Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume5 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 1===

He never stood a chance.

An explosion struck Kyousuke before he could get in any kind of attack, so he should not have been able to even stand up. This went beyond issues of willpower and guts; the bones themselves were broken in multiple places. He had no guarantee his organs were unharmed and he was honestly lucky to have only taken this much damage after being caught in the pure white light brought by the Queen.

So it was likely nothing he had done that had kept him from dying in that first hit.

“Kyousuke-kun!!”

A voice cut in from the side.

A woman with a long black ponytail wore a lab coat over a dark blue tight suit.

She was Madam Professor Shigara Masami.

No, it was not just her.

He heard several muffled breaths. It was the guards in charge of security at the Queen’s Miniature Garden. Those unidentifiable summoners wore gas masks that hid their faces, explosion-resistant jackets that covered their bodies, and several devices that resembled octopus tentacle that attached to their waists.

But they lacked vessels.

Their firearms were worthless against the White Queen. And even if they were perfectly supplied with vessels, Incense Grenades, and Blood-Signs, how could they stand up to the White Queen, that strongest of the strongest who signaled the end of the match as soon as she was summoned!?

“…Stop…”

In his T-shirt and shorts, Kyousuke clenched his teeth against the pain of his broken bones and forced out his voice.

“This is my responsibility. It’s all my fault, so stop…!!”

“Not a chance.”

He was cut off by a masked man who did not turn around.

That faceless man enjoyed baking cakes and had occasionally left homemade sweets in the refrigerator for the 15 children.

“We were wrong to force this onto a single child all this time. So give us a chance to make up for it.”

No, that was not his point.

Kyousuke wanted to shout back, but the intense pain sealed his mouth.

Shigara Masami picked up his small battered body.

“Madam, get him to the emergency elevator evacuation route. I can’t say how long the backup power will last.”

“Please… If we survive this, let’s go get a drink together and discuss these memories.”

“Stop that. My tendency to fall for women has caused me way too much pain in the past.”

They all began to move.

The gas mask troops would hold off the White Queen even one second longer if it would protect the small life in Shigara Masami’s arms.

Everything was destroyed.

What Kyousuke had truly wanted to protect was smashed beyond recognition.

“Broootherrr…”

An insane voice slammed into his body.

But who was it that had driven her insane?

Who was at fault for not stopping it before this happened?

“Broooooooootherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!”

That sturdy underground space shook like a candy box in a storm. Cracks ran through it and pursued Shigara Masami as she fled. The Great Ceiling crumbled and the walls collapsed. The entire space bared its fangs and swung its claws like a living creature.

“Ee hee hee. Ah ha ha ha ha.”

“She’s fast! I knew the difference in power was too great, but not this much!!”

Shigara Masami clenched her teeth.

The emergency elevator was still a long way away.

She removed the ID card from her lab coat chest and had helpless Kyousuke hold it. Then she looked around and stopped her eyes on a certain spot. She caught a glimpse of white and pink.

“You there! Detta-chan!”

“…”

“Take care of Kyousuke-kun. You can use the elevator with this card. You know where that is, right? Go!!”

A frightening tremor reached them from behind.

After leaving unmoving Kyousuke with Biondetta, Shigara Masami turned around with her lab coat fluttering behind her.

By leaving her ID card with the children, she was abandoning her own opportunity to open the elevator door.

“Kh…ahhh…!!”

In his T-shirt and shorts, Kyousuke desperately tried to move his broken arms to grab at the back of her lab coat.

But he did not accomplish anything.

Still in Biondetta’s arms, he alone was taken to safety once more.

Meanwhile, he heard shaking all around him.

Shigara Masami and the adults Kyousuke had never met would be caught in that and they would be fighting and falling. And it was all to protect this small life, as if to say it was irrelevant that he did not actually know them.

“It’ll be okay,” said the young demon while her short skirt fluttered. “Your big sister will protect you. So it’ll be okay, Kyousuke!!”

He did not know how to respond.

He knew he had to shout something, but the words caught in his throat and nothing came out.

With nowhere to go, the torrent of emotions escaped his eyes instead of his mouth.

''Oh,'' he realized.

Was he crying?

Was he pathetically shedding tears?

But why?

Because he had not noticed the distortion to the Queen’s Miniature Garden? Because the White Queen had broken through her bonds? Because the people he had wanted to protect were vanishing into the white light and the rubble?

He was losing everything.

Because he had lost any path except for opposing “her”?

The two of them finally arrived at the emergency elevator. There were several elevators in a row, but the single ID card could only open one of them.

But that was as far as they got.

However, not because of the White Queen.

“Hey, Kyousuke.”

A low, low voice stopped them.

It was the top of the rotting ranking board. It was the summoner with messy blond hair and brown skin who undeniably had the most skill of the 15.

It was Alberto S. Divinesmith the Hatter.

That devil sneered with a vessel girl bound by an iron maiden device.

“Let’s have some fun here. Once the protective circle is set up, your broken arms and legs won’t matter. Yeah, for as long as the Summoning Ceremony battle lasts.”

“Do you not know what’s happening right now!?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

A single silver coin danced between Alberto’s fingers. More and more and more identical coins stacked on top of it to create a heavy Blood-Sign made of metal.

“As long as you’ll pour all your strength into this moment, anything’s fine. Yes, yes. It’s been like that ever since the Mock Battlefield was taken from me. But now I’m finally living in a world of color again.”

The Hatter held a practice Blood-Sign in addition to the silver one. But he was not going to fight with two. He tossed the practice stick over to set the stage.

But it was not Kyousuke who caught it.

Biondetta stuck her hand out and caught it instead.

“…Go on ahead, Kyousuke.”

The ID card from Shigara Masami was an unreliable thread, but Biondetta also let go of it. After the emergency elevator door opened, she shoved the barely moving boy inside and then lightly grabbed her waitress miniskirt.

A metal sphere one size smaller than a baseball fell from between her legs.

“This is a farewell gift.”

“Wait, Biondetta! ''You''-…”

“If he gets serious, the entire elevator shaft will be destroyed. Someone has to hold him off.”

He was not given a chance to reply.

Biondetta Shiroyama took a step back from the elevator that would allow her to escape. She returned to hell, but she gave him an oddly gentle smile while still holding the bottom of her short waitress skirt.

“It’ll be okay. I’m your big sister, so I’ll protect you.”

The iron door closed from both sides.

The thin lifeline made of metal rapidly ascended with only the greatest sinner of all onboard.



“…I’m surprised,” said the Mad Hatter in the depths of hell. “You were just as focused on holing up in your room and tricking the Queen as any of us. So why are you still so fixated on that family crap? Maybe the Fifteen Siblings Project did succeed in some way.”

“No.” Biondetta shook her head at the brown-skinned boy’s words while holding the practice Blood-Sign so tightly it creaked. “I’m just about at my limit. I’ve been assisting other people with their revenge while that boy wasn’t looking. If I had to look at Kyousuke’s face any longer, I would probably throttle him out of pure hatred.”

“…”

“You don’t hate Kyousuke. I can tell. …After all, it was I, Biondetta Shiroyama, who received the Queen’s hatred.”

Through Shiroyama Kyousuke’s Sewn Realm Summoning and the March Hare derived from it, everyone had pretended to be Kyousuke to control the White Queen.

But in the end, it had not fulfilled them. Even when they could perfectly rule her and completely control her, the White Queen was not looking at them. They had only been watching her whisper words of love for a fictional Shiroyama Kyousuke and unconditionally trust him. And that love and trust was much, much deeper than for any family or sibling. After watching her, they were convinced that they could search all across the world and never find someone they could rely on so comfortably.

Biondetta did not know what the grownups had thought.

But the 14 children besides Kyousuke had received something other than love.

In Biondetta’s case, that was the Queen’s hatred.

And in Alberto’s case…

“The Queen’s ferocity.”

The hatter directly answered in a clear voice.

It was as if the fog of madness had cleared from his mind for a brief moment.

“I just wanted to save the vessels. I wanted to do something about those 3 who were passed around for contract after contract until their bodies were worn down both inside and out. So I thought I could tear down the Mock Battlefield by going along with Akura’s plan and taking the strongest spot for myself. I didn’t expect for Kyousuke to take the White Queen for himself, but anything was fine as long as those vessels wouldn’t be worn down any longer.”

“That doesn’t make sense. You hated us for taking the Mock Battlefield from you, didn’t you?”

“It was no use. Do you know what happened to the vessels after those battles were taken from them and they weren’t needed to hold Materials inside themselves? You wouldn’t. Of course you wouldn’t. You were all so fixated on the Queen that you wouldn’t know ''where the vessels were'' after that.”

No vessel was needed to permanently summon the White Queen.

There had been no need to summon any of the inferior Materials.

So those girls had been abandoned with almost innocent cruelty.

And as he watched the vessels rotting away with no place left for them…something had broken inside the Hatter.

“We can only live alongside monsters.”

The blond madman smiled.

No, it was not actually the Hatter who was mad. It was the tea party being held around him.

“So let’s enjoy this to the very end. Because this is how we live. I received the Queen’s ferocity! This charisma takes joy in battle and is moved to emotion by battle!! Now, it might be only a brief dream, but I will give you vessels the power you need to take the next step forward!!”

Someone stood next to Waitress Biondetta.

It was a woman with a silver bob cut. Her entire body was tightly bound by belt-like restraints. A ring of metal surrounded her head along the forehead line and it had plugs along the inside, making it a modern version of the crown of thorns. This was another of the vessels, but since the 3 vessels existed as a category, they had to have had as close a relationship as the 15 did.

And yet they chose to oppose each other.

Even if it was for a second or a mere moment, they wanted to immerse themselves in an all-out battle that tore at their souls.

“I received the Queen’s hatred.”

There was a quiet tearing sound.

To bind a contract with the vessel, Biondetta had bit into the side of her lip with her canine tooth and allowed a bead of blood to appear. She felt like that rusty flavor definitively remade who she was.

Whether she lived or died, she was a big sister no longer.

Shiroyama Kyousuke.

When they next met, she would have become someone else entirely.

Nevertheless, Biondetta Shiroyama shook off that thought and wiped the blood from her lip. She pressed her red-dyed fingertip toward the vessel’s mouth to bind them together.

She gave up on herself as a person.

A personality had been awkwardly growing in the depths of her mind, but now she heard it burning away.

And the two of them spoke in unison as summoners, the devices meant to surpass the gods.

“Now, time for the ''final'' battle!!”

“Now, time for the ''final'' battle!!”