Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume2 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 7===

The school building’s roof had collapsed, the gym had been smashed flat, and the midair float supporting them had broken apart and fallen into the sea. The collapse had reached the school building which was shaped like three sides of a square, so around half of the building had been lost.

Most of what remained was the empty schoolyard.

“Phew…”

When they arrived at the partially-collapsed schoolyard, Kyousuke and Librarian-chan set down the assassins who were now dazed dolls. Kyousuke confiscated their Blood-Sign and Incense Grenades before tying their hands behind their backs.

Once they were bound, he pulled out his smartphone.

“Aika, how is the weather map looking?”

“The unnatural currents that ignore the wind direction and pressure changes are beginning to fall apart. At this rate, their ‘circle’ will be gone in a half hour or so.”

“Is there anything else we need to destroy?”

“Government personnel were sent to that factory in the name of an inspection. Based on the documents they found in the rubble, the special materials in the atmosphere will not last long-term without the ignition, so they will break apart on their own.”

In that case, time would solve the rest.

Kyousuke said goodbye and hung up.

And then…

<Yahoo☆ My – dear – brother.>

A harsh look came over his eyes when a girl’s voice cut in.

He looked over and saw a new figure on the crumbling schoolyard. The Queen with silver twintails and a white dress seemed enveloped by pale glowing particles. That peak of the Unexplored-class was known as the strongest of the strong. She smiled as she used the Rainy Screen to appear in the extended rain and used directional speakers to speak.

“Why are you here?”

<Why? To say goodbye since I will soon be leaving for a while.>

The White Queen pointed up toward the night sky from which the rain fell.

<My body is being stored on an abandoned civilian space station, but that too will fail now that the summoner behind the plan was defeated. Once that falls apart, my mind must return to my body.>

“Really?”

<Yes.>

“That’s really the only reason?”

<Brother, are you trying to tempt me into doing something more?>

The world without death had been stopped and the mysterious things caused by the masterminds would be gone by the following day.

But then someone else came to Librarian-chan’s mind.

She could never remember what that person looked like no matter how hard she tried.

They should have been closer to her than anyone.

The rainy image of the Queen briefly blurred.

Rubber rain boots could be heard on the wet ground.

A small girl hid her face behind a broken umbrella and her raincoat was dyed red.

“Onee…-chan?”

The Rainy Girl did not reply to Librarian-chan’s trembling voice.

No, it was just that she did not speak out loud. Her small lips may have been moving below the umbrella, but her posture kept the broken umbrella in the way and Librarian-chan could not follow those movements.

She too would disappear.

A paranormal system had twisted causality and allowed the impossible to appear, but that would collapse with time. Once that happened, the Rainy Girl could no longer appear. The same was true of the White Queen who was supported by the Rainy Screen. Once the rain let up, they would return to their proper places. No one could stop it. Even if they tried to stop it by force, it would create a great distortion just like Yasuzumi Hayato and Benikomichi Fuuki had.

“…”

For a while, Librarian-chan and the Rainy Girl faced each other.

Only Librarian-chan knew what thoughts filled her heart then.

No matter what anyone said, that was her sister. At the same time, no matter what explanation she was given, she could not rid herself of the deep-rooted fear she felt.

Even so, she finally spoke.

“This is…for the best.”

She was not just talking about now. Her voice seemed to restart the time that had been stalled ever since a certain tragedy had thrown a certain family into despair.

“I mean, it would be wrong to leave you wandering in the rain forever. It isn’t right for everyone to treat you like a strange monster. So we need to end this here. I don’t know if there’s an afterlife or if we’re reborn, but there must be some place you’re meant to go. So…”

The Alice (with) Rabbit boy briefly thought of a certain pair of twins.

But there were as many different endings as there were people. Without saying another word, Kyousuke handed Librarian-chan a single Incense Grenade. He then held her small hand in his own. He aimed it toward the target while it was in the vessel’s hand.

This was not the kind of distortion that Hayato and Benikomichi Fuuki had created. This would create a true Artificial Sacred Ground. The clog would be removed and the ghost that was unnaturally caught here would be swept away to “somewhere else”.

It was a tool to assist a wandering soul.

“…”

Librarian-chan had said this was for the best, but her face crumpled up and she fell silent when she felt the actual weight in her hand. But the summoner had concluded she would regret it later if she just let it happen and had Kyousuke do it for her.

The Rainy Girl said nothing.

The broken umbrella spun around with its bearer in the center. Unlike her thorough silence, the small movement seemed to reveal a slight will. And that will relaxed the tense atmosphere.

This would end it.

More accurately, it would accept that this life had already ended.

The rain let up just a little. A break might open in the clouds and the rain might stop entirely. If that happened, the Rainy Girl would disappear. She might never appear again.

So Librarian-chan decided to place her finger through the pin along with Kyousuke’s finger, pull it out, and see it through to the end.

However, something interfered.

“Uuh…”

She heard an odd sound.

No, it may have been a voice.

“Uuh…ohhh…”

The terribly distorted voice seemed to be coming from a broken audio system, so she could not tell what it was saying.

But at the very least, it was not coming from the Rainy Girl. That ghost could not produce her own voice as a sound.

However, it was not Shiroyama Kyousuke, Librarian-chan, or the White Queen either.

Then who was it?

Something happened as soon as they all turned toward the sound.

“Ohhhhh, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! Notice us alreadyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!”

[[Image:BloodSign_v02_320.jpg|thumb]]

There was an explosive sound much like bluish-white sparks scattering.

Static ran through the White Queen’s image.

The raindrops that should have all fallen in the same direction had their paths bent in every direction by the noise.

And with that explosion, the producer of the voice appeared as if through a split in space itself.

It was a pair of twin shrine maidens with long blonde and black hair.

Kyousuke spoke in confusion.

“Meinokawa Renge and Higan?”

“Ohh… So we finally made it to this side. I don’t know what layer we were on, but when our presence is observed strongly enough by the people of any of those worlds, we’re pulled toward them. It’s scary how those fields overlap.”

“Eek!? W-wait a second. Is that the, um, White Queen smiling over there?”

Librarian-chan could not keep up and her mouth flapped open and closed.

“What are these layers you’re talking about? A-and where did you come from?”

“Hm? Who are you? Well, that doesn’t matter.

The black-haired shrine maiden, Renge, casually ignored Librarian-chan’s questions.

“We were investigating some mysterious disappearances in Toy Dream 35 and – while I’m not sure this is the best way to put it – we fell victim to it ourselves. Well, it was something like that girl with the umbrella over there.”

“……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………What?”

Layers.

Mysterious disappearances.

When their presence was observed strongly enough by the people of any of those worlds, they were pulled toward them.

Nothing Meinokawa Renge mentioned seemed to fit with the assumptions Kyousuke and Librarian-chan were working from. After all, the “girl with the umbrella” she had mentioned was Librarian-chan’s ghost who had been killed years before.

But.

What if it was those assumptions that were wrong?

“W-wait! What do you mean mysterious disappearances? That isn’t what happened to my sister. If she had just gone missing, there would have been some hope left!! She really was killed, there was no hope at all, and that’s why she’s appearing to me as a ghost now!!”

“Did she look like a ghost to you because she was suddenly appearing and disappearing? But that’s just a normal girl. And she isn’t causing this. We don’t understand it all ourselves, but we do know something since we ‘lost our way’ too. …The issue is with the world, not the people. I thought Higan was a ghost at first too.”

This was not over.

They did not understand it all.

If the Meinokawa Sisters had appeared out of thin air, there had to be a reason for it. Those living girls had mysteriously disappeared somewhere and had now returned. That much made sense, but the Rainy Girl was different. She had to be different. After all, she had already died several years before.

And yet.

And yet!

And yet!!!!!!

<Hee hee. Ahh, ahh. And I was only a step away from making you mine, brother.>

Only the White Queen was laughing.

And she had more to say.

<So the secret’s out. Yes, the Rainy Girl ''is actually alive''.>

Shiroyama Kyousuke felt like the blood was boiling in his head.

The current situation and the basic assumptions vanished from his mind and he tried to grab at the illusion in the rain.

“Queen!!!!!”

<Ahn, brother. If you really do want to touch me, then build a brand new system yourself.>

The Queen gave him the look of a playful kitten.

<Besides, using the Summoning Ceremony’s definition, a ghost is like a puddle of power that has nowhere to escape due to a clog, right? That soul was lost several years ago, so even if a clog forms in the present, the water is not going to rise back up from the drain. Your logic there didn’t even make sense, brother.>

“Then what was this…? No, wait. Don’t tell me…!!”

<Yes, if you recalculate it all with the assumption that the Rainy Girl is ''alive'', you of all people should be able to find the correct answer, brother.>

“So you knew from the beginning…?”

<Knew what? That you had a chance to change everything, but you were going to throw it all away during the final countdown?>

There was blatant enjoyment in the White Queen’s voice.

Kyousuke knew he could not reach her, but he still yelled at her.

“You knew and you kept giving me unneeded hints to distract me!! You knew every moment I spent on stopping that world without death was wasting the time limit of another girl’s life! What’s going to happen to this girl who is ''unnaturally'' living here? What happens once time runs out!? Is what I’m thinking accurate!? If it is…!!”

<Oh, come on.>

The Queen placed a hand on her cheek with a smile reminiscent of thick gum syrup.

<As Alice (with) Rabbit, you go on and on about saving the world and protecting mankind, so if you unwittingly abandoned a girl you still could have saved and threw her back to the murderer…why, that would break you, wouldn’t it? And I could use that to make you mine, don’t you think?>

“What…are you…?” Librarian-chan spoke up as the rain hit her tearful face. Then her voice rose to a confused shout. “What are you talking about!? I mean, my sister was…I mean, she had to have been killed way back then!! Even now she’s covered in blood! What could you call that if not a ghost!? How can all of you say she’s alive…!?”

The White Queen giggled at her confusion.

She had maintained her lovely smile even when idolized by Guard of Honor and when used by the heirs of Telomere’s End. Her boiling point lay elsewhere. She could accept any impoliteness as long as it did not involve Kyousuke.

All of a sudden, she held some ice cream.

<Please don’t get so worked up over the existence or absence of truth. For example, where do you think “this” is?>

“Eh? Eh?”

<Answer me. Hurry.>

The core of her voice was powerful enough to shut down any resistance, but it also had the strength to invite dependence.

Librarian-chan gasped and forced out her voice.

“Where is it…? Aren’t you holding-…?”

Before she could finish speaking, the White Queen took a step to the side.

The ice cream left her hand and floated in midair. Not only that, it was quite far away. The two images displayed in the rain had simply overlapped and the ice cream image had been displayed much larger in the distance.

<That is the best human senses can do. That was a simple example using distance, but it could just as easily be the past and the future, cause and effect, confirmation and denial, here and there, coincidence and inevitability, or my brother’s world and my world. Do you see the value of the two sides now? The simplest thing can cause them to twist, waver, fade, and mix together.>

“What…?”

<Oh, dear. Did anyone else ever prove to you that your understanding was absolute? For example, you might think my brother’s world does the summoning and my world is summoned. …But who ever said that? Perhaps it is all of you who are being summoned by something. If someone messes with it just a little, perhaps normally impossible times, places, and situations could appear. Yes, just like a file you threw into the trash can reappear on your desktop if a powerful enough search is used. Or like a file that should be there can vanish for some reason.>

Librarian-chan’s mouth flapped wordlessly.

The Meinokawa Sisters did not interrupt either.

But not because they were flabbergasted by what the White Queen had said. They were overwhelmed on a more fundamental level. It was like coming across an alien that spoke Japanese.

<Besides, it’s wrong to think a puny human can see the entirety of the world. All of you have scattered, individual intelligences that are satisfied looking at just the surface of the world and searching only through what you understand. Did you really think you could reject the words of someone who has swallowed up and conquered another entire world? What you saw here was ''the invisible being displayed'' due to some kind of bug or error. The deleted file returned. It’s the same as a monster like me crossing worlds to have some fun. Why can’t you understand something so simple?>

“…”

<You have only lived for about a decade and a half, so it’s laughable to think you can speak about the standards and common understanding of this world. Your words are as valuable as the morning dew on a leaf. I can crush them with a single word of my own. Of course, that changes entirely if you use your time more efficiently like my brother☆>

Librarian-chan looked over to Kyosuuke as if asking for help.

She may have wanted him to say this was all the Queen’s insanity.

But Kyousuke could not give her the “common sense” she wanted.

“As the heirs of Telomere’s End spread their thin layer of incense across the globe, the laws of this world were gradually distorted. And probably without them even noticing. Can you picture that much?”

“Y-yes. But how does that mean my sister is alive?”

“I’m getting to that,” spat out Kyousuke as he agonized over the situation himself. “Say you have a window in front of you. If you color the window red, you would see a red scene when you looked through it. …But just looking at the red window, you can’t tell which side of the window was painted. In other words, the concept of ‘sides’ goes away.”

<Yes. And you would think you could tell by touching the window, right? But that’s wrong. Are you looking at the window from Viewpoint A or from Viewpoint B? Which side is ‘outside’ and which side is ‘inside’? Which side are you standing on? Which side are you looking at it from? You no longer know.>

“If Toy Dream 35 is the ‘red window’, then was the entire world being dragged into it?”

<The wide-range universal incense fogged up the window and that single distortion overturned the concept of “sides”.>

The White Queen’s outline blurred.

Then gray static filled her Rainy Screen image. It looked like a swarm of small bugs was crawling across her. She remained a twintail girl, but one’s impression of her could transform into anything like with a Rorschach test.

<Thus there is little value in categories and divisions. There are no “sides”. There is no past or future, no close or far, no cause or effect, no confirmation or denial, no here or there, no coincidence or inevitability, and no my brother’s world or my world. All of those walls have collapsed from a single trick in this mixed environment. The premises and causality are no longer necessary. Everything before your eyes can only be called ‘reality’. So of course…>

“If she exists, breaths, walks, and speaks like a person…and she has been defined as something other than a ghost, then the Rainy Girl here is alive. We have to view her as alive…”

Kyousuke tightly clenched his back teeth.

He was ashamed that his own miscalculation had brought him a step away from being won over by the White Queen.

“If we save her here, she will live. If we kill her here, she will die. The rules couldn’t be simpler, right?”

<Yes. ''And that’s what makes it so interesting.''>

“But why the Rainy Girl? If she was called back because she’s missing and was lost, then shouldn’t the age of the dinosaurs show up too?”

<Well, I have heard rumors of people running across old lovers, dead pets, and lost treasures. Most likely, the act of someone observing it is of little importance. It wasn’t because Person A’s wish was granted that their lover appeared. It was because Person B and Person C wanted to know about Person A’s first love. Those trivial wishes of ''others'' search for answers over an insignificant range and those things have been thinly gathered across at least the Northern Hemisphere. And those lost things reappear like a file being restored from the trash. Don’t you think that explains the current situation?>

“''I could calculate it out that far.'' But that isn’t a reason.”

<What about the fact that this was all put together by the heirs of Telomere’s End?>

The White Queen had become a mass of gray static that almost made Kyousuke feel like he was facing himself and she answered him as if rewarding him.

<By the way, brother, do you know why the original Telomere’s End died? …It was apparently suicide. Just once in his life, he failed to kill someone who deserved death. As a result, an innocent life was lost, so he took responsibility with his own life.>

“…”

<Yes, the person who deserved death was the Rainy Girl’s murderer. Even if Yasuzumi Hayato and Benikomichi Fuuki were not directly involved, they were influenced by Telomere’s End. …It is possible they were entirely unaware of it as they built their plan, but even so…>

“A subconscious bias entered the fine-tuning of their ceremony?” blankly muttered Kyousuke. “And that twisted causality enough that it altered the murder that led to all of this?”

The world without death itself had been an ideology born of a desire to escape an unbearable reality. And what reality would have felt most unbearable to them…no, to the original Telomere’s End? That line of thinking naturally led to the answer.

They had wished to reject a certain girl’s death.

Even if it meant using a giant Artificial Sacred Ground to twist causality and vaguely erase the concept of “sides”.

“And I was about to confirm that death… Ahh, ahh. The Rainy Girl was what Librarian-chan told me about in the very beginning! But I got distracted and rushed into the unrelated matters of Killer Intent Antenna, Telomere’s End, and the world without death!! And all the while, the Rainy Girl’s time was running out!!”

<Oh, but there is no reason to let that get to you. I was the one that laid out the trail of breadcrumbs leading you in that direction. …If I hadn’t, you would have easily saved the Rainy Girl as a quick detour and then gotten back on track. And that would have been far too boring.>

“W-wait.”

Librarian-chan spoke up with a tremor in her voice.

She was trying to reject that the Rainy Girl, her sister, was alive, but not because she did not want to accept it.

She suspected that some great malice was hidden behind it all. She suspected that something would ruin it all.

“My sister is all bloody and broken! If she’s still alive, she wouldn’t look like that!”

The Queen gave a malicious smile as a bloody-smelling “illusion” oozed from the gray static.

<That has nothing whatsoever to do with anything. Besides, she only looks like that because you are viewing her through a mental filter. The Meinokawa Sisters had no prior knowledge of the situation, so how do you think she looked to them?>

The twin sisters were afraid of the sandstorm-like White Queen, but they also seemed confused by the topic at hand.

Yes, they had simply called the Rainy Girl a “girl”. Whether she was a ghost or not, that was not how someone would describe a girl who had been stabbed in the head nineteen times by a grass sickle. She had to look different to the Meinokawa Sisters than she did to Kyousuke and Librarian-chan.

And if she looked different…

If she was really just a normal little girl…

“What’s…going to happen…?”

Librarian-chan hesitantly spoke up.

She could tell from the ominous conversation that this would be more than just a reunion.

It would mean abandoning the Rainy Girl and throwing her back to the murderer. Those words stabbed into Librarian-chan’s chest.

“What’s going to happen to my sister!?”

<My – dear – brother.>

“The Rainy Girl was a murder victim, but in this place where everything is mixed together, why would we ‘only’ meet the victim?”

“You…don’t mean…”

<Yes. “He” is coming.>

The White Queen cheerfully answered.

<Just like the Rainy Girl, someone else irresponsibility searched for him out of curiosity. As if to say this ending is inevitable, that man with the grass sickle will appear before her.>

“You’re kidding, right? …Right!? My sister is still standing! She’s here and she’s alive in some form! We might be able to change something, but you’re saying we can’t do anything as she’s killed again!? Th-that’s…that’s too much. No, wait. It’ll be all right. We defeated a paranormal-controlling summoner and an assassin! A normal murderer doesn’t stand a chance against us, right!? Tell me I’m right!!”

“…Queen.”

<Yes. The calculations are already complete. I believe it will happen in a few dozen more seconds. Now, brother, can you make it in time?>

The White Queen said “and” as she snapped her fingers in her rain-projected image.

The mass of static instantly vanished and only the beautiful Queen remained in perfect clarity.

<What is she really? Has she arrived from the past, has she been reborn, or is this a detailed emulation? None of that matters. The special conditions that created the red-painted window will vanish along with the deathless world. But before that can happen, the invited element will be destroyed by a different element. A certain girl’s death will be confirmed and everything gathered here will scatter to its original locations. It is no different than counting to ten to create a new timeline inside a world of frozen time, and it is just like how a warp meant to cross great distances can be expressed as having tunnel-like depth. The Northern Hemisphere is both the Rainy Girl’s afterlife and the living world that confirms her death. …In – other – words, this is the final crossroads, brother.>

[[Image:BloodSign_v02_336.jpg|thumb]]

“…”

<You have two options.>

In the image, the White Queen, raised her arms like a set of scales and turned her palms toward the rainy sky.

<First, do what is right and overlook the murderer. Distorting the laws of the world and altering that definite ending would be wrong and what is wrong is bad, so abandoning this girl to her proper death would be an act of good.>

The monster among monsters giggled as she whispered to him.

<Second, do what is kind and defeat the murderer. Twisting the world is fine by you and you don’t care if that destroys everything people have built up in the proper way. To save the one person before you, you will twist the causality of seven billion people. That means saying you don’t care what happens to everyone else as long as you can save that one.>

He had the worst possible solution in his hands.

If the White Queen and the Meinokawa Sisters were telling the truth, then this was indeed a crossroads. When the Rainy Girl had been killed, her death had influenced the original world. In the same way, intercepting the murderer and preventing him from killing her might change something.

He was not just viewing a news story from the past.

Nothing was certain in this world and he stood here as an active participant.

But should he really change that?

But was it right to not change it?

“Help her.”

Librarian-chan’s voice shook.

She had been prepared to say goodbye, but that was only when there was no other option. Now that she knew her sister was about to be killed and would become a ghost again, could she really abandon her? Could she watch the tragic scene of the girl being stabbed nineteen times in the head?

The answer was obvious.

And so she raised her voice.

“If there’s a way to save her and a way that she might not have to die, then I want to try it! Shiroyama-kun, tell me what to do!! Tell me how to save my sister!!”

But…

However…

The broken umbrella spun around.

The tattered edge of the fabric failed to cover the bottom of the girl’s face, giving a view of the small lips.

No voice left them.

Even so, what they said was clear.

“I don’t need help.”

“…!? Why not!?”

Librarian-chan tearfully shouted back, but the Rainy Girl mouthed more words.

It was a definitive rejection.

“I don’t want to destroy your world.”

This was no longer a spooky ghost.

It was nothing more than a girl who had pursued this incident from beginning to end and seen her sister’s part in it all.

The long rain looked like it would let up at any moment.

The Rainy Girl’s body faded.

If she vanished now, they would lose their one and only opportunity.

Even if they grabbed her hand and tried to shelter her, she herself would vanish, so there was nothing they could do. And could Kyousuke, Librarian-chan, and the others really find her if they ran around the city? Wouldn’t the murderer find her faster since he would appear for the sole purpose of killing her?

In other words, her fate was sealed.