Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume7 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 8===

By binding a contract in the name of the Yellow Gills, the member of the Three that symbolized Freedom, Kyousuke had acquired Meinokawa Aoi as a vessel.

On the guidance of the black-haired shrine maiden, they left the long cave and returned to the shrine building. The sky had already grown orange as evening fell. They had not meant to stand around talking for so long, but that solemn sacred ground must have messed with their sense of time.

“Nnnn. Experiencing things in real time feels so nice after so long.”

Meinokawa Aoi’s joints must still have felt off because she stretched her arms and her back, causing her long silver hair to flutter behind her. And that pushed out her surprisingly large breasts. She must have felt more distance between her body and mind because she was defenseless in a variety of ways.

Kyousuke sighed.

“I would like to know everything I can about the Joruri Method. How far can I go with the official texts, and which barriers can I tear down with your advice on top of that? That will change the number and type of barriers standing between us and the vessel we need.”

“Wait. There is no need to hurry.”

Aoi waved a hand dismissively.

She may have also been bothered with the straight hair made by undoing her twintails because she swept it back off of her shoulder and placed her index finger on her temple.

“I swear on my name that I will provide the artificial vessel you desire. So allow me to enjoy the fresh air some more.”

“…”

“You seem to think I am wasting time. Well, you are exactly right!! I don’t care about humanity’s future or the fate of the world. Have you forgotten that I am only helping you in order to distract me from my boredom?”

Many temples and shrines were placed atop high mountains so they could look down upon the world below them, but some theorized that it was also a way of providing a sense of accomplishment for the visitors who made the difficult ascent to reach them. Basically, the high of mountain climbing or of a marathon was used to make the torii and Buddha statues look more divine. In the same way, Meinokawa Aoi may have been giving them a long lead up to the big boss to increase the ultimate sense of accomplishment.

“I don’t have time for this.”

“Say what you wish, but threatening me won’t accomplish anything. Don’t forget that you cannot twist my head like a faucet to produce knowledge on demand. But you can leave the fine-tuning of the blood to me. Hm, hm, hmm☆”

Kyousuke gave her a bitter look.

Biondetta leaned her alluring body up against him and gave him a secret smile.

“As we thought, this isn’t going to be easy, sir.”

“And why do ''you'' look so pleased about this? You know we’re in the same boat here, right?”

Regardless, Meinokawa Aoi held the key to it all, but she childishly said she was off to the candy shop and started to run outside, so they had to run after her. That said, losing her head was not a real problem for her, so she would at least be easier to protect than a normal person.

Incidentally, Blonde Higan was napping with her upper body collapsed on the tea table in front of the fan. Her shoulders were steadily and defenselessly rising and falling. Her sister had ordered a lot of somen and cooked sorghum, but it had been too much to eat alone, so she had likely eaten it with her parents. That allowed Renge to shout at the first Joruri Method who had left out the front door.

“Watch out for cars, don’t follow any strangers, and be very careful if you see any non-Meinokawa summoners and vessels!”

“What do you take me for!?”

“I’m either treating you as a child running an errand on her own or as a senile old woman wandering away from home, so which is it going to be?”

Hearing the girl’s harsh voice, the silver-haired shrine maiden trembled and hid behind Kyousuke’s back. Aoi saw no prestige in being “the original” of anything, so she could not stand being seen as an old lady.

She must have really been afraid because she did not seem to notice how much she was pressing two warm objects against the boy’s back.

“O-ohhh… Since you do not seem to have inherited my knowledge of how to treat a lady, I am somewhat worried about the evolutionary pattern of my successors.”

“Really? They transformed this utter failure into someone with a proper head on her shoulders, so I’d call that a succe-…”

“Do you want to see a grown woman cry, you brat!?”

That carried an implied threat, so Kyousuke fell silent.

She looked just like the White Queen, but he was unsure how to behave around her.

Kyousuke and Biondetta had followed her out here simply because they were worried about the passage of time while in that closed crypt. Just as Aoi had not been up-to-date on Fermat’s Last Theorem, it was possible they had failed to grasp the changing situation outside. Acquiring an artificial vessel using the Joruri Method was a major accomplishment. They could not have the White Queen or Bridesmaid interfering, so they had to confirm their safety before getting to work.

“Huh? I don’t remember that shrine maiden at the shrine.”

“Mwa ha ha! I am what they call ''sooper rayr'', so you won’t see me all the time. You should count yourself lucky for running into me like this. By the way, what is all this racket about? Are you preparing for a festival?”

“Why doesn’t a shrine maiden know about the shrine’s festival? There’s something fishy about her!”

“Mwa ha ha ha ha ha!!”

The neighborhood kids did not hesitate to speak to her and the old people looked up in shock, stopped working, and quietly prayed to the silver-haired shrine maiden. They must have known about the Meinokawa Shrine enough to recognize Aoi.

Kyousuke watched Meinokawa Aoi’s back as she walked on ahead.

“…Something bothers me about this.”

“What is it, sir?”

They were traveling along the road from the Meinokawa Shrine to the idiosyncratic shopping district. The narrow farm road cut between the paddies that shined orange in the setting sun and Kyousuke viewed Aoi who remained a step ahead like a child.

Before long, they arrived at a small bridge crossing a clear stream that glittered in the orange light.

“Orahhh!! I was just thinking it was too damn hot, so what is this they’re doing? If you’re playing the water, how about I join you? I’ll jump right in!!”

“Wah! You can’t! It’s too shallow!!”

“Agah!?”

“What did I tell you!?”

It should have been obvious when the water was only at knee level on the small children, but Meinokawa Aoi jumped off the bridge while still wearing her shrine maiden outfit. After the painful-looking impact, she floated up to the of the water’s surface. Since she started laughing uproariously as soon as her face surfaced, they could only conclude that the Joruri Method was quite sturdy.

“Oh, that is quite the impressive water gun you have there.”

“It uses static electricity to bend the water, so it can hit you no matter where you run!”

“I-is that what they call ''hoh-ming''!? That water gun has some nerve!”

“My smartphone lens uses facial recognition to pursue the target!!”

“''Smart-fohn''? Technology advances so quickly.”

That mass of mysticism sat on the river bottom with her clothing soaking wet and see-through. When she noticed the blasts of clear water gathering toward her inner thighs, not even Aoi could ignore it.

“That’s it, you impudent brats… A true warrior needs no tools. I can form a water gun by holding my hands together like this!”

“Wha-!? A long-forgotten firing method!? Bwah!”

“Mwa ha ha ha ha ha!!”

As Kyousuke peered down from the bridge railing, he noted that one’s method for a hand water gun could reveal ''where'' the user had learned it, just like with the subtle variations in rock-paper-scissors or tag. For Kyousuke, playing in the water reminded him of the indoor Pool of Tears that he, Biondetta, Shiroyama Kyoumi, and the others had used. At the children’s insistence, Aoi gave them a quick lecture and they divided into two teams. Whether she was satisfied after playing so much or she was searching for a more worthwhile rival, Meinokawa Aoi waved both hands up at the bridge, smiled, and shouted up at them.

“You come down here too! Hyah, river water is just so different!!”

He waved back to decline the offer. Their skulls were not solid enough to survive a collision with the rocks from this height.

“This just doesn’t seem right,” he said while looking down at her with a smile of peace itself. “No, it’s all progressing smoothly. So what is this? It’s like something is missing or like I can’t find the hurdle that should be there.”

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“Aren’t you overthinking this?” asked Biondetta. “Besides, you certainly did your fair share of complaining when we were riding the trains to reach here.”

“Oh, right.”

Kyousuke gestured down from the bridge, so Aoi reluctantly left the river with her bright skin color showing through her clothing.

“Miss, will you be going to the festival?”

“Of course. I always feel the need to get involved in anything that sounds like fun!”

They had of course not considered bringing a change of clothes for her. After leaving the kids playing in the river, Aoi seemed perfectly carefree while walking down the farm road. She grabbed the skirt-like bottom of her red ''hakama'' and wrung it out like a rag to squeeze the clear water onto the road. Once done with that, she grabbed the entire ''hakama'' with both hands and flapped it in the air. She did not seem to mind the bright skin showing through the white ''kosode'' or the soft thighs boldly bared below the raised ''hakama''. Her leather boots sounded like rubber rain boots as she walked.

“I’m absolutely soaked. Well, it’s still quite hot even if it’s evening, so I should be dry by the time we reach the shopping district.”

“…I just hope you aren’t underestimating the drying time.”

“More importantly, is your wallet all right after jumping into the water like that?” inquired Biondetta.

“Mwa ha ha. Not to worry. My coin purse only has change inside! I’ve never had much use for paper bills!!”

“That’s not really something to brag about.”

“Wahp.”

As the silver-haired girl’s bright skin showed through the fabric of her shrine maiden outfit, Kyousuke bluntly tossed a large towel at her face.

“Direct your thanks to an old man who passed by. Although he might’ve forgotten all about it as soon as he looked the other way.”

“…What are you so worried about? My body is fake.”

“I’m worried regardless.”

When he said that, Aoi matched her pace to his and laughed a little.

“Hee hee.”

“?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. Hee hee hee.”

Meinokawa Aoi moved right up next to him, so the waitress demon lightly cleared her throat.

“Ahem. Now, sir, as we were discussing…”

“Right.”

The farm road arrived alongside the beach, so they detected a powerful salty smell. The sea breeze blowing in from the distant ocean horizon did not seem good for growing rice, but the locals might have thought that applying some stress to the crops caused them to grow more strongly.

“Everything up to arriving in Houbi Village was correct. No matter how carefully we plan, there will always be an accident or two standing in our way. That’s why everything since that has been so strange. …What caused the change? Needless to say Bridesmaid did send in their summoners and Repliglass soldiers, but it’s all gone shockingly smoothly since then. But that smoothness doesn’t sit right with me. The only real hurdle is that Meinokawa Aoi wants to be satisfied before getting on with the plan. It may not look like it, but we’re trying to acquire a trump card for killing the White Queen. The entire religious world should be fighting back against us.”

“Hmm. Has the White Queen trampled on you so much that you get uneasy when things go too well? Or should I say she’s trained you so well that you’re about ready for her to give you your reward???”

Biondetta’s pointed tail decoration swished back and forth as she made a cruel joke to dig at his trauma, but Kyousuke ignored her. He directed his thoughts even further inward.

And he continued watching Aoi’s back as she walked a few steps ahead of him.

(Was I placed on some kind of rails at that point?)

He tried to drag something concrete out of the sludge deep in his mind that hid countless possibilities, much like the primordial soup. But it was not enough. He had too little information to determine the answer.

(But what is this about? What does Bridesmaid gain by calling us to this village?)

At that moment, he just about ran into Meinokawa Aoi’s back.

She had seen something and stopped.

All sound receded.

The cheerful voices vanished and silence fell over the area as if it had been cut off from the rest of the world.

“…?”

Kyousuke placed his hands on Aoi’s slender shoulders to stop himself from bumping into her and then he looked to the cause of this.

It was a perfectly normal intersection between narrow coastal farm roads.

It was twilight and a crossroads.

Both the time and the place were said to invite oddities and someone stood there as if part of a ritual.

“What…?”

It was a girl holding the brim of her straw hat with both hands.

She wore a light pink rose decoration on her chest.

She was maybe 135cm tall.

The short girl’s long blonde hair was worn in two braids down her back and she wore a deep blue school swimsuit, a decorative collar that only covered her neck and shoulders, a ridiculously short pleated skirt, and a white floral print pareo. The brim of the large straw hat covered her eyes, but a strange prickling pain spread from Kyousuke’s forehead to the rest of his skin.

She wore a thick chain over one shoulder and diagonally down her torso. 

What she wore at her side like a brand-name bag was actually a giant lock.

Needless to say, that was a symbol of restraint and bondage.

It was the defense mechanism used by vessels to bind their mind and protect themselves from evil and vengeful spirits.

“Counting just the paved ones, there are currently 7,010,891,750 roads on this planet. There are 120,970,672,894 crossroads between them. Now, what are the odds of two people walking down the road to happen across each other by chance?”

This was not good.

He could not afford to see this.

“But the two of us were still reunited, Onii-chan. Were you simply too naïve as you made your choices like a form of book fortunetelling? If your willpower had been just a little stronger, this might have been avoided.”

His instincts whispered those warnings. His experience raised the alarm. The problem was the location. If he had been anywhere in the wide world other than Houbi Village, he might have celebrated this reunion.

Yes, hadn’t Meinokawa Renge said any non-Meinokawa summoners and vessels would be highly suspicious? Given what Kyousuke’s group was attempting, the odds were quite good that they would be a member of the Queen-worshiping cult known as Bridesmaid.

So if he could think of no reason why he would see someone here, it did not matter who they were.

“Ha ha☆ Aren’t you glad I prayed to the White Queen, the strongest of the strongest, every single day, Onii-chan!?”

The girl lifted the brim of her straw hat to reveal the face below.

All the hair on Shiroyama Kyousuke’s body bristled.

He knew her.

She was one of the Alices he had once saved. And she was someone he had supposedly cut all ties with.

And even among those Alices, this one in particular reminded him of a small baby bird.

Her snowy white skin reminded him of a fairy.

Disbelief filled Shiroyama Kyousuke’s eyes as his trembling throat forced out her name.

“…''Olivia…Highland''…???”