The air was filled with an acrid, coppery stench. It was thick, viscous, as if it could clog one's nostrils.
His arms were cuffed to the cold metal armrests of an iron chair, rendering him immobile.
There seemed to be a pool of liquid at his feet, but judging by the sticky, gooey sensation when he moved his heels, it was definitely not something as simple as dihydrogen monoxide.
The surroundings were extremely dim. The only light source was an old, ten-inch or so television about two meters ahead—it hissed as it displayed rolling static.
Any normal person waking up to such a situation would likely panic.
But at this moment, Fumiya Jin's first reaction was...
"I'm... still alive?"
Fumiya Jin was a transmigrator.
Twenty days ago, he had suddenly transmigrated into a version of Tokyo that resembled a crossover anime world, and his starting conditions were quite good.
An orphan, yet he had a family registry and was enrolled at Shuchiin Academy as a mixed-course student. He owned two old single-family houses; he lived in one and rented the other out to a father and daughter with the surname Shirogane. At least he didn't have to worry about food or shelter.
Furthermore, in his second week after transmigrating, he awakened a cheat ability—the power to draw one superpower each week.
The first superpower he drew was "Super Memory." With this ability, he rewrote the novel version of Your Name in just a few days, posted the first three chapters online, and quickly garnered significant attention. A publisher soon came knocking.
The contract signing went smoothly, and the publishing process was fast-tracked. He estimated that a steady stream of royalties would soon be flowing into his account.
Logically speaking... this should have been a pretty great start.
However, all of this was ruined by the second superpower he drew.
—He could see people's death countdowns.
The ability itself wasn't bad; you could even say it was quite powerful.
—It would have been even better if he hadn't suddenly discovered that his own countdown was less than six days.
In the first two days of that week, he secretly conducted over a dozen tests at traffic accident sites and in high-risk hospital wards, leading him to several conclusions.
First, the death countdowns were not unchangeable, and he himself was the variable. The moment he took action that could alter a target's time of death, even if he had just begun, the numbers would change immediately.
Second, people he saved were genuinely saved; they wouldn't be quickly taken away again like in Final Destination. At least, the girl he had saved earlier was still living next door, safe and sound.
Third, if he took no action, or if his actions couldn't affect the time of death, the superpower's prediction was absolutely accurate.
After confirming these points, he began to tackle his own death threat.
And then he discovered a terrifying fact—no matter what he did, he couldn't change his own time of death.
He came up with over thirty countermeasures and tried them one by one, but the number above his head never fluctuated even once.
He fought until the very last moment before the timer hit zero—crouched in the corner of a completely sealed basement with three locks on the door, holding a stun gun and remaining on high alert.
Unless "Little Boy" made a comeback (and if that were the case, everyone else's timer should have hit zero too), he really couldn't figure out how he was supposed to die!
And then...
The number hit zero.
Everything went black.
And he ended up here.
"So... where is this?"
Fumiya Jin blinked.
Just as he was about to survey his surroundings, he suddenly remembered something and shot his gaze upward.
"587... 586... 585..." Red numbers ticked down above his head.
The good news: he wasn't dead. The bad news: it was a stay of execution!
The death countdown's unit was seconds, so... that was less than ten minutes left?
Fumiya Jin's heart, which had just relaxed a fraction, felt as though it were suddenly squeezed tight by an invisible hand.
"Ugh... it smells so bad... What is that smell..." A groggy murmur came from his side.
Fumiya Jin was stunned.
He turned his head and saw that about twenty centimeters to the right of his iron chair, there was another identical one.
Sitting on the chair was a slender, petite, blonde high school girl. Her dazed little face wore an incredibly listless yet cute expression, radiating an astonishing moe aura even in such dim light.
The girl shook her head lightly, and it took several seconds before she looked up and took in her surroundings.
Then... she noticed the strange young man who had been staring at her for several seconds.
"Ah!! Y-y-you...! Who are you?!" The girl cried out in alarm, like a startled rabbit.
Fumiya Jin glanced at the terror in her eyes; it didn't seem feigned.
He then glanced at her hands, which were also cuffed to the chair's armrests.
Most importantly, the death countdown above her head showed the exact same number as his, completely in sync.
It seemed she was a victim, too.
So, Fumiya Jin calmed his breathing and said in as peaceful a tone as he could manage, "You can just call me Fumiya Jin... Like you, I was tied up here when I woke up. I don't know why I'm here either."
"Eh?"
The girl was slightly taken aback.
She looked down at her cuffed hands.
Then she turned her head and looked at Fumiya Jin's similarly cuffed hands.
She seemed to relax a little.
But when she looked up at Fumiya Jin's face again, she still found something strange.
"Then... how are you so calm? This isn't right, is it?"
"If screaming and shouting could get me rescued, I'd give it a try." Fumiya Jin gave a slight shrug.
"Erk—"
The girl naturally understood his point.
Recalling her own sudden outburst, she couldn't help but feel a little foolish.
"I... I'm Nijika Ijichi..." The girl subconsciously tried to raise a hand to scratch her cheek but couldn't. She could only lower her head slightly and say, "I... I remember getting home... opening the door... and then... and then... everything went black..."
Nijika Ijichi?
A thought stirred in Fumiya Jin's mind; the name was vaguely familiar.
It was worth mentioning that he was a die-hard gamer geek. It wasn't that he didn't watch anime, but he was very picky.
He was someone who valued philosophical depth, and in his view, most works were too shallow and superficial.
Compared to those, he preferred works that delved straight into the characters' souls, profound yet accessible, such as... School Days, Yosuga no Sora, Beelzebub, Redo of Healer, Hajimete no Gal... He was quite familiar with these types.
Your Name was an exception, and that was a movie. He only read the novel after watching the film.
Therefore, he knew very little about mainstream anime. He only picked up impressions when he occasionally came across fan works while browsing videos—like the Chika Dance, or "Daga, kotowaru."
And now, with the name Nijika, he felt like he had seen it somewhere before.
He searched his brain...
A phrase popped up—'Nijika the little angel...'
And in the world of ACG, a character called a "little angel" was usually an incredibly pure, innocent, and trustworthy girl.
This gave Fumiya Jin a sliver of reassurance. He nodded at Nijika and said, "I was also alone when everything suddenly went black... I think I heard a strange voice, too."
"A strange voice?" Nijika Ijichi paused.
Then she suddenly remembered something. "Right, I think I heard it too! It was this really sinister, creepy-sounding voice... It said, 'Welcome to... to... uh... what was it?'"
[Welcome to the Samsara Game.]
"Yes, yes, yes, that's the line, thanks for remin— erk—"
Nijika Ijichi froze mid-sentence.
Because she suddenly realized that the voice she just heard hadn't come from her side, but seemed to have emerged directly from the depths of her mind.
And the tone was that same unsettling, spine-chillingly bizarre voice.
[The novice trial is about to begin. Those who successfully clear it will become official players.]
[The rules of the trial will now be explained.]
Fzzzt...
The static on the old television distorted a few times, and the picture gradually came into focus.
A hideous, eerie, deathly-white mask appeared in the center of the screen.
Black pupils, red irises. Sunken eye sockets. Red spirals were painted on its high cheekbones.
The square block representing its chin began to twitch up and down, accompanied by a mechanical voice.
"I want to play a game."
_____
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