Chapter Text
Everyone was jealous of somebody.
It was such a simple, obvious realization that she was almost tempted to smack herself on the head for not coming to it sooner.
Of course, it’d be rather difficult to do that right now, given her current circumstances, that being having her face split open, her vision disoriented as she could tell her eyes weren’t where they were supposed to be, and as she felt the warmth leaving her body in real time over a nearly empty street.
All the while, the class president looked down on her, her body made of bloated, twisted flesh, her many faces sneering and delivering cruel, mocking laughter as they went on and on about just how much they hated her.
During this time, Asa couldn’t help but let her thoughts wander. Wasn’t she supposed to have her life flash before her eyes right now? Did it have something to do with the whole face-being-split-open thing?
Maybe.
Honestly, though, she was rather thankful it didn’t.
She didn’t need or want the reminder.
Her life was horrible. Perhaps it was a juvenile and overly pessimistic way of looking at it, as, all things considered, it could’ve been much worse, but she didn’t care.
Her whole life, she had been subject to tragedy after tragedy, being little more than an unwilling passenger through it all. The thing with suffering, though, is that it could be alleviated by the concept that things would get better.
That’s what Asa had thought, anyways.
If she were to graduate high school and get into a prestigious university, it might’ve all been worth it. If she were to get offered an initial starting position at a well-paying job with good benefits and a promise of increased standing after a few years, she’d consider it to have been worth it. And… maybe, just maybe, if during that time she met someone. Someone who wouldn’t leave her, who would accept her, who wouldn’t… wouldn’t just die… and then maybe it all would’ve been worth it.
Maybe, maybe, maybe…
But it didn’t matter, did it?
She was going to die now. Here in the city she hated so much, with the smell of blood and recently torn-up debris joining the stench of filth in the air as she grew tired.
She had so many regrets. So many. But her greatest one?
Well… in the next life, if there was one, she’d like to live a bit more selfishly.
…
Oh no… that won’t do.
…?
Y-you’d want to be… selfish? I… oh gosh, well… I guess I feel a little better asking this now.
…What?
Beneath the blinking cross light, her eye — she thinks it’s her left — was permanently fixed in its direction.
Through it, she swore she saw someone standing beneath it, staring straight at her.
She swore she was wearing a school uniform. She swore she had messy, blonde hair. She swore that, despite how dark it was outside, her eyes were glowing with a blue tint.
She swore she brought a finger to her mouth and began to chew on it in an almost nervous-like tick.
Forgive me, but… would you want to continue your suffering and let me bring you back to life?
Asa couldn’t do anything but stare. Hallucinations were also part of dying, right? Or at least, they were a part of extreme blood loss, which, at this point, she doubted she had any more left in her head.
With her last, fleeting thought, she gave a response.
Sure.
She tried her best to calm down. Really, she did, but she just felt so giddy.
Finally, after so long, after so many months of humiliation, it was over.
Asa Mitaka was dead.
She shifted on her arms, which were larger and bulkier than she would’ve liked, but alas, they got the job done. Through her many sets of eyes, she could see Mr. Tanaka clearly, even in the dark like this.
He was open-mouthed, gawking, a fearful expression across his face.
Poor thing. Mr. Tanaka was just too nice for his own good. That’s why he liked a girl like Asa Mitaka, anyways. She simply triggered a protective instinct in him, that was all. He was confused, that was all.
He had chosen her first. Mitaka was just a phase, and thankfully, she had finally ended it. Now, finally, together, they could get their happily ever after.
One of her heads moved, frowning as it took notice of something. A moment later, they all noticed it as well.
She was standing.
“Huh?”
Rising up from a pool of her own blood, she came to her feet. She stared in complete and utter confusion as she suddenly nearly fell.
“W-woah,” she mumbled to herself.
“Mitaka…?” Tanaka asked, taking his attention away from her again.
A throbbing sensation began to spread across the foreheads of all her heads.
“Didn’t I just kill you?”
Mitaka didn’t respond to either person. Instead, she continued to stumble in place as she raised her hands to her face.
“How strange…” she continued, her voice sounding even more pathetic than it usually did. “It’s similar to my own body, yet weaker as well. Is this true for all humans? Wait… no.”
She lowered her hands before raising her left foot to the side, examining it, her hair falling into her eyes as she tilted her head.
“A torn ligament. Oh… that’s no good. T-this body’ll be susceptible to imbalance with it. I’d better fix that while I can.”
She lowered her foot, then finally brought her hands to her face, clearing away the hair covering it.
Across her face, lines were etched into her skin, marking where she had swiped at it with her clawed hands. Impossibly, however, they were closed, patterns appearing like stitches welding them shut.
As she stared at them in shock, she almost didn’t notice her gaze.
Her eyes were still blue, yet they seemed lighter now. Impossibly so, and within them, small, golden rings spiraled within her sky-like irises.
Beside her, Tanaka stood, and she sniffed before tapping both her pointer fingers together.
“Um, excuse me,” she asked politely, batting her eyelashes in an anxious manner. “W-would you mind helping?”
Their homeroom teacher could only stare at what he was beginning to realize wasn’t Mitaka anymore.
“…What?”
Not a moment passed before a hand placed itself on his head.
Tanaka’s eyes widened at the sudden contact, and before he could voice his protest, it was too late. His skin turned grey in color in a matter of seconds, the color leaving it as he began to quite literally shrivel up, his hair falling off as it turned into mere wisps. His outfit hung loosely on him as his cheeks hollowed out and his eyes dried out. His face was left in a permanent scream, but he hadn’t even been given the chance to get it out.
He hit the ground without a sound, his husk taking a moment as it almost floated down.
The not-Mitaka smiled as her ankle pulsed, before settling it down. She gave it an experimental roll.
“Ah! M-much better!”
Tragedy and rage alike bloomed within her, and her fists curled atop the ground, grinding up the concrete and asphalt alike.
“What the Hell are you?!” she boomed, ready to avenge her beloved from this demon.
The being in question blinked rapidly, almost seeming taken aback by her volume.
“Oh… oh! You want—! Oh, okay! Well… it’s, um… well, you may call me Fami, I suppose, but if you want to know my real name, then…”
Before she finished, she pursed her lips and brought a hand to her chin.
“Uh, well, actually… I changed my mind. I don’t want to tell you.”
She could feel the veins bulging across her face as she raised a giant fist towards her.
“You bitch!” she screeched. “Die already!”
“H-huh?! Ah, wait! You must think I’m the human known as Mitaka Asa, right? I’m actually not—”
The fist flew, almost as large as her torso, and she knew as soon as it connected that whatever this thing was would be put down for good.
She never expected, though, for it to completely miss its mark. Fami dropped down to her side, almost flopping over like some sort of fish or toddler. Yet, as the limb went overhead, she noticed two things.
The first was that Fami’s feet were still on the ground, the balance and core strength required for the maneuver being unreal. The second was that Fami’s eyes were still locked onto her.
A single hand was gently placed onto her still-outstretched arm.
“Oh, I get it.”
She felt a pain in her chest, and her legs, hanging over the ground as a single giant arm supported her, began to thrash relentlessly.
Blue eyes seemed to glow in the dark, and she swore the marks on Fami’s face were glowing with a similar hue.
“You want me to save you too, right?”
This time, the class president could scream, but her cries fell on empty ears.
She could feel her body shrivel up just as Tanaka’s had, and she could feel her life leaving her body. Through the last of her remaining vision, she watched as Mitaka, Fami, whatever it was, rushed forward, reeling back a punch of her own.
Through multiple sets of eyes, she watched her entire upper body get exploded, the remaining husk offering little to no resistance as it fell all over the street.
One of her heads rolled up right next to Mr. Tanaka.
She couldn’t even weep in grief or frustration, not a single ounce of water or blood left in any of her body, as her final thought was cursing Mitaka.
“Tokyo temperatures hit a record high today.”
Her eyebrows furrowed as, begrudgingly, her eyes began to flutter open. Her mouth felt dry.
“Be sure to take sufficient precautions against heatstroke, even at home, and stay hydrated outside.”
She grunted as she sat up on her bed, having been lying atop her sheets, and winced at how sore her body felt. The news really wasn’t lying at all. She really did need water.
“Speaking of going outside, Chainsaw Man has yet to appear this week.”
Hesitantly, she reached for her face. It felt… intact. She turned to her right, and through her reflection in the mirror, she saw herself.
Black hair styled into pigtails, sweat glistening against her skin from the heat in her own home, and blue eyes that always seemed tired no matter how much sleep she got.
She remembered the dream she had. She remembered just how vivid it had all felt. How she had been lured out by the class president and Mr. Tanaka and how she had… she had died.
That had felt way too real. Was it possible to feel phantom pain from something that you were only imagining? It had to be, right? If not, then why did her face seem to throb at the mere thought of it?
“Was it all a dream?” she whispered to no one in particular.
“Um, no. It’s very much real.”
Her blankets rustled beneath her as she made as much distance as she could on her bed between herself and, well, herself, she supposed.
“Bwah?!” she exclaimed, raising her hands in defense.
“E-eep!” the copy squealed back, getting knocked off the bed from equal surprise.
Her chest rose and fell heavily as she watched herself pick herself up from the floor.
Looking closer at her, she noticed that she wasn’t actually identical to her. She had the same face, same shape, same Mitaka Asa-esque features that had initially fooled her, but upon closer inspection, there were two major differences.
She had scars lined along her face, and much lighter blue eyes with golden rings in them.
Maybe not a huge difference, per se, but enough to put her a bit more at ease.
…
Oh, wait, no, it didn’t really. Her heart was just hammering so fast that she was beginning to dissociate from all this.
“G-geez,” the not-Asa complained. “Can you, like, not do that? I don’t do well with sudden noises.”
Asa could do nothing more than stare and sputter at her. Eventually, she managed to raise a hand and pinch her cheek.
“Um… hehe, I already told you this isn’t a dream,” she awkwardly chuckled. “Can you, uh, stop pinching yourself?”
She offered a grin, though it was so lopsided and forced that it looped around to being unnerving.
Asa brought both hands up to pinch her cheeks.
“Is this a human thing? Do you… like doing that?” Her eyes flicked around, as though she were looking for a lifeline or something. Thankfully, or maybe unthankfully, she found one. “O-oh! Look, see!” She raised an arm that looked exactly like hers. “Check the news!”
She followed the direction in which she was pointing, and her blood ran cold.
Depicted on the TV screen were photos of the class president and Mr. Tanaka from the yearbook. Underneath them, continuously trailing around the screen, were the words, ‘Two People Found Dead Last Night’.
Asa couldn’t pry her eyes away from the sight.
Did that mean…?
“I granted them a quick, benevolent death.”
She turned back to the other… thing, who was equally as invested in the television.
“It wasn’t my intention initially, but… well, I’m here to save as many people as I can. Um… except for you, I guess. Sorry.”
She sniffled before bringing a hand to the back of her head and rubbing it feverishly. She eyed Asa in an almost cautious manner.
“B-but you agreed to it, so I figured it was okay, right?!”
She still wasn’t completely sure if this was real. She certainly knew she didn’t want it to be.
Tentatively, fearfully so, she raised a hand. The other her blinked as she reached towards her. Asa wasn’t sure how to describe the feeling inside her as she watched her fingers phase through the other girl's shoulders.
“Oh? Uh, sorry again, but you can’t touch me,” she explained, giving Asa a sympathetic look. “Your brain is seeing me as a hallucination. I guess we’re… roommates? Or, better said, b-brainmates!”
She gave another toothy, awkward grin to Asa, looking at her expectantly for a reaction to her attempt at a joke. Asa pinched her own bicep for good measure.
Her face fell, and she wiped her own eyes, which had, for some reason, begun to collect tears.
“O-okay. I suppose it makes sense that you’re confused. You must have a lot of q-questions.”
She did, and more were spawning by the second as she adjusted herself on Asa’s bed, placing her hands on her lap as she took a deep breath.
“So,” she began, “you died last night, and, um… when you were dying, I sorta asked you if you were okay with me b-bringing you back to life, and you said yes.”
She… she had, hadn’t she? Asa remembered that. She also remembered… other stuff. She winced at the memories, suddenly feeling very, very sick.
“But, ah, I can tell you’re more confused about who I am, and since we’re g-gonna be working together, I’ll tell you.”
She cleared her throat, tapping a fist against her chest as she closed her eyes.
“I have quite a few names,” she said, sounding as though she were reciting something off a script. “The one who absorbs life. S-she who saves people from suffering via death. One of the four horsemen, the harbinger of hunger, feared by humans and devils alike…”
She opened her eyes, the rings within them seeming to glow.
“My name is Fami, but you may call me the Famine Devil.”
Asa felt her body tremble as an unfamiliar pressure began to build within her.
“T-the… Famine Devil?”
As soon as she said that, the Devil frowned, looking more like she was pouting, if anything.
“Actually, no,” she corrected. “C-call me Fami. I prefer that name.”
Asa kept staring.
“…The Famine Devil?”
“F-fami!”
She skipped out on breakfast. She just wasn’t hungry all things considered.
“You should still eat even if you’re not! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, isn’t it?!”
…That just wasn’t true at all. The phrase had been popularized by major corporations to help sell breakfast products and meals more effectively. There wasn’t a single study to support that claim.
“T-there’s not?!”
She paused for a second, not having the desire to turn around and acknowledge the devil, but also wishing she’d just shut up. The initial fear and unease had very quickly subsided once she realized that the devil that had taken over her body was little more than a nervous wreck.
“I’m just trying to help you, though! If we want to save the world, we need to be—!”
“S-save the world?!”
She usually was, but now, she was extra thankful that they were alone. The last thing she needed, on top of the scorn she’d received for killing Bucky, was for anyone to witness her shouting at the hallucination who kept reading her mind.
Fami shrunk back, eyes wide.
“Wha—”
“Save the world,” Asa repeated, her voice more restrained but just as frustrated. “How do you… do you really expect me to save the world?!”
The devil’s teeth chattered as she winced at her.
“Well… it’d more likely be me, if anything, but… yes, we’re going to have to save the world.”
Asa huffed as she turned around, beginning the unfortunate trek back to school. She didn’t want to go. She really didn’t want to go, but the devil was even more persistent about making her go than she was about breakfast, which was already a hassle in its own right.
“H-hey!” she exclaimed, jogging to catch up beside Asa. “S-shouldn’t you be a bit more grateful? I thought humans liked being alive, even if it is horrible.”
“You just said it’s horrible.”
“I think it’s horrible,” she said defensively. “Don’t you think it’s not?”
She didn’t even have to think about it.
“No. You’re right. It is horrible.”
“Woah, really?!”
“Yes,” she nodded as they continued down an empty street, the surrounding buildings providing enough shade to make the beating sun not completely unbearable. “You could do everything right, and still, you just get punished for it. Meanwhile, someone else could live a life of being a terrible, awful person, and they’d get rewarded for it. Life’s just unfair and cruel for the average person. Even excluding devils, the rising costs of everything and the moral decay of society are making life less appealing by the…”
She trailed off, choosing to bite her tongue. She was not about to start confiding in a devil that had taken over her body.
“You agreed to it!”
“I didn’t know you’d want me to ‘save the world’,” she snapped.
Fami shrunk back again, gnawing at her thumb with growing anxiety. She wanted to say more, to really vent her own frustrations and misery, but she figured that the Famine Devil didn’t deserve to be the target of it.
So instead, she sighed and decided to acknowledge the elephant in the room.
“…Why do you even want to save the world?” Asa asked, before quickly adding, “And how do you even plan on doing that?”
Mid-chew, Fami still held her thumb between her teeth. After a second, she removed it, a small string of saliva clinging to it.
“I want to save the world because I pity humans,” she said. Her voice was typically always shaky, unsure of itself. For the first time, she sounded like she wasn’t on the verge of tears. “They live such short lives, full of fear and anguish. Come June, in less than a year, their lives will be full of even greater suffering than they could ever imagine. I wish to prevent this, however I can, whether it be through death or through my plan.”
She didn’t get the logic, not really, but if this really was her new reality, she should at least be informed about it.
“Your plan?” she questioned, crossing her arms. “What’s that?”
Fami smiled, and this time, it seemed almost natural on her.
“In order to prevent humanity’s fate, I will team up with Chainsaw Man,” she announced, planting her hands firmly on her hips. “And together, we will defeat my sister, the Death Devil!”
Overhead, a flock of birds flew by, cawing and squawking insistently as a chill breeze passed by, mitigating the heat and making goosebumps form on Asa’s skin.
Asa was still looking at Fami.
“…Chainsaw Man?”
“Yeah,” she nodded excitedly. “I did my research! That’s part of the reason why I picked you to help me! By observing his activity over the past year or so, I was able to map out his patrol route. Cross-referencing that with high schools in the area, as well as with public transportation, which he would surely need to cross large distances without transforming, I was able to establish a list of schools that could be potential candidates for where he might be attending. From there, to narrow the list down further, I then—”
“Forget it.”
Fami’s mouth was still hanging open, having stopped mid-explanation.
“…Huh?”
“Working with Chainsaw Man?” Asa said morbidly. “I… I’d rather not.”
“B-but we have to!” the devil interrupted. “He’s the only one strong enough and with a pure enough heart to—”
“Pure heart?” Asa asked incredulously. “He’s not…” She scoffed. “I don’t think I’m necessarily a great person, but he’s even worse than me. He’s a sleazebag who kills devils just for a pastime. He doesn’t actually care about saving anyone.”
“H-he doesn’t?”
“No!” she exclaimed. Seriously, just what kind of devil even was Fami? Yes, she knew she was the Famine Devil, but what she meant was, just how weird was she? Clearly, she had a certain level of intellect, perhaps comparable to Asa’s, but there was something almost childlike about her as well.
“I mean, haven’t you seen the news?”
“Not often,” Fami admitted, looking at the ground shamefully. “I’m still rather new to the human realm.”
“Well, you should,” Asa said matter-of-factly. “He’s the last person you’d want to help save the world.”
The Horseman grunted, clearly conflicted by her words.
“Even then,” she continued, obviously not satisfied, “we still have to go to school to find him.”
Images of classrooms full of students, all staring at her, flashed through her mind.
She’d really rather not.
“We have to!”
“Stop reading my mind!”
“S-sorry!” Fami winced, but Asa really didn’t think she knew what that meant. “But if you care about this world even a little bit, at the very least, we have to make sure he’s safe!”
Asa frowned at the paradoxical statement.
“Wait, so you wanted him to help you save the world and you wanted to keep him safe?” she asked, hoping the ridiculousness of the sentence would make its way to its target. “How would that even work?”
Fami shook her head, making a noise similar to the one a cat would make when annoyed.
“Let me rephrase, then: We’d have to make sure he doesn’t fall into the wrong hands!” she corrected, as if that made a ton more sense.
“Fall into the wrong hands?” Asa repeated, her frown deepening. “Can you stop beating around the bush and tell me what that means?!”
“Sorry!” Fami really needed to explain what she meant. “The thing is, the Chainsaw Man you know is different from the Chainsaw Man I knew. Right now, he’s strong enough to handle most devils, but back in Hell, not only was he one of the most powerful ones around, even among the Primal Fears, but his power, unique to him and him alone, was something revered and sought after by all.”
There was something pleading in those eyes when they bored into Asa’s. She couldn’t help but swallow as she held Fami’s gaze.
“No matter what, we can’t allow it to get into the hands of anyone else.”
Asa still wasn’t convinced of all of this. She knew for a fact she wasn’t save-the-world material, and she didn’t know if Fami was either, but regardless, the gravity of the situation was beginning to dawn on her. She tried not to let it show, though, and instead kept voicing her own internal thoughts, even if it was pointless. She supposed she just preferred to imagine they were having an actual discussion rather than some weird, psychic hallucination thing.
“…If Chainsaw Man’s powers are that valuable,” Asa pressed on, “then why hasn’t anyone else gone after them yet?”
“Even though humans can be rather silly, the ones who do know about them know better than to try to control them. And other than them…”
Fami’s earlier anxiousness returned, and she shivered, holding herself.
“I’d… I’d rather not think about them.”
The way she said it made Asa feel like she had to know.
“Who?”
The devil’s lips trembled as she averted her gaze.
“Who, Fami?”
Her fingers began to tap insistently against her arms as she struggled to get anything out.
Asa almost asked again before Fami finally managed to speak.
“…The rest of my family.”
Family?
…Oh. OH!
“Y-your sister’s the Death Devil?!” she exclaimed, having brushed past that detail much too quickly. Fami didn’t look the least bit pleased at the acknowledgment, though.
“O-one of my sisters, yes,” Fami confirmed, grinding her shoe into the ground beneath her out of nervous habit. “Death still resides in Hell, waiting for June, but I’m not sure about the other two.”
“Are they… are they also here?” Asa asked, suddenly feeling very conscious of her surroundings as she looked around. The only thing that caught her eye was a bag of trash lying limp by the curb. Somebody should really pick that up, but of course, no one would.
“I don’t know,” Fami admitted, knocking Asa out of the beginnings of a side tangent. “But both are bad news. One’s obsessed with claiming Chainsaw Man for herself and erasing the rest of us, and the other… she might be even worse than Death herself.”
“R-really?”
Fami nodded with a grim, knowing look.
“That’s why it’s so important we act now,” she said, giving Asa a pleading look. “If she were to ever appear here in the human world again, then it’d be the worst news imaginable.”
A devil worse than Death herself? Asa tried to think about that. Fami had said she was one of the Four Horsemen, right? If so, that meant she was the… third, right?
Yeah, Famine was the Third. Death was the Fourth and final. And the other two…
The very first was Conquest. That’s right. When the apparent apocalypse began, Conquest was the first to appear. After that, the very next was…
She flapped away, indignation burning throughout her small, feathered form.
Damn it! Damn it all!
Just when she thought she had found a suitable vessel, one of her accursed sisters decided to butt in and take what was rightfully hers once again!
She wanted to project her anger further, but after just a minute of flying, she was growing incredibly tired.
At this rate, she was going to have to change forms yet again.
The form of this potoo was certainly an improvement over the rat and crippled feline she had taken before, but it was much too pudgy, and its hollow bones were much too brittle for her to get anything done beyond surveillance.
Oh, how she wished that whichever bitch had taken her prey would get caught and slaughtered by a devil hunter.
The thought almost made her laugh with giddy joy as she made an emergency landing, her talons doing their best to steady her while she struggled to breathe.
Damn it. Damn her sisters, damn the whole world, and especially damn that bastard Chainsaw Man for causing her to grow as weak as she was.
But she was close. So, so close to getting her revenge. She had found evidence of where he attended school in the aftermath of a rather bloody battle, the scraps left behind having been the best meal she had gotten in recent years.
That, of course, did not mean she was grateful to the mongrel. After all, it was he who had reduced her to nothing more than a scavenger.
She was more than that. So much more.
She was grand. She was powerful. She was beautiful. She was violence incarnate, and she wouldn’t have had it any other way. Oh, how good she had it!
She had once been on the level of the Primals, with even those ancients staying out of her conquest of Hell, lest she make a coat out of them.
Now, here she was, hoping to find a puddle clean enough to drink from.
She hopped along the alley, her eyes doing their best to adjust to the dark. She remained still for a second, searching for any signs of movement or life. In this form, even a particularly desperate rat could be fatal.
After about half a minute, she grunted before bounding forward another two steps toward a murky puddle in front of her.
In the dark, it was mostly hidden, but she could smell the stench emanating from it, and its brown tint reflected the distant streetlights.
Hunger beat out her unfortunately low standards after just a moment.
She drank with reckless abandon, the taste causing her to nearly gag, but the refreshing feeling it gave her making her go back for more.
She drank mouthful after mouthful, taking small breaks in between to clatter her beak together as she swallowed.
She gasped after a moment, feeling better, and now, thanks to that, feelings of anger began to blossom anew.
“Chainsaw Man,” she growled under her breath, her claws scraping along the ground. “You got lucky, but soon, you hear me? Soon, I will find you, and once I do, I’ll make you spit out all you’ve taken from me, including Nuclear Wea—”
“Woah~ A talking bird!”
She stopped right at the end of her rant, feeling her crimson eyes nearly bulge out as her beak remained wide open. She instantly jumped around toward the source of the sound, having been too lost in satiating her thirst and ranting about Chainsaw Man to notice it.
At the entrance of the alleyway, no more than two or three meters away, a figure stood.
She had her back to the entrance, but based on the outline she could see, it was a girl.
A girl with blonde hair, wearing an oversized T-shirt and a pair of shorts that went down to her knees.
In either hand, she carried plastic bags, the smell of meat causing the bird to unknowingly drool. Still, she decided to focus instead on the fact that the girl was staring right at her, her head tilted as her glasses seemed to sag along her face.
“I thought only parrots could do that?” she continued, crouching down as she placed the bags on the ground below. “Or… oh, wait. No. Ravens can too, right? But you’re not a raven, are you, little guy? Or girl, I don’t judge.”
…It was just a human girl. She didn’t suspect anything, because why would she?
Knowing this, she would just fly away, this encounter providing her with nothing of value. But she was still tired from her previous, albeit brief, flight, and as such, she didn’t feel comfortable leaving just yet.
The best course of action would be to get the girl to move along.
“…Caw, caw,” she tried, flapping her wings in a mundane manner that would surely amaze a human.
Just as she expected, the girl giggled before clapping excitedly in praise.
“Wow! Amazing, amazing! You’re such a smart bird, aren’t you?!”
She felt incredible disdain and anger toward this human now. She begged for her wings to stop aching and her chest and stomach to stop churning so she could take flight and never have to see her again.
“That deserves a reward, right?” the girl said, reaching into her bag. A small packet of sweet snacks was pulled out a moment later.
Despite her previous feelings, she suddenly felt a little more forgiving toward her.
“Caw! Caw!” She cheered with more enthusiasm, shame escaping her as she watched the girl peel open the wrapper.
She broke off a sizeable piece, crumbs falling back into the wrapper and at her feet alike, before she flung it at her. The treat landed just a bit in front of her. A hop was all it took for her to reach it, and she began to ferociously dig into it.
Yes… yes! She could feel the weakness afflicting this body beginning to dissipate almost as soon as she got some food into it!
The girl just giggled some more, and she didn't even notice that the voice sounded closer.
“Look at you!” she teased. “It's one of my favorite brands too, y'know? It's even better cuz I can collect the stickers!”
She didn't care, and she didn't have to. She was a bird, after all, so she just kept eating, knowing that as soon as she finished, she'd be free to leave.
“I have most of them, but there's one left I really want to…”
It happened all at once. One second, she was happily gouging down her food, raising her neck to help it work its way into her belly. The next, a hand closed around both her talons while another grabbed her feathered body, restraining her wings.
She spat out a glob of half-digested bread before she began to squawk.
“H-huh?!” she cried out, thrashing against the grip as she was lifted into the air. “What are you—?! R-release me, girl!”
Despite her best efforts, the grip on her was powerful enough to hurt, and she swore that just a bit more pressure would snap her legs in half.
“Aha!” the girl exclaimed cheerily, ignoring the desperate struggles of the bird she held. “I knew I heard you talk!”
With the girl this close to her, she could make out her stupid-looking grin and hazel eyes hidden behind her glasses, which now seemed to gleam with something she found she didn't like.
“Let go! L-let go of me! Now!”
The girl only chuckled at her pleas.
“I had a hunch you could understand me, but now, you're just straight-up talking.” A wider, amused, and borderline cruel grin spread across her face. “You're some kind of devil, aren't you?”
She stared at her, waiting for some sort of confirmation, but they both knew she didn't even need one at this point. Still, she had to try.
“…Caw, caw?”
More hearty laughter exploded from the girl before she turned.
“Ah, don't worry. I won't kill you. Probably.”
She really hated humans, she decided, as the girl continued, abandoning her bags as she dragged her into the street.
“The name's Yuko, by the way,” she said casually, as if she weren't kidnapping her. “I'm gonna take you home and figure out what to do with you, alright?”
She was speaking as if she didn't have a choice, which, given the circumstances, she probably didn't.
But she was a devil. She was one of the most powerful devils in existence. No matter how weakened she might be right now, she refused to get bested like this.
Mustering up her nerves, she made one final attempt at freedom.
“You listen to me, girl,” she managed in as serious and threatening a tone as she could muster. “You will release me now, for if you don't, I swear I shall—”
The hold on her tightened.
“…Apologies.”
This couldn't be.
Had War really fallen so low that she could be bested by a teenage girl of all people?
…Yes. Yes, she had.