Nurse Tachibana watched his bloodshot eyes with total indifference. She had been a nurse too long; her passion and empathy had been ground away by the horrors of the job.
"Same as the last few times... looks like we need the sedative again," she muttered, reaching into the locked cabinet for a syringe.
Strangely, her words reached Hayato through his madness. His mind suddenly cleared, though his eyes remained a terrifying shade of red. He saw the glinting needle and felt a surge of fear—not of the pain, but of the amnesia. He didn't want to forget and have to hear the truth for the "first time" again. He tried to speak, but the gag blocked him.
"Still screaming? Don't worry, I'll put you out of your misery," Tachibana said robotically.
Damn it! I'm not screaming, I'm trying to talk! Hayato realized that his thrashing was making it worse. He forced his body to go still.
Tachibana stopped. She didn't want to use the sedative either; Hayato's screaming fits led to complaints from other patients, which meant her pay got docked. If he was sane, she could also find out who had done this to him.
Hayato rolled his eyes downward, signaling for her to remove the gag.
"Only if you promise not to scream or go crazy," she said.
He nodded frantically.
"If you can't even speak, I guess you aren't ready," she said heartlessly.
Are you fucking kidding me?! My mouth is plugged! How can I speak?! Hayato gave up and stared at the ceiling.
Tachibana didn't inject him, but she didn't remove the gag either. She left the room, leaving him in a state of cold, calculated fury.
At the nurse's station, Tachibana opened a notebook titled Ward Anecdotes. It was a log of the bizarre cases they handled—people with bowling balls stuck in their rectums, toddlers with steel balls in their genitals. It was all "dirty work," but the pay was high.
She flipped to the latest entries. Three men with destroyed genitals, and a fourth... whose "part" was growing out of his head. The doctors found his anatomy perfectly functional; his blood vessels and organs had adapted to the new location.
Tachibana suspected all four cases were the work of the same person.
"Yo, Tachibana. Is that freak losing it again?" a playful voice asked. "So what if his balls are gone? Is he even a man anymore? Hahaha, I guess not!"
Tachibana ignored the speaker and focused on the security monitor. The other nurse, Kurokawa, scowled and began biting her fingernails until they were ragged. "Stuck-up bitch," Kurokawa whispered.