Meanwhile, deep within Aokigahara Forest, the air shimmered with heat and darkness as the battle raged on.
Makima stood among the splintered trees and torn soil, her coat torn and blood spattered across her face and hair. Beside her floated the Commandment of Piety—a dark orb radiating an eerie glow.
She lifted her hand in a calm, precise gesture, and shadows coiled around her arm, seeping from the orb. Dark tendrils wove into her wounds, closing them as the Commandment's power healed her.
Makima drew in a sharp breath, feeling the life surge back into her body. She glanced around, eyes sharp and calculating.
The devils Baba Yaga spawned… they're all terminated. Now it's just me… and this floating orb.
And then, without warning, a laugh burst from her lips. It started low—a stifled chuckle—but quickly swelled into sharp, echoing laughter. "Kuhuhuhu… ahahaha!"
Across the clearing, the massive, towering shape of Baba Yaga's house shifted, its grotesque timber legs creaking. From within its darkened windows, the gnarled voice of the Baba Yaga Devil emerged, crackling like dry twigs.
"What's so funny, Control Devil?" Baba Yaga sneered. "Afraid you're going to lose your life?"
Makima turned her head slightly, laughter fading into a sharp, bitter grin. Her voice dripped with sarcasm. "What a great day I'm having, I got betrayed. My damage-transfer contract was severed by the Prime Minister. And the only person who came to help me… is the same madman I've been trying to control—but failed."
She tilted her chin higher, eyes glinting with a mix of exhaustion and twisted amusement. "How fucking funny is that?"
But the grin had barely left Makima's lips when the Baba Yaga Devil hissed in fury. The towering house shuddered, and from its monstrous, gaping maw spewed a torrent of a thousand chattering skulls. Each skull glowed with a baleful red light as they spiraled outward, forming a ring of seething death around Makima. Their hollow eyes burned with malevolence, and their bony jaws snapped open wide as if preparing to scream.
Makima's eyes narrowed. She snapped her fingers toward the floating Commandment of Piety orb. Dark energy roared to life, swirling around her as the orb belched forth waves of black fire—the Hellblaze. The flames coiled and twisted like living serpents, encasing Makima in a blazing barrier.
Hellblaze—the dark flame Kang Woo wielded. Flames that could burn even immortal souls.
Makima felt sweat bead along her spine. The darkness that comes from the Commandment is handy to use… but Hellblaze… Kang Woo's flames can burn souls. … it's like trying to hold water—it slips through my grasp.
If I could turn back time… I would've asked him how to use these properly.
As the skulls began to shriek and implode in blinding flashes of light, Makima noticed something: parts of Baba Yaga's house weren't regenerating. The timber was scorched black and crumbled into ash. Her Hellblaze had done permanent damage.
Makima's lips curled into a thin, cold smile. She raised her hand high, gathering shadows and flames into a dense, roiling mass above her head. A giant ball of Hellblaze formed in the sky, crackling and howling like a star of destruction.
Seeing this, the Baba Yaga Devil shrieked in panic. The monstrous house lunged forward on its spindly legs, closing the distance in a single leap, a clawed limb stabbing toward Makima's chest.
"DON'T YOU WORRY ABOUT YOUR OWN LIFE?!" Baba Yaga bellowed. "THAT THING CAN KILL US BOTH!"
Makima's eyes glowed with wicked light. "Eat shit and die, granny."
With a flick of her fingers, she released the spell. The giant sphere of Hellblaze detonated in an instant, erupting with a thunderous roar. A brilliant pillar of black flame shot skyward, vaporizing trees, earth, and stone in a violent shockwave. The explosion tore a crater into the forest, over 200 meters wide, as if a meteor had slammed into the ground.
When the firestorm faded, silence fell over the smoldering ruin. Charred trees cracked and fell. Ash drifted down like snow. From within the heart of the crater, darkness peeled away. Makima stepped forward, dismissing the cocoon of shadows around her. Her coat was singed, hair tousled, blood dripping from her lip as she coughed into her hand.
But her eyes were hard and shining with grim triumph. "Time to get out of h-----."
She barely finished the sentence—when a searing pain exploded through her chest.
Makima's eyes widened in shock as something burst through the charred haze—a thick, fleshy tendril, veined and pulsing like a grotesque artery, shot out of nowhere and drove itself clean through her chest.
Her right arm dropped to the ground with a wet splat, severed at the shoulder. Blood sprayed across the blackened earth.
From… where…? she thought, reeling, vision blurring from pain and blood loss.
Slowly, a dark shape emerged from the cracked surface of a giant mirror standing upright amidst the ruins. A figure stepped forward, towering and skeletal—a nightmare of sinew and ancient flesh.
The Aging Devil. It loomed tall and thin as a desiccated corpse. Its body was an amalgam of shriveled flesh, riddled with holes like rotting lace. The largest hole yawned right through its chest where a heart should have been. Its head was split in half vertically, and from between the two halves protruded a smooth, featureless face with only a lipless mouth. Thin strings of tissue connected this new face to the parted skull like puppet strings. Its feet ended in grotesque stiletto-like heels, sinking into the scorched ground as it stalked closer.
The Aging Devil's voice was soft but rasped like dry leaves. "You finally let your guard down, Control Devil."
Makima dropped to her knees, blood bubbling at her lips. Her face was pale as paper, breath ragged.
The Aging Devil reached out one long, gnarled arm and plucked the floating Commandment of Piety orb from the air. It turned the dark sphere over in its withered hand, studying it.
But the orb flared angrily, a ripple of darkness rejecting its grasp. The Aging Devil grimaced, realizing it could not command it.
"Tch…" The Aging Devil clicked its tongue in irritation. It glared down at Makima, who trembled on the ground, clutching her gaping chest wound.
"Control Devil… I've got a proposition for you." Its tone grew silky, predatory. "Relinquish this floating orb. Tell me how you obtained it… and I'll let you live."
Makima stared up at the towering form of the Aging Devil, tears brimming in her eyes, blood trailing down her chin. She said nothing. But her silence rang like a silent scream through the blasted remains of the forest. Because Makima knew—in her bones—that she was about to die.
And as she knelt there, impaled and bleeding out, her life flashed before her eyes.
She saw the long, endless journey that had led her here. The centuries of manipulation, ambition, struggle. Her dream—a perfect world, a utopia where no one would fear devils ever again. A world cleansed by Chainsaw devils power, And ironically… she remembered how Kang Woo had practically delivered Denji—the Chainsaw Devil—to her. Even knowing her dangerous goal. knowing her intention to control him. And in the swirl of those memories, another rose to the surface.
A memory from the Citadel of Ricks.
It felt vivid, real, as though she were there once more:
The beautiful, luxurious suite glowed with soft blue lights. Outside, the open-air lounge sparkled with stars, floating lights drifting among the towers and shimmering metal walkways.
Makima sat with Kang Woo , She remembered the feeling of wanting so badly to pry open Kang Woo's secrets. To understand him. To control him. But instead, she'd found herself exposed.
In the memory, Makima sat hunched forward, fists clenched tightly in her lap. Her usually smooth, unreadable voice was breaking, trembling as her composure shattered:
"…Why… are you helping your enemy?" she asked, voice raw for the first time since she'd ever stepped onto a battlefield. "I'm practically your enemy…"
Her shoulders trembled. Her eyes were wide, glistening.
"You and Evil Morty—you don't need me. You're more than enough to achieve anything. ."
Her voice climbed higher, choked with emotion she could no longer suppress.
"So why—why do you still help me?! Is it because you see my world as primitive? As lesser?" Her teeth bared, her voice suddenly a scream, tears streaking down her cheeks. "DO YOU EVEN UNDERSTAND?! I TRIED TO CONTROL YOU—FROM THE MOMENT I MET YOU—TO CONTROL YOU!"
She repeated it, over and over, each repetition like tearing open her own chest.
"I tried to control you… I tried to control you… I… I…"
Her words finally failed her. She dissolved into sobs.
"…Why are you so kind toward your enemy?" she whispered through her tears. "Why do you still want to invite me with you… through your adventures…? Why do you still… still… still—"
But she couldn't finish the question. Because Kang Woo had reached out. Without a single word, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her.
His cloak rustled around them like dark silk, falling like a curtain and hiding her trembling form from the glittering lights of the Citadel. He pulled her firmly against his chest, steady and strong.
Makima just let herself be held. Pressed against the chest of the only man who seemed utterly unafraid of her. Who saw past the Control Devil to the girl beneath.
And in that memory, Kang Woo leaned his cheek gently against her hair and whispered into the night:
"You know… when I came to your world, and I saw you for the first time… I didn't see the Control Devil. I saw a girl who gives people hope. A girl who could inspire courage in the face of death itself… something I lost long ago, since my power is despair."
His hand rose, cradling the back of her head as though she were fragile glass.
"Even if you're not the Control Devil. Even if all the world turns against you, Makima… if your soul, your existence, is still you—then I'll support you. If the world says you have to die…"
He paused, his voice low but burning with quiet conviction.
"…Then the world needs to be eradicated."
Makima hadn't known how long she'd stood there frozen in his embrace. She had never been hugged like that before. Not by anyone who wasn't trembling in fear or wrapped in her now, in Kang Woo's arms… it was something she'd never imagined she could have.
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
And as the present Makima—broken, bleeding, dying in Aokigahara—watched this memory unspool inside her mind, hot tears spilled freely down her cheeks. Because if she could turn back time… she would cherish that moment more than anything in her long, life.
And then, like the final reel spinning in a projector, the last memory began to play before her eyes.
Makima saw herself, her past self, in the midst of pulling the stupidest stunt she'd ever committed in her entire existence.
She'd latched herself onto Kang Woo's black comet as he flew like a blazing streak across the sky. She remembered how the wind screamed around her ears, how her chains strained as she struggled to hold on—and how Kang Woo, utterly exasperated, caught her mid-flight and held her close. Hugged her again.
It made her heart tighten, even now. The scene shifted again.
She saw her own face, calm and sly, as she finally forced Kang Woo to stay in her apartment. He'd yielded, in his own way, and sat there in her living room, conjuring a luminous throne of blue Reishi right in the center of her apartment like he owned the place.
Kang Woo lounged there, regal and distant, as if ruling from a king's court. And as he prepared to drift off to sleep on that bizarre throne, Makima—the past Makima—watched him intently.
Then she did it. The ridiculous thing. She raised her hand, forming her fingers into a playful gun, and aimed it right at Kang Woo's forehead.
"I could shoot you," she said, her voice deceptively soft. "Right now, you're very vulnerable… staying in your adversary's apartment."
Kang Woo cracked one eye open lazily, utterly unfazed. "If you want to shoot… go ahead, I know you won't."
Makima's brow lifted slightly. "And why's that? Maybe I'm deceiving you. Lying to you."
Kang Woo's smile faded to something faint and somber. "When you try to follow me… is it might you're after?" "Or something you've lost?"
He held her gaze, eyes darkening with a shadow of old grief.
"Though… I already know what you lack. The difference is, mine has long gone… and it will never return."
Makima's heart clenched as the memory moved forward one last time.
And then Kang Woo's voice echoed in her mind, crisp and cool, still haunting her even now:
"That one you need to answer to yourself.
Why are you following me all the way to the Citadel of Ricks?
You already got what you wanted — Denji is in your possession.
Your little utopia should be closer than ever."
The current Makima, lying bleeding on the forest floor, felt her throat tighten. Hot tears welled up again as the answer finally rose, burning, undeniable, from the depths of her heart.
My utopia… is already there. With you, Kang Woo. I don't need the Chainsaw Devil. Truthfully… I tried to have seven dogs around me, many subordinates when i was commander of public safety , hoping maybe one of them would give me the feeling of family, of affection. But it never worked. So I resorted to my plan… the Chainsaw Devil… to erase everything and create the world I wanted.
But in the middle of that plan… I found someone who genuinely cared for me. Someone who helped me in my time of need… and wasn't afraid of me. … Kang Woo… hugged me like I was his lover.
Makima felt another tear slip free, tracing down her blood-smeared cheek.
Kang Woo… I know what I lack. I know now. I want… to love you. And as soon as I almost grasped it… I cast it away for my plan. ambition. . But the truth is… My utopia… was you. And for the first time… I want to live, not just control
Above her, through the fractured canopy of burned and splintered trees, Makima caught sight of a streak of black fire cutting across the sky. A black comet blazing with dark crimson light.
She blinked rapidly, her eyes blurring. "…Am I hallucinating?" she whispered, barely able to form the words. "Is that… Kang Woo? As a black comet…?"
But the Aging Devil kept her monstrous gaze locked on Makima, heedless of the approaching the Aging Devil's mind, Makima was already finished. Just a husk. A defeated, broken Control Devil.
"I see you're at your end," the Aging Devil rasped, It lifted one stiletto-like foot high into the air, ready to bring it crashing down and stomp Makima's life away.
But Makima, her breath rattling in her lungs, didn't look away. She spoke—her voice trembling, soft, and raw with vulnerability she had never let anyone hear. "…Kang Woo… I'm sorry. So sorry for never admitting the truth…"
Blood bubbled at the corner of her lips as she forced the words out. "…that I love you. I love… your chaotic nature… your adventures… your stories and your ridiculous storytelling. If somehow… I could be your concubine… lower than your true wife… I would accept it."
A sob wracked her chest. "I'm not regretting meeting you. I enjoyed every moment… because my utopia… was already there… with you…"
Makima's final words trembled on her lips as her vision darkened. "I'm sorry, Kang Woo… I betrayed you… by giving the Sevastopol Key to the Prime Minister… and your Commandment… it will be sto—"
Before she could finish, the Commandment of Piety beside her flared to life, as if recognizing her voice.
Blackness exploded outward like a living tide. Shadows coiled around her, wrapping Makima in a cocoon of roiling, protective darkness.
At that exact instant, the black comet in the sky came roaring downward. With an earsplitting shriek and a flare of crimson demonic light, . The forest exploded around them, vaporizing a large radius in a shockwave of scarlet energy and swirling dark flames.
The shock left silence in its wake—a deep, pulsing hush as smoke and dust billowed over the scorched ground. From the center of the massive crater, blackened wings unfurled, spreading wide like the wings of a fallen god.
Kang Woo hovered there amidst the settling ash. His eyes glowed faintly beneath his dark hair, and blood-red demonic energy crackled around his frame. Slowly, he descended and landed in the crater, the molten rock hissing beneath his feet. He strode forward, wings folding behind him, and reached into the cocoon of darkness.
Moments later, Kang Woo emerged carrying Makima effortlessly in his arms—cradled against his chest in a princess carry. Makima's head lolled slightly, her breath ragged, crimson dripping from her mouth. Her eyes cracked open, disbelieving, as they met his.
Kang Woo gazed down at her with a faint smirk, his voice low and tinged with exasperation—and a softness that was unmistakable. "…Apology accepted, tsundere princess."