Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume1 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 1===

“So anyway, we were talking about how you weren’t attracted to your little sister here because I wasn’t wearing a white school swimsuit, right?”

“No, we were not! We were just listening to something pretty important! Life or death levels of important!!”

“A fluorescent bikini just isn’t pure enough for you, is it? I understand. I was wrong and prideful to think you would just dig right in as long as it had stripes. I’ve learned my lesson.”

“So you’re just going to keep on with your insane logic? Doesn’t it seem wrong that reasonable people have a harder time living in this world? Hey? Are you listening!? How about you look me in the eye and either nod or shake your head!?”

Their location had changed.

That said, they were still inside the same apartment. Aika’s residence used both the top floor and the one below it with staircases and an atrium connecting them, so it had plenty of rooms and plenty of space.

The shrine maiden lying in the hallway had turned out to be alive.

They had just finished hearing what she had to say after she had finally woken up.

There were two reasons they had changed their location.

The first was the white liger that Aika used as a sofa. The shrine maiden was injured, so they had needed to move to another room lest the scent of blood carelessly worked up the animal’s bloodlust (not simple animalistic lust).

And the second…

“Guard of Honor… We’ve heard that name recently too.”

“ ‘We’? Do you mean Government, Aika?”

“Onii-chan, Government is the great ally of justice funded by sixty governments, religions, and giant corporations. Basically, it’s an occult version of a UN army. Of course we keep an eye on any dangerous groups.”

Swimsuit-wearing Aika waved her index finger around.

“Guard of Honor is a new organization gathering a bunch of strength in Illegal, that collection of 330 criminal groups which forms another of the three major powers.”

“Illegal… I had a feeling.”

Kyousuke looked over to the room’s door. Lu Niang Lan in her modified China dress was not here. She was hanging out with the white liger in the living room. She had complained about having to listen to any troubles involving Government, but that was because she was an equipment supplier for Illegal.

Incidentally, both Shiroyama Kyousuke and the blonde shrine maiden belonged to Freedom, a group of individual summoners with no hierarchy restricting them. The summoning industry was basically a three-way struggle between those groups.

“Come to think of it, beauty and the beast are alone together in there. Will she be fine without the owner? It would be a disaster if she were attacked.”

“Heh heh heh. The liger loves marbled beef with plenty of fat, so it would be great if it tore those lumps of fat right off her.”

“That would not be great. And if it came to a scuffle between those two, I’d be more worried about the white liger’s safety.”

So the only ones here were Shiroyama Kyousuke, Aika, and the bandaged shrine maiden girl. Her name seemed to be Meinokawa Higan.

She had long blonde hair and blue eyes. That was far removed from the standard image of a shrine maiden, but it gave her a pure and graceful image that was oddly appropriate for the Japanese holy outfit. The fact that it looked so perfect on her may have been proof that she had worn the outfit for many years.

Her story could be summed up as follows:

She had been attacked by a monster and had gotten separated from her twin sister. That sister was being pursued by the people controlling the monster, so she would be in danger if not found and protected soon.

“What do you think, Onii-chan?”

“It’s a mystery what that Guard of Honor organization was doing at the harbor, but they must not want anyone to know they were there. I would assume they’ll chase down and slaughter anyone who escaped.”

Higan had managed to reach a Government stronghold, but Renge would be the perfect target while wandering around outside. She had no organization to shield her and she could not use a summoning ceremony when separated from her vessel.

She would be killed the instant she was found. It was best to assume that worst case scenario.

Meinokawa Higan hesitantly opened her mouth.

“U-um, this is a…contact point for Government, right? That summoner told me this place is ''expensive'' but that I wouldn’t be abandoned…”

“You sign up for insurance in advance so you can use it when you need it. It sounds like your mistake was getting the funds you needed taken by a cheap and greedy middleman.”

Swimsuit girl Aika put her hands on her hips and snorted as she said that, so Shiroyama Kyousuke interrupted from the side.

“Hold on there. This happened because Government agitated some Freedom summoners into clashing with a new faction inside Illegal, so of course you and Government have to take responsibility here. Eh? Or are you only pure allies of justice because you refuse to admit to your mistakes?”

“Hmph. Government isn’t just a giant monolith. There are several factions inside it.”

“…There you have it. And you’re the one that acts like it’s one giant organization, too.”

“Onii-chan, are you the kind of brother who pokes at his little sister’s weak points until she cries? If I went around cleaning up after all the fools in Government, I’d never do anything else. I’m not interested in supporting some defeated soldiers. Besides, I already know you’ll take care of it.”

“What the hell was the comment you just slipped in there!?”

“Tah dah!! Shiroyama Kyousuke here is Freedom Award 902, the skilled summoner known as Alice (with) Rabbit! He’s also been called the Ace Destroyer, the Unexplored-Class Summoner, Loved by the White, Eternal Wearer of Material, the Hive Crusher, and many more. …In fact, it’s rude of you not to have notice the second you saw him, you rookie. If you twin sisters are from Freedom, then he’s your superior.”

“Stop it! Why are you making a sales pitch about me? Well, Aika!? Explain it to me in your own words!!”

He shook her by the shoulders when she simply smiled and averted her gaze, but not even that stopped the swimsuit girl’s sales pitch.

Meanwhile, naïve Meinokawa Higan’s eyes were sparkling with a pure light.

“A-Award 902…”

It was hardly surprising that her voice had grown a little shrill.

Government, Illegal, and Freedom had all made a contract with one of the three great Materials standing at the peak of either the low, middle, or high sounds. The summoners belonging to the group would be given awards by residents of ''the other side'' based on the outcomes of their actions. These awards were directly carved into their souls.

Generally, the more awards a summoner had won, the greater their skill.

Also, summoners believed in a certain legend: Award 1000.

When a summoner of the three groups reached that number, it was said the world they lived in would be reversed. This world and the other world would be swapped out and they would become a lifeform of ''the other side''. Instead of summoning the gods, they would stand alongside the gods in the world of the gods and they would become the star of a new legend comparable to those of the other gods.

Award 902 was well within reach of that legend.

“You’re in the 900s!? S-someone that amazing will really help me save my sister? And for free!?”

“Did she just mix her own hopes in there!? Who ever said anything about for free!?”

“Oh…but I don’t have any of our money. My sister always carried the wallet, you see. So you’ll have to wait until we find my sister to be paid, and since she doesn’t know about any of this, you’ll have to renegotiate everything with her, and no one can beat her in an argument, and based on how you look, it just seemed to me that it would end up being for free.”

“That’s it. I’m going home and climbing in bed.”

“Wait, wait, wait! I-I apologize for telling the truth, so, u-um, wait just a little more!!”

“What, what? What is with you!? Do you like stabbing people with your words with that pure look in your eyes? It certainly looks like it!”

“You mustn’t let this shock you, Onii-chan. That’s the true form of the purity (heh) you’re always looking for. Besides, how is someone with no self-interest supposed to grasp the subtleties of others’ hearts?”

“Wh-whatever you might say, my sister really is in danger! B-b-back then…she might have been attacked by the Unexplored-class Lady of Purple Lightning.”

“If it’s a human up against a Material, won’t they be killed in an instant even against the weakest of them, not to mention an Unexplored-class?”

“She’s definitely still alive!!”

Meinokawa Higan nearly shouted to make that alone clear.

When the blonde shrine maiden continued, she seemed to be counting on her fingers.

“I don’t know where my sister is now, but sh-she can’t summon a Material without me as her vessel. There’s nothing she can do if Guard of Honor finds her. You know that a human can’t hope to fight back against even the weakest Material, don’t you!?”

“When I say I don’t care, I really mean it, but what do you think, Onii-chan?”

“I’d say she’ll last three days at the absolute most and she can’t leave the city.”

Shiroyama Kyousuke calmly and digitally calculated out the answer.

The swimsuit girl agreed with him.

“Things would be different if we had some proof that the Meinokawa sisters attacked Guard of Honor on Government’s request, but this was a greedy middleman who used the summoners of another group as sacrificial pawns. I’m sure they’ve covered their tracks and will feign ignorance.”

No one wanted to rush out and fight an unnecessary battle.

Aika viewed Government as a giant army. They were not a group of guerrillas or terrorists that was willing to destroy their own. That giant organization of winners would prioritize a reduction in their own losses over achieving their objective.

Even if they defeated one hundred thousand enemies, it would be recorded as a horrific defeat if a thousand of their own were lost in the process. They were so used to winning that their very way of thinking had been rewritten like that.

“B-but…” Meinokawa Higan paled. “Guard of Honor is far more powerful than we had heard and now we can’t even rely on that giant organization’s strength? Th-then who is going to save my sister? (Glance, glance)”

“Aika. There’s nothing pure about her at all!! She’s clearly trying to send me to my death for her own ends!!”

“The truly pure are those who don’t try to hide their desires, Onii-chan. Or maybe it’s the ones where you can’t tell whether they are or not. Hee hee hee.”

Holding back tears yet? Let’s go back over the situation.

The Meinokawa sisters were being pursued by Guard of Honor.

Renge was a summoner, but she could not use summoning ceremonies while separated from Higan, her vessel.

At this rate, Renge would be captured and killed by Guard of Honor before long.

The (self-styled) allies of justice of Government were not going to be much help and both Illegal and Freedom had no obligation to help in the first place.

The Meinokawa sisters belonged to Freedom, but Freedom was a group of five hundred “individual” summoners. They couldn’t ask for help from a colleague unless they knew each other personally.

However, Shiroyama Kyousuke was a summoner and Meinokawa Higan was a vessel.

Kyousuke was skilled enough to hold Freedom Award 902 and he had accomplished the Hive Crusher feat in which he destroyed an entire organization on his own.

The two of them were incomplete parts of a pair, so if they joined forces, there was still a chance of success.

“B-back then…” Meinokawa Higan spoke quietly while embracing her own bandaged shoulders. “Even when we were surrounded by Guard of Honor’s Materials, m-my sister tried to let me escape first and foremost. She never put it to words, but I could tell. She had to have had a few ways of ''letting herself alone escape to safety'', but she let me escape instead.”

Kyousuke did not know Meinokawa Renge.

She was apparently a fellow Freedom member, but there was no information on those twin sisters in the prominent Awards. They also didn’t seem to have one of the nicknames that others began using to refer to people.

But the other sister, Higan, was here now.

That fact said something about the summoner named Meinokawa Renge.

“So this time I’ll save her. I want to save her! A vessel can’t summon Material on her own, but that changes when there’s also a summoner not bound by a contract. If you work with me, we actually have a way of reaching my sister where she’s suffering!!”

Kyousuke found himself wondering if he could do that.

Not in reference to his number of Awards on paper. And not in reference to his skill.

Was he the kind of summoner who could choose to protect his family by passing the ultimate decision to someone else in a hopeless situation with no right answer?

“Please,” said Higan through her trembling lips.

This was her final hope, a tiny light, a far-too-thin thread. It looked like a careless touch would cause it to snap, but she could not help but reach her hand out toward it using her voice.

“''Please!! Work with me to help my sister!!''”

Shiroyama Kyousuke sighed when he heard that one word in particular.

Swimsuit girl Aika shrugged next to him.

There was a reason he was known as Alice (with) Rabbit.

That boy had decided this would be his final job.

So what was the best choice here? What would he reach for with everything lined up in front of him?

What could he do with a girl crying in front of him after losing everything?

After giving it plenty of thought, he spoke.

“''No, I don’t think so''.”