Ardent Hope: Chainsaw Man x Male Reader Insert.

3. Public Safety.

"I'll let you decide between two options." She said, a smile on her lips. The dim lights of the alley seemed glints of hope in the pitch black darkness of the world, illuminating just barely enough to let (Y/N) see the red haired woman in front of him. "'Cus the way I see it, I've just found the anomaly that made other devils go ballistic 'round here." 

His voice rasped against his throat like a file grinding through metal, "I had nothing to do with this," he managed to say, "you know that."

Her brow seemed to twitch for a moment, gazing closer into his eyes, and she got just a little closer to his face with the same soft smile still present on her lips, almost unmoving like a paused videotape that didn't quite match with the rest of her features, almost too perfect. "Well, no, I don't know that," she said, "I'll have to treat you the same as we deal with other devils for that matter, darned things can be deceiving, you saw that for yourself just a moment ago, right?"

 (Y/N) had the urge to tell her this was bullshit. That this wasn't fair. Instead, he chose to save what little strength he had and ask, "Then what do you want?"

"You'll either die by my hand, as a devil." Again, she used that artificial condescending tone on her voice as she stared at the state on which he was left in, focusing on his burnt hands, and made (Y/N) feel things he couldn't even describe. "Or you can accept my offer, keep your humanity intact, and help me with a little ol' project of mine."

"Is this a contract?" (Y/N) said.

"Oh, no it's not." She giggled at the question, a glistening bright shone on her eyes as she stared at him, those same inhuman yellow eyes. "I'd have to be a devil for us to make a contract... I'm simply asking for your help and it just so happens to be a wonderful opportunity for you."

"You know very well I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place."

"Yes, I do." She giggled again.

The inside of the matte black car was astonishingly comfortable, even more so, for a person who had been living on the streets for ever since he could tell. The tingling sensation in (Y/N) chest never stopped, that of burning fire anchored right on his heart, but rather intensified the moment this mysterious lady gave him her own black coat to keep him warm. Tattered clothes didn't do much for the cold of the night, and charred as they were now, he felt almost bad to take a seat onto the beautiful leather of the car seats, now stained with a mixture of ash, soot and a couple of blood drops.

The redhead talked to what seemed to be her bodyguards for a brief moment outside of the car, but the topic of conversation could be anyone's guess. (Y/N) viewed from inside, through the tint of the polarized windows that made it all the more difficult to see in the middle of the windy night. They nodded, mechanically again, like no more than a puppet. She must be someone really important to have such control over the people of her organization, right? What kind of Devil Hunter went around with bodyguards?

Room for thought didn't last long, for after a few moments she too opened the door and took a seat behind the driver's seat, just beside him. The difference in mannerism couldn't be more apparent, for she was very elegant with her every move meanwhile (Y/N) had just let his weight fall over the seat like a sack of potatoes. "I hope you're comfortable now," she said, "you seemed quite distraught lying on the pavement."

"You don't know half of it," his every muscle pulled like they were about to tear themselves apart, "feels like I've been hit by a train."

"Yet I want to know. Yours is no ordinary contract with a devil, right?" she smiled, waiting for an answer that never came. (Y/N) didn't exactly know how much he should share with her, and for the next few seconds she seemed to catch on to that. With a seemingly disappointed stare, she brushed it off with, "Oh, I suppose I'll learn with time, you don't have to tell me now."