When one looks into the idea of what it means to be afraid, they must come across the perceptions that give such events or stimuli the proper response of fear. This response is not inherently recognized by the subconscious; it is instead picked up on by instinct. The subtlety of this warning to oneself is what makes it so tantamount to our very survival, for there is nothing that can come close to it.

Different measures bring about different results. Some people fear the dark, others fear the light shining upon them. Some are scared of the overwhelming pressure of social conversation; some are afraid of the silence that comes afterwards. Individuality defines the individual; their palette of fears chains them to the collective psyche of their people.

And though this is not an introduction to philosophy, to consider the ramifications of what it means to be afraid, to not be afraid, it lies upon the philosophical accounts of the individual themselves. It starts first by the harsh assumption, that there is no means by which one can actively call upon the assistance of others; such fantasies of external support exist as a consequence of human desire, conceived by one's self-pity, that which cannot be relied upon. We assume instead a cold reality of ourselves existing in our plight, and ourselves alone.

Courage is not the application of a positive force, like one would assume of bravery, or generosity. Rather, we find the unique circumstance of this trait to be a counter-negative, a trait that exerts a neutral force that does not pull the individual this way or that. An individual is identified as brave or generous because of their actions, of great feats of heroism or the compassion to look after not merely themselves but others as well. In the opposite sense, one can be described as cowardly, or selfish, because they commit the actions of an equal or greater opposite; they shy away from their duties, and look after themselves and only themselves, with a blatant disregard for others. The cowardly and the selfish are inebriated with an equal negative force as would be found in the positively charged souls of the brave and the generous.

So, when one thinks of courage, what might there exist if not the meaning of courage that is applied to the individual; for what is assumed of courage, if not that it is an extension of bravery, or good will? But harken now to the assertion that courage does not take rank with these positive traits—it distinguishes itself as a category of its own, a counter-negative that has no true positive force. It does one better to describe courage as the antithesis of a negative counterpart.

Because that is what courage is: to be the opposite of being afraid.

To have the fear of being consumed by one's own fright, to be discomforted by the idea of fear itself—this is what drives men and women alike to stand fast against the odds.

When one is being brought down by figurative weights, the temptation to give-in is kindled by gentle whispers of deceit—that it is justified to surrender a part of oneself or even the totality of oneself to the perpetual struggle. Ah, but this is the folly of the weak—because they're brought to the conclusion that this is somehow a natural response, and that this was always humanity's fate.

But a steady heart and mind know better, the perils that befall such cowards and selfish beings! For this is not the destiny of Man, that he be enslaved to his desires of comfort and refuge from the perpetual struggle. In struggle had humanity achieved greatness; in peace mankind suffered from decay. To tame the darkness and its ilk was a perpetual goal, and this could not be surpassed with a lackluster effort. Moreover, such a monumental task could not be entertained if Man is without courage, for in his desire to not know fear, would he be compelled to conquer this fear and master it as his own weapon of choice. What sustenance would humans spare to devils, if they were courageous enough to stand defiantly against these creatures whose power resided in the persuasion of their souls?

So, Man is brought by degrees to carry a heavy burden, and he is incentivized by this burden to adopt traits that would help him ease the pain of carrying such a burden. It falls upon Man, there in the moments of doubt, whether he might give in to his temptations, or have the courage to carry on, despite the promise of unending toil.

Because this courage is definitive of how one might succeed, even if they cannot see it.

"Ma'am."

She turned her condescending gaze from the twitching little human strapped in the chair, and the runner answered the unspoken command, "There's been some suspicious activity on the surveillance cameras, we believe there's been a breach—"

The ground rumbled. An echo of explosions reached them.

"Go," she ordered the puppets beside her, "I have matters to finish here."

They nodded, following the messenger outside. The door closed, and it was just the doctor that remained with her, returning to the book in his lap. He seemed content to leave her to her devices. All the best, for his sake.

Chainsaw Man and the traitor have found me. Time to prepare.

She was hopeful for a confrontation, but not so soon. There was still the matter of taming the object of her power, restrained in every manner except what she wanted. It was time to crush this rebellion once and for all.

A better world awaits us, friend. The time to submit to your fate is now.

"…what's the point of it?" the voice asked.

A head turned, her single lock of hair swaying the slightest. Tired eyes glanced back.

"The point of what?"

"This."

There was nothing, here. The stool she rested on, as tall as her waist, was all that alluded to the idea of something real, but otherwise there was a thick fog of grey, empty nothingness that surrounded where they had gathered.

"There is no point. It's just what I'm thinking."

"…which is, nothing?"

"Yes," she replied.

"You're thinking of nothing, and only nothing—but why?"

"Because thinking of nothing doesn't hurt to think about."

The voice thought about it, and promptly nodded. There was no arguing with that kind of logic.

"…but that doesn't answer the whole of it."

"The whole of what?"

"Of what I asked. What's the point of this?"

"It's to be, or not to be."

"That's not an answer."

"It is. You asked a question, and I responded with an answer."

"Except I know it's not the right answer. You know it, too. We're here because you want to get away—"

A withering cackle stopped the voice in its tracks, "No way! To think that I'd want to get away from all the violence, and bloodshed, and the pain—I couldn't imagine doing something like that, no way!"

"I didn't think you were one for sarcasm."

"I'm not. I just don't—"

"—want to come to terms with the truth. I know."

The girl hunched her back and curled her legs up. The soles of her shoes barely rested on the stool, but she made it work. She balanced herself there and refused to look at her counterpart.

"…you gotta stop doing this."

"Doing what?" she grumbled.

"This," the voice gestured, "Whatever this is. This regression, this whole retreating into yourself, you have to stop. To do this forever will get you nowhere but into an early grave."

"You don't know that," came the bitter retort, "You can't say when I'll die."

"It's not about when, it's about why," came the assertion, "The fact there's even the possibility is enough to bring about a need for change. You don't want to die, let alone anytime soon—you know this, and yet you do nothing."

"It's not like it matters, what I do."

"You have worth, you know. Selling yourself short doesn't take away the point of why you shouldn't be doing this."

A bitter frown, and the stinging of tears in her eyes quells the idea, "You know why I sell myself short—you could pick any one of them, you could pick anyone from the whole of Tokyo and they'd have more worth than me. I don't deserve to be here. I don't have a reason to be—"

"So you decide to run away. To go here," came the unimpressed reply. A pause preceded them before they spoke again, "Being alone is not enough to be rid of the pain. Retreating into yourself only isolates you from everything that could give you the strength to carry on. You'll never be rid of the anguish if you don't face it with some courage."

"And if I had this courage, what good is it in the face of them?" she harped back, "It's a miracle that Makima's not found us here. How can I go against her, or any of the devils out there, if I don't have the strength? I can't fight them like the others, I don't have those crazy devil powers to lean on in a pinch. It's just me and my luck, that's it. I just can't do it!"

"But you can."

"No, I can't—!"

"You're not a fool, Kobeni," came the heated protest, "and you know that I can see right through you. Don't lie to me, and most importantly, do not lie to yourself. Time has shown you capable of doing what must be done, but you must have the courage to make that decision."

Kobeni curls even more unto herself. Her knees are embraced by her arms, and her face is buried between them. Shame burns in her heart.

"I…I can't."

"Is that what you wanted me to say to you, on that night, out there in the cemetery? When you'd begged to see me again?" the voice asked, "Is that what you want me to say to you, if we were on the couch in our living room, listening to you talk about what's been bothering you?"

"I can't," the voice repeated, and scoffed, "Is that it? After all you've done, after everything you've been through—you'll throw it all away because now is when you give up. Now, when you could've given up long before; even before I left, you could've given up then and to be honest, no one would hold it against you. Not mother and father, not any of our sisters, nor would our brother see the fault in it—"

"It's not the same! It was different back then. It was different," Kobeni tried to assert this, but these protests were curtailed by the steadfast retort, "Yes, they were different times—but you aren't different. You've remained the same ever since I last saw you. You still cringe whenever you hear a bicycle bell because of that time you scrapped your knee trying to ride one. You still love vanilla ice cream the most because that was the first flavor you tasted—even now, you keep an excess stockpile of toilet paper because of that one time—"

"I get it," Kobeni finally rose to her defense, "but I can't do this anymore. I've made my best effort, and it's just not enough. I'm sorry. I tried, I really did—but I've chased after something I can't see for too long. I don't even know what I'm alive for. I can't think for myself, I can't find the time to be myself—I'm stuck under somebody's thumb, no matter how hard I try to escape."

Kobeni lifted her head from its perch. Tears rolled down her pale cheeks, glimmering with defeat.

"I retreat here because this is what I really am. I am nothing. I am without purpose, without meaning. I am nothing but a pawn."

"What did I tell you about lying to yourself?" the voice accused. Kobeni said nothing in her defense, and closed herself off.

"…have you ever wondered, why Mother and Father paid for my and our brother's college tuition, but didn't offer it to you when you came of age?"

Weary eyes glanced up. A wordless reply was answered.

"It was because they thought you more capable than either of us."

Kobeni scoffed, and shook her head in disbelief.

"It's true!" the voice asserted, "I asked them about it one night, when you'd gone to bed. They stayed up late all the time because they were worried sick about you. Everybody's always talking to them at the dinner table, and so they never get to hear your thoughts, your feelings. They would ask me how you were doing, because I was the only one you confided to; and I couldn't lie to them, you know that."

"…when you ran away, to see me," her long-dead sister harkened, "I can only imagine how worried Mother and Father were of you."

Shame burned incessantly, and Kobeni ducked her head down. But there lived something else that ate away her insides, another feeling she couldn't describe.

"…I had asked them one night, why they wouldn't help you like they helped me," the voice continued, "And they told me the truth: that you were meant for something greater than that. It wasn't enough for you to go to college and get a job, nor be a devil hunter—you could be more than that, you still can be more than that."

"And to see you sit there and tell yourself that you're nothing—I won't stand for it!"

A hand pointed at her, an accusation came forth, "You are Kobeni Higashiyama, and you're not meant to be nothing! You have in you the desire to do what's right, the will to see it through—but whether you act on it is yours to decide! And if you cannot find the purpose within yourself, then look to me for a good reason to carry on. Look to all of those who you've helped, look to all of those who have helped you—and follow their example!"

Kobeni looked into her sister's eyes. They gleamed with fierceness, a fire burned in her sister's spirit and seemed to dissipate the murky atmosphere surrounding them. It was as if a light had spilled from above and cast its bright rays down upon the two Higashiyama sisters.

"Because that's a part of who you are, it's a part of why I wish I got to tell you this before I passed," her sister confessed, "I looked up to you, even though you were much younger than me. Because I could see what Mother and Father were talking about. I saw it every time you got knocked down and picked yourself up again. You have the will to continue, even when there doesn't seem like there's a reason to. You try anyways, even when there's nothing you can do. You live, even despite your temptations to give up. You fight, even when you are under someone's control."

This feeling Kobeni cannot describe bursts from her heart and courses her body. Cold limbs are tingling with life, warmth radiates in tangent to her sister's spiel. Kobeni blinks, and her eyes are alight with newfound spirit.

"You have courage, Kobeni. You just have to see it."

Kobeni uncurled herself and stood up and off the stool. It was swept away by a gentle breeze, and this gust brought with it rolling fields of soft grass and meadow-flowers, and sloping hills as far as the eye can see. Over yonder, her relatives' cozy estate could be seen, lined with a perimeter of Fuji flowers and accented with clusters of Ajisai, as well as other beautiful arrangements. It was quiet, and peaceful. It was where she wanted to go, once all this was over.

She wiped away the tears. For the first time in a long while, she smiled.

Maybe, it was time to wake up, and face her fears.

Her sister was smiling. It looked weird to see something like that, since it'd been so long, and her mind was trying its best to recall that memory. But it was a bright smile, a proud smile. It was a smile meant for her, and that's all that truly mattered.

Bang.

The world was swept away. Colors fizzled into static. Kobeni's sister was snapped in two by the concussive shockwave, and her innards were spilled much like a popped water balloon.

There you are.

Kobeni turned back and fell into Control's snare.

Is this all that's here?

The Captain checked again, to make sure his old eyes weren't deceiving him. The room he had cleared out was another empty three-dimensional space, sparsely decorated with a desk, a couple office chairs and a single filing cabinet. It was too clean and sterile to be of any importance.

No sign of Makima as well. Another dead-end.

His hand adjusted its grip on the lifeless corpse, turning its head into view. Another puppet they were, severed from their master's strings. Its dull, unseeing eyes stared up at their killer. He idly wondered if this one had a soul before being ensnared and turned into a pawn to do Control's bidding. He then dropped the corpse to the ground, having grown disinterested of it.

A rumble came from outside the threshold of the room. Denji—Chainsaw Man—was tearing through everything in his path. Kishibe had wisely chosen to stay away from his pupil once they had split from their starting point in the lobby, and now he scours the depths of the facility in the hopes of finding something of use to help in the fight against Makima. Because for all his skill and experience, fighting a force of nature like the Control Devil was beyond the skills of a human, devil hunter or otherwise. Only Chainsaw Man had the chance to put down the red tyrant and her dystopic vision once and for all.

But Kishibe was not one to back down—too much was at stake for him to sit back and watch. While Chainsaw Man went up, higher towards the roof of the building, he went down to the subterranean floors, carving his way through the puppets holed up in the rooms.

There's got to be something down here. Something was tugging at his heart, pulling him in a certain direction, much like it guided his blade through the many foes in his path. Makima would be foolish to not have the cards stacked in her favor, there had to be something that she was planning to capitalize on once the fight begins.

Kishibe left the room, and moved further down the long hallway, passing many doors and some heavy machinery along the way. Further he would go, down into the depths of the building.