CHAPTER 1: A Meeting in the Rain
Denji was in a jubilant mood as he walked through the bustling high street, a spring in his step, he never thought life could ever get this good for him. Not long ago he would have thought himself lucky to get little more than bread crusts and rainwater for his dinner, having only a cramped room to call his own and nothing in his future but empty dreams and a mountain of debt.
Now, however, he felt more optimistic about his future than he ever had. Ever since Miss Makima had found him in that warehouse, surrounded by the remains of the mafia that had acted as his tormentors for as long as he could remember, he had experienced things which he had thought would forever be consigned as unattainable pipe dreams, destined only to be shared with Pochita. But now he had a home, all the food he could ever want and, well not a family, but with Aki and Power he at least had company to help fill the void left when Pochita sacrificed himself to save him. Now thanks to Pochita's sacrifice he was living the life he dreamt of.
His current good mood however is due to more than just his improved circumstances, more specifically Denji is currently basking in the afterglow of his date with Miss Makima, replaying the night in his head over and over, the movies they watched and the moments they shared.
Yet he kept going back to one moment, the question he asked her in the spur of the moment: 'Do I have a heart?'
It was a question that had been bothering him ever since the death of Aki's partner Himeno; a woman who had treated him with kindness, even offering to set him up with Makima! Yet when she died, he had felt nothing. It had shocked him just how little he had been phased by it, giving rise to thoughts that maybe becoming a devil had cost him his humanity in the process.
So, when he asked Makima this question that had been weighing down on him, he expected the question to be laughed away or dismissed as nonsense. Instead, she did the last thing he thought she would do, she said not a word and rested her head on his chest, ear to his heart. They had stood there, frozen in time for what felt like an eternity but was likely just moments, the only sound being the frantic beating of his heart. She had looked straight him in the eyes and said with such confidence and certainty that all his doubts were washed away in an instant: "You do".
'That racing beat… means I must have a heart!'
"We're raising funds for the children harmed by devils!" Please spare some change!"
Denji, shocked out of his daydream and back into the present, turned to the noise, seeing that it had come from several charity workers outside a flower shop, flogging their cause to passers-by's with little success. "I've got a heart, so I guess I could give a little" blurted Denji, his chipper mood overcoming his natural stinginess.
"Thank you so much!" Chirped the volunteer as Denji fished a few hundred Yen from his pocket, tossing it into the donation box. Pleased that she had finally received a donation she stops Denji as he was about to move on, "Wait a minute sir!" She says, reaching down into a basket at her feet, pulling out a small daisy "everyone who donates gets a flower as a gift" holding out the dainty little flower to him with a practised smile. "Oh, it looks pretty!" Exclaims Denji, taking the daisy from her hand, before turning to walk away, tossing the poor flower into his mouth as he continued his stroll, leaving the shell-shocked volunteer frozen in place.
He resumed his thoughts of the previous night as he walked, pondering in amazement at how a simple talk with Miss Makima had cleared the doubt plaguing him, banished with two simple words.
'Miss Makima did say she would do one thing I asked if I gathered all the fragments of the Gun Devil, maybe… I guess I'd want to go out with her'
'Yeah! There's no way I'll fall for anyone else, my heart belongs to Makima alone!' He swears to himself, standing stock still.
*pitapatpitapatpitapat*
While Denji had been lost in thought, what had started as a barely noticeable drizzle had quickly become a full-fledged shower,
'I guess my luck was bound to run out at some point' he thinks pitifully, as he begins dashing for cover as Beam appears from the newly formed puddles by the roadside, having decided to tag along on Denji's outing.
"HAHA! WATER! WATER! WATER!" yelled the shark fiend jubilantly
"Beam! Stay quiet you asshole! If anyone notices you there I won't be able to walk around here anymore!" snaps Denji as he continues running, spotting a telephone box in the distance.
"YES SIR!" Beam shouts towards Denji's fleeing form, before disappearing back into the depths of the shallow puddle.
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Reze observed her target with interest from a crowd across the street, watching as the boy, Denji was his name, ambled down the street from a charity stall, his head clearly in the clouds.
'An easy mark' she thought, nearly rolling her eyes at the obliviousness of the boy, following his movements, keeping pace with his stride and weaving in and out of the crowd as she goes.
She thought back to the orders given to her by her handlers, the faceless members of the Soviet Politburo who controlled her movement and, by extension, her life for as long as she could remember."'Lure the target somewhere private, neutralise him, and seize the devil in his heart, all the information you require is in the file", those were the words of the nameless bureaucrat tasked with bringing her orders.
She ran through the contents of the file again in her head as she walked, the file had detailed his basic information; his address, his employment as a devil hunter under the powerful devil hunter Makima and his status as the Chainsaw hybrid. However, there were parts of the file that stood out to Reze. He was a hybrid, just like her, he was an orphan just like her, he had no formal education, just like her.
'He is nothing but a tool, a heartless weapon. Just like me…', Reze grimaced at this, and pushed the intrusive thoughts from her head, she had accepted her lot in life a long time ago, there was no point in defying the demands of her superiors, her fate was decided the moment they condemned her to that room.
'All in all, a straightforward mission, approach the target, gain his trust and compliance, isolate him from his allies, then eliminate him and seize the heart, textbook'
Reze was snapped out of her thoughts by a fat drop of rain landing on her nose, quickly followed by a deluge, she looked around rapidly to catch a glimpse of the target through the quickly dispersing crowd clamouring around her, quickly locking onto the boy's shock of blond hair again, watching as he made a desperate dash towards an empty phone booth some distance up the walkway, a smirk comes to her lips at this 'private and cramped? Oh, you are making this too easy, Denji' she thought as she started her run towards the booth.
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"Uughhh… I knew I should've brought an Umbrella…" griped Denji, he couldn't help but feel irritated at Beams levity, with the fiend having delighted in frolicking about in the same rain which had ruined Denji's good mood only moments earlier.
As the minutes passed and he stood alone, the rain pattering on the flimsy glass of the booth, Denji's mind began to wander to less serious questions than the status of his heart
'Why do devilmen have such stupid names? First Power, and now Beam, like what the –'
"HELL!" Denji yelped, violently ripped from his idle thoughts as the door of the booth suddenly rattled open, recovering and looking up to see a girl had barged in, letting out a startled "EEP" in response to his own yell, the girl, dressed in a t-shirt with a simple bell design, a chocker around her neck and her tied up dark hair partially covering her face quickly composed herself, speaking before Denji had a chance to do the same, "Wah, hey there, that rain sure is something, huh?". Still out of it, Denji could only let out a simple affirmation "Ah? Yeah?" he manages to splutter out, the girl starts responding as she looks up at him "if I remember the forecast was supposed to be…. Eh?!" She freezes as she takes in his face, only to… laugh?
"AHAHAHAHAH!" the air chimed with the girl's mirthful laughter, Denji's shock quickly turned into indignation as the fact that a pretty girl had simply burst out laughing at the sight of his face hit his ego like a freight train 'Huh? What!'
"Ah, sorr-, I apologi-, AHAHAHA!" the girl tried and failed to squeeze out an apology, to a shellshocked Denji, as tears of mirth gathered in the corner of her eyes.
"The hell…" he deadpanned, before noticing the tears in her eyes, suddenly exclaiming "Huh! Are you crying?!".
"Ah, no, sorry...' she replied, wiping her eyes, looking equally amused and abashed "your face just reminded me of my dead pet dog". Once again Denji was taken aback, feeling utterly baffled by this girl's attitude 'is she loopy or something?', he thought, before asking "Huh? I look like a dog to you?".
By this point the mysterious girl had fully recovered from her earlier laughing fit, and gathering herself wearing an easy smile, "sorry, I'm really sorry".
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The booth goes silent, the sound of the pitter-patter of the rain returning as the sole sound in the booth, and with this Reze feels a mild sense of panic rise unbidden in her out of the pervasive silence, 'is he on to me, did I slip up?', her mind raced while she kept the easy smile plastered to her face, she tilts her head up to look at the dishevelled boy, only for her practised smile to fall off her face and a shocked utterance to fall from her lips as the target had started retching, "Wait, what!", if her mind was racing before, it was now positively in an absolute frenzy. Forcing down her shock and panic, she puts on a concerned look on her face, one expression that she didn't have to fake, and asks, "are you alright? Wait, I have a handkerchief here!", she reaches her hand down to her back pocket for the handkerchief, only to stop as the boy reaches into his mouth and pulls something out 'wait is that a..'
"a… flower?!"
"TADA!", he exclaimed proudly, holding out his catch in front of him. Reze was completely caught off guard for a moment, in no other mission had she had the tables turned on her in an interaction like this, she recovers fast, and excitedly responds to the target, "Oh wow, magic! Amazing!" She gushes.
Before she can guide their conversation back on track, he surprises her again and hands her the flower, oddly though, she doesn't feel disgust when she delicately grasps the stem of the small, sodden flower.
"There's no tricks or gimmicks to this magic" he cheerfully explains, oblivious to Reze's shock, this was the first time she could remember being genuinely gifted something in her life, holding the small daisy to her chest she felt heat rise to her cheeks and a smile rising on her face. She looked up at Denji with this expression, unsure whether this reaction was a result of her training, she could only bring herself to say one thing.
"Thank you…"
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As the pinging of the rain on the glass began to peter out, Denji finally got a clear look at the girl's face as she raised her head fully to look at him, a serene look on her face, with piercing green eyes peering out behind a stray lock of the raven hair which framed her cute face.
"Ah, the rain stopped!", she observed, breaking eye contact as they step out of the phone booth, turning around she points down the street "I'm headed to my job now, I work part-time at this café down the street called Crossroads, you should come by some time, and I'll thank you for the flower!". As she walks down the street, she calls back to him one last time, "You better come!".
As the girl walked out of view Denji stood stupefied for a moment, before a single thought crossed his mind.
'I want a coffee.'
Authors Note: Cheers to anyone who gave this first chapter a read, its my first time writing one of these, so any feedback is much appreciated!