Mushi Uta:Volume 11 Chapter 3

3.00 Armageddon

Welcoming Daisuke and the rest who got out of Castello was the large head of a Mushi.

A moment before it clamped its mouthpart full of sharp fangs down on Mikko who was at the front, the camo suits around tore it with gunfire.

“Wha—”

The one to first raise his voice was Kii-kun.

“Why are there Mushi outside Castello!”

Although unable to let out any sound, Daisuke and Mikko, Rui and Kasshi also froze in shock.

They had supposedly eliminated all the Mushi created by the cloaked man.

Even so—outside the fences enclosing the premises there were several Imperfect Mushi running wild. Waiting there, Rui’s soldiers fought them with live bullets and were barely holding out.

Daisuke clicked his tongue.

“So there were survivors…!”

“Cough… no, this is—”

Mikko stared at the direction opposite of Castello.

Daisuke followed the girl’s gaze.

Several Imperfect Mushi came running from the road connected to Akamaki City. Rui’s soldiers hurriedly intercepted them, but it was a situation where a new one could come at any time.

Turning toward Rui who put a cellphone to his ears, Daisuke asked a question.

“From the direction of the city…? What’s going on—Rui!”

“…Apparently, large numbers of Mushi are rampaging all over Akamaki City.”

Rui lowered his cellphone and spoke in shock.

“W-why! Haven’t we caught all the guinea pigs?”

“Wasn’t the man we caught the last one?”

“I do not believe it possible… but perhaps something happened to the research facility. Perhaps another one was unleashed into the city…”

The masked girl’s forehead had cold sweat.

“No… way…?”

Kii-kun turned speechless.

“—I have not seen this… is something getting twisted…?”

Daisuke did not miss Mikko mumbling this.

It was for sure that Mikko was hiding something, but he didn’t have the time to pursue it.

The situation he was scared of was happening.

It was what Daisuke—no, the SEPB wanted to avoid the most.

The large-scale rampage of wild Mushi and the panic caused by this.

Just like Rui thought, if Imperfect Mushi were unleashed to Akamaki City, it was already too late.

They could no longer hide Mushi’s existence, and there would definitely be victims among the fleeing people. The infective fear would bring a second disaster, and at the worst, it was possible for military forces from abroad to appear as well.

Daisuke gritted his teeth.

“Rui! Can you call outside Akamaki City?”

The youth who still stood in place wordlessly pulled out his cellphone. So he was telling him to try.

He hurriedly pushed in a number.

However, no matter what branch he tried, he couldn’t connect to the SEPB.

“—Shit! Why doesn’t it go through! Rui, someone like you definitely knows about the Special Environmental Preservation Bureau, right? Why can’t I connect to any of them outside Akamaki City?”

This wasn’t the time to be hiding his identity. He expected that a Round Table might have some connection to them—

“Special Environmental…? I don’t know anything like that…”

The youth didn’t even try to take back the cellphone Daisuke was handing back to him.

“It shouldn’t have been like this… I didn’t mean for it to be like this…”

Rui always acted so sociable and bright, but now he was pale.

“We just wanted—to buy the Undying—”

He apparently noticed just how serious the disaster created by the Round Table only now when the situation became irreversible. Since he didn’t even know about the SEPB, Rui was probably just another subordinate among the members, but even so, he wasn’t sinless.

“Haha… what the heck’s this… am I looking at the end of the world…?”

Kii-kun’s groaning voice spoke of the scene before his eyes.

Creepy monsters came to attack one after another.

Even when the armed forces intercepted them, they were gradually losing their members.

That scene was enough to make one sense destruction.

“Cough… I have to go.”

Mikko suddenly spoke.

“Inside that place—the ship—sleeps the worst Mushi.”

“The worst Mushi…?”

Kii-kun’s voice asking this back was dyed by cynicism.

Daisuke could understand how he felt. Was she saying there was a situation even worse than this?

“It was what my father and the Round Table viewed as a result… that Mushi—is subconsciously connected with the person who created it.”

“…!”

Daisuke’s heart leapt.

A person subconsciously connected with a Mushi—

Was that not, without a doubt, the thing called a Mushitsuki?

“Since it is dangerous, it is made to sleep with medicine… but if something happened to the facility and the person administrating the medicine was gone—it would become irreversible.”

Mikko coughed.

It would become irreversible.

Was that also a prophecy?

—Kii-kun, Kasshi, Rui… as well as me… we shouldn’t have come here…

Everything started from that prophecy he saw inside the mist.

In that scene, Kii-kun and Kasshi died, while Mikko and Rui were arguing.

He still wasn’t certain that this showed him the future.

However.

The bad intuition born inside Daisuke kept swelling, ready to burst at any moment.

—If I could return to the past—I would have probably killed all of you the moment we met…

He couldn’t allow these people to go to the ship.

Daisuke felt as if someone was whispering that to him.

“…!”

While gunfire echoed, vehicle engine noises were mixed within them.

An expensive car appeared from the road. Weaving through the battlefield of the camo suits and Mushi, it made an emergency brake near Daisuke’s group.

Flying from within the car was a suited old gentleman with a young girl in his arms.

“So you were safe…!”

Rui strongly hugged the girl handed over to him.

She was probably his beloved daughter. Not knowing the joy of her father, she was peacefully sleeping in his arms—or so he thought, but she opened her eyes.

The toddler looked at Daisuke with sleepy eyes and reached to him. She was a cute girl with jewel-like, sparkling black eyes that she probably inherited from her father.

“…?”

Daisuke frowned.

The girl looked like she wanted to say something—but closed her eyes again and fell asleep.

Well, he didn’t care about Rui’s daughter. However, she’d become a good excuse.

“You should leave, Rui.”

Daisuke’s words caused Rui’s back to twitch.

“For your daughter’s sake.”

“...”

There was also the ominous prophecy.

He wouldn’t speak of murder just like Mikko in that scene.

However, thinking of this low chance, it was probably better for at least one less person to go there.

“—Sorry...”

Rui’s shoulders shook and he mumbled in a hoarse voice.

That was the expensive suit youth’s declaration of surrender.

“This is the obvious choice as a parent.”

Kasshi spoke resolutely and Rui turned to him.

“Kasshi... won’t you remain, too?”

A strange silence befell the two.

If Kasshi responded to Rui’s suggestion, perhaps Daisuke himself should also add something—

“I have to make sure if something happened.”

“I see...”

“But after I’ve done what I need to—“

Kasshi lowered his gaze a little.

He looked at the small sleeping girl in the youth’s arm—it might’ve been Daisuke’s imagination, but—for an instant, the boy’s mouth looked like it loosened.

“If I feel like it, you can come see me again.”

“...She’ll definitely be happy too.”

Rui smiled, looking really happy.

“Have a good one, Rui... cough.”

Mikko started walking.

Daisuke and Kashi followed her.

Unexpectedly, Kii-kun also stepped ahead. Daisuke stopped him.

“Kii-kun—“

“No... I’m going too.”

“It’d be safer going with Rui. You realize that, right?”

“I’ve been dreaming about myself dying for too long... I can’t take it anymore...”

Daisuke furrowed his brows.

Kii-kun acted strange. His scared expression was the usual, but his voice was shaking.

“I understand... that I need to go ‘there’ in order to save myself...”

“...? Do as you please.”

Giving up on convincing him, Daisuke turned ahead.

—If you can’t understand it from my words, I just need to get you to step down in the middle.

Daisuke would head to the abandoned ship alone. He couldn’t be picky about his methods now.

There were those who were resolved to continue on this path.

There were those who held what was important to them and stopped in place.

Each with their own feelings, they parted in this place with echoing gunfire.

3.01 Daisuke Part 7

Was this reality?

It looked like a frighteningly realistic panic film.

The streets of Akamaki City were filled with human shouts and the howls of Imperfect Mushi. People covered in blood were collapsed, and the remains of destroyed vehicles and buildings lay all around. There were fires and people and Mushi ran in and out smoke.

All order was lost and the country lost its functions.

No, not only that, but it even made him think that the world ended.

“They’re just filming a movie—I wish…”

This unrealistic scene made Kii-kun leak a hoarse voice.

“…”

Daisuke grimaced. The regret made him clench his jaw.

As a member of the SEPB, his job was to save these fleeing people.

However, right now Daisuke couldn’t use his Mushi powers.

Also, if he didn’t go to the ship, there might be even more victims—

There were limits to what he could do right now.

“We need a way to get to the suburbs. Let’s go look for a usable car.”

“Cough… how about this one?”

Mikko and Kasshi remained calm. Approaching a car that ran into a power pole and had its driver run away, they struck their heads together and began to consult.

Was there a situation even worse than this…?

Daisuke glared at Mikko’s back.

On the ship within the mist he’d certainly seen people that looked like Kasshi and Kii-kun dying, while Mikko preached about destruction. It made him feel like there was further misfortune and that the worst had yet to come.

Maybe I should just tell them what I saw—

This thought passed his mind, but he soon rejected it. He himself still doubted it, so he doubted they’d believe.

If so—

After getting the ship’s location, he’d stop the three of them here.

If he did this, the prophecy would be stopped, and the possibility of Kasshi and Kii-kun dying would lower. Daisuke alone was enough to investigate the ship.

“The engine’s dead. Can’t use this car.”

“Cough… others are all burned out, turned over, or have holes in them, it seems.”

“I-if we don’t do it quickly, the Mushi over there are gonna come here…!”

Kasshi and Mikko turned around while the flustered Kii-kun clung to them.

Kii-kun was no problem. There were plenty of ways to leave him behind.

There was no need to confine Mikko yet. Because he needed to hear from her where the ship was.

The problem was Kasshi.

He—resembled Daisuke.

He would watch over the others without missing a beat, and his own movements had no waste to them. He acted like a civilian, but he definitely received some training. However, unlike an anti-Mushi combatant like Daisuke, he was probably an anti-person professional. Since Daisuke couldn’t use his Mushi power, there was no guarantee he could win in a fight against him.

“Let’s split up and search.”

Daisuke suggested.

“Eeeeh? What are we going to do if we get attacked by Mushi!”

“…That would be faster. Be useful for a change, Kii-kun.”

The others agreed. The four would scatter around and start looking for vehicles.

As a countermeasure against danger, they would act in a range where they could all see each other—this condition was added to the search, but it still created many openings. Kii-kun and Kasshi started looking into prominent cars, and soon their attention went away from Mikko.

Daisuke quickly moved through blind spots, sneaking behind Mikko.

“…!”

He pressed the girl’s mouth on top of her mask and held her up.

All sounds were erased by the screams and destruction around. Daisuke entered a narrow alley with Mikko in arms, running full speed away from Kasshi.

If Kasshi was strong, he simply had to not fight him.

Leaving the two boys behind and remaining alone with Mikko completed his goal.

“—Sorry for being rough. Are you alright?”

In the back alley after turning corners many times, Daisuke released Mikko.

The masked girl sat on the ground, making pained coughs.

“How absurd, worrying about kidnapping. I do not know how many women you sank your poisonous fangs into until now, but you seem quite used to—ow. …It’s not as if it’s really painful, but I do think slapping a girl so many times is a bit crazy…”

“…When I look at you, I get really angry. Sorry.”

While sincerely apologizing for that, Daisuke got on one knee. He looked at the girl’s face from the same height.

All that remained was questioning her about the ship.

However—what came out of Daisuke’s mouth was a completely different question.

“What was the scene you saw?”

“…”

“You spoke as if you knew this was going to happen.”

After coughing once, the girl looked Daisuke back in the eyes.

“Yes—I was aware this was going to happen.”

“…!”

“But it’s already meaningless… this situation is already far removed from what I knew.”

Mikko narrowed her eyes, sad.

“What do you mean?”

“Both Castello and the tragedy in Akamaki City… there weren’t supposed to be this many Mushi born. It differs from what I saw—”

He couldn’t understand what Mikko was talking about.

Daisuke grabbed her shoulders.

“I saw—the abandoned ship. Kasshi and Kii-kun died while you were arguing with Rui.”

“Yes, I also saw that.”

Mikko’s almond eyes stared at Daisuke intently. Her black eyes that absorbed all light froze him, as if they stole his very heart.

“What I have seen is impossible to change, no matter who you were.”

“So you—were a Mushitsuki?”

Daisuke firmly held his consciousness as to not be taken in by the girl’s eyes.

Mikko grew with the guinea pigs and called them family. If during that time Mikko had become a Mushitsuki—

“You know the future…? Is the mist isolating Akamaki City your ability—”

“Cough… you really are stupid. Please don’t disappoint me too much.”

As she narrowed her eyes and smiled, the girl spoke as if likening him to a child.

For a split second—he felt as if her figure overlapped with someone he knew.

Crackle… Daisuke’s head numbed. He felt like he was just about to recall it but it vanished like mist.

“I am not a Mushitsuki. At the very least, I do not have the ability to show what I have seen to other people.”

“Then…! What was that thing I saw?!”

“You were shown that. So you could watch over what is about to happen now. —It means that the one who did this wants you to reach the ‘finish line’. That is their goal.”

“The one who did this…?”

“We must head to the finish line. You look like you want to stop, and yet the one standing in your way the most—is none other than yourself.”

Daisuke shuddered as a chill ran through his spine.

It was already too late by the time he felt a presence from behind.

“Last night you took me by surprise—”

Without even having time to turn around, a thin needle was stabbed into Daisuke’s neck.

“But don’t underestimate me.”

Kasshi, who’d approached from behind at some point, whispered this at Daisuke’s ears. He could feel something cold being injected into his veins through the syringe.

He lowered his guard—no, that was wrong.

Mikko’s smile told it all.

So they were on this together when I first suggested to go look for cars… they set a trap for me—

“If you are unable to reach the finish line—what would happen to you, I wonder?”

His heart leapt.

He recalled.

Mikko, the girl with the mask.

Daisuke had met her before—

“Y…you are—”

Unable to reach Mikko with his arm held out—

Daisuke’s consciousness was cut off.

3.02 The Others

“Thank you very much. You really saved me… cough.”

Rolling Daisuke’s unconscious form into the shadow, Kasshi heard Mikko’s words of gratitude.

“I don’t need any thanks. I simply eliminated someone who stood in my way.”

“Have you killed him?”

“I just gave him a temporary shock that made him faint.”

“I see… cough. Now, let us go back to Kii-kun.”

“We don’t need him, do we?”

“No, I would feel too bad to abandon him…”

As Mikko narrowed her eyes in sorrow, Kasshi stared at her.

She already realized that Kasshi had been sent for some mission after the Undying. Kii-kun would probably stand in his way to accomplish this. However, quarrelling here or interrogating Mikko would be a waste of time.

“Even right now the danger just keeps growing. It is fine, with me, you and Kii-kun together, I will show you to the abandoned ship, just like promised…”

“Got it.”

Just like she thought, Kasshi agreed with her easily and started running.

“You are a good person, Kasshi.”

Mikko narrowed her eyes and smiled. She spoke toward the running boy’s back.

“You moved Daisuke to where he wouldn’t get attacked by Mushi, and as for Kii-kun… you act coldly, but you’ve let your guard down around him. You also looked relieved when Rui decided to stay with his daughter.”

“…”

“If we met under different circumstances, we surely would have been good friends.”

It was her real opinion.

She knew this was nothing more than a hypothetical, fanciful story.

However, it being her fancy meant that these were her true feelings.

“Especially you and Daisuke… you definitely would have gotten along.”

“He’s dangerous. It felt almost like—I was facing against myself.”

“Including the fact that you can’t abandon someone you have opened your heart to? You had no intention to abandon even Kii-kun, right?”

“…Sorry, but I don’t feel like I’ll get along with you either.”

“Daisuke also said something similar… cough.”

As they exited the back alley and came out to the main road, the boy with his face covered in tears was waiting for them.

“What’s up with you! I thought you went and abandoned me! —Hey, where’s Daisuke?”

“He apparently recalled some urgent errand. He said to let him act on his own and left.”

Mikko gave a lie explanation to the crying topknot boy.

Since Kii-kun was so honest he seemed to easily believe it. He made an expression that was a mix of worry and anxiety.

“Oh… but he’d be fine on his own. And we have Kasshi with us.”

“So you’re not going to even try protecting yourself.”

“Ah! I found a car that’s still working!”

Wiping his tears, Kii-kun showed Mikko and Kasshi to the road.

“Don’t have the key, though.”

It was a small van. It was abandoned, park on the alleyway.

“Cough… we obviously wouldn’t have the key. How typical of your half-hearted usefulness—err, I am not praising you, so could you please not smile?”

“It’s just the right kind of old model. No problem.”

Kasshi acted quickly and with no hesitation. He stuck a metallic rod through the window, unlocked the door, dove under the wheel and started fiddling with something there.

It took less than a minute to get the engine started.

“Get on.”

Following Kasshi’s orders as he took the driver’s seat, Mikko took the seat next to him and Kii-kun sat behind.

The van instantly moved. While skillfully avoiding overturned vehicles, debris of destroyed structures and collapsed people, they thrust through the main road.

“How can you start it without a key and drive it so normally… no, I definitely shouldn’t ask this.”

“Everyone has their own secrets. It is rude to ask him that, considering his infamous criminal record… cough.”

“I have no criminal record, nor am I infamous.”

As they approached the center of Akamaki City, the number of Imperfect Mushi increased.

“Uwah!”

Kii-kun raised a scream. A Mushi flew from the side and blocked their path.

Kasshi dexterously operated the gears and turned the wheel. Avoiding the Mushi’s attack a moment before it hit, he ran through the empty sideway and avoided danger.

“…Looks like going through the main road’s difficult. We’d better avoid it.”

“So horrible… is this actually possible…?”

As they reached the center of Akamaki City, there were more and more fleeing people and victims. All buildings, roads, and vehicles they could see were destroyed beyond recognition, and wounded people ran while screaming.

The van turned at a crossroads and looked for another road.

“Mikko… what did your father do…”

Kii-kun said. Mikko coughed.

“Until my mother passed away… he was a kind man. He was a respected doctor and a psychologist.”

Mikko could recall two forms of her father.

Her kind dad—as well as her dad possessed by his research, withered and thin, like a completely different person.

“He lost someone that had no replacement in the world and was trying to regain her… or perhaps he has sacrificed his reason and morals to never lose anything again. Surely even Rui—no, all people drawn in by my father’s research like moths into the flame were perhaps all the same…”

As her father completely changed, he also changed his ways to deal with Mikko, his biological daughter.

He used her like she was some stranger and made her take care of the test subjects. She could clearly remember their faces as they suffered and muttered curses of resentment.

As she recalled this—she felt her fever getting worse.

“If you ask me, he was neither patron nor researcher. He believed that clinging to hope and wishing for something amplified the power of vitality, and when he thrust these test subjects into despair again and again—he was just like a demon of hell. A demon who kicked down the stones piled on by the dead, tormented them and enjoyed their suffering to forget his own pain…”

“But there was a result.”

“It was a failure. Just a coincidence. Something completely unrelated was born.”

Mikko actually told him this, but her father scolded her violently. He actually said that she was the crazy one and even had her go through counseling.

So she reached her limits and ran away.

However—since it became like this, she couldn’t ignore it.

“Since the situation is like this, I believe we should nip the research in the bud. Although I was just a caretaker, I am one of those responsible for this… cough.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Burn it all down… the materials on the ship, samples, records—if anything came out after I left, then that as well.”

“If something happened… is there a possibility of the research about the Undying having been completed?”

The one to ask this was Kii-kun. Mikko and Kasshi looked at him through the mirror.

“No way… I believe the chances for that are low.”

“…Oh.”

“I can’t really think of how wishing for something connects to the Undying. If it really exists, how should we call it?”

Perhaps having thought of something, Kasshi mumbled as if speaking to himself.

Mikko narrowed her eyes.

She knew what to call it.

“That is… called a dream.”

Kasshi and Kii-kun raised their brows.

“A dream?”

“Do you not have one? Wishing to become something…”

The two boys were silent.

After a while, Kii-kun opened his mouth.

“I don’t really get all that, I guess… I’m just giving it my all to think how to end this without dying.”

“I also don’t have one—or so it should’ve been, but now… I don’t know.”

Kasshi spoke vaguely.

What was going to happen to these two boys ahead—

Mikko knew about their conclusion.

Although she supposedly forgot, upon meeting Daisuke, she recalled it while continuing this journey.

Due to a certain reason, she had “seen” it.

However, she still had to head over there.

Because it was a kind of—contract.

Mikko smiled, narrowing her almond eyes.

“Kasshi, Kii-kun, and Rui as well… I really like all of you.”

Suddenly being told this, the two boys reacted differently.

“Wha…! What’s that, all of a sudden… well, I don’t dislike you either, or rather, err…”

“I don’t think anything in particular.”

As they got away from the city center, the less people there were, there were also less Mushi.

Running as far as their gasoline allowed, the van Mikko rode on exited to the suburbs. When there were no more houses, they could also see no Mushi.

Finally they arrived to a plain made of exposed, discolored ground.

Kii-kun looked outside the window and groaned.

“This is…”

As far as the eye could see there were only mountains of discarded things around. At the horizon, where large machines such as trucks or cranes were thrown away, a gentle sea could be seen.

“A research facility…?”

If the Mushi-infested city was hell, then this was—

The end of hell.

The sky that retrieved its silence was being covered by even thicker clouds.

“Yes, in this landfill… it’s further inside.”

Following Mikko’s directions, the van with the trio crossed through the landfill.

Soon seeing what appeared, Kasshi muttered.

“Rather than a research facility, this is—”

Left on the landfill facing the sea, it was dirtied black and rusted by the salty wind.

It was probably imposing in the past as it travelled the world’s seas.

This huge body would have probably instilled awe in whoever saw it before.

However, the thing towering in front of them right now was nothing more than a lump of steel filled with loneliness and vanity.

“A ghost ship.”

A large, abandoned vessel.

This was Mikko’s group’s “finish line”.

3.03 Daisuke Part 8

—If I could return to the past—I would have probably killed all of you the moment we met …

Next to the dying Kii-kun, Mikko prophesized this.

Those were events about to happen.

Mikko said that Daisuke was there to see them unfold.

—If you are unable to reach the finish line—what would happen to you, I wonder?

The girl smiling with narrowed almond eyes.

Since this was an unforeseeable “reunion” he’d been unable to connect her to the person he knew, but—

Daisuke knew her.

He finally arrived at her identity.

“—Please wake up.”

He felt a numbness pass through his mind.

Although he recalled Mikko’s identity, he couldn’t easily believe in it.

“You must head toward the ‘finish line’…”

His head was numbed again.

A familiar voice shook the confused Daisuke.

“Kakkou-san—”

Blaze Class Rank 1, Kakkou.

This designation would not allow him to keep on sleeping.

It didn’t allow him to avert his eyes, no matter how strong his enemy and no matter what scary thing he had to face.

“—!”

Retrieving his consciousness, Daisuke leapt up.

Readying his body and being wary of the environment, there was no one in the dirty alley. He couldn’t see Kasshi and Mikko who knocked him out.

“Shit… how long have I been sleeping?”

While he lost his consciousness, he had the feeling as if someone was whispering at his ears—but apparently that was just his imagination. The only one there was Daisuke.

“Mikko… is she really that woman? If so—”

He rushed through the narrow alley.

The sun sank and the curtain of night fell on the city. There was no doubt he lost quite a lot of time.

As he leapt toward the main road, shouts of people running away from Imperfect Mushi echoed around.

Never mind Mikko and Kasshi, but he couldn’t see even Kii-kun anywhere. They probably found a car long ago and headed to the ship.

“I’ve made an outrageous misunderstanding…!”

Not only did he misunderstand it, he was put into a fatal situation from the very beginning.

“Mikko—what’s up with that woman? Does she understand the situation? If so, she might die as well…! No, but unlike me—”

Daisuke held his head, his thoughts running all over the place.

His breath quickened and his heartbeats hastened. Excessive anxiety made cold sweat erupt from his whole body.

“Calm down… I need to organize everything I understand. What is this situation?”

He spoke to himself.

“Right now… I’m in the enemy’s trap. And completely, at that. That’s also probably why I can’t use my Mushi power. But I don’t know who the enemy is… and what ability is it.”

Daisuke wasn’t the type for difficult reasoning and calculations in the first place. Even so, he desperately gathered the clues he’d been given.

“What can I do in this situation…?”

As he became convinced again, the despair of it all crushed Daisuke.

This sight of abnormal Mushi unleashed in town, with people’s death throes flying about—

This was no mere nightmare.

“I really fell for it, hook, line and sinker… what does the perpetrator want for me to do…?”

Mikko looked as though she knew the answers to his questions.

—It means that the one who did this wants you to reach the ‘finish line’. That is their goal.

Was it really just that?

It wasn’t just reaching it.

What if…

Even if it was stupid thinking this, if he believed the lone hope in his heart…

“Do they want me to stop Mikko’s prophecy…?”

To put a stop to Kii-kun and Kasshi’s death and Mikko’s prophecy of destruction.

Did this mean that was the mission given to him?

However, even if that was true—Daisuke didn’t know where the ship was.

“What’s going to happen if I can’t reach that ship…?”

Right now he was mumbling to himself about things only he himself knew. Even if he asked anyone else, they’d never understand him.

However, he had conviction.

If Mikko’s prophecy was the truth, he had to stop it from becoming reality—

“Where’s that ship…!”

Raising his face, he started thinking of ways to look where he was heading to.

He already knew that it was useless trying to get in contact with the SEPB.

Then what about the Round Table?

No, Daisuke didn’t know Rui’s number, and he had no connection to other members. He didn’t have the time to look for ways to get in contact with Rui right now.

This is bad, I’ve got no allies—

The Round Table held an immense power and authority.

The facility researching the secrets of the Undying was a secret among secrets, so there wasn’t any way he’d know someone who so conveniently knew about its location—

“—”

Daisuke’s breath caught.

There was someone.

No, more precisely—there might be.

He was shocked at himself thinking about that person.

He only knew one person who was so ridiculous as to know all the convenient things and then conveniently and calmly make them happen.

“Please…! Answer!”

He took out the cellphone that Rui never took back from him and pushed in a certain number.

As he desperately listened to the ringing sounds, after a few dozen seconds…

“—Hello?”

He got an answer.

He actually got it.

He unconsciously held the cellphone harder and couldn’t speak.

“Hello?”

The other party said again, puzzled. The voice still sounded young. About the same age as Daisuke.

“Please don’t hang up!”

He suddenly spoke loudly.

He couldn’t think of any way to explain the situation to the other party and make himself understood.

“You probably don’t know about me! But I know you! Even your name and other things—oh, no, since it’s you, you’d just say something like ‘all that is perfectly possible with a bit of investigation’. …Don’t hang up!”

“…”

“I don’t know where you’re living now or what’s your way of life. You’re probably in high school at Ouka City. You’re hiding your awful personality and doing well on the surface. That’s for sure. Because you’re the most twisted person in the world! Don’t hang up, alright!”

He just started badmouthing him. But he didn’t want to get hanged up.

“…”

“But you should know! You said you knew nothing, but that had to be a lie! You love lying! You definitely know! Even feigning to be a mere high schooler, you’d notice any small abnormality, and investigate it in secret. You’re that kind of guy. Then you should have also noticed what they’re doing! And investigated it!”

Even he couldn’t understand what he was saying.

However, the other party definitely listened to him.

“Investigated about the Round Table—and the research about the Undying!”

“…”

Daisuke didn’t know a way to accurately explain the current situation.

If he explained the particulars in detail, it might actually cause the other party to hold doubts. That was who he was.

“Please tell me! Where’s that abandoned ship that they’re using as a research facility or whatever? I have to get there as quickly as possible!”

“—eve—”

“’Even if I knew, what would I gain from telling you that?’ is out of the question! If you don’t tell me—you’ll regret it your entire life.”

“…”

There was no way he wouldn’t get affected by Mikko’s prophesized destruction. It would bring harm not just to the person himself, but to his family as well.

“This is no time for your lies, nastiness, cynicism, jokes in bad taste or badmouthing you’re so good at! If you know, then hurry up and—”

“Northeast to Akamaki City, there’s a landfill in the suburbs.”

A simple sentence.

That calm voice gave the answer Daisuke was looking for without a shred of hesitation or doubt.

So he really did know about it.

Rather than happiness about obtaining this answer—he instead felt nostalgia and bitterness.

“…”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“—What are you doing…”

A hoarse voice leaked from his mouth.

“Allow me a prophecy—”

Preluding with this, he shouted toward the cellphone.

“While pretending to be smart, you’re going to collapse at the most important junction! And even when things are really… and I mean really important, you still haven’t woken up! You always spoke as if you knew anything, and you told me you’d end everything with that… and yet you just went and gone to sleep without waking up!”

“…”

“You’re… a liar…”

As Daisuke crouched and wrung out his voice like this, the other party probably couldn’t understand the meaning of his words.

Silence continued.

Just when he thought he got hanged up, the other party suddenly spoke.

“Allow me a prophecy.”

Preluding this, the other party spoke calmly in a jesting tone.

“Your prophecy will not come true.”

“…”

“Me not waking up when it’s important… how pleasant, just imagining it.”

“…”

“Even you, who for some reason seems to know more about me than I—was deceived by me.”

Daisuke gulped. His body froze as though paralyzed.

“Wha…! What do you—”

He could hear the phone being hanged up.

He wanted to call right back, but stopped.

He knew where the ship was.

He needed to find a vehicle as soon as possible and head there—

If he called again, he’d definitely be told that.

And if he was ordered so—he would just make it come true.

“…”

Daisuke raised his face, running through the city swirling with destruction and screams.

3.04 The Others

The starting rain pounded hard on the car window.

Rui watched the streams of water running down the glass surface expressionlessly. He caressed the small girl sleeping peacefully on his lap.

“What should we do now, master?”

The old gentleman in the driver’s seat asked through the mirror.

“…”

Rui’s heart was filled with a sense of loss.

The gunfire he could hear from outside the car and the death throes of his private forces echoed inside his empty self.

“—I don’t care. Everything ends now.”

When his Round Table comrades brought the story about the research of the Undying, he couldn’t easily believe it.

Although he cooperated, he intended on keeping his distance from those guys.

However, that was just deceiving them.

“What if”—

Perhaps the one who thought this and looked with burning eyes from afar was himself, more than anyone else.

This emptiness served as proof.

The reality where Mushi destroyed the city.

It reaffirmed his sins and meant the failure of the research.

“No, it already ended long ago. When I lost her, my world lost all meaning.”

There was only one woman he truly loved.

Rui offered everything he had to her, and she also accepted it all.

In this world, filled with so much hatred and betrayal, she taught him the meaning of infinity. If she hadn’t given her selfless love, Rui would have probably turned into a monster that controlled others through money and authority.

They obviously exchanged the vows of marriage, and had a child.

And—his most loved person suddenly left the world he inhabited on a journey.

“I couldn’t accept that it ended… and ran into a dream. To the stupid nightmare of the Undying.”

Rui looked at the sleeping face of his daughter.

He wished for the Undying for this girl’s sake.

Since he didn’t want to lose a loved person again, he tried making his daughter Undying. If he could release her from the cruel fate of death, his daughter would be happy—

Him believing so from the bottom of his heart probably meant he lost his sanity.

Reality would become a living hell that allowed no death.

That fate—was nothing more than a curse.

“The moment I lost her, I really thought I’d been cursed… but I was wrong. The one casting curses was myself—”

In order to forget the unbearable sadness and emptiness, he was trying to use his own daughter.

Such a person was even scarier than Mushi, and was nothing more than a walking disaster.

If he really intended on stopping the research about Undying, he should have done it long ago.

But since he didn’t, he prophesized.

“My curse will change this country—no, this world.”

The monster called Mushi would destroy people.

The form of that future that only had despair rose to his eyes.

“Let’s get out of the country. Call a car.”

So he was going to run away.

“So at least this child doesn’t get cursed… let’s run far away.”

“…There are many people who need your powers, master. If you were to abandon the country, you really wouldn’t be able to solve anything.”

“I don’t care…”

It was how he really felt.

Actually, he thought so from the very moment he lost his beloved.

Once he lost his partner in life, everything he’d offered up to her was lost as well.

“A world without her is worthless—”

It happened when Rui mumbled this.

His daughter suddenly rose.

Large eyes that didn’t look as if she just woke stared at her father Rui’s face.

“…You can go back to sleep. When you next open your eyes, it will be in a world without monsters—”

Slap.

A dry sound and a slight pain stopped Rui’s words.

His still-young daughter used both small arms to strike his cheeks from both sides.

With an angry face, his daughter stared at him.

“…”

Rui froze, startled.

His daughter’s knees folded. Leaning on his chest, she began sleeping comfortably again.

“No way. Have I just been—scolded?”

Heat began to gather on his cheeks.

This slight pain brought to mind his past vividly.

When he tried running away of carrying the burden of his lineage and wealth, there was a woman who scolded him the same way.

The person who told him that he wasn’t alone and tried living with him.

“Haha, ha… getting scolded by my own toddler, what kind of a parent am I?”

How could he have forgotten?

Being dyed by sadness made him forget all the fun times as if they were a distant past.

“What a stupid dad I am… haha.”

She was alive.

He lost the woman he loved, but his connection with her was sleeping on his lap.

Although she lost her flesh, if the shape of love created with the one he vowed an eternity with still remained—

That eternity still continued.

Perhaps Rui hadn’t lost everything yet—

“—Go to the ship.”

His short order was followed by the old man. He turned the car.

“I already obtained the Undying…”

Even if the life of his loved one was lost, the life she’d left him was in his arms.

That connection remained unsevered.

If that wasn’t Undying, what even was?

“All that remains is cutting off the curse.”

He might already be late.

However, he was going to use his power to cut off at least one of the origins of disaster.

All for the sake of his beloved, still-living daughter.

“I wish this daughter of mine wouldn’t wake into a nightmare…”

So she could live in a peaceful world that had no Mushi.

So he could welcome a son that had one or two bad habits.

Rui headed toward the place that was the beginning and the end.

3.05 The Others

As Mikko and the rest stepped aboard, violent sparks greeted them.

“Wah!”

Acting exaggeratedly surprised, Kii-kun leapt back.

While cautious of the surroundings, Kasshi spoke in a low voice.

“Apparently Rui was right and something did happen.”

The corridor connected to the inside the boat was horribly destroyed.

The rusted walls had holes in them, and the lighting on the ceiling were cracked and blinking. Torn electric cables short-circuited, scattering bluish-white sparks.

“These are not marks of explosive devices or guns. It looks as though it was made by a burner, but…”

Kasshi spoke while touching the holes on the walls with his fingers.

Mikko led the two boys, going to the end of the corridor.

“Perhaps the ‘result’ had been released, or the test subjects on the ship birthed a new Mushi… no matter the case, we need to be careful.”

The inside of the boat regained its calm, and there were no people around. Originally there were strict guarding measures through a network of surveillance cameras, so it was weird for no one to show up once Mikko’s group infiltrated.

The three people had their faces lit by the blinking lights and sparks while walking through the corridor.

“I-I saw this in a movie… it’s like wandering into a ghost ship.”

“Since we can hit them, Mushi are better opponents than ghosts. We’re lucky.”

“Cough… on the other side of that door is the original research facility.”

Mikko pointed ahead.

“Or rather, what used to be the door.”

Kasshi pointed out. The corridor dirtied with rust and dust was blocked by a thick metal board. The handle part was gouged out and the door remained as crumpled ruins.

“W-what did they do to break it like this… Kasshi, lend me a hand.”

Even the door that originally required one to undergo a checkup by a guard was now meaningless. The two boys together pushed the metal aside and stepped inside.

“Uh… w-what is this…!”

Kii-kun paled.

Completely unlike its disguise as a scrapped vessel, it was a clean corridor with furnishing and ornamental plants—supposedly. At the very least, it was like that until the day Mikko escaped.

At present both ceiling and floor were indiscriminately gouged by giant claw marks. There were also people wearing white coats and camo suits collapsed on top of a burnt carpet.

As far as they could see, there were more than ten people lying there.

“No one seems to be breathing. They’re unlike the living corpses we found at Castello.”

“Ugh…”

Kasshi frowned and Kii-kun leaned against the wall, pale.

The smell of burning flesh caused Mikko to cough.

“Almost this entire floor is the researchers’ lodging area… looking at this, it seems that this floor completely lost its functionality.”

“And where was the actual research conducted?”

“A few floors down from here. Originally it was a remodeled warehouse, apparently…”

Mikko looked ahead into the corridor. There were huge holes from floor to ceiling.

“We can’t use the elevator that was there. We will have to walk a bit, but let’s use the emergency staircase.”

“You two… you really are calm in this sort of situation…”

Kii-kun said in a groan. Perhaps due to fatigue and nausea, he had dark circles under his eyes.

“I must find out what happened to the test subjects and the ‘result’. —If it’s too hard for you keep up with us, Kii-kun, you should leave the ship.”

“No, I’ll go. I will go.”

She thought he’d say that.

No—she knew that Kii-kun would say that.

Mikko had seen “that moment”.

Since Kii-kun was there, it was impossible for him to drop out in the middle.

“I see… understood. Let us go, then.”

Mikko coughed and then advanced in the corridor.

Inside the ship wrapped in silence, there were many corpses lying in heaps.

With a sense of tension as sharp as a knife, they kept going along the corridor, took a corner and finally reached the emergency stairs.

“Cough… we should be able to reach the lower research rooms from here.”

“Eh? W-wait a minute!”

Kii-kun looked around him, going around the corridor, flustered.

“Kasshi’s gone!”

“…”

Mikko silently narrowed her eyes.

This was also something she knew.

Although the boy vanished here, they’d meet again later—

“Kasshi! This can’t be, hey! Where are you!”

“—Let’s go, Kii-kun. He should be fine even alone.”

“Well, that’s true, but we’re… w-wait!”

Mikko finally went down the stair and Kii-kun hurried to follow her.

“Rui, Daisuke, and now Kasshi… it’s scary, we’re losing people.”

Ignoring the boy’s mutter, she went down the stairs, her steps clattering.

As Mikko and Kii-kun reached the lowest floor, a lone door stood in their way.

They opened the door and entered.

“What—the hell…”

Kii-kun was at a loss for words.

The fact that it was completely destroyed was the same as the upper floor.

As well as the many people collapsed there.

A single thing was different—

Something other than humans filled their sight.

“—This really looks like paradise.”

Hundreds, thousands of butterflies danced around the room, spreading scales.

Insects with wings, arthropods climbing the floor and the walls… the ship was being dominated by these being that could all be colloquially referred to as bugs.

And it wasn’t just insects.

Even mammals like monkeys and horses could be seen further inside.

Not remaining among their own kind, any and all living being filled this space.

It really did look like a Garden of Eden, where no one had enemies.

“What… is this… wah! There’s even a panda! Is this a zoo?!”

“It wasn’t only humans who were gathered for experiments. Looks like the cages that held them broke down and they were released… cough.”

While crushing the bugs on the floor, Mikko walked ahead.

All manners of creatures rejoiced while only humans were dead.

However, to human eyes this looked like an ideal world—

It could only be called cynical.

“—It’s about time, then.”

While insects flew around and animals walked unrestrained, Mikko turned to look back.

“For Kii-kun to disappear.”

That annoying boy had vanished at some point. She couldn’t hear him asking for help.

Following Kasshi, Kii-kun also vanished.

Only Mikko remained.

She was not surprised at this.

She knew that this would happen.

“…But even if I know it, this is sad.”

That was fine, though, as she would meet them again.

Even if that was the final chapter of destruction, she had to witness that moment.

What was about to happen now—was an unchangeable fate, after all.

“…”

Mikko turned ahead, walking through the corridor.

After turning around several corners, she stopped in front of a certain door.

She weaved through the door that was already open from inside, and stepped into the room—

“So we meet again.”

Inside the gloomy room, the eyes of the person collapsed against the wall looked at Mikko.

“Father.”

Clad in a white coat, he was a bearded man in his forties. His dangling arms had no strength in them, and the stomach of his coat was dyed in bright red.

“What have you…”

Lowering her mask, she bit her lips hard. She immediately used both hands to support her expired father’s chin and looked at his face.

Clang! A metallic pounding sound resounded inside.

The room was spacious and it had many machines installed along the walls and an operating table in the center.

However, there was something else.

Vaguely visible from further inside the darkness—were large iron bars.

Behind the bars she could see glinting eyes. Raising a wordless war cry, someone tackled the bars and shouted again.

“Your research has failed…”

Mikko did not turn to the bars.

Her father’s figure which was turning into a silent corpse looked horribly pitiful.

He’d lost his beloved, dreamed of the Undying, and it became everything to him.

“You were never looking at the Undying in the first place… after all—”

Shedding tears, Mikko smiled.

Although he was overwhelmed by his sadness, lost his sanity and devoted himself to inhuman research—

For Mikko, he was her one and only father.

“The research about the Undying belonged to me since long ago.”

A voiceless scream echoed from within the bars.

Mikko glanced there.

The figure tackling the bars again and again was scared and curled in the darkness.

At some point—

The guinea pigs started being scared when they saw Mikko’s smile.

If she wouldn’t hide her mouth with the mask, they became too scared to even approach her.

“I was not even ten years old, so I couldn’t possibly understand the research documents just from seeing them—you probably thought this…”

Mikko turned back to her father and spoke softly.

Ever since losing her mother, Mikko’s only toys were the materials thrown away haphazardly by her father.

Her father fell into research, not even looking at Mikko. Therefore, he hadn’t even noticed that she quickly overtook his knowledge and even tired of the materials she used as playthings.

“Letting the Round Table know about the research and calling them was also me… as well as having a certain auctioneer among their numbers to select test subjects…”

Mikko was ordered to take care of the guinea pigs the Round Table brought.

She felt a genuine love and took care of them. They became so close to her that rather than her unrelenting father, they were much closer to being her family.

“You starved the test subjects, dangled bait in front of their eyes to call their desires and wishes, and apparently thought of amplifying their powers of vitality—but the fact that it wasn’t so…”

The guinea pigs all spoke to Mikko about their curses and their own unending despair.

She seriously listened to their stories and encouraged them.

She shook them awake many times as they nearly died—and spoke of hope many times.

It’s fine, you’ll be saved.

You’ll definitely get what you want some day.

She whispered this to them again, and again and again.

Even if they themselves stopped wishing for it—

“As well as the fact that they overcame death many times due to the love I gave them…”

Although her father had supposedly lost his sanity long ago, to her it looked like his eyes were dyed in the color of fear.

Right, her father was afraid.

Of none other than his one and only daughter, Mikko.

“If you had never noticed these facts, you could have kept going crazy in your research—but you did notice. You have realized that you were living for a long time inside the happy dream I’ve given you…”

All to make the dream of being Undying continue forevermore.

Her father continued his research, got the Round Table as collaborators, and they were all having a pleasant dance.

Even so, the unexpected result of Mushi had been created.

Even so, her father looked back to his daughter.

“Because you noticed and tried to kill me, I had to run away… without me, you shouldn’t have been able to restrain those test subjects that went past the frame of human beings.”

Thinking about it, her father ending up like this was perhaps the natural result.

Mikko thought of at least ending everything, took the promising test subjects with her and escaped.

However, her father probably couldn’t give up. He turned the Round Table assassins on her.

Although this was Mikko’s research, he tried to get the test subjects back and continue research without Mikko.

And so—it ended up as the expected failure.

“However, father, you can be assured. No matter how weak, stupid, and obsessed with a misguided dream you are, even if you are beyond salvation—“

Mikko narrowed her eyes and raised the corners of her mouth.

“I will still love you.”

She smiled kindly.

Her father’s body shook. Perhaps this was a postmortem spasm, or else he touched one of the exposed cables.

Wearing a smile that could even scare the dead, she turned around.

“You are also… glad at my return.”

Inside the iron bars, the figure with shackles screamed.

Fear and anger and hatred—these eyes that held all emotions glared at Mikko.

That figure was clad in an unfitting cloak.

“You had supposedly been caught mere hours ago, and yet you’re here… does this contradiction mean that fate is regaining its original form?”

Mikko stood up. She put her mask back on her mouth.

“Among the many test subjects, only three had promising prospects… and only one reached a ‘result’… I have thought that this research was failure.”

Three test subjects and one ‘result’.

With things being like this, continuing the research was impossible.

Or so she thought.

“But—”

Mikko’s mumble was drowned by a sudden roar.

A massive tremor shook the ship.

Even this impact that sounded as if something on the ship exploded didn’t shake Mikko’s legs.

“Looks like it started.”

Her father and the cloaked man behind the bars.

She told her farewell to them with her gaze.

“Have a good day, you two. —Since ‘back then’ I have set everything on fire, I was unable to witness that moment… but I will probably be able to see it from outside now.”

Leaving behind mumbles only she understood, Mikko left the gloomy room.

Due to the tremor just now, the animals in the corridor were panicking.

Without her smile crumbling, Mikko calmly went through the corridor, going up the emergency stairs—retiring from the ship.

Outside the ship there was a fierce rain.

She could black clouds filling the sky and lines of lights running through them.

And these lights were gathering—

They became a thick pillar that pierced the ship along with a roar.

“Is that lightning…? No, this is—”

Mikko mumbled, her eyes narrowed.

The light pillar swung down to the surface like a gigantic hammer, engulfed the ship and instantly smashed the upper floors.

“I should call it fate.”

The ship’s upper floors broke down, melted, blew to pieces, and a while after that—

It was as though the lightning striking down from the heavens was played on reverse.

From the bottom layer of the ship, a vortex of light and destruction thrust toward the sky.

3.06 The Others

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was a door leaking light.

Landing there, Kashua forced the door open.

“…Like some paradise.”

The destroyed corridor was monopolized by insects and animals.

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

“Not only humans were experimented on, then.”

Kashua pushed these animals aside and picked up his pace.

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

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

He mumbled to himself.

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

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

He would end his job—and then what?

That question rose to mind.

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

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

—Do you want to become my adopted son?

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

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

“…”

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

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

Therefore, this was enough.

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

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

To his country.

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

Go back?

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

Could he really call that coming back?

—Won’t you remain, too?

Rui’s words crossed his mind again.

If he were to accept that youth’s words.

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

“…!”

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

Animal growls and insects buzzing.

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

“There’s… no sound.”

Kashua turned the corner and started walking again.

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

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

There was a room with thick bars there.

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

“—Who are you?”

There was someone in that jail.

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

The person behind bars was silent.

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

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

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

“—ack…”

A weak voice came from behind.

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

“What was that?”

“Want to go… back—”

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

Going back.

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

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

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

“I want to go back…”

The jailed person shed tears.

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

Seeing that.

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

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

Perhaps it was his competitiveness.

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

This truth made Kashua suffer unbearable pain.

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

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

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

However, that was all.

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

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

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

Rui, if you want to play pretend family—

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

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

Maybe I’ll play along a little—

Because Kashua had seen her.

He’d seen Rui’s still-young daughter.

The girl who might become his sister.

So he’d do it to protect her future.

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

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

Kashua lit his lighter to burn the gathered materials.

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

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

But that was fine.

He didn’t have to have a family.

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

“Die with me.”

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

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

It happened when Kashua approached the bars.

A heavy impact shook the vessel.

“…! An explosion? No, this is—”

He preserved his balance by grabbing the operating table.

A few harsh tremors shook his legs.

And immediately after that—

Light engulfed his sight.

“——!”

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

“Gwaaah!”

His sight was dyed in gold.

Was this—lightning?

Everything around him broke, burned and exploded.

And—

“—aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

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

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

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

Had no face.

There were just eyes shedding tears.

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

“—”

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

Even without an expression, he knew from those eyes.

Despite this abnormal situation—

This person was still going crazy with homesickness.

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

“I see—you don’t belong here.”

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

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

It wasn’t a hometown.

However, he could say it confidently.

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

“I got a family—”

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

Rui and his young daughter.

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

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

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

“…!”

It was just a momentary illusion.

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

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

“GWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Something was pulled from his heart.

He was eaten by the prisoner.

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

Narrowed their eyes at this momentary tranquility.

Leaving a blue glow behind, they fully vanished.

3.07 The Others

“This really looks like paradise—”

Mikko described the room like that and he timidly stepped ahead.

“…?”

Kii-kun suddenly noticed his shoulder being grabbed.

However, even when he turned around there was no one there.

“T-there’s no way it’s an actual ghost…”

His body shaking, he wanted to keep going after Mikko—

But someone called his name.

“—”

It wasn’t that he heard a voice.

However, it called him.

He was convinced of this somewhere in his heart.

“—”

Wordlessly, Kii-kun turned his back to Mikko and walked.

His fear was starting to vanish. Although he had no goal, he walked through the corridor full of animals as if pulled there.

Doing that, he arrived at a huge hole in the dead end of the corridor.

It looked as if it was gouged with a high-power burner, but he couldn’t see the part cut off—the remains of what was likely a door.

Passing through the hole, he found a gloomy room occupied by butterflies.

In the center of the wide room was a dirty operating table. Near the walls were many machines he’d never seen before, but some were destroyed, and butterflies were escaping through the hole in the wall.

Further into the room was a table laden with rotten food, covered by tattered dresses and coats. He realized at a glance that all of it used to be originally expensive.

And even further into the room—was a jail cell made of iron bars.

“—”

Kii-kun approached the bars and looked down a black figure crouching inside.

He barely realized this was a woman. However, her long hair was dry and parched and her body was no more than skin and bones. At a glance, he might have mistaken it with a corpse.

The woman in the jail turned to Kii-kun.

Pierced by her goggling eyes, he came back to his sense.

“—Y-you…! From back then…!”

There was no mistake.

This was the dark woman that made Kii-kun’s two friends collapse.

As he noticed this, he started.

“W-where am I? —Mikko! Kasshi!”

When had he come to this place?

Also, just like Kasshi, Mikko also vanished.

The dark woman screamed.

“Eeek!”

As he was startled and leapt back, the dark woman reached with her hand from between the bars.

She was apparently trying to get the rotten food. However, she was unable to reach it and cut through air again and again.

“Hey, you… what did you do to them! What have you done to me!”

He tried his best to act brave and shouted.

However, the dark woman didn’t lend him her ears. Once she realized she couldn’t reach the food, she reached toward air and managed catching a butterfly.

“Eh, h-hey, no way—”

Kii-kun’s bad feeling was right on the mark.

The woman spun around and crouched. Then she carried the captured butterfly to her mouth—

“Ugh…!”

And ate it.

He couldn’t see it because her back was turned to him, but just imagining it made him want to hurl.

How starved was she—

He couldn’t think of this woman who was so starved she lost all rational thought as human.

“Am I… dreaming?”

He knew it was useless asking the dark woman anything.

She was already crazy and couldn’t answer any of Kii-kun’s questions.

She couldn’t explain what was happening to his body.

“This has to be a bad dream… even this arm—”

Kii-kun’s left arm crumbled down.

Just like the illusion he saw while running in the city.

Just like the nightmare he saw in the expensive hotel.

There wasn’t even blood; it just crumbled like earth from the elbow down.

Kii-kun’s bloodshot eyes looked around the gloomy room.

“—The Undying.”

He searched around the ruined room with his remaining arm.

“Undying… Undying… is it somewhere here? Mikko said something like that.”

At this rate, his entire body would vanish and he’d die.

In order to awaken from this bad dream, he needed a proof he’d definitely never die.

“Undying! Where’s the Undying!”

A weakling like him went on this scary journey for a goal.

That was the power of Undying.

Since something was happening to him, if he didn’t manage to get it, he’d die—

That fear led Kii-kun to this scrapped ship.

“Where is it! How can I be saved…!”

Wailing, he looked for clues anywhere and everywhere.

However, all he could find were papers with incomprehensible numbers and records. He couldn’t find even a single way to save himself.

One of his legs folded.

As he lowered his gaze, he saw that his right leg crumbled down.

“—Save me.”

He mumbled.

He couldn’t find the Undying anywhere. Staying here was meaningless.

“Save me, pleeease! Mikkooo! Kasshi! …Rui!”

Screaming pathetically, he headed toward the entrance to the room, almost crawling.

“Waaah! No! I don’t wanna die—”

Since he was missing an arm and a leg, he couldn’t proceed well.

Even so he desperately headed to the hole connecting the room and the corridor, but someone in front of him blocked the way.

“…Eeek!”

Flinching, Kii-kun rolled around the center of the room.

Appearing from the other side of the hole was a person clad in white clothes.

He knew immediately this wasn’t Mikko or Kasshi. The man’s hospital robe was torn here and there, and he hanged his head as if to throw his scraggly hair.

A ghost.

So it looked to Kii-kun’s eyes. It really was suitable for this ghost ship.

And the next moment, that impression—turned to conviction.

“—”

He couldn’t even scream from fear.

A creepy object was floating next to that person.

It was an Eye.

It had a round shell that looked as hard as rock, it had eyelids, and was enveloping something that looked like a human eyeball. Around the size of a basketball, it floated in air while ignoring gravity.

At first he thought this was a Mushi.

Those monsters that only had part of their bodies.

However, the Eye floating in front of him did not attack the person in hospital robe. Not only that but it was even glaring straight at Kii-kun as if to do it instead of the man clad in white.

“Ah…ah—”

Kii-kun’s tear-stained face was enveloped in a pale blue glow.

The hot wind and roar that rushed at him a moment later were like a disaster incarnate.

A large, round hole opened up in the wall right next to Kii-kun. A hot gale blew through there, stabbing through the electronic equipment and the butterflies.

“…!”

The roar and vibration shook the entire ship.

Kii-kun couldn’t move a single muscle.

If his eyes were working alright, it looked as though the Eye emitted something like a pallid heat ray and shot through the nearby wall—

The jailed woman screamed again. She reached with her hands toward the butterflies that were now escaping through the new hole in the ceiling. Apparently the fact that her food was escaping was much more important than what happened right in front of her.

Kii-kun had a hunch.

This guy’s the one who broke the ship—

The destruction strewn everywhere inside the ship was this Eye’s work.

And he was the first “result” of the research that Mikko mentioned—

The sole case of the host still living after birthing a Mushi—

“S-save me—”

While his body was crumbling down, he was facing a cruel Mushi.

In this situation that had nothing but despair, Kii-kun wished for only one thing.

I don’t wanna die—

He tried crawling away, but the man remained blocking the corridor. Naturally, as he slithered to the other side, he just reached the bars.

A moment later, the thin arms extending from behind held him.

“—!”

The dark woman raised a scream. Hugging him from behind through the bars with both arms, she raised a shriek of pain.

He was about to get eaten.

So he thought.

“UWAAAAAAAAAAH!”

As he fell into full panic and turned around—

He saw the dark woman was crying.

While he shuddered, he could hear groans.

It was the white man. The man who stood at the entrance as if to block it raised his face.

The man was crying, too.

And Kii-kun as well—

“—!”

The man shouted.

He couldn’t understand the words. However, he could understand the anger and the sadness, as well as the loneliness and the suffering—he shouted as if he condensed too much of those feelings that a single person couldn’t bear.

A card was pasted on the man’s white shirt.

It had a single word there.

“Alpha” was written on it.

“—!”

The woman shouted too.

This shout contained a maddening grudge, hatred, as well as hunger. Her thin, pointy fingertips stabbed through Kii-kun’s clothes, digging into his flesh.

“UWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Kii-kun also shouted.

This shout had, inside the fear and sadness, his despair of wanting to live.

“AAaaAAH!”

He finally understood.

They were all the same—

They all had something they strongly wished for.

Kii-kun’s wish to live, to avoid death, was probably very natural.

However, he couldn’t get it no matter what he did—

They were split into those who ate and those who were eaten.

Everyone had the same “essence”.

Strongly wishing for something.

However, without making it come true—

“AAAaaaAAAH!”

While shedding tears, the trio’s shouts reached their peak.

A lightning flash pierced the ship.

“—aaa!”

It wasn’t the Eye’s attack.

It was far more overwhelming, an impact that held uncontrollable power. The ship was assaulted by such shaking that it made him wonder whether the entire thing sank down and then floated again as if rebounded.

Inside the white space that felt as if time stopped, Kii-kun could see.

A fragment of the operating table that blew off due to the impact tore the stomach of the man in hospital clothes.

Butterflies dancing in his sight were blown off and wrapped in a purple glow.

The thin arms restraining him were absorbing that purple glow.

And—

Something inside him burst, became light and was absorbed by the woman behind.

It wasn’t just that.

An azure light was mixed in with that.

This azure light that was raining ceaselessly from somewhere went to those three—

No, it engulfed the entire ship.

As if it was some sort of catalyst, it combined all people on the ship into “one”—

“Uh—”

A whirl of information assaulted Kii-kun.

The memories of all people in the ship were instantly pushed into his mind.

What happened to cause this?

Who were they and why were they in this place?

Everything flowed into Kii-kun—

“AAaaaaAAAAAaaAAAH!”

And burst.

With lights of many colors mixing, an instant passed, and within that broken up time—

Along with an impact and shouts.

The world—changed.

3.08 Daisuke Part 9

Riding the motorbike that he found in the city, Daisuke came to the landfill on the suburbs.

Reddish brown ground, piles of thrown waste, and the violent rain.

Daisuke found it within this apocalyptic background.

“This is… the ship, then.”

A rusted, large passenger boat.

The same as the one from “prophetic dream” Daisuke had seen when first infiltrating Akamaki City.

As he came down from the bike, a pale blue heat ray was unleashed from inside the ship. Piercing through the ship’s hold, it made the vessel greatly swerve.

“…! What was that just now—”

Daisuke rushed up the mountain of waste.

He looked down from the peak of waste to ascertain what was happening below to the ship.

And Daisuke observed that moment.

“—”

The pillar of light falling inside the fierce rain pierced the ship.

The ship’s exterior was blown off, and a tremor shook the landfill.

Small explosions popped on the deck, in the cabins and even in the bilge. Perhaps it was the equipment inside being shorted out, as it spouted flames and spoke and there was a pallid electrical discharge.

An azure glow, a purple glow and pitch-black smoke—or rather miasma—gushed from inside the ship. All those colors competed and mixed, engulfing the ruined vessel.

“I—”

The first to show a change was the purple glow.

Pushing the other colors aside, the purple glow flew high into the air. The light tearing a hold into the black clouds changed form, becoming a swarm of butterflies glowing purple, and fluttered down to the landfill.

He looked up stunned as the purple butterflies gathered and took a human shape.

“I didn’t make it in time, then—”

He couldn’t use the power of his Mushi.

He couldn’t get in contact with the SEPB.

There were Imperfect Mushi made of body parts.

These truths all mixed together into one conclusion inside Daisuke.

Because of that he sought this place, and yet—

Daisuke couldn’t stop this destiny.

“So this is the moment you were born.”

The thing born from the gathering of glowing butterflies took the form of a beautiful lady floating in air.

She had a crimson long coat and long hair. She had eyes glowing in the color of the rainbow.

“Oogui…!”

One of the Original Three, the supernatural being that gave birth to Mushi—

Daisuke just witnessed the moment that Oogui was born.

Meaning, the world Daisuke found himself inside of was—

“Elvioréne.”

A voice came from near Daisuke.

“…!”

“That was her name—or rather, of the person that served as her base.”

At some point a girl came sitting beneath Daisuke at the top of the mountain of waste. She put a hand to her masked mouth and coughed.

“Mikko…!”

“You cannot interfere. Not you, at least.”

Following the purple glow, something split the boat into two.

The deck bulged and was then broken from inside. Blowing away the heavy downpour as it gushed from within the ship was a black miasma—as well as a tidal wave of some white swarm.

Caterpillars.

Tens of thousands, perhaps millions of these caterpillars were gushing out of the ship.

Leaping out from within them was pure white arm. An elegant cloak and bloodshot red eyes were buried inside the flood of caterpillars.

“GWOOOAAAAAAAAH!”

The man born from the caterpillars and miasma emitted a decidedly inhuman scream. The ship’s bow was covered in caterpillars and was rapidly decaying.

“Diorestoi.”

Mikko whispered calmly.

“There was no one as crazed with selfishness and ambition as the person who became his base.”

Daisuke’s pulse quickened.

Now he could understand what Mikko was talking about.

What was happening right before his eyes—

Having gone through the short journey to get there, Daisuke now realized the meaning of this.

Because he understood this—he couldn’t move a step away from the spot.

“And the remaining one—Aria Varei.”

Mikko calmly continued speaking.

The azure glow engulfing the ship gradually thinned, slowly vanishing.

“Quickly ran away from here.”

“…”

“At this moment, he’d ‘combined’ with everyone inside the ship, and after combining their memories, he split again. I do not know what his aim was… perhaps it was nothing more than a coincidence. However, because of that, everyone who was present here understood what happened.”

A pallid heat ray tore through heaven and earth.

The flash of light shot from inside the ship and gouged out a part of it. Even then the unstopping impact engraved giant scars throughout the landfill.

Subject to immense pressure, the ship’s stern crumbled and a tremor passed through the landfill.

From within the destroyed ship flew out countless spheres.

Seeing them, Daisuke unconsciously let his voice leak.

“Eyes—”

These were eyes covered by tough shells floating in the sky. Daisuke had fought these before—

“OOOOOooooOOOOOOH!”

A man appeared from within the destroyed ship. He wore something like hospital robe and unleashed the countless Eyes around.

The man was crying.

His scraggly hair was wild, and his clothes were dyed in red, perhaps meaning he was wounded. His Eyes unleashed heat rays all around, forming valleys of fissures around the landfill.

“Alpha was the research’s first ‘result’, and was supposed to be the last. As to why only he produced not the Imperfect Mushi but became the first one whose state could be called a Mushitsuki… I do not know.”

As the random firing of heat rays by the Eyes continued, further shouts echoed.

“GyaaaAAAAaaAAAAaaAAAH!”

Along with screams of pain, a swarm of black bugs came crawling from within the crumbling ship.

Much like a tidal wave, they gushed out from all over, multiplying into an avalanche. However, the one screaming couldn’t be seen anywhere.

No—he was.

The black insects gathered on the half-destroyed deck and transformed into a human chin.

The chin created a neck, created a nose, created eyes, and became a human face and upper torso.

And it was someone Daisuke knew.

“Kii-kun—an unfortunate person who just so happened to be in the wrong place…”

Mikko narrowed her eyes sadly.

“T-that guy…”

Daisuke knew Kii-kun.

It was obvious since he was with him just a few hours ago, but even those black insects were familiar.

“What the hell’s going ooooon!”

While pelted by the fierce rain, Kii-kun saw his own body and shouted. Even as he tried using his torso to escape, the black bugs that formed his body wouldn’t let their owner get away.

Those black insects—were tardigrades.

Small tardigrades that wriggled with their countless legs became part of Kii-kun’s body.

“I-I’m a monster—ugh!”

An Eye’s heat ray pierced the wailing boy’s topknot.

Kii-kun face melted, and he died—or not.

The tardigrades gathered at another location and formed the boy’s upper torso again.

“I won’t die…! I don’t dieee?”

As Kii-kun half cried, half shouted, the Eye focused on him again.

However, a white glow came from inside the ship. This white flash leapt around the destroyed ship, jumping toward above on of the floating Eyes.

It was a boy with his entire body covered in a glowing, white pattern.

“Perhaps Kasshi himself was the one who symbolized both beginning and end.”

He was Kasshi. He equipped the goggles that always hung from his neck and they had a glowing pattern on them.

Kasshi’s fist blew away the Eye without any remains. His leaping power that allowed him to jump high into the air and the physical power that allowed him to crush the Eye’s hard shell were no longer human.

“Run, Kii-kun! —Or rather…”

While alighting down to the surface, Kasshi yelled.

“Ichiku Kimitaka!”

Daisuke’s heart froze.

“I—chiku—”

Ichiku Kimitaka.

Daisuke obviously knew that name.

Mikko spoke.

“Since we all shared our memories, we came to know of each other’s names and natures.”

Anyone who belonged to the SEPB knew him.

After all, that name belonged to—no, Daisuke had an even deeper connection to him—

Daisuke’s thoughts became jumbled and his head blanked out.

“Kasshi! Help meeeeeee! What’s happening to me…!”

“It’s fine, quickly get out of—”

Kasshi’s words were cut. He noticed that the remaining Eyes were glaring at him.

Unable to move while in air, Kasshi returned to glare at one of them. His goggles glowed red and a laser-like crimson locus followed his line of sight.

The Eyes all shot out their heat rays at once.

Kasshi’s body was crushed to smithereens.

“Kasshi—”

Kii-kun froze.

The moment later, one of the Eyes burst and burned away as though in an explosion.

Behind the destroyed Eye suddenly appeared an unharmed Kasshi.

No, looking at him closely, he wasn’t unharmed. His shoulder was cut and blood gushed out. However, Kasshi soon aimed for another Eye and vanished.

“Kasshi was the first Fusion Type and a scary Mushitsuki. Although a newborn, he didn’t rampage at all, but instantly understood his abilities.”

The Eye right above Kashi was blown off, and the boy vanished again. His two arms were ripped and fresh blood spurt.

“He could disassemble and then reform his own body. By using this ability, he could heat up and therefore erase any object in a straight line on the molecular level. —Ah, he’s finally here, too.”

Mikko removed her eyes from the ship.

Her gaze pointed at a group of armored cars that were approaching the landfill from the distance.

They all surrounded the ship and camo suits holding guns and gun turrets flew out.

Several luxury cars also appeared, a gathering of men and women in suits appeared, and one of them shouted.

“Don’t let anything escape! Finish them all here!”

“This is Rui.”

Bombardment sounds tore through the fierce rain.

The Eyes floating in air, Elvioréne, the squirming caterpillars and black insects on deck, as well as Alpha and Diorestoi, Kasshi, and Kii-kun were all swallowed by this fire.

“Wha—”

Kii-kun’s surprised face was blown away by gunfire. But soon the tardigrades gathered again in a different location and Kii-kun’s despairing face was reborn.

“Rui! It’s me—Kii-kun! Kasshi’s here, too! Help us!”

“…”

Kii-kun and Kasshi looked down at Rui.

Rui bit his lips. He gave further orders with the face of a demon.

“Finish everything here!”

Kii-kun opened his jaw wide—and the next moment, he looked at Rui with an expression of burning anger.

“Rui—you motherfuckerrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”

Gunfire engulfed the abandoned ship.

“Gwooooaaaaaah!!!”

“UuuUUUhhhhh!”

On the destroyed deck, the man buried in caterpillars.

On top of the burning destroyed cabin, Alpha.

While shouting at the tops of their voices, each used their own ability, whether caterpillars or Eyes, to defend against the gunfire.

“Hehe—”

The woman floating in air used swarms of purple, glowing butterflies as her shield.

Kasshi hid in the remains of the ship, waiting for gunfire to pass.

Being killed by this fire and then rewinding himself, Kii-kun shouted.

“Isn’t it the Round Table’s fault, you fuckerrrrrs! Even me becoming like this—and my pals turning like that, is you guys’ fault! I know everything! I dare you to say something! Rui! Rui…!”

Kii-kun howled.

“Chairman of the Round Table—Ichinokuro Ruisu!”

Daisuke widened his eyes.

“He’s… Ichinokuro…?!”

Yet another name that Daisuke knew.

However, that name really was far too unexpected for him—

“Why are you so surprised? Haven’t you long since realized that?”

While looking down at the chaotic ship, Mikko spoke.

“You surely know what you’re looking at.”

“—”

It was just like Mikko said.

He already realized in what sort of place he was standing.

However, his reason couldn’t catch up with his feelings.

He thought he did understand—but he hadn’t known who Kii-kun and Rui were.

Mikko spoke plainly to the shaken Daisuke.

“This is the scenery of the past. —We are in the moment the Original Three were born.”

Oogui, Shinpu and Sanbikime—

The Original Three were born here.

Daisuke witnessed this moment.

Being unable to use his Mushi powers and contact the SEPB were natural. Neither existed in this era, after all.

Ever since Daisuke leapt inside the mist covering Akamaki City, he was being shown an illusion.

No, perhaps this was no illusion—

“Perhaps we really came into the past—is what you’re thinking, right?”

“…!”

“Is that why you hurried here? You were expecting that perhaps there was a Mushitsuki with the ability to travel to the past and turn back time… and thought of trying to stop the birth of the Original Three.”

Mikko’s expression as she looked down on the ship was completely unchanged.

She narrowed her eyes with sadness—or perhaps enjoyment.

“However, unfortunately for you, this is an illusion. These are all past events, based on my memories…”

“Your…?”

“Yes, however, there were some differences. In actuality Akamaki City was not run over by Mushi. That was definitely—a warning to us from the Mushitsuki showing us this.”

The Mushitsuki showing them this? A warning?

He had too many questions so his mind couldn’t catch up.

There were too many mysteries and he didn’t know their core—

“But in the end, they probably wanted to show you this. I do not know whether this illusion would end or not, if you weren’t here to see this… therefore, I removed you from trying to put a stop to it. In order for us to get out of this world.”

Mikko’s tone was unrestrained, but he couldn’t read what she was thinking about.

“Now, it is time to start. Please watch over it.”

The camo suits continued their attacks, but couldn’t get any result.

Receiving an attack by the large swarm of caterpillars, several camo suits were swallowed by the white wave while raising screams. Also, the Eyes shot heat rays through the surface, splitting armored cars into two.

“This is the crossroads that connects past and present.”

Mikko’s words were apparently on the mark.

The ship and the landfill, as well as the sky glowing in purple—

Were engulfed by a white flash.

3.09 Daisuke Part 10

“WOO—AAaaAAAAH!”

Alpha held his head and screamed.

The Eyes shooting heat rays all blew up and vanished one after another in the sky.

It was Kasshi. Every time he erased his form, goggles glowing in red, an Eye exploded to pieces. Then, as Kasshi reappeared, he already focused on another Eye.

“Stop—”

From the zenith of the piled waste, Daisuke groaned without thinking.

Although guns and bombs didn’t work on the Eyes at all, Kasshi shot them down one after another. Witnessing this overwhelming power, Daisuke knew it was useless but he wrung out his voice.

“Stop this already…!”

If this was an event that happened in the past—

No matter what Daisuke did, it was useless.

“No, he will not stop.”

Mikko sitting at Daisuke’s feet spoke in a measured tone.

“As the first Fusion Type Mushitsuki, he was exceedingly powerful. However—he was imperfect.”

Kasshi finally broke through the Eyes’ defensive wall.

Nothing stood in the line of sight connecting Kasshi and Alpha.

“WAAaaaAAAH!”

Alpha raised a scream and fled from the spot.

Kasshi’s goggles focused their gaze of death. His figure vanished.

“—aaa!”

Bending backwards, Alpha had his chest bubble then burst. His body rebounded on the deck, was thrown off of the boat and rolled down to the landfill.

Spreadeagled, Alpha already lost consciousness. Despite the fact that part of his chest was gouged and raised smoke, he still appeared to be living.

As Alpha received this grievous injury, the camo suits leapt at him. They stabbed him with syringes probably containing some sleeping medicine, then restrained his body with tape.

The boy who defeated Alpha, Kasshi, stood on top of the funnel with an afterimage.

“Rui—”

As Kasshi looked down to the landfill, his forehead—

Burst and gushed fresh blood.

It wasn’t just his forehead. Blood gushed out from his entire body, and his hoodie was dyed in red.

“It’s just like you said. You must finish everyone here.”

Kasshi’s tone was calm, just like usual. Never mind his own wounds, not even his words had any weight behind him.

“You should finish this nightmare right here.”

The boy’s gaze looked at the luxury car behind Rui.

Seeing the young girl sleeping through the glass window, Kasshi’s mouth loosened.

A kind smile—almost as if he saw his own family, his younger sister.

“Is that so?”

Rui also turned to his beloved daughter.

As if holding something back, his shoulders shook.

“—Exactly.”

The youth raised his face, with large tears falling down from it. His tightly held fist turned pale.

While Kasshi nodded in satisfaction, the swarm of caterpillars attacked him.

“…!”

And not just them. From the opposite side the black tardigrades pushed like a flood.

“Whaa…? Hey, stooooop!”

Kii-kun raised a scream. Endlessly spouting from his body, the tardigrades all began to move toward Kasshi at once.

“Sensing its ‘natural enemy’, Kii-kun’s Mushi probably felt instinctive fear. Since he’d just become a Mushitsuki, he couldn’t control his Mushi.”

Mikko spoke.

“And Kasshi was just as immature.”

Kasshi’s goggles glowed red.

Tearing a hole in the wave of caterpillars and tardigrades about to cover him, he moved to the upper sky.

Although he escaped from that pinch, Kasshi’s thighs gushed blood.

“His ability is the disassembly and rebuilding of his physical body. —He managed to understand his ability and control it with quite the miraculous speed, but it wasn’t perfect.”

The caterpillars and tardigrades didn’t let Kasshi escape.

Using each other’s bodies like stairs, they climbed and aimed for the escaping boy in a hoodie.

Kasshi kept moving to other places to dodge—but red blood gushed from his back.

“Every time he moves, there’s a small defect—meaning, some part of his body being rebuilt is left out. If he’d trained as a Mushitsuki, perhaps perfect teleportation would have become possible. However, he didn’t have that time…”

And because he understood that, Daisuke had told him to stop.

However, Kasshi did not stop.

Moving all around the destroyed ship, he shaved through the swarm of caterpillars.

He was doing that to search where Diorestoi was hiding. As far as he could see the amounts of caterpillars lessened, but Kasshi also had more wounds.

“—”

Kasshi’s goggles captured a certain place on the ship.

Landing atop the destroyed wheelhouse, he stuck his arms inside the caterpillars.

He then pulled out the cloak of a man covered in crawling caterpillars.

“…How impudent—”

From within the gaps of the caterpillars covering his face, Diorestoi’s bloodshot eyes glared at Kasshi.

The man emitted black miasma from his body and leapt to the sky. From within the miasma that covered his head like a dark cloud there was the silhouette of a large structure like some holographic image—

An ear-splitting bell noise shook the air of the landfill.

“Guh…!”

Kasshi grimaced, his knees folding.

And it wasn’t just him. Kii-kun held his chest and kneeled, and Elvioréne floating in air also scowled. The camo suits and expensive suits on the surface raised suffering groans and crouched.

He tried ringing the bell again—

However, Kasshi’s fist did not let him.

The arm glowing in white momentarily vanished, then reformed as it shot through Diorestoi’s body.

The aftershock created from reforming energy at a super close range shook the entire ship. It erased both deck and caterpillars, and the impact that had yet to stop caused the surface of the landfill to cave.

Eliminated from his chest down, Diorestoi crumbled down like dust.

However—

“Does thou have a grudge, fool?”

A hoarse voice resounded from a different location.

Turning at the outer wall of the boat, a man in a white coat appeared.

His skin was charred back, and this man who was, at a glance, without any sign of life had many caterpillars clinging to him. Engulfed by black miasma, after half the caterpillars retreated—

The form of a man covered in caterpillars and wearing a splendid cloak appeared.

Mikko spoke.

“The three beings born here did not have a form. The many lives gathered for the test subjects mixed, staying inside the frame provided by those three who became their bases… also, they were still as weak as newborns—”

Seeing the grotesque form of Diorestoi, Kasshi mumbled calmly.

“—So you can control corpses. Looks like there’s no end to this unless I eliminate each and every caterpillar.”

Kasshi and Diorestoi’s battle started.

With the blow just before, Kasshi’s one arm was dyed in blood and became unusable. The swarm of caterpillars pushed at him, and he was about to be crushed by their weight.

Moving to the air, Kasshi escaped the net of caterpillars.

And, the next instant, he flew into the deck like the strike of a meteor, kicking apart caterpillars.

As he won in quantity, Diorestoi made use of the caterpillars as shields, at times used himself as a distraction, shaving Kasshi’s body little by little.

Each devoured the other to survive.

Every time each repeated their attack, more and more of the ship was destroyed to metal scraps.

“You surely know this, Daisuke. Even though you know this is meaningless, you still expected it, right?”

Mikko looked up at Daisuke.

“…”

She was right.

While watching this fight unfold in front of him, a small hope was born in his chest.

He was strong.

Kasshi’s strength went beyond imagination.

If Mikko’s words about Diorestoi and the rest being like babies with their powers were true—

Perhaps he could win.

Not just Daisuke. Any Mushitsuki would hope for this.

“I am the same. Even more than Diorestoi and the rest who were born beyond human understanding, I was taken in by the potential of Mushitsuki…”

Mikko’s singsong voice was drowned by Kasshi’s howl.

A white flash ran through the ship.

Kasshi’s form vanished and reappeared many times, dozens of times. Every time light burst, the caterpillars covering Diorestoi were erased, and finally—

The shield covering Diorestoi was peeled off.

Kasshi did not miss this chance. His goggles glowing red, he turned.

“OooOOoooh—”

As Diorestoi widened his bloodshot eyes, his body was blown to pieces.

The white glow afterimage brought a gale, raising debris high in the air. By the time it rained down the ship along with the rain—

Diorestoi’s existence vanished from the boat.

Witnessing this unbelievable sight, Daisuke was frozen stiff.

“He beat—Shinpu—”

The tardigrades no longer tried covering the Mushitsuki standing on the funnel again. They remained unmoving, fearing him.

“Kasshi…!”

Kii-kun looked up the funnel, his lower body crumbled. Even the boy who was always a coward and needed help forgot his own surroundings and gritted his teeth painfully.

Alpha and Diorestoi—

The Mushitsuki who won against those two disasters was already fully dyed in blood.

From head to toes, there was no place that wasn’t bleeding. In a glance it was even possible to think he fainted while standing. His hoodie and goggles had been eaten by caterpillars and were in shambles.

“—”

Wetting his face with fresh blood, Kasshi’s goggles turned above.

Up there—was the remaining disaster.

It was Elvioréne.

“If only his—the Mushitsuki called Kasshi’s power had been just a bit more complete.”

As she mumbled this, Kasshi’s form vanished.

Butterflies glowing purple were emblazed and vanished one after another—

Elvioréne’s upper torso that was in a straight line from him exploded and vanished.

“Or perhaps if Kii-kun had a completely different wish.”

However, the next moment, from the remaining lower torso, tardigrades glowing purple gushed out. These gathered, took form and restored the form of the beauty.

“—Hehe.”

Elvioréne’s pupils of the seven colors of the rainbow gazed at the distant Kasshi.

Seeing her completely unharmed form, Kasshi was speechless.

Kii-kun’s expression froze.

“Wha—why are you… the same as me…”

Kasshi vanished again.

Unable to do anything, Elvioréne’s body burst apart.

However—

Once again, tardigrades gushed out from the body and restored her as if nothing happened.

“This is useless—”

Daisuke groaned.

Since he’d fought Oogui many times, he knew this very well.

Oogui could use the abilities of those she made Mushitsuki.

Kii-kun’s ability—was the power of the Undying.

Accordingly, Elvioréne who’d given him this also possessed the power of Undying.

“If fate had changed gears but only a little—perhaps everything born here would have vanished and the world wouldn’t have changed.”

Looking up to see Kasshi repeat his attacks without stopping, Mikko spoke.

“However.”

The blood-smeared Kasshi landed on the funnel. Crumbling goggles fell from the face of the boy looking up at the sky.

And in front of his empty eyes—

“Hehehe—”

Was the calmly sneering Elvioréne. Despite having been erased countless times, not one wound remained on her body.

Kasshi tried to step ahead again—

“—”

However, his knees lost power and folded.

Exhausting himself, the eyes of the boy who lost his glow looked at the surface.

He looked at Rui and at the girl sleeping in the car next to him—

And smiled.

What did he feel in his last moments, that made him smile so happily?

Kashi collapsed with a smile—and never rose up again.

“KAAAASSHIIIIII!!!”

Kii-kun’s wail echoed in the landfill wrapped in fierce rain.

“The first Fusion-Type died soon after birth. And—”

The same moment as Mikko mumbled this, something crawled out from within the fissures made in the cracked deck.

It was white caterpillars.

Daisuke grimaced.

“So he lived—”

A single lump of caterpillars slid on the deck.

These gathered to the boy collapsed on the funnel—

“Thou who has destroyed me… I shall take thy body as offering.”

Kashi suddenly rose up.

It was obvious he wasn’t the same as he was alive from his bloodshot eyes and tone of voice.

“Now this power belongs to me—”

Kasshi sneered with a hideous expression, but his movements completely stopped. Apparently something happened, as the boy’s body began shaking.

“Guh…oooh! C-curse you—”

The arm of the trembling boy stabbed a syringe.

“Mine—rotting vessel—”

The wounds carved into Kasshi’s body became inflamed, and the skin turned red.

Mikko mumbled.

“—It was a trap. Scared of the possibility Diorestoi was still alive, Kasshi poured this medicine into his blood.”

Kasshi—no, Diorestoi—rolled and fell from the funnel.

He rebounded on the hard deck and fell to the surface.

“Gwooooh! Curseeees!”

Even as he leaked curses, Rui swung his hand toward Diorestoi.

“Capture him! A monster’s sealed in that body!”

He squeezed out this sorrowful order.

The camo suits shot Diorestoi full of tranquilizing bullets, then used tape and a steel box to seal him.

The people dressed in expensive suits behind Rui approached the youth.

“Chairman Ichinokuro. Leave the cleanup to us. This was, after all, the item I have offered up to auction.”

A long-haired youth and a beautiful woman who clung to him entreated Rui.

Rui bit his lips hard. His strongly clenched fist had its blood vessels popping.

“Got it. We will seal it forevermore in the Round Table—”

“Of course, sir…”

Looking down at this sight, Mikko narrowed her eyes as if in jest.

“The captured Diorestoi and Alpha were supposed to get dealt with by the Round Table, but apparently there was trouble created by conflicting interests. Members started fighting over them, and there were even some fools who got turned into Mushitsuki during that…”

“—Hehe.”

Elvioréne, who controlled the purple butterflies, turned her back to the ship. The camo suits assaulted her with bullets, but they obviously couldn’t beat her.

While seeing off the beauty distancing herself, Mikko rose up.

“With her natural enemy gone, Elvioréne became free.”

The purple glow was growing smaller in the sky—

And was fully gone.

“There are small differences, but this was an actual event from the past.”

Daisuke called toward the girl who was climbing down the mountain of refuse.

“Where are you going?”

“I have taken a small break. I think I will now fulfill my role. —In order to awake from this nightmare as well.”

Mikko turned to Daisuke with narrowed eyes.

As the masked girl climbed down the mountain of waste, she approached the ship.

Then, she coughed.

Rui noticed Mikko and reached to her.

“There’s nothing here anymore… come, Mikko!”

Mikko shook her head to the sides.

“If I could return to the past—I would have probably killed all of you the moment we met…”

Letting her mask hang, she revealed her smiling mouth.

“Kii-kun, Kasshi, Rui… as well as me… we shouldn’t have come here…”

Tears flowed out of Mikko’s eyes.

That scene caused him Déjà vu.

He’d seen it before.

Inside the mist covering Akamaki City, he’d clearly seen this moment.

Wearing an expression that was half smiling and half crying, she declared clearly.

“Because of us, this country will get filled with Mushi and reach its end—”

It was like a prophecy.

However, it didn’t indicate the future.

Declared in an age that already passed, it was an ominous declaration that couldn’t be stopped by anyone—

That was the true form of the prophecy Daisuke had witnessed.

“RUIIIIIII! MIKKOOOOOO!”

Tardigrades gathered next to Mikko and appeared the zombie-like topknot boy.

His face twisted with hatred and anger, Kii-kun shouted, sounding like a completely different person.

“Isn’t this your faaaaault?!! Mikko, you actually used your father to continue the research, and the Round Table helped with that… you knew all this!!!”

“What—”

Daisuke gulped.

Never mind the Round Table, it was his first time hearing that Mikko was the one who conducted the research.

However, this was true.

Mikko herself said this.

The moment that the Original Three were born—all people on the boat had their consciousness mixed, and shared their memories.

“Then you know it, right, Kii-kun? I was simply devoted to father’s research, and wanted to help him forget the sadness…”

Mikko smiled sadly.

“You’re kidding me…! That excuse is—”

“Also, it is true that things becoming like this was my and the Round Table’s fault—but not just me.”

Kii-kun’s expression froze.

“Kasshi died and this world became one with Mushi—Kii-kun, it’s also the fault of your own dream.”

“…!”

“Because you wished for the power of Undying, Kasshi died.”

In the blink of an eye Kii-kun’s face became crying.

“My fault… is it really…?”

“But it’s fine. Even if you embraced this sinful dream that changed the world and transformed into something monstrous—”

Mikko sneered.

Her tears already stopped.

Instead, the girl’s smile—was filled with unfathomable, selfless love.

“I will still love you.”

Like an innocent child.

Or perhaps a bewitching adult.

It was a merciful smile that ensnared everyone who saw it like shackles.

“I saw the true Undying among you.”

As if to welcome the paralyzed Kii-kun, Mikko spread her arms.

“During the period I played in the ship, I couldn’t believe it. I simply thought it was the means to keep my father in his delusions. However, after seeing you, Kasshi and Kii-kun, I realized how shallow my thinking was.”

“Mikko…?”

Seeing the girl’s carefree smile, Rui was speechless. His arm reached out to save her now dangled listlessly.

“Ending this here is outrageous.”

Kii-kun, whose lower body became tardigrades, approached Mikko.

She lovingly hugged that foul body.

“Beings like Kasshi and you are the closest to Undying.”

Ahead of Mushitsuki was the Undying—

Mikko said this.

“—I can’t allow you to continue.”

Rui raised his arms.

The camo suits all turned their guns to Mikko.

“If I die here… you will become alone forever, Kii-kun.”

Mikko whispered to Kii-kun.

“We will never be able to give birth to another Undying like you—”

The topknot boy raised his face absently.

And then he slowly looked at Rui.

Raising a buzz, the tardigrades stood in front of Mikko.

“Kii-kun—”

Rui was speechless.

“Let us part here, Rui. Our paths are different.”

Mikko looked behind Rui. The luxury car with his sleeping daughter was parked there.

“And please do not get involved with us again. You do not wish to involve your family, right?”

“…!”

As Rui’s face changed color, Mikko smiled kindly.

Inside that hellish scene, the two waiting forms were blurred.

A milky white mist was starting to drift from somewhere.

It was familiar to Daisuke.

It was the same as the one that surrounded Akamaki City and invited him to the world of the past.

“Looks like this game is over too.”

Mikko raised her eyes.

Looking up at Daisuke who stood atop the debris, she narrowed her eyes.

“Let us meet again in reality.”

As the landfill was quickly being engulfed in mist, Daisuke looked down at that girl.

Binding those she gazed upon with the shackle called love and smiling like a Saintess.

He only knew one person in the world like that.

“So you’re the one who did this…”

He mouthed her name.

“Miguruma Yaeko—”

Scrapped ship.

Landfill.

Camo suits and rich suits.

As well as—

Ichinokuro Ruisu.

Ichiku Kimitaka.

Miguruma Yaeko.

This era, this time, and the people who’d witnessed the moment that the world changed, were all being covered by white mist.

“Find me as quickly as you can, Blaze Class Rank 1, Kakkou.”

In the moment she was erased by the mist, Yaeko erased her smile.

“Even now, our enemy grows stronger—”

“Wha…?”

Our enemy.

Daisuke was about to ask regarding that meaning, but his arm was hidden by the mist and vanished—

And his consciousness cut off.

Notes

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