Pov Narrator.
Back in Tokyo...
"Man, you guys are seriously boring." Isagi said with an eyebrow raised as he casually dodged one of Katana-Man's attacks.
His body barely moved a few centimeters to the side, as if the hybrid's fierce attack was far too slow to pose any threat. The difference in speed between them was so great that Isagi looked like he was playing rather than fighting.
With a smile, he reinforced his fist with cursed energy. He didn't hold back. He knew hybrids were immortal, so he had no reason to restrain the strength of his blows. As he passed by Katana-Man, his fist slammed directly into his stomach.
The impact was dry. Brutal. The air exploded around the blow as Katana-Man's abdomen caved in for an instant from the force.
"Gah...!"
Katana-Man doubled over violently from the pain. A large mouthful of blood burst from his mouth before he was sent flying forward like a human projectile, crashing completely through the wall of a building.
The concrete exploded into pieces. The windows shattered as a massive cloud of dust engulfed the front of the building, leaving a hole running straight through it where the hybrid's body had passed without slowing down.
"I feel like I'm in an edit." Isagi ran a hand through his hair with a smile as he turned to look at Akane. "That smile disappeared from your face."
Isagi chuckled softly as he watched Akane's expression. The girl was afraid. It was painfully obvious. Sweat continuously ran down her face, her hands trembled uncontrollably, and she had almost no fingernails left after using her contract with the Snake Devil so many times.
Her breathing was uneven, and the way her eyes darted around made it clear she was desperately searching for an escape route. She looked like she might turn around and run away at any moment.
"This guy is insane... What the hell are you?" Akane asked as she swallowed hard.
She wasn't good at hand-to-hand combat. She knew that perfectly well. If Isagi decided to attack her at that very moment, she was completely certain she wouldn't even have the chance to defend herself before being defeated.
"What? Didn't I already tell you? I'm the highest-quality Devil Hunter."
The mocking smile on Isagi's face didn't disappear for even a second. To him, the entire fight was starting to feel more like a game than a real mission, and that carefree attitude was exactly what terrified Akane the most.
"(Shit, shit, shit)." Akane thought desperately as she stared at that smug grin on Isagi's face. "(I'm almost out of fingernails, and this damn monster in front of me treats my snake like it's nothing but a game... I have to run.)"
Akane clenched her jaw tightly. Her breathing became increasingly ragged as she raised her hand once again. The last fingernail on her pinky finger vanished, torn away as the price of her contract, leaving behind a sharp sting of pain that she barely managed to ignore.
"I have to run if I want to survive! Snake, swallow him!" she shouted, summoning the Snake Devil once more with a voice filled with absolute desperation.
The gigantic creature emerged once again with a deafening roar. Its enormous jaws opened immediately as it lunged at Isagi with all the speed it could muster, determined to devour him once and for all.
"Here we go again." Isagi shook his head as he finally drew his katana. Cursed energy slowly covered the blade, flowing from the hilt to the tip in a thin layer of power. "Wind Breathing: Tenth Form that I made up, but it's also ridiculously simple... Cutting Pressure."
With a single slash, Isagi unleashed a compressed crescent-shaped wind blade that shot straight toward the Snake Devil at a terrifying speed. The air shrieked violently in its wake.
Moments before the impact, the Snake Devil managed to move its enormous body, changing its original trajectory through pure instinct. But even so... the wind blade still reached it. A massive chunk of its tail was sent flying through the air as a clean cut sliced through the creature's durable scales.
The Snake Devil let out a heart-rending roar mixed with a shriek of pain that echoed throughout the entire area. If it had taken that attack head-on, it definitely would have been split in two. Even so, the devil didn't stop attacking.
It violently twisted its gigantic body, using the momentum of the movement to slam all its weight into Isagi with a brutal sideways strike. The impact came in a fraction of a second. Isagi barely managed to cross his arms in front of his body in an X shape, reinforcing them with cursed energy so they could absorb most of the impact.
Even so... the blow was strong enough to push him several meters backward, his shoes scraping across the ground as they kicked up a long trail of dust.
"That hit wasn't bad." Isagi casually shook his arms as if he had just been lightly shoved, while the Snake Devil's single eye stared at him with overwhelming fury over the piece of tail it had lost. "Want to cry?"
The enormous creature let out a roar filled with rage, glaring at Isagi. The pain from the cut was still present, and the carefree way the young man mocked it only made it even angrier.
Meanwhile, Akane had already escaped... She ran back toward the van with her heart pounding, breathing heavily as fear forced her to keep moving without looking back.
She knew staying behind was pointless. Her Snake Devil couldn't do anything. Neither could Katana-Man. From the very beginning, Isagi had only been playing with them. He hadn't even looked like he was fighting seriously. Staying meant getting caught... or something much worse.
She had never imagined that besides Makima, there was another monster within the Fourth Special Division. As soon as she opened the van's door, she quickly climbed into the passenger seat.
"Start driving already! That idiot Katana landed on the other side, we'll pass by there and pick him up. But step on it!" she ordered the yakuza they had brought to help with the operation.
"Alri..."
The man suddenly fell completely silent. A strange sensation spread throughout his entire body. A chill ran up his spine. He felt that something was terribly wrong. As though an invisible presence had just fixed its gaze upon him.
"What's wrong? I told you to dri..."
Boom!
Before Akane could finish complaining, the yakuza who was about to drive exploded in a grotesque fashion. An invisible force crushed his body in a single instant. Blood, chunks of flesh, and shattered bones violently splattered across the entire inside of the van, covering the seats, the windows, and everyone inside.
Akane froze completely in shock. Her pupils contracted to their limit as she stared in horror at the place where, just one second earlier, the driver had been sitting.
The other two yakuza had no idea what had just happened either. They tried to speak.
But they never had the chance.
Boom!
Boom!
Their bodies suffered exactly the same fate. An invisible force mercilessly crushed them, reducing them to a bloody mass that completely drenched the interior of the vehicle. In a matter of seconds... Akane was the only one still alive inside that van.
"This absurd power..." Akane's hands trembled for several seconds before her expression completely changed, becoming a mixture of anger, worry, and despair. "That bitch is still alive... Only Makima could have this kind of power, damn it."
Without caring that she was completely covered in blood, she shoved the driver's mangled corpse aside and took the driver's seat. With hands that still trembled, she started the van they had arrived in as quickly as possible and slammed the accelerator to the floor.
She didn't know how long the Snake Devil could keep Isagi occupied. And she needed to make use of every last second. Which, by the way, was already standing atop the enormous serpent. After subduing it with several punches, Isagi remained standing calmly on its head. The Snake Devil could barely lift itself after the brutal beating it had received while he slowly raised his katana.
For an instant, the blade reflected the sunlight. He could let those two escape, Katana-Man and Akane. After all, he had already beaten them badly enough. But... if he could kill the Snake Devil and get a reward for it, he would definitely do it.
"Die for my reward. Work ain't free." Isagi said before bringing his katana down with incredible speed and brutal force, aiming to split the Snake Devil's head in two with a single slash.
But at that very instant, the Snake Devil disappeared. Its enormous body vanished completely after accomplishing its goal of buying enough time for its contractor to escape. Isagi's slash only cut through the air. Without the serpent's massive body beneath his feet, he instantly lost his footing.
"What?!" Isagi fell face-first onto the ground. His face slammed directly into the pavement, kicking up a small cloud of dust. There was a brief silence. "Noooooo! Oh well." The surprise and anger over the sudden disappearance of his loot only lasted a few seconds.
With a small sigh, he got back up, brushing the dust off his clothes as if nothing had happened. After all, there was no longer any reward to collect.
Isagi shoved his hands into his pockets and suddenly remembered that he had teammates. He had been so focused on farming awesomeness by beating the hell out of Katana-Man that he had completely forgotten there were other people around.
The good thing was that he had left Madoka with them.
So, when he turned around, he saw that Aki had already fully recovered. The injuries he had suffered during his fight with Katana-Man had been healed by the Reverse Ritual of his Deer Shikigami. The same was true for Himeno, whose body no longer bore the severe injuries she had suffered just minutes ago.
As for Denji... Well, he was still in airplane mode. He remained completely unconscious, lying on the ground as if the entire disaster that had unfolded around him had absolutely nothing to do with him.
"No big deal, give him a Coke and pull the cord on his chest, and he'll be good as new." Isagi waved his hand dismissively, downplaying Denji's condition as much as possible.
As if bringing someone back to life were the most normal thing in the world.
[Ding]
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[Congratulations, Isagi Fushiguro! You have made your first major change in this world by preventing the death of a secondary Chainsaw Man character: Himeno. You finally did something useful.]
---
"(Hahaha, hold on, hold on... Are you indirectly calling me useless?)." Isagi's eye twitched slightly. By now, he had already realized that this system had quite the smart mouth whenever it felt like it.
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[Yes, because up until now you've only participated in events for the rewards promised in exchange for doing something.]
---
"(Well, obviously? Who the hell works for free? Just give me my reward already, System)." Isagi thought as he made a gesture with his hand, as if he were waiting for someone to hand him a prize.
His expression was completely serious. He wasn't the slightest bit ashamed to admit that a large part of his motivation came from the system's rewards. If he was going to risk his neck, the very least he expected was to get paid for it.
Another holographic screen unfolded before Isagi, displaying the new reward he had obtained for preventing Himeno's death. Isagi's eyes lit up the moment he read its contents.
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Reward: Ability: Governor's Hand.
Governor's Hand Ability: Allows the user to attract or manipulate objects and opponents without touching them.
---
"(Huh... Where's this ability from? I don't remember seeing an anime with something like this)." Isagi thought curiously, since the ability was completely unfamiliar to him. "(But hey... it sounds like the telekinesis I've always wanted and that the T Virus never gave me.)"
A smile appeared on his face. He couldn't resist the urge to test it. He slowly extended his hand toward Denji and, almost instinctively, imagined a giant invisible hand grabbing the cord sticking out of the boy's chest.
Something responded instantly. An invisible force pulled the cord in Denji's chest without anyone touching it. The familiar sound of a chainsaw engine echoed for a moment. Blood began flowing through his body once more. And Denji came back to life after having been shot in the head.
"Ow! What the hell happened?" he asked as he sprang to his feet, looking around at everyone present in confusion while trying to understand why he was still alive.
As for Isagi, he barely paid him any attention. He simply stared at his own hand. He opened it. Then slowly closed it. Repeating the motion a couple of times as he grew accustomed to the sensation of his new ability.
It was good. Very good. And he could only think of one thing: the Force from Star Wars.
"(This system is good. I can't buy anything and I depend entirely on mission rewards... but the rewards aren't bad. In fact, they seem to have something to do with someone connected to the mission.)" Isagi thought with a faint smile of satisfaction.
His attitude toward the system might not have been the best. He annoyed it. He talked back to it. And he even argued with it from time to time. But deep down... he was grateful. Thanks to the system, he was becoming stronger and stronger. And although he would never admit it out loud, he knew he never would have come this far without its help.
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End of the chapter.