Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 7th Episode 27 (section)

=== Part 4 ===

The right eye not encroached by the Morpho butterfly had been watching all along.

She’d heard all of their exchanges.

“Stop… it… you guys…”

With Arisu’s left eye as the center, the silver pattern encroaching her body was slowly retreating. Her free lips moved, leaking a hoarse voice.

“Arisu—is that you?”

Daisuke lowered his gun. His expression hidden by the goggles couldn’t be seen, but he obviously widened his eyes.

Harukiyo and Rina too looked at Arisu brandishing her spear, frozen.

“Haha, finally wake up, sleepyhead? Or do I gotta knock you out once more for that?”

“Hunter—it’s not you, right? Truly?”

Arisu tried smiling—but the silver pattern encroached her face again.

“—Arisu…! I’m not done yet…!”

Arisu’s mouth moved on its own, spitting Mari’s voice.

Daisuke and the others prepared themselves again, but Arisu held them back with her eye.

Even while her body was stolen by Mari, it was the first time Arisu’s personality had not been lost. Just like Mari said, perhaps the Morpho butterfly got used to her body so much that they could no longer go back.

However—because of that, she could clearly feel the death and fear and doubts blowing into Mari’s heart.

Bottomless fear, like holding one’s breath inside a dark ocean. Feeling enclosed within a thorn-covered jail, anxiousness and claustrophobia. —Such scary emotions always faced Mari.

“Arisu!”

“—Just a bit more!”

Arisu stopped Daisuke with her voice from readying his gun again. The two personalities of Arisu and Mari were contending within her body.

She understood Mari’s suffering well.

Therefore—Even Arisu had wandered into that abyss.

“Wait just a bit more…!”

The silver pattern distanced from Arisu’s face again. But it was soon pushed back.

“I don’t want this…! I’m scared! So I’ll kill those people!”

“It’s fine! I’ll definitely protect you…!”

“No… No…! Once I’ll go back to sleep, they’ll definitely kill me! —Right, you too Arisu, are afraid of me…! You hate me—”

“Have just a little more patience! Please, I beg you… Mari!”

The two girls argued fiercely with only one mouth.

“A little more, you say—you’re an idiot! Even if you hold Mari back, you’re at your limits! If we don’t erase Mari’s personality right now, the Morpho butterfly’ll kill you!”

“Then ''next'' time for sure!”

At Arisu’s desperate resistance, the Morpho butterfly strengthened its hold on her body. It slowly raised the hand holding the spear and was about to swing it at Daisuke.

Daisuke and Rina both reacted with caution, but one person alone, Harukiyo, was grinning to himself and watched over Arisu.

He was waiting to see.

Ichinokuro Arisu and Hanashiro Mari. The devil’s blazing eyes were trying to ascertain which of the two would be the most suitable to make his dream come true. If Arisu’s personality was pushed back again, he’d soon give up on her.

“Next time? This isn’t the time to speak of the next time! Right now, you’re already—”

“Next time! Hey, Mari…! Please understand! I will—”

Her arm controlled by the silver pattern, she tried to put it down with her entire powers.

“I will definitely find my own answer as well, next time!”

The arm holding the spear twitched and stopped.

“Whether I reject you… or—accept you.”

“Accept—you say?”

Ignoring the speechless Daisuke, Arisu shouted.

“So please! You also have to find an answer by next time, Mari! Whether you’ll become my memories or become me and keep living—choose between the angel’s potion and the devil’s potion… definitely!”

She felt as if the Morpho butterfly’s power instantly weakened.

“Until then I’ll definitely protect you, Mari…!”

Until the very moment of her death, Mari had been unable to reach an answer.

Even after her friend’s death, Ichinokuro Arisu continued looking for an answer.

The two girls connected by the bizarre Mushi, the Morpho butterfly, would find their one answer across time, but at the very least, it wasn’t going to be now—

“Next time for sure—we’ll compare our answers?”

Arisu’s calm voice echoed in the once more silent mountainside.

There should still be time.

After all—the four Mushitsuki stopped fighting.

Daisuke, Harukiyo, Rina, and Hanashiro Mari.

They were stronger than anyone, yet stopped hurting each other just from hearing Arisu’s voice.

These Mushitsuki finally started connecting, so she couldn’t let it end now—


“…Understood.”

The pattern encroached Arisu’s mouth again, but it was less intense than before.

“If you’re going to find an answer, Arisu… then I will definitely—find one as well.”

As Mari spoke calmly, the pattern drew away from Arisu’s face like a receding wave. The pattern was also gone from her arms and legs, and only the glimmering spear remained.

The storm left and only silence remained.

The mountain broke down, the observation platform was erased, and now the space that transformed into a mere wasteland had four figures just standing on it.

“Good grief—”

The disturbance led to too much damage.

The path that led them there could be called sudden.

Even so, the scene that Arisu always imagined now expanded in front of her eyes.

“I finally got you all together.”

The three Mushitsuki stared at Arisu smiling, her unleashed ponytail shaking with his hair.

“Comparing answers? What are you even thinking about?”

The boy who hid his face with goggles and wore a pitch-black coat. He was the one who received the moniker of the strongest Mushitsuki within the SEPB, Kakkou—Kusuriya Daisuke.

Arisu winked at him mischievously.

“I told you, didn’t I? If it’s impossible for me alone, then all Mushitsuki together—yeah?”

“Wha…! You couldn’t possibly—”

“I didn’t manage to get everyone, but don’t you think those members are enough?”

“What are you talking about? Actually, you’ve got yourself a failing mark today, though it was close. You told me something interesting was gonna happen so now you’ll be willing to risk your life to make me laugh, right?”

Calmly folding his arms, Harukiyo sneered. The Mushitsuki who lived freely without being bound by anyone stared at Arisu with a pressure fitting for his moniker of the flame devil.

With a full smile, Arisu raised her finger. She looked back at the devil’s scorching eyes.

“Leave it to me. Just like I promised, I’ll make your dream come true.”

“Hmm, we’ll see about that. —You’ll end up regretting involving me anyway.”

“You also came, Rina. Aki passed my message to you, right?”

As Arisu moved her eyes, Rina made wore a stiff face.

“…”

“I won the bet, right? They also came here. And they even listened to me, right?”

“Right, I’ll listen to you. However—they tried killing you, you know?”

The girl who resisted against the SEPB and tried saving many Mushitsuki—Rina—looked at Daisuke. Even while her eyes glinted with anger, the girl’s profile was still beautiful.

“They didn’t,” Arisu immediately answered. “After all, he… even during the time he turned his gun to the Morpho butterfly—he looked extremely pained.”

Daisuke’s shoulders slightly twitched.

Rina’s expression was as unmoving as a polished sculpture. And yet her slightly moist lips reflecting the moonlight suddenly moved.

“—I found someone powerful I can rely on. They agree with me, and they began supporting me with money. Because of that, I’ll be able to save many more Mushitsuki.”

Speaking in a mechanical tone, Rina looked into Arisu’s eyes.

“This is an important time. So… I have no idea what you’re thinking about, but I don’t know whether I’ll be there or not for your ‘next’ time.”

“Really? If you do come, I might be able to fulfill the promise.”

—''If we ever meet again… will you let me know of the best possible dream?

—''Obviously. Who do think I am?

Rina had apparently remembered the promise they exchanged in the SEPB isolation facility. She looked a bit surprised and widened her eyes, but she finally stopped being cautious and smiled amiably.

“I’m weak against something like that. You’re surprisingly sly.”

Rina’s smile as she narrowed her eyes in happiness was so bright that even Arisu, who was a girl herself, felt jealous.


“…!”

Everyone there all looked up at the night sky at once.

A gale blew down from overhead.

A single star floating in the night sky was falling toward Arisu and the rest. They realized that this approaching blinking star was a helicopter. Arisu could see a fluttering dress from the open door.

“Akasegawa Nanana?”

Daisuke muttered this as he put his hands to his goggles, so it possibly had a zoom-in function.

“You called her as well?”

“Yes. This was just in case. I told her to check the situation from afar, but… I never expected she’d do it from the sky.”

“Akasegawa? Never heard of her. You know her? Also, I know it’s kinda weird to say this when this is the first time we met, but I think you’ll look really good in maid clothes.”

“Die. —She’s Akasegawa Group’s Chairman. Yet another absurdly big shot appeared. What is she scheming?”

Daisuke, Harukiyo, Rina.

And there was probably also Akasegawa Nanana.

Receiving the gazes of the people standing at the desolate mountain, Arisu smiled.

“Hey, you guys—”

The three Mushitsuki and the millionaire coming from the sky.

If she combined their powers, there was nothing she couldn’t do.

It shouldn’t be just Arisu who was convinced of this.

Everyone there had undoubtedly the same conviction—

“Have you heard about the Perseid constellation meteor shower?”

Arisu’s lively voice was swallowed into the starry sky.


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=== Notes ===
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