"Two lattes. That's all."
Makoto handed the menu back to Reze.
"I'm only treating you," she said, making a dramatic face. "The other old man pays for himself."
We have things to discuss. Don't bother us," Yu Ishigami said coldly, pulling out a ten-thousand-yen note without looking at her and setting it on the tray.
"Hmph. Rude." Reze snatched the bill and leaned over the counter toward Yukiko, dropping her voice. "Ms. Manager, let's just keep the change."
Yukiko rapped her knuckles on Reze's head. She'd genuinely liked this girl when she'd first shown up asking about the part-time position. That was before.
At the table, Makoto's fingers moved across the surface in a quick, sliding pattern. To anyone glancing over, it looked like idle fidgeting. But Ishigami had worked with him long enough to read it.
The final showdown is coming.
Ishigami's fingers answered across the wood. Makima?
Makoto lifted his coffee, took a sip, and gave a small nod.
Your Chainsaw power has been significantly weakened. Are you sure it's fine?
I have contingencies. And I've mostly figured out her plan. It'll be okay.
Ishigami exhaled slowly.
Then something appeared in his field of vision, overlaid like a game popup.
Player "Makoto Nishikado" has sent you an item exchange request. Accept?
He blinked.
"Senpai, I have some work to take care of. I'll head out." Ishigami rose five minutes later.
"Sure. Watch yourself."
After he left, Makoto drained the last of his coffee.
"Hey, was that your partner? The one whose hair covers his eyes?" Reze materialized in the now-vacant seat, propping her chin in her hand with a grin. "Working with someone like that must be rough."
Honestly, across both of his lives, Makoto had never met a girl who moved this fast.
Behind the counter, a vein pulsed at Yukiko's temple.
Little fox, she thought.
"Are you always this forward with strangers?" Makoto asked, with genuine curiosity.
"I just think you're interesting. Is being a Devil Hunter fun? Did you go to school? Want me to tutor you?"
That actually made him laugh.
His grades in his previous life hadn't been anything to brag about, but outscoring a girl playing at being a student was hardly a challenge.
Half an hour later, Reze was staring at a piece of scratch paper with the haunted expression of someone who had been personally wronged.
The problem Makoto had given her: A cage holds 35 heads and 94 legs. How many chickens and how many rabbits?
"Who even invents problems like this?" She crumpled the paper into a ball and flung it across the table. "And why would you put chickens and rabbits in the same cage? They'd be impossible to grab. Just kill them all and make fried chicken and roast rabbit."
"Your grades aren't great, are they."
Makoto was enjoying himself, this was the sort of problem a Japanese middle schooler ought to manage without much trouble.
"No littering."
Yukiko emerged from behind the counter, retrieved the paper ball, knocked Reze on the head again, and trod firmly on Makoto's foot as she passed back. Stop flirting with teenagers, her expression said plainly.
"I don't like studying anyway!" Reze flopped forward onto the table, arms spread. Then she tilted her head sideways to look at Makoto, a slow grin spreading. "Hey. There's a new arcade that opened nearby. Want to go? I'm really good at Street Fighter."
"Oh? Challenging my ranked-one Shiranui Mai skills?"
"You idiot, Mai Shiranui is from King of Fighters!" She dissolved into laughter, then caught herself and clutched her chest in theatrical offense. "And of course you'd pick the character with the massive boobs. You're such a pervert, old man!"
There was something about this age. Girls at sixteen often carried the best version of their youth right on the surface, especially the ones who hadn't grown wary of the world yet. You could say almost anything and they'd laugh like it was the funniest thing they'd heard all week.
Makoto didn't pretend Reze wasn't performing. She clearly was, at least partly. But he'd been around long enough to recognize when a performance started bleeding into something real.
Alas, in the assassin business, the biggest taboo is falling for your mark.
"Excuse me." Yukiko appeared beside them, her smile professional and her voice carrying a distinct undercurrent. "If you've finished your coffee, there are other customers waiting."
The vein at her temple was doing something impressive.
If I leave these two alone much longer, she thought, I might as well hand them a room key.
"Aw, Ms. Manager, don't be like that. The other customers are all sweaty middle-aged men. I don't want to serve them."
Yukiko grabbed Reze by the cheek and squeezed. "Go. Work. Now. Or I dock your pay."
"Okay, okay, okay."
Reze stood, resigned, and snuck a covert phone-call gesture at Makoto behind Yukiko's back before retreating.
"You're jealous," Makoto observed.
"I am not."
"You're definitely jealous."
Yukiko stepped on his foot again, harder.
A month later. The Tokyo Summer Festival.
Every year through July and August, festivals like this spread across the country, filling streets with noise and light and the particular smell of street food in summer heat.
After the Gun Devil incident, they'd mostly stopped. But as Chainsaw Man's reputation grew and devil attacks thinned out, the last two years had seen them return.
Fireworks scattered color across the night sky in long, fading blooms.
Below, the street was packed tight with food stalls: takoyaki, candy apples, cotton candy. Game booths offering goldfish scooping and dart throws crowded the gaps between them.
People in yukata wove through the crowd in every direction. Public Safety had deployed barrier units and vehicles to manage the flow, with Devil Hunters scattered through the crowd as a matter of course.
"Watermelon shaved ice." Makoto stopped at a stall.
While he waited, someone tapped his left shoulder.
He glanced left. Nothing there.
A finger poked his right cheek.
He turned, and found Reze's grin waiting for him.
"Wearing sunglasses at night? Really? Who are you trying to impress?"
She pointed at them, laughing.
"Can't help it. People recognize me." He adjusted them on his nose.
Makima's campaign had done its work. His face was on posters.
"Here's your shaved ice."
The vendor passed it over.
"I want some!" Reze announced immediately.
"Buy your own."
He held it above her head. She jumped for it twice and missed both times.
"I only have a hundred yen left."
"What happened to your money?"
He was genuinely curious. Had Yukiko actually followed through and docked her wages?
"There was a kid on the way here, crying. He said he'd lost his allowance and couldn't get home. So I gave him what I had." She paused. "I kept a hundred. Enough for the bus back."
She looked at him with an expression that said clearly: well? pretty impressive, right?
Something in his chest shifted.
He scooped up a spoonful of shaved ice and held it out to her. She leaned in and took it without hesitation.
Then her eyes went thoughtful. "You know, the two of us like this... don't we kind of look like father and daughter?"
Makoto pulled the shaved ice back immediately. "You're cut off."
"No, no, no, don't be like that... Papa..."
He genuinely struggled to keep a straight face.
She really was something else.