Chapter 1: THE START

"Justice has blindfolded eyes, I have a blindfolded heart. I see good, I see evil, but I feel neither one nor the other. How can a dead man save the living?"

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Year: 20**
Month: May
Day: 27
Time: 4:30 PM
Location: Tokyo, Nakamura Agencies Offices

The afternoon light filtered through the bulletproof glass of the office on the fortieth floor, casting long shadows across the polished mahogany furniture. The air conditioning hummed softly, maintaining the temperature at exactly eighteen degrees Celsius.

"Mr. Nakamura, please reconsider once more," Tanaka's voice trembled as he clutched a folder of documents in his sweaty hands. "I won't be able to pay all this debt now. Please grant me more time."

Hiroshi Nakamura observed the man sitting across from his desk with the same expression one might use to examine a financial report. No trace of compassion or annoyance crossed his perfectly shaven face. His blue eyes, cold as Arctic ice, remained fixed on Tanaka as he inhaled slowly, a calculated gesture designed to amplify the psychological effect of his words.

"Well then, Mr. Tanaka, perhaps we haven't understood each other," said Nakamura, his voice cutting through the air like a surgical blade. "Allow me to refresh your memory. Six months ago you signed a contract in which your company requested a loan of one hundred seventy-two million yen, to be repaid within five months. In case of default, the amount automatically doubles."

He rose from his executive chair, walking toward the panoramic window that dominated Tokyo's skyline. "You remember signing, don't you, Mr. Tanaka? The deadline passed a month ago. Don't expect mercy."

Sweat began to pour profusely down Tanaka's forehead, staining the collar of his freshly pressed white shirt. His tailored suit, purchased in his company's better days, now clung to him like a second skin soaked in desperation.

"It's... it's true what you say," he stammered with a voice choked by anguish, "but think of my family, my company, my employees. All our lives will be destroyed."

Nakamura turned slowly. His blue eyes reflected the sunset light, deep and inexorable as the ocean during a storm. When he spoke, his voice had the temperature of dry ice.

"It's not my job to worry about all that. I made a deal with you and I want my money. That's it."

He paused calculatedly, then headed toward the door, indicating it with an elegant but definitive gesture. "Now you can go. I hope that the next time we meet, you'll have already settled the debt. Goodbye."

Tanaka rose with mechanical movements, his eyes reddened by unshed tears. Clutching the documents against his chest like a useless shield, he headed toward the exit with his head down, shoulders curved under the weight of defeat.

Once the door closed with a metallic click, Nakamura pressed the intercom button.

"Mr. Sato, please come to my office."

A few minutes later, a man in his sixties entered. His baldness was compensated by tufts of white hair on the sides of his skull, and thick prescription glasses magnified his wise eyes. He walked slightly hunched, the weight of years and financial calculations bearing down on his shoulders.

Nakamura leaned back in his chair, putting his feet on the crystal table and interlacing his fingers behind his neck in a pose of studied casualness.

"So, Mr. Sato, what's our ranking today in the market?"

Mr. Sato was more than a simple secretary. He was a genius of financial mathematics, with forty years of experience in the sector. Three years earlier, Nakamura had sold everything he owned to hire this old wizard of numbers. The investment had proven to be the shrewdest move of his career: in just three years, Sato had transformed Hiroshi Nakamura from an ordinary insurance salesman into Tokyo's most successful businessman in the last four months. The next step would be entering Japan's top ten.

Sato consulted his tablet with precise gestures, then responded with his thin but firm voice: "Sir, we were first in sales again today. The population's trust in Nakamura Companies is at historic highs. From cosmetics to health insurance, from automobiles to technological devices, to industrial components, approximately forty-eight percent of Tokyo's population buys from us."

Hearing these words, Nakamura closed his eyes. For a moment it almost seemed as if he were physically savoring success, visualizing every transaction, every signed contract, every competitor crushed.

He reopened his eyes and his voice became harder. "If I'm not mistaken, in second place is that Yamamoto. How is he doing?"

"You're right, sir. In second place we find Yamamoto, owner of the 3&Y Group. However, he doesn't represent an immediate threat: he controls only eighteen percent of the market, mainly in the restaurant sector, where we don't operate."

Nakamura straightened in his chair, his expression becoming more serious. "We must never underestimate anyone. Even a small drop of poison can kill a lion."

He stood up and adjusted his Italian silk tie. "Keep an eye on all sectors. If you notice someone who could surpass us in the future, it's better to acquire them immediately and use them to expand our dominion."

Sato nodded with a barely perceptible smile. "It will be done as you wish, sir."

"Good. Now you may go. Thank you for coming."

"It's my duty, sir."

Sato left with his measured steps, leaving Nakamura alone in the office that was slowly being tinted with the colors of sunset.

Nakamura stared at the closed door, then his mind embarked on a journey into the past. Memories followed one another like black and white frames from a period film.

I, Hiroshi Nakamura, only son born into a family buried in debt. Parents dead from diseases they couldn't afford to treat, when I was only twelve years old. My entire adolescence spent in a community center, surviving on state subsidies and dreams of revenge against a world that had robbed me of everything.

He suddenly stood up, raising both arms toward the coffered ceiling. His face transformed into a mask of unbridled pride and arrogance, his eyes gleaming with a cold fire.

"I, Hiroshi Nakamura, was your past, am your present, and will be your future! AHAHAHAHA!"

His laughter echoed through the soundproofed walls of the office. Outside, the employees on that floor briefly interrupted their activities, distinctly hearing their boss's proclamation. No one dared comment. They all knew that challenging Hiroshi Nakamura meant going from being employed to becoming unemployed in the blink of an eye.

The king of Tokyo had spoken.

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6:45 PM

 At the end of the day, only fifteen minutes remained. The sun had already disappeared behind the horizon and the golden light of sunset filtered through the panoramic windows, casting elongated shadows on the polished marble floor. The ticking of the pendulum clock hanging on the wall relentlessly marked the final moments before daily freedom.

Nakamura, with his Armani jacket already draped over one shoulder, bent toward the computer to turn it off. His slender fingers barely touched the titanium mouse... then froze mid-air.

A sudden and violent pain struck him in the chest. Like an invisible iron fist, aimed straight at his heart. His blue eyes widened in shock. His breath shattered in his throat like breaking glass.

The jacket slipped from his shoulder, falling to the floor without making any sound.

His hands desperately clutched the crystal desk, his knuckles turning white from the superhuman effort. But his legs could no longer support his body weight. A violent tremor ran through them, then they gave out completely. Nakamura collapsed to his knees, frantically trying to grab something, anything, to keep from sinking into the void.

The world became muffled, distant. The sound of the clock transformed into a pneumatic hammer drilling through his skull.

He brought a trembling hand to his chest. He felt his heart beating wildly like a malfunctioning engine... then it stopped. Or at least it seemed to.

"Not now..." he whispered with a thread of voice. But the words were only broken breath dispersing into the air conditioning.

He collapsed sideways, his body becoming heavy as stone. His eyes, still wide with terror, stared at the coffered ceiling that began to spin slowly, like a mad carousel in a horror amusement park.

Then, everything went dark.

Absolute silence.

The Eternal Void An absolute void swallowed him.

There was no floor, there was no sky, there wasn't even the concept of time. Only black, a darkness so deep and oppressive it seemed like a living creature devouring him from within. Hiroshi Nakamura opened his eyes suddenly, breathing heavily and his body should have been drenched in sweat... but he felt nothing. Only his consciousness, suspended in a prison made of pure darkness.

"Where... where am I...?"

The words dissolved into the infinite echo of nothingness. There was no answer. Only the dull and empty beating of his own existential anguish.

A phantom pain still pulsed in his chest, spectral residue of that mortal blow to the heart. He remembered everything with crystal clarity: the office, old Sato's rasping voice, the golden light of sunset coloring Tokyo, and then... the final collapse.

Death.

His voice trembled in the cosmic nothingness.

"Am I... am I dreaming? This is a nightmare!"

He tried to walk. Or at least he tried to. But his steps produced no sound, and no direction led to any destination. Wherever he turned his gaze, he encountered only... absolute void.

Panic rose like a tsunami of pure terror. The great Hiroshi Nakamura — he who controlled Tokyo's financial market, who laughed at the world from atop his empire of glass and steel — was now reduced to a lost soul in the immensity of nothingness.

"HELP!" he screamed with all the strength he had in his body, but his voice bounced back at him like shards of shattered glass. "IS ANYONE THERE?! WHERE AM I?! SOMEONE HEAR ME!"

Silence was his only answer.

And then... THE VOICE.

A deep, primordial and absolute vibration filled every single atom of the darkness. It wasn't simply a sound. It was a PRESENCE. It was PURE POWER in its raw state. It was the echo of creation itself.

"HIROSHI NAKAMURA."

The voice didn't come from any specific direction. It was everywhere and nowhere. It was the very sound of existence.

"MAN WHO CHALLENGED TIME BY PROCLAIMING HIMSELF PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. YOU CONQUERED EVERYTHING. YOU DOMINATED. YOU WON... BUT YOU FAILED TO SAVE YOURSELF FROM A HEART THAT GREW TIRED OF BEING EMPTY."

The voice shook the entire cosmic void. Hiroshi was crushed to his knees by an invisible and omnipotent force. His lips trembled uncontrollably.

"Who... who are you?" he stammered, his voice reduced to a terrified whisper.

"I AM. I AM HE WHO WAS BEFORE TIME BEGAN TO FLOW. I AM THE BEGINNING WITHOUT BEGINNING AND THE END WITHOUT END. I AM THE CREATOR OF EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS, HAS EXISTED AND WILL EXIST. I AM THE SUPREME JUDGE OF EVERY SOUL. I AM ABSOLUTE PERFECTION. I NEED NOTHING AND NO ONE. EVERYTHING NEEDS ME. I AM SELF-SUFFICIENT, ETERNAL, IMMUTABLE. I AM GOD."

Hiroshi prostrated himself completely, crushed by the cosmic weight of that presence. Cold sweat ran down his nonexistent forehead. His hands desperately clutched the void, trembling like leaves in a storm.

"What... what do you want from me? Why am I here? Please, let me go back! I... I can change! I can be different!"

"SILENCE. NOW IS THE TIME OF FINAL JUDGMENT. THERE ARE NO PLEAS THAT CAN ALTER MY WILL. THERE ARE NO TEARS THAT CAN MOVE MY JUSTICE. I AM IMMUTABLE AS THE STARS. MY DECISIONS ARE ETERNAL AS THE UNIVERSE ITSELF."

With those words that resonated like the Big Bang, the darkness began to shatter. Like cosmic glass breaking into billions of fragments. And from those dimensional cracks exploded... images.

Hiroshi saw Tanaka leaving his office, shoulders curved under the weight of desperation, bankruptcy documents clutched to his chest like a lost child. The gray sky above Tokyo was identical to that of every evening. But that evening... had been the last.

He saw Tanaka walking with difficulty through the crowded streets, invisible in the crowd of salarymen returning home. He followed him to a bridge suspended over the Sumida River.

Traffic flowed indifferently in the darkness of night. No one noticed him. No one stopped.

He saw the man staring at the black void below. A missed call from his wife. The crumpled photo of his children. A single tear that shone under the streetlights.

And then... the jump.

The body vanished into the icy shadow of the river, swallowed by the waters like a forgotten stone.

"NO! ENOUGH! I DON'T WANT TO SEE!" screamed Hiroshi, covering his eyes. "IT'S NOT MY FAULT! HE COULD HAVE CHOSEN! HE COULD HAVE FOUND ANOTHER WAY!"

"LIES. YOU TURNED YOUR BACK ON HUMANITY FOR YEARS. YOU DELIBERATELY IGNORED THE CRIES OF THOSE WHO SUFFERED. NOT ONLY TANAKA. YOU DESTROYED FAMILIES, COMPANIES, DREAMS, HOPES. YOU DROWNED THE WORLD IN YOUR SELFISH PROFIT. AND WHILE THEY WEPT BLOOD... YOU LAUGHED ON YOUR STAINED GOLDEN THRONE."

Hiroshi writhed in the void, desperately seeking a justification, a defense, anything.

"The world... the world did the same to me! As a child I was alone! My parents died from poverty! I slept for years on cold floors in that community center! I suffered! I only... I only fought to survive! It was self-defense!"

"LIES OF A CORRUPTED SOUL. TO SURVIVE YOU CHOSE TO PUNISH THE INNOCENT. YOU USED YOUR SUFFERING AS AN EXCUSE TO INFLICT MORE. A THOUSAND TIMES WORSE. YOU WERE NEVER AN AVENGER. YOU WERE ALWAYS ONLY A DESTROYER. A PARASITE OF HUMANITY."

"NO! NO! It's not true!" Hiroshi crawled in the void like a worm, hands extended in supplication toward infinity. "God, please! Forgive me! I'll do anything! I'll donate everything to the poor! I'll rebuild everything I destroyed! Please, give me another chance! I DON'T WANT TO DIE LIKE THIS!"

"YOUR DESPERATION IS BELATED. FOR THIRTY YEARS YOU HAD INFINITE OPPORTUNITIES FOR REPENTANCE. YOU IGNORED THEM ALL. I AM JUST. I AM PERFECT. MY DECISIONS DO NOT CHANGE. AND NOW, YOU WILL RECEIVE YOUR ETERNAL PUNISHMENT."

"NO! NO! NO!" Hiroshi screamed like a wounded animal, beating his fists against the void. "I'm not evil! I don't deserve this! I... I'm just a man! Men make mistakes! It's normal! GOD, PLEASE! YOU CAN'T BE SO CRUEL!"

The tone of the divine voice rose like a primordial thunder that split the cosmos in two. A wrath so pure and terrifying that Hiroshi curled up on himself like a terrified fetus.

"CRUEL? I WHO CREATED LOVE? I WHO GAVE LIFE? I WHO OFFERED SALVATION? YOU SPAT ON EVERY GIFT OF MINE. YOU TRAMPLED EVERY BLESSING OF MINE. CRUEL IS HE WHO TRANSFORMED MY GIFTS INTO WEAPONS OF DESTRUCTION. CRUEL ARE YOU, HIROSHI NAKAMURA. I AM ONLY... JUST."

A cosmic tremor ran through the entire dimension. Suddenly, the darkness broke completely.

A blinding light exploded in every possible and impossible direction. Dazzling, pure, total, eternal. A brightness so intense it made the sun seem like an extinguished candle. Hiroshi screamed with all the breath he had in his nonexistent lungs, bringing his hands to his eyes.

"WHAT'S HAPPENING?! HELP! SOMEONE SAVE ME!"

He writhed in absolute terror, unable to see, his heart once again in panic. But this time it wasn't physical pain. It was pure existential terror.

Then, slowly, the light became more bearable. Visible without burning.

He found himself standing, the only living being in a dimension of infinite light, white, smooth, eternal and perfect. There was no sky, there was no earth. Only the purest light everywhere, as far as the eye could see and beyond.

"HELP! IS ANYONE THERE?! SOMEONE HEAR ME!" he screamed, running desperately. But the luminous ground never ended. Every step brought him back exactly to the starting point, as if he were running on a cosmic treadmill.

No exit. No wall. No boundary. Only his desperation reflected infinitely in every direction.

And then, the divine voice — once again. But now it was different. Calmer. Deeper. As if it spoke not only to him, but to all souls of creation.

"FROM THIS MOMENT FORWARD, YOU HIROSHI NAKAMURA: WILL BE CONDEMNED TO NEVER FEEL ANY EMOTION AGAIN. YOU WILL KNOW PAIN, BUT YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO FEEL IT. YOU WILL UNDERSTAND LOVE, BUT YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO LIVE IT. YOU WILL RECOGNIZE HAPPINESS... WITHOUT EVER EXPERIENCING IT. YOUR SOUL WILL BE COLD AS ETERNAL ICE. YOUR EYES WILL BE EMPTY. YOUR HEART WILL REMAIN MOTIONLESS AS STONE. AND YOU WILL BE SENT TO A WORLD WHERE GOOD AND EVIL WILL NO LONGER BE CONCEPTS TO EXPLOIT, BUT TO CHOOSE. A WORLD WHERE YOU MUST LEARN WHAT IT MEANS TO BE TRULY HUMAN. AND IF EVER, ONE DAY, YOU MANAGE TO SHED A SINGLE SINCERE TEAR... ONLY THEN CAN YOU SAY YOU HAVE RETURNED HUMAN. THIS IS MY WILL. THIS IS MY JUSTICE. THIS IS MY PERFECTION."

"NO! NO! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!" Hiroshi threw himself to his knees, hands clasped in desperate prayer. "GOD, PLEASE! I'M WILLING TO DO ANYTHING! I WANT TO LIVE! I WANT TO FEEL! DON'T TAKE AWAY MY HUMANITY! IT'S ALL I HAVE!"

Tears streaked his face for the last time in his existence.

"HUMANITY IS NOT A POSSESSION. IT IS A GIFT THAT IS EARNED. YOU LOST IT LONG AGO. NOW YOU MUST WIN IT BACK. I DO NOT PUNISH TO DESTROY. I CORRECT TO REDEEM. THE MAN YOU WERE... DESERVED ETERNAL SILENCE. BUT THE SEED OF THE MAN YOU COULD BECOME... DESERVES A SECOND CHANCE. THIS IS MY MERCY. PERFECT LIKE EVERYTHING I DO."

The light began to pulse rhythmically. A cosmic vortex opened beneath his feet, sucking everything toward the center.

Hiroshi was dragged down, screaming with a voice that was already beginning to lose every trace of emotion. But it wasn't pain he felt. It wasn't fear.

It was the empty cry of a man who was losing the only thing that makes one truly human: the ability to feel.

The Last Divine Message Hiroshi fell through infinite dimensions. The void enveloped him like a cosmic shroud. The light above him became increasingly distant, like a star slowly extinguishing in eternity.

And then, God's voice returned one last time. More majestic than ever.

"REMEMBER THIS, HIROSHI NAKAMURA: THE HEART IS NOT WEAK BECAUSE IT FEELS. IT IS STRONG BECAUSE IT SURVIVES BY FEELING. AND AS LONG AS YOUR HEART REMAINS MUTE... YOU WILL WANDER BETWEEN LIGHT AND SHADOW. UNDERSTANDING... BUT EMPTY. ALIVE... BUT NOT TRULY HUMAN. WHEN YOU KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO BE TRULY MAN... NOT IN GAINS, NOT IN NUMBERS, NOT IN POWER... BUT IN FRAGILITY, IN EMPATHY, IN THE COURAGE TO LOVE EVEN WHEN IT HURTS... ONLY THEN... A SINGLE TEAR WILL BE WORTH MORE THAN ALL THE GOLD OF YOUR PAST. THIS IS MY WORD. THIS IS MY WILL. I AM GOD. I AM PERFECT. AND MY PERFECTION... IS IMMUTABLE."

A final wave of divine light overwhelmed him completely.

His eyes closed slowly, as if he were falling into a deep cosmic sleep.

His last human emotion - terror - vanished forever.

Then...

Absolute silence.