Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume7 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 3===

Instead of dropping explosives on top of a designated target, the destruction dug up the land across a set range.

“!!”

When the bombardment struck, Kyousuke and Biondetta had tackled the silver-haired shrine maiden into a waterless paddy.

But Aoi chose to continue rolling until she was on top of them. Despite being entirely artificial, she had the warmth and softness of a living being. If the explosive blast hit her, she would be as easily torn apart and blown away as any of them. And yet she did not hesitate to make her choice. Perhaps that was her nature as a shrine god created to protect.

“Well, now. I never thought the day would come that a lady would need to be so tough!!”

If they lost Meinokawa Aoi here, they would lose their path to defeating the White Queen. But Aoi seemed entirely focused on saving the lives in front of her.

Meanwhile…

The destructive storm swept across the land like a tractor’s rotating blades slicing up the worms in the dirt, but Olivia did not even get down on the ground while wearing her school swimsuit, decorative collar, pareo, miniskirt, and straw hat.

The most she did was grab the brim of the hat with both hands.

A gust of wind too weak to call a gale blew her pareo and miniskirt up, exposing her bright thighs and the armpits inside her short sleeves.

That bright coloration was like a sacred ground.

It did not allow even a single red scratch.

“Good, good, good. Once everything’s been leveled, the landing unit can come in. It’s time for the Hover Edges to do their job. Nya ha ha.”

She spoke calmly while still standing in the center of the crossroads.

Yet when exposed to an explosive blast, standing rather than getting down increased the odds of death by more than 50%.

A great quantity of explosives continued to rain down from above and something approached from the distant ocean horizon. Whatever-they-were raced toward the coast while spread out at even intervals, so they were probably giant Repliglass craft loaded with summoners and vessels.

Released Creations ignored the structures of existing plants and animals, so there was nothing in particular to reference, but in Kyousuke’s view, they looked like sports kite monsters skimming just off the surface. Assuming of course, that kites had creepy compound eyes that accurately scanned the terrain and large propellers to provide thrust. Describing such a device was simple, but creating one would be difficult. Aircushions were viewed as convenient amphibious vehicles, but when piloting one through rubble, there was always a risk of the inflated float being damaged. These probably combined the best features of an aircushion and a glider, allowing them to move smoothly and rapidly while occasionally adjusting their altitude.

“Don’t worry. I doubt any of them will hit you, Onii-chan.”

As 18,000 explosives rained down, the words of a 10-year-old girl were what caused the waitress demon’s face to tense up.

“You’re kidding…right? Those are non-guided, area-suppression rockets! They won’t avoid you if you’re clutching a cheap GPS in your hands and they’re supposed to evenly blow up everything within range!!”

“This is the world we live in. Onii-chan, you’ve caught on by now, haven’t you?”

Kyousuke clenched his teeth in the waterless paddy as her heated and hopeful gaze fell on him.

He spoke the idea that welled up in his chest.

“…''So that’s what’s going on.''”

“This is the world you wanted, isn’t it?”

Who had given him this present?

The worshipers in Bridesmaid, or the White Queen herself who stood above them?

“But why did you bring the villagers into this summoner battle? If you knew this attack couldn’t kill us, there was no point in making it!!”

“Ehh? But this is something you taught me, Onii-chan.”

She sounded somewhat dependent and somewhat sulky. Either way, it was the calculated way that a child gathered people’s attention. But an unpleasant sensation ran down Kyousuke’s spine when he realized what she meant.

Olivia remained pure and innocent as she continued.

And she showed no concern for the bright thighs visible below the short skirt and floral pattern pareo as they fluttered in the explosive blasts.

“When fighting using the Summoning Ceremony, you need to make sure you don’t get normal people involved. If necessary, you try to drive them away and cut them off from the dangerous battlefield. These are allll rules you followed, Onii-chan.”

So she had done it.

She had “erased” the normal people from the battlefield.

“You’re insane, Olivia…!!”

“Not necessarily.”

Surprisingly, it was Meinokawa Aoi who interrupted while using her own body to protect Kyousuke and Biondetta from the rocket blasts. Her pulse did not feel at all artificial as she pressed it up against the other two.

“This Houbi land is the combat village ruled by the Meinokawa summoner bloodline. This area is known for its underground ice rooms, but they are all connected to form a giant network of tunnels. They will not be buried alive there unless the enemy uses one of those…''bun-ker bus-ters''? Or whatever they are called.”

“But only a fraction of them can use those, right!? Aren’t most of them normal people with no connection to the world of the Summoning Ceremony!?”

“They can be guided. Normal people lose their memories of summoners and vessels once we are no longer in their field of vision, but it is up to their individual nature how their mind maintains consistency. So if we arrange things in a suggestive fashion, they will subconsciously choose to evacuate ''whenever anything odd happens''.”

“Hee hee hee. Isn’t that great, Onii-chan? ''If this wasn’t Houbi Village, you’d have to give up your title as the king of not killing''.”

“…”

This had all been so she could say that one thing.

“But that does not mean we can just laugh it off and forgive her,” said Aoi. “She also ruined the festival.”

“Oh, c’mon. All I’m thinking about is how to bring the Queen and Onii-chan together in my own way. Why would I need anyone’s permission to do that?”

No, that was also why Bridesmaid and the White Queen had joined forces with Olivia Highland, a girl he had once saved.

…It was all to utterly destroy the “safe zone” that Shiroyama Kyousuke had believed in.

They had made a mess of the smiles he had seen here and the preparations for the small festival that the village had been looking forward to.

The problem was just how well they knew each other. It would be difficult to find an attack so grand and wasteful that simultaneously tore into Kyousuke’s heart with such pinpoint precision.

“But, Onii-chan, now you can’t run away, can you? I got rid of all the buildings you might have hidden behind and there isn’t a forest of people you can disappear into either.”

“Olivia…”

“Summoning Ceremony battles are somewhat reliant on the terrain, so now we can fight on even footing. Now, Onii-chan, let’s enjoy this fight now that there’s ''no one left'' to interfere.”

“Olivia Highlaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand!!!!!”

Kyousuke tore himself away from Aoi’s overly kind warmth, shouted at the top of his lungs, and got up, but the world had already changed.

Most of the natural terrain remained, but the comfortable rural scenery, which had been filled with a refreshing breeze even in early summer, was nowhere to be found. All of the black soil had been dug up, scorching flames whirled in blazing vortices, and black smoke stained the twilight sky.

“This is your fault, Onii-chan.”

It was just like the civil war battlefield covered in blood and gun smoke he had traversed with that Alice.

Or was it that Olivia wanted to return to that time?

Once the downpour of explosives let up, Olivia gently let go of her straw hat, freeing her slender hands from anything and everything.

She spread them out like fairy wings.

And she spoke as she held the liberating sky in her hands.

“Defeat the White Queen? How could you not recognize how wonderfully pretty, amazing, strong, kind, and cool she is? There’s only one possibility: you still don’t know her well enough. C’mon, Onii-chan. You need to view the world with more of an open mind.”

“…”

That was the exact opposite of his problem.

As the girl lectured him on that pure whiteness, she showed no sign of noticing the error of her ways.

“''So I just have to teach you.'' Once you know how powerful the White Queen is, surely even you will change your mind!!”

Just as she said that, the Repliglass craft that resembled giant sport kites began to arrive at the beach and spew lots of summoners and vessels out onto the battlefield.

“Tch!!”

At that moment, the information that came to Demon Biondetta’s mind was quite simple:

*Olivia Highland was once Shiroyama Kyousuke’s partner. Thus, the odds are incredibly high she is a vessel.

*Olivia Highland is acting alone, but the threat she poses will rise considerably if she manages to meet up with her summoner partner.

*The first wave of rocket blasts is over and a Bridesmaid landing unit has arrived on the leveled battlefield. There are decent odds that Olivia Highland’s summoner is among them.

She chose the obvious course of action based on those facts: shoot the girl immediately before her summoner can arrive.

Biondetta’s waitress-style miniskirt fluttered up as she prepared her folded Blood-Sign which doubled as a bolt-action sniper rifle. And she could pull the trigger far faster than someone could throw an Incense Grenade. It was a sniper rifle, but she raised it like a pistol in a Western quick-draw scene and her trigger finger was already moving.

Even if the girl was a vessel, a human was a human.

If she had yet to join with her summoner and invite a Material inside herself, the little subcutaneous fat of her undeveloped bodylines could not deflect a rifle bullet. The lead weapon used its own rapid rotation to stabilize itself and it would swiftly crush and wreak havoc on the Olivia’s internals as it mercilessly pierced through her.

However…

“Stop that. She’s just a child. How immature of you.”

“!? Oh, honestly!!”

A slender hand casually reached in from the side, grabbed Biondetta’s gun and pointed it straight up. The culprit was Meinokawa Aoi. The movement of her sleeve pulled on the chest of her shrine maiden outfit, causing it to jiggle, and then the bullet flew through the evening sky like a warning shot. Excellent accuracy was the selling point for bolt-action weapons, but they were hopelessly unsuited for rapid-fire because the cocking lever had to be pulled for each and every shot.

The look in Kyousuke’s eyes grew even sharper.

“Biondetta! ''You''!!”

“Eek! Does this mean you’re going to insist on a late-night talking-to!? First I fail to finish off my target and now I have to sit through a lecture!? This really is the worst!!”

Just as the contracted demon shouted in desperation, the many white Repliglass craft skimmed by a lot like giant sports kites. Shiroyama Kyousuke was an obvious target, but they moved to suppress the entire village instead, so they may have also wanted to collect the documents and equipment related to the Meinokawa Shrine.

Meinokawa Aoi held ancient knowledge on how to create artificial vessels, but she would need a manufacturing facility to give that information physical form.

“Whoops.”

Olivia belatedly held down her straw hat and miniskirt as the artificial wind blew through.

Once the Repliglass group had passed by as a white wind, something unfamiliar had joined the scorched and hellish landscape.

A man of nearly 2m stood next to the 135cm girl.

It was late July and the first day of summer break, but he ignored all of that to wear a black riding suit and a lab coat. But the most conspicuous part was the full-face helmet like a fighter pilot might wear. It included an oxygen inhaler which was connected to the wheeled oxygen tank lying at his feet like a suitcase.

Kyousuke had no idea who he was.

But he could make a pretty good guess based on the spear-like object longer than he was tall.

It was an excessively-long Japanese sword and sheath held closed by rusted wire like a faucet during a water conservation period.

It looked something like a single long rod.

It was a Blood-Sign.

“Now, shall we get started, Onii-chan?”

The girl freed her skinny arms.

Olivia Highland giggled and stepped closer to the man who was nearly twice her height. Summoners were the backstage performers who ensured the vessel could make their greatest performance while calling a god down onto the stage. This was the practical form linked to her ''origin''.

“I’ll show you alllll sorts of great things about the White Queen!!”