Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter I: Asa's Mission

Some time ago, Asa had assumed she was going to live a normal, unassuming life, even with the death of her parents, the destruction of her home, tossed around by an uncaring foster system that saw the last light of her life snuffed out. There were many people like her in the world, and she knew that there were others that had it worst, and yet every day people went out in the world and made something of themselves and became productive members of society. It wasn't hard, it shouldn't be hard, and she knew that she was destined not for greatness, but for something boring and unassuming, most likely some office worker who worked a five-to-nine shift, and she didn't hate the idea of that. When she thought of her future she always drew blanks, she didn't know what she wanted to be as an adult, where she wanted to take her life, but she was okay with that. Many people around the world worked office jobs, there was nothing to be ashamed of with that kind of thing, and that was fine with her.

It really was. How could it not be?

But then she died, but it didn't take, and her second chance of life had been one terrifying mess after another, things that had never expected to see in her life, such as being possessed by a devil, getting into fights with devils, falling in love with a devil, becoming a celebrity across in Japan as a symbol of a rising religious organization, and just as quickly labeled a terrorist for her involvement in said organization.

Oh, and she lost her arm too. Despite what she said to Fami, it still hurt, the limb that was longer there ached.

It's just been... very difficult these last few weeks.

“ Just focus on the goal at hand Asa,” Yoru said from the back of her mind. “Once we reach Chainsaw Man, you can save him and I can kill him. We'll both win and be happy, and you'll also get your body back. Your contract will fulfilled and we can all win.” It was nice that they had been getting along lately, actually having a common goal, something they could agree on and come to terms on was a big help. She no longer lived in fear that Yoru would just one day just decide to snatch her body away from her, to leave her either as a prisoner in her own body or just kill her altogether.

Without a single hint or irony, Yoru was the most long-standing relationship she had in years, ever since her mother died. It was strange to think about how their goal was so close, and Asa found a part of her hoping that even after they had accomplished their mission, and Yoru left her body, that she would somehow stick around, because the thought of her suddenly not being in her life made her feel that awful, gnawing loneliness again.

But who was she kidding, she would have Chainsaw Man. They had a future together, certainly. It's not like her being a wanted criminal could just be swiped under the rug, or that her hopes of ever going back to school again went up in flames, she no longer had a single yen to her name, so it's not like she can even imagine what the future might hold or...

No, don't think about it. It won't matter once this is over.

“GYOHNEE!” cried a shrill squawk from the back, followed by a scream.

“Shut up both of you,” Fami said as she ran beside Asa, her arms still hanging down by her side, not swinging at all. It was strange to see her run like that.

“Don't talk to Nobana like that!” Haruka barked back, and Asa was already feeling annoyed. 

“If Guilly scares you so much then stay behind, it's not like we need you for this.”

“We're here to save Chainsaw Man!” Haruka yelled back. “That's why I wanted to start the club! I wanted to get everyone to appreciate Chainsaw Man so we could make life easier for him! You're the one who pushed to turn it into a cult!”

Asa didn't care much for the Devil Hunters Club, she only took part in those activities to appease Yoru's desire to turn someone into a weapon, but once everything happened with Yuko she stopped paying attention to them. She didn't even know if she actually got in or not, and she didn't even know all their names. She knew Haruka with his overconfidence and bloated ego, but the big guy with the eye patch or the other guy who liked to cry slipped her mind.

“Asa!” Haruka called out to her. “You can't trust Fami with this, right? After everything she's done, how can you think she actually save Chainsaw Man?”

“Because she just knows!” Asa growled. She didn't have time for this idiot and she wished he and his cronies just stood behind in their cells. It wasn't her fault they got wrapped up in all of this, it was them, they're the ones that decided to start up all this stuff with Fami. Asa didn't even know any of them all that well, yes she was the Church's primary hunter, the face of the organization, but she didn't know anything about it, she just killed devils, endorsed the Church, made a few television appearances but she never went to the Church itself. All she knew is that it had some giant, gaudy Chainsaw Man head on it. She just needed to focus on herself. “She's the only person who actually knows anything about Chainsaw Man, and everything we've done has been to free him from a life of fighting devils!”

“W-wait!” the crying boy whimpered. “She knows Chainsaw Man?”

“Yeah,” Fami casually said, and didn't offer anything else beyond that because Asa knew she did not care about these three.

So Asa felt she needed to be the one to fill them in, because if they were going to tag along then at the very least she could get them to stop asking dumb questions. “Everything that has been happening is because we have a plan to save Chainsaw Man.”

“Even the stuff about the guns?” the whimpering boy muttered. “And I saw everyone turn into Chainsaw Men!”

“A lot of people were killed that night!” Haruka yelled. “And I don't think it's gotten better up there since then! Was that all part of your plan, Fami?”

“More or less,” was Fami's dead-toned answer.

Suddenly Haruka roared and jumped at Fami, but Asa was quick, and even with one hand it wasn't difficult to grab him by the wrist, and suddenly she threw him over her shoulder and sent him collapsing to the ground as his back slammed onto the tile.

“Haruka!” the whimpering boy yelled as the rest of the group came to a stop.

Haruka lay sprawled out beneath her, his face twisting in shock before he looked up and gave her an angry glare. “What about you, Asa? Did you know about this?”

“No I didn't!” she yelled back. “I was just in the dark as everyone else, but if this is to save Chainsaw Man, then fine!”

It was only after Fami picked her and Yoru up from the streets and brought her to a safe house did she learn about the Prophecy, of the end of the world, of the Death Devil. Chainsaw Man and Yoru were both somehow important to put a stop to it, but Chainsaw Man wouldn't be needed if Yoru could take his power from him. The Death Devil arriving was inevitable, there was no stopping it, they could only prepare, and people would die no matter what. If they didn't die in the last week, they would have died six months from now. This had to happen.

Asa pushed down that feeling in her gut that felt like a lead weight.

“ Do you want we should end him, Asa?” Yoru asked, and Asa could see the devil from the corner of her eye, and she saw a look of delight on her mirrored and scarred expression. “Even if we don't get a powerful weapon out of him, a weapon, no matter how miniscule in power it might still serve us in the end.”

She wasn't going to get Haruka killed.

“ Very well, he might make a good meat shield after all.”

Asa pushed that feeling down more.

“We're here to save Chainsaw Man,” Asa said, stepping away from Haruka, the heated fire in her dying down a bit. “We can stand here and argue all day about what has happened, but it won't change a thing. Fami and I are here because Chainsaw Man needs our help. He's done a lot for the city, he's saved my life multiple times, and after everything he's been through, he deserves to have a life without all that strife, to be able to sit back and live a normal life.”

Haruka still glared up at her, before he switched over to looking at Fami, who stared down at him with impassive, emotionless eyes. “Fine,” Haruka said, snapping back to Asa. “I don't trust Fami, but if there's anyone I trust when it comes to Chainsaw Man, it's you Asa, and if you say you know what you're doing, then I'm going to trust you.”

Trust her? What did she do to earn that kind of trust? She barely knew Haruka, so what kind of authority did he think she had that if anyone knew what was best for Chainsaw Man that it would be her? Sure, that was true, out of everyone here she's the only one actually trying to save him for the right reasons, but how would he know that? She knew being the face of the Church put the spotlight on her, it made everyone talk about her, how beautiful and smart she was, how strong and brave, but did that really count as far as he was concerned?

Asa looked over to Fami, who had been merely ignoring the whole conversation it had seemed, and Asa couldn't help but wonder just what Fami had been telling the people of the Church about her. Maybe she should have been more involved in the Church, to try and get a better understanding of things, to let people meet and know her. It would have been nice to meet those kinds of people, because a good number would have joined up because of her, because they saw her on TV and were inspired by her no doubt. They would have loved to meet her.

Those same people would have turned into chainsaw zombies...

“ Asa, focus. We cannot allow you to become lost in your musings, we need to focus on the mission at hand.”

Yes. The mission on hand. Chainsaw Man. Find him, save him, take his power and give it to Yoru.

“What about you two?” Asa asked, turning her attention to Haruka's lackeys. “If he's here to try and save Chainsaw Man, then you? If you're not going to give it you all, you're just going to slow us down.”

“Gyohnee...”

“She wasn't talking to you, Guilly,” Fami said to the Guillotine Devil, who only cooed softly. “You don't have a choice to be here.”

“She's right,” Haruka said as he pushed himself up. “It's going to be dangerous, so who knows what will happen, and if we want to be the kind of heroes that Chainsaw Man needs us to be, then we'll have to give this our all.”

The whimpering boy, of course whimpering. “I mean, if you want me to do that, I guess I'll do that? But, I don't want to stay here because it's too dangerous, but if it's dangerous like you said up ahead, I'll still be in danger, so I don't know.” He then made a whining sound. “I guess I'll come!” he cried out with not a single iota of confidence.

Haruka didn't seem to either mind or care. “Thank you Nobana, but what about you, Seigi?”

The larger boy hadn't said a single thing the entire time since they forced their way into the search party. He never really said much to begin with, and Asa was fine with it. The less distractions, the better.

“I think we should try and save Chainsaw Man,” he said. “It sounds like the right thing to do after everything he's been through and done for us.”

Haruka could only smugly laugh now that he had the full cooperation of them on his side. “Good to have you two on board! Just stick with me, and I'll keep you two safe!” That smile only vanished when he turned to Fami. “As for you, don't think I can ever forgive you for what you did, a lot of people are dead because of you, you made people do things they didn't want to do, and if it wasn't for the fact we're on a rescue mission to save Chainsaw Man I would avenge everyone you killed right here and now.”

Fami merely stared at him, unblinking. “Okay.”

“Gyohnee!” the Guillotine Devil loudly cawed, its wings shuffling on its strange body.

“No one asked your opinion, and I hope you start killing people. Stripping them naked is only going to get us so far.”

“Gyohnee.” Somehow there was a level of indignation in that one.

Asa didn't know what the Guillotine Devil said, but it was enough to make her sigh.

“ He's just being an annoying pest is all,” Yoru said. “Just pay him no mind at all, with the way things might go he could end up being used as a meat shield by Fami before the day is done.”

“Then let's get going!” Haruka barked, walking past Asa and Fami and down the hall, with Nobana and Seigi following close behind him.

“Do you even know where you're going?” Asa asked, tapping her foot on the group, while resisting the urge to fold her arms over her chest, because having only one arm to do that looked somewhat silly, so it was better to put it on her hip.

The three boys stopped in their tracks, Nobana and Seigi almost tripping over one another and knocking Haruka over in the process, but the three managed to somehow avoid further humiliation. When Haruka turned back to them, he at the very least had the decency to look ashamed for his idiocy. He looked around the hallway and to the branching path before them. “Um, I think we're supposed to go... That way?” He pointed to the left hallway.

“Wrong,” Fami said, raising her hand to the right hallway. She then walked forward and walked past them, with Asa following close behind her. The Guillotine Devil came third, its skeletal claws making loud tapping noises as it followed, and soon with nowhere else to turn the three Devil Hunter Club members took their place at the very back of the group.

It didn't take too long before they found themselves at a door, one that was heavily locked, but with one swipe of its wings, the Guillotine Devil reduced to sliced segments that fell to the floor with loud, metallic clangs, and behind the door was a staircase that descended down to the next floor.

“We'll only be able to go down one level with this,” Fami explained as she walked down the steps, taking one step at a time instead of running down them. As always her arms were still at her side. “It'll be the same the rest of the way, so we'll have to find more stairways.”

Already Asa was feeling something was not right here. “Won't that be dangerous? Can't we take an elevator?”

“Too risky. They can shut it down and leave us trapped.”

“But by now wouldn't they know who we are?” Asa asked, feeling a kind of frustration overcome her. “If they know who we are, they'll know we're after Chainsaw Man, and if we have to use different stairwells to get there, then they can just wait to set up ambushes.”

“That's true.”

“Then what are we going to do? Do you just expect me to fight everyone here?”

“I trust you'll do your part.”

“Fami!” Asa growled.

At the bottom of the stairwell, just before the next door, Fami stopped in her tracks and turned around to face Asa, and the devil held her gaze.

“Asa, do you remember what I said?”

“You said a lot of things.”

“I promised you that you would save Chainsaw Man, and I intend to keep my promise. I did not come into this unprepared, and even if they have the numbers on their side I do not expect you to do this alone.”

An uncomfortable feeling began to bubble inside Asa, but she ignored it.

“What does that mean?”

“Simple, it's how I knew about the turrets and where they're keeping Chainsaw Man. I have a pawn on the inside, and it won't be long before they make things easier for us to get to where Chainsaw Man is.”

“A pawn on the inside?”

“Yes, and they will come through. Trust me, Asa.”

There was a lot Asa could have said to that, and already she can hear muttering from Yoru about what she thought on the idea, but no matter what, Asa could only be honest with herself and Fami.

“I trust you, Fami.”

Chapter Text

Chapter II: Hiding Away

The world was in chaos, buildings were on fire, there were people in the street, screaming and running for their lives. It was like a scene out of some kind of apocalypse movie, where anarchy and lawlessness ran abundant and wild, and no one could do anything to save the day, with the exception of the hero.

There was no hero here though.

“AHAHAHAHA!” Yoru laughed uncontrollably at the destruction around her, marveling at the chaos that had overtaken the city in such a short matter of time. Not even ten minutes ago the two of them had looked out the window on what had been a seemingly normal day, only for all of this to erupt from nowhere. It was glorious!

“ Yoru...” a voice groaned.

Even though everyone was having as much fun as she was.

Asa leaned against a nearby building, eyes fixed on the scenery before them, one hand to the stump of her arm. There was no blood dripping from the wound, Yoru was in control of the body at the moment, so Asa wouldn't have to worry about that, but that was a small consolation for the loss of said arm.

“Asa, don't worry about it, it's just a flesh wound.”

Asa could only look up to her devil doppelganger in disbelief. “My... my arm...” Her hand was shaking, and then she looked around the burning city. “What is this? What's happening?”

Yoru grinned, only so wide it almost tore their face apart. “War is happening!” she boasted. “For the first time since the World War, this world is in the midst of war! I can feel the fear suddenly flowing through me! And it is an ecstatic feeling! Truly rapturous! Do you not agree?” The War Devil loudly laughed, sweeping her single arm, and the large weapon in it around to gesture to the world.

No, Asa could not feel it, she was too concerned about the pain in her arm, though she was surprised she wasn't on the ground, screaming in unrestrained pain. It must be the adrenalin at work, that she's so worked up that she can't process the pain at the moment, or maybe it's the sheer shock of what had happened. Only minutes ago everything was fine, she was at home, wanting to enjoy television, and then... then...

She heard the chainsaws first

“HELP ME SOMEBODY HELP ME!” cried a frantic and panicked voice, and her and Yoru's attention was drawn to the building across from where she lived, as a man ran out the front door. He didn't make it very far before what was chasing him caught up to him, the first figure jumping onto him and the man screaming in agony and terror as a mist of blood exploded from his body, and soon more joined in the slaughter, pouring out from the building to end the man's life in the most painful way they could.

Neither Asa nor Yoru could believe what they were seeing.

People with chainsaws sticking out of their arms and sprouting from their foreheads, more than a dozen of them, and they all took part in the senseless violence.

“ Chainsaw Man?” Asa gasped, unable to turn herself away from the sight. “I don't-What is-Ah?”

Yoru only growled. “Famine, what did you do?”

“ Fami?” Asa shot her head over to Yoru. “You think she did this?”

“I wouldn't put it past her to do whatever this is.”

Asa wanted to argue, to try and make sense of this, of whatever was going on, but before she could even think about where to even begin, Yoru laughed again and held the Apartment 606 Sword in front of her. “We've been spotted.”

She looked back to the group of chainsaw men, and several of them were looking at them with slack, blank-eyed expressions, and then they were screaming, the saws in their limbs and heads roaring, and they were charged at by what must have been nearly two dozen monsters.

“ Yoru, we have to run,” Asa tried, pushing herself from the wall. “We have to leave and find somewhere safe.”

Yoru did not move, she only grinned as she looked the approaching hoard dead on.

“ YORU!”

“You've been dragging your feet when it comes to killing Chainsaw Man,” Yoru said, taking a step forward, much to Asa's horror. “I have been growing restless, so allow me to indulge myself in destroying these miserable simulacrums of my enemy!”

The hoard was almost upon them, Asa could smell the blood staining them as the sounds of chainsaws suddenly became overwhelming, and in a moment they all leaped at them, blades ready to rip and tear them to pieces.

Yoru swung the sword, and the large blade instantly cleaved the one that was about to eviscerate them, and in a moment the entire chainsaw pack was reduced to an explosion of blood and meat. The War Devil laughed as their remains rained down on them, drenching them in blood, so enthralled in the violence and death that she didn't even seem to notice that the Apartment 606 sword fell to pieces.

Apartment 606 was a poor substitute for the home she shared with her parents, though it was better than the orphanage, but that wasn't saying much, it was a place to live, and she put the effort of trying to make it a home. She had her small garden of potted plants, her book collection, a few movies, and a small box of the few things she managed to recover from the ruins of her home, and while there were more than a few times she felt crushed by loneliness, it was still a safe place for her, somewhere she looked forward to return to when the days at school were too much. It was all she had, which was why she decided it would make a perfect weapon if she found herself cornered.

But now that home was gone, so she had nothing.

It only occurred to her just now that she was homeless.

She can see Yoru cheering for herself at the carnage, but Asa can only feel everything slipping away from her, and when Yoru finally turned her way with a large grin it was quick to vanished as Asa found herself collapsing.

000

They alleyway. The chicken corpses. The darkness at the end.

000

Slowly, Asa's eyes opened up and she found herself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling.

She felt tired and sluggish, but she was in a soft bed with the covers drawn over her, but if that was a good thing or not was yet to be seen. Slowly she tried to push herself up but she fell to the side, she was confused why she fell, but then she cried out when she saw she was missing her right arm. For a moment, fear struck her, sending a cold chill down her spine as she stared down at the bandaged stump, but those sensations began to slowly fade as her memory of what happened caught up to her.

A lot happened...

Asa looked around the room, and it didn't look like much. There was a dresser, a closet and a mirror and a bedside table. It was rather bare but it had what was needed for someone to stay here for a time. Finally managing to push herself into a seating position, Asa pushed the covers off and saw that someone had changed her clothes, her school uniform gone and replaced with a tank top and loose shorts.

“ You can thank me for that.”

Asa's attention was suddenly pulled to the side of the bed where Yoru was sitting in a chair that had been positioned there, one leg crossed over the other while her arms were crossed over her chest, as if to allow someone watching over her a place to sit.

“Yoru?” Asa said, her throat feeling dry and she wondered why she could get water. “What happened?”

“ After you passed out, I would have been content to take advantage of my new power and eliminate more of those chainsaw frauds, but it came to my attention that a strategic retreat would have been the better move.”

Asa didn't know what she was talking about, and still no closer to finding out where they actually were.

“ If you feel yourself able, then get up and leave this bedroom, there is much to talk about.”

Her legs were a bit wobbly, but Asa managed to get out of bed and went through the door, and found herself in the main room of an apartment. It was simple, with a TV in the corner and a small couch, a kitchenette in the opposite corner, and in the center of the room was a table with four chairs.

Seated in one of those chairs was Fami, and sitting on a plate in front of her was a sandwich. The sandwich itself did not appear to have any bites taken out of it as well as a glass of milk.

“It's good to see you have woken up, Asa,” Fami said, and raised a hand to gesture to the sandwich. “Eat, you'll need to keep up your strength.”

Asa looked from Fami and back to around the room, finding herself on guard, waiting for something awful to happen to her.

“ Sit down and eat,” Yoru said. “She never offers anyone food, so you should consider yourself honored.” There was an undeniable sarcasm to her tone.

With a great deal of caution, Asa took the seat opposite of Fami, who pushed the sandwich and milk towards her.

“It's peanut butter and jelly.”

She didn't realize how hungry she was, so she reached out to grab it only to notice, once again, that she only had one arm.

This would take getting used to.

Taking the time to adjust to her new disability, Asa ate the sandwich, more ravenous than she usually does, and gulped down the milk in one go. She felt a bit better with something in her stomach, but she was still a long way to go from being okay.

“I'm certain you have questions about what happened last night,” Fami said, cordial always.

There was a lot to know, too much to know, and Asa didn't even know where to start, but something Yoru said caught her attention.

“Last night... Did you do that?”

“I did,” was the blunt reply.

Asa felt herself go cold with dread.

“Last night at 5:00, Church members around the world who had signed a contract with the Justice Devil, either directly or by proxy via the mass weddings turned into a chainsaw man and began to attack any and all humans in sight, a total of 350,000 in total. It is currently noon the next day, and the causality rate is estimated to be in the millions.”

Asa could only stare at the devil. “What?” None of this seemed real. “What do you-” She needed a weapon, something to fight back with. Asa pushed herself out of her chair and looked for something, something she could either grab to defend herself with or something to think of as belonging to her and turn it into a weapon. Worst case scenario she could use her own clothes. “Why did you do that?”

“I needed to start a war against Chainsaw Man, to power up both him and Yoru.”

“Why?” Her fear was then suddenly replaced with anger. “What was this all for?”

Fami looked from Asa and to Yoru. “I assume you didn't tell her about the Prophecy?”

Yoru shook her head and shrugged. “I never saw it to be a relevant matter?”

“Prophecy?” Asa echoed, the word sounding odd to her. “What Prophecy?”

They told her about the Prophecy, that in six months their eldest sister, the Death Devil, would come to Earth and end the lives of all humans.

“I need a devil who is powerful enough to fight Death, one who is so renowned and actively feared by every single human being in this world that they have a chance at defeating her,” Fami said. “By starting a war between humanity and Chainsaw Man, I would increase their power, and while Death will become passively stronger from these events, I am hoping that the active fear gained will tip the scales in our favor.”

There's so much she wants to say, wants to scream and cry but she can't think of anything at the moment. It felt too suffocating, she needed to leave, she needed to be somewhere else. So she immediately went to the door, and the moment she grabbed the doorknob to leave, Fami called out to her.

“It's for the best that you don't leave,” she said, turning in her chair.

Asa's grip on the knob tightened, but she didn't turn it. “And why not?” she hissed. “Why would I want to be here with you?”

“Because the moment you run into local authorities or Public Safety you'll either be sent to prison or killed on the spot.”

That certainly caught her attention. “What?” she asked, turning to face Fami.

“Due to your position in the Church you were labeled a terrorist along with the rest of us, and considering that Public Safety believes you to be an actual devil like me, they won't be kind to you. You already lost an arm to them.”

A terrorist? Her? But she never... She only was trying to...

Suddenly, everything that had been building up exploded.

“You ruined my life!” Asa shouted, a fire burning inside her. “I only wanted to help Chainsaw Man and now I'm a wanted terrorist? My life is over now! I can't go to school anymore, or get a job! I don't even have a home anymore! Why would you do this to me?”

Fami stood up from her chair, and approached Asa, who back against the door, looking for something to make into a weapon, to defend herself, to-

That was when Fami reached out and pulled Asa into a hug.

Asa's mind sort of... fizzled there for a moment. She wasn't expecting this, she was thinking something more along the lines of a fight, but not a hug? Why was she hugging her?

...When was the last time she was hugged?

Oh, yeah. It was her mom. She remembered the last hug because she played it in her memory every day, it had been the morning of-

Fami then pulled away from Asa, and despite herself she found herself missing the comforting presence of another person, even if it was Fami.

“Asa,” Fami said, speaking evenly as she could. “Many terrible things have happened, but trust me when I say it was not without reason.”

Asa did not know how to respond to that.

“Now, I need you to stay here for now, I need to go out and check things out, but promise me you'll stay here until I return?”

Fami's hands were still on Asa's shoulders.

“Fine,” she reluctantly said, turning away from the devil.

“Good, I will return.”

Fami then left the apartment, leaving Asa alone with her thoughts and Yoru.

It was only after Fami left that she noticed that her head was tilting to the other side.

“ She's never been that nice to me,” the War Devil complained. “So, what are we going to do now?”

“I'm going back to bed,” Asa said, already feeling exhaustion draining her, and within only a minute of laying back down on her bed did she find herself asleep.

000

Asa woke up some time later and found that Fami had not yet returned, and so she decided to put on the television to try and get a better understanding on how things were.

“ -Mitaka Asa, the face of the Chainsaw Man Church who is believed to have played an important role in orchestrating the worldwide chainsaw man infestation, has yet to be apprehended and is still at large. It is believed that she is a devil, so if you have any information on her whereabouts please contact local authorities or Public Safety and do not engage her yourself if you value your life. She was last seen-”

She turned the news off and went back to bed. It took her a while before she could sleep again.

000

When she woke up it had been hours later, the sun was already setting, and she found Fami once against sitting at the table.

“You owe me an explanation,” Asa demanded, feeling more confident than she had before. “Why did you get me involved in all of this? Why did you start this whole cult thing?”

“Asa,” Fami started. “I want you to think of a scale, on one side you have the population of this world, nearly six billion humans, a number that will be wiped out if Death is allowed to descend, and on the other you have the millions of lives that were lost during the chainsaw man outbreak. You may not like what it is I have set in motion, but this is a necessary sacrifice, because the millions that died in the last day will provide the fuel for the fear that will empower both Yoru and Chainsaw Man, making them strong enough to have a chance of defeating Death.”

“So, you were just planning on throwing Chainsaw Man and I at your older sister then?”

“No, only Yoru.”

“ Bitch,” Yoru growled.

“You never liked Death, so I imagine this would not have been a problem for you.”

Yoru remained silent, but she glared at Fami with a fierce gaze.

Fami then ignored her. “But, no, neither you nor Chainsaw Man will be made to fight Death. I promised you that each you and Yoru would get your respective Chainsaw Man, and after Yoru is able to extract that power from him, killing the Black Chainsaw Man, she will wield power beyond what anything has ever been capable of, and meanwhile you and Red Chainsaw Man will be able to live as you please with your normal, human lives.”

“What normal life?” Asa growled. “I saw the news earlier, how can I live my life when everyone thinks I'm a mass murderer?”

“Like I said, Death is coming no matter what, and there will be mass casualties around the world, but when it is all over the world will be too busy to try and rebuild itself to care enough to look for you.”

Asa didn't like that, the heavy implications that carried with that. It made her feel almost small and powerless.

“You'll be able to restart your life however you choose.”

“...And Chainsaw Man?”

“I went looking for him, to find out where he had gone in all of this.”

“And where is he?”

“Currently he is being detained by Public Safety.”

“What?” Asa almost jumped out of her chair. “Should we go out there then and get him?

Fami shook her head. “That's not possible right now, there's nothing we can do to get to him, but I do know that for the time being he's not in any danger.”

That didn't make her feel better, in fact it made the feeling in her gut more unbearable.

“Asa, I promised you that you will be able to save Chainsaw Man, and in one week's time we will have an opportunity to do so, but I need you to trust me. Can you do that, please?”

She looked up to the devil, and there was something... different about the way she looked at her. Asa couldn't tell what it was, but somehow she looked more... genuine? She didn't know what to call it, but it was a look she never saw on Fami's mostly neutral expression.

All of this was for Chainsaw Man, to rescue him, to save him from a lifetime of fighting devils, she had to remind herself of that. If she backed out now then all the horrible things that she had lived through, that had happened to other people would mean nothing.

Asa sighed. “I trust you, Fami.”

Fami let out a small smile.

Chapter Text

Chapter III: Break In, Break Out

Asa and the rest of the group continue to run through the halls of the facility, they are able to avoid most groups that are hunting after them, because while they could potentially fight off everyone that could attack them, Asa would rather not fight if she could avoid it. Fighting the grunts in these halls would do nothing but waste their energy, energy that would be better used against stronger opponents, because surely the closer they go to their ultimate goal the stronger the defenses that would be used against them. She and Yoru needed to be at the top of their game for those challenges, and Fami had whatever restrictions she had to workaround for her powers to work, so likewise avoiding guards was the best thing to do. Haruka and the others were still here, and they had yet to do much of anything beyond complain.

Whatever, as long as they avoided guards, they could avoid trouble, thus avoid expending strength they would need for later.

“ You'll be going into enemy territory,” Fami had told her yesterday. “Be prepared to take a human life.”

She's here to save Chainsaw Man. She can do that. These people are holding him hostage, they're hurting him, and they'll lock him away forever if she doesn't do anything, so if someone dies, then it can't be helped. That's just how it is.

“ If you say so.”

It's just fortunate that they've not needed to be overly violent so far. The Guillotine Devil has done a pretty good job of keeping things peaceful so far, destroying the weapons and the clothes of the people that came to stop them. Without guns they had no way to hurt them, and without clothes they became so demoralized that they had to run away. What sort of shameless idiot fought naked?

She's very grateful for the Guillotine Devil.

“Kon!”

Suddenly a giant white claw appeared out of thin air and struck the Guillotine Devil, sending it crashing into the wall.

“Guilly!” Asa found herself crying out as the bird devil slumped against the wall, painfully cawing.

“You should have used the head.”

Asa looked down the intersecting hallway and two people dressed in suits, a man and a woman, and knew that they were dealing with more dangerous people. These were not simple guards, but Public Safety hunters.

“There's not enough room for the head,” the woman with the topknot said. “So all I can do is the claws.”

“We at least took out the bird,” the man with the buzzcut said. “Better than nothing. Be careful, the two girls are the most dangerous.”

“Won't hurt to be careful,” the woman said and raised her hand again and pointed her index and middle finger out. “Kon.”

The white claw suddenly materialized in the air, once against aiming for the Guillotine Devil, poised to strike it down one last time.

“Right Dress Sleeve Sword!” Asa called out, and the sleeve that uselessly dangled from the arm she no longer had ripped off and in her hand a sword appeared. She rushed forward and just as the claw was about to tear the Guillotine Devil apart Asa intercepted it, swinging hard and fast enough that she heard a pained yelp from the air as its blood was spilled and tufts of white fur fell, before it vanished.

“Gyohnee...” Guilly groaned.

“At last, my chance to shine,” Yoru said, grinning widely as she looked down the hall to the two hunters, the man having taken out a sword while the woman took out two axes. The shift between her and Yoru was seamless, they both knew that she was better suited to this fight than she was, and so there was no internal argument or struggle. It was an instant switch, smooth as can be. Ever since this whole thing with the Church started they had been getting along more, and Asa no longer felt she needed to fight against Yoru at every turn. It was odd, refreshing, just how sync they were in.

Yoru jumped forward, and soon she was upon the two devil hunters, but the man made a movement with his hand and a series of curved crab claws came from the ground, which stopped her attack from connecting as she had to dodge away from it at the last moment. When she landed on her feet the woman charged at her and swung her axes at her, and while Yoru was able to block one she had to jump back to avoid the second one, at which she was almost sliced by the man's sword.

The War Devil grinned, she was going to have fun.

000

Haruka stared at the fight between hunters and devil, breathing hard.

“I can do this,” he said, hand gripping at his chest. “Chainsaw Man needs help, and you can't help him by doing nothing.”

He wanted to help, to be the hero he wanted to be, he knew he could do it, but why was he so frozen? All he needed to do was jump in and help Asa fight off those two hunters, it wasn't that hard.

But they were human. If they were devils, he would jump in, show everyone what he was capable of, show them he was worthy of being a hero like Chainsaw Man, but against humans? Could he do that? Would Chainsaw Man think less of him for doing so?

Haruka stood there, hating himself for his inaction.

000

In the security room, several people watched the cameras of the varying hallways and cells of the detainment center, trying to keep a look out for the invading school girl devils, but between the attack on the front of the building and the silencing of several teams that had been sent in, only for them to suddenly black out, it make made keeping track of them a difficult thing to to. It would only be a matter of time however before they caught sight of them, and once they did they would be able to better coordinate personnel to confront and apprehend them. It didn't matter how powerful these high school girl devils were, it would only be a matter of time before they were put down.

The door opened behind them.

000

The fight had already gone past the thirty second mark when Fami decided it had gone on too long, and she pulled out an effigy from her pocket.

“Yoru back off!” she yelled out, and threw it at the two hunters.

Seeing the thrown effigy, Yoru was quick to jump back from her fight with the hunters, who seemed ignorant of the thing that landed between them. It was the woman who first noticed it, but it was already too late as the effigy came to life and a cloud of gray dust exploded out of it, eating up the two hunters. There was only a brief gasp from them before they were cut off.

“W-What was that?” Nobana asekd, cowering behind Seigi.

“A joykill,” Yoru growled before turning back to her sister. “I was having fun with that, why did you get in my way?”

“We don't have time for you to play with your opponents,” Fami said, annoyed. “You can do that after we save Chainsaw Man.”

The cloud of dust soon cleared, and standing there was a man-sized devil with a thick body, neck and head with two small wings, multiple eyes and a set of twisted horns.

The Stone Devil growled as it walked past the two petrified devil hunters and back to Fami, who raised her arm towards the devil.

“Return,” was all she said, before the devil burst into flames, and fell to the ground as its effigy.

“You've never been fun,” Yoru said with a roll of her eyes, before walking back to the hunters-turned-statues, before gently shoving the man onto the woman, where they both broke into pieces upon hitting the ground.

Asa tried not to think about it.

“You were staying my hand,” Yoru said, looking down at the broken statues. “I was drawing that fight out for the fun of it, but I could feel you holding me back even if you didn't know it.”

“ I was doing no such thing.”

“Fine, tell yourself that, but you're going to accept that people will die this day, and by your hand.”

Asa said nothing as she switched back into control of the body, and when she rejoined the group they were already standing over Guilly, who lay injured against the wall.

“Is she going to be alright?” Seigi asked.

“H-How do you know it's a girl?” Nobana asked.

“It's obvious.”

Fami spoke up. “Yes she'll live, but I'll need to put her away now.”

Guilly turns its-her-head to Asa and cooed softly.

“She says thanks for the save,” Fami translated.

“Oh?” Asa said, caught off guard by the sudden gratitude from the devil. “Y-You're welcome! I'm happy to help!”

“Gyohnee...”

Fami sighed. “Stop being sentimental.”

Sentimental? Did that mean Guilly liked her?

“ Please don't tell me you're falling for this thing too.”

“Not like that!” Asa said. “It's just nice to be appreciated!” That was when Asa noticed everyone looking at her, and she wanted to hide and die under a rock. She then coughed, trying to face some face, she hoped. “I mean, that's nice to know. I hope we can fight alongside one another again.”

Another coo, this one happier it sounded.

“Return,” Fami said, and Guilly burst into flames, returning to its small effigy form, and Fami pocketed it along with the Stone Devil. “Let's get going.”

As the group moved on, Asa did hope to see Guilly again.

000

The security team was down, every single one of them knocked unconscious and on the ground, and it wasn't a difficult fight with the element of surprise.

The figure reached into their jacket pocket and pulled out an effigy, one given to them by Fami and held it in their hand, staring down at it for a time, trying to delay things as long as they could. This was something they couldn't fight, this needed to happen, so with a sight they dropped the effigy on the ground and let the devil take its full form.

“You know what to do,” they said.

The Security Devil, with its long, metal-like fingers and arms placed its hands on the keyboards and control panels, staring at everything with its single, camera-like eye and grinned. Cables suddenly grew from the backside of its hands and jammed into the computer systems, breaking through television screens and keyboards, not caring that there was nothing that was designed to be plugged in, but the connection was made all the same.

Hell was about to be unleashed.

000

Asa and the group continued down the halls, keeping watch for any security teams and avoiding confrontation so far. It was after some time however that Fami began to sway where she ran, and had to slow down before she leaned against the wall.

“Fami?” Asa asked, carefully approaching the devil. “Is something wrong? Are you hurt?” Asa considered putting a hand on her shoulder, but she didn't know if that was something she could do.

“Hungry...” Fami moaned. “I'm hungry.”

Any sympathy Asa felt vanished. “Are you serious? After what you ate for breakfast this morning? You had us stop on the way here! How could you be hungry?”

“Hungry...” Fami growled, her stomach growling loudly as well, before reaching into her pockets and pulled out another effigy. She pushed past Asa and dropped it on the ground, and from it was summoned a giant blue toad devil, and a cold chill suddenly filled the hall.

Nobana, of course, screamed.

Before Asa could question it the Cold Devil opened its mouth, with the lower jaw splitting in half to reveal a refrigerator.

“Wha?”Asa could only stare on in confusion as Fami threw open the door to the fridge and pulled out what looked like a cooked piece of beef before she began to tear into it, finishing it off in mere seconds before she continued on to the next item.

“Are you seriously taking a lunch break?” Haruka asked, offended by Fami's casual disregard of their mission. “We're in the middle of a rescue mission! You can't just stop like this!”

Fami ignored him and continued to eat. Asa thought she saw her eat a whole roast chicken, bones and all.

“Can... can we at least have some? They've been serving us nothing but crap, can you-”

Fami paused in her feast and sent a deadly glare at Haruka, who was quick to back off.

Seeing Fami eat like this was odd, after spending a week together, unable to leave the apartment she was used to eating Fami's eating habits, and with the somehow never ending supply of food she had, she always was more in control of herself no matter how much food she made vanished. But this? There was something different here, more desperate in the way she tore through everything she could get her hands on, attacking everything with a ravishing hunger that she had never seen before. It was unnerving.

Taking control of the body, Yoru laughed. “You still can't go too long without your little snack breaks, can you?”

Fami ignored her, which seemed to agitate Yoru.

“ Yoru, what's wrong with her?”

“It's how her ability works,” Yoru said, almost proudly.

“Her ability?” Haruka asked. “She has a devil contract? I knew she had one, but she never told me.”

“No you idiots,” Yoru said, turning to the hapless students. “She doesn't have a devil contract because she is a devil! The Famine Devil in fact!”

Haruka took a step back while Nobana continued to try and hide, while Seigi remained rooted to where he stood. From her meal Fami glared at Yoru but did not cease. Asa merely listened on.

“Famine here has the ability to take control of anyone who is “starving”, and not just in the physical sense, but starving more for some emotional or mental need as well. Starving for food is the easiest way to make someone her pawn, but other methods can be more ironclad in securing them, but once she makes them her pawns she can turn them into those little effigies she carries around with her, and they have no choice but to obey.”

“And why is she eating like... that?” Haruka asked, seemingly put off by Fami's voracious appetite.

“Because in order to make something her pawn, she needs to take their hunger from them, which is why she's always starving. So she gouges herself to keep that energy up, and depending on how many pawns she has it means she needs to eat more.” With a condescending smile Yoru turned to Fami. “It's not nearly as airtight as Control's powers, the pawns can still display their free will even if they can't act on it, and it's more costly for her to keep these pawns under her, but if the circumstances are just right she can take anyone under her influence, even if the target far outclasses her.” Yoru leaned in, and Asa was worried they might get their head bitten off. “Isn't that right, my dearest sister?”

Fami ignored her, and continued to eat.

“Sister?” Haruka asked, looking between Fami and Yoru. “Why did you call her sister?”

“ Please don't make this a thing.”

Yoru grinned and turned to the student. “That's because, mortal, that I am the War Devil!”

“Another devil?” Haruka gasped. “Wait, so does this mean you two really were working together this whole time?”

“No, I was as ignorant of Fami's plans as anyone else, but I cannot deny the benefits they've given me.” Yoru stepped forward towards Haruka, much closer than Asa, or Haruka, were comfortable. “You're the one who spurred on the oncoming war between man and devils, so I suppose you have my thanks for your efforts, because now that fearmongering you worked so hard to instill has been realized and my strength increased tenfold for it.”

Haruka looked as though he wanted to say something, to shout at her, but he kept his mouth shut despite his effort to mouth off to her.

“ Did you really have to go about it like that?” Asa asked, though she didn't have much respect for Haruka's opinion, she didn't want this to cause any trouble for her down the line.

Suddenly there was a loud alarm playing over the speaker system, and red lights began to flash from the ceiling.

“ Attention everyone in this building,” a voice said over the speaker system. It wasn't the same voice from before, the one who announced her and Fami's arrival to this place. “There has been a containment breach, and every devil and human contractee that are detained here has been set free. I repeat, every devil and human contractee that are detained here has been set free. You may try to fight them but there are too many of them, so I advise you to run. Please be safe.”

“Wait,” Asa said, returning to the body. “That voice was familiar.”

Fami slammed the fridge shut, and wiped off her face with a paper towel. “I'm done, so let's get going. My pawn will be meeting us soon.”

000

Some time later, a door was opened and a figure entered the cold room, they walked to the drawers in the back, their breath freezing in the air, and used the keys they had stolen to unlock one of the doors. They reached out and pulled out the table and the large box that was inside of it.

There was a great deal of text on the box, serial numbers and barcodes as well as other types of identifications, but there was one word in particular that stood out above the rest.

CHAINSAW.

Chapter Text

Chapter IV: Corpse Pieces

It doesn't take long before the screaming can be heard.

The five of them duck behind a corner and Asa looks around it, and she sees the fight going on between devils and humans, and already there is so much blood everywhere. Devils roar and scream and bite while the humans shoot and stab and cut, and it's a desperate struggle on both sides as the humans try to contain the devils, but it looks like they quickly gave up on that hope and quickly turned around to killing them to make sure they didn't leave this building.

She could only imagine how much worse it was in other parts of the facility.

“You set this all up?” Asa asked, eyes transfixed on the bloodbath. From the corner of her mind she could hear Yoru chuckle.

“Right now all security measures are being disabled,” Fami explained, walking past Asa. “The most dangerous devils were released first, and depending on how quick the Security Devil is it won't take too long before the devils on the upper levels are free too. Many of these devils were kept alive because it was either to serve for the purpose of contracts or die to Public Safety, so I imagine that the majority of devils have canceled their contracts, leaving hunters without a way to fight them, and with every dead devil, more contracts will be lost.” She looked down the hallway. “It won't be long before this building is wiped out of humans and the devils escape into the wild.”

“Why would you do this?” Haruka exploded, taking a step to Fami before she turned around, causing him to stop in his tracks. “More people are going to get killed?”

“Okay,” was Fami's flat response before she looked back at Asa. “The next stairwell will take us to the level we need to get to where our contact will meet us.”

“...And where is the next door?” Asa ignored the carnage.

Fami pointed down the hall to the carnage. “At the end of the hall.”

“D-D-Down there!” Nobana cried out, backing up only to collide with Seigi's chest. “You can't take us there! Just look at all that!” He gestured wildly to the fighting around them.

“No one said you had to come,” Fami said, and already she was on the move. “Asa, we're almost at Chainsaw Man, it's almost time to save him. If we're quick, we can avoid the fighting.”

Asa looked between the battle, before looking back to Haruka and the others. “I-I don't know why you came all this way, but it's time you stayed behind.”

“ Here?” Nobana cried out. “If we stay here we'll be killed by devils! Or maybe someone who thinks we're part of this whole thing!”

Seigi nodded in agreement. “It's dangerous no matter where we go.”

“I have to go,” Haruka said, a hand to his chest. “I want to meet Chainsaw Man, and I want to save him too, and if I have to brave this, then I'll do it.” He then turned around to the other two. “If you two want to run and hide somewhere safe, I can't blame you.”

“I don't have anywhere else to go,” Seigi said.

“I want to go home but I don't know the way out!”

Asa chose to ignore them, they were not important, they could only distract her, so she put them out of her mind.

Yoru took control of the body and charged forward after Fami, the Sleeve Sword still in her hand. They ran past the devils and humans, sprinting as close to the wall as they could to avoid any unnecessary fighting, and hoped that they were too preoccupied with one another to put focus on the two high school girls. They were nearly half-way down the hallway, the door just within sight, when Yoru found herself jumped by a chainsaw zombie, its blades spinning wildly while it screamed at her, trying to dice her up. It wasn't a challenge for Yoru to stop it, ducking underneath its wild swings, the blades scraping against the concrete walls in a shower of sparks to create an opening where she stabbed back at it, cutting off the head. As the body and head hit the ground she looked up and saw Haruka right behind her, with Seigi carrying Nobana on his back.

“You three are still coming?” she asked, annoyed at the unwanted party members. At first she would have been fine with them as meat shields, but they had quickly lost their charm and had become annoying.

Haruka spoke up. “I said I'm here to save Chains-”

Yoru turned away from them and continued to run down the hallway until they reached the stairwell, which Fami had already beaten them to, with her holding the door open for them. When the last of them had entered, Fami shut the door behind them just as there was a terrible scream from something or someone behind them.

“How much further until we're at Chainsaw Man?” Asa asked, taking control of the body once again. “Things are getting bad out there, and I want to get to him as soon as we can.”

“It's bad out there because of her!” Haruka said, pointing at Fami, who ignored him and continued down the stairs.

“The next floor is where we'll find him,” she said. “It should be an examination room, but we'll have to walk a bit to get there, but once we're there, Chainsaw Man will be yours to save Asa, and yours to kill, Yoru.”

Asa felt relieved, while Yoru cheered in their head. Finally, their goal was within their reach.

Haruka then spoke up. “And what about all the devils you released?”

 Once again, Fami was dismissive and uninterested. “What about them?”

“They're killing everyone!”

“They'll die anyway.”

Haruka growled in frustration. “What about you? Asa or Yoru or whatever your name really is? I thought you would have wanted the best for Chainsaw Man, but you're working for this devil? Even though she's getting all these people killed?”

Even though she kept going, Asa's grip on the handrail tightened. “It's for the good of Chainsaw Man. I will save him.”

“Seriously? Even with all these devils killing everyone? Even with-”

“I'm going to save Chainsaw Man!” Asa suddenly snapped, shooting her anger towards Haruka. “There's too much at stake to back out now, and no matter what you think, this is the right thing to do even if how we got here wasn't clean. It never is! There's always collateral no matter what. So I would appreciate it if you just shut up or stay behind because we don't need you. ”

Haruka continued to glare at her, while Nobana hid behind Seigi, who stood there as always.

Asa broke off contact with him first because she decided it wasn't worth the trouble, and continued on down the stairs.

000

The last floor looked like something out of a horror film, there were bodies of people and devils around, blood coating the floors and walls, and they could hear fighting echoing through the hallways. It was creepy, it made Asa unnerved. Behind her she could hear Nobana whimper, while Haruka was mumbling something to himself, and Seigi remained silent.

She ignored it all and followed Fami, carefully avoiding contact with hunters and devils when they could, though Asa was surprised how little she was actually seeing. It must have gotten bad down here fast, enough for the sides to blitz one another. It must have been under an hour since they broke in, maybe nearly thirty minutes since this started, and yet it felt like forever ago.

There was an explosion somewhere, and a rumble as well.

“Chances are the devils are finding alternative ways to leave,” Fami said. “Taking other stairs, the elevator, maybe even going through the ceilings and floors.”

“Where are we going next?” Asa snapped, Yoru humming in delight in her ear.

“We're almost there,” Fami said, turning another corner, stepping over a burned up body. “In fact, we should meet them right there.”

She pointed to a set of double doors, the sign above them read “Disassembly.” Asa didn't want to know what that meant. Still, she was prepared for the worst, but as she placed her hand on the door to open it, Fami laid a hand on her wrist.

“You should know something,” she said. “But when you see who this is, I want you to wait for an explanation.”

“Okay?” Asa asked, confused.

The door was pushed open, which held a room that held a window to the next room, and Asa pushed through the second set of doors, and there it was she saw the person, the pawn of Fami's, that they had been coming to meet.

Instantly her blood froze while Yoru's began to boil.

 Leaning against a table with a large box on it, was a boy her age, wearing a suit with no jacket, and a sword scabbard strapped to his back.

“So you finally made it here,” Yoshida said, holding his sword at the ready.

“Bastard!” Yoru cried out, holding the Sleeve Sword, which already seemed to be on its last legs, ready to jump forward and strike, and Asa could feel the strong desire to pay him back for the injury he gave them.

“Yoru, no!” Fami cried out, quickly jumping between the devil and the hunter. “He's the pawn I talked about.”

“I don't care, he took our arm!” Yoru seethed, trying to push past Fami.

“He has Chainsaw Man!”

Yoru, and to an extent Asa, stopped struggling.

“It's true, I do,” Yoshida said. Asa didn't know him too well, they had met only a few times, and he always had this odd smile that made her think he knew something she didn't know, but what she didn't know.  The last time she saw him that smile was absent, back when he apologized to her before he cut off their arm. Even now the smile was gone, and he looked absolutely miserable.

Haruka and the others entered the room behind her and Fami.

“You brought company,” Yoshida observed, looking the three over.

“Yoshida?” Haruka gasped. “You're here? But...” He then turned back to Fami. “He's your pawn?”

“Yes.”

“So everything going out there? It's because of him? Because you made him?”

“He was starving, so I took him.”

Asa had been staring at Yoshida, trying to think of what to say; why did he try to kill her, why did he apologize, why did he ask her to not see Denji again? Just so many things she wanted to say but she didn't know how to articulate what she felt.

But he looked dead on the inside.

Fami made him unleash devils inside this building, so who knows how many people he knew were dead now. Behind her, Haruka is yelling at Fami about this.

And Asa... she...

“Where's Chainsaw Man?” There's no point in asking anything anymore. She needs to save Chainsaw Man.

Somehow, his frown grew.

“Right here,” he said, gesturing to the large box on the table beside him, pointing to the lettering on the side that read CHAINSAW.

“What is this?” Asa asked, looking at it with uncertainty.

“This...” Yoshida said, taking a key out of his pocket and unlocking the box. “Is Chainsaw Man.” He pushed aside the lid, and a gust of cold came from inside it, and upon looking into the inside of the box, Asa saw a collection of body pieces.

“Agh!” Nobana screamed, pushing himself back.

“What is this?” Haruka yelled.

“ It's Chainsaw Man,” Yoru said, and Asa was speechless.

He was... he was in pieces... But...

“He's dead...” Asa stammered, and she felt her legs go weak. No, no, no. He couldn't be dead, because if he was dead then that would mean... that she... that...

“He's fine,” Fami said. “As long as he receives blood, he will live again. His heart keeps him immortal, and that is what we are here for.”

Hope returned to Asa, that awful, awful hope. “So we just... need to put him back together again?”

“Yes,” Yoshida said, his eyes not having been removed from the body. “But Asa, there's something you should know first.”

“What?” She couldn't take her eyes off him as well.

“Didn't you wonder why I asked you to not see Denji again?”

“No.”

“ Liar. It's all you thought about before the Falling Devil attacked. That and-”

“Why would I care about that? Denji stood me up, so why would I care about him anyway? I haven't even thought about him since he stood me up.”

“What?” Haruka said from behind her, but she ignored him.

Yoshida only gestured to the box, and Asa looked more into it, and that was when she saw it.

A head.

Her hand shaking, Asa put down her sword and reached into the crate and turned the head over, the flesh so cold against her fingertips, where she was met with the closed-eyed stare of a blonde boy her age, of a sickly pale face that she had thought a lot about since that day.

“Denji...”

This... this couldn't be him. It couldn't just... There was no way this was real... Chainsaw Man, he was supposed to be heroic and chivalrous, and Denji sold cigarettes to bums, let girls use him on a chair and lied to her about wanting to spend time with her. He was a jerk, an asshole, and he...

...and they had fun together.

“ I knew it,” Yoru said, though she lacked the condescending I told you so that Asa half-expected her to have. She was just stating a fact.

“Asa,” Yoshida said, and there might have been some kind of compassion in his voice, but Asa found she was in no position to think about that. “Denji is Chainsaw Man. He always has been.”

“But that's not...” Asa tried to say something, but nothing she could think of would make sense to her.

“Wait, how did you not know he was Chainsaw Man?” Haruka asked.

There was a lot going on in Asa's head, but her mind went black at that, but despite the turmoil going on in her head, she kept staring down at the head.

He couldn't be Chainsaw Man, there was just so much about Chainsaw Man that she had built up in her head, how perfect and amazing he was, because unlike Denji , he never let her down. When she thought about Denji she thought about that ugly loneliness that threatened to consume her, how she was so unlovable that falling into Hell would have been a peaceful mercy. But Chainsaw Man saved her, he gave her hope when she had none and gave her life some kind of meaning, and sure he was kind of gross with the sex stuff, but for the first time since her mother died, Asa felt like her life had value to someone.

Denji couldn't be Chainsaw Man, but here he was.

“Wait, did you know he was Chainsaw Man?” Yoshida asked, surprised.

“I...” Haruka suddenly withered under Yoshida's glare. “The day that devil attacked the school, a girl saw Denji transform into Chainsaw Man, and because she knew about us starting a fanclub she told me about. I only found out about it the day the Falling Devil attacked, and even though I wanted to go to Denji myself, someone told me not to.” He was very obvious in how he was glaring at Fami.

The girl that bullied Asa, the one who Yuko had tried to kill? She couldn't remember her name, but she saw him transform into Chainsaw Man?

“And I told you,” Fami said, an annoyance in her voice. “It was something that was supposed to be kept secret, because if it got out who he was, it would have ruined our plans for the Church.”

“The Church that's getting everyone killed?” Haruka exploded.

“Fami, you should have told me that someone knew who Denji was,” Yoshida hissed, joining Haruka in glaring daggers at her.

“I didn't think it mattered to let you know that.”

“I bet you say that about a lot of things.”

Haruka continued. “If I knew what you were planning, I would have gone to Denji when I saw him pick Asa up for their second date! I would have-”

“Second date?” That tore Asa's attention away from the head, and she looked back to Haruka. “Denji didn't take me out on a second date, he stood me up!” It might have been weeks ago, but the pain still felt fresh. “What are you talking about?”

“What are you talking about? Denji picked you up! He wanted to take you to the movies but you refused! So instead you went to his place to watch TV or something!”

“That didn't happen!”

“Yes it did!”

“I think I would remember if Denji picked me up for a second date, but we only ever had the one!”

“Actually, he did pick you up for the second date,” Fami said.

“What?”

“Huh?”

“ Say what?”

“It's true,” Fami continued, and during her and Haruka's argument she had begun to assemble the corpse on the table like some kind of macabre jigsaw puzzle. The torso was already in place, as well as the head, and she was starting to work on the arms. “I see you gave him some modesty, Yoshida.”

“I took him out of the bags they put him in to at least give him boxers,” Yoshida said with a glare. “He deserves that much.”

Asa looked down to the torso and saw that it indeed had a pair of boxers around his waist, covering his genitals.

“ Were you hoping for a peak?”

Asa chose not to dignify that with an answer.

“What do you mean he picked me up for our second date?” Asa asked instead. “I waited for him for hours , and he never showed.” She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice, but she knew she failed.

“Asa,” Fami said, taking a moment from arranging the limbs. “Do you wish to save Chainsaw Man?”

“...Yes, I do.”

“To do that, you'll need to remove his Chainsaw Heart from him, because that is why he suffers.”

Yoshida, for a moment, looked as though he wanted to say something.

Asa's nerves felt they were on edge. “What happened? What do you mean by that?”

Before Fami could say anything, there was a rattle on the floor, and looking down Asa saw a metal canister.

“Wha-”

The canister then erupted in thick smoke that soon clouded the entire room, it choked them and blinded them, and Asa flailed her arm around to grab onto something, but someone shoved into her and she hit the floor. There was more noise, the sound of running and she could hear the door slam open.

There was then the sound of a loud intake of air, and soon all the smoke suddenly vanished as it was sucked into the maw of a devil with a large mouth and horns all over its body.

Still coughing, Yoshida raised a hand and made a gesture, and a tentacle popped out of the ground and sent the smoke grenade into the mouth of the Breath Devil, where it closed its mouth and stopped the smoke.

Fighting off the coughing, Asa managed to pull herself back up, looking for whatever and whoever had done this, before she found herself looking back to the table with Chainsaw Man's remains.

His head and torso were gone.

Chapter Text

Chapter V: Executions

Asa was the first one out of the door, slamming them open and looking around the hall for signs of the thief, a panic in her as she tried to see anything that could help, but there was nothing to aid her but to merely pick a direction and go.

Yoshida and Fami ran out of the door after her, with Haruka trailing behind them.

“Did you see which way they went?” Yoshida asked, his sword already in his hand as he looked back and forth down the halls. Despite how reluctant he seemed to be here, he was fully alert with Chainsaw Man's disappearance.

“No!” Asa barked back.

“We need to get him and his heart back,” Fami said, a certain level of stress in her voice that Asa had not been used to. “Yoshida, where is the Security Devil?”

“I don't know,” he said, looking up and down the hall. “It said it was going to open more cells on the upper levels after it was done with this one, so I don't know if it could help up at the moment.”

“Who is it that took Chainsaw Man?” Haruka asked, while Seigi and Nobana peeked out from behind the door.

The three of them fought and argued, but none of it was getting them anywhere, so Asa squeezed her eyes closed and just tried to think of where the thief could have gone, about where in the labyrinth of hallways down below the ground with all these devils and hunters fighting one another could they have gone.

She had to save Chainsaw Man, she had to get him out of here, it was the right thing to do, it had to be the right thing to do, and if she failed in that then that would mean that everything she had done, everything that had happened because she got involved in all of this, it would be...

Asa picked a random direction and ran, ignoring the protests from the rest of the party and just sprinted down the hallways, looking for anything to give her any clues of the whereabouts of the thief and Chainsaw Man. As she ran down the halls, picking arbitrary directions to go she saw more signs of battle, of human and devil bodies all over the place, blood everywhere and walls and ceilings and floors decorated in battle damage. In some places there were still fights, but Asa assumed that it wouldn't be long before these halls were silent as the victorious devils tried to make their way to the surface.

All this to save Chainsaw Man…

A left and a right, two more rights and a left, she checked random doors to see  closets and empty cells, where she saw a handful of hunters trying to recover from grievous injuries or devils who had chosen for whatever reason to remain in their cells. Whatever, it was less things for them to fight, and eventually despite the enhanced endurance provided by Yoru, Asa found herself winded, and came to stop.

“ Asa, we need to find them now , or they'll vanish forever,” Yoru said, impatient and angry.

She knew that , she didn't need to be told that. She just needed to catch her breath.

That was when she heard something around the corner, some kind of sputtering noise and carefully she crept to and and saw down the hallway.

And there they were, as simple as that.

Kneeling on the ground was who she presumed to be the thief, though she couldn't get a good look at them because she was seeing them from behind, seeing they were wearing a jacket worn by Public Safety, but in front of her was Chainsaw Man's torso and head. One hand was on the chest while the other kept pulling at the start, only to receive the failed sputtering of an empty engine.

“ They must have drained him of blood while they cut him up,” Yoru said, voicing Asa's own thoughts. “With no blood he simply can't be revived, which is what they are doing.”

From the thief they could hear some kind of frustrated muttering, before they dragged the torso to a large pile of chunky blood that might have once been a person. They then began to scoop up the blood in their hands and began to try and pour it down the hole of their open throat, trying to get as much in there as they could.

Whoever they were, they were trying to revive Chainsaw Man, but why would Public Safety try and revive him when their whole plan had been to lock him up? Asa moved in slowly to get a closer look.

 It was then at this moment that she stepped on a spent bullet casing and tripped, landing face first on the floor.

For a single moment, she had hoped that she hadn't been noticed, both for the sake of maintaining the element of surprise, but also to retain some level of dignity, she had hoped that she hadn't been noticed, and when she pulled her face from the floor, she saw the thief looking at her with wide, surprised eyes.

“ You fool,” Yoru said in a disappointed tone, and Asa couldn't help but agree with her.

The thief then quickly reached over and pulled up an assault rifle and aimed at Asa.

Yoru took control of the body and jumped up in time to avoid the gunfire and dived behind the corner. She looked down at the sword in her hand, the Sleeve Sword was only a few hits away from breaking, but thankfully they still had one more sleeve, and depending if their opponent had a devil contract of any kind, another Sleeve Sword might not be strong enough, but there wasn't much time to figure out.

Yoru then heard the clicking of an empty magazine.

She then quickly charged around the corner, knocking away the gun the thief had thrown at them and continued towards the target and swung down, only for them to quickly move out of the way, much too fast to be a normal human. The thief then reached down and pulled the knife that had been strapped to their belt and made a stab at Yoru's belly, only for her to push past them and roll down the hall before jumping up, pointing their sword at the thief, and for the first time they got a good look at them.

It was a girl, seemingly no older than Asa was, and her assumption about her being in Public Safety was brought into question, because despite the jacket and pants she was wearing the same kind of shirt that Haruka and the others were wearing, the shirt of a prisoner.

“ Maybe she's an escapee too?” Asa offered, and Yoru agreed with the possibility.

But the thing that caught their attention the most was the heavy metal collar around her neck.

She was standing right over the torso, and both Asa and Yoru could see that a bladed chain had grown from the stump of a neck and was feeling its way back to the head. It seemed like the blood the girl had given him had done enough to somewhat start his healing.

“Give me Chainsaw and I'll let you live,” Asa said.

The girl narrowed her eyes. “You're not getting him.”

“Then I guess I'll kill you then,” Yoru said.

Yoru pulled the sword back, ready to strike, when there was a sudden yell, and out from nowhere came Haruka, swinging a pipe at the girl, but she effortlessly dodged it, and with a quick elbow to the gut she not only disarmed him but spun him around and grabbed him in a choke hold, and with a knife to his throat she held him hostage.

“You idiot!” Asa yelled out. “Why are you even here?”

Haruka struggled against the hold against his throat. “I-I came here to save Chainsaw Man!”

“Uh-huh. Sure,” the thief said, dismissively.

Asa stood there, sword in hand, trying to figure out what to do.

“ What's there to think about?” Yoru asked. “It wouldn't be much too go through him and get to her.”

She couldn't do something like that. Sure, he was annoying and useless, and she still thought about how he put her down at the aquarium, but...

“ Why not? If he wants to save Chainsaw Man, then this would seem like a worthy sacrifice as far as I am concerned. He came all the way down here knowing the dangers ahead of him, so he knew the chances of him dying were great, and he's likely going to die anyway, so why not let him die so we can secure his esteemed hero?”

There had to be another way.

Haruka meanwhile, continued to struggle against the girl's iron grip.

“I'll save Chainsaw Man!” he cried out, trying to get himself out from her hold, but failed to do so. “I can be the hero he needs!” One of his hands let go of her arm. “It's what I'm here for!” His hand then ducked under his shirt, going up for his chest where Asa knew hisfake, fanboy starter was..

When he pulled it there was the sound of an engine.

With a painful scream a chainsaw erupted from his head, and the girl cried out as saws came from his arms, one of them tearing through the arm around his neck and she fell back. Haruka continued to scream in pain as the blades lengthened and his head was wrapped in metal as cables and teeth grew, and beneath his shirt his body began to convulse and bulge, growing with muscles.

When his screams stopped, Haruka stood there, transformed, looking much like a larger, more muscled version of Chainsaw Man, with his own blood dripping down the blades in his arms and head.

“Why can you do that?” Asa asked, taking a step back from him, and she thought about the second Chainsaw Man from the Falling Devil attack.

“I'm-I'm-” Haruka said, his voice deepened and more gravely, hunched over like he was trying to take control of his muscles. “I made a contract with the Justice Devil, just after that devil attacked our school.” He grunted as he stood up, taller than before, and they could hear the bones pop as he straightened his back. “Like everyone else who signed a direct contract with him, I wanted to be a hero, just like Chainsaw Man.” He then turned around and faced the downed girl. “I will save Chainsaw Man.”

“A contract to turn into him?” the girl asked, clearly in pain from her mangled arm, but less so than Asa would have imagined someone in her position would be. “Since when did anyone start thinking he was a hero?” Despite her injury, she grabbed her knife and stood up against the wall.

All three of them looked down at Chainsaw Man's body, which still lay in the pool of blood between them. It seemed like the minor healing had run its course, and his head had been reattached to his torso and his skin had taken on a slightly more healthy tone, though that was as far as it looked.

Yoru couldn't help but laugh. “I'd run if I were you, little thief.” With an air of confidence Yoru walked down the hall towards her. “You're no match for us like that. I don't know what you want or care what you want with him, but-”

With his saw suddenly roaring, Haruka swung at her, but she caught it early enough that she was able to raise his sword to block it, but it finally shattered as she was sent crashing into the wall, causing cracks to form upon impact.

Yoru was still reeling from the strike when she looked up just in time to see Haruka swing down at her, with her rolling to the side, towards the thief, while he sliced through the concrete wall and floor with ease.

“What are you doing, you idiot?” Yoru growled, keeping an eye on both Haruka and the thief.

“I'm protecting Chainsaw Man,” he growled, standing straight again. “The Chainsaw Man Church was founded to protect Chainsaw Man, but Fami ruined it all, turned it into something horrible, and you,” he said with venom, pointing an arm-blade at Yoru. “I don't care if you didn't know about it, you clearly don't care about what came of it, and you said it yourself, you're a devil just like her.” He then turned back to the thief, who had already gotten back up on her legs.

“You think of Denji like a hero?” she asked, looking between him and the corpse on the floor with a confused look on her face. “And since when does he have a Church?”

Yoru then looked at the thief. “You don't know?”

“No!”

“Then why are you even stealing him!?”

The girl's gaze hardened as she stared the two of them down. “I don't know what's going on, I've been down here for a while, but I know you two are planning on taking out his heart, and I know that will not be good for him. You can say you're “saving” him, but I don't think either of you can be trusted.”

“I know Chainsaw Man better than him!” Asa pointed her sword at Haruka.

“The fact you keep calling him by that means you don't!” The girl then ran forward and dived to a kicking slide, using the blood to help her move along the floor until she kicked Denji's corpse down the hall, but when Haruka swung at her again she flipped back and landed on her feet.

Asa felt a surge of anger and rushed forward, her arm stretched out. “Left Dress Sleeve Sword!” she cried out, and the sleeve on her remaining arm suddenly ripped away, and she found herself with a new weapon, this one a bit more powerful than the one she had because it meant that with another component to her attire gone, she now had less to work with. That, and she never liked showing her arms off, it always made her feel self-conscious.

As expected, Haruka had grown much stronger, so much so that every time his blades connected with their own, Asa and Yoru were worried that it would snap her sword when he struck it, and she could feel the durability crumble with each blow. Thankfully, despite his new found power, he was clumsy, and she didn't know how to use it, meaning he was easy to misdirect and dodge, sloppy in his combat style, but his sheer aggression and tenacity was more than enough to offset that disadvantage.

The three of them went at it, exchanging blows, the girl managed to avoid most of their attacks, looking to redirect them at one another instead, which was unfortunate because like this Haruka was durable, he took swings and stabs from their sword and knife wounds, and while Yoru would have wanted to put focus on the girl, Haruka was too much of a risk, too strong and persistent to give her a moment to let her switch targets.

Yoru jumped away from the close-quarter brawl, to give herself some room after another attempted swing from Haruka, but despite her efforts they were still between them and Chainsaw Man's corpse, and any attempt to disengage from them to steal it back would only result in them both going after her. She needed a moment to think.

That was when something very strange happened.

Haruka swung again, the end of his arm-blade cutting through the wall like nothing, and the girl was playing more defensively now, keeping an eye on the blade, and Yoru assumed that she was caught on the back ropes, but the more she observed, the more deliberate this looked. It was like she was studying him for some reason. And then Haruka swung again, a wide, horizontal arc that covered a large area in front of him, and instead of avoiding it, the girl stepped right into it. 

Sparks and blood flew as Haruka's blades cut through the collar on her neck, which sent the head falling to the ground along with the body.

“ Why would she do that?” Asa asked.”Something's not right.” Yoru very much agreed with that sentiment.

“Now, to take care of you,” Haruka growled, turning to Yoru. “Then after I revive Chainsaw Man, we can take down Fami together.”

Yoru held her weapon tightly, ready for a battle.

That was when the headless body jumped up, grabbed its head and kicked Haruka in the back, sending him stumbling towards Yoru, but he managed to right himself and turn back around towards it as it lobbed its severed head at him. He caught it in his arms, and looked down at it in confusion.

One of the green eyes winked at him. “Boom,” it said, before it exploded with enough force that the shock wave could be felt in her and Asa's bones.

The blast was big enough to send him to the ground, causing him to burn and bleed, his head-blade broken and he cried out in pain.

The body then stood up straight and reached up to pull the remains of the collar from its neck before tossed it away. There was a ring sticking out of its neck.

“ YORU!” Asa cried out, and Yoru was already on it, and she was charging the moment she reached up for it.

She was too late, and with a slight hiss from the pulled pin, did the girl suddenly explode as well, knocking Yoru out of her run and to the ground.

Smoke and fire were on the girl, but they died away, and when they looked up she had changed. Her arms were now wrapped in what looked like gloves made of black cable, while an apron of the same material hung from her front like an apron, and she had regrown her head, only it was different.

A fatman bomb stared down at them.

Chapter Text

Chapter VI: Choice and Consequence

She remembered standing on the train platform, waiting for the train that would take her to her contact, and upon meeting them they would go to the airport and board a plane back to Moscow. That was clearly explained to her what she should do if she either failed or succeeded in her mission, and considering she had failed to secure the Chainsaw Heart, Moscow was the place she needed to be. As she stood there, she went over everything that had happened the last week, on where everything went wrong and why. If she had killed him the moment they met, it would have been easy, but she decided to play along, and...

Why had she even thought about that? It wouldn't have done her any good, it was done and over with, so why was it worth even thinking about in the first place anymore? There was no point in trying to think of where it went wrong.

But it was the school where things changed. Neither one of them went to school.

Instead of getting on the train, Reze turned back into the city and headed for the cafe where he said he would be waiting. There was so much danger with this, too much to risk, and even if they got away life would be filled with them looking over their shoulders as they were forced to live each moment in fear of capture. But despite every single negative she kept coming up with, it always came back to one thing; she and Denji would have a chance at freedom.

When she saw the cafe beyond the end of the alleyway, her heart soared in ways it never had before, but it dropped like a stone when the rats came. She lost her arm, and the pain in her chest came from more than the spear, and as she bled out and she looked up into golden, ringed eyes that where as terrible as they were beautiful, Reze couldn't help but wonder if the first choice she ever made for herself had been wrong.

And then there was nothing.

For a long while.

…

She woke up in a cell with a heavy metal collar around her neck and an older man standing above her with an empty blood bag in head, and she knew who he was. Her superiors had warned her about him in the scenario they ever met, and warned her how dangerous he would be if he caught on.

“Up and at 'em,” Kishibe said, putting the bag back into his coat pocket. “We're going to have lots to talk about, Bomb.”

Reze blinked, taking him and the cell in, and she couldn't help but wonder. “Where am I?” she asked, pushing herself up on the thin cot she was on. “What happened?”

“You're in a containment facility in Tokyo,” he answered, and she appreciated the directness he gave her.

Rats and eyes. “Makima!” she found herself gasping. “She-!”

“She's dead,” Kishibe flatly said. “Denji killed her.”

She stared up at him in disbelief, and her thoughts went back to Denji. She saw him for a brief moment through the window, and she wanted to know what had happened to him, if he was alright.

But she doesn't ask, she knew it wasn't her place.

“A lot of things happened,” Kishibe continued. “For one, Makima made you one of her dogs, along with others.”

“She did?” The alleyway was the last thing she recalled, everything else is blank.

“Yeah. She was the Control Devil, and she caused a lot of havoc, and those that were under her control and survived don't have memories of being under her thumb. If you end up remembering anything, that I don't know.”

“...How long has it been?”

“A few months.”

“Oh...” Reze pushed herself to the edge of the bed and looked at the prisoner's uniform she wore. “What happens now?”

“Don't know.” He reached into his coat and pulled out a flask, and took a drink from it. “There's a lot of work to be done, so until we can get it all sorts out we're going to be keeping you and the other Hybrids she had on leash under lock and key until we can figure out what to do with you.” They sat there in silence for a moment, and it felt uncomfortable to her. “Someone should come around later, try and figure out what happens next.”

Reze accepted that. What else could she do?

Kishibe turned around to exit the cell, but before he did he looked back over his shoulder to her. “Denji's out of Public Safety now, he's had it rough with Makima, but he's going to be starting school soon.”

He then left, locking the door behind him.

Reze stared at the door for some time after he left, and smiled.

Denji seemed like he was free. Even if she couldn't be, it was nice he was.

000

Time passed, she didn't know how much. Her days are filled with sitting in her cell, on occasion she tries and exercise, just to give herself to do, and her meals are slid through a slot in the door, which consist of some kind of slop, a roll of bread and a plastic cup of water, twice a day. That's really it, and she didn't know how long it was since Kishibe had visited her.

So she waited.

000

Eventually someone does come, and it's not Kishibe. He's an older man, not nearly as old as Kishibe, but older compared to much of the young blood that made up Japan's Public Safety services, and he has scars on his face and an eyepatch. Unlike Kishibe, who she could not read at all, it's easy to see the contempt he has for her.

“So, has my judgment finally come?” Reze asked lightly and with a smirk, because what else can so do? Be depressed? Maybe, but not now.

The man gave a brief scowl and folded his arms over his chest. “The other Hybrids, we've already decided what we're doing with them, now there's just you left.”

“So does that mean they're all dead then?”

“You're all too valuable to kill outright, so instead we're all finding ways to put you to work.”

Ah, so once again to be used as a tool to be taken advantage of, with no one to give a damn about them. Being alone with him in her cell, her eyes drifted to the cot and she wondered if he would force himself on her. The situation isn't new to her.

Instead he continued to talk, and for that she was glad. “Four of you we've released out into the Public, but we have plans to bring them back after certain events happen. The rest of you were not considered for that because of past experiences you all share.”

“And what would those experiences be?”

He ignored her on that. “We've extended an offer to the two. If they join up with Public Safety, they can enjoy the same kind of freedoms that other devils under us have, and the other two accepted this deal, and now I'm making the same offer to you.”

Reze carefully eyed the man, thinking about what she would say. “And what freedoms would those be?”

“You would perform duties for us in the field and be allowed outside, but you would need to be in the company of a partner at all times, and if you give us reason we'll put you down without thought. Freedom has a price.”

A leash from Russia. A leash from Makima. A leash from Japan.

Was there any freedom in any of this?

“I think I'm good,” she said.

The man did not seem pleased. “Then know that if you refuse, we'll chop you into pieces and put you on ice, and we'll only ever take you out if we ever need you, which might be never.”

Reze smiled. “I have a counter offer.”

The man grimaced. “What do you even have to offer? And there's no way we're ever letting you go back to Russia.”

“I have names,” Reze said, leaning forward. “I was a favorite, so I know some dirty things about what happened behind closed doors. If you're willing to play ball, I might let you know some of them.”

Even if this didn't end in her favor, she enjoyed the look of annoyance on his face.

000

It was during negotiations that Reze learned she had no love whatsoever for Russia, and upon realizing this did she have no trouble giving up whatever information she could. When everything was said and done, well, she still didn't have much, and she knew that she would never see the sun again in her unnatural life, but she made things a bit easier.

Her water for breakfast is replaced with a small carton of milk, every week she can have a chocolate chip cookie for dessert, and she's given a book for a week to read through before she has to give it up for another, but she's not allowed to have any say in what the book is. She shouldn't be so happy for a slight change in diet and the alevement of mind-numbing boredom, but this was a freedom she had earned on her own terms, and it was better than any gilded cage Public Safety could offer her.

She hoped Denji was doing okay, and that he was enjoying his life, hoped that maybe he even met a nice girl who would treat him right.

000

Sometimes when she slept, she dreamed of golden eyes that reached into her soul and how much she

hated

loved them. Sometimes she dreamed of a large monster made of chainsaws and how it tore her to pieces.

These dreams were quickly forgotten.

000

She was reading her book, some droll biography about some Japanese politician, when her door suddenly opened up, and she turned her eyes to it to see who would come and visit her, because visitors were so rare these days, but no one came in. Putting the book down she thought that maybe they would want her to come out, which was odd because she wasn't due for a shower, but no matter how much she stared at it, no one came in or called for her.

That was when she heard a scream.

Reze peeked out her door and saw that every door in the hall was open, and already devils and fiends were coming out, some poking their heads out like her, and a couple even retreating back into their cells, but the majority were taking what seemed to be an opportunity and fled, and the two security guards that were patrolling were quickly taken out and ripped to pieces as the devils and fiends feasted on their bloody remains.

“ Attention everyone in this building,” a voice then announced over the speaker system. “There has been a containment breach, and every devil and human contractee that are detained here has been set free. I repeat, every devil and human contractee that are detained here has been set free. You may try to fight them but there are too many of them, so I advise you to run. Please be safe.”

There was laughter and cheers amongst the hellspawn, and soon they were moving out, likely to wreck as much havoc as possible in their attempts to escape from this building.

Reze stood there behind her door, wondering what it was she should do, going over every way this could play out.

In the end, she ran.

000

She decided it was best to avoid conflict, to rely on stealth to get her as far as she could, because if she started blasting she might attract unwanted attention to herself, so she made sure she was not seen. Though, considering the collar around her neck, explosions were off the table entirely. This wasn't hard to do, because it seemed like other escapees were focusing on the guards and hunters that were trying to stop them, which resulted in messy, bloody battles. She had no way of knowing where she was even going, so she checked random doors, hoping for some way out, before she found herself in a bathroom.

Inside was a Public Safety hunter, though she was headless, but considering she was dead, Reze decided to take what she could use to help her through this. She took the jacket and the pants, as well as her assault rifle, which seemed to have half a clip left, a single smoke grenade, and a knife. Good, if she looked like a hunter, then maybe she could have an easier time getting out of here, though the collar around her neck was still a problem, but there wasn't much she could do about that.

So she looked for an exit, somewhere to take her out of this place, even though she didn't even know where she was to begin with, but as luck would have it, she found a stairwell. It would lead up, but if that was a good thing she didn't know, so it wouldn't hurt to try.

That was when she heard the doors above her slam open.

Reze mumbled a curse to herself and looked up the stairs, they were still a ways above her, and she weighted the options of trying to pose as a hunter to them, but she doubted the success of that close up, and retreating back out of the door, but she did not like the idea of being forced back out there by an unknown party. So instead she quickly hid under the staircase, and would choose to wait them out. They were arguing about something, she didn't know what, and she didn't care what, but then one of them said something that caught her attention.

Chainsaw Man.

They were talking about Denji.

“I'm going to save Chainsaw Man!” a voice snapped, a girl, sounding angry, and the party, multiple people continued down the stairs, until they exited through the door she had just come through.

Reze continued to hide, and thought about what she should do.

Back at the train station, she could have either met her Soviet contact, or gone to Denji, but as time went on and she had nothing to do but think, she considered that she could have gotten on a different train and just gone somewhere else. Where might she have ended up had she done that? She spent a lot of time thinking of the hypothetical life she could have led, of finding some small, quiet town in the country, and being welcomed by its community and finding a small and cozy home to live in. She would have gone to school and made friends and joined clubs with after school activities and lived the life she had always wanted. She would never have to be a monster ever again. She could be free.

It was a nice dream.

Maybe she could still have it. All she had to do was just continue on, just go up those stairs and if things worked out, she could leave this place undetected, and with luck start life anew. She didn't need to worry about Denji, if he was here, because that girl said she was going to save him, so he didn't need her. Why would he need her? She may not have been aware of how much time she had spent down here, but surely Denji would have moved on.

But the question was if she had?

For the second time, Reze chose Denji.

000

Reze was careful to follow them, making sure she was always behind a corner, but thankfully there was too much going on for them to pay attention to her stalking them, and she followed them until they entered a set of double doors with a sign that said “Disassembly” above it. She peeked in and saw that there was another set of doors, so she went to it and looked through it as well, to see that the group had met up with a Public Safety Hunter.

They argued and talked, the hunter had taken the black-haired girl's arm, but it seemed like he was working for the girl with mauve hair? She was sure there was a lot she didn't know about what was going on.

Then the hunter said that Chainsaw Man was in the box.

While the girl argued with one of the boys, Reze watched as the mauve-haired girl with the neck problems pulled out body parts out of the box, and there was no doubt about it, but it was Denji. Her heart ached upon seeing him like this, she had wanted and hoped for the best for him, that despite everything she had put him through, that Makima must have put him through, that he had found something good in his life. But here he was, cut to pieces and stuffed into a box, likely shoved into some freezer or morgue.

It wasn't fair.

They argued more, but she was only half-paying attention, too focused on Denji's remains. The one-armed girl maybe dated him? That was nice, she supposed. Something about a church or something? But at least they were saving him, so maybe she could leave, knowing he was in good hands.

Only...

No one was calling him “Denji”. Only “Chainsaw Man.”

If they were here to save him, why hadn't they revived him with blood yet?

“Asa,” the girl with the neck problems said. “Do you want to save Chainsaw Man?”

The girl she assumed to be Asa looked uncertain, but she still answered. “...Yes, I do.”

“To do that, you'll need to remove his Chainsaw Heart from him, because that is why he suffers.”

Oh. So that's it. They're not here for Denji, they're here for Chainsaw Man. He was laying there, chopped into pieces, but instead of helping them, all they could do was argue, because if they did care about Denji he would have been alive again by now.

Reze recalled something Denji had yelled at her during their fight, something that broke her heart, and so she answered him truthfully, but she doubted it mattered in the end. She tried to kill him, she told him that she was only pretending to like him, and she left him thinking she had stood him up.

She was the worst, simply awful.

But at least she could do something about it now.

Reaching for the smoke grenade, she pulled the pin and threw it into the room, and its clattering got the attention of everyone in it, and suddenly it exploded into a constant stream of smoke that filled the room. With her chance here, Reze burst into the room, knocking someone over as she made her way to the table, and even though she was barely able to see, she was able to make out Denji's torso. It was all she needed to revive him, she just needed enough blood to get him going, but after she had held his torso under her arm, she grabbed his head and ran back out of the room. With luck, she would be able to get away and find a safe space and revive him.

Maybe, just maybe, things could turn out differently this time.

Chapter Text

Chapter VII: Views of Justice

Yoru jumped up to her feet as Reze pointed at her and snapped her finger, and the War Devil only barely avoided the blast before she crashed to the ground.

“Sneaker Whip!” Asa called out as one of her sneakers ripped to pieces and transformed into the weapon that bore a resemblance to a giant shoelace in her hand and Yoru swung it, the length cracking the air as it struck Reze's leg, the force suddenly causing her to buckle to her knees. Yoru quickly jumped up and swung again, this time the whip was able to wrap around her neck, and with a quick pull Yoru sent Reze flying towards her. “Sneaker Spiked Boot!” Asa cried out, and as their remaining shoe transformed around their foot, Yoru jumped up and kicked, digging the spiked end of their new boot weapon into Reze's gut which sent her flying into a wall.

Pulling back the whip, Yoru adjusted her stance, ready to strike again-

“DIE!” Haruka, bleeding heavily and his head-blade broke, rushed in, swinging his remaining saw blades down, tearing up the ground where she had jumped from.

“Seriously?” Yoru called out. “Shouldn’t you be dead already?” From the corner of her eye she saw Reze stand up, and with Yoru busy with Haruka, she knew that she would take the advantage of the situation and steal Chainsaw Man's corpse away. Thankfully, luck was on her side as she was the closest to the corpse, but that didn't stop Reze, who created explosions under her feet to send her rocketing down the hall. The force of the blast threw both of them off their balance, though Yoru faired easier than Haruka did, enough so that as Reze landed on the ground not to far from Chainsaw Man, she swung the whip again, the end hitting him in the side and sending him sliding further back down the hall.

Reze turned back to them, and even though her face like this lacked any ability to give any expressions, it was not difficult to tell she was unhappy with this, and she began to walk forward towards her. Yoru swung the whip again, but with a wave of her hand Reze sent out an explosion that destroyed the whip's end before it could reach her, leaving the weapon useless, and out of a slight bit out pettiness she threw the smoldering remains at the bomb girl, only for it to uselessly collide with her. Reze then charged forward, arms alight and flew at Yoru while the sounds of chainsaws came at her from behind her, and as Haruka swung at her again, Yoru back-flipped over him, grabbing the back of his head to push herself and give herself the momentum to fly away from him, and kicked him in the back with her Sneaker Spike Boot, sending him directly into Reze's flight path.

He had been knocked off balance by Yoru, and had no time to defend himself from Reze's blow that sent him crashing into the floor, and before he could push himself back up, Reze landed right on his back. She then made to step off of him, before he suddenly pushed himself up and threw her off of him, and swung at her, but she managed to get the distance from him.

“Seriously? Why do you look like that?” Reze asked as Haruka stood up to his full height. “You talked about some kind of Church.” She looked from him to Yoru. “Are you both with it?”

“The Church ruined everything!” Haruka snapped, pointing an arm at her. “And it's her fault!”

Yoru rolled her eyes. “You're the one who decided to start treating Chainsaw Man like a hero, you deluded yourself into some status of grandeur, thinking you were something more, I on the other hand always knew what I was about and where I stood. I came into the world to kill Chainsaw Man and take back what is mine, what he took from me.”

“Wait,” Reze said. “I thought you said you wanted to save him.”

“It's both,” Asa said, firmly. “We're here to both kill and save him.”

“So you were lying!” Haruka yelled. “Both you and Fami are nothing more than devils! All you want is to kill and destroy! That's all you can be! And you!” He pointed to Reze. “I know who you are! You're the devil that Chainsaw Man fought! It was all over the news, his fight with the bomb devil! Do you know how many people died that night?!”

Reze didn't answer, she simply remained silent.

Now that he mentioned it, this bomb girl did look familiar. Yeah, she recalled hearing people talk about it all over school, and she saw the image of this devil before in newspapers and on TV, but she always ignored it because...

“You worked with the Typhoon Devil.” Yoru asked.

Reze stared off for a moment. “Yes.” She looked at her, and they wondered what she was thinking. “Did you encounter it before?”

Roaring winds, houses ripped to pieces. A helpless meow, a push, a car and-

“My mom died when it attacked,” Asa said.

“...I'm sorry to hear that.”

Did an apology even matter?

“LIES!” Haruka roared. “You're both devils! Everything you two did ended up killing countless people! That's all devils do!”

“And Chainsaw Man's different?” Reze asked. “Different enough for you to make a devil contract of your own?”

“Of course! With the Justice Devil's powers, I can be a hero, just like Chainsaw Man!” He turned to Asa. “You saw me that night! When Chainsaw Man saved you from the Falling Devil! I was there to distract her long enough for you two to escape!”

Asa remembered that, how confused she was at the time. “But on the TV, you and the fake Chainsaw Man-”

“That was Seigi. Fami said we needed to be endorsed by Chainsaw Man to seem legitimate. It didn't matter if it wasn't the Chainsaw Man, if people believed it was him, then that was good enough.”

“Do people really think that much of him?” Reze asked, looking back at the corpse down the hall.

“It's sickening,” Yoru said. “The world bends over backwards for him, they sell merchandise with his face and name. There are even movies about him coming out.” After a moment's thought, Yoru began to smirk. “It's actually amusing, humans find something entertaining and they make a slideshow out of him!”

“...And what does Denji think about all of this?” Reze asked, looking back at them.

“I don't think he cares,” Haruka said. “He does this kind of thing because he's a hero! He would do that kind of thing because it's right! Fighting to save humanity from devils, to make the world a safer place, what more could he want?”

Asa recalled how Denji had bragged about being Chainsaw Man. He ripped off bums for cheap cash and stole money with her for the sake of a spear.

He asked her out on a second date.

Nothing about that seemed... heroic.

“I want to be like Chainsaw Man,” Haruka said, almost desperately. “I want to be a hero, and kill the devils, and I want everyone to know it, but Fami never let me!” He growled, the chainsaws on his arms spinning. “If it wasn't for Fami, I would have let everyone know! I would have gone to him and told him how much I admired him! How I already tried following in his footsteps! The devil that attacked our school? I tracked it down and killed it!”

“The devil that attacked our school?” Asa asked. But... there was only one devil attack on the school.

“The one that took Seigi's eye, that killed several students before it tried to destroyed the school!”

A cold realization came upon her.

“The one both you and Chainsaw Man fought!”

“Asa, focus,” Yoru said, but she couldn't.

“You killed Yuko?” Asa found herself saying, and there was something hollow inside her.

“A dumb girl like that made a deal with a devil just because some other girls made fun of her, and because of that people lost their lives! What else was I supposed to do but make sure she faced justice! That's why I made my own contract with the Justice Devil!”

Asa thought about this. Yes, what Yuko did was wrong, she killed students and she even killed her neighbor for something so small, and even Asa had tried to fight her to make sure she was stopped. Asa would have killed her if it wasn't for Fami. She knew she shouldn't be surprised to hear that she had been killed, it would have been a surprise if she was alive.

But...

But Yuko gave her her shoes.

Asa charged forward, and reached down to grab the head blade that had broken off of Haruka earlier. It shouldn't be much, but it should be enough.

“Chainsaw Blade Sword!” she cried out and the weapon transformed and landed in her hand to create the jagged saw-like sword, and as she ran at him, he was quick to charge at her as well.

“ Asa!” Yoru called out from the back of her head, and she saw that Reze was trying to run down the hall for Chainsaw Man's corpse.

Lots of thoughts were crowding Asa's mind, she knew she had to go after Chainsaw Man, but after hearing about what Haruka did, she couldn't let that go.

Yuko was her friend, the first one she had in years, the first person who made her feel good about herself since she got her mom killed, but she came down here for Chainsaw Man, to save him. Everything that had happened was to save him, because even if a lot of awful things had happened, Asa never intended for those things, but if her heart had been in the right place, then that means it should have some good in her actions? Right?

So... she needed to save Chainsaw Man.

At the last second, Yoru ducked underneath Haruka's swing and swung the Chainsaw Blade Sword, cutting into his side, and with a quick push he was shoved hard into a wall, and she ran down the hallway to Reze who was already kneeling down next to Chainsaw Man.

She needed to stop her, she needed to make sure she was gone , and every moment Reze knelt down next to Chainsaw Man was a moment she could use to get closer, but how could she stop her? This was a powerful opponent, so she needed to take her out in one shot, but what could she use?

She had an idea.

Reze turned around and jumped up to face Asa, but Yoru had already closed in on her, and as Reze swung her arm to throw an explosion at her, Yoru managed to parry the blow, and the explosion was set to the side, blasting the wall while they were thrown to the opposite side of the wall. It was a powerful explosion, and their ears were ringing from the blast, but they could not waste this.

Asa pulled back her fist, aiming for a punch.

“Finger Gauntlet!” Asa called out, and in an instant her pinky finger ripped out of her palm, it expanded and molded itself around what was left of her hand. It was painful, and now she was down to only four fingers in total, but that pain would be worth it.

Yoru punched forward, the gauntlet making contact with Reze's chest. Something cracked inside there and Reze coughed up blood before she was sent flying back and crashed through the wall behind her. However, far too late, they saw that there was a black cord wrapped around Chainsaw Man, and he flew into the hole along with Reze.

“No!” Asa cried out, tumbling to the ground, her gauntlet, breaking apart before she impacted the concrete floor.

Chainsaws roared behind her, and Yoru rolled them over, unbothered by the painful ache and blood coming from their hand, as Haruka slammed his sawblades down where she was.

Frustration built inside her. She didn't need this sanctimonious, self-righteous piece of shit getting in her way more than he had been, So Yoru kicked her legs up, sending their body into the air, and used their hand to springboard themselves up, and the spiked boot on their foot slammed right into his chest.

Like the bomb girl before him, something cracked in his chest as he was thrown back.

000

Reze lay on the ground, trying to breathe through the pain, and ignore the pain in her arm which had been twisted into an unnatural angle. Everything in her body hurt, and she had no idea how that girl could pack such power.

The room she was in was large, with tables and chairs seated around them, and she turned her head over to the side to see what looked like a kitchen. Was this some kind of cafeteria? She knew devils and fiends were held here, so maybe there were human prisoners as well, ones who had made devil contracts and couldn't be held in normal prisons? Her food had to come from somewhere. Was that how it worked in Japan? In Russia, everyone just went to the gulag. Whatever, it didn't matter.

What did matter was Denji, and thankfully he was still tethered to her, his head attached to his torso and a bit of color to his skin. The bit of blood she had given him from the mess in the hallways was a good start, but it wouldn't mean anything as long as he was like this. He needed more, and thankfully with all the dead people in this prison there was no short supply.

Except this room, which was spotless. It was oddly clean, and it looked as though none of the riots and massacres had no reached this place.

Dammit.

Her whole body hurt, and she doubted that she would be able to get far, but she needed to do something.

000

Asa walked over to Haruka's downed form as he coughed up blood.

In her hand was a sword made of rebar she picked up from the collapsed wall from the explosion, which threatened to bring down the entire hallway.

“If you're going to do it, do it,” Yoru simply said. “We don't have time to waste on him.”

It would only take a moment to kill him like he killed Yuko. He killed her friend, so it was right to kill him, right?

But... he killed Yuko because she killed people. She killed her neighbor because he was using his disability money for pachinko, and she killed her bullies, and students who tried to stop her, and tried to run. Because she wanted to be like Chainsaw Man. She thought she was doing the right thing.

Would... Denji have done something like that?

Haruka weakly tried to raise an arm, maybe to get in another swipe at her, but Asa merely stepped back.

“ Asa,” Yoru once again said, this time more firmly.

She killed her mom trying to save a cat, and she killed said cat because she tried to give him a good home.

If bad things happen because you tried to do something good, it should mean something if your heart was in the right place?

Asa's hand trembled on the Rebar Sword.

There was then a crack from above, and looking up she saw a sudden shift in the ceiling, and she knew that it was only moments away from collapsing.

She didn't think as she suddenly kicked Haruka in the side, sending him down the hallway and out of danger, before she ran down the hall towards where Reze had crashed through the wall. The moment she jumped through the threshold of the hole, the ceiling collapsed behind her, causing a ton of concrete, pipes and other such debris down behind her.

As Asa pushed herself up from the ground, trying to ignore the painful throbbing in her hand, she looked around the large room, oddly clean despite everything going on in the rest of the facility, with the exception of the trail of blood that led through the single door that led to what looked like a kitchen. With a limp in her step, Asa followed after it, until she pressed herself against it, and gave herself a moment to catch her breath, and then pushed it open.

At the other side of the kitchen, directly across from the door, was Reze, who quickly pushed herself to her feet, though there was something sluggish and clumsy about how she did it. She was human-looking this time, but her skin was much paler than before, and in her good hand she held a bloody knife. The blade itself wasn't just covered in blood, but the handle was as well, and she could see the cuts in her wrist.

Behind Reze, laying on the floor, was Denji, his body fully restored, a healthier color, though still dead it seemed.

“You bled yourself dry for him,” Yoru observed, keeping her hold on the Rebar Sword.

Reze breathed heavily, but did not answer her, she only kept her eyes on her.

Yoru took a step forward.

“Don't,” Reze warned, holding the knife straight. “You're not getting near him.”

Asa took a step back.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked. “You clearly know him, but how?”

Reze breathed in, as if trying to compose herself. “I heard you and your group talking, about how you were going to “save him”, by ripping out his heart.”

“We're trying to save him.”

“By killing him?”

“By separating the man from devil!” Asa argued back. “If we can take the devil out of him, and make him fully human, then he can live as a normal human. He won't have to worry about anything else. He'll be safe.”

“Yeah...” Reze didn't seem convinced.

“What about you?” Asa asked. “Chainsaw Man saved me, and I want to do the same for him, but what about you?”

“I...” Reze said, her voice faltering for a moment. “I owe him.”

“...Did he save your life too?”

The other girl laughed, though it didn't sound too amused. “No. The opposite in fact, I tried to kill him, but he beat me in the end.”

“You... what?” Asa asked, confused. “If you tried to kill me, then are you doing all this?” She pointed her weapon down to Denji. “You cut yourself to heal him! Why?”

“Why didn't you do the same thing?” Reze asked. “If you're here to save him, then why didn't you have your Public Safety guy heal him up when he had the chance? Considering what's going on,it wouldn't have been hard for him to find the blood to get him back on his feet.”

“Because...” Asa tried to think of something, but she couldn't. “I'm sure Fami had a plan why she didn't have Yoshida heal him before we found him.”

“Was that the best answer you can give me? That you don't know?” Reze sneered.

Asa pointed her sword at Reze. “And what's your excuse? If you tried to kill him, then why would you save him?”

“Yeah, it would be hypocritical of me, wouldn't it? I'm judging you, when I've done so many terrible things to him. If he never wanted to see me again, I wouldn't blame him.” For the first time, she looked away from Asa, a potentially fatal error as Yoru prompted Asa to strike, but Asa refused. “But...”

Asa tensely waited for a response. “But?”

Reze then turned back to Asa and gave her a sad smile. “Too many people have tried to go after his Chainsaw Heart, I thought that for once, someone needed to look out of his Denji heart.”

Asa's arm laxed, and the sword pointed to the ground, and despite herself she found herself looking away from Reze.

“That's what I'm doing...” Asa said, though she didn't have the conviction she thought she would have had.

“Then what does he think about all of this?”

Asa didn't know how to respond to that. She didn’t know what he thought about this.

“ Kill her,” You said.

She couldn't. She just... she needed to...

Needed to what?

Suddenly, Reze gasped, her attention caught on something behind Asa, and she turned around to see what it was.

Fami was leaning inside the door, her eyes almost glowing pink.

Reze dropped her knife and reached for the pin in her neck.

A dreadful sense of deja vu came over Reze as her arm was suddenly sliced off and fell to the ground.

Behind Reze, on the wall above Denji, Asa saw a shadowy blot sticking on it, a skeletal face creeping out along with knife-like tendrils, and as Reze quickly tried to turn around another tendril from the Behind You Devil shot out, catching her in the chest, piercing right through. Reze tried to cry out, but all she could do was gurgle out blood and fall back onto the floor.

Asa could only watch, feeling powerless as Reze choked to death on her own blood, but she moved aside when Fami stepped forward, and stared down at the dying girl.

For the second time, Reze died looking up at ringed eyes.

Had she made the wrong choice again?

Chapter Text

Chapter VIII: Saving Him Means Killing Him

The Tokyo Devil Containment Facility was one of the most secure locations on this side of Japan, in it are numerous devils, fiends and humans contracted with devils, each one presenting a number of dangers to the world outside these walls. Those that are held here have not been killed for a variety of reasons, mostly to provide contracts to government agents, others are kept alive because the government wants to see if they can be made useful in the long term, while others are not killed out of precaution regarding their future reincarnations. Such a place like this can only be one of the most secured facilities on the planet, because it would be disastrous if the monsters in here were to escape. Since the day it was first commissioned and began to hold devils, there had not been a single breach in its walls.

Then a high school girl blasted away one of its walls with its own defense turrets, which led to a prison break of all the devils contained inside. They escaped, they fought their way to the surface, security and devil hunters were trying their best to subdue the threats, but this was clearly a losing battle. Every devil they killed meant one less contract for the hunters to use, which only weakened them, and at this point the larger, more dangerous devils had made it to the surface layers, and were kept down by a select few. At this point the army was on its way, with trucks and tanks coming down the roads to help clean out the devil threats.

In all of this, a large black SUV pulled into the parking garage.

000

Asa looked down at the corpse of the bomb girl, blood pouring from the wound on her chest and her missing arm, finding herself unable to take her eyes off of her.

So Yoru did it for her.

“Now that's out of the way,” Yoru said, looking past Fami to their prize, Chainsaw Man, who despite the healing of his injuries was still very much dead.

The door opened up behind him, and Yoshida stepped in. He looked from the two Horsemen, to the body on the ground, before looking at Chainsaw Man.

He gave a heavy sigh. “Should I carry him to the main room?” he asked.

“That would be nice,” Fami said, before turning back to Yoru. “Asa, it's almost time. There will be no more interruptions, Chainsaw Man will be saved by your hand.”

As Yoshida dragged Chainsaw Man out, and Fami went to retrieve the Behind You Devil and find the fridge to empty it, Asa could only look along the trails of blood from both him and the bomb girl.

Maybe, just maybe, they could have gotten on the same page together. She seemed to care about him, so maybe they didn't need to fight like this. Maybe...

“Asa,” Yoru said. “What's done is done, and we have a job at hand.”

“...Right,” Asa said with a sigh. They were here for Chainsaw Man, to kill him and to save him. That was what all this was for, deviating or changing the plans would be useless. Too much had happened for them to back-out now.

Turning away from Reze's corpse, Asa made her way to the main room.

000

Yoshida had set the body down on the floor, in one of the more cleared out spaces between the tables, giving them all room to stand around him.

So, this was it then.

But there was something she needed to know.

“What did Haruka mean when he said that Denji picked me up?” Asa asked. She was standing to Chainsaw Man's right, while Fami and Yoshida stood to his left. “I asked that before, but I didn't get an answer.”

Fami blinked at her, before looking down to Chainsaw Man, before back to her. “I suppose that might help if you learned the truth, as well as a history lesson.”

Asa raised an eyebrow.

“Yoru,” Fami started. “Did you ever wonder what happened to Control after the last time we fought Chainsaw Man?”

Asa could feel the anger surge inside her as Yoru pushed herself into the driver's seat. “Of course not!” she barked back. “I hate her nearly as much as I hate him! It's her fault I became that weak in the first place!” Her hand clenched hard, nails digging into their palm. “I would have beaten him, torn him to pieces! But Control betrayed me! She betrayed me!”

“She betrayed you?” Asa asked.

“Our sister always had an obsession with Chainsaw Man,” Fami explained. “While we tried to kill him, she had desired to enslave me. Tell me, Yoru, do you know what happened to either of them after that last fight?”

“No,” Yoru hissed. “I was too injured and weakened to care where they went.” Something began to fester in Asa's gut, courtesy of Yoru. “I was reduced to a small, miserable bird, because Chainsaw Man ate from my flesh and made man forget war.”

Fami continued. “As Yoru said, she was weakened, but so was Chainsaw Man, and both of them assumed reduced forms upon entering Earth. It was in this form that Chainsaw Man came across Denji.” She gestured down to the body on the ground, pointing to the ripcord on his chest. “Together they were able to make payments towards the debt that Denji inherited from father, who owed the yakuza, though this would lead to Denji dying and forming his contract.”

“His father's debt?” Asa asked. “Wait, how old would he have been?

“He started when he was twelve, and lived in a shack.”

Asa was stunned. She didn't know anything about this, how could she? She never bothered to ask.

“That was when Control found him, now a devil working for Public Safety under the name Makima. She had spent years searching for him, but she found him in the end.”

“I assume she tried to make him her pet?” Yoru asked with a dismissive roll of the eyes. “She was fond of that, making all her devils kneel before her to feed her ego, like she was better than everyone else.”

“She did try, and Denji suffered for it,” Fami continued. “In exchange for things like food and a bed, Denji was baited with affections and intimacy, though it was a trap to ultimately nullify the contract Denji and Chainsaw Man had.”

For the first time, Yoshida spoke up. “Denji began to work for Public Safety, he killed devils like the Eternity Devil. He died a lot during his time in Public Safety.”

Asa recalled how calm he had been in the aquarium. She had assumed he was too dumb to care, but if he really fought that same devil before, then he knew what to do.

“Eventually, people went after him, governments from other countries.” He raised his hand and gestured to the kitchen. “The bomb girl in there was sent by the Soviets to either bring him to Russia or to take his heart, and she almost succeeded. That big battle that had been all over the news was the end of a date where she done pretending to be something she wasn't.”

“So... she was just trying to complete her mission here?” Asa asked.

“I assume so.”

“Ah, I see.” She had been silly, there was no reason to feel sympathetic or anything to that girl, she was just trying to kill him and complete her mission. She had almost had her think that she was a good person who was trying to help. Her trying to heal up Denji when it would have been easier to rip his heart out herself? There must have been some trick there she wasn't seeing. Even the part where she slit her own wrists for him must have had some angle she wasn't seeing.

Yes, that must be it.

Yeah.

Asa made certain to put more attention on Yoshida's explanation.

“She was the first, but she wasn't the last,” Yoshida continued. “America, China and Germany sent assassins after him, and it was on protection detail that I had met him for the first time.” He continued to look down at Chainsaw Man. “A lot of people died during that mission.”

Four separate counties, five if you included Japan, all wanted him. It was a harrowing thought to Asa. “Is he really that important?”

“Of course not,” Yoru said. “No one would care about this punk, they all wanted his heart. Chainsaw Man is powerful, he can erase concepts by eating their respective devils. Can you imagine what any country's government would do for that kind of power?” The War Devil then grinned. “In the wrong hands, wars might have been started. However,” Yoru looked briefly down at the corpse, before looking back to Fami. “And what does this have to do with Control? How would exposing him to the world at large help her?”

“Makima didn't just expose him to devils, assassins and countless deaths, but she also granted him a kindness.” Fami said. “A family.”

“Family?” Asa asked.

“Yes. She assigned him to live with a devil hunter and a fiend, knowing how they would eventually get along, grow close. She wanted him to feel as though he had an older brother and a younger sister, and she was certain that he grew to love them.”

A family? He mentioned he had a sister, but nothing about a brother. Asa couldn't help but feel something heavy forming in her gut.

“And the catch?” Yoru asked. “She would have never done anything like that if she didn't have a plan. What did she do?”

“Do you remember the return of the Gun Devil?”

How could she not, it was all anyone could talk about. “Chainsaw Man killed it,” Asa said. “That's when everyone started to treat him like a hero.”

“By the time he fought it, it was a fiend, and Makima used the body of the devil hunter as its host.”

“Wait... that means-”

“While the world celebrated the death of the Gun Devil, Chainsaw Man had been forced to kill his brother. Then after that, Makima killed the sister-fiend right in front of him.”

An overwhelming feeling of numbness overcame Asa.

“Makima did this to break their contract, to drive him to despair, and that was when the real Chainsaw Man came alive, if only for a short time. Somehow though, Denji came back, and he killed Makima.”

Asa was responsible for the death of her mother. She thought about those last moments every day since she died, even if she had indirectly done so. How could she be alive while that wonderful woman was crushed beneath a car? The world was a worst place for that, and it was her fault. If Chainsaw Man-If Denji-had actually killed the man he had thought of as his brother, even if he had been reduced to a cadaver for a devil to use, she could only imagine what he had gone through.

Yoru on the other hand was not so introspective. She only laughed.

“Serves her right!” she cheered, and if they had two arms she would have clapped. “After everything she did, Control deserves nothing less than to die by the claws and teeth of her very own dogs!”

“Control came back though.”

“Shit!” Yoru cursed in annoyance.

“She did?” Asa asked, sounding more hollowed and desperate than she would have thought so. “Did she do anything? Did she go after him again?”

“The new Control became a little girl named Nayuta, and Denji adopted her as a little sister.”

“What?” both Yoru and Asa went. Yoru was angry, and Asa confused.

“He just took her in?” Asa asked. “After everything you told me? Why wouldn't he just throw her out?”

“Maybe she had her claws in him already,” Yoru said. “Where is she right now? Do we have to worry about her?”

Fami shrugged. “Don't know, you'd have to ask him.”

“Denji took her in at the request of another Public Safety hunter,” Yoshida said. “He thought that giving Nayuta to Denji would be the best thing for her, instead of having her put into a cell under the government.” He sighed once again. “Despite what you think, I do believe that he loved her, which is what... we were counting on.”

“Explain,” Asa demanded.

Yoshida looked reluctant, but in the end he spoke. “With the rise of the Church, it was thought that Denji continuing to be Chainsaw Man would only cause more harm than good. So we went to him with an ultimatum, that if he continued to be Chainsaw Man, then Public Safety would kill Nayuta.”

“What?” Asa gasped, an anger building up inside of her. “You threatened to kill his sister? That's why no one's seen Chainsaw Man since the Falling Devil attack?”

To that, Yoshida had nothing to say.

“Public Safety has no interest in Denji's well-being,” Fami explained. “And I won't lie to you, Asa, but the Church has its own share in his suffering as well. We sent several of our members to antagonize him into transforming back into Chainsaw Man.”

Yoshida folded his arms over his chest, keeping his gaze on Denji. “The Hybrids. They're like Denji and the bomb girl. Public Safety released four of them knowing they would join the Church, and they had planned that having such powerful members would make them predictable and sloppy. The idea that they would confront Denji came up, but we had already extended the ultimatum to him. So it was a win-win as far as we were concerned. Either Denji never turned into Chainsaw Man again and he died, or he was forced to transform and we would take him into custody.” He glanced over the Fami, a certain sharpness in his dark eyes. “Barem Bridges, I assume he told you about what Makima had been up to?”

Fami looked back with her own pink, ringed eyes. “Of course. He was fond of her, genuinely so, and she thought of him as one of her favorite pets, so he knew more than most.”

“There... there was no winning for him, was there?” Asa asked, looking down at Denji as a dread washed over her. “Between Public Safety and the Church, he was always going to end up like this...”

“More or less.” Fami said, nonchalantly. “He was never even allowed the simple wish of a girlfriend. Nayuta saw you two together and so she erased your memory of your date.”

Asa's attention snapped back to Fami. “Our date?”

“Yes. He picked you up and you watched movies together. Yoru tried to turn him into a weapon, but Nayuta intervened.” In a rare instance, Fami smiled, if ever so slightly. “She made her act like a dog before she erased your memories and placed you back in front of the school.”

“WHAT?” Yoru screamed, outraged.

Asa meanwhile felt awful, more than she had in the last few weeks. He came for her? He actually came and took her out again? She had decided that she would try and break it off with him, that she would not see the one person alive who made her feel not terrible about herself get turned into a weapon, but she had been left thinking he didn't care, that she had done something wrong to make him hate her without her even knowing. She was left to feel as though there was something wrong with her.

If he hadn't come to her rescue, later that night, she would have fallen into the sky and died. She would have been happy to do so, and all she did was help the very people who made his life so much worse.

“Why... why are you telling me all this?” she asked, not sure where to go from there.

“I'm not giving you a history lesson for the sake of it,” Fami continued. “I am telling you all this because you need to know that the moment Denji met Chainsaw Man, his life has been nothing but strife and hardships where he has been forced to live a violent cycle of death and loss. You need to know that by removing his heart, you'll be freeing him from that life, you'll grant him peace.”

Peace. It's what everyone wants. No one wants to fight and die and kill the people they love while the world hates them for existing. She came to save him, that was why she was here, why she had endured so much.

If there was any doubt left in her, it vanished, and as she pushed down the thoughts of other things she felt towards herself, Fami and Yoshida, she managed to face them with a look of determination.

“How do we save him?”

“With this.” Fami reached into her pocket and pulled out another devil effigy before she dropped it on the ground. In a moment the devil appeared, it was a red, long creature of pulsing flesh with multiple eyes at the end of its head, and a grin of blunt, uneven teeth. “I'm sorry Yoru, but there is no way to recover what was taken from you, but the way the world is now I know it will not be much longer until you get back to your former strength.”

Despite herself, Yoru sneered.

“But you can still have your revenge.” She then looked to Asa. “Now that you know that Denji came to you for your date, and that he rescued you again as Chainsaw Man, he clearly has a soft spot for you. So in a sense that would make him yours, correct?”

“...I suppose. Are we really going to try this again?”

“You'll be saving him from a life of death and conflict. He'll owe you his life for this.”

“I guess.”

“All you need to do is make a weapon out of his Chainsaw Heart , and the Muscle Devil here will create a new heart for him based off the one he lost when they made their contract.”

“It's just that easy then?” Asa asked, looking at the Muscle Devil, it's body writhing where it stood. It made her feel uncomfortable. “Just make him a new heart, and he'll live a long and happy life as a human?” Asa, despite her misgivings, felt hopeful.

But then she noticed something off about the way neither Fami or Yoshida answered her, and she knew hope was too good to be true.

“Before collecting him, Makima had sent birds and rodents to spy on Denji,” Fami went on. “He occasionally coughed up blood, but it would be easy to assume his failing health had been due to his poor living conditions.”

The Muscle Devil grew a fleshy arm that reached out towards Denji, and Asa was too frozen where she stood to do anything but listen. She didn’t know where this was going, but she didn’t like it.

Yoshida continued. “He had a check-up when he joined Public Safety. Blood tests showed that he had inherited a heart disorder that killed his mother when she was young.”

“I-I don't understand,” Asa stammered, her mouth suddenly dry as the feelings she tried to push down threatened to erupt out of her. “What are you trying to say?”

“Five years,” the Muscle Devil gurgled, withdrawing its arm back into its body. “He'll be alive for only five years before his heart kills him.” There was a sinister, wet chuckle from it.

The whole world went numb around her. “Five years?” she said, the words sounding far off to her, and Fami was saying something else, but she wasn't paying attention. Five years? That was almost a quarter of his life, it wasn't long. How was five years saving him? “You lied!” Asa snapped at Fami, her “You said we could save him! How is giving him a five year expiration date saving him?”

“It's either dying in five years or six months when Death comes for us all,” Fami said, and the casual aloofness is gone, replaced with an unfamiliar firmness. “The moment Chainsaw Man came into his life, Denji was never destined for a long life.”

“That-That's not fair! How is any of this fair?”

“No, it's not fair, but it's right. A sword forged from Chainsaw Man, powered by the guilt you would feel by giving him only five years to live, wielded by a War Devil who will only continue to grow in power over the next six months, that would be enough to stop Death.”

Asa stared Fami down, hoping that she could get her to back off, but the devil stood her ground, and so she whipped to glare at Yoshida, who at the very least had the decency to not look at her. “What about you? You have any thoughts on this?”

“I think...” Yoshida said, looking down at Denji. “Considering the circumstances, I think this might be the best thing that can happen.”

“There has to be another way,” Asa argued back.

“It's either live six months, going through constant strife and battles against a number of increasingly powerful devils, or five years in relative peace,” Fami said.

Asa wanted to continue to fight, to keep arguing until they had nothing left to throw back at her, but try as she might she could think of no counter arguments. If Death was coming, then having such a weapon, made from her guilt would make things easier, and between six months and five years the choice was obvious. But still...

“Is that why you never woke him up?” Asa bitterly asked. “There was time before we got to him, Yoshida could have done that.”

“He would have argued back,” Fami said. “It's human nature to fight for your life, and he would have stopped us. Him being dead makes things easier for us.”

With no more from her, nothing she can think of to change the situation, Asa stepped up to Denji's corpse and raised her hand outward. All she had to do was call the name of the weapon she wanted and she would have it, meanwhile the Muscle Devil would create a new heart for Denji.

It was just that simple. It would be quick and easy, it would be over before she knew it.

“ So why have you not done anything yet?”

“I'm deciding on a weapon,” Asa said back, her remaining four fingers twitching.

“ Sword, spear, knife. It does not matter. Just make a weapon.”

“Just give me a moment.”

“ ...”

Asa took a deep breath and thought. Yes, a sword. She could do a sword, they were practical weapons, though historically spears were sup-

“ You are not getting lost in your nonsense again, Asa. Make the weapon now.”

She looked down at Denji, dead and defenseless. Unable to do anything. What would he say to her? Would he thank her? Beg her not too? Hate her for it?

“ Who cares what he would think, he can't do anything right now!”

She remembered what the bomb girl said.

“ The bomb that by her own admission tried to kill him for his chainsaw heart?”

Maybe... Maybe someone should care about Denji's heart?

“ No.”

Suddenly, Asa's body felt like it was twisting itself into multiple directions, like every sinew in her body was rebelling against her, and she knew that Yoru was trying to force her out.

“ Asa,” Yoru warned, a sharp edge to her tone. “Do you remember why we are even here? Why we did all of this? Why you lost an actual arm and a pinky? I want him dead, you want him to live, this is what we want. Are you really telling me you are trying to back-down?”

“I just-” Asa tried to say, but the words were hard to force out.

She was saving him, but she was killing him too. Didn't he deserve to know about that?

“ NO!” Yoru roared and it was all Asa could hear. “He does not deserve a single thing after what we went through, after what happened to me!”

“Yo-” Asa said, trying to fight back.

“ I have made compromises for you, girl! I went along with Fami's plan even though I knew it would end badly, I let you choose between a cat and a criminal, the very fact that I let you live when I could have taken over your entire body is proof enough that I was willing to in some way not destroy you!”

“I-I-” It was getting harder to stay focused, almost like she was being ripped apart.

“ HOW DO YOU THINK I FELT?” Yoru screamed. “He ate from me, Asa! I felt my power and sense of self slip away as over eighty years of history was rewritten! There's so few people alive who remember what war was like! It's just movies and video games for people! And! I! WILL! NOT! BE! LESS!”

Asa was screaming. Yoru was screaming. They were both screaming and neither could tell where one began and one ended.

Suddenly Asa was standing outside her own body. In the week since the Church made its move, the two of them had become closer, so much that the transitions between them were nearly seamless, and that she hadn't even seen the hallucination of Yoru in the last few days, and she couldn't recall being on herself. It was like she was still seeing through her own eyes even when Yoru was in control. It was strange, but something about it felt natural.

But now it seemed like that order had broken down.

“ Yoru! No!” Asa cried out, arm reaching for the devil even though she knew it would do nothing.

Yoru looked down at Denji, her eyes glowing with an intense rage that Asa had never felt before, while her own hand was opened up.

“Chainsaw Man Heart Sword!”

Chapter Text

Chapter IX: Weights on the Heart

The things that she and Yoru had turned into weapons would twist and bend in their transformations, ignoring any laws of physics in the conversion of mass in the process. The transformations of things like pencils, lighters and rulers was rather straightforward and simple, but Asa recalled Yoru turning Yuko's leg into a weapon, she could partially recall a screaming head for a sword made from her predator teacher, and there was her own pinky finger as well. The use of organic matter, things made from blood and bones and flesh was grotesque, how the things would crack and twist to become these horrible-looking organic things. Asa herself did not care much for the aesthetic, though Yoru seemed to greatly enjoy them, and maybe it had to to deal with an inherent desire for violence.

So when Yoru pushed her out of the body she knew she had to prepare for the sight of Denji's rib cage turning itself inside-out as his heart erupted from it and flew into Yoru's hand, turning into some macabre chainsaw-like sword, with metal teeth jutting from the disgusting flesh.

It would be her fault this happened, everything she had done to save him would only kill him in the end. She had no doubt that Fami would keep her end of the deal, to give him a new heart, but she knew that even with a new lease on life that he would never forgive her. Why should he? She helped ruin his life, and for what? Because she wanted to feel special? Just because someone was nice to her one time? All because she was selfish.

She was the worst.

Asa prepared for the horror show that awaited her. And waited. Waited some more.

The five of them stood around Denji, waiting for his heart to violently rip out of his chest, but that didn't happen. Nothing happened.

“What?” Fami asked, confused, and looking around the room for something to help her give her some clue. “Did you do something wrong?”

“I didn't not do something wrong?” Yoru snapped at her. “This should work!”

“Am I going to still make him a new heart?” the Muscle Devil asked, turning three of its many eyes to Yoshida.

“I don't know,” he said, uncertain but honest.

“No,” Yoru growled, teeth clench. “Chainsaw Heart Sword!” she yelled again, palm extended out, but still no weapon. “Chainsaw Heart Flail!” Nothing. “Hammer! Knife! Spear! Slingshot! AK-47!” Yet despite how much she tried, there was no sign of anything changing within Denji's body.

Asa could only stare wide-eyed at him, unable to believe that nothing had happened. She had expected that something should have happened? Yoru was right, after everything they knew, Denji should by all accounts have fallen in love with her, so why was he not a weapon now?

“ Why didn't anything happen?” she asked, and she was a bit annoyed at the realization she realized to her own shame. He saved her life, surely he must have liked her to some extent, right? Surely the time they spent together must have meant something to him?

Here she was, she realized, getting angry over Denji not liking her even though that is likely the thing saving his life.

“You bastard!” Yoru cried out and gave a kick to Denji's side, which sent him flying across the room and into a wall.

“ Yoru!” Asa cried out again as the devil marched her way over to him and grabbed him by the hair.

“Why have you not transformed?” she growled, throwing him back down. “Do you think you're too good for us?” She then got down and straddled Denji's stomach before reaching down and grabbed his throat, pulling him up. “Is that it?”

“ Yoru! Stop this, please!” Asa ran over to them and tried to push Yoru off, but her arm only went through her

“You went out on a date! You asked for a second!” She slammed his head back down, and Asa was certain that his skull might have cracked. “Despite Control getting in the way and Asa's constant fumbling of you, you still desired her!” Despite the circumstances Asa felt a bit insulted at that. She did not fumble, and if she did it was on purpose to protect him. “You talked about how much you wanted sex, so I don't doubt that you had carnal thoughts about her!”

“ Stop that!” Asa yelled, both for Denji's safety and trying not to imagine... certain things about that statement could entail, but then Yoru began to squeeze at his neck and leaned down, her face close to him so that her eyes, burning with hate and frustration could burn into his cold and dead ones. “Please stop!” Asa pleaded and she worried that Denji's head would be ripped off at any moment. “I'll do anything you want, but please don't hurt him anymore!”

“WHY?!” Yoru screamed, ignoring Asa in favor of a body that could now answer her. “You were clearly infatuated!” She continued to squeeze. “You listened to a twenty minute rant about starfish of all things! And you remembered it! Who cares about that? It's stupid, useless trivia that no one in their right mind would put any effort into committing to memory! So why would...would..” Suddenly, Yoru's face changed, the anger and rage vanishing as it seemed as though the fire she had only just displayed began to vanish. “Would... you care...”

Asa had no idea what, but she could tell that something had come to Yoru's mind, some kind of realization about what she had been faced with, but what that was she didn't know, but it was clearly enough to put an end to her rage, leaving only a confusing clarification.

Yoru then released Denji's neck and sat up, keeping her eyes on him still.

“So...” she said, her voice empty. “That's it, isn't it? That's why this never worked.”

“Yoru?” Asa asked, but Yoru kept her eyes on Denji.

“Asa...” Yoru said. “You stupid, wretched and pathetic girl.” Slowly she raised her hand and covered what she could of her face, concealing the scar, and closed her eyes. “You ruined my plans before I even had a chance to get them off the ground.”

“...How?” Asa asked.

Fami and Yoshida, the Muscle Devil too, watched as Yoru sat on Denji, hand on her face, remaining silent.

“Yoru,” Fami asked. “What's happened? Why can't you turn him into a weapon?” It wasn't good, something was wrong.

“...There's something I want to ask you,” the girl atop Denji said. “Something that I think I should have asked you before any of this happened, when there was still time. If I did, maybe things could have been different.”

“...Yoru?” Fami tried.

The girl lowered her arm, showing a face with no scar and dark brown eyes, and before Fami or Yoshida could react, she pulled the ripcord on Denji's chest.

000

Dark.

Everything is dark.

Dark and... stuff...

“What are you going to do now?”

He didn't know. Why should he know?

“Okay, let's try something else then. What do you want to do?”

What does he want?

He wants...

He thought he wanted...

He...

Did it matter anymore?

“I think it does.”

Maybe, but... So what? He'd just screw it up again. That's what he did.

“None of that was your fault.”

Did it matter?

“I think it does. You still have your dreams.”

He didn't deserve them. Why would he? What are his dreams even more? It seemed like every time he thought he had an answer to that, it would just go wrong. He was told to live either a normal life or be Chainsaw Man, but he screwed those both up. He kept making bad choices.

“Did you really choose those?”

Yeah? That's how that worked. You made choices and you dealt with the shit.

“Like you chose to pay off the debt?”

Well, yeah? It was either that and get cut up and have his organs sold.

“You were still chopped up though, even though you did everything you were told to.”

Yeah... but...

“It may have been a choice , but it wasn't fair. Was it?”

Why bring this up?

“Because I have to.”

Please stop talking, he wanted to stop thinking.

“Denji, you beat Makima.”

He did. It was hard, but he had to. Because if he didn't...

“You'd be just another dog to her. But you chose to not do so. She did everything she could to break you, but you chose to stand up in the end.”

Where was any of this going? Did any of this matter? Would anyone care what he wanted?

“You're going to wake up soon.”

Huh?

“Good luck Denji.”

But he-

000

Denji's body jerked as blood started to shoot through his veins, and as Asa dived off she knew she had to act quick.

“Bomb Girl Arm RPG!” It's not like she was using the arm the Behind You Devil cut off anymore. As Asa rolled to her knees the arm flew from the kitchen and into her arm and just as she managed to hold it up and properly aim it, Yoshida stopped dead in his tracks, the explosive only inches from his face. Last time she had been caught off guard and she lost an arm, but this time she was ready. “Back off,” she warned.

His expression unreadable, he did so, taking slow and careful steps back until he was next to Fami, who looked at her in shock. Behind her Denji was coughing up a fit, though he didn't turn into chainsaws yet, but she imagined that he couldn't do that until the blood started to properly flow in his veins.

“Shit-” he said with a hacking, having rolled onto his hands and knees, coughing up phlegm and blood, and while she didn't know how his regeneration worked exactly she imagined that coming back to life after being hacked into bits and drained of all blood would take a minute to recover from.

“Denji, are you alright?” she asked over her shoulder, still keeping her eyes on Fami and Yoshida.

“Huh?” he rasped, looking up at them. “Waas goin' on?” he coughed before her pushed himself up to his feet, taking a look around the room, confused, before his eyes settled on her. “Asa? What are-Holy shit your arm!”

The arm she no longer had ached.

“Asa, what are you doing?” Fami said in a dangerous tone Asa wasn't certain she heard before from her. “This wasn't how this was supposed to go.”

“He deserves to know what's going to happen to him, and to have a word in.”

“We can't risk that.”

“Too bad!” she shouted, before glancing over her shoulder. “Denji, there's a lot of things I need to tell you, so I need you to be quiet for a moment while I explain everything, or at least as much as I can.”

He looked at her with a confused and lost stare. “Wha...?” She didn't blame him, he missed a few things.

Asa took a deep breath.

“Asa, don't,” Fami warned, but Asa merely glared at her.

This was it.

“Before we met I was killed and possessed by a devil that revived me,” she started. “In exchange for saving my life I would help her kill Chainsaw Man. The reason I asked you out on that date...” Here it comes. “Was because I was trying to see if I could turn you into a weapon to kill Chainsaw Man, though I didn't know who you really were at the time.”

She glanced back at him, expecting fury, betrayal, disbelief.

“Oh...” But all she saw was disappointment. In some ways it was even worse.

“This girl here? Her name is Fami and she's the Famine Devil and the leader of the Chainsaw Man Church, and she used that devil to trap us in the aquarium until I could turn you into a weapon. But... but I didn't want to do that. I...” She thought of the starfish and the stolen money. “I enjoyed our date, despite everything, and I didn't want to hurt you.”

Denji remained silent, but that crestfallen expression he had seemed to lessen. That was good, right? She didn't know what to expect anymore.

“I wanted to sabotage our second date because the longer you spent around me the more danger you would be in. I think we still had that date, but my memory of it's gone, so I don't know what happened but...” She thought she waited for hours. “But however long I waited, you still saved me from the Falling Devil.” Asa had tried to maintain a steady and solid tone, one that would not give away the hurt in her heart. She failed. “I... I got involved with the Church because I was told it would help you, but I was lied to.” For a moment at least, she could steel herself and glare at Fami. “Everything the Church has done was so they could power up the devil possessing me, the War Devil, so she could fight the Death Devil.” Breaking contact away from Fami, Asa looked back to Denji, her expression softening. “Denji, in six months the Death Devil will come to Earth and all of humanity will be killed, and if the War Devil can be made strong enough to fight her, it might save the world, but...” Once again, she braced herself. “They want me to turn your heart into a weapon and give it to Yoru, but in exchange you'll get your human heart back, but you'll die in five years.”

Denji looked down at his chest, to the cord sticking out of it. “My mom had a bad heart thing...”

“I'm sorry, but Fami didn't want me you to be awake for this, she wanted me to make your heart a weapon while you were still dead, but I can't do that. It's your heart and your life, so you should be the one to decide what happens with it, and no matter what you decide, I'll be on your side.”

Stunned, shocked? Asa had a hard time reading Denji's expression, but he merely held a hand to his chest and backed up until he was leaning against the wall, his eyes downcast, before he looked up again, turning his attention from Asa, to Fami, before finally settling on Yoshida.

“Did you know about all of this?” he asked, his voice low.

Yoshida remained silent at first, looking at Denji with an expression that Asa could not hope to figure out, before he eventually started speaking. “Fami is Makima's sister, and she has powers similar to her, so she had me under her thumb.”

“You don't look head over heels for her or like a zombie.”

“It's a bit more loose with her, but she makes people into her servants when they're starving for something.”

“And what the hell you so hungry for?”

Yoshida chose not to answer that. “She's made me do a lot of things I would otherwise not, and I only learned about how she wanted to recently, after it was too late to do anything about it. However...” He paused, looking between Denji and Asa. “I do agree with having them make a weapon out of your heart. Being Chainsaw Man has been nothing but bad for you, and if you can't even become him anymore, no one will have any reason to bother you anymore.”

Somehow that answer made Denji seem more tired than he already looked, before he turned his attention to Fami.

Her answer was much more simple. “That weapon is the best chance we have. It's not a difficult choice, either you die in six months or you live for five years. It's the right thing to do.”

He then looked to Asa, who had not let the RPG down the whole conversation.

“I want you to make that choice Denji, not me or anyone else. What do you want?”

The room was silent, even the distant rioting had died down, and Asa didn't want to think what that could mean, all while Denji leaned against the wall and thought. The atmosphere around them was tense as Denji contemplated the situation, all while Asa watched them, waiting for them to pull something.

“I...” Denji said, taking a deep breath, before pushing himself off the wall and walking to Asa's side. “Yo, Yoshida,” he said, sternly. “You under this chick's control?”

“For the most part.”

Asa decided to be petty. “He also cut off my arm and told me to stay away from you after I thought you stood me up.” She earned the right to be petty at the very least.

Denji seemed offended on her part. “What the hell dude? You don't cut off a girl's arm like that!”

Yoshida's frown only deepened.

“And you,” Denji said, looking to Fami. “If you're running that cult, that means you sent those assholes after me, right?”

“Are you talking about Barem and the other Hybrids?” Fami asked, almost gritting her teeth. “I instructed him to antagonize you, how he did so was up to him.”

“He burnt my house down, killed my pets and tried to kill Nayuta.”

Another twist in Asa's gut formed, as if his mutilation wasn't bad enough, she was also responsible for him being homeless and killing his pets, and she didn't even know what happened to his sister.

“Hey, Asa?” Denji asked, and Asa snapped out of her own thoughts and went back to him.

“Yes?”

“You said you'd help me out with whatever I wanted, right?”

She meant that, she really did. “I will.”

“Okay, then this makes this easier.” He then raised an arm and pointed right at Fami. “First thing I'm gonna do is kill this chick, seems like a lot of shit happened because of her.”

“I'm trying to save the world, you idiot,” Fami growled, and a part of Asa is a bit pleased with how frustrated she's getting.

“Yeah, I got that apartment with Aki's money and my cat belonged to Power, so fuck you. And for you,” he said, turning to Yoshida. “After she's dead and you're not under her spell or whatever, I'm still gonna kick your ass because you guys did a shit job at keeping me and Nayuta safe, like I think Fumiko just bailed on us.”

Yoshida remained impassive as ever.

For the first time in the whole conversation, Denji grinned. “And then you know what? Since you guys haven't shown me a corpse, I'm going to guess she's still alive somewhere, so after I beat you guys I'm going to look for her!”

“You're choosing to fight?” Fami asked. “Even though the world is at stake?”

Despite herself, a piece of Asa couldn't help but give pause at what Fami was saying, and even though she had to remind herself that she was doing this for Denji , that the pros and cons of such a choice still weighed heavily on her mind.

Thankfully, Denji didn't seem to give that statement nearly as much thought as he merely shrugged in response. “All I know is that Makima tasted pretty good, so if you're the Famine Devil I better not be hungry in an hour.”

“Wait,” Fami blinked, as though she was replaying what he said. “Are you saying you ate Makima?”

Denji's response was to pull the cord on his chest, and as he jumped to strike down Fami he had already become Chainsaw Man, his blades roaring loudly as they aimed to cut her down.

Chapter Text

Chapter X: Dinner and a Show

When Yoshida had cut off her arm she had not been expecting him, she had thought she had time to defend herself, but he came through her door and the next thing she knew her arm was gone. When she decided to revive Denji she knew that he would likely try and stop her, so she had thought ahead, and had planned on using the bomb girl's arm to make a weapon, having it formed in her hand and ready to fire just in time, and as long as she had a highly powerful explosive on her, one powered by the guilt she felt for not letting the girl help, it was too dangerous to not comply to her wishes. When Denji started to talk about what he wanted, it seemed as though he was not going to comply to what he and Fami wanted, and while Asa was caught off guard by him mentioning he ate this Makima (he said Chainsaw Man only ate one person), him attacking Fami was not a big surprise.

Despite how quickly he had been, Denji never made it to Fami, as a black tentacle appeared from the ground and slapped at him, sending him flying across the room and crashing into a table and some chairs.

Taken aback from nearly being cut to pieces by a chainsaw, Fami's eyes were wide with shock, before she composed herself, before she turned an angry glare to Asa.

“Take care of him,” Fami ordered, and not answering her, Yoshida drew the sword on his back, no doubt the one she he had used to amputate her arm, and walked to where Denji was getting up.

“I don't think you're doing that,” Asa said, pointing the RPG at Fami. “One more step from him and I fire.” She had never fired a gun before, and to a point she's surprised that she and Yoru have not made any firearms before, sticking to melee weapons, and while she could try and argue why that was, she knew in her heart that swords were just cooler. The knights in her fantasy books she read as a child used swords as they did their heroics, so maybe a piece of Asa was trying to imitate them.

She could feel Fami's eyes burning at her, but she would not relent.

And then it felt like something was burrowing into her leg, and her entire body spasmed, causing her to drop the RPG while she fought to not collapse.

Managing to look down she saw a slim, fleshy tendril sticking out from her leg that reached across the floor and out of the Muscle Devil's body. Despite not knowing the full capabilities of this devil, she had a guess what it was doing because she could feel something writhing beneath her skin, something that had sent a paralyzing shock through her body, enough to make her drop her weapon. It was only a moment, and she knew that she could fight back, but before she could do anything the Muscle Devil had already taken advantage of her moment of weakness and threw itself at her, and Asa found herself soon covered by the Muscle Devil's mass.

000

“Asshole!” Denji cursed out loud as he threw the broken chairs and table aside, his blades rumbling at the chance to go full speed. Around him the ends of several tentacles, longer than he was tall and thick, were sticking out of the walls and floor around him, meanwhile Yoshida himself was carefully approaching Denji. “Come on! I was about to eat that girl! Why get in the way?”

Yoshida evenly stared him down. “You do remember I said that she has me enthralled, right?”

“Yeah. Doesn't mean I still can't get pissed at you for that.” Denji raised an arm and began to rotate his shoulder, it cracked and popped, likely from having been dead and frozen like that, getting the kinks out of his newly regenerated body. “You know, you've been such a pain in my ass since we met at school, if you just left me alone things would have been much easier for me.”

“That wasn't an option, you know that Denji.”

“What? Like me being Chainsaw Man would have been so hard for you guys to handle? If it hadn't been for you guys I would have done just fine on my own and I would have had a girlfriend by now!”

“She tried to kill you Denji,” Yoshida argued.

“And she's doing more to help me than any of you guys ever did!” Denji snapped back. “Seriously, I was hoping she'd try and find me and ask me why I dumped her like that, and even if I couldn't hang around her anymore I could have given her an excuse why I didn't show up.” He sighed then, looking off to the side. “Getting stood up like that blows real bad, it sucks, so I would have wanted to say something that made it such less for her if I could.”

Yoshida merely looked exhausted.

“I did what you told me to do,” Denji continued. “I stopped being Chainsaw Man so I could keep Nayuta safe, I lived that normal life you guys kept pushing on me even though I kept feeling like shit for it, and where did that get me? I still got attacked by those psychos from the Church! I lost my home, my pets and I don't even know where Nayuta is!” The blades on his body spun with the sudden roar from his throat. “Just tell me this, Nayuta, where is she?”

“I... I'm sorry Denji, but I don't know,” Yoshida said, his voice low as he looked away from Denji. “As far as I know she went missing after she sent you away and Fumiko ran.”

“So you don't know where she is?” Denji sneered. “Fumiko really dropped the ball on that, she was supposed to keep us safe but she screwed up.”

“...She did.”

“And I'm gonna guess that she didn't even get in trouble for that, huh?”

“...No.”

“So everything that I went through was just bullshit, right?”

“...Yes it was, I'm sorry Denji.”

The two of them stood there, neither one of them looking at one another.

Then Denji laughed.

“Denji?”

He kept laughing.

“Shit like this keeps happening, huh?” Denji said through his rising laughter. “If I didn't pay my dad's debt the yazkuza said they were gonna chop me up for parts, but that happened anyway and they threw me into a dumpster. Makima said that I could have anything I wanted if I killed the Gun Devil, and it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I tried not to be Chainsaw Man to keep Nayuta safe but you guys did such a shit job at bodyguarding that you don't even know where she is anymore!” He kept laughing until he threw his head back, and Yoshida found himself somewhat unnerved by his outburst. “What's the fucking point of doing all these things that people keep telling me when every single time I get screwed over!?” His laughter then caught off, and Denji was left to look up, staring at the ceiling. “If stuff like that keeps happening to me,” he said, his voice low as he thought about it. “Then why should I care about what people tell me to do anyway? Yeah, why should I?” Denji then snapped his attention back down to Yoshida. “Yeah, that's right! If everyone just keeps screwing me over like that, then why shouldn't I just do the things I want from now on? I think I deserve stuff like that after all the shit I've been through! And I want to find Nayuta and keep Pochita in my chest, and if you have any problems in the long run, well fuck you!”

“Even if it causes you trouble down the line?” Yoshida asked.

“I'm in trouble either way, so why not?”

“Even in the face of the Death Devil herself?”

“I'll just kick her ass too.”

“A normal life would be easier, more peaceful. If you give up Pochita, then you would never have to worry about everything that made you suffer again.”

At that Denji did pause, and he thought about it. He then shrugged. “Maybe, but I don't think I could be happy with everything being easy like that, if I want to have a good life, I want it to be on my terms.”

Yoshida sighed. “Very well, if that's how you want it Denji.” He then flicked his hand and a tentacle on the wall slammed down towards Denji, but he jumped out of the way just in time to be crushed by another, causing the ground to crack underneath him. Suddenly the tentacle shot back up as chunks of meat and blood started to fall from it, and it severed in half as Denji chopped at it, his blades cutting at the Octopus Devil's flesh while he dug his teeth into it. When he dropped back down to the ground, Yoshida was already on him, attacking him from behind and with a clean cut managed to stab right through Denji's gut. He had intended to pull at his blade, to bisect him, but Denji raised his arm and and cut nearly all the way through his own neck and threw his head back, and Yoshida had to jumped back at the head-blade nearly cut him in half at it fell into his direction. When Yoshida had fled from him, Denji grabbed his nearly-severed head and attached it back to the stump on his head, and swallowed the Octopus Devil flesh.

“Man, I really must have been out a week,” Denji said, running a tongue over his teeth as his neck stitched itself back up. “Didn't think I was so hungry, but good thing you brought a tasty octopus for me to snack on!”

Yoshida grit his teeth and with another wave of his hand, the Octopus Devil's remaining tentacles went in for Denji, with him not far behind.

000

Asa could feel the Muscle Devil working itself into her body in a way that Yoru never did, she could feel it melting into her legs, her bare arm, her neck and face, its body weighing heavily on her but she was still able to stand because it had command of her limbs. She tried to fight back, but her body would simply not listen to her. In some ways this felt worse than when she had to fight Yoru for control of her body, it somehow felt more violating.

“It didn't need to come to this Asa,” Fami said as she walked up to her. “I had tried to make you happy, to save Chainsaw Man like you wanted, to give both you and Yoru what you wanted, but you had to do this?” An annoyed tone seeped into Fami's voice, clearly too agitated from everything that had happened to pretend otherwise.

“You lied to me!” Asa argued, thankful that she could at least talk. Above her the Muscle Devil's head hung outstretched, and she wanted this thing dead. “I'm a homeless, one-armed terrorist who can't ever go back to school and I don't have a single yen to my name!” Asa yelled. “You ruined my life!”

“But was that a life you were happy with?” Fami answered back. “You had no friends or family, you were miserable with your droll existence, and Yoru's sudden appearance only made things worse.” She stopped right before Asa and looked her straight in the eye. “I took a liking to you, I really did, and I want you to be happy.”

“Do I look happy to you!?” Asa snarled.

Fami looked at her impassively. “Maybe you should learn to appreciate what I've done for you more, but that's okay, I forgive you.” The Famine Devil took a step back and pulled out a familiar devil effigy. “But don't worry, I'll make sure you and Denji will get a happy ending, I'm certain you'll be thankful for it in the end.”

“I should have never trusted you!” Asa yelled. “I hate you!”

It was hard to describe the look on Fami's face, but for a split second it looked as though she was... hurt by what Asa had said. But it only lasted for a moment before it shifted back to its regular, neutral expression. “Like I said, you'll appreciate me when this is over.”

She dropped the effigy.

000

A sudden cloud of ink spread around Denji, blinding him, and he knew if Yoshida got the chance he would cut Denji's head off, so the best thing he thought of was to not give him that chance at all. With a yell he unhooked his chains from his body and started to swing them around wildly, and suddenly there was the slicing of meat as it and blood from the Octopus Devil's tentacles rained down on him, and he could catch the occasionally spark in the darkness which told him that Yoshida had managed to block one of the wild and random swings.

He saw an opening through the cloud and jumped out, and found himself landing on a table that slid out a few feet, and he saw Yoshida riding a tentacle not far behind him, however from the corner of his eye he saw that Fami girl with some weird-looking giant bird, and Asa with that gross devil from before on top of her, and from the looks of it she wasn't have a good time. For a moment something about this was familiar, but those thoughts went ignored as he thought about what to do next, and the solution was obvious and he hoped it would look cool.

First he severed his arm, and before it could fall to the ground a chain connected the stump to the cut off limb, and grabbing the chain in the other arm he spun it around, quickly gaining speed before he let it loose. It traveled fast, flying right between Asa and Fami, and just as Yoshida cut down on him, the chainsaw hit into the wall on the other side of the cafeteria, and with a kick he managed to push himself off from the table just as Yoshida sliced off his other arm and the leg below him, pulling the chain to have him fly in the direction the other saw had stuck itself in the wall. He sailed through the air, going right over Asa and Fami, and with one more kick summoned a chainsaw from his leg and cut off the Muscle Devil's head before he crashed into the wall and fell to the ground in a heap.

The head landed near him, so he pulled himself to it and bit down.

000

With how painful the Muscle Devil's hold on her had been when it was severed, how its horrible flesh was suddenly disconnected from her skin, and she was surprised to see that as she collided with the ground that there wasn't a big splash of blood from any open wounds she might have had, but it seemed like she was good. Denji's attack seemed to have caught Fami and Guilly off guard, and they were caught off guard, and that was good.

“Muscle Devil Net!” For all she knew it took some of her own flesh with her, she didn't know that, but it was good enough as the corpse suddenly turned into a fleshy net of sinew which she threw at them. It wasn't going to stop them, but it would buy her a few precious moments as they struggled to get out. Asa's eyes searched across the room, looking for the weapon, but then she found it, having slid underneath a chair, and she ran for it, before diving in for it, but the moment her hand grabbed onto the Bomb Girl Arm RPG, she felt something wet and slimy wrap around her foot and hoist her up.

The Octopus Devil's Tentacle further wrapped around her leg as it flung her about, and she knew that it would either fling her into a wall or into the ground, but before it could even start to do that, Denji flew into the air and cut the tentacle in half. She still landed on the ground, but not with the near-lethal force she would have expected, but she lost her grip on the RPG.

It hit the ground and the explosive launched, it sailed through the air until it hit the wall on the opposite side of the room, the blast of the explosion strong enough to knock all the furniture, as well as every person and devil, back. Asa herself crashed into a wall before falling to the ground, and she had little time to reflect on her own pain before she heard a loud stony crack as the ceiling shifted above them.

Not too far off she could see Fami and Guilly stand up, the chopped up bit of the fleshy net falling around them, and Asa jumped up to meet them. Her options were limited for weapons, she only had access to what she had on her body, or her body itself, but she decided that she would use most of her skirt, leaving herself with enough that it ended just a bit too high up her thigh. She didn't like shorter skirts or shorts because she didn't like the look of her legs, and only loose women wore things like that to begin with, so having something like that on would no doubt be shameful and give people ideas about the kind of girl she was. It should make for a good enough weapon.

However before Asa could even call out the name of her soon-to-be Indecent Skirt Spear, Fami had already waved her hand.

“Guilly! Disrobe her!”

“What?” Asa asked, not sure she heard that right.

“Gyohnee!” Guilly cried out with a wave of her wing.

The first thing Asa noticed was that her hair became loose as her hair ties snapped, and she briefly thought back to this morning when Fami helped her fix her hair because she no longer had the ability to do that anymore. There was then a distinct air of coolness on her body.

It occurred to Asa that this whole thing must be a dream. There were no devils or Chainsaw Man or Church, and she had all her limbs and was just a nobody at school and certainly not a wanted terrorist. At any moment now she would wake up in her bed, she would go down stairs and eat the breakfast her mother had prepared her and she would ask her if she slept well. She would deny having any dreams because she could no way tell her mother she had this kind of nightmare.

Any second now, she would wake up.

But she didn't wake up, so this was real.

Looking down, Asa saw the small strips of fabrics that littered the air and ground around her, and it was with a horrifying realization that she saw that this was indeed reality. If there was a God, she wanted them to kill her right now, but her life has never been that fortunate.

And so Asa let out a blood-curdling scream and she wrapped her arm around her chest while she tried to crouch down to hide certain other bits.

“WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?” Asa shouted, her entire body red from rage and shame.

“Gyohnee...” Guilly sadly cooed.

“Guilly says she's sorry she had to do that,” Fami said. “But destroying your clothes was the best option I had. It not only severely limits the potential items you can use as weapons, but you're also too demoralized to fight back.”

“I FUCKING HATE YOU!” Asa screamed. This was it, this was the worst thing that ever happened to her, she was angry and humiliated and-

No. No no no. Nononononono!

Another realization dawned over Asa, and she slowly turned her head over to the other side of the room.

Denji was staring at her, his jaw wide open, and if he had his human face on she could only imagine the stupid and insufferable look he must have had.

You know what, let Death come and end this miserable, rotten world. She had enough of it.

“LOOK AWAY!” Asa cried out, trying to adjust how she stood to try and make sure he saw... less of her then he already had, and to his credit he immediately averted his eyes from her.

Then he got slapped with a tentacle and set flying.

“I think it's time to end this,” Fami said. “Guilly, take Chainsaw Man's head off, now.”

“Gyohnee.”

“No, this time you will kill someone, understand?”

“Gyohnee...” Guilly said before turning her around to face where Denji had landed, her wing reaching up and-

Instinct overtook Asa.

“No!” She shouted, her arm outstretching, and Fami looked back to her, and her eyes widened as she knew what Asa was about to do.

“Guilly!” she called out desperately, turning back to the larger devil, but it was already too late.

Earlier today, when they had been taken by surprise by those two hunters, one of them summoned a large paw that had injured Guilly, but when they had made a second attempt Asa had managed to stop them, thus saving Guilly's life.

“Guillotine Devil Axe!”

Guilly owed Asa her life for that.

“GyohAAGGHHCCKKK!” Guilly the Guillotine Devil was sudden ripped apart, her flesh and bone turning on itself, feather flying through the air as she suddenly sailed through the air towards Asa's outstretched hand, and when the large axe, shaped like a guillotine blade with Guilly's head at the top, Asa let the momentum carry her arm back before stopping it, so the weapon hung in her arm behind her, one of her feet off the ground as she tried to balance.

Even though she didn't know Guilly all that long, she did like her. She was grateful for saving her life, so that had to mean she liked her, right? That had to mean something. And Asa killed her.

Heaving all her strength into her arm, Asa pulled herself forward and with a loud roar she heaved and threw the axe right at Fami.

This was the first time she had actually killed someone to make a weapon. She and Yoru killed the class president and Mr Tanaka, and on several occasions she had used severed body parts, but this was the first time she had chosen to end a life that was no threat to her.

Fami gracelessly jumped to avoid the axe, hitting the ground hard.

Asa knew she was the worst kind of person out there.

The axe sailed and struck the wall, one that had already been heavily damaged by an explosive made from the arm of a girl who would have been better to save Denji than she could ever hope.

So much guilt had been poured into these weapons.

The wall split in two, and the ceiling finally collapsed, giant slabs of concrete quickly coming down on them, and for a brief second Asa was certain she saw a black shape wrap around Fami before she vanished into the ground.

Maybe Asa would be crushed to death. Did she deserve a quick death?

She was about to find out.

Chapter Text

Chapter XI: Coming to Terms

There was the sudden sound of chainsaws and Asa found herself quickly picked up, and suddenly as the world was spinning around as Denji flipped as he cut the falling slab of ceiling/floor in half with the chainsaw that was growing out of his leg. The threat of being crushed to death was soon averted as Denji managed to avoid the rain of debris, and soon he was standing atop a pile of rubble, holding her bridal style.

It was almost... dashing and heroic, and for one single moment she forgot the truth of the situation. It was a blissful moment, one she wished she could escape to forever, but reality was awful to her and she remembered that there was only a single pair of boxers between them, and he was the one wearing them.

Her immediate response was to punch him in the face, her fist colliding with the metal of the side of his head, causing him to reel back as he dropped her onto the ground. The rocky and uneven ground poked and stabbed at her, making for a very uncomfortable landing.

“Gah!” he cried out, trying to regain his footing. “What th-”

“Stop looking!” Asa yelled out, trying to cover herself with her arm and legs as she tried to curl up into a ball. Thankfully for what little decency she had left, he was quick to turn around, facing the opposite wall. “Just-Just give me a moment to find something!” she yelled back, scrambling to her feet, trying not to trip and failing, before she frantically pushed herself back up. “If you even for one moment dare to look at me like this, then I actually will kill you!”

“Sorry, sorry," he said with a rushed wave of his hand. “I promise I won't peek.”

That did make her feel better.

“You're like the fourth girl I've seen naked, but I never actually peeped on them when they didn't let me!”

That on the other hand did not make her feel better, and her only response was to make a noise that cannot be properly expressed in a written format.

Asa looked around the destroyed cafeteria, everything having been buried with everything that had been on the floor above them only minutes ago looking for... what? She didn't know what she was supposed to find, did she really expect to see a laundry basket filled with clothes that fit her just right? What was she even doing now? Was she going to pull clothes off some corpse? What sort of lunatic does that? She continued to look around, maybe if she was lucky she would find... she didn't know.

She spotted a door laying half-buried under the rubble.

The door, one of the prison cell doors, was down here because of her actions, therefore the door was hers and these actions had almost gotten them all killed. A good offense is a good defense. Yeah, that works.

“Prison Door Armor Dress.” The door then flew into the air, splitting and ripping apart, the metal tearing and reforming around her body as it began to fit her, and the sudden weight around her was unexpected, but she knew she could handle it. When the transformation was complete she stood there in an armored dress, boots and a gauntlet, it was light but felt sturdy, and the chainmail made it easy to move around in, though that didn't mean it was exactly comfortable and she knew that she would be chafing in certain spots later if she wore this too long. “Right, I'm decent now,” Asa said, turning around, seeing Denji face her just as he did.

“Wow, cool looking armor,” he said, sounding impressed.

“Really?” As answered, feeling somewhat bashful.

“Yeah, looks badass!”

“Yeah, it is badass!” Asa couldn't help but feel a surge of pride at the compliment, and she considered what other things she could do to impress upon him how amazing she-” Shit!” Asa spun around, searching the ruins. “Fami and Yoshida, where are they?”

Denji's chainsaws started off as he scanned the room, looking for the devil and the hunter to launch an attack. Things were tense as they waited for something to happen, for tentacles to erupt out of the rubble, or for some other devil to suddenly appear out of nowhere, but the seconds passed, one by one, and Asa and Denji found themselves alone in the room.

“You think they got scared and ran off?” Denji asked, arms still held up and ready to strike.

“I don't think so,” Asa said, looking around for any sign of them, but she couldn't see anything to indicate they were here.

More seconds passed.

“Yeah, I think they chickened out,” Denji said, dropping his guard.

Reluctantly, Asa was inclined to agree, and so she lowered her arm, which had been ready to grab at anything to make a weapon, and breathed a sigh of relief. If they really were gone, it's possible that Fami didn't want to fight the two of them together, meaning she had either ran away with Yoshida or they were waiting for their time to strike, but even if they were gone, they were still underground in a facility overrun by devils. There was no safe place for them until they somehow managed to get away.

Asa looked back at Denji just as his chainsaws melted away, and for the first time since he dropped her off at her apartment it was just... them.

It occurred to Asa that she didn't know what the fuck she was supposed to do now. She never wanted to see Denji again, but she had wanted to save Chainsaw Man , and it only just occurred to her that she hadn't put much thought into the after beyond some general and vague happiness and fulfillment on her end. Despite how much she had wanted to save him, she hadn't actually done much to learn anything about him, not ask Fami, who most certainly would have known who he was. Maybe a part of her didn't want to know who Chainsaw Man was, because knowing who he was would make him more real, more personal, it would make her want to get closer to the person who saved her life and she knew that getting close to people only ever ended badly for her. Better to admire from afar than to know your heroes, that's what they say, right?

“So that armor,” Denji said, pointing a finger at her suit. “As cool as it is, where'd it come from?”

“Oh, this?” she said, looking down to herself briefly. “I can... make things into other things. It's my devil contract, it lets me do everything she can do.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that. What devil was it again?”

“The War Devil, I call her Yoru and-” Something just occurred to Asa, something she hadn't thought about with the fight taking up her attention. “Hey, Yoru?” Asa said aloud, waiting for the devil to answer.

But she received none, only silence.

“Hey, Yoru? Are you there?” She could feel Yoru in the back of her mind, Fami hadn't taken her away again, but there was still something about this that felt off. “Yoru?”

“You okay?” Denji asked, and Asa found herself slightly embarrassed.

“It's the devil, she's possessing me, and she's always around, she can even take control of my body, but she's not coming out right now. She...” Yoru thought of something, but what that was she didn't know. “I guess she wants to think some things over, so I don't know when she'll be back. But if I start acting weird, then you'll know that's actually her.”

“But you're already kind of weird,” he flatly said.

“I am not weird!” she shot back. “And she's weirder than me, which isn't me saying I'm weird to begin with!”

“Yeah, I think I get it.” He stared at her, and she could tell he was maybe thinking. “You said you remembered our second date?”

“...No,” she said, wanting to avert her eyes. “I just know that it happened, but I guess Yoru showed up and did something?”

“You were kind of acting weird,” he said. “Like that you hated me and that you were only spending time with me because you were bored.” She felt awful. “And that if I hung around you that I'd just end up dead or something.”

“...that part's true, at least.” Mustering up the courage, Asa looked back to him. “Do you remember the whole Denji Spinal Cord thing?”

He chuckled, the poor fool. “Yeah, it was kind of weird, but funny.”

“That was her trying to kill you and turn you into a sword because...”

Because she wanted to kill Chainsaw Man. There was no way that Fami didn't know who Denji was when she tried to get her to do that. She knew who Denji was the whole time and she didn't care enough to ever tell Asa, even if Asa knew that she might have avoided the conversation to begin with, Fami hadn't even tried.

She should have never listened to Fami.

“Oh...” he said, shoulders slumping. “So that whole date, and you asking me out, that was you trying to kill me?”

It hurt her to see him like this, knowing she was at fault. “Yeah. I asked you out because... I thought that I would feel bad about killing you, but not so bad that I couldn't do it. Yoru's weapons are powered by guilt, you see, so I...” She's not helping, it doesn't matter why . “I really am sorry Denji.”

“Nah, don't think anything of it, I'm kind of used to that kind of thing by now. Every girl I like tries to kill me, I just thought that maybe you liked me back or something.”

“I did!” Asa found herself shouting back, much to her surprise before she pulled herself back. “I mean, I do, but that's why I had wanted to ruin the second date, so that you wouldn't have to be around me and get killed!”

He raised his head, looking at her with a sincere look of surprise. “You tried to help me.”

“I did,” she answered with an almost enthusiastic nod. “Even after I forgot about the date, you still saved me later as Chainsaw Man, and it wasn't the first time you saved my life, so I wanted to help you in return! But then... I just made things worse. For everyone.” They stood there in silence as Asa stewed in her thoughts and words. “I... I feel like an idiot.”

“I mean, you kind of were. I got a look at that stuff and I knew it was a cult from the start,” Denji said with a shrug.

“Seriously?” Suddenly, Asa's temper started to flair up. She knew she wasn't expecting much, but would a bit of sympathy have killed him?”

“Yeah, I mean, they kept talking about America shooting stupid lasers at Japan and they made students get married.” He then eyed her with a look of annoyance. “Did you think that kind of stuff was weird or anything?”

“I just killed devils!” Asa argued back. “Everything else was Fami! And it's not my fault if people are stupid enough to believe the obvious lies a cult tells them and they get dragged into!”

“Like you did.”

Asa regretted ever coming to her. She should have just left him here to sit in a freezer for the rest of time.

“But I get it,” he then said, and she put her scathing insults on hold. “I get wanting to do something for someone else and have it bite you in the ass later.”

“You-you do?” Asa said, and whatever temp she had started to die down.

“Yeah,” he said, and he sounded so exhausted. “There was someone once I would have done anything for, 'cause I thought we coulda had something special, but then it turned out she didn't feel the same way. She actually didn't even bother to remember anything about me.” Denji's hand reach up and touched the starter cord in his chest, gently rubbing his fingers along the thin, black length. “People I liked are dead because of her.”

“Oh...” Asa said, because she didn't know what else to say. What was she supposed to do? Well, something came to mind, it was an awful idea, but she was past the point of caring anymore.

Asa walked forward towards Denji and didn't stop until she was pressed against his chest and wrapped her one arm under his own and around his back, holding him tightly to her. At first he seemed surprised by this, and a part of her thought he would push her away, but then he wrapped his own arms around her, though she imagined that the armor she wore sort of lessened the impact of this.

It was... nice, being held like this. Her mother was the last person to do this sort of thing with her, and while a piece of her wanted to try and make Denji more comfortable there's still a selfish part of her that was doing this for her own sake.

She was tired, both in body and in mind, and as much as she would have liked to take a break she knew that they still had a long way to go before they were anywhere close to being safe. It was before she suggested that they leave, that they try and escape, when her eyes turned to the kitchen.

“Something up?” Denji asked, and Asa hoped that she wouldn't regret it.

“Denji, do you know a girl who can turn into a bomb?”

000

Haruka lay crumpled in a corner, trying to keep himself from dying, but he didn't think it would work. After Asa had beaten him, he had reverted to his human form, his weaker self, and he found himself unable to do anything but wait for death.

“Haruka!” cried out a shrill voice, and struggling to look around he saw Nobana and Seigi run toward him.

“Guys-” Haruka tried to say more, but it was too painful to talk. “I-I-” he coughed up a messy spurt of blood. “I couldn't be a hero!” he suddenly cried out, tears pouring down his cheeks, mixing with the blood.

“He-He's going to die!” Nobana cried out, his body shaking. “He's gonna die!”

“He just needs blood,” Seigi calmly said, looking around the hallway. “He made a devil contract like the rest of the people who joined the Church, so we can be fine.”

“Gwah!” Nobana gasped. “How do you know that!?”

Before Seigi could answer, there was suddenly a loud explosion somewhere near and the entire hallways shook violently, and Nobana fell to the ground while Seigi managed to hold himself steady, and after it had passed by several seconds two black tentacles coiled in around themselves suddenly grew from the ground before they unfolded themselves and deposited people from them.

Yoshida landed on his feet, sword in hand, while Fami was dropped onto the floor, landing face down with a grunt as she hit the concrete.

“I think this has gotten out of hand,” Yoshida said, his attention on Fami, who pushed herself up to her hands and knees, though she kept her eyes down. “I hope you have something good because I think we'll need more to keep them down.”

Fami said nothing.

“Fami?” Yoshida tried.

Fami continued to ignore him as she pushed herself to her feet, and stumbled forward on unsteady legs, pushing herself past the three students, seemingly without her noticing.

Nobana held his breath the whole time thinking, hoping that if she didn't hear him breathing that he would continue to be ignored, but when he looked up he saw Fami's frightening pink eyes glaring at them.

“Do. Not. Die,” she said, each word punctuated harshly, and he didn't know why she was even talking to them.

Fami continued down the hallway, and Yoshida followed her.

“We should get going,” Seigi said, carefully picking up Haruka and making his way down the opposite way they went.

Nobana followed him because he had nothing left to do.

000

There were a lot of people Denji never expected to see again, mostly because nearly everyone he knew was dead. The number of people he knew before he went to school and who hadn't died could be counted on a single hand; Shorty seemed like she was happy for her family to think she was dead, so she probably moved out of the city, he hadn't seen Kishibe since he dropped Nayuta on him and he didn't know when or if the old man would ever show up again. And then there was...

Denji sighed, taking in the sight of Reze, laying on the ground and dead. One arm was missing, and there was a bloody hole in her chest. The explosions and destruction in the cafeteria had knocked things around back here, shelves and plates and food were knocked down, but fortunately nothing too heavy had landed on Reze.

There was a lot he was thinking about.

“She tried to stop me from... “saving you”, I guess she figured it wouldn't be anything good,” Asa explained, standing next to him. “Maybe I should have let her take you...”

“Ah...” Denji said.

“So... you know her?”

“Yeah. Her name's Reze. We used to date. Kind of.”

“She said she tried to kill you.”

“Yeah, she did.”

“But... I think she might have regretted it. She said that she wanted someone to think about your heart for once, not your chainsaw heart.”

Everyone only ever wanted his chainsaw heart, no one cared about Denji's heart. He remembered that.

Asa looked uncertain, trying not to meet him in the eye. “Do you want to revive her?”

“I...” he said, trying to get his thoughts together. Reze tried to kill him, and snapped his neck and told him that everything between them had been a lie.

But still...

“You know, she's the reason I felt like shit for making you think I stood you up,” he said. “The last time I saw her I told her I was going to meet her at a cafe, but she never came. I waited there all day for her.”

“Oh...” Asa tried to ignore the hurt in her heart.

“That was real shitty, and you didn't deserve that. I was kind of hoping you'd come around and I'd explain it better, but...”

“But that didn't happen.” It's not like she never thought about it, but she was too angry, too prideful and too focused on Chainsaw Man to even bother. She reached up with her hand and presented it to Denji. “Do you mind taking this off me?” she said, shaking her hand as a gesture to the gauntlet, and he gave her a curious look before he got to work and soon it was removed.

With it gone, Asa reached down and picked up the knife that Reze had used to cut open her veins and heal Denji's body before she presented it to him. Denji looked down from the knife, to Reze, and then to Asa. He then took the blade into his hand, and looked it over, before Asa held up her hand, which caused him to give her a questioning look. “I said I would help you, so if you want to bring her back, just cut my palm, it's my fault she's like this, so it's only right I do something about it.”

Denji's grip tightened on the blade. “Do you really think she was trying to help?”

Asa's eyes remained on him, steady and firm. “I do.”

He looked back down to Reze, and he thought about the stuff they had, both the good and bad, and how there was other stuff he wanted to know. Even now he still would feel bad about leaving her here.

“Okay, let's bring her back, but...” Denji looked back to Asa's hand, the sole remaining one she had that had a pinky missing. “Hey, I gotta question.”

“Yes?”

“You said your contract with Yoru, or whatever her name is, let you do anything she could do, right?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Well, if you can do anything a devil can do, why do you still got one arm?”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, just drink up some blood and you'll be good as new!”

“What?!” Asa cried out, appalled.

“I do it all the time!” Denji raised his own arm. “Yoshida cut off an arm and leg in that fight, and he cut my head off too, but I just drank some blood and I'm good to go!”

“You were chopped into pieces!”

“Yeah, and now I'm not because of blood!”

“Because you're a freak that's why! Also, I can't even eat fish! Do you really think I'm just going to chug human blood! ” It's not like Yoru didn't try and push her for it, but Asa could never stomach the idea of drinking blood from another human, or even a devil for that matter.

And...

She only lost an arm. More people lost so much more than her during all of this. Who was she to complain?

Denji rolled his eyes and cut his palm open.

“What the hell is wrong with you!” Asa shouted.

“What?” Denji nonchalantly said. “You gave me blood, so it's only fair I give you some back.”

Asa could feel her eye twitch.

“Come on,” Denji said, almost pleading. “Having one arm must suck, must be lots of things you can't do anymore because of it.”

Her missing arm ached, and she argued back and forth in her head about this, about not wanting to be a cannibal, and not waking up in the middle of the night because she had a nightmare of steel effortlessly slicing through flesh and bone.

Eventually, she sighed and closed her eyes. “Fine, give it here. Just... Just don't make me regret this.”

Denji gave her a lopsided grin as he handed her his bleeding hand, holding it in her own, and she tried to distract herself from how warm it was, the blood pooled in his palm, and while the cut didn't look too deep it seemed to be enough to get it flowing. Thinking about every choice she had made that led her to this moment, Asa closed her eyes and brought her mouth to his palm and drank.

It was the most vile thing she ever tasted, this horrible, coppery taste filled her mouth and she had to struggle to not throw it up that moment, but there was something else, something she couldn't deny, and it was a warmth spreading through her body. She could feel the aches and pains around her body lessen before vanishing entirely, and the cuts and bruises heal up, leaving only a slightly itchy sensation on the cured flesh. There was then a painful flash in her hand, and she almost bit her tongue off at how sudden it was, but bone suddenly grew from the wound, wrapping in flesh as it did so, and soon a new pinky had been grown, bringing her back up to five fingers.

Then there was the flash of brief but intense pain from her stump, and she wanted to let go of Denji, hoping that if she stopped it would-

“ Keep going, it's supposed to be like this.”

...Asa kept drinking, she felt the blood on her tongue, fill her mouth and drain down her throat, and in one sudden burst, bone and flesh came to life from where her arm had been and it hurt , but the pain was only brief, and soon it was replaced with a raw numbness. When Asa pulled away from Denji's hand, she observed her new pinky, and then her new arm, and was stunned by them and found herself shocked by how unreal it was. She had spent the last week not thinking about her arm, trying to think about anything else but it, but that hadn't been easy stuck in Fami's apartment, trying not to think of all the things she couldn't do anymore now that her dominant hand was gone, and the one brief attempt to write her own name, leaving only smeared, barely legible writing, made her not want to think of what her future would be like.

But she had her arm back. It was still and it felt raw, but it was back.

“T-thank you,” she softly said, almost speechless.

“Yeah, no problem,” Denji said with a lazy smile. “Just think of me as a blood bank when you need one.”

She really didn't want to.

With her old hand she carefully took the knife from Denji and sliced open the palm of her new hand, the speed of which she did so seemed to have caught him off guard, and the intense pain radiated through her entire arm. It hurt much more than it should have.

Good, that just meant this wasn't a dream or a hallucination, it meant her arm was back, even if a part of her still didn't think she deserved it.

Reze had used the knife to heal Denji, Denji used it to heal her, and now she was using it to heal Reze. It had all their blood on it now. The knife certainly got around.

Squeezing her palm, Asa knelt down next to Reze, opened her mouth and let the blood drop between her lips.

Chapter Text

Chapter XII: Three Reunions

With a gasp, Reze opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was Asa standing over her, a knife in one hand. Instinctively her first thought was to pull the pin on her neck.

“Hey! Don't do that!” someone yelled out, and the voice caused her to pause as she hooked her finger into the ring. “She's cool! Trust me!”

She knew that voice, it was a voice that she trusted, one that brought comfort in some of her darker moments in the time she had been locked away, and when she looked to the side she almost couldn't believe her eyes upon seeing him.

“Denji?” Reze found herself asking. “You're alive!” She lowered her hand and sat up, she stared at him, a part of her thinking that if she blinked her eyes then he would vanish, and from the way he was looking at her, maybe he was thinking the same thing.

“Are you alright?” Asa asked, and Reze turned to her, but she became distracted how her school uniform had been replaced with a suit of armor. She also had both arms, so that was good? Maybe? Either way, Asa seemed to notice her staring at her and looked away, and Reze looked down to her bloody palm.

“You revived me?” Reze asked, simply.

Asa hid her cut hand behind her back. “I did. I gave some thought about what you said, about Denji,” she said, almost bashfully, as though she was trying to work through her own shame. “And I decided that maybe I needed to ask Denji what he wanted, instead of assuming.”

Taking in what she said, Reze looked to Denji, who kept staring at her, a sentiment she seemed to share, before he reached out his hand for her, a gesture it took her a moment to register before she reached out to grab hold, and he effortlessly pulled her up. When she stood up, she found herself staring right into amber eyes.

Both of them had spent a lot of time thinking what they would say if they ever got the chance to meet up again, wanting to get across so many things.

“Hey...”

“Yeah...”

Only neither one of them knew where to start, so they just stood there.

Asa, fearing to feel like a third wheel, interjected. “I suppose it's nice to see each other again?”

Denji was the first one to snap out of it. “Yeah! It is!” Despite wanting to seem confident, there was still a sense of being lost in the moment that he couldn't get around. “It's great to see you aga-”

“No,” Reze suddenly said, causing Denji to stop. “I...” she tried to find the words, struggling to find something until they just blurted out of her. “I'm sorry for lying to you,” she started. “I'm sorry about leading you on, and then trying to kill you and-” There was a lot to say, maybe too much. “And about what I said at the beach, I only said it to try and make things, I don't know, easier? But...” Reze had always been good and controlling what she showed people, even now she was holding back, but she knew that if she didn't she might start crying.

Denji only shrugged. “That's okay, you don't gotta apologize. It's all cool.”

“I ripped you half, bit out your tongue, broke your heart, blew you up and snapped your neck!” Reze argued back. “I nearly killed you!”

Asa ignored the comment about the tongue and the implications about it.

“Okay, you did a lot of bad shit,” Denji said, nonchalantly. “But I still think what I said back then, like I couldn’t turn you in because it'd make me feel bad, so I can't just leave you here. Also,” Denji pointed to Asa. “Asa said you tried to help me, so that has to mean something, right?”

Reze looked at him, trying to sort through what she felt. “You're way too forgiving, you know that, right?”

“I don't think so, I've been killed by people I liked less.”

“Oh...” It then occurred to Reze that she was still holding onto Denji's hand, so she quickly withdrew it. “I... I actually did try and meet you.”

At that, Denji's eyes widened in surprise. “You did?”

“Yeah,” Reze said with a small smile. “I actually got real close too, but...” Then that smile vanished. “Makima found me first.”

“Oh...” Denji said, deflating.

“...I don't know what happened to me after that, but the next thing I knew I was here, and I've been here ever since.”

Denji said nothing, neither did Reze, and Asa tapped a finger against her elbow, partially happy she could do something as simple as that again, and felt uncomfortable with the sudden awkwardness that had grown.

“Makima,” Asa said, drawing the word slightly out. “Fami mentioned her, she's the Control Devil, and she's her sister, like Yoru, and she said that Makima caused you lots of pain, Denji. Am I right?”

“Something like that...” Denji said, keeping his head low, and this earned a sympathetic look from Reze. 

“She also said that your sister is the new Control Devil.”

“What?” Reze suddenly snapped. “What does she mean Makima's your sister?”

“Nayuta's not Makima!” Denji defended back. “Trust me, I've been around her long enough to see she's not like her for the most part. I mean, yeah, she's kind of a bossy brat, but she's nowhere near as bad as Makima was.”

“Denji...” Reze said, sounding almost disappointed.

“She erased my memory,” Asa admitted flatly.

Again, Denji deflated. “I didn't say she was perfect. But...” he sighed. “The last time I saw Nayuta, she made sure I was out of danger, that I wouldn't get killed by an angry mob, even though she got stuck with them. Makima never would have done that...” He didn't want to think about her all alone, unable to defend herself, about the possibility that she... “When I met Nayuta, I wanted her to be better than Makima was, and I was happy to be with her and I think she's better than Makima ever was, and now I don't know where she is.”

Neither Asa nor Reze knew what to say to that.

In that silence, it occurred to Denji that he was in the same room as Asa and Reze, like it really occurred to him.

He thought back to those early days with Reze, how being with him made him feel good, and filled with types of feelings he didn't know how to put into words, only that he liked them and wanted to keep spending time with her. She taught him how to swim, and even though he tried really hard to not think about it at the time, she pointed out that his life of being happy with the bare minimum wasn't good. If she had shown up at the diner that day, he would have run away with her, and even though he never saw her again he found himself thinking about her every once and a while.

Then there was Asa, the first girl that seemed like she liked him after everything happened with Public Safety, and that date at the aquarium was really the best date he had, even with the Eternity Devil. He had fun with her as they stole that money and ate starfish and saw the penguins. She was a bit weird and boring, but she was also fun to be around, though this whole thing with Yoru was confusing, but it was clear that they didn't agree on the same things, that she actually wanted to help him. He'd seen how weird those Church people got about him, but Asa was the only one who knew him both as Denji and Chainsaw Man.

There was a lot about them he had going through his head, and if Nayuta was here she would maybe kill him. But she's not here, and that's the problem.

“Reze,” Asa said, speaking up. “Denji wants to find Nayuta, and I promised I would help him do that. But what about you?”

“Me?” Reze asked.

“...Yeah?” Denji found himself asking. “We got you back up, but what are you going to do now?”

Reze's eyes looked uncertain from him, to Asa, and back to Denji, before she looked away. “I don't know, but...” She thought of her options, her chances of making it out there. “At the very least, I think we should help one another get out of this place, we'll have a better chance of escape if we all work together.”

There was then a metal clatter from the other side of the kitchen, and the three of them spun around at the sound, each one prepared to fight if the situation called for it.

Sitting on the counter, having knocked over a pot, was a rat, sniffing at the surface it stood on, and the three of them relaxed.

“Let's get going,” Asa said with a heavy sigh, taking her discarded gauntlet and securing it back onto her hand. “The longer we sit here, I'm afraid that Fami and Yoshida will come back.” As she flexed her fingers she found herself displeased with the asymmetrical aesthetic of only having one gauntlet.

“Yeah, let's...” Reze said, trying not to glance back at the rat, not wanting to cause unwanted memories to resurface.

Denji was about to leave as well, but he found himself looking at the rat, and he thought of Nayuta, because she liked small rodents. He wished she was here, that he had done better by her, and he knew that he needed to find wherever she went.

But if she really was gone, then he...

He chose not to think about the alternatives.

“Hey, quick question,” Denji asked. “Where exactly are we?”

As Asa began to explain the situation to him, the rat cleaned its whiskers.

000

The giant hole in the ceiling was easy to climb with a ladder Asa had made out of rubble, and it did not take them long to make their way through the floor until they reached the stairs. It was quick to move through the halls, as at this point most devils, hunters and security that had gone through here had been killed, and the sights of the corpses and blood was unsettling to say the least. It was much too quiet for their liking, and they were left with the feeling that something was waiting in the shadows to strike at them, that maybe Fami and Yoshida were still somewhere around, yet there was not a single soul around to attack them.

When they ascended the final set of stairs to the ground floor, they could faintly hear thunderous sounds off in the distance.

“What's that?” Denji asked.

“Fighting I have to say,” Reze answered. “I guess at this point the devils made their way to the top, maybe even outside, and depending on how bad things got that the military might have gotten involved.”

“That's maybe good,” Asa said. “If everyone is so focused on the devils, they might not be looking out for us.”

“Let's hope so,” Denji said, keeping his eyes forward. “The less guys we gotta fight the better.”

The three of them traveled in relative silence, keeping aware of their surroundings until they came up a hallway littered with bodies, both devil and human, and the first thing Denji did was that he crouched down next to a man's body.

“What are you doing?” Asa asked, sounding offended as Denji started to pull off the man's jacket.

“Free clothes!” Denji said, pulling the jacket off.

On impulse, Asa was about to argue about stealing from the dead when Reze added her own thoughts.

“You don't want him to run around in his boxers, do you?” Reze asked, before leaning forward. “Or do you?” she then said in an amused whisper.

Face flushed red, Asa shoved Reze away. “Find the least bloody clothes and let's get going!”

Denji went through several of the bodies, stripping the ones that were the least damaged and had less blood on them until he found himself fully dressed in a dress shirt, pants, and a pair of sneakers that were only slightly loose on him. He briefly considered putting on a tie, but he threw it aside.

“There,” he said, emphasizing with a clap of his hands. “Now I'm gonna blend in.”

“I think we're doing a passable job,” Reze said, her own attire consisting mostly of a Public Safety hunter, though the shirt she wore was that of a prisoner, and the arm of her jacket had been cut off.

“Yeah. No one will see us,” Asa dryly added, standing in her suit of armor.

“At least you look cool?” Reze offered, trying to help?

“Let's just get going,” Asa said, walking around the bodies that laid in the hall.

When the three of them were halfway down the hallway, one of the bodies reached up and grabbed Denji by the leg.

“Come together,” it said, and before any of them could react to that, Asa and Reze were suddenly pulled to Denji, slamming into him by some unseen force, and before they could do anything else the rest of the corpses suddenly flew into the air and collided with them. “Up,” the body on the floor said, and then the clump of corpses suddenly spun around and floated in the air.

“What the shit!?” Denji screamed out, trying to get a bearing on what was happening when the body on the ground stood up.

It was a fiend, a woman with long hard hair, with her forehead widely cracked open to show something black and pulsating in her cranium. She had no eyes, but Denji could feel her look at them with some kind of stare as her hands were clapped together.

“Crush,” she said, and suddenly everything felt heavy, the corpses around them and their bodies suddenly feeling as though they were unable to move as if to collapse on themselves. Denji couldn't reach his ripcord, Reze couldn't reach her pin, and Asa's hands were trapped.

Suddenly the cell doors were opened up and a dozen Public Safety hunters poured out, each one equipped with guns and swords, and soon they were surrounded.

“Hi there Denji!” a cheerful voice called out, and Denji looked around until he saw one of the hunters coming closer to the clump.

“Fumiko!” Denji called out, seeing the woman walk up to them. She wore the same suit as everyone else, which had been stained with blood, so he assumed that she had been dealing with the devils that had tried to escape to the surface.

“You're looking well,” she said with a mirthful smile. “Though, last I heard they were going to chop you up and put you in cold storage.

Denji could only glower at her.

“You know her?” Asa asked, trying to struggle herself free, but any attempt to push the corpses off of her only resulted in them being pushed back against her.

“Oh, we used to date,” Fumiko answered.

“No we didn't!” Denji yelled back. “I wouldn't even call what we did a date! That was the worst date I ever went on!”

Fumiko gave him an unimpressed look. “Really?” Reaching out, Fumiko paced a hand on the body clump and easily spun it in the air until she was facing Asa. “From what I heard this one got you trapped with the Eternity Devil for three days.”

“I got jumped by a bunch of dudes with bats! Then you made me suck a tentacle like it was a dick!”

“You didn't need to do that, you know. That was all on you.”

Reze found it curious why her own date with Denji wasn't brought up. “How did you even know where to find us? I thought all the security was knocked out?”

“Well it was, but we managed to kill that Security Devil that was let loose,” Fumiko said. “It's still pretty chaotic out there, but containing Chainsaw Man is a top priority.” Fumiko spun the clump together until she was facing Denji again. “Don't bother to escape, the Gravity Fiend here is going to keep you there until we tell her to stop, and the more you try and escape the harder it'll become for you.”

“Broken bones and crushed dreams,” the Gravity Fiend drawled.

Denji didn't care about the fiend. “What happened to Nayuta!?”

Fumiko stared at him, long enough to make him more annoyed with each passing second. “Nayuta?” she asked, feigning ignorance. “Who's that again?”

“Don't play stupid with me!” Denji yelled.

“Oh! Right! Her!” Nayuta said with a snap of her fingers. “I forgot all about her!”

“What happened to his sister?” Asa asked, trying to get a look at the woman, but unable to do so.

“Sister?” Fumiko asked, arms folded over her chest. “You call the reincarnation of the woman who destroyed your life because you were Chainsaw Man your sister?” She let out an amused laugh. “She's about as much as your family as those dogs and cat were!”

Denji suddenly jerked forward, or at least tried to, as if he was about to lunge at her, but the Gravity Fiend's powers kept them all stuck together.

“I mean, if you really want to consider them family, then I guess it must really hurt to know they're all dead when someone could have prevented it, huh?”

Suddenly, Denji stopped struggling, and stared wide-eyed at her. “Huh?”

“Denji, don't listen to her,” Reze said, struggling to move her hands to reach her pin.

Fumiko took a step forward, and stared deeply into Denji's eyes. “Could you imagine what that's like?” The previous playfulness in her tone was gone, and all that left was an unfamiliar, and unsettling coldness. “Seeing your family die, right before your eyes, when someone who was supposed to protect them just stood there and did nothing?”

Denji found himself stunned. “Wha-”

She leaned forward, her face inches away from his. “I was being honest before when I said I was a Denji fan, but you chose to be Chainsaw Man in the end, and the thing I will always remember about Chainsaw Man is that instead of killing the Gun Devil when he had the chance he just stood there and let it kill my parents.”

Denji didn't know what to say.

Fumiko meanwhile pulled away with a smile. “Oh well, when you turned into Chainsaw Man, you stopped being my responsibility, so it's not my fault that bad things happened to you!” The young woman then spun around on her heel to face the rest of the hunters. “Okay everyone, we need to get these three back down stairs and set them up for processing, and we need to-”

“STOP RIGHT THERE!”

Everyone then looked down the hall to where the booming voice had come from, and coming around a corner was a tall man in a dark count and a hat, but the most striking feature on him was the long blades growing from his head and arms.

“Dammit,” Fumiko swore under her breath.

“Are you shitting me!” Denji cried out in annoyance. “Why is that asshole here!?”

“What's happening?” Asa asked. “I can't see from back here.”

“It's another Hybrid, like Denji and I,” Reze said, seeing the situation from the corner of her eye.

The Katana Man stored forward, pushing past the armed hunters, who all backed away from him to allow him past, but Fumiko was the only one who approached him, standing between him and Denji until the two of them were standing face to face.

“Chainsaw Man is here!” Katana Man growled, looking down at her.

“Yes, he is,” Fumiko answered with an odd tone of professionalism that Denji had never heard. “We know you have problems with Chainsaw Man, but I do have to remind you that you have a deal with us, and if you work with us that we'll make sure to help you restore your syndicate. We can't help you with that if you kill Chainsaw Man.”

The two continued their stare down, which was a bit awkward since he had no eyes and they had to work around the giant sword sticking out of his head, but eventually he let out a growl.

“I won't kill him,” he said, his voice low and gravely. “I just want to ask him a few questions.”

Fumiko narrowed her eyes at him, not believing a thing he said.

“I swear on all the good the yakuza do for Japan, that I'm not going to hurt Chainsaw Man.”

“...Fine. You can ask him a few questions, but be quick about it. You were ordered to help the mess upstairs, remember?”

Katana Man said nothing as he pushed past her, and moved towards Denji, and stared him down.

“You're still alive,” Katana Man growled.

“I hope your nutsack still hurts like hell!” Denji snapped back.

The older Hybrid growled, before he raised a hand and slowly spun the ball of bodies around in the air, slowly it down to get a good look at both Asa and Reze before he met with Denji's face again. “You're trying to get out of this place?”

“Yeah, that obvious or you too stupid to get that?”

“And you're using these hussies to help you?”

“I am not a hussy!” Asa called out.

“Yeah! What about it?”

“They tried to kill you.”

“So what? Lots of people try and kill me! And they're doing a better job at keeping me safe than these Public Safety assholes!”

“So you trust them?”

“Yeah!”

Katana Man leaned forward, and said something that left Denji bewildered.

“I'm about to show you that you still need me.”

“Huh?”

The yakuza stepped away from Denji and turned to the Public Safety hunters and raised his arms into the air.

“I want everyone to know that I drink out of the toilet and that's why my breath smells like crap!” he loudly announced. “And that goes double for my grandfather who got what he deserved!”

The entire room was left in confusion.

“Wha?” Fumiko said.

Katana Man the crouched down and-

Fumiko realized too late what he was about to do

-was suddenly behind the Gravity Fiend.

“Plip plop. Plip plop,” the Gravity Fiend said, before her head and torso were cut to pieces. With her sudden and quick death, the ball of bodies suddenly fell to the ground, and Denji, Asa and Reze found themselves freed of her power.

“What are you doing?!” Fumiko screamed out. “I thought you hated him? Why are you helping him?”

Katana Man spun around and pointed an arm-blade at her. “Shut up you diarrhea lady! You're about to get your butt kicked for leaving us in the dirt like that!”

“ What?”

“What's going on?” Reze asked, pushing herself up. “I got intel on that guy before I met you, I thought he hated your guts?”

Denji didn't answer, he only stared at the man.

“Denji?” Asa asked. “What's the matter?”

“No way...” Denji said, his voice, just above a whisper. “It's... It's...”

Katana Man threw his head back, and laughed. “GYA HA HA HA HA!”

“Nayuta?!” Denji cried out.

Somewhere in this building, not too far away, a little girl with dark hair and golden, ringed eyes grinned.

Chapter Text

Chapter XIII: Search for Family

The power of Control was based on perception.

Makima was powerful because she had a high ranking government job which put her in charge of so many people, tasked with the duty of “protecting the people of Japan”, a job that she had attempted to push beyond what anyone reasonable would have expected, and a contract with the Prime Minister that made her nearly immortal. With so much going for her, it was no surprise that a devil who viewed life as a hierarchical structure, where one's ability to dominate others determined the role they played and how relationships worked, would view herself so highly that only a handful of people were immune to her powers.

Nayuta was not like Makima, she had no position of authority, no thralls, no contracts. She was only a little girl who went to school and her greatest ambition was to go to school and show up that annoying Haru in class and show her just how much higher her test scores could be. As confident as she is in herself, Control's power cannot be powered by disillusion alone, there must be no room for reasonable doubt in her power, and while Nayuta can admit that there are times she is arrogant, she is not foolish enough to tell herself that the angry mob descending upon her is something she can handle on her own. She can only control three people at a time, and even if she took three of them right now, they wouldn't do much against the rest of the mob.

Well over a dozen adults, each one bigger and stronger than her, most of them with weapons, and they're all angry and afraid, each one ready to tear into her. They're yelling and shouting, she's backed into a wall and the space between them and her is getting smaller by the moment, and her attempts to beg are met with deaf ears. They aim to kill her, and there's nothing she can do to stop them.

Nayuta, the Control Devil, was afraid. She didn't want to die, she wanted to live, to spend more time with Denji, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. At the very least, he's safe for now.

The humans had reached their hands out, each one aiming to roughly grab at her, and she could only imagine the vice-like grips that would soon grab at her body, throwing her to the ground, where they would then stab downward with their spears. She didn't want to meet with such a gruesome fate, so she closed her eyes and waited for the end.

BANGBANGBANG

The sudden gunshots rang through the air and the adults stopped in their tracks, caught off guard and that all turned around to the source.

“GET AWAY FROM THE GIRL!” a deep and rough voice suddenly shouted out, and while Nayuta couldn't see through the mob, she knew that voice.

The crowd was stunned, they didn't move, they muttered in confusion and looked amongst themselves, but they stayed still.

“Move,” the voice said again, much more demanding this time.

The crowd instantly parted from her, and through the opening she could see who had come to her rescue.

Kishibe walked towards her, a gun in one hand while he reached out the other one towards her. “We gotta get going,” he said, and Nayuta didn't need to be told twice before she grabbed onto him in desperation.

“Wait! That's a devil!” the Public Safety hunter who had been there cried out. “You can't just-”

“She's under my jurisdiction,” Kishibe flatly but firmly said. “So she's under my protection, and if you have anything to say, you better spit it out now.”

“But-but-” the hunter tried, but he was quickly losing heart as Kishibe barely even looked in his direction. “I know who you are, but you just can't-”

“Tell your boss I'll be calling him later. I have a few things to yell at him about.” Kishibe said, gripping Nayuta's hand as he dragged her away from the confused and questioningly angry mob who would only look on helpless as she was taken away. She turned back to them, wanting to stick their tongue at them, but the looks they gave her, ones that demanded their unfulfilled bloodlust to be met caused that desire to be petty and smug to die off.

She saw that Barem and the other Hybrids were missing.

When the burning pyre that had once been her home was behind them, she looked to Kishibe. “We gotta save Denji!”

“Where is he?” he asked, keeping his eyes forward as he sped up his pace, causing her to struggle to keep up.

Nayuta looked through the connections she had, the only person she had chained up with the instructions of carrying Denji away and looked through his eyes. She had commanded him to just grab Denji and run, she hadn't given him any instructions beyond that, so she couldn't say where he was right now, but it wouldn't be at all difficult for her to simply give another command and-

Suddenly the person was knocked to the ground, Denji's unconscious body falling too, and as Nayuta turned the thrall's head to see what had happened, she saw that stupid diarrhea woman standing above them before she raised her foot up and knocked out the thrall.

“Denji!” Nayuta cried out and tried to dig her heels into the pavement, trying to get Kishibe to stop to no avail. “We have to get him!”

Kishibe didn't answer, he merely kept his larger hand around her wrist, a firm grip that she couldn't escape.

“Let me go now!” she demanded, having resorted to kicking him. “That dumb Fumiko lady's got him! I got to get to him!” There was still no answer from him. “I said, let me go!”

Nayuta pointed a finger at him, and a chain shot out and pierced right through his head.

It did nothing. She knew that there was no way she could control him, not in her helpless, desperate state.

“Please,”she begged.

He slowed down for a moment, and glanced back at her, before he put his eyes back forward and continued to drag her with him. “He'll be fine for now,” he said. “They're not going to kill him if they can avoid it, but right now we need to get you somewhere safe.”

If he wanted her to be comforted by his words, he failed. “Where are we going?”

“My car.”

“Huh?”

“Had to park a bit away, things were getting messy with the devils running around, and I didn't want to be spotted if I could avoid it.” She saw that they were approaching said van, parked between two buildings, and when he told her to get into the passenger's seat, and not seeing much choice in the matter, she did as she was told.

Upon opening the door she spotted a white and black cat sleeping on the seat, and the songs of dogs madly barking.

Mouth and eyes wide agape, Nayuta couldn't believe was she was seeing, thinking it was a trick, that Meowy and the dogs couldn't be here, they just couldn't because-

“Get in now, ” Kishibe ordered, and Nayuta did as she was told, picking up Meowy so she could sit down and buckle up, and before she could even settle in he was already pulling out of the alley.

She sat there stunned, holding Meowy in one arm while she was turned in her seat to look at the dogs in the back of the van, each one trying to win her attention over with how they sniffed and licked her outstretched hand.

“They're-They're,” she gasped, trying to find the words, the feeling to get across what she was going through. “They're alive!” She turned to Kishibe. “You saved them!”

He kept his eyes on the road. “Ever since everything with the Church blew up last night I've been in a rush keeping track of things. I usually like more prep time, but beggars can't be choosers, so when I got to your place to pick you and Denji up, you weren't home, but I knew I couldn't just sit there, so I got them back to the van.” He paused for a moment. “Looks like I missed something big. What happened?”

So Nayuta explained, frantically going over the details as she remembered them, from the rooftop to the apartment fire, and to Denji. It took her a while with her trying to keep herself composed, but by the time she had finished she had seen they were in some shadier part of the city she didn't recognize, and that he had pulled up to some creepy looking apartment complex. It looked like the kind of place that would be dangerous even without the current chainsaw zombie apocalypse.

The old man ushered her and the pets up several flights of stairs until he unlocked a door, and when she had led the pets inside he had stayed outside.

“Stay here, I'll be back in a few hours. Lock up behind me and don't let anyone in.”

She didn't get a chance to even think of arguing before he slammed it shut and left her alone.

The two bedroom apartment was rather bare, it had no TV, a single small sofa, and a coffee table. There wasn't much to do but worry, and that was what Nayuta did.

000

When Kishibe returned it was getting dark, and under his arms was a large bag of dog food and a large paper bag filled with other such things, such as food and clothes for her, which told her she might be here for a while. The clothes seemed to be stuff he randomly grabbed at a department store or something, and she found herself annoyed that he had gotten her boys' underwear but she was going to bite her tongue on this.

Dinner consisted of burgers and fries from some fast food restaurant.

“So, now what?” she asked, picking her pickles off her burger. She always gave those to Denji.

Kishibe bit half his burger in one bite, and swallowed it in a few chews. “We wait and see what happens.”

That was not an answer that made her feel better. “That's it?” she asked, finding her own agitation growing. “Aren't you some big shot at Public Safety? Why can't you just get Denji yourself?”

“Not so much anymore. Lost a lot of clout over the last year because of how I handled some stuff.”

“...Are you talking about Makima?”

He eyed her carefully as she picked at her burger. “How much do you know?”

“I read Denji's memories the night you dropped me off with him. I wanted to know why you left me with him, and I thought he would know.”

Kishibe ate the rest of his burger. “I'm going to ask you three questions-”

“I don't care about your stupid questions!” Nayuta shot back, pushing herself so that she was kneeling on his chair, desperation and anger bubbling inside her. “Where is Denji! You said he was going to be alright! Were you lying? I just need to know something! Please! Where were you even?”

He gave her the same kind of blank stare he gave her before, and she couldn't stand that she had trouble trying to decipher it.

Kishibe pulled out his flask, ignoring the glare Nayuta gave him, and took a swig of it before he put it back in his jacket pocket. “If you gotta know, after the whole mess with Makima and pulling strings to keep you and Denji out of Public Safety's custody, some of my bosses weren't too happy about the role I played in taking her out.”

“Even though she tried to kill everyone?”

“I worked against a major asset of theirs, and then took Denji off the table for them. People up the ladder didn't like that, so they “reassigned me”, as they would say. Which is just fancy political talk for getting me out of the way.”

“So what? They stuff you at a desk or something?”

“Something like that, but I'm not pushing papers all day if that's what you're thinking. Mostly I'm making preparations about this whole prophecy that everyone is losing their heads over.”

“You too?”

“Everyone who knows what's going on is. Everyone's real scared, so of course they're acting stupid.”

“And Denji? Where is he?”

“Secured somewhere, at one of several facilities if I had to guess, but I don't know which one. I spent a few hours on the phone arguing with my boss about that, but no one wants me near him. They're trying to talk me in circles because they want Denji under their thumb no matter what.”

“But you're still going to save him, right?”

He stared again.

“Right?” she asked, more desperate than she would have wanted.

“Eventually, but it won't be easy, and I want you to understand I'm not doing this out of the kindness of my heart, I'm doing it for the same reason I gave you to him in the first place, that it'll be better in the long run.”

Nayuta finished her burger in silence until it was time to go to bed.

Wearing a shirt that was much too large for her, Nayuta tried to get to sleep in her bed, surrounded by the animals. She didn't get much sleep that night as she thought about Denji.

000

The next day Kishibe leaves early, saying he had more business to take care of, he was gone most of the day before he came back with some groceries. He said he was making calls, trying to get things prepared.

She hated feeling useless.

000

He left her alone again the day after that, and the time she was alone gnawed at her stomach, and no manner of petting the animals could ease the worry she felt.

“I arranged something for you and the animals,” he said when he got back. “Got a contact out in the country who'll keep you there for the time being. It'll be out of the way so you won't need to worry about being found.”

“And Denji?”

“He'll get there when I rescue him.”

That should have made her feel better, but it didn't. She didn't like the idea of something happening to Denji while she just sat around in the middle of nowhere.

“I want to help Denji!”

He argued with her at first, but she somehow won him over in the end. She wouldn't need to go with the pets, but she would have to remain in this apartment.

The next day it broke her heart to load the pets into Kishibe's van, but she knew this was maybe the best thing she could do. Meowy purred as she hugged her the last time before setting her down into the van, and she thought about the Blood Fiend from Denji's memories. When they were gone, and Nayuta was alone in the apartment, she realized that she had never been this alone, not since her earliest days, and it was maybe the worst she ever felt. How did Denji deal with this before she came along?

But he hadn't been so alone, she knew. There was Pochita, and then Power and Aki. They were there for him, he was happy.

Would she have liked to know them? Would they have liked her?

000

The next several days were more of the same, Kishibe going out and leaving her home alone for most of the day. “Need to keep under the radar,” he had told her when she demanded he bring her along. He kept telling her he needed to make preparations, or whatever that meant, get in contact with some friends, all while she was left alone to stew in her own thoughts, and the more she was there by herself the more restless she felt in her helplessness.

It was one week after her home burned down when the apartment door flung open, and Kishibe rushed in after having only left an hour ago for whatever “tasks” he needed to do.

“We need to leave, now, ” he said, a heavy and sharp tone to his voice. “Things just got bad.”

Minutes later they were in the SUV, racing down the streets, and Nayuta had many questions.

“What's with the cage of rats?” was the first one she asked. In the back of the car she could hear and smell a large cage with over two dozen rats running around, each one squeaking and running around.

“Those are for you,” he said, reaching behind him and grabbing the backpack from the backseat and tossing it to her. “I imagine a couple of dozen rodents won't be a problem?”

“No, rats are different than people, a lot more simple.”

“Good, because we're going to need eyes and ears everywhere.”

“What's happening?” Nayuta asked, her throat going dry. “Is this about Denji?”

The older man shifted in his seat. “I found out where they were keeping him a few days ago-”

“Wait? You knew where he was and you didn't tell me?”

“Wanted to make sure I had everything ready before we attempted a break in,” he said. “I wanted it to be a clean extraction, no casualties, you may not like Public Safety, but they're still my people and I don't want to see them hurt if I can avoid it. Whatever you think, Public Safety is necessary to keep people safe from devils, even if the people running the show have their heads so far up their asses that they can see the back of their teeth.”

Nayuta gave a contemptuous growl.

“Over an hour an hour ago there was an attack on the facility, I don't know much because there was a total communications black out soon after, but I do know that the attack was carried out by two members of the Church, both of them highly suspected to be devils.”

“...Who?”

“Your sisters. War and Famine.”

She was going to kick Fami's butt the next time she saw her. As for Asa and Yoru? She was going to think of something more creative.

000

With Kishibe speeding it didn't take them too much time to get to this containment facility, it wasn't too hard to spot the building, as it was both imposing and on fire. There were countless devils running around outside, and hunters trying to either kill or capture them, but it was a clear mess of things with all the blood and bodies around the front. The military was also here it seemed, trying to provide support in not letting anyone in or out. At first Nayuta assumed that they would have trouble getting in, but all Kishibe had to do was flash a badge at the guards at the perimeter, and outright saying she was a useful devil was enough to get them through. The drive between there and the parking garage was rather terrifying as Kishibe swerved to avoid the battles going on, but in the end they made it in.

With a simple display of will, the rats were enthralled and let loose into the compound, and if Denji or anything pointing in his direction could be found, they would find it.

“Originally I had a plan to use stealth to break into this place,” Kishibe said as they walked through the parking lot, ignoring the carnage and car fires. “But those plans are up in flames so we'll have to be more forceful with this.”

“Gotcha.”

“And no killing anyone.”

“Ugh, fine! And what's with that bag?”

There was a large and heavy looking satchel hung over his shoulder, though its size and weight didn't seem to bother. “Called in favors with some friends to get items made from their devil contracts.”

“Why?”

Suddenly the roof in front of them collapsed, and a large, ugly devil fell through, its head sliced in half, and down with it came a woman.

“She's why,” Kishibe answered, pointing to the silver-haired woman, who merely stared at him.

“Eyepatch lady!?” Nayuta cried out. She knew from Denji's memories that this could go very bad, very quick.

And to make matters worse she wasn't alone as two more figures dropped down as well.

“Do you really have to keep stealing all the kills?” the first person said, almost playfully, a fiend as obviously seen by the fact that their brain was exposed with a number of nails stuck in it coming out of the large gap in their head. “We can't have fun if you hog it all.”

Then there was the second figure, one Nayuta recognized from Denji's memories. Tall, imposing, and a large katana sticking out of his head. “Kill one more devil before I can even get near it,” he said with a vicious growl. “And I-huh?” the yakuza man turned and noticed her and Kishibe. “Who are these two?”

“A child really shouldn't be here,” the Nail Fiend said, placing a hand on their hip.

“I was told you might be coming,” Quanxi said, her voice flat and expression unreadable. “You made some trouble with the higher ups, and if you got in the way, I was supposed to kill you.” Her thumb tapped against her sword.

“They tell you why?” Kishibe asked, unfazed by the threat.

“Nope, not my problem, but I see you're with the Control Devil.”

“We're here to rescue Denji you cyclops!” Nayuta shot back.

“Denji?” Katana Man asked. “What do you mean? He's here?”

Nayuta glowered at the idiot. “Yeah he's here! What, you didn't know you were guarding him?”

Katana Man lowered his head, almost as if wallowing in his own shame, before he turned around and walked away.

“Where are you going?” the Nail Fiend asked, chasing after him.

The yakuza stopped, threw his arms into the air and his head back. “To kill Chainsaw Man!” he shouted, his voice echoing through the garage and over the carnage. “That is why this heart still beats!”

“Hey! Get back here!” Nayuta shouted as she ran after them.

Kishibe and Quanxi stood where they were, keeping up their staring contest.

Whatever, she didn't need that old man.

It didn't take too long, but she caught up to them as they were waiting for the elevator. “You're not killing Denji!” Nayuta yelled, getting both of their attention.

“What's a kid doing here?” Katana Man asked, annoyed.

“You should be in school, you know that, right?” the Nail Fiend asked as he began to walk up to her. “Education is a very important thing for young children to have, so I can't imagine why you would even be in a war zone like this.”

“I was supposed to have school, but then this stupid zombie thing happened! I was supposed to have a math test this week, but now I can't!” One of her favorite things to do in school was get better grades and rub it in everyone's face.

“What a good girl!” the Nail Fiend said, patting her on the head. “ You get it, most children don't seem to understand the importance of an education.”

Nayuta glared at him and he began to walk away.

“Why do you want to rescue that bastard?” Katana Man asked, eying her dangerously. “Kids should be smart enough to see all the devils running around and know to get the hell out, so what about you?”

He stood tall and imposing, and she knew from Denji's memories that he was dangerous, but yet she did not back down. “It's 'cause he's my brother!”

“Brother?” Katana Man asked, giving her a long look, before he began to chuckle, which slowly turned into a loud and boom laugh. “This is perfect! Chainsaw Man's little sister is here to save him! Amazing! And she's right in front of me too!” He pointed an arm-blade at her, the sword stained with recent devil blood. “I thought some piece of shit like that wouldn't have any family, but I'm glad I was wrong. He took my grandfather away from me despite how amazing he was, so it's only fair I kill his sister.” He then crouched down, and Nayuta knew what that meant he was about to do, but she was not afraid. “I can't wait to show him your head.”

Then, before Katana Man could rush forward and cut her into pieces, the Nail Fiend swung their hammer down on his head, cracking the back of his skull open and sending him to the ground.

“Wha-” he tried to say as he hacked up blood. “What are you doing you-” That's when he saw it, flickering into view, the chain that connected the Nail Fiend's head to Nayuta's wrist. The sudden revelation. “You bi-”

Nayuta had the Nail Fiend finish him off with one more downward swing of their hammer.

This man was the grandson of the man who had made Denji pay off a debt that was never his to begin with, and Denji had his first death because of him, yet despite how much he deserved to turn into zombie mulch this piece of shit right here had some kind of vendetta against Denji.

After she took control of him, Nayuta made sure to have him spread his legs for a quick and hard kick, just like Denji taught her.

000

Rats were useful spies, they got everywhere, no one questioned when they saw them, so it was no problem for the pack of rats she had sent out to make their way through the building, and through their eyes and ears she saw and heard what they experienced. The upper levels were where most of the fighting was, from devils and fiends trying to escape and coming in contact with the humans who were stationed at this facility, but there was no Denji in sight, so she sent them further, sending them deeper. This was a large place, and her rats could only cover so much ground, and she really hoped that she hadn't missed anything.

Kishibe said he'd be here, so he had to be here.

Please let him be here.

Eventually on one of the lowest levels of the facility, one of her rats came across a kitchen after having avoided nearly being crushed by a sudden and unexpected shake that made her fear that level would come crashing down, but thankfully it held. The rat had climbed exposed pipes and toppled rubble before it found itself sitting atop the counter, and there, in the kitchen, was Denji.

In the storage closet she had hid in, Nayuta had jumped and cheered, a grin so wide her face was starting to hurt, while staring blankly Nail Fiend and Katana Man watched the door in case an intruder came in. She found him, that was good, all she needed to was let him know she was here and-

Wait a minute.

He wasn't alone.

War was there, and her dumb human host too. Crap. She told Denji that she didn't want him near her anymore, and why was he wearing only boxers? And why was she missing an arm? What was with that armor dress? And what was-

WHY WAS THE BOMB GIRL HERE TOO? DEAD ON THE FLOOR?

WHY WERE THEY TALKING ABOUT HEALING HER?

Denji had terrible luck with women, so why was he around these two and not running for his life? Didn't he learn anything about girls he liked do nothing but try and kill him?

They were talking too, which only further annoyed her.

Ugh, Denji even gave that hussy blood to heal herself and regrow her arm, and now they were getting the floozy up.

More talking, and they're talking about her , her and Makima, almost like it's a bad thing. Sure, Makima was bad, but Nayuta wasn't like her, she wanted Denji to be happy, and she hates that despite the fact that these two girls tried to kill him that he's looking happier than he has since this stupid Church started up. Denji didn't need them, he had her, he didn't need anyone else, and she herself only needed him.

But they were talking about helping him get out, and help him find her...

With a sigh, Nayuta decided that with how chaotic things were being right now, that she couldn't exactly throw away valuable resources like additional help, so once they were all out of here, then she would make sure Denji got rid of them.

The rats gave her a rough idea of the building's layout, so as they made their way up to the next floor she had a general idea where they were going, and so she commanded the Katana Man and the Nail Fiend to escort her out of the closet so they could make their way to where they might end up.

Denji said that maybe she didn't need him anymore, but she was going to prove him wrong.

They were family, right? And family did stuff like that.

Chapter Text

Chapter XIV: Up and Away

Kishibe leaned back against the wall, flask in hand.

“You know, I was more prepared for a fight,” he said, after taking a swig from it.

“I expect you were, you’ve never fought fair in your life,” Quanxi said, smoking a cigarette as she leaned against the same wall. “What's in that bag?”

“Just items I got from calling in favors with people with devil contracts. I expected you were going to be here, so I had all sorts of fun little toys to help me out.”

“Really?”

“You remember Toshiro? I managed to convince him to give me one of the Slime Devil's balls. I was going to throw it at your head to create a mess and keep you from pulling your devil trigger, maybe even get your hand stuck in the process when you tried to pull it off.”

“Sounds messy.”

“Yep.” He took a swig. “So, what's the deal then?”

The woman remained silent for a moment, taking a drag of her cigarette and blowing out a long puff of smoke. “The last time you gave me a warning and I ignored it, it ended up with my women dead, myself becoming a mind slave, and now their bodies are used as leverage against me to keep me here. If you warn me to not make Chainsaw Man my enemy, then I'm not going to risk being on his shit list.”

“Good move. You're a lot stronger than him, but he's more fearsome than you, more unhinged. No telling what he'd do to you.”

“When Santa Clause became indestructible due to her contract with the Darkness Devil I was willing to think there was no winning that fight, but then he lit himself on fire and kept going. I don't even know how to compete with that.”

With one last drink, Kishibe put his flask away. “I better get going, that kid's gonna need support.”

“Those two aren't much, I'm certain Control can handle them, but I simply can't let you leave.”

When she saw her draw her sword, he was ready for a fight, but instead of running him through she held it out to him. “I'll just tell them you won.”

With a heavy sigh, Kishibe took the sword from her and held it up to her neck before pulling back, making sure his aim would be clean. He closed his eyes before he swung.

He didn't want to see this.

000

“How did you even get here?” Fumiko yelled out. “Where have you even been?”

“Your butt!” the Controlled Katana Man laughed.

Fumiko felt sweat run down her brow as she looked from the Hybrid to the rest of the devils getting back up. “Kill them now,” she ordered, taking a step back, drawing her own sword while the rest of the hunters fixed their sights on them.

Because everyone was so focused on them, not a single one picked up on the Controlled Nail Devil sprinting around the corner, nails and hammer in hand, coming in so fast that everyone was blind-sighted by them. Fumiko was the last to notice them, but by then it was already too late, and everyone else had already been pinned down to the ground, a series of nails pinning them through their clothes, leaving them helpless. However just as the fiend grabbed onto Fumiko's jacket she vanished into thin air.

“Again with this?” the Controlled Nail Fiend said in annoyance, looking over the jacket that was in their hand.

“ I don't know how you even got here, but just because you caught me off guard doesn't mean you'll be able to walk out,” Fumiko's voice said from somewhere above them. “Sorry to do this to you, Denji, if you're going to not lay down and let us take you in, then I'll have to send reinforcements after you.”

“Yeah?” Denji yelled back. “You and what army?”

“ The literal one outside.”

“Oh...”

“I don't get it, what's going on?” Asa asked, cautiously approaching Katana Man and Nail Fiend, who stood there like statues. “Who are these two?”

“They're mine, so don't touch them!” called out another voice, and Denji's head whipped around to the hallway both Katana and Nail had come from.

Standing there, right on one of the struggling, nailed down peoples' backs, was a girl with pitch-black braided hair and golden-ringed eyes, triumphantly hands placed on her hips.

“Nayuta!” Denji yelled out and ran up to her, and just as she jumped down from the unlucky person she was using as a stepping stone he scooped her up in his arms and squeezed her in his arms, burying his face into the crook of her shoulder. “Nayuta, I'm so sorry!” he cried out, his voice muffled by her shirt. “I wasn't thinking when I did that, I just don't think and I-”

“Stop it,” Nayuta said, and Denji did, holding his tight in her own hug as her arms wrapped around his neck. “Those idiots would have killed us if it weren't for you, and that lady was useless.” She had him back, that was the most important thing, but despite her desire to make certain that she had not been bothered by his absence in any capacity, she couldn’t help the warble in her voice or the tears threatening to spill from her eyes. “I... I really missed you,” he said, trying to keep her voice strong.

“I missed you too,” he said, trying to keep the shaking in his breath.

Not too far from them, Reze and Asa looked on. For Asa, there was a sense of familiarity about the girl she couldn't shake, but there was also something else, some small anger in her as well, but she imagined that it was maybe from Yoru, though she couldn't be sure. As for Reze, there was an uncomfortable feeling inside of her as she tried to find something familiar about this girl, wanting there to be a difference between her and her predecessor. Meanwhile behind them, the two enthralled devils continued to stand.

Denji and Nayuta continued to hold onto one another, as if they were to let go that everything would fall apart, but it was with much reluctance that they pulled away from one another.

“How the hell did you even get here?”

“That old drunk guy saved came along!” Nayuta excitedly said. “He shot a gun in the air and everything!”

“Wait, Kishibe?” Denji answered, surprised with the answer. He partially thought the man had maybe died from alcohol poisoning. “What about Barem and those other guys?”

“Ugh, no, they got away,” Nayuta's displeasure was easy to read with that look of anger in her eyes. “If I ever see them again it's not going to be pretty for them, but then after that he took me to his hideout and-” She then loudly gasped and jumped where she stood in excitement. “The pets! They're alright!”

“ WHAT?!”

“Yeah! Old man got to the apartment before those assholes and got them all out before they could burn it down!” Nayuta then grabbed at Denji's shoulders and gave one of the widest grins he had ever seen on her. “They're all alright Denji!”

Denji tried to breathe in, slowly taking in the news. He had been thinking about Nayuta so much that he hadn't thought about the pets, and he felt awful for it, how the dogs and Meowy could be gone and he didn't take the time to remember them. If Power was here she might have tried to kill him for letting that happen.

But they were alive, the pets were alive, and so was Nayuta.

He hadn't fucked it up for once in his life.

As much as Denji would have wanted this moment to last, it didn't as Nayuta turned her attention to the elephants in the room.

“Hussies,” she sneered and wormed her way out of Denji's grasp to stand between him and Asa and Reze.

Asa tried to force a smile, but with limited success. “So you must be Nayuta, it's nice to-”

“Give me a reason why I shouldn't make you two bite your tongues off and drown in your own blood,” Nayuta sneered.

“Nayuta...” Denji tried to say.

“I thought I said I didn't want you playing friendly with her anymore,” Nayuta said, still keeping her eyes on the two girls. Asa seemed to whither slightly, while Reze took a defensive step back, taking note how Katana and Nail were behind them. “I assume you know about that one, right?” she said, pointing a finger at Asa. “About how she's trying to kill you!”

“Technically I never tried to kill Denji, that was Yoru,” Asa unsuccessfully tried.

“That's even worse, because it makes you stupid! And if you're stupid do do whatever War tells you to do, and then you get involved in that stupid Church, then you're stupid enough to get Denji killed. And you!” Nayuta then turned her scathing glare to Reze. “You actually tried to kill him! And you lied about liking him too! If I don't want him hanging around this stupid girl, then why would I want you anywhere near him?”

Despite how much Reze tried to stand her ground, there was a brief moment where she looked away from Nayuta, a momentary falter in how she held herself.

“Nayuta...” Denji tried again.

“Maybe I should have you two kill each other, or act as meat shields for us.”

“Nayuta!” Denji suddenly snapped, which quickly turned Nayuta's attention back to him. “They're good, trust me.”

Nayuta's eyes widened in surprise. “What?” She then turned to him with almost neck-breaking speed. “Denji, are you being dumb? They tried to kill you!”

“Yeah? And they saved me,” Denji said, standing up. “Listen, Asa turned on Fami and for whatever reason she got Yoru to back off, and Reze had a bunch of chances to save herself but she came back for me.” Denji stepped up to Nayuta and got to his knee in front of her. “I know you don't like 'em, but if it hadn't been for them I'd be a bunch of pieces in a box right now, so that's gotta count for something, right?”

The girl gave an annoyed grunt as she looked away from him.

“Then how about this?” Denji said as he placed his hand on her shoulder. “They can stay with us until we can get out of here, and after that we can talk more about it? Right now there's a lot of stuff going on and we'll need lots of help for it.”

“You're really going to forgive them? Just like that?”

“They wouldn't be the first people who killed me that I got along great with.”

Nayuta looked away from Denji and to Asa and Reze, neither one wanting to say anything in case they said anything that would upset her, and after a moment of glaring she sighed in defeat. “Fine, they can come along, but if they try anything funny, then I'll make sure they regret ever looking at you in the first place? You two get that?”

“Fair,” Reze said, trying not to avert her eyes.

“Y-Yeah!” Asa said, failing to not avert her eyes.

With a nod of approval from Nayuta, the four of them, plus the enthralled Katana and Nail set out from the hallway, but before they left Denji looked back to everyone trying to free themselves from being nailed down to the floor, before he looked back up.

“Yo, Fumiko, don't know if you can hear me or if you're still there, but...” Denji sighed, trying to think of what he wanted to say, how he could get across. “Sorry about your parents, and maybe they'd still be alive if I killed the Gun Devil sooner, but I...” He wanted it to stop, the fighting and the destruction and the death and there was only one way to do that. “But I couldn't kill Aki like that, I just... I just couldn't.”

He didn't know if there was more he wanted to say, or if there was a way he would say it. There was still plenty about that day he didn't want to think about, so just dumping it all here didn't seem like a good idea.

Not knowing if Fumiko heard him or not, Denji followed after the girls.

000

Outside the facility things had begun to calm down, many of the devils that had escaped had either been killed or escaped into the areas surrounding the complex, with some of them even retreating back inside, and despite all odds is seemed that Public Safety and the military were able to quell the prison break for the most part and were beginning to move in on the facility itself to begin cleaning out anything that would resist them.

One of the Public Safety hunters, the man in charge of the operation then received a radio call and was informed of a group of devils that were making their way out towards the parking garage.

Three of the devils were Chainsaw, War and Control.

000

“You took your time,” Kishibe said as he met up with the group.

“Where the hell have you been?” Denji yelled, getting into the old man's face. “I thought you would have showed up when all that cult shit was going on!”

“Good to see you to Denji,” Kishibe said, before looking at Asa and Reze, his attention settling on the latter. “I see you got out.”

“I got bored in solitary confinement,” Reze said with a shrug.

“And you're not here to cause shit, are you?” he asked, turning to Asa.

“No, I'm done with that. I just...” Asa sighed, clearly exhausted. “I just want to sleep.” She then turned to Denji. “Who is this guy anyway?”

“Let's get going,” Kishibe said and led the group out and into the garage. “We'll need to be quick, I heard things are starting to calm down up there, so it's only a matter of time before-”

Then without a single word or warning, Kishibe reached into his satchel and pulled something out and threw it off to the side, and when the metal box collided midair with the rocket that had been launched at them, it wrapped around it and trapped it, before it exploded. While the explosion itself was troublesome, catching everyone else off guard was better than it coming in contact with them.

Marching down the upper levels of the garage and towards them were a whole group of hunters and soldiers, larger and better equipped than the one Fumiko had brought on.

“Shit,” Kishibe cursed and reached into his bag again and took out a snowball, and upon throwing it a massive blizzard broke out the garage, blinding the soldiers and dropping the temperature in the garage to freezing temperatures.  “We need to leave, now.”

While they headed towards the SVU, Nayuta commanded Katana and Nail to stay back and further delay the hunters and soldiers, though she kept what Kishibe had told her and made certain that they wouldn't kill anyone if it could be helped.

The vehicle was close by, it was right where they had left it, but before they could get to it a dozen giant crab claws suddenly burst out of the floor and ceiling, trapping them from all sides, but before any of them could further react Kishibe pulled out his knife and cut them all down.

That was when, distracted by the dozen spider legs around him, that the sniper  round, fired by a man who had contracted the Future Devil, cut through his gut, but before he went down he knew a knife and had it dig into the shoulder of the shooter who had been hiding underneath a van.

“Old guy!” Denji cried out as Kishibe fell to his knees. Around them more soldiers and hunters were starting to close in, and if the crab claws were anything to indicate of things to come, it's that they were dealing with people with contracts now.

Despite his injury, Kishibe still pushed himself up to his feet, though his movements were painful and sluggish. He then pushed Denji off of him and charged forward, taking out several armed soldiers who had stepped between them and the car, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a set of keys that he then threw at them, which Reze was quick to catch. “Get going, I'll cover the rear.”

“What?” Nayuta shrieked. “What about you?”

“I'll be fine, but I'll hold them off so you can get away.”

“What?” Denji yelled. “No fucking way, we'r-”

That was when Kishibe kicked him and sent him flying into the car.

“Go. Now,” Kishibe said, and turned to the oncoming soldiers.

Reze was the first one to head to the car, with Asa behind her, giving a reluctant look back to Kishibe before she made for the car too. Nayuta held his gaze the longest before she too ran, aiming for Denji as he recovered from his blow.

When they all ran, Kishibe stood by himself against the oncoming troops, trying his best not to succumb to blood loss, and when all four of them were in the car he reached for another goodie in his bag.

“Hey, you said you were a super spy from Russia or something, right?” Asa asked once they had all gotten in, with Reze taking the driver's seat.

“Yeah, why?”

There was then a massive explosion of green slime outside.

000

Outside, the army had been closing in on the entrance to the parking garage, and soon they heard an engine revving as a large, black SVU sped out at a reckless acceleration, however despite any order they had to shoot anything coming out, the soldiers found themselves unable to do so as they were too surprised by how the SVU turned into a helicopter and took off into the air.

Chapter Text

Chapter XV: Night Thoughts

Since Kishibe had stayed behind, the SUV didn't belong to him anymore, and since he was no longer here that meant it was up for grabs, so Asa claimed it as her own, she was just letting Reze fly it. The SUV suddenly shifting forms and turning into a helicopter was something that caught everyone off guard as it flew into the air, though Reze might have underestimated her ability to pilot it as the ride was shaky.

“I thought you said you could fly this!” Nayuta yelled, grabbing onto the and Asa had the foresight to make certain that there were four sets of headsets to allow them hear and speak with one another over the loud whirling of the propeller blades.

“I only took a few lessons before I got shipped to Japan!” Reze shouted back, grappling with the joystick in front of her, and the way the helicopter shook back and forth only proved the difficulty she was having in flying. “And I don't even know what this is! I'm pretty sure most of the dials don't actually mean anything!” She then turned to Asa. “Do you even know what the inside of a helicopter looks like?”

“Don't blame me!” Asa shot back. “I've seen pictures!”

“Pictures!?” Denji shouted out, trying to hold on.  “Do you not know shit about helicopters?!”

“My power is more about how I feel about something anyway!” Asa said in defense of herself. “How things actually work don't really apply as long as I think they work!”

“That doesn't mean I know how this works!” Reze cried out.

“Can you even land this?” Denji asked.

“I barely know how to fly a regular helicopter!”

“Are you kidding me!” Nayuta cried out. “I don't want to die in the same box as you two!”

There was then the sound of bullets hitting the outside of the Helicopter SUV.

“STOP SHOOTING US YOU ASSHOLES!” Denji shouted at the window.

Suddenly the helicopter began to spiral out of control, and the five of them began to scream in panic.

000

Fifteen minutes later the helicopter crashed into a building that was under construction, which in turn caused a fire.

“I'm sure no one got hurt,” Denji said, surprised at how quickly the building began to burn, and the four of them standing on the sidewalk across the street while people began to scream and flee and spectate. There was then an explosion on top of the building, which might have been the helicopter.

Kishibe was not getting the deposit back on that.

Asa merely held her head in her hands, trying not to think about how the helicopter she made crashed and caused a fire.

“So, um, while it's nice we're finally out and all,” Reze said, trying to keep her attention on the task at hand. “Where do we go now? I mean, there's somewhere we can go, right?”

Nayuta then eyed Reze with a fierce glare. “Of course there is! You think I'm stupid or something?” She then looked up and down the street, to the cars that were trying to get away from the disaster around them, before one in particular caught her eye. “Denji! Stop that taxi!”

“Right!” Denji then ran into the street, arms waving above his head as he called the taxi out, and thankfully for him it skidded to a stop just before hitting him. “Hey man, we need a ride!”

The taxi driver, an older man, then stuck his head out of the window. “Move out of the way! I'm not going to-”

That was when Nayuta shot a chain through his head.

“Nayuta!” Denji shouted. “What have I told you about using your powers on people!”

“We don't have any money to pay, and I don't want anyone tracking us!” Nayuta said as she ran to the car. “I call shotgun!” she cheered, but as her hand reached the handle to the front passenger seat she stopped. “Wait. No. Denji gets the front passenger's seat. I don't want him sitting next to you two!” There's an undeniable look of annoyance on Asa and Reze's faces, but no one argues as they follow her into the backseat while Denji takes the front. The driver sits there with a blank look and a slight bit of drool coming from the corner of his mouth, and it kind of creeps Denji out. Nayuta sits up and grabs the back of the driver's seat and shakes. “Now mush!”

Asa frowned. “He's a person, not a-”

The driver puts his foot to the pedal and the car bursts forward, throwing everyone else around a bit while Nayuta laughs, and it takes some coercing from Denji to get her to have the driver slow down.

000

At the Devil Containment Facility, Seigi carried an unconscious Haruka in his arms, while Nobana tried to hide behind his larger frame, avoiding the few threats that were left over from the escape.

“W-What are we going to do?” Nobana asked, sweat on his brow as he continuously wrung his hands together. “Fami and the others just left us here! How do we even get out now? Can we just really walk out of this place? And even if we did, where would we go? And are you sure Haruka's going to be alright? He hasn't woken up ever since you-you-” He still tried to get the memories out of his head, of Seigi easily taking a severed limb from the ground and feeding the blood into Haruka's open mouth like it was no big deal at all. How was he like this? Shouldn't he be more freaked out? Why was he so calm about everything?

Seigi only gave a low hum, an answer that did nothing to calm Nobana's already frayed nerves.

By the time they heard the march of footsteps they already had a squadron of soldiers at their backs, pointing their assault rifles out at them.

“LAY DOWN FACE FIRST ON THE FLOOR AND DO NOT RESIST!” one of them yelled, and the first thing Nobana did was comply, crying loudly as he did so. He didn’t want to die like his sister!

Seigi however slowly and calmly turned around to face them, leaving Nobana to wonder if he was going to try and reason with them, maybe beg, but they didn't even give him a chance before they opened fire on him. He was quick to drop Haruka, his body hitting the ground in a boneless manner, only taking a few hits that could be repaired with some blood, but Seigi took the full hit, a hail of gunfire hitting him in the front, and Nobana screamed until after the shots ended.

When he reluctantly opened his eyes, what he expected to see was his friends torn to pieces by bullets, reduced to a chunk of shredded and grisly meat, but he didn't see that. There was not a single drop of blood to be found anywhere on his body, but his torso was still riddled with holes that let out a bright, orange glow.

Seigi stared down the soldiers, and his body began to cover itself in fire.

000

It took over an hour, but eventually the taxi brought the group to the apartment where Nayuta and Kishibe had been staying the last week, and after they had exited the car Nayuta instructed the driver to drive around the city for an hour before he came back to himself and have no memories of ever seeing them. It seemed like a good idea, and it would keep anyone off their trail.

The sun was setting as the door slowly creaked open.

“Home sweet home, I guess,” Nayuta said, the first one to enter the apartment, kicking her shoes off and haphazardly tossing them off to the side, and Denji, Asa and Reze soon to do as she did, with Asa having a slight bit of trouble with her armored boots.

“Where're the pets?” Denji asked after he had finished, looking around the spartan apartment for any signs of the animals. “You said Kishibe saved the pets, where are they?”

“Out in the country somewhere,” Nayuta said, jumping onto the one single lounge chair, and pulling the lever on the side it stretched out, allowing her to lounge to her heart's content. “Kishibe said he had a place for us to hide out and he had a friend there who was gonna watch over them until we got there.”

“So they're safe?” Denji asked, that bit of apprehension not completely going away.

“Oh yeah, totally.”

“You sure about that?” Asa asked, failing to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Nayuta snipped.

“Nothing,” Asa said, looking unhappy with herself. “It's just when someone says they're going to take care of your pets, they might not always be honest.”

Both Denji and Nayuta gave her odd looks, and she instantly shrunk away from them.

“Just-just ignore me, okay?”

“Apples!” cried an elated voice from the kitchen area, and the three of them turned around to see Reze pull a large bowel out of the refrigerator, one filled with the fruits she was excited about, and she grabbed one and took a large crisp bite out of the shiny red fruit. “Fuck this is good!” she happily moaned through a full mouth, every chew bringing her a great deal of joy, until she turned around and saw the other three staring at her, and she awkwardly swallowed. “My meals for the last year have consisted of slop, and while I managed to get a few treats nothing beats fresh fruit. So fuck you if you're judging me for this.” Reze then turned back to her apple.

Reze was willing to take the blame for many of the awful things she had done in her life, but liking apples a bit too much was crossing the line.

Eventually it was Asa who broke the silence. “Um, is there anything to change into?” she asked, gesturing down to her armored dress. “As cool as this looks, it's impractical in the long run.”

Nayuta rolled her eyes. “What? You don't have a giant closet filled with clothes you bought with Church money?”

“Nayuta!” Denji snapped.

“What?”

“I didn't have a giant closet of clothes!” Asa argued back. “All the money I had I put into my savings account, and I don't even have that anymore! So please , tell me there's something else I can wear here!”

“Nayuta, is there something we can change into?” Denji asked, and the hard glare she was aiming towards Asa softened.

“Fine,” she said with great reluctance. “Kishibe bought clothes for me and Denji, stuff we could wear after we rescued him. There's a duffel bag with the stuff Denji was going to wear in my room, it's the one that doesn't smell like old man.”

“Oh... Is there anything else I can wear but stuff that was meant for Denji?”

“It's either that or the old man's stuff.”

“Fine, I guess if that's what I have to work with,” Asa said with a defeated sigh, and turned around to walk down the short hallway.

“Hey, wait,” Denji said with a step forward, causing Asa to pause and look back at him. “Nayuta, I want you to give Asa back those memories.”

“What?” Nayuta gasped. “Why would I do that?”

“'Cause she helped me out, so it's the least we can do for her.”

“Seriously?”

“Nayuta,” Denji said, his tone warning. “It's the right thing to do.”

The two of them held a stare down, neither one of them seeming to back off, before Nayuta did so. “Fine,” she said, putting a certain venom on the word. “But I'm only doing this because you want me to, not because I think she deserves it.”

Asa stood there as Nayuta pulled herself from the chair and faced her, and before Asa could even ask if there was anything she needed to do, Nayuta pointed a finger at her and a chain shot from her and right into her head. For the briefest of moments she was shocked, but the chain quickly blinked out of existence and suddenly her head was filled with things that were more familiar than she was comfortable with.

Them standing outside the school. His suggestion to see mummy movies. Her turning him down and her offer to watch TV at his place. Him trying to be nice but her being awful to him because she wanted him to not be hurt by her. Yoru becoming frustrated with her attempts to sabotage the date and then-

“Oh,” Asa said, blankly. “So that's what happened. Thank you very much. I think I'll get new clothes and take a bath if you don't mind.”

She then walked to the room she presumed was Nayuta's and softly closed the door behind her.

“Is she gonna be okay?” Denji asked after a moment. “She seemed kind of-”

There was then an anguished scream from the room.

“ YOU FUCKING BITCH YOU RUINED MY FIRST KISS!”

There was then more screaming.

“She'll be fine,” Nayuta said with a dismissive wave of her hand, and then went over to the TV that Kishibe had brought over just last night. It would have been good to have this earlier in the week because everything was just so boring when there were no pets to distract her from her lonely thoughts.

Reze finished the last bite of her apple, tossing the remaining stem into the sink. “So, now that we have a moment to actually talk, can someone explain to me what's going on? Like why does Denji have a cult?”

000

Asa sat in the bath she had drawn for herself, soaking in the warmth she submerged herself in, feeling how her muscles and bones ached after everything that had happened today. She raised her arm out, the one that had been cut off and flexed her fingers, and it was like it was never gone, and she found it strange. She then took a deep breath and sunk her head below the surface, enjoying the moment of solitude from the rest of the world for a moment before her lungs began to ache and she came back up to the surface.

“Yoru?” she asked, after a moment. “Are you there?”

“ I am,” Yoru said, and Asa found the projection of the devil sitting in the opposite end of the tub. She always made sure to have Yoru stay out of the bathroom whenever Asa needed to use it, despite their situation she still tried to value the illusion of privacy, but right now she was too tired to care much about how seeing her own body made her feel uncomfortable. “I assume you want to know why I've been quiet.”

“It would help.”

Yoru looked away from Asa and sank in the water until the water reached her chin, but it did not ripple around her, nor did her hair float around her like it was with Asa. “I figured out why we can't turn Denji into a weapon, not back at the apartment, and not at the prison.”

“And why's that?”

“ Our power is the power to make things we view as ours into weapons, but I don't think we can see Denji like that.”

“Why not? I mean, we did everything right, and at the end of that date we still couldn't turn him into a weapon. Was he lying?”

“ No, and in hindsight we should have thought more about that, because how he felt has nothing to do with how we use our power. It's all on us.”

“So, what happened then?”

Yoru was silent for a moment, thinking it over, and Asa could feel the conflict building inside her. “You spent so long rambling on about starfish, but even though Denji was getting fed up with you he still remembered what it was you said, and despite everything that had happened with the Eternity Devil, you still found you enjoyed the time you had together.”

“...And what does that have to do with anything?”

Yoru looked at Asa with a heavy, penetrating look, one she wasn't certain what to make of it. “The reason we cannot see Denji as ours is because you already decided, subconsciously, that you would give yourself to him.”

“WHAT?!” Asa yelled, jumping back in the tub, sending the water sloshing out and onto the floor. “ARE YOU INSANE? THAT'S NOT HOW THAT WORKS!”

There was a sudden knock on the door. “Is everything alright in there?” came Reze's voice from the other side.

“I'm fine!” Asa answered back, feeling embarrassed that her outburst had been heard by everyone, but she swallowed that shame and turned back to Yoru. “What do you mean by that?!” she hissed. “I would never give myself to anyone, whatever that means!”

Yoru leaned back and rolled her eyes. “I am not going to bother explaining the workings of your own heart, I don't have the time, energy or understanding of trying to decipher what the mess of a teenage girl’s means, I just know the effects it has caused, and getting those memories back only further proved my point.”

Asa's eye twitched. “You better not-”

“ Despite your shock and revulsion that I committed the act, you still enjoyed the kiss on some level.”

“Yoru,” Asa said with clenched teeth. “You had no right to do that.”

“ And yet I did, but I was telling the truth earlier, that you don't have to worry about me trying to kill Denji anymore.”

Yoru's sullen look, a great contrast to her demanding and threatening self was enough to quickly douse any anger Asa had and replaced it with concern. “Yoru? Are you alright?”

The War Devil let out a long, drawn out sigh, sinking deeper into the tub. “I have now just come to the realization that my quest for revenge will be more difficult than I had assumed it would be, and it is entirely the fault of you and your over sentimental human heart. It might even be beyond my reach for all I know, so forgive me for not feeling too great right about now.”

“...Is there anything I can do to help?”

“ No,” Yoru said, a slight chill to her voice.

“Oh, I'm sorry?” Was she sorry? This meant Denji could stay alive, it meant that she didn’t have to ruin his life any more than she already had, it meant that things could be good for her for once, but what about Yoru? Despite everything, she had begun to feel close to Yoru, maybe even see her as a friend, so was it right for her to feel like this while she could celebrate her own happiness? “Hey Yoru, I-”

But Yoru was already gone.

Asa took the rest of her bath in silence.

000

After Asa had gotten dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt that were too big for her, Reze went ahead and made her own bath, and it seemed that tonight's dinner was a course of microwavable pizzas. Asa didn't care much for the microwave, but the changes it had to her food was something she had learned to tolerate as she had little cooking skill of her own. She wasn't her mother, who always made warm home cooked meals for her, and she knew she'd never be as good as her.

Reze took her bath next, and after her was Denji, with Nayuta being the last after she made Denji promise he would stay away from the two of them, and while Asa was partially insulted by the girl, she felt too tired to argue back. It was a rough day.

There was nothing good on TV, and so Asa turned in early to the room Kishibe used to have, with Reze as her roommate.

No one would get much sleep that night.

000

Hours later, Denji still found sleep alluding him as he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling above him, but he did appreciate having a bed since they only had a cruddy futon back at the apartment. Back when they had an apartment. Nayuta was sleeping in the same bed as him, she remained cuddled up against him, her head against his chest, and he slowly stroked the back of her hair with his fingers, wondering if she had been brushing it regularly.

Despite how tired he was, there were still plenty of things on his mind.

“Denji?” Nayuta asked. “You asleep?”

“Nah,” he answered. “You should be though.”

She gave a content mumble, but kept her eyes closed. “I just want to know something.”

“What's that?”

“Those two hussies, we're getting rid of them in the morning, right?”

Denji shifted in his bed as he looked down at Nayuta. “First, stop calling them hussies, and second...” Second what? “Nayuta, why do you hate them like that?”

“Really?” Nayuta said, an agitation building in her voice as she raised her head and looked at Denji with those piercing eyes. “Every girl you ever liked tried to kill you, and they're no different. Reze is a spy who was sent by Russia to kill you, and Asa tried to kill you to just so she could give Yoru a weapon to double-kill you.”

“Yeah, but I've gotten along with people who tried to kill me before.”

Nayuta remained silent.

“There was this guy who I knew for like ten minutes before he started beating the shit out of me, and then I went wild on his balls, and then there was this girl, a devil, and she was going to feed me to another devil to save her cat, and that cat is Meowy.”

“...You mean Aki and Power.”

“...Yeah, they hated me at first and I think they would have been happy if I dropped dead or something, but...” Tears and gun smoke. Blood and cake. “I miss them.”

Nayuta lowered her head back to his chest, pressing her ear right over where Pochita lay. “You think they would have liked me?”

“I think you would have gotten along with Aki, you're kind of a brat but you're a lot more well-behaved than either me or Power were, and I think he would have appreciated that.”

“And Power?”

“Yeah, you two would have either hated each other or gotten to be best friends.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

Denji was surprised to find himself smiling. “I think it would have been a good thing.”

Nayuta tapped her fingers against Denji's chest several times, thinking. “Is having a girlfriend really that important to you?”

Denji lowered his head back onto the pillow and looked back to the ceiling. For a moment, he remembered being in that cruddy shack. “It's something I've always wanted, but I think I want it for different reasons.”

“Huh? What do you mean by that?”

“Well, at first I thought that just having a girlfriend would make everything better, but I guess I learned that there was more to it than that.” There were a lot of things Makima did that were wrong, but he still remembered that lesson, and he didn't think she was really lying, even if she was just trying to manipulate him. “Reze lied to me a bunch, but I still felt like there was stuff about what we did together that wasn't a lie, and I asked Asa on that second date because I wanted to get to know her better. Like, there was a bunch of stuff I would have wanted to do with them.”

“You could have done that kind of stuff with me. Wait, unless it's gross stuff.”

“Date stuff isn't gross.”

“Ugh, I'll never get why humans like that kind of stuff.”

“You're just a kid, I think you'll get it when you're older.”

“I think it's a devil thing, not an age thing.”

Denji gave a light chuckle. “But yeah, I'd want to go on dates and see movies and do a bunch of other stuff, and I'd want to do that kind of mushy junk they do on TV with them.”

“But you'd still love me more than anything, right?”

“Yeah, you're number one, nothing gonna change that. It's just-” Denji paused long enough to yawn. “I just want a chance to do that kind of stuff and not have it turn to crap, you know?”

“Even if you had ten girlfriends?”

Denji felt his eyelids getting heavier. “Course I would.” It was then that Denji fell asleep, off to sleep a dreamless sleep.

Sleep did not come so easily to Nayuta however.

Chapter Text

Chapter XVI: Late Night Offer

This bed was genuinely nice, Reze thought to herself as she teetered between the realms of sleep and waking, trying to fall into the former. It was better than the cot she had back during her years growing up in The Room, or the cot she had when she was housed in the containment facility, and better than the bed she had in the small apartment she had during her mission to capture Denji. It's not a great bed, but with a belly filled with apples, microwavable pizza, and this almost too good to be true feeling of freedom, it was the best bed she ever had. It was a shame however that she couldn't enjoy it more, that she could not fully commit to sleep and enjoy herself, there was too much to think about after all. She had spent the last hour thinking about what she would do next, what her next move would be, and she found herself struggling with her options.

She could just leave on her own, pack some clothes and leave early in the morning before anyone else could wake up, maybe even leave a note behind telling them thank you, but to never expect to see her again. That made the most sense, people would be looking for them, the Japanese government, Public Safety, the military, the Church, and if her being alive got out it would only be a matter of time before the Soviets sent people their way, so it would make sense to split off, being by herself would make moving around easier. It's what she had originally planned when she decided to not get on that train, and between the four of them she was most likely the lowest priority target, it might be easy for her to get away, maybe even leave the country. It's the easiest option for all of them.

So why is it so hard to settle on that?

Well, she knows why. She once made a choice to run away with Denji, and while it did not turn out the way she would have wanted it to turn out, she found that she could not regret the thoughts and feelings she had in her decision. Even now, she wanted to stay and live out that farfetched fantasy, but she knew she couldn't, because he had Nayuta and maybe Asa, so why would he want her around? The last twelve hours, or however long it had been, had genuinely been some of the best hours in the last six, seven, who knows how many months, and she didn't want to throw that all away.

Beside her, Asa shifted where she lay, tossing and turning like she had been doing since Reze came in to go to bed herself, which was also another reason Reze had trouble sleeping. She was a light sleeper, she could rise and fall with the flick of a switch, but Asa's restless sleep and occasional mutterings to herself was not making this easy for her.

That was when she heard a muffled sniffle from the spot next to her.

Opening an eye, Reze peeked over to Asa's back, where the other girl had been parked on the edge of the mattress because she made a point of wanting to have as much space between the two of them as they could, and she couldn't help but wonder what was going through her head. After she had returned from her bath Asa had been rather silent and stayed in her head most of the night, even taking nearly an hour to slowly pick at her pizza until she turned in early. When Reze decided to go to bed Asa did not respond to her halfhearted 'goodnight', and instead blankly stared at the window with its blinds fully shut.

Should she... do something about this? Is that something she should even bother with considering that there was a high chance she would likely never see her again when she left? It should be an easy thing to do and leave Asa to her own thoughts and let her sort them out for herself...

But...

Defeated by her own conscience, a thing she was still surprised that had somehow lasted this long, Reze slowly reached out and gently nudged Asa's shoulder, and the girl froze at the contact.

“What do you want, Reze?” she asked, her voice low and tried, strained with a rasp that spoke leagues of her exhaustion. “I'm trying to sleep.” Reze doubted she was meeting much success in that regard.

“It's just that you seemed...” Reze said, softly and treading carefully. “Like maybe you were having trouble sleeping or something.”

“I'm fine,” she curtly answered. “You don't have to worry about me.”

“Oh... Okay.” She doubted that she would get anything out of her, so Reze rolled back onto her back and started at the ceiling above, taking note of a particular stain that resembled a butterfly.

It was several minutes of silence before Asa managed to speak up.

“Reze, do you think I'm a terrible person?”

“Huh?” Reze asked, turning her head back to Asa. “What do you mean?”

“I mean...” Asa rolled over onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Maybe she saw the butterfly too? “I'm responsible for a lot of awful things, people are dead because of me.”

“You saved Denji though.”

“Yeah, but he's just one person. I became the face of a cult that turned its members into monsters by the hundreds of thousands, and they've killed millions of people around the world, and even if there was no way to avoid it I could have not been part of it if I had just taken some time to think about things, but I didn't.” Asa let out a deep, contemplative sigh. “I did whatever Fami said because I was too blinded by wanting to feel as though I was important, that I could prove that there was something about me people could value. I had every reason to distrust her, but I never bothered to even question anything beyond what she gave me.” She took a deep breath and shuddered as she exhaled. “I try to do the right thing, but every single time someone gets hurt or winds up dead. My mom, my cat, random strangers, my only friend, and I almost cursed Denji to a five year life span. All because I'm too selfish and stubborn to think otherwise, and to make things even worse, the whole thing was doomed from the start because I can't use my powers on him! So it was all pointless!” Asa tried to resist a choked sob, but the best she could do was put a hand to her face in a pitiful attempt to block it, but to no avail

Reze shifted on the bed, repositioning herself onto her side, facing Asa. “I was a spy for the Soviet Union, remember? I met all sorts of people who were the worst society had to offer. True monsters who only happened to be human.” She raised a hand and rubbed the side of her neck, running her palm over the pin. “I think at worst you're gullible or naïve, you're not...” A murderer, a monster, a thing , and so many other things Reze thought whenever she looked into a mirror. “You're not terrible.”

Asa tilted her head toward Reze, dark and tired eyes looking at her, the only light cast on them was the illumination coming in through the blinds. “You think so?”

Reze gave a reassuring smile. “I'm good at reading people, I couldn't get this far without it.” Sometimes she wished she hadn't.

To her credit however, she could faintly make out a smile on Asa's face, so she must have said something right.

That was when the bedroom door opened.

“Hey hussies, I want to talk to you-why do you have a knife!?” Nayuta said, nearly crying out as Reze sat up, a knife gripped tightly in her hand.

“Where did you even get that?” Asa cried out, trying to push herself away from Reze.

“I had it under my pillow,” Reze simply asked, looking over the kitchen knife she had taken from one of the drawers. “You know, in case we're attacked. I always try and have a knife on me whenever I can afford it, and bed isn't any different.”

Her answer did not seem to satisfy either Asa or Nayuta.

“Sorry,” she said, her voice quiet as she placed the knife on the bedside table before she reached up and turned on the table lamp, lighting up the room. “I'll try not to bring knives to bed anymore.”

With the knife put away, Nayuta looked between the two of them with a sour expression, and without asking them she jumped into the center of the bed and sat down with her arms crossed and glared at them. Neither Asa nor Reze really knew what to do about Nayuta, despite any misgivings and distrust the two of them, or maybe three if you count Yoru, had about her, she was clearly important to Denji. That meant there was a certain limit to what they could do about her.

“So, I've been doing something and talking to Denji,” Nayuta said after an intense minute of staring. “And I want you two to know that one word from me and Denji will kick you two out onto the streets, get it?”

“Uh-huh,” Reze said, though there was a certain bite to it. Nayuta came to save Denji with only Kishibe for backup, and as strong and as skilled as he was, he was still only one person. Nayuta had put herself in danger to save Denji, that had to amount of something, but no matter how different Nayuta was, all Reze could do was recall the woman who stopped her in that alley, killed her and subjected her to who knew what in the months that had been stolen and forgotten.

Then there was Asa, who recalled the TV date now, the horror and anger of Yoru ruining her first kiss before the door swung open with a sea of dogs Nayuta standing there before it all went blank. If it hadn't been for her she would have broken up with Denji on her terms, she would have felt she had some control over her life and not made to feel she was worthless and unlovable. Maybe she would have better choices with a better state of mind.

Both of them had their relationships with Denji altered by the Control Devil, and neither one of them were exactly too happy to be in the same room with her.

Nayuta continued. “Despite the fact you two hussies tried to kill him, Denji for whatever reason keeps vouching for you and saying you're not all bad.”

“He did?” Asa found herself asking. Denji had said that several times, but she was partially convinced that he was only saying that to make things easier and not really meaning it . A part of Asa, a large part, was convinced that he would demand that with Nayuta secured and reunited with him that she would leave him alone forever because he couldn't stand the sight of her.

“Yes, and because of that...” For the first time since they met her, an expression of uncertainty passed over Nayuta's face, her eyes averting from the two of them. “Denji's stupid, because even though I'd throw you into the trash as soon as I could he likes you two and he wants you to stay with us if you want to.”

“Wait, really?” Asa asked, catching herself surprised.

“Yes, really,” Nayuta said, her sourness returning. “So, even though I think it's a terrible idea, as long as you two don't do anything to hurt Denji again, I'll allow you two to stay.”

A weight was suddenly lifted off of Asa and Reze's chests, because the uncertain future where they would each head out into a world that wanted them imprisoned or dead was frightening, going out there without anyone to watch out for them. While they had both known that such an outcome was likely to happen, neither one of them wanted to be alone.

“That's, I don't know what to say about that,” Reze said, and while she was still distrustful about Nayuta she would not let this slide by her. “If you really mean it, then I promise I won't hurt him again.”

“Bleh.” Nayuta stuck her tongue out in disgust. “Don't get all mushy on me. But as an added bonus, I'll even let you date him.”

There was a sudden pause between them, and Asa was the first to recover.

“Wait, who do you mean when you said you'd let 'you' date him?”

Nayuta blinked. “All three of you. What else would I mean?” she said with such a nonchalance.

“ WHAT?” Asa hissed,barely able to stop herself from yelling too loudly. “What do you mean by-Wait all three ? Do you think Yoru and I are some kind of package deal?” She thought about what Yoru said about why they couldn't turn Denji into a weapon, even her own admittance about her having some kind of fondness for him, and she instantly shut those thoughts down. “Are you suggesting we form some kind of harem? What the hell is wrong with you, don't you know how degrading that sounds?”

“Is it really that big of a deal?” Nayuta asked with a bored shrug.

“Of course it is! Only unfaithful perverts date more than one person at a time!”

“Maybe you could date each other as well?”

“I don't-I don't like girls!” Asa seethed, steam almost coming out of her ears. She ignored the sudden and intrusive thoughts of Yuko. Yoru was putting those into her head. Obviously. “Reze! You tell her!”

Reze said nothing, she could only look at Nayuta in shock.

“Listen, Denji deserves the best and it's not my fault if you can't meet his standards,” Nayuta said with an annoyed groan.

“What standards?”

“I want Denji to be happy after everything he's done for me, but I haven't told him about this because I wanted to be polite and give you the courtesy of working it out yourself. You seem like the type who likes making schedules, so figure it out. It's not my fault that humans are weird with relationships and romance and junk like that!” Nayuta then pushed herself off the bed and headed back to the door. “I'm going back to bed, so figure it out you losers.” She then quietly shut the door behind her, likely not to wake Denji who was maybe still asleep.

Asa then picked up her pillow and threw it at the door, where it hit it with a soft thud before falling to the ground.

“Can you believe her!” Asa ranted, throwing the covers off of her and going back to pick up her pillow. “How could she even think something like that could even work!” She stomped her back back to the bed and threw the pillow down before she resumed her previous spot. “I really hope she doesn't actually bring that idea up to Denji, I refuse to be involved in that nonsense!” For good measure she punched her pillow, imagining it was Nayuta's face. “Can you believe the nerve of that girl? She erases my memory, doesn't even apologize and then has the nerve to suggest that Reze ?” Reze remained silent. “Reze?”

“...Huh?” the other girl said, her focus snapping back to Asa. “Uh, yeah. It's certainly something, really caught me off guard.” Though she didn't seem entirely there.

“Stupid devil,” Asa mumbled to herself, laying down and facing the window again. “The nerve of her even thinking something like that could be a good idea.” She then closed her eyes and tried to get to sleep.

“Hey, Asa?” Reze asked.

Asa refused to open her eyes. “What?”

“It's about Denji,” she asked, sounding slightly uncomfortable. “I want to ask, I mean, how do you...”

“...How do I what?”

Reze's mouth hung open for a moment, the words she wanted to say just never coming to fruition before she gave a defeated sigh. “You know what, it's nothing. We can talk about it some other time, but at the very least, it's nice to know that neither one of us will have to go it alone in the morning.”

Asa hugged her side of the blanket closer to her chest. “Yeah, I guess it is.” As much as she didn't want to say it, Asa was grateful for this as well.

Reze turned off the light and settled in next to her, and Asa wasn't certain but she thought that maybe Reze was closer than she had been before, but Asa was too tired to care or argue. She was just tired.

“Goodnight Asa.”

“Goodnight... Reze.”

Despite her anger and frustration at Nayuta's proposal, Asa felt her exhaustion begin to overtake her, which was of course when Yoru finally spoke up.

“ You know, I've never heard her make such a generous offer before, it was always either doing things her way or die. Never thought I'd see her make a compromise on anything, let alone Chainsaw.”

As much as Asa would have loved to argue with Yoru on the very subject of Nayuta's proposition, or even what Yoru's stance was on it, she didn't have the energy to do so, and allowed herself to fall into the darkness of sleep.

Maybe, just somehow maybe things would look up tomorrow.

000

It's dark, always dark.

She runs, never stopping.

She tries to avoid the chicken corpses at her feet. It's easy at first, but the longer she runs the more corpses there are, and soon she can't avoid them.

Bones break and bodies collapse under her feet, feathers and blood fly into the air.

Her missing arm burns.

The darkness at the end of the hall gets closer, but somehow it's always further than she thinks it is..

The bodies keep piling up until they are all around her, mountains of them.

She reaches the end of the alley, where the darkness is greatest.

And...

Chapter Text

Chapter XVII: Well Now What?

Asa woke up.

It was an unfamiliar ceiling that greeted her, it was not the one of the apartment, nor was it the one of Fami's guest bedroom, and she took a few blissful seconds of ignorance before she remembered where she was.

“Oh... right.” Yesterday had been the prison break, where she was supposed to “save” Chainsaw Man, only to realize that it was all a lie and that she would have only gotten him killed in the end. A lot happened, and she was just done thinking about it for now. She pushed herself up and was surprised to find that not only was she well rested, but that she had her arm back as well, a detail that had slipped her mind briefly, and she didn’t care much to think how detached she had become to let a severed and regrown limb slip her mind. It was good to have it back, she knew that much, but a part of her felt like maybe she shouldn't. She was also alone in bed, Reze being nowhere in sight. Asa pushed herself out of bed and made her way to the door, adjusting her sweatpants so they didn't slide too far down her hips, and after she used the bathroom she went to the common area, where everyone else was.

Reze was sitting on the lounge chair, the remote control in hand as she flicked through channels, Denji was laying on his back in the floor in front of the TV, his head pointed towards it, while Nayuta was at the kitchen table with a bowl of brightly colored cereal in front of her.

“Morning,” Asa said aloud, her voice groggy as she yawned.

Denji and Reze greeted her with their own “morning Asa,” while Nayuta only barely looked in her direction.

“There's cereal and stuff on the counter and milk in the fridge,” Denji said.

“Hmm,” Asa hummed and spotted the cereal box, the same stuff Nayuta was eating.

It had Chainsaw Man's face on it because of course it did. She was asked to endorse it, but despite her distaste for the cereal she had accepted the sponsorship, convincing herself it was for the good of the Church and her mission, but looking back it was for herself because she wanted her face on a cereal box so that everyone would know her. They were supposed to start distributing this new line only a few weeks from now.

Seems like that wasn't going to happen.

Taking one of the paper bowls and plastic spoons, Asa filled the bowl with the cereal and used what little milk there was before sitting down across from Nayuta.

“We're going to need more milk,” she said aloud. The last time she had told anyone about how there was no milk was with her mother. She took a bite of her cereal and didn't like how artificially sweet it was, and swallowed it. “Anything good on TV?”

Reze put the TV on mute. “I'm looking at what the news has to say about the prison break yesterday, trying to see where things stand, but there's a surprising lack of coverage on it.”

“Huh?” Asa turned around in her seat to look at the TV, and on it she saw some newscaster talking with a picture of some woman that seemed vaguely familiar.

“Yeah...” Denji said from his spot on the ground. “You think after all the stuff that happened yesterday that it'd be all over the news, but it just gets mentioned once or twice before they go on about something else. They said a couple of Church members broke into the prison to get some of their people out, but that's it.”

Reze changed the channel again. “There's actually been more talk about some idol having an affair or something.”

Asa mindlessly shoved another spoonful of cereal into her mouth. She hated this taste, but she kept eating.

“I'm not surprised,” Nayuta said, having slurped up the rest of her breakfast. “The state's not gonna go in-depth about how they got their butts kicked by a teenage girl with no plan and how two of their biggest public enemies managed to get away. No way, though if your raid failed I think they would have happily paraded your and Fami's wanted posters around and say they captured two of the biggest faces of the Church.”

“The government won't let itself seem weak,” Reze absentmindedly said. “You know, back in Russia there was this group who were trying to oppose some government movements through peaceful means, but then they sent me in to take care of them. The government later said that they were actually dealing in devil trafficking and one of their devils got loose and killed them, but the devil was later put down by their very own brave and noble devil hunters.” The last bit of the line was said in an accent that sounded Russian to Asa, and while Asa knew she must have been repeating a line that someone had said on whatever this incident was, it made her wonder if Reze actually had a Russian accent.

But it made her think, not the accent part, but how everything was just sort of being ignored. After everything that had happened, it was just... old news?

“Hey, how come they're not talking about the chainsaw zombies?” Denji asked. “I thought Asa said that stuff was getting real bad with them.”

“Yeah, like a million people died over the week and people are just randomly turning into them even though they don't have anything to do with the Church,” Nayuta said.

“Shit, really?”

“That sounds bad,” Reze said. “Yeah, I'm surprised there isn't more on that.”

“Hooray for the apathy of the human race,” Nayuta lamely cheered. “They really do ignore things like the end of the world until is exploding right in their face.”

“...Any mention on us?” Asa asked.

Reze changed the channel again. “Nothing I could see.”

“Oh...” Asa took another slow bite of her breakfast, taking the time to chew before she swallowed. “So it seems like despite how everyone was in a panic because the world was ending just a week ago, it seems like everyone is just treating it as business as usual.”

“Yeah, seems like it,” Denji said. “Hey Reze, since it seems like the news is just going to be boring, change it to something else, I want to see what movies are on.”

“Anime!” Nayuta cried out, jumping up from her seat. “I haven't seen my shows all week!”

“Yup. Everything is back to normal.” Asa swirled her spoon in her cereal, and she didn't know if she had lost her appetite or not. “Just another day as far as anyone cares.” She stared at her breakfast for a bit, and then chuckled. “Just another average, ordinary day as far as Japan is concerned.” her laughter grew, steadily but still contained, but it was enough to get everyone's attention focused on her.

Denji pushed himself up by his elbows. “Hey Asa, you alright?”

“I'm fine, everything's fine,” she laughed, and she had to cover her mouth with her hand to stop herself from grinning. “It's just, I only saw a few news reports at the start of all of this, and there were people calling for my head, saying all sorts of awful things about me, like I was a heinous criminal who ate babies or skinned puppies for fun, but if I went outside right now, how many people would care enough to recognize me if I just start walking around the streets?” She then began to laugh, she tried to keep it inside her, but she failed, and she found herself suddenly laughing so hard that tears were beginning to spill from her eyes. “Fami set the world on fire, just so everyone is afraid of Chainsaw Man and the war against him, just so Denji and Yoru could be stronger, but just a little over a week in and it seems like more people care about who some random famous woman is fucking then the end of the world!” No longer bothering to hold herself back, Asa threw her head back and laughed.

“Asa, are you okay?” Reze asked as she turned in her chain.

“It's just-It's just, I can't believe that Fami's plan was to just give Yoru a Chainsaw Man Sword and just have her and Death fight or something. I mean, yeah she's gotten stronger, and Denji's pretty strong too, but I can't see either of them ripping the city apart like the Falling Devil did! She threw an office-building at us! How do we even compete with that!” She then turned to Nayuta with an uncomfortably wide smile on her face. “Death's your sister, so how strong is she?”

For the first time since they met, Nayuta looked genuinely put off by her, like she was going to lose her mind, which a part of her felt like what was happening. “Um, well,” Nayuta said, trying to look elsewhere but Asa. “You know how Denji got your butts kicked by the Falling Devil?”

“Yeah,” Asa said with an enthusiastic nod.

Nayuta then looked to Denji. “And you know how bad you lost to the Darkness Devil?”

“That thing kicked our asses.”

“Well, if Darkness and Falling teamed up to fight Death, they would lose even harder than you two did.”

A sharp, bitter laugh then escaped Asa, and she lowered her head and buried her face in her hands. “What was Fami's plan even? Just give Yoru a sword and that's it?”

“ Fami's never been exactly too big on the long term.”

“Oh shut up Yoru. It would have been nice to know that before!”

The other three seemed unnerved by her shot at Yoru.

“Maybe...” Reze started, trying to feel the room. “Maybe she had some kind of plan she never told you about? Like there was something more she had in store beyond just arming Yoru and making her stronger?”

“I'd hate to see what the rest of her plan is if that was only the first step,” Asa said, placing her elbows on the table and leaning forward. “She's going to kill the majority of humanity just so she can have cheeseburgers from the last hundred people left.” A joke, this is what this all was. “Humanity is going to go extinct in six months, and there's nothing we can do about it.”

Any amusement she got from this cosmic punchline had now evaporated as she said the thing that everyone had been thinking.

Despite everything she had done, all the death and destruction she caused, Fami was trying to stop the Death Devil, and now that she had brought it up, Asa couldn't help but wonder if she had made another grand mistake in refusing to weaponize Denji again. What if Fami knew something she and Yoru didn't, what if giving Yoru the power of Chainsaw Man was truly the only hope the world had, and Asa screwed it up? Was it truly the right thing to do to spare Denji? Five years for him or six months for humanity, that's what Fami said, and in being selfish Asa can't help but wonder if she had doomed the human race.

She just keeps getting worse.

“Is there...” Reze tried, not knowing what words to use at first. “Asa, is there anyone you know we can go to? Some who can help us? Maybe some family?”

“No,” Asa said. She killed her family.

“What about you Denji? Last time I heard you were house by a Public Saf-”

“They're dead,” came Denji's quick and curt response, before he dropped back onto the floor and stared up at the ceiling.

“Oh...” Reze leaned back in her seat, her head hanging. “Nayuta? Did Kishibe ever give you any names of his contacts?”

“No, he never told me,” Nayuta responded, looking smaller in her seat than she did before. “I know Public Safety has their own plans for Death, but I don't know what they are. I don't even know where the pets were taken.

Silence hung over them as they considered the situation they were in.

In six months the Death Devil would come and kill every human on the planet. Even if the general public no longer cared about them, Public Safety and the government would send agents after them the first chance they got, and there was no way of knowing what devils Fami had as pawns. They had no friends, no families, not a single ally they could count on to help them in their time of need.

Even if the five of them stuck together, they were alone in this world.

“Well, now what?” Asa bitterly asked, her laughter having died up and dried, the joke no longer funny. “Any ideas or should we just lay down and die?”

“...Maybe we can, I don't know, kill the Fire Devil?” Reze asked, throwing the idea out of there. “If we kill it, then everyone who is under contract with it would turn back to normal, and there would be no more transformations.”

“That would mean fighting Fami, and I don't think she'd let us kill Fire, it seems too important,” Nayuta added. “As much as I would like to kick the butts of those Hybrid losers, Fami has a Primal Fear as a pawn, and there's just too many weird things about the Fire Devil's contracts that it kind of makes me worried what the full picture is. Devils can misdirect and omit details, but they can't outright lie, it seems like people signed a contract without knowing they were signing a contract, and not to mention it was just giving powers away for nothing, you can't do that. Between that and people just randomly turning into chainsaw zombies, there's maybe something really weird about it.”

Denji remained silent and stared up at the ceiling, his mouth remaining agape.

Asa sunk deeper into herself. Was there really anything they could do? No, she doubted it, there was nothing any of them could ever do.

“Fuck it,” Denji suddenly said.

“Denji?” Reze asked, looking over to him.

Denji sighed and continued to look up at the ceiling. “I gave a normal life a shot but it went up in flames and now there's nothing left to go back to, Public Safety is looking for us and if they do they'll chop us into bits and throw us in boxes, Fami probably still wants me and Yoru for whatever she has planned, and we're running on a timer against someone we can't possibly beat.”

“That's not a very positive outlook.”

“Hey Asa, what are the chances Fami's gonna try and come after us.”

“Likely, I think,” Asa said from her arms. “She seemed upset that I didn't turn your heart into a weapon, so I think she'll try and look for us sooner or later.”

“It's just a buffet of crap sandwiches no matter where we look.” Denji let out a low, and tired groan. “I know how these things go, and I know that no matter what this shit's gonna catch up with us.”

Nayuta placed her hands on the chair and pushed herself up on her chair. “What? Are you just saying we give up? That we should just give up and turn ourselves in?” she said, an anger present in her voice at the mere suggestion of laying down and letting everyone else win over them.

“No, I'm not saying anything like that. I'm just saying fuck this.” He sighed once again. “Back when I worked in Public Safety there was this girl there and she was always crying and screaming, she really didn't want to be a devil hunter but her family was making her do it because it paid real nice.”

That sounded vaguely familiar to Asa, but she couldn't recall from where.

“When all that stuff happened with Makima, Kishibe helped her fake her death, and she seemed happy about it, I think.”

“Happy?” Asa asked, peeking her eyes out from behind her arms. “How?”

“'Cause she didn't have to go back to her family anymore. She just left all her problems behind.” Denji then pushed himself up into a sitting position, and turned his eyes toward Reze. “Hey, is that offer to run away still open?”

“What?” Reze asked with a gasp, eyes wide open in surprise.

“Also, I got plus two,” Denji said, pointing a finger to the table where Asa and Nayuta sat.

“What are you even talking about?” Nayuta asked, her voice cracking slightly with a pitch.

“No matter what we keep getting screwed over,” Denji continued. “So why don't we just leave all that bad stuff behind and see where we can go? Just, you know, leave Tokyo or something.”

The three of them stared at him in silence.

“Denji, that's...” Reze said, the first one to speak her mind, though she was clearly hesitating for a moment. She then softly smiled. “I think I'd like that very much, and you're right, if there's nothing to keep us here but the people out to hurt us, then I don't think we can do any worse if we try to leave.”

“Are we really running away?” Nayuta asked, sitting back in her chair. “It looks like it'd be a lot of hard work, and I think that no matter how far we run, Fami's going to find us eventually.” After a thoughtful moment, Nayuta gave a dangerous grin. “But you know what? She's a fat pig and if she wants us she's going to have to chase us and we won't make it easy for her!”

Being the only one to not answer, Asa knew they were all waiting for her response.

She didn't like the idea of running away, like it was easy. Where would they go? How would they even do that? Asa couldn't even say she owned the clothes on her back and no one in the group was in a better position compared to her, she would give them only a couple of days before they're sleeping in cardboard boxes and eating out of dumpsters, and then what? Was that just supposed to be their life from now on? Wallowing in squalor when they could be doing something else? Something important?

If Fami was going to be after them, they could take the fight to her, they could somehow find and kill the Fire Devil. It was important for her plans, and killing it would undo all those contracts that had been made in bad faith, and they could save millions of people around the world. That's not even going into the biggest problem, because even if they managed to escape to some tropical island and live the rest of their days in paradise that wouldn't do anything about how Death would kill everyone in the world in six months. Just how could the possibly walk away from all this?

They should do something about all of this.

Only...

Why should they do something about this?

None of them wanted to be here, none of them wanted to be on the fast track to fighting the most powerful devil to ever exist. Before the Church ruined his life Denji seemed happy being Chainsaw Man, killing devils and living and raising Nayuta, who seemed happy being just some girl who went to school. She didn't know much about Reze, but the other girl didn't seem like she wanted to be a spy or an assassin for the Soviet Union to begin with.

And then there was her.

She remembered her death, the brief moment that seemed to last an eternity where her skull was split open and was splattered on the sidewalk, and how she wished she had lived her life differently, that she had let herself be happy. She got her second chance, and she was plunged into a world of devils and she took part in terrible things because she refused to tell herself she made a mistake. If she had died back then, then at least she could have gotten some pity from people who read about her death in the newspaper, but now who would care if the face of a cult were to die?

Sometime she wished Yoru let her die.

“ What do you want, Asa?”

Maybe, just maybe, she could...

Asa raised her head and saw Nayuta,, before she looked to Reze, and finally Denji, all of them looking at her and waiting for her answer.

Every time Asa thought she did something good, something right it always blew up in her face, it's why she's an orphan, it's how she wasted her first life, and it seems like her second chance isn't going much better. She can't trust herself to make those kinds of choices because she's afraid of getting them wrong and getting herself and the few people who want to be around her hurt.

Asa has two choices before her, there's what she feels she should do, and what she feels can lead to her being happy.

She spoke her answer.

Chapter Text

Chapter XVIII: 38 Hours, Roughly

According to reports from eye witnesses, the SVU-turned-helicopter flew out of the airspace around the Tokyo Devil Containment Facility at 4:13 PM, transporting four devils; Chainsaw, War, Control and Bomb as confirmed by Public Safety Hunter Mifune Fumiko. The helicopter was reported to have flown into Tokyo where it went down and crashed into an office building that was undergoing construction, with reports placing the initial crash at around 4:30 PM. A fire started at the top of the building which spread to the rest of the structure, and emergency services were not able to get to the fire due to the number of other ongoing incidents caused by the chainsaw head zombies in the area, leaving the building to suffer severe fire damage before it could be put out. Public Safety arrived to locate the four devils, though they were not able to enter the building to find evidence of their whereabouts.

The bodies of any of the devils were not found in the wreckage and are believed to have escaped, however they have not been found as of the writing of this report.

000

6:52 PM

The alleyway was out of the way of foot traffic, as well as any onlookers who might have chanced upon them being here, and they did not want to risk anyone seeing them after everything that they had gone through.

Nobana threw up behind a trash can.

He had a headache, his mouth felt gross and dry, he was covered in sweat, blood, grime and soot.

He wished he never joined this stupid devil hunters club, he wished his parents made him do anything else but that and he had an irrational hate towards his sister. If she didn't get herself killed they would have focused their attention on her instead of him, but now he's forced to do all this dangerous stuff just so he can do a dangerous job. If she was going to die the least she could have done was die in a way that would have given them lots of money! He didn't care if it made him money, he just didn't want to do this!

Besides him he heard the shuffling and moving of trash, and he forced himself to look back because he knew that he couldn't not do that for very long.

Seigi was carefully laying Haruka down on the ground, on top of a series of cardboard sheets that he had found, and Nobana was surprised to see that he was still unconscious. After everything that had happened, he expected him to wake up, and while there were a few times he seemed as though he was about to, a random flick of the eye or a mumbled word or two, he never woke up. He expected that something was wrong with him, but Seigi told him not to worry about it, that he needed to rest and that he would be up sooner or later.

Seigi...

It took everything in him to look at him, at the person who he had thought was his friend, and between the three of them he looked the least terrible. Sure, there was dirt, blood and soot on him, but unlike him and Haruka he seemed fine for the most part.

“I suppose you want an explanation,” Seigi calmly said, but with a tired air, standing all and leaving Nobana feeling smaller than he already knew he was.

“T-That would be a good start!” Nobana said, trying to sound like he had some measure of control over the situation, though he knew he had none. “Ju-just what was that? Why were you able to do that? You just lit on fire, and everyone started shooting you and then-”

“I'm not human,” Seigi said, and Nobana's words died in his throat. “You know how so many of the Church members were making contracts with the Justice Devil?”

“...Yes...” Noban said, nodding his head.

“Well, they were making contracts with me, either directly or indirectly,” Seigi continued. “It was all Fami's idea, and I'm not the Justice Devil, I'm the Fire Devil.”

“Oh. I see.”

Nobana then fell back and fainted.

Seigi sighed. This was going to take some time.

000

11:28 PM

The night rolled on as it always did, and the lights of the city kept it lit, like they always did. Under a bridge, standing by the river two figures hid in the shadows while light traffic rolled overhead.

“I had an associate once,” the Katana Man said, having reverted to his human form. “She was a private devil hunter, she killed devils, sold them to me and I'd sell them on the black market. One day she comes to me and says she made a contract with the Gun Devil, and that I could have all the guns I wanted if I help her capture something.” Hands in his pocket he scowled at the flowing water before him. “At first I wasn't too sure about that, the Gun Devil was pretty stuff, a nightmare, and I couldn't help but wonder how she even got in contact with it in the first place, but guns were tempting, it was hard to get firearms in Japan a few years ago. What really sold me on the deal was who the target was.” His lips curled into a snarl as he recalled that conversation. “The bastard who killed my grandfather, he had a devil heart that the Gun wanted, and after hearing that I went ahead and helped her with her plan, and the Katana Heart she gave me was a bonus on top of it. Things didn't work out though, and she died.” He then turned to the Nail Devil. “Ever hear of Makima?”

“Makima?” the Nail Fiend asked. “I heard the name a few times, but I heard she died.”

“Well, I met her once, I think,” Katana said, looking back to the river. “I know she was a devil, and that because of her I lost months of my life, the memory of that time just gone. I've tried to find out more but no one wanted to talk about her, especially Quanxi, who always seemed to know the most about her. But if there's one thing I do remember from the one time she came to my cell, it's the chains she made and those damn eyes.” He then drew his hand from his pocket and held it in front of him, clenched in anger. “That little girl, she had the same eyes and the same chains! I don't know what her connection is to him, but I know she's Makima's reincarnation and that she's Denji's sister!”

“What an amazing story,” the Nail Fiend said, somewhat bored and uninterested, while a hand was place on their hip. “You've rant on about this Denji before. He killed your grandfather, yes?”

“He killed a great man!” Katana yelled, loud enough to overpower the traffic above. “My grandfather never did anything wrong in his life, and that bastard killed him for no reason! Screw Public Safety, they had him there that whole time and they never told me! I'm going to kill him and that little girl, and anyone who gets in my way is going to be cut to pieces!”

“So you're not going back to Public Safety then?”

Katana's head snapped to Nail direction. “Hell no! Whatever mind control that brat used on us wore off at some point and we'd already beaten down some of those army guys, it's only by luck that we managed to escape! And I'm going to use this new chance to hunt them down and get revenge! What about you? What are you going to do?”

“Hmm,” Nail hummed, putting a hand to their chin. “Well, I could go back to Public Safety myself, I don't think they'd give me too much trouble if they find out I was mind controlled, but at the same time I don't like them very much, so I don't really want to go back. I suppose I could tag along with you until this is all done with and go from there. But you should know that I don't like the idea of killing children.”

“Children? What children?” Katana grimaced. “We're not dealing with children, we're dealing with devils who only pretend to be children, they have no real parents or futures, so who cares if they die or not!”

“Well, I suppose when you put it like that, I think I could help out.”

With the Nail Fiend having decided on joining him, the Katana Man laughed loudly, cursing Denji's names to the sky above.

000

9:03 AM

A Public Safety hunter smoked his cigarette, even though he had been told multiple times not to, but he didn't have nearly enough respect for the patient in this room to think he warranted the courtesy of not having smoke blown into his face. So he blew his smoke downward and looked down at him with a look of contempt, though he glared half as strongly as he wanted with the eyepatch.

“You really had to ruin everything, didn't you?” he asked, directing his ire to the body before him. “If you just stayed at your station, a lot of this mess could have been easier to deal with. The Control Devil would have been dead and out of our hair, Chainsaw would have still been on ice, we might have had War locked up too, or at least killed her, and that entitled Bomb bitch might have been captured too. But no, you just had to get in the way.” He took a deep drag of his cigarette and blew the smoke down. “Even if things still turned out this way, at least they could have been more manageable, but you had to bring it all crashing down. Some legend you are.”

A thought then occurred to him, and he decided to act on it because who would stop him? He then switched his cigarette to his other hand so he could raise his dominant hand, clenched in a fist, before he brought it down with the intention of a fierce punch.

It didn't make it that far before he found his wrist gripped in a tight vice, and he spun his head around to see Quanxi holding him back. The two of them glared at one another, but he was quick to back off, and she threw his wrist to the side, leaving him to storm out of the room, a trail of smoke following behind him.

She was pretty certain he muttered a slur on his way out, but he wasn't worth the trouble.

Now alone, Quanxi took a deep breath and looked at the person lying in the bed before him.

Both arms handcuffed to the railing, his whole body strapped down, and put into a medically induced coma had done a deal to make Kishibe seem less dangerous than he already was, but no one was taking any risks. Outside this room there were a dozen arms and contracted guards standing at the ready in case he woke up, a number that included her. She doubted he would cause any trouble like that, he had given himself up, she knew he wasn't one to hurt humans, but she had expected them to throw him into a cell instead of this. His gunshot injury was bad, but not so bad that he had to be drugged unconscious around the clock until they figured out what to do with him.

This wasn't the first time she had seen him injured, but to have him in this state, it made him seem much more old and vulnerable than she was used to. It was a pitiful state that the Mad Dog had been reduced to. She didn't like it one bit, it made her uncomfortable. Quanxi took sat down in the chair next to to the bed and took in the near-silence of the room, it only being broken up by the beeping heart monitor which told her that despite his condition he was okay, or at least not dead, but that didn't stop the air of dread in the room.

Quanxi reached into her pocket and pulled out a flask, the one she had taken out of his jacket after they had put him under and lightly shook it, the half-filled contents swishing inside.

“So they finally put the Mad Dog in the pound, huh?” she asked somberly, though she did not expect an answer. “I doubt they'll put you down, not yet at least, but they got you chained up with a muzzle on tight, so I doubt you'll be getting out.” She let out a sigh and leaned back, letting her head rest against the wall. “You got too dangerous, and here I am with a tight leash and collar.”

She let the near-silence sink in, letting her thoughts stew until she screwed open the flask and took a long swig.

She then began to choke once it was done burning her throat on the way down.

“What is this, paint thinner?” she managed to get out before she screwed the cap back on.

000

5:23 PM

Fumiko walked down the hallway, her footsteps echoing in the empty hall as her eyes glanced over the doors she had passed by, with other suited people going by her as they made their way to whatever destinations they had. The last day had been hectic, with the escapes and deaths of so many devils, as well as the loss of so many personnel, everyone was going double time to try and fill in the cracks of what happened, she herself didn't even make it to her own apartment last night, she had to crash in one of the bunks barracks for a brief few hours of sleep. Even after grabbing a quick shower, a new suit and a cup of lukewarm coffee she didn't feel much better, but was prepared to go on with the day of trying to do something about yesterday.

Sadly, her mind wasn't entirely focused on that task at hand as her thoughts were in other places.

The first was Yoshida, who had apparently sided with the Famine Devil, something that had taken her by surprise when she had learned about it. He always seemed so serious about his duty, almost to the point of not being fun, but maybe this should have been expected because his reports were the ones that had told them that Fami was not a threat they should worry about at the moment. Still, she had rather liked Yoshida, so it was unfortunate that he would be treated like a terrorist if they came across him again.

And the second was...

Flashing her badge to the man at the front desk, Fumiko entered the record room and began to look through files that her current clearance level would allow her to access. She recently got a promotion due to what happened at Denji's apartment, despite him turning into Chainsaw Man she went above and beyond her expected duty and was rewarded fairly for her actions, which she thought was fair. She's not going to get herself killed, and Denji did break the agreement, so what else could she have done? Her new promotion allowed her to see uncensored personnel files that she had been denied access to before, though when she had asked about it she was disappointed to find that the version of Denji's file were still mostly walls of blacked out text.

But she wasn't looking for Denji's file at the moment, and as she looked she found her mind wandering.

Gunfire and explosions. Destroyed homes and streets. People blasted into nothing like they were made of nothing. She was hurt and afraid, hiding behind a car when she caught sight of them across the street.

Her parents were standing there, frozen stiff as the monster stood there, a wide smile under the pistol sticking out of its head. Chainsaw Man was there too, and she found herself hoping. She heard about him on TV, the devil that fought other devils, if he was there, then her parents would be alright. The Gun Devil wasn't doing anything, this should be easy.

But... he wasn't doing anything. He just stood there, he was yelling at the Gun Devil, but that was it. She wanted to scream at him for him to jump at it and kill it, to beg and plead to save them, but...

Chainsaw Man did nothing as the Gun Devil raised its rifle-arm and...

Fumiko found the file she was looking forward to and skimmed it over, looking for the relevant information she wanted.

According to his file, Hayawaka Aki was killed by the Gun Devil after the initial assault on it led by the deceased Fourth Division leader Makima failed, though it was heavily injured and retreated into an unknown body. She read the file again, making certain she was reading it correctly, and thought about what Denji had told her earlier.

“Ah...” she said after a time, finger lightly tapping on the back of the folder. “So that is how it was.”

There would be much to think about.

000

10:02 PM

Yoshida sat at the table, chin resting on his folded hands, and he felt tied. The last couple of days finally feeling as though they were taking their hold on him, and he wanted to go into the other room and sleep it off, but he knew his thoughts would keep him awake no matter what he did, so he merely sat at this table with the cup of coffee sitting in front of him, a drink that had long since grown cold. It was late according to the clock on the wall, so Yoshida pushed himself out of his seat and went to the room that was not the guest room that had been used by Asa for the last week, and now him for the foreseeable future, and opened the door.

The room was a mess, covered in plastic and paper wrappings, empty boxes and empty soda cups were thrown haphazardly around, stains were everywhere, from sauces and grease, to frosting and spilled drinks and so much more. The room was a garbage dump and it had only gotten worse since they had come here yesterday after Fami's mission at the Devil Containment Facility had failed. She had him go out and buy as much food as he could, which was doing a number on his bank account which he had been forward thinking enough to fully withdraw from the bank because he had no doubt his assets would have been frozen by now if he wasn't already presumed dead.

Fami lay on the bed facedown.

Trash pushed against trash as he pushed the door open. “Are you going to do nothing but lay in bed all the time now?” he asked, his arms folded over his chest. “I know you're a glutton, but the way you were going through food all day seemed different than any other time.” He couldn't help but smirk. “Are you perhaps stress eating?”

Fami muttered something into her pillow.

Yoshida raised a hand to his ear. “I'm sorry, I couldn't understand that, would you mind speaking more clearly?”

With a great deal of reluctance on her part, Fami turned her head over to face him, and the state of the room was matched by the smeared stains around her mouth, and the bits of food sticking to her face. Early on he had gotten her a cherry pie and she had torn into it with her bare hands, and after that he had no desire to see her eat anything else, only coming in here long enough to give her the food she demanded. When Denji ate that cake with his bare hands he was put off by it, but here it was just unsettling.

“Why are humans so difficult?” she asked, not bothering to lift her head up from her pillow. “Why is it that whenever you try and figure them out something goes wrong?”

“I've been trying to figure that out for years.” He's not being dishonest with that.

“This was the third plan I had involving Asa, but for some reason she never does what she needs to do,” Fami admitted. “Can't she see things would be easier if she does what I need her to do?”

Yoshida said nothing, letting the devil continue.

“If she turned Denji into a weapon at the aquarium, or let the Falling Devil take her, or pressed on and turned him into a weapon at the containment facility, it would all be so much easier. It's all for the good of the world, and she'll get to live a happy life like she wants to.” She paused and buried her head back into her pillow. “Why is she being so ungrateful?”

He tapped a finger against his arm. “Maybe she doesn't like being forced into things she didn't ask for?”

Fami turned her head, just enough so that a single, ringed eye was looking at him from above the pillow. “Why should that matter? Why would she complain about a little suffering now when the rewards will be worth it?”

Yoshida didn't know what to say. He knew that for whatever reason that Fami had become... attached to Asa, but he had trouble figuring out why exactly. To a degree, it reminded him about his relationship, or lack therefor, with Denji.

But look at how that turned out.

He decided to change the subject. There was no point in trying to understand these kinds of things when he was no closer than when he started.

“Are you going to start searching for them then?” he said. “They're still important for stopping the Death Devil, right?”

Fami let out a long, dragged out groan as she pushed herself up so that she was sitting on the edge of her bed. “Yes, I suppose that is something we'll have to do,” she said, her head bowed down low. “We have no idea where they are, and we can't afford to waste time. Yoru has to wield a weapon made from Chainsaw Man, and the sooner we can make that happen, the better.”

“If you don't mind me asking, but why?” Yoshida asked, pushing himself off the doorframe. “Why exactly are the War Devil and Chainsaw Man so important for this? What makes you think that those two will be able to stop the Death Devil?”

The Famine Devil looked up at him, her eyes looking as though they were glowing. “I thought you knew already, or at least would have figured it out by now.”

He had an idea where this was going, and it made him a little apprehensive.

Fami continued. “If Yoru is able to use Asa's guilt to forge a weapon out of Chainsaw Man, she can utilize his power to erase concepts from reality, then when she kills Death, she'll end death itself.”

000

6:12 AM

The door opened and the four of them crept out of the apartment, before they closed it, having no plan to return to this apartment again. Everyone but Nayuta was holding a duffel bag.

“So, you think we'll be able to get away?” Reze asked as they made their way to the stairs. Her duffel bag held Nayuta's clothes. “By now I imagine that everyone is looking for us, so I imagine it'll be only a matter of time before we run into trouble.”

“If we get lucky,” Asa said. “There's a lot going against us, but if we keep our heads down then we should be able to last a while before anyone finds us.” Her duffel bag had originally belonged to Kishibe, but seeing as how he wasn't coming back for it they had emptied it out and used it to carry any supplies like food and towels. They more or less took everything that they could fit in it. As they made it to the next floor Asa readjusted her sweatpants. “I think the first thing we should do is get clothes for Reze and I, the three of us can't share the same clothes forever.”

“I think we should leave the city first, Denji said. “Get as far as we can before we make any stops.” The duffel bag he had was his clothes. “Though we're gonna have to be frugal about what we spent. We only got so much money.”

“We broke into three ATMs last night!” Nayuta interjected, and she recalled how fun it was last night when they all sneaked out to steal money from the ATMs Reze had spotted on the way to the apartment. Asa had no concept of money, so it was easy to convince herself to forge weapons that dispersed money out of them, claiming that she was owed by the state, with a good deal of interest added on. She felt bad about destroying the machines, so the weapons were stored in the duffel bag Denji had, along with the money. “We can just break into more!”

“It would be best to try and not pull too much attention to us,” Reze said. “So I think stealing money should only be a last resort.”

“I think we'll be fine,” Denji said. “I lived for years on not even the bare minimum, so I think I can teach you guys a thing or two about this kind of thing.”

In only a short few weeks, Asa had gone from a nobody that could have died and no one would have even noticed to a wanted terrorist caught in the middle of a battle for the very fate of the world. It was odd to think just where her life had gone, the choices she had made to get here, and what things she might have made if she had known what was down this path. She didn't know where she would end up, and she couldn't deny the fear and apprehension that even now was building inside her, but what else could she do? All she could do was just... go for it and hope that she didn't ruin things for everyone else like she had already done.

“Well, here we go onto our new lives,” she muttered to herself.

Despite the apprehension, the fear, the doubt and all the awful things bubbling inside her chest, Asa couldn't help but have a small smile on her face.

THE END