Chapter Text
The office reeked of violence and bile and smoke. Daylight strained to slip through the racked-shut blinds. One devil lounged on the business end of a blood-speckled desk, eyeing another across from her.
"Do you know why you're here?"
Angel didn't reply. Glassy, vacant eyes stared through matted bangs, his halo flickered dull above his head. The still-sticky result of a recent nosebleed oozed over his pallid lips and trailed down between the bars of a wire-basket muzzle. When it dripped from his chin, it dotted his white collar with motes of red. Wilting scarlet blossoms painted the fabric over his gut and his arm. Makima lounged in her seat as she waited for his reply, rolling her thumb in languid circles against the grip of a handgun.
Hers was a rare example of a recoil-operated semiautomatic revolver. It was a western design, and made use of a unique slide that cocked the hammer and rotated the hexagonal cylinder into the next position. It fired in .454 from the lower-most chamber, which reduced muzzle rise and imparted a distinct, thick silhouette. Makima had become quite fond of the thing in the last handful of weeks, and she'd taken to wearing a shoulder holster harnessed snug over her shirt. It was rare for a gun to reciprocate such fondness, but this one did.
It did so, of course, because it was not 'a gun' at all. No, it was 'The Gun' - a breathing, sensuous piece of still-living flesh, one of many fragments pulled from the limbo-stuck mass of lead and bone rotting in central Tokyo.
She stroked the hammer, dragging it back and priming the load with a click. It filled her palm with warmth. She laid the gun to her breast and savored the pulse of the veins along its barrel, quickening on the off-beat of her own heart. Makima caressed the trigger and it twitched in response, sending a pleasant shiver running through her abdomen.
"Not yet," Makima whispered.
She extended an arm across the desk and lined the barrel up with Angel's brow.
Snap.
Pinprick pupils darted for the gun. Not a Bang, not this time.
"There you are," said Makima. She tucked the gun into the soft, welcoming leather at her side. "I'll ask again. Do you know why you're here, Angel?"
It took a moment for his breathing to get back under control.
"Because…" he rasped. "Because you need me." The sound of his voice matched the look in his eyes.
"For?"
Silence sat heavy in the air. Then, "For when you find Chainsaw Man again."
Makima gave him a plastic smile. "That's right, Angel. And?"
"And…" His thoughts were a stygian river of sludge. He pawed through the muck, an air of unease settling in as the answer refused to surface.
Makima allowed him to wade while unease gave way to fear. After a while, she nudged his attention back to her. "Something you're forgetting?"
Angel pressed his eyes shut and submerged. "It's…"
"It was that bad?"
"If the choice is between goin' back to the way things used to be or kickin' the bucket, I'll take the bucket."
"I don't get a lot of physical contact."
"I guess I'm the only one who can really do somethin' about that."
"Are we dating?"
"K-kind of!?"
"She hates you."
"Feeling's mutual."
"I wasn't expecting you to be so soft."
Makima's sigh snatched him from his reverie. The sickness and malaise on his face creased and curdled into frigid hate.
"You remembered again?" she asked. "I'm disappointed." The gun was back in her hand, dangling limp from nonchalant fingers. Sitting back, she crossed her legs and laid the revolver over her thigh.
"Angel, do you know what happens after you die?"
"Go to hell," he spat.
Makima's smile persisted. "That's correct. You'll reincarnate and go straight there, all of your memories wiped away. You might hold onto the sound of the gunshot, if you're unlucky. But it's doubtful."
She raised the revolver and pressed her middle and ring finger against the cylinder, rolling it out against her palm. She idly spun the chambers and admired the venous cartridges sitting within, yearning to rip through flesh and bone. Three had been fired, three hadn't. Makima extracted the spent casings and stood them on the desk in front of her. Then, as if by sleight of hand, she thumbed new rounds out of her palm and into the cylinder. A trickle of blood ran down her wrist.
It used to be so much easier. Back then, the Angel Devil had desired little more than to shuffle off this mortal coil. That kept him malleable and restrained, if not actively useful in pursuing the Gun Devil's body. Then, he'd gone and made a connection. What an insufferable roadblock that connection presented.
"You think you can make threats?" asked Angel. "You need me. If I reincarnate, you'll have to find me all over again. It'd set you back months. Years."
"I have no intention of returning to Hell," said Makima. "I'm fond of humans. Their writing, their food, their strange little superstitions…" The cylinder clicked shut and locked snug into position. "This world is almost a place I can enjoy. With the right modifications, I think it could be lovely." She pinned Angel with her gaze.
"I'm not threatening you with death. I'm offering you freedom."
"Sounds cliché," mumbled Angel. "What, are you working with your sister again?"
"Quite the opposite," said Makima. "I believe the world would be much happier without any of my family interfering. Which means, realistically, this is your last chance to reincarnate and do away with all of those unpleasant memories floating around in your head. Need I remind you what's lurking in there?"
That static mask of politeness didn't waver as she bored into Angel's skull and burrowed into the gooey thought-stuff beneath. Sheer hatred poured from his mind into hers in a galloping pentameter. She dismissed the impotent rage and filled in one of the holes she'd punched into his psyche.
A trickle of fresh blood rolled from Angel's nose. Tears wet his cheeks. He pressed his eyes shut and drove his palms into his orbits until all he saw was flashing sensory noise. It didn't stop the crashing of the waves or the rattling final breaths from filling his brain, nor the whisper of 'good boy' that had come at the very end.
"You slaughtered them," Makima said. "What was it you said to me afterward? 'I don't want to see them any longer. Please, I can't take it. I'll do anything.' Something like that."
Makima filled in a few more gaps. He became aware of the holes she'd shot into his gut and his arm. Angel clutched his stomach and collapsed to the blood-streaked floor, gasping and hacking. His nerves screamed white-hot noise and he nearly bit clean through his tongue; the bars of his muzzle overflowed with red.
"I granted your request. And yet you repay me with defiance…"
She allowed him a minute to wallow in the misery of it all. When she was confident he'd gotten the message, Makima scooped the memories out again, leaving behind only the impression of their agony. She stood and hauled him by the collar back into his seat. "Do you know how many times we've already had this conversation?"
Angel stared into a blistering haze. Fingers hooked into the bars of his muzzle, turning his head 'til those bright, golden eyes brought him to heel. He swallowed blood and looked at the casings on the table.
"Three," he said.
"That's right. This is the fourth." Makima tilted his head this way and that as she examined the damage. The poor soul might need a little repairing before the fifth.
"So you know what happens next. And I'm sure you've figured it out by now that every time we have this conversation, it hurts more than the one before. Even if you manage to make it out of this with your psyche intact…" She pressed a warm muzzle to Angel's stomach and played jigsaw with his memories.
Panic flared. He tried to escape, to kick out and throw himself away as the unfamiliar woman pinned him with that unfamiliar weapon. Angel was lost, tumbling through a sea of confusion, all he knew was the terror of that gun-
And Makima let him remember again. Recognition didn't replace his panic, it only joined it. "You see? The brain forgets, but the body remembers everything," she whispered. "How many nightmares will it take? How many times must you snap awake in a cold sweat, with nothing in your mind but the feeling of her dying hand in yours? When will you accept that this is a pain you don't have to withstand?"
The gun withdrew. She circled behind Angel and massaged his shoulder. Her words were only fractionally louder than his sharp, strained breaths.
"Let's start with a hypothetical. We'll say you stop me… somehow. Then what? You'll live a happy life, in a flawed world on the brink of tearing itself to shreds? Do you believe that? Or will you still wake up every night, crying in pain from the memory of a bullet ripping through your stomach?" Makima's fingertips grazed over his shoulder as she knelt at his side. Angel shuddered, his eyes inexorably drawn to hers. Weak halo-light melted her irises into pools of liquid gold.
"It doesn't have to be that way. You can help me defeat Chainsaw Man. You can help me gain control of him. You can die, and reincarnate somewhere far, far away from me. Chainsaw will devour death, and war, and hunger, and disease… and you'll be without a worry in the world." She rose to stand over Angel.
He was a miserable sight from up there, nearly folded in half from the stress. His wings were no longer tucked against his back. Instead they sagged down at his sides, their white feathers marked pink with the same blood that stained the hardwood. It would only take a little more to break him, to leash him fully back under her control.
With a touch of disappointment, Makima made the decision to holster her weapon. The killshot would have to be a verbal one.
"Sure, you won't have Denji after you're dead, but… well, you haven't seen him in weeks, have you? He's either dead, or he's abandoned you. It was always a mistake to put your faith into such a fragile, delusional boy-"
Angel rasped. "Usage, ten-"
BANG.
Smoke curled from the muzzle of her revolver. The bullet had smashed Angel's hip and sprawled him to the floor in a heap. Fresh blood pooled into the sticky, half-dried mess he'd already spilt. Shaking hands pawed at the wound, trying in vain to stem the flow. His movements grew weaker and wide, sightless eyes stared at nothing. Shock. He'd be dead in a minute or two without intervention.
Makima stared at him. The seconds ticked by. She could do it. She could let him bleed out, and she could find Angel's next incarnation, force them to be more amicable to her desires. She could find another devil of equal power, apprehend it, and set it to the task instead. She could even…
No. Seeking help from her sister, that damned delusional fool, would be one degradation too many.
No matter what, if she killed Angel it would slow her down. By years, in all likelihood. How long had it taken her to get here, so close to the end?
"Damn it," she hissed. The prospect of yet another setback was more than she could bear. "Glaive."
A tall, dark-haired woman with an eye-patch shifted in the corner of the office, giving Angel a queasy glance. She swallowed and averted her eye from the moaning, shivering devil. Fishing around in her pocket, Himeno drew out a cigarette and raised it to her lips… only to pause, reconsider for no obvious reason, and pass it to Makima along with her lighter.
"Give him a little blood and get him back on his feet," said Makima. "We take five and reset the scene." She slid the revolver into her shoulder-holster and flicked the lighter. Again. Again. Finally she got it to catch and raised the flame to the cigarette. Purse the lips. Inhale. Cough. Too much, too fast. The corner of Himeno's mouth twitched in an almost-smile, and she flinched as Makima pruned the memory of the cough from her mind.
Every breath in the office was thick and sick with red-soaked misery. A window cracked. The cool autumn morning brought with it the scent of smoke and ash and rot. That, too, was a reminder of misery - but the death outside was more dilute, and so easier to breathe. Makima leaned against the sill and stared at the distant ruined skyline, once more beginning her delicate work.
First, from Angel's mind she excised their most recent conversation. Next, she surgically removed trace elements of the prior traumas she'd left while hastily digging through his psyche. Last, she set upon that most stubborn part, the one that always seemed to resurface no matter how deep she carved.
Himeno hauled Angel into his seat, dipped his head back, and ran a penknife across the pad of her thumb. With a wince, she slipped it between the bars of his muzzle and pushed between his lips. The signs of shock waned, the light of consciousness returned to his eyes.
"Fuck-!" Her hand jolted back, narrowly avoiding a snap of Angel's jaws. Then Makima put him under, and the light in his eyes vanished once more.
A frazzled Himeno joined her at the window, grabbing the lighter off the sill and striking it under a cigarette of her own. "I don't like it," she mumbled.
"It's not your job to like things." Makima turned to look at her. Whatever expression Himeno wore was difficult to read with that broad patch over her eye.
"I know, I know. At least I didn't lose a finger that time…" Himeno hesitated. Makima removed the hesitation and she continued. "All I'm saying is, maybe you'd make progress a little faster if you stopped bringing up the kid. It'd be easier for both of us."
Makima glared at her. "I will work with Angel however I see fit. And if I see fit to remove-" She crushed the cigarette's filter between her fingers. Her jaw tightened, and more fuel piled atop the blue-hot flame in her gut.
"Then I will."
"Mmn." Himeno finished her cigarette in silence. Makima was left to dwell on her thoughts, her plans, her setbacks.
She counted the thick pillars of smoke that still rose from the smoldering ruins of central Tokyo. How many humans had died in the attack? How many yet lived, forever changed and damaged? How quickly things would've made a turn for the better, had Chainsaw Man not slipped from her grasp…
"Did you know?" Makima asked. "Angel's internal monologue, every single thought, is in metered verse."
"Can't say he ever shared that with me."
"Farewell, happy fields, where joy forever dwells…" she murmured. The cigarette slipped from her fingers. It hissed as it died in the cold-and-wet of Angel's blood. "Thou profoundest hell, receive thy new possessor: one who brings a mind not to be changed by place or time; the mind is its own place, and in it I shall make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. Here at least I shall be free."
"O… kay," Himeno mumbled.
"It's an old favorite of mine," said Makima. "Do you understand its meaning?"
"I think it means you're the boss. But that's just a guess. I don't read poetry." Himeno flicked the butt of her cigarette into the breeze. "I'm gonna see if I can find a drink. Maybe if I get blackout enough tonight, I'll forget all this shit. Make 'hell' a little bit more 'heaven,' if I get it right."
"No. It's not that," said Makima, almost absentmindedly. "It's instructive. Non-literal. A call to bend the world toward something greater. Most humans fail to see the allegory for direct physical change, wrapped up as they are in their own perspective. In reality, the Devil's words are quite simple."
Makima trailed off with a sigh. Of course Himeno wouldn't understand. She was already halfway out the door.
And so Makima was alone, with nothing but the autumn breeze and the view. Even now, even now… in the face of death and war and hunger and sickness, Conquest felt that all the evils of the world paled in comparison to that singular pebble in her shoe named Denji.
Where are you, Chainsaw Man?