Chapter 79: Play Catch

Aki's imagined snowball game with Denji rolls on. In waking reality, he keeps hammering Denji backward without pause. Denji shields himself but, refusing to wound Aki, can only plead with him to turn back. Beaten until an arm and both legs are gone, Denji lies wrecked in a collapsed building. A crowd slowly forms around him, each onlooker giving up blood and begging him to bring Aki down and rescue them.

Within the daydream, Denji begins lobbing snowballs in return. Aki is thrilled until he spots the tears on Denji's face. To make them stop, he concedes the game; turning back, where Denji had stood he now sees Taiyo, his dead younger brother. The waking truth then lands: to halt the rampage, Denji buried his chainsaws in Aki and killed him. Reverting to human form in stunned silence, he watches the Future Devil appear and laugh that Aki met death in the worst possible way for the Chainsaw Boy. A closing spread leaves Aki in his fantasy, tossing a ball back and forth with Taiyo.

A gravely hurt Denji loses an arm and both legs but receives blood from a crowd pleading with him to stop Aki. Unable to hold back any longer, Denji impales and kills the Gun Fiend Aki. In Aki's last fantasy, Denji gives way to his late brother Taiyo. The Future Devil jeers that Aki met the worst possible death for the Chainsaw Boy, and the chapter ends on Aki playing catch with Taiyo.

The chapter belongs to the Gun Devil arc and Volume 9. Aki's death is among the series' most devastating turns and fulfills the Future Devil's earlier prophecy. The peaceful closing image with Taiyo offsets the brutality of how he dies.