1
Kishibe. Alias: Mad Dog. The strongest Devil Hunter alive.
Smack!
Kishibe’s fist slammed into my jaw.
I was currently being beaten by a man like that.
About five minutes ago, after I said something about being worth fifty points, he sent Makima away and started pounding me.
He called it "instruction" himself, so what was I supposed to say with a mouth that was already split open?
His fist left a huge impact on me. My muscles jolted, dizziness hit me, and the shock even spread to my ears, throwing off my balance.
Well, even a devil goes down if it takes four or five punches to a non-vital spot. So what was I supposed to do after taking a direct hit to the jaw, a vital point?
Kishibe watched me fail to get my bearings and brought a bottle to his mouth. I had no idea whether it was a real bottle or one of those canteens you see lying around online, but either way, there was definitely alcohol in it.
It was infuriating. And disgusting. The way he beat me like he was swatting a rat, then stood there drinking in front of my face, was infuriating beyond words. And even though it was so infuriating, I couldn’t do a thing but lie there on the floor. That was disgusting too.
Grinding my teeth, I strained with all my might to get up. But the punches Kishibe had fed me were far stronger than I’d expected.
Kishibe, still watching me while drinking, dropped something with a soft thud and started walking down the road as he spoke.
"I like being called teacher. But you don’t call me teacher. You’re going to die before long anyway. ...But. ...Hm?"
"You son of a bitch!"
I quickly got to my feet while he wasn’t looking my way and lunged at him.
Whoosh!
But my punch had no force behind it, and I’d even aimed wrong, so there was no way it was going to reach him.
Thud! Crack! Bam-bam-bam!
After my pathetic attack failed and I staggered, there was no way I could block, much less dodge, the barrage that came crashing down on me.
Struck by his attack, I felt my consciousness blur and collapsed face-first onto the ground.
Lying there, I panted desperately, breathing in ragged gasps. I didn’t even know why I was doing it. It just felt like if I didn’t breathe like this on instinct, I’d go insane.
While breathing, I rubbed my stomach and shoulders with both hands. Those were the places Kishibe had just hit.
Kishibe looked at me in silence.
Then he finished what he’d been saying.
"But I can’t exactly move you to civilian care, so I’ll give you instruction every day. Tomorrow, come to the place inside that over there by 8 a.m."
After that, he didn’t even take me to the hospital. He just kept walking in the direction he’d been going.
"And I’ll repeat what I said earlier. You’re not fifty points. You’re fifty-five."
He left me with that completely random remark.
Afterward, I tried once more to get up and throw a punch at the back of his head, but I could only choke on the pain and pass out.
"..."
I rubbed my eyes and sat up. White stars shining proudly in the sky came into view, along with the pitch-black heavens that made them stand out even more.
Night. It was night.
"...I’m pretty sure it wasn’t even 1 p.m. when I got here."
I blanked out for about five or seven minutes, then got to my feet. My body still throbbed and the pain hadn’t gone away, but it was manageable. ...Compared to before, anyway.
Where was I supposed to go now? Home... right, I probably needed to go home. First I’d go home, eat, use the bathroom, take a shower, then sleep hard. If I didn’t, there was no way I’d make it through tomorrow.
...But where was my home?
"This is turning into one damn thing after another... Hm? What’s that?"
Sighing, I looked around and suddenly spotted a strange basket and a medium-sized flashlight shining upward.
Only then did I remember that Kishibe had dropped something earlier.
I hurried over to check what he’d dropped.
What Kishibe had dropped was a basket. When I lifted the cloth covering it, I found a heavy wallet, a bankbook, an extra uniform, and two notes with addresses written on them.
And all of them had my name written on them in katakana.
"So these are all mine? ...Wait, why can I read Japanese? Come to think of it, how was I even talking to people?"
Why?
My mind was briefly thrown by the sudden Japanese, but then I figured, "I got transported here, so why wouldn’t translation be a thing too?" and accepted it.
Anyway, I grabbed the basket and headed to the places written on the two notes.
The first place I went was an empty lot. This was probably where Kishibe wanted me to come tomorrow.
The next part wasn’t that hard. I did have to ask people over and over, but there was only one address left, and we could understand each other.
About four hours passed before I reached home. That was less because of the trouble of asking people for directions and more because the cemetery and the house assigned to me were ridiculously far apart.
"...Still, at least I can rest now."
There wasn’t any.
"Why doesn’t this house even have a blanket? ...What, no ingredients either? Are you kidding me?"
No wonder the wallet had felt so heavy.
I could no longer stand the hunger, so I went right back outside.
Since I’d seen a lot of food places while riding the bus earlier, finding one wasn’t difficult.
I went into a ramen shop that seemed fairly quiet.
"Phaaa...!!"
This was insane! It was so good, and it didn’t even cost 300 yen a bowl!!
"Would you like another bowl, sir?"
The owner smiled as he asked, apparently pleased to see me eating so happily.
"Yes! Please! Five bowls, though!"
"Sure thing~ Five bowls of ramen!"
After devouring all five bowls that came out, I ordered two more and ate those too before I finally felt full.
I patted my slightly swollen stomach, paid, and left. Maybe because of the way I ate, or maybe for some other reason, the owner’s mouth was practically stretched to his ears from the sudden rush of customers, and he didn’t charge me for one bowl.
I’d have to handle dinner here from now on.
After that, I went to a 100-yen shop and bought all sorts of daily necessities.
The necessities included soap, a couple of rags, a toothbrush and toothpaste, toilet paper, a frying pan, food containers, water, and more.
Of course, I couldn’t leave out processed food.
The clerk ringing up my things let out a long sigh at the sheer amount of stuff, but then dutifully scanned everything and said, "That’ll be 5,000 yen."
I was slowly pulling ten 500-yen coins out of my wallet when I suddenly remembered the most important thing and hurried back to the counter to grab it.
They were a notebook and a pen. Precious items I could use to write down the parts of Chainsaw Man I remembered, however faintly.
The clerk’s face twisted into a grimace, but he scanned the notebook and pen too and called out 5,200 yen.
After paying, I took everything and went home.
Of course, I didn’t forget to buy bedding on the way back.
Once I got home, I spread the notebook open on the folding desk and thought.
"What events do I remember?"
I thought for a long time. ...And finally, I could put pen to paper.
First events I remembered.
Reze
Gun Devil
Makima
The number of events I remembered was pathetically small, but... there was nothing I could do about it. It would be a lot better to just do my best and struggle like hell than to waste time trying to force myself to remember everything.
Besides, there was no guarantee I’d even live long enough to fight Makima and Denji head-on. I didn’t need to remember everything.
"All right, next. ...Is it the characters I remember next? No, not like there’s any order to it. That’s all I’ve got to write anyway."
I wrote the names of the characters one by one.
Aki
Makima
Denji
Reze
Kishibe
......
"Damn it. I feel like I should remember this, but I can’t think of anything else..."
I was furious at the state of my own brain, but after deciding that thinking any further was pointless, I just lay down and went to sleep.
@
Morning came, and I opened my eyes.
After rubbing out the stiffness in my body a little, I took a light shower and neatly put on my uniform.
Then I opened the front door and headed to the place Kishibe had told me about.
"Never thought I’d live to see the day I could buy a real sword at a sports store."
In a world where devils were running around causing all kinds of chaos, apparently you could just buy a real sword at a sports store.
Of course, I had to show my Devil Hunter ID when I bought it... but still, was it really okay for a sports store to sell real swords?
"...Not my problem."
2
One week passed.
Kishibe was still beating me like a rat, and I was still defending.
The things that had changed were,
"...Moving with a sword suits you a little better."
that today, during the morning instruction, he’d given me a compliment for the first time, and
"Huu..."
that I’d started smoking properly, and
also,
"Hey! Focus on patrol!"
I’d gotten a buddy.
This guy’s name was Arai Hirokatsu. I felt like I’d heard it before, but I couldn’t quite remember him.
"I’m sure I’ve seen him somewhere."
"Huh?"
"What did you say?"
For the record, I’d lied about my age and made myself about five years older, so I was twenty-one now, and he was twenty-two. Which meant I had to speak to him politely.
I didn’t mind being polite to him. It wasn’t just that he was clearly older than me; thanks to that, I also didn’t have to get beaten by that crazy old bastard until the afternoon.
"Looks like there aren’t any devils around here. Let’s go somewhere else."
Arai led me toward the city.
And then,
"Aaaah!"
"It’s a devil! A devil appeared!"
"A bat, it’s a bat!"
I came face-to-face with a devil.
"...Denji?"
"Denji? You know someone over there?"
Arai caught my mutter and asked. I pointed at Denji, who was fighting the Bat Devil in a bloody battle with chainsaws attached to his arms and head.
"..."
Arai fell silent and blanked out at the shocking sight of Denji I’d pointed out.
I ignored Arai and started thinking hard.
What event was this? Why are you fighting a bat? No, what happened... what is that guy even doing?
While I was racking my brain, I noticed a blonde woman with two horns standing on the ground and looking up at Denji.
Only then did I realize I’d forgotten one important character.
Power. The Blood Devil. This was an incident involving the Blood Devil. I couldn’t remember the details, but that much I knew for sure.
"...Does Denji die here? Or get eaten and captured? ...Damn it, how the hell am I supposed to know?"
Given the insane nature of this manga, Denji really might get captured. Especially since he wasn’t that strong right now.
"...."
I thought about it for a moment.
He makes it to the end just fine, so the protagonist lives, right? But do I need to get involved? Why? For what reason?
Then the bat lifted up a car. A car with a man inside it.
I wondered if that man was someone’s family head.
...Family head. Someone’s family head.
"...Fuck it!"
I quickly drew my sword and ran toward where Denji was.
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