikko.

“I now know why I was so mad at that Mikko girl. Since she was actually Miguruma Yaeko it’s obvious. So you saw the same illusion as me?”

“Leaving aside what happened inside, I am your superior right now. If you strike me, I shall have to apprehend you for treason.”

“…Was what I saw there really the events of the past?”

“…More or less the truth.”

Miguruma played with the cans.

“My father was devoted in his research of the Undying and was spotted by the Round Table of the time. Although this research was far too heavy for my stupid father, I secretly continued it.”

“…”

“When my father noticed it, not only had he felt no gratitude, he even feared me and tried to have me killed. Therefore, to finish this delusion I took some test subjects to escape with—and then met those three.”

Those three.

Daisuke knew who she spoke of.

“Kii-kun, Rui… Kasshi.”

“Ichiku Kimitaka, Ichinokuro Ruisu, Kashua Artines.”

He knew about them.

First, Ichiku Kimitaka.

That name—belonged to the Central Headquarters Director of the SEPB.

He instead became a Director-General in name only, and even grasping an essential authority, he vanished from people’s eyes in recent years. Including Daisuke, only a very select few knew the reason for his disappearance.

“You obviously know Ichiku, but you have also met Ichinokuro Ruisu before, right, Kakkou?”

He obviously knew him.

Because that name also related to the decisive battle in the past. Above all else, the one with the actual connection—or rather being the nucleus of that fight—was Ichinokuro Ruisu’s lone daughter.

Although this battle had supposedly long passed, it was actually much older than that—

It had connection to the moment when everything started.

Since he came to know this truth, Daisuke was shocked.

“Kashua… perhaps even that name wasn’t his real one. Nowhere in the world is there any proof he had existed. People like him would infiltrate this country from time to time.”

A nameless boy from another country.

He didn’t know his true identity.

However, he was the first Fusion Type Mushitsuki.

When born, he fought to stop the change in the world, and in the end perished.

There were only very few of the Fusion Types, and they were always full of irregulars—and he was the very first of them.

“So back then—Mushi were born in the truest sense.”

At Daisuke’s question, Miguruma—

“Yes, exactly.”

Clearly nodded.

“There were signs of that. But even though it was an experiment that never should have succeeded… in that instant, even I don’t know what happened.”

Miguruma Yaeko wore the same smile she did when she was called Mikko.

Carefree.

A kind smell that looked as if blessed the world itself.

“So you—are the cause of everything.”

It was completely unconscious.

Daisuke suddenly noticed that he was aiming his gun at Miguruma.

He didn’t know the identity of the feeling storming inside him right now.

Was it anger?

Was it hatred?

Had he been turning them over in his mind until now when he could finally direct them at their source?

Or perhaps—were the many people he made into Fallen until now forcing him to do so?

“I am the cause?”

Miguruma erased her smile.

“Have you not seen what happened in that world and in that time with your very own eyes? Then why do you think so?”

“You ask me why? But you—”

“Yes, I was there. Is it because I stole my father’s research? Is it because my father started the research? Is it because Rui and the Round Table cooperated with the research? Is it because Kasshi wasn’t strong enough? Is it because the completely unrelated Kii-kun’s dream ended up killing Kasshi?”

[[File:Mushi Uta 11 p269.jpg|thumb]]

He put strength into his finger on the trigger.

“How far, exactly? How far do we need to go to determine the so-called cause?”

If it was his previous self, he could push the trigger unhesitatingly.

No—that was wrong.

The past Daisuke wouldn’t begrudge the cause. He fought only to protect his dream, and didn’t care about anything else. His enemies were just the Original Three and he never pursued the reason of their birth.

“I will not deny that it is our fault that the world changed. However, I cannot agree with the word, cause.”

He knew it rationally.

Everything he saw in the world of the past went according to Mikko’s prophecy.

''—Because of us, this country will be filled with Mushi and reach its end.

Everyone in that period of time became the cause for its change. If even one person missed, the journey connected to that prophecy would not reach its goal.

“—”

While knowing this, he couldn’t lower his gun.

Did something different from his own will did this to him?

Daisuke had seen more Mushitsuki collapse in the midst of their dream than anyone else.

While fighting longer than anyone, he carried their feelings.

That was the continuation of their dream—

Perhaps it could be called hatred.

Whatever emotion it may be, and despite Daisuke not being adequate to be carrying it—

“…!”

A faint noise and shaking passed through the Stronghold.

A small abnormality that he might’ve noticed because they were facing each other wordlessly. The sound was coming from above.

“So Diorestoi shook off his paralysis?”

Looking up the ceiling, Miguruma narrowed her eyes. Despite having a gun pointed at her, she was completely unmoving.

“So those caterpillars… are definitely Shinpu, then.”

Daisuke did not lower his gun.

“So after getting caught at the ship, Shinpu—Diorestoi—was hidden by the Central Headquarters?”

“The SEPB didn’t exist at the time. It’s the result of meddling by the government, calculations by the Round Table and all sorts of things. Apparently a body double left by Diorestoi kept going around, though.”

“…”

“You’re probably already aware of this, but the Annihilators are also test subjects who had a fragment of Diorestoi used on them. Because of that, when the main body got away from us, it stole back those fragments and we were easily made powerless.”

Miguruma easily revealed the truth which was top secret for many years now.

“…Did Diorestoi show me that illusion?”

“What would he gain from doing that?”

“…? Then, who—”

The Stronghold shook again.

The tremor this time was much more powerful, and the sound was approaching.

“Is it not obviously the cause for the mist isolating Akamaki City? That was a warning against me, and from you it sought salvation. —Even if I say this, you probably won’t understand that because you are slow on the uptake, Kakkou.”

''I really wanna slap her again,'' he groaned in his heart.

Daisuke disliked the person called Miguruma Yaeko so much that he got unconsciously really angry in the world of the past.

“Since you are provisionally one of the Undying, please restrain yourself.”

Those words sounded like a joke.

Miguruma Yaeko was forever smiling, and even now she smiled, but still—

“—What did you just say?”

Those words were too heavy to ignore.

Undying.

He’d never miss these words that came out again and again during critical fights.

“You said that I’m—one of the Undying?”

“Did you think that being strong was the only condition to become Rank 1?”

Miguruma’s narrow eyes looked at the frozen Daisuke.

“One who never dies. That is what it means to be designated Rank 1.”

“…Then what about Rina!”

He shouted without thinking. It was so loud his own throat felt numb.

Unlike just before, he clearly realized.

He was about to press the trigger out of his own volition—

“She’s dead!”

“’Ladybird still lives in our hearts’.”

Perhaps to Miguruma, his swelling killing intent was nothing more than a breeze.

“Everyone in the resistance who inherited her will is saying such words. —Thank you, Kakkou. You have completed her being an Undying.”

He was speechless.

“Her brand of Undying—is a curse. Her existence as someone who was deified would trap people endlessly, never letting them free.”

This was ridiculous.

Was that really Undying?

“It’s not just Rina—even that girl’s who’s sleeping right now has nothing to do with this!”

The Rank 1 spear user who vanished in a great battle rose to his mind.

Not many survivors remained after that decisive battle that ended in complete failure, so the ones who knew her name were few.

“Rank 1 applies to her Mushi, in that case. Even after vanishing, it can return to life by changing its host—the only Mushi to do this is the Morpho butterfly alone.”

A Mushi that can return to life many times.

This irregular Mushi that became the driving force trying to retrieve a world without Mushi was even now in deep slumber.

“Harukiyo—”

“He is the burning flame. Regardless of his own will, he will keep using others as fuel to keep burning. Conclusively, he does not possess his own fate. Therefore, other people’s fates will keep him alight.”

“That’s… really a stretch.”

Daisuke spoke in a hoarse voice.

These were all convenient conclusions.

It wouldn’t be odd for any of the Rank 1s to die at any time.

He could assert it because it really was always like this with him—

“I… almost died many times.”

“And yet you lived.”

“I was on the verge on death many times! Especially when involved with the other Rank 1s, it was always like this—”

“Obviously. Because you are the Rank 1 that tests the other Rank 1s.”

Miguruma wore her kindest smile yet.

Like a mother—

A smile full of mercy, as if she was the one to give birth to him and raise him well.

“What—was that—”

“Did you not think it strange? The fact you were always there in every large battle.”

There was no way he hadn’t.

But that was natural, considering he was the strongest Mushitsuki in the SEPB—

“Only one person had been determined to be Rank 1 at a glance… all others were designated Rank 1 after they fought with you and survived. As a result, in the beginning you were only meant as a litmus test, but by continually surviving, I can now say this for certain.”

As she raised her lips in a grin, Miguruma Yaeko’s smile looked devilish.

“That you are a bona-fide Rank 1.”

No.

Him surviving was just a miracle.

However—there was something he thought.

At first, he captured Fuyuhotaru alone.

Next, he was sent to someone determined as a Rank 1 who was in Akamaki City, outside his jurisdiction.

There he fought Harukiyo, and, after experiencing a certain decisive battle, he returned to the East Central Branch and became Tachibana Rina’s monitor. Despite the fact that until then he served in the East Central Branch not as monitor but as a combatant.

It was only him who repeated battles to the death against Rank 1s again and again—

He noticed this truth.

“The goal of my research that I’ve worked for more than a decade on that day… no, even before that, lies in the path waiting for you.”

Sweat poured out on Daisuke’s hand grasping the pistol.

The person called Miguruma Yaeko worked for many long years.

She was using even those born outside her expectations, the Original Three and Mushitsuki.

All to uncover her desired goal of the Undying—

“You Mushitsuki are the result of the evolution leading to Undying.”

The sound heard from overhead and the tremors shaking the Stronghold became stronger and stronger.

The Stronghold was so violently shaken it was like an earthquake.

The door to the warehouse opened and the white coats spilled inside.

“Vice-Director! What on earth is this tremor…! Isn’t Shinpu doing some kind of atta—”

They were Mushitsuki from the intelligence department. Coming to get orders, they noticed Daisuke training a gun on their commander and became speechless.

“Please do not mind it. This is not the first time he’s threatened me with a gun.”

“…”

Daisuke’s gun still aimed at Miguruma, he stared at the intelligence department Mushitsuki.

Even if he killed Miguruma right here, he knew it wouldn’t solve anything.

However, his emotions didn’t allow him to lower his gun.

“B-but, Shinpu is still…”

“No, I also thought so at first—but that is likely mistaken.”

Daisuke’s gun twitched.

“Did the branches on the surface come to save us…?”

“Wasn’t it you who said they lacked the power to do so, Kakkou? No branch has Mushitsuki with the destructive power needed to come this deep underground so quickly.”

Then what on earth was going on?

Seeing Daisuke think frantically, Miguruma looked exasperated for an instant. It reminded him of the expression Mikko had as a girl.

“You really are slow on the uptake, Kakkou.”

Even if he was told so, he didn’t immediately understand the meaning of her words.

However—

“—”

A certain premonition pierced Daisuke’s from head to toes.

Raising his face, he looked at Miguruma.

“Haven’t I said so? To escape this predicament, we require the power of a Rank 1.”

Those words convinced him.

Turning on his heels, he pushed away the intelligence department and came back to the hall.

“Kasuou!”

Flying toward the tense-looking combatants, he shouted loud.

The blonde girl turned to him.

“I got it! Shinpu’s comin’ to attack! But to defend—”

“Dig up toward the surface!”

“…Huh?”

Silence engulfed the hall.

“Never mind defense! Everyone gather in this hall right now! We’re getting out!”

Kasuou looked puzzled, and Daisuke returned her glance.

However, perhaps reading something from his expression, she turned around and ordered the combatants.

“We’re getting out! Gather as many as possible in one place! I’ll protect you from the debris! Those who have attack power, focus on digging! Call back the support team right now!”

“B-but how much do you think it’ll take to reach the—”

“I don’t give a fuck! Just do it! I’ll kill you!”

The white coats obeyed this intimidating order, still confused. They hurriedly started moving and those combatants who were more powerful quickly gathered in the hall.

Kasuou spread her mist, spacing it to protect the white coats.

“Hey, Kakkou. You got an idea, yeah?”

“Help’s coming.”

As Daisuke trained his gun to the ceiling, Kasuou grinned. She issued orders.

“—Let’s do this shit!”

Daisuke’s gun fused with the checkered beetle spat hellfire.

It wasn’t just Daisuke.

The attacks made by the several dozen Mushitsuki had the strongest fire power, enough to bust through the ceiling.

Violent light and roars filled the Stronghold.

Ceiling broke and vanished and soon the hall became as wide and tall as a baseball stadium. All the falling earth and sand was diverted by the black mist into the corridors or the warehouse.

The space opened overhead became as large as a high-rise building—

Then, it transformed into a space that was nothing but darkness.

While continuing their attacks, some Mushitsuki dropped out. One and then two members fell to their knees, breathing raggedly.

“Not yet…! Or more like we’ll never reach out like this!”

“Just a bit more…!”

As Kasuou exhausted herself and was sweating, Daisuke also asserted while continuously firing his gun.

The vibrations shaking the Stronghold grew bigger and bigger.

“…!”

An especially large tremor assaulted the Stronghold.

This overly huge impact caused members to collapse and stop their attacks.

“Kuh…! What was that just now! Shinpu?”

“No, that’s not—”

Breathing hard, Daisuke raised his face.

The space which was only darkness had a small light floating in it.

No light from the surface would ever reach there.

That point of light looked like it was falling toward the Stronghold.

“Haa? The hell’s that—hey! Is this for real?!”

Falling from above—was a girl.

She was probably surprised at suddenly losing her footing like this. Eyes widened in fear, her face was pale and frozen with fear as she fell, and she looked quite exhausted.

“…!”

Daisuke caught that girl in his arms.

Even regardless of the fact his arms were strengthened, the girl’s body was light.

“—”

A moment of silence.

And—a scream ran through the Stronghold.

Supposedly exhausted members leapt back from the center of Daisuke and the girl at once.

“E-err, I…”

The girl wanted to speak toward the running members, but no one listened.

She was a small girl.

And, for the Mushitsuki of SEPB, her existence was in a sense much scarier than Shinpu.

“—I know.”

Daisuke nodded and lowered the girl to the ground.

“I know, so it’s fine.”

Seeing Daisuke alone remain calm, the girl looked confused. Daisuke—no, Kakkou—being in the HQ’s Stronghold was apparently outside her expectations.

However, the next moment, she smiled with a happy looking face that didn’t fit the occasion.

“Kakkou-san—”

She was the SEPB’s as well as Kakkou’s strongest archnemesis, leader of the resistance organization Mushibane—

[[File:Mushi Uta 11 p282.jpg|thumb]]

“Let’s join forces this time.”

She was the girl called Fuyuhotaru, real name Anmoto Shiika.