Mushi Uta:Volume 11 Chapter 1

1.00 Precog

Although these crossroads were the very picture of peace, this unrealistic scene drew near.

Passersby raised screams at the approaching roars and tremors.

“Cough! Cough!”

While coughing, a lone girl ran at full speed. Her mouth was hidden by a surgical mask, her bangs were swaying and her expression was desperation itself.

What made her run like that was the cars that flew in air after something crashed into them.

Since it was closer to Daisuke, he realized the cause.

“A Mushi…!”

It was a large, black mass that charged on the national road while blowing away vehicles.

It looked like two craggy slabs of stone slapped together, and on them there were several vibrating pairs of thin wings.

That by itself resembled the structure of a Mushi that Daisuke had encountered countless times.

“Is it… really a Mushi?”

However—that was all.

It was only wings.

The head and body were nowhere to be found.

The huge Wings that flew in an extremely low altitude knocked around obstacles, charging through the national road while heading his way.

“Never seen that kind before. It looks like a Minion Type, but…”

Mumbling this, Daisuke himself noticed that the surrounding gazes were focusing on him.

Walking with his coat and goggles in town would draw attention. Daisuke removed his equipment and hid his goggles and gun inside the rolled-up coat. In Daisuke’s case, that was all he needed to transform into an ordinary high schooler.

Right now he couldn’t grasp the situation, but since there was a Mushi, he could only do one thing.

“Hey, you! Look here!”

He waved his hand at the girl.

This place was way too prominent. It seemed much better for him to take the mysterious girl somewhere emptier and eliminate the Mushi.

Originally, if something like that happened, the Central Headquarters would have rushed there first thing. So it was abnormal not seeing even a single combatant there.

Central Headquarters wasn’t operating—

This situation was the very worst and the one that scared Daisuke the most.

“Quickly!”

The girl noticed Daisuke waving at her.

Flapping around pathetically, the girl rushed toward him—

And suddenly flew at him.

“Wah! You idiot, don’t hug me!”

“Cough! Cough! Haa… wheeze… ugh!”

The girl clung to him, coughing horribly. Perhaps lacking oxygen, or just sick with the flu, her face was as pale as a sick person.

“Sa…! Save me…! Plea… ugh.”

“I get it, so don’t cling to me! —Ah, shit!”

The wings came close. Daisuke put the girl on his back and started running down the road.

“Ah… you can’t…! T-this position… at least princess carry me… urp.”

The wings were faster than Daisuke. The distance between them was shrinking.

“Ah…! You just touched my bu—”

“Shut up!”

At this rate he was going down with this unknown girl.

He was almost resolved to just fight despite knowing he would draw people’s eyes when it happened.

“I-it’s alrea…dy fine…! It should, vanish soon…!”

The girl on his shoulder began flapping around.

Vanish?

As Daisuke turned around—the phenomenon the girl spoke of happened.

The silhouette of the wings that pursued them while destroying obstacles was growing thinner.

That form quickly grew transparent and was then gone as though melted into thin air.

All that remained was the destroyed cars and buildings and the stunned passersby.

“What is going on…?”

As he stopped in shock, the girl fell from Daisuke’s shoulder, groaning an Ouch.

“Cough, cough…! —This is the worst…”

Moving slowly, the girl raised her body. She fixed the position of her mask, still looking down.

“Why are you being so rough with a woman… and you touched my butt… you probably just wanted to look cool saving a girl. You know that normally doing just this wouldn’t make you popular with the ladies. In the first place, if you decided to save me you should use your head more… and you touched my butt…”

Grumbling this, the girl lowered her mask. She wore a strained smile.

“—However, even if you’re the worst, I don’t hate you.”

Even though Daisuke was the one who saved her, she told him that he should be grateful.

Her age was probably the same as Daisuke. She was probably taller than average for girls her age. Possibly due to her cold, her almond eyes were a bit bloodshot. Her pink surgical mask was embroidered with the word “Love”, with the letter “o” in the shape of a heart.

“…”

There was no mistake.

Her face, that could even be called beautiful—

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

She was the same girl who spoke her ominous prophecy he saw inside the mist.

“…Cough.”

The girl’s coughs became severe. Perhaps losing her focus due to relief, her body shuddered and fell.

Daisuke immediately supported her body.

“Hey!”

“I have… to go quickly…”

She mumbled this as though delirious. She didn’t look like she could walk by her own power.

The national road fell into panic. Passersby focused on Daisuke and the girl.

“Tch…”

Having no choice, he shouldered the girl again and left the place.

“Who are you? What was that Mushi?”

“I’m… Mikko.”

The coughing girl introduced herself.

Mikko.

There was no doubt. It was the same name he heard inside the mist.

It was probably better to ask the person herself what that strange scene was all about.

In order to move as quickly as possible to a place without people, Daisuke tried fusing with his Mushi.

The green checkered beetle landed on his shoulder.

—Or at least it should have.

“—”

However, his Mushi did not appear.

Looking around him, it wasn’t anywhere.

This never happened even once since he became Mushitsuki.

“—I can’t use… the Mushi’s power…?”

On the stunned Daisuke’s back, the girl coughed.

“I have to quickly save them… my family…”

She mumbled this as if moaning in her sleep.

“They’re going to give birth to a lot of monsters… my family…”

“…!”

The capital enclosed by milk-white mist.

An abandoned vessel where both the dead and the living shouted.

And his meeting with the mysterious girl, Mikko.

These happenings—

Were just his first step in the road to the prophecy of destruction.

1.01 The Others

Kii-kun.

That was his most used nickname in his fifteen years of life.

Never mind his friends, but even his parents called him that.

“You sure have a lotta free time, Kii-kun.”

In the convenience store located in the suburbs of Akamaki City, another person called his name.

“Let’s go play somewhere, Kii-kun.”

And yet another person under the clear sky.

Sitting in the corner of parking lot and glaring at his cellphone, he mumbled to himself.

“—Say, I wanna ask you, though.”

Kii-kun, high school freshman. His height and weight were average as if on purpose, and even the structure of his face was plain. The white T-shirt and slacks that were his school’s uniform were size M. His only attractive feature was the grown bangs that he pushed up his forehead and bundled in the form of a topknot.

“I got an email saying ‘sorry, I can’t do this anymore’… what does this mean?”

Still seated as he held up his phone and showed it to the others, the blinding sun leapt into the eyes.

It was afternoon after school, so the sun was still high.

“Who is it from?”

His friend that had his collar open answered.

“His girlfriend that he started dating just last week.”

“Oh, Kii-kun’s actual first girlfriend.”

His friend who wore glasses sighed.

They both then spoke together.

“You got dumped.”

“But whyyyyyyyyyyy?!”

Kii-kun shouted and his two friends grabbed him.

“A week! It’s been just a week! I’ve been talking to her a lot, finally felt things were going well, confessed and started dating her! We still only went on one date! It was the kind of pure relationship where we didn’t even hold hands, and I thought everything was just starting…!”

“No sane person would go for a hike as a first date. Not to mention it was raining and you climbed the mountain in complete silence… was this some kinda training montage?”

“It’s that magazine’s fault! ‘The amazing view from the summit will create an unforgettable anniversary’… it wrote things like that!”

“It wrote nothing about using a ropeway, right?”

“I-I made up for it properly! I apologized and I even sent her emails from early morning to late at night, and I went back home with her every day…”

“I’m so glad I wasn’t your girlfriend. You’d probably show up in my dreams. In a bad sense.”

Sobs leaked from the depths of Kii-kun’s throat.

“Ugh…! Oooooooh…!”

“H-hey, don’t start bawling over something like that…”

As Kii-kun crouched and broke into tears near the trash can, his two friends put an arm around his shoulders from both sides.

“Cheer up. You’ll definitely find another good girl soon.”

“You’re basically a good guy. You just end up getting carried away and do some nonsense.”

“Ooohhh… Thank youuu…! You’re also good guys…!”

A good guy.

He was often told that by the people around him.

Since he wasn’t good at studying and wasn’t particularly good at sports, that might have been his one and only strong point. There were also times where he got told “but you’re a good person,” and had his advances rejected, but…

He would most definitely keep living a normal life as a “good guy”.

He suddenly embraced this premonition, but found it satisfactory.

“Wanna go to karaoke or something? My treat.”

“Ugh, your nose is leaking. You’re dirty, c’mon.”

“Yeah…! I’ll go…!”

Wiping his nose on the tissue paper he was given, Kii-kun raised his face.

Then, there was an immensely loud car honking.

Following that, a high-pitched breaking sound, and a hard impact.

Kii-kun and his two friends watched the road, gasping.

They could see a car that suddenly stopped and a dark figure thrown ahead.

It was obvious what happened at a glance.

“An accident…?”

Kii-kun twitched at his friend’s words.

“T-they just jumped into the road!”

From the driver’s seat came a middle-aged man. The pedestrians around all clamored and people also appeared from the convenience store Kii-kun was nearby to see what it was all about.

Are they dead…?

Witnessing this unimaginable accident, Kii-kun felt himself go pale.

However, his nervousness ended up being needless.

The dark figure rose up and started walking.

And headed toward him.

Not only the driver, but even the curious onlookers were shocked. Although the victim flew about 10 meters from the impact, they didn’t even turn to look at the car.

“Looks like some homeless person…”

Just like his friend said, the dark figure was covered in mud-stained clothes. They dropped their gaze and moved as if they were crawling, so he couldn’t really see their face. Their long hair dragged after them.

This dark person was trying to approach the trash can.

“They’re hurt—”

Kii-kun noticed a dark spot left after the person moved.

“Huh?”

“Err… is that blood on the ground…? Should we call an ambulance…?”

Timidly approaching the black mass, he raised his voice.

“Hey, stop that, Kii-kun.”

“No, but…”

He was just another onlooker, but he felt sick just overlooking a wounded person like that. At the very least he wouldn’t be in the mood to sing in karaoke like this.

However, this was apparently a needless worry for this dark figure.

“Ouch!”

The thin arm extending from within the clothes pushed Kii-kun aside. The person ignored Kii-kun who fell to his butt, and started fishing inside the trash can.

“Wait a minute! He was worried about you!”

The tall boy raged, putting an arm on the dark person’s shoulder.

“…!”

Seeing the face of the person turning around, Kii-kun and the rest froze.

This dark thing was a woman. She had discolored, swarthy skin and very thin ankles and neck that looked like withered trees. Her long, dry hair was like wires, and her eyes were dyed in the red of blood—

A demon.

It was much more realistic than anything Kii-kun had seen before in movies, manga and stories.

Was this due to starvation?

Her face looked like she had neither food nor water for a long, long time and reached the zenith of famine. She was so starved that her mouth constantly flapped open and close in search of something, and her eyes couldn’t distinguish between people and objects—

“—…ya…ee…oh…”

The women mumbled some incomprehensible words. At the very least this wasn’t Japanese. As she grabbed back Kii-kun’s friend’s arm, she clung to him desperately.

“Eek! What’s up with her…!”

“Hey, stop that!”

“Eeep…! This is seriously creepy…!”

Along with his bespectacled friend, Kii-kun tried forcing the woman away.

However, the next instant.

The woman’s head rotated like a doll’s and her wide eyes stared at Kii-kun and his two friends.

“—!”

Being stared by the woman’s starving eyes, he felt as if something was grasped inside him—

That sensation assaulted Kii-kun.

“Something” grasped inside him was being sucked away, absorbed into the woman’s flapping mouth—

Just like Kii-kun, even his two friends were completely paralyzed. Onlookers around and the cars on the road were completely still, as though time was frozen.

Being seized by an indescribable fear, it took Kii-kun every nerve he had to resist.

“…uWAAAH!”

Forcibly moving the arm that wouldn’t listen to him, he thrust the woman away.

The flow of time resumed.

However, his two friends weren’t able to come back.

They lost their strength and collapsed to the ground. They closed their eyes as though sleeping and stopped moving.

It wasn’t just that.

A huge object was floating above the collapsed two. A shape several times thicker than a telephone pole was split into three joints, ending in pointy tips.

He thought it was ridiculous as well, but if he had to liken it to something—they were probably insect legs.

There was no body or a head. The giant insectile legs were split into black and white and floated in air.

“Ooh… aah…?”

He was dreaming.

It was definitely some nightmare or an illusion.

He was about to faint, but the woman’s starving eyes and the screams around brought him back.

A large tremor shook the convenience store.

The spot where Kii-kun stood a moment ago was stabbed by a black leg, reaching deep. Fragments of concrete rose as though exploding, the entire parking lot had a crack run through it and the ground swelled.

“…oh… ka… mikko…”

He had the feeling that he heard this mumble among the screams flying around as the dark woman looked to a different direction.

1.02 Daisuke Part 2

Apparently only very few people used the parking lot under the elevated railway.

Since it was far from the business district, there wasn’t a lot of traffic. There were barely any cars parked there, so it was probably a private enough spot.

“Can’t even use my cellphone… really, what’s going on?”

Clicking his tongue, Daisuke lowered his cellphone from his ear. He was trying to reach his comrades outside Akamaki City, but it didn’t connect.

“The goggles…”

He tried operating his hidden goggles but the result was the same. There was no wireless response.

This situation was bad.

Since Daisuke infiltrated into Akamaki City and had no way to communicate, Touko and the rest would definitely get cold feet.

If even the Blaze Class Rank 1 Kakkou had breathed his last in this situation that happened in Akamaki City—

If they misinterpreted it and got cautious, they would move out too late.

In actuality Akamaki City was the very image of peace, and he wanted to break into the city with a great number of forces as soon as possible to check on the Central Headquarters’ safety—

“Hey, you. You have a cellphone?”

He called toward the girl who rested next to a vending machine.

“—No, I don’t.”

The girl called Mikko retrieved most of the color of her face.

“Really? Why don’t you have one?”

“You’re doubting me… you really are the worst.”

“…”

“More importantly, can you give me some spare change? I’d like for you to show me that even a person like you has enough for at least a can of juice.”

He couldn’t see her mouth due to the mask, but from the way her almond eyes narrowed she was probably smiling.

“Also, I have a cold. Meaning, I’m sick. You should be at least humane enough to care about me a bit—”

Daisuke’s hand moved without him thinking, but surely there was no reason to blame him. The sound of a cheek being slapped echoed and the girl’s head turned aside.

“Ow…”

“Ah—sorry, I just suddenly became mad…”

It was true he felt mad.

Originally Daisuke wasn’t the kind of person to hold back just because the other party was a girl.

Therefore, even disregarding that, he was confused at himself acting like this, even if this was more like a mere caress.

He certainly was annoyed at the other party’s actions, but was he really that short-tempered?

No, rather than being short-tempered, when he saw this Mikko girl’s face he felt, how to put it—

“What a scary person you are…”

The girl held her cheek while shaking.

She was around his age and a beauty. She seemed to have an idiosyncratic personality, such that if he met her even once she would remain in his memory—but he felt a strange sense of Déjà vu.

Had he met her somewhere before?

How to put it—her very face made him angry.

He couldn’t recall why, though.

“Hitting a woman is the worst and the lowest… but I guess it cannot be helped. Since I am not going to start hating even such a person beyond saving as you, you’d better feel thankful.”

“Oh, I’m sorry…”

“Ow.”

He lightly struck the opposing cheek. The girl’s neck turned the other way.

Daisuke looked at his hand and groaned.

It really did seem that he lost all self-control the moment he saw this girl.

Was this someone he couldn’t accept on a visceral level?

“The worst… you really are the worst…”

“This time I really did it unconsciously, but anyway… I’m not kind to people just ‘cause they’re girls, and I didn’t save you out of my goodwill.”

Regaining himself, he asked Mikko.

“I’d like to ask you something.”

“…”

“What was that Mushi just now? Why was it chasing you?”

Taking up Mikko’s chin, he glared into her eyes.

“Mushi?”

“That monster just now.”

“Cough… oh, I see, it did look like an insect. I see, Mushi…”

“…”

“Starting now, I shall call those things like that.”

The way she said this and nodded many times, it didn’t look like she was feigning ignorance.

“If you ask me what that thing—that Mushi—is, I can only answer this.”

A shadow befell Mikko’s expression.

“A monster that my family gave birth to.”

He couldn’t immediately understand the meaning of the girl’s words.

“…There’s no way.”

After a long silence, he finally uttered words of rejection.

Mikko smiled sadly.

“That is fine. Expecting you to believe so readily—”

“It’s impossible.”

He interjected into the girl’s words.

Those who gave birth to Mushi were the beings called the Original Three.

There wasn’t even a single report about anything other than them creating Mushi.

At the very least, until now.

“Or are you saying that the Original Three are your family?”

“…? The Original… Three?”

Miko furrowed her brows.

“I do not know who you refer to, but my family… they were with me since I was little, and are very important to me.”

“…”

“Due to certain circumstances, we have run away together… but we got separated. On the way, that child couldn’t hold back and ‘ate’ someone unrelated, and then…”

“…”

“Err—are you alright? You are looking pale.”

The girl’s voice made Daisuke realize that he became speechless.

This was a made-up story.

Or possibly, it was nothing more than this strange girl’s delusion.

Otherwise—

It was a happening that couldn’t be foreseen.

“Does that mean there’s someone other than the Original Three that can create Mushi…?”

That Mushi which was nothing but wings was of a type that he’d never seen before.

It only had part of the body, and no host.

A so-called “Imperfect Mushi” that did nothing but rampage.

“Does that mean there’s a fourth one…?”

No—it was too early to decide this.

He only one found Imperfect Mushi and just heard that someone gave birth to it.

However—

There was probably a need to confirm this.

There was a need to investigate it, perhaps with the same priority as ascertaining what happened to Akamaki City—or possibly even higher.

This problem was simply that important.

“—Was that what you meant by that creepy prophecy?”

“Cough… huh?”

“’Because of us, this country will get filled with Mushi and reach its end”—”

“…?”

“You definitely said this. To a suited man.”

Mikko tilted her head, looking absolutely confused. It didn’t look like acting.

“A suited man…? And I said this to him?”

“Don’t play dumb.”

“—I am sorry. You must be mistaking me with someone.”

Saying this, Mikko coughed.

If this girl really wasn’t playing dumb—what was that scene Daisuke saw?

That milky mist showed Daisuke an illusion?

However, if it was an illusion, the Mikko he saw at the time and the girl in front of him were too similar.

He simply couldn’t process the chain of incomprehensible events fast enough.

Despite things outside his expectations happening, that he couldn’t get any contact with the outside was also a problem. The things he could do were limited.

First, he had to get in contact with the SEPB.

The moment he decided this, Mikko was looking at the faraway sky.

“…Did you hear it?”

“Yeah.”

There was a huge impact sound coming from afar, as though something exploded somewhere.

“My family possibly ‘ate’ another person…”

Mikko bowed to Daisuke.

“Thank you very much for saving me. It was quite a violent method and I will never forget the atrocious way you struck me later my whole life, but since I am more of an adult I will have to thank—”

Slap. “Ow,” the girl wailed.

“…To thank you. Well then, let us part here.”

“No, I’m coming as well.”

Turning toward the direction where he heard the sound, Daisuke spoke.

“I can’t just leave it like this. Your family or whatever… and you.”

For the first time, the girl called Mikko showed something else then a smile—she made a face like she was terribly confused.

1.03 The Others

A huge shadow fell to Kii-kun’s feet.

Following a black leg, a white leg lowered its claws and swung toward him.

“Waaaah!”

Crawling on the ground on all fours, he dodged the claws at the last moment.

The roar and tremor broke the asphalt, and onlookers ran away, screaming.

Kii-kun rose up and flew into the road.

“Eeee—”

Turning back, the nightmare was coming.

Black, white, black, white—stabbing the ground alternatively, these “legs” assaulted him.

Meanwhile, the dark woman didn’t seem interested in Kii-kun. Not even turning to look at his collapsed friends, she returned to the trashcan, fishing its contents and looking hungry.

“W-what the hell is thiiiiiis!”

Kii-kun ran away from the two legs.

The sounds of people’s screams and vehicles getting skewered and the vibration of asphalt breaking pursued him from behind.

“W-what the hell! What happened to them…! P-police…! Waaaah…!”

Until just now, he was supposed to kill time with his friends.

His heart was broken, but he wanted to relieve his sadness with karaoke.

Even so, why now was he chased by a monster?

“Ughuuuuh…!”

As he turned in the corner of the crossroads, the “legs” changed their direction as well.

The pedestrians he pushed aside raised screams behind him.

Perhaps there were victims of this “legs” chasing him.

But if he were to stop, he’d end up skewered. He could imagine his body torn off, flesh flying about.

“I don’t… want to die…! I don’t wanna die yeeeeeet!”

He didn’t want to die yet.

Until yesterday he lived a normal life. He wanted to keep living like that.

Him dying—he wasn’t prepared in the slightest for that.

“Haa…! Haa…!”

Why me—

He was out of breath. His heart felt ready to burst.

Go for someone else—

Somewhere in his heart he wished for that.

He was fine with being called inhuman. Everyone other than him was fine. Even if he had to exchange with a complete stranger, he didn’t want to die.

“Help…!”

He didn’t matter paying any price if it ended with him not dying now.

It happened right after he embraced this wholehearted wish to not die.

“Ouch…!”

Strength left his legs. The momentum made him tumble down.

While grimacing, Kii-kun looked at his own legs—

“—”

He froze.

His right leg was gone.

There was no blood. Everything down of his ankle crumbled down like sand.

“What are you doing! Run away!”

Someone shouted near his ear.

Someone held him up as he fell on the ground.

“Don’t just freeze! Run!”

This was a boy, around Kii-kun’s age or a little bit older. Clothes, hairstyle and face—he had no distinguishing features whatsoever. About the only unique thing about him was the band-aid on his cheek.

“Even if you—tell me to run—”

Kii-kun looked at his own leg—and was startled.

He had a leg.

Had fear caused him to imagine otherwise? His supposedly crumbled leg returned to itself and there wasn’t even a single scratch on it.

Roars and screams approached.

Kii-kun came back to his senses and started running with the mystery boy.

“How much longer do we need to run!”

“How much longer… I’m already… at my limits…!”

Looking at the monster chasing from behind, the pedestrians on the road all ran away and scattered around.

There was only one figure standing ahead.

A girl with a mask hiding her mouth coughed.

“Idiot! What are you doing there! Move, Mikko!”

The boy next to him shouted.

“Cough… from the moment we heard the first sounds, 5 minutes and 32 seconds have passed.”

The girl who was completely unmoving faced Kii-kun and the other boy.

“—It should be gone any moment now.”

The girl’s glazed eyes—perhaps she had a fever—looked toward the “legs”.

Kii-kun and the boy stopped in place and turned around.

As they did, the girl’s prophecy became reality.

The two legs, black and white, were vanishing right before Kii-kun’s and the pedestrians’ eyes.

Nothing remained of the monster that destroyed the asphalt like it was mere tofu. All that remained was the scenery of the destroyed national road and the pedestrians standing around, stunned.

“…”

It felt like waking up from a bad dream. He couldn’t understand what just happened.

The boy next to him pressed closer to the girl.

“How did you know it’d vanish?”

“Cough… because it’s rare for Mushi to survive for more than 5 minutes.”

“What?”

“You there, I apologize for involving you in this.”

The girl turned to Kii-kun.

“However, it was a nauseatingly shameful way of running.”

“…Ha?”

“With you pushing unrelated people out of the way like that, I realized at a glance that you operated under a self-centered thinking of wishing to be saved, even if it was you alone. It was horrible, seeing you act like you wanted to sacrifice other people… cough.”

Kii-kun’s face became red.

It was just like the girl said. He was willing to go that far to get saved.

He didn’t know he was that much of a selfish person—

“T-that—I mean, you know...”

“However, I do not dislike you.”

The girl narrowed her eyes in a grin.

He couldn’t see her mouth due to the mask, but her eyes were definitely smiling kindly—

He realized that, although he’d shown her his ugly self, she really did forgive and accept him.

“…”

“What are you looking all happy for? I’m going to get mad.”

Being coldly told that by the other boy, Kii-kun felt his face heat up again.

“I-I-I-I-I’m not happy!”

“Why were you chased by the monster?”

Being stared daggers by the boy, Kii-kun recalled.

“My companions… a-ah, wait! They’re…!”

Were his two friends safe? Without understanding anything, he abandoned his collapsed friends.

“Wait, I’ll go too. Looks like there’s a need for information.”

“My name is Mikko. And you?”

Being looked by the unknown boy and girl, he gulped.

Was Mikko a nickname? It seemed like these two weren’t just passersby.

“I’m… called Kii-kun.”

Just to be safe he gave his nickname, then looked at his leg.

It was right there.

What if his leg vanished just like that monster—he felt anxious.

“Kii-kun, you said?”

For some reason, the boy changed his expression. Startling, he looked at Kii-kun’s hair.

Was his topknot hairstyle so rare?

“Mikko… do you know this guy?”

The girl tilted her head, looking confused. Looking at Kii-kun, she narrowed her eyes in a grin.

“Nice to meet you.”

“…Nice to meet you.”

He somehow answered with a strained smile.

There was no doubt that this was his first meeting with the person called Mikko.

1.04 Daisuke Part 3

Kii-kun.

As they came to the convenience store with the boy of that name, they found out that it was being investigated by the police.

Two boys who collapsed at the parking lot were taken away by an ambulance.

He could hear firefighter sirens. They probably came to extinguish the cars that were destroyed and caught fire.

“What happened to those guys? No way they’re dead, right…?”

Mixing among the onlookers, Kii-kun asked, looking really worried.

“Looks like they’re still breathing. I don’t know what will happen from now, though… Cough.”

Mikko spoke while coughing.

“…”

As far as Daisuke saw, the condition of Kii-kun’s two friends wasn’t good.

To him, they looked like what happened to a host when their Mushi got killed—they became Fallen.

However, unlike that state that Daisuke knew, the two boys had apparently lost consciousness immediately after the Mushi was born. That would mean those “legs” weren’t under the host’s control from the very first moment.

“What about that dark woman you talked about?”

“L-looks like she’s gone. —I-I’m not lying! That woman definitely did something! She was fine even after being run over by a car, so she definitely wasn’t normal…!”

According to Kii-kun, a certain woman did something to his friends.

A dark woman clad in tattered clothing.

Originally, there should have been only three of those called the Original Three who gave birth to Mushitsuki.

However, the dark woman Kii-kun had explained about matched none of them. Her appearance was different from Oogui, and Shinpu wouldn’t go fishing around in trash. Sanbikime had never been witnessed before, but the created Mushi wasn’t a Fusion Type anyway.

However, the “wings” and “legs” Daisuke saw—definitely resembled Mushi.

He couldn’t see past that contradiction.

“Do you have a cellphone?”

“Hmm? Yeah—”

He grabbed the cellphone Kii-kun took out and pushed in a number.

“The number you have dialed is presently unused. Please check the number and—”

He couldn’t reach the SEPB’s emergency address. Never mind the Central Branch, the East Central Branch that Daisuke belonged to was the same.

He pushed in the numbers of as many acquaintances as he could remember. Haji Senri, Ogata Akatsuki—

“The number you have—”

It was no use.

All numbers associated with the SEPB were completely shut out.

“…Are you aware that at present Akamaki City is engulfed in a strange mist?”

“Huh? N-no… A mist, you say?”

“What’s this, all of a sudden? Cough.”

Both Kii-kun and Mikko were confused.

Something was going on inside Akamaki City that became an enclosed miniature garden.

However, the people inside it were unaware of that.

Daisuke couldn’t think that the facts the Central Headquarters were completely silent and him being unable to use his Mushi were a coincidence.

Although he could see the omens of something odd, there was no one who could stop them—

“Kii-kun—have you ever been on a ship?”

“A ship? Right, I haven’t… I was on a plane, though.”

Kii-kun frowned as if not understanding what the hell he was talking about.

“…”

The moment he entered Akamaki City, Daisuke had definitely seen it within the mist.

Kii-kun had half his body in a horrible state and was dying.

And then, Mikko nearby spoke.

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

He didn’t mistake it.

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

While crying, Mikko prophesized destruction.

However, Kii-kun and Mikko said they never met before.

If so, then what was that scene?

Just an illusion?

Or perhaps—a laughable thought passed through his mind.

On the abandoned ship where dead appeared one after another, the scene of the girl prophesizing destruction.

What if this wasn’t the present or the past, but instead something that would happen afterward—

“If ‘she’ isn’t here, I will go already.”

“W-wait a minute! What about those two? Would they never return?!”

“There are no cases of people waking up after becoming like that. Unfortunately… cough.”

“No way…”

“Cases? What do you know about that Mushi?”

Mikko who entered the national road while weaving through onlookers, Daisuke and Kii-kun followed.

“—It is my father’s fault.”

Mikko coughed.

“My father is a researcher. Originally, he was an accomplished psychologist, and he was also a doctor who conducted clinical experiments… due to my mother’s death, he immersed himself into certain research.”

“Certain research?”

“—Immortality.”

Twitch.

Daisuke unconsciously moved his eyebrows.

“Research about the Undying, a person who’d never die… he started chasing after that silly thing. My father, who had even been called a genius, broke down, unable to accept my mother’s death. Everyone laughed at him and isolated him—but at a certain point, he obtained collaborators.”

Mikko frowned in pain. She was possibly angry, or perhaps sad.

“The Round Table… if they hadn’t become patrons to my father, half as a joke, and pushed this research on him, this wouldn’t have happened.”

The Round Table?

Daisuke only just barely stopped himself from emitting a voice.

He heard about them before from his superior, Goroumaru Touko. They were a limited-member club formed by the rich, that possessed vast influence.

“As my father obtained research funds, he dirtied his hands in inhuman experiments. Who Kii-kun met is one lab rat. She went through horrible stuff, and I took care of her. In the end she became able to give birth to monsters, but—”

Mikko looked at Daisuke. Her almond eyes narrowed in sorrow.

“I think of us as sisters.”

Kii-kun’s face stiffened.

“W-what… is that for real? Or is that from some movie?”

“Right, you should just go and think that. About your friends—I really am sorry.”

Grinning with just her eyes, Mikko started walking again.

Kii-kun stood there in shock.

“…”

Daisuke left the topknot boy behind and followed after Mikko.

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

It wasn’t like he believed that scene.

However, what if—if a Mushi with the power of prophecy existed, it was possible that this was the meaning behind that mist.

There was no longer any information he needed out of Kii-kun.

Even if he wouldn’t get killed like in the prophecy, it was probably best to part ways here.

“Cough… Daisuke-san, was it? Why are you following me?”

“Because there’s still loads of things I wanna question you about.”

The Original Three were enemies to Mushitsuki.

Not one had been defeated as of yet, and he couldn’t allow himself to miss the omen about the possibility of a fourth one being born.

Once he managed to escape Akamaki City, he should return to report—

That path crossed his mind, but he soon rejected it.

He couldn’t take his eyes off of this girl called Mikko. Even if he took her out of Akamaki City, he had no guarantee one could safely pass through the mist.

“Are you attracted to me? I still find you disgusting even if you were to hide it, so please state it clearly. I’m sorry, I cannot see someone like you as a potential mate. However, even someone as creepy and hopeless as you who just got rejected by me, can be my friend.”

“What are you planning to do, once you find the dark woman?”

“Ow.”

Daisuke asked this while lightly slapping her, and Mikko rubbed her cheek.

“I want—to set her free.”

“…”

“I know where she is heading. Since she was brought from overseas—she is probably trying to head back there.”

Mikko made a small cough.

“Wait!”

A voice came from behind.

Kii-kun ran toward the two, his face on the verge of tears.

“D-don’t leave me behind…! I’ll go too!”

The boy appeared again to pursue Daisuke and Mikko.

Although it was something so simple—

Shudder.

An inexpressible chill stabbed Daisuke from head to toe.

Kii-kun, who should have parted once was reunited with Mikko—

This inseverable connection caused a reasonless anxiety to swell inside him.

“…What? Got any business with us?”

Daisuke endeavored to speak in a cold voice.

“Me, too…”

“What are you talking about? …Cough.”

“Just like those two—that dark woman also did something to me.”

Both Daisuke and Mikko stiffened their faces.

“Will I… also become like them?”

The boy entreating on the verge of tears, and the horrible corpse he saw within the mist.

Those two people that had a topknot overlapped in Daisuke’s eyes.

1.05 The Others

Kashua Artines became an exchange student.

On weekdays he’d commute to the famous school called Horusu Seijou Academy, but today he was on sick leave.

The time was evening. Normally this was about the time he’d go home from school, change to house clothes, and eat his dinner alone in the house he stayed in as an exchange student.

However, today he had an errand to take care of.

“A lot have black hair, so they’re probably from Central Asia… and so many of them, too. From how they’re shriveled, it looks like it happened a while ago, though…”

Kashua was crouching in this rectangular space wrapped in darkness. He put a penlight in his hair and mumbled to no one in particular.

“The stowaways were trapped here. And what are these bullet holes…? There’s also blood. What happened in this warehouse that caused the stowaways to vanish…”

While mumbling this, he exited from the double doors outside.

“Looks like there’s a need to investigate the owner of this container. —Oh, crap.”

Illuminated by moonlight, Kashua’s slim outline became visible.

With his vivid blond hair and brown eyes, slim figure and small face, he was often seen as older than his 17 years of age. Wearing a hoodie and jeans, he chose to look like a boy going out for jogging. The goggles hanging from his neck were cheap ones he bought from a bike shop.

“I forgot to do my homework for tomorrow.”

The sighing Kashua was caressed by the salty wind.

He was at a certain pier in the suburbs of Akamaki City. In its corners was a place for containers, and there were no human figures other than him. This scenery of the lines of innumerable containers could perhaps be compared to a forest.

“Last week’s midterm test was bad. My math grade was too high, and my Japanese was horrible. I need to strike up a balance to not stand out…”

Muttering with his hood lowered down, he operated his cellphone’s mail function.

—He found the place likely to supply his target.

He sent an e-mail written in a foreign language. That was converted to numbers, and it would be sent to a certain country not through the mobile company but satellite.

“There was the report that the test subject escaped from a facility connected to the Round Table and there was a happening in town today. Was it just a coincidence, that route leading here? If, perhaps, the test subject was acquired here and would try to come back… it’d be very good for my hunt.”

While walking among the containers, Kashua exposed his well-treated hair to the moon.

“They’re completely shriveled up. I can’t even imagine how starved that test subject must have been.”

Walking for a while, he arrived near the entrance to the bay. On the other side of the pier the city’s neon lights were blinking.

“If she ran from the city, she’d definitely cross there. I can try waiting for a few days. …If I’m not going to go to school tomorrow, I don’t need to do my homework.”

As he wondered where to hide around, it happened.

“—So you really want me to do my homework that much, you monster?”

With the city’s lights to its back, a dark figure approached with unsteady gait. Wrapped in a dirty robe, its long black hair dragged behind it.

His target appeared as if on cue. He hid in the shadows of the containers.

He removed the device around his belt buckle and brought out a small syringe. It was thinner than a cigarette and looked like a toy, but had enough power to put large animals to sleep within moments.

“I’ll wrap this up before the day fully ends.”

The surroundings were already gloomy.

This happened just the moment before Kashua leapt from behind the containers.

“…!”

A bright white light lit his vision.

He heard violent engine noises and several semi-trailers rushed into the docks. Blinding high beams illuminated the dark figure.

Limbs and neck that were nothing but bones, and goggling, red eyes.

She was clearly forced to abstain from food not just for one or two days, but for a long, long while. He could tell she was a woman from the way some roundness was just barely retained on her body.

“What…?”

As Kashua narrowed his eyes from the blinding light, he could see that the semi-trailers immediately surrounded the dark woman.

The doors opened with bangs and many large men flew out. They were clad in camouflage clothes and equipped with helmets and face masks.

“The JSDF—no, that’s wrong. Who are these—”

The man in camo all brought out something like guns and pulled the trigger.

“—…!”

Shot from all directions, wired bullets squarely hit the dark woman. Her shrill, choked voice echoed in the pier. These were apparently some kind of stun guns.

The dark woman howled. Tearing off the electrical wires stabbed into her, she assaulted the camo men.

“Don’t look her in the eyes! You’ll get ‘eaten’!”

Commanding these camo men was a youth clad in an expensive-looking suit. Kashua couldn’t see him well due to the backlight, but he looked to be still young—approximately twenty years old.

With superhuman arm strength, the dark human struck the camo men. She easily broke through their ranks and danced toward the suited youth.

“What the heck, don’t make me work.”

Both arms of the dark woman that tried to grab him slumped to the sides.

With flowing movements, the youth fended against the woman’s arms. As she leaned toward him, he struck her medulla oblongata directly above with a nimble hand blade. Flipping back, the dark woman stopped moving as though paralyzed.

It seemed quite old-fashioned, but these trained movements—was this budou, Japanese martial arts? Kashua saw this hand-to-hand combat technique for the first time.

“Fire! Keep firing!”

Quickly leaving the woman’s side, the youth ordered.

Gunfire echoed. The dark woman’s entire body became a porcupine full of stun gun needles.

And she finally stopped moving.

Immediately the camo men took the next action. They wrapped tape around the dark woman’s limbs and stuffed a large bag over her head, throwing her inside a semi-trailer.

Within only a few minutes, the capture ended as a huge success.

Riding on the semi-trailers, the camo men retreated from the pier in the blink of an eye.

Remaining there leaning against a luxury car and smoking a cigarette as if to celebrate his victory was the youth.

“So there were ‘hunters’ other than me? —Looks like there’s a need to make him spill the beans about who he is.”

Although his prey escaped, it seemed like his syringe would end up useful.

Kashua leapt from behind the containers. Killing his footsteps, he approached the youth from a blind spot.

“Ah, there’s someone there! I can ask him about it!”

Twitch, Kashua stopped moving.

Three shadows appeared from the direction of town.

“And another one on the other side!”

The youth twitched. He turned around and noticed Kashua’s existence as he instantly hid the syringe.

“I’m curious about that semi-trailer just now. It wasn’t the type of car to move containers.”

“Are you trying to show me how sharp you are? So shamelessly exposing your shallowness with such an obvious piece of reasoning is a fault of yours. However, even if you are like that, I still—ow.”

“Wha! Why are you hitting a girl! You’re the worst!”

“Stop acting like some frail girl—ow. A-and now even Kii-kun hit me…”

“Sorry, I dunno why, but I get really angry when I look at you.”

Civilians?

Kashua dropped his hidden syringe to the ground and stealthily crushed it underfoot.

Two boys, a girl, the expensively-dressed youth, and Kashua.

These five people gathered under the lights of the pier.

“Kids shouldn’t come here at this hour.”

The rich youth laughed to break the ice. He was a good-natured young man—or that was the air he gave, but after seeing what happened just before, Kashua couldn’t help but feel suspicious.

“They’re suspicious. They’re probably not unrelated to all of this.”

Glancing at the youth and Kashua, one of the boys spoke. —He had such an average appearance that he could serve as reference material. Other than the band-aid on his cheek he had no distinguishing features.

“H-how come you understand that sort of thing, Daisuke?”

“Somehow.”

“I’m not suspicious.”

Kashua clearly spoke. No matter where one looked, he was just a boy in the middle of jogging. There was no basis to call him suspicious at all.

For some reason, silence fell.

“Let us first introduce ourselves. It would be much easier to question each other if we know each other’s names, after all.”

No counterargument to the girl’s suggestion came from anyone.

“Mikko.”

“…Daisuke.”

“K…Kii-kun.”

“I’m Rui.”

“Kasshi.”

No one was going to give themselves away easily, it appeared. Kashua also used his school alias.

Those names had no meaning at all—

Kashua thought so, but he didn’t miss the change in expression in just one of them.

Only the boy called Daisuke grew stiff upon hearing their names.

He didn’t know why that was so, but there was one thing for sure; he didn’t welcome the meeting of these five.

“I’ll ask just in case… but do you know each other?”

At Daisuke’s question, the four people exchanged glances—

“Nice to meet you.”

Everyone spoke together.

Notes

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