Mushi Uta:Volume 11 Chapter 4

4.00 Release

As the mist scattered, Daisuke’s sight was dyed in pitch-dark.

A black mass wriggled, gathered and flowed.

That was—a black cloud.

“…!”

Daisuke’s body shook. Noticing that he was looking up at the sky, he came back to his senses.

As he looked at his body, he saw that he was wearing his pitch-dark coat. He also had his pistol at his waist. Large goggles covered his face.

There was rain.

The sensation of the cold droplets and wind blowing from the side felt fresh.

Feeling his body with his five senses, he now clearly knew.

Until now he’d been dreaming and acting within that dream.

“Why am I in such a place…?”

His consciousness was still jumbled. He shook his head and looked at his feet.

The vast townscape spread beneath his eyes.

Akamaki City. He could see of the familiar buildings in this city that was once his residence.

Daisuke—was standing atop a high-rise building.

“I tried infiltrating Akamaki City and entered a mist… from then, I was supposedly shown an illusion. In the past Akamaki City, I…”

Daisuke had wandered into the Akamaki City of bygone days.

Mikko, Kii-kun, Rui, Kasshi.

He met the people naming themselves this, traveled with them and reached the land of the prophecy.

There, he saw it.

The moment when the Original Three were born.

The time when everything started and the world changed—

“Was that really just an illusion…?”

While pelted by the rain, Daisuke raised his hand.

A checkered beetle glowing in green landed on his fingertip.

He could use his Mushi powers—

Daisuke came back to reality.

“When did I get here…?”

It was certain he’d tried getting inside Akamaki City and was trapped in a fake world.

Even the fact that that mist was a Mushitsuki’s ability was within expectations. He still didn’t know who they were, but Daisuke probably fell victim to some attack and saw an illusion.

However, he had no memories of climbing up to the top of a high-rise building.

There were also doubts at him being completely unharmed. They should have been able to kill Daisuke whenever.

He couldn’t read the aim of this formless enemy.

In this confused state, while looking down the city—Daisuke felt that something wasn’t right.

“There are no people…?”

Fast food restaurants and the lines of office buildings in this main street were empty.

Never mind pedestrians on the street, he couldn’t even see any cars on the national highway.

In this now silent main road, only the sound of pelting rain resounded creepily.

“Am I still inside the dream…?”

Seeing this unrealistic sight, he had a bad feeling.

—Because of us, this country will be filled with Mushi and reach its end.

This ominous prophecy declared within the world of illusion was reborn in his mind.

“—ear me? Please respond! Kakkou-san!”

Suddenly he heard a woman’s voice in his ears.

Daisuke startled, holding his ear.

“Kakkou-san! Are you safe? Please reply alreadyyy!”

“—Touko-san?”

It was a familiar voice. Apparently it was talking through the goggles’ wireless connection.

“Ah! Ah! Kakkou-san? It’s you, Kakkou-san! Are you fine?! You haven’t answered for a long while, so I thought the worst…!”

“I’m fine. Nothing… happened to me.”

“Are you fine? Really really? Are you not hurt? Why did you enter Akamaki City and immediately all signals were cut oooooff! Were you fighting someone?”

Touko’s voice was genuine. No one could hope to mimic this acting branch head who sounded so unreliable even now.

Finally feeling that he really came back to the real world, he felt some small relief.

“Don’t worry. As for combat—I haven’t fought, probably.”

“Probably? Then what are you doiiing! You hadn’t made your routine reports for two days straight!”

“Two days?”

He asked back without thinking.

He knew that he’d fell to this mysterious illusion attack and lost consciousness for a while—

And he’d been in the world of the past for two days as well.

“Did I really not make contact for that long? I was—”

“Why are you talking about it as if it happened to someone else! Where are you now? —Oh, I can pinpoint the goggles’ location from here! What on earth happened?”

“I don’t know…”

He had no other way to answer.

If he announced to her that he’d seen the past, he felt like she’d just worry more.

In the first place, he wasn’t convinced that this really what happened in the past.

“Geez! Immediately after you entered the mist, we lost all contact and the goggle location system couldn’t find you! I didn’t think you were dead because it’s you, but I still worried!”

“Sorry. I’m fine, but I can’t really grasp the situation for now. How’re things outside Akamaki? Inside things are a bit weird—”

“Ah, I know where you are, Kakkou-san—whaaat! Y-y-y-you’re?! That’s no good! You’re in a very bad place right now!”

Daisuke frowned.

“Bad place? What’s bad about it?”

“It’s about to get swallowed!”

Swallowed.

Daisuke couldn’t understand in the least the meaning of her words.

“Explain! What’s going on!”

“D-do you really not know what’s currently happeniiing?”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you!”

“N-not long after our contact was cut off… the mist covering Akamaki City cleared up.”

“Eh—”

Daisuke leaned from the building’s roof, looking around the empty streets. His coat was flapped by the wind, striking the fences behind him.

The mist covering Akamaki City cleared up.

If that was true, then why was it so empty? The SEPB should have been able to get inside Akamaki City as well—

“Although the residents of Akamaki City had been shaken by the mist, there were no casualties at all. But soon we received an emergency broadcast from the Central Headquarters’ information department. That, too, soon cut off due to certain obstacles…”

“An emergency broadcast from HQ? What did they say?”

“It was a urgent request of help. —Meaning, an SOS.”

Daisuke was lost for words.

The Central Headquarters asked them to rescue them?

The part of the SEPB that held the most fighting forces did?

“No way…?”

“They’re apparently locked up within the Stronghold—inside HQ’s base! Plus, there was fear that some dangerous being was released from within the Stronghold to the surface, so they sent an evacuation order to the city.”

“Central Headquarters being locked up? A dangerous being…?”

“We got in contact with the government and evacuated civilians to the designated area! Publicly we said that an unexploded ordnance was discovered, but this is impossible to hide anymore…”

“Why did it turn out like that? Doesn’t the Stronghold have Harukiyo?”

The devil was supposed to be in Central Headquarters.

Daisuke didn’t know what was his goal in remaining at HQ what, but he couldn’t believe that ridiculously powerful man would fall into that sort of desperate situation.

“I don’t knooow! Anyway, this is the situation… ah! It’s coming! Never mind everything, just run away! Retreat!”

“Retreat you say… but what’s coming—”

As Daisuke overlooked the landscape of Akamaki City, his eyes stopped at a certain place.

Something was revealed at the end of the national road spreading below.

An amorphous presence, completely black and like smoke.

It appeared from within the gaps in buildings as though crawling, slowly advancing to where Daisuke was, it seemed.

“What is—”

“R-run away, hurry! Several Northern Central Branch members that served as scouts were already eaten! Even you, Kakkou-san, can’t handle something like that alone…!”

Accompanying this black presence, it was actually something white eating the buildings.

It was as though white color was painted over a drawing of the city.

Thick and sticky, a foul white was encroaching Akamaki City little by little.

“—”

Finally, Daisuke’s eyes captured the identity of that creepy color.

Caterpillars.

There was no doubt about it.

Daisuke had once seen it—whether past or present, he’d witnessed it countless times.

The identity of the dangerous being released from Central Headquarters.

He realized what it was.

“P-please run away! Kakkou-san!”

Touko shouted.

“Shinpu’s main body was unleashed!”

Slowly.

But surely.

The large tidal wave of caterpillars dyed Daisuke’s sight in pure white.

4.01 Daisuke Part 11

The townscape seen from the building was being swallowed by white caterpillars.

Roads and vehicles and everything up to high-rise buildings were being covered by the white waves, vanishing into the miasma.

Although the speed of encroachment was slow, at this rate—

“Please quickly evacuate, Kakkou-san!”

His boss Goroumaru Touko shouted at him through the goggles’ wireless communication.

“Is this really Shinpu…?”

Daisuke had fought Shinpu before.

Shinpu, who gave birth to Special Types that had Mushi of an indeterminate form, looked like an old man and could bring forth a swarm of caterpillars—

However, what he saw beneath his eyes was on another league entirely.

—That thing is but a mere fragment.

Another one of the Original Three, Oogui, had said this.

—The Central Headquarters is hiding one of the Original Three…

A girl who once belonged to the East Central Branch with Daisuke had said this.

The Shinpu that Daisuke had fought was no more than a fragment, and if the thing he saw was its true form—

“So the Central Headquarters really did hide Shinpu’s main body.”

In the past Daisuke had witnessed, Shinpu—Diorestoi—had been captured by the Round Table.

However, for some reason it was now in the hands of Central Headquarters, and it got unleashed.

“Oh, calling it a ‘main body’ is only our conjecture, and Central HQ probably won’t admit it.”

“Now that things are like this they couldn’t hide it. We need to take the initiative anyway.”

“T-that’s right, so provisionally we’ll treat it as Shinpu’s main body.”

“How’s the Central Headquarters right now? Surely they hadn’t been wiped off?”

“Ever since their request for help, it’s complete silence. We think they might be trapped in the Stronghold…”

“If the caterpillars really spread this far, even the Central Headquarters wouldn’t last for long.”

Why was Shinpu’s main body unleashed now of all times—

Although he was curious about the reason for this, it didn’t look like he had the time to carefully reason about it.

“With a target this large, looks like the only way to deal with it would be to strike the main body. I’ll keep looking for it.”

Was it his hatred for having been jailed for so many years, or another reason?

Shinpu had definitely grown stronger since the moment of his birth.

The scenery in front of Daisuke spoke of that scary truth.

“I’m telling you that you can’t! You’re already within the enemy’s range!”

“Range?”

It happened just as Daisuke asked back.

One high-rise building swallowed by the caterpillars and miasma moved.

Its zenith swelled.

A large swarm of caterpillars became about as large as a human—

“—”

And “something” looked at Daisuke from within that gap.

Red-black cloudy eyes.

For just an instant he glimpsed the silhouette of a rotten, darkened face.

Daisuke knew that face.

“Kasshi—”

As he was about to pull his gun, Daisuke’s brain was pounded by a cracking roar.

It was a horrible ear-grating sound, much like if an outrageous mass of metals were being pounded one against another.

It was the sound of bells.

“…!”

As he grimaced and looked above, he could see a huge building floating there.

It was the Church.

The medium of Shinpu’s ability.

By the time he hurried to get away, it was too late.

“Oh n—”

A storm of pitch-dark miasma blew around Daisuke.

He tried escaping, but his legs were frozen.

In the blink of an eye his sight was wrapped in darkness.

The clouds covering the sky.

The townscape of Akamaki City spreading under him.

These all vanished far, far away, covered by the pitch-dark miasma filled with malice and the ear-grating bell sound.

“What does thou want…?”

In the darkness cutting off all senses, a hoarse voice resounded.

This voice was shrill and cracked, and didn’t sound like either man or woman.

“What does thou desire…?”

A space where he was unable to see or touch anything.

Daisuke couldn’t even tell whether he was standing on his two legs or else lying down.

“What does thou wish for—”

A light flared within the darkness.

It became bigger by the second, and Daisuke realized he was standing on a surface. At some point his equipment was released and the goggles hiding his face also vanished.

The surface became soft like rubber.

“Have thou expended so many victims…?”

It wasn’t—the ground.

It was a mountain of people.

Innumerable people were lying beneath him, and many were familiar to him.

“Thy dream has eaten this many dreams.”

The Mushitsuki turned into Fallen by Daisuke’s hand.

“Is thy dream truly that valuable…?”

The Fallen all stood up, clinging to his body.

Their weight caused Daisuke’s shoulders to creak, and sharp nails ripped his skin.

“Thy dream… for the weak, it is naught but a nightmare…”

At this unbearable suffering pain, Daisuke’s scream—wouldn’t come out.

He gritted his teeth and slowly closed his eyes.

Sensations of his neck being wrangled, nails digging into him, and his inner organs being gouged gripped his brain. This pain, as though all the nerves in his body were being ripped out numbed him, and the taste of his own fresh blood spread warmly in his mouth.

“Thou have dreamed for too long…”

Pain, hatred, and fear were trying to fill his heart, but Daisuke made no move.

While all five senses raised shrieks, he looked for a door inside him.

There was definitely a door.

He searched for the hidden door covered by all manner of torture—

And finally found it.

Inside this space of darkness was a door leaking light.

“Thy long-standing dream… is a nightmare…”

He wrenched open the door.

That door, which brought light into that world filled with darkness—

Was Daisuke’s eyelids.

“I already knew that for a long time—”

As Daisuke opened his eyes, he saw the townscape dominated by white caterpillars.

There were heavy clouds in the sky.

“I told you this before. Don’t think the same trick will work on me again and again.”

Daisuke’s sight pierced through the distant building.

He couldn’t see the “something” supposedly there anymore. There were just caterpillars.

Seeing that Daisuke repelled his mental attack, he probably escaped.

It wasn’t that he became stronger than before.

He became more devious and more guarded—

Daisuke clicked his tongue and put a hand to the goggles.

“Touko-san. I’ve just been mentally attacked by Shinpu.”

“Weh? A-are you alright?! I told you to get away! That’s probably what finished off those North Central Branch scouts! What attack was it?”

“The same kind of mental pollution Shinpu attacked with before. Since he could even take control of my sense of pain, it might’ve been stronger. If you see a human figure inside the caterpillars, you probably shouldn’t lock eyes with it.”

“U-understood…! I’ll pass it along to all branches! Are you fine, Kakkou-san?”

“Not a big deal.”

He underwent training to resist mental attacks and experienced them a lot.

He’d never get beaten by a mental attack—

He prided himself on that.

“…”

However, the moment he infiltrated Akamaki City, Daisuke was easily taken into an illusory world of the past.

It was supposedly another kind of mental attack.

Why had he fallen prey to it so easily?

Because he hadn’t felt any hostility within that milky mist?

Even if so, it was certain he was weaker than he was before.

He didn’t have much power remaining and wasn’t sure if he could fight with his full strength even one more time—

“…We need the Central Headquarters’ power.”

Daisuke mumbled.

The large swarm of caterpillars encroaching Akamaki City only increased.

This wasn’t a situation that Daisuke could handle alone.

Calmly accepting this truth—was because he’d saw the illusion of the past.

He met people who fought Mushi without using the power of Mushitsuki.

Humans were far stronger than Daisuke gave them credit for.

His comrade in arms also told him this before, but Daisuke was apparently too conceited—

“I-I agree. But the entrance to the Underground Stronghold is fully covered in caterpillars…”

“So we can’t approach?”

“Yeah, once we tried it, they were immediately battered and defeated… they probably got hit by the mental attack you mentioned. We are discussing whether we should send some high-ranking members, but every branch fears the risk of sending in their aces, so we can’t quite reach a conclusion…”

Immediately after the Central Headquarters went silent it turned like this. He now ironically missed HQ’s absolute authority.

Daisuke clicked his tongue. He couldn’t see any hope like that.

“I’ll go. Guide me to the nearest entrance.”

“Eeeh! B-buuut, I just let everyone in the branch know that the missing Kakkou-san was found to raise morale.”

“It’s fine, come on.”

“Haah, acting independently yet again… well, no one’s going to follow you in this situation anyway.”

“Just in case anything happens, have Akatsuki wait nearby.”

A map appeared in Daisuke’s goggles. It told him the location of the entrance connected to the Stronghold was.

“Please report properly, alright? I hope you won’t get lost again.”

A green checkered beetle landed on Daisuke’s shoulder. Its body transformed explosively, becoming countless tentacles and fusing with his entire body.

“Got it.”

His entire body glowing in a pattern, Daisuke kicked the ground.

He went back to the edge of the roof, sprinted to gain momentum—then leapt.

His black long coat fluttered in the sky of Akamaki City.

Cutting the wind, Daisuke used his enhanced leg strength to land on the neighboring roof. The green glow passed through his entire body, causing the concrete-made floor to cave in.

Leaping further from building to building, he approached the ground.

After he landed a few times to stand on the national road, the caterpillars appeared right in front of him.

However, Daisuke ignored the caterpillars, took detours and ran toward his destination.

“Just a biiit more. I don’t know what’s waiting for you there, so be careful.”

“Yeah.”

Daisuke finally arrived in front of a large building.

During the time it was disguised as the entrance to the Central Headquarters’ underground base, it was the former site of an old hospital complex with surgical and medical departments.

At present, it became a place completely unrecognizable from how it was before.

Squirming white covered the entire building, covering even the colors of the walls.

“That’s bad—”

If it looked like that from the outside, the inside must be even worse.

As he grimaced and approached the building, the caterpillars immediately leapt at him.

“Tch.”

So they tried launching an attack to test the waters—

It happened just as Daisuke pulled his gun out.

“…!”

A roar and a tremor shook the air. His sight was dyed in gold.

A bolt of lightning fell on the area swarmed by white caterpillars.

The electrical attack and shock wave blew them away.

“Wha…?”

As Daisuke hurriedly assumed a defensive posture, a golden outline floated in front of him.

The two legs standing on the scorched ground were long and slender. It had a slim waist and a chest drawing a modest hill.

However—it wasn’t human.

This silhouette growing gold raised crackles, and the ends of its swaying, long hair further burned and erased the caterpillars spread about.

It was the figure of a woman sculpted from electrical discharge.

She was probably around twenty years old. Daisuke didn’t think he’d ever seen her beautiful face.

“Who’re you?”

He probably thought of her like a ghost met at a graveyard in night. However, the situation being what it was, it was doubtlessly a Mushitsuki ability.

She glared at Daisuke, silent.

“…?”

The woman turned her back to Daisuke. She swung her hand to the side.

An electric storm blew around, reaping through the caterpillars.

Heading toward the hospital, she created a scorching path.

The woman turned around and glared at Daisuke again.

“Is this… a trap?”

Daisuke mumbled this with caution, and the woman suddenly smiled—

Then her form burst and vanished.

Still readying his gun, Daisuke stood in place, shocked.

Even after the woman vanished the caterpillars didn’t seem like they were going to block the path into the hospital. They slithered on the ground as if avoiding that specific spot.

“Touko-san… I might be able to get underground.”

Putting a hand on the goggles, he informed his boss.

“Doesn’t look like it’ll last for long, though.”

He was able to avoid the caterpillars now, but there was an apparent time limit. They slowly came to narrow the road again.

“There’s no time. Give me an order.”

He could feel that his unseen superior was worried.

However, she apparently decided.

“—Approved.”

Goroumaru Touko gave him an order with a muffled voice.

“Blaze Class Rank 1 Kakkou. Sneak inside right away and check the situation.”

Daisuke wore a bitter smile. He started walking.

“Meaning, get inside there and clean it all up… what a bland order.”

“Can you do it?”

It might be a trap.

However, there was no choice but to move forward.

“I was simply thinking that you’re sounding like Haji.”

While mouthing the name of his previous East Central Branch Head—

Daisuke entered into the hospital.

4.02 Daisuke Part 12

The hospital’s interior was dominated and occupied by caterpillars as far as the eye could see. They wriggled on both ceiling and floor, making it seem like he was inside some huge beast.

Daisuke took the lone path without any caterpillars in it.

Walking, he could see a hole ahead. It appeared to be the elevator entrance, but perhaps due to the caterpillars, the door and the elevator body itself were crumbled rotten and became a mere cave.

“Meaning, I need to go down from here?”

Daisuke flung his body inside the hole.

The vertical hole became like a cave for growing caterpillars. Daisuke barely leapt over the remaining steel, diving deeper and deeper inside.

“…Entering’s fine and all, but it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to get out.”

Looking above, the hole Daisuke came through was being blocked by caterpillars.

“If this is a trap they’re inviting me inside here… is it meant to trap me along with the Central Headquarters? Well, managing to do would inflict a heavy blow to the SEPB’s fighting forces, but—”

How deep was he by now? He finally landed on the floor that appeared.

Raising his face, he saw as expected a corridor filled with caterpillars.

“So that’s what Shinpu is thinking?”

Kicking the floor, he rushed through the corridor.

The camouflaged entrance on the surface allowed him to reach the highest section of the Stronghold. It was mostly the area where Mushitsuki members lived, so it was the closest to the surface.

“I didn’t think the Original Three would act so humanlike…”

The Original Three were drawn by people’s dreams and ate them—

That was the answer that the SEPB, as well as Daisuke himself, had gained this far from experience.

Just like bees drawn to honey.

Just like moths to the flame.

These were such absolute instincts that it felt like they were born for this.

Was thinking this way a mistake?

“I have no proof that Central Headquarters is even safe. If they were all annihilated long ago, I’m just an idiot walking right into a trap—”

Seeing the corridor ahead, he smiled.

“—Looks like I wasn’t, though.”

Until now he could see nothing but caterpillars, but now there was a change to that.

They were blocked from going ahead at a certain point as if there was an invisible line drawn there.

“Looks like they’re safe for now.”

Ahead of him was a Mushi with a blurry outline.

It was a millipede, long and narrow, its body about 2 meters long with dozens of small legs.

That Mushi was familiar to Daisuke. There were about 5 millipedes and the caterpillars blocking the corridor couldn’t move ahead as though scared of them.

Passing through the boundary that the caterpillars couldn’t charge through, Daisuke approached the millipede.

“Tamamo. It’s me, let me through.”

The gigantic millipede crawled up Daisuke’s legs, bringing its fangs near his face. Looking into the eye of this Mushi that was green smoke given form caused the pit of Daisuke’s stomach to constrict.

It was a Mushi that controlled the sense of fear. He knew its host for a long time.

The millipede released him. Sliding noiselessly and separating from him, it opened the path.

“The situation really is severe…”

As he ran in the empty corridor, this time black mist stood to block his path.

As Daisuke approached, the mist coagulated midair, transforming to sharp claws.

“Kasuou.”

Responding to his voice, the claws stopped in place.

Behind the passing Daisuke, the black claws dispersed and became mist again.

Both Tamamo and Kasuou were elite combatants here in the Central Headquarters. For the two of them to directly spread this sort of defensive net meant they were in a huge predicament.

As he kept running ahead, he saw a door. The entrance to the residential area.

Daisuke stepped in front of it and the door opened.

“—”

Clamor greeted him.

It was a spacious hall.

Combatants clad in white coats—the Central Headquarters’ standard issued equipment—formed a defensive circle and surrounded Daisuke. Further around them many white coats turned eyes full of caution at him.

He could hear voices. “Is that really Kakkou…?” “Is there some path connected to the surface?” “How is he unhurt—“, all confused at the sudden visit from this Rank 1.

“—Is your body fine, Tamamo?”

Among the present white coats, there was a person wearing a different color. Beneath her coat she wore a miniskirt with a lamé and there were small wings on her back.

“Pfft, are you still stuck in the past, Kakkou-san? Ever since the Night of the Meteor Shower I can’t make any extreme movements, but I became really good at using my Mushi, y’know?”

The girl who said this while wearing an impish smile was the host of the millipede from before.

“Kasuou-san and the rest are inside, though.”

“Got it.”

Finishing this short conversation, Daisuke cut inside through the barrier of white coats.

While being directed with gazes of shock and fear by the members of Central Headquarters, he went through several doors—

“Are you the real deal?”

As Daisuke stepped into a new room, vivid azure eyes pierced through him.

It was a blond girl clad in a white coat. Members that looked to be her subordinates were following from behind.

“Because there’s recently been this faker called Mimic or somethin’ roaming around. And well, it’s an emergency anyhow. Gotta be careful.”

The girl clad in black mist, Kasuou, glared at Daisuke with exposed hostility. Her wild, beastlike murderous intent filled the room, striking even the members that were supposedly her allies.

“—Where’s Miguruma?”

Not even making any greeting regarding their reunion, Daisuke looked around the room.

“There’s something I need to ask that woman.”

“…Tch.”

Kasuou clicked her tongue, looking displeased. She erased the black mist standing in the room.

“Since you’re not even listenin’ to what I’m saying you gotta be the real one… how’dya even enter the Stronghold? Is there a place you can use to get out? If you’re here as reinforcement, where’re the other members?”

Although she was no longer cautious, Kasuou stayed blocking his path to the door that led further inside.

“It’s just me. I just wanted to check on things and came to the opening—and somehow managed to get inside. The exit’s already blocked by caterpillars though.”

“Huuuh? Are you an idiot?! That’s gotta be a trap! What were you thinking, getting captured here so easily like that? I’ll fucking kill you!”

“Where’s Miguruma? Is she dead?”

“Listen to what people are saying, you piece of shit! Look at my damn face! If that woman died I’d be cracking a huge smile right about now!”

The dangerous atmosphere made the surrounding members tense.

However, this was how Daisuke’s and Kasuou’s conversations were for a long time now.

“Let Kakkou through.”

A woman’s voice was heard from the goggles.

It wasn’t Goroumaru Touko. Now that he entered the Stronghold, he could hear the transmissions coming from the Central Headquarters.

“He is no fake.”

“…Ha, you were unconscious not too long ago but you seem to be back to yourself, our great Vice-Director.”

Spitting this, Kasuou stepped away from the door.

Daisuke tried passing next to Kasuou, but then stopped.

“What about Harukiyo?”

As he asked in a low voice, the blond girl grimaced.

“Don’t care. This’s what happened ‘cause he’s not here. Pathetic.”

“How much longer can you hold out?”

“Maybe five hours or so… we look so safe because of Nene’s regeneration ability. But she’s also approaching her limits.”

“…”

“It’s time to attack. We focused everything on defense so far, but in the unlikely case I’m done for, if we have you—”

“Don’t count on me.”

Kasuou widened her blue eyes and glared at Daisuke.

“I don’t know how much longer I can fight.”

Once another person heard of it, it would become irretrievable.

Kakkou was the SEPB’s last resort. Although most felt hatred to him, he knew that he also served as their mental pillar.

“…Piece of shit.”

Spitting this, Kasuou averted her eyes. Was she angry—or perhaps disappointed?

“Still haven’t fulfilled your promise to me, either.”

Daisuke stayed silent. He passed next to Kasuou.

A promise.

It wasn’t just Kasuou.

Daisuke still had other promises left unfulfilled—

“—So you came, Kakkou.”

As he passed through the door, that woman stood there.

The spacious room was gloomy, and several dozen boys and girls in white coats sat on the floor.

Facing machines that looked like computers were the Mushitsuki of the intelligence department. They were probably trying to revive the connection with the outside and checking how things were inside the base.

The woman in her late twenties standing in the center of the room faced Daisuke with a kind smile.

A smile that made whoever witnessed it feel both relieved and awed so they couldn’t move from the spot. The smile of shackles—

Daisuke had witnessed the moment it was born.

“Or should I say, welcome back? Because you have safely returned from ‘that world’.”

Daisuke removed his goggles. Revealing his face, he glared at the woman ahead.

“—Mikko.”

“It has been a decade since I was called that.”

Daisuke’s most hated woman in the world.

Special Environmental Preservation Bureau Vice-Director, Miguruma Yaeko, said this—

And then gestured as if she was making a cough.

4.03 Daisuke Part 13

“Come inside.”

Miguruma beckoned Daisuke to inside the neighboring room.

“How is the situation above ground?”

It was apparently a warehouse. A space with steel shelves was lit by emergency-use pale light.

“Please report the branches’ movements to me, Kakkou.”

Miguruma fiddled with the cans laid on the shelves. They were apparently already prepared to be besieged like this.

“…It’s only a matter of time before we can’t keep up with citizen evacuation. We also lack the firepower to deal with the Caterpillars. We need to think up of a plan for the branches to rescue the Central Headquarters from the Stronghold.”

Daisuke reported as the combatant Kakkou.

In front of him was the Vice-Director, Miguruma Yaeko.

There was no trace of Mikko he’d seen in the past world. —Or so he wanted to say, but now that he looked at her, her eyes and voice certainly had traces of Mikko.

“It will fail. The branches currently lack the power to break through this, and there’s no commander to get in contact with. —If we had your branch head it would’ve been different story, though.”

Miguruma grinned. Daisuke couldn’t understand what was so funny.

“Meaning that we can’t do anything?”

“I did not say this. I have an idea. However, strangely enough...”

Miguruma looked at him.

“Several of my strategies—involve the Rank 1s.”

“…”

“Already one of those is meaningless. You shouldn’t have come here, but instead gathered members on the surface. I told you this inside ‘that world’ as well, but you really are stupid.”

That world—

Meaning, the world of the past.

He already knew it from her words before.

Being dragged into that illusion wasn’t just Daisuke, but Miguruma as well, apparently.

Daisuke had shared seeing the moment the Original Three were born with the woman in front of him.

With Miguruma Yaeko—the masked girl called Mikko.

“I now know why I was so mad at that Mikko girl. Since she was actually Miguruma Yaeko it’s obvious. So you saw the same illusion as me?”

“Leaving aside what happened inside, I am your superior right now. If you strike me, I shall have to apprehend you for treason.”

“…Was what I saw there really the events of the past?”

“…More or less the truth.”

Miguruma played with the cans.

“My father was devoted in his research of the Undying and was spotted by the Round Table of the time. Although this research was far too heavy for my stupid father, I secretly continued it.”

“…”

“When my father noticed it, not only had he felt no gratitude, he even feared me and tried to have me killed. Therefore, to finish this delusion I took some test subjects to escape with—and then met those three.”

Those three.

Daisuke knew who she spoke of.

“Kii-kun, Rui… Kasshi.”

“Ichiku Kimitaka, Ichinokuro Ruisu, Kashua Artines.”

He knew about them.

First, Ichiku Kimitaka.

That name—belonged to the Central Headquarters Director of the SEPB.

He instead became a Director-General in name only, and even grasping an essential authority, he vanished from people’s eyes in recent years. Including Daisuke, only a very select few knew the reason for his disappearance.

“You obviously know Ichiku, but you have also met Ichinokuro Ruisu before, right, Kakkou?”

He obviously knew him.

Because that name also related to the decisive battle in the past. Above all else, the one with the actual connection—or rather being the nucleus of that fight—was Ichinokuro Ruisu’s lone daughter.

Although this battle had supposedly long passed, it was actually much older than that—

It had connection to the moment when everything started.

Since he came to know this truth, Daisuke was shocked.

“Kashua… perhaps even that name wasn’t his real one. Nowhere in the world is there any proof he had existed. People like him would infiltrate this country from time to time.”

A nameless boy from another country.

He didn’t know his true identity.

However, he was the first Fusion Type Mushitsuki.

When born, he fought to stop the change in the world, and in the end perished.

There were only very few of the Fusion Types, and they were always full of irregulars—and he was the very first of them.

“So back then—Mushi were born in the truest sense.”

At Daisuke’s question, Miguruma—

“Yes, exactly.”

Clearly nodded.

“There were signs of that. But even though it was an experiment that never should have succeeded… in that instant, even I don’t know what happened.”

Miguruma Yaeko wore the same smile she did when she was called Mikko.

Carefree.

A kind smell that looked as if blessed the world itself.

“So you—are the cause of everything.”

It was completely unconscious.

Daisuke suddenly noticed that he was aiming his gun at Miguruma.

He didn’t know the identity of the feeling storming inside him right now.

Was it anger?

Was it hatred?

Had he been turning them over in his mind until now when he could finally direct them at their source?

Or perhaps—were the many people he made into Fallen until now forcing him to do so?

“I am the cause?”

Miguruma erased her smile.

“Have you not seen what happened in that world and in that time with your very own eyes? Then why do you think so?”

“You ask me why? But you—”

“Yes, I was there. Is it because I stole my father’s research? Is it because my father started the research? Is it because Rui and the Round Table cooperated with the research? Is it because Kasshi wasn’t strong enough? Is it because the completely unrelated Kii-kun’s dream ended up killing Kasshi?”

He put strength into his finger on the trigger.

“How far, exactly? How far do we need to go to determine the so-called cause?”

If it was his previous self, he could push the trigger unhesitatingly.

No—that was wrong.

The past Daisuke wouldn’t begrudge the cause. He fought only to protect his dream, and didn’t care about anything else. His enemies were just the Original Three and he never pursued the reason of their birth.

“I will not deny that it is our fault that the world changed. However, I cannot agree with the word, cause.”

He knew it rationally.

Everything he saw in the world of the past went according to Mikko’s prophecy.

—Because of us, this country will be filled with Mushi and reach its end.

Everyone in that period of time became the cause for its change. If even one person missed, the journey connected to that prophecy would not reach its goal.

“—”

While knowing this, he couldn’t lower his gun.

Did something different from his own will did this to him?

Daisuke had seen more Mushitsuki collapse in the midst of their dream than anyone else.

While fighting longer than anyone, he carried their feelings.

That was the continuation of their dream—

Perhaps it could be called hatred.

Whatever emotion it may be, and despite Daisuke not being adequate to be carrying it—

“…!”

A faint noise and shaking passed through the Stronghold.

A small abnormality that he might’ve noticed because they were facing each other wordlessly. The sound was coming from above.

“So Diorestoi shook off his paralysis?”

Looking up the ceiling, Miguruma narrowed her eyes. Despite having a gun pointed at her, she was completely unmoving.

“So those caterpillars… are definitely Shinpu, then.”

Daisuke did not lower his gun.

“So after getting caught at the ship, Shinpu—Diorestoi—was hidden by the Central Headquarters?”

“The SEPB didn’t exist at the time. It’s the result of meddling by the government, calculations by the Round Table and all sorts of things. Apparently a body double left by Diorestoi kept going around, though.”

“…”

“You’re probably already aware of this, but the Annihilators are also test subjects who had a fragment of Diorestoi used on them. Because of that, when the main body got away from us, it stole back those fragments and we were easily made powerless.”

Miguruma easily revealed the truth which was top secret for many years now.

“…Did Diorestoi show me that illusion?”

“What would he gain from doing that?”

“…? Then, who—”

The Stronghold shook again.

The tremor this time was much more powerful, and the sound was approaching.

“Is it not obviously the cause for the mist isolating Akamaki City? That was a warning against me, and from you it sought salvation. —Even if I say this, you probably won’t understand that because you are slow on the uptake, Kakkou.”

I really wanna slap her again, he groaned in his heart.

Daisuke disliked the person called Miguruma Yaeko so much that he got unconsciously really angry in the world of the past.

“Since you are provisionally one of the Undying, please restrain yourself.”

Those words sounded like a joke.

Miguruma Yaeko was forever smiling, and even now she smiled, but still—

“—What did you just say?”

Those words were too heavy to ignore.

Undying.

He’d never miss these words that came out again and again during critical fights.

“You said that I’m—one of the Undying?”

“Did you think that being strong was the only condition to become Rank 1?”

Miguruma’s narrow eyes looked at the frozen Daisuke.

“One who never dies. That is what it means to be designated Rank 1.”

“…Then what about Rina!”

He shouted without thinking. It was so loud his own throat felt numb.

Unlike just before, he clearly realized.

He was about to press the trigger out of his own volition—

“She’s dead!”

“’Ladybird still lives in our hearts’.”

Perhaps to Miguruma, his swelling killing intent was nothing more than a breeze.

“Everyone in the resistance who inherited her will is saying such words. —Thank you, Kakkou. You have completed her being an Undying.”

He was speechless.

“Her brand of Undying—is a curse. Her existence as someone who was deified would trap people endlessly, never letting them free.”

This was ridiculous.

Was that really Undying?

“It’s not just Rina—even that girl’s who’s sleeping right now has nothing to do with this!”

The Rank 1 spear user who vanished in a great battle rose to his mind.

Not many survivors remained after that decisive battle that ended in complete failure, so the ones who knew her name were few.

“Rank 1 applies to her Mushi, in that case. Even after vanishing, it can return to life by changing its host—the only Mushi to do this is the Morpho butterfly alone.”

A Mushi that can return to life many times.

This irregular Mushi that became the driving force trying to retrieve a world without Mushi was even now in deep slumber.

“Harukiyo—”

“He is the burning flame. Regardless of his own will, he will keep using others as fuel to keep burning. Conclusively, he does not possess his own fate. Therefore, other people’s fates will keep him alight.”

“That’s… really a stretch.”

Daisuke spoke in a hoarse voice.

These were all convenient conclusions.

It wouldn’t be odd for any of the Rank 1s to die at any time.

He could assert it because it really was always like this with him—

“I… almost died many times.”

“And yet you lived.”

“I was on the verge on death many times! Especially when involved with the other Rank 1s, it was always like this—”

“Obviously. Because you are the Rank 1 that tests the other Rank 1s.”

Miguruma wore her kindest smile yet.

Like a mother—

A smile full of mercy, as if she was the one to give birth to him and raise him well.

“What—was that—”

“Did you not think it strange? The fact you were always there in every large battle.”

There was no way he hadn’t.

But that was natural, considering he was the strongest Mushitsuki in the SEPB—

“Only one person had been determined to be Rank 1 at a glance… all others were designated Rank 1 after they fought with you and survived. As a result, in the beginning you were only meant as a litmus test, but by continually surviving, I can now say this for certain.”

As she raised her lips in a grin, Miguruma Yaeko’s smile looked devilish.

“That you are a bona-fide Rank 1.”

No.

Him surviving was just a miracle.

However—there was something he thought.

At first, he captured Fuyuhotaru alone.

Next, he was sent to someone determined as a Rank 1 who was in Akamaki City, outside his jurisdiction.

There he fought Harukiyo, and, after experiencing a certain decisive battle, he returned to the East Central Branch and became Tachibana Rina’s monitor. Despite the fact that until then he served in the East Central Branch not as monitor but as a combatant.

It was only him who repeated battles to the death against Rank 1s again and again—

He noticed this truth.

“The goal of my research that I’ve worked for more than a decade on that day… no, even before that, lies in the path waiting for you.”

Sweat poured out on Daisuke’s hand grasping the pistol.

The person called Miguruma Yaeko worked for many long years.

She was using even those born outside her expectations, the Original Three and Mushitsuki.

All to uncover her desired goal of the Undying—

“You Mushitsuki are the result of the evolution leading to Undying.”

The sound heard from overhead and the tremors shaking the Stronghold became stronger and stronger.

The Stronghold was so violently shaken it was like an earthquake.

The door to the warehouse opened and the white coats spilled inside.

“Vice-Director! What on earth is this tremor…! Isn’t Shinpu doing some kind of atta—”

They were Mushitsuki from the intelligence department. Coming to get orders, they noticed Daisuke training a gun on their commander and became speechless.

“Please do not mind it. This is not the first time he’s threatened me with a gun.”

“…”

Daisuke’s gun still aimed at Miguruma, he stared at the intelligence department Mushitsuki.

Even if he killed Miguruma right here, he knew it wouldn’t solve anything.

However, his emotions didn’t allow him to lower his gun.

“B-but, Shinpu is still…”

“No, I also thought so at first—but that is likely mistaken.”

Daisuke’s gun twitched.

“Did the branches on the surface come to save us…?”

“Wasn’t it you who said they lacked the power to do so, Kakkou? No branch has Mushitsuki with the destructive power needed to come this deep underground so quickly.”

Then what on earth was going on?

Seeing Daisuke think frantically, Miguruma looked exasperated for an instant. It reminded him of the expression Mikko had as a girl.

“You really are slow on the uptake, Kakkou.”

Even if he was told so, he didn’t immediately understand the meaning of her words.

However—

“—”

A certain premonition pierced Daisuke’s from head to toes.

Raising his face, he looked at Miguruma.

“Haven’t I said so? To escape this predicament, we require the power of a Rank 1.”

Those words convinced him.

Turning on his heels, he pushed away the intelligence department and came back to the hall.

“Kasuou!”

Flying toward the tense-looking combatants, he shouted loud.

The blonde girl turned to him.

“I got it! Shinpu’s comin’ to attack! But to defend—”

“Dig up toward the surface!”

“…Huh?”

Silence engulfed the hall.

“Never mind defense! Everyone gather in this hall right now! We’re getting out!”

Kasuou looked puzzled, and Daisuke returned her glance.

However, perhaps reading something from his expression, she turned around and ordered the combatants.

“We’re getting out! Gather as many as possible in one place! I’ll protect you from the debris! Those who have attack power, focus on digging! Call back the support team right now!”

“B-but how much do you think it’ll take to reach the—”

“I don’t give a fuck! Just do it! I’ll kill you!”

The white coats obeyed this intimidating order, still confused. They hurriedly started moving and those combatants who were more powerful quickly gathered in the hall.

Kasuou spread her mist, spacing it to protect the white coats.

“Hey, Kakkou. You got an idea, yeah?”

“Help’s coming.”

As Daisuke trained his gun to the ceiling, Kasuou grinned. She issued orders.

“—Let’s do this shit!”

Daisuke’s gun fused with the checkered beetle spat hellfire.

It wasn’t just Daisuke.

The attacks made by the several dozen Mushitsuki had the strongest fire power, enough to bust through the ceiling.

Violent light and roars filled the Stronghold.

Ceiling broke and vanished and soon the hall became as wide and tall as a baseball stadium. All the falling earth and sand was diverted by the black mist into the corridors or the warehouse.

The space opened overhead became as large as a high-rise building—

Then, it transformed into a space that was nothing but darkness.

While continuing their attacks, some Mushitsuki dropped out. One and then two members fell to their knees, breathing raggedly.

“Not yet…! Or more like we’ll never reach out like this!”

“Just a bit more…!”

As Kasuou exhausted herself and was sweating, Daisuke also asserted while continuously firing his gun.

The vibrations shaking the Stronghold grew bigger and bigger.

“…!”

An especially large tremor assaulted the Stronghold.

This overly huge impact caused members to collapse and stop their attacks.

“Kuh…! What was that just now! Shinpu?”

“No, that’s not—”

Breathing hard, Daisuke raised his face.

The space which was only darkness had a small light floating in it.

No light from the surface would ever reach there.

That point of light looked like it was falling toward the Stronghold.

“Haa? The hell’s that—hey! Is this for real?!”

Falling from above—was a girl.

She was probably surprised at suddenly losing her footing like this. Eyes widened in fear, her face was pale and frozen with fear as she fell, and she looked quite exhausted.

“…!”

Daisuke caught that girl in his arms.

Even regardless of the fact his arms were strengthened, the girl’s body was light.

“—”

A moment of silence.

And—a scream ran through the Stronghold.

Supposedly exhausted members leapt back from the center of Daisuke and the girl at once.

“E-err, I…”

The girl wanted to speak toward the running members, but no one listened.

She was a small girl.

And, for the Mushitsuki of SEPB, her existence was in a sense much scarier than Shinpu.

“—I know.”

Daisuke nodded and lowered the girl to the ground.

“I know, so it’s fine.”

Seeing Daisuke alone remain calm, the girl looked confused. Daisuke—no, Kakkou—being in the HQ’s Stronghold was apparently outside her expectations.

However, the next moment, she smiled with a happy looking face that didn’t fit the occasion.

“Kakkou-san—”

She was the SEPB’s as well as Kakkou’s strongest archnemesis, leader of the resistance organization Mushibane—

“Let’s join forces this time.”

She was the girl called Fuyuhotaru, real name Anmoto Shiika.

4.04 Daisuke Part 14

The sound of the crying wind echoed in Daisuke’s ears as he quickly ascended through the darkness.

“You ain’t seriously joining forces with the SEPB, right?”

Kasuou’s low voice was instantly swallowed by the depths of the abyss.

“…”

Anmoto Shiika was silent. She probably exhausted her powers to dig down from the surface, so her breath was slightly raised and her face was pale.

“How many SEPB members do you think were done in by Mushibane?”

“Mushibane’s apparently tried changing after Lady Bird’s death. They don’t want to fight the SEPB anymore instead to join forces if the time to defeat the Original Three came…”

As Daisuke said this, Kasuou glared at him with her azure eyes.

Daisuke and everyone else were pushed up through the great hole connected to the surface by an unseen power at great speeds.

. It was Kasuou’s ability. Her Mushi, a mist with no corporeal body, took Daisuke and the Central Headquarters members together, elevating them toward the surface.

As she was holding up this outrageous weight, the burden on Kasuou was considerable.

“Kakkou. Why are you aware of Mushibane’s circumstances?”

“…”

It was something Daisuke heard from his sister, Kusuriya Chiharu. But he didn’t think Kasuou would approve if he explained this.

“We’re—”

Shiika turned to face Kasuou. Perhaps feeling dizzy, though, her body nearly fell.

Daisuke instantly reached out and gave Shiika his shoulder.

“Close your eyes. You should recover even a little of your stamina.”

“…Right.”

She bit her lips as if wanting to say something, but Shiika did as she was told.

The Underground Stronghold was at such depths that even a fast elevator would take quite a while to reach. Therefore, it was beyond imagination just how much Shiika had exhausted herself to be able to dig that far down all alone.

—Let’s meet again next Christmas.

The one who promised this wasn’t the Mushitsuki Kakkou.

It was the normal high schooler called Kusuriya Daisuke.

There was still time until their promise.

Since he vowed to take care of everything he had to do until now, he couldn’t yet reveal his identity to Shiika.

Now he would have Shiika close her eyes—

Daisuke would use the voice and behavior of Kakkou only with her.

“We have also defeated many of Mushibane.”

Miguruma Yaeko spoke calmly.

“And you should be aware of them recently restraining themselves from attacks on the SEPB as you are out on the frontlines. Am I right, Kasuou?”

“…Yeah.”

While rising up the great hole where no light reached, at the very top were Daisuke’s group. Daisuke, Shiika, Kasuou and Miguruma faced each other, while all other members were below them.

At this speed it seemed like it’d take some more time to reach the surface.

“I can’t believe Lady Bird’s gone like that. It’s boring, not having any competition.”

“I understand that this the wish of the new leader, Fuyuhotaru. Not fighting the SEPB but instead joining forces with us when the time to fight the Original Three comes—in order to show their sincerity in this, it’s natural for Mushibane to use this opportunity to save us here.”

Miguruma’s narrow eyes looked at the girl supported by Daisuke.

“To begin with, since I love her so much, this kind girl will obviously save me, right?”

Shiika grimaced, her eyes still closed.

Daisuke and Kasuou glared at Miguruma wordlessly.

Had she predicted this development or was she actually calling this love?

He really couldn’t understand that sly woman.

“Even so, it was outside my expectations that they’d be so slow. Is it that they lack the brains behind the operating like always… or perhaps there are people within Mushibane who, just like Kasuou, don’t wish for us to join forces.”

Kasuou clicked her tongue, looking displeased.

“What really pisses me off is that Fuyuhotaru’s here all alone. Are you underestimating us?”

“She is very powerful. Although it was unavoidable for her to act alone, in order to not hurt anyone, her comrades must have opposed that. Above all else because we are enemies.”

“So can you explain how come she’s so calm and relaxed here with us, when we’re enemies?”

Daisuke’s body stiffened.

Inside his arms now he could definitely feel the body heat and breath.

They were the same he once felt—every time Shiika was wounded and weak.

He first felt it when Daisuke had killed Shiika’s Mushi and turned her Fallen.

“Kakkou. You and Fuyuhotaru should’ve been archnemeses. Not just me but everyone thought so. —How come you haven’t been fighting even after exchanging glances like that?”

“No…”

Shiika opened her eyes a little.

“Kakkou-san has never been my enemy…”

“Huuuh?”

Kasuou was speechless. Shiika closed her eyes again.

“There’s no fucking way! The hell are you saying!”

If possible, he wanted to hug Shiika right now.

However, Daisuke did not have the right to do that right now.

Shiika did say he wasn’t her enemy—but that was a mistake. He was Shiika’s enemy.

It wasn’t yet certain that what Miguruma told him was the truth, but Daisuke and Shiika had met as enemies. As a result, he turned her into Fallen—

Made her think he was another person, and they reunited.

As a result, Daisuke was also the one who made her suffer again.

He wouldn’t show her another half-hearted hope again.

Until all the Original Three were killed and everything was solved—

He couldn’t reveal his identity to Shiika.

“Right now, I could definitely defeat Fuyuhotaru. Yes, that Fuyuhotaru.”

Kasuou glared at Daisuke. He glared back through the goggles.

“Beating the Original Three comes first.”

“…! You’re fucking kidding me! What’re you tryin’ to do, protecting Fuyuhotaru like that?!”

“…”

“Aren’t you supposed to be protecting the Rank 1 who’s still sleeping?!”

“That woman…?”

Shiika widened her eyes, looking up Daisuke’s face.

Miguruma also looked at him.

“…”

Daisuke consciously went expressionless and silent.

He wasn’t about to be trapped by a long gone past.

Until now—he just pretended to forget.

At the very least he had to keep it up in this situation where Miguruma Yaeko was right there.

He couldn’t let anyone know that the trump card he’d always been looking for was in the hands of the East Central Branch—

“I do not mind you sulking, but don’t let our speed fall down, Kasuou.”

Miguruma rebuked Kasuou who even now looked like she was about ready to bite her.

“Wha…! Who’s sulking, hey!”

“It’s because you always got along like siblings while you were at the Central Headquarters. I do not understand why you don’t like it when it seems like he has some shared secret with Fuyuhotaru.”

“Huh? As if! —Fuyuhotaru, you bitch! What’re you lookin’ at me for!”

“Au… I-I’m sorry.”

“No, I also don’t remember us getting along…”

He was helped by this change in subject.

However, he sighed at Kasuou seeming to be the hardest to pacify, when it happened.

“…Kakkou-san? Can you hear me?”

Once again, the familiar shrill voice came from Daisuke’s goggles.

It was Goroumaru Touko.

“Touko-san? Can you hear me?”

“Looks like you got close enough for communication.”

Miguruma had earphones with a microphone on her head, and Kasuou also equipped her goggles.

“I can hear you, loud and clear! Meaning, you have successfully escaped to the surface! Hearing that Fuyuhotaru was acting alone to dig into the ground, I really was at the edge of my seat! You didn’t fight, right? Are you getting along?”

“Yes, she has responded to my love.”

Miguruma spoke through the microphone. Touko could be heard gulping.

“Haa! T-that is Vice-Director Miguruma! I-I’m so glad you’re safe…?”

“Thank you. We will soon arrive to the surface along with 280 combatants. And with Fuyuhotaru who helped us.”

“T-that is the most important thing! We’re already approaching our limits… the caterpillars just keep on multiplying and soon our evacuation wouldn’t be able to keep up…!”

“Please connect me to the other branches. We no longer need to be rescued, so please pour out your efforts on encircling Shinpu and keeping victims under check, centered around the North Central Branch forces. However, all members of Rank 3 and above are to wait for the arrival of Central Headquarters. When we arrive at the surface, we’ll begin an annihilation operation.”

“I-I will connect you!”

“We shall reach the surface in a couple dozen more minutes. Can you do it, Kasuou?”

“Ah, Kasuou-san! It’s me, Goroumaru! It’s been a long while, I’ve been promoted to Acting Branch Head!”

“Shut up, die.”

The cussing Kasuou was clearly tired. She was probably trying to hold back her fatigue by being so angry before.

Ten more minutes passed as they headed to the surface.

“You’re fine, Kasuou?”

Even with Daisuke calling to her, Kasuou made no reply. She glared above her with dark circles under her eyes, focusing on the control her ability.

Shiika opened her mouth. She removed herself from Daisuke’s arms and stood up.

“Thank you very much, Kasuou-san.”

A point of light appeared overhead as the girl bowed.

Kasuou raised her middle finger, silent.

They accelerated toward the lights of the surface.

And finally—

“—!”

Daisuke and the rest were pushed above the hole with great momentum.

Riding the spurting mist like a great geyser, the white coats were all thrown to the ground one after another.

It was probably an effect of using too much power quickly. Kasuou who fainted and collapsed to the ground had Nene, a user of a regeneration ability, rush over to her.

“Great work, Kasuou.”

Along with Miguruma Yaeko who narrowed her eyes, the Mushitsuki looked around them on the surface.

Daisuke and the rest were all standing in the middle of Akamaki City.

Citizens had apparently already been evacuated. There wasn’t even a single car on the highway that had three lanes at each side, and the townscape supposed to have thousands of people move through it was empty.

Instead of the humans supposed to be there, controlling this surface were—

“This is…”

Daisuke and Shiika were speechless at the sight.

The great capital of Akamaki City was fully swallowed by the caterpillar swarm.

4.05 Daisuke Part 15

A dessert covered in pure white sand—

Daisuke felt as if he’d wandered into a completely different world.

However, that was wrong.

The swelling hills used to be buildings.

Covering this sight was not sand—but white caterpillars.

“We… can’t go back anymore.”

Daisuke mumbled.

Since damages were on this scale, it was impossible to hide the existence of Mushi not just from normal civilians, but even from people around the world.

The world was going to change again tomorrow.

It would become a world where everyone was aware of Mushi.

However, whether this meant there was hope or only despair—

Would be determined today by Daisuke and the other Mushitsuki’s fight.

“Central Headquarters will unfold a battle formation centered around the team made of Yakugami, Yotsuba, Tamamo and Toramaru.”

Miguruma Yaeko passed orders through the microphone.

The white coats that only just escaped the Stronghold formed lines with trained movements.

A voice echoed from the goggles.

“We will send 5 combatants from the North Central Branch. Orders, please.”

Mushitsuki with grey coats and visors appeared behind the white coats.

“We dispatch Sakura from West Central Branch.”

Yet another voice. A tall girl clad in jumper-style equipment joined the ranks.

“South Central Branch. …Since we have no members of Rank 3 or above, we will focus on minimizing the damages caused by Shinpu.”

The South Central Branch once had a team made of high-rank members. However, Daisuke recently heard that that team had been annihilated.

“E-East Central Branch sends Kaguya, Himiko and Kakkou!”

Daisuke felt the presence of people at his back. Clad in their pitch-black coats, Kaguya and Himiko—Ogata Akatsuki and Haji Senri—appeared.

Just as SEPB’s elites gathered, the caterpillar swarm pushed.

He could see Miguruma retreat along with some of the combatants.

“I will assume command of all branches and supervise damage prevention. Central Headquarters combatants as well as the high-ranking members of each branch are to quickly proceed with the operation to annihilate Shinpu. The one in command of this operation will be—”

Miguruma Yaeko’s voice echoed through the goggles.

“Kakkou.”

No one argued against it.

There was simply no other person with battle experience as abundant as his, as well as someone who could grasp the power of all branches, excluding branch heads.

“Also, we will add Mushibane to our current operation.”

In a distant place, a storm of steam blew.

On the rooftop where caterpillars were blown off several figures appeared.

It was the group centered around Shiika. Mushibane’s nucleus fighting power. Among them was also the figure of a woman who once belonged to East Central Branch.

“Namie—”

The woman who used to be his comrade exchanged glances with Daisuke. He already knew for a long time that she’d betrayed the SEPB and joined Mushibane.

“—Begin operation.”

Miguruma issued orders.

“North Central Branch. Secure this place.”

Daisuke put a hand to his goggles and ordered.

A Mushi as thin as paper took flight in air. Centered around Daisuke’s group, after this Mushi passed all caterpillars in the path were blown to smithereens.

The clouds filling the sky were dyed a reddish-brown.

Dark-red raindrops started softly raining.

The red rain became fiercer, and the caterpillars touched by it writhed in agony, melting and vanishing. The rain that dodged Daisuke and the rest gradually increased its vigor.

“Erect a barrier around us, Tamamo. Including where Mushibane are.”

“Got iiit!”

A giant swarm of green millipedes crawled on the ground. Fearing this circle of millipedes, the caterpillars stopped their advance.

“A mental attack’s coming. Terasu, defend.”

At the moment Daisuke ordered this, a change came to the upper sky. Space warped and the silhouette of an old building with a triangular roof floated there.

It was the Church.

And not just one.

More than ten Churches rang the rusty bells on their roofs.

However—

“So you’re still treatin’ us North Central Branch as throwaways, Kakkou, huh…! Sense Isolation!”

A great volume of noise that could numb the brain echoed throughout Akamaki City.

The ear-grating bell sounds were struck by the noise and dispersed.

SEPB combatants and Mushibane all prepared to attack the Churches overhead, thinking this was their chance.

“Don’t move!”

Daisuke shouted loud enough so it could reach even Mushibane.

The movements of the Mushitsuki about to act all stopped.

“This isn’t the main body. We can just let Kaguya attack for now. Handle it as you see fit.”

Daisuke had been fooled before as well.

He thought that destroying the Church meant that he’d defeated Shinpu.

However, the scene in front of them showed that it wasn’t really so. It was nothing more than a part of Shinpu, and his real body received no damage.

“Understood.”

Akatsuki’s voice came from behind.

A golden light dyed his sight. Countless laser beams launched in a fan spread pierced through the floating Churches one after another.

“—Alright, now we wait. Preserve our current position.”

“…!”

All combatants turned to look at Daisuke, surprised.

“Right now, it’s meaningless to randomly attack the caterpillars. —There’s about three people here with sensing abilities. For now, try and find out where Shinpu’s main body is hiding.”

Daisuke heard a gasp from straight behind him.

Haji Senri was also one person with sensing abilities.

“Despite the fact an entire city had been swallowed by the caterpillars… finding the main body among them…”

This absentminded voice appeared to belong to one of those sensers.

“Do it.”

He instantly shut off all arguments with a calm voice.

Among the SEPB, Daisuke was probably the least popular Mushitsuki.

He mercilessly annihilated his enemies, a demon that allies could never trust—

However, that was fine.

The important thing was for everyone there to unite under their fear toward him.

The Original Three would never get defeated by just one or two Mushitsuki.

Daisuke came to know this through his countless battles.

“Or do you want me to shoot you down before getting killed by Shinpu?”

All the breathing he heard through the goggles went back to silence.

Kakkou the tyrant.

Being hated did not make him suffer.

Daisuke feared all Mushitsuki there being annihilated.

Right now, if the Mushitsuki there were gone—it would probably be impossible to gather the Mushitsuki forces to oppose the original three.

“—Understood. Beginning search of Shinpu’s main body.”

From behind, he heard Haji Senri agreeing.

Although Senri obeyed, her look of anger that could scorch skin was still there.

But it was worth it in exchange for erasing the fear from Shinpu and banding all units together.

“Miguruma. Give us some information about Shinpu’s main body, no matter how little.”

“Right now, it is unknown what form he takes. His main body, or rather the human vessel he requires, can also use the ability of camouflage.”

Daisuke grimaced.

If he could hide within this many caterpillars and even alter his appearance, it was immensely annoying.

“At present it was the right call not to needlessly waste your powers. If we don’t defeat the main body first, we wouldn’t be able to decrease the caterpillars no matter how much we attacked.”

Miguruma’s words unexpectedly caused the combatants to falter.

They were told that as long as they couldn’t find the main body, what they did was meaningless.

For the Mushitsuki facing an overwhelming number of caterpillars, this was not good news.

“It’d be too hard if we restrict this just to sight… Konoha, for now, search the entirety of Akamaki City.”

“…Understood.”

There was an inevitable gap between them.

At some point Daisuke’s forces were surrounded by caterpillars from all directions, becoming completely isolated.

The red rain and unseen impacts only just barely stopped the caterpillars’ momentum. Even the barrier of millipedes protecting the combatants from the reduced numbers of caterpillars was shrinking by the minute.

More and more Churches appeared in air, but the noise cancelled their ringing, and shining lasers shot them down.

However, it was obvious to everyone at a glance that those were just a drop in the bucket.

They were like a lone island stuck in the middle of a raging, storming sea.

It was only a matter of time before their defensive net, growing weaker and weaker, was punched through.

“We can’t do this…! Let’s retreat and regain our position…!”

“I told you to wait, Terasu.”

Daisuke cut her off.

He knew at a glance they approached the limit.

The circle of millipedes gradually tightened around them and the combatants all started gathering around Daisuke who was in the middle.

As he looked up, Mushibane was also shaken. They were confused at SEPB not moving even a single step from the spot.

The only one who remained calm among Mushibane was Shiika.

While between the Mushitsuki engaging themselves in the counterattack against the caterpillars, she looked at Daisuke.

“I’m telling you it’s impossible…! At least get some branches to defend us…! Do you want to kill the North Central Branch?”

“Kakkou-san…! My millipedes are already…!”

“This is Konoha… even when I look at the entirety of the city, I can’t see anything relevant…”

The voices announcing their limits flew through the comm.

Even the combatants preserving their waiting state started clamoring. They couldn’t stand the pressure caused by their island shrinking within the space fully dominated by white.

“—Enough being scared already.”

Daisuke’s voice overlapped with the many complaints filling the comm.

“You should’ve been scared plenty until now. Of your own Mushi and other Mushitsuki’s Mushi. Because you became a Mushitsuki you suffered, you went through pain, and went through hard days. But you’re sick of it, right?”

Crossing his arms, Daisuke took an upright position.

Even now that he was being surrounded by caterpillars, he could vividly recall it.

The time he became Mushitsuki.

Since he became Mushitsuki he fought, got hurt, yet even so clung to life. They were these kinds of days.

It wasn’t just Daisuke. Everyone there was supposed to be the same.

“Part of the reason for that is right in front of you.”

All signs of agitation vanished from the comm.

“Now—is the time to be mad.”

Someone howled.

Daisuke didn’t know that voice. It might have been someone of Rank 3 or below from the Central Headquarters.

However, that howl, so full of anger, began to infect other Mushitsuki there—

“—!”

One after another their shouts overlapped.

The Mushitsuki’s voices became a tremor and even caused the pushing caterpillars to sway.

Perhaps there were even some cries mixed in there.

Everyone in this place—no, each and every Mushitsuki shared this shout as if their body was one.

And, just as the combatants’ morale reached its highest peak—

The curtain rose.

The sign for counterattack came with Haji Senri’s voice.

“—Found it! 20 kilometers to the southeast! A small ‘flame’ response moving the caterpillars is there!”

All of the Mushitsuki in the lone island turned to the same direction.

Daisuke leapt. He landed in front of the combatants.

He swung his glowing fist, fused with his checkered beetle, toward the great swarm of white caterpillars.

“All units—”

Daisuke’s attack blew the caterpillars blocking their sight to smithereens.

“Let’s gooo!”

The Mushitsuki’s anger, kept pent all this time—

Now exploded.

“—!”

Angry shouts and war cries shook the ground.

With Daisuke at the front cutting open the walls of caterpillars with his glowing fists, the angry Mushitsuki advanced through the streets of Akamaki City.

All kinds of Mushitsuki abilities blew the caterpillars away, and they were able to advance to a certain direction in a straight line.

“Kaguya! Yotsuba! Open up a road!”

“Roger that!”

Golden lasers mowed the caterpillars at the front. A large number leapt up, vanishing after being engulfed in flames created by explosions.

“Full power! Super-Poison Puuunch!”

A girl leapt even further than Daisuke. Carrying a red cross mark on her back, she struck her fist at a single caterpillar—

Then, all caterpillars they could see were spotted by black dots. The infected caterpillars burst from the inside, rotted, melted into a muddy liquid and vanished.

Their view opened up. Daisuke accelerated further.

“Don’t lag behind! If you get isolated you’ll die!”

The SEPB’s Mushitsuki rushed through the gaps in buildings or else leapt over them, rushing ahead as a single unit.

“—”

As he checked on Mushibane, they also rushed with their full power next to Daisuke’s group. Creating a circle around Shiika, the hairband boy who ran at the front blew the caterpillars away as they advanced.

“The main body’s still at the same spot, right!”

“Yes…! But it might have noticed our approach, and it’s getting away…!”

Senri’s voice had painful-sounding breaths mixed in it. It was surely hard on the sickly girl to run for such long distances. However, she voices no complaint.

It wasn’t just Senri.

No people lagged behind Daisuke.

Shinpu was right ahead of them.

There was no Mushitsuki in existence who couldn’t run at this time—

“Run! Ruuun!”

Daisuke’s shout brought the tremor-like howl again.

The place of where Senri had sensed Shinpu was displayed as a red dot on the goggles.

And that red dot—

Aligned with where Daisuke’s group currently was.

Senri shouted.

“We have arrived…! He should be hidden somewhere around…!”

Daisuke stopped. Following this the other combatants also came to a sudden stop.

Senri said he was nearby.

However, all he could see around him was caterpillars.

Shinpu was hiding among them—

“What a bother—we just have to annihilate all caterpillars we can see!”

At Daisuke’s order was exactly what the combatants wanted.

As if spewing out their pent anger, a simultaneous attack struck the caterpillars. Ear-grating sounds of impact overlapped, and all kinds of attacks combined, turning into a white glow that dyed their vision.

Seeing that the combatants were all out of breath, Daisuke raised his voice.

“Stop the attack!”

As the combined attacks stopped, the surrounding scenery instantly changed.

As far as they could see, all caterpillars in the area around them vanished.

Their attacks’ aftermath destroyed buildings, cracked the asphalt, and broken water pipes spouted water. City lights were broken and the remains of metal fragments that were probably cars spread around.

“What about Shinpu!”

Daisuke turned toward Senri, who was at the very back of the unit.

“His presence—”

Senri closed her eyes to concentrate—and gasped. Opening her eyes, she looked to a certain direction.

Daisuke followed Senri’s line of sight and noticed it.

In the shade of a power pole broken down to half its length, something moved.

“—”

His body moved before he could think.

His legs clad in a glowing pattern kicked the ground. Recoil caused the asphalt to cave in, and a green afterimage instantly drew toward the power pole.

As Daisuke went around the power pole in speed that even he couldn’t believe, he readied his pistol.

“Shinpu—”

A person clad in a tattered hoodie was sitting down.

The checkered beetle fused its jaw with the gun, and he turned the muzzle spitting tongues of hellfire to that person.

Daisuke knew his face.

He was Kasshi.

Although his skin rotted and his form was completely different, the form of the boy who journeyed with him in the world of the past was there.

“Did you really think I was going to hesitate from seeing this face, at this stage?”

The hatred toward the Original Three far overcame his pity for the first Fusion Type.

Daisuke widened his eyes and drew the trigger.

A bullet spreading explosive flames around blew the Kasshi-form Shinpu into smithereens.

“—”

The body beneath the neck was engulfed in fire and collapsed.

Trailing notes of this gunfire echoed throughout the desolate Akamaki City.

No one moved.

No one uttered a word.

The entire area was wrapped in silence.

“…”

Daisuke slowly lowered his arm.

They defeated one of the Original Three, Shinpu.

Someone convinced of this raised a whoop.

It was no illusion, and it definitely felt real.

Therefore—

“—!”

The fact he felt an inexplicable chill and turned around was nothing more than an intuition.

Captured in Daisuke’s eyes were the Mushitsuki moment before swelling in victory. Combatants of both SEPB and Mushibane smiled and looked back at Daisuke’s face.

However, Daisuke wasn’t looking at them.

“—Shiikaaa!”

Without thinking he shouted that name.

Everyone glared at Daisuke with surprised faces.

Even Shiika herself couldn’t understand why Daisuke—Kakkou—knew her name and stared at him.

Not even she herself had noticed.

Not even Mushibane who were next to Shiika to protect her noticed.

Only Daisuke noticed that faint presence.

“Ruuun!”

Right behind Shiika who was standing still—

Something was bobbing.

A bizarre figure was formed as if it came out of Shiika’s shadow.

Its face—was of the boy called Kasshi.

However, his skin was white like a doll’s and both his eyes were dyed in pitch black.

On his head he wore a small loop made of gold—a crown—and he was clad in an embroidered cloak.

“Thou have done well… to welcome me… thou, who possesses the qualification of the King…”

As the boy moved his mouth, a hoarse voice echoed from somewhere.

With that voice finally everyone noticed his presence.

Shiika also turned around—but it was already too late.

The sounds of a bell ear-grating enough to break one’s head open echoed.

At some point, the silhouette of a large building floated above everyone’s heads.

It wasn’t a Church.

It was much larger and decorated with sublime carvings—it was a Castle.

With the towering Castle high above his back, Shinpu raised a shrill laughter. It didn’t sound human; that voice was as sharp as needles piercing one’s eardrums.

“Anmoto Shiika… I bestow thee the honor of becoming my vessel.”

A childlike laughter and an old man-like hoarse voice.

Black miasma gushed out of the boy possessing these two conflicting voices. It invaded Shiika’s body through her mouth and ears.

None could resist, were they Shiika or Mushibane who were supposedly protecting her.

Daisuke was the same.

As he was watching, all signs of life vanished from Shiika’s eyes—and she turned to face him.

“Child of Aria Varei… among those who possess the qualification of a King, I have chosen not thee, but this lass. Thou should be able to understand the reason for this…”

Shinpu’s hoarse voice echoed.

Moving the mouth—was Anamoto Shiika.

Her somewhat immature face twisted into an evil smile and a golden crown appeared above her head. With a flap, a sublime cloak covered her back.

“Because she is much more feared as a King than thee…”

Kasshi’s body at the feet of the transformed Shiika suddenly deteriorated with great speed.

At the same time, Shinpu’s body burning near Daisuke became countless caterpillars. Apparently, what Daisuke shot down was no more than a decoy.

“Ah…”

This was bad.

It was only Shiika—

Out of anyone in this world, it was Shiika alone—

That Daisuke could never attack.

“Gaze upon my form and despair…”

The gun fell down from Daisuke’s arm.

It wasn’t just him.

Even Mushibane could do nothing but stand there, stunned. With faced full of disbelief they were unable to move a muscle.

On the other hand, the SEPB—couldn’t move either, as expected.

Originally, Fuyuhotaru was a symbol of fear for the SEPB.

Since she was overtaken by Shinpu, it was natural for them to lose their fighting spirits.

“Truly wonderful… this scent… it belongs to someone who trampled others, who stood on top of corpses more than anyone else… that is exactly the King’s vessel…”

A shrill, soprano laughter overlapped with a voice full of joy.

“—”

What happened next supposedly took only a moment.

However, to Daisuke’s eyes, he saw it clearly as if it was in slow motion.

It was the scenery of despair growing more and more.

The first to become prey were Mushibane.

The hairband boy reached toward Shiika but his arm was ripped from the shoulder and blew away.

What did this was a single flake of snow.

Snow kept increasing its vigor, one flake at a time—

And a blizzard blew with Shiika in its center.

No one in Mushibane could resist this blizzard of despair.

The boy who lost his arm was wrapped in the blizzard and was dyed in blood, raising death throes.

Namie, who used to be Daisuke’s comrade, exhausted upon seeing Shiika’s form—and she also became prey to the blizzard. Blood spurt from her entire body and she expired in a horrible state.

Seeing Mushibane’s member turn into nothing more than scraps of blood and meat, the SEPB finally regained their senses.

Using all power in their possession, they attacked the crowned girl.

However, it was sadly meaningless.

The snow of fear that twisted space itself shot down all attacks. Those who were nearby got swallowed by the blizzard one after another and expired, raising a bloodcurdling scream.

“…”

Daisuke watched that sight, absentminded.

Ah—

Ogata Akatsuki confronted it.

However, it was useless as expected.

The moment the laser beams touched the snow, they distorted and broke with a sound, or else an impossible phenomenon happened and they were shot back.

He saw the boy trying to protect Senri, and yet both of them were swallowed in the blizzard, spraying blood—

Something inside Daisuke broke down.

We lost again—

Until now he’d challenged the Original Three to decisive fights many times.

There was no one who fought them more than Daisuke.

And every time he fought, he tasted defeat.

However, now that was over.

Now the most important thing was taken from him.

Now it was over.

He would no longer fight or even lose ever again—he felt relief.

“—”

As a flake of snow fell on his chest, and while feeling an ear-grating sound breaking his body—

Daisuke.

Understood his death like he was an external observer.

4.06 The Others

No matter where he was.

No matter how much time passed.

He could smell the stench of rot at any time.

His country was ruled by a military dictatorship and civil war continued. The military was rotten and bribed, while the anti-government guerilla were no more than bandits.

The army and guerilla always targeted the weak.

Women, children, and the weak who had no weapons or money. They were extorted by the soldiers and had the source of their livelihood stolen by the guerilla. People without any shelter or food accounted for 80% of the residents.

That child was also another weakling.

Loitering around the corners of the capital, he would sleep next to those who starved to death. At that time the stench permeated his body, and there were times where he couldn’t tell whether he was dead or alive. That was why he hated corpses more than anything in this world, but he’d felt a bit safer sleeping next to a corpse while pretending to be one rather than alone, so he bore it.

One day, the army came for that child.

Since he was the dictator’s illegitimate child, he started living in the palace that day. The dictator’s more than ten legitimate children all died in a succession struggle.

Having now grown into a boy, the first thing he did was to erase all stench from the country.

Under the fake pretext of ending the civil war, he sent military forces to the slums and “purified” them. The dictator praised him for how he so mercilessly erased them, not leaving even a single survivor. He then took these slums that had no one living in them, erected churches in the name of mourning and gained the support of civilians.

However, the boy next attacked the town center, where the rich lived.

Then he built a church.

Churches where no one remained to pray.

When he then started indiscriminately butchering the guerilla, the dictator finally noticed.

The boy was trying to kill each and every person in the country—

The church was not for mourning. —It was a grave.

The dictator was mad, but he couldn’t punish the boy. He already had supporters that could be called worshippers, and the dictator couldn’t stop the rebellion by eliminating them.

Meanwhile, the boy wasn’t satisfied.

He couldn’t get what he really wanted.

The crown held by the dictator.

The symbol of a king who’d yield to no one.

He held the qualification.

Qualifications of the King.

Just like the boy saw with his own two eyes—it meant killing many people.

The boy became a youth and came to another country under the guise of studying abroad.

However, his father the dictator made a cruel deal with that country’s rich people.

—Do you wish to become Undying?

After being taken captive by someone, he was told this by a person in a white coat.

He then received all kinds of torture. The white coat man called those experiments, but the youth experienced the thin line between life and death many times. However, as he aspired to become king, he couldn’t die.

—Dream on.

A young woman would whisper this to him from time to time.

She was much scarier than even the white coats torturing him so absurdly.

She would look at him kindly with narrow eyes; a witch smiling like a saint.

—Keep dreaming your important dreams.

Those words let him live.

No matter how much he suffered and felt mentally cornered, her words made him not give up.

They wouldn’t let him die.

The dark, stagnant wish within him made him cling to life.

Wanting to become king one day and create an eternal world with no rot—

It happened when he attained this calm.

He saw a dream.

A dream where his dream came true.

All rot vanished from the world—and yet the narrow-eyed woman woke him from his slumber.

—It still hasn’t come true, right?

He fell into hell, and that despair and anger brought him back from the edge of death.

Much time passed since then.

Assaulted by an unknown impact and light, he died.

When he came back to life, he was no longer human.

The personality he had when alive vanished; his entire being was now bottomless desire that gathered and took on human form.

Although he attained freedom for a moment, he was soon enclosed again.

Once again, hellish times continued where he could do nothing but amass desire and hatred.

And then another salvation appeared.

A flash of light like the light he’d seen once saved him.

And now—

“I have… obtained the qualification of a King…”

He could feel it being filled by his desire.

Clad in a crown and a splendid cloak, he looked down at that scenery.

There was no sound.

No one moved.

There was only the familiar stench of death and the cruelly spread blood and flesh.

Once it would get erased by the fierce rain and he would never smell it again, even that rot was pleasant.

“I have… been saved…”

A calm smile rose to the girl’s young-looking face.

With her small legs she stepped on the corpses cut into upper and lower torso. One who was scorched fully black also possessed the qualification of a King, but now nothing remained of it.

The Castle floating overhead vanished.

The caterpillars controlling Akamaki City vanished, becoming grains of light.

The crown above the girl’s head vanished, as did the cloak.

“I am…”

In this world with dancing light particles, the girl was wrapped in relief.

Something was vanishing from within her.

Anger, hatred.

Admiration, Desire.

And—even bottomless power was scattering.

“Saved—”

There was the sound of whistling wind.

A severed electric cable spreading sparks moved by itself, wrapping around the girl’s legs.

“—GWOOOOOOOOOOOH!”

The girl’s face twisted in suffering.

Through the electric cable, a golden current surged through the girl’s entire body.

A pillar of pale-blue static electricity stabbed from the girl’s legs to the great sky. Tearing through the dark clouds, the pillar of light connected heaven and earth.

It was the same as the light that brought him back to life again and again.

The light that threw him to hell again and again.

“AAaaAAaaAAH—”

As the light vanished, the girl’s body trembled.

Sweat gushed out and tears overflowed. It was so painful because the girl’s body was human.

“AAaaaaAAAAAAAAAH!”

Around the screaming girl, the caterpillars that should have been gone were born. Just like an erupting volcano, from the gaps in debris welled out enough caterpillars to cover the skies, spreading all over the ruined city.

In the empty sky he could see a small crack being born.

A line of blood dripped from the girl’s bitten lips.

That line of blood soon evaporated, and that bright red color mixed with the miasma engulfing the girl—

Dyeing the miasma red.

—Did it still not come true?

The cracks growing larger in empty air, overlapped with the witch’s whispers.

That being’s wish.

That nightmare.

Had not yet come true.

As he recalled this despair, that being felt its own will being destroyed.

Right, this being continued many times.

He recalled his dream, made it come true, and yet was pulled back to a reality where it didn’t come true.

This repeated many, many times.

By that witch, and—those glowing fairy-like butterflies

However, there was already the limit.

“—”

The fissure born in air finally broke, and the world hiding the true form crumbled down.

What was there were the collapsed figures of the Mushitsuki in the town turned ruins.

However, there were no corpses.

“—Finally found you, shut-in bastard.”

Only one person standing with two legs on the ground was there. A boy readying a hockey stick.

“So, should I avenge Inuko?”

Pulled back to the world of reality, the person called Diorestoi lost his human personality forever.

4.07 Daisuke The Last

In the world dyed by the darkness called despair, a drop of light was born.

This dew slowly dripped down into the bottomless darkness.

The shining surface reflected someone’s face.

—Don’t give up on your dream.

Drip.

The bottom of the darkness was struck by the glowing dew.

A glowing puddle was born, split into many lines, and became cracks running through the darkness—

The sound of something hard being struck echoed.

“—!”

Daisuke opened his eyes. Noticing he was collapsed atop the debris, he hurriedly raised his body.

As he looked around him, he saw the other SEPB combatants rising just like him. Mushibane were the same.

“What…? What was I…?”

Shaking his head, he recalled what happened to him.

He led the front of the Mushitsuki and found Shinpu’s original body.

However, what Daisuke defeated was a mere decoy—

“…!”

Recalling what happened exactly before that, he turned back.

There was the form of a girl wearing a crown and a thick cloak. She opened her mouth wide, raising her voice in despair with screams of a shrill soprano voice.

She was floating inside a miasma as red as blood while her hair was fanned by the wind.

“Shiika—”

There were no traces of Anmoto Shiika in this screaming girl.

Right, that transformed girl had supposedly annihilated Daisuke and the rest. No one could resist the blizzard that destroyed all, and they all became lumps of meat—

“So it was an illusion—”

Someone was facing against Shinpu.

It was a boy shouldering a familiar hockey stick.

“I heard the SEPB’s got the strongest warrior, though.”

Still glaring at Shinpu, the boy spoke. Receiving the blowing red miasma, his jumper was fanned to the side. His handsome face had the color of anger.

“Looks like they’re not here, though. Can’t be among those who were annihilated by this child’s play.”

Annihilation—

He really did believe this result.

Until now this would never happen to Daisuke.

Even so, he was taken in by the illusion weaved by Shinpu—

Shiika was taken from him.

His biggest and lone weakness was targeted.

He’d been prepared for a mental attack, but never thought that Shinpu would use a decoy and then choose the perfect target to tip the scales between Daisuke and Shiika.

“I was caught in a trap…? Shinpu… did something so human—”

“Weren’t you aware how disgusting Shinpu was? —Still, something’s odd about him. For an instant his power grew so weak I was able to break his domain.”

Apparently he was saved by this boy. He grinned.

“Maybe he’d lowered his guard ‘cause the SEPB and Mushibane weren’t much of a challenge?”

“Does thou stand in my way…? O child of mine…”

The shrill soprano scream overlapped with this hoarse voice. While screaming, his body shivered and surged with the red miasma.

“Stop calling me your child, that’s super creepy.”

A large swarm of orange Autumn Darters flew out from this hockey stick-wielding boy.

“I’m Shiohara Shachito. —Shihidou Inuko’s boyfriend. Do take my name as souvenir when you go back to hell.”

The SEPB Mushitsuki all startled and looked at the boy calling himself Shachito.

Shishidou Inuko was a girl who served as a combat instructor in the SEPB. Among those here, Yotsuba, Tamamo, Yakugami, Sakura and other high-ranking Mushitsuki, including Haji Senri, were the students of the deceased Inuko.

“Wanko’s…”

Daisuke had met Shachito once before.

It was only for a brief moment, so in the end he couldn’t tell who he was.

But he could finally understand.

Well, him being her boyfriend was dubious, but even so—this boy was probably her last disciple. The unmistakable form of Inuko’s hockey stick served as proof for that.

—Those I’ve raised will one day fight alongside you.

His comrade in arms Inuko once told him that.

Her words were filled with such conviction as if she could see the future.

—I won’t allow you to monopolize all the fights to yourself anymore.

That was a prophecy.

The power of the new generation she spoke of had certain grown.

Right now, these were beside Daisuke in this decisive battle—

“It’s… no longer just my battle—”

He did nothing but fight and was trying to defeat the Original Three only to fulfill his promise to Shiika.

However, during that road he shouldered many burdens, had many things entrusted to him and the fight turned larger.

Daisuke was saved by the appearance of his unforgettable comrades in arms—

After the nightmare of an annihilation, many Mushitsuki stood with him now.

It was different from the past, where Daisuke would remain alone after every decisive fight.

—There’d definitely be a time where you couldn’t win alone.

His deceased friend’s will broke his pride and calmed his head.

“—SEPB!!!”

Daisuke wrung out a voice from the pit of his stomach.

The Mushitsuki who only just woke up from the illusion all raised their voices.

The checkered beetle landed on Daisuke’s shoulder. Its body split, became a glowing green pattern and fused with Daisuke.

“Shinpu—can’t use Fuyuhotaru’s powers!”

The combatants all clamored.

Daisuke looked up at the sky.

The Castle was incomparably larger than the Church—but that image vanished at some point.

“You’ve only controlled corpses this far, so you have your arms full with that girl. Right, Shinpu?”

He glared at Shinpu screaming and shuddering.

If he really used Shiika’s ability, he should have been able to wipe them all out.

However, Shinpu used a mental attack.

Why was that?

It meant—

“Thou all need to kneel… in front of thy King…”

A screaming voice and a hoarse voice.

Shinpu emitting two voices served as proof he still didn’t have Shiika under control yet.

“It’s because Fuyuhotaru’s still alive and resisting you.”

Shiika.

That girl, who was stronger than anyone.

Right now, she was fighting with Shinpu—

“Fix your formation! Seal Shinpu’s movements!”

At Daisuke’s order, the combatants of the SEPB all answered with a ground-raising voice.

“Namie! Leaving you in command of that side is fine, right!”

“Are you going to kill Fuyuhotaru, Kakkou?!”

Namie, member of Mushibane, shouted. Until last year she acted in a leading role under the East Central Branch, so she should be able to keep Mushibane united in Shiika’s stead.

“No!”

Daisuke and Shachito’s voice overlapped.

“If we hurt her body more than necessary, Fuyuhotaru might lose and become under Shinpu’s control. If that happens, he’ll probably steal her ability.”

“Oh, you sure are rational about this. I haven’t ever seen it, but everyone here being so scared of it means she’s quite something, eh?”

Daisuke and Shachito exchanged glances.

“If Fuyuhotaru becomes our enemy—I’ll beat her.”

“Okay. Meaning, if we get her back—this’s our victory.”

Exactly so.

That was why Shinpu had aimed not for Daisuke, but for Shiika.

“Focus on sealing his movements! If we do that—”

Daisuke strained his voice loud, glaring at Shinpu.

The combatants instantly followed his orders, readying themselves around Shinpu.

—Or so they should have.

However, everyone could do nothing but look at the crowned girl.

Smoothly and quickly.

There was nothing there anymore but a slight afterimage of the red miasma as it stretched a certain direction.

And then.

The form of the girl opening her mouth wide appeared floating right before Daisuke’s nose.

“Gah—”

With her whole body shaking and raising a shrill shout of agony, the girl’s hand buried itself into the pit of Daisuke’s stomach. The gushing red miasma stabbed Daisuke’s entire body and rampaged, trying to tear him apart.

He didn’t intend to lower his guard.

Shinpu’s movements were too weird.

Since he had Shiika’s physical body, it wasn’t like he turned his body to miasma and teleported around. It also wasn’t speed beyond the human eye.

Shinpu’s movements weaved between the gaps in humans. Since it floated within the miasma, it was impossible to read leg movements.

He would aim for the gaps in people’s hearts.

That was what Shinpu did best.

“…!”

If his body hadn’t been strengthened by his SEPB coat and the fusion with his Mushi, his stomach would’ve probably been gouged out. Daisuke’s body pounded against the ground, rebounded on the debris and blew away.

“Repent for thy sins…”

After eliminating Daisuke, Shinpu howled to the sky.

Trying to permeate the asphalt, a large number of caterpillars gushed out. These leapt high in the sky, then started falling down the combatants’ heads like rain.

“Halensis!”

Namie shouted.

One of Mushibane’s members, a long-haired black hair girl, reached toward the sky. The dung beetle on her fingertip swelled like a balloon.

Becoming large enough to cover the sky in an instant, the dung beetle opened its rubbery mouthpart. It swallowed all of the caterpillars and condensed them.

“I can’t eat… this much at once!”

“…! Shinpu is…!”

Everyone gasped at the hairband boy’s voice.

While their attention was caught by the caterpillars, the crown and cloak vanished.

“Over there!”

The SEPB combatants pointed on top of a building where only steel frames remained.

There they could see Shinpu shouting as though in song.

The Mushitsuki’s combined attack aimed for Shinpu. The storm of long-ranged attacks swallowed the girl along with the building.

“No…! Behind!”

All combatants turned to the completely opposite direction.

Riding the red miasma, the girl grabbed the necks of two combatants. They were swallowed by the miasma and fell powerless, hanging from her arms.

“Help—”

A shriek came from another angle.

Even there were combatants grabbed by Shinpu, swallowed by the red miasma and collapsing.

Floating here.

Floating there.

One after another, the combatants found the figure of the crowned Anmoto Shiika in their blind spots.

Soon the battlefield overflowed with screams.

Combatants were being felled by Shinpu who could possess multiple bodies at the same time.

“Is this some sorta whack-a-mole? Sorry, but—”

Orange flashed ran through the chaotic battlefield. He broke through while absorbing the Autumn Darters that came flying out of the debris around.

“The real one’s obvious! Since he emits such a strong forcefield!”

It was Shachito.

The swung hockey stick crushed Shinpu’s head—no, it couldn’t.

The red miasma became an invisible wall and protected the attack before it hit the girl’s head.

“—Hihah.”

Shachito wore a twisted smile.

The hockey stick glowed orange and Shinpu’s body sank into the asphalt. A tremor shook the ground and the girl’s legs pushed from above created a huge cave.

“Isn’t my ability heavy? Stay put for a short while.”

“…Senri! Can you do it?”

Staggering as he raised his body, Daisuke shouted.

Haji Senri knew what she had to do. She used her blind eyes to glare at Shinpu’s main body, forming the shape of a pistol with her thumb and index finger.

Her ability could see through unseen things and fry people’s untouchable interiors—

“Shoot!”

The fire pillar that gushed up with no advance warning engulfed Shinpu.

Swallowed by the fire, Shinpu raised his scream of agony even higher.

The girl’s flesh body rampaging inside the column of flames did not have a single burn on it. However, Senri’s ability should definitely be scorching only Shinpu who was hiding inside her.

“Retreat…”

Shinpu’s miasma swelled.

Flames and the hockey stick were blown away. Shinpu rode the miasma’s flow, weaving his way through the combatants and moving.

Shinpu instantly approached Senri and reached for her throat—

“I won’t let you lay a single finger on her.”

Along with this voice of calm fury, golden lasers rained down.

Heat rays launched by Akatsuki’s mayfly attacked Senri’s surroundings, not leaving a single gap.

Holes were punched into the asphalt and Shinpu’s approach was stopped. He was caught by a single thick laser and broke down.

“I knew it, one shot’s not enough!”

Along with an orange glow, Shachito teleported right next to Shinpu. He swung his hockey stick down again, but as if saying he wasn’t about to fall for it again, Shinpu dodged the attack by leaping into air.

Shachito and Shinpu’s game of tag started.

Shinpu moved around and Shachito teleported after him.

Meanwhile, the other combatants had their hands full fighting the clones. Although these were just clones, the only ones able to oppose them were pretty much only SEPB’s high-ranked Mushitsuki as well as Mushibane’s hairband boy and Namie. Lower ranked members just became prey one after another, collapsing.

“Senri! How many shots do you need until Shinpu weakens?”

At Daisuke’s question, Senri bit her lips. Her sweaty face was wrought with a grimace.

“I shot him with my full power but it didn’t weaken him much…!”

“How many shots!”

“…A lot!”

Hearing Senri’s shout of pain, Daisuke kicked the ground.

If one or two shots didn’t work, he’d attack until they did.

Blocking Shinpu’s speedy advance, Daisuke swung his fist.

However, the green arc cut through air.

Weaving through the attack and coming from behind him, Shinpu kicked Daisuke’s temple.

“Augh…!”

Blown away, Daisuke rolled and hit the other combatants.

“Guh…!”

“Hey, you. You’re a burden right now. Can’t you just stay in place?”

As he raised his body with a grimace, Shachito was next to him.

“Dunno who you are, but why’s a weakling like you leading the SEPB?”

Leaving a sigh, the boy with a hockey stick vanished.

A burden—

Shachito was right.

The price for fighting all these years ate at his body and mind. That heavy coldness dragged his legs like shackles.

“Kaguya, Yakugami, Sakura…! You all need to preserve your powers…!”

While breathing laboriously, he ordered through his goggles.

“No. I’m not about to stop protecting Senri.”

“Haa, you really cause us nothing but trouble.”

“Well, there’s nothing for me to do in the current situation regardless.”

Three opinions of three people came. At least Daisuke’s will was passed, supposedly.

Shinpu’s entire body shook and he raised a scream that pierced the air.

The red miasma blew away all Mushitsuki around, including Shachito. At the feet of both real body and clones there were black puddles of water, and the next moment these dark stains permeated everything around.

Not just the ground.

These dark stains spread even into the sky, and Daisuke and the rest were all assaulted by a sensation like falling.

Caterpillars gushed out of the ground, and a line of white stones—gravestones—appeared one after another.

“This is bad, we’ll get swallowed by his territory…! Namie! Terasu! Yotsuba—”

“Can’t you learn anything!”

Shachito pounded his orange-glowing hockey stick on the ground.

A moment before the ground and sky were both fully dyed, the black stain had a straight crack running through it.

“He really is the boss of Special Types…!”

“Territory Isolation!”

“Healing Punch!”

A common albatross butterfly burning in white glow.

Noise that could scramble one’s mind.

The fist of the red cross girl pounding the ground.

The world about to get engulfed in darkness and gravestones was smashed into smithereens.

“How impudent…”

Accumulating hatred, Diorestoi became much stronger than he was when born.

However, the same went for the Mushitsuki.

Fighting amongst themselves for many years, their Mushi powers were developed, they trained and became stronger.

All in order to keep fighting and surviving—

“Shoot!”

Senri did not miss this opening where his own world was being destroyed.

The erupting flames made Shinpu scream even louder.

However, they weren’t the only ones to use this opening.

“—Gaha!”

A girl wearing a grey coat and the girl with a red cross raised groans of pain at the same time.

North Central Branch Terasu and Central Headquarters Yotsuba. Several Shinpu clones clung to them, and they were both being fully swallowed by the red miasma. They both collapsed and were unmoving.

Using the main body as bait, he defeated two high-ranking combatants at the same time.

The Mushitsuki began being shaken—

“Don’t falter!”

Daisuke barked.

“This is that kind of fight. Only one here—us or the Original Three—can survive.”

They all knew that.

They never had the kind of optimistic thinking that there were would be no victims.

“We’re here to win.”

Here to win.

Before, in battles he would say this, they always ended as huge losses.

Therefore, he faced Shinpu this time to never lose again.

And Daisuke wasn’t the only one to embrace these feelings.

“Shoot!”

Senri piled more attacks.

The ground about to lower was blown back up. Combatants grew excited, eliminating the clones.

“…!”

Daisuke strained his face.

Shinpu’s eyes floating within the flames glared at Daisuke.

The next moment, Shinpu escaped the fire pillar and leapt into Daisuke’s chest.

“…!”

Anmoto Shiika’s slim, small palms stabbed up Daisuke’s chest. Unable to even let out a voice, his legs floated off the ground, and next his head was kicked down by slender feet.

Pounded against the ground, bones raised shrieks from all of Daisuke’s body. Perhaps he hurt his lung, as a spray of blood gushed out of his mouth.

“Kaha!”

“Thou art an eyesore, child of Aria Varei… foolish one who erases fear toward me…”

Whether from Shinpu’s rage, or else Shiika’s rejection at him having struck Daisuke—

The crowned girl repeating the attacks screamed even more shrilly.

“You ignoring me? How cold!”

“Shoot!”

Shachito’s teleporting hockey stick sealed Shinpu’s movements and Senri’s flames attacked him.

However, Shinpu’s attacks did not stop. While scattering the fire, he pounded Daisuke’s head against the ground with a heel, stepping on him.

“Wha…!”

Shachito looked confused.

As Daisuke rolled on the ground, gushing caterpillars covered him. Shinpu reached and let the red miasma wrap Daisuke.

“Gwaaah…!”

An unseen force was crushing Daisuke. At the same time he was also assaulted by a contradictory pain of his insides being wrecked as though exploding.

“Why do you hold a grudge against this guy!”

Shinpu’s arm was struck by Shachito’s hockey stick.

“Shoot!”

A fire pillar enveloped Shinpu.

However, Shinpu didn’t even turn to face Shachito or Senri. He put strength in the arm choking Daisuke.

“Also, why doesn’t anyone try to save him? What’s up with you!”

The answer to that question was simple.

Because Daisuke was Kakkou.

For all Mushitsuki, Rank 1 Kakkou was nothing more than target for fear and hatred.

None of them intended to protect him.

Until now, no one—including the Original Three—had managed to kill him.

All Mushitsuki there knew that.

Although created by fear and hatred—it was also a kind of trust.

“Fear me… if thou fear me, everyone will, too…”

While both were grimacing, Daisuke and Shinpu glared at each other from up-close.

Their connection did not start now.

The enmity between a Fusion Type Mushitsuki and the Original Three—had continued since the very moment it started.

As Daisuke had seen the last moments of Kasshi, the first Fusion Type, he knew this.

“I shall destroy any and all children of Aria Varei…”

Shinpu pounded Daisuke against the distant debris.

“Gwah…!”

Caterpillars gushing from the ground clung to his body to seal his movements.

Trying to use this momentum to attack, Shinpu nimbly moved toward Daisuke.

“—I can finally read your route.”

Something white wrapped around Shinpu.

As Daisuke dizzily raised his head, he felt moisture on his cheeks.

That was condensed steam.

“If you’re able to aim at one person, then I can aim as well.”

It was one of Mushibane’s members, the hairband boy. He reached toward Shinpu, rubbing his middle finger and thumb together in a click.

A storm of sphere-shaped steam repeatedly condensed and decompressed.

Pushing back the red miasma trying to run away, it sealed Shinpu.

“Thou art an eyesore…”

Senri used that moment to add attacks of her own.

“Shoot! Shoot!”

Unable to stand, Shinpu’s body was blown back. A great number of caterpillars was birthed from inside his cloak, blown away by the difference in mass induced by the steam and flames.

“My foolish children—”

Shinpu faced to the side, glaring at the hairband boy with hatred.

The boy wore a smile.

And not just him.

Namie and the rest of Mushibane and even the SEPB combatants breathing laboriously were all grinning.

Shinpu’s movements completely stopped.

“…!”

By the time he realized this and turned around, it was already too late.

Escaping the caterpillar bindings and sneaking behind Shinpu with both arms stretched was Daisuke.

“You let your eyes off of me, Shinpu.”

He closed his arms.

He applied the strength of both body and soul.

He was hugging Shinpu’s thin body.

Even if he died, he didn’t intend to let go.

“How dare thee touch me, thou insolent fool—”

Being hugged by frightening strength, Shinpu raised a shrill scream.

“Shoot! Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!”

Senri’s flames obviously engulfed Daisuke along with Shinpu.

They weren’t hot.

However, the red miasma was rampaging, trying to rip Daisuke off. With the outside of his body being attacked as well, the feeling of his limbs and his spirits was paralyzed.

“Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!”

“Ngh—”

Daisuke could see that face of suffering shrieking in soprano.

He knew that Shiika was suffering.

“Shoot! Shoot!”

Being eaten by the red miasma, blood gushed out of Daisuke’s entire body.

However, he could withstand it.

Because he wasn’t alone.

Shiika was in his arms.

He could withstand any sort of pain as long as he was with her.

Just like how they kept supporting each other and lived until now—

“Sorry…”

Moving his blood-filled mouth, Daisuke whispered.

“I could never properly save you…”

Shinpu opened his mouth wide, raising a shrill howl toward the sky.

The surroundings instantly turned gloomy.

Tearing through the dark clouds covering the sky, a sublime structure floated there.

The medium of Shinpu’s ability—a Castle.

The Castle brought shockwaves produced by ringing bells, assaulting Akamaki City. The remaining buildings in the city turned ruins were fanned by explosive wind and blew away.

As heaven and earth trembled and even the distinction between reality and illusion was destroyed by the ringing bells—

“Yakugamiii!”

At Daisuke’s signal, a combatant with a strange form stepped ahead.

He waited for this moment.

For the Original Three, their ability’s medium—was also their weakness.

“I don’t really want to touch that, though.”

A man wearing a tattered, rusted coat, Yakugami, swung his arms wide. In his hand he held, as expected, a great rusty scythe.

The rusted scythe swung in a direct line toward the sky.

As it did, gigantic chains appeared from air.

Each about as thick as a person, these chains wrapped around the Castle like snakes.

“…!”

Shinpu’s body spasmed, leaping from within Daisuke’s arms.

It happened gradually.

Anything touched by the chains accumulated rust. In the blink of an eye it spread all over the Castle, covering its surface.

Being covered by rust, the Castle turned real.

And they had a person who could destroy anything as long as it could be touched.

Daisuke howled.

“Sakura!”

“Can someone give me a lift?”

Behind the jumper suited Sakura appeared a braided girl who was apparently a member of Mushibane. The two girls then became dust and vanished.

The next instant, Sakura and the girl appeared on the Castle’s zenith—on top of the bell rusted shut.

A small scarab beetle landed on the tip of the hand hammer swung by Sakura.

“Eat this.”

The hammer struck the bell.

“—!”

The Castle exploded from the inside. It was breaking apart—

“Kaguya!”

“I know!”

Golden lasers rained down.

The fragments broken to smithereens were scorched by these heat rays and evaporated.

“Shoooot!”

Senri’s full-powered flame struck Shinpu capturing Daisuke.

“—OOOOoooOOOooOOOOH!”

The red miasma swelled.

Gushing out of Anmoto Shiika’s body, it slipped out of Daisuke’s arms and spread over Akamaki City.

Losing the medium of his ability, he probably thought that he couldn’t escape from Daisuke and the rest unless he did this.

Inside Daisuke’s arms, Anmoto Shiika’s head slumped.

Her expression finally regained its calm.

A bit of body warmth and her breath were reborn in his arms.

“Shiika…”

This time Daisuke hugged the released girl kindly.

Torn caterpillars poured from above.

The red miasma spreading in the Akamaki City sky became a rain of caterpillars, filling the ruins.

These all gathered and piled on one another—

Turning into three gigantic caterpillars.

Their body separated into many segments and sprouting countless, sharp legs—they were larger than any building that existed on earth. Not even piling several dome stadiums on one another would be enough to contain them.

“This is… Shinpu?”

Looking up the giant caterpillars, someone groaned.

As the Mushitsuki all stood in place shocked, the caterpillar began moving toward them. They came crushing the surroundings building, lowering their bodies to crush their opponents on the surface—

A large earthquake shook Akamaki City.

One of the caterpillars’ body greatly distorted.

It sank into the ground, raising creaking sounds, as if crushed by something even larger. Waterfalls of body fluids fell from the torn body.

“OOOOOOOOoooooOOOOOOOHHHH!”

He seemed to have moved there at some point.

Teleporting on top of the caterpillar, Shiohara Shachito struck it with the hockey stick. Orange Autumn Darters flying from all over Akamaki City gathered in his stick.

Apparently his ability was the control of mass.

The weight gathered from every place in the city distorted the point where the hockey stick touched the caterpillar. This orange glow emitted electrical discharges, and as Shachito needed to control the surplus power with his human hands, blood dripped from his nose and mouth. Unable to fully defend against it, the power’s recoil tore his body.

Although he’d seen an opponent of a completely different league, he hadn’t faltered.

He hadn’t hesitated either.

Rather, this form—which even included a smile—was that of a warrior.

Seeing Shachito like this, the other Mushitsuki also changed their expressions.

Each one howled, and they began a combined attack on the other caterpillars.

The second caterpillar had its body shaved little by little.

And the remaining one—

“…! You… stay back…!”

He heard Shachito shouting while puking blood.

“—It’s fine already.”

The one standing to intercept the final enemy was Daisuke.

Glancing at Shiika who he left lying in a distant place, he relaxed his expression.

“Just coming all the way here is enough…”

“What are you talking about…! Don’t just give up like that!”

Shachito yelled with anger, but he ignored him.

Daisuke looked up the giant caterpillar.

From where he was standing, it looked nothing more than a white, curved wall. That wall moved to crush Daisuke.

After several battles, they managed to corner Shinpu like this.

Daisuke managed to survive here not thanks to his powers alone.

He knew that well right now.

“It was thanks to you…”

The smiling Daisuke’s fist cut through air.

It wasn’t just the Mushitsuki here.

The wishes, feelings, pains and hatred of those who fell in battle—were all inside Daisuke.

Therefore.

He didn’t hesitate to pour out his entire remaining power into this.

Even if Daisuke’s battle ended here—he had no regrets.

“—Thanks to you, I’ve preserved my power.”

The white wall vanished from Daisuke’s sight.

The body of the caterpillar pursuing him was snapped in half.

With a moment’s delay—a tremor and a shockwave shook the surface, and the asphalt at his feet caved in. The caterpillar’s head burst and the fountain of body fluids rained on the entire city.

All that was caused by Daisuke’s fist.

Notes

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