The towering gray-black colossus erupted skyward like the gatekeeper of hell itself. Aki Hayakawa threw an arm up on instinct, shielding his face.
Wind tore at his hair, whipping it wild. He stared at Makoto's silhouette standing tall within the giant's frame, awe breaking through his composure before he could stop it.
"He was weakened to that extent, and he's still this powerful... How strong was the Chainsaw Devil at full strength?"
Makoto spoke without turning, his voice calm and absolute: "Fall back. All of you. Ten miles minimum. Otherwise I can't guarantee you won't get caught up in this."
BANG.
Before the words finished leaving his mouth, the Gun Fiend lurched forward. The grotesque barrel protruding from its forehead fired a single armor-piercing round with zero fanfare.
The chainsaw-form Susanoo swung to block. Metal screamed against metal as the bullet slammed into the howling chain-blade, both forces locked in a split-second stalemate.
Then the round split clean in half. The two halves shrieked past Susanoo's shoulder plates and hammered into the city blocks behind, twin explosions hurling smoke and debris skyward.
Susanoo's other arm came crashing down. The massive chainsaw tore through the air with enough force to split the world in two.
"Go!"
Beam hated touching anyone other than Makoto, but an order from the Chainsaw Man was an order. Without a heartbeat's hesitation, he slung Aki over his shoulder and bolted alongside the four fiends.
BOOM.
Slung over Beam's back, Aki felt the ground shudder. The spot where the Gun Fiend had been standing collapsed entirely.
But when the dust cleared, his eyes went wide. The Gun Devil's arms, transformed into heavy-caliber sniper barrels, were crossed overhead in a block. It had tanked Susanoo's full-force cleave head-on.
The sheer size difference made the scene absurd. An insect catching a tiger's swipe. Everyone watching froze.
Ka-chak.
The chambering sound cut through the air again.
The Gun Devil's right foot morphed into a heavy machine gun barrel and fired a single devastating blast downward. The recoil shattered Susanoo's hold, and the Gun Fiend rocketed a hundred meters into the sky on the force alone.
Inside Susanoo, Makoto lifted his gaze toward the heavens. A thin line of blood crept from the corner of his right eye.
"Amaterasu."
Black flames erupted around the Gun Fiend's body, consuming it in an instant.
"AAAAAGH!"
The Gun Fiend's scream was raw, wretched agony.
Already carried far from the battlefield, Aki clenched his fist in silent triumph. He didn't know what those black flames were, but the Gun Devil had taken devastating damage. That much was obvious.
Then reality caught up to him, and the triumph drained from his face.
The body the Gun Devil was inhabiting right now belonged to Yu Ishigami.
Which meant Ishigami was...
The fist unclenched. Aki couldn't bring himself to celebrate anymore.
Tough on the outside, soft on the inside. He couldn't stand watching people die in front of him, least of all someone he'd worked alongside.
You must be in more pain right now than any of us, Makoto.
"Hey! What the hell's going on?! Is that a Devil?!"
A blond teenager in a school uniform came sprinting out of an alley and nearly collided with Beam head-on.
Denji. A high schooler now.
Beam dropped Aki and jabbed a finger at Denji. "You! Get this guy and every civilian you can find to the safe zone. I'm going back to support the Chainsaw Man!"
He dove into the earth before the last syllable faded, cutting through the ground like a fish through water, racing back toward the battlefield.
He knew full well he couldn't contribute to a fight at this level. But he could tear himself open and offer his blood. A walking blood pack for the Chainsaw Man.
Damn you, Ishigami. Dead and you still dare raise a hand against the Chainsaw Man. You deserve to die a thousand deaths!
"You four, with me!" Beam called back through the earth to the fiends trailing behind. They followed without question.
Aki hesitated, torn, when the Gun Fiend plummeted from the sky. Halfway down, its other foot transformed into another barrel. All four limbs pointed at the ground.
"What is it doing?!"
The blood drained from Aki's face. Dread hit him like a wall.
BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM
The Gun Fiend's four barrel-limbs opened fire indiscriminately. Civilians who hadn't escaped in time burst apart into red mist, blood and flesh spraying into the air. Some of it rained directly onto the falling Gun Fiend.
The flesh charred by Amaterasu began regenerating at a terrifying speed.
Then the Gun Fiend turned its barrels on its own burning tissue and blasted the scorched sections away, landing on the carpet of gore below and absorbing the blood through its feet. Ruined limbs regrew in seconds.
Aki trembled with rage.
Bastard. You goddamn monster.
Denji was shaking too, stammering through the horror: "Wh... what the hell is that thing?"
Aki grabbed the boy's arm and ran in the opposite direction. He wanted nothing more than to charge in and put a blade through the Gun Devil. But he knew he wouldn't last a second.
Beam was right. Rather than throwing his life away, every person he could save right now was one more than zero.
The city had been reduced to something unrecognizable. Not a single intact stretch of ground remained for a mile and a half in any direction.
Chainsaw gouges and bullet craters crisscrossed every surface, and in the cracks between them, black flames still burned. Hell on earth.
Then, while leading Denji and a cluster of civilians away from the carnage, Aki spotted a familiar figure perched atop a mound of rubble.
"It seems you've been keeping quite a few secrets from me, Makoto. Then again, so have I."
Aki's pupils contracted. He whipped around.
Makima stood on the ruins, gazing down at the battlefield.
"Ms. Makima! Send reinforcements!" he shouted.
She didn't acknowledge him. Her eyes stayed fixed on the two titans clashing in the distance, as if he hadn't spoken at all.
Aki's mind churned. Too many impossible things were happening at once, piling up faster than he could process. He swallowed his confusion and kept moving, shepherding the group forward.
Before long, he ran into Himeno, Kobeni Higashiyama, and a handful of other surviving Public Safety members.
"Aki, over here!"
Himeno waved her squad forward, beckoning urgently.
He was in no mood to relitigate the fact that she'd drugged him unconscious the day before. Sweat pouring down his face, he cut straight to it: "Himeno, what the hell is happening?"
BANG. BANG. BANG.
The Gun Devil's bombardment continued, each round making the air itself shudder.
VRRRRR. VRRRRR. VRRRRR.
Susanoo's chainsaw strikes hadn't let up either. Every swing made the earth tremble.
Himeno's expression was grim. "Honestly? I don't know the details either. All we can do right now is evacuate survivors."
Aki gritted his teeth and nodded. He turned to Denji and the others. "Everyone, follow me!"
At the center of the battlefield, Makima stood with her hands clasped behind her back, watching the death match between two apex Devils with detached indifference.
CLANG.
Susanoo's chainsaw collided with the Gun Fiend's machine-gun arm. The blade spun at full speed, throwing sparks off the metal limb in blinding arcs.
A beat later, the barrel-arm was sheared clean off. The massive chainsaw followed through, a hair's breadth from bisecting the Gun Fiend entirely.
But at the killing instant, Makoto's strike faltered. A fraction of a second's hesitation.
Makima's lips curved. "You hesitated. I knew you would, Makoto."
The Gun Fiend snapped its head up. The barrel on its forehead blazed with searing light.
The blast that followed wasn't a bullet. It wasn't even artillery. A beam of pure annihilation slammed into Susanoo's chest.
The Chakra colossus was launched backward, crashing through building after building before finally grinding to a halt in a mountain of debris.
Inside the shattered giant, Makoto slumped against its inner wall, breathing hard, his footing unsteady.
A gaping hole had been punched clean through Susanoo's chest.
"Usage: One thousand years."
Makima spoke softly.
A golden halo the size of a dinner plate materialized beside her, and from within it, a gleaming golden javelin slowly emerged.
The Angel Devil's ability. The longer the lifespan sacrificed, the more devastating the weapon it produced.
Makima could freely wield the powers of anyone bound to her by contract.
She gripped the javelin, aimed for the breach in Susanoo's chest, and hurled.
The golden spear punched through Susanoo's body and buried itself in Makoto's chest, pinning him to the crumbling wall behind. Crucified against the rubble.
"It's over, Makoto."
Makima approached at an unhurried pace. Behind her, the Gun Fiend, which had been rampaging moments ago, stood frozen in place. Motionless. As though she'd flipped a switch.
Makoto lifted his eyes, unfocused and drifting. "This was all planned from the start, wasn't it?"
Makima sidestepped the question entirely, admiration threading through her voice. "The Chainsaw Man's power truly is terrifying. The entire world has stopped fearing you, and yet you've retained this much strength. That's exactly what I want."
He studied her for a long moment, then laughed quietly. "I'm not like those idiot protagonists in third-rate novels who lose all sense the moment a pretty face shows up. You came at me, and that's all that matters. I don't care if you're beautiful. I don't care if we've slept together. You don't get a pass."
Makima blinked, then narrowed her eyes. "Stop bluffing, Makoto. Let the Chainsaw Man out."
She knew the mechanism. When the host, Makoto Nishikado, fell into total despair, Pochita, the Chainsaw Devil's true form, would seize control of the body.
Everything she'd done had been to force that emergence. To make the Chainsaw Devil devour her, erasing the concept of domination from the world and creating her perfect paradise.
"Is that so?" Makoto's grin turned strange, eyes bright with mockery. "Is that so? Then are those your last words?"
"Huh?"
Makima's brow creased. Before she could process the shift, he spoke again.
"Do it, Ishigami."
Ka-chak.
The unmistakable sound of the Gun Fiend chambering a round.
BANG.
A bullet tore through Makima's torso from behind before she could turn.
She collapsed to her knees. Blood hit the ground. Straining, she looked over her shoulder.
The barrel covering the upper half of the Gun Fiend's face was receding, peeling back to reveal the features beneath. Not the Gun Devil's hollow vessel.
Yu Ishigami's face.
"You... how... you should be..."
"Dead. Right?"
Makoto's voice came from ahead of her now.
Makima wrenched her head back around. The golden javelin was still embedded in the wall. But the body it had impaled was gone.
He stood before her, whole and unharmed, the wound in his chest vanished without a trace.
The only difference was his left eye. It had gone a flat, lifeless gray.
"What... did you do?" Blood spilled from Makima's lips. Her voice shook.
"Turn unfavorable reality into illusion. Turn favorable illusion into reality. That is the Uchiha clan's ultimate forbidden technique. Izanagi."
Makoto reached up to his left eye socket, dug his fingers in, and wrenched out the dead, sightless orb.
The cost of the technique. One eye, permanently blinded.
He crushed the spent Sharingan between his fingers and let the fragments fall.
Ishigami stepped forward, leveled his gun-arm at his own shoulder, and blew it off in a single shot. He held out the severed limb.
Makoto tipped the severed arm back as casually as taking a drink of water, letting the pooling blood pour directly into his mouth.
His empty, bleeding eye socket regenerated in seconds. A brand-new eye grew in its place.
A Devil's regeneration combined with Izanagi. Near-unlimited use.
"Turn illusion into reality... turn reality into illusion..."
Makima repeated the words under her breath. Her expression crumbled as the full picture slammed into place.
Makoto smiled. "That's right. You thought you controlled Ishigami. Thought the Gun Devil killed him and you grafted its heart onto his body, remaking him into a Gun Fiend."
"But what actually happened is this: the instant Ishigami 'died,' he activated Izanagi and revived. You never noticed. You kept right on pouring the Gun Devil's power into him."
"So what you created wasn't a Fiend with the Gun Devil in the driver's seat. It was a Hybrid with Yu Ishigami fully in control."
Ishigami looked at Makoto with open gratitude. "Are you sure it was okay to use a Mangekyou Sharingan that valuable on someone like me? Wouldn't it have been better to save it for this woman?"
His gaze swung to Makima, eyes burning with hatred. She'd been graced with Makoto's trust and repaid it with a knife in the back. She deserved to die. She deserved to die a thousand times over.
What Makoto had secretly given Ishigami at Yukiko's cafe was a Mangekyou Sharingan taken from Danzo: Shisui's right eye.
He'd placed a transcription seal on it. The moment Ishigami died, Izanagi would trigger automatically.
A dead man's gambit, the same way Madara had once played Hashirama.
Ishigami still looked puzzled. "You could have used Kotoamatsukami to rewrite her mind. Would've been a lot simpler than this whole roundabout scheme."
Makoto's tone was flat. "I'm not interested in using genjutsu to control people's thoughts. Besides, she has a contract with the Prime Minister. Any attack directed at her gets redirected onto random Japanese citizens."
Ishigami's eyes widened. "Her abilities are even more twisted than I imagined..."
"But that means..." A terrible realization dawned on his face.
Makoto nodded. "Yeah. Conventional methods can't kill her."
"Exactly."
Makima spoke, drawing both their gazes.
The gunshot wound in her abdomen had nearly closed. She raised her head and met Makoto's eyes directly.
"No matter what you do, you cannot kill me. Let the Chainsaw Man out."
Makoto crouched down to her eye level.