This surprised me by being better than it deserves to be.

The hero, Shu Ogata, lives on Bayron City, a floating city over the largest underwater Orgonium mine in the world. Orgonium (who remembers "Orgone Energy"?) is a powerful energy source that has made Bayron City insanely wealthy. Yet somehow Shu is broke all the time.

Bayron City is also beset by Demons, something the local government is trying to keep secret. Classed A through D for their power levels, most of them Contract with and possess a human and, well, that generally doesn't work out too well for the human but they keep doing it anyway. Because of some international anti-weapons treaty, the cops are underpowered for dealing with the menace, so the mayor sends out contracts to the various PMCs, or Private Military Contractors to take out the demons when they appear (another part of why it generally doesn't work out too well for the human involved). One of the biggest is AAA. Shu used to work for AAA, and was dating Ayano, the daughter of the president of the company and a captain among the troops. But three years earlier he left the company and started his own PMC. And even though it's just Shu and Kisara, they are extremely successful and piss off all the other PMCs because they regularly underbid them, and they reluctantly admit he gets the job done. Yet somehow Shu is broke all the time.

Now Kisara appears to be a school-age girl with pink hair, but she's actually the only Class-A demon out there. And Shu made a different kind of contract with her where instead of trading his soul for one desire, he parcels off chunks of his memory (Typically a month at a time) and gives it to Kisara to power her up in the form of a kiss.

Ayano still carries a torch for Shu, but given her Tsundere nature, she must have traded her wooden rake to another villager for it. She's been bailing Shu out with money and information all the time (yet somehow Shu is broke all the time.) And at first she doesn't understand why Shu infuriatingly doesn't seem to remember how much they meant to each other. And all he can do is make empty apologies for the things he doesn't remember he did. But by the midpoint, she learns exactly what the contract with Kisara means, and she doesn't like it one bit.

Bit of background. When he was a child, Shu's dad was participating in a safety inspection of the mine, that was more of a PR outing. He and many dignitaries brought their families, including Shu and his little sister. Then there was a disaster, everyone but Shu died, and Bayron City covered up that it was Demons, and scapegoated Shu's dad. So one of his motivations is to restore the family name. Another is to get revenge on the demon who did it, and the third is that he believes his sister is somehow still alive and wants to save her.

It's kind of interesting because of the way the story and background slowly peel like the layers of an onion. It's a little annoying with the juvenility of Kisara and Ayano dueling over Shu's affection. Especially when it turns out that Shu was also fucking the nun-like demon hunter who shows up to try to kill Kisara about halfway through. (And how he gets out of that mess is just... you have to see it.) Apparently he was seducing his way through the demon-hunting ranks just to get to the point of accomplishing his goals, and that included capturing and contracting with Kisara.

It also reminds me a bit of takt op.Destiny in how the girl's power comes at a cost to the guy.

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