Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 9 Chapter 1 (section)

== 1.06 Daisuke The Last ==

The deck of the pirate ship was in uproar.

Quite natural, considering a person suddenly stood on top of the sails. Since all the guests coming outside from the lounge were dressed well, it was probably not a civilian boat. Perhaps a party was hosted on it, since he could see tables laden with extravagant dishes.

“Is that… the Eye?”

Looking up at the object floating in the sky above the sail, the SEPB member Blaze Class Rank 1 Kakkou—Kusuriya Daisuke—mumbled this. He wore the East Central Branch’s standard equipment of a pitch-dark long coat and half of his face was hidden by mechanical goggles.

“No way, that’s…”

White smoke rose from Daisuke’s automatic handgun. He’d fired it while not fused with his Mushi, but it didn’t seem like the target received any damage.

“U-umm, please wait for a moment. I will check it now with my binoculars… ouch! I hit my glasses!”

He heard from the communications of his goggles the tense voice of an adult woman.

It was Goromaru Touko, the person who served as the Acting Branch Head of the East Central Branch. She was still leading the branch in place of the hospitalized Branch Head, Haji Keigo.

“W-where is it? The target’s too small for me to see… yeah, for some reason the wavelengths are all messed up and I can’t synchronize with the images from your goggle. Can you report its characteristics, Kakkou-san?”

Daisuke watched the strange object through his goggles.

It floated without moving at all at the height of several ten meters above the surface. He had no point of reference for its size, so he couldn’t tell for sure, but it was probably as large as a person’s head.

“It’s split like compound eyes, with the largest fragment looking like a human eyeball. These fragments are connected by what looks like nerve endings, but it’s all solid enough to repel even my bullets—”

[[File:Mushi Uta 9 p117.jpg|thumb]]

While explaining, Daisuke scowled.

“I can’t see anyone that looks like the host anywhere… are they hiding on the boat?”

“P-probably, no, definitely that! Just like you reported! That’s an ‘Eye’!”

“Is there anyone suspicious around, Senri?”

“Uh—”

He heard from the goggles the groan of a person other than Touko.

“Senri? What’s wrong?”

“N-no, it’s fine… but this area’s strange, Dai-kun.”

Haji Senri, waiting at a different location, spoke in a pained voice.

“It feels as if the entire lake is wrapped in flames. Strong ‘flames’ appear and vanish all over the place. My eyes feel like they’re burning…!”

“It’s fine, don’t overexert yourself. Touko-san, have Senri pull back.”

“R-right.”

Daisuke had come to this place because of a request for support from the local branch.

A Mushi-sensing ability user had found a floating “eye”. When the members sent to investigate launched an attack, the Eye apparently counterattacked. The member had the tables turned back on him, and, having decided their branch could not handle it, the branch head applied to help from the East Central Branch, since their jurisdiction was close.

A completely undiscovered Mushi—no, since they couldn’t find a host, it wasn’t known if it was a Mushi in the first place.

That thing, which could be called a mysterious foreigner, was provisionally called the Eye and designated for elimination.

“B-but, are you fine by yourself, Kakkou-san?”

The Eye floating in the sky didn’t appear to be moving.

Was it seeing what he would do?

“You’ve only just returned to the East Central Branch… Although Yotsuba-san’s taken care of you, you’re still not fully healed from your battle against Marker User, right?”

“…”

“Even if your Maturation signs subsided and became stable, you should still rest—”

“No, it’s possible—that only I can defeat this.”

“Eh?”

“Also, you were the one who told me to fight before I run away, Touko-san.”

While putting his gun back in the holster on his back, he spoke emotionlessly.

His Maturation signs were stable. —Was it really true?

He knew it well, since it was him. Right now he could fight like he did before, but the next time he used his full powers, he wasn’t sure what would happen—

Because it was that sort of situation, he needed to ascertain the limits of what he could do now.

“Uh… that was because Haj—aah, Ha—ha… we have been desperate, well, I know we did some horrible things to you, but…”

“…? Never mind that anymore.”

Perhaps feeling guilt at having imprisoning Daisuke since they didn’t know when he would go wild, Touko mumbled incomprehensible words. Daisuke smiled wryly, scowling.

“Ugh—”

His vision blacked out and his five senses rapidly dimmed.

He couldn’t hear Touko’s voice anymore.

Although Daisuke was supposed to have been watching the lake, he could suddenly see an entirely different scene.

He saw a boy about the same age as him. However, his face seemed unfamiliar.

The plain features and clothes perhaps resembled him. As the boy with sparkling eyes ran ahead, several figures turned to look at him. Everyone looked tired, as if saying “not this again”.

The boy and the rest exchanged glances and started speaking.

A face Daisuke had never seen, a scene he’d never seen.

A secret meeting that was being held somewhere even now.

Daisuke watched that right in front of his eyes—

“—”

Gasping, he raised his face.

His senses returned and he was once again standing at the lake.

“Kakkou-san? Can you hear me?”

“Ah, yes.”

Daisuke shook his head and replied.

A strange feeling, as if he’d been replaced with someone else—

He began being attacked by that feeling soon after he came back to the East Central Branch from a certain city. Saved by the handyman called Ikarino Kirari, from the time he lost his chance to receive a certain necklace—a bizarre sensation clung to him.

For an illusion it all seemed very real.

Daisuke grinded his molars, clenching his fist as he thought of focusing on the enemy in front of him.

“Hey, you. You seem kinda sick, are you alright there?”

“…!”

Hearing a voice directly from behind him, Daisuke turned.

Right next to Daisuke—on top of the pirate ship’s sail, stood another unknown boy.

He looked like a gangster from the movies. He was dressed in a black suit and wore sunglasses.

Who on earth was he and when had he appeared?

More importantly, seeing the hockey stick he was holding made Daisuke widen his eyes.

“You’re from the SEPB, right? This might be my first time speaking to a member other than Inuko. Say, you’re aiming for that thing floating up there, right? I won’t be involving myself with it, so I’d like for you to avoid barging on my business as well. I have a date, you see.”

The boy kept rattling on and on to Daisuke, speaking quickly.

“Weeell, I was just hanging around that girl, but I served as her bodyguard. Now that my date’s finally here I didn’t want her to be in the way.”

He spoke casually without a hint of nervousness, almost as if he was simply asking a person on the street for directions.

“Who are—”

“Me? Oh, don’t mind it. I’m just a nameless warrior.”

“That stick… where’d you get it?”

“Kakkou-san, is something wrong? Hahe? Who’s that next to you?”

Ignoring Touko’s voice, Daisuke turned back to the boy with the hockey stick.

He’d never mistake it.

That thing the boy was so calmly holding was the one and only beloved weapon of Daisuke’s acquaintance.

The pirate ship floating in the lake.

Daisuke and the unknown boy confronted each other on top of its sails.

“This? I borrowed this from my teacher—wait, do you know Inuko?”

“…”

“No Answer! I guess it means ‘yes’. Say, how’s Inuko doing? Prolly running around somewhere. Have any idea?”

While smiling comfortably, the boy pounded the hockey stick against his back.

''Borrowed this from my teacher—

He definitely said this now.

Not easily believing him, Daisuke stared at the boy. It was true that the hockey stick’s original owner, Shishidou Inuko, went around scouting Mushitsuki with talents all over the country.

So all of the combatants she’d raised would always join the SEPB.

However, the boy in front of him said that he wasn’t an SEPB member—

Daisuke opened his mouth.

A powerful side wind blew on the pirate ship.

“Wanko… Inuko is dead.”

Time seemed to stop.

The self-proclaimed warrior’s smile stiffened.

The hockey stick perched on his back nearly slipped off. His hand moved nimbly and he grasped it a moment before it fell.

“…Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that—”

“The last thing she did was fight against something at Holland City.”

Saying this expressionlessly, Daisuke extended his arm toward the boy.

The hockey stick’s owner was gone.

As a parting gift for the great warrior, he should offer that to her empty body.

However—

“—”

The boy shook off the arm holding the stick to avoid Daisuke’s hand.

Erasing his frivolous smile, he glared at Daisuke as if he was his hated enemy.

“…ch…”

The boy rotated his body. He turned his back to Daisuke as if to reject handing back the stick.

“Ouch…”

“…”

“I understand, actually… those wounds back then were obviously life-threatening… that’s why I was able to fight against Shinpu back then…”

He whispered as if to himself.

With his hand still extended, Daisuke was silent.

“—I’ll keep holding to this. Forever.”

“…”

“She had one guy that she acknowledged. He’s apparently the strongest. —If you happen to know about him, tell me.”

An orange glow leapt out of the boy’s body. The light turned into the shape of several dozen Autumn Darters.

“When I beat all of the remaining fragments—I’ll come and take his position.”

The small thud of the recoil felt much too light. The moment after he kicked the sail, the boy was already completely gone from Daisuke’s sight.

“Fragments…?”

The orange afterimages seemed to be flowing toward the mountain range.

Looking there, he noticed an abnormal black shadow moving through the trees.

Daisuke had seen that foul miasma many times before.
''—You said that you have defeated Diorestoi… but that was nothing more than a single fragment.

He recalled the words of Oogui, one of the Original Three.

Shinpu, that Daisuke thought he’d defeated, was a mere fragment.

And now, there was the familiar miasma right in front of his eyes.

“Is he after Shinpu?”

As a member of the SEPB, he should capture the boy seeing as he was an unknown Mushitsuki.

But Daisuke did not have the leisure to be facing against multiple enemies.

One of Shishidou Inuko’s disciples was moving without being constrained by the SEPB. And he was also seemingly after what was likely part of Shinpu.

While he understood only this much, Daisuke decided to let them go for now.

The boy himself had said this—that he would one day come to the strongest Mushitsuki.

When that time came—Daisuke would probably be able to meet that boy again.

“Kakkou-san? What on earth is happening?”

“Nothing. I’ll return to monitoring the Eye—”

Collecting himself and looking up the sky, his expression froze.

The Eye that had been floating there until a moment ago vanished without trace.

“…!”

When Daisuke turned around, right in front of him—close enough to touch his nose—he saw the abnormal mass floating there.

It was the Eye.

“Wha—”

The surface of the Eye, reflecting Daisuke’s frozen appearance like glass, began faintly emitting a blue glow. A sizzling sound came from his hair.

Azure light pierced the lake’s sky.

The heat ray launched in a straight line boiled a large amount of water on the lake surface, piercing into the distant mountains. Many trees exploded, creating a space with exposed ground.

After the heat ray passed, nothing remained.

By erasing the enemy from its sight, the Eye stopped moving.

“I’ve fought against you before—”

The Eye twitched.

Daisuke’s arm grabbed the Eye from behind in a tight hold. The moment before it fired the heat ray, Daisuke had evaded to the opposite side while leaping above it.

The unfused checkered beetle landed on Daisuke’s shoulder. Transforming its body to tentacles, it fused with Daisuke’s body. His body clad in a green pattern, Daisuke swung his fist.

“Though you are probably unaware of it.”

An explosive sound not unlike two large trucks colliding echoed across the lake.

Daisuke had thrown the grasped Eye with his full power.

The glowing in the compound eye shook for an instant while it was in Daisuke’s hand. As if there was noise mixed in with it, the light on the surface weakened.

Daisuke had once fought against an Eye—

Not many people knew of it. Since it was under extremely special circumstances, even his current boss Touko didn’t know about it.

As Daisuke attempted another attack, the Eye began glowing again.

“…Tch!”

Feeling danger, Daisuke flung the Eye toward the ground like a baseball pitcher.

His arm strength while fused with the Mushi blew the Eye far away. As it spun while shooting its heat ray, scorch marks were left indiscriminately across the mountain.

The Eye pounded against the base of the mountain with incredible speed, getting buried in the ground.

Glaring at the center of this crater, Daisuke reached for the gun at his back, but—

“—”

The pattern covering his body throbbed.

For an instant, all strength left his body and his knees folded. He blanked out for a second.

''Use more power—

He had the feeling as if his Mushi was whispering this.

“Kakkou-san!”

Touko’s shout helped him regain his senses.

As Daisuke was right now, he would probably be unable to restrain his Mushi if he fused it with his gun—

It was much too reckless of a gamble right now when he needed to give his everything to hold back Maturing. Daisuke bit his lips, removing his fingers from his gun.

“A-are you alright? I-I had no idea it would be that strong—”

“But why is it still alive…? Never mind two years ago… when I fought Oogui at Shiou City… what’s going on? Is there some kind of cycle…? What is the host—no, rather than that, why is it even free…”

As he mumbled to himself, Daisuke’s face became pale.

It was like a rifle gun laser pointer. Noticing that he was being targeted, Daisuke sank his body.

The next moment, the azure heat ray passed above his head.

Daisuke knew that this wasn’t an opponent that could be dealt with by ordinary means.

Since he was unable to bring out his full power, would he even able to beat such a powerful foe?

Impatient at his own condition, he would perhaps make an irreversible lapse in judgment—

“Let’s change the battlefield to the shore. If any members are there, get them to evacuate.”

With superhuman leg strength, he leapt through the air toward the Eye.

At the edge of his vision—a different location of the mountain, there was an explosive sound. He could faintly see black miasma and an orange glow clashing. It was probably the boy from before, fighting.

“Kh…!”

He managed to dodge the Eye’s heat ray by flipping his body midair.

Letting the enemy’s attack fly past, Daisuke used the momentum of landing and stuck his fist toward the Eye. The crater burst and an even larger hole bore into the mountain.

But beneath his fist was only the now exposed ground.

Noticing the blue light illuminating him from the side, he reflexively jumped backwards.

The Eye’s heat ray immediately passing by his side mowed down a line of trees.

Daisuke kicked the ground, moving to the Eye’s vicinity instantaneously.

“Oooh!”

This time his fist hit. The Eye crashed to the ground, knocking down the surrounding trees as it was blown far away.

It moved in terrible speeds and its heat ray had unparalleled power. Against such an enemy Daisuke could only fight by actively closing the distance.

Dodging the heat rays, he attacked the Eye that was paralyzed a moment after the attack. On the other hand, perhaps loathe to keep fighting from short range, it stopped trying to corner Daisuke from nearby.

“Guh!”

Even the heavily resistant long coat couldn’t fully absorb the Eye’s attack. Every time an attack grazed against it, it was singed and cut, gouging into Daisuke’s skin and flesh.

But Daisuke didn’t stop his attack.

He was unable to use his gun and even his physical strengthening was far from his full power. Also, the more time passed, the more the throbbing he felt from the pattern on his body grew stronger.

If it became a long battle, he would be destroyed.

Since Daisuke knew that, he kept attacking even knowing he’d be wounded.

“Ooooh!”

His fist covered in a green, glowing pattern was buried into the Eye. As it pounded into the ground again, its movements looked a bit dull for an instant. Once again there was some noise on the glow of its surface.

“Hah… Hah…”

It seemed Daisuke would be able to finish the job with just a few more hits. His entire body covered in blood, Daisuke advanced with a heavy gait.

But Daisuke’s legs suddenly stopped.

The Eye’s behavior turned abnormal.

Trembling all over, its supposedly hard shell distorted as if it was made of rubber.

“—”

He was speechless at that sight.


Just as it seemed the Eye’s shape was being stretched to the sides—

Its shell parted and ripped.

Splitting into two while trembling, it floated as if nothing happened.

The two Eyes now goggled at Daisuke who stood there stunned.

Pale blue light illuminated the surroundings.

“Kh…”

Daisuke scowled—reaching for his gun. This wasn’t the time to not use his full power. An enemy he could barely match against alone now became two. At this rate he wouldn’t even be able to fight.

''Shiika—

He recalled the Mushitsuki girl who bore the same dream.

He couldn’t die here.

Daisuke tried drawing his gun when it happened.

“Fire!”

Together with this sharp voice, the Eyes which even now prepared to fire their rays were engulfed in a column of flame.

The giant pillar of flames scorched the skies and the explosive wind knocked the trees around.

“Senri…!”

While fanned by the wind, Daisuke turned toward the voice.

On the other side of the assorted trees stood a girl with long hair. Her body wrapped in a black coat, she raised her hand with a finger pointed in the shape of a gun.

“Idiot…! Why did you come here!”

The high-density flames shot by Senri definitely damaged the enemies. Their shell scorched by the flames, the Eyes trembled with pain—and the next moment completely vanished from within the flames.

“Run!”

Instantly moving overhead, the Eyes started shining blue while glaring at Senri.

Senri would never be able to dodge their attacks with her own legs—

[[File:Mushi Uta 9 p133.jpg|thumb]]

“Fire!”

Still gazing forward, Senri crossed her arms. The pistol-fingers on both hands pointed toward the Eyes’ location. —Although Senri was blind from birth, she possessed the rare ability to sense Mushi.

The two flame pillars assaulted the two Eyes.

But it wasn’t enough to finish them off. While swallowed by the flames, the Eyes tried shooting heat rays.

The next moment, golden-colored lasers fell from the skies. The light rays pouring down like rain skewered the Eyes.

“Akatsuki—”

From a different direction from Senri, a golden mayfly controlled by a boy appeared. Although he hadn’t equipped his goggles, he wore the same kind of coat as Daisuke and Senri. Just like Haji Senri, he, Ogata Akatsuki, was a member of the East Central Branch.

The mayfly’s tail, split into two, kept launching golden lasers. Drawing arcs in the air, they persistently pierced the Eyes as they kept stubbornly trying to move.

“…”

Not slackening his attacks on the enemies, Akatsuki glared at Daisuke. —Due to certain circumstances, the boy saw him as target for revenge.

“—Why are you not using your gun?”

His eyes were sharp, but Akatsuki’s tone was surprisingly calm.

Receiving focused attacks from the high-levelled combatants Akatsuki and Senri, the Eyes finally stopped moving. They broke down as if deflating, melting into thin air.

Daisuke averted his gaze away from Akatsuki.

“You shouldn’t have come here. If the enemy hit you even once, someone like you would be finished immediately. It’s better for me to fight alone.”

“You’re speaking like that even though you were nearly done for.”

“Wha—”

Turning back, Akatsuki passed near Daisuke with a composed expression. Since the job was over, he was hurriedly leaving. —It was only by a little, but Daisuke had the feeling that Akatsuki’s behavior toward him was different. He felt less hatred from his words and actions than before. He still remained as cold as ever, though.

“Dai-kun, are you alright? Ah… I smell blood. Are you hurt?”

Senri ran toward him. By becoming able to control her Mushi, Senri was now able to “see” people’s positions as well.

“Awawa… if you’re done, then everyone retreat! Retreat!”

Touko’s voice echoed from the goggles.

“…”

Suddenly recalling something, Daisuke looked toward the distant mountain.

The miasma seen between the trees now fully vanished. —The boy who inherited the hockey stick apparently won against that fragment or whatever.

“Apparently, the organizers of the boat parties are the Round Table! Umm, this Round Table is like a gathering of all rich people, umm, anyway, they’re very scary people! What are we going to do?! I’m going to get scolded so hard!”

Rich people—

Hearing this word, the face of a certain girl from a rich family passed through Daisuke’s mind.

The one called Akasegawa Nanana.

Once, Nanana had told Daisuke she wanted to become a Mushitsuki. Was that drunk girl also on one of these three ships?

If it was so, he sympathized with those on board.

Finishing his mission and turning his body, Daisuke thought.

Being involved with that woman would never end well—