The cards were arranged in a neat pile on the desk, left over from an abandoned game of pontoon and thus conveniently at hand. Mitsunari seated himself with a sigh and reached absent-mindedly for the deck. A glance outside the window as he shuffled the pack of playing cards revealed an evening as grey as his mood. With another sigh he began to form a pyramid, turning an otherwise frivolous pile of cards into a construct, a vision.
First, the base. Low numbers, foot soldiers, became triangular pillars lifting up the next level of the hierarchy. He continued, carefully adding each pair of pillars and bridging them with another card before he moved to the next set. Each storey of the pyramid was firmly placed and governed. Soon enough Mitsunari had reached the penultimate level of his pyramid. Here would be stationed those who would lift the King to his rightful place. He arranged the last two pillars and created the final bridge. At last, he reached for the King. Alongside his Ace, the King would stand atop the world. Pyramid completed, Mitsunari sat back in his chair, quietly satisfied with his endeavour but at that very moment the bridge collapsed and the entire pyramid crumpled to nothingness.
Mitsunari stared despondently at the fallen, face-down King and then at the one card that had landed facing up at the world. It was him, the final bridge, the betrayer who had been too weak to support his superiors, who had destroyed the vision of his betters. Unrepentant to the last, the Red Knave mocked his broken aspirations. Rage blurred his sight as Mitsunari replaced this face with another equally treacherous.
"Ieyasu. I will never forgive you."