Mushi to Medama

There was a faint aroma of cherry blossoms in the breeze. On an early spring afternoon, Usagawa Rinne had accidentally fallen asleep in the warm and comforting sunlight, only waking when someone shook her shoulders lightly.

"- Um. Huh?"

Rinne"s body was still slumped sideways when she was woken from her warm and comfortable dream, and she wanted nothing more than to immediately go back to sleep.

But the person next to her obstinately dragged her upright.

"Rinne, Rinne, get up!"

"Urk..."

A sound echoed softly next to her, with Rinne not understanding what was going on at all. It went on and on, until she finally couldn"t bear it anymore and sat up, having no other options.

She lifted her hands and yawned, then made a big stretch.

"Mmmmm."

"Wasn"t that a good nap for you? You also had a good night"s sleep last night. You"ll become an idiot if you keep sleeping day after day like this."

"Ahaha, Guriko-chan"s the last person I"d want to tell me off... You also sleep during cla.s.ses without a care yourself."

Guriko frowned as if she was upset, but immediately smiled in an outgoing way. Gankyū Eguriko was both Rinne"s roommate and cla.s.smate.

This girl, with her strange name, scratched her black and messy hair and narrowed her eyes.

"I don"t really care about it, but Sakaki was asking for you just now. He probably wants to talk to you about something. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a teacher couldn"t find you, so he told me off. He"s so full of himself. One day I"ll gouge out his eyeb.a.l.l.s. Hmph!"

"... Sensei?" Rinne tilted her head. Her cheeks were still reddish with residual sleepiness and she looked rather cute.

The "Sakaki" whom Guriko mentioned was named Sakaki Guryū. He was the homeroom teacher for Rinne"s cla.s.s, as well as her lover.

Rinne"s heart would be full of warm happiness whenever she thought of him.

That familiar cla.s.s in Kannonsakazaki Private High School, Cla.s.s 1-B, was Rinne"s homeroom.

It seemed to be already afterschool when Rinne woke up. There was no one around her except Guriko. How long had she slept for? Rinne looked at her watch, and remembered it was time for her to go to work. Which day of the week was it? Which day of which month?

"Sensei... was looking for me?"

Rinne felt a bit confused, and posed the question to Guriko. Guriko replied with displeasure all over her face. "Yep. I don"t know exactly what he wants you for. That teacher was asking for "Milady, Milady" all over the place, looking for you as if he was a lost puppy. Why don"t you hurry up and find him and get him to shut up?"

And as Guriko said this -

"Milady!"

Sakaki Guryū, that blond, blue-eyed, startlingly beautiful man, pushed open the door at that moment.

He was looking everywhere for Rinne just like Guriko said. There was a sad expression on his face, and his hair was a mess.

"Ah, thank goodness. Milady, you are here! I couldn"t contact you either through your home phone number or your mobile. I was so worried!"

Sakaki was shouting loudly as he walked quickly towards Rinne. He pushed Guriko aside, and embraced Rinne in his arms. Rinne was somewhat happy to feel his warmth, but at the same time she blushed over her entire face from excitement.

"Hold, hold on, Sensei... Don"t! This is so embarra.s.sing. Don"t act so exaggeratedly!" Rinne smiled and returned his embrace. When she looked towards Guriko, whose face was full of displeasure, the two girls both looked as if they thought Sakaki could be such a bother at times.

Rinne spoke softly. "It"s fine. I was just having a nap. How should I say this... I had a bad dream..."

She felt the scent of blood when she woke up. It was coming both from the world and from herself.

"Ah - Huh?"

Oh? What is this? What a strange dream. Usagawa Rinne thought. She realized she was in a dark place. Her body hurt all over and her head felt heavy. Where is Guriko? Where is Sensei? Where did they disappear off to? Where did the quiet cla.s.sroom disappear off to?

"Huh...?" Rinne really couldn"t understand this and made a confused sound. This seemed to be the same place. This was still the cla.s.sroom of Cla.s.s 1-B in Kannonsakazaki Private High School. However, her surroundings looked as if they had been through an earthquake. All the window panes were broken, and the furniture were all upturned and scattered across the room. Even the room itself seemed to be tilted.

But there were still scribbles on the wall and she could feel nostalgia rising up. This was indeed her cla.s.sroom.

"Why, why is it so dark?"

It was all a mess in front of her and she couldn"t understand it. Rinne initially looked around her for anyone else. She then reached into her pocket for her phone. After coming up as negative for both, she got up and walked towards the window.

She could hear something. Some people seemed to be fighting.

"Huh... is this a dream?"

Rinne couldn’t help but whimper.

Beginning with the room adjacent to hers, the school building had been severely damaged. The broken roof tiles, walls, and the shattered pieces of wooden furniture were everywhere.

What is going on?

Is this actually a nightmare?

Why am I here, smelling like blood, in the middle of the empty, ruined school?

"...?!"

Rinne pressed her palm on the broken window pane with a thump and glared outside. She saw something outlandish. A naked, white woman, with her blonde hair flying in the wind, was fighting against a gigantic monster with a red body and a pair of wings coming out of its back.

"That, is - huh, is that Guriko-chan?"

The red creature seemed to be what Guriko looked like after her metamorphosis.

Rinne had seen her like this when they fought the Dream World Beast. But why was Guriko fighting?

Rinne knew nothing about what was going on, and she couldn"t understand anything.

"Are you awake, princess?"

Rinne was startled by the sudden sound. Her shoulders shook, and she turned around. A man dressed in black stood at the entrance of the cla.s.sroom, He looked like a priest, but his eyes contained a hungry look like that of a wolf. The man giggled in a low voice, and sounded positively terrifying...

"You... are..."

Her throat was rather hoa.r.s.e and she couldn"t successfully continue her sentence. Had she not spoken for a long time? Words could not flow freely out of her mouth. Her thoughts were also fuddled, and her memories were not very reliable either.

The only thing she felt was anxiety. Rinne tried to find Sakaki as her top priority. She looked everywhere in the empty area.

"Although it"s a fickle thing to restore someone through alterations of the flesh...it seems you have already regained yourself, Usagawa Rinne-chan."

"My...self?"

She didn"t understand what he was talking about. Also... who was he?

“Who – are you? Where is… this?”

The man ignored her questions and approached her, while looking at the fierce fighting outside the window with pleasure evident on his face. He then looked around the school building. “Mmm, the Mushi are gathering together too. Then – it’s about to begin.”

He suddenly turned around and looked at Rinne with his face full of smiles. It was very unsettling – or rather, why was she talking to something like this? Rinne couldn’t understand why she was even in this situation and she turned around, wanting to run away. She felt – scared! She felt a tinge of fear in her heart.

“You won’t get away.”

The man’s wrist stretched out and curled around Rinne’s waist, as if it ignored the laws of physics, and dragged her back. The overwhelming power made it impossible to resist. Rinne struggled in a panic, but it was useless.

Rinne was tightly wrapped up by the man, and his giant palm clamped over her mouth. She was terrified, and her entire body shook.

“Ahh, don’t worry. I’m not planning to suffocate you to death.” The man spoke lightheartedly and put pressure on Rinne’s jaw, forcing her mouth open. ”Even if I were to kill you, it would be – by drowning.”

There was an odd sound, and Rinne instantly experienced something unbelievable.

“ – Urg!”

Glug glug glug… following this odd sound, a warm liquid suddenly gurgled from the hand holding Rinne’s mouth open and was injected into her mouth. She couldn’t close her mouth, so she couldn’t stop the liquid from flowing in. She tried to vomit, wanting to throw it up – and in fact, some of the liquid came flying out of her nose.

“Ur, glug, glug, glug… Uuuuum!”

She didn’t want to drink this. It was so disgusting, but she was forced to drink all this liquid. Besides – what was this…

“Uuuuum! Guuuuu!”

Rinne realized the disgusting truth. She began to wave her limbs everywhere and tried to struggle and resist. This unique metallic stench, this warmth, and this stickiness that stuck in her throat – this was blood.

She was being forced to drink blood! And copious amounts of it too!

No matter how she cried and struggled, the man did not stop. She didn’t even know whose blood it was. The blood pa.s.sed through Rinne’s throat and filled her stomach, where it settled down with a gurgle.

"Gah! Uuuuum!"

"Don"t hate it so much. The power of the Fragments that Melodia NoiseTear Song collected over hundreds of years is all infused in this blood! Even I want a sip of this."

"Guuuuuuuh!"

She didn"t know how much she had drunk. The blood was still going. Her stomach already feel bloated. It was so disgusting. She wanted to vomit it all back up, but she couldn"t.

"Mmm - they finally finished."

The man looked outside the window, then giggled a laugh again.

In that instant, it was as if his voice and tone became someone else"s. It was as if his personality changed, or an actor had stopped acting and returned to his normal self - that was how it felt.

"... Oh well. That"s the best you can do, Crybaby Joker."

He laughed and giggled. He - no, that voice sounded like a woman"s - laughed ominously.

Rinne didn"t understand. She didn"t understand anything. She just wanted to go back to Sakaki"s side.

Sensei! Guriko-chan! Someone! Someone, help me!

"When the Savior is completely destroyed and the False Prophet appears, the six-hundred-and-sixty-six beasts will awake and the world will be destroyed - and humans will be destroyed again."

He seemed to be reciting the Bible, and yet seemed to be saying something incomprehensible - then the man"s figure started to blur and gradually changed into different shapes...

"... Then I will become the G.o.d that destroys the world."

Hehehe, she laughed.

"Urgh - ahh, cough, cough!"

The hand was finally removed from Rinne"s mouth. She started to cough and moan violently. Her stomach felt disgusting, and she wanted to vomit - she wanted to vomit everything out of her body.

"Urk, urk..."

Why do I have to suffer such a cruel treatment...?

Rinne thought this, and moved her gaze away from the scary laughing woman. She suddenly saw Guriko outside the window, who was covered in blood and also looking this way.

Behind Guriko, the six-hundred-and-sixty-six Mushi were looking this way with red, Apple-like eyes.