Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume6 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 4===

“Wh-what-…bgyuh!?”

Renge carelessly tried to look out the window, so Kyousuke grabbed the back of her shrine maiden outfit’s collar and pulled her back. Appearing at the window right now would be suicide. Who could say how many sniper bullets would have hit her?

And he could tell what had happened without looking out the window. Toy Dream 35 was a three-dimensional city built over the ocean using countless buildings with giant bridges between them. So if the bridges connecting to the exits were blown up, the way out as well as the electricity, communications, water, gas, and other infrastructure could be cut off.

The enemy was undoubtedly trying to isolate them.

And once that was done, they would attack.

“Even if I’m being optimistic, we can’t have more than 30 seconds. How many forces do you have in the building?”

Sekurtiti glanced over, so the old man in a casual suit answered.

“The entire apartment building is fortified with tomb keepers, so fear not. Our prized warrior priests will use their defenses of stone and faith of steel to become a wall before the Tomb Priestess. And even a single one possesses the strength to overcome a war elepha-…”

“Don’t let any of them fight. A summoner can’t start a battle without seeing you with the naked eye. Instead of forcing your way out, your odds of survival are much higher if you curl up in a corner of the room buried in cushions. A tiny closet or bathroom would be much worse. It’s easiest to be overlooked in the corner of a large room. …But the real trick is to remain patient. That isn’t something just anyone can do. Listen, you can’t move a millimeter once they begin the search. Pass this on to everyone.”

“You-…”

He may have wanted to shout “you brat”, but they had no time.

As soon as Kyousuke kicked the muscular old man out of the way and Biondetta grabbed her master’s waist and pushed him to the floor, an incredible storm of destruction assaulted the room.

It was like horizontal lines punched through all of the living room’s windows at even intervals. A spray of autocannon fire smashed everything at waist height, starting at one end of the room and moving to the other.

“!”

Still on the floor, Kyousuke reached for his back and pulled out Phosphorus, the Repliglass Blood-Sign coiled up and stored there. Using just his arm strength, he swung it around and tripped Renge and Higan to the floor since they were just standing there. He then set his sights on Sekurtiti, but something odd happened.

For some reason, the brown Tomb Priestess rejected Kyousuke’s helping hand. As the Blood-Sign skimmed across the floor, she stepped on it and pinned it down.

“Hmph.”

And once the horizontal sweep of gunfire was over, only she reigned in that room.

She alone was unharmed because she had been standing right in the gap between two bullets.

“No matter how heavily armed they are, no tomb keeper will be done in by uncivilized tomb raiders. What matters is punishing these outlaws who disturb the pharaoh’s slumber by making a mess of this city built by President Toydream.”

(That’s really something…)

Kyousuke was honestly impressed. If he was being honest, a lot of luck had come into play when it came to saving the old man in the casual suit, Renge, and Higan. They could proudly proclaim that luck had smiled on them this day. But Sekurtiti had taken it a step further. She could go as far as to say she was loved by a god.

But they could not afford to forget that this was a Summoning Ceremony battlefield.

When up against summoners who could freely wield beings that surpassed the gods of legend, being loved by a god was not enough to ensure her safety.

Kyousuke detected an unpleasant odor like a car’s cigarette lighter being pressed against wallpaper.

The bullets embedded in the walls were exhibiting a strange reaction.

There were special bullets designed to pierce armor and then ignite inside to fry the engine or electronics. Those were armor-piercing incendiary rounds, but that was not what these were. If these were meant to effectively increase the power of summoners and vessels…

“Are they Incense Grenades!? Biondetta!!”

“Yes, sir.”

With a sound much like a thunderbolt, the Tomb Priestess with the ancient map on her back and everyone else there were contained inside the 20 meter cube of an Artificial Sacred Ground. What was done was done. Kyousuke and Biondetta got up with Blood-Signs at the ready. They both ignored the peanut gallery lying on the floor in a daze and the divinely-inspired girl still standing tall.

An Artificial Sacred Ground would only open when the Incense Grenade was thrown and detonated while the target human was seen with the naked eye. And if the summoner and vessel were not there already, they would be automatically taken to the detonation point. Gravity did not matter.

The bridges had been cut off.

The summoners and vessels had likely flown horizontally over from the neighboring building with the force of a missile. It was a lot like special forces breaking through a window after climbing down a wall with a rope.

But they were not much of a challenge when their numbers and locations were known in advance.

There would be a pair of them for each Incense Grenade embedded in the wall like an armor-piercing incendiary round and they would be moving toward precisely the locations of those bullet holes.

Kyousuke and Biondetta stood back-to-back, swung their Blood-Signs horizontally like baseball bats, and knocked them all out with lariat-like blows to the neck. The summoners had come flying in at abnormal speed, so it was a hellish situation for them. Before they could even land on their feet, they spun around on their necks and collapsed onto the floor.

Once the summoners had all been knocked out without even summoning a single Material, Kyousuke and Biondetta were given control of their Artificial Sacred Ground as the “victors”, but they did not bother holding onto it. They canceled the Chain state without waiting the full 90 seconds, so the Artificial Sacred Ground and the glowing red cube of Roses vanished.

Of course, Bridesmaid would not only be entering through that one route. Either to clear the way for more summoners to enter through the windows or to hold Kyousuke and Biondetta in place before another team could arrive, the autocannon was sure to fire again.

“Shall we tie these guys up and decorate the windows with them?”

“I don’t think worshipers of ''that'' Queen are going to be bothered by human shields.”

“Then how about I enjoy some clay target shooting? Don’t worry, though. This is a 7.62mm bolt-action. I won’t miss from this range, sir.”

“Understood. But only neutralize them. Don’t kill. I’ll draw their attention to the window in here, so you move to another room and-…”

It happened just as they were discussing that.

“…”

It came with no warning or advance notice at all. The brown Tomb Priestess named Sekurtiti approached the window through which the autocannon had fired.

It happened just before Kyousuke and Biondetta used their Blood-Signs to knock her to the floor by catching at her legs and neck respectively.

“I must punish any who disturb the pharaoh’s slumber and threaten our new holy land.”

It happened just after she whispered that.

“Haahhhhhh!!!!!!”

She gave a shout and thrust her open palms straight forward.

That was all.

She seemed to be pantomiming the glass that had filled that window before it shattered. It did not look like the motion of someone familiar with martial arts.

Nevertheless, Kyousuke and Biondetta’s weapons stopped at the last moment. No, their Blood-Signs were trembling slightly. Kyousuke could not move his weapon forward or pull it back and Oiran Mini-Yukata Biondetta could not move with her weapon partially thrust forward from the hip.

(Wha-…?)

A distant sound of destruction followed. It came from the autocannon. However, it was not the sound of it firing properly. It had clearly malfunctioned in some way.

That girl was a ruler wearing a golden tiara, but that did not mean she could bend a spoon with psychokinesis.

(Did she lead the gunner astray and cause them to operate the weapon incorrectly?)

An autocannon was too heavy for one person to carry around and it was generally fired by a group of 2 to 4, with at least someone to aim and pull the trigger and someone to feed in the ammunition belt. Throwing off their synchronization would probably increase the odds of a mistake, but…

The tremor filling Kyousuke and Biondetta was no more than a glancing blow.

Was this the strength of a wall of the taboo set by a ruler? Simply by refusing an audience and hitting them with her established techniques, could she really bring people to a stop like this?

What had this wall looked like to the people on the other side? It was possible they literally had “seen” it silently approaching to crush them. During the first sweep, it may not have been that the bullets had physically bent around her; it was possible the enemy gunner’s soul had been enough influenced by this ruler to hesitate

But a ruler was a ruler.

She did not brag and instead seemed to use this power ''like it was normal''.

“I cannot keep this up forever. Humans can adapt to any stimulus. Just as all great heroes are dragged down by the masses in due time and just as a thousand-year empire is cruelly devoured, even glory and reverence are no more than emotions to be consumed.”

The Tomb Priestess’s pale blue eyes desired another method.

Since the ancient map was on the brown girl’s back, Kyousuke and Biondetta had no real reason to stay in the apartment. And the tomb keepers were willing to follow their pharaoh from the desert and refer to his location as their homeland. As long as it would not directly defile the pharaoh or the grave goods sleeping in the museum, they would not hesitate to move elsewhere.

The only question was when to do it.

With all the bridges destroyed, it would be difficult to escape the isolated building. And Bridesmaid would of course have the area surrounded. They could not move on until they broke through. But that also meant they were home free as long as they did break through. That old man had said the entire building was fortified with tomb keepers. That meant Kyousuke did not have to worry about unrelated civilians getting caught in the middle. He had to create an opening through which they could escape, even if it meant sacrificing the entire apartment building.

“Let’s move almost everyone in the building down to the bottom. The building’s ground level is at the bottom of the ocean. Once Bridesmaid sees everyone moving there, they’re sure to think we have a submarine hidden there.”

“But no such submarine exists!” snapped back the elderly aide.

“That’s fine.” Kyousuke did not care. “We just have to make them think there’s one. Once they start fearing an underwater route, their circle will naturally tighten in. The autocannon’s power would be weakened by the thick wall of seawater and you can’t see as far through the water as you might think. And then…”

Kyousuke snapped his fingers and pointed up at the ceiling.

Biondetta looked like she understood.

“Oh, I get it. We blow up the top level of the building. The downpour of rubble will crush the Bridesmaid group that carelessly approached with submersible weaponry.”

“Yes, yes! So it’s the same as the classic trap where you roll a giant boulder down the corridor to crush all of the tomb raiders at once. I do not like destroying a portion of Toy Dream 35 which acts as the pharaoh’s tomb, but if it is for a trap to clear away the uncivilized tomb raiders, then we have no other choice!!”

“Why are you suddenly leaning forward with sparkling eyes, Sekurtiti!?”

“I should have expected this from the great technological nation of Japan. From the ancient ninja houses to the modern roach sheets and flypaper, countless traps have permeated your souls, so of course the protectors here would think differently. Oh, but I hate to throw out the functional beauty of a carnivorous plant such as the pitcher plant or the Venus flytrap. As the protectors of the pharaoh’s tomb, there is so much to learn from Asia. Ahh…”

“Y-you’re getting pretty close!! Where did this pressure come from!?”

The plan was simple enough, but it was impossible with normal explosives or a gas explosion. As any video of a building demolition would show, buildings generally collapsed downwards or fell over; they never scattered rubble from above like a volcanic eruption. And causing it to “collapse downwards” would crush the people on the ground level as bait, so they had to prevent the blast from propagating through the intervening floors.

If no realistic methods could pull it off, what could they rely on?

There was of course only one answer: They were experts at using the Summoning Ceremony.

“Hmm. But, sir, that would mean…”

“Yes, I’d like to split the summoners up, with a pair up top and one down below. Biondetta, ''you'' go down. Make sure you can protect the tomb keepers with the Summoning Ceremony if anything goes wrong. Can I count on you?”

“Yes, sir.”

And while Kyousuke was a skilled summoner, he had no vessel partner at the moment.

Black-haired Renge let out a snort and demonstrated her willingness to do this.

“Fine then! We just have to head up to the top and start a Material rampage when the timing is right, don’t we!?”

“I’m pretty sure I know the answer, but have you ever helped destroy a largescale building? Once these high-rise buildings start to collapse, it’s hard to stop the chain reaction and difficult to control the destruction. Plus, not even the most skilled vessel can perfectly control the Material. This is going to be a lot like having your hand trembling wildly from the electrodes attached to it and still trying to pull out the pieces of a block puzzle tower one at a time. Can you really do that? If you fail, then about 200 lives will be lost.”

“Awawawawawawa…”

“Good, I like your honesty. But I do have something for the two of you to do.”

That meant she could not cancel her contract with Higan and give her to Kyousuke.

If he was to act as a summoner, he would need a new vessel. There was no need to look around since there was only one person there with the perfect traits for that.

“…”

Kyousuke and Sekurtiti silently faced each other.

She likely understood her own talent. She understood it and yet chose a different path. That showed a strength of its own. It may have been a greater strength than even Kyousuke who could only submerge himself in the Summoning Ceremony.

“You mustn’t!!” The old man in a casual suit bowed deeply as he offered his own advice. “You have thoroughly followed your own rules and polished your soul without relying on anything else. If you open your body to the many gods, no one can predict how it will affect that polishing. In the worst case, you could even lose it all!!”

He was not just referring to her technique to rule over people.

He meant her true job that no one had ever seen and might not even exist.

She was to accurately call the ancient pharaoh’s soul back into his dried body. It was a different system of summoning.

If she did have that ability, it could conflict with the Blood-Sign method. That old man who had lived by her side for so long knew just how valuable that was and the girl herself had to know that even better than him.

People could not escape the grasp of a power once they had relied on it.

That was as true of a bullet as it was a god.

If she had someone who would prevent her from letting go, she might be able to entrust herself to this.

But the ruler spoke.

“Stand back.”

“!?”

“Shiroyama Kyousuke. This is an emergency. Couldn’t you simply order me to do it?”

“Sorry, but forcing people to become my vessel just isn’t my style.”

“But what would you do if I refused?”

“Then this entire plan is shot and I’d have to think up something else.”

Even this was a turning point.

Whether she agreed or not, Shiroyama Kyousuke had said he would escape this situation. That meant she could no longer let the situation force her into the contract. If the brown girl did not take that final step of her own volition, she could not arrive there.

In fact, this left her with no real reason to stray from her original path.

Who in this world had enough a reason, enough courage, or strong enough a soul to step into an unknown world when no one was pressuring her into it and when it would mean abandoning everything she had spent many long years building up?

And the ruler smiled.

It was a thin smile and she had the look of someone who was overcoming some kind of trial.

“But I am not a presence in any of those other solutions.”

“…”

“I am no more than a temporary ruler during the pharaoh’s absence, but I still have pride in the many lives I have supported to this day. What would I gain by turning my back on my duty and trying to flatter the tomb raiders with a smile on my face? How could my soul shine then? I, at least, cannot answer that question.”

That was the ruler’s choice.

Because she had ruled over everything ''like it was normal'', she could also let go of that power ''like it was normal''. She had that strength inside her. Only someone who knew what was truly important could make that choice.

Sekurtiti did not hesitate.

Just as she took pride in her superior position ''like it was normal'', she could let go of it ''like it was normal''. That was the kind of person she was.

“So please. I need your help to save my family.”