Black Marigold

Prologue

Karasuno House is a place of mystery and magic; of silk sheets, diamonds, and exquisite beauty. If you wanted to find it, you'd have to brave the very darkest and most frightening back-streets of the red-light district, traveling all the way to the very center, past the taverns and brothels of the carnival of sin to reach a simple open doorway.

This doorway was covered by a low-hanging slip of silk a dark shade of blue; so dark it was almost black. Embroidered across this were two simple words, etched out in silver thread that seemed to glow like starlight: Karasuno House. This was a place like no other; a place where beauty was everywhere, and magic was all around.

Catering to both men and women, Karasuno stands out above the rest of the lowly places of pleasure that dot the red-light district. The patrons of this establishment are of a wide variety. Some rich aristocrats seeking to get away from their stuffy business endeavors, some are travelers, there to experience the finest sin that Japan has to offer, and some are people versed in the ways of the forbidden, looking for a place to dwell among their own kind.

There were only ten people working at Karasuno House; ten specimens unlike any other, each in their own special way which intrigued and baffled, drawing scores of people to witness the spectacle themselves. The most well known of all of Karasuno's members, the one that gained the most attention, was a boy with hair as orange as the sun and eyes like coffee beans, known only as 'Marigold'.

But our story does not begin here. Instead, it begins in a small, cramped back alley where a single door lies. Down this alley, a boy is being dragged, blindfolded, gagged, bound tightly in ropes. As they reach the door, it is thrown open, and the boy is tossed inside before it is closed again, and they retreat back into the shadows from whence they came.

This is where our story begins.