Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume6 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 8===

The twin shrine maidens had been captured by a powerful enemy and they had no time.

But they did not need to rush into any kind of eccentric action during the preparation phase. Instead moving between buildings by clinging to a helicopter’s landing struts or swinging across on a wire, they bought a ticket at the station and rode a train to the zoo in Z Block.

“Celebrate Tanabata by giving bamboo grass to the pandas!”

“The Capybara Knights are also praying for a beautiful night sky!!”

The train was covered in hanging banners and electronic advertisements for the Tanabata Fair.

At this stage, they could not afford to stand out or be delayed. They bought tickets for the zoo and entered through the main gate like normal. Two high school tickets came out to 3200 yen. The basics were important.

“What is that electric noise?”

“Oh, that’s a bug zapper. Zoos end up with a lot of bugs, so they lure them all in to fry them.”

“Hm? But I thought those traps only worked at night. The bug zappers I am familiar with are a technology that takes advantage of insects’ attraction to lights. Pant, pant.”

“Why are you breathing heavily? My guess is this one uses smell as well. Fly and roach traps often use some kind of jelly.”

“Gasp! You mean this is a brand new kind of cutting-edge trap!? And a pure one that protects people’s smiles from disease. Kh. I never thought I would find these things even here. Japan truly is a great nation of traps!”

“You really are a pain in the ass, you know that!?”

He had a feeling he did not want to let her see one of those clockwork toys that rolled small metal balls around inside it.

Also, they had received something with their tickets.

“What is this? I have never seen this plant before. What as strange aroma.”

“I guess they don’t have these in northern Africa.”

“Is it a trap?”

“No, and shut up about traps. It’s called bamboo grass. It’s a type of bamboo, so-…”

“Bamboo spear traps! I’ve heard of that. They are the distinct Japanese flavor added to falling ceilings or pitfalls. They are the umami of traps, aren’t they!?”

“Try to control your heartrate, Sekurtiti. Anyway, this is the favorite food of the zoo’s prized pandas!”

It was noon on a weekday, but there were an awful lot of small children running around wildly with no concern for the flow of foot traffic.

“Did you write your wish on the ''tanzaku''?”

“I heard the paper and ink are both made from bamboo grass.”

“I hope I found the Phantom Girl picture book. Now eat up, panda! Make my dream come true!!”

The number of children was too great to just be families that had taken time off of work and school, so it may have been a school field trip.

The air contained a unique mixture of straw and animal smells.

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“Will such a bright place really be used for an ugly hostage exchange?”

Sekurtiti looked around doubtfully while wearing a primarily yellow yukata. She still wore the tiara and thus most likely still wore the other decorations and the bandages below, but she looked normal enough. She had brown skin and short silver hair, but she did not stand out much since there were a lot of Japan-loving foreign visitors to Toy Dream 35.

“Sekurtiti, the zoo is for looking at the animals, so try to keep your eyes on the cages.”

“Eh? Ah? R-right.”

“And summoners and vessels vanish from normal people’s minds once we’re out of view. The normal methods to lose someone tailing you might actually clue them in if they focus on the abnormal movements in the crowd.”

He grabbed the brown yukata girl’s hand. Since she was not used to this, it would be faster to escort her. And no one would find it odd to see a young boy and girl holding hands at the zoo.

“〰〰〰〰”

Yes, even if the brown ruler’s cheeks were flushed red.

Kyousuke walked around the zoo along the normal routes with Sekurtiti in tow.

“Um, are my clothes okay?”

“There are a lot of foreigners in Japanese clothing here, so you don’t stand out.”

“That isn’t what I meant… Perhaps I should try to act more like that proper Yamato Nadeshiko over there. Even from behind, she is practically oozing sex appeal.”

“No, wait. That’s a bad example. That’s no Nadeshiko. It’s Rendou Akiya.”

Kyousuke dejectedly viewed the yukata-wearing person walking gracefully through the crowd. He had guessed classes would be canceled at school due to the gunfight with Azalea’s group, but since that classmate (♂) was at the zoo in a yukata, he must have been meeting someone here.

On the way, they gave their bamboo grass ''tanzaku'' to the panda cage without writing anything on them.

Space was limited in Toy Dream 35, so most of their movement was vertical. The overall pathway spiraled downwards. The area was divided into 5 different layers with Layer 1 at the top and it looked something like one of those parking garage toys that let minicars run along rails.

Sekurtiti tilted her head when she saw the guide map.

“Lions, elephants, giraffes… They come from the same ecosystem, but their cages are scattered around. Why wouldn’t they gather the animals into an African section or a South American section?”

“It’s like the shelves at a supermarket. They want you to naturally visit the entire zoo to see what you want to see, so the most popular animals are spread out across the zoo. If they put the penguins, pandas, and capybaras all in one place, no one would ever go anywhere else.”

“A supermarket? So even Freedom Award 903 uses those?”

“Oh? Was that too much for the great Tomb Priestess?”

They stopped at the shop section that doubled as a souvenir shop and food court and they bought a sandwich set they could eat as they walked. For the Tanabata Fair, it was wrapped in antibacterial bamboo leaves instead of a clear plastic package. They would have stood out too much if they were not holding a pamphlet or some food. It would look odd to pay money to visit the zoo and then not enjoy themselves.

But there was a problem.

“Sekurtiti. I don’t know how you normally live. If you don’t like the food, you don’t have to force yourself to eat it.”

“No, this is one thing I want to challenge myself with. So do not worry.”

That phrasing left him even more confused as to how she normally lived. Surely she did not really live on nothing but mist and dew.

She must have always wanted to eat while standing because she leaned up against a wall near the shop section and had trouble choosing what to take from the set Kyousuke held. She finally pulled out the tomato and lettuce vegetable sandwich. After sniffing it a few times, she grabbed it in both hands and took a small bite from the corner.

Before she even swallowed, her pale blue eyes widened. Even Kyousuke could tell her body was moving below the yukata. It seemed like her organs were wriggling near her chest and navel.

“Nbh, nheh! Cough, cough!!”

“Sekurtiti.”

“N-no, I’m fine. I’m fine…”

She smiled, but there was a cold sweat on her forehead. He wanted to pass her a drink, but since she existed outside the Summoning Ceremony, he could not say if that would help or only make it worse.

“Phew… I can tell the flavor is not bad at all. In fact, it is extremely fascinating. That might change once I swallow it, but it is worth the challenge.”

A mint or some gum might have been the better choice, but he could hardly stop her touching efforts when he saw her continually tearing off small pieces and tossing them in her mouth like she was feeding a small bird. Kyousuke had to wonder if he would behave the same way if he was told he would be given 100 million yen if he ate the entire morning paper. She did swallow it, but he was worried about what would happen later. He decided to ask the tomb keeper elder. …Although that old man might punch him the instant he heard about it.

After spending a long time breaking the sandwich down like a jigsaw puzzle and swallowing it all, Sekurtiti forced a smile.

“Sorry about the trouble. Now, let’s go look at the rest.”

“R-right.”

It looked like she could not finish it, so Kyousuke ate his sandwich while she shared the rest of hers with a stray cat that had snuck into the zoo.

Even so, Sekurtiti narrowed her eyes and smiled.

“Do you like cats?”

“In Egyptian mythology, they are a sacred beast just as important as the crocodile and the leopard. How could I not like them? And while cats are loved the world over now, they are companions who originated in Egypt.”

That girl had taken one step away from the human world using a method other than reaching Award 1000. Hers was the achievement of a much older age than the Third Summoning Ceremony discovered in 1999. Kyousuke knew this was outside his field of expertise. Was that because he was only the strongest when standing on his stage with a Blood-Sign? Or because he was still partway through the 900s and had not yet seen Award 1000 for himself?

“It is nothing that special.”

Her voice seemed to see right through him. Sekurtiti herself pressed her palms against the railing and watched the lion in the concrete walls a few meters below. She watched that king of beasts yawn on the napping bed covered in straw.

“I am known as the Tomb Priestess and as a ruler, but I am the same as that beast in a cage. I only eat what food those with special knowledge have prepared and I can only wield my power within the field provided to me. It probably makes me look like quite the ferocious beast. After all, no one knows if I can actually run around the grassy field and catch prey with my own claws and fangs.”

“…That’s painful to hear.”

Kyousuke felt like she was talking about him. He was half the reason the world was what it was. That was not a lie, but if he was asked if he had walked all around the world to see if it had really changed, he would have to answer no. He only had the environmental changes he had predicted based on his theoretical calculations.

He was undoubtedly in the strongest position for “this world”. But how large was that “world” really? He was too deeply dyed in the colors of the Blood-Sign system’s “world” to judge anything outside of it.

Everyone had their own “world” and this was the path he had chosen.

But there was no definite standard with which to measure the superiority of his “world” to that of the person walking alongside him.