The Tasks
The sky over New Tokyo stayed gray most days. Smoke from cook fires never really left. Twenty-three years after the Final War, only a few big cities still stood.
New Tokyo. London. Paris. Moscow....
Each one was a walled place where people tried to keep humanity alive.
Inside the walls, life had rules. The councils grew food in protected farms. They guarded every clean water source. Every week, every registered person got a ration: grain, dried meat, clean water, and basic medicine. It was not much, but it was fair. People followed the rules because the world outside was still broken.
Guns were rare now. The factories were gone. The metal and powder needed to make new ones had been used up long ago. Only council leaders and their closest guards still carried firearms. Everyone else used knives, clubs, or swords. In a world like that, a person who could kill cleanly with a blade was valuable.
Mikasa Ackerman was one of those people.
She lived inside New Tokyo like everyone else. Her name was on the ration list. Every seventh morning she stood in line and took her share without talking. The food kept her alive. It did not give her a better life. One good contract could change that. One job could buy her years of extra water, better food, and quiet. That was why she still took work.
The message came the old way. Paper. Sealed. Left behind the eastern water tower. It gave a time and a place. It promised payment big enough to matter.
Mikasa went.
The meeting room was in a quiet building near the council district. Two guards in plain gray coats checked the swords on her back and let her in. The room was small. One table. Two chairs. One oil lamp.
The man waiting for her looked about forty. He was tall and solid, with short blond hair and calm blue eyes. He wore a simple white shirt under a dark vest. His hands rested on the table, open and empty.
Mikasa stopped a few steps from the table. She did not sit.
“You’re the Ackerman,” the man said. His voice was steady.
She gave a short nod.
“Sit,” he said. “We have work to discuss.”
Mikasa stayed standing for another second, then pulled out the chair and sat. Her face stayed blank.
The man looked at her carefully. “My name is Erwin. I handle certain jobs for the council. What I tell you now stays in this room.”
Mikasa said nothing.
Erwin continued. “The cities are holding on. We grow food. We protect water. We give everyone their ration every week. Most people live by the rules. But some problems still need to be removed quietly.”
He pushed two folders and a small metal box across the table.
“Both jobs are in New London. First task. Kill Floch Forster. He used to live here in New Tokyo. Now he is gathering people in the eastern part of New London and causing trouble for the farm outposts there. The council wants him gone before he becomes something bigger. Details are in the first folder. Make it clean.”
Mikasa opened the folder. She looked at the sketch and the map. Her expression did not change.
Erwin tapped the second folder. “Second task. After Floch is dead, you will receive another message with a name and a location in New London. Your job will be to kill that person. No one else will know the name until then. Payment for both jobs is in that box, plus the same amount again when everything is finished. Enough for years of extra rations and private water rights.”
Mikasa looked at the box, then at the folders. “Why me?”
“Because you use a sword,” Erwin answered. “Guns are too loud and too few. We cannot waste them. You finish jobs without making noise. That is what we need.”
She closed the folders and put them inside her coat. Then she stood up.
“I will do it.”
She turned toward the door.
“Ackerman.”
Mikasa stopped but did not turn around.
Erwin’s voice stayed calm. “There is one more task.”
She looked back over her shoulder. Her eyes were cold.
Erwin held up a sealed envelope. “When you reach New London, you will deliver this letter to a man named Levi Ackerman. He lives in the northern residential stacks of New London, under the old clock tower. Put it in his hand. Do not open it. Do not talk about it.”
Mikasa walked back to the table and took the envelope. She slipped it into an inner pocket of her coat.
“Who is he?” she asked.
Erwin’s answer was short and cold. “A short guy with black hair. Sharp eyes. Always looks clean. He does not talk much. You will know him when you see him.”
Mikasa gave a single nod.
“Is that everything?”
“Yes.”
She turned and left the room without another word.
Outside, the streets of New Tokyo were quiet and ordered. People carried water jugs. Citizen watches stood at the corners with wooden clubs. In the distance, the high walls blocked out the broken world beyond.
Mikasa walked back to her small apartment in the lower stacks. She locked the door, placed the folders and the letter on her low table, and sat down. She cleaned both of her swords the same way she always did—slow, careful, quiet.
When the blades were clean, she leaned back against the wall.
First: go to New London and kill Floch.
Second: give the letter to Levi Ackerman.
Third: wait for the name, then kill that person.
One job at a time.
The red scarf around her neck rested against her skin like an old habit. She ignored it. In this world, habits did not fill water bottles or buy extra grain. Contracts did.
Mikasa opened her eyes, stood up, and began to plan the journey to New London.
