Chapter 112: Between Cat and Criminal

Asa and Yoru return to the half-wrecked school and find what is left of the uniform sword. Asa wonders aloud about the woman who brought Yuko back, but Yoru claims ignorance and dismisses her as a lunatic. The pair then encounter that same girl alongside members of the Devil Hunter Club. The club's president, Haruka Iseumi, introduces himself and welcomes Asa into the group. Yoru seizes control and demands to know whether Haruka can identify Chainsaw Man, at which he exposes a starter cord jutting from his chest. Taking him for Chainsaw Man, Yoru retreats, while Asa doubts the claim and Yoru concedes she is far too weak to challenge him directly.

Yoru urges Asa to forge a weapon mightier than the uniform blade. Asa agrees she will even convert a person into a weapon if doing so finally frees her body of Yoru and spares others the damage the devil causes. She proposes using a criminal, but Yoru objects that a guilt-free killing would yield little power, suggesting instead that the strongest weapon comes from a target poised between a cat and a criminal.

Asa then notices Denji gathering discarded cigarette butts. Her first impression softens until she catches him repackaging the used stubs as fresh and peddling them to homeless passersby. She decides he occupies exactly that middle ground, not vile enough to deserve death yet shady enough to justify weaponizing him. Yoru persuades her that killing Denji is a necessary evil in the war on Chainsaw Man. Asa approaches him, but he bristles at her given their earlier hostility. Undeterred, she asks him out, and he grudgingly agrees.

Haruka Iseumi welcomes Asa into the Devil Hunter Club and flashes a starter cord in his chest, leading Yoru to wrongly peg him as Chainsaw Man. Yoru explains that an ideal weapon requires a victim balanced between innocence and guilt. Asa identifies Denji, a petty swindler, as that perfect target and asks him on a date, which he reluctantly accepts.

The opening chapter of the Dating Denji arc, still within Volume 13. It introduces Haruka Iseumi and Nobana Higashiyama and reframes Asa's weapon power around the moral worth of her target.