Mitou Shoukan://Blood-Sign

“Sayuri! I’m here. Right on time, aren’t I?”

“Nuuun (deadpan). My name is Isabelle.”

(Ending X-01 Open 05/24 10:00)

The Girls’ Slight Hope

The night came to an end.

Isabelle, the girl in a red military uniform, was in a park of Toy Dream 35’s P Block.

Shiroyama Kyousuke had agreed to meet her here, but he had not shown up. The pumpkin costume and Oni girl around her were walking and chatting, but time seemed to have stopped where she was.

Despite the crowds, she was left to stand alone in front of a fountain, but then her cellphone range.

“Nuuun (deadpan)? Where are you?”

“Nearby. This will all be over soon.”

Kyousuke sounded the same as always.

“You don’t need to worry about Murasame Kuina. At the very least, she won’t be manipulated by Beyondetta and she won’t be turned into a toy for revenge as a vessel.”

“Did you use that Girl’s Backdoor?”

“No, they were defeated in a battle with a summoner, so I could guide them using the shock of seeing their G.o.d killed. I gave Beyondetta two instructions: end your contract with Murasame Kuina and surrender to Government. Binding such a complex contract would be impossible in that mindless state, but ending one is doable. …At the very least, the incident concerning the Anthills should be over.”

“I super-sized want to know what’s going to happen to Murasame Kuina.”

“You’ll have to ask her about that one. She was being controlled by Beyondetta throughout her entire quest for revenge, so she can force that through and get an acquittal. But if she wants to be punished, then I don’t think doing that would qualify as saving her. That said, it wouldn’t really be right to dig up a desire for punishment now that her contract was cancelled and she’s forgotten everything.”

“…”

Isabelle fell silent for a moment.

Her expression did not look at home in a morning park.

“I don’t understand even a small-sized bit what happiness is.”

“Neither do I. I feel like I’ve been wondering that all my life.”

Kyousuke spat out the words and then changed the subject.

“I would also like to solve another problem.”

“?”

“Murasame Kuina…your friend is no longer a vessel, so she’s back to being a normal person. That might sound like a happy ending, but it isn’t really. Your problem remains.”

“You mean…?”

“You’re still Alice (with) Rabbit’s vessel. As a normal person, Murasame Kuina will forget about you the instant she looks away. …We can’t have that, can we? If we end this like that, I don’t think we’ve really saved Murasame Kuina.”

“But if you end our contract…”

“Yes, you’ll forget about me. Until you see me again or bind a contract with a new summoner.”

He readily admitted it.

He sounded like he had said goodbye this way many times before.

“I spoke with Government about it. You don’t need to be manipulated by the Anthill Project any longer. I can’t turn you back into Kawamo Sayuri, but Isabelle won’t have to have anything more taken from her.”

“Wait.”

“I’m not waiting.”

“I super-sized want you to wait!!”

“ ‘Help my friend.’ …Who said that? Sorry, but you alone aren’t my top priority. I’m going to think about what’s best for both you and Murasame Kuina.”

Isabelle heard a slight noise.

Someone stood beyond the crowd.

It was Shiroyama Kyousuke.

It was the white rabbit who would guide a girl to the exit once she wandered into another world.

He lightly bit his right index finger so a drop of blood appeared and he held that fingertip out toward Isabelle.

He could see her with the naked eye.

He pointed at her.

Isabelle realized that was the sign of blood that released a summoner and vessel from their contract.

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“What are you going to do once you save me?”

“I don’t know.”

Kyousuke answered with a faint, faint smile that she was unsure how to describe.

“What do I want to do?”

A transparent sound seemed to ring deep in her head.

The next thing she knew, Isabelle could not remember why she was standing here.

(Oh, right. I was meeting someone here.)

She quickly looked through the crowd filling the morning park.

She was looking for a familiar face in a desperate attempt to remember who it was.

And…

And…

And…

“Sayuri! I’m here. Right on time, aren’t I?”

When a voice reached her from the side and someone grabbed her slender hand, Isabelle finally remembered.

Yes.

That was right.

Hadn’t she been waiting for her friend Murasame Kuina?

“Nuuun (deadpan). My name is Isabelle.”

“Yes, yes. I don’t know if you’re trying to make a new impression in middle school or if it’s your screenname, but I guess I’ll go along with it. What should we do today? Let’s start by going around to the shopping district’s accessory shops. At lunchtime, we can find a restaurant somewhere. And after that…well, we can figure it out as we go!”

As the girl tugged on her arm, Isabelle vanished into the crowd. She became a part of the crowd and a part of normal society. In turn, she distanced herself from the world of the Summoning Ceremony.

As she spoke with her friend, she looked around just once.

But she did not see any other familiar faces among all the similar-looking faces of the crowd.

“…”

Kyousuke watched as Isabelle disappeared into the crowd.

He did not speak a word.

He did not wave.

He only wished for her safety, turned his back, and left the park through a different exit.

 Ending X-02: A Demonstration of the White Queen’s True Character

“Feel despair, Shiroyama Kyousuke.”

“Even if you do learn the truth, you have not even a one in a million chance of defeating the White Queen.”

(Ending X-02 Open 05/23 19:30 Attention! “Reverse Count”)

A Demonstration of the White Queen’s True Character

It was 7:30 PM of the previous day.

Freedom Award 920, Liar Cat, aka Beyondetta Shiroyama had just been defeated on the deck of the Repligla.s.s Stingray.

With the defeat of that sole threat, the Stingray and its evacuation operation had no reason to continue. It was now stopped and rocking in the waves below Toy Dream 35’s high-rise buildings.

Several Repligla.s.s soldier were putting out fires and rescuing people on the badly damaged deck. A great variety of tools were scattered about: fire hoses, stretchers, first aid kits, and firefighting axes for breaking through bent doors.

In the midst of all that, Maria Heartocean spoke cheerfully after removing her Water Bear.

“Looks like everything’s finally settling down.”

Her life had been targeted, her many Government bodyguards had been defeated, and Kyousuke had thrown her crucial server into the ocean, but she did not seem bothered by any of it.

Kyousuke winked.

“We saved your life and destroyed that cla.s.sified information in exchange. I’m not sure that’s a fair trade, but I’m from selfish Freedom and I accepted the job from Isabelle, not you.”

He was not telling her to accept it.

He was only saying that any complaints would lead to round 2.

“Oh, I know that. You’re with Freedom and I’m with Government. Of course we have different principles. And I was well aware it would come back to bite me in some way if I tried to asked for help from a group of eccentrics who could easily destroy the world in their pursuit of personal freedom.”

“…”

“Also, this outcome wasn’t all that bad for me. …But you knew that, didn’t you?”

“You mean you didn’t want to continue the Anthill Project? For the supposed world police, I did think Government had agreed to an awful lot of plans that would end up sacrificing you. Did you want to be taken out by Beyondetta’s revenge?”

“Well, it was never anything more than a way of drawing in funding for my soul research which has no end in sight.”

Maria gave a self-deprecating smile.

“I thought showing a theoretical possibility would be enough…but wouldn’t you know it? I underestimated the greed of the higher ups. The next thing I knew, the gigantic steel ball was rolling and I was too weak to stop it alone. I had started rolling the s...o...b..ll down the hill, so it would’ve been silly to be crushed by it. I really was at my wit’s end.”

Maria Heartocean stopped speaking there.

Her eyes narrowed as she looked at a small girl in a military uniform who was working with the Government soldiers to wrap bandages around the arms and legs of the wounded.

“How am I supposed to apologize to those children?”

“You can spend the rest of your life on that question. At the very least, I say anyone who has a shot at a second chance in life should count themselves lucky.”

He seemed to be implying he had not been one of those people

The two of them fell silent for a while.

Finally, Maria spoke up again while toying with the bolo tie at her chest.

“Then instead of confessing my sins, can I tell you something? My sins are something only someone who can follow my research can understand.”

“What is it?”

“To start with, the higher ups were so fixated on the Anthills because they saw them as more than just a stable way of ma.s.s-producing vessels. They were interested in the ability to tune someone’s soul to increase their compatibility with a specific Unexplored-cla.s.s. To the point that they can hold a one-on-one conversation just like a certain someone can.”

“…”

For a moment, pure white evil slipped into the back of Shiroyama Kyousuke’s mind, but…

“Oh, no, no. It isn’t that. It is true we used the remains of the Queen’s Miniature Garden to construct this project, but that wasn’t our aim this time. The Unexplored-cla.s.s we were after wasn’t the White Queen.”

“Then what was it?”

“Government’s Protector as one of the Three,” said Maria.

That was a Material with an exceptional legend different from that of the White Queen.

“The ‘Red-Eyed’ Lady who Sees Through all Sin and Calamity (f a – a o – a b – e i – f j – c i b – b – d u – a – e i f).”

Maria tossed him something.

It looked like a smartphone, but it was not. It was likely a device built from scratch in a Government research facility rather than a commercial product.

“If you use that, you can hold a pseudo-conversation with the Red Lady kept in a stable state within the Box…Anyway, the mechanical prompt just wasn’t enough. The higher ups decided that a human mind and mouth are needed to process it.”

“Kept in a stable state within the Box…?”

It hit Kyousuke after he repeated her words.

He realized the true ident.i.ty of the supposed server he had thrown into the sea.

“You don’t mean…!?”

“Well, after what you did, who can say how long it will last. The system might have already been destroyed, but I’ll give you the chance. You’re at a dead-end when it comes to the White Queen, aren’t you? Then it might not be a bad idea to rely on a superhuman mind. And luck would have it, the Three are well known for taking extremely good care of mankind.”

With that said, Maria waved and walked off.

Left alone, Kyousuke stared at the device in his hand for a while.

With that, he could reach a fragment of knowledge beyond human reach? He could contact a being with an “easy to grasp” intelligence who had become one of the Three because she actually wanted to protect a human organization?

Could he receive information on the White Queen’s ident.i.ty, traits, and weaknesses from a nonhuman viewpoint?

“…”

He realized his fingers were trembling.

He had trouble controlling those fingers, but he managed to press the small b.u.t.ton.

Light filled the screen.

The next thing he knew, something like a hologram appeared before his eyes.

The world had changed.

The Red Lady’s actual body looked like a pale girl of about eighteen. She wore red lacquered geta on her feet, so she may not have been as tall as she looked. She had endlessly long red hair and a maple pattern kimono that had no obi and was left fully open in the front. Inside that, she wore something like a one-piece swimsuit colored the same shade of red.

Two horns protruded sharply from her forehead.

Her red eyes provided the frightening impression that one glance would send all calamity your way…no, define all calamity around you. But those eyes were currently hidden behind smooth eyelids.

And in addition to her actual body, a set of frighteningly ma.s.sive interlocking gears could be seen behind her. They glistened as if from lacquer and they were made of wood. They looked like giant tropical flowers and like a loom that weaved the threads of destiny and lifespan for all things. And red threads that looked like laser beams extended in every direction from the giant gears. A closer look showed that those red threads were actually her endlessly long hair. That seemed to show that she ruled over destiny itself.

Simply put, she was the “Red-Eyed” Lady who Sees Through all Sin and Calamity.

She was not on the White Queen’s level, but she was one of the Unexplored-cla.s.s as well as one of the Three who did not hesitate to lend their power to humans.

Shiroyama Kyousuke gulped in front of this image that was easily larger than twenty meters, making it larger than the standard Artificial Sacred Ground.

He was unsure what to say.

A wrong choice here could negatively affect the battle with the White Queen that was surely coming. He had nothing to base that on, but he clearly understood it as true.

“…Can you hear me?”

The puny summoner finally made up his mind and spoke to the higher being.

“Can you hear what I’m saying, Red Lady?”

The girl in the half-worn kimono slowly turned her head.

The eyes that brought ruin remained closed.

Kyousuke was not entirely sure what “here” meant.

Were the Materials not alone in the other world where they drifted? Did they have some form of community that allowed them to exchange information? How? For what purpose? Using what language? At what level of intelligence? Were there walls between the Regulation-, Divine-, and Unexplored-cla.s.ses? His human logic was not enough to picture it.

“I didn’t become this way by choice.”

“So I want you to tell me something that can help me break free! Before the White Queen uses me as she sees fit and destroys me!!”

The Red Lady fell silent.

Maria had mentioned that the prompt was not enough. It was possible something was lacking in translating human language into the logic or equations of another world. But those fears proved unnecessary.

The Red Lady resumed speaking soon enough.

“What…?”

“What are you talking about…?”

Kyousuke shook his head like he had seen something unbelievable.

“I know the White Queen is the strongest. There’s no possible answer besides her there. But…but that’s no reason to give up, right!? Someone has to do something, right!? It can be a simultaneous attack from all of the Three or a saturation attack from all of the Unexplored-cla.s.s! Please tell me, Red Lady! I don’t care how difficult it would be to pull off!! I’ll find a way to do it!! So…!!”

But the Red Lady did not answer his pleas.

She slowly shook her head.

It was like a parent speaking kindly to a stubborn child. It was like a parent correcting her child’s mistaken idea that pushing on the front of the car from the seat would move it forward.

“…”

“How…?”

Kyousuke felt faint.

He knew humans would give in to the White Queen. He understood that the Regulation- and Divine-cla.s.ses would be too afraid to fight properly.

But was even the Unexplored-cla.s.s a lost cause?

Was this the only answer he would get even from the Three at the top?

“How can you just give up…? Are you giving into her strength, Red Lady!? You must have an intelligence and rationality similar to a human’s. You must have a sense of ethics and responsibility That’s why you approach the human world and give us the Awards!! So you must have noticed the White Queen’s evil! Don’t you understand how disgusting an act it would be to let her have her way!?”

The Red Lady seemed to ooze sadness as she continued to shake her head.

“…”

“What…?”

This incident had begun with a mysterious transfer student and the Girl’s Backdoors. It had centered on the Anthill Project and a girl seeking revenge. And it had all been controlled by Beyondetta who had remade it all to her liking and enjoyed her rampage.

But Shiroyama Kyousuke had supposedly ended it all.

What about that could be depressingly silly?

asked the Red Lady.

“…”

The Lady spoke clearly with her eyes closed.

“Wait a second.”

Shiroyama Kyousuke felt an unpleasant itching rising from his left wrist to his elbow.

But it was not on the skin. It was a strange sensation coming from much deeper in his body.

The Lady was not mistaken.

It was said she could see through and even define all calamity, and her words were cruelly accurate.

The Red Lady spoke her conclusion with a look of true and utter sadness.

His mind was burned away by bright white sparks before breaking into a million pieces.

“Uuh…”

He was rotting.

He was being infected.

Kyousuke felt unbelievable despair at still having that thing – that left arm – still attached to his body.

She was not mocking him.

It was the true pity in her voice that caused each word to tear into Kyousuke’s puny soul.

This was not a device that allowed the user to control someone.

Beyondetta may have thought that was what she had created, but she had been dead wrong.

Was it a curse the White Queen could use to infect and manipulate those foolish summoners and vessels from within!?

Had Murasame Kuina, Beyondetta, the many other users, and even Shiroyama Kyousuke himself been manipulated by her and turned into her playthings!!!???

“Owaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

Kyousuke realized he was screaming.

He did not hesitate for an instant. He grabbed one of the tools from the Stingray’s deck. It was a firefighting axe. The dull blade was meant to break through bent doors to secure an exit, but he grabbed it in his right hand and immediately swung it down toward his own left arm…the arm wearing the Girl’s Backdoor.

A heavy thunk.

Dizzyingly intense pain.

And what did he get in return?

In that crimson world of the Red Lady.

Shiroyama Kyousuke finally grasped freedom.

As he clenched his teeth and his vision flashed in and out, he saw an unimaginable scene.

His severed left arm rolled along the deck and a thin silver hair crawled out of the dark red cut like a strange parasite.

And it used Kyousuke’s own blood to write a red message on the Stingray’s deck.

“Ahh, ahh. Just a little further and you would have been mine, brother.”

He stopped breathing.

Even his flashing vision froze over as the tiny, crammed-together writing dove into the depths of his mind.

“Whether I could rewrite your soul or not, if these hairs had reached your brain, brother, they could have bound your brain, mixed our thoughts together, and given us the perfect happy ending. Honestly, the world belongs to me, but it never does what I tell it to. But it is true that acquiring you so easily would have been boring, so in that way the world may have planned everything out for the best. Hee hee hee. Oh, but, brother. I love the brave resolve that led you to chop off your own arm the instant you knew the truth. It’s just so very like you and so very cute, but I do wish you would show more care for your own body. That’s your one and only body, brother. And while I can allow any torment if it comes from me, I honestly do not like it much when someone other than me hurts you. But I’m not going to deny your agency or dignity as an individual. Oh, then how about this? If you are ever going to harm your own body again – let’s say, gouging out an eye, pulling out a tooth, severing a limb, or digging out an organ – then consult me first and tell me about it in advance. Oh, dear. I think I’m being a little too lenient. Is this what they call being the perfect wife? But brother, make no mistake here. Even if I’m being kind, that doesn’t mean you can grow dependent on me. If I see any sign of that, I will punish you right away, so don’t say I didn’t warn you. Yes, and this would be a punishment from me, the strongest who rules above the Regulation-cla.s.s, the Divine-cla.s.s, and even the rest of the Unexplored-cla.s.s. Hee hee hee. Brother, you might be the only thing in the world capable of maintaining your original form after a punishment from me. That would make it quite a rare experience. Yes, very rare. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. This isn’t good. You haven’t even done anything, but I’m starting to feel like punishing you just for fun. If you like, why not pull some kind of prank; it doesn’t matter what. Hee hee. Hee hee hee. Oh, that’s right. You just cut off your own arm without even trying to tell me. Honestly, brother. You actually predicted I would feel this way and set everything up for me? This level of mutual feelings can only be called love. Yes, let’s call it that, brother.”

“…!!!???”

Kyousuke was shocked speechless as he watched the left arm continue to creepily twitch and wriggle.

This was truly a glimpse of the Queen.

With Beyondetta, he had only felt displeasure and disgust. He had not felt the White Queen’s insanity and fear that seemed to widen every pore on his body just from seeing it.

Now that he could sense it again, he understood.

The Queen was decisive. She was a one-and-only evil that no one could a.n.a.lyze, reproduce, or use. Even a single hair had done this. She broke the rules so badly that the effects and abilities of the Girl’s Backdoor no longer even mattered. He became painfully aware that, even at her worst, Beyondetta had been “merely human”.

This surpa.s.sed all the limits. It shook free of the world’s upper capacity.

“…Gah…”

But that was all.

Kyousuke was facing his true enemy, but there was nothing he could do.

He had lost quite a lot of blood in exchange for his freedom and he collapsed into the red pool of his own making.

His fading consciousness saw the Red Lady’s sorrowful look.

And she spoke.

He clenched his teeth.

He could only continue to listen.

Everything grew dark. As his consciousness vaguely floated about, he thought he saw the Lady’s tightly closed eyes silently open ever-so-slightly to form blade-like slits.

It was feared that the scarlet light of those eyes could see through and define all calamity.

He could never accept that.

With that in mind, the boy’s mind was thrown into utter darkness.

To take a short rest, he seemed to shelter himself in a world that was the polar opposite of that frightening pure white.

“Wahhh.”

It happened at an unknown time and in an unknown place.

“Wahhhhh. Brother, brother…”

A girl cried in an inhumanly white s.p.a.ce. The twintailed girl wore a splendid dress that looked like a modified wedding dress and she was accompanied by a boy. But if anyone had seen her, they might have been confused why she was crying to him like he was her older brother. She was clearly taller than him and her body was clearly more developed. In fact, she had developed enough to warrant the word “alluring”.

But that apparent relationship may have been accurate.

The small boy frowned and spoke to her.

“What is it, ****?”

“Well, well you see…”

The twintailed girl sniffed and gestured around to make some kind of plea. But as the small boy listened, he breathed an almost exasperated sigh.

No, it was not just “almost” exasperated. It was a sigh of utter exasperation.

“Y’know, ****, that isn’t going to happen.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Really, really? You aren’t going anywhere, brother?”

The small boy looked up at the girl’s red and swollen eyes and nodded just once. He did not need to think about it at all. It was the carefree answer of someone confirming the obvious.

“We’re never going to change and I’m not going anywhere. I’ll stay by your side, ****. If you’re that worried, how about we make a promise?”

The boy held out his right hand’s little finger.

“?”

“We make promises like this. It’s called a pinky swear.”

“What kind of effect does this ritual have, brother?”

“Well.”

On that day, Shiroyama Kyousuke gave the following explanation to the White Queen:

“If you break your promise, you have to cut off your own finger.”