CS : Chapter 7
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43m
[1st POV]
Here in the Todoroki Valley of Tokyo, things were getting intense.
*BOOOOOOM!!!!*
"I don't know, bro. I'm pretty sure she doesn't like you back," I said while hiding behind the cover of a tree.
A shockwave exploded that shattered wood like it was glass, and I could feel its splinters piercing parts of my body.
After the shockwave was over, I turned my head and peeked from the tree. There, I locked eyes with the Forest Devil, a huge behemoth that looked like a golem made entirely of vines and trees.
A wood golem would be the right word, except horror writers designed its character.
I quickly faced forward again when I saw it looking my way. I took a deep breath and looked to my side. Aki was in the tree next to me, similarly hiding behind the cover of a tree. But unlike mine, his tree was much bigger and provided better protection.
"I mean, if she liked you back even a little, she wouldn't send you on a dangerous mission," I said, much to his annoyance.
"Can you please not talk for once?!" he screamed. "How about you stop using your mouth and start using your powers instead?"
We went to Makima this morning like she requested, and she ended up sending both of us on a mission. But we were not given any details on what we were going to fight. She only said to kill whatever we found in the Todoroki Valley.
Turns out it was the Forest Fucking Devil. A powerful devil that would usually take more than an entire division to take down.
But she sent only the two of us this time without giving us any prior warnings. I wonder what was going through her head or what she was trying to achieve by doing this.
"I don't want to fight. Have you seen the size of that thing?" I asked and turned back to look once more. I almost freaked out when I saw that it was moving towards us, but without taking a single step.
It was like the whole valley and the forest were under its control, and the forest floor acted as a moving walkway for it.
"Shit, it's coming towards us," I cursed out loud.
"I guess we have no choice but to fight," I said and began activating my hybrid powers. I always hated transforming because they friggin hurt so much.
"Cover me!!" I said, and since the enemy was a powerful devil, I decided to transform fully from the start.
It began with a violent twitch in my jaw, a crack that completely rearranged the lower part of my skull to make something new. My teeth ground against each other as if something inside me was trying to force my mouth open from the wrong direction.
Then heat flooded my skull. It felt like a fever, a fever hot enough to boil my brain. The sensation of stretching skin and bulging new mass was torture.
I fell to my knees.
My fingernails tore from my hands as they scraped the ground, replaced by something thicker and hoof-like. My skin bubbled. I could hear it bubble like fat hitting a hot pan.
"I hate this" I said, my voice dying before I could complete my sentence because my throat collapsed halfway through, reshaping.
The next breath came out as a growl that was not mine.
My jaw snapped forward and my skin split from the inside as new bone pushed outward. Teeth pushed through my gums. They were crooked, jagged, and too many of them for a pig. A pair of tusks burst from the sides of my face with a stabbing sound.
I screamed.
But the scream did not sound human anymore.
"REEEEEEEE!!!!"
Muscles ballooned under my skin, tearing it open in places while coarse bristles pushed out too. My fur was thick and reeked of iron and rot.
The last thing to change was my spine. I went from bipedal to quadrupedal structure. My size was huge too. I was as big and wide as a van and weighed as much as a tank probably.
I shattered the tree that I had used as cover. I released a loud shriek and began charging towards the Forest Devil.
My wide jaw opened and scooped up rocks and the ground, making a line as I approached. I was starving and I could probably eat anything.
I leapt towards the Forest Devil with no fear.
But without it moving a single inch, a tree to my side suddenly bent like it had life. Its branches became vines and wrapped around me. I could not react because I did not even see it coming.
The next thing I knew, I was slammed into the earth, creating a giant crater. The trees pulled themselves out of the ground, their roots emerging, and oddly enough, it looked like they were bleeding.
The trees swarmed me. Not only that, vines began growing from the ground and strapped me tightly so I could not move. I opened my mouth to eat my way out but a thick, thorny vine wrapped around my snout and completely shut me down.
I was easily buried and contained.
I knew we did not stand a chance against the Forest Devil. It was too powerful. Especially since many ghost stories and monsters were intrinsically linked to forests. And in real life, people get lost or go to the forest to kill themselves.
It could not be a weak devil.
...
"You gotta be kidding me," Aki said to himself when he saw me quickly being overwhelmed like that.
He made the kon sign with his hand, looking through the hole at my direction. If he brought out the Fox Devil, it might as well just eat me too since he did not know where I was in the growing mound of vegetation.
In the end, he gritted his teeth and put his hand on the sword he always carried. He pulled it out, revealing that it was not actually a sword but a giant nail that could only stab its target.
It was a cursed tool, a product of his contract with the Curse Devil.
"Can you still hear me, Jin!!!" Aki yelled, and indeed I could hear him vividly from where I was. But I did not respond. I was occupied with trying something new.
The Forest Devil began moving towards him. It was giant, perhaps around ten meters in height. It could stay still and camouflage itself as a small hill from a distance. At least that was how it hid from us in the beginning.
"Kon," Aki said and activated his contract, giving part of his skin to summon the Fox Devil's head.
The Forest Devil brought its arms up to swing down, but then the Fox Devil bit it by the forearm. But still, the Fox Devil was not able to bite through it.
The Forest Devil was stronger than almost all the animals in the world. The Fox Devil was actually one of the weaker animal devils, so its face stood no chance.
"Why do you always summon me to bite impossible enemies?" the Fox Devil asked Aki before the Forest Devil crushed her with its other hand.
Things were not looking too good for Aki.
But fortunately for him, I finally figured something out.
"Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut!!" I screamed while slashing my bladed arms as fast and as hard as I could.
Until eventually, I cut my way out from the pile of forest.
"Finally!!" I said. I was in my hybrid form. I was only the size of a human but with the characteristics of a devil.
I was being suffocated, but suddenly shifting from my giant full form to this form allowed me some space to swing my arms and create openings.
And I also discovered a new power during the process.
The Scalpel Devil, the same devil I ate not too long ago. I had its power, its name and abilities inside me. I did not know how and was too busy to question it.
But the Scalpel Devil's power worked better than the Pig Devil's. Perhaps it was because I was fighting against the Forest Devil, something that was conceptually my mother and superior as an Animal Devil.
But the Scalpel Devil, the sharp blade of mankind, was able to cut through its vines.
In my current form, I still had the characteristics of a pig like the tusks and the deformed face and jaw. But I also had blades all around my body in the form of fur. And I could produce these blades in my arms or completely replace them with a giant scalpel.
"Let's do this!!" I screamed and blitzed towards the giant devil. The trees tried to stop me once more, but I twisted my body and spun with blades, cutting them before they could reach me.
"Try and hold this!!!" I blurred when it swung its arms down at me.
The giant devil staggered back, its arm bisected cleanly from the elbow down. Its hand crashed with a loud thud, and the blood that leaked from it grew greens and flowers wherever it fell.
I produced blades from the soles of my feet so I could scale its body. I ran up its body and left wide cuts on it wherever I went.
Its body tried growing thorns or wrapping vines around me, but I simply grew blades and sliced them off. It was like I was made to counter this ability.
We made a huge ruckus in the forest for a few minutes. It was big but quite useless as it could not match my speed nor my sheer brutality. But it was clear that I was going to run out of fuel before it did. My attacks were not doing much to it.
Then I got an idea.
I made a large incision on its belly and decided to jump inside its body. I did not know how it would look inside, but it looked kind of like I expected.
I entered inside the devil, digging my way through its body like I was performing a surgery. And when I was deep enough, my blades broke and fell off my body.
I shifted my form into my Pig Devil form.
Its inside came alive, trying to crush me and squish me alive. I could feel acids start burning my skin while I was inside.
But I could open my mouth.
And so, I began eating the devil from the inside out. The acids, the vines, the insides, whatever I could fit through my mouth I ate.
I could hear the devil screaming. Its entire inside shook with pain. Eating it like this was having severe effects on the forest.
I ate and ate and ate, gorged and gorged and gorged even more.
Until I could feel and hear the giant toppling and falling in the valley, releasing a giant shockwave.
It was dead.
But I did not stop.
I ate until everything was inside my belly.
I was starving after all.
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Author : Chainsawman battles in the manga are defined by their abruptness, sudden twists, and gore. I'll try to capture this essence.