Mitou Shoukan://Blood-Sign

Volume 4, Epilogue

“It” was a lot like the beating of a heart.

A boy was curled up in the depths of true despair. His arms and legs were drawn in, his forehead was scraping against the ground, his body was curled up, and he was trembling ever so slightly. His eyes were squeezed shut, his teeth were clenched together, and he floated in psychological darkness as if to push away this hopeless reality as much as possible.

But none if it mattered.

“It” was deeply connected to the boy’s heart and body, but he had no control over it.

His heart whispered for him to give up.

He wanted to.

But he had a thought.

He was clearly a human here.

It would be easy to stop breathing, stop his heart, and give up on it all. Looking at just himself, he could easily end it all at any time. But that would change nothing for the world. A single life would give up and the Queen’s violence would continue.

Was that okay?

Was that really okay?

Even if the boy vanished, the world would not. Who would remain in that world? The concept of karma was already in tatters, the idea of just deserts no longer applied, and both unreasonable suffering and absurd fear ran rampant. What would happen to the people there if they lost the means of salvation that could desperately pull a few of them to safety?

He could despair in himself.

He could despair in the world.

He could despair in the Queen.

But how could he despair in any one of them? How could he abandon the girls he had saved, pretend it had not happened, and sit idly by as they sank back into that sea of blood?

Someone had asked for help.

Those twin sisters had initially looked nothing alike with their black and blonde hair. The one had wished to save the other from the giant worshipping group named Guard of Honor. The other had wished to save the first from the Queen’s game.

Someone else had asked for help.

A girl had been attacked and turned into a ghost on a rainy day. Her story had already ended. But a number of factors and countless places had overlapped in that city and she had wanted to live, to grow up, and to become someone that a certain someone else could respect, even if it meant distorting all of that.

Someone had shouted for help.

A vessel had been polished to the limit by artificial means. She had wanted to free her friend from the desire for revenge that should never have been acted on but was drawn out by a demon who saw herself as a tool of revenge.

Someone had definitely shouted for help in this piece of sheet world.

A woman had looked just like Madam Professor. 353 vessels had lost their bodies and souls and yet had worked to manipulate both Alice (with) Rabbit and the White Queen to ensure it never happened again.

There were more and more and more and more.

He had met many Alices. Their situations had been truly awful and no one would have blamed them if they resented everything they saw, but those girls had continued to look ahead. They had continued to believe there was a way ahead. And they had reached out and grabbed that tiny speck of hope left in this hopelessly filthy world.

Could he take that away?

Could he give up?

Could he rob them of that?

Could he steal away the light they had so desperately reached for and throw them back into the mud known as the Queen? And this time, there would be no going back. He knew that bog was truly bottomless.

“How can I…?”

The boy…

Shiroyama Kyousuke spoke quietly while still curled up.

“How can I do that?”

His voice gradually grew louder as it escaped the gaps between his clenched teeth.

There was a fire in his chest.

His uncontrollable pulse circulated something to his entire body.

“Yes, yes. I will fight back…”

And he finally raised his head.

He once more faced a barren world void of any hope.

He was truly Alice (with) Rabbit. Freedom Award 903 made a powerful announcement.

“I will fight back, I will dig in my heels, and I will continue to struggle!! How can I give up here? Even if this world is a labyrinth with all the exits removed and even if this is a one-sided chess board leaving no way to put white in checkmate! I will still do whatever it takes to put together a means of defeating the Queen!!!!!”

A tremendous sound filled the air.

After curling up for so long, Shiroyama Kyousuke gathered strength in all his muscles to force apart his skin that had stuck together and he once more stood tall to face the world.

He blew away the psychological darkness.

And in that scene that existed in the real world, he ignored his reeling head and the wounds on his chest as he spread his arms, bent backwards, and roared toward heaven with all his might.

“You sit up there in the deepest, deepest depths of the other world and you laugh all you like! You gave me the name Alice (with) Rabbit!! And I, Shiroyama Kyousuke, will be the summoner who makes the impossible possibleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!”

The boy would no longer hesitate.

He had become aware of another weakness, stepped past it, and grown stronger.

The summoners who used Blood-Signs to use the gods in heaven as stepping stones had a certain rule:

Don’t reject the fear.

Accept the fear and smile at the fact that a method like that even exists.

Somewhere at some time, a monster giggled with her hands behind her head. Her silver hair was worn in twintails and her white wedding dress had been made even more splendid and had silver decorations added in places.

When she recalled that adorable, adorable boy’s words and reflected on them, she almost always gained that happy expression.

He had said this:

“I later met that developer in the Queen’s Miniature Garden, so she was pretty clearly a genius.”

A certain person had written her own words into the excess space in a corner of Pandemonium’s mainframe.

Shigara Masami was one of those involved in that boy and that girl’s very foundation.

“She wrote this in the Box’s blank space: ‘If Pandemonium is activated, it will bring about 59 major categories and 187,600 specific methods to end the world. I included countermeasures for every last one of them, so please use your judgement to hold off those worst case scenarios’!”

Shiroyama Kyousuke and the White Queen.

This woman of extraordinary intelligence had set foot in the inviolable space between them.

Or a trace of her had.

“And she also wrote this: ‘Just because the White Queen is the strongest is no reason to allow her to kill’!! I inherited Madam Professor’s will and, in so doing, I tore victory from your grasp, Queen. You may be the strongest or whatever else, but you can’t interfere with the bonds between people. You can’t intervene in the time people have spent together. Taking someone’s life isn’t enough to break those bonds! That final trap was probably meant to spit not on me but on the effort she put into planning the destruction of Pandemonium, but these things can’t be shaken by that!!”

Of course he had relied on it.

The boy must have felt incredible relief when he had found it.

Just like a kitten desperately kneading a freshly washed towel because it could never forget the warmth of its mother.

But there was one thing the boy did not know.

Only the Queen knew.

Just because the White Queen is the strongest is no reason to allow her to kill.

The boy had clung to that decisive statement.

It was true that sounded like a request to defeat the Queen as quickly as possible to keep the damage to a minimum.

But at the same time, didn’t a slight change of viewpoint provide a different interpretation?

Do not let the White Queen be a bad person any longer.

Return her to her senses.

He had overlooked it.

It had all been right in front of his eyes, but he had performed the search wrong.

One side of the coin was painted white and the other black. Shiroyama Kyousuke had flipped the coin and placed it on the back of his hand. And he had been satisfied after simply looking at which side pointed up.

Perhaps that sort of paper-thin difference perfectly described the close yet distant relationship between the summoner and the Queen who could never cross paths.

“Yes, but…”

The White Queen alone giggled with her hands behind her head.

She thoroughly reflected on that wonderfully stimulating result.

“It would be quite boring if that tear-jerking farce was enough for you to wither away, brother.”

The White Queen once more disappeared into the light.

She was looking forward to her next encounter with someone.

For the next battle, for another date, for a hopeless hell.

A path of conflict was blooming.

In a way, it was the stage on which the rabbit and ****(star star star star) could most shine.

The seeds had been sown, watered, and given plenty of sunlight.

The dreaming girl only had to wait for her psychedelic flower of love to bloom.

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