just a guy who's a devil hunter for fun

Chapter 51: Darkness in the Depths of Hell

Chain-chita turned his head to the right, then to the left, taking in the strange yet familiar scenery. He opened his mouth, drew in a deep breath, and exhaled slowly.

"Oh for god's sake... we're back here again," he muttered.
When he looked down, he saw Power collapsed on the ground, knees buckled, eyes wide with terror as she stared wordlessly at the blades of grass.

"Hey, Powko, you okay?" Chain-chita called out, but she didn't respond.
A sudden sense of dread crawled up his spine. He jerked his head in another direction—and there he saw Tolka's puppet form standing motionless, staring into empty space.

(Who the hell is this bastard? This feeling... what is this? This sensation... it's the Darkness Devil!!!) Chain-chita growled in his mind as his body began shifting into its complete form, saw blades roaring to life.

Chainsaw Man: "POWER!!! GET UP!!! WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW!!!"

Power: "I-it's useless..."

Chainsaw Man: "?!"

"You already know..." Power trembled. "We're being watched by it!! We're dead! We're dead!!! We're absolutely dead!!!"

Then, from one of the countless doors hanging in the sky, a door creaked open. A thick, black liquid dripped down onto the grass.
Everything turned pitch-black.

From within the darkness, a path appeared—formed from the upper and lower halves of astronauts in their space suits, positioned opposite each other, their hands pressed together.
And at the end of that horrifying road stood—

The Darkness Devil.

Chainsaw Man and Power were frozen in terror.
The Darkness Devil slowly approached.
Tolka's puppet body dropped to its knees and stared up at it.

"I am the Doll Devil," Tolka said. "I have brought the heart of the Chainsaw Devil as promised. Please... grant me the power to destroy Makima."

Back in Germany, where Santa Claus was first hired—

"Three of them for the contract, and the last one for entertainment," Santa Claus said.

"We will make preparations," the man in the fur-trimmed hat and military uniform replied. He rose from the bench and left quickly.

Santa Claus glanced at the spot where the man had been sitting and noticed a piece of paper.
He picked it up. Written in German—when translated—were the words:

"MAKIMA CAN HEAR YOU
THE END IS NEAR
KILL MAKIMA"

Makima's death...

That was Santa Claus's true objective all along.

Back in the present, in the human world.

The woman—now revealed as Santa Claus—sat atop a puppet kneeling outside the shopping center. She smiled as a hand stretched out from the void, holding a chaotic black mass before her.

"A part of the Darkness Devil..." she murmured, the darkness of the grotesque mass reflecting in her eyes. The hand moved the "piece of flesh" closer. Santa opened her mouth, and the hand slowly placed the flesh onto her tongue. She swallowed, letting the piece of meat and the power within it merge with her body.

Chainsaw Man roared, pushing back his fear. He poured all his strength into spinning his saw blades faster and faster. They cut through the air, heating up until they glowed red, flickering ominously in the darkness. He wrapped the fiery saw around Tolka's head and sliced it clean off.