INJ Chapter 34 Deleted Scene / Flashback
So this is the first time I've actually decided I needed to take something out of an upcoming chapter, but yeah. This was written for the upcoming Chapter 34, but I ultimately decided to remove it for a couple different reasons. The upcoming chapter is already gonna be hella long, and this doesn't really reveal THAT much to us that's new besides inflicting more suffering on a character whose fate has already been decided.
That said, I do consider this canon, but I'm posting it here to leave it optional for people who don't want to read ANOTHER scene about systems of abuse harming a teenage girl.
Viewer discretion is advised.
“I’m so glad you were willing to see me,” Yui said, fighting back the urge to bounce in her seat like a little girl as she lowered herself down into the cushy chairs of President Kyokai’s office. “Making music for people has always been my dream, and I know I’ve said it in our meetings before, but there’s nothing else I’d like to do more with my life than use the gifts I’ve been given to honor Chainsaw Man and spread the word of his message to the people less fortunate than I.”
And let’s face it, who isn’t?
President Kyokai gave her a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “Please, Miss Matsuoka. It’s my absolute pleasure. Any time you want to meet.”
With as much money as she was making the Church? Yui didn’t doubt it. She wasn’t naive enough to think his special interest in her was anything beyond the financial and mercenary, you’d have to be an idiot to think a big giant multinational religious organization cared about her as a person. But just because they’d lost the light of Chainsaw Man in the way they worked, didn’t mean she had to sink to their level. Much as she was foaming at the mouth to expose their hypocrisy, their apostasy, their... false faith that didn’t hold a candle to hers, what would it gain?
Just because she knew the truth about their leadership, that they really only cared about money and had no greater plans for their parishioners, or to reward the faith they’d demonstrated, didn’t mean she had to burst the bubble for everyone else.
So Yui did as she always did, and pushed her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose with the heel of her hand, and smiled her perfect smile that she knew full well was half the reason she’d even gotten a record deal in the first place. She knew it was luck that she wasn’t just incredibly talented, in music AND gymnastics, but also gorgeous as well. Why throw that rare chance away?
“We got the poll results back,” Kyokai mumbled. He poured himself a glass with shaking hands and took a drink without breaking eye contact. “Name recognition among the target demographic is through the roof. We’re looking at stellar sales when your record finally drops.”
A sheaf of documents slid like fallen leaves across his haphazardly piled desk. One slipped right off the edge like a feather in the wind and Yui caught it just before it slipped under the door. The door was hanging with a portrait of Chainsaw Man bathing a congregation of kneeling faithful in the blood dripping from his saws. It was a lovely painting, which made it all the more minorly-obnoxious that it hung crooked on his door.
“That’s great,” Yui said, instead of “great news”, which wasn’t, because it wasn’t news to her. Akari’s family had commissioned that poll themselves as an extra birthday gift for their daughter’s best friend. Yui had read it three days ago. Poor Miri was feeling so insecure that he couldn’t afford anything nearly as nice to get her, she had to find some way to make it up to him.
“I’m very excited for them to get to hear the full tape,” she added. She was already working on ideas for her followup album, and thinking about possible collaborators as well. The Russian girl was a little weird, and she'd said some very troubling things that suggested she didn't take the sexual libertine movement as seriously as that threat deserved, but she did have an amazing singing voice at karaoke. Maybe it would help spread her music to the Soviets if she had one of their own local dark-horse talents given a feature? She wanted to do something about girl power and female friendship and how women could help each other practice ambition, modesty, and competitive professional cooperation to overcome the inherent strength and witlessness and sinful desires of men.
Yui was in high school, after all, she could write several books on the subject of male sexual reprobates. If you counted her diaries, she had.
"Things have been really amazing for me lately," she added, sincerely. "You have my thanks for all the Church has done to promote my album-"
Suddenly she remembered herself and the words caught in her throat. What was she thinking? Even Kyokai could really deserve a break right now. “And my condolences for your recent losses,” she said, and her condolences were sincere. He might’ve been a tired old man, but to have the strength to lose your son and have your wife on life support – after losing your previous one! – within just a year’s time. And to do all this while beset on all sides by anti-religious attack pieces about your faith...well, that was strength Yui couldn’t help but admire. “I’m keeping your wife in my prayers every single day.”
Kyokai snorted. “I didn’t lose Riho,” he explained. “Or my son. He’s the only one that’s dead. I know exactly where they both are. He was hanging from the light fixture in the health club locker room, and she’s in the ICU being pumped full of morphine like a hooker full of sperm. She’s out of the way in dreamland, while the rest of us are here conducting business, and frankly, I think that’s a good place for all of us right now.”
Uh...sure. Okay. Yui bit her lip and said nothing. I suppose everyone grieves differently, sometimes.
“But anyway. Your new album, honey! Calls for a celebration, doesn’t it?” Kyokai said, picking up his glass where he’d left a wet o-ring on one of the papers and downing what was left. “In fact, In fact, I think it’s time to celebrate this occasion together.”
President Kyokai ran his hands through his combover and took a breath mint. On to another talk show interview, no doubt. If he’d spent half the time actually spreading the word of Chainsaw Man as he did talking about all the ways he was gonna spread it...well, then he wouldn’t need her to do it for him, would he?
“On to another public debate with that guy from Public Safety?” Yui said crisply. Folded her hands in her lap and checked each neatly manicured nail (with little printed Chainsaw Man head patterns) to make sure they were as perfectly polished as they were when the men at her family’s salon applied them for her. They were all homosexuals, of course, but she wasn’t a fool, or a fanatic. She could forgive sinful behavior as long as it wasn’t crass, the kind that kept it to themselves instead of trying to drag everyone else into their spiritually doomed lifestyle.
“No, and thank goodness for that,” Kyokai said. There was a mirror on his desk next to the photo of his wife – Yui wasn’t sure if it was the missing one or the life support one – and he checked his teeth in it. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be than in this room right now. No one who’s smarter or more beautiful or more intelligent than you.”
Uh-huh. Sure. She smiled instead of rolling her eyes. How many times had she heard that before? When you were as popular and talented as she was, compliments weren’t compliments. They were a shortcut to say “get out of my way so I can move on to business I’m actually interested in.” She was smart, but because she was beautiful and a great singer, nobody who actually thought she was smart said so to her face. Compliments arrived twice a minute, but always backhanded. Like an expensive gift in a shitty crumpled package.
“Well, I’m very lucky,” Yui said, turning up the smile a couple notches til it was blinding. “I know how blessed I am to have these gifts of good looks and music. It’s my duty to repay them by using them to spread the word of Chainsaw Man however I can.” She needed to talk to Akari after the party at her house tonight, if she could manage to drag her away from that weird Russian girl. Akari’s dad was a lawyer, he could help Yui figure out exactly how much of her money Kyokai was stealing from her. Let him go ahead. Old geezer probably only had a few years left in him anyway, she’d have the last laugh when he was dead and buried and she was the new President of the Church.
Kyokai chuckled. Wiped his brow and dropped the big sweaty handkerchief on his desk. “No, Miss Matsuoka. It’s me who’s the lucky one.”
Yui nodded, because she agreed. It was true. Lucky I don’t get Akari and her dad to squeeze your balls in a vice until I get all my masters back. She and Akari had been best friends since kindergarten, hell if she called right now, Akari would probably bring the vice for his balls herself, no Shinsuke Ogata necessary.
“Luck is just a chance to make the greater sacrifice than those below us,” Yui replied smoothly, wiping her glasses on her dress and then swiftly returning them gleaming to her eyes.
“I agree completely, Yui,” Kyokai said. He ran his tongue over his lips then pushed his chair back from the desk. It made a screeching sound against the polished wood and Yui winced.
Kyokai moved over to the door behind her. Yui’s smile dropped. Was he fixing the picture or…
“We must all be willing to sacrifice selflessly in order to honor Chainsaw Man.”
The door clicked shut and Kyokai turned. Looked down at her. Wiped some sweat from his brow and studied her carefully. His eyes tracked all the way down from her neck to her shoulder to the way her knees poked out of the dress.
“President Kyokai? What are you—”
Yui wasn’t even afraid, really. She was more confused than anything. Nothing much made sense about why Kyokai leaned in so close she could smell his aftershave, planted a clammy palm on her shoulder and breathed so close that it fogged up her glasses, “As his representative on Earth, you can start by honoring me.”
And then something clicked in her brain and it suddenly all made sense.
Yui sprang back in shock, arms at her sides. “Wh—President Kyokai, you’re married!”
“To a vegetable rotting in a hospital bed,” he wheezed, hands twitching like gnarled spiders, grasping at nothing. “She betrayed me first when the son she bore grew up to be a queer. I don’t have the homo gene in my bloodline, so clearly she must’ve cheated on someone else to produce that nancy-boy.” Yui flinched away from his hands brushing at her hair. “But you’re still young...and I can see it in your eyes that your bloodline is pure and clear—”
The door handle turned in the lock and a blurry face appeared behind the frosted window. Kyokai sprang back from touching her like she’d given him an electrical shock. Which, incidentally, was not a bad idea.
“Kyokai, what’s going on?” Sugo said, stepping in through the door and crossing his arms. Yui had to fight back the urge to fling her arms around him and jump into his arms to princess carry her away.
“Oh, I’m helping this silly old man help look for a contact lens he dropped,” Yui explained, adjusting her glasses. “I keep telling him he needs to get glasses. These days, it seems like he can hardly recognize who I am. Almost like he forgets who he is, and what his job is.”
Miri, bless his cute dumb brain, didn’t notice the touch of steel that she slipped into her cheery tone. Kyokai did, however. She saw it in the way his lips quivered with rage and fear at once. He looked like some withered old monkey, like an elderly kappa or something. She removed them and wiped them clean to remind Kyokai that she could still make do even when her vision was blurry.
“Why’s your face all red, babe?” Miri tenderly cupped a palm against her sweaty cheek and Yui fought back the urge to sigh when he almost cradled her. God, tall boys were the best. It was amazing that they didn’t realize how safe they made you feel, to think that they felt shy? It was genuinely so insanely adorable.
Miri stepped forwards as she looped her arms around his neck and rose up into a hug, feeling the warmth, the closeness of him, his pepperminty smell. She was in the cramped room with a creepy old man and yet Miri's arms made her feel so safe. Especially when she caught him hiding a smile in their hug.
Every time he smiled, he blushed, because he hated his smile and always tried to act tough around the other boys and when he caught himself smiling he always tried to duck his face away like he was afraid she'd make fun of him. For what? For smiling? God, boys were so dumb. But also, adorable. Nothing was cuter than when boys did something dumb because they wanted to look like A Real Man for you. Miri should be A Real Man enough for anyone.
To think that anyone would dare look down on him just because he wasn't born in Japan. Idiots and bitches, the lot of them. More for her!
“Oh, Kyokai, was just making a joke I didn’t find funny,” Yui said with a sigh. “You know how old men love their tasteless jokes.”
She turned Sugo around in the hug til his back was to Kyokai so she could wink at the fuming pundit over her boyfriend’s shoulder.
Kyokai might’ve been an ungrateful sex weirdo but he wasn’t an idiot and he knew better than to push his luck with a girl who was dating Miri Sugo. At least, he knew that now.
She was a big girl, she’d dealt with creepy old men since she was six years old. When they were twelve Akari’s dad had to hire bodyguards to come to all their gymnastics practices to keep an eye out for random men crawling through the bushes trying to snap photos through the window of them in their leotards. This? This was nothing. This was a mistake, but it was his mistake. And she was gonna make sure he learned from it, because she hadn’t been doing anything wrong.
“Aw, don’t you two make just an adorable couple,” a heavy brash accented voice drawled.
Yui rolled her eyes and felt Miri tense up with nervousness against her shoulder. She separated from the hug and turned to see Barem Bridge leaning against the doorway, hands in his pockets and tie tucked into his button-up shirt pocket. Anyone who knew him less well would’ve missed the way Miri swallowed hard and his breathing quickened when he saw Barem. But that was probably just a boy thing. She knew pervy men, she knew what it looked like when a man wanted to molest you – case in point! The guy behind this desk right now! And while the way he always rambled on and on about Chainsaw Man’s goriest battles and bloodiest dismemberments had Yui fully convinced that Bridge was either completely insane, or just had the interests of a twelve-year-old boy who played too many video games and listened to too much heavy metal, Barem knew what lecherous men looked like. Barem was not any kind of a sex pervert, he had no lustful intentions towards her.
Besides, he was actually pretty cute, for a giant Yankee. Just because he was, like, fifty or whatever, didn’t mean she didn’t see the appeal. Not that she would ever let Miri know, it would only make him even more insecure.
“How long have you been standing there?” Miri spluttered, and she couldn’t miss the way his voice cracked. She squeezed his hand and hoped he didn’t notice she’d noticed.
Poor Miri. Her sweet baby had suffered so much. To lose his parents at such a formative age, and so horribly…he told her one time that the thing he envied most about his father, is that he always found a way to smile, even when he wasn’t happy. How much Miri had wished he could imitate that. So every time he saw Barem’s glazed-over grin, Yui knew it wasn’t just because he was a big strong macho man who outranked Miri in the church that made her boyfriend nervous. He was seeing the face of his father in Barem, and he couldn’t dare to disappoint a dead man.
She just wished her boyfriend could understand that as much as he looked up to Barem, he never had to worry about disappointing the man. Barem was no stern taskmaster, nor even a dickless sex weirdo like Kyokai. Just a dumb hick Yankee with a caveman’s interest in smashing things. A little quirky and childish, but otherwise, he was basically harmless.
“Say,” Yui mused. “Maybe this is different in America, but do you not have a lady, Bridge-san?” Chainsaw Man was the warrior of love, and she sang so many songs about kissing and dating and first crushes because that’s what he wanted to hear even more than her audience did. It was her duty to help spread his message. The leadership needed to pick up the slack, though she supposed it was better that they were too lazy about it like Barem than too...enthusiastic. Like Kyokai.
“Oh, there’s only one lady for me, Miss Matsuoka,” Barem said with that big toothy grin.
“Well, then you’d better make sure she knows that, hadn’t you?” Yui said with a huff. “It’s not seemly for a man to be over 35 and not married.” Same as it was for a girl of 25. Thankfully, she still had eight more years til then – which she might need all of them for poor sweet oblivious Sugo to pick up on the hints she was dropping.
Boys. If they weren’t so completely blind to the hints you dropped, they wouldn’t be cute enough to make them worth dropping hints to in the first place.
Barem just reached out and ruffled Miri’s hair. “You listen to this girl, you hear, Sugo? Yui is one smart cookie,” Barem said with a chuckle. “She’s got a good head on her shoulders.”
