Mushi Uta:Volume 6th Episode 24

Episode 24. The Sinner in Love with Dreams

That newborn gave his first cry among hellfire.

He had been blessed by neither a priest nor his mother’s kiss.

Energy that burnt in bright red, proudly swallowing everything, bewitching with beauty that did not exist in this world.

Flames.

Flames.

The baby was touched by the impudent blaze, heard the sounds of crackling fire, smelled the scent of burning, felt the scorched air on his tongue, and those sparkling flames entered his retinas—and were literally burned into them.

While feeling the fire stroke his cheeks in place of his mother, there was no doubt that he transcended above emotions such as happiness or anger, that he felt something beyond them.

Although he’d lost his mother the moment he was born, although many other people lost their lives, what he raised was not a cry, but a roar of laughter.

Even that foolish imagined scene—felt like it suited him.

“Sehateno Harukiyo. His birth was—”

There was once a fire at a certain general hospital.

The fire born at the same time as Sehateno Harukiyo truly caused the loss of many lives.

It was said to have been caused by improper maintenance of medical equipment. It wasn’t impossible and there was no doubt that it was a misfortunate event.

“Just like some sacrificial ritual.”

However, that also happened at his birth. It was unfathomable to any logic or common sense; one could be forgiven to think it was a certain kind of inevitability.

“Everyone who witnessed his birth was scorched by the flames with no exception. It was as though all were offered up as tributes to keep him alive.”

Clad in a business suit, Miguruma Yaeko further narrowed her already-narrow eyes and smiled kindly. She used her finger to sweep off the bangs covering her well-featured face to behind her ears.

The meeting room of the Special Environmental Preservation Bureau was about as large as a tennis court.

With half of the lights turned off, only a small part of the room was illuminated. A file binder slid on the large round table that dominated most of the room as if cutting through the stagnant air.

“Your story’s not realistic in the least so I can’t understand it at all.”

The one receiving the binder was a person sitting in the dark part. His differently-colored sunglass lenses reflected the lights and the part of his hair that was braided shook.

“A fire at a general hospital… that had many victims, huh.”

Flipping through the file, Central Headquarters Director, Ichiku Mikitaka, spoke with a boy’s voice.

“Seems like it was especially horrible in the obstetrics department.”

“The number of survivors among obstetric doctors: zero. Survivors among nurses: zero. Outpatient survivors: zero. In-patient survivors: zero.”

Miguruma Yaeko piled these ruthless numbers with a calm tone of voice.

“The number of newborn survivors—was one.”

The one and only positive number also only served to emphasize this tragedy.

“Even the nurse who took the newborn out of the maternity room and tried to escape handed him over to the late firefighters, lost consciousness and died of carbon monoxide poisoning while hospitalized. From the firefighter’s testimony, he realized that she’d been protecting the baby from the smoke to the very last moment.”

The file Ichiku was scanning detailed the incident.

Even after surviving the flames, the baby’s ordeal did not end there.

On top of having lost his mother immediately after birth, even his father was not found. Whether he was present for the birth and swallowed by the flames or for another reason, the father had never been named. Since the medical charts were also lost to the fire, the baby’s background was a total blank.

“After the incident had been reported, there were many people wishing to take the surviving newborn into their custody. However, due to protests by a human rights organization that argued for the baby’s autonomy, he had been left to an orphanage.”

Although the boy looked to be in his teens, Yaeko who was in her twenties spoke in a polite manner toward him. —If any outsiders saw this, they would definitely regard it as unnatural.

“So that baby’s Sehateno Harukiyo?”

“Most likely.”

“…Most likely?”

“Some time later, even that orphanage had gone up in flames.”

Ichiku Mikitaka raised his chin slightly.

“The cause for the fire was arson by a child who had antagonism with the staff. After the apprehended juvenile confessed, he committed suicide. As a result, the number of survivors of this incident—was one.”

Miguruma Yaeko continued speaking with a kind, unmoving smile like the statue of a Saintess.

“There is no proof that the person who survived the hospital and the orphanage are one and the same. Both of them seemed to have a burn mark on their left cheek, but that could be easily falsified.”

“No, they’re probably the same person.”

Asserting this, Mikitaka rose from his seat. He glanced at Yaeko from behind his sunglasses and sneered.

“—It means that he too might be fulfilling the condition for being a Rank 1.”

“Are you going to accept that devil’s invitation?”

“If I won’t go, who will?”

Speaking with a light tone as if he was only going out for a walk, the boy who led the entirety of the SEPB turned his back to Yaeko. He walked through the gloomy conference room.

“Will you not check the rest of the report, sir?”

“His life was probably up to no good at all anyway, right? I’m already—tired of seeing that.”

The boy turned back half his back. Kuha, he laughed from his twisted mouth, and left.

Even when silence remained in the conference room, Yaeko’s calm smile was not gone.

“Whether or not his life is the same as what you’re tired of seeing…”

The path that the Mushitsuki boy called Sehateno Harukiyo had lived through this far.

To understand something that was so far removed from common sense, there was no way but to leave a greater part to one’s imagination. Even gathering the entire forces of the SEPB intelligence department, they had only been able to scrape off some fragments.

After all, his life had always been—scorched away by the countless “disasters” he met.

It wasn’t only his parents or those at the orphanage. Everyone who spent time with him have all been swallowed by hellfire, leaving nothing behind but ashes.

He kept living all alone while sinking in the sea of flames.

The only one who could speak of the life of this phoenix was the person himself.

And if there was another—

“Sehateno Harukiyo…”

If there was a person who kept living even after being burned by the flames engulfing him—they might be able to speak of Sehateno Harukiyo’s life.

Thinking this, Miguruma Yaeko added a laugh to her thoughts.

There wasn’t even a single person like that listed in the records.

“Perhaps he actually… is not a human, but a being born from the flames.”

The file binder left on the table.

There was a picture inside it, of him right after he lived through the burning of the orphanage and right after he was sent to a different one.

This boy with a wet compress on one cheek—pulled out his tongue and wore a delightful sneer.

Part 1

Although only for a short while, he had lived along with the man called Sehateno Harukiyo.

At the very least he shared time with him and could speak of Harukiyo’s life. He could pride himself on living through the various “disasters” that plagued the boy’s life.

Despite this, even now he couldn’t really understand Harukiyo’s actions.

Nothing changed in the devil of flames ever since they first met.

“Oogui is—”

The sun passed over Akamaki City’s public sports ground, starting to sink into the darkness.

Walking through the demolished area, he could see a boy and girls leaving the place.

They were Ichinokuro Arisu, Kakkou and Kasuou. While these wounded people conversed about something, they left the sports ground.

“So you can use the abilities of all Minion-Type Mushitsuki you’ve created, you bitch.”

He saw it.

Hiding himself in the back stand behind the night lighting that turned on due to the sun setting, he’d watched over Arisu’s group’s battle against Oogui.

Sehateno Harukiyo.

He had wild hair like blazing fire and a flame tattoo on his cheek. A thin but firm chest peeked from the open shirt of some high school’s uniform.

“Since she’d also used a Mushi I’m familiar with, it’s practically confirmed.”

Harukiyo wasn’t the only one to watch this unfolding battle.

Next to Harukiyo also sat a girl of about elementary school age. She was dressed in all black, rubbing her cheek against Harukiyo’s right hand with a doll-like expression.

Also, another petite person sat on one of the higher seats. Wearing bondage pants with a miniskirt attached, “he” was a few years younger than Harukiyo.

“The one that reflected Kakkou-san’s bullet back at him was literally my own ability. That’s creepy.”

Holding his chin in hands on top of his knees, Kusezaki Ume puffed his cheeks.

“Haha, you’re getting used by her. So unsightly.”

“Hmph, that’s not the point. I would’ve used it much more efficiently.”

“Not the point, huh. —Yeah, it’s not the point at all. But you’re the only one who thinks about that. Ain’t she now just a little bit more interesting?”

“What d’you mean?”

“I think I finally got something. Anything and everything, all sorta things, the whole package.”

Ume couldn’t understand him at all.

Harukiyo removed his gaze from Ume, looking down the now-empty playground. He didn’t even look at the girl still rubbing against his hand, Sakaki Haruka. He was already used to this.

“Hanashiro Mari knew about Oogui’s ability. And she was looking for the Undying Mushitsuki.”

While sneering to himself, Harukiyo mumbled.

He heard the sounds of sirens from afar. Soon, the police and firefighters would arrive, and then the SEPB would take control and seal the area.

“Since Hanashiro Mari had been looking for the guy, the Undying Mushitsuki has to be in town. And since Oogui’s still got that ability, it means that the Undying’s still livin’. —Welp, that’s why they’re called Undying.”

This Sehateno Harukiyo, who talked like he was having so much fun, had many peculiar people that called themselves his comrades.

Their one common point was that they were all Mushitsuki.

And—all of them were notorious, or at the very least shady villains.

“But no matter how much I looked around the SEPB, I found nothin’ like that. So does that guy not exist? Is that who Hanashiro Mari was looking for? No freaking way. If so—then the information’s being purposely erased. Got it, that’s how it is. Now I see what kinda organization that SEPB is. Ha, makes me laugh.”

For example, one of his comrades was a girl called the Librarian. She was a con woman who specialized in classic books. She was a collector who could forge important books or buy stolen goods.

Speaking of collectors, there was also Robber. True to his name he specialized in robbery, but when he was turned to a Fallen by the SEPB, Ume actually felt relieved. He was viscerally disgusted by the guy’s obscene personality.

Ume disliked them, but couldn’t look down on them.

They were all birds of a feather.

Villains, all of them.

A garbage dump of criminals.

Those were the Mushitsuki who built a certain kind of network around Sehateno Harukiyo.

And the first of them—had been Kusezaki Ume. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Won’t you give up on this already?”

Looking at the back of Harukiyo’s head, Ume sighed.

“Let’s try something else already. It’s only a rumor, but there’s this really evil dude up west. He’s got lots of underlings and even the police’s at a loss. I’m pretty sure his name was… Endou Iori, maybe? Why won’t we go there? Unlike now, he’s definitely still living.”

“But he’s not even Mushitsuki. So it’s useless.”

“Look who’s talking. You’ve been strong even before you became a Mushitsuki.”

“Well, I guess so.”

“…She’s already dead, you know.”

Ume spoke matter-of-factly.

“She’s not a ghost; Hanashiro Mari’s just plain dead.”

Harukiyo wore a smile. He easily affirmed it.

“Right—Hanashiro Mari’s dead. What a disappointment. A fucking let-down. I’m usually so gentle but it made even me flip the fuck out and beat some SEPB asses… made me look real childish.”

“You’re childish 24/7, though.”

“But, when I saw the ‘Hanashiro Mari’ possessing Ichinokuro Arisu, I became convinced.”

Harukiyo raised his left arm, the one not held by Sakaki Haruka. As he raised his palm toward the sky, a small red light rose from it.

“Ah, it’s her—is what I thought.”

The light transformed into a flame, gradually swelled and lit up their surroundings.

“Her eyes seemed to be saying, ‘I really do hate this world’. She wanted to kill everyone apart from her. She looked like she was wondering how people could even bear on living like this.”

“…”

“She’s just the kind of person who’ll think like this until the very moment before her death; that’s how Hanashiro Mari is. No doubt about it. As long as nothing extraordinary happens—nah, that’s impossible. She prolly used to hide that expression, but those eyes will never change no matter what happens.”

“…”

“Lying on her sickbed with no one to visit her or notice her, what was Hanashiro Mari thinking about? She was focused on cursing, begrudging and hating all other humans… lookin’ at things from her point of view, all other people were monsters who ‘just lived their lives meaninglessly’, haha. She was like a ‘disaster’ in human form.”

Harukiyo felt younger than Ume when he spoke about this so enjoyably.

“But, well—there’s something I just can’t accept.”

“Eh?”

“Since Hanashiro Mari created so many Fallen left ‘n right, why didn’t she kill the Undying bastard?”

Ume raised a brow.

“Isn’t that because they’re undying? Never mind that it sounds fake as hell.”

“So they’re undying and that’s why she gave up? That’s what you’re sayin’? Nah, doesn’t fit her at all. If they’re just hard to kill, normally you’d just use your head with some trial and error and try to kill them again and again.”

Harukiyo spoke about Hanashiro Mari as if they were old friends. At the very least, this sort of thing seemed to count as normal among them.

“And so, I’m going to—make sure of it.”

The moment Harukiyo uttered those words, an explosive sound rocked the playground.

The flame in the boy’s palm burst and a blazing Mushi—a Great Yama tiger beetle with tusks of differing lengths took flight. The moment after the Mushi flying above shook Ume’s eardrums with its roar, hands of fire rose here and there on the sports ground.

“M-make sure?”

As Ume hurriedly rose up, he pulled on Haruka’s arm to separate her from Harukiyo. The temperature of the air around the sports ground sharply rose and the plastic-made spectator stands started melting.

“Depending on the case, I might end this with disappointment. Well, depends if the Undying bastard would rise to my challenge or not.”

Harukiyo himself, while speaking casually, was swallowed by a sea of flames. However, the flames avoided him alone in a certain distance.

“You two get outta here. Haruka, after charging this much you oughta be able to pretend to be me for a few days. Go and play with the other small fish. You can take some of my power too.”

Haruka nodded.

The entirety of the silent sports ground ruins was covered by a curtain of flames. It transformed to a crimson blazing dome, and the Large Yama tiger beetle swam through it like a solar flare raging on the sun’s surface.

Even with his entire vision dyed in flames, Harukiyo alone stayed calm.

“Starting now, no normal people can enter this place.”

Harukiyo sneered.

While running through the barely remaining safe passage, Ume turned back. It seemed that the only way to get out would be to head up to the very top of the seats, grab his own Mushi and fly to the sky.

Normal people—

The people who gathered around Harukiyo, including Ume himself, were all bad people.

However, when compared to Sehateno Harukiyo, none of them actually left the frame of “normal people”.

“Not being able to die probably sucks for that Undying Mushitsuki bastard.”

Ume, who’d been living with the devil of flames, thought of him like this.

Sehateno Harukiyo was the flame lighting up the darkness.

The invisible darkness—filled with all kind of sins and dirt, the flame shining brightly in this world.

Only those who housed darkness inside their bodies could see that flame. They gathered around it, enchanted by its glow.

However, what waited them there was not salvation.

Sinful more than anyone.

A burning karma beyond any compare to those who were simply drawn to it.

“Let’s have a frank discussion between us two bastards who can’t die even if they’re killed.”

While watching the devil sink into the sea of flames, Kusezaki Ume recalled the days he’d spent with him.

The life of the person called Sehateno Harukiyo—was like a flame.

He kept on scorching and burning sinless people.

Burning those who simply chanced near him, he turned them into fuel to keep burning.

Those lonely flames have reached their zenith a few years back.

Until he met “that”, Kusezaki Ume thought of himself as special.

He was smart for an elementary schooler and was good at dealing with things for an elementary schooler. He wanted to spend his days pleasantly switching, reordering and assembling the circumstances surrounding him for his convenience.

And so Ume thought that he had the right for a special kind of “game”.

No one had noticed him doing that. He’d always plan things carefully, investigate in advance and check the places he’d go through. Whether these had an effect or people couldn’t think that an elementary schooler was the “culprit”, Ume continued doing so.

Consequently, his conviction of being special grew stronger.

However, one day—he came to know that this was nothing but his own assumption.

He ended up realizing that it was nothing more than child’s play that caused him to get carried away.

“—Hey, you’re in the way.”

Someone had called to Ume when he was watching over a building engulfed in flames.

It truly was an ocean of fire. Smoke and flames poured out one of the open windows. He did hear the siren of firefighters, but it would probably take them some time to arrive. The front of the building, directly adjacent to a large road, was probably clamoring now. But no one came to the narrow path on the backside of the building.

“Can’t you hear me? Move.”

It didn’t take long for the fire to spread from the karaoke shop to the entire building. Because he’d calculated it to circulate this way.

Ume, dressed in the uniform of a private elementary school, watched over the building burning down with a grin on his face. In hand he held an oil lighter.

“Heeey, I’m telling you to move. It’s so hot, geez, I’ll say it only once more. If you ignore me again, I don’t give a fuck what happens to you.”

“…!”

Coming back to his sense, Ume raised his face.

His hearing taken by the sounds of flames bursting and sirens, he hadn’t noticed the voice directed at him.

A human body fell in his line of sight.

“Wah!”

He reflexively dodged to the side. —At the same time, he hurriedly hid the lighter in his pocket.

Raising a thud, a suited men fell to the ground. Perhaps breaking some bones as he fell, he rolled around the ground, holding his shoulders while groaning “Ugyah…”

As the astonished Ume looked down at the man, he felt another stare from above. He raised his face again.

“You’re in the fuckin’ way!”

How could he describe the person he saw standing there?

Almost the entire building had been monopolized by the flames. Just one, single place, the emergency staircase of the third floor, was safe. Yet since there were flames both up and down, it would probably burn up in seconds.

Standing in this safe spot was a boy wearing a shirt that looked like some middle school uniform.

No, Ume hesitated for a second on whether he was actually a human.

After all, in this current situation—the boy was sneering.

The boy jumped.

Sneering inside the violent hellfire, jumping down from the third floor with a wide smile—Ume’s life was not so special that he could call such a person a human.

“Haha!”

Leaping through the sky with loud laughter, the boy who was sneering like a devil fell down in front of Ume. He felt as if the ground beneath his feet actually shook.

“Wha…”

What the hell’s up with him—

Ume’s thoughts operated in speeds it hadn’t ever before.

Can humans actually safely jump down from the third floor? No, in the first place… I mean, the place was burning until just a moment ago. Isn’t it weird how he could laugh at this kind of situation? It is because of fear? But since he’d told me I was in the way, he was jumping down in order to survive—

Whether or not he was aware of Ume’s inner turmoil, the boy grinned at him.

And then—he staggered to the side, hitting his head against a power pole.

“Ouch! O-oh… I musta swallowed some smoke if the world looks like it’s spinning! And I think I twisted my legs a bit when I landed! It was a really close call this time too! Thought I was a goner for sure!”

This time too?

Curious words. His head was again filled with question marks, but he pointed at the back of the boy crouched on the ground.

“Excuse me…”

“Hmm? You bastard, you shortened my life by not moving! Apologize!”

“I’m sorry. Err—your back’s burning.”

“Liar!”

“…”

“Yowch! You weren’t lying! It’s freaking hot! Hey, put it out! I can’t reach it! Should’ve done my calisthenics exercises! Please do it already, I beg you!”

Since leaving him there as a human—as a normal elementary schooler would be a problem, Ume approached the boy. “Ouch! What’s with your way of putting out a fire! You’re a messed-up person!” Although these complaints rose, he used his shoe to put out the fire successfully.

He really was apparently on the verge of burning to death. Even so, he exhaled a tired breath and by the time he raised his face—the boy was wearing an innocent smile.

“You saved me. I operate logically. What would you like as my thanks? Can I pay with my body? Guess I have no choice.”

Now that he looked at the boy again, he realized that he really was a striking boy.

His hair was ruffled to the extent it didn’t even seem like he was burning just a moment ago. He could see a glimpse of a robust body through the scorched holes in his shirt.

“Don’t say that sort of thing.”

On the other hand, he—Kusezaki Ume—was nothing more than a normal elementary schooler who went to a private school. Because of his androgynous-looking face, he worried that his gender wasn’t apparent at a first look. He thought that the mole on his collarbone was sexy and charming, but no one ever noticed it. —Well, he definitely didn’t want to get noticed by the kind of person who’d peek down an elementary schooler’s chest and say “that’s sexy”, though.

“Don’t look so embarrassed. By the way, that mole on your chest is sexy.”

“…”

The boy who was the kind of person Ume never wanted to meet got to his legs. He apparently recovered from smoke-inhaling symptoms quickly. He had no limits.

“Haha.”

So happened the first meeting of the sneering boy and the cautious Ume.

He remembered that, despite them being right next to the burning building, he was for some reason able to forget all about the heat while next to the boy.

“Wait a minute!”

He also perfectly remembered the boy blowing off a fuse without any advance warning. He finally thought that this was a dangerous being.

“I was just having fun speaking to the chick in the reception desk without having any money for karaoke, so what the hell was that! I can smell a case here! I’ll become a great detective! The culprit must be nearby!”

He thought this boy came to the karaoke with a friend or lover, but apparently he’d been in the building for a much more painful reason.

“Uwah, are you talking about arson? So scary.”

“Haha, don’t play innocent. —I’m talkin’ about you!”

The boy’s kick hit the chin directly. He’d put in so much force into it that a heavy sound, like crashing headlong into a car, reverberated in the back alley.

“…”

Being blown away like a soccer ball and crashing into the nearby building—was the man who fell out of the building before the boy. He was a plump business-suit wearing man.

The man was completely unmoving, but the boy kept kicking him with his toes.

“Asshole! You wanted to kill me? Don’t fuck with me! As if I’d die like that! Wanna go at it for real? If you’re gonna do it then prepare to die! Kill while prepared to die! Die!”

Ume wanted to say a lot of things, such as that person isn’t feigning anything or he’s already foaming at the mouth from the first hit, but stayed silent.

While staying silent, he lowered his body ever so slightly.

As he did, the boy stopped his movements. He asserted without even turning back.

“If you wanna kill me then do it seriously.”

“Eh? You’re talking to me?”

“Told you not to pretend. From your movements, is that a knife? My flesh’s hard, d’you feel confident you could stab me? I was slacking off on my calisthenics, but never skipped out on gaining muscle.”

“…You can tell how I move without even moving?”

“Nah, I just tried saying it.”

“…”

“But you did know this man’s the arsonist. —Right?”

The boy turned back only his torso.

The eyes staring at Ume made him freeze. He never had this kind of feeling—something like paralysis rushed through his spine.

A gaze more scorching than flames.

A glint even more vivid than flames.

Although Ume’s mouth had not gone dry in front of the real flames burning the building, it was now parched. Even so the nape of his neck broke into cold sweat.

“Although I caught this arsonist on the scene of the crime—well, while pushing him the fire spread around, and while running I got lost inside, but anyway, despite this guy being the criminal… you were here so conveniently, and so conveniently held a lighter. Isn’t that strange?”

He was seen. Although he stood holding the lighter inconspicuously and immediately hid it when he heard the voice, that boy had apparently watched him.

No, perhaps—he was guessing that as well?

And he was right on the mark.

As if the boy had seen through Ume’s desire to use the hidden knife and fling it at the boy’s back.

“By the way, didja know?”

Throwing the arsonist away, the boy turned to look at Ume.

“I only heard it in rumors, but apparently there was someone outrageous ‘round this area. Apparently, this person was even bigger of a villain than a mere arsonist. I’ve gone to check about it at the police station and stole their documents, but when I ran away they popped some in me and I nearly died.”

Everything the boy told him sounded too contrived.

However, he couldn’t fully say whether it was a lie or not. Seeing the boy so calmly approaching him, then perhaps—he really wouldn’t die even if they shot him.

Although they’d only just met, Ume had seen this sight that made him believe so.

“That guy would search for villains and then take care of them. He’d take an animal abuser and do the same thing to them, and he would steal from a thief’s house… that kinda stuff. They also did a lotta other things, but telling that to a grade schooler would probably be too much of a shock. There are some truly dangerous people around.”

While exchanging glances against this flaming gaze, Ume came to a realization.

The fact that the boy in front of his eyes was there—was no coincidence.

“The guy’s evil even for a copycat criminal. I mean, using the criminal’s method against them… as if telling them to go look in a mirror. Scary as fuck. —Now, if he was here, what would he do? If he found this arsonist, what would he have done?”

So he was aiming for “him”—

Researching the arsonist’s modus operandi and arriving at the crime scene was not only the copycat criminal.

“Dunno what you’re talking about, mister… but at the very least, I don’t think it’s a child like me.”

While smiling on the surface, he looked for any sort of opening.

If he didn’t kill him, he would be killed—

He didn’t know why the boy was aiming for the copycat criminal, but there no longer any doubt. He’d come there to find that criminal.

“An elementary schooler? What does that matter?”

Ume despaired.

He couldn’t find any.

There wasn’t even the slightest of openings. No matter how he simulated this in his mind, all he could imagine was that guy tearing out his throat.

The copycat criminal searching for prey ended up facing a monster who’d eat him—

“If that copycat criminal comes to face an even worse villain than this arsonist, what would he do?”

No—he couldn’t. He couldn’t give up.

He felt it instinctively. Even before deciding whether to run away or fight, making the decision to give up would shorten his lifespan.

He had to get out of there no matter what, and he had to take care of that guy no matter what.

No matter how many years it would take. No matter what ways he had to use, he had to finish him off before getting finished off himself.

Ume erased his smile the moment he saw the change in expression—

“No, maybe it does matter?”

The monster started smiling broadly.

“You’re still a brat, after all. I feel like I can look forward to your future growth.”

The murderous air about to swallow Ume’s spirit whole scattered.

Starting to breathe again, Ume recalled the heat around. Thinking about it, the building nearby was burning.

The boy casually put his hand on Ume’s head, speaking as if he really found it strange.

“Looks like you have a great future, so why are you an idiot? Why are you having fun chasing after criminals?”

Ume puffed his cheeks.

This boy really was like a flame. Ume had no idea what made him explode and what caused him to extinguish. In the first place, why had he “ignited” here?

However, Ume somehow managed to narrowly escape death. He wiped the cold sweat off his forehead.

“That should be my question. What’s so fun about chasing that idiot?”

Ume walked toward the unconscious man, putting his oil lighter next to him.

And then he casually lit the lighter and set the man’s leg on fire.

His line of sight was dyed in red, and the man who came back to consciousness due to the heat was screaming. Well, he probably wouldn’t die.

“Haha, that kinda idiot obviously doesn’t exist. —Wait, you talkin’ about me?”

“Well, I have a feeling it was some reason like me feeling I’m special and hating people forgetting who they were. …Maybe I was wrong? I’ll stop this.”

From that moment, the notion that Ume was special vanished from inside him without trace.

In the end, he simply disliked people similar to himself. The one who truly forgot who he was, was Ume himself.

Special. Unique. Abnormal. Transcendent.

There were various fitting words, but now he met their destination.

The boy in front of his eyes—he didn’t think he’d be able to turn into a being like him.

“What? Aren’t you pretending to be an ally of justice? Don’t you feel any guilt?”

“Justice? Guilt? Why?”

Seeing Ume goggle at him, the boy sneered with a “Haha”.

“I knew you had a promising future, brat. Alright, let’s test it by beating each other’s lights out.”

“I-I don’t want to. And why’s my future promising anyway?”

“According to my experience, those who lack common sense—those who lack something important to be human, are relatively strong. Or maybe I should say it’s those who lack certain emotions.”

“What the hell?”

“I’m talkin’ about people who lose something and become stronger for it. —Conversely, people who have everything they need and think of becoming stronger without losing anything can only keep on piling experience while risking their lives. I rather like how obstinate these kinda guys are, but it’s tough telling them at a glance. Oh, and there’re those who’re strong with talent alone.”

“Hmm. Ah, by the way, why were you looking for the rumored copycat criminal?”

“Don’t fucking hmm my pet theory… my reason’s no big deal. It’s so small it’s useless.”

No big deal.

Saying this and turning his back to Ume, the boy actually looked disappointed at something. Most likely, Ume wasn’t the sort of opponent he’d been looking for.

He could hear the sounds of flames and firetrucks’ sirens as they began extinguishing the fire. As well as the scream of the man whose legs were burnt.

Ume found himself following behind the boy who, for some reason, minded none of these sounds.

A monster with an unpredictable path, just like a flame.

Meeting that kind of person, Ume’s feelings were all over the place.

But the one he felt in the end, his most honest impression was—

“What a strange guy.”

“Huh? What’s strange about me? I’ll violate you.”

“Do you know my age? Or even my gender?”

“To be frank, I feel like it doesn’t matter even if I don’t know.”

“Wow, you’re the real deal.”

“Is there someone pretending to be me?”

“What’s your name, mister?”

“…If I don’t tell you, will you keep calling me ‘mister’ and all that?”

“…I’ll say it without any reservation but you really are a pervert, mister.”

Sehateno Harukiyo. —Thus the boy introduced himself and, after shaking Ume off, vanished.

However, using his mannerisms as a hint, Ume soon found him again. He thought that he would perhaps go looking for another criminal, just like what led to Harukiyo’s meeting with him.

“Yo, brat.”

Greeting him as if he’d just encountered a classmate in the street, Harukiyo had his face dyed in red by another person’s blood.

He probably wasn’t pleased. A person looking like the criminal who Harukiyo was dragging by the cuff was beat up as if a garbage truck ran him over. Thinking that he himself might have ended up like that, Ume even felt a bit of pity.

“Why are you going around looking for criminals, Harukiyo?”

“Well, it doesn’t have to be criminals. They’re just easier to find. I said this before, but those who lack something as human beings can easily become strong. Just like you, sexy brat.”

“I’m not sexy.”

“You’re sexy, brat.”

Being told that only bothered him. Ume was not sexy—and more importantly, he didn’t think he was strong.

The truth was that even now Ume was seeing Harukiyo decided to keep beating the living shit out of criminals, but no matter how he used his brain and body, he knew that he would never even come close to him.

“Why are you looking for strong people? Trying to become some sorta champion? If so, you should know you’re already a champion pervert.”

“No, think about it as them growing stronger to kill me.”

Huh?

What was this man even saying?

Did he really think all strong people existed to kill him?

What on earth had brought this sort of prideful thinking?

“So I’m purposely going against them—”

Harukiyo’s expression instantly changed. Without thinking, Ume froze.

Those eyes.

The pair of blazing eyes hotter than flames.

“What d’you think this guy said? ‘Save me’? Huh? What’s that? Why’d I have to save you bastard? You save yourself on your own! Why’ve you decided to give up? Are you stupid? If you don’t feel like saving yourself, then don’t cry for help! If you don’t feel like living, then don’t try living in the first place! Don’t you go living so half-heartedly!”

While cussing, Harukiyo kicked the criminal again and again. Watching that happen, Ume was glad from the bottom of his heart that he hadn’t given up.

Raging like a fire, what was the boy angry at?

What had stirred him to come this far?

Ume had no idea.

And since he didn’t—his interest in the boy called Sehateno Harukiyo did not end.

“—Oh, it’s you brat again. We’ve been meeting a lot.”

At some point, looking for Harukiyo became Ume’s daily routine.

Using his uniform as a clue, he finally found one middle school. It was a completely normal public school in a normal town.

“What’re you doing, Harukiyo?”

When he’d visited the school’s town, he immediately chanced upon his target.

Sehateno Harukiyo hid behind a power pole.

“Can’t you use your own damn eyes? Are you stupid? Obviously I’m tailing a hot chick from my grade and going to barge inside her house.”

How was he even supposed to tell that?

Ume only uncharacteristically cussed in his own heart without thinking.

“What’s up with that cold expression? I’m weak against the cold. Wait, idiot! If you don’t hide she’ll see you!”

“You know… I’m probably an idiot for asking, but… why are you even doing this…?”

“Huh? This is the basics of youth! Checking the house of a hot classmate! Oho, I see, so you’re inexperienced, brat? Well, you’re still a kid. Don’tcha worry, everyone goes through the same path to become an adult.”

“Only no-good adults would follow that path, though… I wonder why you’re doing that.”

“Sit right there. Yeah, seiza-style—no, for your type of character it should be like sitting at gym class with your knees hugged. Right, like that. Get it? The most important thing is imagination. Once I figure out where’s her house, my imagination will expand. I can imagine her all I want. After all, every day that girl spends her time at her home. Also, she has her room up in the second floor, and every night in bed she—”

“Wah! Wah! I can’t hear you!”

“Haha, your face’s red. Teaching this to a brat who doesn’t want to makes me kinda excited. Don’t worry, your big bro will tell you everything in detail. Every night, she… haahaa.”

“Pervert! Pervert!”

The more he met Sehateno Harukiyo, the less he understood him.

He thought he was superhuman, but there were times he was too human. He thought that he was lacking common sense, but he was also oddly brimming with life.

Even so, Ume heard that Harukiyo stayed at an orphanage and even properly went to school. He even had friends and got decent grades. That much was the same as Ume.

“Will you tell me… your mail address?”

“Not like I was hidin’ it or anything. You’ll come back anyway, right?”

He was surprised at Harukiyo giving him his mail address so easily. Ume had no interest in card games, but perhaps that felt similar to drawing a rare card. He thought he’d treasure it.

“Come to kill me at any time.”

Killing Harukiyo. Before getting killed himself.

There was a time when he thought so, but for now his pure curiosity was stronger. But since he felt like Harukiyo would give up on him if he said this, he decided to leave it be.

Ever since then, the days of Ume visiting Harukiyo continued.

Just like always, Harukiyo kept looking for people who seemed strong and beat them into submission using obviously superior strength.

There was only one time that Ume tried helping him.

“Hey—why didja save me?”

However, Harukiyo glared at him.

“The one you’re actually helping is my opponent. Right?”

An acquaintance, a friend, a comrade.

He knew that Harukiyo went beyond such definitions.

“But if push comes to shove and I ask you for help, help me. —Because that’s also part of my power.”

Ridiculous. At the very least he didn’t seem to be stuck on the idea of a one-on-one fight.

Meaning, apparently both Harukiyo and Ume could either cooperate or betray each other based on how they felt at the moment.

It was a rather difficult relationship.

However, it was not uncomfortable at all.

As always, he didn’t understand in the least how Harukiyo was thinking, but there was one thought on his mind.

“Haha!”

He always looked like he was having fun.

It was true both when he was wielding violence as well as when he spoke about going to school—and even when he was angry, he really seemed to be having fun.

He used his full strength to enjoy this world.

Ume, who never knew the feeling of having fun, began to have fun following him; he was infectious.

As he watched him—he started thinking that certainly, in comparison to Harukiyo, everyone was living shoddily. Ume felt that before meeting him he too lived while saving some of himself.

Harukiyo was sneering enjoyably and Ume was following him and smiling as well.

The pair were neither friends nor comrades, neither enemies nor allies—

How long would their bizarre relationship continue?

Heading toward Harukiyo’s region like always, Ume found him leaning on the fence of a walking bridge.

He wore the uniform of the high school he’d just gotten into.

“What’re you doing, Harukiyo?”

He was probably waiting for his favorite gashapon to fall from the sky. With him that sort of thing was possible.

“Wait? Bandages? Are you hurt?”

“Ah, a little. Well, the same as always.”

Since it really was like always, Ume just mumbled a “right”.

“Say, what were you doing here? Oh, you were probably chasing after that beauty again, right? Did she get into the same high school as you?”

“She’s dead.”

Harukiyo said plainly.

Without thinking, Ume glared at the boy in front of him. He returned this gaze.

“…Dead?”

“Yup, she’s gone.”

Harukiyo sighed. He started scratching his head, as if it was all a bother.

“Geez, I really felt good about our prospects. Now I gotta look for someone else, and fast… man, what a disappointment.”

As Harukiyo mumbled, he kept walking on the bridge with his back to Ume.

He acted as if it had nothing to do with him, not having any strong feelings. If someone unrelated saw him then, they’d probably only think of him as a boy sent for some minor errands at the local supermarket.

But after having lived with him to a certain extent for a while, Ume felt something strange.

It was unbelievable, but that devil looked depressed. On top of that, he was hiding it and trying to act normal—

Watching Harukiyo’s back, Ume felt it was quite silly; even if that was him saying that.

But, what if.

What if that guy, who had superhuman strength and a perverted way of thinking…

Was, actually—the kind of normal boy you could find anywhere?

However, something mysterious was urging him on—

“D’you know Kodoku? The one’s written with the harder Kanji of ‘bug’.”

He was wrong.

Starting that day, Harukiyo looked even more inhuman to him.

“Read about it in a manga. —By the way, that manga magazine started an interesting new series. Mahou Shoujo… what was it?”

“It’s fine if you don’t remember, just go back to what you were saying.”

While having their lunch at a family restaurant, Harukiyo calmly recalled what he was talking about. He was loading up his cheese hamburger with more and more tabasco.

“In the past, to cast a curse or whatever, they’d stuff a pot or whatever full of bugs, make ‘em eat each other, and the remaining bug will become a monster. Scary, right?”

“That’s pretty freaky.”

Did something happen to the girl Harukiyo like? Ume had kept asking persistently and it took a few days to receive an answer.

Harukiyo went with his group of friends for a middle school graduation trip. Apparently there was some incident there. Harukiyo did not speak about it in detail, but it ended up with Harukiyo as the sole survivor. Ume, who loved reading newspapers, started recalling articles and trying to guess if it was them.

That was all—the incident was over far too easily, and after narrowing it down to a single option, it was a mere unfortunate incident.

“And then?”

“And then what? That’s pretty much it.”

However, as he heard Harukiyo’s story, Ume was paralyzed.

Apparently, the hospital Harukiyo had been born in went up in flames along with his mother. And he was the only survivor.

After that, even the orphanage that took him in was burnt to the ground. Once again, Harukiyo alone survived.

And that wasn’t all.

For some reason, Harukiyo was often involved in “disasters”.

“You have bad luck,” Ume summarized.

Ume would never think that it was destiny or that Harukiyo was cursed. In actuality, there were simply people with bad luck.

Harukiyo should also be the same. He knew just from watching him that he wasn’t going to bemoan his own circumstances.

—However.

Without even being sad about his tragic birth, without even rejoicing the fact that he alone survived, the boy, who extoled life itself, added something.

—In the end, I alone remained alive.

And what about it? Harukiyo wouldn’t say. So he also didn’t ask for any advice.

Ume didn’t think of the fact that only Harukiyo survived as strange. His fate was simply that strong, and he himself was strong as well.

However, he could look at it from the other way around.

If Harukiyo hadn’t become that strong, perhaps he wouldn’t have survived.

—In the end, that’s how it was.

Harukiyo repeated.

Ever since telling that story, Harukiyo changed. He kept becoming even more superhumanly strong and destroying strong people.

Meanwhile, he stopped getting worked up when facing trash like that arsonist before. He wasn’t simply aiming for anyone and everyone anymore; he narrowed down his targets, becoming deliberate.

In a certain sense, taking a philosophical view of his way of living, perhaps he was actually—trying to step into the domain of a devil.

“Eh, so does that story end like that?”

“Haven’t I told you it’s scary? Oh, that looks really good.”

“Stop it. I left it for last.”

The survivor becomes a monster.

A short, casual conversation.

The fact that it had a deep meaning, way beyond Ume’s imagination—became apparent only later.

At the time, Ume thought that his association with the boy called Harukiyo would just continue forever.

Meaning, he was naïve.

About the fact that “disasters” followed Harukiyo.

But Ume soon—came to know their true meaning.

Part 2

Ume had faced that instant after a while passed since the start of his vagabond life with Harukiyo.

Harukiyo quit his high school and left the orphanage as well. Rather than him afraid to involve people in the disasters that burdened him, apparently he actually just got tired of life there.

On the other hand, Ume himself was about to study abroad. He had already handed out a resignation letter to the school abroad and gave money to his homestay school. Since he made some other preparations as well, he should be able to fool his family who didn’t care about their son in the first place.

“Say, didja know? Tonight’s a full moon.”

While walking through an underground shopping mall at a certain town, Ume looked at Harukiyo next to him. They were both holding their freshly-bought gelatos in hand.

“Huh? Wanna go watch the moon or somethin’? But yeah, should be the fifteenth of the month.”

Harukiyo looked at a fast-food restaurant with a serious expression. Just as Ume wondered what he was looking at, he noticed that he was trying to look inside the skirt of a high school girl. Ume took his distance from him and pretended they were strangers.

“Fifteenth of the month…? No, that’s wrong. What are you even thinking about? That’s not it; have you forgot the information from that radio guy? The one who’s been eavesdropping on the police wireless.”

“Oh, you mean that random attacker who appears during the full moon. The guy that knocks out his victims and then rubs his cheeks on their hands until they wake up. That’s mostly an urban legend. I mean, just choose if you wanna make it a vampire, a werewolf or Jack the Ripper. What’s so fun about having someone rub your cheeks anyway? I really can’t understand such perverts, that’s stupid.”

“Isn’t that for the same reason that you literally just stared at that girl’s skirt? He has a hand fetish.”

“That one has its own aesthetics. Don’t be an idiot.”

He didn’t know why Harukiyo was angry, but Ume simply let it go with a “Right” with half-closed eyes.

This happened much later, but after they asked about the attacker’s motive, they really did receive the answer of “fetishism” in needlessly fluent English. That was their meeting with the frightening girl who had the same tastes as Harukiyo, Sakaki Haruka, which ended up with them starting to move together, but that was another story.

“If you don’t like it, I have some other leads. What’ll we do?”

Harukiyo’s “search for the powerful” continued as always.

However, he still found no one who fulfilled the conditions.

Frankly, Ume doubted that any person existed who was stronger than Harukiyo.

Did such a person actually exist? It was doubtful whether Harukiyo really was looking for someone “stronger than him” in the first place.

However, since the time spent with Harukiyo was fun, Ume stayed at his side.

Since he’d come to know of the times spent with the boy Sehateno Harukiyo, going back to his old life would make him die of boredom.

“Hmm… wonder what we’ll do.”

Harukiyo absentmindedly threw the very last piece of his gelato into his mouth.

While Ume was fully enjoying his vagabond life, Harukiyo was the opposite; he recently looked bored.

Did the opponent he was looking for actually existed—

Perhaps he was thinking of this as he grew stronger by the day.

“—Oh?”

Harukiyo suddenly raised his face.

“What was that sound just now?”

“What sound?”

“Somethin’ like bells… but they sound kinda dirty, so it’s annoying.”

“Didn’t hear anything like that.”

“That so? Welp, never mind then. —Oh right, have you investigated that thing we talked about?”

“Eh? No way. That naughty thing, right?”

“Idiot, not that. Well, that too, but I’m talking about that thing.”

Ah, Ume recalled.

“I’m talking about Mushi.”

Harukiyo spoke with a serious expression.

That supernatural being which possessed adolescent boys and girl and feasted on their dreams and hopes to grow—

Even when he’d been in elementary school there were rumors.

“Totally forgot about it. Isn’t that even more of an urban legend?”

“Don’t lump those together. There really was a kuchisake-onna. I only barely beat her.”

“I can’t tell if it’s true or not when you’re the one saying that, so let’s just drop it.”

Ume was a realist but bad with ghost stories, so it wasn’t a topic he liked to touch if at all possible.

Even so, if Harukiyo told him to look for it he simply had to. It apparently wasn’t a kind of ghost anyway, and if he thought of them similar to tokusatsu or sci-fi, he was actually interested.

While making such trifling talk, it happened as they walked through the underground shopping mall.

“Huh? What’s that?”

Aiming for their next snack, it happened as they reached a station wagon remodeled to a juice stand.

They heard screams from the mall ahead. Unlike the clamor of customers until now, there were abnormally shrill voices—shouts were flying about.

“…”

Looking next to him, Ume saw Harukiyo was glaring at the direction he heard the voices from.

As they watched over that area, many customers came running. They were all rushing just like a herd of wild animals seen on tv.

They were running away from something.

Screams and shouts were flying around, but Ume and Harukiyo had no idea what happened. Just like the other customers around, they stood still, unable to take in the situation.

“Uwah!”

A roar that nearly burst Ume’s ears echoed in the underground mall.

All of the windows in every store he could see all had their glass shatter at once. Even the station wagon’s lights broke, and women around them raised shrieks.

Alarms started blaring.

The underground road was wrapped in panic.

Most of the customers probably ran away without even knowing what happened. The stairs, escalators and elevators, all possible exits were flooded by people.

“What happened there…?”

Ume too was astonished, getting inside the wagon after the employees escaped. He took a cup and poured mango juice inside it, and also mixed it with other juices as well.

“What’re we gonna do, Harukiyo? Should we try and blend in with them?”

Ume called toward Harukiyo from inside the wagon. Even if they headed for the exit, in the current situation they’d only get pushed around and injured.

“Kuku…”

Still staring ahead without moving a muscle, the boy wore a smile.

“This feeling… so it’s happening again.”

“Harukiyo?”

Ume, who was putting tabasco on top of apple juice for the other boy, furrowed his brows.

“Hey, Ume.”

Looking at the face of the boy who turned toward him, Ume felt goosebumps all over his body.

His eyes were sparkling and he exposed his sharp canines; the devil was smiling.

He looked to be having fun, with a smile as though he’d met his hundred years-old archnemesis. However—it was also somewhat sad. Ume had seen him wear that expression for the first time.

“Run away.”

Emitting an abnormal killing intent, it was obvious that every single part of Harukiyo’s body was wrought with tension.

I see, so this is—

Ume soon realized.

“If you stay with me, you’ll die.”

It was what Harukiyo had encountered many times before. A “disaster”.

The bad luck that would leave him as the only survivor.

Speaking honestly—in the depths of Ume’s heart, he feared that this time would come.

Since he’d heard Harukiyo’s stories, Ume knew that when the time came, if he stayed with him—

“You’re going to be the only survivor, was it?”

What would he do if the time came?

Ume had thought about this for a long, long time.

He didn’t believe in fate or that sort of nonsense.

Because if he did, he’d be too scared.

But being with Harukiyo, the boy who truly was the epitome of unlucky, he also felt that he couldn’t help but believe in it.

He feared the day of the incoming “disaster”, and yet—he also expected that day.

“So about that.”

He’d stayed with Harukiyo not only due to curiosity.

And it wasn’t only because he looked up to him, either.

“—If I stay alive, it means I can become stronger than you, right?”

The wagon’s broken windows reflected Ume’s sparkling gaze.

The devil he’d met at that day.

The overwhelming sense of presence Ume had felt in that day—he could gain it.

“…Ha.”

Harukiyo rounded his eyes in surprise, but soon returned to smile. He raised his face that was cast down for just an instant, turning his burning gaze ahead.

“Haha! That’s more like it, stupid brat! Your big brother feels so happy about your growth!”

“Every single word of that sounds perverted, geez.”

Exiting the station wagon while puffing his cheeks, Ume brought the juice-filled glass to his mouth.

Splash—ripples were created in the liquid present in Ume’s cup.

The intermitted vibrations shook the underground road. And they were growing gradually larger.

No—they were approaching.

Ume gazed along with Harukiyo further down the mall, where the lights broke down. The unceasing alarms were annoying.

“An earthquake? Or maybe there’s a flood and the change in pressure caused the glass to break? Since the stage’s underground it’s quire troublesome.”

“Are your ears just for decoration? Just now, something was howling.”

“A wild beast wouldn’t break all the glass. Wasn’t it just an explosion from somewhere?”

A pair of lights rose in the passage ahead.

Seeing that, Ume now realized the identity of the still continuing vibration.

Those were—footsteps.

The thing had six legs crushing the ground as it advanced, moving with sounds like a heavy tank—

“Uh—Ah—“

The cup fell from Ume’s hands. He stared at that thing, astonished.

“What the hell’s that—”

Even Harukiyo was, as expected, frozen in place. Seeing what approached them with frightful speed, he was speechless.

The six legs were divided into several joints and their edges stabbed into the asphalt. Its entire body covered by a thick, armor-like shell. The place full of fangs moving creepily was perhaps its head. There were two glass ball-like eyes embedded there.

An insect monster even larger than Harukiyo—

He could only think of that description.

But as far as Ume knew, no such animal existed.

Ume and Harukiyo both spun their bodies.

“Uwaaah!”

“Wooah!”

The ferocious monster charged at the two of them. They broke into running, hearing the station wagon behind them being blown away.

The monster’s tackle was more powerful than it looked. Turning around, Ume could see that all that remained from the trampled vehicle was steel pipes stabbing into the ceiling and walls.

The monster didn’t seem to slow down. It kept on hot pursuit after Ume and Harukiyo at full speed without minding anything else.

“M-monster—”

Ume barely stopped himself from stumbling and falling. —If he fell during this chase, he would probably end up just like the station wagon; nothing would remain of him. His entire body was shaking.

“Monster—”

Harukiyo’s voice was also shaking. Even he, who always seemed to operate in his own special world, couldn’t remain calm in present circumstances.

Footsteps like a bulldozer pursued them from behind. Since the monster’s speed was on a whole different level, it was only a matter of time before it caught up to them.

Ume had never seen or even heard about such a thing.

Was it created by humans like in a classic monster movie? Leaving Harukiyo aside, the supple flesh of a child like Ume was probably appetizing.

He saw a concrete wall ahead.

The end of the road—a dead end.

There was nowhere to escape to.

However, Ume and Harukiyo did not slow down.

Using momentum to jump, they kicked at the blocking wall.

“It’s a monster!”

“A fucking monster!”

Ume and Harukiyo kicked the wall and parted to left and right.

A large tremor shook the underground mall. Unable to make an emergency stop, the monster’s remaining momentum crashed against the wall. Its head dug inside and large fissures ran through the concrete.

However, this didn’t damage the monster. It soon pulled out its head and raised a howl. Finding Ume and Harukiyo who nimbly went around its back, it swung its sharp legs. Perhaps it was angry.

“I-it’s a monster, Harukiyo! It’s my first time seeing one! I have to take a commemoratory photo! I wonder if it can make a V-sign with those legs!”

Ume lowered his body to dodge the legs swinging horizontally. The monster’s legs were sharp and thicker than Ume’s entire body. There was no doubt that a direct hit would have popped off his torso.

“Hey, so it’s a monster this time! Nooo, there aren’t any monsters! That’s against the fuckin’ rules! Ugyah—i-it’s so hard! It hurt! I’m bleeding! Haha!”

Dodging the leg that came swinging at him from overhead, Harukiyo tried sending the monster off flying with a punch. However, no matter how strong he was, he hadn’t been able to leave even a single scratch on the thick shell; in fact, it ripped the skin on his fist, drawing blood.

This situation was way past the point of being unexpected.

Ume never would have imagined the appearance of neither accident nor natural disaster but a genuine monster.

It went much beyond his imagination—so he couldn’t help but be excited.

“I want it! If we beat it, please get me one! Is it a robot? A mutant? A monster made by a secret organization? Its weak points have to be its joints and eyes, right?”

While weaving between the monster’s attacks, Ume shouted with his expression radiant.

Its attacks weren’t much faster than human punches and kicks. Also, because it could only hit them directly, Ume could predict, to a certain extent, the attack’s range and trajectory based on the monster’s joints and leg length. After calmly analyzing it, he realized that these attacks were not impossible to dodge.

He didn’t know what person could stay clam in this situation where they’d die instantly from any direct hit, but—

“Might work, let’s try it out!”

Harukiyo leapt back, reaching out toward a store’s window. He used his full strength to grab a sliding window frame made from aluminum and wrest it free from the broken window.

“I see now—so monsters like that do exist.”

Swinging the metal frame like a spear, Harukiyo wore a smile. His blazing pupils captured the monster standing in his path.

“I’m sure this isn’t the only one. I’m sure there are even worse ones—”

Seeing the boy’s profile, Ume trembled.

Facing an unimaginable monster, Harukiyo was several times happier than Ume.

“I feel like I’m saved… don’tcha agree?”

The boy had been disappointed at something not long ago. His eyes looking up at the monster were those of a person who found someone he’d loved and missed dearly.

Seeing Sehateno Harukiyo like this, Ume thought.

What was he looking for?

Perhaps—he wanted to die?

Despite him having so much fun living?

Despite him carrying no guilt about his cruel past and celebrating his life?

If he wanted to die, he could do it by himself. If he really desired this, he wasn’t the kind of boy to hesitate so much. Ume knew this well.

“Hey, don’t lose focus, Ume! No matter what happens, keep strugglin’ to the very end, kill this bastard and live!”

Despite wanting to live, he desired death—

This foolish thought passed through Ume’s mind.

Just how much of a contradiction—how selfish of a wish was it?

Perhaps this was the most fitting thought possible for the one and only man called Sehateno Harukiyo.

“Okay, so it’s a promise! For real though! I’m taking this thing! I’m turning it to a strap and dragging it around town!”

“Shuddup, I’m gonna eat it.”

Harukiyo and Ume against the large monster.

Their fight continued.

Facing the monster’s one-sided attacks, the two boys began their small counterattack. Yet almost all resistance was futile, as everything bounced off the monster’s hard shell.

“Ugh—”

Finally the Mushi’s leg captured Ume. Although he’d just barely avoided the sharp tip, his small body was easily blown away. As he crashed into a wall, a line of blood came pouring down his head.

“Ouch… Oh no, did I break something?”

Ume tried rousing his body, but couldn’t gather strength in the left arm he’d used for defense. It didn’t feel numb. If it pained him after a while it would mean this was just a blow, and if it got swollen it would mean a broken bone.

“Haha! What’re you doing, so lame!”

Even the sneering Harukiyo was not unhurt. Since he’d focused on counterattacking and only barely dodged, his body was ripped here and there, caught by an attack now and then.

It happened when Ume was about to rise up and restart the fight.

“Wha… who’re you two…!”

Ume heard a hoarse voice from right behind him.

Standing there was a girl with a tie in the shape of a ribbon. She was probably around Harukiyo’s age. The hair gathered at the back of her head was long and parted like a crab’s legs.

“Move, I’ll fucking kill you…! —Eh?”

As the girl threatened and approached them, her knees folded. Seeing the knife stabbed into the thighs visible from beneath her short skirt, she instantly paled.

The moment Ume turned back, he threw this concealed weapon.

Going around her back, he thrust a newly-drawn knife and grinned.

“Who’re you, miss?”

“Eh—Ah—”

“Hey.”

As he raised his face to Harukiyo’s voice, the monster raised a pained scream.

“The eyes worked.”

The twisted metal frame stuck deep into the monster’s eye.

Seeing the boy stand on the head of the monster flailing its legs around, the unknown girl was frozen on the spot.

It seemed that before finally scoring a hit on the eye, Harukiyo had been hit many times. He was covered in wounds all over and dyed bright red from his own blood. Even so, his form with his sparkling, burning eyes and enjoyable smile was just like—

“A m-monster—”

Hoarse voice came out of the girl’s mouth.

The heavily wounded Harukiyo and Ume, the pair of boys, exchanged glances.

“Hey, aren’t you getting mixed up? Your eyes are horrible. Or are you declaring you’ll become a glasses girl? Haha, please do that.”

“Say, Harukiyo. Didn’t it stop moving? Maybe this person has the controller? Finish it off already, can’t turn it to a strap if it’s still alive.”

“W-why’re standing in my way… my Mushi is—”

“Mushi? Hey, did that chick just say Mushi?”

“She did. I see, so that’s a Mushi. It really exists.”

“My Mushi’s—going to be killed—”

Seeing the girl’s expression dyed in fear, Ume gasped.

Just before, the girl had told Ume “move or I’ll kill you”. Meaning, if he didn’t move, she couldn’t kill him, and that she didn’t feel like fighting the two of them in the first place.

He also recalled.

When the monster—the Mushi had first appeared, it was in full momentum, as if it was running away from something—

“…!”

Feeling a chill, Harukiyo and Ume both turned to the same direction.

The wall that was cracked due to the charging Mushi’s impact.

The lump of concrete that became an obstacle was stained in dark red.

“What’s that?”

“—Harukiyo!”

He had a bad feeling. Harukiyo didn’t even need Ume’s shout; he too sensed the danger. He nimbly leapt off the Mushi’s head, distancing himself from the wall.

The exact moment afterward, the concrete wall burst.

The concrete became dark red, melting like chocolate and bursting. The now-sticky concrete covered the Mushi.

The Mushi howled. Smoke rose around and the unpleasant stench of burning flesh filled the underground road.

Concrete turned into red, dark liquid—into lava—covered the Mushi. Although it was struggling to get loose, even its legs were being melted by the overwhelming heat and it was powerless to do anything.

“—!”

In front of Ume, the girl that he thought was controlling the Mushi doubled over. She collapsed listlessly on the floor and, gazing at the ceiling with lifeless eyes, did not move a muscle.

Was it because her Mushi had been killed? Thinking about it, according to the rumors he’d heard the host and their Mushi were said to be connected.

“Huh… that’s odd—”

On the other side of the melted wall there was a hole. The circular hole shone in dark red, becoming a cave shining faintly.

“My prey suddenly got weak… what the heck, so boring.”

Ume’s body rose in air for a moment.

Something large now bore heavily on the spot that the Mushi had occupied until then. The thing that had a body large enough to shake the entire underground road was yet again a monster Ume had never seen before.

An earthworm covered in lava—was how he saw it? Rather than an insect it was a mollusk; it moved by twisting and undulating, and was about as large as a tanker truck.

“Have you two finished it off…?”

Protected by the dark-red earthworm, a hunchbacked boy was sitting inside the cave. He wore his hoodie over his eyes and pulled the fasteners to his collar to completely hide his mouth. His sunken pupils glared at Ume and Harukiyo in the underground mall.

A chill instantly ran from Ume’s toes to the top of his head.

This guy’s bad news—

“Yeah, sure did.”

He goggled at Harukiyo who answered this calmly with a sneer.

Harukiyo should have noticed as well. The Mushi they’d been fighting until now was just a small fish compared to this guy.

Because of that, Ume couldn’t understand why the blood-stained Harukiyo’s eyes were sparkling so much—

“So you’re the same? A Mushi’s… err, Mushitsuki, was it? Anyway, is that a Mushi too? What’s your business here, you bug bastard?”

“Nothing special… I was just playing a bit. Hunting other people’s Mushi is fun.”

“Ho. That’s what you mean. We just met by chance while you were playing. You bear no grudge against me, and you weren’t told to do this by anyone. It’s nothing more than a temporary feeling, an impulsive desire about this place alone, this eyesore—”

Sehateno Harukiyo now showed an absolutely delightful smile the likes of which Ume had never seen from him before.

“You’re lookin’ at me with eyes that are dripping with the desire to kill.”

“Since you’ve gotten in the way of my hunt, you’ll take responsibility… right?”

Just as the boy spoke with a penetratingly cold voice, the lava earthworm swung its body.

“Haha!”

Harukiyo stepped back and avoided the earthworm by a hairsbreadth. Where the worm passed, the floor melted from the high temperature, and the lava dripping from it splashed around, scorching the surroundings.

“Incredible, you bastard! This is the best! You have some major future prospects! Amazingly great! Right, kill me! Use every bit of strength you have and come at me to kill me for real!”

Seeing Harukiyo howl with laughter, Ume was frozen.

As expected—this was the limit for him.

It took Ume’s full physical and mental strength just to withstand that Mushi from before. He just didn’t feel like wanting to battle against lava at all. Also, even if he were to target the host, since half of the earthworm’s body surrounded him for protection, Ume wouldn’t be able to approach.

“—You’re definitely not gonna kill me, though.”

Wearing a devilish grin, Harukiyo turned his body without hesitating. Turning his back to the earthworm leaning toward him, he ran through the passage as fast as possible.

“Wawa, wait up!”

Coming back to his senses, Ume also hurriedly followed after Harukiyo.

“What’s up with that challenge of yours! You’re definitely messed up in the head! Even if it’s too late for me to notice!”

“Haha! He’s tryna kill us anyway, that guy!”

“Got any idea? Against that kind of opponent?”

“For now let’s run away!”

The wounds they’d suffered while facing a single Mushi were definitely not shallow. It was only a matter of time before the pair succumbed to their bleeding and pain.

“Run away at full power, recover and come for a rematch! We can find him again, land a surprise attack or whatever and win!”

Please, do it alone next time.

While groaning in his heart, Ume looked behind.

The large earthworm was sinking its head into the floor. Apparently it could move through the ground just like a real earthworm. At some point its host also vanished.

“—This is bad! This spot is blocked!”

He probably went around several exits.

The emergency staircase they finally found was blocked by cooled-off, solid lava. All entrances they went around were the same.

He thought that it was strange that no police arrived even after they fought the Mushi for so long. He simply thought that they couldn’t enter due to the crowds rushing outside.

However, apparently the hoodie boy went around and sealed all exits. All of the roads connected to the surface were perfectly blocked by lava.

“Ugh!”

As Ume rushed ahead, trying to find another exit, he was kicked by Harukiyo.

As he crashed into the wall, something passed right next to him along with a thunderous roar.

It was the lava earthworm.

Noiselessly approaching from within the ground, the earthworm pierced through the ground to the ceiling in a straight line.

“…”

Comparing the holes opened up in the floor and the ceiling, Ume felt his strength waning. The astonishment and paralysis nearly caused him to faint. If Harukiyo hadn’t kicked him away, that worm would’ve crushed him down to the bones to make some drippy Ume juice.

“Have you survived, son of a bitch?”

Harukiyo showed him a blood-stained smile. However, his legs were shaking. In this situation where he couldn’t even receive first aid, he was running. The amount of blood loss should have already reached the limits.

“H-how did you know it was going to attack? There’s no sound.”

“Who d’you think I am? With whack-a-mole you hit ‘em before they pop up.”

“That’s called missing… more importantly, I feel like that kick cracked my ribs, so why’d you do it…”

“As long as you don’t die, nothing’s impossible.”

It was painful, but he was right. Since the one saying that was Harukiyo, who threaded the needle between life and death countless times, it was pretty convincing. It even made Ume think that sacrificing a bone to avoid the fate of becoming juice was quite lucky.

Dodging the earthworm’s surprise attack, they ran around the underground road looking for a way of escape.

However, as they noticed there wasn’t any path of retreat—they were surrounded by flames and debris.

Both ground and ceiling were had large holes, and almost all shops were still burning and engulfed by the flames caused from lava.

Along with tremors, the lava earthworm crawled out of the floor in the path ahead.

It was finally going to finish them off.

“Harukiyo.”

I think this is the end—

Raising a spray of lava, the earthworm pursued them.

There was nowhere to run to.

There was no way to win.

Cornered by a situation that led only to despair, a strange feeling rose inside him.

“I’ll become a decoy. So, Harukiyo, during that time you have to—”

The fun days were over.

So, as thanks for giving him such fun, Ume would offer his own life—so he thought.

No, originally he didn’t have the kind of personality or psychology for self-sacrifice.

He just didn’t want to see the boy called Sehateno Harukiyo dying before he did—

He just wanted to pass this final selfishness.

But the next moment—he was hit.

“Agh!”

It was a full-powered blow with no mercy. He thought his chin would fall off.

Harukiyo leapt to the side and Ume was blown all the way to the wall. The large earthworm passed in the interval between them with great speed.

“Have you woken up, brat?”

It was even hotter than the dark-red earthworm, even hotter than the lava flowing about.

That scorching gaze bore into Ume.

“Don’t fall asleep on me! Are you awake now, ah? Are you actually alive, ah? If you’re alive, then why are you sleeping? Did you seriously fry off your brain with thinking and judged there to be no way to escape and no way to win? I’ll fuckin’ kill you, brat!”

Harukiyo shouted so loudly his voice reverberated throughout the entire mall.

The earthworm seemed to aim for the annoying boy first. Ignoring Ume who crouched near the wall, it leapt toward Harukiyo.

“No—”

Holding his cheeks, Ume opened his mouth. Transparent drops spilled through his chin, boiling due to the heat around. His hit cheek felt much warmer than the lava or the flames.

“No way! No way no way no way, I can’t!”

He actually realized this when he’d first seen the earthworm. The moment he saw the host boy, he had the feeling that it would be useless to even try begging for his life.

“We have no way to escape and no way to win! We have nothing! This is impossible!”

“Then stay right there and die.”

Harukiyo’s eyes pierced Ume. —His performance as he dodged the flames, the lava and the earthworm, while leaping between the large holes opened in the ground, was miraculous. But obviously even he would reach his limit soon.

Ume mumbled for a moment.

“—So you’re hesitating.”

As Harukiyo only just barely evaded the earthworm, heat singed his hair. The compress on his cheek peeled off, enveloped by flames.

A fire-pattern tattoo was engraved on Harukiyo’s cheek.

That red, even deeper than the surrounding flames and as vivid as though it would burn him as well, distorted into a smirk.

“You don’t wanna die, right? You haven’t enough of living, right? You still have plenty of stuff you wanna do! Why’re pretending you’ve reached some sorta revelation and don’t admit it’s something that simple! You’re alive, so why don’t you be selfish! You can be as meek as you’d like after you kick the fucking bucket!”

Ume gritted his teeth.

He obviously didn’t want to die.

He was still a kid and had too many things he wanted to do. Not wanting to die was too obvious—he never thought of this thing properly.

“What… Obviously I wanna live! I don’t wanna die! I wanna play more! I wanna eat more good food! I still want—to hang out with you, Harukiyo!”

“Haha! Just like that! Aren’t you getting carried away now!”

“But… If you still die, what will I do?! I hate this so much!”

“If it happens, it would be—my ‘punishment’.”

Fighting the earthworm as if dancing, Harukiyo spoke.

“Although I don’t wanna die, I’ll die. I truly, truly want to live but I’ll be squashed like a bug. Isn’t that what a punishment’s all about?”

“This… I can’t accept that—”

Punishment? Bullshit.

Ume had obviously done many bad things, but he just couldn’t accept that sort of thinking.

After all—Ume himself felt no guilt.

He was just having fun living, so he couldn’t accept being punished for it—

“I—”

Now that he thought this far, he noticed.

That itself—was the punishment.

Although he couldn’t accept it, he would be killed.

Was there any other act as hateful? Any other act that would disallow relief, that would leave so many regrets?

When he thought of this, he became scared.

“No… I don’t want that! I did nothing wrong!”

“Yes, that’s right! You were just having fun, living your life!”

“As if I want to get punished!”

“You don’t give a fuck whether someone gets hurts or dies in someplace you know nothing about! Because that’s not your fault! Let’s keep living and have fun!”

“I wanna keep living!”

“If you die, it means it was your punishment! But you’d never accept that, right! You end up wanting to keep living, even if only out of stubbornness!”

As Harukiyo was sneering and thoroughly enjoying himself, his heels sizzled and raised smoke.

Finally—he’d been cornered.

The surroundings were enclosed by lava, flames and the holes the earthworm passed through, completely blocking all possible paths of retreat. Meanwhile, the worm extended its long body, pressing closer to Harukiyo by sliding on top of the holes.

“Harukiyo—”

Harukiyo wore a smile. Just like he said, he wasn’t going to give up at all.

Even so, he was going to be killed.

“No, Harukiyo!”

If everything was as Harukiyo said, was he trying to get himself punished for real this time?

And so—Ume just couldn’t accept it.

“Harukiyooo!!!”

What had Harukiyo done?

Was it his fault his mother and unrelated people went up in flames after his birth?

Was it a crime for him to survive alone while many people died around him?

That was neither sin nor anything else.

His life was simply the slightest bit unlucky, that was all.

Being unlucky wasn’t his fault. No matter who else got involved in it, it had nothing to do with him.

It definitely shouldn’t count as Harukiyo’s sin.

“Ah—”

While the earthworm carrying death and punishment pursued him, Sehateno Harukiyo was laughing fearlessly.

Even right now he was probably thinking of ways to live. Even if the possibility was zero, he wouldn’t give up.

Even when his life was about to be snatched away.

He mumbled to himself.

“—Stop with those bells already.”

The sound of bells.

Even Ume heard them now.

“…!”

Did this kind of dirty sound actually exist? It was the kind of cracked, hoarse and ear-grating sound that made him want to scream and turn back.

The moment he’d heard that sound, everything reflected in Ume’s eyes stopped in place.

With everyone in the underground mall frozen as if time itself stopped, his vision spun—

“—”

Along with a bizarre sensation of falling, his vision blacked out.

Having been thrown into a pitch-dark world, Ume couldn’t move even a single finger. He couldn’t even see his own body and had no idea if there was any ground or air there.

Bell sounds echoed again.

Following them, Ume turned around. He had no sensation of direction, but he tried turning around still.

There—he found Harukiyo’s figure.

In front of him there was a decayed church. The windows that should have had stained glass were broken, the wall was collapsed and the roof was in shambles. In the place supposed to house a cross there was only a broken pole.

Standing in the wasteland, Harukiyo wore an expression Ume had never seen before.

Both the delight for life that always filled him as well as the blaze-like rage were gone. Instead he was ruled by calm like the sea at a lull.

It was just like a death row convict waiting for their verdict; Ume had this strange impression.

“—”

He tried calling to Harukiyo, but no voice came out.

The boy appeared to be talking to someone. With a calm expression, he moved only his mouth.

Eventually Harukiyo’s legs turned to the church. The boy weaved his way through the open door.

Ume tried calling to Harukiyo at the top of his voice, but it just melted within the darkness. Since he couldn’t hear Harukiyo’s voice as well, perhaps the spaces the pair inhabited were completely isolated.

Again, the sound of bells.

A heavily oppressive, foul air filled the abnormal space.

This was—the sound congratulating the birth of a devil in the truest sense.

“—”

Ume definitely heard it.

He couldn’t hear the voice, but it was undoubtedly—a scream.

While this voiceless scream filled with anger and hatred echoed, Ume was again wrapped in the sensation of falling.

“—”

Ume kept calling Harukiyo’s name.

What happened to Harukiyo? What had happened to him?

It wasn’t just a bad feeling. He was convinced that whatever happened was irreversible. However, Ume’s shouts were swallowed by the darkness, not even becoming a voice.

His vision blacked out and his consciousness cut off.

No, that was wrong.

He was pulled back from the strange space and into the world of reality.

As the darkened world retrieved its previous form, the first thing he felt—was the heat of hellfire scorching his skin.

“…!”

Coming back to his senses, he found Harukiyo about to be swallowed by the earthworm.

Ume watched it, unable to do anything.

He watched Harukiyo, who stood in place with his head hung down, being engulfed by flames.

And—the moment when the head of the large earthworm covered in lava started melting.

“—Piece of shit.”

Harukiyo mumbled as he was swallowed by bright red flames. Hot wind blew in the underground shopping center and his hair was ruffled as if in a mad dance.

The flames covering him slowly changed form. As they writhed like living beings, the earthworm touched by them slowly melted like pudding.

Opening his scorching eyes wide, Harukiyo shouted.

“Shiiiiit!”

The bursting, surging flames changed form to a monster.

It looked like a Great Yama tiger beetle with tusks of differing sizes—

Spitting hellfire instead of a birth cry, the Great Yama tiger beetle made of flames rushed around the underground mall. Not even paying attention to the half-melted earthworm, it swallowed each and every place, sinking all shops into a sea of flames.

Still shocked, Ume could do nothing but etch those sights into his eyes and memories.

“—You asked me if I wanted power, eh?”

In the center of the flames, Harukiyo’s body shook with anger.

Ume only came to know of this later, but the church he’d seen—apparently belonged to one of the Original Three said to give birth to Mushi, the incarnation of the being known as Shinpu.

The desolate church with its dirty-sounding bell.

Harukiyo had been invited there—and became a Mushitsuki.

Ume had no way to know what he sought there and what he’d been given.

“Yeah, I want it! So much that I could die! I can do nothing but want it, right! If I didn’t need it I’d become shoddy, after all! Although I don’t want that thing, I can only keep wanting it! This sort of stupid power!”

However—seeing Harukiyo scream out his lungs, Ume remembered himself thinking something.

Ume never felt guilt. He probably lacked that feeling from birth.

But what about Sehateno Harukiyo?

As if he only suddenly realized it.

What if there was a slim chance, an infinitely miniscule chance that Harukiyo was really just a normal person?

What if he had the thing known as guilt.

“What’re you tellin’ me to do with that power?! What’re you tellin’ me to do by becoming stronger again?! Don’t butt in my business, you piece of shiiit!”

During his birth, his mother and unrelated people died and he alone survived.

He then survived the orphanage. And was also the sole survivor among his classmates.

He was always alone and always survived—but what did he think about it?

As a person, surely he couldn’t help but feel guilt, even if a little, even if a only a particle of it?

“Diorestoi or whatever your name is! You told me to become the King of Mushitsuki?—I don’t give a damn about that! Never show your ugly face to me again! I now bear a grudge! If you ever come to me I’ll kill you! Never felt any grudge for anything, but I’ll kill you with my hatred! If you don’t wanna get burnt to ashes, then you’d better keep living in literally any other place than right in front of my eyes!”

Ume heard the sound of bells.

Leaving a dirty, trailing note behind, that sound which was rapidly growing distant was hoarse—as if it was scared of the Mushitsuki it had given birth to.

“Harukiyo…”

Ume wrung out a hoarse voice, looking at the raging devil.

Since Ume lacked guilt, he didn’t want to get punished.

However, Harukiyo…

Was he perhaps—wishing for punishment?

Not receiving the verdict to be thrown into hell, being cornered countless times while unaware of neither sin nor punishment, the boy was shouting hard as if to expel his anger at having kept surviving all this time.

Just like a flame, this devil would burn down everyone around him and continue blazing forevermore.

Did a person who could punish him actually exist at all?

“S-so you were a Mushitsuki too…!”

Uncovered by the flames of the Great Yama tiger beetle, the hoodie boy revealed himself.

Harukiyo’s pair of eyes turned to capture that earthworm’s host.

“Hey, you bastard—”

“Shit!”

Having lost half of its body, the earthworm came assaulting Harukiyo from a blind spot.

However, the tiger beetle took flight and stuck its fangs of flame in the earthworm’s body. It began melting easily the body of lava, ripping it in half.

“Ugh…!”

The hoodie boy grimaced in agony. It appeared that the host and Mushi really were connected.

Thrown to the ground, the earthworm writhed in pain. Wrapped in his own created flames, Harukiyo walked on top of it, approaching the earthworm’s host.

Harukiyo’s arm grabbed the boy by the collar.

“How will I make you take responsibility?”

“Eek…!”

“I ended up surviving again because of you—”

Thump—a pain ran through Ume’s chest.

Perhaps it was because his broken ribs were hurting, or because he saw Harukiyo shaking in anger.

If he actually wished to receive punishment.

The one who could do so was probably already—

“W-why—”

The hoodie boy grimaced. His pupils were losing their light probably because the bisected earthworm’s body was slowly melting away.

“Why was there… another monster here…”

Another monster.

Ume saw Harukiyo widening his eyes.

“—”

Ume also doubted his own ears.

Another? Did that boy say another monster?

“In the end—even though I managed to run away from Hunter…”

Hunter—

Was that the name of the other person like Harukiyo?

“I-I shouldn’t have come to this city… thought I could have fun hunting again… but then…”

“Hey—hey, wait a fucking moment!”

Harukiyo’s expression changed. His face twisted in wrath began gradually transforming.

“Whaddya mean by that? Who’s that Hunter?”

“I don’t want to be hunted anymore… I ran inside the ground day after day but I was still scared… I just came out of the ground, and yet…”

Ume shuddered.

Hunter, who was even worse than Harukiyo.

That name hinted at a being that was scary even just to imagine—and made Harukiyo’s eyes sparkle.

“For real…? Hey, is this for real?”

Harukiyo’s face, until now dyed fully in rage, was turning to a smile.

“You saw me and faced off against me. But you’ve run away from that bastard—that Hunter or whatever? Pathetically? Without even trying to resist? Meaning that sorta demonic person that made you run like a coward while being chased exists somewhere? Such a guy, who’s a walking ‘disaster’ in the shape of a human being?!”

“Even though I… managed to escape…”

“Where’s that demon at?! What kinda guy are they?! Is it a man? A woman? Hey, answer!”

“Ah—ah—”

The final piece of the earthworm burnt off.

At the same time the boy’s eyes completely lost all life.

“…”

For a while Harukiyo stood there, frozen and unmoving.

But soon he flung away the hoodie boy. He turned his body and began walking.

“—Harukiyo!”

When Ume called to him, Harukiyo stood in place.

“This time there’s no mistake.”

Turning around, he distorted his fire tattoo while smiling.

“This Hunter or whatever exists to kill me.”

This was—their farewell for a while.

That time, that instant.

Sehateno Harukiyo probably had eyes only for the unseen Hunter.

There was no doubt that he no longer saw Ume.

Later, Ume became a Mushitsuki and met up with him again—but he hadn’t changed.

The only thing reflected in the flame devil’s eyes was a single existence.

Ume had no idea what he thought about and what he truly desired.

There shouldn’t be anyone in the entire world who could understand the man called Sehateno Harukiyo.

If someone could understand him, it was a human who sought punishment, just like him—

Perhaps—that would not be a human at all.

So Ume thought even now.

Part 3

The moment that boy appeared, he felt like he could somehow understand him.

Because the boy, who was like a devil clad in flames, had the same wish as him.

Or perhaps it was because—he was a special being, far removed from any normal person.

“Ah…”

He met the devil in the scorching heat quite a while after he’d parted with the girl called Hunter. He kept his memories of her in his chest, trying to calmly greet the time of his end.

Although only for a while, Hunter had gone wild in a certain city.

It was fine for this Mushitsuki girl to be the sole victim of a sad end because of him.

So he thought—

“This is horrible…”

Dirtied by mud and soot, he wore a white coat like a dust cloth that was singed, burnt and cut.

Filling his sights were flames, flames and flames—

He heard someone scream. And it was terribly lonely—the thing called a death throe.

“Seems like we’ve finally been found… Aria…”

At the edge of his vision there was a large explosion. Several of the few houses were all blown apart together.

The small dots passing overhead along with roars were fighter jets. He didn’t think that dispatching all these conventional weapons to deal with him was an exaggeration. Because they were probably afraid of the continued existence of him and of the third party—the “parasite”.

“Why haven’t I lasted just a little bit longer…”

A burning hell where everything living had been reaped away.

Until yesterday, this place had been called Aoharima Island.

It was a peaceful and beautiful island, housing only fishermen and their families.

“Just a little longer and I would’ve been able to sleep…”

Stumbling and glaring up the sky, the young man had tears hidden by sparks.

This pitiable, pathetic figure was often called Sensei.

Right now, he could only feel despair and sadness.

“Even though I no longer have any intention to escape, or power to resist…”

Perhaps—that itself was his sin?

He had committed some sins.

Anyone would blame him and detest him. And he kept repeating the same actions and living.

“Yes, indeed. I have the feeling that we’ve only ever conversed about despair…”

In this hell, where he could hear only explosions and screams, he mumbled to himself.

Hurry up and kill me.

Hurry up and destroy me.

Hurry up—and punish me.

Still wishing for that, he kept living slowly until now.

For how long had he been speaking to the “thing” inside of him? Even right now the flames that should have swallowed him were avoiding him.

Why do you let me live—

Feeling even hatred, he glared at the hellfire burying the island.

Did this mean that there were still things he had to do and people he had to meet?

There isn’t supposed to be any such person. Everyone in the world wanted to kill him. Even if someone didn’t want to, it meant they weren’t human.

It could be the grim reaper who dragged him into hell, or perhaps another criminal drenched in sin as he was—

And that definitely appeared right in front of him.

“—Damn, this is really terrible. Just like when I was born. Is this my nostalgic hometown, my guardian deity?”

It was as if the dead people of hell—took the form of a boy.

As if he was born from within the flames, as if he was sent out from the very depths of hell.

The devil who leisurely walked through the sparks had a fire-pattern tattoo on his cheek. His blazer that looked like it belonged to some high school had no burn marks on it.

“Oh.”

With his hair fanned by the explosions at his back, the boy approached right in front him.

“So someone other than me managed to survive this place. —No, aren’t you actually dead?”

Kneeling on top of scorch marks, he looked up at the boy in a daze.

The boy glared down at him with hands stuck in his pockets.

Two sinners met at the most suitable place for them—the depths of hell beyond any salvation.

“Wow, you’re quite the ‘disaster’. I really do sympathize with you.”

He started talking casually as if discussing today’s weather.

“I mean, looks like we got involved in a mission to exterminate some monster called Sanbikime or somethin’? Although I ended up coming across a unit of that SEPB or whatever by chance, ended up hearing about their mission by chance, got interested in it and came to the place they headed for by chance, this time it definitely wasn’t my fault, right? Doesn’t count at all, right?”

The devil appearing from the flames sighed as if he really was bothered about it all.

Sanbikime—that was one of the Original Three who birthed Mushi along with Oogui and Shinpu. They really were fit to be monsters, beings that should be detested.

“…”

“Thought that if I came here many other Mushitsuki would come as well, but there’s nothin’ like that here, eh? Have they already arrived? Or are they hiding somewhere? Maybe they decided to bombard these places and then come clean up the remnants so they’ll appear if I wait?”

“…”

“Hey, you even listening? A person’s having a nice friendly talk with you, you should at least answer. Are you actually dead?”

The side of his face was kicked.

He did not resist. Neither did he try to attack. His body just tilted and he let out a small cough.

The devil, looking pissed off, clicked his tongue.

“So you were alive. This is our first meeting, but lemme say this. I fucking hate people like you. Just can’t accept ‘em on a visceral level. You wanna die? If you don’t feel like living, then stop breathing. You don’t deserve the oxygen that Sehateno Harukiyo uses to breathe.”

He finally received just the tiniest bit of information on who the boy was.

First, apparently that devil was called Sehateno Harukiyo. Also, he thought that Harukiyo came from the SEPB, but that was wrong.

Even more shocking was the fact that this devil Harukiyo—was just passing by.

He just came to the very depths of hell by chance.

“Should I just kill you right here and now?”

The devil spoke in a light tone as if he thought up a good idea.

Hearing those words—

“…Heh.”

Unbelievably even to him, laughter spilled out.

So I can still laugh even in this situation—

Perhaps that was good.

No, he even thought that it would be a fitting punishment for him.

He would be killed not by the one supposed to kill him, and not even killed by those who came for that purpose; he would simply be killed “on the way” by the devil visitor that just so happened to pass by.

It was a fitting end that he thought would be good for him.

“Kill me…”

He opened his mouth.

“—Wishing for this is definitely illogical… we can’t die until killed by the those who should kill us… I don’t want to be killed by a mere passerby, of all people…”

Soot and smoke clung to his throat, so his voice sounded horribly husky.

“So, getting killed by you would be a punishment…”

“Oh, so do you understand it, bastard. I’m seein’ you in a slightly better light now.”

Flames at his back, the devil wore an exceedingly delighted smile.

“Lemme hear your name, at least. I’ll soon forget it, though.”

“I am Sanbikime…”

“Huh, that’s a rare one. —No wait, so this is all your fault. Don’t drag people into your own troubles, you menace.”

How many people have sought him desperately thus far?

How many people have hated him?

The devil truly sounded as if he had no interest in his existence.

“Well, if you’re asking for a name, I do have another. I’ve been called Sensei…”

He thought that, rather than the name given to him by his parents, that nickname would better convey it to the devil.

A devil and Sensei.

The pair’s conversation, unfittingly calm in this island that only had the presence of death on it, continued.

“Huh, Sensei? You don’t really look like a doctor, honestly.”

“True… that name doesn’t fit me at all…”

“You said something about being punished? Then what was your crime, exactly?—oh, you mean being one of the Original Three and creating Mushitsuki. So giving birth to Mushitsuki is a crime then, huh. Hmm? Is it, really? Well, if I ever saw Shinpu I’d want to kill him, but still.”

“I’ve already created several Mushitsuki… that is my sin as Sanbikime…”

“And does your Sensei name have any sins?”

“I am going to forget my own sin… that is my sin as Sensei…”

“You’re saying as if inside you there are two people called Sanbikime and Sensei.”

The devil hit the nail right on the head. No matter who heard what he said, they’d never understand it, probably.

“I’ll forget my crime. I won’t have any sensation of it. Is there anything—as sinful as that?”

Twitch, Harukiyo reacted. His smile vanished.

“I also think that.”

“Perhaps I was simply involved in fate, misfortune and all that. But as a result I’ve had a carefree life…”

“Yeah, you’ve been the only one surviving. That’s the result.”

“But when I turn back on it, I end up thinking. Perhaps everything is my own fault…”

“It’s so useless that there’s no sense in keeping thinking about it. I’ve thought about it thousands, millions of times.”

“In the end, I found no answer…”

“Obviously. An answer that comes out just ‘cuz you feel like it is no answer at all.”

“…Perhaps it was just a ‘disaster’. Perhaps I just have slightly more bad luck than people… even so—I tried doing something.”

“…”

“But it was all for naught… so I started thinking that was my sin…”

He no longer understood what he was saying. He was probably just speaking up the emotions accumulated inside him for his own self-satisfaction.

But the devil looked as if he was feeling something.

“I fucking hate anyone like you who gives up on everything and just wants to die, but—”

The devil’s blazing gaze looking down at him was loaded with smoldering emotions.

“Seems like we’re two peas in a pod.”

Two peas in a pod.

Right, only two similar sinners like them could meet in this scorching hell.

He spoke what he needed to speak about himself.

Raising his face, he looked up the devil who resembled him. This time he wanted to hear him speak.

“Let me hear your circumstances… I don’t think I can help you, but if that’s fine with you…”

“I’m looking for Hunter.”

He widened his eyes.

“I only know that they’re a crazy powerful Mushitsuki like some sorta monster. —Huh? They’re a Mushitsuki, right? Oooh, I’ve been looking for so long but I only now realize the truth? Nobody said anything about them being a Mushitsuki at all! Wait a minute, this is way past being just careless! Since I couldn’t find them no matter how hard I tried, does that mean they’re not Mushitsuki? What am I going to do with me?”

“…”

Looking at the boy writhing while holding his head, Sensei’s eyes—

Began shedding tears.

“Whoa, you surprised me! What’re you crying for, all of a sudden? That’s scary!”

It was too much; no voice could come out.

To hear that name right now.

So this was where—they were connected.

Even now, at the very last moments when he was trying to die, he ended up recalling her smile.

—I want to live.

She wanted to live.

Her much too pure, ephemeral dream, caused his frozen heart to restart right here and now—

“Hunter is… a Mushitsuki—”

Looking up at the sky dyed in red by the flames, he moved only his mouth.

The great heavens fully covered in smoke and ashes.

Just as if it really was inside hell.

Her heart was definitely the same.

He knew this girl who tried climbing her way up from the very depths of hopeless despair—

“I made her—into a Mushitsuki…”

Harukiyo’s movements scratching his head stopped at once.

“Her name was Hanashiro Mari…”

“For real…? Wait, wait, wait, for real, for real, for real, for real?! If you’re lying then I’ll fucking kill you!”

The boy who grabbed his collar had his eyes sparkling like a child.

It also caused him to smirk.

“Also… she’s an exceptional beauty.”

“Wow, seriously?! Is she strong? Hey now! She’s definitely strong, right?!”

“She is. Even among Mushitsuki, her ability is the best… You could say she reached the perfect form.”

“Haha! The strongest, huh! That’s awesome! Amazing! I’m getting goosebumps!”

Harukiyo was also probably a strong Mushitsuki. He knew it at a glance.

Seeing the devil’s wild joy, he thought up of a certain mischievousness.

A small payback for getting kicked before.

“Hey, where is she right now? I won’t let you tell me that you don’t know! If you do then I’ll burn you to a crisp even before you say the letter I!”

“Her hospital—is at Akamaki City.”

“Akamaki City… Akamaki City…”

Harukiyo mumbled this several times, his expression feverish.

He maliciously narrowed one eye.

“But, I wonder if you… can find ‘her’?”

The traces of the girl called Hanashiro Mari.

The continuation of the dream of the girl who earnestly wished to live.

“Her, who wished for the magic medicine…”

“The magic medicine? The hell’s that! As if I give a fuck! I’ll fucking find her! I’m going to find her, no matter what!”

“I wonder about that… Since Ichiku Mikitaka and Miguruma Yaeko have gone back, I wonder if you could outmaneuver them… how many years it would take to go back to Akamaki City…”

“Who the fuck are they! I don’t give a flying fuck about any of them! I only care about Hanashiro Mari! Hanashiro Mari! Hanashiro Mari! There, etched her in my memory! I’ll definitely find her, no matter what happens!”

Crimson flames burst from Harukiyo’s entire body as he howled in joy.

Appearing there was a Great Yama tiger beetle made of fire. Along with an ear-splitting howl the flame Mushi flew, blowing flames with an explosive wind.

“I give up on killing you.”

Seeing the devil wear a full smile, he realized his own miscalculation.

By speaking about Hanashiro Mari, even Sensei was no longer reflected in Harukiyo’s eyes.

“I want her to face me with her full powers! But I refuse to have it done half-heartedly! Getting killed on purpose is not punishment at all. Suicide’s no punishment! Getting squashed like a bug while not wanting to die at all, though! That’s what I’m talkin’ about when I say punishment!”

“…”

“—Go west. The boat I’ve taken is there.”

“…”

“I’ll draw out the enemies ‘till you get there. I’m letting you live on a whim.”

“…”

“I dunno if your sin really is a sin! You don’t even feel guilt! No matter how you think, you don’t find an answer! So I decided—I’m going to let the result decide it all!”

Sehateno Harukiyo was shouting.

“If you die, it means it was a sin! However, as long as I live—the fact that I’m alive is not a sin!”

What kind of a life did this boy have?

How much death had he seen with his very eyes?

The flame devil’s shout broke through the flames surrounding them, piercing the skies.

“—That’s what I recommend. You do it too.”

Asserting this, the boy wore a smile completely different from the one until now.

“Hanashiro Mari…”

Feeling dizzy by the heat, the form of the boy smiling comfortably was just like—

He was burning with love for Hanashiro Mari.

“Wait for me. I’m coming to getcha.”

The boy yearning for a girl he hadn’t ever seen vanished into the sea of blazes.

Astonished, he watched him getting away.

“…Haha.”

Leaking laughter, he slowly rose to his legs.

He’d committed quite the sin.

He never thought that a bit of mischief on a boy in love would end up adding to his sins.

“—Let’s go, Aria.”

Giving birth to Mushitsuki.

In hindsight, perhaps even the beings born from this mortal sin left room to commit another sin.

Not being killed when he should’ve been killed, he would not be allowed to have such an irrelevant death after all—

“Our sins are heavy… it seems like we need to try living desperately before our deaths…”

The “pair” then conversed for a while.

Inside their hearts.

And finally reached a conclusion.

“—”

Closing his eyes, he wished from the bottom of his heart.

While feeling that something was vanishing from within him.

He wished that they could keep living desperately just like that flame devil after their brief meeting.

And on top of that, one day—they’d be punished.

That was the final wish of the man called Sensei.

“—”

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself, for some reason, in a hellish place.

Everything was burning.

“…Where am I…?”

He had to escape this terrifying place as soon as possible.

If he went to the west, there’d be a boat—

For some reason this vague piece of information rose to mind.

Part 4

Something warm was always smoldering inside his heart.

What he felt the moment he was born was the joy of living.

What he felt every day he’d survived the countless “disasters” was attachment to life.

What he felt by becoming a Mushitsuki was rage and hatred.

Everything around him was only things he couldn’t accept.

Even so the world was fun and beautiful. He loved this world, but did the world hate him? Perhaps he wasn’t even allowed to live—he thought this even if he didn’t like it.

Right, he kept thinking about this tens of thousands of times.

Leaving his hometown, becoming a Mushitsuki, parting with Sanbikime on Aoharima Island.

After finally shaking off the SEPB’s pursuit, even now that he reached Akamaki City—he hadn’t reached any conclusion.

“…”

Sehateno Harukiyo was submerged in the sea of flames.

The place that was a public sports ground a short while ago now became a dome of flames glowing bright red. Firefighters outside were probably desperately trying to extinguish it, but the wall created from the flames born from his burning heart would never be quenched by a few measly water guns.

Suddenly a ripple appeared in the wall of blaze.

Most likely the SEPB finally appeared. They were probably at their wits’ end about how to try and handle this Mushitsuki-created whirl of explosive flames. If they left him alone, it was obvious that it’d be difficult to hide this from the public eye.

“…”

Still sitting in the burning stands, Harukiyo made no move.

He could feel that the Great Yama tiger dwelling inside him was quickly devouring his heart—his dreams. If his “guest” did not arrive soon, he would destroy himself and die.

But he didn’t care about that at all.

Harukiyo always lived while risking his life.

He just did it again.

“…”

The illumination used for night games was melting from the base. Slowly bending, they eventually fell to the grass burnt to a carpet of ashes. Part of the lightbulbs melted, dripping and flowing on the ground.

As far as he looked, he could only see flames.

Flames.

Flames.

He was already used to seeing that red, burning energy.

From the moment his life began until this very moment, it always was on Harukiyo’s side.

The moment he got out of his mother’s womb, the nurse escaped the hospital to protect him. In his deepest memories she was brave, and her attachment to life was incredible. That she directed that zeal toward the newborn and not herself was a pity.

After that in the orphanage, it wasn’t only the orphans but everyone there. There were weak and strong, but only Harukiyo survived.

Among his middle school classmates, there was a pretty girl he liked. She had strong feelings of wanting to live, and was an important resource for Harukiyo, as she might have possessed the strength he wished for. However, in the end—she died in Harukiyo’s arms. That girl somewhat bore a strong resemblance to the nurse that saved his newborn self.

The flames that burned everyone around Harukiyo.

The flames that let only him survive.

But the true flames—

“Were these flames—just me?”

He ended up thinking it.

Burning away all humans but him, he survived.

Using the lives of others as fuel, he became stronger.

His very life—was like a flame.

“Is everything my fault?”

This self-questioning repeated itself thousands, millions of times.

His existence was hated by fate. He was cursed.

He had no intention to think about such outrageous things.

He just had a bit of a bad luck.

An inborn bad luck.

However—he would raise his voice to speak.

He was always trying to live. Never mind the moment he was born, but also the time the facility burnt down, the time his classmates died, he always kept living and tried saving those near him.

But as a result, he always ended up being the sole survivor.

He couldn’t save anyone. He alone lived.

Was that—his sin?

Every time he survived, his heart was scorched again and again, and it kept smoldering.

“I don’t feel like either condemning myself or being condemned with words alone.”

However, one day the ill feelings scorching his heart begun to change.

He would never forget this.

It happened when he came to know of Hunter.

Hanashiro Mari—the moment he heard her name.

They turned into an impulse that moved him much more than anything.

A single girl, whose face he’d never seen, caused his chest to burn with yearning.

His feelings burning for the Mushitsuki called Hanashiro Mari had invited him to this land—

“—Because of that, I’ve investigated about her again and again.”

Harukiyo widened his eyes.

It was because he saw a spot open up in his created wall of scorching flames.

Piercing through the wall of flames—was a smoking, writhing, black-colored insect.

It was a tardigrade with numerous small but thick legs.

“Hanashiro Mari became frantic and started looking for the Undying Mushitsuki, right?”

No person should have been able to approach this hell.

Even if they were a mere Mushitsuki, this didn’t change.

If they were able to step inside—then they were a monster with power beyond humans, just like Harukiyo.

Appearing at this domain that rejected all civilians was truly a monster.

Swarms upon swarms of tardigrades gathered, transforming—changing into a human arm.

“Now I’m really fuckin’ jealous—”

Harukiyo stood up, sneering with joy.

The human arm made of tardigrades extended even further. Piercing through the wall of flames, the tardigrades gathered again, forming a black suit and sunglasses with lenses of differing colors—and then a human face.

Kuha—

The boy who recovered his form by the assembled tardigrades exhaled white smoke from his mouth.

“This place is—really humid.”

Harukiyo calmly welcomed him.

“Who the hell are you? Give your name.”

“I am the Special Environmental Preservation Bureau Central Headquarters Director, Ichiku Mikitaka.”

The boy used his cleaved, yet to be fully-formed mouth to sneer.

“I’ll try guessing what you’re thinking right now. ‘I’m so grateful to you for accepting my invitation! Could we have a nice little talk?’—right?”

“Completely wrong.”

Harukiyo raised his right hand. The flames wrapped around his arm, transforming to a howling Great Yama tiger beetle.

“First I’ll kill you!”

Explosive wind blew through the playground buried in flames.

Oscillating the air, the Great Yama tiger beetle was launched toward Ichiku Mikitaka like a cannonball. With a billowing shockwave blown around, the whirl of hellfire swallowed the sunglasses boy whole.

Mikitaka, who only got the upper half of his body through the wall of flames, broke and scattered helplessly. The many tardigrades splashed around like water.

“This is a no-entry zone for people who aren’t Undying.”

His eyes twinkling, Harukiyo smiled.

He had business only with the Undying Mushitsuki that Hanashiro Mari had been looking for.

That was why Harukiyo had created this domain.

There was no way the SEPB wouldn’t know about a Mushitsuki that Hanashiro Mari had been looking for. And if they knew about them but concealed them—there was no doubt that this being was part of the organization itself.

His prediction was right on the mark.

This space that the SEPB couldn’t ignore.

The hell that only someone Undying would be able to enter.

By preparing this stage with those two conditions, Harukiyo, who wasn’t as patient as Mari, managed to induce the person he was looking for to show himself.

“I see. How convenient—”

The moment after Mikitaka’s voice echoed from somewhere.

Piercing through the wall of flames, a black tsunami crashed into the inside of the playground.

A tidal wave of innumerable black grains—a massive swarm of tardigrades.

Even while the tardigrades’ bodies were being burned, they clung to the surrounding flames. Even while they were raising smoke and their bodies shriveled and melted, they sank fangs into the fire.

They were—eating Harukiyo’s flames.

“It was worth it to come here and test your ‘nature’.”

The boy’s voice came from behind Harukiyo.

As he turned around he could see Ichiku Mikitaka with half of his body restored by the swarms of tardigrades. His arm made of assembled beetles reached toward Harukiyo.

“Haha!”

Roaring with laughter, Harukiyo swung his left arm.

The whirl of surging flames and heat bisected Ichiku Mikitaka’s body. Then, the high-pressure explosive wind arriving with a short delay blew away the remnants of the boy’s body along with the spectator seats behind him.

Something suddenly firmly grabbed the base of Harukiyo’s throat.

Turning around, the Ichiku Mikitaka created from the tardigrade swarm was there. The boy’s hand lacking a middle finger and pinky was holding to Harukiyo’s neck.

Harukiyo’s body was thrown to the side. Hurled by superhuman strength, his body collapsed on the spectator seats, rolled on top of the ashen ground, crushed the melted illumination and stopped.

“—‘Nature’, was it?”

The lighting equipment was blown off by explosive wind. Harukiyo instantly rose up. Since he’d defended using a normally invisible heatwave, he didn’t get even a single wound. As long as his body wasn’t covered up by tardigrades, he could instantly shut out almost any physical attack.

“You’re nothing but talk, eh?”

While rapidly retrieving his human form, Mikitaka loosened his shirt’s collar. —Although he was still raising smoke from all over his body, he did it as if it would help with the heat.

“The only ones allowed here are the Undying, right?”

His lungs perhaps burned, the boy’s exhaled kuha breath was white.

A black mountain rose behind Ichiku Mikitaka. As if to start the counterattack, the gradually rising pile of tardigrade leapt toward Harukiyo to cover him.

Undying—

These words came out of the mouth of none other than the Undying Mushitsuki himself.

A strange discomfort made Harukiyo’s mind operate in full throttle.

“Oho, then you bastard—”

As Harukiyo mumbled this, a spark fell in front of his eyes.

There was another small spark, and another, and yet another, and the next moment—arrows of explosive fire began to fall from the sky.

Like the rain of fire that destroyed the cities drenched in sin, Sodom and Gomorrah.

This explosive rain, the great disaster depicted in the Old Testament, destroyed the pushing tardigrades one after another.

“Aren’t you Undying?”

What allowed Harukiyo to live until today was not only his physical power.

Always thinking of methods to extend his life, he possessed thinking power that allowed him to bring out the only answer.

“I’m Undying.”

Kuha, Ichiku Mikitaka opened his mouth wide and laughed. The surface of his regenerating sunglasses reflected the pillar of tardigrades bursting out of the ground.

“Even if we’re speakin’ of Undying, there are several types, yeah? Being unable to be killed and unable to die are different things, right?”

The swarms of tardigrades who appeared by cutting through the grounds were caught by the fangs of the howling Great Yama tiger beetle and chewed back.

“—Well, doesn’t matter anyway.”

He spat in a cold tone.

He understood all sorts of things in this short time. Inside the truths noticed by Harukiyo, he probably also exposed an outrageous secret.

But above all else, one simple truth sparked his rage.

“Nothing interests you bastard! Not even a single hair of mine! Not even for a single moment!”

The swarm of tardigrades were pushed back by explosive flames.

“I knew it at a glance! Just looking at you gives me heartburn! Those eyes… the eyes of a man who’s actually dead despite living, just like someone I saw on Aoharima Island!”

“I also saw it countless times. Meaning, guys like you.”

Kuha, Ichiku exhaled smoke. The flames of hatred toward Harukiyo lit up in his eyes.

Harukiyo and Ichiku Mikitaka crossed their gazes, exposing both of their disgusts.

“I fucking hate guys like you!”

“Just because you’re a Mushitsuki, I also hate you.”

The crimson blazing column and the tidal wave of tardigrade.

Their clash continued.

“I have no fucking interest in you, but Hanashiro Mari’s a different story! Why had she been looking for a useless guy like you?! If you don’t tell me, I’ll kill you!”

“Hmph. Is that a threat? How will you kill someone immortal?”

“Trial and error until I manage to kill you! I’ll haunt you ‘till I die and kill you!”

As he fought with his full strength for the first time in a while, suddenly a certain person rose to Harukiyo’s mind.

There was one Mushitsuki who managed to forcefully hit through Harukiyo’s flames and land a hit on him. The boy called Kakkou. Thinking about it, he also was a Fusion-Type Mushitsuki just like Hanashiro Mari.

That boy was strong. And it wasn’t the kind of strength one easily obtained, but one that came from piling on training and experience, and an obstinate will. It wasn’t the kind of strength gained by losing something or born from genius, and it would never break down.

In that alone—Kakkou was no good at all.

As long as that boy had a reason, he would fight anyone. But the reason for fighting Harukiyo was meaningless. Harukiyo hoped from the bottom of his heart that one day the boy’s heart would break and he’d gain enough cruelty to kill everything he laid his eyes on. He expected more from his future.

Like he thought, the only one Harukiyo had to direct his hot feelings at was Hanashiro Mari.

“I see. How annoying of her.”

Ichiku Mikitaka, half of his body ash, sighed as if truly bothered.

“The ghost of Hanashiro Mari managed to summon even a devil from hell. —It’s a bit too much for my liking.”

The body that was getting worn down was rapidly restored by the tardigrades. He probably wouldn’t succumb to threats, but Mikitaka who retrieved his human-like form opened his mouth.

“It’s certain that Hanashiro Mari was a target of interest. Truly, I also went directly to ascertain her nature—to the extent I even gave her an uncharacteristic warning.”

“So you really have met her! Why was Hanashiro Mari looking for you?!”

“Hanashiro Mari—wanted to live.”

Suddenly.

Harukiyo’s arm controlling the Great Yama tiger beetle stopped completely.

“That was that pitiful girl’s dream.”

Wanting to live.

A truly simple and pure wish.

Everything in Harukiyo’s life that he wished for, sought and did could be aggregated into that single idea.

“Because of that she was interested in me, the Undying. —She’d apparently heard about me from Sanbikime.”

“Ha…”

That wish belonged to none other than Hanashiro Mari.

He could truly—only think of it as fate.

His life painted by his own flames, and the “disasters” assaulting him, were just bad luck.

Those words did not fit these sorts of stupid incidents.

The boy called Sehateno becoming involved with Hanashiro Mari was an incident fitting the label of fate.

“I knew it! As expected from Hanashiro Mari! She wasn’t someone just living for the sake of it! She’s never even thought of dying! Haha! I ain’t happy at all! I already knew all this in the first place!”

“I feel the same. Although she’d already left the world, she came back to it through the Morpho butterfly. And I’ve excavated her nature there.”

“So as expected… that’s Hanashiro Mari?”

The personality of Hanashiro Mari borrowing the body of Ichinokuro Arisu.

That was the real deal.

Regardless of the fact that they were friends, she wore a cold gaze while using Arisu to live.

Harukiyo felt his body tremble with joy.

“She’s quite the woman! Not even dying killed her! And she doesn’t feel like dying at all! Using her own best pal to come back to life is truly inhuman! From her point of view, someone like me who’s a complete outsider is less than a freaking worm! Haha!”

“—Looks like I have miscalculated you.”

As if frozen.

Harukiyo’s smile stiffened.

“That woman chose the angel’s medicine. Thinking this was my mistake.”

Conversely Ichiku Mikitaka was now the one who opened his mouth in a wide smile.

The angel’s medicine—

Harukiyo knew that term.

Because he’d read the picture book left in Hanashiro Mari’s sickroom, “The Magic Medicine”.

“So had she chosen the devil’s medicine?”

A magician came to visit Patricia in her sickbed.

The magician said thusly.

Here is a medicine I’ve gotten from an angel, and a medicine I’ve gotten from a devil. If you drink the angel’s medicine, in exchange for losing your most important person, your illness will heal and you will keep living. If you drink the devil’s medicine, you will probably die on the spot, but your most important person will always stay at your side to console you. Come now, which will you drink?

“No, that’s wrong, too.”

Patricia spoke thusly.

I want the devil’s medicine.

The magician granted Patricia’s wish.

Patricia fell into an everlasting sleep with all of her important people watching over her.

However, Patricia was not lonely. After all, as she was sleeping on top of the hill, the people important to her were watching over her, forever—

“That woman—”

Ichiku Mikitaka’s ice-cold voice pierced Harukiyo’s pounding chest.

“She hadn’t chosen anything at all, right?”

It was as if cold water was thrown on the flames dancing in Harukiyo’s heart.

Instantly the sense of exhilaration inside him flickered.

“Oi… there’s no way that’s right.”

“Ha! When I’d met Hanashiro Mari, she was hesitating!”

Mikitaka sneered. For the first time he raised his voice, ridiculing Harukiyo.

“What about you? Look at that Morpho butterfly! Look at Ichinokuro Arisu! Look at Hanashiro Mari’s flickering ghost! Does she really look like the unwavering Mushitsuki you spoke of?”

“Don’t screw with me… stop fucking with me! That’s Hanashiro Mari! My eyes are not wrong! She was Hanashiro Mari! The fact that the Morpho butterfly still remains is proof! She’d chosen the angel’s medicine! She’d chosen to take over Ichinokuro Arisu’s body and keep living!”

“You’re just telling yourself that! You’re just fooling yourself! Have you ever tried facing that thing for real, like you’re doing to me here? Probably not! Because that’s—”

He never loosened his grip at all.

Even so, just a bit, Harukiyo’s flames pushed by the tardigrades—

“Awfully weak.”

Mikitaka’s sneering words gouged into Harukiyo’s chest.

“She doesn’t even have the overwhelming power she possessed while alive! And she’s not even cruel while possessing Ichinokuro Arisu! It’s an unstable, half-hearted possession! Is that really the Hanashiro Mari you’ve spoken of? Do you think she’s strong enough to withstand even a single attack from you?”

“This is still… not over! Watch out, Hanashiro Mari would soon—”

“Do you think she can revive? Through that unstable Morpho butterfly, no less!”

“—”

Harukiyo was shut up. He stayed silent.

“That Mushi is the remnant of someone who wished to live until her very last moment? Right now you could easily kill her. Or are you saying you’re going to protect that thing and wait until Hanashiro Mari can be perfectly revived? Nope, no way. That is merely—the residue of Hanashiro Mari’s dream! You just need to accept this!”

“Shut… up.”

A hoarse voice leaked from his throat.

—Hanashiro Mari’s gone.

The words Kusezaki Ume had said rose to his mind. Harukiyo had laughed them off, but now he couldn’t do so.

The reason being—it was just like Ichiku Mikitaka said.

When he’d heard that Hanashiro Mari was dead, he’d felt disappointed.

But coming to know of the Morpho butterfly’s existence, he found yet another possibility.

Even so, the Morpho butterfly was actually—

“It means that even Hanashiro Mari was but a mere Mushitsuki!”

Why was she weak?

It plagued him with doubts.

It went without saying for Ichinokuro Arisu, but even Hanashiro Mari borrowing her body couldn’t hold a candle to Harukiyo.

No, he couldn’t say it just yet. Soon she’d retrieve her full powers. —He told himself this and kept waiting even now. But inside his heart, he’d already thought of “that”.

Was Hanashiro Mari—really going to revive?

“Holding a dream beyond one’s station, hesitating, giving up in the middle and dying—that’s a Mushitsuki! Hanashiro Mari was the exactly the same! Nothing strange about it!”

“Shut up…”

Even if she could take over Ichinokuro Arisu’s personality.

In the end, was that truly Hanashiro Mari?

The cruel Hunter that Harukiyo came to know of when he’d first become a Mushitsuki—

The strongest Mushitsuki that Sanbikime had told him about in Aoharima Island—

Would that Hanashiro Mari really come back to life?

“She never thought of anything other than living? She never thought of dying? Ha! That Mushitsuki called Hanashiro Mari wasn’t anything as grand as that! Even now she lingers, unable to choose between death or life, she’s just a half-hearted Mushitsuki beyond any salvation, nothing more!”

“I TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP!!!”

A storm of flames exploded with the shouting Harukiyo in its center.

Blowing the spectator seats to smithereens, the ground itself was lifted up. All the illumination was completely melted and boiled.

The large Great Yama tiger beetle crunched Ichiku Mikitaka’s body. With its leftover momentum, the flame Mushi rose to the sky, howling.

“—How pitiful. And just like a Mushitsuki.”

He heard the voice of the boy who was definitely a Mushitsuki himself from the wall of fire wrapping the entire sports ground.

The tardigrades gathered, restoring Ichiku Mikitaka’s form a step before the wall. But he soon stuck out one arm into the wall, piercing the curtain of flames despite getting torched.

“Right now you are just like a child getting excited over an egg that will never hatch.”

Harukiyo turned, glaring at the Undying Mushitsuki with scorching eyes.

“Are you satisfied, inviting me here? For now, I’m satisfied after seeing your nature. —I’ll let you off the hook for now. Vanish this conspicuous domain and go away.”

“What was that, fucker…?!”

“Perhaps—letting you watch over the egg until it rots might be amusing.”

The swarms of tardigrades gathered into a single point like a receding wave, smashed through the wall of flames and vanished.

Harukiyo stood inside the sea of fire created by himself.

Again—

This feeling that he’d known ever since his birth.

No matter how much he thought, how much he fought, how much he struggled—when he came to, he ended up standing alone in a daze.

And deep within his heart, the only thing that remained were the smoldering remnants of feelings.

“Hanashiro Mari—”

His clenched fist was shaking.

Splitting his lips by biting them, the blood dripping from him boiled away before reaching the ground.

Even his own blood did not remain where he stood.

“So you too—”

Harukiyo had his doubts from the start.

Would Hanashiro Mari truly revive with her full, complete powers?

At the very least there was a possibility. The two personalities of Ichinokuro Arisu and Hanashiro Mari became somewhat vague.

But that small hope had been dashed by Ichiku Mikitaka.

The boy told him that, when he’d met Hanashiro Mari during her life, she was hesitating—

“Don’t screw with me! Are everyone liars and swindlers?! Hunter, you were called? You weren’t none of that! Hanashiro Mari was in Akamaki City? She was already fuckin’ dead! Hanashiro Mari will come back to life? Even that I only saw a glimpse of!”

Every time Harukiyo shouted the wind blowing from him grew hotter, and the sports ground itself transformed.

Had she held doubts about her own dreams?

Such a half-hearted person was not in the least the opponent Harukiyo had been looking for.

“Fucking shiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!!”

The blood running down his lips spread into the air with every scream, boiling away.

He remained alive alone once again.

Not to mention that this time it was victory by default.

No, it wasn’t just that.

“Then why—”

The feeling resembling burning love that was born inside him.

There no longer existed anyone for him to clash that new emotion against—

“Why have you called me…?”

He thought of it as fate.

He didn’t care about the “disasters” that attacked him this far.

However, only his meeting with that Mushitsuki girl was neither his will nor a coincidence.

“Why have you called me, Hanashiro Mari…”

The hot air hanging over still boiled the clear droplets dripping down his chin.

If she was no longer there, was there any meaning to Harukiyo to come to know of her existence?

That Morpho butterfly.

It had called to Harukiyo.

Other than inflicting punishment to Harukiyo, was there any other meaning in calling Harukiyo to this region?

Just by him living, other people would go up in flames.

And every time it happened, he became stronger.

He possessed so much useless energy, beyond his need and control, so what was she trying to give to him, other than punishment?

Other than accepting punishment, there should be no other meaning.

“—I can’t accept it.”

Harukiyo started walking.

The sin of fooling him should bring certain death.

Who could be made to pay for it?

There was only one who could.

Part 5

That girl left the school gate of Horusu Seijou Academy, walking the road in a carefree gait.

Healthy-looking limbs extended from her middle school uniform. Her ponytail jumped energetically with every step.

“Now then, let’s make our best efforts today and search for Harukiyo!”

Speaking in a lively voice, Ichinokuro Arisu struck the shoulder of the boy walking next to her.

“Right, Daisuke!”

“Yeah, yeah. I hope we find him.”

Turning away and speaking indifferently was a boy with a plain face and bandages on it. He lacked individuality to the extent that it would take a lot of time to search for any distinguishing features, but he was just undercover as the Mushitsuki called Kakkou.

The two middle schoolers began poking each other with a light mood.

“What’s up with that listless response? You need to answer, full of energy, ‘Yes, Mistress Arisu! My body and heart shall serve you in full today as well!’, right?”

“Please, at least while we’re at town, don’t go shouting that sort of stuff…”

“What was that? I always say it at home, though!”

“You do not! Why are you actively causing misunderstandings! What d’you get out of it?!”

Above Arisu and Daisuke’s heads, a silver glow alighted down.

It was the Morpho butterfly Hanashiro Mari had left behind.

This Mushi, so beautiful one could be charmed by it without noticing, merely fluttered around in the air. Without saying anything or doing anything.

“Even if we’re doing this to find clues about Hanashiro Mari, you’re way too excited about this.”

“Way too excited… what d’you mean by that?”

“Are you really looking for Harukiyo just to ask him about Mari?”

“What’s up with that? You’re saying this as if I have any other goal—aha!”

Until now countless Mushitsuki had been called forth by the Morpho butterfly.

One time it was the Blaze Class Rank 1 Kakkou, and another time it was even the Undying Mushitsuki.

The flame devil was also just one of those Mushitsuki.

Including the small fries as well, the Morpho butterfly had played with innumerable Mushitsuki.

But that too—would end today.

“I see. So that’s how it is. Ehehe, so even you act cute at times. Right, you’re an adolescent, after all. You joker, you.”

“I don’t know why, but even though I have no clue what you’re talking about I’m getting pissed off.”

“There’s no special meaning in me looking for Harukiyo, you know? So you don’t have to get jealous—"

“Turn over. I’ll pierce that washboard chest of yours.”

“Arisu Uppercut!”

The pair messing around, Arisu and Daisuke, stopped before crossing the intersection.

Since it was after school, the pedestrian walking was clamoring with Horusu Seijou Academy students waiting for the lights to change.

“But speaking frankly, it’s true that I have some business with Harukiyo.”

“Business?”

“Yup. Harukiyo’s really strong, right?”

“Well, he is. But what about it?”

“I believe that his strength—”

The Morpho butterfly fluttering above the heads of the uniformed boys and girls suddenly changed its movements. However, Arisu and Daisuke didn’t notice the change.

Tsss.

The scent of air being scorched filled the crossing.

”I believe that his strength has meaning.”

At that moment, several things happened at the same time.

The Morpho butterfly emitted an abnormal glow.

Daisuke turned back with sharp gaze, reaching out to his back.

Several of the students waiting for the signal muttered, “Hot,” in low voices. The edges of their uniform were scorched, raising white smoke.

The crossing was filled with tension.

“W-what? What’s going on?”

Raising a voice of confusion and looking all around her—

Was Ichinokuro Arisu, completely unchanged from how she was moments ago.

The Morpho butterfly had shown the abnormal glow for a mere instant. It then resumed fluttering lazily about as if nothing happened.

Even the congestion of the students was soon under control. There were only a few students who raised their brows over some singe marks on their uniform or looking down at scorched black marking on the ground where no one was.

“No—it’s nothing.”

After looking around for a while, Daisuke lowered his guard as well. However, he was probably unhappy with that explanation as he still glared at passersby with eyes unlike his docile self.

“What’s up with that? Geeze. Don’t scare me like that. After all you’re always acting so suspiciously.”

“For just an instant I felt some murderous intent—wait, who’s suspicious? When have I…”

“Yeah yeah, it’s fine, let it go and listen to me. Doesn’t it seem like Mari’s Morpho butterfly invites only strong people? Meaning, his strength has some meaning—”

Ichinokuro Arisu and Kusuriya Daisuke’s conversation rose to the wind, vanishing into the clear sky.

As the light turned green, the Horusu Seijou Academy students all started moving at once.

“—Oh boy.”

Mixing within the crowds of middle schoolers, a single boy alone stood in place.

That boy, with a hairstyle like burning flames, looked down at his own palm.

Along with the stench of burning, a fire lit on Sehateno Harukiyo’s cheek. His compress burned away, turning into black ash that streamed into the air and vanished.

“It’s true what they say about first love never coming true.”

Clenching his hand, he turned on his heels.

The power forged along with deadly “disasters”.

Did this sort of thing have any meaning?

Since he only ever thought of how to beat misfortune, he’d never considered such unnecessary questions.

Should he, or should he not—

Considering just this hindsight-based opinion, he didn’t even attempt to discover any meaning.

“Despite how I look I really am the type of person to feel regrets, huh. I’m surprised at myself. Also, wanting to take revenge—is quite illogical, yup.”

Stopping his attack due to hearing unexpected words—that wasn’t what happened.

In the first place, if he really wanted to kill Ichinokuro Arisu, he’d have chosen a time when Kusuriya Daisuke wasn’t with her. As long as that guy was there, no matter how much Harukiyo concealed his presence, he’d have to get pretty close.

Even so, what really dumbfounded him—

“I feel so exhausted. I’ll go back to sleep at that Custodian’s place. Even if he takes a hell lotta rent. Oh well. Anyway—”

Scratching his head, he mumbled to himself.

By relaxing his attention, the flames of rage also passed away.

“I’ll sleep and think ‘bout it later.”

This might be the moment to quit.

In truth, perhaps what he’d been looking for was already gone a long, long time ago.

The devil of flames, Sehateno Harukiyo, did not need to stay in this town—

“My power is meaningless… is that really true?”

The flame devil left the pedestrian crossing behind him.

Silver remnants passed through his gaze and vanished.

Notes

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