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

===Part 3===

'''(Timeline “Now”)

“I suppose you wouldn’t know why we’re here, would you?”

And back to the next day in the present.

Max Layard and Ellie Slide of Perfect Game once more appeared in front of Pandemonium and threw a pineapple-shaped Incense Grenade in front of Shiroyama Kyousuke.

“I know…”

It detonated and an Artificial Sacred Ground appeared.

36 Spots appeared and a three-dimensional Rose made from 216 Petals appeared in the center. The battle between summoners was finally beginning.

“I know who you are…!!”

“Hmmm.”

Except the White Queen’s blank expression ruined it all.

A deafening roar followed.

“Eh? Ah?”

The pompadour man voiced his confusion just as he used all his strength to launch a White Thorn with his Blood-Sign.

The Rose had vanished.

Pure white claw marks had torn into space itself and nothing else remained.

And the White Queen had clearly transformed a portion of her dress.

“Diiinosaurrrr.”

She sounded incredibly bored.

Something like the upper body of a carnivorous dinosaur rose several dozen meters tall and attacked Max from above. Its jaws and fangs filled his vision. Without a protective circle, this would kill him instantly. No, even with one, this would have chewed him to pieces!!

“Ohhhhhhwah!?”

Max Layard shouted and rolled out of the way, but that was not enough to stop the peak of the Unexplored-class.

He only survived because Kyousuke embraced the twintail girl from the side. Rather than stopping, the White Queen blushed and her aim veered off course. The green earth half a step to Max’s side was mercilessly devoured and the most basic structure of the world itself was torn away into pure whiteness.

“Goddammit! Boss!! To Pandemonium’s tentacle!!”

Panicked, Max reached toward his ear. But rather than an earpiece, an athlete’s webcam was attached there.

Or perhaps it was a unit for transmitting his location and asking for bombing support.

“The Queen might be protecting you, but you’ve got no protective circle. If we hit you with another Unexplored-class’s power…”

A bright light shined down and drew some optical art on the grassy field. This constructed a magic circle several hundred meters across and Pandemonium’s power was used to summon the Lady of Purple Lightning without a vessel so that her exposed power would expand in an explosion.

But the White Queen was unfazed.

In fact, it was difficult to imagine ever seeing her fazed.

“Gah.”

Another portion of her dress transformed.

The elegantly decorative cloth made a rod shape. She held it like a baseball bat and swung it like a clever girl who chose to visit a batting cage on a date and made a show of her poor skills to get the boy to give her a hands-on lesson.

“Claaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang! goes the bat.”

Something unbelievable happened.

The purple explosion twisted.

When the bat hit the dome, it was squished in like a rubber ball and the spreading Unexplored-class power was contained. It was allowed to escape away from the Queen, so it was blasted up toward a point in the blue sky. This had nothing to do with placing the exorcism circle on top of it. The fluffy white clouds were entirely blown away, the bomber itself was nearly vaporized, and the power was knocked outside the atmosphere. The Lady of Purple Lightning would have been acting like a strobe light at the center, so she had likely been carried away with it.

Once she finished swinging, the White Queen wiped her brow with the back of her hand as if she had worked up a sweat. At some point and for some reason, her changeable clothing had become a bikini that showed off her bright skin.

She looked back with a wink and a smile.

“What did you think, brother? That was a sneak peek at my summer break watermelon splitting skills☆”

She was making a mockery of the whole affair.

Meanwhile, Max Layard of Perfect Game was legitimately in tears.

His pompadour had grown as limp as damp paper.

“Wha-wha-but!? What!? Th-that was…that was supposed to be another Unexplored-class!!”

Kyousuke found himself staring off into the distance.

It seemed Max had never seen the real deal before. He would have lived a happy life if his ignorance had continued, so Kyousuke felt kind of bad giving him this dark blot in his life.

And he could not exactly rejoice at this situation.

He could already sense the ''distortion'' that the White (Bikini) Queen had set in place.

She held the bat in both hands and wiggled the tip around as if waiting for just the right timing.

“Hey, hey, heyyy!! Get in the way of this date with my brother and I’ll knock you all the way to Pluto. You’ll stab straight into that icy land, so when some obsessed astronomer spots you, there’ll be rumors about a frightening man-faced rock, you dimwit!!”

“H-h-hee!!”

“Also, it seems my brother wants to get inside this garbage castle, so I’ll be destroying this rude gate that isn’t welcoming us properly. Take this☆”

An explosive sound slammed into the world.

The bat grew.

The slender swimsuit girl did not even move her hips when she swung the blunt weapon. It was a completely comical motion, but Pandemonium’s thick door split apart like styrofoam despite enduring a blast from the Lady of Purple Lightning. A fragment larger than a refrigerator nearly crushed Max and he seemed to have lost all will to fight. He grabbed Ellie Slide under his arm and made a run for it despite the personal items he was dropping along the way.

“…”

Kyousuke remained silent for a while, but the White Queen swung the white bat around in one hand while giving off a powerful “praise me” aura with a beaming smile on her face.

“Okay, brother. I opened the way for you. Shouldn’t you rub my head a little and hold your head high at how wonderful your girlfriend is?”

“…Yeah, that would be what you were after with this,” spat out Kyousuke with a hand on his forehead. “It’s true I’m more or less invincible right now. I can exterminate any summoner and destroy the thickest doors and cruelest traps with a single word. …''But none of it is my power.'' Queen, you’re trying to make people hate me so much that I can’t remain safe without your power, aren’t you?”

“Ha ha☆”

The bat and bikini returned to her original dress and the silver twintail girl clapped her hands together in front of her chest.

And she spoke with a carefree smile on her face.

“What a silly thing to say, brother. I’m not trying to do anything. Every part of me – from every hair on my head to the very center of my soul – already belongs to you.”

“…”

Kyousuke shook his head.

What if the White Queen was his and he became a special being who had that power? There were countless summoners who mistakenly thought they could do that and it never worked out well for them. They assumed acquiring the Queen would make them almighty, happy, and victorious. If that was all they saw in it, they were almost guaranteed to fail before even meeting her.

It was a lot like being unable to live without air conditioning, online shopping, and GPS-linked map apps after starting to use them.

Convenience was a black hole that could twist the human heart.

Shiroyama Kyousuke told himself to never give in to temptation and to maintain himself. If he relied on that even once, it was all over.

“Brother, what are your plans now?”

The White Queen’s clothing wriggled around her.

And it changed form in the blink of an eye.

“Go, go, brother. Lovely☆”

“Why are you a cheerleader with pompoms in your hands?”

“To inspire you with courage, brother. Take a look at this physical beauty and all its healthy athleticism☆”

“…”

“Oh, you don’t like it? Would you be more inspired by something a little less healthy? Then how about a bunny girl, a nurse, a maid, a waitress, a naked apron, or a kunoichi?”

Her outfit really did change as she made each suggestion, so there was nothing he could say. Kyousuke was truly fed up with the presentation of transforming seduction, so he focused on his thoughts.

The answer was right in front of him.

If he entered the door the White Queen had destroyed, searched the place, and defeated any summoners who came running, he would learn everything he wanted to know.

But he felt a chill run down his spine.

He could not take the first step which should have been the easiest part.

If he crossed the border just a few meters ahead of him, he would be safely protected from this hellish battlefield. He could see no enemies in any direction and this would be his only chance. But if he crossed that border, he knew a laser bombardment would mercilessly blast him from outside the atmosphere.

A normal person would not have noticed and been blown away.

But Kyousuke could see beyond the blue sky.

(If I keep going, I’ll gather too much negative attention. It won’t just be the Deltaston family; the entire world will bare its fangs against me. That wouldn’t be a problem with the Queen on my side, but that would mean she had a situation where she’s my only hope. Giving into temptation here is too dangerous. I won’t be able to break my dependence on the Queen afterwards.)

Kyousuke breathed a heavy sigh.

“…I don’t need your help.”

“Hee hee☆”

He rejected her, but the silver twintail girl looked happy as she reverted to her original clothing. She may have been fine with anything so long as he was interacting with her.

''Being with the White Queen is far too dangerous,'' he concluded anew. She did not even need to do anything special. This was D.R.O.K., an international trade show where tens of thousands of summoners and vessels had gathered. That meant everyone here knew her value. Simply walking around with her and keeping her to himself could easily create an explosion of any number of emotions: jealousy, envy, hatred, fear, etc. And if enough of that built up, it could even begin a ''riot that could only be stopped with the Queen’s power.'' Once that began, it might spread outside of D.R.O.K. An all-out war with the Deltaston family was one thing, but Kyousuke did not want to make an enemy of the entire world.

It pained him to turn away from the shortest path, but he changed how he looked at this.

“I’ll have to go at this from a different angle.”

“…Hmm.”

The White Queen gave a meaningful wink and murmur (and just like a mysterious book of prophecy, trying to read deeper meaning into it was enough to fall into its trap) and Kyousuke crouched down. Max Layard of Perfect Game had dropped a few personal items. Kyousuke picked up the smartphone he found. He used a few special techniques to deactivate the fingerprint authorization and then glanced through the data. It was entirely for work use, so it was made to open doors just by holding it up to an IC reader and it hosted the webcam that supported the bomber.

He operated the touchscreen, compared the data with the current situation, and commented on what he found.

“''This is weird. This is really weird.''”

“What is it?”

Kyousuke ignored the bright white smile and thought to himself.

Then he decided on a plan.

“I can’t charge blindly into Pandemonium.”

“Hee hee hee, hee hee hee hee hee! Oh, brother, you’re so adorable. Why would you walk away from the conclusion when it’s right in front of you? Do you want to enjoy our date a little longer?”

That sounded like a cruel joke, but with the White Queen, she really might wipe out humanity over something so “trivial”.

He did not let her influence him and he focused on what he had to do.

A large entrance sat open before his eyes. It was Pandemonium’s entrance and it was the shortest route to the truth. But he used all his strength to shake free of that spider web of temptation. The Queen had freely opened that path for him, so there had to be a catch. And not just some vague idea. It would be dangerous to take action until he knew what exactly that catch was. No matter how rushed, impatient, and hurried he felt, he could not settle for the easy way out and he needed the strength to step back from that powerful attraction.

“I need to start my attack with someone who probably knows more about this than anyone else. That Perfect Game pair would have worked, but they’ve probably gone into hiding. And I can’t exactly search for them while dragging around the Queen who is more noticeable than the sun. I’ll have to check elsewhere.”

“So where exactly are you going, brother?”

The boy did not hesitate to answer his worst possible partner.

“The big boss who infiltrated the three major powers and set up this farce they call the Divine Right of Kings. I’m going straight for the head of the Deltaston family.”