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

===Part 2===

In the courtyard of the Block R high school that Shiroyama Kyousuke attended on weekdays, everything looked like death to Meinokawa Higan.

Repliglass weapons were partially or entirely modeled on insects and other animals. They were the armored weapons of a new age and they had drawn a clear line between themselves and all previously existing weapons. Regenerative medicine was used to create all-purpose silicon cells which could be rearranged to form any kind of muscle, bone, nerves, blood vessels, internal organs, or sensory organs. Simply put, anyone wearing that armor took on the role of an intelligent beast that did not exist anywhere on earth.

And those weapons were commanded by four summoner-vessel pairs. Their summoning ceremony could summon life forms not of this world on a limited basis, so they could ignore even the laws of physics and in some cases achieve results not even a great Repliglass army could. …Including incidents involving paranormal phenomena that traditional military might was helpless against.

And yet Meinokawa Higan heard a loud noise.

With his long Blood-Sign in hand, Shiroyama Kyousuke left her behind and took a large step toward the enemy.

The nearest summoner responded by throwing something like a can of coffee toward him. Needless to say, it was an Incense Grenade. At the same time, the Repliglass soldiers moved back. Once a battle between summoners began, normal bullets would be useless. Leaving the fight to the summoner was the standard tactic and that was how they distributed their duties here.

Finally, two summoners would wield the paranormal to fight.

But in that moment, Higan saw something unbelievable.

Freedom Award 902, Alice (with) Rabbit, held up his Blood-Sign like a baseball bat.

With a solid metallic clang, he swung the Blood-Sign and scored a homerun with the Incense Grenade. In just an instant, it vanished in the dark sea beyond the large high school campus.

And…

“Ah.”

While watching the grenade disappear, the summoner seemed to belatedly realize what that meant.

''When an Incense Grenade detonated, the summoner and vessel who had used it were carried to the center of the Artificial Sacred Ground.

“Bfgrfeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???”

As if they were connected to a passenger jet by an elastic cord, the summoner and vessel became two stars in the night sky.

The boy ran further forward and spoke coolly.

“Award 501: defeated.”

“You…!!”

The female summoner he turned to as his next target dropped an Incense Grenade at her feet. He could not hope for another homerun from this distance and he only had three to five seconds until it detonated.

But by that time, Shiroyama Kyousuke had already moved right up to his next target.

However, that target was ''not'' the female summoner.

He suddenly changed direction and moved right up to one of the bizarre Repliglass soldiers that had grasshopper-like legs added near the waist to help with jumping. The soldier was a sturdy armored weapon, but the carbine he held was a standard model. Kyousuke made a spear-like jab with the tip of his 180 cm stick to tear off the high-powered military light attached on the bottom.

At the same time, the counterattack began. The enemy selected the face out of the many vitals available and threw a frightening kick with its silicon leg. This rear leg held the strength needed to send the soldier himself flying ten to twenty meters or to crush a traditional armored truck like a steamed bun.

Shiroyama Kyousuke swung his upper body to avoid it by a hair’s breadth.

A few of his own hairs flew through the air.

His entire body was noticeably emitting extreme tension.

His cheeks twitched as he moved his Blood-Sign. Swinging it down like a hammer would not harm the pilot soldier contained inside the silicon muscles and armor, but he was not foolish enough to think he could destroy that armored weapon like that.

He was targeting something else.

The carbine in the bizarre weapon’s hand had been made as small as possible while completely ignoring the recoil of firing. The powerful military light that had been torn from the bottom used a honeycomb pattern of bright LEDs and it was meant to blind an opponent rather than provide illumination.

Kyousuke caught the rotating light on the tip of his Blood-Sign, pulled it back toward him, grabbed it, and switched it on.

“Oh, no…” muttered the female summoner preparing for battle with her Blood-Sign held up like a spear.

''Incense Grenades are only effective when the target can be seen with the naked eye.

Despite the muffled explosion, no Artificial Sacred Ground appeared. The flashlight was as bright as a strobe light and it had blinded her. She could not summon a Material into her vessel like this.

That brief opening was all Kyousuke needed.

He threw aside the light and stuck a hand into his pocket. He pulled out a metal can as heavy as a can of hair spray: an Incense Grenade. He threw it to the side, but not to fight like normal. He was trying to break the female summoner’s nose with the three hundred gram mass.

Caught off guard, she was unable to evade or defend.

After a metallic sound of impact, the blow hit her square in the face and she collapsed onto her back.

The grim reaper whispered his next statement.

“Award 719: defeated.”

(Not good…)

Finally, the surrounding Repliglass soldiers changed their way of thinking.

(The normal distribution of duties won’t work here. Leaving this to the summoners will only get us defeated!!)

They too would be his prey if they left this to the experts. Fortunately, this target had yet to use a summoning ceremony. Unless he activated the protective circle created from the Material’s power, he was no different from any other human. Normal bullets would fill him with holes like normal.

Their expected victory had crumbled before their eyes, they had restrained their confusion, they had swapped out their way of thinking, and they had begun to take action. All in all, it had taken four seconds.

Everyone there accurately aimed their guns and pulled the trigger.

Those battlefield soldiers recovered and reacted with extraordinary speed.

However, they had forgotten something.

The projectile used to break the summoner’s nose had not been a mere weight; it had been an Incense Grenade.

The slight explosion drowned out all else.

Gunfire rang from the Repliglass soldiers at almost the exact same moment as the Alice (with) Rabbit boy used his Blood-Sign to hit the white sphere – a White Thorn – in front of him.

The deluge of noise seemed to continue without end, but not even one of the bullets tore into Kyousuke’s body.

He and Higan had been automatically taken to the location of the detonating Incense Grenade.

The Repliglass soldiers quickly corrected their aim, but it was too late.

The Rose pieces floating in the air were knocked about, a middle sound Petal was accurately sucked into a Spot, and Higan’s body changed form with a sticky sound. She became a three meter mass of a translucent green sticky liquid. That Material contained the girl’s body at its center.

At the cost of one middle sound, it was one of the weakest Materials, the Original Green (k).

But even if it was one of the weakest, a Material was still a Material. A protective circle that eliminated all attacks was immediately constructed around the summoner and that defended against the countless bullets.

And of course, at the same time…

“Higan! Take out the Repliglass soldiers!! They don’t stand a chance now!!”

<Wow…>

Higan moved with her body transformed into a giant sticky Material.

With the roar reminiscent of sandbags being hit by a barrage of blows, the soldiers were easily swept away. Higan freely controlled the seven hundred liters of her body. Despite being liquid, each strike was as flexible as the human fist yet filled with an impact rivalling a car accident. She understood that she was the one doing this, but she started to lose her awareness of that fact.

<nowiki><I always thought summoning ceremonies were about who could summon the more powerful Material with the more effective sound range… This Original series only costs one sound, so, um, I thought it was just a starting point with no real use.></nowiki>

She went on a rampage inside the Artificial Sacred Ground field where she could use her occult power to its fullest. As she accurately knocked the cutting-edge armored soldiers unconscious, she felt a strange feeling running through that body that was not hers.

<But I was wrong. He even knows, um, how to fight with the weakest Material. No, did this battle begin b-before even summoning the first Material!?>

Yes. That was right.

When Higan had been separated from Renge in that harbor region, Kyousuke had saved her from the Guard of Honor pursuers.

But he would not have had a vessel with him then. So how had he protected her from those members of a professional summoner’s organization?

<Th-this must be…the answer.>

He could get involved in the world of summoning ceremonies and yet return alive without summoning a single Material. He could return with at least a single person in his arms. And he did not have the muscular strength of some ferocious beast, he was not a kung fu master living deep in the mountains, and he was not using the world’s greatest prototype weapon that a stranger had given him.

Then again, he was not the same as Lu Niang Lan who was feared as the Perfect Dragon. He was not an expert in slaughtering veteran summoners using only his own body and hidden weapons instead of Materials.

But when in a bind, he knew enough about this small field to put together a workable strategy ''on the fly'' that would let him fight without a Material.

It could be written off as a series of adlibs, but he did not bring about the optimum result by gambling. He simply had enough useful experience to instantly search for the relevant information in any given situation. He may have been physically using his arms and legs, but his true weapon was his intellect as a summoner.

That had been enough to save a girl from that hellish harbor, so he would not lose here.

Shiroyama Kyousuke could gain the upper hand against Guard of Honor with a handicap, so there was no way he would lose when he had Meinokawa Higan as his vessel and could use his full power.

“Higan, focus on weight more than speed! Repliglass is a mass of silicon muscle fibers, so they won’t be able to move if you press down on them enough to snap them. You don’t even need to knock them out. Destroy the outer shell and they’ll be trapped in their own armor!!”

Shiroyama Kyousuke ran all across the Artificial Sacred Ground and Higan swung her giant Material body around based on his instructions. Repliglass soldiers were the main players of modern warfare and they were a symbol of fear for the guerillas and terrorists being wiped out around the world, but she easily swept them all away.

They were gone in no time at all. Things were progressing almost too smoothly.

She felt like she was watching an example video, so the victory did not feel like hers.

“Dammit!!!!”

Two summoners remained. Someone with devastatingly slow reaction speed quickly raised their Blood-Sign and struck a White Thorn. To Higan, the movement was slow, like someone moving underwater.

And Kyousuke did not just sit idly by.

He took a powerful step forward and charged toward the enemy summoner. By this point, Higan had caught on that even that step had a meaning. If he had only been swinging around his Blood-Sign randomly, he would have been shot up by the Repliglass soldiers before the Incense Grenade could detonate. His movements also had the psychological effect of creating a gap and throwing off one’s timing.

If someone who could easily jump to either side instead charged straight toward the large truck driving their way, anyone watching would be briefly paralyzed with shock.

A baseball would sometimes slip between two infielders who could have easily caught it.

This was the same.

He seemed almost supernaturally skilled at binding the enemy’s body with a stimulus that they could not fight with their rational mind.

He took a short breath, shot forward like a bullet, and literally collided with the enemy summoner.

Both of them were guarded by the protective circles powered by their Materials, so they did not actually come into contact.

With a solid sound of impact, Kyousuke’s charge was obstructed at extreme close range. Both of their protective circles had decided allowing him in range would bring death.

But…

“Kh…!? Wh-what…? You’re in the way…”

“You can’t see the world behind me, can you? And when we’re this close, you can’t swing your 180 cm Blood-Sign like you want to. Isn’t that right?”

A summoner could freely build up their Material by gaining an accurate understanding of the vast Artificial Sacred Ground and using their glowing White Thorns to knock the Petals of low, middle, high, and lowest sounds into the Spots. The pressure tactics that Shiroyama Kyousuke was using with his own body produced a simple yet devastating effect.

“B-but neither can-…!”

The summoner trailed off as he finally noticed the sound of something whipping through the wind.

Kyousuke had reached both hands behind his back and spun his Blood-Sign like a baton.

With a top-class summoner’s spatial awareness, one did not always need to rely on sight. He could manipulate his Blood-Sign behind his back to accomplish the exceedingly precise summoning ceremony.

The tip struck a White Thorn with enough frightening speed to sense the absolute confidence behind it.

With several hard sounds of reflection, it collided with several Petals and knocked them into Spots. The crimson trails of light and the dance of a broken song filled that small world.

He did not even bother to check on the result.

“……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

The poor summoner looked up at something with a blank look in his eyes.

A giant Material towered behind Shiroyama Kyousuke. The giant squid monster had gold eyes and ten thick chains that could probably squeeze a tank. It was the DEC Tentacle (nu – o – re – a – btv – ag – y).

The summoner currently had a human-sized Material with green eyes known as the Sharp Mermaid (nal – cb a – pl), but the difference in cost was too great and the matchup between sound range could not have been worse.

It would be killed in a single blow.

The Silhouette at the mermaid’s core that contained the vessel’s mind would be destroyed.

Unpleasant sweat poured from the summoner’s body and the grim reaper’s quiet voice slipped into his ears.

“Award 780: defeated.”