The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume5 Chapter1

Status: Incomplete

2/13 parts completed

   

Stage 01: Named Summoners, the 15 Children

“Biondetta, you hit #5 and #8 into the pocket too. This is a complete mess.”

“Call me Detta! And am I only here so everyone can bully me!?”

(Stage 01 Open 09/17 07:00 “Before the War”)

Named Summoners, the 15 Children

Part 1

Kyousuke was faced by an unbelievable reality.

“I dyed my hair pink.”

“…”

Biondetta’s flowing hair had been blonde before, but she had suddenly taken a step into the realm of fantasy. And it was more than just her hair that had left reality. She had cow-like horns on her head and an arrow-shaped tail on her butt. It badly clashed with her chemical-colored surgical gown.

The 15 children’s living space in the Miniature Garden’s Inner Circle had a number of spaces used for socializing. Kyousuke frowned inside one of those which seemed larger than two school classrooms.

“What in the world is this?”

“It’s called preparation.” Biondetta tried to act like the big sister, but the innocence of her smile overshadowed it. “The Queen of Hearts – that is, Kyoumi – has some unexpected skills. Of all things, she says she can make clothes all on her own! She’s going around taking requests right now. It won’t be long until I can say goodbye to this skimpy thing covered in knots.”

“Hm? Aren’t there tons of clothes in the walk-in closet?”

“…You want me to choose from there?”

Despite being underground, the Miniature Garden was supplied well enough that they could play baseball or soccer if they wanted to. The stock of clothing was stacked up in giant piles. …Yes, it was just like a giant warehouse at a port used for exporting goods.

But…

“With all that surrounding me, I get dizzy. I don’t want to get anywhere near that closet anytime soon. I really do feel like I’ll get los-…I mean, get stranded while surrounded by all those piles of clothes.”

“So when you have too much choice, you end up unable to make a decision?”

“Hm?”

“Oh, nothing.”

Kyousuke and the rest of the 15 were not restricted in their life cycle. They could get up when they wanted, eat what they wanted, and do what they wanted. There was no schedule like a school’s class schedule or a prison’s work schedule.

Nevertheless, most of them, including Kyousuke, were still wearing the surgical gowns they had been initially given. There were no windows and the concepts of morning and night meant little here, but they mostly functioned on a 24 hour schedule, got up at about the same time, and spoke with the others they got along with.

There was nothing rewarding or punishing them, so the adults were only manipulating them by having them enter that “framework” of their own free will.

This experiment was meant to turn the 15 of them into a single family.

Whether she had noticed that or not, Biondetta continued with an innocent smile.

“Instead of trying on an endless number of combinations like I’m brute-forcing a password, Kyoumi says she can create the image I have in my head! You should go speak with her too.”

“I’m fine with anything as long as it’s easy to move in…”

It sounded like this would be the next trend, so Kyousuke made his decision a lot like checking the weather before deciding if he would hang the laundry out to dry.

Biondetta giggled in her short surgical gown.

“Kyoumi would be upset if she heard you say that.”

“But won’t it be a lot of work for her if everyone asks her?”

“Not at all. She likes doing it, so she’ll be upset if you take the chance away from her.”

Was that how it worked?

Kyousuke’s eyes mechanically dilated as he discovered another correction to make in the future.

And then a floral scent tickled his nose. The next thing he knew, he felt something soft on his back. Someone seemed to have hugged him from behind. They wrapped their arms around his head, so he saw feminine arms passing over his shoulders and draping down to his chest.

He turned his head in her arms.

And what did he find?

The white clothing and silver twintails of a Queen with incredible pow-

A pink-haired girl with a welcoming smile that seemed to cover her entire face.

“Oh, Kyoumi!”

“Heh heh. I made this before anything else.”

When he called her name, the girl responded with a smile brimming with humanity.

She had somewhat drooping black eyebrows and a lively face. She looked nothing like a being spoken of in legends. She must have made a pattern from scratch, cut the cloth herself, taken apart clothing from the humongous closet, and incorporated pieces of those. She wore a luxurious wedding dress with pieces cut away and it glittered with plenty of red, green, and yellow plastic decorations dangling from it.

She was Shiroyama Kyoumi.

She was one of the 15 and her card was the Queen of Hearts.

She was about two sizes taller than Kyousuke and Biondetta and she would probably be in high school in the outside world. She had prepared an alternative outfit as part of her hobby, but it may have also been because she had not liked how the surgical gown had shown off her growing bodylines.

“There are a lot of paintings and sculptures in the materials room near the Mock Battlefield, remember? I based it on those. What do you think? If I can reproduce this so well, you can be deadly sure I can answer any of your requests, right?”

“…”

The “White” Queen who Wields the Sword of Unsullied Truth (iu – nu – fb – a – wuh – ei –kx – eu – pl – vjz).

The being that Kyousuke had carelessly caught a glimpse of during battle even though she could not be summoned intentionally.

Like a tornado, she could be seen by coincidence, but the details of how she appeared were not fully understood. Three of the truly powerful had joined together and arrived one thin layer away from the front line to deal with that ultimate threat. Only people at that level could see the threat lurking behind the radiant light. And Kyoumi was dressed up as that being.

“Hmm? Your pulse is racing, you dirty little boy.”

“Kyoumi-san, you don’t have to get so close.”

“Just call me Kyoumi. And I deadly mean it. Add the ‘-san’ and I’ll punish you like this☆”

She started rubbing her cheek up against him.

Kyousuke was helpless and sighed quietly, but Biondetta seemed to notice.

“What is it?”

“Well…we’ve been here for a while now, but it’s always the same people that end up gathering together.”

The 15 were still divided into a few groups and they frequently spoke with the others in their group, but they barely interacted with anyone outside it.

“I was just wondering if this is what you would call a family.”

“Who knows. I mean, we were sold off. We don’t have an example of an average and normal family.”

There was no sarcasm or scorn in her voice. Biondetta truly sounded puzzled.

Kyousuke turned his head and only saw a troubled smile from Cosplay Kyoumi.

“It’s not like the other groups are all that different, though.”

“Oh, you went around taking requests, didn’t you!?”

Biondetta gave a beaming smile like that was a huge discovery. Unlike her or Kyousuke, Kyoumi made appearances in all of the groups.

But Kyoumi ended up settling down in this group. They had decided where she belonged and she would only “visit” the other groups.

“Hey, Kyoumi. Do you think this structure is a success for the grownups?”

“Something might be happening soon. Something deadly.”

The Queen of Hearts finally left Kyousuke’s back as she said that.

Perhaps because he had dropped the “-san” as she asked.

“After all, they said they would put us through trials and disasters to break down the barriers between us and turn us into a single family. Maybe they’re checking where the gaps between us are while they adjust things to fill those in. They might be using a supercomputer or something.”

It was like gathering everyone in a movie theater to have them all face the same direction and shed the standardized tears.

Or like taking each other’s hands to board the lifeboat while escaping a sinking ship.

“More importantly, I visit all of the groups, so I have a lot of information on all 15 of us. And if you ask me, Kyousuke, you’re a flashing yellow light right now. You should be careful.”

“?”

When he tilted his head a little, Shiroyama Kyoumi presented an extremely realistic problem despite her otherworldly outfit.

“You’re breeding some jealousy. Especially from that berserker, the Hatter. You need to be deadly careful.”

Part 2

The Miniature Garden was quite large.

Each room tended to be the size of a school gym and they were arranged like a necklace of morning dew on a spider web. The main corridors connecting rooms were large enough for semi-trailer trucks to pass each other and even the secondary corridors were large enough for a normal car to drive around. Kyousuke and the others could use program-controlled electric carts if they wanted, but a lot of them chose to travel on foot.

There was a simple reason for this.

They could jog to build up their strength.

“Hey, Rabbit Boy. If you’re headed south, then join me.”

“…”

Kyousuke did not bother matching his pace to the boy who arrived next to him.

They both maintained their high-speed pace, but Kyousuke did not reject the boy either and continued running as planned.

This was the Hatter, the leader of another group. That group had the most people in it. He was even older than the Queen of Hearts and, from Kyousuke’s perspective, he looked almost like he belonged with the adults. He had messy blond hair, dark skin, and a strong body.

Instead of a surgical gown with pants like Kyousuke, he casually wore a white jacket without a necktie. And true to his assigned name, he had a small straw hat on his head. But that hat had a silverwork decoration wrapped around it, so it looked a lot like a crown.

He gave off a similar scent to that man from Illegal. Or perhaps it was the scent of a Central or South American criminal organization.

It was obvious from the way the fabric was used, but his outfit probably had not been made by Kyoumi. Everyone else had been daunted by the humongous closet, but he had looked through the tens of thousands of options and found the optimal combination on his own.

In other words, he had spontaneously left the rails set by the adults.

And Shiroyama Kyoumi had called him a berserker.

Even in Lewis Carroll’s already absurd and nonsensical story, the Hatter on his card was known for being insane and broken.

“If you’re headed south, are you taking a class with someone? Like with Kuresawa?”

“With Shigara-san.”

“Madam Professor, huh? I doubt you’ll get much out of that anytime soon…”

“But she seems to be the most normal. Both in the theories she presents and in her personality.”

The Hatter laughed scornfully.

They were conversing while running at an above average pace, but neither of them seemed at all out of breath.

“That’s a good one.”

He was the madman.

He had been given the role deemed nonsensical even in a children’s story full of absurdities.

“But, Kyousuke, you’re probably the only specimen who finds any solace in the fact that someone’s the ‘most normal’.”

“…”

“Does Biondetta look normal to you? Or for someone else near you, what about Kyoumi? Don’t make me laugh. They’re warped in their own ways. Not that I’m one to talk when I’m the craziest of us all. For one thing, it isn’t normal to be taken to this Miniature Garden. We were invited here to the far end of the world, so there had to be some reason we were selected. That’s how it works. So,” continued the Hatter. “I’m curious about you. If we were going to rank the 15 of us, Humpty Dumpty and the Jabberwock might end up higher than you. But I’m still curious. My nose for combat ignores my crazy brain and I can’t stop myself from talking. Shiroyama Kyousuke, the strangest and least normal one here is you, the one who looks the most normal. After all…”

He arrived at a certain conclusion.

“You were still the most normal when we had our first experience with the Summoning Ceremony and made our contract with the Three.”

They stopped moving.

Their high-speed pace came to a sudden end because the Hatter held a long spear-like stick out horizontally to block Kyousuke’s path.

It was a Blood-Sign.

That crystallization of human knowledge could freely summon otherworldly beings and even used the gods in heaven as a stepping stone to reach even greater heights.

Their shapes and materials varied, but the Hatter’s started as a single silver coin. At some point, more and more coins stacked on top of the one in his hand until it had transformed into a long and heavy metal rod.

“You’d normally be afraid when something like this is suddenly handed to you. And when you learn that gods exist so nearby and that our damned human hands can control the laws of heaven.”

This boy did not judge people based on their size or age.

That madman judged all threats equally if he deemed them to be insane.

“You’d normally tremble in fear when you learn you’ll be cut off from normal society and will be forgotten by normal people once you leave their field of vision. It isn’t that I really want to head outside or that I want go around working to help people in society. But even if it’s only a hypothetical, it’s hard to accept that someone else took away the option to live a normal life.”

Had there been any meaning in him drawing the Hatter card?

Was he someone who measured the size of people’s heads and gave form to something to contain them?

“It would make sense to tear at your hair and writhe on the floor. It was only the very first step and we were already at that level. And yet you’ve somehow managed to maintain yourself. That’s because you weren’t normal in the first place. What I’m saying is…you’re weird. It’s weird that you can stay normal while you accept this decidedly abnormal environment. In fact, did you even bind a contract there?”

The hatter quietly stared at him.

His eyes may have contained madness, but they were steady.

Strangely, his eyes seemed more focused on reality than anyone else’s.

“Who exactly are you?”

“…”

“Why are you here? You’re the most normal and the most deeply involved, so it doesn’t feel like you were ‘brought’ here.”

That was when a quiet metallic sound reached them.

Instead of from ahead, behind, left, or right, it came from directly above. It came from the tall, tall Great Ceiling. Something was tangled around the steel beams from which the countless halogen lights hung. It was a dark shadow. It was an octopus-like dark blue night combat uniform with a gas mask. In addition to the two legs, mechanical tentacles extended from the waist and wrapped around the steel beams.

The figure stood upside down and motionlessly readied a carbine with a grenade launcher equipped on the bottom.

The adults had said they would not interfere with the 15’s life.

But that had been retracted thanks to the threat approaching Kyousuke’s throat.

Faced with that inhuman accuracy, the Hatter sighed and put away the silver coin Blood-Sign. The coins fell away, but not a single one was heard hitting the floor. They all vanished into empty air.

“The guards, huh?”

They relied on guns, but since they could perceive Kyousuke and the others, they likely had Awards. Since they were not focused on summoning, they may have stopped below 100 to maintain a compromise with the real world.

“They have to know the superiority of guns isn’t gonna cut it.”

But the Hatter had not fallen back because he feared the bullets.

He had more to say as he left.

“I think there was meaning in the cards we chose at the beginning. You could call it fate.”

“…And what did you see in the Hatter?”

“First, that I’m unexplainably insane. And second, that I’m obsessed with crowns.”

The madman laughed and poked at his temple.

“And I’m not talking about this straw hat thing. Taking on bulletproof armor and bullets won’t get you anywhere. The expenses will just keep piling up and you won’t have anything to show for it. If you head into the mountains with a nice polished hunting rifle, you don’t just want shoot some crows and rats, right?”

“…”

“I want to fight someone with a larger crown on their name. Now that would be worth stuffing and mounting on the wall. Shiroyama Kyousuke, you’re probably the master of this mountain. And the crown on your head isn’t anything as cheap as ‘strongest’ or ‘invincible’ is it?”

The Hatter turned down another road.

Sensing the threat had passed, the gas mask figure up above moved his or her tentacles to leave.

Left all alone, Kyousuke stared in the direction the madman had gone.

The way that boy spoke, no one would believe anything he said. And he seemed to enjoy that, so he showed no sign of changing.

But how much of the truth had he seen in Kyousuke?

Had he seen through to the foundation of the Fifteen Siblings Project? Or had he seen through the next thin layer and to what lay even deeper?

Facts

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