Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume6 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 11===

It was late at night and the Milky Way shined with a cold light overhead.

After sending Shiroyama Kyousuke the location at the very last second, the Bridesmaid group led by Azalea and The Saint hid in the darkness as they entered the metropolitan zoo. It was half past midnight, which was half an hour before the exchange began. That might seem like cutting it close, but this was the right answer. The location of an exchange like this was not the same as a hideout. They wanted to depart while leaving as little a trace of themselves as possible, so they wanted to avoid staying too long and thus leaving too much evidence in the form of hairs, saliva, sweat, footprints, etc.

The zoo was already closed and the staff had left the darkness, but there were a few night nightshift workers who stayed throughout the night. Animals lived at the zoo, so they could not eliminate the possibility of a sudden health emergency.

That said, the number of nightshift workers was woefully few for such a large zoo.

Plus, Bridesmaid had been prepared to swiftly “eliminate” any such uncertain factors the moment they entered the zoo.

But the members searching the large zoo gave the following report:

“The nightshift vet and zookeeper are nowhere to be found. We found some warm coffee and an open packet of crackers in the administrative office, so it looks like they were here not long ago.”

“That is fine. …No matter what might happen, he is still Alice (with) Rabbit. And catching them off guard would have been the easiest way to not leave a trace.” Azalea giggled as she answered. “Did he realize he couldn’t change anything once we arrived? Even if we tried to cancel the deal and leave now, he is sure to pursue us and insist we follow through. We will settle this here. Our top priority is the Diamond Master Key and the ancient map. If we obtain the Natural History’s missing entries, we will be able to invite Her Majesty’s soul into this world. It is a bit early, but it seems Shiroyama Kyousuke has already arrived. …Let’s begin once everyone is in place.”

After a quick look from his small master, the elderly butler gently indicated the duffel bag and suitcase he held under his arms. They were ready to go.

Azalea calmly smiled and pulled a smartphone from the collar of her lacy and frilly yukata.



Kyousuke’s smartphone vibrated from an incoming call.

He would have to activate the backlight in this dark space that smelled of straw and animals, but there was no use worrying about that now.

The game had begun.

“How do you do?”

“It’s 10 minutes until the time you set, so are you starting already?”

“You’re sick of waiting too, aren’t you? Come to the lion cage on Layer 3. And keep this call active.”

“Sorry, but the battery’s about to die.”

“I had a feeling you would say that.”

Kyousuke hung up and spoke to Sekurtiti.

“Just to be clear, there is no going back once this begins.”

“Why say that now after everything you’ve gotten me involved in? Besides, you cannot clear the very first barrier without the ancient map on my back.”

“…”

That was an important bargaining chip for Kyousuke and Bridesmaid. It was a crucial piece of the puzzle.

Or it should have been.

Even after the normal guests had left, the animals had returned to their beds in the stables, and everyone but the nightshift workers had gone home, Kyousuke and Sekurtiti had remained hidden in the zoo, giving them plenty of time to think. But they had found no way of eliminating the uncertain factors of this deal: Claude Magentarain and 3A.

That man had taken the Diamond Master Key, but would that prove to be a good thing or a bad thing?

(I was worried they would change the deal at the last second, but we’re still at the zoo. What do they gain from this? But we have to do this regardless.)

Needless to say, Kyousuke’s goal was to get everyone back safely. He had to rescue Renge and Higan, but he could not let Bridesmaid capture Sekurtiti in exchange.

“Let’s get started.”

“Yes.”

The Milky Way filling the sky overhead seemed coldly indifferent. The closed zoo had no lights on in order to help with the Tanabata astronomical observation fair. Plus, this place prioritized the lifestyles of the animals over the humans. Even if the animals were back in their stables, it would be strange to have bright lights on at night.

As they walked through the zoo and its powerful scent of animals and the night, Sekurtiti turned her head every which way.

She heard a rustling sound, but when she looked over at the bush there, she only found a stray cat that had boldly snuck into the zoo.

“Don’t worry. There are no snipers around here.”

“No, it isn’t that. This is something of a habit of mine.”

“?”

“The desert might make you think of a sweltering midsummer sun, but the true terror is found in the frigid desert nights that drop below freezing. And most carnivores are nocturnal. My senses seem to grow sharper when I smell an animal at night.”

Kyousuke and Sekurtiti followed the spiraling path below the carpet of stars that was unnaturally vast for a big city.

“Sorry,” muttered Kyousuke.

The brown girl did not seem to understand.

“What do you mean?”

“Sorry I got you involved in all this. This is almost entirely my own personal fight. It isn’t even meant to fulfill a client’s order. Part of me is only viewing you as a weapon.”

Sekurtiti’s primary request had ended when they had protected the tomb keepers at the apartment. Rescuing Renge and Higan only came from the obligation she felt toward the summoner who had worked to fight the tomb raiders. Even assisting from a position of safety would be out of the ordinary now, so it would be hard to find any reason for her to act as a bargaining chip in a hostage exchange where he was at such a disadvantage.

But that ruler did not hesitate to answer.

“I do not mind. You may indeed have saved a great many people, but that does not mean that no one can want to save you in the same way. And I am actually grateful that I have found someone who will worry about me on that level.”

“…”

“The tomb keepers are all aware they are servants and they do not hesitate to offer up their very lives for me. So their service is partially fixed in place and they risk their lives like they’re running digital equivalent exchange calculations: This threat is worth this life, or the numbers check out if the danger rises above this point. …Their lives are always handled like that, so I rarely have a chance to contact human emotion that cannot be replaced with numbers and equations. The intense emotion in your heart is a luxury to me.”

“Is that how it works? A part of me does sometimes think about ‘graduating’ or ‘retiring’. I start to think everything I’m doing is just for my own selfish reasons and that all my struggling is only widening the world’s wounds.”

“Selfishness is nothing to look down on. For example, my parents risked their lives to protect the pharaoh’s slumber. They fought Seth, a traitor who leaked information on the burial treasures to an outside band of tomb raiders. My parents lost their lives, so I was given the title of Tomb Priestess at a very young age as a way to strike back.” In her golden tiara, Sekurtiti looked up at the Milky Way. “Seth was actually a faithful servant and his treachery was only an act meant to place me on the throne so young. We are a group that can and does do such things. My parents had passed their prime and were beginning to decline. If they had refused to hand over control and had clung to the throne, if honest Seth had refused to sully his name, or if anyone had been even slightly selfish or greedy, this never would have happened. We would have been too pure and we never could have rid ourselves of the digital pre-established harmony.”

“…”

“If the president of Toy Dream had not suggested I look at everything from a different angle when he assisted in restoring the wall art, I never would have noticed this truth and I would have become nothing more than a producer of good deeds. So I must be thankful for everything that has happened as I protect the pharaoh’s slumber and fight the tomb raiders. I am so very thankful to my parents who gave up the throne, to Seth who took on the villain’s role, and to President Toydream who built this city. I do not want to repay them with an answer found through digital calculations. I want to learn of more intense emotions. I want the power you have to bend the world around you with a single feeling. I want the kindness you have to distort what is right using your selfishness.”

“Kindness, hm?”

“Am I wrong?”

Kyousuke did not respond.

He intentionally changed the subject.

“I see. You said wherever the pharaoh slept was sacred ground, but I didn’t realize you had such an attachment to this city.”

“If I didn’t, I never would have allowed the pharaoh’s remains to be transported from the pyramid. The president has a very observant eye and excellent analytic ability and he can tell which truths should be divulged and which should not. If he kept this gallery a secret, he must have had a good reason for it. It might be an important document for the Summoning Ceremony and it might be the Phantom Girl book he worked on for years but never had a chance to release. Shiroyama Kyousuke, I said I appreciated your intense emotion and I have decided it might just be enough to break through the president’s reason for keeping this hidden. I want to locate the gallery and protect the treasure within before those lowly tomb raiders can break through the stone door. Just as that president’s discerning eye broke through millennia of tradition, and just as we carried the pharaoh from the pyramid to protect his slumber.”

They arrived at the lion’s cage.

It was a large circular field. It was surrounded by a concrete wall several meters tall and it was situated lower than the surrounding area. Straw was laid out for a napping area and tires were lying around as toys. Most of the visitors would probably lean over the railing to peer below, but that open space looked like a giant gaping maw at the moment.

Kyousuke’s smartphone vibrated.

He pulled it from his pocket, but this meant their enemy knew where they were. He saw the faint light of a phone’s backlight on the opposite side of the circular cage.

It was Azalea Magentarain.

Kyousuke glared at her as he answered the call and her statement was short.

“Pull out your Blood-Sign and Incense Grenades and get rid of them. I will measure your sincerity based on how far you throw them.”

“…”

He obediently did as she asked. He pulled the Repliglass Blood-Sign from the back of his hoodie and threw it to the side. Then he pulled an Incense Grenade from the pocket, dropped it to his feet, and kicked it down toward the tire toys.

“There is an unnatural weight in your hood. Should I interpret that as insincerity?”

“You’re watching carefully.”

He removed the Incense Grenade hidden in his hood and threw it aside. He was now unarmed.

As he had said before, the game had already begun. Nothing his opponent told him to do was going to help him. He would be surprised if they were not being targeted by multiple snipers with night vision goggles.

He was truly unarmed as a summoner.

He had already predicted this, but he would be lying if he said he was not nervous.

After all, his life was not the only one at risk here.

“Climb down. Inside.”

Climbing into the lion cage sounded quite dangerous, but he might as well not have shown up if he was going to quibble over something like that.

“Hyah.”

Sekurtiti shrieked when he picked her up and hopped over the railing. It was a drop of several meters, but he bent his knees to soften the impact.

A girl and a man jumped down on the opposite side: Azalea Magentarain and Fractal Leskins.

The rose thorn patterned yukata caught the air and fluttered around her, so the faint light of their smartphones revealed the brilliant white of her chest and thighs.

“Now, then.”

The summoners ended the call, put away their phones, and began speaking directly.

The elderly butler lowered a suitcase and duffel bag to the concrete ground while the young girl with long curly hair arrogantly tapped her long boots on the ground, smiled thinly, and licked her lips with her small tongue.

“What you want is right here.”

“I’d like to open the bags to make sure.”

“If you want, but keep in mind this is a lion cage.”

Kyousuke heard a heavy metal door opening behind him. Sekurtiti looked back in shock. The sound of sharp claws clicking on the concrete ground arrived at irregular intervals. The lingering scent of straw and animals was washed away by something much stronger. What was this cage for? Its residents had gone back into the stable, but they almost sounded irritated that their normal schedule had been disturbed. Or perhaps stepping on the napping straw counted as violating the king of beasts’ territory.

“We hold the reins of otherworldly Materials on a daily basis, so those mere beasts will never get the better of us. They shouldn’t even be able to approach.”

Azalea should have been in the lethal zone as well, but she did not seem to mind at all. She maintained her confident smile.

“But in their current state, those girls lack that ‘pressure’. In fact, could 300-level amateurs like them do it at all? Regardless, you should assume they will be helplessly devoured while they ceaselessly repeat the same action.”

If what Azalea had said was accurate, then they saw Renge and Higan as a prize.

But that was why she did not just hold a gun to their heads. It was difficult to imagine the pain of a gun. She could easily foolishly trap herself in a situation where Kyousuke made a reckless attack and she was forced to pull the trigger even though she did not want to.

So she had gone for something more inefficient.

Being eaten by a ferocious beast was the primal fear of being unilaterally tormented by a lower but more powerful creature. That would prevent Kyousuke from doing anything rash.

The elderly butler moved his hands and the twin shrine maidens rolled out almost too easily.

They were still being affected by their loss, so they slowly repeated the same action while lying on their sides and had no issue with rubbing their cheeks against the floor of a cage that reeked of animals.

“Now, hand over the Diamond Master Key and ancient map. You can resist if you like, but while we clash, those two will be torn to pieces and killed. Plus, I doubt you can oppose us without a Blood-Sign and Incense Grenade.”

It all came down to this.

All of these lives relied on Kyousuke’s choice here.

The first thing he had to consider was whether Azalea was making a serious deal or if it was all a farce. In other words, did she or did she not know that he no longer had the Diamond Master Key? He could always bluff that he did have it, but she would see right through it if she was connected to Claude. If she saw that as a sign of his insincerity, she could start in a lethal direction. But he was also reluctant to bring up Claude’s name here. In the off chance that Azalea was unaware, that could mean revealing his trump card prematurely.

So he took a step forward on the straw and spoke.

“If I hand over both at once, you might just leave without giving me anything. So I’ll trade for Renge and Higan one at a time.”

“Oh? You’re giving me the choice? Then I can I have the ancient map first? And here I thought you would put human life first.”

Kyousuke glanced over.

Sekurtiti gave him a small nod back and took a step forward. Needless to say, this was all over if she was taken too. But he could not keep her with him forever. None of Azalea’s instructions were going to help him, so Sekurtiti would be taken away eventually even if he tried to keep her around.

“Start with Renge.”

“Hee hee. So you have a favorite twin.”

Azalea probably thought she could kill him with the Summoning Ceremony at any time, so she had no preference there. She crouched down, waved her finger in front of the sacrifice’s face, and slowly pointed over at Kyousuke. Renge began slowly crawling over on all fours.

Sekurtiti walked forward in her gold tiara.

Kyousuke crouched down to hold the black-haired shrine maiden who had been stripped of all pride, dignity, and even human behavior. She had once self-deprecatingly said she was manmade, but she had the same warmth, pulse, and flowing blood as a human. He had failed to protect her when Bridesmaid had gotten ahead of him, but she was still hanging on by a thread and he could not allow that to be cut.

After receiving the brown girl in a yukata, Azalea left the ancient map with her elderly butler and made an announcement.

“Now, the Diamond Master Key. I know that leaving with just one of the two isn’t what you really want.”

This was the true black box.

Did she know the truth about the key?

The answer to that question was a devastating bomb hidden in this deal.

He had given it a lot of thought.

And he still did not know the truth as he held slowly-moving Renge and gave his answer.

“What I really want? You want to know what I really want???”

“…”

“Then I’ll tell you. My plan is to rescue both Renge and Higan. And I can’t lose Sekurtiti while doing so either. I’ll rescue everyone while also stealing away the Golden Treasure Chest you have. Then I’ll walk unharmed into the Founder’s Gallery and acquire the Natural History’s missing entries without anyone interfering. And there is no room for Bridesmaid in my plans. I need all of you to disappear.”

“It sounds like I need you to suffer some more.”

Azalea reached into the collar of her modified yukata that revealed both her cleavage and shoulders. She was probably reaching for the ribbon Blood-Sign wrapped around a reel and for her own Incense Grenade. Kyousuke could not do anything to the White Thorns without a Blood-Sign of his own, so the Artificial Sacred Ground would mean his death.

“We will never attempt to judge what Her Majesty is thinking. Shiroyama Kyousuke, no matter what shape you might take and whether you are alive or dead, Bridesmaid will prioritize ''offering you to Her Majesty once she has been invited to this world.'' I can search your corpse for the key. And if it is not there, I can go ask someone else who would know.”

“The thing is…”

Kyousuke ignored her and continued speaking.

Was it an expression of her unease over the calamity befalling her or was it an expression of kindness? Sekurtiti held the blonde shrine maiden in her arms.

“Securing Meinokawa Renge in advance was the first and last barrier for me. After all, you had opened her up. Retrieving her is fine and all, but this would have been troublesome if she was missing some organs or you had stuck a bomb inside her. So it was important that I actually had her in my hands to confirm she was just fine. I especially needed to check her breathing and pulse.”

“…?”

“And Sekurtiti’s location honestly doesn’t matter. After all…”

Kyousuke kicked away the napping straw at his feet.

And he revealed what was hidden below.

“If I detonate an Incense Grenade like this, the summoner and vessel are carried to the same spot.”

It was too late by the time Azalea and Fractal tried to act.

The brown girl they held was pulled back to Kyousuke by a dreadful force. Along with Meinokawa Higan in her arms.

Renge, Higan, and Sekurtiti.

They were all back with him. Shiroyama Kyousuke no longer had to hold back. He kicked up the Blood-Sign that had been hidden below the straw along with the Incense Grenade and he caught it in one hand.

Azalea and Fractal were already trapped in a cubic cage.

A ribbon spiraled through empty air to form a Blood-Sign and the large flower decoration on the back of Azalea’s hips shook as she spoke in a low voice.

“You knew I would confiscate your equipment, so you hid a set here in advance? But you couldn’t have known I would instruct you to climb into the lion cage.”

“No. That’s why I hid them all over the zoo. Just like a stage magician does with playing cards. No matter what card you drew, I had a full set of 52 cards hidden here and there on the stage. So I could claim I had predicted what card you would choose.”

“But how? You didn’t have enough time for such a detailed setup after I told you the location…”

“Yes, I wonder how I managed that.”

This had been a gamble on Kyousuke’s part.

But now that he had the hostages back safe, he could guess that Claude had not reported back to Azalea.

“Then I shall use your weakness against you. Offering Team, prepare yourselves.”

If those girls given suicidal desires were here, Kyousuke would have to go rescue them.

But that was not a problem for him.

It sounded like gas was escaping all around them. And that was probably accurate. A look up at the railing above the lion cage showed the growing girls who should have been committing suicide were doing nothing at all.

“I didn’t just hide Blood-Signs and Incense Grenades. The original incenses were a mixture of plants and minerals that would put people in a trance. Lu-san really ripped me off, but mixing up a downer incense that knocks people out is quite easy.”

Azalea tapped her long boots on the ground and gave her butler a look, so he showed her a wristwatch that was likely worth a fortune on its own. It was 1 AM, the original starting time.

“…Not bad.”

“I could say the same about you.”

Without the Summoning Ceremony, they all would have fainted. And Kyousuke did not care if Renge and Higan were taken out too. As long as he could bring them back alive.

And in the end, it was a simple thing.

Whoever won the Summoning Ceremony would obtain everything.

“Sekurtiti.”

“Fractal.”

The summoners simultaneously called out to their vessel and raised their Blood-Sign.

The three-dimensional Rose made from 6 x 6 x 6 = 216 Petals appeared between them. To take everything from the other, they both chose one of their initial 3 White Thorns and struck it with the tip of their Blood-Sign. The powerful impact from both sides shattered the Rose and the countless Petals scattered around the area.

But Azalea seemed more focused on the light in Shiroyama Kyousuke’s eyes than on the Petals or White Thorns. Almost like an invisible flame was burning her neck and forcing her to move.

And the hunter spoke.

“It’s time you paid for treating those two like tools.”

It had finally begun.

The summoners fought using those that lurked beyond the gods of legend.