Damn, this is a mess. The story will remain in its course. But the gimmick of the story... What was I thinking with switching POVs so much and giving each arc one less chapter each time at the same time? That's way over my skill level. I'll see what I can do.

Chaos.

Mayhem.

Taylor opened her eyes and immediately clutched her face as pain overcame all of her senses. She latched onto her bugs for purchase, not physically but mentally, and found the strange feeling of Othala's power like one finds a switch by caressing the wall in the dark.

She held back a groan as she flipped the switch and the strange cold she felt in her stomach was replaced by the feeling of her guts crawling back inside her body, her flesh reknitting and blood being replaced with the strange power of the unaffiliated cape.

How did Denji do it? Taylor endured as well as she could, but bouncing immediately after sustaining such large injuries was beyond her limits. Did it have something to do with his devil physiology? Or was it something else? Could people be conditioned to shrug things like that off?

"You're awake." Panacea's deadpan greeted Taylor as she opened her eyes to the blood and viscera that had once been part of her, but now laid gruesome on the floor like a horror show spectacle.

Taylor sat up, feeling numb after the surge of adrenaline and pain, and pointedly gross.

"Did you revive me?" Taylor sighed.

"I can't do anything to dead tissue." Amy replied immediately, almost sarcastically. But it seemed like she was incapable of that now.

It still stung.

"Did you heal me enough for me to avoid death?" Taylor growled.

"Yes."

"Thank you." Taylor said before she could take it back.

Amy looked down, her neutral expression looking a bit more somber than usual.

Taylor's heart pounded in her chest. Something deeply, deeply wrong was going on. Given how they weren't fighting yet she could still hear the noise of battle in the distance.

Then… Silence.

She turned back to Amy.

"What did you do?" She asked reflexively.

"He can come back." Was all the healer said in return.

Taylor was on her feet a moment later.

"Panacea, what did you…?" Taylor stopped, thousands of bugs around her dying in an instant. And a huge shadow looming right behind her, making her blood run cold as an engine slowly purred right behind her.

She turned her head back, slowly.

"Dammit!" Denji screamed, almost being killed by a fake out in the Slaughterhouse's movements.

"You're useless." Panacea repeated herself, voice loud but still unable to convey emotion "I already told you to protect Othala."

"I don't wanna! She gives me the creeps!" Denji groaned, about to pull the cord in his chest again.

"Yeah, well, she's brain dead." Panacea retorted "Just think of her like a contract or something similar."

"A contract is a two way thing! What does she get in return?!"

Amy stared at the listless woman staring dumbly at her.

"Blissful ignorance."

"..." Denji fell silent, as if that sentence had hit a nerve in the boy.

"What did your Pochita get in return for your life?" Panacea pressed on, actually somewhat curious about the topic… In the way she could be, at least. She was painfully aware of what contracts entailed. A relationship of give-and-take, where the person stood to lose the most.

To show him his dreams. What kind of contract was that? In the end, Denji had been ridiculously lucky. To befriend a weak devil enough to give up his life… Amy had no idea what to think of it, if she could even process it. Whether that could be replicated with her crocodile or not, it still stood out as impossible simply because she hated using the crocodile.

The Slaughterhouse rampaged, but Amy felt no rush. She took as much time as she wanted, only hurrying up at all because she understood she should be helping. No matter whether she wanted to or not, the right things were still right. Perhaps it had become clearer now, but it wasn't like she could appreciate it either.

Lose-lose, such was her life.

"You think a contract can be struck with it?" Amy asked, thinking back to how the devil had mechanical limbs. Some Mannequin, some Bonesaw.

Could it give her back the ability to feel? Probably, but she understood she wouldn't have wanted the thing anywhere near her head if she could indeed have emotions.

"I don't think it'll want to." Denji replied, hurrying up to the battle. He didn't get Othala's abilities, and Amy had no time to blend her brain any more to change that. Not like it'd work on Denji, as her power both told her he was a valid target and not at the same time.

What about the other way around?

"Huh?"

The logic seemed sound. They needed as many bodies in the fight as they could get, and Denji was by far the best fighter. Getting him to be able to employ Othala's powers on top of his devil powers sounded logical. Besides, he always undid whatever Amy did to him, no matter how powerful or bizarre the change. So she took his head and scrambled his brain.

Fighting was second nature to the teen, so she got it closer to what Othala had. She felt the light of his unwavering will go out as she took resources to make a corona-like organ. Something like a receptor, now that she had felt both Taylor's power and how the new Othala network worked.

The sound of a chainsaw echoed in her mind, and Amy flinched. She knew the feeling, although it was ghastly. Not hers.

The crocodile that resided in her (former) stump of an arm made her flinch, granting her the fear she could no longer generate herself. The small moment of emotion made her pause, and seeing Denji's zombie-like expression made her brain's cogs stop altogether and start spinning in the opposite direction.

Having no emotions didn't make someone smarter, now Amy understood. It stung a bit, but it made sense. She did lose part of her processing power, if her brain knowledge was to be believed.

"Shit." Still, she didn't panic. In the same way she did not hesitate to call herself out on her idiocy. She took the cord and pulled it in the same way she had done since she healed Denji for the first time "Come back, Denji. You're the only one I can't fuck up."

Denji's head exploded. It didn't split open to give room for the chainsaw, but instead broke down into gore and bone bits. The rest of his body followed instantly, only letting Amy know due to Othala's power still lingering in her.

"...Eh?" She felt the crocodile in her arm, pain flaring and blood flowing as she once more lost the arm she gave to the crocodile.

The Chainsaw Devil looked at her as much as an eyeless creature could. Amy started regenerating, unmindful of the blood she lost as she couldn't quit looking at the spasming body of the devil.

"...Denji?"

The Chainsaw opened its mouth and blood flowed out. It doubled over and a hush of viscera flew out, sending Amy tumbling out as something huge came out.

It looked like a starfish, four limbs made out of limbs of pale skin and a very peculiar uniform. With blond hair flowing between the limbs that made each, bigger, limb. There was a small mustache, almost nothing at all, in the center, and various faces that oozed a very noxious gas each time they opened their mouths like fish.

Nazi…?

"OoUuuUOooOOHHHh!" The four-limbed devil groaned, crawling away from the Chainsaw with astounding speed before the black-skinned devil could react "Live! I live! I—!"

Then, it was over. Each limb was cut in a dozen places, too fast to even bleed as the devil's many faces unglued themselves from the main body.

The Chainsaw devoured it. It opened its maw wide and ate the corpse without hesitation, its movements crude and clumsy, but steadily getting to the point that only blood and morsel remained.

Amy blinked, she had no idea what had happened. How the Chainsaw had gotten out of Denji and devoured…

Devoured…

Amy fell to her butt. Her head hurt like the crocodile had manifested there, and she felt wear-and-tear in a place she couldn't quite grasp.

The Chainsaw Devil roared. Limbs and heads tried to leave its maw, but the Chainsaw bit them off and swallowed them again. Its body looked like it'd break apart, but the bits that were left were mercilessly cut off entirely.

Amy's head felt like it was breaking apart.

The Chainsaw moved and Brockton Bay was cleaved. Buildings were reduced to bricks and cut glass, asphalt broke down and cars exploded as the devil pushed onwards.

Chainsaw Man kept biting devils off his gut when he found the Slaughterhouse Nine.

"Woah there!" The devil slammed both Taylor and Ethan out of the way, its every instinct demanding it to get out of the way. It saw Chainsaw Man tumble as several devils were either eaten or killed, a gruesome scene of Its kin eating its own puke "Fuck, that's disgusting! What's wrong with you?! What are you?!"

The Chainsaw brandished its four-handed left arm, and the Slaughterhouse was reduced to pieces and parts.

"Huh?!" It reached out, consuming its own blood and sending the damage to some of its victims nearby, while simultaneously reaching for its regeneration to come back tougher and meaner "Gyahahaha! What's wrong?! That didn't hurt at all!"

The Chainsaw looked at It, really did this time around. And the contents of its maw slowly oozed down as it munched a lot harder.

Chainsaw Man cut, the Slaughterhouse Nine used up King's power. Chainsaw Man cut again. And again, and again, and again, and again. It cut even when the Slaughterhouse's blood ran out, even when the devil followed Jack's power and tried to run away. It met a newborn devil after all, one made out of villains to boot.

It didn't understand why it had come out, but It couldn't go back to being Denji's heart while so much evil tried to spill out of its gullet.