Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 11 Chapter 3 (section)

== 3.06 The Others ==

After confirming that Mikko and Kii-kun aimed for the emergency stairs, Kashua went alone.

To not get noticed by the pair, he silenced his footsteps and ran back along the corridor.

“Mikko said she was going to burn down this place. I should secure some documents before that…”

Returning to the hall where the elevator was, he peeked inside.

Inside the hall that connected to the depths of hell he saw the electrical cables spreading sparks. He couldn’t see the elevator vehicle itself anywhere, and the panel was completely silent and unfunctional.

“So this is my only way to get there before her.”

In order to gather evidence for what was done here and what happened—

To fulfill his own mission, Kashua leapt into the hole. He went on maintenance ladders that were broken, grabbed wires, and landed on the steel frames below. At times, the sparks served as light sources.

As he lightly climbed down as though he was a pinball, he finally saw the bottom.

There was a door leaking light.

Landing there, Kashua forced the door open.

“…Like some paradise.”

The destroyed corridor was monopolized by insects and animals.

Several people in white coats were collapsed, but seeing all these lively animals walking around made him feel an inhuman elegance.

“Not only humans were experimented on, then.”

Kashua pushed these animals aside and picked up his pace.

He had no time until Mikko and Kii-kun came. He had to find the data that served as the basis of the research fast and get out.

“Undying… I never thought the Round Table’s secret would be something like that.”

He mumbled to himself.

The influence wielded by the Round Table through their wealth and connections wasn’t limited to this country. As his home country had anticipated some unnerving movements, they’d sent Kashua there.

“Anyway, once I bring back this truth, my job will be over…”

He would end his job—and then what?

That question rose to mind.

Kashua hadn’t felt this doubt before. Fulfilling his missions was the very reason he existed, and succeeding in this was the only way to prove he was born for a meaning.

However, a single sentence said by a man changed Kashua.

''—Do you want to become my adopted son?

He was asked whether he wanted to have a father removed from him in age only by three or four years, as well as a little sister more than ten years his junior.

Even Kashua, who never had a family, knew this was abnormal. He couldn’t rely on a rich man’s caprices.

“…”

Although it was impossible—he felt his heart growing slightly warmer just from thinking about it.

A feeling he felt for the first time ever. It wasn’t as bad as he thought.

Therefore, this was enough.

He didn’t feel like going along with the caprices of that overly friendly man—and Kashua didn’t want to involve the man who told him he wanted to be his family and his daughter into this.

“I’ll just hurry up to end this job and then go back—”

To his country.

He was about to mutter this, but no words came out.

Go back?

To a country where no one knew Kashua’s face, where he had no family or acquaintances, and his own existence was concealed?

Could he really call that coming back?

''—Won’t you remain, too?

Rui’s words crossed his mind again.

If he were to accept that youth’s words.

Perhaps Kashua could actually obtain a place he could return to—

“…!”

Feeling a discomfort, Kashua stood in place. He strained his ears.

Animal growls and insects buzzing.

In this corridor filled with those noises, Kashua noticed the existence of an abnormal space.

“There’s… no sound.”

Kashua turned the corner and started walking again.

Only one corridor was silent. There were no insects of animals there, as if they purposely avoided it.

Going through the soundless corridor, he opened the door at its dead end.

There was a room with thick bars there.

Fluorescent lights flickered, showing him all sorts of precision equipment and an operating table. And further behind them was what looked to be a jail made of thick metal bars.

“—Who are you?”

There was someone in that jail.

Since the lights didn’t reach them, he couldn’t see their face. However, the person inside had their chest heaving. This was the first survivor he’d met ever since entering the ship.

The person behind bars was silent.

If they were alive and jailed inside, there wasn’t any need to hurry up to deal with them. Kashua looked for any papers around the room, operated the digital terminals and dug out information.

It didn’t take him long for a brief look of the documents and digital data.

The one in the jail was apparently one of the promising subjects. Part of the research conducted in the name of actualizing the Undying was left in front of his eyes.

“—ack…”

A weak voice came from behind.

As he turned around, he saw the person inside the jail moving their mouth.

“What was that?”

“Want to go… back—”

This wasn’t Japanese. It was Kashua’s mother tongue.

Going back.

They said this, their expression lacking any emotions, and their voice so weak that it was impossible to tell whether they were male or female.

“—I’m envious of you having a place to go back to.”

Kashua’s mouth mumbled words even he didn’t think about.

“I want to go back…”

The jailed person shed tears.

As if this was the final drop of their life, these tears went down their cheeks.

Seeing that.

An impulse Kashua had never felt before welled up inside him.

“I didn’t have a place I could yearn for before my death.”

Perhaps it was his competitiveness.

Even this exhausted person had a place they held in their heart.

This truth made Kashua suffer unbearable pain.

“Until now, anyway. But that’s no longer the case.”

Throwing the materials on top of the operating table, he pulled out a lighter from his pocket.

If he took this much back with him, and took even the test subject, his mother country would probably praise him.

However, that was all.

His country would most likely use these materials to continue research about the Undying.

He knew well that it would just create new problems down the line.

“Even I want to die while thinking of somewhere I want to go back to.”

''Rui, if you want to play pretend family—

He spoke in his heart toward the youth who wasn’t there.

The mission he received from other people who was longer important to him.

''Maybe I’ll play along a little—

Because Kashua had seen her.

He’d seen Rui’s still-young daughter.

The girl who might become his sister.

So he’d do it to protect her future.

Rather than for his mission, Kashua would work for his pretend family—

“If I were to take this back—I get the feeling that I can’t wish for a family anymore.”

Kashua lit his lighter to burn the gathered materials.

Since he not only escaped but actively hindered his mission, his country would never forgive him.

Since he committed this taboo, he had no intention of involving Rui in this.

But that was fine.

He didn’t have to have a family.

Rather than that, Kashua chose to think of a family.

“Die with me.”

With a refreshed feeling, he turned to the one in jail.

Apparently even someone like Rui, who knew neither his parents’ faces nor any family, still had a rebellious phase. Since he burned all the documents, he also had no choice but to stop his country from getting their hands on the test subject, the only living proof of the experiments.

It happened when Kashua approached the bars.

A heavy impact shook the vessel.

“…! An explosion? No, this is—”

He preserved his balance by grabbing the operating table.

A few harsh tremors shook his legs.

And immediately after that—

Light engulfed his sight.

“——!”

An outrageous impact pierced the ship as if it was struck by a gigantic hammer. The room’s precision equipment raised sparks and exploded from the inside.

“Gwaaah!”

His sight was dyed in gold.

Was this—lightning?

Everything around him broke, burned and exploded.

And—

“—aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

A scream that sounded out of this world pierced Kashua’s eardrums.

As he raised his head within his vanishing consciousness, the one inside the jail shouted something.

Grabbing onto the rails, reaching as if to ask Kashua for help, that person—

Had no face.

There were just eyes shedding tears.

However, their chin, nose and even head were wrapped in a blue glow—and vanished into thin air, melting like bubbles.

“—”

Kashua was speechless, glaring at the jailed person transformed into this strange form. Their outstretched arm was also wrapped in an azure glow and lost its outline.

Even without an expression, he knew from those eyes.

Despite this abnormal situation—

This person was still going crazy with homesickness.

Wishing from the bottom of their heart to go back to their hometown.

“I see—you don’t belong here.”

Being stared by azure glowing eyes, Kashua’s mouth moved on its own.

“I also have it. A place to return to—”

It wasn’t a hometown.

However, he could say it confidently.

He came to this land for his mission and managed to obtain something he wished for from the bottom of his heart.

“I got a family—”

As Kashua prophesized this, a flash of a vivid sight passed through his mind.

Rui and his young daughter.

Kashua would gain a younger sister and watch over her growth.

She would grow up quickly, her hair would grow out, she would smile energetically—

Her body covered in a silver glow, she would take a shining spear in hand—

“…!”

It was just a momentary illusion.

As Kashua saw his sister’s future, his entire body was enveloped in a white light.

As if that glow was extracting something from him, it was being sucked toward the one in the prison.

“GWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Something was pulled from his heart.

He was eaten by the prisoner.

Although they no longer had any mouth, the light stolen from Kashua was being absorbed by the prisoner, who, for the first time—

Narrowed their eyes at this momentary tranquility.

Leaving a blue glow behind, they fully vanished.