Chapter 16
Step by step, Power had already lost track.
By the time she came back to herself, she was already outside.
Fear, relief, self-blame, sadness, regret, bitterness…
A flood of emotions crashed over her. Thinking became impossible. She simply crouched in the corner and shut down completely…
Inside the office.
The sunset glow couldn't dispel the eerie, prison-like chill that had settled over the room.
Makima watched every one of Denji's movements without interfering—until only the two of them remained.
She hadn't needed to move this fast. Showing her key card so early was almost wasteful after setting up such a long game.
She probably hadn't wanted to.
But even she might not have realized a crack had formed in her composure.
Or perhaps she did realize—and refused to admit that a mere "ant" could affect her mindset.
Makima walked to the side bookshelf and tapped a certain spot.
The shelf rotated open, revealing a hidden compartment.
Denji watched as she rummaged inside, quietly adjusting his body—preparing contingency measures.
What was that?
An old-fashioned tape recorder?
No—a recorder devil: white-polished bone frame, flesh and organs for internals.
Its two eyes—one on the outer shell, one inside the spinning tape reels—darted around frantically, fear and panic laid completely bare.
Denji watched Makima's actions with faint confusion. He genuinely didn't know what she was doing.
What the hell? Never saw this thing in the original or last life. What's the plan?
He kept analyzing the scene, trying to extract information.
He noticed something else in her other hand—couldn't make it out clearly, couldn't understand what it was.
Makima set the "recorder devil" on the desk and opened the tape compartment at the back.
The rear cover—wrapped in a thin membrane of flesh—was impossible to identify. When it opened, a mass of brain matter spilled out, lodged inside.
Gray-pink mixed with off-white, threaded with thin red blood vessels—a strange fluid that looked ready to drip but never quite detached.
The recorder devil's eyes spun faster—one looked ready to pop out and burst.
Denji couldn't hold back anymore. He tested the waters:
"What exactly are you doing?"
Makima answered indirectly:
"I investigated your past. Your emotional and behavioral fluctuations are strange—two distinct 'growth' phases…
Hm~ Should I even call them 'growth'?"
Denji roughly guessed what she was getting at. He no longer cared about that past.
Right now he cared far more about what Makima intended to do next.
"Heh. Makima-san, clearing the room and leaving just me here—alone with you, man and woman in private—surely it's not just to chat about my history?"
Words like that shouldn't shake her.
Yet she still responded.
"What would be wrong with that?"
She tilted her head slightly, a faint—if-there-at-all smile on her lips.
"You gonna play some music?"
Denji pointed at the recorder devil in front of her.
"Something like that. A 'private' symphony exclusive to me~"
With that, she jammed whatever she'd been holding in her other hand straight into the recorder devil's brain!
The instant it connected, the devil convulsed violently. The mismatched yellow-black speakers on either side began to emit sound.
Makima's sudden move nearly triggered Denji's reflexes—he twitched toward his trump card—but he held back at the last second.
The playback was familiar… yet strangely alien.
Sounds from Hell itself.
Savage, manic laughter. Ripping, torturous pressure. Wails of terror. Curled-up pleas for mercy. And finally—despairing cries for rescue…
In that instant, the roar of chainsaws exploded from the depths of Hell!
Not just sound—images flooded his vision, his mind.
Seemingly no direct threat or hidden attack. At most, it pulled up related memories.
After carefully feeling it out, Denji concluded.
Makima kept staring at his reaction the whole time—tense only right before playback began. After that… Denji barely reacted.
If anything, he grew calmer.
Someone who didn't know better might think he was actually enjoying it.
Narrowed eyes—what? Trying to see the mental images more clearly?!
Makima squeezed harder—snapping the bone fragment she'd inserted—then drove the entire thing deep into the recorder devil's brain!
The sound grew louder. At the same time, the devil's bone-flesh began disintegrating—piece by piece—shattering toward death…
After the chainsaw roar came supersonic booms from extreme speed. A strange, grating cacophony—filled with disbelief and inexplicable fear.
Then chainsaws sliced through bone and flesh—instantly dismembering everything in the vision! Killing! Devour—
The feed cut off.
The violently shaking recorder devil exploded!
Makima—standing close—didn't dodge. Blood splattered across her.
Vivid crimson streaked from jaw to cheek—like scarlet vines lightning-fast across snow. Or like someone flicked vermilion ink with an ultra-fine brush—rapid raindrops across her face, threading together into a slightly raised scarlet spiderweb.
A shocking, heart-stopping visual.
Her golden-ringed eyes remained cold and unchanging—as if frozen in the abyssal ice of the ninth hell for ten thousand years, long since stripped of any living response…
Is that so?
I don't believe it.
Denji laughed inexplicably.
For some reason the scene burned into him deeply—but he could still interrupt it!
No matter how absurd or nonsensical—he refused to let himself sink deeper.
Looking at the scene before him, Denji continued smiling and said:
"Makima… you look even more delicious now~"
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