"What in the…?"

Kishibe's voice trailed off as he craned his neck to look up in the sky, barely believing his own eyes as a titanic six-fingered hand came down from the sky, fingers splayed as its open palm descended on the building and its inhabitants, phasing through the structure.

He watched in awe as the hand closed into a fist as if closing its grasp upon the building, before simply blinking out of existence, leaving the department store standing- totally undamaged.

'The Hell Devil, huh…?', Kishibe suddenly found himself thankful that Quanxi had thrown him out the window, thankful both for his life and for what he'd just learned.

'So… That was Santa's plan to deal with her. Not a bad one, not bad at all…'

"Do you have any idea what just happened?"

Kishibe turned his attention to Yoshida, who was standing next to him, seemingly bewildered by what he'd just seen. He couldn't really blame him though, as talented as the kid is, the hell devil isn't exactly the kind of run-of-the-mill devil a part-timer would see.

"That right there was the Hell Devil. Put everyone still in that building on a one-way trip straight to hell", the grizzled devil hunter's voice gave away no emotion as he answered Yoshida's question, his eyes not leaving the building as he spoke.

"So… You think there's any way they make it out of there alive?"

Kishibe remained mum, offering no answer as he reached into his overcoat, hand grasping for the familiarity of his trusty hipflask bringing it up once again, the last dregs of his Macallan wetting his lips. It tasted like ash.

Kishibe sighed, sitting down on the tentacle Yoshida had summoned as a makeshift bench a moment ago, feeling as old as his years would suggest.

"Let's hope so kid, let's hope so…"

All around them was darkness.

The scuffling of feet, the intakes of breath, the panicked murmurs, he could hear it all. But he couldn't see anything but the inky black darkness that surrounded them like a wet blanket, nearly suffocating in its intensity, leaving him unable to even see his arms in front of him.

"What's going on?"

"It's dark…"

"What the hell is this?!"

One moment they had been standing on guard, ready to face Quanxi and her fiends, and then the Future Devil had shown him that vision, only for the surroundings around him to be replaced by a pitch-black void seconds later, a cold sweat coming to his brow as he tightened his grip on his sword.

And then as soon as it had appeared, the darkness was gone, disappearing suddenly as if someone had flicked on a light. And if someone had turned on a light, Aki would have politely asked them to turn it right back off.

With the darkness gone, all that anyone in the group could see was an endless grassy valley, the rolling hills, garnished with wildflowers went on for eternity, with not a single sign of life being visible across the vast plain. Then there was the sky, a bizarre patchwork of doors made up the sky of this place; a tapestry of interlocking timber frames, the doors rattling and creaking despite the distinct lack of wind.

A strange, hostile place, completely sterile akin to a hospital. Or a morgue…

The two groups that were about to fight were now right next to each other, devil hunter and fiend alike having edged closer to form a perimeter against the darkness that had surrounded them until a moment ago. And it wasn't just everyone who was on their floor of the department store, he could see an equally confused Violence and Kobeni a dozen yards away, the latter crouched down, as pale as a sheet.

"Huh…?", Kobeni had finally gotten up from her crouched position, the petite devil hunter walking haltingly towards the main group, clearly in distress, "It's Hayakawa's group…?"

Aki paid no heed to the two as they approached, his eyes scanning the area for the only two he hadn't seen yet. It didn't take him long to locate them, their bodies lying prone a short distance away from the group.

"Wha.. Denji! Reze!", Aki shouted in vain as he ran over to the two corpses, his mind racing, 'How the hell did this even happen?!'

Aki's eyes skimmed over the prone forms of the two, certainly lifeless, teens. Reze's hair was matted with blood, he could even see the gleam of white bone peeking out from her matted hair. Denji's wounds weren't much better, though perhaps less gruesome depending on who you asked, with the knife sticking out from the top of his head being a good hint as to what happened to him.

Aki wasted no time in pulling Denji's cord, deciding against pulling Reze's pin: for the sake of his own wellbeing. Though as the saw burst through Denji's forehead, he thought that perhaps he shouldn't have been that worried…

"OOOOW! DAMN! AAARGHHHH!"

Denji's screams of pain filled the air as the saw stalled before making it all the way out, leaving the blonde writhing in pain.

"He isn't turning into Chainsaw Man fully… must not have enough blood", Aki jumped, raising his sword in a defensive stance as he swung around to face Quanxi, who was standing looking down at the two other hybrids.

"Temporary truce, something's wrong with the fiends", Quanxi said coolly, before walking up to Reze's body, kneeling down and pulling her pin. Aki's eyes widened as he tried to dive out of the way, the grass staining his suit as he hit the deck. The explosion never came.

Quanxi casually walked over towards her fiends as a fizzing sound filled the air, similar to a sparkler a kid would light up at Halloween.

"Tch- urghhh…. B-burns…"

Reze was now writhing on the ground, her arms replaced by fuse wire- another partial transformation.

Aki got up from the ground, glowering at the first devil hunter, "The hell! You could have killed us!"

"If the boy didn't have enough blood, then she definitely wouldn't have", Quanxi looked at Aki, unimpressed, "Now give them some blood, I need to check on my girls."

"And why the hell are we working with this bitch!?"

"Yeah, what she said!"

Aki would have rolled his eyes if the situation wasn't so dire, as Denji and Reze yelled in protest, coming back from death clearly not dampening their distaste for the cyclopean hybrid who was currently standing with the cowering fiends.

The two hybrids looked better off now that they had some blood aiding their healing process, though both were still caught halfway through the process of transforming, with Denji's saw still semi-protruding from his forehead and Reze's arms being coils of fuse wire, the small explosions that resulted from the transformation having left the sleeves of her shirt in tatters.

Worry quickly etches its way onto Denji and Reze's faces as they take in their surroundings, their concerns about Quanxi and her fiends fading as they look at the alien surroundings they had woken up in.

"Where the hell are we anyway…?"

"I… don't know…", Aki frowned, unable to answer Denji's question, the Future Devil hadn't exactly been much help in discerning where they'd found themselves, "But wherever we are, the fiends don't like it."

The three look over at the fiends, who by now had broken into a cacophony of wails as Quanxi attempted to calm them down.

"W-why?! W-why are we here?!", Pingsti looked around in horror, a sheen of cold sweat on her brow as she looked to the sky, eyes flitting from door to door frantically. the horned fiend Long had simply resorted to screaming, at first in terror but quickly fading away into a pathetic mewing, as if she was cowed by something.

It was an unnerving sight, to say the least, one made all the worse as Aki noticed that Power's usual bravado had left her, the blood fiend just remaining on her hands and knees, staring at the ground in shock, seemingly not willing to look up. Even the usually unflappable Violence was having a panic attack of some kind, with Kobeni being fully occupied trying to calm him down. Only one of the devils seemed to be in a fit state of mind currently.

"Angel! Do you know where we are?!", the devil who had been looking out at the scenery, looked back at Aki for a moment, his face covered in a cold sweat; the usually apathetic devil seemed truly discomforted for the first time since Aki had known him.

"We're done…", the devil turned back around, looking out again at the horizon as he shakily replied, "This… is Hell. This is Hell's scent…"

"It's hard to believe, but we've been cast into hell by a devil's power", Angel spoke, but Aki could barely register the sound, images from his vision flashing through his mind. Surely this isn't what the Future Devil considered the worst possible death, surely there was some way at least some of them could escape?

"So how do we get out?", Denji was the first to voice Aki's thoughts, though with much less panic than should have been warranted, "Can't we just y'know… leave through one of those doors or somethin'?"

"No!", Pingsti yelled out, the hysteric fiend frantically looking between Quanxi and the doors in the sky, "Not the d-doors! T-too l-l-late!"

Quanxi quickly moved to comfort Pingsti before addressing her and Long, "Long, Pingsti… Do either of you know a way to get out of here?"

Long simply looked up at Quanxi pitifully, moaning as if she were in pain, returning her gaze quickly to the ground. In contrast, Pingsti looked up, completely frantic as she replied, "Luh… L-lady Q-Quanxi. I… I feel like I'm going to lose my m-mind…"

She fixed her gaze back up to the sky, looking every bit as terrified as she sounded, "We're b-being watched… We… we're b-being watched by a dangerous devil…"

"What sort of devils would you even find here…", Reze muttered as she listened to the fiend's ranting, shuffling closer to Denji, who seemed to have shed his bravado and now looked as grave as everyone else.

"Far beyond here… there are devils far more dangerous than some Gun Devil…", Pingsti spoke as if in a daze, shaking as she continued, "The devils with the names of primal fears are watching us…"

"They're transcendent, devils who have never once experienced death…", Pinsti raised her hand to her mouth, trying to hold back the bile she felt rising up her throat, "Nghhh… the very instant we draw their hostility, we'll die…"

She looked back at Quanxi, hunched over, kneeling on the ground and quivering, "L-lady Quanxi… P-p-permission to k-kill myself…?"

Quanxi looked down at her, stunned for a moment before kneeling down next to her, "Idiot! I'll get us out of here somehow…"

It was the most emotional the others had heard Quanxi, but to the poor fiend, it seemed not to make a difference as she started screaming up into the sky.

"It's already over! We're doomed! We're doomed!"

"It's coming!"

"It's on its way!"

"Ah…"

It went quiet for a moment as the fiends all looked up into the air, their eyes locking on to the same door that Pingsti had been staring at, with all the devil hunters quickly following suit, terror and trepidation painted on all their faces.

"It's here…"

They all watched as the door swung open, the creaking of its hinges piercing the eerie silence of Hell. For a moment all was still, until a glob of pure, pitch-black darkness fell from the open door, falling onto the grass below like a glob of black ink staining a canvas.

"The Darkness Devil"

As if on cue, the ink rose up until they could all perceive a figure standing in the distance, though they couldn't make out any feature: it was as if a haze was shielding it from view. They all moved into defensive positions as they watched the tall, ominous figure. Aki raised his sword whilst Quanxi readied her fists, with Denji and Reze doing much the same as her, knowing that trying to transform would be futile.

And then the haze vanished, and from the epicentre of the tall figure, darkness spread forth across the plains, the only area still lit when it stopped was a gruesome pathway leading straight to the figure. The path was lined by bisected astronauts, their torsos lined up on one side, and their legs on the other; a macabre guide towards the figure that Pingsti had instantly labelled as the Darkness Devil.

As they faced off against the devil, staring down the depraved alleyway the creature had created, the darkness slowly enveloped the devil, hiding one astronaut after another until they were all swallowed up. Reze grabbed Denji's hand, gripping it for dear life as the darkness swept over the group, she felt pinpricks on the back of her neck as it surrounded them, taking comfort in the presence of Denji, their intertwined fingers grounding them in the wake of the encroaching darkness.

*Ribbit*

In an instant, the comforting grip was gone and pain ripped through her body, the cold darkness sweeping in being no comfort as she felt herself tumbling to the ground like a marionette that had its strings cut. Denji felt much the same as he faceplanted into the grass, angrily spitting out some of it as he tried to get back up, only to find his arms gone.

The whole group looked up to see their arms floating above them, whatever pattern they were arranged in in the air was of little concern to them as their attention was drawn to the horrific figure that had apparated into their midst.

As their limbs tumbled back down to the ground around them, the prone hunters and fiends drank in the sight of the devil: this primal fear. Its body was slender and tall, with its whole structure seemingly of assorted limbs, with each leg being a human body from the torso down. The chest consisted of four mummified heads.

And perched on top of this morbid totem pole was a head that was all sharp edges, blades and horns, as if the mutilated limbs making up the devil's body were just a warning of what would happen to those who crossed paths with a primal fear.

No one dared to speak as the devil stood in the middle of its group of victims, that is bar one. A figure rose up from the ground, a tall, blonde man; his arms somewhere in the pile with everyone else's as he walked up to the creature and… kneeled.

"I'm the Doll Devil", the man formerly known as Tolka looked back at the powerless group behind him, "I've brought you Chainsaw's heart, as per the contract."

"Please. Give me the power to kill Makima."

"You stay away from him!", Reze snarled at the Doll Devil as she struggled up on her knees, fixing him with a vicious look.

"No way are you gonna kill Miss Makima!", Denji had also managed to get himself upright again, "And this heart hear belongs to me!"

Back outside the department store, Santa sat perched on one of her kneeling dolls, ever so much looking like the cat that got the canary. As pleased as she was that the plan was proceeding without a hitch, it was such a shame that it cost her a member of her dear family.

'Yes… dear Tolka shall be missed…'

Santa's smile stayed on her face even at that thought, because she knew it was only a matter of time, after all, there was no way for them to escape Hell unless she came, and there was no way that woman would let her little pet project die so easily.

Right on cue, a hand appears from thin air in front of her, a squirming piece of pure darkness held between its fingers.

"A piece of the Darkness Devil's flesh…"

Thus, the contract was fulfilled, and she would take her prize with pleasure. She allowed the hand to feed it to her as if it was feeding a lover, with Santa's face lighting up as she accepted her reward, proselytizing herself to the devil of darkness.

"Danke Dunkelheit, Tolka. Heute Nacht töte ich Makima"

Back in Hell, they all watched in a mixture of horror and morbid curiosity as the devil, stared at the Doll Devil, the atmosphere so tense it could be cut with a knife.

'Why do these people want to kill that woman so badly? I thought it was Denji's heart they were after?!', Reze's mind was racing, just why were these assassins after her? Sure Makima was powerful, but in what world was she powerful enough to warrant such drastic measures? Just what contracts did she have?

'Maybe the old man knows, him an-', Reze quickly dismisses those thoughts, looking down at the stumps where her arms used to be. There would be time for those thoughts when or if they made it out of here, and those odds weren't looking so great right now…

The fragile peace was broken as the imposing devil reached down to the doll devil with one of the many arms that made up its body, grasping the kneeling devil by the neck and raising it up to its face. The doll made no effort to struggle and gave away no emotion on its face, just staring blankly at the devil with no fear. It was almost as if only an empty shell remained…

Then, as if it had grown bored with its new toy, the devil took the head straight from his body, detaching it with not a sound and with zero blood spilt. It did this with all the ease of a child popping the head off an action figure, and then all hell broke loose.

The first had been Kusakabe, who had been drawing some sort of glyph on the ground with the blood streaming from his severed arms, his position behind the primal fear providing the perfect advantage, or at least it would have. For the very moment the experienced devil hunter summoned the Stone Devil, Darkness swung around, grasping the other lesser devil by the throat as it lunged at it. Kusakabe only had the time to mutter the name of his contracted devil, as if cursing it, before the cracks spreading across the dying devil spread across his own body; both devil and hunter collapsing into piles of shattered stone.

Aki and Denji watched helplessly, the latter trying to grasp the cord on his chest to no avail, as Quanxi, Tamaoki and the fiends jumped into action. Before they even managed to touch the creature most of them were diced up, landing in a mix-mash of limbs and torsos, with only Power being lucky enough to escape this fate, instead only suffering heavy wounds to her leg and abdomen, with one eye being gouged out and the tip of a horn falling to the ground, having been cut clean through.

"Power!"

Upon seeing his buddy cleaved down along with the other fiends, Denji finally got hold of his starter in his mouth, yanking it as hard as he could. A tooth flew out as he pulled, but it had the desired effect: the saw on his head began whirring to life, lengthening and spinning as the boy charged the devil.

"Denji, don't!", Reze screamed, but Denji was in his own world; tunnel-visioned on the devil that had hurt or killed Power. Denji reached the striking distance of Darkness just as it dispatched Violence, the fiend having been shot to pieces in mid-air in a valiant attempt to take down the creature.

Reze watched in silent horror as Denji jumped, attempting to slash the devil with his head saw fruitlessly, the boy hitting some kind of forcefield before the devil, seemingly bored of the fight already, simply clapped its hands. At the sound of the clap, Denji's body twisted into an impossible shape: his arms snapped like twigs, his head spun around until the neck broke and finally, his whole body was twisted, as if it was being wrung like a wet cloth. Finally, Denji's body was dropped onto the ground like a rag doll: bent, broken and lifeless.

"GRAHHHH!"

As Darkness steadily paced towards Denji's body, surely hoping to claim his heart, Reze found herself sprinting forwards, towards the devil and her boyfriend's mangled corpse. She didn't know when she started running, nor did she even register the guttural cry she made as she ran, coming to a stop in front of Denji in a vain attempt to shield him from the monster looming over them.

And then her eyes met those of the monster, and she was somewhere else entirely.

*Number 958, Number 958*

She usually woke up one of two ways: her growling stomach, or the sound of the commissar summoning another one of them out of the room. Today, it was clearly the latter. She groaned as she moved to get out of bed, her stomach rumbling as she sat up.

'I guess yesterday's gruel wasn't enough after all…'

She sat up on the side of the bed, she was on the bottom bed of a bunk bed, the girl on top was one of the chattier ones, but she hadn't seen her since she was called out last week. The room they were in- it was their entire life. As long as she could remember she'd woken up in this shitty bed, in this darkened room, with not a thing to do except stare at the walls and wait for her number to be called.

'958… Suppose I'll be up again soon', 961 thought as she watched the young boy get dragged out of the room, kicking and screaming. She was amazed he still had fight left in him, but she knew better: for the orphans in this room, they were the state's property and there was no escape.

She sat there on the bed still, dressed in a dress barely better than a burlap sack, her raven hair partially matted with dirt, she wondered when their next shower day would be, it was far too easy to lose track of time when there were no windows.

*Number 959, Number 959*

961 watched as the masked guards marched in again, this time the girl was waiting for them by her bed, placidly accepting her fate.

In truth, 961 may have given up hope of ever seeing the outside of this facility, but she still dreamed of seeing the outside someday. She remembered one of the other girls had managed to get her hands on a magazine a while back, she remembered imagining herself wearing all of those glamourous clothes the women in those pages were wearing, imagined standing where they stood.

But more than anything, the last reason she held on to hope was that she remembered something other than this room. In the back of her mind, she remembered the smell of a homecooked meal and the sound of a woman's voice: her mother she assumed. Yes… she remembered her mother singing to her, though everything else was just a blur, she couldn't even remember her face…

*Number 961, Number 961*

Oh… 960 mustn't have made it last time.

961 waited by her bed for the wardens, looking them in the eyes when they arrived, the only act of defiance she could give, and it was a token at best; meant to sooth her ego and fading dreams rather than to actually resist them.

She followed them down the hall, she heard no screams or wails, just silence and the sound of footsteps: you never hear what happens to the ones who don't come back, you just… never see them again.

They arrived at a room, the wardens escorting her in and leaving her with a doctor: a stern-looking man wearing a medical mask, before leaving to, presumably, get the next subject.

She didn't try to talk to the doctor, she just lay down on the bed and waited for oblivion. The doctor stuck a needle in her arm and then it all went dark.

961 awoke what felt like only moments later, but something was wrong: she wasn't back in with the others: she was in another, smaller room. She felt a dull, throbbing pain in her chest and something like cold metal brushing against her neck. She tried raising her hand up to heck what it was, but she couldn't; her hands were handcuffed to the railing of the hospital bed they had her on.

So, she lay there, alone, in this dark room. As the time passed, she found herself humming. Humming that one old tune buried in her memories, one that had been sung to her by a voice as sweet as honey.

And as she hummed, some words made their way out of her mouth, carried by her raspy voice into the darkness that surrounded her.

"T-the Night… we spent in… the church…"

"I… not again. I…"

Aki watches helplessly as Reze falls to her knees in front of Denji, a flood of blood gushing from her mouth as she collapses next to him.

First, it was his brother, his mother, and his father. Then it was Himeno, giving her life to save him. Now he had to sit and watch this devil kill and brutalise Power and Denji, while he sat here, useless.

Even Reze, who he'd lambasted as a heartless monster had run to protect Denji, even after he was already lying in a broken heap on the ground, and now she too was lying next to him.

Whilst he knelt on the ground, paralyzed by fear. Not fear of this primordial fear, but fear of having to see yet more friends and family die in front of him, to leave this world before he did…

He was looking at the ground now, sparing himself from seeing Violence get impaled after his second attempt at attacking the Darkness Devil. He didn't even register the shower of blood raining down on him from Violence's corpse hanging grotesquely on the Devil's sabre as the creature stared down at Aki.

Angel had been watching the whole display in silence, lying down and waiting for it to be his turn to die. He had been thinking that it could be a rather peaceful death: a quick and easy decapitation, doesn't get much better than that, huh?

But if that was the case, why did he feel compelled to move? Why was he standing up? To stand between Darkness and Aki, a human and a devil?

It was looking at him now, he remembered the girl on the beach, her smile, dancing through the waves, her corpse…?

Angel fell flat on the ground, a black liquid akin to blood leaking from every orifice, losing consciousness with the realisation that he might just be more angel than devil.

"Heyyyy Akkkiiiii…"

"Yes Himeno…?", Aki rolled his eyes at his buddy's antics. Today's mission had been quite the dangerous one, any bug-related devil was usually a pain in the ass, and Himeno had decided that it was the perfect occasion to go for drinks, to no one's surprise. The woman must have already sunk eight pints in the time he'd had his four, and she was clearly feeling sentimental if her tone was anything to go by…

"I reallllly like your hair, sooo spikey…", she absentmindedly started poking his topknot, her face flushed, words slurring as she spoke, she was even more touchy-feely than usual, sitting next to him in their booth, leaning in close.

"You'ree tall too… n' handsome to boot…"

Aki moved her beer away from her, "Right that's enough Himeno, I'll go pa-"

"Shaddup!"

He blinked in surprise as the drunk woman rounded on him, her eye burning with anger, "You almost died Aki!"

Oh, so that's what this is about. During today's mission the devil had shot a stinger at him, thing had almost taken his head off.

"We're Public Safety, it'd be odd if I didn't nearly die every once in a while. Besides I'm fine.", Aki tried calming his partner, surprised at her sudden outburst, finding her anger odd; Himeno was usually quite the jolly drunk.

"It shouldn't be n-normal!", Himeno snapped back, the forcefulness of her words somewhat blunted by her hiccupping halfway through. Suddenly she deflated, crossing her arms on the table, resting her head on her arms.

"Go private with me…", Himeno's voice was quiet now, muffled by her arms, "Is… a good living… safer… Don't want you to die too…"

Aki froze for a moment, not sure what to say to her heartfelt words.

"I… after we kill the Gun Devil. I promise, Himeno", Aki finally managed to force out a response, though it felt… inadequate even to him.

"Tha's… no fair… Aki… No fair..", Himeno muttered forlornly in her sleep, gentle snores being all he heard from his buddy a minute later.

'How selfish could I be…?'

Reze had seen everything from her position on the ground, or as much as she could register as her vision blurred. She felt like a passenger in her own body, lying there powerlessly as Aki slumped to the ground in much the same manner as herself and Angel.

Half-deliriously she began to shift herself, using all the might remaining in her to force her legs to move, only stopping as she rested her head on a familiar chest, it was broken and battered, and she could just make out her blood staining his shirts, but none of that truly registered with her.

"Oh D-Denji… I-I love you…", her voice was fading as a delirious, nearly mad smile came to her face, "P-please wake up… S-so many m-movies to watch, b-back home…"

In the distance, she saw something jumping at the monster, but it didn't last long. Darkness dismembered it, just like it did for all the others. But as she watched the last attacker's corpse fall to the ground, something odd happened, it was as if it was being unzipped…?

And then she saw her. First, it was a flash of red in the near monochrome surroundings the Darkness Devil had brought with it, and then she rose up out of the shell of a corpse, stepping out of the remains of Princi as if she was stepping out of a ball gown.

Makima had arrived.

It wasn't what one could call a standard fight by any means. She watched as Makima silently pointed at the primal devil, all was quiet for a moment until the silence was broken by a snap, Makima's finger snapping back at a ninety-degree angle.

And then Darkness began to scream, an otherworldly wail that Reze thought would make her ears bleed. A dark liquid spurted out of the devil as Makima walked forward boldly, her eyes fixed on something on the ground: a body and a head, the Doll Devil's to be exact.

Then a clap sounded out, Darkness had recovered its giant sabre hovering over its head, and as Makima raised her hand in defence, it appeared that she was too late. Her arm is nearly pulverised, each finger being broken before the arm itself was mangled, the limb rolling back in on itself, bone after bone snapping.

Undeterred, and showing not an ounce of pain, the red-haired woman knelt down, placing her hand on the head. And then the head began speaking, but it was not the Doll Devil's words that came out.

"Hell Devil. I offer you all of myself. So, please… Send us back."

The last thing Reze saw before everything went dark, was a giant, ornate sword flying through the air… and piercing straight through Makima's heart.

"I-I love you… Please wake up…"

"Wake up…"

"Wake up!"

Denji's eyes snapped open. Pain was piecing through his skull, the whirring of his shortened chainsaw making the cause clear. He tasted blood in his mouth, he tried wiggling his fingers: Yup, his arms were back. He looked up to see that he was being cradled by Miss Makima, she was hurt bleeding from the mouth and her right arm hung limply at her side as she… spoke? Who was she speaking to?

"The enemy absorbed a piece of the Darkness Devil's flesh. No attacks in the darkness will work", Makima was looking at the monstrosity in front of her: a creature with a woman's head and a body made up of different doll parts, though it was clear who Makima was really addressing as she looked down at the boy nestled in her arms.

"Makima, your dream ends here", the monster spoke, but Denji paid no heed though, as he looked up, into Makima's otherworldly ringed eyes.

"Denji. Will you save me?"

That was all it took for Denji, in a split second he was on his feet, fully transformed, his saws spinning as if he had never been injured.

"Try and help the others Miss Makima, I'll make quick work of this piece of crap!", Denji barked as he got to work, slashing off several of Santa's arms as they pounced at him.

"You're gonna pay for sending us to Hell!", Denji snarled as he lunged at Santa, only to find his saws slicing through the air as Santa descended from above, sending them both crashing through floor after floor of the building and out of Makima's sight.

Makima sat there, alone blinking in surprise before a slight smile came to her face. As always, she was right to put her faith in Chainsaw Man, he'd always save her. His host on the other hand…

She stood up, clutching her arm as she walked over to the side of the crater. She could feel bone and flesh knitting back together, she should be fully healed momentarily; much to the detriment of an unlucky Japanese citizen.

As she peered down the hole, a thought came to mind.

'Try and help the others…? Hmm.'