Across the globe, every player clenched their fists and felt the weight settle in their chests.
"Makoto..."
Mrs. Yukinoshita pressed her interlocked fingers against her breastbone, praying in silence.
Mrs. Yuigahama and the rest of the squad, all of whom had witnessed the Gun Devil's horror firsthand thirteen years ago, held their breath, every nerve pulled taut.
"Hm? Is Mister going to fight the Gun Devil?"
Reze lay draped across the table like a cat, her tone utterly unconcerned.
Yumiko Miura shot her a look. "Don't you care at all?"
She loathed this woman Makoto had dumped on them. Genuinely, with every fiber of her being. She couldn't quite articulate why. Maybe she was angry on Yui's behalf. At least that was what she told herself.
Yui had waited for over a decade, and that bastard would rather pick up new women in another world than spare her a second glance. What kind of man does that?
Then again, Yumiko had been waiting just as long herself.
Lately, during her nights alone, she'd been... taking matters into her own hands more often than she cared to admit.
Reze didn't even lift her eyelids. "Doesn't matter. If the mister dies, I'll die too."
The room went still.
That devoted?
Yui stared at Reze, a question surfacing unbidden: Could I do the same?
Meanwhile, Makoto sat in the luxury bachelor apartment Public Safety had arranged for him, watching the Gun Devil coverage on television.
His phone rang.
"Hello."
Makima's voice came through the instant he picked up.
"Makoto. We failed. The Gun Devil escaped."
His expression didn't change. "My turn, then?"
"No." Something off in her tone. "If I'm right, it's coming to you. Do not engage. The Gun Devil's current state is..."
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Heavy, urgent pounding on the front door cut her off.
Makoto turned and walked toward it.
From the phone, Makima's voice came faster. "Makoto, are you listening? Do not fight the Gun Devil. Right now it's..."
"Lord Chainsaw! The presence outside, something's wrong!"
Beam, the Libido Devil, and every other devil in the apartment materialized at once, their faces warped with terror.
Makoto didn't slow down. He reached the door and pulled it open.
The person standing on the other side was the one he trusted most in the world. His right hand. Yu Ishigami.
But the reverent gaze, the look of a disciple beholding his master, the kind of devotion Hinamori once showed Aizen, was gone.
Ishigami's head hung low, his features half-hidden. The upper half of his face had been replaced entirely by a grotesque gun barrel, studded with eyes. Both arms had transformed into massive heavy-caliber rifles. Killing intent radiated off him in waves that made the air itself recoil.
"AAAAAAH!"
Behind Makoto, Beam and the muscle-head devils' legs buckled. They collapsed where they stood.
"Lord Chainsaw! That's... that's the Gun Devil!"
Click.
The sharp crack of a round being chambered.
The Gun Fiend wearing Ishigami's body raised one arm, slow and deliberate, until the barrel pressed against the space between Makoto's eyes.
BANG.
The blast tore the world open.
One shot. Point blank. Through the skull.
The sheer force punched a massive hole clean through the entire apartment building.
To call it a gun was an understatement. It was a handheld artillery cannon.
Residents in the surrounding buildings came stumbling outside, drawn by the deafening explosion, and found themselves staring at a Public Safety apartment complex with its midsection blown out.
"W-what happened?"
Aki Hayakawa, who lived downstairs, came sprinting out of his unit.
Just yesterday he'd been preparing for the final showdown with the Gun Devil. Then Himeno had shown up at his door and told him she was pulling out of the mission.
He hadn't argued. He understood. Himeno wasn't like him. She'd joined Public Safety for a steady paycheck, nothing more.
She'd poured him a farewell drink. He'd downed it without suspicion and slept straight through until now.
Thump.
Aki had barely made it out of the stairwell when something heavy hit the ground in front of him.
He looked down. His pupils contracted to pinpoints.
A headless body stood before him.
No. Not a body. It was still standing. Still moving.
"Is that... Mr. Makoto?"
Aki swallowed hard, his voice cracking.
Even without a head, the build and posture were unmistakable.
The headless figure raised its right hand, reached inside its collar, found the pull-cord, and ripped it.
The roar of chainsaws split the sky.
A new head erupted from the severed neck. Skin burst apart along both forearms, and two screaming, spinning chainsaw blades tore free from the flesh beneath.
"Mr. Makoto, is there an enemy?!" Aki shouted.
"Stand down, Aki." The voice was calm. "You don't want to die yet, do you?"
Before Aki could respond, a black shape plummeted from above and cratered into the pavement.
The ground shattered. Debris sprayed in every direction.
Aki looked up and felt the blood leave his face.
A human body. But from the forehead sprouted a gun barrel encrusted with eyeballs, and both arms had become heavy machine guns. Unmistakably a fiend, a devil possessing a human corpse.
And the terrifying aura radiating off that body belonged to the very monster he had spent his entire career hunting.
The Gun Devil.
Any other day, Aki would have drawn his sword and charged without thinking.
Not today. He stood rooted to the spot, unable to move a single muscle.
Because the body the Gun Devil was wearing belonged to Makoto's most trusted subordinate. Yu Ishigami.
"What... what is this? What the hell is going on?!"
Aki's mind shorted out. Questions detonated one after another.
Why was the Gun Devil here? Why was it inside Ishigami? Was Ishigami still alive?
Click.
Another round chambered.
The Gun Fiend raised its arm and took aim at Makoto.
BANG.
Another shell screamed forward.
Makoto, fully transformed into the Chainsaw Devil, swung a blade up to block.
The impact obliterated his entire arm and punched through a row of buildings behind him.
Aki's face went white as paper.
It's no use. It's too strong.
The Chainsaw Devil's power had been gutted.
Years of Public Safety propaganda and media exposure had turned Makoto into a national icon, a celebrity Devil Hunter adored by millions, especially young women.
For an ordinary person, that kind of fame was a gift. For someone bound to the Chainsaw Devil, it was a death sentence.
A devil's power fed on human fear. A devil that humans loved, worshipped, felt no terror toward... how strong could it possibly be?
The Gun Devil was the exact opposite. Two mass-casualty events had pumped its reservoir of fear to unimaginable levels.
"Lord Chainsaw! My blood, take it!"
Beam launched off the ground, bared a mouthful of fangs that would have fit right in among the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, and bit clean through his own arm.
Blood erupted from the stump like a geyser.
Beam flung the severed limb, spraying every drop of scalding blood across Makoto's ruined arm.
The chainsaw hummed.
New flesh spiraled outward from the stump, an arm regenerating in seconds, muscle and bone knitting together before their eyes.
"Mr. Makoto, retreat!" Aki screamed.
Even with his body restored, the gap in raw power was staggering. Continuing this fight was suicide.
"Aki." Flat. Unbothered. "Who do you think I am?"
The Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan blazed to life in both eyes, tomoe spinning wildly. His gaze swept the surroundings, and a single thought formed beneath the calm:
You're watching, aren't you, Makima?
Fine. Let's see who's laughing at the end.
A roar tore through the heavens.
Susanoo erupted into existence.
But this was not the Susanoo anyone had seen before. Its skull had become a colossal mechanical chainsaw, a monstrous saw blade jutting vertically from its brow.
The Chainsaw Devil and the spectral giant had fused into something new, something that belonged to neither bloodline nor legend.
After absorbing the Chainsaw Devil's power, his strength had undergone a complete metamorphosis.
This was not Uchiha Fugaku's Susanoo.
This was a Susanoo that belonged solely to Makoto Nishikado.