Blood-Sign

Volume 9, Afterword

“………………………………………”

(Postscript Open ??/?? ??:??)

Okay, this is Kamachi Kazuma!!

Blood-Sign has finally made it this far. There were a lot of unstable aspects to this one and I imagine some parts were difficult to read. But it was not Kyousuke who was shaken. It was everyone around him (including the White Queen). You should see this if you open up Volume 1 again, but Kyousuke has been consistent in his focus on killing the Queen throughout the series. It never seemed so awful before, but that was because she was surrounded by worshipers, so very powerful, and entirely beyond reach. But with Shigara Masami breaking through to the White Queen’s girly side at the end of the last volume, all of that has been shaken. Oh? you realize. Could she be the type who cries if you push back too much?

For better or for worse, the setting of this series only works with the White Queen.

Kyousuke tried all sorts of plans on the assumption that she could handle everything he threw at her, but now Shigara Masami and Meinokawa Aoi are asking him if that is really what he wants to do. What matters here is that Kyousuke remains unshaken and ends up assuming they have been influenced by the Queen’s charisma.

The greatest enemy of a battle story is not the unfairly strong final boss or the power inflation; I think it is a mood saying you can no longer keep fighting. There’s no need to fight! Let’s throw down our weapons, laugh, and hug!! …What could be worse for someone who wants to settle things once and for all? And the White Queen has radiant beauty, unmatched wisdom, and irresistible charisma in addition to her brutal violence, so she could make that happen if she wanted. But after seeing so many veteran summoners and vessels transformed into her worshipers, Kyousuke would never give in even if any normal person would have been moved to emotion and let go of their Blood-Sign. He would stubbornly press on. That might be a necessary talent for truly fighting the White Queen to the end.

Meanwhile, the White Queen is looking back on what she has done and finally become aware of how much pressure she has placed on Kyousuke and how twisted that has made him. Returning him to normal will not be easy, but nothing will ever improve if you throw in the towel just because something isn’t easy. So she will change tack to something more traditional: if he will not come to me, I will go to him.

Kyousuke wants love more than anyone and the Queen is offering him love.

The fact that the White Queen, who exists beyond the gods, is making a wish may be the most important point of this volume.

…But nothing can ever be that easy in this series. After all, misunderstandings are the key to a love comedy!! There is more than one kind of love and Kyousuke wanted a family’s love instead of a dangerous love. That is the greatest distortion here. …You might have been able to see this coming if you saw how important he viewed his memories of the artificial family in the Queen’s Miniature Garden and how he immediately cut all ties with the vessels (who could be seen as possible lovers) and never intruded on their families.

However.

Things ended in a soft landing due to Biondetta’s conspiracy, but I think the White Queen would have failed even without that. If the strongest of the strongest suddenly tries to approach someone by bringing herself down to their level, I say she’s definitely going to be awkward about it and screw it up. I actually think she was spared some damage by having the blame lie with Biondetta instead of her own ineptitude, but what do all of you think?

At the very end, there was a scene where Kyousuke and the Queen release all of their pent-up frustrations, but if you thought they sounded like they were actually enjoying themselves, you were right. The White Queen in particular earned lots of moe points by insulting him so much but then making a last-second U-turn into “Agh, there’s no use denying how I feel, you stupid, stupid, stupid, brother!!!!!!”

The White Queen and the Colorless Little Girl.

Comparing them might be a good way of comparing the opposing forms of love: a dangerous love and a family’s love.

…Man, and then there’s Meinokawa Aoi. I know I’m the one writing her, but she doesn’t play fair. Drinking the One Cup Yokozuna, treating untouchable Sinceria like a gorilla, and pushing Kyousuke away only to hug him later. She’s just unstoppable. And she made no mistakes in what she was doing. It was supposed to be a sticky drama of love and hate, but she somehow turned things into a refreshing display of sportsmanship at the end.

I give my thanks to my illustrator Ikawa Waki-san and my editors Miki-san, Anan-san, Nakajima-san, Miyazaki-san, Yamamoto-san, and Mitera-san. In a way, the White Queen was already in her perfect form, so it couldn’t have been easy to then give her a different outfit. Sorry about all the trouble I’ve caused you.

And I give my thanks to the readers. I wanted to show how the world has been so badly shaken, but is that what you saw when you actually read through the text? I was trying to make it all seem like a big mess, so I apologize if that made it hard to read. I hope you will read the next one too.

And I will end this here.

Now, which do you want: a dangerous love or a family’s love?

-Kamachi KazumaVolume 9, Afterword