User:G Frost-Ogaji/Academy Saga

"'Just you wait, Chainsaw Man! I'll make you vomit nuclear weapons back up!' - Mitaka, Chapter 98"Academy Saga (学校編 gakkō-hen) is the second part of Chainsaw Man. It began serialization on July 13, 2022, on the Shonen Jump+ app. It was announced following the end of Part 1 in December 2020.

It features a new character, Asa Mitaka, and her relationship with the War Devil, who's ultimate goal is to create an army of human weapons and wage war with Chainsaw Man. In order to find him, they must get closer to him at school. It is preceded by the Public Safety Saga.

Main article: Devil Hunter Club Arc
Asa Mitaka is a high school girl who doesn't seem to fit in. She watches her classmates live carefree lives, hanging out with friends, having fun, and she can't help but resent them.

One day, her teacher Mr. Tanaka brings a Chicken Devil named Bucky into class, saying that in three months, the class will kill and eat him in order to teach them how precious life is.

Three months pass, and Bucky becomes a sort of mascot for the students. Everyone seems to love him, except for Mitaka. She retreats to the school roof to eat her lunch when she is joined by the student council president. The president notices Mitaka's annoyance with Bucky and reassures her that it'll be dead in around 100 days so it's not worth worrying about.

Mitaka goes on to talk about how the city they live in is corrupt. She points out that there is a Chainsaw Devil running around playing Devil Hunter while there are problems going on around the city, and to make it all worse, now there is a Chicken Devil in their classroom.

As the weeks and months go on, Mitaka observes in annoyance how attached her classmates become to the Chicken Devil. Finally, three months to the day he was brought into class, Mr. Tanaka reveals that Bucky won't actually be killed and eaten, as this was all an elaborate lesson to teach them how precious life is, including the lives of Devils. To celebrate Bucky being pardoned, the class goes outside for a soccer game.

Mitaka joins them reluctantly, staying off to the side watching the students play instead of joining them. She is approached by Tanaka, who asks why she is all by herself, to which she replies that she goes to school to study, not to make friends. That is when, suddenly, Bucky jumps into her arms and calls her name. She is taken aback by this, as no one but the teacher and class president know her name. She realizes in this moment that all this time, she has hated everyone in school because she was jealous of them. She didn't realize that she just wanted to be like them. With Bucky inspiring something new in her, she decides to finally join her classmates in the game, when she suddenly strips and falls.

When she gets back up, she looks in horror as she discovers she accidentally crushed Bucky underneath her, exposing his innards to the entire class.

Mitaka comes to school the next day and feels her classmates' stares, judging her. She returns home completely ashamed, wishing she would die. In the middle of the night, while she sulks in her bed, she hears her doorbell ring. Outside are Tanaka and the class president, who have come to walk her to Bucky's grave. They tell her that Bucky's spirit might forgive them if they visit him. On the way there, Tanaka and the class president cross the street, and Mitaka stays behind. The class president realizes it's because Mitaka won't cross the street without the green traffic signal and begins to berede her for it for being a goody-two-shoes. She suddenly mutates into a devil made of muscles and reveals that she made a contract with the Justice Devil, claiming that she and Mr. Tanaka had been having relations, but he had a thing for Mitaka, which held them back. Because of this, the only way for them to be happy is to kill Mitaka. She also reveals that her plan was for Mitaka to kill Bucky in order to humiliate her.

The Justice Devil lunges at Mitaka with her claws, and in her last moments, Mitaka is in peace knowing that it wasn't her fault after all for killing Bucky, and that perhaps if she had lived a more selfish life, she could have had friends or even a boyfriend. Her face is then clawed open by the Justice Devil, and she is left on the ground with one of her eyeballs exposed.

In that moment, a Devil that takes the form of an owl appears above a streetlight. It tells Mitaka that if she wants to live, her body will belong to it. Her corpse suddenly reanimates itself and stands up, now claiming herself to be the War Devil. She attacks the Justice Devil, turning Tanaka's spine into a sword and the president's arm into a grenade, showing off her ability to turn objects into weapons of war. She claims that this battle is just her warmup and destroys the both of them with the grenade.

As she is walking away from the explosion, she sees a poster on the wall with Chainsaw Man's face on it, and she vows to find him and make him vomit up nuclear weapons again.

The next day, Mitaka wakes up in bed realizing she is missing her scars. She turns to her side to find herself, with scars on her face and spiral eyes, sitting on her bed. This is the War Devil, who reveals to her that it killed her but kept half her brain intact. Its plan is to wage war with the Chainsaw Man, but in order to do so has to assimilate into the high school where he supposedly attends. If Asa doesn't comply, she will be killed completely.

The two of them walk to school together, and Mitaka finds out that only she can see the War Devil, as it is a hallucination from her mind. When they arrive at school, they are approached by a boy with black earrings who asks if she's okay. To Mitaka, the War Devil tells her to ask the boy if he knows where the Chainsaw Man is, but she refuses. The War Devil suddenly enters her body, and Mitaka takes the War Devil's place outside her own consciousness. The War Devil uses Mitaka's body to ask where the Chainsaw Man is, but the boy just transferred there so he is unaware. What he does know is that there is a rumor that he joined the Devil Hunter Club.

Satisfied with this new information, the War Devil then asks the boy if he will be her boyfriend, but he declines and walks away. The War Devil reveals to Mitaka that anything that belongs to it becomes its weapon, and its goal is to turn as many humans as possible into weapons so it can wage war on the Chainsaw Man. Mitaka is horrified at the situation that she's found herself in, and desperately wants her body back, but the War Devil promises that once they kill the Chainsaw Man, they will return her body to her.

Mitaka forces herself to go to a Devil Hunter Club meeting, and there she is paired with two other students to hunt down a devil by the end of the week as initiation into the club. The two students are Yoshida, the boy Asa met up with earlier, and a blonde girl wearing glasses named Yuko.

Yuko and Yoshida walk down the halls of the school hunting for devils trying to make small talk, while Asa lingers behind them. She is visibly uncomfortable, and desperately wants to not be in this situation. The three of them walk by another group of three girls, who Asa recognizes from her class, and as they walk by, they start giggling. One of the girls in the group comments that Asa has some nerve looking for a boyfriend after what she did.

Asa grows more uncomfortable and asks to leave. As she's leaving the school, she realizes that someone stuffed raw chicken meat into her locker all over her shoes. Completely disheartened, she attempts to leave the school barefoot, to which the War Devil warns her her feet will get hurt, but she ignores it. Just then, Yuko comes running out with one shoe off, saying she will share one of hers with Asa. Asa refuses the kind gesture, but Yuko makes her chase her throughout town to give it back.

The two of them end up at Yuko's house, to which she invites Asa in, but once again she declines. Yuko sees Asa off, giving her both shoes this time, and Asa walks home alone with the War Devil pestering her.

The next day, Yuko and Asa walk to the city hunting devils while discussing things about them. They reveal to each other that both their parents were killed by devils, which excites Yuko and makes her think the two of them are like devil hunting avengers in a manga series. Yuko leaves for a moment, and in her absence, the War Devil tells Asa that she should kill her new friend. The more attached she is to someone she kills and turns into a weapon, the stronger the weapon becomes.

Asa refuses, and tries to change the subject to the War Devil always calling her "girl." She insists that the War Devil call her by her own name, and so in return, the War Devil makes her call it "Yoru." Yoru decides to drop the subject for now, as the closer she gets to Yuko the stronger she will be anyhow.

Yuko returns and the two of them wander around the city attempting to locate a devil, when they suddenly come across a large grotesque one attacking people in a building. As it attacks people, a politician on the streets barks about how devils are at war with humans.

Asa sees the devil in front of her, but Yoru warns her not to get close. She is not able to take on the devil at this time, and in other bad news, Yoru isn't able to take over Asa's body when she is stricken with fear. The two of them make a run for it, but the Bat Devil's enormous size causes the building they're in to collapse around them, and Asa and Yuko are thrown to the ground.

Yuko is injured, with a pike in her ankle, so Yoru orders Asa to kill her so they can use her as a weapon, seeing how she can't run, making her good as dead anyway. Yoru reminds Asa that when she died, she promised herself to live more selfishly if given a second chance, telling her she has to kill Yuko if she wants to live.

Asa weighs her options, but she ultimately decides to save her. She runs from the Bat Devil, with Yuko in her arms, but suddenly trips and falls. She recalls how she always trips and falls during moments that matter the most. Her friend's birthday, a track meet, and the time that her home down was being invaded by the Typhoon Devil. She remembers how when there was chaos and destruction everywhere, she stopped to help an injured cat, and as she was running, she tripped and fell. Her mother helped her up to get to safety, but ultimately led to her death.

She also recalls a conversation she had with Yuko, who said it doesn't matter if her actions turn out to be a mistake, as long as her heart is in the right place, she is happy. Asa takes her words to heart and realizes that she wants to live like that too. As she reaffirms her motivation to help her friend, the Bat Devil gears up and swallows the two of them whole.

In that moment, Chainsaw Man and another huge devil crash through the building, squishing the Bat Devil to death, causing it to puke Yuko and Asa back up.

Chainsaw Man drags the large Devil through a city block, as the two of them are in a heated battle. The large Devil gets the upper hand and forces Chainsaw Man to make a choice between saving a car full of old women or a young aspiring student. Ultimately, Chainsaw Man decides to aim for the Devil's head, splitting its head in half, while neglecting to save either of his two choices in order to save a cat that was nearby instead.

Later that day, a news broadcast details the events of this battle, saying that in yet another act of heroism, Chainsaw Man has defeated the Cockroach Devil.

After the dust has settled, a news reporter gathers opinions on the Chainsaw Man from the crowd. Among them is the unassuming Denji, who gives "Chainsaw Man" high praise, and even attempts to give out his phone number before the reporter loses interest.

It is then that Yoshida appears next to Denji. He tries to strike up conversation, but Denji seems reluctant to recall the circumstances that they last met. Yoshida invites him to a cafe to eat, to which Denji only agrees to go on the condition that Yoshida pay for his food.

The two sit down and have a chat. Yoshida tells Denji that he cannot let his secret identity get out, as he is part of an organization that wants to keep his life peaceful. Denji is not interested in this, as he actually wants people to find out his identity, that way he can attract the ladies easier.

Battles

 * War Devil vs. Justice Devil
 * Chainsaw Man vs. Cockroach Devil

Chapters not yet in tankōbon format:

 * Chapter 98: Bird and War
 * Chapter 99: Two Birds
 * Chapter 100: How to Walk Shoeless
 * Chapter 101: After School Devil Hunters
 * Chapter 102: Save the Cat
 * Chapter 103: Denji's Dream

Trivia

 * The title of the first chapter of Part 2, Bird and War, is reminiscent of the first chapter title of Part 1, Dog and Chainsaw.

Gallery

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