Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume2 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 8===

Once it was time for all the students to leave, Shiroyama Kyousuke ran into Librarian-chan in the hallway.

“Huh? Shiroyama-kun, you’re not in a club, so what were you doing all this time?”

“The main job of a student, I guess.”

“?”

The student council president had been dragged back to her home ground when the other executives came crying to her. Not even Kyousuke knew what had happened to her. She may have been living up to her self-proclaimed titles of peerless in battle and invincible by beating up the rampaging Secretary and Treasurer with the crane style.

Kyousuke and Librarian-chan walked down the hall while chatting.

The fluorescent lights had already been switched off, so the only illumination came from the city lights outside. The raindrops hitting the windows placed an amoeba-like filter over the outside scenery.

“They keep talking about that Rainy Screen, but will anyone actually visit an amusement park when it keeps raining like this?”

“…”

“Librarian-chan?”

“Eh, ah!? R-right, right. But things seem pretty busy at work. They say a lot of people are gathering for the novelty of it all. Although the concept itself is pretty simple. They’re just using a projector to display video footage on all the raindrops while playing the sound with directional speakers.”

Kyousuke wondered if she no longer cared about her name, but he decided it would be best not to ask.

“Does that mean you have part-time work after your library work? That must be tough.”

“Tell me about it. The Rainy Screen is supposed to be for people to watch from their hotels or cars on rainy nights, and today I’m working at a delivery service for sports cars on the vehicle bridges. You know, the one that relies on their smartphone’s GPS and guarantees the food will be there in thirty minutes or less. That isn’t a job to do in the rain.”

“That sounds like a dangerous job for a girl to be doing at night.”

“J-just cause it’s night doesn’t mean there will be ghosts!! D-dyon’t be so unshientific!”

“Not what I meant. Over the phone, you can’t tell if the order is going to one man all on his own, right? And if you’re delivering to a car, he can park in some deserted place and claim it’s just a nice quiet spot to view the scenery.”

“We always head out in groups of two and we’re issued mace and stun guns.”

“And why didn’t you think of the possibility of those being taken from you and used against you? If they order from a stolen phone, the data at the store won’t be enough to identify them.”

Librarian-chan froze over at his casual criticism. She seemed to have belatedly realized just how thin of ice she had been treading on.

“Heh. Eh heh heh. By the way, Shiroyama-kun, are you free tonight? Do you maybe have plans to coincidentally take the exact same route as me!?”

“No thanks! That sounds like a huge pain in the ass! I’d be out in the rain all night doing the exact same thing as you, so why would I be the only one not getting paid!?”

“As a bonus, you’d get to have a walking date with a girl and you wouldn’t have to pay for dinner! The place I work is French, so the veal is really good!!”

“Ghh…!?”

He was once more struck by the same effect as the butter on the salt butter ramen.

This was veal. Not just beef. Veal.

He had no idea if the veal would be stewed, grilled, or whatever else, but the power of the word “veal” just about took his soul away.

“It’s the exact same substance, it’s the exact same substance. There’s no difference in the molecular structure…mumble mumble…”

“But it’s veal! C’mon, c’mon! Even if it’s just the leftovers for the workers, you don’t get to eat that often, right?”

“Y-you’re not bad for a Librarian-chan.”

“That’s destroying my character, so use my name. And I take it that means you agree to go with me?”

“I guess I can if it means veal, but are you headed there now? Or is there some time in between?”

“Hm? Does it matter?”

She would forget this promise as soon as she took her eyes off of him, but he had no way of explaining that. And using a cellphone to regroup with someone who had forgotten about you was a lot more difficult than it sounded. Until he was in their field of vision again, they would never remember no matter how many times he explained it in words.

“My shift begins at 7:30, so…oh, we’re actually cutting it pretty close. We might not make it if the trains are stopped due to an accident or something. Anyway, let’s start by heading to S Block. That’s where the restaurant is.”

“I guess I’ll be nice and point it out: you’re using me for insurance, but I’m a guy too. Are you sure you should be bringing me into deserted areas at night?”

“What? You’re completely safe, Shiroyama-kun. You’re like someone from an educational puppet show, not someone from a Monday night drama. We could be alone in a hotel with pink wallpaper and nothing would happen.”

The summoner decided he was not going to shed any tears.

So he responded with a serious look on his face.

“Now, then. I think it’s about time I chose ''not'' to save someone for once.”

“Wah!! Wait, wait, wait! If you back out now, I’ll cry, I’ll hate you, and I’ll piss myself in fear right in front of you!!”

Footsteps fled down the dark hallway and more footsteps pursued them.

But Kyousuke screwed up when he lost too much time changing into his leather shoes in the entrance area. Librarian-chan managed to grab the back of his blazer.

“I can’t believe you! I really can’t believe you! You get me that scared and then you seriously try to run off!? If I hadn’t grabbed you here, you would’ve run off into the rain, wouldn’t you have!?”

“I guess I should’ve thrown out all common sense and left in my indoor shoes.”

“You monster!! How can you do that when a girl is in serious trouble!?”

Librarian-chan sounded like she was about to erupt, but then she came to an abrupt stop.

There was a simple reason.

All of the school’s announcement speakers exploded.

No, they only burst with a great cacophony far removed from the kind of noise they were meant to produce.

As a summoner, Kyousuke was relatively accustomed to bright lights and great noises during battle, but even he grimaced and covered his ears at this deafening vortex of noise. It seemed to be coming from the school’s speakers, but some of the speakers may have truly been broken by the very noise they were producing.

The wall of sound continued for about ten seconds.

After that, all sound vanished.

A thought occurred to Shiroyama Kyousuke amid a silence so intense it almost hurt his hears.

(That noise… It was some out-of-tune electronic tones that lasted about ten seconds. Was it…''the school chime''?)

Even the sound of the falling rain sounded distant.

He also realized Librarian-chan had not said anything for a while.

She was looking at something and had entirely ''forgotten'' that Kyousuke was right next to her.

She was looking outside.

She was looking beyond the school entrance.

After spotting something there, her eyes had widened and her entire body had stiffened.

(What’s there…?)

Kyousuke turned his head to look that way while an absurd rumor came to mind.

The ghost story had spread across Japan and the entire world thanks to the internet.

One had to be careful when a distorted version of the school chime played on a rainy night.

That was a sign that the Rainy Girl was going to appear.

“…cha…”

A scratchy noise escaped Librarian-chan’s lips.

Shiroyama Kyousuke saw it too.

[[Image:BloodSign_v02_089.jpg|thumb]]

The rain continued to pour outside the entranceway and a girl of only ten to thirteen stood there. However, he was unsure if the term “cute” applied.

First, the girl’s face was hidden behind a battered umbrella.

Second, the girl’s raincoat was stained red.

As a professional, Kyousuke understood. That amount of blood was far beyond a lethal amount. And based on the muddiness of the blood, it was not fresh blood that had just erupted from a wound.

Nevertheless, she stood there.

She stood in Shiroyama Kyousuke and Librarian-chan’s way as if to not let them leave the school.

She was a ghost.

She was the Rainy Girl.

She had lost her life in a gruesome incident from the past and now she appeared on the way back from school for some reason.

That was how Kyousuke interpreted the situation.

But he was wrong.

A moment later, Librarian-chan moved her trembling lips to speak.

“Onee-chan…?”