Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume5 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 4===

“The rankings have been updated,” said Shiroyama Kyoumi the Queen of Hearts with her somewhat drooping black eyebrows.

Kyousuke, Biondetta, and Kyoumi were in one of the party rooms of the Miniature Garden’s Inner Circle. The room was equipped for indoor leisure activities such as darts and billiards. The billiards table was too large, so Kyousuke and Biondetta would stand on a stool when they held the cue. They had to focus on balancing, so they ended up developing a unique style of play. And Biondetta was leaning over with her cue while wearing her short surgical gown, so it was dangerous in another way for her.

At any rate, Kyoumi must not have liked how Kyousuke and Biondetta were too focused on the billiards table to respond, so she moved the ranking board from the large karaoke-style screen to the LCD screen that formed the top surface of the billiards table.

Biondetta had been skillfully lowering her hips and holding her cue while standing on the stool, so she immediately gave a tearful shout.

“Ah! My guide line disappeared!!”

“The. Rankings. Have. Been. Updated.”

Kyoumi did not care. Their positions were already settling into place. The 15 were divided into a few groups and individuals were separated into castes within the groups. Shigara Masami and the others were probably frustrated as they monitored it all.

“Besides, it’s deadly boring if you just hit the ball along a monitor-controlled line. You’re only moving your hands the way you’re told.”

“It’s not supposed to be fun!! This is training. It’s defrag work meant to fine-tune my conditioning, so I have to hit the balls along a preset optimal path. Oh, honestly! Watch me avoid #5 and #8 while hitting #4. If I can bounce the cue off the sides twice…”

After a loud sound, Kyousuke sighed.

“Biondetta, you hit #5 and #8 into the pocket too. This is a complete mess.”

“Call me Detta! And am I only here so everyone can bully me!?”

What kind of training was that?

Kyousuke rubbed chalk on the tip of his cue and faced the billiards table.

1st: Shiroyama Shizuku the Jabberwock.

2nd: Alberto S. Divinesmith the Hatter.

3rd: Claudia Shiroyama the Humpty Dumpty.

4th: Shiroyama Cain the Dodo.

…

…

…

“The top ranks really don’t change much. The top three switch around to a deadly extent, but none of them falls into the lower ranks.”

“I don’t like it,” said pink-haired Biondetta as she balanced on the stool and pouted her lips. “We do just as good as them in pure wins, so why don’t we ever get a top score!?”

“The Summoning ceremony isn’t a tool for fighting; it’s a technique to summon the gods. So there are a number of methods: taking the shortest course to the Material you want or making a swift recovery after some interference.”

“Then why even compete in the first place? If they just want accuracy, we could hit the White Thorns into targets drawn on the wall!”

“That’s because the Summoning Ceremony is based on the one-on-one ritual battles performed for a god.”

Biondetta let Kyoumi rub her head, so it did not look like she was going to move from that spot anytime soon. It was quickly becoming apparent that she made a stubborn show of her pride while actually being very easily swayed.

There were two simple reasons for their focus on this direct ranking system.

First, they wanted a simple method of measuring themselves, just like at a college-prep school or a sports school. If they had a basis with which to judge their status, they could more easily judge their distance from others.

And second, there were enough Blood-Signs and Incense Grenades to go around, but…

“Ahh, ahh. I guess that top 3 group really is going to hog the vessels,” sighed Biondetta while looking to Kyoumi…no, to her costume. “If they have the vessels all to themselves, will they be the first to summon that White Queen who only shows up by accident?”

If they did that, someone might praise them.

She would never admit to it, but Biondetta’s tone made it clear what it was she yearned for.

“…”

There were not enough vessels.

The adults had only prepared 3 vessels for the group of 15.

They remained in the Mock Battlefield and would renew their contract with whoever showed up for a mock battle. But once the top 3 spots were fixed in place, the adults would probably give up on the rest and focus on those 3.

That was an ominous thought in this closed Miniature Garden.

Those 3 would have exclusive use of the Materials which were immune to blades and bullets. It would create the ultimate privileged class. Or it would be just like the ancient religious leaders who coopted the glory of god to further their own corruption. With no way out of this environment, they could not even imagine how much would be taken from the lower ranked group.

(Maybe that would count as success.)

Instead of a cheerful family, it would be structured around a powerful central pillar, but that was still a form of family. The Miniature Garden’s ultimate objective was to remove all seeds of conflict from the human race, so as long as they achieved that result, the process might not matter so much.

And just as Kyousuke considered that, an extraordinary force shook the entire giant structure located 500 meters underground.

The indoor lights had been stable enough to provide the illusion of uniform lighting, but now it blinked irregularly. Was it one of the impact buffering structures, or had things simply exceeded the limits of the design? Either way, the ground rocked like a boat in the waves and they heard disconcerting creaking sounds from overhead.

“Kyah!?”

Biondetta wobbled and nearly fell from the stool. From the other side of the billiards table, Kyousuke held out a cue longer than he was tall and stuck it below her armpit to support her.

“Thank you, but I’d rather you didn’t poke at a fragile maiden with a stick like she’s something dirty.”

“I couldn’t reach.”

For some reason, Biondetta glared at him even after he had saved her.

Relationships were hard. Following the formulae did not guarantee everyone would reach the same answer.

“That was close by, wasn’t it?”

Shiroyama Kyoumi the Queen of Hearts hesitantly glanced over toward the party room’s entrance. There must have been a poor connection somewhere because the lamp on the wall was flashing intermittently.

Some time had passed since the explosion, but the room’s roof continued to creak. It felt like the air had grown heavier and an invisible hand was pushing down on their heads. No matter how large the space looked, they were reminded of the thick rock they were trapped below.

And they quickly received an answer.

The shaking had sent the billiards balls rolling all across the table, but the ranking board displayed there had changed.

Biondetta and Kyoumi exchanged a glance.

“The Jabberwock fell from #1?”

“And Humpty Dumpty moved up from #3. Is that what that was…?”

They gulped and started to leave the room…no, to visit the source of the vibration. Instead of a positive curiosity, they were driven by a negative anxiety that would only grow until they saw what had happened.

Kyousuke made sure the billiards board had saved the positions of the balls just before the incident and then followed the girls.

Their living spaces were located in the Inner Circle of the Miniature Garden’s spider web like structure. That was close to the central Mock Battlefield.

And as they approached, it was obvious something was wrong. The smooth white walls had small cracks in them and the internal wiring must have been damaged because a few of the lights were out on the Great Ceiling. The level of damage grew the closer they got to the center. Some of the internal wall panels had collapsed and some doors creaked after being knocked out of place.

“Watch out.”

“Gyubh!?”

Kyousuke grabbed the neck of Biondetta’s surgical gown from behind just before a giant halogen light fell from the Great Ceiling. The basketball-sized mass just barely missed her, but when the pink haired demon turned around, her face was red, she tearfully trembled, and she bit her lip.

“〰〰〰!”

She tried to say something, but she was interrupted.

A few boxy medical carts – something like indoor ambulances – passed them from behind. Help must have been needed for some reason. The insides of the vehicles must not have been enough because guards wearing black clung to the roof and sides as well.

Gray dust wafted out from the Mock Battlefield’s explosion-resistant gate.

While the medical carts rushed in, someone fell out from behind a curtain that looked like dirty cotton candy. It was just like someone who had been wandering through the scorching desert for days and then got caught in a sandstorm right before reaching an oasis. They collapsed while showing no sign of speed or intent.

“Ah,” said Shiroyama Kyoumi without thinking.

Who was Shiroyama Shizuku the Jabberwock?

She was one of the superior ones who was never shaken from her spot in the top 3 on the ranking board. She specialized in the Divine-class of Materials like Yamata no Orochi, Nidhogg, or the Hydra. She did not stick to any one Sound Range or mythology. Instead, she was known for summoning violent dragons. That strong preference led her to play around from time to time, yet she had the skill needed to never drop in the rankings. She never allowed herself to use the lower Regulation-class or the higher Unexplored-class. She always stuck to the Divine-class and used that specialty to manipulate and torment her opponent. She had been a symbol of the wickedness found in the power of mythological beings.

And yet that tyrant of the divine world…

“Ah, ahh, ahhhhhhhhh…”

She had lost the right to stand on two feet and could not even crawl on all fours.

She pressed her cheek to the floor like she had a rag on her face.

Her mouth hung limply open and sticky drool flowed out.

Her bangs covered her eyes which had lost the light of rational thought.

Her core as a human being and her dignity as an individual with a soul had been stolen away and she simply repeated the same action like a windup doll that had fallen on its side.

“…The loser…”

Biondetta groaned that term with the look of someone who had seen a king dragged down from the throne by the commoners.

When someone lost a battle between summoners, they received a shock equivalent to seeing their god killed before their eyes. They became unable to resist what anyone said and would not hesitate to walk off a cliff if someone gestured toward it.

And the guards’ response was simple.

“Leave the summoner. She doesn’t matter!”

“We need to do something about the vessel…”

“''Hurry up and dig her out of from the collapsed wall!!'' She really will die!!”

There was nothing Kyousuke, Biondetta, or Kyoumi could do.

The two girls continued forward, but Kyousuke came to a stop. The most he could do was move the former ruler to the side so she would not be in the middle of the wide passageway.

One of the passing adults, a ponytail beauty, finally came to a stop.

It was Madam Professor Shigara Masami.

She removed her lab coat and placed it over Shiroyama Shizuku, but she also shook her head and spoke to Kyousuke.

“You shouldn’t see any more of this. …This is straying from the main point of the Miniature Garden.”

“But Biondetta and Kyoumi went in there.”

The boy could only shake his head as well.

He left the Jabberwock with Shigara Masami and continued on to find out what was going on.

The guards were rushing all around near the entrance to the Mock Battlefield, but none of them stopped him. They either were too busy to cordon off the place or they were sticking to the basic rule of not interfering with the 15’s life cycle whenever possible.

It should have been a circular space larger than a school gym.

The red and white chess board floor had been peeled up, the walls had crumbled and collapsed, and the guards were struggling with a pile of rubble using a piece of heavy machinery resembling a carnivorous dinosaur.

Someone had done this.

The threat took physical form and reigned supreme beyond the clearing cloud of dust.

It was Claudia Shiroyama, aka Humpty Dumpty.

She was likely the same age as Shiroyama Kyoumi, so she would have been a high school girl in the outside world. But her entire body was contained within a roundly swollen space suit colored white with pink lines, so her build, age, and even sex were not apparent from outside. But her Blood-Sign was the exact opposite of that symbol of cutting-edge science. It was made by chopping up old texts on parchment and rearranging them into a stick.

And that summoner who mixed old with new had a Material by her side.

Biondetta had arrived a bit before Kyousuke and she had fallen to a seated position by the wall. She was trembling with her thighs pressed together inside her surgical gown that was only tied on the side. Just barely avoiding ''wetting herself'' seemed to be the most she could manage. Droopy eyebrowed Kyoumi always acted like their guardian, but she could do nothing more than place a hand on Biondetta’s shoulder. She had managed to remain standing, but her eyes were opened wide and she did not seem able to move.

There was a simple reason.

“The Unexplored-class,” gulped Kyoumi. “The beings that exist even beyond the gods of legend…”

But was she even speaking of her own free will? It almost looked like it was being forced out of her by an external power.

“This isn’t a fixed match following a routine or a prearranged ritual battle. A summoner can actually summon those deadly things in a real battle where you never know what’s going to happen!?”

It was the “Ashen” Shrine Maiden who Invites Merciful and Dignified Death (e m – a o – l e v – c k – r o l – e i – v b – y u – a – p s).

She was a contradictory being that possessed soft, feminine curves while being as hard as the sculptures found in Greek ruins. She looked like a long-haired beautiful women in a shrine maiden outfit, but she had been thoroughly petrified until she reached an ashen hue void of all color and warmth. It could be her claws, her fangs, the light of her eyes, her hair, her scream, or her scent. From every possible range, she could send out deadly poisons and curses that would provide no pain and would not harm the body, but that would simply steal the soul from its container of flesh. She was the ultimate ruler of life who surpassed any grim reaper. She was an embodiment of ''heartwarming blasphemies'' such as euthanasia and the eternal preservation of a corpse.

“Why is there an Unexplored-class here?”

But that was not the crux of the problem.

Shiroyama Kyousuke got straight to the point.

“In a Summoning Ceremony battle, the Artificial Sacred Ground vanishes and the Materials go back to being the vessels 90 seconds after the battle ends. It took 5 minutes to arrive after that loud rumbling. So why?”

“Hmm…?”

The voice was muffled by the white spacesuit with pink lines, so its sex was hard to make out.

But the negative emotion came through loud and clear.

“That’s obviously because it’d be boring if it had ended there.”

“…”

“I had just built up a great chain and was going for a major technique, but then she suddenly collapsed. I wasn’t done and I had more to do, so I had to figure out what to do about the chain I was building up.”

“So you intentionally repeated it, didn’t you?”

“Right.”

“The loser can’t disobey any order. ''So each time she collapsed, you told her to stand up and fight again''! And you knew she couldn’t think straight after losing!!”

“Until 45 seconds ago anyway. Just having her stand there isn’t great. She’s too weak. It took 34 times before I could finally get my Divine-class up to the Unexplored-class. And I rushed it too much and screwed up, so I wandered into this gray dead-end.”

The spacesuit spun her parchment Blood-Sign around as she cheerfully explained herself.

And she used it to point at the Queen of Hearts…no, at the costume that Kyoumi wore.

“I was really hoping to go for that ''White One'' who may or may not actually be summonable.”

She had done all that yet still failed.

The time limit must have arrived because the petrified shrine maiden returned to being the original vessel. It was a woman in her early 20’s with a silver bob cut. Her entire body was tightly bound by black leather belts and other restraints to ensure evil and vengeful spirits did not hijack her body. On top of it all, she had a metal ring around her head at the forehead. The inner edge was covered in metal plugs, so it may have been based on a crown of thorns. It seemed strange and extreme even if it was used to tune her. That may have been a sign of the burden placed on the vessels to repeatedly bind contracts with the 15 children.

Humpty Dumpty did not seem to care.

She had mentioned a “gray dead-end”, so she simply saw starting over from the beginning as the fastest route to what she wanted.

Yes.

Starting over.

“Now.”

Claudia tapped at her temple through the spacesuit’s protective shade.

She was probably smiling.

“I’d like to start Round 2 while I’m still in the right mindset and before the engine cools. Yes, yes. I feel like I can reach that White One right now. I can see the chain leading me there. I can see the path to building that mountain. So how about you give me the chance to do that, siblings?”

“…”

Kyousuke glared at her and the spacesuit moved her parchment Blood-Sign to the side.

She pointed to a pile of rubble.

“I don’t care who, but someone bind a contract with the one buried under there. Her bones might have broken and her organs might have been crushed, but none of that should matter once she turns into a Material inside the Artificial Sacred Ground. As long as I have a summoner and a vessel to fight, I’ll give you the privilege of being the foundation to my success.”

“…And if we refuse?”

“I’ll crush you and find someone else to use.”

Shigara Masami had said this strayed from the main point of the Miniature Garden, and she was right. The project was meant to bring the 15 together as a single family, but at some point, they had been swallowed up by their power in the Summoning Ceremony and by the ranking board.

And it all revolved around the word “white”.

Kyousuke glanced to the side. The threat of the Summoning Ceremony using Incense Grenades and Blood-Signs was truly astounding, but it only worked if a certain process was followed. If those conditions were removed, the Artificial Sacred Ground would fail to establish and they could escape. But could he do that while bringing along Biondetta, who had fallen to the ground, and Kyoumi, who was frozen in place? And even if they escaped for now, would they ever find peace in this gigantic but closed space? They would eventually be cornered. It was only a matter of sooner or later.

And more importantly, wasn’t striking back and defeating her the more “surefire” method?

His right hand subconsciously started to move.

He was aware he had begun to seek the power to fight in the form of a Blood-Sign.

And then…

“Oh? That’s perfect then. Come have some fun with this madman here.”

His thoughts were cut off by the sound of a small metal can being thrown.

[[Image:BloodSign v05 083.jpg|thumb]]

It was an Incense Grenade with the pin pulled. Someone had stepped forward when they all should have fallen back.

Once it detonated, a 20 meter cube was cut off from the world and the summoner and vessel were sucked to the center. Who had stood before top-ranked Humpty Dumpy?

It was the Hatter.

Alberto S. Divinesmith.

He lazily wore a suit and a small straw hat, and the spacesuit scoffed when she saw him.

“Do you understand your position here, sacrifice?”

“Have you never read the Lewis Carroll story our names are from? It’s a kid’s book, so you don’t even need to be knowledgeable or educated to be familiar with it.”

It was a giant coffin and not a person who stood by the Hatter’s side.

When he rapped the back of his brown hand on it, the double doors of the coffin opened to reveal the many plugs inside.

It looked like a torture device skewering every part of the girl in thin pajamas inside.

It was the world’s most well-known torture device, but no original actually existed. Its name alone had become something of a legend as it spread fear all on its own.

It was the iron maiden.

“Humpty Dumpy had a great fall. And he couldn’t be put together again.”

That was their cue.

The black-haired girl slipped out of the torture device and the Hatter did not hesitate to charge full-speed toward the dead-end of death.