After My Death, I Gained a Follower Named Aki Hayakawa [Chainsaw Man]

Compared to his younger brother, Aki Hayakawa was largely overlooked by his parents. He found a warm place to belong in a beautiful woman who ran a cafe. She had sleek black hair tied in a short ponytail, spoke slowly and gently, and always had love in her eyes.

Even the bitterest coffee became sweet and fragrant in her hands.

He felt happy, and thought:

Let me grow up soon. I want to love her;

to pursue her;

to fall asleep in her arms and wake up beside her;

to drink a cup of coffee with her in the morning light...

"Crack!"

After that sound, he was powerless to witness all his fantasies turning to nothing.

*

As the Devil of Love, Shimizu Morima should have rejected love. The fear of love was supposed to be the source of her power.

She had no desire for endless power, no wish to plunge all of humanity into loneliness, and no interest in making her followers fear love from the depths of their hearts...

She simply loved the human whose eyes were the color of the night sky.

When a devil attacked her without warning, she could only fall back into Hell as Aki watched in horror, her power growing ever so slightly.

She sensed that Aki had become someone who feared love. Why?

Shimizu Morima was confused and displeased. She had been so kind to him. That boy should be able to live a life full of love.

So, ignoring her old neighbor Darkness's protests, she stubbornly returned to the human world and to human life.

"Good morning, Aki."

A brand-new cafe opened in bustling, dangerous Tokyo.

But humans seemed to have changed. She couldn't smell even the slightest trace of affection or adoration.

So Shimizu carefully cradled his face in her hands and studied him. The emotion in his lowered eyes looked more like a starving beast trying to devour every delicious morsel in one bite.

"Why?" Why had he become a follower of the Devil of Love?

His answer was a tight embrace, warm and strong, carrying the precious scent of something once lost and found again.

*

Includes the following series:

A man blessed by flames [Fire Punch]

A friendly visitor from Hell [Mob Psycho 100]

A man bound by heaven and earth who longs for death [Jujutsu Kaisen]

(The boundaries between arcs won't be clear-cut. Chainsaw Man is the main framework, and the story is mostly original.)

*

1. Written for love, a sweet younger-man romance with food. Fundamentally not angsty, it's a happy ending about an honest man meeting his first love again and gradually losing control.

2. The heroine is a devil. Don't judge her by human moral standards. The golden finger is overpowered, and there are many original abilities.

3. Uses the Chainsaw Man setting, with loads of headcanon and no attempt at strict accuracy. Fire Punch is reimagined in the Chainsaw Man setting. The master-disciple pair transmigrates, and Dad is more or less reborn.

See the author's note in Chapter One for more.

Theme: Embracing love leads to a happy life.