Narrator POV.
After Isagi gave Denji and Power a brutal beating for throwing away his twenty-peso Gansito—an unforgivable crime—the trio ended up in an area with several vending machines lined up against the wall.
Isagi pulled a coin from his pocket and slipped it into one of the machines with an automatic motion. He pressed the button for the soda he wanted and watched as the can slowly descended… until, just before falling, it got stuck, hanging there mockingly.
Isagi stared at it in silence.
"…"
He delivered a well-aimed kick to the machine. The can dropped instantly, as if by magic.
(I'm not cut out to be a leader… much less for these two idiots), Isagi thought as he picked up the soda, clearly mentally exhausted.
In the anime they looked annoying, sure… but not this bad. Now that he had them right in front of him—having to watch them, take care of them, and stop them from causing a disaster every five minutes… dear God.
He would much rather be locked in a room full of devils. At least he could kill those to make them shut up.
Denji stood a few steps away, drinking his soda carefully, as if it were something sacred. He was still visibly sore after Isagi had slammed him into the ground like the average LATAM stepfather.
Power, on the other hand, had her face practically pressed against the glass of one of the machines. Her breath fogged up the surface as she stared intensely inside, completely focused. She had no idea what she was doing… but she seemed convinced it was something important.
"Being able to drink soda is like a dream to me," Denji said with surprising seriousness, staring at his can. "But if we keep making mistakes… soda won't be the only thing at stake."
He was still in pain, but the reflection seemed genuine. Isagi listened out of the corner of his ear, seriously wondering at what point his life had turned into babysitting these two.
Isagi simply snorted before taking another sip of his drink. The cold liquid slid down his throat as his gaze drifted to nowhere in particular. If he was honest—and he was—he didn't care in the slightest about the fate of those two.
It meant absolutely nothing to him if Makima ended up mentally breaking Denji in the future, dismantling him piece by piece just to bring back the true Chainsaw Man.
As long as he was fine, as long as his own skin stayed intact, the world could burn to the ground and he'd watch it without a problem—sitting calmly, eating popcorn.
Not his problem. Never was.
"But even so… I can't work with a liar and a careless idiot like you," Denji suddenly said, frowning with a seriousness that seemed to come out of nowhere.
Isagi slowly raised an eyebrow, slightly turning his head to look at him, as if unsure he'd heard correctly.
"According to your intelligence quotient equivalent to two acorns… what did I do?" he asked, crossing his arms and using unnecessarily complicated words just to mess with him.
"Nothing. That's what you did," Denji replied without much thought.
Isagi rolled his eyes. To hell with subtlety.
"Listen, kid with the body of an electric eel and the voice of Peppa Pig, let me remind you of something," he said, taking a step forward, visibly fed up. "My neck isn't the one with a rope around it. Yours is." He pointed shamelessly at Power first, then Denji. "You should be worried about keeping your life, not me. Because if even your parents didn't care about you, you matter even less to me."
To top it off, Isagi flipped them off without the slightest hint of remorse. Unless there was a real reward involved for putting up with those two, he wouldn't hesitate for a second to throw them into a devil's mouth at the first opportunity.
And he meant it completely seriously.
"I can only get along with cats," Power suddenly declared, crossing her arms proudly. Seeing the tension between the three of them, she clarified her stance with zero interest in softening it. "I hate humans," she continued. "And not because they did something bad to me… it's just instinctive hatred. Devils are born hating humans."
As she spoke, a cat appeared out of nowhere, slipping between her legs. Power picked it up naturally and began petting it with surprising gentleness, running her fingers along its back. She lowered her gaze, brow furrowed, as if that animal were the only thing in the world worth her attention.
She had no intention of getting along with the group.
"But I also hate devils!" she suddenly added, clutching the cat a little tighter against her chest. "A nasty devil took Nyako, my pet, before I could rescue him…"
Her voice faltered for a moment.
"Makima caught me shortly after… unfortunately," she said, remembering the moment she ran desperately through the streets only to find that red-haired woman waiting for her. "That devil may have already killed him…" Her fangs clenched. "But even so, I won't give up. I'm willing to ally with humans to get him back. Idiots like you wouldn't understand what it feels like to lose a cat."
"Too much text," Isagi commented with a crooked smile, clearly uninterested.
"How stupid," Denji added, just as indifferent.
Neither of them seemed even slightly moved. Or at least they weren't… until it happened.
[Ding]
A notification appeared before Isagi's eyes.
---
[Mission: Save Power's Cat]
[Reward: Blood Manipulation Technique, 1,000 EXP]
[Failure: Your super regeneration obtained from the Bloody Orchid Serum will be removed.]
[Accept?] [Yes / No]
---
Isagi froze completely.
(Blood manipulation technique…?) he thought, snapping his gaze toward the floating notification. (Isn't that Choso's cursed technique?) A slow, dangerous smile spread across his face. "Well… there's only one thing left," he muttered to himself. He crushed the empty soda can in his hand. "Time to get to work."
His compulsive workaholic blood had activated once again in the face of a new task… and a reward far too good to ignore.
---
End of the chapter.