"Taiyo, I wanna play catch. Go home and get the gloves."
Standing in the snow, Aki Hayakawa issued the command to his younger brother with a hint of irritation.
Their parents' affection tilted almost entirely toward Taiyo because of his frail health. Aki understood the logic. Understanding didn't stop the sting.
He was seven years old. Logic only went so far.
"Okay!"
Taiyo, oblivious to his brother's frustration, flashed a goofy grin and took off running toward home.
"Hey, kid. Can you tell me what year it is?"
The voice came from behind Aki just as Taiyo's figure began to shrink into the distance. Aki flinched and spun around.
A teenager stood there, studying the surroundings with casual interest.
Aki scrambled back two steps, bewildered by where this person had come from, but answered anyway: "It's 1983. How do you not know that?"
"1983..."
Makoto Nishikado blinked. His memory of the Chainsaw Man timeline was fuzzy at best.
He glanced at the child disappearing down the road, then turned back to the boy in front of him, fishing for intel. "That your brother? Why'd you let him go alone?"
"He's grabbing a glove, that's all. Relax." Aki scowled.
Something clicked.
Brother. Glove. Two kids...
A cascade of deeply unpleasant memories surged through Makoto's mind.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Why would I tell you?" Aki's frown deepened.
This stranger was bizarre. Popping up out of nowhere with random questions, and now asking for his name?
But the kid's impatient scowl, that brooding edgelord face so reminiscent of Sasuke Uchiha, and those juvenile features that already promised a dangerously handsome future.... Makoto was certain. This was Aki Hayakawa, the deuteragonist of the Chainsaw Man world.
In his previous life, he'd been pushing thirty when he read Chainsaw Man, a veteran of countless series. Even so, Aki's ending had gutted him. As far as brutal deaths went, it ranked in the top three across all of anime.
"If you don't want to regret it for the rest of your life," Makoto said, "go get your brother back. Right now."
"Huh?"
Aki raised an eyebrow, already done with this weirdo.
"I mean it. You'll regret this forever if you don't."
Makoto turned and walked away.
Aki Hayakawa's fate was too cruel. Even someone like him, who treated most things as entertainment, couldn't resist dropping a warning.
But that was the extent of it. He'd pull a drowning kid out of the water if he happened to walk by. He wasn't signing up as anyone's babysitter.
He could also sense it. Dozens of familiar presences were materializing nearby.
Aki watched him go and muttered, "Weirdo."
But his eyes drifted to his brother's figure, now a tiny speck about to vanish into the town. Makoto's words echoed.
He gritted his teeth and broke into a sprint.
"Come back! Come back! Let's have a snowball fight instead!"
Elsewhere on the snowfield, a crowd of people stumbled out of the nauseating whirlpool of teleportation. Those with weaker constitutions dropped straight onto the frozen ground.
Among them was an elegant woman with an IV needle still taped to the back of her hand.
"Ow!"
The orange-haired woman hit the snow hard. The needle ripped free, and blood began seeping from the wound.
"Ow, ow, ow..." She clutched her hand and looked around in bewilderment. "Where... am I?"
"Mom?!"
Nakiri Erina stared at the woman on the ground, her voice cracking with disbelief.
It was Nakiri Mana, her mother, unseen for years.
"Erina?"
Mana was equally stunned. She'd spent years abroad as a special executive for the WGO, rarely returning to Japan, let alone seeing her daughter. The last place she'd expected a reunion was... wherever this was.
Erina dropped to her knees, pressed a handkerchief against the bleeding wound, and held tight.
They weren't the only ones reeling.
"Is this Scandinavia? It's freezing..." A woman with cascading silver hair and ruby-red eyes hugged her bare arms, shivering violently.
"I don't think so, Mom." Nakiri Alice, who shared seventy percent of her mother's features, pointed at writing on a distant building. "That's Japanese."
This was Nakiri Leonora, Alice's mother.
Beyond the two Nakiri mother-daughter pairs, a massive wave of characters from the culinary world had been pulled in as well: Soma Yukihira, Megumi Tadokoro, Ryoko Sakaki, Hisako Arato from Polar Star Dormitory... even Azami Nakiri and Soe Nakiri, the two fathers, stood among them.
And it wasn't limited to the cooking crowd. A slew of new faces had joined the fray: Yu Ishigami, Makoto Itou, Sekai Saionji, Kotonoha Katsura, Shizuka Hiratsuka, Yotsuba Nakano, Ai Hayasaka, and more.
Most conspicuously, Ishigami was still straddling Itou with his fist raised.
Anyone out of the loop would've had questions.
The Reincarnation Game's notification chimed again in every newcomer's mind:
[Welcome to this round of the Reincarnation Game.]
[Current Instance World: Chainsaw Man]
[Each round will assign a designated objective. Complete the mission to return to the real world. Rest assured, real-world time will be completely frozen during gameplay.]
With the system's explanation, the newcomers like Erina finally grasped the situation.
Especially one particular line: "All abilities learned in this world can be used normally in reality."
Azami Nakiri's expression darkened. He turned to stare at Utaha Kasumigaoka and the other veterans standing calmly nearby.
"So that's where their power comes from," he murmured.
Pinned beneath Ishigami, face already a mess of bruises, Makoto Itou's eyes lit up.
"Wait... does that mean I can get powers too?"
The thought was so exciting that his face almost stopped hurting.
Ishigami's fist crashed down again.
Don't think crossing worlds means I'll stop hitting you.
"Enough! Stop it!" Shizuka Hiratsuka and Sekai Saionji finally snapped out of their daze and rushed over to pull Ishigami off.
He considered it for a moment. Decided against hitting women. Let Itou go. For now.
"Azami." Soe Nakiri fixed his brother-in-law with a cold stare. "Don't try anything stupid."
He'd heard plenty about what Azami had been doing since Senzaemon Nakiri expelled him from the family. Shady dealings, underground power plays.
And the near-abusive "elite education" he'd inflicted on Erina as a child had long since exhausted every last drop of goodwill the Nakiri clan had for him.
"Strict as ever, Soe." Azami smiled thinly, the warning rolling off him like water.
A threat from Makoto Nishikado might give him pause, but with the underground network he'd cultivated, the Nakiri family name alone didn't scare him.
His gaze drifted to his wife and daughter, and his expression softened. "It's been a while, Mana. Erina."
Mana's face twisted with undisguised fury.
She'd always despised his warped methods of raising their daughter. Despised them, and been powerless to stop them.
"After all these years, and this is the reception I get? That stings." Azami feigned a rueful smile.
Alice's mother frowned. Alice herself stepped forward to intervene, but a mocking voice cut through first.
"Clown. What are you stirring up?"
Azami's brow furrowed. He turned.
After leaving the Nakiri family, he'd recruited top culinary talent from across the industry and built the Central organization, an apparatus designed to use food as leverage over the elite. Essentially, the Dark Cooking Society of the Food Wars universe.
His influence now rivaled the Nakiri clan itself. The number of people who dared address him in that tone could be counted on one hand.
Then he saw the face, and his legs gave out. He dropped onto the snow.
One of those people was standing right in front of him.
The strongest superpower user in the real world. Makoto Nishikado.
Erina, hiding behind her mother, froze.
Her father, the man who'd loomed over her childhood like the devil himself, was trembling with fear in front of Makoto?
"Senpai, want me to kill this guy?"
Ishigami was already at Makoto's side, pointing at Azami.
Yotsuba Nakano, still struggling to process everything, stared wide-eyed. This kid is insane...
On another front, Makoto's core group converged rapidly: the Akizuki sisters, Utaha Kasumigaoka, Megumi Kato, and the rest.
"This doesn't look like the ninja world, Makoto."
"Feels more like Japan, but older. Eighties vibes."
"Mom and Dad got pulled in too. Should we find somewhere safe for them first?"
The girls spoke over each other.
Beyond the veterans who'd been to the Naruto world before, like Kayoko Akizuki, Sayuri Sawamura, and Eri Kisaki, a whole new batch of parents had arrived: Kogoro Mouri, Yusaku Kudo, Yukiko Kudo, the Kasumigaoka parents, the Kato parents, all of them.
Makoto surveyed the crowd. Great. Family isekai dinner party.
He was about to speak when Yukino Yukinoshita and Megumi Kato, both sensory-type ninja, went chalk-white.
They collapsed to their knees, nearly blacking out.
Haruno, the weaker sensor of the group, doubled over and vomited.
"Haruno, what's wrong?" Her sister rushed to her side.
Mrs. Yukinoshita's expression tightened. Her own flesh and blood, after all.
Before either could explain, Megumi's arm shot toward the south. Her face, normally as placid as still water, was carved with pure, primal terror.
"Makoto! Over there... something horrifying!"
A heartbeat later, it wasn't just the sensors. Makoto, Utaha, Ran Mouri, every combat-type ninja felt it too.
The presence was suffocating. Boundless. The embodiment of pure destruction.
BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.
Gunfire erupted across the world. Not just nearby. Across the entire planet, the sound reverberated as though the atmosphere itself had become a barrel.
Azami, still sprawled on the ground, didn't even get to flinch. A bullet materialized from nowhere and reduced him to a red smear on the snow.
Everyone from the Nakiri family went rigid with shock.
Then Erina, Alice, and the others saw it: a torrent of bullets, thick as a monsoon, screaming toward them.
Before a single scream could leave their throats, an enormous grey-black skeletal claw plunged from the sky like a colossal umbrella over their heads.
Bullets hammered against the bones in a relentless, ear-splitting cacophony that set teeth on edge.
"Nishikado!" Alice spun around, her cry equal parts relief and terror.
But before anyone could exhale, a second volley arrived. Denser. More savage.
Everyone looked up. Bullets blanketed the sky like an apocalyptic downpour, covering every visible inch of earth.
"Sensei-kun?!" Utaha's face drained of color. She started forming hand seals, then realized her defenses would be tissue paper against this.
"Everyone, get close!"
Makoto's voice cut through the chaos.
The instant he spoke, the Susanoo's ribcage expanded. A skull formed. Arms erupted outward.
Susanoo, first form.
In less than half a second, Chakra pathways surged and armor thundered into place around the skeleton.
Second form.
Third form.
From first to third, less than two seconds.
But the bullet rain had already fallen.
Aoki Daigo and Sato Shoji, two background members of the culinary crew, were too far out. They never made it inside the barrier. The hail of bullets reduced them to red mist in an instant.
"Aoki! Sato!" Megumi Tadokoro screamed, her face ashen.
"Megumi, move!" Ryoko Sakaki grabbed her hand and hauled her into the protected zone.
Her dorm mates' deaths carved a hole in her chest, but staying alive was the only thing that mattered now.
The barrage intensified. Under the relentless hammering, cracks spiderwebbed across the third-form Susanoo's outer shell.
Ran Mouri, Megumi Kato, every veteran player felt their stomachs drop.
They'd witnessed the Susanoo's terrifying durability countless times. They had never seen it crack.
A single bullet the size of a basketball slammed directly into the fracture point.
The detonation shook the earth.
The third-form Susanoo's armor shattered.
"Shit!"
As shrapnel ricocheted inside the Susanoo, Makoto whipped out a Flying Thunder God kunai and deflected every fragment heading for Yotsuba, Ai Hayasaka, and the others.
But there were people he couldn't reach. Or rather, people he didn't bother reaching for.
Three screams tore through the air, raw and inhuman, cutting through every other sound.
Shinichi Kudo was blasted off his feet and slammed against the Susanoo's inner wall. His spine screamed. His eyes dropped to his legs.
Everything below the knees was gone. The stumps were a mangled ruin of shredded muscle and dark crimson. Shattered white bone jutted from the wounds, severed arteries still pulsing blood in weakening spurts.
His mouth gaped open. No sound came out. Consciousness teetered on the edge of shutdown.
Tomoya Aki and Makoto Itou fared worse. And with far more humiliation.
Two shrapnel fragments found their marks below the belt with surgical precision, detonating in a spray of red.
Both collapsed into the snow, bodies curling inward like snapped shrimp, hands clamped over their groins. The tearing, burning agony seared straight into their brains. Every breath pulled at pain that threatened to split them apart.
The sounds that left their throats were no longer human. Tears, snot, and cold sweat ran together. Their bodies seized in violent spasms, legs kicking rigidly against the snow.
Blood pooled from between their legs at a horrifying rate, staining the white ground in an expanding bloom of red.
The one wound no man could bear.
Soma Yukihira, Kurokiba Ryo, Hachiman Hikigaya... every male present instinctively clamped protective hands over themselves.
It hurt just to watch.
Only Saika Totsuka let out a soft, ambiguous murmur: "Honestly... that doesn't seem so bad. I never really wanted that thing anyway."
"Shut up. Don't bother senpai."
Ishigami, expression blank, kicked each of the two writhing men once for good measure.
The secondary jolt of pain locked their bodies rigid. Both blacked out.
Inside the Susanoo, Makoto's Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan spun wildly.
The third-form Susanoo swelled. Power erupted skyward.
Perfect Susanoo.
Nearby, behind a large tree, Aki Hayakawa clutched his little brother to his chest, curled behind the trunk, shaking, praying to survive.
When he caught sight of the grey-black colossus towering in the distance like a demon god descended upon the earth, his mind went blank. He forgot to breathe.
From the cockpit at the Perfect Susanoo's brow, Makoto paused.
"What is it, Makoto? Where's the enemy? Take them out!" Airi Akizuki shouted.
Makoto clicked his tongue and said the words that made every scalp in the group prickle:
"Halfway across the country."