In Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil. One week after the last chapter.
"I'm telling you, Nair, these Chinese folks ain't trustworthy. I heard from a friend of mine whose cousin's cousin lives in China, that they have a pact with the Devil of Panflutes! ... Pandemonium... Pande... something to do with Pandas!"
"Quit being crazy, Zé, like that story is even real, they don't even have cell phones in China! How's that cousin of yours... like, 7 degrees away, gonna talk to folks here? They're too busy dealing with Ninjas stealing their crops!"
"Come on, the Ninjas are from Korea!"
"That's exactly it! You think they'd steal crops from their own country?"
"Wow... your wisdom is unbalanced, man."
As the two country folks converse, a rumble echoes through the region, and looking towards where the sound came from, they see a black military jet plummeting towards the ground, near the Iguaçu Falls.
"What the heck is that!? It's raining planes!?"
"Stop being stupid, Jonas, clearly it's aliens attacking the army!" - And here we discover the greatest conspiracy theorists of the 20th century.
"No... it's the Chinese!"
"And how can you be so sure?"
"Look up there in the sky!" - Points towards three small dots in the sky, descending slowly without using any parachutes.
"Well, I guess I was wrong after all, sorry for cursing you out, Jonas. You're my partner, but sometimes you miss the mark."
"I forgive you, Nair, but try to listen to me more next time. You can be pretty ignorant sometimes, like a donkey kicking everyone."
Well, aside from the nonsense uttered by these country folks, which we hope you at least chuckled at, even if it was just a snort, what's really happening is Denji "landing" a stolen military jet that he learned to pilot.
But you might be wondering: "Oh, so he was in the military in his past life?" The answer is no. In fact, Denji stole several jets into the Kamui and destroyed them inside the dimension while learning to fly. Just for you know, it was more than 30 jets from three military bases!
And the curious thing is that he always returned the wreckage with a note saying: "Sorry about this, army dudes," as if he were a 6-year-old. And he even glued coins to the notes, saying he hoped that would cover the cost.
As you might expect, this city was chosen by Denji because, besides being a tourist spot, it's a strong economic point in the South of the country and therefore relatively easy to find a job, especially for Kobeni who is a Japanese citizen and speaks her language fluently and English with a little difficulty.
Denji obviously didn't come with empty pockets, he took all the savings he had available, Kobeni's, and a bit of "borrowed" money from the Japanese army, totaling a million yen, which converted to around thirty thousand reais, which at the time was almost equivalent to the dollar.
[N/CA: Yes, I know the sticklers are going to come complaining about not using today's exchange rate and blah, blah, blah. But guys... It's just a fanfic, and it would be UN-NE-CESS-ARY work to do that, as much as I wanted to, so it is it... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]
So as soon as the currency was converted, they would have enough money to live comfortably for a while, enough to get a job and be self-sustainable in this new land, or so he hopes. If that doesn't materialize, then he'll simply continue borrowing from the army until it becomes real.
"Are you okay?" - He asks the two women behind him, also inside the bubble.
"Why can't you drive something without blowing it up?" - Shizune asked with a sad face as she looked at the jet, she found it really cool and wanted one, and her nonexistent wallet was already bleeding just thinking about the price.
"Quiet, I know perfectly well what I'm doing. Explosions are cool." - He said with crossed arms and closed eyes, clearly he had no idea what he was doing.
"Wow... It's beautiful." - Kobeni says as she watches the waterfalls, with their unstoppable flow of water.
"Heheheheh, I chose this city because I thought it would be cool to live near the waterfalls, they are just one of the natural beauties of Brazil, the most famous I think. In the future, when we have more conditions, do you want to visit the others?"
"Hahah! But of course! If they're as beautiful as this one, I think it'll be the best money spent of my life." - She says, excitedly.
"And the most wasted military jet of mine!" - Shizune butts in - "Seriously, it was a waste to blow up another jet, give me one for my birthday!" - Puppy dog eyes attack!
"I'll think about your case, young lady." - He looks at her, stays silent for about two seconds. - "I thought about it and no, I'm not going to give you one. But like, maybe one will show up at your door when you turn 18..."
"Denji!" - Kobeni interrupts.
"What? What did I say wrong?" - With these words, Kobeni opens her mouth in surprise at the younger one's lack of tact.
Timeskip
Currently, the day is already coming to an end, with dusk seeking to replace the place of the sunny day, and in this late afternoon atmosphere, there's Denji and the two sisters in a rented house a little far from downtown, because it's cheaper.
It wasn't so hard to settle in Brazil, especially when Denji already knew Portuguese from being Brazilian in his last life.
The hard part was getting used to life in the country and the cultural differences, at least for Kobeni and Shizune.
Denji regularly taught Portuguese to the two, as we saw earlier, and had also earned quite a bit of money hunting demons, at least enough to keep 3 people including himself.
One interesting thing was the public security system against demons in Brazil, which instead of being something exclusive to the government, many just ignored the existence of such organization and it became uncontrollable to the point of becoming tolerable and "clandestine hunters" making money legally selling demon meat.
Of course, Denji also explained about the "Hostile Mobs" that existed in the country, like the nosy neighbors, druggies, and also, the most dangerous... Two guys on a motorcycle.
He also explained that the state they were living in now was affectionately nicknamed the "Brazilian Russia", the reason? I think a good example is the robbery of an armored car with a bazooka, and yes: It's real, but it happened after the 2000s.
Denji was at this moment above an antenna on a tall building in the city. It was night, and the streets were already starting to be less crowded, which meant less competition in the area! Many would swear they saw banknotes instead of Denji's eyes if they saw the scene live.
(You go after humans during the day just because they consider us food... I go after you at night for the cash!) - The young blonde jumps off the building doing some somersaults, and as he falls towards the ground, he smiles.
Two air vortexes form at his feet, and then, two medium-sized spheres appear.
He leans on both and with a spinning maneuver, flies forward, narrowly avoiding hitting the ground.
He had greatly improved his Airjitzu control, now being able to do something that, if he wasn't mistaken, had never been done in the series, at least not as far as he had seen.
The ability to create small Airjitzu spheres and place them on other things, like his own feet.
Thus, he could use them as a scooter on land, and surf in the air, creating better mobility for himself.
Breathing and focusing on his sense of smell, he closed his eyes, concentrating on what he was looking for... until he finally felt what he was searching for.
The smell of fear. He had evolved his sense of smell enough to be able to feel such a smell, taking a page from the book of dogs in this case, although humans can also do it in specific situations, but that's beside the point.
He could very well try to copy Makima, and he did try, but it wasn't as efficient as he would have liked, at least not at the moment, so he tried another approach.
He fell into a routine of flying to a new area and sniffing the air for some time, locating the smell of fear in the distance, but descended and only saw one person being mugged.
"GIVE ME MONEY!" - He shouts as he kicks the thief, who lets the weapon, a military knife, slip from his hand and fall to the ground.
The victim was very confused but grateful for the act. After processing what happened, he turned to Denji with a sad face.
"I am... poor, sir."
"Disgusting." - He says just one word with a look of disgust towards the person, then turns to the thief and tries to see if there's any money in his pocket.
"Hahaha! 500 bucks!" - He then leaves the street and flies back - "Don't cross me again, poor!"
But then Denji stops in mid-air for a moment and returns to the ground. He takes out a 100-note and hands it to the man.
"I'm in a good mood today, take this alms for you. Bye!" - And then flies off again.
(What the hell just happened?!) - The man was in disbelief but extremely grateful to the point of tears welling up in his eyes. Screw being called a beggar to his face, money is money!
(Ah, it feels good to be philanthropic...) - The blonde thinks, without a trace of remorse for what he did.
Then, he resumes his nightly journey to look for mon... I mean, demons. And after another 20 minutes or so, he gets it and begins to review some skills, the most interesting ones.
{Skill Mastery: |Shadow Clones (Kage Bunshin)|
Level: 2 |Max. number of clones: 7|
Unlocking:
|+3 clones|Improved physicality|Clones exist while you sleep|
|+10 clones|Clone fusion|+5 clones|+5 clones|Shared mind.}
(Damn... how I wish I had that "Clones exist while you sleep" thing, it would make things much easier.) - He thinks to himself as he flies with his Airjitzu, reviewing the first skill and about to move on to another.
Until a very strong smell of fear catches him off guard, giving him a shiver the moment he feels it, which leaves him a little scared.
"What the hell?" - He quickly changes his course to where the smell was coming from, wondering what could cause something like that, although he already knew the answer.
It was definitely a demon, that's for sure.
Arriving at the scene, he was almost blinded by an explosion, which confirmed his theory, because he realized that the demons from this timeline had a fetish for blowing things up.
Arriving at the scene in moments, he could see that the demon had a twisted smile of satisfaction.
(This was confirmed faster than I expected... damn it!) - He thought a little disappointed - (No more fooling around, time to test this beauty.)
In his hand was a belt with a strange buckle in the shape of a double shuriken, one on top of the other, almost entirely golden with a red gem inside.
Putting on the belt, he spins the top shuriken and strikes a pose, opening his legs as if entering a boxing stance, turns his torso back and extends his right arm, slightly rotated, forward as he makes a gun with his hand, then: As if to complete the cringe-worthy scene, he pretends to take a hat from his waist and put it on his head, turning to his enemy.
"HEN... SHIN!" - He shouts and spins the shuriken on his belt counterclockwise, with great force.
At that moment, a light envelops the belt and gradually himself, and then, he appears transformed!
To be continued...