[3rd POV]
(Flashback 5 days ago)
"Aki, do you trust me?" Jin said, sitting on the floor with the silly makeup still on his face. His appearance made it hard to take his words seriously.
But his eyes were deadly serious.
"I trust you a lot," Aki answered, trying to swallow the sword on his throat, but he couldn't. He was sitting on the floor too, opposite Jin.
Jin shook his head. "That wouldn't work. You need to trust me completely. You are basically forfeiting your life into my hands."
That was a lot to ask for between friends who had shared a friendship only a few months old.
Not years, just a few months. About half a year.
"...which sounds awful at first. But trust me, your life is much safer in my hands than yours," Jin said with a smile.
"I trained for three years to become a Devil Hunter, and I have worked four years as a Devil Hunter. I am capable of protecting my own life, Jin, at least more capable than most," Aki said.
"And how many years of your lifespan have you sacrificed?" Jin asked.
Aki was silent.
The answer was more than half.
"With this contract, all those sacrifices before would be void. Even at the end of your lifespan, you will continue to live as my eternal slave and serve me until I die," Jin said, his words raw.
"You will trade your freedom and your afterlife for the ability to summon the Pig Devil," he said. "Can you trust me with that?"
In the universe of Chainsaw Man, humans and devils can form contracts. But at a certain level, it needed to be an equivalent exchange. A price had to be paid for power. A devil could not just lend its power to a human it liked.
"I trust you," Aki said after a long stretch of silence.
He exhaled a deep breath.
"I accept the contract," Aki said.
..
..
And then nothing happened.
"Hmmm... I should be feeling something," Jin said, not feeling any change in his body or power.
"Are you sure you really accept?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Like, with all your heart?"
"Yes."
"Strange. Can you say 'I accept' again? This time, say it with conviction. Like you really mean it," Jin asked.
Aki sighed.
"I, Aki Hayakawa, accept the contract offered to me by the Pig Devil," he said.
..
..
"Huh, someone might be playing pranks on me," Jin said. "Wait a second."
Jin turned around, showing his back to Aki before yelling at no one.
"You fucking motherfuckers!! Did you lie to me? I swear if I can't find a way to form this contract, I will spend my next effort on finding ways to torture you all. I already know how to share my feeling of hunger, you don't want to discover something new," Jin said as he began arguing with himself.
Aki deadpanned at the sight.
This was the most embarrassing, hard-to-watch, and ridiculous attempt at forming a contract with a devil he had ever witnessed in his life.
But after many challenges and stumbling blocks here and there, the two were able to find a way to do it.
First of all, sacrificing the afterlife - that is, Aki becoming a sort of slave or minion for the Pig Devil at the end of his lifespan - was not enough. The other price he had to pay was his flesh being owned by Jin.
A slave basically.
Well, not a slave in a traditional sense where Jin could order him around. Jin completely owning Aki would be a better way to describe it. As much as the parents owned their child before adulthood.
And Aki was now a slave to a purpose.
That purpose was to feed the Pig Devil.
Pigs were fed by farmers or feeders. They were fed to grow bigger, to grow fatter and stronger, so that one day, the farmer could have a huge harvest.
But before that harvest, the farmer or feeder was a slave to the purpose of feeding the pig constantly. That was the contract Aki signed. He had to become the feeder of the Pig Devil while alive and become a his minion after death.
And he could summon the Pig Devil when it was time to feed. But to do that, he needed to know what he was feeding to the Pig Devil. Hence, he would have to know the name of the Devil before he could summon Jin.
Effectively, Aki became a part of Jin now.
He would serve his purpose as the feeder until the end of his life. After which his human body would perish and he would become a minion to the Pig Devil.
..
"I accept this contract," Aki said.
And finally, Jin got a reaction.
He grinned. "It worked."
But his grin slowly faded away.
"What's wrong?" Aki questioned.
"There is one final thing to do. A symbol for our relationship and a way to build a closer connection," Jin said before taking the towel from the counter.
It was a towel he had brought out earlier to try to remove the makeup.
"Here, bite this," Jin said.
Aki was confused but still took the towel and bit down on it.
"This will hurt. Try not to scream," Jin said and suddenly lunged at Aki.
His fingers became a scalpel and he tore into Aki's abdomen. Aki was paralysed by the pain, and he screamed a silent scream, biting down hard on the towel.
"You've given much to me. The contract requires I give you something too," Jin said while cutting open Aki's abdomen.
Then he pulled out his hand and reached for his own abdomen. His bladed fingers cut into his stomach too. But unlike Aki, Jin did not show any reaction.
"See? I'm doing the same thing to myself. Why are you being such a bitch," Jin said with a teasing smile.
"Shut up!!" Aki said in a muffled scream.
"You're such a pussy," Jin teased more, all the while he broke one of his own ribs and took it out. Then he reached inside Aki's open wound once more to implant the new ribs.
Blood sprayed everywhere on the floor. The thick liquid that came from inside a human was darker than red.
"It's nearly over," Jin said, his voice no longer teasing and now concerned.
Aki rested his head on Jin's shoulder, his body growing limp and pale due to the loss of blood. He dropped the towel between his teeth and was losing consciousness.
For a moment, he thought Jin had tricked him and that he was being killed.
Until finally, Aki regained clarity.
"Done."
Heat spread from his abdomen and for the first time, Aki experienced what it was like to regenerate like a hybrid.
His body fixed itself, gaping wounds closing rapidly and skin stitching together. After a few seconds, only blood remained without any injury.
It was the work of the new pairs of ribs inside him.
"See? Not so bad, huh," Jin said as Aki slowly pushed himself up.
Then Aki punched Jin across the face, causing the proud hybrid to clutch his cheek and fall to the side.
"Ow!! What was that for!!" Jin asked, shocked.
"There were so many better ways you could do that," Aki said, slowly standing up, his hands still clutching his abdomen in disbelief. There was no wound, but Aki could still feel the phantom pain.
"A warning would be appreciated next time," he said.
Jin rubbed his cheek with a pout. "I thought it would hurt less for you this way."
"No you didn't."
"Yeah, I didn't," Jin smiled and laughed. "It was fun though."
Aki removed his hands and stared at his abdomen through his ripped shirt. There, he could see the extra pairs of ribs that made him look inhuman.
He paused, as it finally settled into him the contract he had just made.
Did he really make the right decision?
"Now you can never have another best friend," Jin said, also staring at the new modification. "You know I always hated those types of heartbreak. You not being your best friend's best friend, or best friends slowly drifting apart into only old friends."
"I'm basically baby-trapping you," Jin said. "Maybe I should write a book, How to Keep Your Best Friend. Just make a contract that would turn him into your slave after he died."
"Why do you make everything weird?" Aki asked with another sigh.
"Because everything is fucking weird. This world is fucking weird. My existence is fucking weird," Jin said with open arms, chuckling at a joke only he understood.
"Let's clean this mess. I'll go get another towel," Aki said, but Jin stopped him.
"Wait!!" Jin said, raising one hand.
Then with his other hand, he reached toward the ground. A mouth began appearing on each of his fingers, and those mouths began sucking up the pool of blood on the floor like someone drinking leftover ramen broth.
Aki watched it with a straight, disgusted face.
"That's disgusting."
"What do you mean? It's your blood. Human blood," Jin said.
"And that's exactly what makes it disgusting."
Eventually, the floor was dry of blood. But the stain still remained and needed to be cleaned.
"I'll go get a mop," Aki said, turning, but he was stopped again by Jin.
"Wait!!"
The mouths on his fingers stuck out their tongues and began licking the floor rapidly, like a cat lapping up milk. Aki watched that for exactly five seconds before turning away.
"I'm leaving."
"WAIT!!"
"No," Aki said and closed the door with a loud bang.
His friend was so fucking weird.
But…
Aki wouldn't lie.
He really appreciated what he did for him.
With this new power, his dream of killing the Gun Devil just became a matter of when in his mind.
..
..
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Author : Hope this explain things a bit regarding the contract.
And yes, Aki will also be a little like a hybrid. He has a part of Jin inside him now. He is not fully hybrid but will be superhuman with minor healing and minor physcal boost that will grow wtih training and also alongside Jin's overall power.