Sasaki sat frozen behind the wheel, fingers clenched so hard around the steering wheel that the leather creaked. It felt as if letting go might shatter the fragile reality he was holding onto. His breathing came shallow at first, then deeper, deliberate — the kind of breathing a man uses when he's trying not to think about what just happened.
Then the voice returned.
> "Congratulations on completing your first task."<
Smooth. Calm. Too calm for words that heavy.
He blinked once, slow, his grip tightening. "Alright," he managed, voice steadier than he felt. "What happens now?"
> "Now, it's time to receive your reward."<
The words lingered like mist in the early morning, impossible to grasp but impossible to ignore.
Sasaki leaned back, suspicion in the tight set of his jaw. "I didn't know there'd be a reward."
> "There is. There always is. But first — the rules."<
The voice wasn't rushed. It spoke like a teacher with an endless lesson, like time itself bent to its patience.
> "You will complete ten tasks in ten months. One per month. After each one, a reward. If you refuse or fail… you will be punished."<
Sasaki's stomach clenched. "Punished how?"
> "You'll find out if the time comes."<
The way it said it made his skin crawl. It wasn't a knife edge threat. It was more subtle, like the shadow of a hawk sliding across the ground — silent, inevitable, unseen.
The voice continued:
> "When the ten months are over, I will leave you. Your body will be yours alone, and you may live as you wish. Whatever you earn while completing your tasks is yours to keep. Whatever you lose… remains lost. Until then, Sasaki, you belong to me. I may use your body whenever I choose. You are bound to obey."<
He swallowed, throat dry. "And if I say no?"
The silence that followed was not silence at all — it was absence, like the world itself had been muted. His heart hammered in his chest. Then softly:
> "We wouldn't be having this conversation if you had a choice."<
Outside the windshield, the street stretched empty beneath a flickering streetlamp. Somewhere far away, a siren wailed and died.
Ten tasks. Ten months. Rewards and punishments. A voice that claimed his body.
"What's my reward?" he asked at last, his voice flat.
> "For your first task — risking your life to save a stranger — you receive regeneration."<
He frowned. "Regeneration?"
> "The ability to heal. Faster than normal. Stronger than normal. You won't be immortal, but you'll live longer than most."<
Sasaki gave a small, humorless laugh. "That's not possible."
> "Accept it, and see for yourself."<
He hesitated, fingers rubbing the back of his neck. "And if I don't?"
> "Then it will not be given. Each reward must be accepted or rejected."<
His jaw worked silently. His ribs ached with every breath — deep, stabbing pain from the fight earlier. His legs throbbed, his cheek burned, a cut above his eyebrow dripped slow. Exhaustion had settled like lead in his bones. Regeneration was starting to sound less like fantasy and more like relief.
"Fine," he muttered. "I'll take it."
The change was immediate.
It began low in his chest — a pulse of heat, like strong liquor spreading outward. Then it grew, crawling through his ribs into his shoulders, down his arms, a warmth braided with pain. Sharp, electric pain tore through every injury, every bruise, every cut.
His ribs flared, his legs seized, his cheek felt pressed to open flame. For ten seconds the agony was blinding, white-hot, his vision swimming.
And then — gone.
Sasaki gasped for breath. His fingers flexed, testing. He sat up straighter. His ribs didn't protest. He touched his cheek. Smooth. No tenderness. The cut above his eyebrow? Gone. The swelling on his jaw? Gone. His skin looked… new.
He stared at himself in the rearview mirror. The man looking back wasn't a stranger, but what had just happened made him feel like one.
"This… this isn't real," he whispered.
> "Real enough to keep you alive."<
His hands shook now, not with fear but with adrenaline — with the addictive rush of being whole again.
> "The next task will come next month. Until then… live as you wish."<
And just like that, the voice vanished.
Not faded — vanished. Like a candle snuffed with a single breath.
The silence that followed was deafening. The idling engine hummed. The streetlamp buzzed. A loose sign rattled in the wind. But there was no whisper, no presence coiling through his thoughts.
Relief or dread, he couldn't tell.
Finally, he sat back, gripping the wheel, staring into the wet black streets ahead. He didn't know where he was going or what he was supposed to do with a month of freedom before the next "task" arrived.
But he knew one thing: his life wasn't his own anymore.
He pressed the pedal and the car rolled forward into the night. The city stretched ahead — rain-slick streets, distant neon, shadows pooling in alleyways. And in the back of his mind, a thought he didn't want to name lingered:
If the first task had nearly killed him… what would the tenth be?