Literature / The Unexplored Summon://Blood-Sign

The ‘White’ Queen who Wields the Sword of Unsullied Truth (iu – nu – fb – a – wuh – ei –kx – eu – pl – vjz)

Immediately before the turn of the millennium, the Third Summoning Ceremony was discovered. This allowed the gods and other legendary figures of myth to be summoned at the convenience of humans, to do their bidding. But unlike the First and Second Summoning Ceremonies, summoning a being to take over one's mind, and summoning a being into a summoner's body to perform magic, respectively, this new method went further - it allowed beings beyond the gods to be summoned, and replacing someone's place in the world, allowing summoners to command the summoned beings to use any power at their disposal. The beings beyond gods became known as the Unexplored-Class, and at the apex of these stands the White Queen who Wields the Sword of Unsullied Truth.

Two new professions appeared in the wake of this discovery: summoners and vessels. Summoners made use of two tools - the Blood Sign and the Incense Grenade - to conduct the summoning ceremony. Through this, they called in Materials, the denizens of the world of myth, and bound them to their vessels. The result? Beings of supernatural might, impervious to any mundane threat, and all under the control of the summoner and vessel. In addition, both summoners and vessels gained another quality: whenever they left the sight of ordinary people, they would fade from their memory. This was just as much a curse as it was a blessing, as it meant that they were fundamentally cut off from the normal world.

As with many other discoveries in human history, the summoning ceremony was inevitably used in war. Hidden from the outside world, summoners engaged in countless conflicts against each other. Three great factions formed: Government, an organisation of various nations and major corporations; Illegal, a motley collection of large criminal organisations; and Freedom, a group of summoners and vessels who followed their own paths. Each of these factions became associated with an Unexplored-Class Material. As a member of one of the factions fought and gained achievements in combat, they could be gifted with Awards by the Material that oversaw their faction. It became rumored that a summoner who could obtain a thousand Awards - who could become Award 1000 - would transform into an immortal Material themselves.

The Unexplored Summon://Blood Sign is a light novel series by Kazuma Kamachi. It is complete at ten volumes. It follows the legendary summoner, Kyousuke Shiroyama, also known as "Alice (with) Rabbit". Kyousuke has managed to achieve Award 902, but has a critical weakness: he's unable to resist what he calls the 'cursed words', "help me". As the series begins, he plans on retiring from summoning... but the world isn't about to let him off that easily.

---

Tropes found in this series:

A-H

• Abusive Parents: Doctor S, Kyousuke's father, could win an award for this. He controlled every aspect of his children's lives in an experiment to create an ultimate summoner, which included: beating his son regularly, beating his daughter and wife to further hurt said son, and eventually murdering his wife and forcing his two children to battle to the death.
• The Ace: Kyousuke. He's a genius summoner, able to defeat almost any opponent, often using unconventional tactics. In addition to that, he also has a wealth of other knowledge and is a good physical fighter. To borrow a description from the first novel, he can save two hundred people when it should only be possible to save one hundred.
  • Broken Ace: ...But he's also this. His summoning skill comes from being a Tyke-Bomb and implied Child Soldier. His drive to save others is because of a past failure that caused countless deaths, as well as receiving the White Queen's "love".
• Achievement System: The Awards, given out by the three Unexplored-Class Materials that oversee the summoning ceremony. Whenever a summoner does something that impresses one of the three, they are granted an Award. Each Award has its own name and is granted in return for a specific achievement. The number of Awards a summoner has is a sign of prestige, though it isn't always an accurate measure of skill. Once a summoner hits the 900 mark, they will have much more difficulty getting Awards.
  • Each of the three overseers has a maximum of 1000 Awards to give to a particular summoner. A few characters have managed to gain over 1000 Awards, by being part of more than one faction in their lives. The highest number achieved is 3000, by Madam Professor.
  • The White Queen has her own unique Awards, outside of the main system: Loved by the White and White Slayer. Currently, Kyousuke is the only person who possesses Loved by the White and is the only person to earn White Slayer on his own.
• Adventure Rebuff: After Kyousuke rescues Higan at the start of the series, he refuses to have anything more to do with her. Needless to say, this doesn't last long.
• Alice Allusion: All over the place. The main character is based on the White Rabbit: his nickname is based on the character, he leads around various girls who are referred to as "Alices", and his former codename was "White Rabbit". Later on, it's revealed that he was one of fifteen children raised to be elite summoners, each of whom is also based on a character from the story. The White Queen (although not one of said siblings) turns out to be the original "Alice". Like Alice, she fell from her original world into another one, and was led around by a White Rabbit. Her alternative name is based on the name mistakenly assigned to Lewis Carroll's Alice, "Mary Ann".
• Almighty Janitor: The highest-Award summoner so far is Madam Professor, one of the members of the Fifteen Siblings Project, with 3000 Awards.
• And I Must Scream: Akura Taisaku, the creator of Operation March Hare, was killed by a copy of the White Queen when Kyousuke discovered and undid the deception in volume 5. A conversation in volume 7 reveals that the Queen killed him but allowed his cells to remain active, so he lived on for more than 300 hours while splattered across the walls and ceiling
• Animal Motifs:
  • The rabbit for Kyousuke.
  • Members of the Magentarain family are often compared to birds of prey. Claude Magentarain even uses a bald eagle as a vessel.
• Apocalypse How:
  • The Secret War was a Regional example, causing Societal Disruption. The White Queen became violent and called in a large number of Materials. Numerous high-ranking summoners were killed in the process of stopping her, breaking the balance of power between the three great factions.
  • The villain's scheme in Volume 1, if not stopped, would have resulted in a Global example, causing Species Extinction if not Total Extinction of all life on Earth.
• Applied Phlebotinum: Repliglass, a silicon-based material used in all kinds of technology. It seems to often form the basis of technology based on animals.
• The Archmage: Summoners with at least 900 Awards, especially those who've crossed the 1000 mark, are seen as this. The ultimate example of this is Madam Professor, who has attained Award 3000. She's one of only two summoners to have a battle with the White Queen that wasn't an immediate Curb-Stomp Battle, and that's without the personal advantages that Kyousuke has.
• Artificial Human: Renge turns out to be this. Her sister Higan was intended to be a summoner, but she happened to be born with the trait of a vessel (which makes it dangerous for her to be a summoner). Renge was thus created, as an ideal version of Higan that lacked the trait of a vessel.
• Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence: It's believed that reaching Award 1000 results in a transformation into a Material, becoming part of the other world. However, multiple summoners appear in the series who have reached this level but have remained human. It's finally demonstrated in the Volume 8 finale, where Madam Professor reappears as a Divine-Class Material. Another example is Kyousuke's little sister, who managed to be reincarnated as the Colorless Little Girl.
• Badass Normal:
  • Both Kyousuke and Lu Niang Lan can fight and defeat summoners even without magic. The latter is by far the more skilled, at one point killing an Award 1000 summoner, her former master.
  • A non-combat example in Open Bluff, the former leader of Illegal. He had an Award of 0, due to never summoning a single Material. He maintained his position through nothing more than reputation, hence the name.
• Balance of Power: One of these exists between Government, Illegal and Freedom. It's far from stable, due to many of the major figures in each faction dying in the Secret War.
• Batman Gambit:
  • On several occasions, Kyousuke uses tactics that exploit his understanding of the White Queen's mindset, especially her twisted love for him. Unfortunately, she can do the same to him.
  • During their rematch in Volume 6, Azalea performs one on Kyousuke. She has recruited and brainwashed a number of girls to attempt suicide in front of him. As a result, Kyousuke has to knock them out to save them, giving Azalea the opportunity to kidnap the Meinokawa sisters.
• Batman Grabs a Gun: In Volume 5, Kyousuke decides to ask his former enemy Biondetta for help, despite it going against his ideals.
• Battle Harem: Kyousuke's love interests include summoners, vessels, a Badass Normal, and the strongest Material.
• Bedmate Reveal: At the beginning of Volume 4, Kyousuke wakes up to find the White Queen next to him. He immediately tries to kill her, but she easily stops him and knocks him out with a single flick to the forehead. She then comments that this is the 45th time that's happened.
• Beyond the Impossible: In Volume 5, the White Queen manages to defeat all of the other Unexplored-Class, who were intended to be capable of defeating her.
• Big Bad: The White Queen.
• Big Good: The White Queen is seen as this by everyone connected to the supernatural world. The problem is that all of it is a facade. She's actually an insane Eldritch Abomination who only cares about her toy.]]
  • To a lesser extent, the three Unexplored-Class Materials who oversee the three factions.
• Blatant Lies: In the Volume 8 prologue, the White Queen claims that she isn't going to appear, but it turns out that she's been acting as the vessel for the Colorless Little Girl for that volume.
• Blob Monster: The "Original _" series of Regulation-Class Materials, the blank space being a color such as yellow or green. With a cost of 1, they are the weakest Materials, essentially equivalent to Level 1 Slimes.
• Blue Blood: The Magentarain and Deltaston families.
• Both Sides Have a Point: It's eventually revealed that this is what Kyousuke and the White Queen's fighting boils down to. Kyousuke is angry because the Queen has killed a lot of his loved ones, explicitly against his wishes, when she was more than capable of using nonlethal force. The Queen is angry because those loved ones badly hurt her, something Kyousuke doesn't really acknowledge, and he'd want her dead even if she sincerely apologized for her crimes and tried to make amends. When a third party finally manages to intervene in the fight, she tells them they're both being stupid.
• The Cameo: The Girls Of the Week occasionally make small appearances in volumes after their initial appearances, and all show up to help Save the World in the finale.
• Captured Super-Entity: The premise behind the Sewn Realm Summoning method, which summons a Material and keeps them on Earth permanently. The original version of this went one step further, by making it impossible for any other summoner to summon that Material.
• Catchphrase:
  • Kyousuke has "As you wish", used when he answers a call for help.
  • Biondetta has "Yes, sir/ma'am", used when she answers a call for revenge.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Early in Volume 1, Meinokawa Renge exploits one of the Taboos of the summoning ceremony to turn her opponent's Material into the Black Maw That Swallows All, which automatically kills its controller (an analogy would be that she forced her opponent to hit the 8-ball into a hole). At the end of the volume, Kyousuke deliberately summons the Black Maw himself while fighting the White Queen. Since the White Queen won't let anyone else but her kill Kyousuke, she fights the Black Maw and is (temporarily) killed.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • The Government summoner Perfect Game appears briefly in Volume 1 as the first Government summoner defeated by Kyousuke. He later has a major role in Volume 4.
  • Olivia Highland is also mentioned in the first volume as Kyousuke's most recent ex-vessel. She reappears at the end of the sixth volume as an antagonist.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Kyousuke suffers from this, being compelled to help out anyone who asks for it. Deconstructed: it's also shown that this isn't remotely healthy, and is the result of receiving the White Queen's 'love' (essentially, having his psyche mixed with that of an Eldritch Abomination.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: The White Queen, to the point that she starts getting murderous if Kyousuke merely says another girl's name in her presence, regardless of context. She's even this to herself: if there are multiple copies of the White Queen around Kyousuke, they will fight to the death until one remains.
• Colony Drop: In Volume 8, Kyousuke and Olivia ride a space station from orbit down to Kingdom F.
• Complete Immortality: All Materials are ageless, cannot be damaged by mundane means, and cannot be permanently killed even if their physical forms are destroyed.
• Cosmic Horror Story: The White Queen is actually an Eldritch Abomination who doesn't care about anyone not named Kyousuke, and she expresses her love for him by making his life a living hell. Kyousuke does manage to defeat her in each volume... because she never takes things seriously and enjoys letting him win.
• Cosmic Plaything: Kyousuke. Being the former lover of a Yandere Eldritch Abomination who sees no problem with inflicting suffering as a form of romance tends to do that.
• Covers Always Lie:
  • The cover of volume 1, which shows the White Queen. Anyone who's read a few other light novels would think that she's the main heroine, right? Well, she technically is, but she's also the main antagonist.
  • A much bigger offender is the cover of Volume 4, which gives the impression that Kyousuke and the White Queen are willingly working together. To put it in perspective, when he wakes up next to the Queen at the start of the novel, he immediately tries to kill her.
• Crapsack World: The entire world is under the sway of three factions of summoners. Normal people can't do anything about them: they can't even remember that summoners exist, and said summoners can easily call in monsters invulnerable to human weaponry. Due to many important summoners dying in the Secret War, the balance of power between the factions is unstable, and could easily tip over into open conflict. Internal discipline has also been weakened, so if a summoner decides to take full advantage of their power over normal humans, their higher-ups might not have the ability or inclination to stop them. And to top it all off, the supposed Big Good of the setting is a psychotic Eldritch Abomination who's responsible for all of this!
• Crippling Overspecialization: The Colorless Little Girl Dedicated to a Single Goal has the sole purpose of permanently destroying the White Queen. Because of this, she is unable to fight other opponents effectively. Subverted, as the act of defeating the White Queen will apparently transform her in some way, similarly to how the Queen gained authority over the laws of the world by defeating the other Unexplored-Class.
• Cult: Guard of Honor is a cult based around the White Queen. They are utterly loyal to her, even though she doesn't care about them at all. Later on there's Bridesmaid, also dedicated to the Queen.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Summoners with an Award greater than 900, like Kyousuke, Azalea and Biondetta, tend to deal these out.
  • The White Queen almost inevitably inflicts this on her opponents.
• Cute Monster Girl: For some reason, all of the Unexplored-Class Materials look like women and girls. It turns out that all of them, except for the White Queen, are meant to oppose and counter the White Queen. Though this still doesn't explain why the Queen looks the way she does.
• Dark and Troubled Past:
  • Kyousuke was part of a project that took in children who'd witnessed the White Queen and raised them as summoners, hoping to have one of them summon the Queen so she could be killed. He eventually created and used a method of summoning the Queen permanently, but she (for reasons still not revealed) immediately fell in love with him. The overseers of the project eventually had the other children mimic Kyousuke's behavior to steal control of the Queen, but this went horribly wrong and caused her to become violently obsessed with Kyousuke. This led to the Secret War, in which countless summoners (including half of the project's children) were killed, destabilising the world. His situation before all this was even worse, as he was abused physically and emotionally by his father, who murdered everyone else in the family once they no longer proved useful.
  • Aika was the grand-daughter of President Toydream. She became a summoner, hoping to impress him by being like one of the heroines in the fairy tales he wrote. However, she gained the permanent Invisible to Normals nature of all summoners, causing all normal people to forget about her.
  • Lu Niang Lan was the vessel of Government's former leader, Elvast Toydream. He didn't even treat her like a human, keeping her in a cage. Eventually, she stabbed him in the back and escaped.
• David Versus Goliath: The main conflict in the series is between a (physically) normal human and the most powerful being in the universe.
• Dawn of an Era: Each Summoning Ceremony is one, rendering the previous Ceremonies obsolete.
  • The Fourth Ceremony enables Materials and summoners to fight together without loss of autonomy on either side.
  • The Fifth Ceremony/Age of Awakening, reached at the end of the series, brings all Materials into the human world forever.
• Deal with the Devil:
  • A recurring theme in the series is that if Kyousuke just gives in to the White Queen, she will give him everything he could ever want... or so she claims.
  • This is Biondetta's MO. If someone asks for help in carrying out revenge, she'll provide all the help they want... but she'll also encourage their revenge to a potentially deadly extent. For bonus points, she deliberately wears demonic horns and a tail as accessories.
• Defector from Decadence: Claude Magentarain grew sick of his family and their practices (such as tracking down illegitimate children and killing them), so he struck out and became an independent summoner.
• Delayed Narrator Introduction: The narrator to the prologue of Volume 1 is initially unclear. After reading the next chapter, you might think it's Aika, due to the narrator calling Kyousuke "brother". It's actually the White Queen. Future prologues are also narrated by her, with less ambiguity.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
  • Volume 1 ends with a double example. Both the White Queen and the Black Maw are considered to be unstoppable and invincible, the former being capable of defeating any opponent while the latter automatically devours its own summoner. At the end of Volume 1, Kyousuke manages to destroy (one incarnation of) the White Queen, by summoning the Black Maw and having her fight it. The Black Maw wins, albeit heavily injured, and Kyousuke manages to transform it into another Material before it can kill him. As a result, he receives the rare Award "White Slayer".
  • Elvast does this literally in Volume 6: he pierces through an admittedly-weakened version of the White Queen with his arm, instantly banishing it. It's the only time in the entire series that a human has defeated a Material with nothing more than their own body.
• Did You Just Romance Cthulhu?: Anyone who somehow manages to gain the love of the White Queen gains the Award "Loved by the White". This is currently held only by Kyousuke, much to his misfortune.
• Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?:
  • Being unable to fight her head-on, Kyousuke's battles with the White Queen revolve around this. It helps that due to the Queen's twisted love for him, she doesn't really care about being tricked.
  • Attempted in Volume 5, in which the overseers of the Fifteen Siblings Project attempt to copy Kyousuke to gain control of the White Queen. It actually works... right up until the Queen sees the real Kyousuke, which kicks off a chain of events leading to the Secret War and causes the Queen to become evil.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Summoning the White Queen through the Blood Sign-based method. It requires a summoner to first summon 100 Regulation-Class and 50 Divine-Class Materials, which is rarely achievable in actual combat. Alternatively, they can knock the Petals representing her name into Spots - all twenty one of them, in the correct sequence, which is also nearly impossible in actual combat. But if she is summoned, she is guaranteed to defeat any opponent.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Although the Siblings did nothing sexual while impersonating Kyousuke, their crime had the effect of a rape by deception. Shigara describes the "painful, heart-breaking, and disgusting" guilt his girlfriend felt upon being deceived in such a way, and Kyousuke dealt with his feelings over it by accusing said girlfriend of not truly loving him.
• Does Not Like Magic: Lu Niang Lan has the talent of a vessel, but refuses to participate in summoning any longer, instead fighting with martial arts and hidden weapons. This stems from being treated like an animal by the summoner she'd previously partnered with, Elvast Toydream.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The version of Kyousuke's backstory given in Volume 1 is quite different from that of later volumes. Discrepancies include the White Queen manipulating him into permanently summoning her, implied sex between them, and Kyousuke letting his enemies die- none of which happened in "canon".
• Eldritch Abomination: The Black Maw That Swallows All, described as a tornado of black slime, the center of which is filled with fangs. It appears if a summoner breaks certain taboos, and completely devours them. The White Queen is also this, and in fact she and the Black Maw are the same entity.
• Elemental Motifs: Most of the White Queen and Kyousuke's important interactions occur near water, like the canals of Toydream 35 and the beach above the Miniature Garden. Ironically, the flexibility that water usually symbolizes is absent from both of their personalities.
• Empty Shell: If a summoner and vessel lose a summoning battle, they become helpless for over 24 hours. The rationale behind this is that the destruction of one's Material causes a trauma comparable to seeing the death of a god. In this state, they can't take any actions of their own accord. They'll follow any (simple) orders given to them, even if that means walking off a cliff.
  • A more extreme version occurs if a summoner is unlucky enough to summon the Black Maw. The Black Maw devours its summoner, then transforms back into the vessel. Said vessel will be physically intact, but their mind will be permanently destroyed.
• Enemy Mine:
  • For the latter half of Volume 2, the White Queen provides information to Kyousuke on the villains' plans. However this was part of her plan to have Kyousuke unwittingly voluntarily give up the chance to save someone, which would break him.
  • At the end of Volume 5, Kyousuke makes a deal with Biondetta to have her help him with revenge on the White Queen, and they are currently in an uneasy alliance.
• Enemy Scan: The Colorless Little Girl can analyse an enemy to determine their weaknesses.
• Enemy Summoner: The White Queen, if summoned for a prolonged period of time, will begin to warp space-time itself. This results in countless Materials spilling over from the other world onto Earth.
• Establishing Character Moment: The first time the White Queen is summoned. She beats up Azalea and Fractal, despite them bowing down to her. She beats up Renge, her summoner, when she tries to interfere. Finally, she spends all of her summoning time flirting with Kyousuke.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • The Black Maw is this to the White Queen, both being incredibly powerful Materials that are outside of the normal sound ranges. Unlike the White Queen, the Black Maw is uncontrollable and kills its own summoner. Subverted: they are the same entity. The White Queen is also uncontrollable and potentially dangerous to her summoner. The Black Maw's real form is identical to the White Queen, only colored black.
  • Biondetta, introduced in Volume 3, is this to Kyousuke. She is also a summoner with an Award greater than 900, but instead of saving people who ask for help, she helps those who ask for revenge, driving them down a self-destructive spiral. Though as she points out, she's not that different from Kyousuke: both of them follow particular ideals to their extremes. They also come from the same summoner-raising project and received the White Queen's hatred and love, respectively.
• Evil Virtues: Many of these are exhibited by the White Queen.
  • Determination: Just as Kyousuke swore that he would never rest until the Queen is destroyed, the Queen resolved to never give up until he loves her again.
  • Love: The main trait of her character. Despite what Kyousuke himself thinks, she does genuinely love him, and is willing to put herself in harm's way to protect him.
  • Patience: She doesn't mind if one or a hundred of her plans are foiled. Being immortal, she'll wait as long as it takes for her to succeed.
• Exact Words: In the opening, the narrator informs us that "even a single love can bring an end to the world." But it is not this one!
• Face–Heel Turn: The White Queen wasn't always evil, as it turns out.
• Fantastic Racism: Almost all supernatural beings in the series are seen as nothing more than tools for the use of humans. The very name given to them, "Material", reflects this. The White Queen and the Three are the only real exceptions, with their intellect being recognized by summoners, but that doesn't stop them from being summoned like any other Material.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: The gods and legendary figures from all mythologies can be summoned, in addition to the original Regulation-Class and Unexplored-Class Materials.
• Footsie Under the Table: Lu Niang Lan tries doing this to Kyousuke at one point, only for him to stomp on her foot and then trick her into stubbing her toe. She later does this to Aika with more success.
• Foregone Conclusion: Volume 5 is a flashback, so it's obvious from the start that it won't end well.
• Foreshadowing
  • Almost at the beginning of the first volume, the Black Maw That Swallows All is introduced, along with its summoning name and summoning conditions. One of these conditions is a summoner gathering Petals with an equal number of high, medium and low sounds. The White Queen's summoning name is an anagram of the Black Maw's and consists of an equal number of letters of each sound range. That's because she and the Black Maw are one and the same.
  • Additionally, the Black Maw's ability to attack its own summoner foreshadows that the protective circle is not impregnable. The White Queen can do the same thing, being the same entity as the Black Maw.
  • A very subtle example that only pays off after several volumes: In Volume 1, the White Queen makes several suggestions about her possible plans for Kyousuke. Among these is making a contract with Kyousuke and becoming his vessel. This is exactly what happens in Volume 7, with the Queen disguising herself as Aoi Meinokawa (the one he was intending to contract with).
  • In Volume 5, Madam Professor is mentioned keeping seeds in her desk. They're to feed her squirrel vessel, as she's secretly a summoner. Additionally, she created a card game with cards for all of the Materials, which (since Materials can't be seen by electronic means) would require her to have seen all of them in person, foreshadowing her high Award.
• Gambit Pileup: There are three main summoner factions, each of which comprises many groups that have their own goals. Then there's the countless independent groups like Guard of Honor. And then there's the White Queen, who is involved in some way or other in many of the schemes and always finds some way to twist them into serving her own goal, getting Kyousuke.
  • A good example is Volume 6. Kyousuke's group (which includes Biondetta, whose goals are different from the rest) wants to gain information that will help them destroy the White Queen. Bridesmaid wants to get the same information to protect the Queen. Claude Magentarain's group wants the information to destroy all means of summoning the Queen. Then there's the fourth side, Elvast Toydream, who already has said information. Instead, he wants to kidnap Lu Niang Lan, hoping to break his dependency on the Queen. Finally, the White Queen is involved as well, with the same goal mentioned above.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Summoning the White Queen is extremely difficult, and essentially impossible outside of mock battles, but she immediately guarantees victory provided that it suits her own goals as well.
  • Summoning methods outside of the Blood Sign method are seen as this in-universe, as they would be free from the time limit. Methods of summoning the White Queen indefinitely, like the Sewn Realm Summoning, would literally make the user omnipotent, again, subject to the Queen's whims.
• Giant Squid: The DEC Tentacle, a Regulation-Class Material that resembles a giant squid but with chains for tentacles.
• Girl of the Week: Invoked. Whenever Kyousuke has finished helping a girl, he cuts off ties with her to avoid further exposure to the dangers of the world of summoning and to avoid provoking the White Queen's wrath. The Meinokawa sisters from Volume 1 are an exception, being a summoner-vessel pair of their own accord, and they make several more appearances.
• The Glomp: How the White Queen first met Kyousuke. Since she was also One Head Taller at the time, it was a case of Marshmallow Hell.
• God Is Evil: The White Queen, though this is unknown to her worshippers.
• Godzilla Threshold: The Black Maw That Swallows All is an uncontrollable Material that instantly kills its summoner when it's summoned. It's usually a threat that forces summoners to take care to avoid meeting its summoning conditions. But as another aspect of the White Queen, it's the only thing that can actually oppose her head-on. Kyousuke deliberately summons it in the final battle of the first volume, knowing that the Queen would fight it to protect him.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Volume 4 could be described as Go Dating With The Eldritch Abomination Girlfriend.
• Gravity Screw: When an Incense Grenade detonates, the summoners and vessels involved will experience gravity oriented towards the surface on which it detonated. Additionally, if that surface is destroyed, then the next surface touched by the Grenade's user becomes the new "ground". Hayato's summoning strategy exploits this: he repeatedly destroys the ground, disorienting his opponents through the constant shifts in gravity.
• Greater-Scope Villain: While each novel tends to have its own antagonists, the White Queen is almost always pulling the strings in some fashion.
• Great Off Screen War: The Secret War, responsible for the current state of the world. Eventually detailed in Volume 5.
• Guest-Star Party Member: The White Queen follows Kyousuke around during Volume 4.
• Guns Are Worthless: Against Materials, or summoners who have summoned one, all human weapons are useless.
• Hijacked by Ganon: No matter who the villains are in a particular volume, the White Queen will always turn out to be involved.
• Humanoid Abomination: The White Queen. The real form of the Black Maw, being a facet of her, is also this - it's identical to the White Queen save for being black.
• Humans Are Bastards: The gods and other legendary figures in this series have no will of their own - all of the misery in the world is brought about solely by human hands. It's even because of humans that the White Queen is evil in the first place.
• Humans Are Good: Downplayed. One of Madam Professor's beliefs is that deep down, every person contains at least some trace of good in them, and that they will refrain from truly crossing the Moral Event Horizon.
• Hybrid Power: Aika's pet and vessel is a five-metre long white liger (a hybrid of a lion and a white tiger).
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Lu Niang Lan somehow has many weapons hidden on her body.

I-P

• I Am Not Left-Handed: In most of her appearances, the White Queen never uses anything close to her full power, as she can easily win regardless. Volume 7 features her going all out, revealing abilities that were never even hinted at before (like her ability to shapeshift into 512 different forms).
• I Know You Know I Know: The final confrontation to Volume 4. The White Queen stabs one of her swords into the floor, and proposes that Kyousuke use it to stand a chance against her. Kyousuke naturally refuses. The Queen knew that he'd refuse, and reveals that stabbing the sword into the floor caused damage to the building that would destroy an important reactor, killing the people Kyousuke was trying to save. Except Kyousuke anticipated even this, knowing that the Queen would never give him any way out. He also had knowledge that the Queen didn't have, that the entire structure of the building had deliberately been changed from the optimum, so the Queen's attack misses the reactor.
• Immortality Seeker: The main goal of the villains of Volume 2.
• Improbable Age: An implausibly-large number of high-ranking summoners appear to be teenagers or outright children. The biggest example of this is Humanism, who had attained Award 2799 despite being around ten years old.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Any skilled summoner. It's pretty much a requirement when the main method of summoning amounts to 3D pool, in an irregular environment full of obstacles.
• Increasingly Lethal Enemy: Since summoners will hit more and more Petals into Spots as a summoning battle goes on, the cost (and hence power) of their Materials will only increase. After a summoner successfully calls in 100 Regulation-Class Materials, they gain the ability to summon the more powerful Divine-Class. And if they still aren't defeated, and they can summon 50 Divine-Class Materials, they gain access to the Unexplored-Class.
• Infinity +1 Sword: The White Queen is the ultimate Material, guaranteed to defeat any other, and also the most difficult to summon. Subverted, as she is uncontrollable and does whatever she wants when summoned.
• Inherent in the System: The summoning system sucks for everyone involved (probably because it was formalized by Doctor S, an abusive douchebag). Summoners are forgotten by all Muggles, even their friends and family. Vessels are vulnerable to brainwashing and can be forced to lose memories against their will. Materials are periodically yanked from their own lives to fight for summoners who treat them like furniture. And summoning is so limited in time and effect that it can't be used for anything but battle.
• Instant-Win Condition: Summoning the White Queen is effectively this, as she is powerful enough to effortlessly defeat any opponent. Subverted; she is unique among Materials in that she is the one in control, so will only follow her summoner's orders if it's in her own interest.
• Interspecies Romance: The relationship between Kyousuke and the White Queen, though in the present it's purely one-sided.
• Invincible Villain: The White Queen, being the most powerful being in the series. The only thing that can really injure her is her own power, and even that can't permanently kill her. While Kyousuke does manage to foil her various schemes, none of this really matters to her, as it just means she can spend more time with him.
• Invisible to Normals: When a summoner or vessel reaches Award 100, they gain a variant of this. They can still be seen normally by ordinary people, but the moment they leave their field of vision, the ordinary person will forget about them.
  • When a summoning ceremony occurs, all the summoners and vessels involved become invisible to electronic sensors.
• "Just So" Story: It becomes clear near the end of the story that it’s like a mythological prelude, explaining how the Material and human worlds reconciled, why the two kinds are equal in the present day, and how various Materials (including those who used to be human) worked together to create society as we know it.
• Just Toying with Them: This applies to all of the White Queen's battles with Kyousuke.
• Kaiju: Larger Materials, like the Divine-Class dragons at the beginning of Volume 1.
• Kid with the Leash: Summoners and vessels both function as this to Materials. The summoner calls in the Material from the other world and determines their form, while the vessel acts as a nucleus to create the Material's physical body and directly controls the Material.
  • Kyousuke is this specifically to the White Queen. However, due to her unstable and (by human standards) evil mentality, he doesn't dare try to exploit this.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: An ordinary person will lose all memories of a summoner or vessel once the latter leaves their sight. Unlike other examples, however, the memories will return whenever they see the summoner or vessel again.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: The White Queen and the Black Maw are the most powerful Materials. Below them are the other Unexplored-Class, each of whom is a particular color, and below them are all the other Materials.
  • Played with by the Colorless Little Girl, who isn't any color (being transparent). She can defeat the White Queen (and by extension, the Black Maw), but would lose to any other Unexplored-Class. However, the Queen implies that by defeating her, the Colorless Little Girl will become even more powerful.
• Light 'em Up:
  • One of the White Queen's attacks is a beam of light that disintegrates anything in its path.
  • The Lady of Purple Lightning can shoot lasers from her finger.
• Light Is Not Good: The White Queen.
• Limited Wardrobe: Kyousuke only wears the same brand of hoodie and pants.
• Little Sister Heroine: The non-blood related version is invoked by Aika, Olivia, the White Queen and the Colorless Little Girl. The last of these actually weaponises it: by behaving in this manner to Kyousuke, she can trigger the White Queen's Berserk Button to make her lose control. Ironically, it later turns out that the Colorless Little Girl used to actually be his little sister.
• Love Hurts: And that's putting it mildly. The romance between Kyousuke and the White Queen didn't just hurt those involved, but everyone else in the world. It's succinctly explained in one line at the beginning of the first novel:
  On occasion, even a single love can bring an end to the world.
• Love Makes You Evil: It turns out that the Queen wasn't evil to begin with, and even made a promise with Kyousuke to never hurt anyone. But during the Secret War, she was confronted with the dilemma of doing nothing to an attacking army, hence letting Kyousuke die in the crossfire, or breaking her promise and slaughtering them. She chose the latter.
• MacGuffin: Volume 6 revolves around three of these, needed to find the Founder's Gallery: the Diamond Master Key, the Founder's Map, and the Golden Treasure Chest. The second of these is also a Living MacGuffin, being inscribed on Sekurtiti's back.
• Magic A Is Magic A: The summoning ceremony is governed by an enormous number of rules. Not one of these is ever violated, and the characters often exploit loopholes in the rules to achieve victory.
• Magical Girlfriend: Deconstructed. The inhuman supernatural girlfriend in this case is a Yandere Eldritch Abomination. But it's also reconstructed, as she only became like that because of humans.
• The Masquerade: Maintained by the fact that ordinary people automatically lose their memories of the supernatural after experiencing it.
• Master Actor: In Volume 7, the White Queen spends most of the volume pretending to be Aoi Meinokawa. She's good enough that Renge (Aoi's caretaker) doesn't suspect a thing, and even Kyousuke only feels some uneasiness around her. It helps that Aoi already had the exact same appearance as the Queen. Played with, in that Kyousuke nevertheless figures it out - see Spotting the Thread.
• Master of All: Volume 7 shows the White Queen finally cutting loose with everything she has, making it clear that she's an example of this trope. She's an incomprehensibly-powerful Lightning Bruiser Magic Knight who can attack at any range, with any element, and has no weaknesses (except Kyousuke).
• Miko: The Meinokawa sisters, Renge and Higan.
• Mile-Long Ship: Pandemonium, the setting of Volume 4, is essentially a floating city shaped like a giant squid.
• Mons: All supernatural combat in the series revolves around summoning Materials to fight.
  • Olympus Mons: The Divine-Class and Unexplored-Class Materials.
• Mook Chivalry: Averted. It is entirely possible for multiple summoners to gang up on a single one.
• Morton's Fork:
  • The end of Volume 2. Kyousuke can return to the present, leaving the Rainy Girl to be murdered and preserve the timeline, but also betraying his ideals. Or he can intervene in the past, completely altering the timeline with uncertain repercussions. He chooses the latter, since the timeline has already been altered anyway.
  • Also encountered by the White Queen during the Secret War. Kyousuke was right next to her, and an army of elite summoners had summoned hundreds of Unexplored-Class, planning on defeating the Queen. If she did nothing, her physical body would be destroyed (inconsequential for her) but Kyousuke would certainly die. But to keep Kyousuke alive, she would have to kill all of the attackers, which she knew Kyousuke wouldn't want. As in the previous example, she chose the latter option.
• Muggles Do It Better: Played with. Materials are completely invulnerable to human weaponry, as are summoners inside a protective circle. However, summoners and vessels who haven't summoned are just as frail as any other human. There are several instances where technology and ingenuity alone have been used to defeat summoners, or to avoid needing to fight altogether.
• My Greatest Failure: Kyousuke sees his involvement in the Secret War as this. He summoned the White Queen indefinitely, and planned on using her help to stabilise the world. But he failed to notice others trying to take control of the Queen, which led to a battle between different copies of the Queen that ultimately turned her evil. She then attacked and killed an enormous number of people, trying to get to Kyousuke.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Black Maw That Swallows All.
• New Transfer Student: Oddly for the genre, occurs at the end of the story rather than the beginning. The White Queen acclimates to the human world by attending Kyousuke's school, taking the window seat usually reserved for the Magical Girlfriend.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Kyousuke's Chronic Hero Syndrome is an attempt to atone for a past example of this. He managed to summon the White Queen permanently, and got the idea of using her power to help fix the world. But due to various factors (others trying to usurp control of the Queen, Materials being summoned automatically by the Queen's presence, etc.) this led to the Queen turning evil and causing countless deaths.
  • In the first volume, Renge attempts to save her sister Higan by taking advantage of the enemy's setup to summon the White Queen herself. Normally, the White Queen would immediately win the battle for Renge... except that she had no idea that said enemy was in fact working with the Queen, nor did she know of the Queen's relationship with Kyousuke. The Queen injured Renge herself, and left Higan with a poison in her body that would eventually kill her.
  • Possibly the biggest example is in Volume 7. Kyousuke is so obsessed with defeating the White Queen that he doesn't consider anything else a threat in comparison. He creates an artificial Unexplored-Class, the Colorless Little Girl, to permanently destroy the Queen. The Girl actually succeeds in this, and because of her Crippling Overspecialization, Kyousuke doesn't think that she will be a threat herself. But it turns out that the Queen somehow survived, and she reveals that, due to defeating her, the Girl will be transformed into an even bigger threat to the world than the Queen was.
• Nigh-Invulnerability:
  • Materials have the Made of Diamond variant against ordinary threats. No matter how powerful, nothing that isn't also supernatural can damage them. And even if they are damaged, they can always be summoned again.
  • When they've summoned a Material, a summoner and vessel pair gain a similar form of invulnerability. The summoner is surrounded by a protective circle and the vessel transforms into the Material, giving them immunity to both external threats and internal ones (such as existing injuries). The protective circle even protects the summoner from attack by Materials. However, the transformed vessel can still be damaged by Materials, and contains a vulnerable core. If the core is breached, both summoner and vessel will lose all capability for independent action and become helpless for more than a day.
• Noodle Incident: The Secret War, which involved the deaths of countless important summoners and is responsible for many of the problems in the present, such as the White Queen's current attitude. Eventually expanded on in Volume 5.
  • How Kyousuke, Aika, and Lu Niang Lan became friends. Given that they belong to rival factions and first met while fighting each other, it must be quite the story.
  • What Shigara was doing in between her ascension and return to the story in Volume 8.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: Kyousuke. In Volume 6, he holds a normal conversation with Aika while Lu Niang Lan and Biondetta are pressing their bodies against him.
• Not What It Looks Like:
  • At the start of Volume 2, Aika runs across Kyousuke and Lu Niang Lan on her sofa, exhausted. They had just escaped from a fierce battle at the airport. Their explanations don't exactly help the situation.
  Kyousuke: Th-that was all… pant… Lu-san’s fault… She’s the one… pant… that suddenly knocked me out…
  Lu: What are you saying, Kyousuke-chan? Pant… This was all your doing, Kyousuke-chan... Pant, I told you to stop, but you went for it anyway…
  • Done again in Volume 7. Renge spots Kyousuke and Biondetta approaching her family shrine. They both smell of the same kind of soap, and on top of that, Biondetta is red-faced and panting with exhaustion. They had just stopped at a hotel to wash before visiting the shrine.
  • And in Volume 8, Kyousuke and Olivia stop at a leisure room to change clothes, where Olivia innocently picks up a condom without knowing what it's for. Later, she accidentally drops it while in front of her mother Sinceria and her zealous bodyguard Rachel. Sinceria figures out nothing actually happened but acts like it did, while Rachel is furious.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: The White Queen gives off the impression of not thinking things through and being easily distracted. She herself even claims that she doesn't bother planning anything, since being the strongest entity in the universe, she doesn't need to. However, later volumes confirm that this is a facade. The seventh volume is a notable example: she impersonates Aoi, Kyousuke's intended vessel for the volume, and is good enough to fool Renge (Aoi's caretaker). During this, she doesn't react to Kyousuke saying the names of other girls (something that was initially presented as her Berserk Button) and even manages to hold his head to her chest without losing control of herself. While Kyousuke figures out the deception, it's implied that she allowed him to do so, since her plan required him to successfully defeat her. And in the end, she manages to achieve her main goal.
• Oblivious to Love: Kyousuke refuses to acknowledge that the White Queen is in love with him, despite her saying it with practically every sentence. Though from his perspective it's justified, given what the Queen did in the Secret War and his crappy childhood.
• One-Man Army:
  • Summoners above Award 900, like Kyousuke, Azalea and Biondetta, routinely defeat large numbers of enemies with ease. The biggest example of this is Kyousuke defeating a US army, armed with tanks, aircraft, artillery and Repliglass, while adhering to his no-killing rule.
  • The White Queen is famous for this - once she's summoned, she guarantees victory for her summoner, no matter the odds. Her greatest feat to date is defeating an army of hundreds of Unexplored-Class Materials, even though her power should have been sealed by their combined presence, and without allowing a single one of their attacks to even graze Kyousuke.
• Only Known by Their Nickname:
  • A number of summoners are only ever referred to by their Red Baron, with their actual names never being revealed.
  • Madam Professor does have a real name, Masami Shigara, but is more often referred to by said nickname.
• Our Elves Are Different:
  • Sinceria, the Queen of Kingdom F, has pointed ears and superhuman beauty due to binding so many contracts as a vessel that it's changed her appearance.
  • Elves in the usual sense have yet to appear, but presumably exist as Divine-Class Materials.
• Our Monsters Are Different / Our Monsters Are Weird: Unlike the Divine-Class, which are based on figures in real-life mythology, the Regulation-Class Materials are all original creations. They often combine traits of multiple organisms and/or objects, such as the DEC Tentacle (a giant squid with chains for tentacles), the Tree Hand (an enormous arm growing from the ground like a tree), and the Giant Hostile Eye (a giant eye made of barbed wire).
• Physical God: Divine-Class Materials.
• Pinky Swear: Kyousuke once made such a promise with the White Queen, to never leave her side.
• Plot Tailored to the Party: Lampshaded as early as the first volume. Kyousuke often encounters situations that only he can solve, because of the White Queen being behind it all. The Queen's power means that that she's involved in every single villain's plan in some fashion, and her twisted love for Kyousuke means that he's the only one who can defeat her in any way.
• Poor Communication Kills: Ultimately, the main conflict of the series is a breakdown in communications between Kyousuke and the White Queen.
• Powered Armor: Several examples throughout the series, all made using Repliglass. They're often based on the body plan of a living organism, such as having grasshopper-like legs for jumping.
• Power Levels:
  • Among summoners, Awards are seen as this in-universe, though they're not always accurate. Summoners that abstain from fighting won't receive many Awards, but can nevertheless be skilled. It's also pointed out that no matter how high the Award, all summoners have to start from the very beginning with Regulation-Class Materials. That said, there are still clear divisions based on Awards: those with Award less than 900, those in the 900-1000 range, and those with an Award greater than 1000.
  • Among Materials, there are the Regulation-Class, the Divine-Class and the Unexplored-Class, in ascending order of power. Within each class, the cost of a Material (the amount of Petals used to summon it) also determines its power. While sound range also has an effect, with a large enough cost disparity it's possible for a Material to defeat one with a superior sound range.
• Power Limiter:
  • All vessels wear something that symbolises restraint, in order to prevent Materials from hijacking their body. The exact nature of the limiter varies depending on the vessel.
  • All of the complexity and restrictions of the Blood Sign ceremony act as a limiter on the Materials. Other methods of summoning have fewer restrictions, but are much more dangerous.
• The Power of Blood: A recurring theme.
  • A vessel drinking a summoner's blood forms a contract between them and enables telepathy.
  • Members of specific royal bloodlines make especially talented vessels, because they can control the Material they become more precisely.
  • In volume 10, the White Queen saves Kyousuke's life by transferring a drop of her own divine blood into him. Also counts as a Magic Kiss.
• The Power of Love: A rare villainous example. The White Queen is motivated purely by her love for Kyousuke, to the point of achieving things which should be impossible for even her. At the climax of the Secret War, she fought all of the other Unexplored-Class - who should have the ability to seal her power when they're gathered together - and defeated them all, while preventing Kyousuke from being killed in the crossfire.

Q-Z

• Rank Scales with Asskicking:
  • The White Queen is the ruler of all Materials, and the most powerful one by far.
  • The former leader of Government, Humanism, with an Award level of 2799.
• Red Baron: All summoners receive a title, usually given to them by others once they begin to gain status in the world of summoning.
  • Kyousuke has multiple such titles. Of special note are the ones "Alice (with) Rabbit", "Loved by the White" and White Slayer, which all relate to his relationship with the White Queen. Volume 8 adds yet another major title after killing the Queen: "Queen Executioner"
• Reality Warper: The White Queen is this, even among other Unexplored-Class. Not only can she perform supposedly-impossible feats (like attacking summoners through a protective circle), but she managed to defeat all of the other Unexplored-Classes - whose main purpose is to defeat her - and thus achieved complete control over the laws of the world, effectively making her totally invincible.
  • Then there's the Colorless Little Girl, who can counter everything the White Queen does, and can even completely remove her influence from the universe.
• Ridiculously Human Robot: Renge was made as a copy of Higan without a vessel's trait. She is close enough to a human that she can use summoning magic, and could potentially donate her organs to Higan with no risk of rejection.
• RPG Elements: In Volume 7, an RPG-style stat sheet is displayed for the White Queen when the Colorless Little Girl analyses her. It literally gives numerical values for things like HP and MP, as well as a long lists of strengths and her one weakness (Kyousuke).
• Ruritania: Kingdom F, officially known as the Frangild Permanently Neutral Kingdom, is a small country in Eastern Europe ruled by the Highland family. It is practically unknown to the rest of the world, because the White Queen inserted herself into the country's history and destabilised its existence. This is no longer the case after the White Queen's defeat.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Kyousuke's philosophy in a nutshell.
• Self-Duplication: Almost all Materials can be summoned by more than one summoner at once, even if said summoners are fighting each other. The sole exception is the White Queen, who normally can only be summoned by one summoner. However, the Queen can duplicate herself in certain circumstances.
• Self-Serving Memory: Whenever Kyousuke recalls his past experiences with the White Queen, her real name, Mary, is censored. It's implied that he deliberately refuses to remember it because he doesn't want to acknowledge that the current Queen is the one who broke her promise not to hurt anyone. It may also be that he's trying to dehumanize the Queen by dissociating her from such things as a human name.
• Shapeshifting:
  • A core part of summoning battles is rearranging and adding to the Material's name to transform it into new forms.
  • The White Queen can transform into 512 different forms, such as an insect-like creature with an indestructible shell, a mass of gears and artillery, a colossal aquatic monster, or an enormous plant with burning flowers. She fully recovers from all injury when switching forms.
• Significant Anagram: The official name of the Black Maw That Swallows All (nu – lp – eu – bf – zuh – ei – jkv – iu – a – xw) is this to the White Queen's official name (iu – nu – fb – a – wuh – ei –kx – eu – pl – vjz).
• Silicon-Based Life: Repliglass technology is an artificial version of this. It consists of artificial cells with a silicon base, and is often given the structure of an existing animal.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: This is essentially why there are so many girls interested in Kyousuke. Unfortunately, that also includes the White Queen.
• Sizeshifter: The White Queen can freely change her own size, being able to grow so large that she can pull a helicopter from the sky with one hand.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Subverted. The White Queen appears in the very first volume, and in all subsequent volumes. The human antagonists of each volume also vary in strength.
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation: The only magic other than Summon Magic that summoners can use is to construct and deconstruct a Blood Sign.
• Spotting the Thread: The White Queen impersonates Aoi during Volume 7. However, Kyousuke figures it out for two reasons. One, she retained her memories of him even when he was out of sight and prior to becoming his vessel (though this wasn't certain proof, since the real Aoi isn't a normal human). Two, she demonstrates a technique for shooting water with one's hands that Kyousuke remembered teaching the Queen in the past.
• Squishy Wizard: Played with. Summoners and vessels are inherently no more durable than a normal human being. However, when actually summoning, the summoner gains a protective circle and the vessel transforms into a Material, making them completely immune to normal attacks.
• Starfish Robots: The Released Creations. Unlike other Repliglass technology, these aren't modelled after an existing living organism but instead have an original structure. The only example of this so far is a model of Powered Armor that has five "wings" on the back. These wings can rotate like a helicopter rotor for flight or unravel into Combat Tentacles.
• Story-Breaker Power: The White Queen is by far the most powerful entity in the entire series, to the point that any Material that isn't another Unexplored-Class is too afraid to even attack her. She is also worshipped as a goddess by an enormous number of people. And she is utterly devoted to Kyousuke. If it weren't for her also being the evilest entity in the entire series, Kyousuke could easily have her bring about a utopia.
• Stripperific:
  • The White Queen's outfit resembles a wedding dress, but bares her shoulders, cleavage, navel and thighs.
  • Lu Niang Lan's clothing isn't much better, though in her case, it was originally a costume for a movie.
• Summon Bigger Fish: Or rather, Summon Equal Fish. At the end of Volume 1, Kyousuke commits a Taboo to summon the Black Maw on purpose, which would normally kill him. The White Queen refuses to let anyone or anything else kill him, so she fights against the Black Maw and is (temporarily) killed. Kyousuke then transforms the Black Maw into another Material to avoid being killed. It's an especially unusual example, since the Black Maw is actually another facet of the White Queen.
• Summon Magic: The main form of magic that humans can use.
  • The First Summoning Ceremony is summoning a being to take over one's mind, like dressing in animal furs and then summoning an animal's mind to replace the summoner's own or dressing like some mythical person and summoning a being to take over the summmoner's body and use the skills of that mythical person.
  • The Second Summoning Ceremony is changing the summoner's mind into a state that allows the use of supernatural knowledge, such as rain-calling or demon-summoning via grimoires.
  • The main form used in the series is the Third Summoning Ceremony, also known as the Blood Sign-based summoning ceremony, which can essentially be described as Scrabble performed using a 3D game of pool. A ceremony begins when an Incense Grenade is detonated, creating an Artificial Sacred Ground in which supernatural phenomena can occur. A Rose is created at the centre, consisting of 216 floating red spheres known as Petals (analogous to the object balls in pool). Each summoner is accompanied by White Thorns (white spheres, analogous to the cue ball) and uses their Blood Sign to hit the White Thorns to knock the Petals into Spots (36 spherical holes in space, analogous to the holes). Each Petal is associated with a particular letter, and by knocking a particular combination of Petals into Spots, a summoner spells out the name of a Material to summon them.
  • Summoning invariably requires two people, a summoner and a vessel. The summoner uses the method detailed above to call in a Material from the other world, who then possesses the vessel. The vessel's body transforms into that of the Material, gaining its invincibility and other powers.
  • The summoner can change the Material they use by knocking more Petals into Spots. Doing so is necessary because different Materials have different strengths and weaknesses. Additionally, the Material's strength is proportional to the total number of Petals in Spots.
  • The first Material summoned is always of the weakest Regulation-Class. After summoning 100 Regulation-Class Materials, the summoner can then summon the Divine-Class Materials. If they then summon 50 Divine-Class Materials, they gain the privilege of summoning the Unexplored-Class Materials. However, a given summoning ceremony only lasts for ten minutes (barring certain exceptions), so they rarely progress to this level.
  • Understandably, many efforts are made in-universe to simplify the summoning ceremony. Alternatives to the Blood Sign method include the Sewn Realm Summoning (analogous to throwing a fish back with a hook in its mouth, so it can be more easily caught in future), the Holy Key Women, and Pandemonium.
    • Pandemonium can do Projection Summon Bombing, which is basically a long-range attack on an area.
    • There's also Attach Saint Project, which is summoning godly weaponry for human use.
    • The Holy Key Women are living weapons. Vessels who contain a Divine-Class Material and then let loose to rampage on one's enemies.
  • The Fourth Summoning Ceremony is introduced in Volume 7. Not much has been shown of it, but it contains the new Unexplored-Class, the Colorless Little Girl. It still makes use of the Blood Sign and its associated elements. Instead of summoning a variety of Materials from the world's mythologies, it seems to revolve around using a single Material in a battle, swapping out its weapon to suit the opponent.
• Super-Strength: All Materials have this to some degree. Even the most basic Regulation-Class Materials can break through concrete, and Divine-Class Materials can crush buildings just by throwing their bodies around.
  • In a crossover, the White Queen easily swings around an Object, a superweapon weighing tens of thousands of tons.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: The White Queen's dress can change shape freely and transform into any kind of weapon.
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: All Materials belong to one of three sound ranges (except for the White Queen and the Black Maw, which are outside of the rules). High has an advantage over medium, medium over low, and low over high. However, if a Material has a cost at least 10 Petals higher than its opponent, then it will have the advantage even if its sound range is inferior.
• Talking Is a Free Action: It's common for characters to say multiple lines in the middle of battle, often explaining what they're doing, and not once are they interrupted.
• Thanatos Gambit: In Volume 7 the White Queen allows herself to be killed by the new Material Kyousuke made solely for the purpose of killing her. This would change said Material into something even more dangerous than the Queen was, forcing Kyousuke to work together with the Queen to stop it.
• There Are Two Kinds of People in the World: The White Queen brings up this idea in the prologue of the third volume, with the two kinds being controllers and the controlled. However, she immediately mocks the idea.
• Thinks Like a Romance Novel: The White Queen thinks like this, albeit in an extremely twisted manner. For example, she sees no problem with killing anyone in the way of a date. She also stages a Bed Mate Reveal and thinks that tricking him into creating a bigger danger than herself so he'd be forced to work with her to stop it will make them a Battle Couple.
• Thou Shall Not Kill: Kyousuke, to the point of being called the "Unkilling King". However, he has a very specific exception for the White Queen.
• Tom the Dark Lord: It turns out that the White Queen received the name of Mary Ann from Kyousuke. Doubles as a Meaningful Name.
• Traintop Battle: At the start of Volume 7, Kyousuke and Biondetta fight off an attack by Bridesmaid on (and in) a moving train.
• 20 Minutes into the Future: The only date specified is that the Third Summoning Ceremony was invented in 1999. The present of the series can't be more than a few decades later than this, given that one character who witnessed this event (Doctor S) is still alive.
• Unreliable Narrator: Kyousuke's perspective is subtly but clearly skewed when it comes to the White Queen. He repeatedly emphasises that she isn't really in love with him, but sections from her viewpoint confirm that she is (albeit in a twisted, inhuman manner).
  • Volume 9 provides another example; Kyousuke assumes Shigara's been brainwashed just because of a single statement she made in the previous novel that killing the White Queen isn't the best way to deal with her.
• Unskilled, but Strong:
  • Materials in general fight with animalistic instinct and are barely controllable by their summoner. Only very skilled vessels, like Olivia, can make them use even basic tactics like targeting the opponent's weak point.
  • The White Queen. She even says that her power is so immense that no skill is necessary. And due to her lack of morals, she doesn't see any reason for restraint. Though Volume 7 reveals that this actually isn't the case - she has incredible skill in every conceivable field, but just never bothers to use it.
• Unwanted Harem: Kyousuke never shows interest in any of the girls pursuing him, to avoid entangling them in his dangerous lifestyle. And also because of his association with the White Queen, who might well destroy the world if she saw him going out with someone else.
• Urban Fantasy
• Victory by Endurance: Since a summoning battle automatically ends after ten minutes (unless prolonged via a Chain), it's possible to avoid losing by fighting defensively until the time is up.
• Villainous Rescue: The White Queen saves Kyousuke on several occasions, such as from the zoo in Volume 6.
• Villainous Valour: The White Queen shows no fear no matter the situation. Even when she's about to be permanently killed by the Colorless Little Girl, she only feels happy that Kyousuke managed to understand her to that level. Though since she actually planned for this and somehow survived, it may be a subversion.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Again, the White Queen.
• We Can Rule Together: The White Queen makes this offer to Kyousuke several times, often framing it in terms of working together to solve the problems in the world.
• Weirdness Censor: It's believed that the reason summoners and vessels vanish from ordinary people's memories is that an untrained mind can't properly comprehend the supernatural.
• Wham Line:
  • The White Queen's very first line:
  "Long time no see, brother. Have you been doing well since I last saw you?"
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The Materials are seen as no more than tools for the use of humans, reflected in their name. Kyousuke once wanted to change this attitude by summoning and befriending the White Queen, but it went horribly wrong.
• With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: A negative example. Many characters pressure the White Queen to be what they want from a supreme god, regardless of what she can or wants to do. The main reason Kyousuke tries to kill her (something he doesn't do to any other criminal) is because what she is makes him hold her to higher standards.
• Manchild: Well, Womanchild. The White Queen behaves in an extremely childish manner, including destructive tantrums when she doesn't get her way.
  • Aoi Meinokawa turns out to be this as well.
• Worf Barrage:
  • Any attack directed against the White Queen. A good example is in Volume 4, where she literally splits apart a bombardment using the Lady of Purple Lightning's power.
  • The Colorless Little Girl can No-Sell every single one of the White Queen's attacks.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: The White Queen is seen as the most beautiful of both Materials and humans.
• Yandere:
  • The White Queen is this for Kyousuke. If Yuno Gasai can be considered the Goddess of Yanderes, then the White Queen can be considered the Eldritch Abomination of them. Though Kyousuke claims that it isn't really love at all, but an obsession with the idea of love.
  • The Colorless Little Girl becomes a different version of this after the White Queen loses to her on purpose. Unlike the example above, she is obedient to Kyousuke and only tries to protect him, but is still dangerous as she causes significant collateral damage.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: The prologue of Volume 6 has the White Queen saying this to Kyousuke.
• Zombie Apocalypse: In Volume 7, the White Queen demonstrates the ability to infect and transform others with a bite, resulting in something very similar to this trope.

---