Chapter 118: Fanfic #118 Nerve Ape by HassouToby(ChainsawMan)
This fanfic is a continuation of Chainsaw Man after Canon following Denji. I really like this fanfic because it just captures the nature of chainsaw man, like I feel like this could be a part of the actual story. If you don't know Chainsaw man it'll probably be hard to get into this fic, but I highly recommend just checking out the manga, at least the first chapter, it's amazing and there's an anime coming out. So if you didn't finish chainsaw man, and plan on reading it, you probably shouldn't read this because of major spoilers.
Synopsis:Carve away our filth. Denji's been keeping busy. It's not easy to balance school life, devil hunting, and childcare, especially for someone who could barely read a year ago. But the life he's won for himself doesn't last long. A new threat rises in the wake of the Control Devil's demise, wracking the planet with natural disasters, and shadowy forces once again seek to grab hold of Denji's leash. Humanity stands to be forever changed as Hell awaits the Chainsaw's judgment. The old hunter sharpens his blades. One door is yet to be opened. All things return to the fourth of four. Watch out. Here comes the future.
Rated: M
words: 47k
https://archiveofourown.org/works/32392999/chapters/80312092
Here's the first chapter:
The dog crawled beneath a burning sky.
The village in which the dog yet lived had been a humble, unpretentious place, existing in a cluster of numerous others dotting the countryside. The people there had lived in small houses constructed from local materials, eaten only food they'd cultivated themselves, took their water from local wells or a small river that reddened like blood in afternoon light. The only electricity came from a handful of groaning emergency generators and medicine was scarce, but the village and its people had carried on, one day following the next in an unfurling ribbon of bearable hardships.
Then, less than a year ago, the weather had changed. The clouds had all gone from the sky and the sun came down like a hammerblow, its light like acid on bare skin. Crops died. Livestock died. The earth was riven with eczemic cracks. The heat sent people fleeing and writhing during the way and sat on their chests in wet clots at night, and it would not abate, not with the change of seasons, not with prayer. The dog, a piebald mongrel that had outlived all its litter-mates even before the drought had struck, was soon the only animal left alive in the village. The children who had grown alongside it sheltered it from their parents' grasping hands and ravenous mouths, even as their own bellies bloated pendulous from starvation and they were forced to chew dirt to keep that inner gnawing at bay.
Then, one morning, the dog roused from its own malnourished sleep to find the village empty. Its inhabitants, along with those from other towns caught within the heat's grip, had gathered what possessions yet survived and fled north. The dog, whimpering at the sudden absence of familiar scents, tried to follow, but the sifting dust had swallowed their trail and it soon slunk back home to shelter from the rising, murderous sun.
Another week passed, then two. The dog ate insects and clawed its way into cellars to lick at moist mud. It outlived its family, who now lay motionless on the ground miles away, their tongues twists of cracked jerky in slack mouths. The dog lived. Even as its stomach shriveled, and its legs collapsed underneath it with increasing regularity, and its lips foamed with rheum, it lived.
The dog soon approached its final extremity. The last traces of food and moisture were gone. But on that morning, its cracked and bloody nose picked up a new scent. A new person. It sniffed, and sniffed again, and the broken tendril of its tail wagged weakly. It staggered to the doorway of the hut in which it had sheltered; in the direction of that scent, not far across the village, a shadow waited in a doorway.
Its body was dying but still blindly compelled to find stimulus, any reason to keep working its vital machinery. The dog whimpered as it crossed the molten sand and the sunlight ripped at its back, looking for the scent's owner. But when it reached the doorway, the shadow had gone, and the scent was further away. It continued to search and learned that it had moved again. And yet again. The dog cooked itself alive as it tried to find some reminder of better days, someone to hold it as its family once had.
Finally it collapsed and lay on its side, not five paces away from shade. The arid soil was agony on its mangy skin. A shadow detached itself from the shadows under an eave, and the sand crunched beneath its feet as it sauntered towards the dog. The shadow stopped, leaned down. As the dog died, eyes fogging over with murk, it caught a glimpse of that looming shape, hanging over it with a crescent of white teeth.
* * *
Denji had become very diligent about washing his hands. No dabbling his fingers under cold water – he was now the take-no-prisoners "roll up your sleeves and get under your fingernails" type, silently counting backwards from thirty as he scrubbed. There weren't any other students in the bathroom this time, so after he dried off, he triple-checked his reflection in the mirror and the toes of his shoes, just in case he'd somehow missed any spots of blood.
He was starting to get used to this.
A knock came at the bathroom door, followed by a female voice. The voice was a disinterested drawl that just barely managed to conceal the murderous harmonic underneath.
"Hayakawa. I'm seriously about to come in there and drown you myself."
"She'll do it," drawled another voice, this one male. "Or she'll make me do it. Don't make her make me do it, Denji."
"The bell already rang!" Denji called back. "Just go without me!"
"That was the first bell, idiot. We've got three minutes."
Denji met his reflection's gaze. "Ah, shit."
He wasn't totally used to this.
He dashed out the bathroom and met his tribunal, two students who were now the only ones left in the hallway. Just about everyone else was in homeroom right now, which meant that Nene Harada, a perennial overachiever who'd already taken several dings to her attendance record because of Denji, was not pleased. Wavy-haired, thin-faced, and a full head shorter than Denji himself, she looked frail but exuded a kind of violin-string tension that made you want to keep your distance in case she suddenly decided to kill somebody, which, as she stared him down with crossed arms, now seemed more likely than usual.
"You've already been written up once," she said to him. "Do you want to get suspended before you even finish the first term?"
"Don't see how that's your problem," Denji muttered, scratching his cheek. The sudden drop in temperature suggested that this was the wrong thing to say.
"Might want to show some gratitude," said the boy, leaning against the wall adjacent to the bathroom door. "She's the one who decided to adopt your feral ass."
Kouji Kaneko had been close with Nene since grade school, which as far as Denji understood was the only reason she hadn't strangled him yet. He was the sort of person who existed in a sort of semi-liquid state, always leaning or slouching, permanently disheveled; at any given time, he seemed to be either just waking up from, or badly in need of a nap. But when he and his high-strung friend had first seen Denji, this skittish, towering teenager with a uniform covered in dog hair, desperately trying to work out his locker combination, Nene had taken pity on him, and Kouji had shrugged and gone along with it.
Denji sheepishly marched in the direction of homeroom, Nene forcing him to keep pace and Kouji bringing up the rear. She did have a point. Their homeroom teacher, Ms. Hashimoto, doubled as their math teacher, which already meant he was on her shit list, and he was catching increasingly suspicious glances coming from behind that diminutive old spinster's spectacles.
"Final exams are next month," Nene said.
"I know," said Denji.
"She knows you know," said Kouji. "She just likes the sound those words make when she says them over and over."
"Shut up." Nene shot a glance behind her to make sure he hadn't fallen behind. "Denji, I dunno what it was like for you at home, but finals are a really big deal. If you don't do better than midterms…"
"I know. I'm studying hard, don't worry."
"She's trying to ask if you need help," Kouji said diplomatically.
"It's cool."
"Don't wanna invite her to your place?"
"I will hurt you, Kouji."
"It's cool," Denji said again. "My sister doesn't like strangers, anyway."
Here was the situation:
After the whole business with Makima, Denji had officially bid farewell to the Public Safety Devil Hunters. He had enough money from Aki to keep himself going for a long while, and Kishibe, who didn't spend his own considerable stipend on anything but liquor, gave him a little allowance. Kishibe had also quietly set up Denji with Aki's last name (it felt awkward sometimes but, after inheriting the money, it also made sense), and a school registration, and had also, after much consideration and debate, enrolled Nayuta in grade school as well. This was potentially catastrophic, but Kishibe and Denji both reasoned that any chance to socialize the girl was valuable, and it wasn't like they'd be able to leave her in the house while they were away. God only knew what she'd get up to.
So now here was the newly-christened Denji Hayakawa, a barely-literate devil hunter from the sticks, entering high school two years late. The thing was, Denji wasn't stupid, which probably surprised Denji himself more than anybody. Studying was a walk in the park compared to the labor he'd gone through for the yakuza, and even though he often collapsed into bed with his brain feeling like it was going to run out his ears, he slogged through his early courses well enough for his teachers not to dismiss him as a totally lost cause. Nene soon showed him the importance of sitting up straight and addressing the teachers properly, and he listened, because he didn't want to stand out any more than he already did. His "extracurricular activities" were best kept a secret.
Because while Denji might not have been that bright in certain ways, he did understand that there were some kinds of weirdness you could get away with, and some that you couldn't. If you were a homeschooled kid who lived alone with his little sister, that was fine. If you were sometimes seen around town walking seven large dogs and one regular-sized cat, that was fine. If you had a ripcord in your chest that transformed you into a gnash-bladed monstrosity capable of turning just about anything with a pulse into flesh confetti, that was almost definitely not fine.
But the devils didn't get the message. And that was why Denji often scrubbed himself raw in the shower at nights, and had a closet full of backup uniforms, and stayed way too long in the bathroom making sure he didn't carry in any blood spatter with him. Running into devils after school hours was simple enough, but if they popped up in the morning, that was a tardiness slip waiting to happen. One time he'd actually had the literal shit luck of encountering a Sewage Devil not two blocks from the train station, and had consequently needed to call out sick that day.
That was his new routine. Breakfast, school, dog-walking, homework, dinner, and the occasional movie with Nayuta, the chainsaw's roar permeating it all. All things considered, he preferred it to working for Public Safety. There weren't as many stuffy pricks in suits bossing him around. Sometimes he got to save a pretty girl and entertain himself with fantasies of what could have been.
But only fantasies, for now. The memory of Makima was still there, tugging at the pullcord in his heart. That, and the promise he'd made, still unfulfilled.
"How much longer until the bell?" he asked, and Kouji checked his watch – a pricey-looking piece for a high schooler. His father worked in real estate or something and allegedly had a career path lined up for him already, which might have been a reason why he didn't feel much need to excel academically.
"We've got about…" He hummed for a moment. "Seven seconds."
Nene's arm snaked out and seized Denji's collar. "Run."
They all piled into homeroom just before the bell finished ringing. Judging by the stares they got, it might've been better if they'd just arrived late.
* * *
School came and went in the usual way. The three of them usually parted at the gates; Nene attended after-school music classes three days a week and Kouji liked to waste time at arcades and ramen shops until sundown. Denji hadn't taken him up on any of his invitations yet. He figured that it would get awkward if they ran into any devils.
There was a different kind of awkwardness waiting for him outside the school today, however. He saw who was waiting for him behind the gates and came to a halt. Nene and Kouji looked at him and followed his gaze to a broad-shouldered old man in a long trenchcoat, unseasonably warm for this time of year, and a hideous scar running across the length of one cheek. He was holding the hand of a pale, dark-haired young girl dressed in her own school uniform. She pointed at Denji as if accusing him of murder, paused, and then jerkily waved her hand. Nayuta was still getting the hang of how to greet people.
"Denji, is that your sister?" Nene asked.
"Yeah," he said.
"And your spooky yakuza grandpa?" Kouji asked.
"He's not yakuza. Or my grandpa."
"Shit, you're right. I shouldn't judge based on appearances." Kouji clapped him on the shoulder. "See you tomorrow, man. Tell your spooky yakuza grandpa I said hi."
As Denji walked away, he took brief satisfaction in the sound of Nene smacking Kouji upside the head.
He had met up with Kishibe several times in the months since Nayuta's "adoption," but always in crowded, anonymous spaces, the old man murmuring the latest gossip about Public Safety's maneuverings or any notable devil activity into his ear. Denji had no doubt he was also keeping a close eye on Nayuta herself, watching for any trace of Makima to bubble up to the surface of what the Control Devil had become, but nothing of the sort had emerged just yet. There were even some days when Denji could look at her without hearing Makima's voice echo in his skull.
But waiting for him at school like this was new. Nevertheless, Denji stayed nonchalant, hitching up his bookbag as he approached the two.
"'sup," he said.
"Let's walk," Kishibe said.
"Carry me," Nayuta said.
"Later," Denji said.
No one in this little group was going to win awards for politeness.
They found a bench around the block and sat down, Kishibe extracting his flask from his coat pocket the moment Nayuta released his hand. The girl took a seat at the bench's far end, her wide, dark eyes staring at nothing in particular. Kishibe had gotten her colored contacts to cover up those eerie gold spirals, because it was a lot harder for eyes like those to pass without comment when you weren't constantly surrounded by devil contractors.
"Anything to report?" Kishibe asked, after draining half the flask in a gulp.
"Not really. Brought down seven or eight more devils since we last talked, but they were small fry."
"The Surveillance Devil was you?"
"Ah, yeah, that guy was a pain in the ass." A devil that represented the fear of being watched, always hanging somewhere behind Denji's shoulder no matter where he looked, ripping away at his back until he was woozy from blood loss. He'd eventually led the thing into a blind alley and shot his chains behind him, turning the alley into a nightmare snaretrap of sharpened metal from top to bottom. The devil had been ensnared and pulped in that web. Denji never had managed to get a good look at it.
Kishibe tapped out a cigarette, lit it, puffed smoke. Around them, the syncopation of daily life went on. Streetlights flickered and passing automobiles started and stopped. There was a public park nearby with a scummy little fountain in its center, its burble barely audible behind the sounds of traffic. Across the street, a toddler trailed behind his mother, its face smeared with soft-serve. Nayuta's head slowly swiveled as she watched it pass.
"Something is happening," said Kishibe.
"Yeah?"
"You heard anything about the natural disasters that have been occurring recently?"
"Sort of." Denji didn't pay much attention to the news but this subject strained through the airwaves wherever you listened. Fires, floods, blazing heat and freezing cold, sometimes in parts of the world that had no business experiencing them. "You're saying that ain't normal?"
"It's getting harder to deny. They're happening closer together and in more populated areas. Almost like they're being coordinated."
"So it's 'cause of devils."
"That would be even more unusual. The devils associated with forces of nature aren't usually that organized. Or cooperative."
"But Japan's still okay." The newscasters had always made a point of saying that, and now that Denji had thought about it, there'd been a sort of restrained desperation in their voices, like they were praying for misfortune to keep passing them by.
"So far, at least." Kishibe blew smoke. "But that's the thing. It's hard to say exactly, but these incidents might've kicked off sometime last autumn. September, October."
He fell silent then, expecting Denji to puzzle out the rest. His forehead scrunched as he tried to do so, then smoothed out. He leaned back, looked over Kishibe's shoulder where Nayuta sat, legs swinging.
"One hundred points," said Kishibe.
September 1997. The point where Makima had met her demise.
"You're sayin' this is my fault somehow?" Denji asked.
"No. But there's a good chance that something's trying to take advantage of this situation. Makima was a geopolitical force in her own right. Enough for the United States to bring out the Gun. If there really is some intent behind all of this, and it's steering clear of Japan, that might mean it's still concerned about the Control Devil…or about you."
"God damn it." Denji slouched back. "Can't they just come right to me? I've got exams and shit now."
"My sympathies."
"I ain't about to join Public Safety again or anything, but if it'd help to, like, team up…"
"I asked them that. They're giving me the run-around. I don't like it." Kishibe gently gnawed the cigarette end. "We're still short on people after trying to bring down Makima and new devil hunters aren't easy to find, or to train. But the directors are still locking me out. There's apparently some third party who's donating resources to this latest devil hunt and those shitty old men won't let me see them, either."
"You think it's about…?" Denji jerked his head towards Nayuta.
"Probably. I know they're not happy with either of us for taking away their best asset. They've been watching you for months now."
"I noticed." Public Safety suits weren't as inconspicuous as some of their agents seemed to believe.
"I'll keep working 'em. And I'll keep you in the loop, same as always. Just watch your back in the meantime."
"Always am."
Kishibe grunted, then flicked his cigarette onto the pavement and ground it under his shoe. "Here's a lesson, my student. You know one reason devil hunters need to be crazy?"
"Nuh-uh."
"Because devils never stay down. Every one you send to Hell, they'll just claw their way back out and come after you with twice the bloodlust."
"Unless Pochita eats 'em, I guess."
"Maybe. But that brings a whole bunch of other problems. Sooner or later your luck runs out. Most people can't wrap their heads around that without losing their shit completely." Kishibe stood up, wincing as his knees popped. "I'm sure word has gotten around in Hell about what you did to Makima. It doesn't get any easier from here."
Denji made a dismissive gesture. "I've prepared for all that. Like, mentally. But if I dwelled on it too much, then I really would go nuts, you know? There's a shitload of devils out there. I can't keep track of every single one."
"I've been thinking about writing an encyclopedia one of these days." Kishibe's voice was bone-dry. "Something for retirement."
"Are you gonna be okay by yourself?"
"I'll probably have to drag that smartass Yoshida kid into this. Anyone crazy enough to duke it out with Quanxi has to be worth something." He worked a kink out of his neck. "You know, Higashiyama's living with him now."
"Yeah? They screwing each other?"
"Doubt it," Kishibe said. "Anyway. I won't keep you any longer."
He turned on his heel, started off, and then stopped and looked over his shoulder.
"By the way," he added. "I'm still looking into ways to find the Blood Devil. No luck yet."
"It's fine," said Denji. "Thanks for trying."
Kishibe nodded and left. After a moment, Nayuta scootched closer to him. Her expression hadn't shifted an inch during their whole conversation. At first, Denji had been cagey about mentioning Makima in her presence, but soon realized that it was futile – Nayuta wouldn't get out of his personal space and never reacted to anything he said about her anyway. Most of his words disappeared into her like stones dropped into dark water.
"I want to leave," she said.
"Yeah, it's getting late."
With that, she clambered onto his back, and Denji rose up in a long-suffering kind of way. He didn't even think Nayuta particularly meant anything by making him carry her around everywhere. It was just that, as far as she was concerned, Denji doubled as transportation. His bookbag pressed painfully into his spine as they made their way down the sidewalk.
"How was school?" he asked.
"There's this boy. Ichiro." Her breath tickled his ear. "He won't stop picking his nose. It's disgusting."
"Did you tell him to stop?"
"Yes."
"Did he?"
"No," she said. "I hate him. You should kill him."
"Nah, don't wanna."
"Why not?"
It took him a minute to answer. Nayuta liked asking innocent little questions that made his schoolwork look easy in comparison.
"It sucks enough being that little," he said. "You've got hardly anyone to look out for you. The guys who pick on people like that, they're the real assholes."
"Like devils."
"Sometimes."
"That's why you kill them."
"Sort of."
Nayuta, near as Denji could tell, had exactly three interests: bread, dogs, and movies. Everything else she regarded with dull curiosity at best. She wasn't like Makima. She wasn't like anyone Denji had ever met. He wasn't sure how to treat her, so he mostly treated her like he would anyone else, and that seemed to be working out so far.
"Ichiro was bad once," Nayuta said. "So he had to go in time-out. It was stupid."
"That's where they just make you sit quietly by yourself for a little while, yeah?"
"Yes. It's stupid."
"Has it happened to you yet?"
"No. And it wouldn't matter, because that's what I do anyway."
"Yeah. It's pretty stupid."
"It is."
They stopped at a corner, waited for the light to change. One young woman in business wear gave them an odd look, but neither Denji nor Nayuta returned it. The Walk signal appeared and they crossed the street, their shadows lengthening in the setting sun.
"I'm hungry," said Nayuta.
"I'll get you a melon bread on the way home."
"I'm bored," said Nayuta.
"We can rent something after I walk the dogs."
"Okay," she said.
And that was that.
* * *
On a certain island in the South Pacific was a resort hotel typical for its kind, a squat campus of yellowed stone overlooking beaches of bone-white coral-flecked sand, waters that were clear as glass. The resort was small and not particularly famous, but nevertheless enjoyed a steady clientele in the busy season, and the tourists were, by and large, blameless people. At every hotel there would always be boorish types who adored the chance to tyrannize people who were paid to suffer their every whim, but the people at this resort made their requests in timid voices, unused to and slightly embarrassed by the resort staff's deference. Gulls landed on balconies, clacked their beaks and flew off again. The clouds drifted along with no threats of rain.
The sea was calm today and so the beach was packed, the usual heaving mass of humanity spread out on the sand or drifting through the water like lumps of meat in a stew. They sipped drinks and spread sunscreen and enjoyed the heat on their skin. One beachgoer was a ten-year old girl who'd been huddled under her umbrella for much of the afternoon. This girl had only just learned to swim last year – and still somewhat afraid of the water, owing to some unfortunate near-drownings when she was still a toddler – and this was her first visit to an island like this, so she kept her distance from the waves despite her parents' gentle exasperation. Instead, she brought her binoculars. They'd been a birthday gift, moderately expensive, and ideal for bird-watching.
The gulls' swooping and screeching entertained her for a while, and when that stopped, she settled for studying the patterns of foam on the waves. She panned the ocean with her binoculars, toes idly tracing patterns in the sand. That was when she saw it – far back in the ocean, beyond the people bobbling through the shallow water, someone was standing straight up, apparently balanced on some unseen sandbar. They waved. They appeared to be waving at her. The girl lowered her binoculars, expression quizzical, and then raised them again. The woman was still there, still waving.
She got up and left the umbrella's shelter, moving closer to the tide line. The woman might have been a native of this island, lightly dressed, her dark skin covered with some inscrutable calligraphy, the black tendrils of her long hair billowing in the breeze like mourning gauze. But she was smiling wide, her face crinkled with joy, and her hand kept waving back and forth in long, lazy arcs. The girl smiled and waved back. The woman gave no indication she had seen her, so the girl moved closer. And closer.
Something was wrong, the girl realized. She should have been wet up to the ankles by now but there was only damp sand underfoot. She lowered the binoculars again and found that the sea had pulled back as if raked by an unseen hand, quickly enough to leave former swimmers sprawled out on the silty earth. The chattering voices across the beach died by degrees. Everyone, the girl included, watched the water pull further back, leaving crabs to scuttle madly for shelter, fish gasping in the sun. The tide receded past the woman, and then around her, and the girl looked and found that she wasn't on a sandbar at all; she stood atop the water itself, now reduced to a lone pillar like a jutting tooth.
When she lowered her binoculars a final time, the wave had already appeared, a rising bulwark of black water that rose faster by the moment. It made no sound; it didn't need to. Instead the beach was raked by the panicked cries of the people as they scrambled away and around the girl, who stood there rooted, hands to her sides. As the wave blacked out the sun, she heard her name piercing the air like an icepick, but still she didn't move. And the woman smiled and waved, and smiled and waved, and smiled with her white, white teeth.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone