Work Text:
“This is Hayakawa Aki from Tokyo Special Division 4; we can confirm that the Crab Devil has been located in the Bahamas. I’m dispatching myself along with the Blood Fiend Power and the hybrid—”
“Lighten up, man!” Denji whines, still trying to fight his way out of the sand that his shoes are starting to sink into. “Pretty sure Public Safety knows it’s us anyways. What’s the damn point of announcing ourselves when we could already be out there killing?”
“There’s a protocol to follow, Denji.” Aki stresses, already massaging the bridge of his nose. “Do not make me fill out an incident report to Makima again. I don’t want to clean up your mess and deal with Power screaming in my ear about how much wasted blood’s on the ground.”
Power, who’s currently chomping down on a handful of sand, gasps in outrage. “How dare thee! I would never do such a thing, and if this event actually occurred, it was not me! It was probably Denji! He’s the true fiend here!”
“Why is there a Crab Devil anyways?” Denji mutters from where he’s trying to set up a towel on the sand. He takes his shoes off and turns them upside down, grimacing at the amount of sand that comes pouring out. Behind him, Power coughs up the sand she ate, looking both bemused and irate at the loss of a potential meal.
Aki’s moderately cold exterior does nothing to mask the internal war he’s having with himself. Does he try to solve where the Crab Devil is located first? And deal with it accordingly before the locals try to interfere with their mission? Or does he sic Denji and Power on the damn thing and only deal with the incident reports?
He’s got options for sure, but weighing the pros and cons is harder than it looks. “There’s apparently some talk about how crustaceans look like little monsters, and the fear has only grown bigger since there was an outbreak of crabs giving people food poisoning. It’s enough to make the Crab Devil a legitimate threat, and Makima wants us to get rid of it before it heads into Japan.”
“Could’ve just had other Devil Hunters get rid of this thing,” Denji mutters. “I’ve never even been outside of Japan anyways, figured I’d be dead before I even reached anything else. So if this is sand, is it because it’s between the, uh, sea and land? That’s fucking lame.”
Aki doesn’t feel like unpacking all of that, but he keeps an eye on the horizon so he doesn’t make a face. “I’m not sure, Denji. If you find the Devil, tell me before you go after it, alright? I don’t want to deal with all the incident reports—”
“Found the Devil,” Denji says, and Power takes off across the sand, shrieking as she kicks off her shoes and forms a bloody mallet in her hands. “YOUR BLOOD IS MINE!” She screams, leaping into the ocean. Sure enough, there’s a bubbling mass of crustacean rising from the water, and it screams and clacks its pincers together. It’s not a huge Devil, all things considered, but it’s residing in its home territory and Aki, Denji, and Power are the ones overstepping.
Normally, Aki would want to get the job over and done with, but the other two idiots have been pissing him off ever since Makima gave them the order to leave Japan and kill a Devil that shouldn’t even be in their jurisdiction. If this is her roundabout way of getting everyone to take a vacation, especially after everything they’ve been through, then it might potentially work.
The Crab Devil stands up and bats Power back into the water, where she stands up and starts yelling insults before jumping back into the fray. Frankly, Aki doesn’t want to get sand in his shoes, so he gestures at Denji, who glares back. “What?”
“I’m sure you’ve matured enough to take down Devils on your own,” Aki says, shrugging. “If you kill it without spilling blood on the sand, I’ll buy you some food as a reward. Just don’t clobber Power on the way back.”
“I HEARD THAT!” Power howls from where she’s trying to get a grip on the damn crab. “TIS A SIMPLE DEVIL! THE GREAT AND MIGHTY POWER CAN EASILY TAKE THIS BASTARD DOWN—”
The Crab Devil rears its ugly head, and sends Power flying further into the ocean. She splashes and sinks below the water; Aki wonders if she knows how to swim, since it hasn’t been brought up ever since he met her. Hopefully she can? He doesn’t want to get his suit wet, but she’s the reason his rent’s going lower, so he kinda wants to keep her around for now.
Denji’s still fighting for his life to cross the sand, yelping and wincing every time he touches it. He’s holding the axe in his hand and leans down to roll up his pants, stepping into the ocean hesitantly. It probably doesn’t help that Denji’s never been on a beach either, and Aki also comes to the realization that Denji definitely doesn’t know how to swim.
“I remember overhearing someone talk about crabs back home!” Denji shouts as he approaches the Devil, twirling the axe in his hand. “I was dumpster divin’ behind some seafood restaurant and they were throwing out perfectly good crabs! It took me trying to eat like, four crabs before I found out I couldn’t bite through the shell, so I snuck into the place to see how people ate them.”
Aki has a vague feeling on where this is going. “And what’d you learn from that? How to eat crabs?”
“Well, yeah obviously, but how to kill them too!” Denji jumps as the Crab Devil swipes at him and lands on its pincer, hurrying up its shell. The Devil shrieks and tries to pinch him out of the air, but can’t reach due to the ginormous shell it's wearing. Denji waves the axe threateningly as the pincers get close. “Power! Do the trip thing I taught you earlier!”
Aki peers into the water and snorts when he spots a flash of red in the water; it’s some of Power’s blood extending into a straight line, but then it curves and flows like the water. A long rope, maybe? Denji groans and jumps directly into the ocean.
Sure enough, the two idiots grab onto either end of the blood rope and yank. The Crab Devil shrieks and topples over, tripped into the water. Its little legs flail in the air, and the soft part of its underbelly gets exposed to the sunshine.
“HELL YEAH!” Power shouts, finally emerging from the water and throwing her fist into the air. She’s drenched in seawater and has seaweed hanging off one of her horns, grinning the entire time. “I have single-handedly brought down the Devil! Revel before me, the Great and Magnanimous Power!”
“I’m surprised you know a word that big,” Denji snarks when he gets out of the water. He looks tired and jet-lagged, but relieved that he doesn’t have to lose that much blood when he turns into Chainsaw Man. “You owe me a shitload of food, Aki. I didn’t bring a spare change of clothes and now I’m soaking wet.”
“Luckily for you, I prepared for that and brought clothes for both you and Power.” Aki says dryly, watching Denji climb the Crab Devil. “And I’m a man of my word, Denji. We’re definitely getting food courtesy of Public Safety. I think I’m more impressed that you didn’t turn into Chainsaw Man for this.”
“Well, my chainsaws are useless as shit against crab shells,” Denji grumbles, making sure he’s still holding on tightly onto the axe. “Trust me, I tried. I also just don’t feel like losing that much blood today. If we’re supposed to be on vacation, then why the fuck am I choosing to get my dumbass knocked out for the entire trip?”
Denji readies his axe and strikes down on the stomach of the Crab Devil, grinning in satisfaction when the Devil screams and gurgles, blood spilling into the ocean. It tries flailing one final time against everyone else, and falls still, body slumping down.
Aki, who’s been standing on the beach this entire time and delighted that he’s not sweating as much as he thought he’d be, simply nods and thinks about the single-page incident report that he’ll have to fill out. Honestly, since they finished the job far faster than he thought, he might postpone it to tomorrow. There’s some experiences he wants to give Denji and Power before they head back to Japan.
“So what, we’re headed back to Japan now?” Denji says, sliding off the crab shell and into the water below. Power attempts to tackle him down, but squawks when she slips and goes under again. “Bor-ing. Wake me up when our flight’s headed out, I think I’m gonna get some grub and pass out.”
“Don’t you want to do beach stuff?” Aki blurts out. He’s always wanted to visit the beach as well, but Public Safety rarely allows for vacation time as it is. You’re either sleeping or out hunting Devils, but Makima’s offered them a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “The beach was already closed off for us and it’s usually flooded with tourists.”
“What else is there to do?” Denji looks confused. “Drink the water? It’s way too salty for me. I mean, I can try, but only for a price.”
“Let the price be human blood!” Power cackles as she emerges from the water. Her hair’s plastered to her skin, and Aki makes a note that he needs to give her a haircut soon, along with Denji.
“I meant making a sandcastle,” Aki sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose again. “When you put wet sand on top of each other and make random shapes. Or we can put some sunscreen on and I can teach you how to swim later. When are we ever getting this chance again?”
Maybe it’s the remembrance of a potential snowball fight in his memory, but Aki’s weirdly determined to actually finish out this vacation before Makima calls them to fight and clean up again. There must be an edge in his voice that he doesn’t realize, because Denji’s looking confused but down to do anything.
“Yeah, sure,” Denji says slowly. “Alright Topknot, what’s the plan? I bet I can make a better sandcastle than Power. Winner gets even more food! Or something else of our choosing!”
“It can’t be anything over budget,” Aki warns, but thinks about it. It’d be nice to stay out in the sun and mess around with the sand, plus getting food and having an impromptu picnic would be pretty enjoyable. The Crab Devil would get picked apart by fish anyways, and the destruction to the environment around them was pretty damn minimal. “Whoever can build the tallest sandcastle with windows and spirals gets to pick where we get dinner. I don’t wanna see a pile of sand and you try to tell me it’s a castle.”
Denji and Power nod, both seemingly satisfied by the terms and conditions for once. Aki waves them off and goes to sit down on the towel that Denji put down earlier, sighing with relief when he realizes he remembered to pack an umbrella too.
The beach starts to reopen when word of the Crab Devil’s death spreads, and a few families are brave enough to venture back onto the sand. They choose wisely to ignore Denji and Power, who keep kicking sand at each other while trying to build their respective castles. A mom wanders over, hands clasped and apologetic. “Are you the ones who took care of that Devil?”
“Why do you ask?” Aki asks. It’s always a hit or miss with locals when you take care of their problems. Better to be on your guard than not at all. “And if we were?”
The older lady laughs softly. “Well, if you were, then I would say thank you kindly for saving the rest of us from it. If you weren’t, then all I wanted to say is, your siblings look like they’re having a great time. First time at the beach?”
“For them, yeah.” Aki responds, not sure how to feel about a positive response to Public Safety. “Just trying to see how they like the beach before we have to go home. Do you know any good local food places in the area?”
The woman rattles off a few locations with hand gestures, and Aki thanks her as she walks away. It’s only when he turns back to his two idiots that he realizes that the woman called them his siblings, and he hadn’t refuted it at all. Damn it.
“I have the tallest!” Power declares from where she’s hovering over her castle. “I’m the winner! I’ve beaten Denji, and I’ve earned the right to food!” True to word, she does have a pretty tall castle. She used some of her blood as adhesive for the sand to stick together, but Aki hadn’t said anything about not using abilities for the competition.
Denji’s castle is, for lack of a better term, sad and small. He hadn’t figured out that sand needs to be wet to stick together, so his pile of sand is dry and relatively low to the ground. There’s a few attempts at windows and a little tower, so Aki calls out to Power, “You still need windows in yours.”
Without missing a beat, Power nods and turns to her castle before punching it directly in the side. The top half of the castle gets destroyed in a heartbeat. “Ah,” Power says, scrunching her face up. “That…was not supposed to happen. Fuck.”
“THAT MEANS I WIN!” Denji howls, punching the air. “I get to pick dinner! Sucks to suck, Powy!”
“I call for a rematch!” Power yowls, forming a blood mallet and swiping at Denji’s castle. The two dissolve into a fight, destroying both their sandcastles in the midst. So much for that idea, but they had fun, so Aki’s not complaining.
Aki rolls his eyes, trying not to smile. “You can pick dinner for tonight, Denji, and Power can pick breakfast.” He snorts out, doing his best to not laugh. “You’re both winners, then. I’ve got a list of places you can pick from.”
All in all, it’s a damn good vacation and break that they desperately needed, and Aki finds himself gazing out the window on their flight home, mournfully missing the waves but cherishing the memories he now holds.
He hopes the next time he steps on the beach, it’ll be just as fun as his day with his family.