Chapter Text
-:-
Being devoured is engraved into her memory.
She is torn apart, sliced, diced, cooked, boiled, fried, served on elegant platters and then swallowed with care, attention, and (no other word comes to mind) love, even.
Before waking once more in Hell, as she goes through this process, the first thing the Conquest Devil, also known as Makima, thinks is that it isn’t fair, that she doesn’t deserve this. Not after every single thread of her plan had been so meticulously woven to shape the grand design she had envisioned for so long. She was supposed to create a perfect world, free of Death, War, Famine. She could even have been devoured by Chainsaw Man. That would have been the highest honor.
And instead she was eaten by a stupid boy whose face she can barely remember.
The first thing that comes to her is that she will be reborn in Hell, with no escape from what awaits her, from the other devils ready to annihilate her. She will cease to exist, at least as Makima. The Conquest Devil will be reborn, and who knows what will come of it. Maybe someone better than her. Maybe not.
The second thing is that Denji turned out to be a pretty damn good cook.
The third, right after that, is that she is a loser.
No, no, it’s much worse than that. She couldn’t recognize the real Chainsaw Man she so much revered. It didn’t even register to her that the one she was fighting was, in fact, the real one. It couldn’t be. She knew what Chainsaw Man really was. What he was supposed to be. She knew it all and loudly declared such.
Turns out she’s a complete moron.
(She wonders if her sisters would laugh at her fate. Yoru definitely would. Shinobu wouldn’t care that much. Kiga would try to make her feel better, the poor, naive fool that she is.)
Humiliation accompanies the last thing she hears.
“So this is how you taste, Ms. Makima...”
-:-
Yet life (or, in this case, death) finds new ways to surprise her.
When she regains consciousness, she immediately recognizes where she is: a cell. A reinforced concrete cube with four walls and barely a slit for communication. Her back is pressed against the cold cement, wrists encircled by rusty shackles; she’s neither sitting nor standing, her body slumped forward.
Makima had hoped the uncomfortable position would be the worst of it. But she quickly learns that herself and “being wrong” are becoming very close friends.
How much time passes, she doesn’t know, but suddenly a plump creature almost resembling a man appears outside her cell. Graying, receding hair, a neutral-colored suit, a tie knotted like a noose around its neck. Its face is deformed by fat and by bones that jut out unnaturally, eyes gouged out yet still framed by thick bottle-glass spectacles, a briefcase clutched at his side.
The Contract Devil.
One of the few Devils feared in equal measure by humans and by its own kind. Not by her, of course.
What irritates her the most is how its voice drips with a certain… smug satisfaction. “This is a most regrettable situation,” the repulsive creature begins saying, adjusting the glasses it has no need for. “Especially since it involves a Horseman of the Apocalypse like yourself. The contract you signed with the Japanese government stipulated, among other things, that any lethal harm inflicted upon you would be redirected to a random citizen of Japan. But the boy who killed you did not harm you, Conquest Devil. He devoured you as an act of devotion, of love, and as such it cannot be considered as intended to cause lethal harm to another. Therefore, you died without being able to avail yourself of your contract’s benefits. A technicality, yes, but one must expect such things from any contract.”
Makima wants to protest, but no sound comes out. Her throat is parched, her body drained of strength. She wants to tear its head off with her teeth.
“Nevertheless, your death has created an irregularity,” the Contract Devil continues. “There are now two versions of the Conquest Devil. One has properly reincarnated on the surface and is already learning to walk her dogs, while you are the excess one. You’re no longer ‘Makima’ strictu sensu… but since you retain her outer shell, you may continue to consider yourself the owner of that name, if you so wish.”
The Contract Devil points to the restraints that pin her in place. “You no longer possess the powers of the Conquest Devil, miss. Do not worry, however, we will not allow you to be killed again. As much as we as a whole species might enjoy it, we cannot risk another paradoxical event that would unravel at least half the laws governing our existence. We have chosen a tidier, more permanent solution. You will remain sealed here. In time, solitude will erase whatever is left in the shell you inhabit. And everything will return to its working order until the end of time. We hope you understand.”
Makima would almost like to tell him about the coming Apocalypse, about her sisters who will soon ravage the humans Devils so love to feed on, and whom she can no longer stop. But let it and their whole kind find out for themselves.
The worst part is knowing she no longer has her powers. And not only the feeling of powerlessness that comes with it.
But also the feeling of nothingness that courses through her.
-:-
Time stretches and contracts at once.
Makima has no reference to tell whether seconds are passing or millennia.
If she cared, she could count the heartbeats that keep the body she inhabits alive. She could try to recall the faces of her victims, but not a single one comes to mind, not really. She can recall some of their names, some of their powers, but to her it’s all pretty vague. Faces in the crowd, really. She could ask for forgiveness, but she feels nothing that resembles what humans call “regret”.
A curiosity passes through her head: did she taste good?
Perhaps wondering that is a sign her mind is finally, irrevocably unraveling, spiraling into the void of madness. She wonders (not for the first time, she’s certain) whether this is the beginning of the emptying-out the Contract Devil had promised her.
Deep down, she thinks she probably deserves it. Only the strong survive. And right now she doesn’t even know who she is.
Then, all at once, in one instant like any other, the cube trembles.
It isn’t an earthquake, no. It's subtler, more… unnatural.
A thin fracture zigzags across the ceiling of her marble cube, letting in what she can only describe as light.
And there, in front of the narrow bars of her cell, someone appears. Not a Devil. And she’s certain of it, he’s not a mere human either.
The light blinds her for a fraction of a second, then the features come into focus.
She’s surprised by how… defined his face is to her. It’s like seeing something unique for the first time. By the standards of the actors she’s seen in movies or magazines, she can definitely say he’s handsome. Strikingly so.
His eyes are wide with surprise. “Hey there, didn’t think I’d run into another human down here.” His voice is weirdly melodious to her ears. His cheekbones are sharp, his lashes thick, and his eyes are objectively breathtaking: they’re an impossibly vivid blue, far too blue for any ordinary human being. Maybe that’s why he’s that much more striking. Her gaze drifts to his pure white hair, and she thinks that it complements him perfectly.
She knows the thoughts racing through her mind are a mix of shock and the fact that she hasn’t spoken to another being in who-knows-how-long. At the moment, she doesn’t even have the strength to speak a word.
The man steps closer. “You don’t exactly look up for a chat right now, but…” He gestures at the chains on her wrists. “I’m guessing you’d like to be set free, do you?”
Makima will never admit it, but the speed at which she nods is such that it makes a somewhat amused smile flicker across the man’s face.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got you.” In seconds, she’s free. She watches him place his hands on her chains; a brief red glow flashes, and he tears her from the wall as if it were the easiest thing in the world. She wants to analyze his power, but right now she’s too exhausted to think at all. Maybe later, if there is one.
She collapses forward, and the man catches her in his arms before she hits the floor. A strange sensation washes over her, as though her body is falling slower than it should, and the space between them keeps shifting in impossible ways. Space-time manipulation? Is that his power?
Makima lifts her gaze to look at him one more time as her senses begin to slip away. She catches his scent, saturated with a form of energy oh so powerful that makes her head spin and leaves her almost intoxicated.
He smiles at her again.
“My name is Satoru, by the way, miss—”
Satoru.
Makima no longer has the strength to hear anything else after that.
-:-
Makima wakes up once again, this time in a different cell.
She’s lying on a cot with a soft, clean pillow. On the small bedside table sits a sealed bottle of water, waiting. She grabs it at once and drinks greedily, the need raw and animal. Only after the last drop does she take a better look at herself and her surroundings.
She’s wearing clean, comfortable clothes: a pale-white blouse, long soft pants, and even a pair of slippers placed neatly beside the cot. This is unmistakably a human-made cell. Her situation hasn’t changed much, but compared to Hell, anything else would feel like mercy.
Her head still throbs, yet she can’t stop replaying what happened.
That man.
A dream? A hallucination? Some other Devil’s cruel prank? Anything would be possible. For all she knows, she’s trapped in a long-term illusion that will snap and drop her back into that damn cube. But she would like to think that she’d recognize something like that, even in her current state.
Suddenly, there’s noise outside the cell.
In another life she would already be calculating angles of attack, but she no longer has the powers that once let her die and rise again as if it were nothing.
(Powers she had secured with contracts measured to the millimeter, yet not enough to avoid her this situation, ti seemed. As her defeat proved, she had been wrong about that too.)
Maybe it’s this intrusive thought that makes her do nothing instead.
Whatever happens, happens.
Masked men dressed fully in black burst in and drag her out. They’re rough, no pretense of courtesy. She doesn’t resist, doesn’t even speak, and to be fair she doesn’t really listen to what they say to her either. Still, she catches some muttered insults and crude remarks about her mental and physical condition. If she still cared, she would memorize their physical builds, find subtle inflections in their voices, and keep that in her mind to recognize them further down the line, all while planning exactly how each of them would die.
But right now her mind is elsewhere: on Satoru, his impossibly blue eyes, and the memory of his scent still engraved into her.
-:-
Makima is led into a white-walled room and seated at a small table, then left alone.
Classic interrogation room. She’s seen dozens just like it when she was on charge of Public Safety. At this point, she thinks she knows what’s coming.
She’s wrong again.
A man steps in. The smell, of course, hits her first: tobacco, cheap liquor, death. And just as that, the memory of her own death at Denji’s hands flashes before her eyes, vivid and merciless.
Soon, she’s certain, she’ll die again.
Kishibe.
His looks haven't changed much since the last time she's seen him, even though she can tell that his stubble looks even more unkempt than before. He enters carrying a thick folder in one hand; with the thumb of the other he traces the long scar that cuts across his left cheek while he stares at her, almost as if he’s making absolutely sure it’s really, absolutely, truly her.
They look at each other in silence.
Once again, time stretches and collapses around her while the images and the sound (the roar of Denji’s chainsaw tearing through her flesh, piece by piece, his stare somewhat pitiful of her) keep clawing at the inside of her skull.
Her thoughts are broken by his sigh.
“I knew it,” he mutters. His voice is heavy, weary, resigned. “I told the kid that wouldn’t be enough.”
He’s talking about Denji, obviously.
She says nothing. She doesn’t know what she would even say to Kishibe right now. She’s not really sure she wants to speak to him at all, given the circumstances.
Kishibe sits down across from her. He stares for a few more seconds before dropping his gaze to the folder in his right hand.
“There’s some upsides at least, or so I’ve been told. You no longer possess any powers, and you’re not the exact same Makima I knew. Can’t say that fills me with joy, though.”
He stares at her some more. “I’ll be blunt: I don’t give a damn about other people have said. I know whom I’m looking at: you’re Makima, the Devil who orchestrated so many deaths not even I can keep count.”
Silence again. Kishibe tilts his head; Makima doesn’t look away. “I’m betting you’ve got a lot of questions,” he says. “I’ll let you have one before I tell you why I’m here.”
“Why haven’t you killed me yet?” she asks, as naturally as if she were asking whether he’d ordered a drink. “I expected you to do it the moment you walked in. Are you planning to make it slow?”
She could swear something (pity, maybe?) flickers across Kishibe’s face as he glances back down at the folder. “That’s two questions. And believe me, I would like to.” He exhales. “You have no idea how much.”
“I can feel your killing intent,” she says at once. She hadn’t expected it to be this easy to slip back into conversation with a man who hates her, understandably so in a sense. But deep down, Makima has never harbored… resentment toward Kishibe or the other Devil hunters. In truth, she never felt anything for them beyond a vague mix of disgust and pity. To her, humans have never been all that different from dogs. Unless they’re hers, she has no reason to grant them any importance at all. Suddenly she wonders what became of her beloved, adorable huskies, but she’s not sure Kishibe knows, or would even bother to tell her.
The man sighs again and meets her eyes. “There’s a lot I could say or do, but I’ve been ordered to keep this short and I’m not in the mood for a headache. The first thing you need to know is that about two and a half years have passed since your… death.”
Makima raises an eyebrow. “Two and a half years? The Apocalypse didn’t come?”
“I’m getting there,” he cuts in. “During that time... something happened: a ‘dimensional convergence,’ that’s what we’re calling it. The world we inhabited collided with… other ones. We started making contact with people from these different worlds, most of them from alternate versions of Japan. People with powers which aren’t so different from those of your kin if you ask me, but they’ve helped us keep Devils as dangerous as you were in check.”
Makima doesn’t challenge a word of it. Kishibe has no reason to lie, and her mind is already racing back to Satoru. It makes sense. Theirs was never the only world in the galaxy, let alone the only dimension.
“Among the people we’re collaborating with, one is the man who pulled you out of Hell and brought you back. Satoru Gojo.”
Satoru Gojo.
Even his full name ringed with some sort of strength she can't quite yet describe.
Makima tilts her head, hungry for the information Kishibe is quick to give her. “He’ll explain the details himself, but what you need to know, is that he wants to be your…” He sighs. “Well, the word I’d use is ‘sponsor’ I guess.”
Makima blinks. “What?” The question slips out before she can stop it. For the first time in longer than she can remember, she genuinely has no idea what’s going on around her and actually needs answers.
Kishibe nods, his face twisting into a grimace. “Satoru Gojo is… well, where he comes from, people like him are called sorcerers. And he’s the strongest one, or so they say. If you ask me, he’s immature, obnoxious, and enjoys giving everyone around him migraines.”
Kishibe rubs his jaw, trying to smooth his expression. “He took it upon himself to go down to Hell and clean house recently after some happenings I’m not gonna give you the details of. When Devils are killed by someone not from ‘our world’, they don’t reincarnate. At least not as quickly. And the concept they represent does not disappear either. It’s a goddamn blessing.”
Makima blinks again. She doesn’t particularly care about the well being of her fellow devils, but this is a seismic shift in the status quo, and she’s not sure yet how to feel about it.
Are her Sisters…?
“So you’ve killed every—” “Not all of them. And no, we’re not telling you who’s still alive or what they’re doing now.” Kishibe’s words drip with venom. “If it were up to me, you wouldn’t be here. After Gojo took you out of Hell, a consensus had been reached between me and a few others to put you down before you even woke up. But then that guy suddenly said that if any of us laid a finger on you, he would’ve killed all of us so fast he’d also have time to clean up and take you somewhere where no other could’ve ever found you.”
Makima pictures him, those eyes, that scent, that voice, uttering those words.
“Why?” She blurts out again, a tad bit too fast. Kishibe blinks, but he doesn’t leave her in the dark. “He still hasn’t explained his motivation,” the Devil hunter says, staring straight at her. “I am sure that guy’s watching us from afar right now, and I won’t hide neither to you nor him the fact that you’re getting away scot free is really pissing me off.“ He jabs a finger at her. “I look at you and I think of all the people who suffered or were tricked into being your pawns. All the lives you ruined without a second thought. And now that you have nothing or nobody left to protect yourself with it would be so easy to draw a gun, pull the trigger, and dump you in an unmarked grave somewhere. But if mister ‘Strongest’ decides you deserve a ‘second chance’ we have no choice but to go along with it.”
A second chance?
Makima blinks. For the first time in her existence, she is not merely incredulous, she is downright speechless. A second chance?
“Starting tomorrow, you will be under what’s been dubbed as Satoru Gojo‘s ‘official special supervision’. He intends to stay close to you at all times, no matter what you do or where you go. It has been made abundantly clear to him that the instant you’re left alone, someone will definitely kill you. Maybe me, if I feel like it.”
Makima doesn’t know what to say. She truly doesn’t. The whole situation feels so absurd. And yet, precisely because of that, it can only be real. A new reality she has no experience of, no framework to analyze or interpret.
That irritates her. “So I have to stay glued to… Satoru?” Kishibe catches the slow inflection when she says the sorcerer’s name, like she’s rolling it around her tongue, but he doesn’t react. She’s sure he has no intention of giving her more room to play with than what’s strictly necessary. “Is this what you are telling me, Kishibe?”, the former Devil continues, her gaze openly annoyed.
But it’s clear that he could not care less what she thinks. “Frankly I don’t give a damn. Your new… condition doesn’t change anything about the fact that you’re still alive for some godforsaken reason. If you don’t want to go along with whatever he’s cooked up, just say the word. I’ll put a bullet in your head or something of the like. You sacrificed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, all for your grand goals. And what di you end up with? You were literally eaten for dinner. Now, you’re one bullet away from actually dying. Was it worth it?”
Makima clenches her teeth. Hearing the dream she once pursued with every fiber of her being reduced to a cruel, yet justified, mockery of her stings in a way she hates to admit. Once again she feels pathetic, unbearably frail. “It doesn’t matter, does it?” she murmurs, lowering her head but loud enough to be heard. “In the end, I was nothing but a fool.”
Kishibe glances at her sideways while fishing something from the pocket of his jacket. “Whatever word you want to use to describe yourself, it would still fall short of grasping what you are.” He pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He turns to look her dead in the eye, places a cigarette between his lips and lights it, never breaking eye contact. “In a way, I’m almost entertained by the all of this.’”
Makima hears the contempt dripping from every syllable. She arches an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yes.” Kishibe takes a long drag and blows the smoke up in the air. “Every single step you’ll take from now on, you’ll know you don’t deserve it. You’ll know that you’re only breathing because someone took pity on you, Devil. I hope that thought keeps you awake at night.”
That’s enough.
Makima wants nothing more than to hurl insults at him; Kishibe has struck a nerve, and she knows that he knows it. And he knows that she knows it. That’s why the Devil hunter’s expression narrows into a somewhat satisfied one.
She hates being weak. And right now she is weaker than ever.
Kishibe stands up, exhaling one last time before taking another drag. “Gojo will come pick you up soon.”
He is already turning towards the door when she speaks, almost a whisper. “Kishibe?”
He stops and looks at her.
Makima meets his gaze. She can’t help but want to know. She can’t help it at all. “Can you at least tell me where is… Where is Cha-”
A knife is pressed between her eyes, just slight of digging in, before that name can leave her lips.
Kishibe stares down at her, unblinking. “Finish that question and I’ll kill you right here. I don’t care if that guy blows my head off afterwards.”
She shuts up. He stares into her eyes. Makima stares back. In another series of firsts for her, she can feel herself trembling, truly at someone else’s mercy now, and lowers her gaze.
“You will never see Denji again. You will not speak his name. You will not go near him. You will not even think about trying to do it. If you do anything, anything at all, I swear on every higher power in this shitty world and beyond that I will personally end you. And this time there will be no encore.” The tone of his voice is absolute.
She thinks she has never heard him being this serious about anything in his life.
Makima swallows hard and nods.
Kishibe stares at her some more, then sighs, lowers the knife, slips it back into his pocket, and turns his back to her. “Goodbye, Makima,” he says, and then walks out without another word, leaving her alone with her weakness.
-:-
Escorted back to her cell, Makima finds two small suitcases waiting for her.
Inside there are real clothes, beautiful ones even. Other than underwear she finds a long-sleeved, deep-crimson top that fits her perfectly, white low-heeled shoes, jeans she would have bought on sight if she’d seen them in a shop window. Just putting on actual clothes makes her feel… different.
While she sits on the cot, waiting for the man with the blue eyes and that sharp, intoxicating scent, Kishibe’s words keep echoing.
A second chance. She doesn’t deserve it. She’s a loser. Maybe this man is actually coming to make her his property, turn her a concubine, a slave, or something along those lines. He doesn’t seem the type, but if there’s one thing she’s learned lately it’s that every expectation she has gets overturned.
Which is probably why she’s a bit startled when she feels his scent invading her nostrils once more.
“Wow, you look amazing!”
Makima turns towards the cheerful voice belonging to the man that suddenly appears in the doorway.
Satoru Gojo.
Now that she can see him properly, Makima can’t help but notice that’s he very tall, athletic, and radiates the aura of someone overwhelmingly, absurdly powerful. In the past he would have been among the very first she would try to break and then claim, just to avoid ever having him as an enemy. Now she has no idea what to expect. His eyes are mostly hidden behind sunglasses now, and the grin he sports as he gets closer tells Makima that, personality-wise, he couldn’t possibly be more opposite to her.
She has been thrown into a new game whose rules she doesn’t know. But if there is one thing she still knows she is, despite everything, it’s someone who never backs down from anything.
Makima extends her right hand to him like she’s from some royal family and not an inmate waiting for her freedom. “I expect to be treated like a princess,” she declares, feigning vanity, “Satoru.” She says his name with a lot more emphasis, to get some answers about him from his reaction. But he seems entirely unaffected by it.
“I swear on my honor that it shall be as such, milady,” he answers with faux chivalry, taking her hand in his and bowing to her with anything but reverence in his stance. “Welcome to the first day of your brand new life, Makima.” With that, he mimics giving her a hand-kiss, flashing another smirk in her direction.
And, once again for the first time, as she smirks back, the former Conquest Devil can feel her own heart beat.