Save the Asa

Clinging to a torn vent cover above a deadly drop, Asa hears the Falling Devil seize her head and whisper a bargain. The Devil insists that what truly terrifies Asa is not death but the agony of the impact, and she offers a gentle, painless descent if the girl simply shuts her eyes. Replaying the cruelties stacked across her life, from a guardian who killed her cat to Yuko's transformation into a Devil, Asa accepts and releases her grip. Yoru can only shriek in horror, powerless to intervene.

Plummeting through the air, Asa concedes that the Devil spoke honestly, and a strange relief settles over her now that she can no longer wound anyone or be wounded herself. Her one regret is having never found even a single companion. That thought is cut short when Denji, as Chainsaw Man, springs up to catch her.

Asa begs to be released, repeating her bleak conviction that existence is nothing but suffering. Denji seems to go along at first, but the instant her gloom lifts her body skyward, he floods her mind with cheerful images of puppies, kittens, and ice cream until their ascent halts. Still grieving Crambon, Asa challenges whether he could possibly grasp loss, and he answers that he knows it well, since the moment life looks bright some disaster arrives to drag it back down.

Her mood begins to thaw as he keeps talking, admitting that certain days simply sink under their own weight. When she asks how he beats that darkness, he confesses he has not, yet he can push past the misery because he holds onto a craving worth chasing. Pressed on what that craving is, Denji cheerfully blurts out sex, and the tearful Asa recoils in revulsion.

This chapter falls within the Falling Devil arc and appears in Volume 15. Its title deliberately echoes the wording of Chapter 102, which was called Save the Cat, framing the two as a matched pair. Characters featured include Asa Mitaka, Yoru, the Falling Devil, and Denji, with Crambon, Asa's former caretaker, and Yuko recalled in flashback.