Silence.
A suffocating, deathly silence.
The blood from the tip of Fami's tongue slid down Cael's throat, moving slowly through his esophagus and into his stomach, where it began to take effect.
Thump.
A heart that had long been still began to beat again.
Cael's eyes opened.
The first thing he saw were doors in the sky.
Countless massive doors stretched across the heavens, lining the endless expanse above him.
Beneath him, the ground felt strangely soft and comfortable.
The scent of flowers mixed with the smell of soil and a faint metallic trace of blood, all rushing into his nose at once.
For some reason, the sensation felt disturbingly familiar.
"Hiss..."
Cael inhaled sharply.
His mind was a mess, filled with fragmented noise.
He could not fully recall what had happened.
He vaguely remembered being on a date with Akai, buying things for Asa and their child.
Then, for no clear reason, he started killing.
Relentlessly.
Amid the chaos in his mind, one sentence stood out clearly.
Fami's voice.
Take my will and confront the King of Terror of Hell.
"Tsk…"
"What the hell happened to me…"
Cael tried to move, but his body would not respond. Every internal pathway felt completely destroyed, leaving him unable to even twitch.
Still, that was not enough to stop him.
"Whistle."
A gust of wind rose.
Using the force, Cael yanked the starter cord on his chest.
Vroom!
A violent roar erupted as he transformed into Chainsaw Man, his body instantly restored to full condition.
The chainsaw's noise tore through the silence of the space.
Nearby, Kobeni Higashiyama stirred, clutching her head as she forced her eyes open.
"Akai, you okay?"
Cael reverted to his human form. Seeing Kobeni unharmed, he let out a quiet breath.
"Mm… I'm fine… just… really dizzy…"
She looked around, her voice trembling.
"Cael… where are we…"
Cael exhaled and glanced at the sky full of doors.
"It's different from before, but… yeah. We're probably in Hell again."
"H… Hell?!"
Kobeni's body stiffened. Her legs gave out, and she collapsed onto the ground, bracing herself with her hands.
"W-What is this…? It's soft but also hard… this feels so weird…"
Frowning, she grabbed a handful of the ground.
Then she looked at it.
Her face turned pale instantly.
"Ahh!!"
She flung it away in horror.
What she had grabbed was dark, blood-soaked soil, mixed with human fingers, toes, nails, ears, and strips of skin.
At first glance, the field looked like a beautiful meadow, filled with colorful flowers and tall grass.
But on closer inspection, the grass was made of countless tiny human limbs and strands of hair.
Kobeni scrambled back to Cael and clung to him tightly, her entire body shaking.
"Cael… are we going to die here…"
Cael gently stroked her hair.
"Relax. I'll get you out of here."
Right then, something shifted beneath his feet.
"U-Um… wuwuwu… could you stop stepping on my back… it hurts…"
Kobeni froze.
"C-Cael… the ground is talking…"
"Holy shit."
Cael grabbed her and stepped aside.
"Don't freak out. That's a person."
Fami slowly turned over and pushed herself up, her white hair messy as she wiped her tears.
Around her lay hundreds of dead ants, their life force completely drained.
As the Hunger Devil, Fami could recover by absorbing life energy.
After being torn apart by Cael earlier, she had been trying to regenerate.
With no large lifeforms nearby, she had resorted to absorbing microorganisms in the air, but their lifespan was too short, making the process painfully slow.
To make things worse, the battlefield had been full of doll-controlled humans.
Before she could fully recover, she had been trampled, cut apart, and killed over and over again.
It was a miracle she had not died completely.
If she had, she would have been reborn in Hell with her memories wiped.
Now, she had ended up here anyway.
Fami bit her finger and looked around miserably.
This situation was complete garbage.
Cael narrowed his eyes at her.
"So, Death Devil. You're the one who dragged us into Hell?"
"Wuwuwu…"
Fami wiped her tears.
"I… I told you already… I'm the Hunger Devil, Fami… I didn't bring you here…"
"You were misled… by the noise from my eldest sister…"
"And besides… how could the Death Devil be this weak…"
"Noise?"
Cael frowned.
"Tch. What a mess."
He crossed his arms.
"Here's what I know. Actions matter more than whatever crap you're saying."
"My wife Fami eats a lot, sure, but she's not like what you're describing."
"And you… we meet once and you try to kill me for no reason."
"Y-Yeah! Exactly!" Kobeni added quickly.
Fami sniffled.
"Th-that's because… you have the strongest scent of death I've ever seen…"
"So you must be the one my eldest sister uses the most…"
"If I want to save humanity and weaken her… then killing you makes sense…"
She curled up, looking pitiful.
Cael went quiet.
The scent of Fami on him was real.
But this version of her had it completely wrong.
It was not because he was her pawn.
It was because he spent way too much time messing around with her and her people.
"Alright, Hunger Devil. Send us back."
"I'll even let you meet my Fami face to face."
"I… I can't…"
"Tch. Useless."
"Wuwuwu…"
Footsteps approached.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
"Cael."
Quanxi walked over, four fiends clinging to her, all of them visibly shaken.
Cael raised an eyebrow.
"Quanxi? The hell are you doing here?"
She had a cigarette in her mouth.
"The girls and I were at the mall. We cut down a bunch of insane doll-controlled people, then everything went dark."
"Next thing we knew, we were here."
She glanced at her companions.
"They're freaked out. Pingtsi won't even look at the sky. She keeps saying this is Hell."
She looked back at Cael.
"You know what's going on?"
"Yeah."
Cael pointed at Fami.
"This is Hell. And the one behind the dolls and this whole mess is probably that so-called Death Devil."
"It… it wasn't me… wuwuwu…"
Fami looked like she was about to collapse again.
Quanxi shook her head.
"I don't know about the rest, but the doll-controlled humans are probably Santa Claus's doing."
"Santa Claus?"
Cael frowned.
"German Devil Hunter. You don't deal with that side of things, so it makes sense you don't know."
She set Pingtsi down gently.
"Pingtsi. Check her."
Pingtsi hesitated, her eyes watery.
"O-Okay…"
She pointed at Fami and activated her ability.
"She… she's the Hunger Devil…"