Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume3 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 4===

Shiroyama Kyousuke temporarily parted ways with his vessel Isabelle.

Toy Dream 35’s P Block contained a lot of parks and sports fields and the rooftops were being proactively covered in greenery. Kyousuke was in one of the parks there. The artificial land was as large as a soccer field and it was forcibly supported fifty meters in the air with somewhere between a few dozen and over a hundred pillars. Although the park looked more like a café terrace thanks to the chain café there.

The short grass was dyed orange by the setting sun.

Thanks to the Delayed Walpurgis, people dressed as Snow White or Little Red Riding Hood were sitting at the large rectangular tables and chatting over coffee or tea. The tables had a billiards motif and it looked like the game could actually be played on them, but with all the water drops and stains, they did not look suitable for an official game.

With all the costumes everywhere, a normal hoodie stood out.

And he had been fully aware of that fact when he came here.

Kyousuke was casually enjoying a saccharine new product with honey, milk, cinnamon, and who knows what else inside an iced coffee. His left hand felt itchy in the leather glove.

Before he could even remove the ice cubes from the transparent cup, the demon arrived.

In this city’s twisted sense of “normal”, the demon was able to blend in more than him.

“''May I sit here?''”

“''Sure.''”

The demon in a pink waitress uniform sat across from Kyousuke before he even answered.

She placed her cup, a mille crepe on a small plate, and a bottle of antibiotics on the edge of the table.

“You were waiting for me. How did you know I would be here?”

“To be honest, I had been keeping tabs on that Murasame Kuina you’re using as a vessel. I wasn’t able to put together an algorithm since I didn’t know who she was working with, but then Government contacted me. …They said the infamous Liar Cat had destroyed the Anthill in D Block.”

“Oh, my.”

“The rest was easy. One: The ''Cheshire Cat'' likes to watch the evening scenery from an elevated place. Two: The ''Cheshire Cat'' cannot go three days without honey and cream. Three: The ''Cheshire Cat'' practices hitting balls for two hours a day to hone her fingers and ensure she does not forget that feeling. You would have begun to relax now that you had all the Anthill information you needed thanks to Aika. I figured you would want to increase your efficiency by intentionally taking some time to relax before getting to work, just like the Spanish siesta.”

“You don’t have to call me that every single time, ''you damn rabbit''.”

“…”

“…”

The atmosphere grew so tense they could almost hear the sound of cracking glass.

But Kyousuke saw a nearby costumed café worker go pale as if overcome by sudden hyperventilation and the waitress demon took a bite of her mille crepe, so they both relaxed for their own reasons.

Time seemed to move once more, the oppressive sense of heavy glass left, and a normal atmosphere returned. The part-time worker in an orange pumpkin-style uniform quickly left.

“Anyway.”

The waitress demon smiled and clacked together the equipment next to her.

One was a strange Blood-Sign. A silver pipe was bent in two with a leather belt wrapped around it and a disposable handle carelessly attached to the side.

The other was a bolt-action sniper rifle that used 7.62mm rounds.

“I was fully aware of the danger, so I laid a trap. Didn’t you think I might start by sniping you even if I did come here?”

“I know ''you'' can read my algorithm to a certain extent.”

“You have your vessel positioned at the most likely spot, don’t you? So while I was lying there preparing to take the shot, she could take advantage of my narrowed focus and field of vision by hitting me over the back of the head.”

The demon took a sip of her tea and glanced to a different building’s rooftop.

Her vessel was not here either. She had laid a trap for his trap. In the end, their ideas may have been quite similar.

“But the Summoning Ceremony industry is surprisingly small. It seemed like some kind of mistake that we escaped that miniature garden 500 meters belowground, but here we are butting heads again.”

“''You'' still haven’t really escaped that place.”

“Please, call me Detta. And is it really that surprising?”

Kyousuke narrowed his eyes as he watched Biondetta pour the antibiotics into her mouth straight from the bottle.

“A summoner that binds a contract to help people with their revenge? No, what ''you’re'' doing is different. You want to take revenge and you can’t forgive yourself, so you’re forcing those words out of other people’s mouths.”

“Hee hee hee! You’re one to talk, boy. I’m no different from you.”

“…”

“You help people because you hear the cursed words of ‘help me’? You don’t really want to do it? Don’t make me laugh. When you get down to it, you want to save them and you can’t forgive yourself, so you force those words out of other people’s mouths. We’re not so different. ''We want to do it, so we create a system that allows us to do it.'' Am I wrong?”

Salvation and revenge.

They stood at complete opposite positions, but this strange pair both saw what they were doing as “helping” people.

And they were both at the 900 level, so they had the incredible power needed to fulfill that request.

“No, I’m not like ''you''. I really do want to wash my hands of all this.”

“You say that, but the second you hear those cursed words, you’ll jump right back in.”

“It is true that half the world’s problems might be my fault,” said Kyousuke to cut her off and drown her out.

A thick and hopeless darkness filled the depths of his eyes.

“But I also think it might be for the best if I stay out of it and don’t get involved. Taking responsibility is my own selfish desire and the world might be left with shallower wounds if I give up instead of making such poor attempts at a solution.”

“And leave the White Queen to do whatever she wants? When no one but you can even speak with her?”

“—————”

“See? That changed the look on your face. You can’t escape this industry, boy. No matter what you say or think, there’s nothing you can do when it has influenced your very soul.”

“''Cheshire Cat.''”

“Shut up, ''you damn rabbit''. I’m in a good mood right now.”

The reclaimed atmosphere ground to a halt once more, as if the world’s gears had jammed. The air of death that expanded did not allow the average person to even breathe adequately.

“Either way, I will not quit my revenge. Just like you and your addiction to saving people.”

“No matter what?”

“Yes, of course. That Fifteen Siblings Project held in the Queen’s Miniature Garden was quite the sinful project, but don’t you find it a fascinating sign that its products – that is, us – are involved in this incident?”

A closed miniature garden.

A facility that managed a certain number of people with a single social system and maintained a certain level of secrecy.

Fifteen people of different nationalities, religions, races, and sexes had been gathered together.

The project had been meant to thoroughly analyze familial and sibling bonds.

They wanted to make the planet one giant family.

But not as a mere ideology. In that grand farce, they had hoped to implant those bonds in all of humanity on the level of brain structure. They had truly believed that would act as the ultimate safety device that would bring an end to all conflict around the world.

To determine the effects under the harshest conditions the world had to offer, extreme environments had been artificially created using the greatest Materials of the Summoning Ceremony and the research data on them.

And this had produced…

“If you’re talking about the Anthills, you’re way off the mark.”

“But the sequence of events suggests that those were created based on data obtained from the wreckage of the Queen’s Miniature Garden. Of course, they never moved past the surface level and never even approached its true essence, but if they had, ''they would have gone far beyond simply mass-producing vessels, don’t you think?''”

“Half of the fifteen died in that war and the other half reached the 900 level. Just as an honest question, do you really think that was all thanks to the ‘lessons’ there?”

“It’s impossible to know for sure at this point. But personally, I think it had more to do with our careless contact with the Queen. But I can’t even be sure of that. The Queen might see it in reverse. I get the feeling she would point at you and insist it was all her brother’s doing.”

“…”

It had not failed.

They had simply failed to predict what would happen once it succeeded.

“So you’re saying an incomplete Fifteen Siblings Project was turned into a vessel mass-production project?”

“If so, we have the right to tear it down since that project messed with our lives. ''I have a reason to take revenge and an excuse that justifies my doing so.'' Isn’t that exciting?”

Why had no one realized the truth?

It was true that certain kinds of love and affection might develop between families and siblings.

But it was not restricted to that.

For example, the death of any one of humanity’s seven billion people would bring the same shock as losing a close relative. So could anyone maintain their sanity when people died on a daily basis?

For example, there were feelings fostered by sibling bonds beyond love and affection...such as hatred. If that intimate hatred covered the world, wouldn’t the subsequent destruction be far deeper rooted than with normal negative emotions?

“How did this happen?” asked Kyousuke without expecting an answer. “A lot happened in the Queen’s Miniature Garden, but not all of the fifteen arrived on the same path as ''you''. ''Cheshire Cat'', what did ''you'' see there? How did you end up like this?”

“Shut the hell up, ''you damn rabbit''. You’re the one that completed your Sewn Realm Summoning during the Fifteen Siblings Project. That stabilized the White Queen and allowed us all to view her from different angles. It may have been the Queen’s fear, the Queen’s passion, the Queen’s violence, or the Queen’s allure.”

The waitress demon counted on her fingers as she spoke.

And then…

“But you were the only one to see the Queen’s love. You’re the one I have a question for, ''you damn rabbit''. How did you manage to keep your sanity? After seeing that incarnation of destruction, how were you able to accept the Queen? What did you learn about her that would allow you to even consider that possibility?”

“Accept…?”

Shiroyama Kyousuke’s mind went blank.

Unable to understand, he repeated the words as if throwing them back at her.

“You’re saying I’ve…accepted the White Queen?”

“Of course.” The demon smiled while pointing right at the boy’s nose. “I seek revenge because – no matter how nauseatingly disgusting I find it – the very roots of my soul were influenced by the Queen’s hatred I saw back then. Similarly…”

''Oh, no,'' thought Kyousuke.

He could not let himself hear this. Because they knew each other so well, these fatal words would pierce straight through his heart’s defenses.

“Your ‘help me’ syndrome is a role the powerful White Queen was supposed to play, isn’t it? She is summoned because people seek her, she fights because she is called upon, she saves every last life through absolute victory, and even the enemy bows down to her after the battle. She is supposed to be a saint who saves two hundred when trying to save one hundred. …How can you snuggle up with the Queen with that refreshed look on your face? It’s just plain creepy.”

His mind fell into darkness.