Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume6 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 3===

The action Shiroyama Kyousuke took in that instant was a simple one.

He fired a bazooka toward the used tool shop.

Lu Niang Lan herself was his usual source for that sort of heavy weaponry, but she was not his only option. For example, he could rely on Biondetta who had a bolt-action sniper rifle built into her Blood-Sign.

Explosive flames and a shockwave blew away the shop’s wall.

Even from a distance, the blast was powerful enough to toss Kyousuke’s hair and flip up the hem of Biondetta’s yukata.

He had not had time to worry about who was inside or if Lu Niang Lan herself would be caught in the blast. If this was really Elvast Toydream he was up against, not even a portable nuclear rocket would be enough.

Kyousuke tossed aside the empty launch tube and ran toward the shop that was starting to partially collapse. He did not need to bring Sekurtiti with him as his vessel. Once the Incense Grenade detonated, the summoner and vessel would be drawn to the same place.

So he simply gave a yell.

“Come here!! Lu-san!!”

Something flashed beyond the smokescreen.

He thought it was some kind of projectile and pulled the Repliglass Blood-Sign from his back, but the blow that struck it was powerful enough to nearly shatter his wrist. He just barely managed to deflect the first hit and somehow managed to avoid the second because Biondetta stuck her silver Blood-Sign in from the side. But that was enough for her weapon to break like it was made of plastic. She could no longer participate in a battle using the Summoning Ceremony. She grabbed the two halves in her hands and wielded them like twin blunt weapons to support Kyousuke.

Only after the two of them deflected a few more of the deadly projectiles could he identity one of them that shot skyward and lost its speed. It looked like a sharply pointed ceramic shard.

(Are they pieces of a broken doll!?)

This was not a legendary weapon that only an expert could wield. He could not say what this doll had originally been. He recalled that this tyrant, the uncontrollable Government Award 1000, had been the type of person who rejoiced in destroying his own accomplishments.

But there was no time for fear.

Kyousuke gave Biondetta a look and the Oiran-style mini-yukata demon moved away while her boots sounded on the ground. At the same time, Kyousuke gave up on defense. He maintained his momentum from running full speed ahead and slid across the ground. Several shard bullets passed by overhead as he dove through the large hole in the wall and into the dust-filled shop.

By happenstance, he ended up sliding between the legs of a woman in the tatters of what had once been a riding suit.

Seeing the Thousand Eater swing up his arm with enough force to sever that woman’s thighs, Kyousuke thrust his Blood-Sign forward as he slid. He slightly diverted the man’s fingers, but his own Blood-Sign was knocked away, sending him rolling along the floor.

After narrowly avoiding death again and again, he finally reached Lu Niang Lan.

“Kyousuke…-chan…?”

Still sitting on the floor, the modified China dress beauty spoke his name in a daze, but they did not have time for that. With his momentum intact, he grabbed Lu Niang Lan’s hips with both arms and pushed her down. He then raised his voice.

“Biondetta!!”

Another explosion came from outside.

Rubble and dust filled the shop and flowed over Kyousuke and Lu Niang Lan’s heads as they lay down on the floor. Elvast’s unknown (and possibly truly nameless) vessel in the tattered riding suit was still standing, but Kyousuke seriously doubted this was enough to defeat them. He doubted they had even braced against the impact of the first bazooka blast. She was overshadowed by Elvast, but the blonde vessel was a monster herself.

He got a fresh start while holding Lu Niang Lan and crouched low.

As the doll’s nails, eyeballs, and other parts tore through the smokescreen as countless sharp bullets, Kyousuke ran just a few meters through that hell to roll out the back door. It was all a mess. So many factors were outside his calculations that he was amazed he was still in one piece.

Biondetta softly caught both their body weights on her large breasts and then dragged them out through a large hole in the wall.

Sekurtiti was waiting there with her.

“Sir, do you have your Blood-Sign and Incense Grenade? Do you still have all your limbs? Are you strong enough for a Summoning Ceremony battle!?”

“I’ve got everything I need. More importantly, take Lu-san and get out of here. Sekurtiti and I will finish off Elvast.”

He heard strange explosive sounds from all around. He had fired that initial bazooka blast and then Biondetta had blown up this wall. Sparks were raining down everywhere and igniting the container modules full of fireworks. This could easily develop into a great conflagration that enveloped the whole Chinatown.

“Shiroyama Kyousuke. I have a suggestion.”

“What is it?”

But even in that extreme environment, Sekurtiti crouched down in her bandages, tiara, and Y-shaped lace to speak calmly.

“Cancel your contract with me and bind a new one with that woman. If you do not, there will truly be no helping her.”

He had not expected that suggestion.

It was true Sekurtiti had no reason to get directly involved in this. Lu Niang Lan was much more deeply connected.

But could this modified China dress beauty do that? Could she make that choice? Her extreme skill with martial arts and hidden weapons was the result of her firm rejection of entrusting herself to the Summoning Ceremony for life as a vessel. Could he really make her break that conviction?

“You are looking at this wrong, Shiroyama Kyousuke.”

But Sekurtiti spoke up to correct a fundamental mistake.

“The very fact that she is firmly rejecting that life is a sign that she is refusing to face her past and continues to be bound by it. If she had truly been freed from those bonds, then she would not care one way or the other. The firmness of her rejection is equivalent to the strength of those bonds, so she has yet to conquer them. And this is probably her last chance to free herself. No matter how it happens, she will never break free if she misses this opportunity. Even if Elvast dies today, his ghost will continue to haunt her heart. I do not want to create that kind of fruitless grudge in the pharaoh’s tomb. This city should be where the pharaoh’s remains sleep peacefully as they await the return of his soul, not a haunted place where people fear a curse.”

Government Award 1000.

This required the defeat of Elvast Toydream, a man who became a living legend.

But not by Shiroyama Kyousuke. Lu Niang Lan had to defeat him herself to cleanse her of her past.

“Can you do it, Lu-san?”

“…”

“Can you break your own rules to overcome your past!? Can you!?”

For a while, she did not answer.

No, perhaps it was simply that difficult for her trembling and charming lips to form the words. That was how close to breaking she was.

“I…”

But she managed.

She sat on the ground, crumpled up her face, and showed no sign of her usually confident and alluring appearance. She was worn down, beaten, and battered.

Even so, that woman who had again had everything taken from her spoke the words.

“I want to move on.”

It was almost like her feelings were a damaged record that kept repeating as the needle skipped.

“I don’t want to be bound by the past. I want to walk forward on my own feet. I don’t want to be imprisoned by anything. I don’t want to be overwhelmed by a life where I thought I had escaped but only get attacked from behind.”

But there was something she had never lost.

No matter how much she was hurt or how much she suffered, this would not be lost as long as the record itself did not shatter.

It would never be lost.

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“It didn’t have to be Illegal! I just wanted to escape Government!! The underworld wasn’t particularly comfortable. I didn’t want to turn my back on justice! But as long as it let me shake off that awful shadow! I just wanted to leave that cage. I wanted to be freed from that oppression. I wanted to spread my arms and bathe in the sun without having to ask anyone’s permission!! So!!”

He had thought he understood her.

But he had not.

Because now Shiroyama Kyousuke came in contact with her truly exposed soul.

“''Help me'', Kyousuke-chan. I never want to go back there!! I want to seal up that hell here and now. I want to say goodbye to my past and continue on to the future! So ''help meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee''!!”

He never would have hesitated here.

When faced with that much heat, it would have been hard to find even the slightest reason to do so.

“As you wish.”

He only needed a small blade.

As long as he cut his index finger and let a single drop of blood well up, the door to the divine would open.

As Lu Niang Lan licked up the drop of blood and swallowed it, the thoroughly destroyed shop remained entirely silent. Almost like their enemy was watching over them. He had to have had countless opportunities to kill them, but the legend named Elvast Toydream still did nothing to intervene.

“I see. So that is your choice.”

They heard a voice.

“Most unfortunate. You honed yourself so far and had the willpower to stab an Award 1000 in the back…and yet you still cannot escape the bonds of the Summoning Ceremony.”

She no longer needed to let his nonsense drag her spirit down.

Kyousuke pulled out a hairspray-sized Incense Grenade and pulled the pin out with his mouth. Once he threw it, an Artificial Sacred Ground would be swiftly set up and he would be able to invite a Material into Lu Niang Lan’s body as his vessel. This could easily be the trigger that would bring back a powerful nightmare for her.

“Do it, Kyousuke-chan.”

But the modified China dress beauty still spoke while placing her hand on Kyousuke’s holding the lever.

“I will end this here and now. So this will be the final nightmare!!”

There really was no reason to hesitate.

The two of them threw the Incense Grenade together and their one shot at this began.