Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume4 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 4===

'''(Timeline “Now”)

Kyousuke’s top priority was to confirm the safety of Himekawa Mika and the rest of the 353 vessels in Pandemonium.

There was a decent chance that Himekawa was inside the White Queen, but that was only a theory and he had no proof.

He wanted more information to help fill in his missing memories and arrive at the truth.

To do that, he needed to directly attack someone from the Deltaston family that was running the Pandemonium project. Instead of starting at the center, he would part the forgetful waters of Lethe from the outer edges.

That was his plan.

“Oh, my. Brother, they’re selling fried bananas. You can fry bananas? But they’re fruit!”

“…”

Kyousuke tried to empty his mind as the White Queen clung to his arm and expressed interest in the food for sale. The summoners and vessels in the crowd grew needlessly noisy once more.

“Her Majesty!? Kh, but would it be best for her if I didn’t bother her now…!?”

“Gozaru, gozaru. …If the Queen stirred things up, maybe I could escape my current standstill…”

“I won’t bother her, but what if I stood right at the edge of her view? Sh-she’s looking at meeeeeeeee!!”

[[Image:BloodSign_v04_132.jpg|thumb]]

Kyousuke immediately tried to leave, but the Queen grinned and pinned him to the spot like an anchor. He struggled for a bit, but he finally concluded buying her some fried fruit in a paper package was more cost effective than cutting off his arm.

“Hm, hm. The texture is so different when it’s fried. Would you call this a snack or a kind of chips?”

“That’s a banana with vegetable oil, so it’s loaded with calories.”

“And it comes with vanilla ice cream, so you never get tired of it. It’s hot but cold! Look, brother, you try this new texture too. Say ‘ah’☆”

“And they give you so much of it… Why are you in such a good mood, anyway? Oh, is it because the banana flesh, the fried coating, and the vanilla ice cream are all white?”

“Hee hee. The White Queen loves bananas!!”

“I won’t stop you, but still…”

“U-um, brother? Isn’t that being a little cruel? I know I’m in an extra good mood because of this date, but don’t you have too many fantasies about how girls are supposed to be?”

That had nothing to do with this.

Kyousuke walked through the noisy crowd with the White Queen, but the silver twintail girl completely ignored them.

“Hee hee. Ee hee hee. I can’t believe I’m walking next to you like this, brother… I think I’m going to get greedy and stand on your right side. Hee hee. Your dominant hand is all mine! I am the center of your being!!”

“…”

No matter where he went, the White Queen was too conspicuous. And only an incense expert like Ellie Slide could prevent expert summoners and vessels from recognizing them to travel incognito. It was less than ideal for pursuing or being pursued by someone. It was like wrapping Christmas lights around your body and running around the mountains at night to hunt timid baby deer.

But there were people whose position would prevent them from fleeing.

For example, the head of the noble Deltaston family.

The greater the VIP the more meaning each and every one of their actions held. Someone that important would not be allowed to remove his fan from his face even if a hurricane was approaching. The juvenile concept of “being mocked” was mostly seen during the so-called “gang age”, but at his level, it was a major concern that could make a small crack in the dam and lead to a revolt.

So…

“A top-class hotel with a casino, an opera house, and a pool salon? The cheapest rooms are the suites and the fanciest is the Excellently Royal Special Breezing-… What is with this name? It sounds like a coffee with lots of cream on top.”

“Whatever it is, it’s still just a collection of containers.”

Kyousuke looked up at the giant structure.

It was indeed a stack of boxy containers, but each one was larger than a school gym. And in some cases, the inner walls had been torn down to connect them together. They were not stacked evenly, so effort had been made to give it a modern art look.

“Officially, it’s a social gathering place where Government, Illegal, and Freedom can stay to make connections, but the Deltaston family is involved in all of it. I bet the one family has the entire place to themselves. …And they’re even running a musical based on the ''legend'' of the White Queen. I’m not sure if that’s having awful taste or just plain insane…”

“Brother, why not upgrade your room? If we’re going to be flirting, I want at least a king-sized bed. Oh, but having to share a single futon in a tiny room would be great too…”

“Is that all you ever think about?”

“Y-you have it all wrong!! It’s important to start by bringing our feelings together with a kiss!!”

The best way to defend against attacks, abductions, and assassinations was to hide your location, but a VIP could not do that. It would be a problem if people assumed they were hiding because they were scared. That was why the location of the palace or residence of a nation’s leader would be public knowledge. Locating them was easy and they were almost never allowed to flee. That made paying them a visit simple. …Assuming, that is, you had enough power to break through the thick walls.

“So how are you going to do this, brother? I will simply be following you around, so are you going with the standard plan of breaking through this flimsy paper box and dragging your target out of the rubble?”

“How is that the standard plan?”

“Oh, but if you go the front desk and tell them the peak of the Unexplored-class is kindly paying them a visit, they might roll out the red carpet and show us right in.”

“That’s exactly what would happen, so I’m not doing that.”

The White Queen worked just as well as a master key here. She could force anything through for him, but it would also explosively increase the negative attention he received. If the White Queen decided to leave for some reason, he would be destroyed by the hatred and jealousy of both the Deltaston family and the entire world, so he would be forced into a pathetic life of dependency on and servitude to the Queen.

So Kyousuke steeled his resolve and reminded himself not to include the Queen’s power in his calculations.

“Wherever it’s located, the structure of a hotel makes it easy to sneak in. This way, Queen.”

“Boo. Sneaking in the back way goes against my principles. Besides, I doubt even hiding on the dark side of the moon would mask my presence.”

“We don’t need to hide.”

She went along with his vaguely-described plan.

Kyousuke circled behind the hotel and boldly turned the emergency door’s knob. It was not locked, but opening it set off an alarm. However, he did not panic and the two of them slipped inside the closest linen room. They were inside a giant container, but the interior was made to hide that fact. Wallpaper and carpet covered the walls and floor and it looked just like a luxury hotel. Kyousuke saw a large washing machine, dryer, and pushcart along the wall. He borrowed a blank cream-colored cardkey he spotted along with the cleaning team’s personal items.

“Hotels have far more master keys than normal apartment buildings. It isn’t all that well known, but they go missing all the time. We can get in anywhere with this, so it seems pretty careless of them.”

“Hmm. But isn’t a stealth mission physically impossible with me tagging along? If we walk another 20m, the entire world will find out and we’ll be rushed by passionate worshipers and the paparazzi. Since I am not in an Artificial Sacred Ground, I show up on cameras and sensors, so this is the perfect chance to make some holy icons.”

“You don’t need to worry about that.”

“?”

As Kyousuke spoke, he grabbed a bath towel, a toolbox, and a roll of duct tape he found in the linen room.

The formally ringing alarm automatically stopped.

The White Queen watched in interest to see what he was doing and he immediately took her back out into the hallway. The silver twintail girl spoke like a navigator.

“I sense something at the door on the left 15 meters ahead. It’s going to open.”

That was exactly what happened.

Instead of a guest room, the door likely led to a break room or kitchenette for employees. The door opened outwards and someone started to stick their head out.

“Okay, brother. What are you going to-…wahyah!?”

The Queen’s voice was cut off by Kyousuke grabbing her silver twintail head and roughly tousling her hair all around. Not only did he mess up her hair, but he threw the bath towel at her.

With the toolbox and duct tape in hand, Kyousuke put on a deeper and gravelly voice. Instead of running or hiding from the maid-like cleaner woman, he actually approached her.

“We only have 20 minutes until rehearsal, so what do you mean you got lost!? You wanted to take a smoke to calm your nerves? I can’t believe what I’m hearing! You’re in your stage costume! You’ll ruin it with the yellow cigarette resin. You can’t let your guard down just because we have a spare. Who knows what other trouble we’ll run across before the performance!!”

“Eh? Huh?”

The White Queen looked utterly bewildered and Kyousuke bowed toward the cleaning lady as they passed by.

“Sorry about all the noise. You know how things can be, so please forgive us! …C’mon, you bow too. We’ve set foot in a professional’s territory!! Now let’s get to the rehearsal! Honestly, the kid I’m dressed as is called Alice (with) Rabbit, right? I’m just the prop guy, so think how I must feel dressing up to help you practice. I had to skip lunch for this and I’m not even getting paid for it!!”

“H-hnyah. Brother…”

As he grabbed her slender arms and tugged her forward, the Queen’s cheeks grew red.

Kyousuke ignored it as he made his smartphone ring and pretended to answer it.

“What is it now!? …Oh, producer? Yes, I found that stubborn woman!! You need to chew her out too. We can’t have that legendary White Queen squatting behind the hotel smoking a cigarette!! She’s dressed like a world famous individual, so we’d get a flood of complaints if someone got a photo!! How would we explain that to our sponsors!?”

Kyousuke continued feigning chitchat as he and the Queen passed by the cleaning lady. Their abnormal outfits backed up their story and the phone created an invisible barrier that prevented her from asking any questions.

Kyousuke made his way to the employee elevator and the White Queen giggled with the bath towel over her head.

“I see. So being famous can come in handy sometimes. Isn’t – that – right – brother?”

“I’m not like you. You’re the one that’s standing out.”

“A-and, brother, can you tousle my hair again!?”

“Cling to me too much and it’ll mess with our supposed ‘roles’ of actress and prop guy. …No, wait. This might actually be better. If it looks like we’re secret lovers, she might accept why we were sneaking around out back.”

“S-s-s-secret lovers!!!???”

The White Queen started glowing, so Kyousuke frantically shoved her into the employee elevator.

They would normally need a cardkey to visit a special floor, but that was only for the guest elevators. For convenience’s sake, the employee one allowed anyone to visit any floor. …And needing a cardkey would not matter when all the employees had a master key in the first place.

“P-pat me, pat me!! Please pat my head some more, brother! …But some information will remain saying we were wandering around an off limits area. Once they realize the cardkey is missing, won’t we be the first people they suspect? Pat me, pat me! Come on, pat me, pat me!!”

“The door has closed, so we don’t need to keep up the act. …And how would they find us? They would go after the real musical group in the hotel’s opera house, wouldn’t they? And how would that lead them to us? By the time the Deltaston family’s bodyguard team begins searching some innocent stranger’s possessions, we’ll be done here.”

“Eh heh heh. So you’re willing to frame people as long as their name will be cleared in the end? You really are crazy in your own way, brother☆”

“You have no right whatsoever to call anyone crazy.”

This was not a high-rise structure made of reinforced concrete, so the elevator reached the floor they wanted in no time.

Much like Aika’s apartment, the space was the size of a school building and took up the entire floor. But by the time they reached the one and only entrance used by both the employee and guest elevators, Kyousuke could tell something was not right.

“…I knew it.”

“Knew what, brother?”

“Why wasn’t there a single bodyguard? This is the palace for the king who built this temporary city for tens of thousands of summoners and vessels!”

Kyousuke recalled Max Layard’s smartphone he had acquired before coming here.

It had contained a fair amount of information, but something else had caught his interest.

Perfect Game should have been closer than anyone to Government here and thus to the Deltaston family, but ''they had not received a single call or message that looked like it might have been about a job.'' Almost like the organization itself was not functioning. If Kyousuke’s memories were accurate, there had been a fair number of summoners and vessels inside Pandemonium, but there was not even an email about delivering food or living supplies.

That may have only been a small oddity.

It may not have been worth turning back when Pandemonium was right in front of his eyes and the truth was within reach.

But that was wrong.

Even that had required the strength to turn back.

Ignoring a slight problem in order to reach for a great prize was like ignoring the risk of losing control and grabbing the White Queen’s hand while assuming he could manage it without any proof that was the case. If he let those thoughts tempt him, he would be swallowed up before he knew it.

It was because he was faced with an amazing opportunity that he had to make extra certain he did not lose sight of himself.

And he had made it this far, even if it had required a boring detour.

He used the cleaning master key to open the door and stepped inside, but he only found a painful silence. He checked the living room that had a full home theater system, the kitchen that was far too large for only preparing drinks and snacks, a bath so large it looked more like a pool bar, and a bedroom with a king-sized canopy bed, an audio system to play sleep-inducing music, and an aroma oil set, but there was no sign of anyone.

There were a lot of personal possessions for a hotel room and there were so many pieces of artwork and antiques decorating the space that it was easy to forget it filled an entire floor. There was an ancient Greek sculpture, a model ship, an antique gramophone, and a shield on the wall with a crest that was probably the Deltaston family’s. The glittering red, white, and blue jewels somehow made it look cheap. As part of the Round Table, their personal possessions were all Western. They were probably all quite valuable, but none of them went well with each other. The room simply felt oppressive.

That was why he overlooked it at first.

Something was leaning against the wall, but he had mistaken it for one of the room’s ugly pieces of art, like a grandfather clock or an overly decorated music box.

“Brother.”

When the silver twintail girl in a white dress gently guided his attention, that “something” slid down the wall. It hit the floor, flipped over, and told Kyousuke this was the worst case scenario here.

An elderly man in a luxurious gown lay there.

There was no light of intelligence in his eyes. Even as he lay on his side, he continued moving like someone walking with a cane.

This was the sign of a loser in the Summoning Ceremony.

The shock of seeing his god killed before his eyes had left him repeating the same action like a zombie in the original sense of the word. He would obey any gestured or spoken instructions and would even walk right off a cliff if guided to do so.

“So the Deltaston family’s emperor is wearing no clothes, hm?”

Naturally, he could not have ended up like this on his own.

If he had lost, then someone had to have won.

Based on the situation, Kyousuke doubted even 24 hours had passed since he had entered this state.

But some of his wounds were more severe than others and some had healed more than others. He may have received them when collapsing upon his defeat, but that meant he had fought multiple times over multiple days. Was he beat back down every time the state wore off?

If so…

“It started with him, but someone else hijacked the plan,” groaned Kyousuke.

Looking at the poor old man sent pain racing through the back of his mind. This was stimulating the scab on his memories.

This had started as a slight sense that something was off.

But he had been right to obey it.

If he had charged into Pandemonium without knowing anything, it almost certainly would have cost him his life. He would have held out his shield in the wrong direction and the downpour of arrows would have skewered him.

Simply put, he had needed to deal with this problem first.

“Who’s in control of Pandemonium!?”