Chapter Text
A young man in a suit caked in blood burst open the doors of a telephone booth. The Christmastime snow did little to clean the green fluid left behind from the Devil he had killed. He quickly inserted a one yen coin into the slot and grabbed the phone in a hurry, nearly yanking the cord off of the device.
Denji, the Chainsaw Man and Japan’s most famous “superhero,” was about to have the most important phone call of the day; checking on Nayuta to see if she ate her vegetables for dinner.
While Nayuta was the reincarnated form of the Control Devil, she didn’t exactly have, well, control over anything. While she could move some things with her mind on occasion, at the end of the day, she was still your average kindergartner who had a lot to learn about the world.
It was this inexperience with life that Denji was perhaps a bit too worried about her safety. After all, if she was left unattended and fell into the wrong hands, that could spell disaster for the entire country.
He dialed his apartment number and waited for his adoptive sibling to pick up the phone. With each passing ring, the anxious tapping of his fingers growing at a rapid pace. Soon enough, the familiar voice of a young girl answered the call.
"Hello?"
"Heyyy, lil' gremlin," Denji said, "How's everything goin'? Did ya eat your broccoli salad?"
"Yes."
"Great job kiddo, I knew you could do it."
"Thank you. It was yummy."
Denji let out a chuckle. "Honestly, I'd never eat that stuff in a million years, but if Kishibe wants ya to, then I can't stop him. By the way, how's the old geezer treatin' you?"
"He is a nice man. Nice, but scary."
"Awww, come on, he's not that-" Denji then got flashbacks of his "training" sessions with him and his best friend, Power, and remembered how he was humiliated by the older man. "Actually, scratch that, he can be pretty scary. I totally get ya."
"Hm."
"Hey, listen, uh," -Denji rummaged through his pockets and checked his wallet, only to find fifty yen in it- "I'm gonna have to start working overtime at Family Burger again. Usual shift's pay's been pretty crap lately, so expect Kishibe to babysit you more often, 'kay?"
"Okay...I miss you..."
Denji could hear the disappointment in Nayuta's voice. He felt a lump in his throat, but gulped as he tried to maintain a positive attitude. "Bu-but don't worry, alright? I'm comin' home tonight with a bunch of sweets from the candy store you like! Consider it a reward for bein' an awesome lil' gremlin!"
"I would like that, thank you," Nayuta said, her disappointment giving way to joy.
"Alrighty then, I'll see ya at eight. Buh-bye."
As he hung up the phone, Denji saw a woman look at him in shock and horror through his peripheral vision. He turned to her and gave her a deadpan expression.
"What, you've never seen a guy covered in Devil blood before?"
"Hello, sweet home!" Denji said excitedly as he opened the door to his Tokyo apartment. The train ride back to the apartment was nothing short of a hassle, what with having to change out of his school uniform and waiting an ungodly amount of time for the train to arrive at the station. These annoyances became the norm for him, but were always made up by the greetings of his countless dogs and Meowy, Power's cat.
Just as Meowy jumped into his arms, the sound of a gruff voice rattled Denji's ears.
"I'm getting real tired of cleaning up your dogs' piss," said Kishbe on the apartment sofa, motioning to the several dozen pee pads barely contained in a garbage can.
"Well, they're technically Miss Makima's do-"
"You said yourself that you'd start taking responsibility for Makima's sins, so you better start doing it."
Denji looked down at the concrete floor and sighed. "Yeah, no arguin' against that. Sorry." After he put Meowy on the floor, he walked over to his coffee machine, made himself a cup of flat white, and sat down next to Kishibe.
"So, is the lil' gremlin sleepin'?" he asked as he sipped his drink.
"She said she was tired, so I put the kid to bed. She was out like a light in seconds."
"Aw, damn...I really wanted to give her some of these."
Denji then pulled out two Pocky packs out of his left pocket and shook them in front of Kishibe. "She'd get a kick outta this stuff. Want one?"
"Stop fooling around and listen to me. Do you think I don't know how reckless you're getting? Your fight with the Wasp Devil wiped out several blocks in Shinjuku, and twenty people died from the collateral damage. Twenty."
Denji paused for a moment and put the Pocky packs on the table in front of him. "So ya know, huh? Well, ya see-"
"Let me talk, kid. Ever since the Public Safety Devil Hunters were disbanded and assimilated into the Government Defense Agency, you've been on our watchlist for weeks now. Your fights with these Devils have caused a crazy amount of death and destruction in the city. In fact, both my colleagues and the higher-ups have been thinking about considering you a threat to national security."
Denji felt like his hand holding his mug was frozen in place as Kishibe took out a cigarette and lit it. "And don't even get me started on the shit job you're doing as her caretaker. It's always school this, work that. Can you at least take her out to that ramen place that's been the talk of the town lately?"
No response from Denji.
"I'm gonna take that as a 'no,'" Kishibe continued as he let out a puff of smoke while rubbing his whiskered cheeks, "Look, excuses can only get you so far. And I know that brain of yours is still processing Hayakawa's and Power's deaths-"
In an instant, Denji threw the mug across the room, the cup hitting the wall and leaving behind a pool of steaming coffee.
"DON'T YOU FUCKIN' DARE TALK ABOUT POWER AND AKI!!! IT'S NOT MY FAULT THEY'RE...they're..."
He then looked at the small picture frame on the living room TV. In it was a photo of Denji, Aki, and Power taken in the Shibuya district one month before their untimely demises at the hands of Makima, the woman he thought he could trust with his life.
"Why..." Denji lamented as tears welled in his now reddened eyes, "Why...of all of the pieces of shit in the world...why did I choose the last name...Hayakawa..."
The dam of emotions finally collapsed, and he broke down into a relentless torrent of sobs. No matter how hard he tired to fit in with the rest of the world, he was still the same, pathetic Denji that treated life as if it was all one big ridiculous dream. Kishibe put his hand on the young man's back.
"I'm guessing you need some alone time," he said.
"Yeah, I do," said Denji through sniffles, "I'm, uh...gonna go to bed now. See you later, I guess."
"See you."
That night, Denji had his worst nightmare in months.
It started with him in a field of black and gold flowers. He combed his hand through several of the plants, which were silky soft. The wind embraced his bare chest as he took a deep, relaxed breath which was in perfect synchronization with songbirds flying merrily through the air. When he got up, the only things he could see in front of him were the rising morning sun and...her.
Makima.
The red haired woman maliciously looked at him, her lips forming a sinister grin.
Whatever tranquility that was inside of him disappeared immediately as rage was the only emotion filling his soul. He aggressively pulled on the chainsaw cord on his chest, ready to defeat his worst enemy once and for all.
"I'm gonna kill you, you bi-"
He was then cut off when he heard a loud BANG and felt a wet sensation on his left pectoral. Seemingly out of thin air, Aki appeared as the Gun Devil's physical vessel, the barrel of the rifle on the possessed Devil Hunter's arm leaving behind a trail of smoke that clouded the sky.
Clutching his heart, Denji staggered a few steps forward as if he was in a drunken daze. Before he could collapse onto the soft field, however, he felt the metallic sting of chains pierce his arms and legs. He was then thrusted upward and suspended in midair.
"What a shame..." said Makima, her calm yet authoritative voice echoing throughout the landscape, "You kill me, you eat me, and yet...you still can't let me go."
Another BANG from Aki's arm rifle pierced Denji's eardrums. As he cringed from the deafening sound, Denji felt more blood on him, this time a splatter of it landing on his cheek. When he opened his eyes, he saw that Makima was gone.
Nayuta had taken her place, and in her right hand was Power's decapitated head, its blood dripping down the little girl's fingers. Denji opened his mouth and tried to let out a scream, but no sound came out.
Even in this peaceful field, pain would always somehow find its way back to him.
"I may be a little girl," Nayuta said in an uncharacteristically harsh tone, "But I am still the Control Devil. I am still the one who took everything from you. Aki, Power..."
The girl's free hand clenched into a fist, manipulating the chains as they slithered and stabbed Denji's body until it was completely bound and bloody mess.
"...Your freedom. My strength is dormant in this body for now, but once it awakens, you will only have yourself to blame for your weakness."
He struggled in vain to break himself free as he coughed up blood. The sun began to rupture and soon became a sphere of red and orange spirals. The last thing he remembered before waking up from this hell was being driven mad by the sunlight and the agonizing pain of the chains.
It began as just a few small chuckles, but his fit of insanity was soon defined by a roar of endless laughter as Nayuta and Aki walked out of view.