Mitou Shoukan://Blood-Sign Vol 2 Epilogue

“Okay, Onee-chan. See you at lunch.”

“Honestly, you’re just after my food, aren’t you?”

(Ending X-01 Open 05/01 08:20)

After the Nice Ending

The rain had finally let up and it was sunny.

Due to the day of the week, they had to go to school like normal on May 1.

s.h.i.+royama Kyousuke held his thin school bag as he walked along the giant bridge to school. He spotted a familiar face on the way.

It was Rendou Akiya who always wore a girl’s uniform for some reason.

Summoners were forgotten when they were not in someone’s field of vision, so Kyousuke had to call out to his friend to gather his attention.

“Good morning, Akiya-san”

“Oh, hey. Morning. …Why so polite?”

“I’m starting to suspect I have low blood pressure and it’s dragging my mood down pretty low too.”

“If you can joke around like that this early in the morning, you’re doing fine. So don’t worry.”

Rendou sounded bored.

“But this incomplete Golden Week is a real pain in the a.s.s. If only they’d give us tickets for our days off like paid leave for office workers. That’d be better than just – boom! – summer break and then – bam! – winter break.”

“If that happened, won’t we end up in h.e.l.l when a heat wave rolls in?”

“…Maybe so.”

The fact that he complained but showed no sign of actually skipping school may have been a virtue of his.

“By the way, have you heard the latest ghost rumors?”

“What good are those? Unlike soy bean and soy milk trivia, I don’t think ghost stories would be very useful.”

“Now, now. The ghost stories are for scaring the girls so you can escort them down the dark streets at night! You’ll never reach the starting point of romance unless you take advantage of their weaknesses!! And they’ve set up that Rainy Screen event and everything!”

“Rendou, if bringing someone their lost wallet was enough for them to fall in love with you, no one would ever have trouble with love. In fact, it would probably begin a trend of pickpocketing to meet girls.”

“You moron, I said it was the starting point! If you just sit there satisfied with that, you’ll never get anywhere!!”

Rendou Akiya had far too much energy for the early morning, so Kyousuke started to suspect the boy had high blood pressure.

“So what’s this ghost? I seriously doubt it, but it isn’t the Rainy Girl, is it?”

“Hm? What’s that?”

Rendou Akiya gave his confused comment just as the school came into view.

Yes, they could see it.

During the fight with Yasuzumi Hayato and Benikomichi Fuuki, the school building and gym had been destroyed and about half the square midair float had crumbled away, but there was no sign of any of that damage.

It was the usual high school.

It was untouched, as if that battle had never happened.

Meanwhile, the cla.s.smate who chose to wear a girl’s uniform spoke.

“On rainy days, they say you can see the ghost of a guy who saved a girl from an attempted murderer. It’s a happy ending full of justice, so I bet it’s the ghost of some legendary martial artist or martyred policeman.”

s.h.i.+royama Kyousuke smiled just a little.

That was the story now.

Perhaps no one remembered that battle any longer.

Perhaps there no records of it remained.

But…

“Okay, Onee-chan. See you at lunch.”

“Honestly, you’re just after my food, aren’t you?”

He heard those voices.

A single braid swayed within the crowd of students.

Two girls were smiling together there.

“What is it, s.h.i.+royama-chan?” asked Rendou in a curious tone.

“It’s nothing.”

s.h.i.+royama Kyousuke said nothing more and looked away from those two.

This was a kind end to a series of events.

Alice (with) Rabbit walked a different path than the girls who no longer needed saving.

“This won’t happen again, Queen.”

“Yes. Next time, I will make you love me, brother.”

(Ending X-02 Open 05/01 16:30)

Nevertheless, We Cannot Reconcile Our Differences

School let out for the day.

The fun part of the incomplete Golden Week – that is, the long weekend – started tomorrow, so most of the students were rus.h.i.+ng joyfully out of the school.

s.h.i.+royama Kyousuke, however, had a grim look on his face.

A sun shower poured from the beautiful evening sky. Glittering orange light was reflected throughout the scene outside the window, but the one boy remaining in the cla.s.sroom was facing a certain individual.

It was the White Queen.

The summoner wore a school uniform and the monster was displayed on the Rainy Screen.

They faced each other through the red window, one on the cla.s.sroom floor and the other in midair outside.

She giggled as she spoke using the directional speakers.

The change to the Rainy Girl had entirely erased the deathless world incident that had followed from the previous Telomere’s End’s suicide, but the White Queen seemed to retain her memories of it.

Was that due to being an otherworldly Material or was it something only the White Queen could do?

Kyousuke sighed.

“…Why are you here?”

“No ending could have been better. I can’t think of anything that was lost here. At the very least, I avoided falling for your trick and abandoning that girl.”

The floating White Queen truly seemed to be enjoying herself.

“…”

“What do you want to know?”

The White Queen smiled as she leaned in closer.

She bent over to peer up at the boy through the window.

“Which is different from your close-minded acceptance of only what’s ‘pure’.”

He knew what she was trying to say, so he looked her in the eye and spoke.

“That is your delusion.”

She giggled and continued in a sweet voice.

“…”

The White Queen displayed on the Rainy Screen held her slender hand out toward Kyousuke.

She seemed to be asking him for a handshake.

“I see…”

Kyousuke looked down at his palm.

But he did not take the White Queen’s hand. He would never reach for the hand of that girl who floated outside the window.

After all…

“Is that how you kindly tempted Yasuzumi Hayato and Benikomichi Fuuki?”

Silence followed.

His words seemed to freeze the entire area.

The White Queen continued smiling.

And then…

Her laugh was full of scorn.

And of satisfaction.

“Aren’t you just imagining that?”

“…”

“You failed. Can you really laugh after that?”

At that point, the White Queen asked a question instead.

It was not a warning filled with sharp thorns.

She sounded like she was rolling around the most enjoyable experience on her tongue.

“And?”

“That’s easy.”

Kyousuke did not hesitate to answer.

“I would do whatever it took to take responsibility for every last thing my decision had changed.”

If the White Queen was a monster, then so was the boy who faced her.

At the very least, he showed some hints of that.

After all…

Kyousuke narrowed his eyes.

The boy’s techniques and the Queen’s power.

If they worked together, who could say how much they could accomplish?

But he did not want to see where that led.

“We will never understand each other.”

“I can’t join you.”

The White Queen’s outline blurred.

The deathless world plan had never even been started in this altered world, so the White Queen’s body would never have been summoned and sealed inside the abandoned civilian s.p.a.ce station.

Then what was this here?

He had no way of proving it, but Kyousuke suspected she was using brute force to reject the changes he had made.

But even that must have reached its limit.

She would vanish soon. She would return to the other world. And she would eventually reappear somewhere in this world.

s.h.i.+royama Kyousuke did not feel sentimental about the White Queen vanis.h.i.+ng.

He instead threw his words at her.

“This won’t happen again, Queen.”

And thus, the two of them parted ways.

Even after saving the world and even after rescuing a girl from unavoidable tragedy, they would still never work together.