"Back in Konohagakure... when my father was killed by that monster..."
Yukino's head snapped up mid-conversation, her gaze locking onto Makoto Nishikado. Her voice trembled despite every effort to steady it.
"Yukino!?"
Haruno Yukinoshita's face drained of color. She lunged forward and clamped a hand over her sister's mouth, but Yukino bit down hard on her fingers, forcing her to let go.
All those cycles through the Reincarnation Game had changed Yukino. Her core personality remained, but she'd matured, shed the naivety. But the moment her dead father came up, the composure cracked.
"Oh, that one genuinely was an accident."
Makoto glanced sideways, offering a thin smile.
Yukino's stare didn't waver. She knew him. One face in public, another behind closed doors. She'd learned that lesson long ago. She half-suspected Makoto had engineered the Third Hokage's death too.
He ignored her entirely and turned to Mrs. Yukinoshita instead.
"Ayano. Do you believe me?"
Not a second's hesitation. Her eyes were warm, unwavering. "I do."
Haruno: ...
Yukino: ...
After a brief discussion, the group decided to head for the nearest city: the ruins of Hokkaido's capital. It was rubble, but rubble beat open wilderness. Besides, Makoto had burned through enormous amounts of Chakra and was getting hungry.
Soma Yukihira and some of the others wanted to build a grave for their dead classmates, Daigo Aoki and Shoji Sato.
Erina and Mana Nakiri's feelings about Azami were... complicated. Some dark, honest corner of them had wished him dead.
But now that he was, the emotions tangled into something they couldn't name. A marker, at least. He deserved that much.
But it was impossible. The Gun Devil's carpet bombardment had pulverized everything. Human remains were mixed with shattered buildings, splintered trees, and animal carcasses. No one could tell which scraps of flesh belonged to whom.
In the end, Erina and Soma's group could only salvage fragments of clothing. They built a cenotaph, then followed the main party toward the city.
"Hey, it's you?"
A voice called out from ahead.
Everyone turned. A black-haired boy approached, carrying an unconscious younger boy on his back.
Aki Hayakawa, and his little brother Taiyo.
One of them survived after all.
"Thank you," Aki said quietly, dipping his head when he noticed Makoto's gaze.
He didn't know whether this strange older kid had somehow predicted the devil's attack or if the timing had been pure coincidence.
Either way, without that warning, his brother would be dead alongside their parents.
"What's your plan now?" Makoto asked.
"There's an orphanage nearby. I'll leave Taiyo there, find work to support him, and then..." Aki paused. His eyes burned red. "I'll kill that devil."
He didn't yet know which devil had caused this. But the scale of destruction told him enough. Whatever it was, it was monstrously powerful.
That didn't matter. He'd find it. He'd kill it. For his parents.
The seven-year-old Aki Hayakawa had no idea what he was up against. The Gun Devil was far beyond anything he could ever touch.
And even if he somehow managed it, killing a devil in this world meant nothing permanent. Unless the Chainsaw Devil devoured it and erased it from existence, any devil would simply resurrect in Hell.
Aki's enemy could come back infinite times.
Whether his revenge had any meaning at all... that was a question without a good answer.
Makoto didn't bother saying any of that. He just patted the boy's back.
"Good luck. But don't forget the family you've still got."
He walked away without looking back, heading toward the ruins.
Aki watched him go, then turned and carried his brother in the opposite direction.
Whether the words had landed, no one could tell.
Megumi Kato fell into step beside Makoto. "Who was that boy?"
"Met him right after we crossed over. Got a lot of useful intel from him."
Every ear in the group perked up. Even those harboring grudges against Makoto, like Yusaku Kudo. In an unknown world, information was survival.
Before Makoto could continue, Ishigami drew his Flying Thunder God kunai and leveled it at Yusaku's group.
"Senpai, want me to get rid of these people?"
The importance of intelligence wasn't lost on Ishigami. And sharing it with people hostile to his senpai seemed like a terrible idea.
"It's fine. Let them listen."
Makoto waved him off. Information this basic, a mind like Yusaku Kudo's could extract from any random civilian in ten minutes. No point hoarding it.
They reached the ruins.
The Nakiri family, Soma, Megumi Tadokoro, and every other first-timer in the Reincarnation Game shuddered at the sight. Severed limbs carpeted the ground. Here and there, a head with no body attached, faces frozen in terminal agony. Women. Children.
Kotonoha, Megumi Tadokoro, and Yuki Yoshino doubled over and vomited.
Makoto scanned the carnage, then found a battered sofa that must have been blasted out of some building by the Gun Devil's attack. He sat down.
Honestly, in most action manga, civilian casualties from superhuman battles were hand-waved away, left to the reader's imagination. Chainsaw Man didn't extend that mercy. It depicted the horror in unflinching detail.
Everyone split up to handle different tasks. The Akizuki sisters and Yumiko Miura went scavenging for food. Yusaku, Yukiko, and Kogoro set out to find a hospital for Shinichi.
Roughly half an hour later, both groups returned.
The Akizuki team had found food: canned goods, packaged snacks, instant stuff pulled from collapsed supermarkets. Several cans had bullet holes punched through them. Makoto didn't complain. He grabbed what he could and ate.
Yusaku's group hadn't found a functioning hospital or a doctor, but they'd scavenged enough medical supplies to properly treat Shinichi and Tomoya's wounds.
"This world is terrifying!"
Leonora Nakiri stared at the hellscape around them. Already pale by nature, she now looked like she'd been carved from wax.
Born into Northern European aristocracy, married into the Nakiri dynasty, mother of a high schooler, and she'd never experienced a single real hardship in her life.
Now she'd been dragged into a world that made purgatory look quaint. She felt like she was losing her mind.
"It's okay. I'll protect you."
Sōei Nakiri stepped forward to comfort his wife.
Back in the real world, that might have earned genuine warmth from his family. Here, Leonora and Alice looked at him with identical expressions of raw skepticism.
Protect? Really?
Sōei scratched his head sheepishly. "W-well... I'll do my best."
Mother and daughter shared a strained look.
If "doing your best" worked, your brother-in-law would still be alive.
Alice steeled herself and approached Makoto.
"Nishikado, could you tell us about this world?"
She understood perfectly. Right now, the only person they could rely on was him. Step one: learn how this place worked. Improve their odds of survival.
Makoto polished off his fourth sausage link, then began.
In this world, supernatural power existed, but it didn't belong to humans. It belonged to devils. Devils were born from humanity's fears. The greater the collective terror of something, the more powerful its devil became.
Major fears produced horrors like the Sword Devil, the Bomb Devil, the Snake Devil, the Rat Devil. Minor anxieties, petty dislikes, spawned things like the Tomato Devil, the Potato Devil, the Leech Devil, the Fly Devil.
Every conceivable fear had a devil to match.
Some avoided human contact entirely, lurking in remote wilderness. Others hid in major cities. Most were violent by nature, harboring an innate hatred of humans, attacking either on instinct or with intent.
Even fresh from a brush with death, the players couldn't help but feel a twinge of disbelief. Sword Devil, Snake Devil, fine. But the Tomato Devil? The Potato Devil? That was a joke, right?
Meanwhile, Makoto found himself wondering: if a Tomato Devil existed, was there a Capsicum Devil? Pineapple on Pizza Devil? Plenty of people in China loathed those things.
"The Sword Devil and Bomb Devil sound terrifying, but food-type devils?" Utaha couldn't resist. "Then again, if there's a Lemon Devil, keep it far away from me." She despised anything sour, lemons most of all.
"So, Nishikado... the devil that attacked us earlier..." Shizuka Hiratsuka asked the question everyone was thinking. The thing that had leveled a city in seconds. The thing that had pushed even Makoto to the brink. What was it?
He took the carton of milk Yotsuba Nakano handed him, drank deep, and answered.
"The Gun Devil."
"The stronger humanity's fear of something, the stronger the devil born from it. And devils exploit this cycle. They attack humans to amplify the fear, which makes them stronger, which lets them attack more effectively. On and on."
Silence crashed over the group.
Guns. Of course it was guns.
It made perfect sense. Among all weapons, what terrified people most? Guns. Especially when you factored in the Land of Freedom.
America alone had probably fed that devil an obscene amount of power.
"So humans in this world are just... livestock?" Mana Nakiri voiced the next logical thought. If devils were this powerful, how had humanity survived at all?
The question rippled through the crowd. Right. If the devils were this terrifying, how were humans still around? Hokkaido was living proof: against the Gun Devil, there had been zero resistance. Even Makoto had barely survived.
"It's the difference between a one-time feast and a sustainable food source," Makoto said calmly. "Even the devils understand that much. Their power comes from human fear. Wipe out humanity, and that power fades. So even something like the Gun Devil only shows up once every few decades, maybe once a century. No daily genocide."
The reassurance had the opposite effect. Faces went whiter.
That's just farming. Like raising pigs for meat.
Makoto continued. "But some devils are willing to deal with humans. These arrangements are called contracts. You follow?"
Eriri Spencer Sawamura, the resident otaku, got it first.
"I get it! You pay some kind of price and gain the devil's power in return, right?"
Makoto gave a small clap. "Not bad. All that anime paid off."
Eriri blushed and scratched her head. Beside her, Yotsuba Nakano pouted. She'd been about to say the same thing. She wasn't as hardcore as her sister Miku, but she read manga and played games too.
"Sign a contract with a devil, and you gain power beyond normal human limits," Makoto went on. "Most people who do this become Devil Hunters. Professionals who kill devils for bounties. They're humanity's front line."
Eyes lit up among the newcomers. Even Shinichi, freshly conscious, and Tomoya Aki perked up.
Especially Tomoya. He'd spent years in the Naruto world bitter about never becoming a ninja. Now all he had to do was sign a contract? That was a steal.
Sign me up. Right now.
Ito Makoto, castrated twice over, was still unconscious and missed the entire conversation.
"Mr. Nishikado, how do we form a contract with a devil?" Sōei Nakiri stepped forward, barely containing his eagerness.
As the son of Senzaemon Nakiri, he'd never been especially desperate for superpowers. In the real world, he already wielded influence most people couldn't dream of.
But here, influence meant nothing. He had a wife and daughter to protect. If a devil contract was the answer, he wanted in.
Makoto looked at him like he was staring at an idiot, then turned to the Akizuki sisters and the other women.
"Don't sign contracts with devils. They're bad news"
"These things aren't charitable. What they demand will exceed anything you'd expect. Lifespan. Body parts. Family members, friends, children. And most of the time, it's not even a one-time trade for permanent power. Every single use costs you something."
A grin spread across his face.
"Here's an example. Say you contract with some predator devil. Tiger Devil, Lion Devil. Every time you use its power, it eats a piece of you. Today, your arm. Tomorrow, your leg. The day after that... what do you think it wants?"
The enthusiasm drained out of the room like water from a cracked glass.
That's insane.
Yui Yuigahama and the other veterans shook their heads. Thank god they'd learned ninjutsu in the Naruto world. Gaining power here cost way too much.
This world is too damn cruel.