Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume1 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 15===

As soon as the two of them clashed, the giant land bridge directly above the plaza crumbled. The summoners had their protective circles, so mere rubble was not going to kill them. The dust was simply meant to block Kyousuke’s view and prevent him from using his Blood-Sign.

Meanwhile, Golden Luxury took action.

“Un.”

Her voice ruled the battlefield.

“Deux.”

Like a Buddhist priest’s bell, the mere sound seemed to drive out evil.

“Trois.”

It was a pure voice.

It was frightening.

Meinokawa Higan had become the Original Red (b), which cost one low sound. It was a three meter tall mass of red sticky liquid. The girl’s thoughts had nearly ground to a halt when she saw the reality that accompanied that adorable voice.

“Un, deux, trois.”

Azalea Magentarain’s actions were simple.

She merely used her Blood-Sign to launch all three of her initial white spheres of light known as White Thorns.

But she was very accurate. Almost too accurate.

“Un, deux, trois. Un, deux, trois. …Un, deux, trois.”

Looking just at their paths, they drew a large rectangle that spanned the Artificial Sacred Ground. The White Thorns she had launched returned accurately to herself. They came to a stop with a slight spin and her Blood-Sign would sharply strike them once more.

As a result…

<She’s…not using up her White Thorns!? She’s endlessly hitting the White Thorns that come back to, um, remain on the attack indefinitely without having to worry about her remaining stock!?>

[[Image:BloodSign_v01_204.jpg|thumb]]

As a vessel, Higan had become one with the Material that had both an inhumanly large body and a bizarrely artistic appearance, but her heart was filled with very human fear.

A dance of crimson light exploded in that tiny world along with a broken song that destroyed the psyche of all who heard it and that sounded like someone banging their hands on a piano’s keys. The dance and song continued endlessly without any kind of break.

White Thorns that came to a stop would naturally vanish.

But if they were hit by the Blood-Sign again within the three seconds before they vanished, they could be reused. Some summoners tried running around the large Artificial Sacred Ground to reach the White Thorn’s stopping point before it arrived.

<But th-that doesn’t always work. Th-they only go for the ones they think they can actually reach. But, um, th-this person is doing it with 100% accuracy!?>

Even as the number of White Thorns grew, her accuracy did not change.

All the while, her additional stock was being replenished every ten seconds.

The White Thorns did not just strike the walls and floor.

They also hit the Petals that carved out the names of Material with the low, middle, and high sounds as consonants and lowest sounds as vowels. Whenever the Petals collided with each other or fell into a Spot, they produced a crazed rhythm with their respective sounds, further escalating the broken song.

<With this…like this…w-we can never catch up by, um, hitting individual Petals into the Spots with individual White Thorns like normal! She’s way too fast!!>

Higan’s focus turned to her summoner partner.

It may have been a form of escapism to reject the dizzying fear before her eyes.

Needless to say, Shiroyama Kyousuke had not been sitting idly by as all this happened.

He was constantly making the quickest and shortest movements to hit the White Thorns and knock various Petals into the Spots. Sometimes he knocked two or three Petals in at once. As a vessel, Meinokawa Higan could only watch the summoner’s skill and she was truly impressed.

She became a giant umbrella with fangs covering the outer edge while the old butler became a goddess statue filled with murderous gimmicks. There was a great serpent made of several chains, an automaton created by sewing together human skin, an old tome covered in countless eyeballs, a gear with a giant smile plastered on the side, and a dinosaur not found in any encyclopedia. Both sides’ Materials were changing in the blink of an eye.

But they could not catch up.

Kyousuke was controlling a single White Thorn at a time, so he was not standing in the same realm of speed as Azalea who constantly controlled several White Thorns as if juggling them.

“!!”

“Oh, dear. What seems to be the matter? Where has the supposedly imperturbable Alice (with) Rabbit gone?”

When it came down to it, the summoning ceremony was a battle between Materials.

Their strength was determined by the sound range and by the cost, aka the number of Petals hit into the Spots.

Both of those factors came down to how well the White Thorns were manipulated by the Blood-Sign.

If one was accurate yet took time to hit the Petals, they might be overwhelmed by pure numbers.

If one hit a lot of Petals but had poor aim, they might be outdone by accurate and efficient movements.

But how was one to face an opponent who had both strengths and cast aside both weaknesses?

Was there even a way of doing that?

<Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???>

There was a winged alligator, a giant face made of stone, a jellyfish giving off a putrid stench, and finally just a vague mass that was changing forms too quickly to see. It unleashed a barrage on Meinokawa Higan’s temporary form, a giant suit of armor, and she was torn into again and again. The Silhouette contained inside – the soft outline of her body – was just about to be exposed.

She could not even fight a defensive battle as she reflexively held up her arms to protect her face. Kyousuke used the most effective sound range to suppress the damage as much as possible, but the difference in cost had grown to more than ten. Normally, a hit or two would be enough to destroy her.

Nevertheless, Higan had yet to lose, and that was due to Kyousuke’s skill. When he saw Higan was just about to be defeated, he would bring her to her next Material form, providing her a new body. That way, he prevented the damage from severing Higan’s mind at the core.

It was forceful, but even with a liter package of blood, a blood transfusion could not be made without first harming the individual to shed their blood. Kyousuke was waiting until she had bled right up to the limit, providing a transfusion, waiting for her to bleed right up to the limit again, providing another transfusion, and repeating the process. He was only making sure she never lost a fatal amount of blood.

“Alice (with) Rabbit Shiroyama Kyousuke. …Since you threw the glove at me, I did some research on you.”

The girl smiled thinly while accurately controlling well over ten White Thorns with just the one Blood-Sign.

“Once you hear someone ask for ‘help’, you will end up saving everything and everyone, as if a switch has been thrown. You do not keep a single vessel and instead make a contract with someone you come across who possesses the necessary qualities before releasing them to the sunny side of the world. …The flaw in your insistence on saving everyone you lay eyes on is not that your results do not live up to that ideal. In fact, the problem is that you are too perfect, isn’t it?”

“Kh.”

“Yes, that’s right, isn’t it? Saving everything is really no different from someone who cannot clean up their room or throw anything away. So when you try to save the world, you end up saving more than necessary and end up with piles of chaos around you. Even if each individual element is desirable, as a whole, it does nothing but harm, doesn’t it?”

“You seem to know about me, but I barely know anything about you.”

They clashed at close range.

The two summoners pressed their protective circles together while glaring sharply at each other.

“You’re Government Award 930 and the daughter of Quad Motors’s president. What possible complaint could you have with the public side or the hidden side of that? I can’t imagine why you would throw all of that away to join Guard of Honor!!”

“Oh, dear. Are you serious? Do you really think the ‘normal’ way of looking at things has any bearing on our world?”

Azalea giggled, but accurately called countless White Thorns back to her.

“My position on the public stage? The number of dollar bills I own? What value does any of that have when we are immediately forgotten by earth’s entire population? If I want something, I can grab it from the store. If I don’t like someone, I can kill them in public. I can ‘normally’ accomplish those things. …''And in the same way, no one will care even if I do take things from them,''” said Azalea. “More importantly, is there any real meaning in summoner Awards? You’ve reached 902 in Freedom, so you should understand that.”

“…”

“Reaching Award 1000 reverses your affiliation between this world and the other world, so you will begin writing a new legend ''on the other side''? Hah! Not likely! Some morons who might as well be amateurs will carelessly say they’re so close once they reach the 900s, but you know that isn’t going to happen, don’t you? The Awards grow much harder to earn when there are so few left. That unimaginable difficulty makes me wonder if it was intentionally made to be impossible in order to create an upper limit for summoners. But if I change sides in hopes of earning Awards, I’d be treated as a traitor in this cramped field. You’re left blocked on all sides, yet they still tell you to simply earn the rest of the Awards.”

“I knew Government Award 1000. Although they were killed by ''a certain woman'' before making the reversal from this world and the other world.”

“Those are only the cheaters who know how to erase all the secrets and rumors about them as they walk freely between the three major powers. In the end, the human rulers and the Three have rigged the system so only those they approve of becoming a god can reach 1000, don’t you think?”

“That person’s brutal strength was nothing as soft as that,” muttered Kyousuke under his breath.

Azalea continued with a muddy look in her eyes.

“Why does the rose symbol used for summoning use the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet instead of the standard twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet? Why is the symbolism consistent between the Rose, Petals, and White Thorns, yet the Spot is not? The logic and rules must have been constructed for someone’s convenience. There must have been someone who benefited from it. It’s wrong to think you can reach 1000 and cross that line just by following their rules.”

Even as she spat out these words, Azalea showed no sign of regret.

It was as if she truly had cast aside her position as Golden Luxury, Government’s ace.

“And on top of all that, there is no objective way to confirm where the Thousand Eaters actually end up. Is ''the other side'' really an otherworldly heaven? Are they even going to ''the other side''? We have no idea, so it’s only natural to be hesitant to jump right in, don’t you think?”

Shiroyama Kyousuke had a bad feeling about this.

There was something decidedly bad about what Azalea was going to say.

“That is why we have searched for a more definite and simpler method of confirming that for all to see.”

She let out a soft giggle.

“So we have searched for a way of remaining eternally with the gods without relying on anything as uncertain as going to the ''other side''.”

Azalea Magentarain clearly stated her conclusion.

“''Yes. We were searching for the method used in the miracle that you alone once successfully created.''”

“…!!!!!!”

A dull sound rang out.

It was the sound of Kyousuke gripping his primary weapon as a summoner so tightly it nearly broke.

“Hee hee. Ah ha ha ha ha ha!! Do I detect a disturbance in your strokes? We do not have your level of genius, but we have gathered the techniques we need to reach that former genius. So we no longer need a genius. Knowing that it is indeed possible by human hands is more than enough, don’t you think?”

<Wh-what?>

Even as her temporary body was incessantly torn into, Meinokawa Higan forgot her pain.

A greater question was rising within her.

<She is…no, um, you two are t-talking about ''a world I’m not familiar with''. Wh-what are you two talking about?>

“You understand nothing.”

Supposedly imperturbable Kyousuke spoke so fiercely it sounded like he was spitting out blood.

His eyes were not focused on the present world. He was shaken ''in that world Higan was unfamiliar with.

“There is no paradise or joy beyond ‘there’. That only leads to bottomless despair!!”

“Ha ha. That’s fine☆ We too wish to stand on the kind stage that lets us speak such superhuman phrases!!”

The movements of Azalea’s White Thorns grew even more skillful.

Her Material changed form again and again as it attacked Meinokawa Higan.

They could not win like this.

Kyousuke directly faced that dizzying reality and also quickly searched for a way to win.

(Uniquely Selfless…the former Golden Luxury specializes in ricocheting a set number of White Thorns back toward herself to remove the quantity limit without using them up.)

“You need to summon one hundred Regulation-class to summon a Divine-class and you need to summon fifty Divine-class to summon an Unexplored-class. Honestly, doesn’t that system seem so very annoying? Your average summoner is defeated before I can reach the Unexplored-class.”

(She uses the floor, walls, streetlights, vending machines, and anything else inside the Artificial Sacred Ground. She also often uses the boundaries of the Artificial Sacred Ground itself.)

“That is why I have high hopes for you.”

(Not all of the Materials she uses are all that large. Although I don’t know if that’s due to her personal tastes or because she doesn’t want to destroy the terrain if she can avoid it.)

“With your level of endurance, you might just last long enough for me to reach the peak of the Unexplored-class, the ‘White’ Queen who Wields the Sword of Unsullied Truth (iu – nu – fb – a – wuh – ei –kx – eu – pl – vjz)!!”

Kyousuke ignored her nonsense and sucked in a quick breath while using his Blood-Sign.

The fighting spirit in his eyes grew sharper.

“In that case, can you use ‘this’?”