Chapter one: Devil Eat Devil World
"People die all the time. Devil's assistance included or otherwise. One moment, there they are there, breathing, eating, shitting like the rest of us. Then, they're not." Master Kishibe murmurs. There is a thin, off-brand cigarette sitting between the older man's chapped lips, it bobs along with his words as he searches his trench coat pockets for a lighter.
"Like clockwork. Like how the sun rises and sets. There isn't anything special about dying, everyone does it, eventually."
The senior devil hunter is perpetually gruff, stoic with his seemingly infallible confidence in what he does, no matter the situation. From slaughtering devil's with extreme prejudice to quiet conversations in the dark with them.
Denji is a little envious of that skill, wonders what it would be like to keep a cool head no matter what, and is equally as intimidated by Kishibe's unshakable demeanor as he is jealous of it. It makes Denji feel dumb and vulnerable, Kishibe triggers an overt awareness in his hindbrain, forcing prey to acknowledge predator, a devil locking eyes with a devil hunter, and yet a part of Denji can't help but admire Kishibe for all the same reasons anyway. The jaded hunter seems to live off of booze, women and killing devils. He is somewhat of a hero figure in Denji's eyes.
"Even though people die all the time, there is still a never-ending crowd that doesn't seem to disperse from the streets, every person living their own, personal, Hell." Kishibe mutters as he raises his newly found flip lighter, flicking open the lid and holding the low flame over the end of his cigarette.
Kishibe puffs a few times to smolder the embers, releasing small bursts of smoke into the air from the corner of his scarred mouth as the tip of the cigarette burns brightly, a pucker of light in the darkness of night.
Denji watches the entire process through lidded eyes, bone-tired and brain-dead from the long day of devil hunting and training. The lazy atmosphere hanging in the air as he and Kishibe sit in cheap, plastic chairs on Aki's balcony is cozy, it's a welcome change of pace. Denji pillows his chin on his crossed arms, resting them on the balcony railing.
Listening to Kishibe speak, mellow in a way his superior only gets when he and Denji are alone like this, is like a lullaby to Denji's overworked senses, a false sense of security. Kishibe could cut him down at any moment without so much as a twitch in his expression, just like a devil. Devil's hardly ever hesitate to go for the kill. But at this moment, Denji doesn't want to care. He's tired.
The assessing look Kishibe levels him through a shroud of smoke, utterly blank and uncomfortably unreadable as usual, leads Denji to believe that the devil hunter may be thinking something along the same lines. At that look Denji can't help but tense prematurely, suddenly anxious for another training session because the hunter is sadistic like that but Kishibe merely continues to evaluate him.
After a moment of neither of them moving, at an impasse, Denji deems it safe and finally relaxes. He turns his face into the crook of his arm, tucking his nose into the fabric of his uniform. He kind of stinks, like dried sweat, devil viscera, and faintly of the ocean scented soap Aki uses to wash their clothes. To Denji, it smells something almost like success.
Denji has never had anyone wash or buy him clothes before, never been to the ocean to know what it smells like, and to suddenly know what that's like. It's… nice. Really nice. Denji thinks that if Aki's personality wasn't literal trash, he might really fall for him.
Yeah right. As if I'd ever fall for someone like that bastard. Asshole. Shitty topknot.
"Day after day. Night after night. The world moves on, somewhere, someone new is born, and the cycle repeats." Large wisps of smoke exhale from Kishibe's wise mouth, like a dragon, and Denji can tell they're cheap by the stink in the air. His sense of smell has gotten real good since he became a devil.
"Something like that." Kishibe leans back in his chair, crossing his arms with a grunt. "I'm getting too old for this..." The hunter suddenly asks Denji, voice a lot louder than before. "That being said, have you made your arrangements, Denji?"
"Huh?" Denji mutters, only half listening to the hunter's monologue, having already been halfway towards sleep in the sudden lull of silence. "Arrangements?"
"For when you are executed." Kishibe's dull eyes are piercing, the heated light from his burning cigarette gives off an ominous glow to the angles of his sharp features. "Those arrangements."
Denji doesn't really think about the details of his pending execution, or disposal, or whatever, despite the fact that it could happen at literally any moment.
"Figured it would be a devil, or you, or Aki or…" Denji's words slur as he yawns widely, tears pearling at the crinkling corners of his eyes. "Makima-san…" He hums contentedly, burying his face back into the comfort of his arms and closing his drooping eyes. He worked hard today. Makima-san is going to be so pleased with him. Take that, stupid Aki.
"I meant what comes after."
"Mm."
"Assets, next of kin, funeral fees…" Kishibe stares down his nose at Denji, at the devil-hybrid seemingly content to sleep out in the yard like a chained mutt. "I guess you don't really have to worry about any of that, huh?"
"Yeah." Denji agrees, not listening.
Kishibe huffs. The devil hunter gazes out at the quiet neighborhood Aki, Denji and Power live in, at the various windows on the apartments that speckle the midnight horizon, each and every one a different life being lived. He smokes and listens to a devil's breathing slow into an even, steady rhythm.
Ah. Kishibe can no longer deny it, resigned, and yet not entirely too surprised by the development. I've gotten attached.
Smoke trails curl into the air, dispelling into the void of the night sky.
"You're a good boy, Denji. Find someone to care about you. Find someone who is going to cry over you when you're gone."
Denji dazes over Kishibe's words the next day, picking at the dried blood stuck to his chin. The mid-summer weather is warm, almost unbearably so. The cicada bugs persistently hum in the countryside outskirting the residential sectors of the city. Heat waves simmer in the air, regular salary men, and Denji, loosen their ties and collars in an effort to cool down at any given opportunity.
He is back to crawling on the rooftops and patrolling on the streets, from sunrise to sunset, business as usual. Ever since he defeated Katana Man, Denji has been very busy, Makima-san has been sending him on a lot more solo missions lately.
Though, it's not all so bad, he guesses. Makima-san seems to be pleased about all the work he is doing for her, all the devil's he is killing on her behalf. Kishibe doesn't seem to really care what he does outside of training, so Denji thinks he's doing an okay enough job if his superiors aren't complaining or disposing of him. If devils are dying. If Makima-san is happy.
I wonder… If Makima-san is going to cry for me when I die.
Denji imagines Makima-san's face. Her small, polite, pretty smile. He likes Makima-san's smile.
Probably not.
Denji feels a little distracted today. His pace searching for devil's is unenthusiastic as he leans over the railing on the rooftop, arms crossed casually behind his head as he peers down at all the people walking down below. They're all so small from up here, almost like ants. The streets are busy, moving with traffic and the sway of the massive crowd, teeming with life. Denji can't help but think of Kishibe at the sight.
"You're a good boy, Denji."
Denji crouches with his head hanging in his hands, flustered. Hearing Kishibe say those words, even just repeating the memory inside his own head, is almost too much. It's almost too good to be true. Am I really… a good boy?
Denji always thought that he wasn't a very good person, and that was before he became a devil. For a long time Denji's main focus was survival, was to protect himself and Pochita from the elements and the Yakuza. Denji was smelly, uneducated, uncivilized. Selfish. He didn't have time to think about anyone else but him, Pochita, and dwindling the numbers of his accumulated debt. Denji has, and probably always will be, until the day he dies for real for real, a mangy dog for whichever owner to command. Becoming a devil didn't change that fact.
Now Denji eats and maims and drinks blood and he likes it. He kills devils, his own species, sort of, and he's good at it. Denji likes being useful, even if he doesn't really have a choice, because he likes smelling like the ocean and having quiet, one-sided conversations in the dark with his colleagues. Denji likes, perhaps above all else, being called a good boy. Denji could be a good boy. Or at least Kishibe seemed to think so. It's an appealing idea.
"You're a good boy, Denji. Find someone to care about you. Find someone who is going to cry over you when you're gone."
Denji stares down at the toes of his sneakers. There is a teardrop sized splatter of purple, devil blood on the right side. He isn't sure why Kishibe said those things last night, or why his words make Denji's stomach clench up in knots, but he's kind of glad. Anxious, flattered. Denji hadn't really thought about it before, but now that Kishibe mentioned it, he can't help but want those things, too.
Denji wants to be a good boy. Denji thinks, if he found someone to care about him, he might be the happiest devil on the planet. If he could be so lucky, to have someone, a special person, anyone at all, to cry for him when he is inevitably eaten... It might be more than he deserves.
Before Denji became a devil, he was never given even a moment to dream. But Kishibe saying these things makes Denji almost dare to hope. Maybe he can really have it all. Even if it's someone like him. Even if it's a literal devil.
"It's you…"
Metal chitters and spins, the clanking whir of grinding chains at an accelerated pace. Uniform sleeves ripped and torn all the way to the shoulders, the ankles of his dress pants have shredded to just below his reformed kneecaps. Blood splatters, stains and viscera paint any remaining patches of his flesh, crouched on the hill of rubble and ash, Denji looks all like the devil he is. Macabre, wrong, screwed up. A wild animal.
"I've finally found you… Chainsaw Man."
Denji huffs and cackles. His voice comes out an erratic, modilated hiss, steam panting from his metal tongue. He points his right arm at the huge, unnamed devil, the chainsaws embedded in his flesh revving endlessly. "Here I am, ugly."
The devil is as tall as the lampposts lining the street, massive horns on either side of its dark head like fibonacci spirals as the devil tilts its head, seemingly peering down at Denji from its expressionless face. Where eyes, nose, mouth, cheekbones are meant to be, a flat, dark void of a surface resides instead. As if a black hole itself sits in the center of the devil's head, never-ending and beseeching.
Denji has an impulsive, adrenaline and devil-blood intoxicated thought. If he just reached forward, his hand would simply sink into the abyss where the devil's face is supposed to be. His hand would go through the threshold and keep getting swallowed up and up, up to his forearm, his elbow, his shoulder his entire head-
"You truly are a halfbreed." The oddly passive devil remarks, somehow, with no mouth or lips to form its words, and yet its voice is high pitched enough to be a girl's. Sounding as curious as a kid staring at an ant under a magnifying glass, as it somehow peers at Denji with no visible eyes to peer with. "I wasn't sure to believe whether your kind existed or not."
"Yeah, I exist. Sucks for you, 'cause right now," Denji's grin is savage, the spiked teeth of a chainsaw. Devil gore and remaining bits of his previous meal are splattered all over, the street, Denji, the internal gears and mechanisms of his chainsaws. "I could still eat."
"Perhaps," The devils looms, a grim visage, like death itself. "I should just put a rabid dog like you out of your misery."
"That's my line!" Denji howls in a war cry, charging forward with feral intent. Rational leaves the moment the cord rips and Denji's blood simmers beneath his skin like it's alive, the moment he becomes Chainsaw Man, everything becomes a lot more simple. Eat, or be eaten. Denji, Chainsaw Man.
Denji's life used to be a lot more simple. Try to find a dry place to sleep. Scavenge for anything to eat. Avoid biting the hand that holds onto his leash a little too tight, because despite it all. Despite it all…
I don't know why I want to live.
Denji doesn't remember much before the Yakuza dropped him off at that tree, leaving him miles upon miles away on the outskirts of society with a debt Denji still struggles to comprehend.
He doesn't think that there is much worth remembering before he found Pochita though, honestly. If younger Denji had a reason why he wanted to live before the Yakuza commissioned him, then older Denji cannot remember it.
Denji doesn't really know why he wants to live, just that he does, anyway, despite everything that keeps happening. Despite the fact that day after day, his personal suffering never seems to end.
If it wasn't for Pochita, Denji doesn't think he would be able to bare it.
I don't know why I want to live.
Denji holds his palm over his chest, hovering over the cord protruding under his dress shirt. The Public Safety Devil Hunter's agency uniform is clean, pressed pants, a white dress shirt and a simple black tie. He can't stop sniffing the material. Denji stares down at his new, store-bought sneakers, remembering how Makima-san had tied his shoelaces for him and smiled up at him, pretty and patient, like he was worth being patient for.
Denji wouldn't mind living a little longer, if he got to see Miss Makima-san smile again. He wouldn't mind living long enough to show Pochita his vision. In that moment sitting on the metro, side-glancing towards Power, Denji thinks he would like to, above all else, touch some boobs before he dies again. Maybe even have his first kiss.
There are so many things he's going to miss out on when the Chainsaw Devil is finally disposed of, after all.
I don't really know what I want.
Denji wipes the blood from his face with his thumb, merely swiping at the crusted liquid instead of cleaning any of it away. The sun is setting in the horizon, the empty boxcars are hollow shells, practically abandoned in the deserted train yard.
Denji stays crouched in the gravel, listlessly watching Aki kick Katana Man's balls over, and over again. Each land of his team leader's foot is heavy and precise, lethal blows, a requiem for Himeno-senpai.
Denji doesn't know how to describe how he feels. He doesn't really know what he wants.
It's been so long since Denji has been allowed to want anything at all, honestly. He had forgotten what that was like.
"You're a good boy, Denji. Find someone to care about you. Find someone who is going to cry over you when you're gone."
Denji hadn't really thought about it before, but now that Kishibe mentioned it, he can't help but want those things, too. Denji wants-
I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. I don't want to die. I want…
I want…
Inside a forest, a tree falls. Stars form and collapse in the vast, infinite galaxy. Somewhere, a newborn baby takes its first breath. The cycle repeats. The world moves on.
I want to be remembered!
The Dimension Devil swallows The Chainsaw Devil's body whole, in one big gulp, and spits him back out into another universe entirely.