His eyes remained fixed on the box.
'Why does everything keep pointing to this card?'
That voice. That screen. Even the torn rules. Everything kept pointing him back to the same card, again and again.
'Use the card. Why?'
For the first time, he had no answer. His gaze fell to the open box. One particular card caught his eye.
The Fool card. It looked newer than the others. Its edges were clean.
If there was an answer somewhere in this ruined place, that card was his best chance of finding it.
That was enough. Curiosity was his worst habit. Once something caught his attention, he couldn't simply leave it alone.
He reached out to take it.
"...Let's see."
He didn't need to trust those rules. He only needed to test them.
He bit his thumb.
'If that rule is real, I'll know soon enough.'
Aron flinched. "Mr. Zekai, what are you doing?!"
A drop of blood welled up.
"No... blood, don't—"
Zekai ignored him. There was no point explaining a system Aron couldn't even see.
He held his bleeding thumb over The Fool card. A drop fell onto it.
Plop.
Nothing happened. The hall sank back into its dead silence.
One second. Two. Three.
Zekai waited another moment. Still, nothing happened. His expression flattened. "...Seriously?"
With a humorless, mocking smile, he tossed the card away without a second thought.
But it refused to leave him. The card froze motionless in midair.
His fingers remained suspended in the exact spot where he had let it go. The card was back in his palm.
Zekai stared at it in disbelief. "...What?!" His mind replayed the throw.
He had felt it leave his fingers. 'No.'
His eyes narrowed. 'This makes no sense!'
Nothing made sense. Especially the card in his hand. He turned toward Aron.
"Hey." His voice was quieter now. "Did you see that?"
Aron blinked. "See what?"
"The card. It stopped in midair."
"...No."
Aron's confusion deepened. "It was in your hand the whole time."
For the first time, even Zekai wasn't sure which of them had seen the truth.
They were standing in the same hall. But they were no longer going to see the same thing. Something invisible had come to stand between them.
'What is he talking about? I just threw it.'
'...Cards don't do that.'
He looked at his hand. Then he looked at the card.
The thought began to take root in his mind that perhaps the problem wasn't the card. Maybe the problem was him.
(....)
Suddenly, Aron grabbed Zekai by both shoulders and shook him. "Mr. Zekai?!"
Zekai blinked. "What?!"
Aron was trembling with fear. "You've been standing completely still this whole time!"
From Aron's perspective, Zekai had been standing there stiff as a statue. Aron's voice cracked.
"Your eyes were closed. You weren't saying anything!"
(....)
Zekai's body wouldn't respond.
"Was he telling the truth? Had I really been standing here all this time?"
"...My eyes were closed?"
Aron asked again. "What happened to you?!"
Zekai tried to answer. His body wouldn't cooperate.
It felt as though the room itself was tilting around him. The throne hall was still there. But something inside his head had changed.
Suddenly, his body started responding again. But Aron standing in front of him now appeared frozen like a statue.
Zekai tried to speak to Aron. "Aron, what happened to you? Look at me."
Suddenly, The Fool card pulsed.
Thump.
He froze. His breath caught. "Hey!"
The card pulsed again. Something deep red seeped out from beneath the illustration. Deep red. It crawled over the edges of the card and spread into the air.
"What the hell is this..." His voice trembled. "No. No, no..."
He grabbed his wrist and tried to pry the card away with his fingers. "Let go. Let me go!"
Instead of retreating, the red liquid split into hundreds of thin lines. They spread across the walls. Climbed over the pillars. Crawled across the ceiling. They looked like veins growing inside the stone.
Zekai took a step back.
It was as if an invisible wall had closed around him, cutting the throne hall off from the rest of the world.
"This is impossible."
He turned toward Aron. "Aron!"
Aron was completely motionless. His fingers were still resting on Zekai's shoulder. Aron's chest wasn't moving. The fear on his face hadn't changed.
Zekai waved a hand in front of his eyes. "Aron? Wake up!"
There was no response. He reached out. "Wake up. We need to get out of here."
A red screen filled Zekai's entire field of vision. The world around him slowly faded into darkness.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[EVENT ACTIVATED — IRREVERSIBLE]
CONDITION: FULFILLED
THE FOOL HAS RESPONDED
[THE FIRST DOOR IS OPENING]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Zekai stared at the message. He hadn't chosen anything. His pupils narrowed. "Irreversible..."
His gaze remained fixed on the final line. "The First Door—" His own voice sounded like someone else's.
His throat went dry. 'Was this place waiting for me?'
He looked at his hand. The Fool card was gone.
Snap.
Something moved behind him. He didn't hear it coming. But he felt it, and Zekai's body shuddered.
Before he could turn around, a pair of pitch-black hands, cold as ice, emerged from the darkness and covered his eyes.
His entire body tensed at once.
"WHO THE..."
✦ End of Chapter 5 — The First Door ✦