Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume1 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 3===

Shiroyama Kyousuke’s “temporary home” was far less impressive than Aika’s luxury apartment, but it still may have been unusual for a normal high school boy.

It was not a house, an apartment, a dorm room, an inn, a hotel, a tent, or even a cardboard box shanty.

Then what was it?

It was one of the cruisers packed in on either side of the large canals. While it was a small boat, the cabin was larger than a student apartment and it even had a bedroom with a double bed, a simple kitchen, a bath, and a bathroom. It was not a bad place to live if one ignored how frightening stormy nights were and how annoying all the seagull droppings were.

Some people saved money by buying run-down boats without an engine, but Kyousuke’s was still able to cruise.

“Sigh…”

He stepped into the bedroom without turning on the lights, moved his smartphone from his pocket to the bedside table, and then hopped into the large bed.

When he shut his eyes, his mind turned to the nickname he had spoken a few times this night: Alice (with) Rabbit.

With a few exceptions, people did not give themselves their nickname. In Kyousuke’s case, it was even a humiliating name. Even so, he had used it. In order to get across the necessary information, he had chosen not to beat around the bush, but he started to wonder why he had gone that far.

He quickly found the answer.

“When you get down to it, do I just not want that girl to die?”

Nevertheless, the fact remained that there was nothing he could do. Pairing up with Meinokawa Higan would not be enough, but ''this remained true even when ignoring that''. However, explaining that would have gotten him nowhere. If he could not do it, he could not do it. She only needed to understand that.

He looked over to the bedside table.

There was a picture frame there, but whose picture was inside it? He thought for a bit in the darkness and finally remembered.

Olivia Highland. That twelve-year-old girl with bright blonde hair had lent her body to him as a vessel to pay the investigation fee needed to search for the mother she had never known. They had worked together for a total of three weeks, but she was gone now. She had safely returned to the sunlit world.

''Shiroyama Kyousuke would never let a vessel of his die.

What was the last thing she had said to him?

He remembered and then regretted it.

That was when his smartphone received a call. A gentle vibration sounded and the flashing backlight dimly illuminated the smile in the picture frame.

He grabbed the phone from the bed and saw it was from Aika.

“Onii-chan, are you having a passionate night?”

“What’s this? Do people pick random fights over the phone these days?”

“Hm. If your cruiser had become love nest, I was prepared to graduate from my shut-in ways and make a late-night attack with the liger, but if not, this probably isn’t good.”

Sensing something was wrong, he got up from the bed.

“Keep it short.”

“Meinokawa Higan hasn’t returned.”

“…”

A tingling feeling crawled along his spine.

That was the sensation of death.

“There are three possibilities: One, she was spending the night at your cruiser. Two, Guard of Honor found and captured her while she was wandering around outside. And three…”

“She got fed up with it all and went to search for her sister alone? Goddammit!!”

He cursed without meaning to.

As the middleman, Aika calmly spoke over the phone.

“You were thinking ''the rookie vessel named Meinokawa Higan could avoid any further danger if the summoner didn’t cooperate'', but it looks like your plan failed.”

“Yeah. It would’ve taken three days at the most. If I could have tracked down the Government middleman who gave the Meinokawa sisters that job and found proof that they had been deceived, then responsibility would have fallen to that giant organization. After that, all of Government’s strength would have driven Guard of Honor from the harbor region and carefully searched for Meinokawa Renge. …That might have solved everything without that powerless girl having to face those dangerous Materials!!”

If a summoner and vessel joined forces, they could fight. That was simple enough, but there was still a problem there.

If a vessel already had a contract, they could still overwrite their contract to make a new one with a third party, but that only meant it was possible. The details of the system were not fully known. No one could say how much of a burden it would place on her.

“Onii-chan, I have something to tell you about Government.”

He had a bad feeling about this, but Aika’s voice reached his ears regardless.

“Government has no choice but to officially register Meinokawa Higan as an enemy. You know why, don’t you?”

“…Yes.”

“Government is the ally of justice funded by about sixty governments, religions, and multinational corporations. And our primary purpose is to appropriately manage the invisible asset that is the summoning ceremony. …She was only a part of Freedom before, but now that she has asked for Government’s protection, she is under our management. Running away for her personal convenience was a huge mistake. Anyone could misuse this ‘wandering asset’, so we need to freeze the account immediately. Even if it means ripping up the bankbook.”

Depositing money in a bank was a good thing. It helped increase the assets of good people and it was useful for monitoring and weakening the assets of bad people. But what if there was a large sum of money of unknown ownership that anyone could withdraw? Government would either manage it under their own trusted name or they would dispose of it.

(This is awful…)

Meinokawa Higan was already out of her league against Guard of Honor, but now Government was pursuing her too. It was like having both the wolf and the hunter pursuing Little Red Riding Hood.

Of course, this decision was not based in Aika’s personal feelings.

She had made this call because things had reached a point where she was no longer in control.

If she showed too much of her own discretion, Aika too could be labelled a “wandering asset”.

“Who has the Government sent?”

“A summoner/vessel pair with each of five Repliglass units.”

“The military? That’s not good.”

“Oh? Not the summoners?”

“You’re in Government, so you should know. If a unit focuses on fleeing, they can stop a chain and then either carpet bomb the area with freefall bombs dropped from high altitude bombers fifteen thousand meters up or fire from a cruiser out at sea beyond the horizon. If they destroy the terrain itself when you can’t even see them, there’s not much you can do. Normal firepower is the scariest thing of all. There’s a reason that’s the power that rules the world.”

“Umm, Onii-chan. This is a battle between summoners…”

“And dealing with another summoner is a lot easier. What’s the name of the strongest one?”

“Government Award 930, Golden Luxury. The president of Quad Motors, an American multinational corporation, is her father. In other words, she’s one source of our funding. She gets especially good results in complex terrain like urban areas or inside buildings. And the Material she prefers to summon is…”

She hesitated for a moment and Kyousuke realized why once she continued.

“The ‘White’ Queen who Wields the Sword of Unsullied Truth (iu – nu – fb – a – wuh – ei –kx – eu – pl – vjz). That’s one of the Unexplored-class beyond the Divine-class.”

That instantly blew away his previous mood.

Every summoner knew the name of the Queen. That Material was known as the strongest even among the Unexplored-class beyond the Regulation and Divine classes. Government, Illegal, and Freedom were in constant conflict, but ironically, all three had arrived at that exact same conclusion.

Being the strongest meant ''one’s victory was assured as soon as they summoned the Queen'', but the conditions for summoning her were far too unique. It was rare for anyone to summon her in a true battle rather than a mock battle held on a vast experimental field.

However, this summoner supposedly specialized in summoning her.

This was not just a theory. In a battle of life or death, she was summoning that Material to take her enemy’s life.

“…”

He had Award 902, but that was only within Freedom and it could not be confused with the numbers within Government. Also, Kyousuke had not accepted a single job in half a year. He could not guarantee he had full use of his previous power, so he did not know if he could defeat this summoner even if he went all out.

As a side note, Award 930 was more powerful than the Aika and White Liger pair.

If this person really was capable of summoning the Queen, it was possible she would reach Award 1000.

“Do you know where Meinokawa Higan has gone?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t have called you.”

“Then where are Golden Luxury and the disciplinary units? If they’re ahead of us here, Meinokawa Higan is probably inside their dragnet.”

“…? You seem oddly motivated here, Onii-chan.”

“I never intended to just let them die. And a moment ago, I remembered something a little unpleasant.”

“They’re in R Block. They seem to be blocking the route to the harbor. But they’re in motion, so they must be searching. I’m guessing they know she’s in the area and are performing a thorough search.”

“I see…”

Kyousuke reached for his hoodie’s hood. He always kept an Incense Grenade on him. He placed it on the bedside table and pulled out the storage drawer below the bed. He had not worked for about half a year and had not really resupplied, but he had about three spare Incense Grenades.

They weighed around three hundred grams, so they felt a little heavier than a can of coffee in his hands.

(That’s four in all. Wiping them out in a Hive Crusher might not be possible, but I have a chance if I just get in and get out.)

“By the way, what was the unpleasant thing you remembered?”

“Olivia Highland. My previous vessel. You remember her, right?”

“Yes, I do… I do!! She’s that cruelest of girls who ignored me and clung to your arm with an innocent smile while muttering ‘Onii-chan’ in her sleep!! Ahhh, it’s pissing me off just remembering it!!”

“That doesn’t matter right now, but do you remember the last thing she said?”

Aika fell silent for a moment.

She must have remembered because she mimicked the girl’s voice:

“Yes, but I wasn’t scared. After all, I knew you’d always come to save me, Onii-chan. Alice’s rabbit is the friend of any girl that wanders into this world! So if you wish for my happiness, then I’ll make a wish too. I hope more and more vessels like me will meet you and be given happiness. Eh heh heh. I’ll ask the White Queen!!”

Kyousuke grimaced a little.

Alice (with) Rabbit was the name given to him by a girl who had once been Alice.

“''That kind of traumatized me.''”

“Well, after knowing you for only a few weeks, she couldn’t have known about ''your true worries''.”

“But remembering that made me realize that Meinokawa Higan might be the same, even if I only just met her today and have no real connection to her. Or maybe I should say she’s a human being who wanted to be the same.”

“Can you no longer see her as just a name on a document?”

“I don’t remember ever treating her like that. Well, now that I’m looking at it this way, I guess there’s no point in forcing myself to hold back.”

“Hmm. Then I have something to tell you as the little sister that loves her big brother.”

After a short pause, she almost seemed to whisper the rest.

“Welcome home, Onii-chan. And now it’s time to head out again.”