Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 8th Episode 32 (section)

=== Part 3 ===

Daisuke kneeled on the sand, wailing in fatigue and pain.

“Haa… haa…”

His bangs were plastered to his face due to blood, a line of blood dripped from his chin, and his goggles fell into pieces. The gun held by his limp hand—had no more bullets left.

He apparently reached his limits.

The cost of directly blocking Arisu’s blow when she nearly Matured was large. He was also already injured from his fight against Oogui, and his left arm that defended against the spear became completely numb. Although he strengthened himself through fusion with his Mushi, the left half of his body was dyed in blood and he could feel nothing but despair from its state.

Fight.

Keep fighting.

He always single-mindedly fought and survived, but finally—

His power to fight was completely depleted down to the very last drop.

Yomori Neiko who possessed the power of regeneration had exhausted herself and remained unconscious.

Death—

He could feel this cold, heavy fate creeping up his legs.

“—Kusuriya-kun!”

As he turned around awkwardly, the two girls who attempted to run toward him froze in place. Seeing the blood-drenched Daisuke, they shuddered and their faces froze.

“…Saionji-san… Kujou-san…”

The words that came unbidden to his mouth made him wear a forced, bitter smile.

''I can’t believe that in this stage I—

With them in front of him, he unconsciously became not Kakkou, but assumed Kusuriya Daisuke’s face.

He referred to those girls, who went to school together with him, as Saionji-san and Kujou-san. Just like every day in class.

Since when—

He just so happened to meet the girl called Ichinokuro Arisu when he went for a mission in her school.

He then started monitoring the Morpho butterfly, a Mushi that lost its original host and yet kept existing.

Although this daily life was just part of his infiltration as an SEPB member, since when had he—gotten so deep into it that he revealed his true self?

“Why…?”

Ena threw a question at him with a hoarse voice.

“Why are you wearing that getup, Kusuriya-kun…? What’s happening to Arisu? Why—are so many people collapsed?”

“…”

“Is it my fault?”

Ena was crying.

“I mean, Arisu and you were protecting me, right…? Even those who collapsed were all—”

“Right, Ena-chan.”

A sickly-sweet voice that seemed like it would engulf them came from overhead.

The beauty with the meteor shower at her back danced in air, her crimson coat fluttering. Behind her round sunglasses, her pupils glowed in crimson as she looked down on Ena.

“Everyone came here, invited by your sweet dream…”

As Oogui moved her red lips, all the surrounding noise began to vanish like receding waves. As if the flow of time was slowing down, the sounds of Arisu’s battle and the sound of the waves were being isolated.

“—My—dream—”

Ena’s eyes were glued to Oogui as if she was being sucked in. Even Takako next to her now wore a vacant expression.

It finally started.

The time Oogui came to eat her dream.

One of the Original Three who gave birth to Mushitsuki, Oogui, would become charmed by the person she had her eyes on, then come to eat that person’s dream by asking about it.

“—”

Daisuke just watched it, completely helpless.

She probably knew he couldn’t do anything. Oogui didn’t even turn to look at him.

And it was the truth.

Once he managed to bring back Arisu from Maturation, that was all he could do.

He lost the power to fuse with his Mushi and his checkered beetle split from his body. It rubbed its long feelers against Daisuke’s knees that fell on the sand.

“Yes, the important feelings that you brought up in your heart with great care…”

“Important—feelings—”

The checkered beetle grew blurry in his vision.

Perhaps his eyes misted over from losing too much blood, or perhaps—he was approaching death and even his Mushi was starting to lose its existence.

He thought it would all end soon.

Daisuke completed many missions with the checkered beetle and he thought the monitoring mission on the Morpho butterfly would also end easily.

However, he was sorely mistaken.

The personality of the Morpho butterfly’s host, Hanashiro Mari, was revived, the flame devil and other unexpected Mushitsuki only stood in his way, and he was strung along by Arisu, who involved herself with Mushitsuki despite not being one herself.

“Come on, Ena-chan. They cannot wait any longer—”

It wasn’t just him.

The people invited by a single butterfly all had their lives twisted and derailed.

Arisu got a dream.

And now, right before his eyes, another girl had her eyes sparkling with a dream.

Who could have imagined this scene?

Who could have anticipated this end?

The hurt and exhausted Daisuke could no longer stop this flow.

In the end, he—couldn’t solve even a single thing.

“…Geez… this mission’s the worst…”

His body was rapidly cooling.

As he hanged his head, Daisuke’s eyelids became heavier.

He couldn’t hear anything.

He couldn’t see anything.

Quietly, his consciousness was starting to fall toward a warm light—

Greeting him there was a momentary sparkle.

A firefly glowing in pure white and a girl about elementary school age.

''—So you too.

The girl he had met before, although she reached the very depths of helpless despair—she still hadn’t lost sight of her dream and offered her own Mushi to him with a smile.

''—Don’t give up on your dream.

The checkered beetle glowed white for an instant.

On the cusp of fainting, Daisuke widened his eyes.

He rose up, raising his blood-stained face.

“—”

He didn’t have the power to stand again. Nor did he have the power to open his eyelids.

However, being supported by an unseen power and standing upright, Daisuke—was being looked by dark eyes.

The Fallen who’d lost their Mushi.

The eyes of Aki and his comrades who sacrificed themselves, leaving Daisuke and the rest with their hopes.

“Can you tell me your dream?”

Oogui’s sweet whisper echoed in the beach that looked like it had its time frozen.

“My dream is—”

Ena opened her mouth.

Enchanted by Oogui, her eyes were sparkling with happiness.

As if dreaming of a future full of bliss.

''I want all four of us precious friends to be together forever—

She was about to mouth this dream.

“—A lie.”

This mumble cut through Ena’s voice.

Her mouth stopped.

“The Kusuriya Daisuke that’s part of that dream… is nowhere to be found.”

Ena’s expression froze. She slowly turned.

The eyes of the girl about to talk about her dream reflected the boy she believed to be her friend.

Daisuke, who stood there listlessly like some ghost.

“I’m… not Kusuriya Daisuke…”

The smile of the girl who had the same dream as him and had her Mushi killed by his own hands.

Aki and his comrades still looking at him despite becoming Fallen.

They didn’t allow him to sleep.

He was supposed to keep fighting only for his dream, but at some point, the feelings entrusted to him wouldn’t allow him defeat.

As long as there was still something for him to do, no matter how small.

Even if it was the cruelest decision of all—

Even if Daisuke became empty, his emotions made his wounded body move.

“I’m Kakkou…”

Daisuke glared at Ena with cold eyes.

''—Take care of Ena.

He betrayed Arisu for trusting Ena with him.

What he was going to do was far from salvation. It might even give Ena more pain than becoming a Mushitsuki.

“Kusuriya—kun?”

“I’m a Mushitsuki… and infiltrated Horusu Seijou Academy to monitor a certain Mushi. So I acted as an inconspicuous normal middle schooler, and… pretended to be friends with you.”

Ena absently widened her eyes.

“Kakkou-chan—”

Having her blissful moment disturbed, Oogui’s rainbow pupils looked down at Daisuke. The purple scales became enough Mushi to cover the night sky and assaulted him.

“I kept always lying to you…”

Suddenly, the Mushi about to bite Daisuke to death all stopped the moment before doing so.

Daisuke made no move.

Oogui couldn’t kill him. —At least, not yet.

If she killed him right now, Ena would also lose her dream that was influenced by him. Due to her unsatiable appetite, Oogui couldn’t take his life.

“The Kusuriya Daisuke that played friends with you doesn’t actually exist anywhere…”

“There’s no—Kusuriya-kun?”

Ena mumbled, her face half-asleep.

“No, he’s right there. So, Ena-chan. Tell me your—”

Oogui led astray Ena with her rainbow eyes.

Daisuke denied it.

“He’s gone.”

He was there.

The days he spent with Arisu, Ena and Takako definitely had him there. He forgot about his mission, even about the fact he was Mushitsuki, and retrieved the form of the normal boy, Kusuriya Daisuke.

However—he was gone now.

Daisuke wore a cold smile.

“I’m Kakkou… I dragged you into this battle of Mushitsuki and used you.”

“You told me—you’ll always be there—”

“I lied.”

It wasn’t a lie.

He really did want to stay at her side.

However—that wish would no longer come true.

Daisuke recalled the path he’d taken. Since he became a Mushitsuki and fought as a Mushitsuki—what waited him was nothing but the path of a Mushitsuki.

For just a little bit of time, that path had been twisted by the Morpho butterfly, and he was even able to feel that he became Kusuriya Daisuke again.

Daisuke would become Kakkou again.

“I did nothing but lie to you…”

Therefore, he could bear this pain.

The pain of his wounds, too.

Even the sin of crushing Ena’s dream and the resulting pain ripping his heart apart.

There was no pain that the strongest Mushitsuki called Kakkou couldn’t bear.

“So I can’t stay with you.”

The one in pain—

Much more than it hurt Daisuke—

Was the normal girl in front of him.

“—”

Ena raised a voiceless scream.

Using both hands to hide her shaking lips, she wrung out a hoarse voice.

“I—”

Daisuke’s expression was set in stone. He bit the edge of his lips lightly so that Ena would not notice.

“Really believed you…”

Ena’s heart-rending scream called a storm to the beach.

Purple scales blew around the beach, burst and scattered.

The frozen time resumed its flow.

Arisu’s fight brought vibration to his earlobes, and the meteor shower streamed through the night sky again.

“—What a terrible thing you’ve done.”

Oogui floating in the night sky looked down on Daisuke.

“You wish to stand in my way so much that you’d even break your friend’s dream…”

Daisuke was encircled by countless Mushi in no time. Having her “meal” disturbed just a moment before eating it, Oogui was no longer smiling.

Now that Ena’s dream was lost, Oogui no longer had a reason to not kill Daisuke.

Even with death ahead of him, Daisuke moved not one muscle.

“I… can’t grant Ena’s dream…”

Seeing Ena break down in tears, he mumbled.

He was always called a demon, so he was already used to being begrudged. He was supposedly already used to being hated.

Even so—he bit his lips to suppress the impulse making him want to shout his lungs out.

“Rather than being bound by a Mushi to an unfulfillable dream…”

What else was he supposed to do?

He wanted someone who knew the answer to tell him. He would even offer up his life in exchange, if the other party so desired.

There was nothing he could’ve done.

He could only do this.

Ena’s figure shedding tears overlapped with the little girl who he’d turned into a Fallen.

''—Then I’ll give you my dream.

He should’ve become stronger since then.

He thought he’d become stronger.

Did that mean he still didn’t have enough power?

Why did he always have only one choice—

“I hope that one day… you’ll find a new dream…”

Without being threatened by Mushi, something she could dream again and again.

Even if her dream was once broken, she could find a new one—

He thought this was how people should be.

He rose from the edge of death to cling to such a small hope.

This ended everything he could do.

“Perhaps I should make sure right here that you’d never stand in my way again—Kakkou-chan?”

Oogui curled her crescent-like red lips. The purple Mushi pursued him.

With the fate of unavoidable death in front of him, the smile of the girl with the same dream came to the back of his mind. His only regret was that his promise to meet her again didn’t come true.

“…I couldn’t give you your dream back… Fuyuhotaru…”

Daisuke wore a weak smile and mumbled.

Just as he was about to hang his head down and accept his end, it happened.

“…!”

His vision was dyed in silver. Daisuke unconsciously raised his head.

Oogui removed her eyes from Daisuke and gazed toward the sea surface. The Mushi about to attack Daisuke all stopped their movements as though paralyzed.

It wasn’t just the beach.

The sea and the sky.

All the visible parts of the world were divided into two colors, a vivid silver and an evil black.

“…Arisu…?”

The battle unfolding on the ocean changed its nature.

It was supposed to be a battle of attrition between Arisu and Ichiku, but it became a clash between the scales and the tardigrades.

Also, the scales emitted by the Morpho butterfly had a completely different feel than it had so far—

“…You… what are you trying to do…?”

A bad feeling welled up Daisuke’s chest.