Chainsaw Man: Heart of Hell |Aki Hayakawa|

Chapter 7: Path of Blood

PRESENT TIME

... Location: Tokyo, Japan

The smell of blood to any devil is the strongest scent they can pick up. By instinct it is an alluring smell however to the Love Devil it is often the sign of danger. It sends out the message, 'someone is hurt!' or 'there's a devil here!' or even both. Even with the faintest smell of it, she can pick it up, she was trained vigorously to do so.

Therefore, when she detected the smell right away she bolted into action. Both Love and Aki were on the move while Love leads the way to the path of blood. On their way, she was straining her eyes to focus in the distance for any signs of panic, and in just a second a girl in frantic tripped over her own feet. As a result, a bunch of people started to head away from the cause of panic.

"There!" Love pointed to a corner where she had seen the girl run from. Then she senses high hostility and malice.

"It's highly aggressive and hostile!" Love reported.

"You request for support and evacuate the premise," Aki ordered as he took out his katana. Love studied Aki over her shoulders and slowly nodded her head. She had a bit of doubt of the commands handed over to her however if it is what she was ordered to do, she had no choice but to obey.

"Then assist me, when you are done." Aki finished turning around the corner. The corner of the girl's lips perked up and firmly nodded her head at the change of attitude.

"I will!" The girl shouted not knowing if the boy heard it or not. She headed over to the phone booth to call the headquarters for backup and called the police. In a hurry, she went over to the building where she had sensed the blood and malice. There was another putrid smell but as she was ordered to do evacuated the citizens nearby. 

Then several officers came over to her. She shoved her hands into her suit pockets revealing her ID.

"Public Safety Anti-Devil Irregular 4th Section, there's a devil inside that building. I was able to evacuate the citizens nearby however there might be more inside that office building if the devil hindered them from escaping." briefly explaining her observations to one officer. In response, he nodded.

"Seal off the area!" He shouted.

In no time, Love hurried inside the building. She was worried for Aki, he was human after all. Unlike her, she can get hurt and be recovered by her healing abilities or consuming blood however when it comes to humans they are a lot fragile. When they get hurt, they take more time to heal, despite Love being able to heal them. When they die they don't come back.

Love had deep respect and trust for Aki. She questioned it many times if it was based on her natural instincts of being the Love Devil or if it was her true feelings. Her expression twisted in confusion if she even knew what that meant. 

She scouted the floors looking for humans and then in the corner of her eyes she saw a corpse liquefying up the stairs. The skin and flesh were completely melted off down to its bones as if it was reduced by acid. The floors and the wall that had touched it were also damaged.

That acid was dangerous and she needed to assist Aki immediately. She honed her senses to hear any kind of sounds of movement then at that moment she heard footsteps just a few floors above her.

When she had arrived there, backed up to the wall was Aki cradling a little girl and in front of him was a round-shaped devil with a fleshy mouth that span across its body. It took up half of the huge office space. A rumbling noise came from the devil which she recognized that noise anywhere it was always the sound her stomach makes when she's hungry.

'It's a stomach devil?' She jokingly thought. She shakes her head composing herself from any thoughts that might distract her. She bolted right in front of Aki with her eyes still directed towards the devil who seems busy ingesting something.