'Why is everything pointing toward this tarot card…? Why is it telling me to use it?'
The voice stopped mattering.
The card didn't.
Zekai's eyes slowly lowered toward the tarot box. Inside, the top card stood out immediately.
The Fool.
Compared to the other cards, it looked newer. Cleaner. Less worn. If this place contained answers, this card was his only lead.
Seeing the anomaly right in front of him only made Zekai's curiosity grow stronger. It was a bad habit of his. Once something caught his attention, he couldn't just let it go.
"…Let's see."
He didn't need to believe the rules. He only needed to test them.
Without hesitation, Zekai bit the tip of his thumb. A small bead of blood surfaced instantly.
Aron flinched. "Mr. Zekai, what are you doing?! No—blood!"
Zekai ignored him. Aron had no connection to this system, so there was no point explaining. He let the drop of blood fall directly onto The Fool.
For a second—nothing happened.
The throne hall remained dead silent. Zekai let out a dry, cynical scoff.
"...Seriously?"
He casually flicked the card away.
"That's it?"
But the moment he expected it to fly through the air, sequence broke.
The card stopped dead in mid-air.
Zekai froze.
'…No. It never left my hand.'
The card hung motionless for a fraction of a second, suspended unnaturally as if gravity had paused to reconsider. Then, space snapped back into place.
The card was already back in his palm. It didn't fly back. It didn't fall. It was simply there—without movement, without a path.
The distance between "here" and "there" had been completely erased.
Zekai blinked slowly. "…What?"
It had never left. Cause came afterward. Movement came afterward. The outcome had already happened first.
"Hey, Aron…" Zekai said quietly, his eyes locked on the card. "Did you see that? It stopped in the air."
Aron frowned, his confusion genuine. "No. It's been in your hand the whole time."
Zekai slowly turned his head to look at the kid.
'What is he talking about? I just threw it.'
The line between his reality and Aron's was beginning to warp. To test it, Zekai threw the card a second time.
Snap.
The exact same result. The card returned to his palm instantly, skipping the physical laws of travel.
Zekai's eyes never left it. "...Cards don't do that."
His grip tightened around the gold border.
But from Aron's perspective, the situation looked entirely different.
"Mr. Zekai…? What happened all of a sudden?"
Aron's voice shook. He grabbed Zekai by the shoulders and shook him hard.
"You've just been standing there talking to yourself. You haven't moved at all! You're just holding the card with your eyes closed!"
No matter how hard Aron shook him, Zekai didn't respond.
His body was locked. His eyes remained shut tight.
Inside Zekai's perception, the world twisted violently.
He tried to drop the card, but his fingers refused to open. It didn't feel glued; it felt integrated. The skin beneath the card burned intensely—not with pain, but with the sudden, violent rush of blood circulation returning after being cut off for too long.
His breathing broke. "Hey—no. No, no—"
Zekai grabbed his right wrist with his left hand, trying to force the card away. "Get off… Let go!"
Thump.
The Fool card pulsed like a living heart.
Thump.
Not his heartbeat.
A dark red liquid slowly spread across its surface. It didn't drip. It moved deliberately, crawling beyond the card and bleeding into the open air. Thin crimson veins spread across the walls and ceiling.
They branched endlessly through the throne hall—not like blood vessels, but unfinished pathways searching for somewhere to lead.
The temperature dropped instantly.
"That's not real."
Zekai whirled toward Aron.
Aron had stopped.
Completely.
His fingers remained suspended against the air. His chest never rose. Even the panic trapped in his expression refused to move forward.
Even the dust in the air had stopped falling.
"Hey… Aron. Wake up."
No response.
Instead, the red interface flashed violently before his eyes.
[EVENT TRIGGERED — IRREVERSIBLE]
[CONDITION: SATISFIED]
[THE FOOL HAS ANSWERED]
[THE FIRST DOOR OPENS]
The decision was out of his hands.
Zekai's eyes narrowed into sharp slits.
"'Irreversible'…"
Zekai stared at the crimson text.
"...So this place was waiting for permission."
He looked down at his hand. The card was gone.
His palm wasn't empty.
The air grew heavy and sealed, locking the throne hall away from the rest of reality. His hands began to shake before he could stop them.
Then—something moved behind him.
It wasn't human.
Before he could even spin around, a pair of ice-cold, pitch-black hands reached out from the dark and covered his eyes.
He never sensed anything approaching. The hands were simply already there.
"WHO THE—?!"
Zekai's heartbeat skipped a violent beat.
Then, reality shattered. A torrential flood of visual exploded directly into his mind—it wasn't memory. It wasn't imagination, but fragments of a brutal truth he was already forced to see.
And it had been waiting for him.
✦ End of Chapter 5 — The Vision ✦