[...Right. No matter what, it all comes back to saving people. He can say it's for whatever he thinks it is, but in the end, it's about Denji feeling useful in some way. And if Aki finds him useful, isn't that the clearest sign of victory for him? The one authority figure in his life that's still around right now. If he's here to check off what Denji is doing as "good," that should be good enough. That should prove he's on the right track. But now Aki is telling him not to do the thing he wants to do. And how fair is that? Aki isn't his authority figure anymore. Hell, all he ever did was hold his leash, yank him back when he got a little too nippy at people - and even then, he's still barking up a storm. Since when did he ever do anything for him? His first few months under surveillance, all he could think about were all the things he never got a chance to do.]

...You didn't kill me.

[This is kind of semantics. Because Gun killed him. And Denji killed Gun. ...Or, was it "Chainsaw Man" that killed Gun? He doesn't know. Whatever.]

I would have been dead by the end of this year anyway. If it didn't happen the way it did, something else would have killed me.

[He shifts him slightly on his knee, trying to get him to look at him directly.]

Then what are you going to do when I'm gone? You'll be satisfied with this moment, right now?