Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume5 Chapter2 (section)

===A Happy Memory from an Unknown Point on the Timeline 2===

“There’s a cake.”

Explorer #1, Biondetta, spoke up after sneaking into the kitchen by the cafeteria, opening the giant industrial refrigerator, and sticking her head inside.

“I found a cake!!”

Kyousuke looked bored after being dragged along as Explorer #2, but Biondetta was just about jumping for joy. Kyoumi sighed in the same kitchen, having just placed plastic wrap over the food she had made for those who ate late at night.

There was a homemade-looking shortcake in the refrigerator. Instead of the single slice one could buy at a convenience store, it was a whole round cake. If it was cut up, there would be enough for 10.

“Oh, you noticed it?”

“Did you make it, Kyoumi?” asked Kyousuke.

Kyoumi nodded happily, but that seemed to be about him not adding the “-san” to her name.

“No, but it seems like someone sometimes makes one and puts it in the fridge.”

The Miniature Garden only had a general supply of food.

The adults always kept the kitchen stocked with the necessary ingredients, but they did not go beyond that. If one of the 15 felt like cooking as a change of pace, they would make enough for everyone. If more than one person felt like cooking, they would split the job. If no one wanted to, they would eat nutrient blocks and cereal. That was all.

Biondetta liked to cook, but she could only cook fried eggs and toast. Kyousuke would only eat gelatin, vitamin and supplements if left to his own devices, so he never entered the kitchen in the first place. Kyoumi had an almighty repertoire that covered Japanese, Western, and Chinese cooking, so the others were gradually realizing that her days were the best.

Kyousuke and Biondetta exchanged a glance.

“I wonder who made it.”

“More importantly, are we allowed to eat it?”

“C’mon, shut the fridge already,” warned Kyoumi while casually pulling out the whole cake sitting on a large plate. “I noticed it pretty early since I was cooking. I was like, ‘oh, there’s a cake’. But it came with this note.”

“?”

Biondetta tilted her head and Kyoumi waved her hand.

At some point, a small note had appeared between her index and middle fingers.

“It says ‘first come, first serve’.”

It may have been someone’s way of thanking the siblings who cooked without any real obligation to do so.

And Kyoumi had felt bad keeping such a large cake to herself.

She set the large plate down on the counter by the sink and they all viewed the cake together. It was a large shortcake. Bright strawberries were accurately lined up like the face of a clock and it had a homemade-looking white chocolate plate and sugar sculpture doll. The plate used strawberry chocolate to spell out the words “Eat Me”. It was another reference to Lewis Carroll.

Biondetta’s eyes sparkled as she stared at the cake.

“That doll kind of looks like you, Kyoumi.”

“It might be the White Queen instead of me.”

Kyousuke’s first impression was that it looked more like Kyoumi.

The face of the cutely-proportioned doll was well made. Someone had to have carefully observed the girl. Even with the deformed proportions, it would not have been easy to make.

Kyousuke briefly thought of it like the model for an art competition.

And after some consideration…

“Maybe Biondetta would have been too flat to be interesting.”

“You were thinking something rude just now, weren’t you? I’m sure of it!”

Biondetta shouted tearfully back at him, but the situation was still underway.

Kyoumi picked up an all-purpose knife but then swapped it for a fruit knife.

“Okay, I’ll cut it. …But it’s too big for just the three of us. Kyousuke, Biondetta. Go see if any of the other siblings are around. You don’t have to find all of them if they aren’t obvious.”

“You say that, but I won’t forgive you if you start eating it on your own!!”

“Biondetta. There’s no way she could eat all that herself.”

“You don’t understand because you’re a little brother, but the chocolate plate and sugar sculpture have what’s called rarity!”

Kyousuke and Biondetta left on their errand even as they argued.

They glanced around the cafeteria, but they did not spot any of the 15.

Instead…

“Oh, you brought one of the vessels?”

Kyoumi looked surprised when she saw her two younger siblings return.

It was one of the 3 vessels prepared for the Miniature Garden. The girl was about Kyoumi’s age, she had brown skin, and she wore her blonde hair in a ponytail. The others were the thin pajama girl in the iron maiden and the silver bob cut girl with the crown of thorns, but this one sat in a wheelchair-like device. However, the chair portion was covered in metal plugs. The mental stability device was modelled after the thorny torture chair used during the middle ages.

They were very heavily equipped for vessels.

Most of the siblings had initially only viewed them from a distance due to their strange appearances, but after hesitantly approaching, they found them to be normal people. They only wore the hideous restraints due to the burden of constantly binding and canceling contracts with the 15, so it would have been misguided to fear them for it.

But that girl was not all.

A woman was pushing the wheelchair from behind.

“Shigara Masami was there.”

“It looks like Shigara is drunk.”

“Oh, how rare. You don’t usually set foot in the self-cooking space, Masami. Did you run out of snacks in your room?”

“Address adults with more respect, newcomer,” slurred Madam Professor Shigara Masami, the developer in a tight skirt suit and lab coat who had a long black ponytail. However, her shoulders were slanted, her suit was slipping off in places, and her cheeks were somewhat flushed.

She patted the head of the vessel in the wheelchair before staggering over to a locked cabinet installed separately from the industrial refrigerator.

If they wanted to, the 15 could have pried it open, but none of them were interested.

The shelves were lined with bottles.

“Uuh… I’m out of drinks in my room. Vodka, vodka…”

“Wow, are you chugging the most deadly stuff you can find?”

“Does Shigara run on an ecological engine that uses bioethanol?”

Kyoumi and Biondetta sounded exasperated, but Shigara did not seem to mind.

“I’m not drunk. I’ve only had 12 glasses of straight vodka.”

“Why are you bragging about that!? Who do you think you’re competing against!?”

Kyoumi quickly spoke up. Was that woman really expecting 10-year-olds like Kyousuke and Biondetta to care if she was the strongest at something like that? Each question only led to another.

“And it’s wrong to treat vodka like a symbol of alcoholism. It has a fairly pure flavor that doesn’t linger and it’s one of mankind’s 3 greatest inventions. Just look at the convenience store shelves. All of the fruit liqueurs tend to use either shochu or vodka! Oh, my beloved Absolium.”

At their ages, Kyousuke and Biondetta should have been wearing ''randoseru'', so it was futile to expect them to agree. And since Shigara Masami started pouring it straight into a glass, she most certainly did not enjoy it in the normal fashion, but arguing with her was pointless. She would be the one suffering from a hangover the following morning and shouting “et tu, Absolium” with Caesar-esque rage.

And according to her…

“Hic. This is generally what happens to a grownup that trying to forget about their job.”

“Should you really be saying that when your job is to construct a perfect family here? Oh, but that’s not what matters here. The cake. Now we can divide it into 5 pieces, but can you eat sweet things, Masami?”

“You could say alcohol and sugar are both my lovers! Sergeant!!”

“Don’t talk about lovers in front of the children.”

Shigara Masami stood at a slanted angle and saluted for some reason, so Shiroyama Kyoumi raised her middle finger (even though that could not be a good lesson for the younger children either). But then Kyoumi grabbed the fruit knife again and got to work slicing the round cake.

Biondetta whispered to Kyousuke.

“(From the looks of things, Shigara didn’t make the cake.)”

“(As long as it tastes good and doesn’t harm anyone, it doesn’t matter who made it.)”

“Hey, quit your flirting over there, you little brats! Not so close together!”

Shigara Masami pushed down on them like a landslide, so Kyousuke and Biondetta ended their conversation. In fact, she had her right arm around Kyousuke’s shoulders and her left around Biondetta’s, so they had more important things to worry about.

Meanwhile, the wheelchair vessel and Kyoumi continued measuring the cake by eye and discussing how to divide it. Unlike cutting it in a cross for 4 pieces, 5 pieces required a bit of guesswork.

As a safety measure, Kyoumi told herself she would give Kyousuke and Biondetta any pieces that happened to be bigger.

“It’s still a lot for 5, but I guess it’s not too much to eat. And Kyousuke and Biondetta will have an endless tolerance for sweets at their age.”

“I-I’m the big sister! Don’t treat me like Kyousuke!!”

Biondetta blushed and argued back while the drunk rubbed her cheek against her, but she was betrayed by her eyes which were locked onto the cake.

Kyoumi did not hide her smile as she used the fruit knife to cleanly divide the round cake. Each time she transferred a piece onto a small plate, Biondetta’s eyes moved back and forth like she was watching a tennis match.

But…

“Now for the real problem,” said Kyoumi.

Biondetta was the only one to vigorously nod in agreement.

[[Image:BloodSign v05 211.jpg|thumb]]

Kyousuke and the torture chair vessel only tilted their heads. Drunk Shigara Masami must have just wanted to get something in her empty stomach because she used a shaky finger to scoop up the cream from the fruit knife. They chose to only gently chide her.

Kyoumi took the knife from the wheelchair vessel and placed in a water-filled tray in the sink.

“I cut the cake into 5 pieces, but 2 of them are special. …The chocolate plate and the sugar sculpture. Now, who wants them!?”

“The sugar sculpture is mine!!” declared Biondetta.

“It’s clearly modelled after me, so shouldn’t you let me have it!?”

“You’re the one that said it might be the White Queen!”

“Besides, you’re always eating some kind of chocolate or waffles!”

“Don’t you understand I have Cute Girl’s Disease!? It means I die of loneliness if I don’t eat sweet things!!”

“Quit acting like you’re so frail! Let’s take this outside!!”

As the two argued, the vessel proved herself to be almost painfully mature by taking a plate holding a normal shortcake with nothing on it.

And the (supposed) adult in the room, Shigara Masami, started curling up on the floor. If they did not settle this soon, she would fall asleep right there and destroy the children’s image of grownups, making it a nightmarish form of terrorism.

Kyousuke felt he had no choice but to intervene.

“Okay, how about this?”

“You don’t get to take it for yourself and call it a compromise! We don’t need that kind of joke right now!!”

“That’s not where I was going with this.” Kyousuke grabbed the sugar sculpture doll. “If you both want it, then you just have to spit it in two.”

“Vahhhhh!! You tore off my head!!”

A tearful scream immediately followed.