(MoD) Chapter 41: Asa Mitaka

Chapter 41: Asa Mitaka

(Ashikaga Takauji)

After making my ultimatum clear to the people fortunate enough to share my blood, I departed from the residence. I have no plans on returning here until their month is over—and if I ever do, it won’t be to their fortune, quite the opposite, really.

“Look who's finally here.” Once I stepped outside, I was immediately met with the sight of Sona glaring at me with her arms crossed, the rest of my family seeming to share her sentiment. “Well? Now that you’ve finished what I can only imagine was another session of you pissing them off, I think it’s time you give us an explanation.” 

I raised my eyebrow, unable to stop a faint smirk from crawling up my face.

“Are you sure now’s a good time?” 

“What’s that supposed to mean—” 

Ring! Ring!

“You can go ahead and pick up, I’m not going anywhere.” 

“This isn’t over!” She reluctantly listened to me, “Rias? What’s going on?” 

As I expected, Rias was the one calling her. 

Something’s happening in Kuoh, and as much as I hate to admit it, I think I might be partially responsible for the situation over there. 

Death had briefly mentioned that my sisters, the other three Horsemen of the Apocalypse, would soon come to life thanks to my awakening; War, Famine, and Control. Apparently, Pestilence isn’t active anymore because of how difficult it is to get something like the Black Plague going in this day and age.

Who knew? Even a Horseman of the Apocalypse can succumb to the effects of modernization.

Since this world didn’t have a Death, the final piece of the puzzle could never be completed, so the other three have remained completely dormant all this time. 

But now that I’m here, they’re beginning to activate.

I just wasn’t expecting them to start up this early. I wish Death had been more precise with his warning, but scorning him isn’t going to do much to remedy this situation, so I’ll have to figure this out on my own.

The youngest of my sisters, War, has already awakened. I can feel it through some intrinsic connection we share, and she’s angry—really angry—with me in particular.

I guess that suits her, she is War after all. 

She shouldn’t be able to track me since she’d need to search for my soul if she wanted to look for me from such a considerable distance, because my soul isn’t actually inside my body. It’s a part of the Crossing, a place I can fully control who does and doesn’t have access to. 

War should also be relatively weak at the moment. She’s been dormant for basically her entire lifespan, and she probably doesn’t have a vessel yet. 

According to Death, I’m the only one out of the four of us who doesn’t need a vessel. Death fundamentally differs from War, Famine, and Control as an organism. The world can go on without the other three, but it simply cannot function without Death. 

He didn’t disclose the requirements for someone to house my sisters, so I can only hope such an individual doesn’t exist within Kuoh. The last thing I need right now is for her to gain more strength before our inevitable confrontation.

As I stand now, I cannot beat her one-on-one. Even in her weakened state.

And I highly doubt she’s in the mood for peaceful negotiations. 

Why? Because I’m also severely below optimal functioning capacity. The core of my strength comes from my soul, and my soul is barely hanging on. If I hadn’t sacrificed those ten thousand spirits, I’d be profusely coughing up blood right about now. 

Sigh, being a big brother really is a handful, isn’t it? Murayama’s already more than enough trouble, but now I have three more sisters to manage.

Hopefully, Famine and Control aren’t as bloodthirsty. In fact, it’d be better if they just remained asleep forever. 

I don’t know how much time I have before they wake up, either, but I better get War sorted out before they do, just in case Famine and Control also have it out for me. 

Fortunately for me, I have a group of Devils who, thanks to their role as Kuoh Town's overseers, have no choice but to get involved in our dispute. 

If I position them around the board correctly, I should be able to handle War. 

“Understood, I’ll be there immediately.” Sona hung up the phone, looking at me with thrice the frustration as before. “I should lock you in a coffin and throw you down the Mariana Trench.” 

“What for? I didn’t do anything,” I smiled sheepishly. 

“The fact that you know what Rias phoned me about is more than enough to verify your involvement, you’ve seriously crossed the line this time! Do you have any idea how many people died—” 

“Three hundred and fifty-two,” I replied calmly, causing her to raise her eyebrow. “I’m Death now, I’m pretty familiar with the concept, and besides, it wasn’t me who killed them. It was my sister.” 

“Eh?” Murayama stammered.

“Not you, my other one.” 

She then looked up at our mother and father, “Is there something you want to tell me?” 

“Your brother’s just messing with you,” Taro reassured her. “I think...?” 

I’m not sure how I’m going even to begin to explain what I am now to any of them, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. Right now, I have a town to save. 

“You’ll meet her soon enough, and no, these incompetent fools didn’t make her.” I sneered at my equally foolish parents, “I’ll do what I can to brief you all on the train ride back, just try not to ask too many questions, even though I’m confident you’ll have an ocean of them.” 

…

One by one, both medical and policing authorities alike ventured into Kuoh’s local plaza. Whatever was causing the rage-inducing “disease” seemed to have concluded, allowing them to retrieve the bodies one by one to try uncover the root of the problem through autopsies, as well as ensure that no remnants of the disease are spread during their decomposition. 

A grotesque, yet necessary task.

‘Where am I?’ 

Among the ocean of corpses was a girl who looked to be around seventeen or eighteen.

‘Am I dead? Yeah, this is death, isn’t it?’ 

Her eyes were dark blue, and looked almost pitch-black from afar. 

‘I can’t remember much, I know I was shopping for some groceries and then suddenly I became… angry. So very angry. Why? What could’ve possibly made me so enraged?’ 

She had black hair fashioned into two, low twintails. 

‘I think I hurt people… a lot of people. But they hurt me as well… so it’s all justified. I don’t particularly like people anyway…’ 

She was wearing a relatively simple, placid white dress and black skirt, alongside some heels she had procured with the pocket change she had saved up throughout her third year of high school.

She attended Fourth East High School in Tokyo and had come to Kuoh on the weekend to shop. 

Goods in Tokyo were unbelievably pricey after all.

‘It’s strange, I expected death to be a lot… more than whatever this is. I can’t feel anything, I can’t see anything, but I can think… is that all death is? Never-ending thinking?’ 

Her name was Asa Mitaka.

“Don’t worry, my brother won’t be able to reach you here. Not when you’re with me.” A low, distorted voice called out to her. 

‘Someone’s… speaking to me? Does that mean I’m not dead?’ 

“Aren’t you listening? I said my brother won’t be able to reach you while you’re with me. Therefore, you won’t be able to die. Granted, I can’t keep you like this indefinitely. So you need to hurry up and make a decision.” 

‘A decision?’ 

“If you want to live, if you want a second chance to fix all the grievances of your miserable life, then you will give your body to me. Either that, or I’ll let you perish here and now.” 

‘That doesn’t really sound like a choice to me…’ 

“Three, two, one—” 

‘Fine! I don’t really know what’s going on anyway… but I don’t want to die… so you can have my body if that’s what it takes.’ 

“Good choice.” 

“Hey! Look over there!” One of the medical authorities’ eyes widened in surprise, pointing at the jaw-dropping sight of one of the corpses rising from the mass of cadavers around them. 

Asa’s body, which had been torn to shreds, was now mending itself out of the blue, coming back to life like a scene ripped straight out of a zombie flick. 

Scars had appeared on her face, across the center and left cheek, her eyes now had eerie, yellow rings swirling within them, and she had been let loose down her shoulders. 

“Careful! She could be infected!” The police on standby all reached for their firearms, aiming at Asa in preparation to take down the “infected” individual.

“So noisy, it’s no wonder my brother exists. Letting you all exist for as long as you pleased would be nauseating.” 

Swoosh! 

Asa vanished from thin air, moving at a speed no human could ever hope to track.

“What?! She disappeared!” 

“I said you were being noisy,” one of the policemen said, feeling a pair of cold hands wrap themselves around his throat, effortlessly hoisting him up into the air. “I’ll go ahead and take this off your hands since you aren’t using it very well in the first place.” 

Crush! 

Like she was squashing a bug, Asa clamped down on the poor official’s windpipe, causing him to implode into one big, bloody mess. 

Of course, she wasn’t really Asa. No human high school girl was capable of such monstrous strength.

War had found her vessel.

“OPEN FIRE!” 

“Human weaponry… it seems you’ve all evolved again. Good, the better the weapons, the more violent your wars will become.” 

…

After a short train ride back to Kuoh Town, coupled with a half-assed explanation from Takauji about his newfound status as the Grim Reaper, the group had finally returned home, and this time, Taro and Miho would actually be sticking around. 

It wasn’t like they had anything better to do now that Takauji had thrown the status quo of the Ashikaga Clan into a wood-chipper and proceeded to incinerate it shortly after. 

“Wait, you’re telling me your Contracted Magician is responsible for all this?” Rias asked in utter disbelief. 

Sona and Rias’ peerages had gathered in the Occult Research Club-Room to discuss the incident that had just occurred in their town, with the Contracted Magician in question lounging on one of the couches, snacking on a bowl of sweets he had swiped off Rias’ desk without a care in the world.

Life was too sweet to be bitter about when you had a plate full of cookies in front of you.

And besides, more deaths meant more souls for him. Depending on how the confrontation with his sister went, there was a high probability that he’d need to sacrifice a significant amount of them to give himself a potent enough power boost to take down War. 

However, he’d only entertain that option as a last resort. Not because he felt bad about damning more souls to the river, but because he didn’t want to waste potential citizens for his Kingdom unless he had no other choice.

A Kingdom with no subjects was just a glorified piece of architecture.

“For the last time, I’m not the one responsible. My sister’s the one causing all of this!” Takauji grumbled, signalling for Raynare to shove another cookie into his mouth. “Even if she weren’t angry at me, she’d still be a huge pain in the ass for you all to death with. If anything, you should be grateful that you have me here offering my priceless assistance.” 

“And pray tell, how exactly does your lounging there eating my snacks qualify as assistance? Ashikaga-san?” Rias scowled, her left eye twitching due to Takauji’s plain disregard for authority.

This was her clubroom! Where did he get the nerve to waltz here like he owned the place? 

“You needn’t worry your little head,” Takauji put down the bowl and stood upright, his haunting presence causing goosebumps to appear across their arms. “My genius self has concocted a plan to allow even a group of rag-tag mongrels like yourselves to best my sister.” 

━━━━

Did you really expect a Horseman Arc without Chainsaw Man stuff in it? Nyehehehe! Let’s with Takauji good luck with War, since even if he succeeds in dealing with her, Famine and Control will still be waiting for him.