Chapter 1: Death is Not the End

The sound of a ticking clock—loud, rhythmic, steady.

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Then silence.

Nakora Izumachi felt her lungs exhale, but no breath came. There was no ground beneath her feet, no sky above, no sensation of flesh or bone—only existence itself, floating in an infinite white void. It was as if time had abandoned her, and with it, the rules that once governed her body.

She opened her eyes. Or at least she thought she did.

There was no pain. There was no gravity. There was no heartbeat.

Just... awareness.

The blank space stretched endlessly. The white around her was not bright, not glowing—it was matte, like painted paper. The silence wasn’t peaceful, but dead. Cold. Isolated. Then, something changed.

A black line cracked open the air in front of her, like someone cutting the dimension itself with a blade. From that rift, two other figures fell in slow motion—boys around her age. One had sharp black hair, styled with precision, his features clean and handsome like a prince from a battle manga. The other bore a calm expression, his black hair falling slightly over his right eye, where a bandage was wrapped—matching the ones tied around both his hands. Both looked around, silently processing the void that swallowed them.

They both opened their eyes simultaneously.

The blonde boy groaned and floated forward, disoriented. “Where… am I?”

“...Is this... death?” the bespectacled boy muttered under his breath.

Nakora didn’t speak yet. She only watched, a twisted smile curling across her lips. It was unnatural, too wide for comfort—like a doll that had been carved wrong.

From above, a sound echoed. A voice—ancient, mechanical, genderless.

“Welcome to Stage 1. You have been selected.”

All three lifted their heads.

“You are now Paradosa. The chosen dead. Rejected by both heaven and hell, but granted purpose.”

Suddenly, beams of data rained down in threads of light. The space distorted. Three massive holographic cards appeared before them, floating with arcane symbols spinning around the borders.

Nakora’s card pulsed red.

[CARDWEAPON – NAKORA IZUMACHI: IRON SPIKED CHAIN]

Kouzaki’s pulsed blue.

[CARDWEAPON – KOUZAKI YIROUTA: HEAVEN-SHARP BLADE]

Itsuzo’s glowed violet.

[CARDWEAPON – ITSUZO NUKAMI: CURSED DAGGER]

The cards materialized into weapons.

Nakora’s iron chain unraveled into her hands, its links thick and blackened, the ends tipped with sharpened steel spikes that gleamed faintly in the void's eerie light. She tilted her head, and her eyes shimmered.

“Oh… this feels like home.”

Kouzaki caught his blade clumsily, instinctively raising it in defense. “W-Wait! What is this?!”

Itsuzo simply examined his dagger. “...This isn’t just a weapon. It’s the past.”

The voice returned.

“These weapons—CardWeapons—are forged from the last memories of your deaths. The tools used to end your mortal life. You must now wield them to fight what you once could not: the evil of regret. You are Paradosa. Fighters of penance.”

Suddenly, the space trembled. The horizon, if it could be called that, bled black. From the distortion emerged grotesque silhouettes—skeletal, twisted, crawling with darkness. Their eyes were voids. Their mouths, endless.

The first enemies.

“Eliminate the Paramental Scourge. This is your first trial.”