Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume3 Chapter1 (section)

===Or a Story Set Somewhat in the Past===

This was the best.

Makihara Youji finally felt truly alive.

If he been asked to sum up his life, he would have used the words pointless and ineffective. It was not that he had received any cruel abuse at home or in the classroom. Nor had everyone constantly ignored him like he was invisible. But everywhere he went, he had found nothing but pain and humiliation. Whenever he recalled some moment from his past, he felt an urge to collapse on the spot and flail his arms and legs around.

He could speak a hundred words and be lucky to get two or three in response.

Even when he frequently updated a blog or SNS page connected to the entire world, the increase in the hit counter never left the single digits. No one ever left any comments.

It was all a waste of time and effort.

No one ever recognized his successes, but they were quick to lay on the insults when he failed. When he spoke to a group, none of them would turn his way, but when he verbally abused someone along with the group, all the attention would turn his way and they would turn on him.

He stood out in the worst possible way.

Everything worked against him.

How could this have happened?

He could work a hundred times harder than anyone else to be considerate and no one would give him a second glance, but when he complained even a hundredth as much as anyone else, they would attack him with the force of a raging wildfire. The pile of stones he had so carefully piled up would be mercilessly toppled and he would have to restart from the beginning. He even started suspecting everyone else in the world was conspiring against him.

But that unfairness was gone now.

The world had been corrected.

“Yes…”

Makihara Youji slowly held up his left arm and stared at the back of the hand.

“Everyone responds when I do something. A single word gets ten in response. That’s right. This is how the world is supposed to work.”

He lowered his raised hand and gaze and instead directed them both straight ahead.

There he saw a girl so slender he thought she might break if he pulled her in close. She was blankly swaying on her feet. If he commanded her to give him a shoulder massage, she would do so. If he demanded she strip naked, she could not put up a fight. He had to be careful about what he commanded since she really would bite off her tongue if he told her to, but things were generally going well.

This girl was held in the bonds of Girl’s Backdoor.

Makihara felt no pangs of conscience over externally and remotely controlling her body while ignoring her own wishes. After all, his life up to this point had been so very wrong. If everyone was given the same amount of luck to be used over their entire life, then he was only making things even. After all the pain and humiliation he had suffered through, what was wrong with being a little more special than the people around him?

And…

“Eek.”

A frail voice shrieked in a corner of the dark room.

Curled up there was a different girl from the one Makihara Youji was controlling.

“Eek, eek, eek, eek, eek…”

“Oh, shut up. Just accept the reality before your eyes already.”

Makihara’s voice was somehow cold.

With a glove on his hand, he moved his fingertips as if tugging on a marionette’s strings.

“As you saw from my tests, I can make this girl do whatever I want. I could have her go on a rampage with a knife or I could have her strip off all her clothes and run around town.”

“…”

“Of course, you can always abandon your friend. Then again, no one’ll ever believe what happened here, so no one’s ever going to take her side. But if you don’t like the sound of that, then I’d like you to help me contact some people.”

“…”

“You work in the entertainment industry, don’t you? Even just a guest ID would be fine. Then I can ''use this'' to get close to a number of people.”

As its name suggested, Girl’s Backdoor could not be used to control just anyone.

In fact, the conditions for its use were quite limited.

But what did that matter?

No man was an island. If he held one person’s life in his hands, he could restrict the actions of a few people in their address book. It continued as a chain reaction from there. Like the Straw Millionaire, he just had to move from person to person, betraying them little by little, until he had arrived at and taken over an area he never could have reached otherwise. He could remote control them and bind them. In that sense, he was not restricted by sex or age. People were connected to others in unexpected places: politicians, corporate executives, the police, celebrities, and sports stars. He could reach them all through his chain reaction.

He had gone too far at his previous school.

But what exactly had he done that “went too far”?

He had already forgotten.

(Yes.)

He was so fulfilled that he felt no need to remember each and every thing. He had no need to contemplate the past when his future was so bright.

(This is what it feels like to hold the world in your hand.)

He was not out to rule over anything. His goal was not to obtain a specific person. He simply wanted everyone to pay attention to him. He wanted to create situations where they had no other choice. And that attention would eventually spread through the city, the country, and the entire world. He could not help but enjoy the gradual progress in that direction.

But just as he thought that, a deafening dull sound exploded from the back of his head.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

His head hurt like his skull was swelling out. It throbbed with pain. Only after breathing in the dusty air did he realize he had fallen onto his side.

Had someone hit him?

Makihara Youji’s mind was not functioning properly. It did not make the switch from confusion to fear. His arms and legs twitched but did not move, so he could not stand or even sit up.

He could not turn his head, so most of the room was a blind spot to him. He moved just his eyeballs and finally saw a boy and girl. As soon as he spotted them, their backs seemed to stab deep into his consciousness. It was like something he had previously failed to notice had risen rapidly through his mind.

“What do we do now?”

“I have the ''sample'' I wanted. Simply put, we don’t need him anymore.”

“But I get the feeling he’ll get into some super-sized trouble if we just let him go.”

“But who’s supposed to pass judgment on him and how? There isn’t an actual crime the police can charge him with.”

“Zuuuun(deadpan).”

“Okay, fine. How about this?”

The horribly careless-sounding male voice continued.

“Let’s leave him here for about half an hour. We’ll let the girls he was controlling pass judgment. Don’t worry. If he’s innocent, they’ll probably tend to his hurt head.”

“W…ait.”

Makihara Youji squeezed out his voice.

The fear finally seeped out past the confusion. But the boy and girl did not seem to care. Their footsteps continued and they left.

“Wait!! Please wait! Don’t leave me…don’t leave me here!!”

He could not move.

And the other boy had a Girl’s Backdoor in his hand as he left. It was obvious where he had gotten it. Makihara Youji had lost the source of the power that had made him special.

Outside his field of vision, he heard several noises that sounded disturbingly like people picking up metal bars. Sweat poured from his entire body and he felt a squeezing pain in his heart.

“H-hel…help…”

It was all a waste of time and effort.

That dull and boring prison once more stole all depth from Makihara Youji’s world.

“Hey, wait! Please help me!!”

The footsteps stopped for just a moment.

When the voice reached him, Makihara was already in tears.

“I will help you.”

But…

“Once the half hour is up.”

That was all.

When he heard the door close, it was more like being buried alive than being imprisoned.

And…

And…

And…

Several people peered down at Makihara’s face.

The emotion in the girls’ eyes was as unfathomable as an insect’s.