Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 14 Chapter 2 (section)

== 2.08 Harukiyo Part 8 ==

What was the light he’d seen when he was born?

He didn’t know its identity.

However, apparently more than one or two people had seen that moment.

A small community picked him up as an infant. The women all spent their times washing and preparing meals, while the men constantly carried firearms that were as old as their tattered clothes.

Since he was still a child then, he didn’t really understand who they were.

However, that place was constantly in conflict with someone, and they used child soldiers as a matter of course, giving children guns. At times they took in children of unknown origins, just like him.

“—”

For several years, after growing up in such a place, he came to hazily recognize the situation he found himself in.

It was a country shaken by civil war with many rebel groups. They were guerilla organizations, and before long they fought against other guerilla organizations competing for both resources and people—and he was taken in as a member as well.

When he grew up enough to be called a boy, a small secret was born in the village.

“—Please, bless me—”

Adult women began sneaking into the shack where more than ten children slept.

Hiding their faces, these women quietly began to worship him.

“Please allow sinners such as us that light of salvation—”

Light.

They all constantly mumbled this word.

Apparently, the miracle that happened during his birth was whispered all over the community.

He himself wasn’t particularly blessed with any special knowledge or physical abilities.

All he could do was “see” faraway events from time to time.

It felt as if he had another eye there.

However, at the time he hadn’t told anyone about it even once.

“Please save my soul—please show me the light that guides me to God—”

The secret worship continued every night, and finally even the men came to pray.

He was pretending to sleep just like always, but that night was different.

The visions that he had from time to time—his “Eyes” in distant places—found enemies lurking in the forest. Equipped with firearms, this group was slowly approaching their village.

He rose and warned the “worshippers”.

“O, child of miracles—”

His “Clairvoyance” saved the village, and from that day they kept on winning.

And as days and months passed—

“—Please—guide me—”

One day, the village was easily destroyed.

Without him having time to warn anyone, several communities colluded to assault their base.

The familiar shack was on fire and adults and children collapsed while gunfire echoed. While people who knew him cried and yelled, clinging to him, he was being restrained.

The ones who got him were a village who conducted the attack.

“—O light, please guide us to God—”

He was confined in a shack and worshipped again.

He was apparently blessed. Without him doing anything, with nothing but pure fortune, that group won against all opposing forces and prospered—

“O light—so we can go—to God—”

Even that community was then massacred by an even larger group.

With the burning village to his back, he was taken away to another village—and it was further crushed by another larger force.

This happened many times.

How many hundreds of people died just to snatch him?

How many people were going to die just to protect him?

By the time he was in his teens, he understood.

Without exception, everyone involved with him—always died.

While speaking of their hopes to him, while seeking salvation to him, while wishing for happiness, all of them died right in front of his eyes.

And as a result of the repeating death and despair—

“—Don’t be afraid of the light!”

Finally, the country made a move.

As the political authority of the time found itself disturbed by the guerrilla groups’ new faith, they sought to nip it in the bud.

He was easily captured by the country and thrown into prison.

He hoped that he would end up on the death row before long.

“—Please bestow light to our country—”

But in the end, nothing changed.

It was probably yet another divine protection. His living place transformed from a prison to an altar, and the statesman became a tyrant.

And several years later—the scenery he saw from beyond his cell window’s bars was engulfed in flames.

Apparently, the tyrant ruler had been too terrible. Witnessing him committing atrocities against humanity through his despotic rule, the international community moved their armies under the pretext of sanctions and talk of liberation.

Fighter aircrafts flew above, and anti-air missiles shot by the tyrant’s soldiers came from inside cities.

How many thousands of people lost their lives in the flames?

“—Light—a light of guidance—”

He was taken away by the tyrant’s aide who tried escaping abroad.

However, even that aide was soon killed by the army of liberation.

A bloody scramble began. The tyrant’s army and the liberation forces began exchanging gunfire in order to get a hold of him. Those who reached their hands to obtain him all died without exception.

When the final two keeled over in a simultaneous strike, he was left all alone.

While walking through the mountain of corpses, he lost his sanity. As the scent of blood and flesh filled the surroundings, he walked, dyed completely red in others’ blood—

He wasn’t a God of salvation. He wasn’t even human.

He was a grim reaper.

Because of him, tens of thousands of people died. Even so, he himself couldn’t die.

“Light—fall asleep.”

Along with this mumble from behind him, he lost consciousness.

Perhaps having been administered some medicine, he apparently slept for a long while.

He might have slept for several weeks or months.

His body weighed by lethargy, the sight that welcomed him as he woke up again— 

“Nice to meet you.”

Was a girl. She was very cute and had a mole under her eye.

He had never seen before such a smile filled with gentle affection.

“Please, do not be afraid. There is no longer anyone who would do anything horrible to you.”

Saying this, the girl—

“I will give you my love.”

Wore an expression that would paralyze anyone who gazed upon it, a Smile of Shackles.