Throne Of Cards

Prologue

Blood. Blood on the floor. Hot and wet. Uncomfortable. A pressing heat. Pants. He was running. Trying to scream. Blood on his throat. Blood in his throat. Drowning. Cough up and exhale to your heart's content, the source of life that lifts up from your throat. Bloody vomit, and blood bubbles that float on the edges of the mouth. In the vague view, you can see the ground stained bright red.

　--Oh, this is all my blood.

　Bleeding enough to soak the body. It is said that the amount of human blood is about 8% of the total, and that one third of it will be life-threatening.

　Although the vomiting of blood from the mouth is stopped, the cause of "heat" that burns the body is still active. The barely-moving hand goes to the abdomen, and I feel convinced by the feeling that it cannot exist.

　――What's wrong with your stomach?

　It feels hot. It seems that "pain" is an illusion of "heat".

　A sharp laceration passes through the torso in almost half and is joined by a single piece of waist skin.

　After all, he seems to have faced the "clog" of life.

　At the moment you understand it, your consciousness rapidly goes away.

　Even the "heat" that had forced him to sneak off a while ago disappears somewhere, and the unpleasant bloody feel and the sensation of the hand touching the internal organs are all taken along as a companion to the distant consciousness.

　Only the body refused to accompany the "soul" is left behind.

　The body is moved a little by the last action from the vanishing consciousness. Head up.

　In front of her, black shoes trampled the floor covered with a carpet of fresh blood, creating ripples.

　There is someone. And probably someone killed himself.

　Strangely, I didn't feel like worshiping the other person's face.

　I don't remember being opportunistic enough to take a bystander to someone who would kill me, even to such an opponent, but my heart is not interested in the shards such as the person's surname.

　All I wanted was-may she be safe.

"--Bar?"

　I think I heard a voice like a bell.

　It is more likely that the ear is empty because you cannot know where your ears and your nose are.

　Even so, even if I relied on my memory to recreate it, the voice was terribly comfortable.

　So--

"-!"

　A short scream screams and the blood carpet welcomes new participants.

　The collapsed body was right next to him, and there was his loosely stretched arm.

　The white hand that has fallen forcefully and my bloody hand are entwined.

　Everything must have been a coincidence.

　I felt that my fingertips, which moved slightly, held my hands back.

"... stay"

　Grab the neck of the consciousness to move away and forcefully turn around to gain time.

　"Pain" and "fever" are all far away, and the barking of a losing dog with useless scratching.

　But still--

"I must be--"

　――I will save you.

A buzz emerged. It made an eerie sound. it clicked once, clicked again. As it's sound bore into the surroundings, a long hand snuffed its voice. Snoozing his alarm, Mohan woke up in an uncomfortable position. His knees were hitting the edge of his capsule. Instinctively, he tried to get up and almost banged his head on the ceiling of the capsule hotel. Snapped back to reality by this rude shock, Mohan silently cursed his decision to stay in a capsule hotel. There was no helping it, he reminded himself. So, as he slowly undid the lock on his capsule hotel door, Mohan silently contemplated the last two months. Mohan B. Vadia, 20 years old, 7 feet 3 inches tall, The captain of IIT Bombay Football team, and a true gamer. He was a Btech student in Civil Engineering. He had come over for a semester to study civil engineering through Tokyo university exchange program. He had arrived in January and should have been back in mumbai by march. Instead, it was already May and he was still stuck here. The lockdown in India made it virtually impossible to go back. So, he was here. His dorm was too expensive, so he had moved to a capsule hotel. The owner had been nice enough to let him have a complimentary breakfast. in return, he helped keep his floor clean. They had a nice thing going. Lost in these thoughts, Mohan cleaned himself up. Then he headed down and grabbed said breakfast. Today, it was a bowl of steamed rice and eggs with tuna. After eating his fill and thanking the owner, Mohan went to the library across from the hotel. The library was free and he had been trying to learn up on Japanese in his stay there. As he entered the library, a familiar voice called out to him. "こんにちは モハン" [konnichiwa Mohan/ hello Mohan].

"勉強を続けるのはあなたですか？"

[Benkyō o tsudzukeru no wa anatadesu ka?/Continuing your studies are you?]

That voice belonged to Hitagi Ayanami. Hitagi was a student of tokyo university who he had befriended over the past few months. She worked at the library part time. "yep." Mohan replied.

"すごい仕事。ちなみに私とミズキはパーティーを主催する予定です。遅れないでください。." She replied.

[Sugoi shigoto. Chinamini watashi to mizuki wa pātī o shusai suru yoteidesu. Okurenaide kudasai./Great work. By the way, me and miyuki are going to host a party. Don't be late.]

"遅れないでください. At what time?"

"4. またね." [Mata ne/ see you then]

After that brief conversation, Mohan spent most of the day reading various books. He was catching up to the one piece manga, and he no longer needed a dictionary every few minutes. Around 2 o'clock, Manoj abandoned his quest to finish one piece and decided to go grab some food. He started to head to the hotel, but he remembered that he had run out of stuff. As a result, he decided to go to the local convenience store.

The convenience store was an odd little place. It was tucked between two much taller buildings. It was

also a bit off the road, which made the whole place look kinda forgotten. Anyways, it was clean and cheap, and those were the only things that mattered. Manoj bought a weeks worth of food, along with a new brush and paste, a pack of protein powder and a bottle of sake for miyuki.

However, as soon as Manoj left the store, hecould feel that something was wrong. There was a flash of light which forcedhim to close his eyes. Then he felt a warm wind blow past him. It was way toowarm and wet for Tokyo. The wind also smelt faintly of mangoes. Manoj slowlyopened his eyes. The sight shocked him.