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Hell was a place with no apparent beginning or end, where only devils too evil to be more than mere humans lived. According to Makima, the control devil, this was not necessarily true, although it could not be described as entirely wrong.
The moon, killed by desire, shone with the stars. Shimmering on the alley floor, where dirt mixed with city dust stained the devil's bare, pale knees. Hiding scars from sutures and experiments that are really nowhere to be found on her perfect skin, only in the memory hidden behind the glowing golden eyes. Her stomach doesn't growl with hunger even though she hasn't eaten once in her, perhaps, too long life. She doesn't need to eat or sleep. She just needs to feel someone's touch, other than cold, clinical blades tearing at her skin, leaving only a smell of ethyl alcohol along with human filth at its finest.
Still, Makima doesn't hate them. She couldn't count on the fingers of her slender hands the number of times her golden hair had been sprayed with blood thanks to human cruelty.
There really was no difference between humans and devils. Makima could call out to the world and scream loud enough to the sky to make her throat stop working for a few hours, if she was lucky. However, she chooses to stay quiet and let a sad tear fall down her face, drifting towards her ear thanks to the gravity of this rotten and dirty earth, which only made the wheat hair turn greasy and sickly grey.
Makima watches the world fall and feels that perhaps escaping from the government lab where she has found herself all her life may, in fact, not have been such a good idea.
At first it felt like freedom, then it feels like punishment.
Pursuing freedom outside the prison she knew as home was really a lame excuse, so lame that it was easy to believe her and tell herself that she didn't actually run away from there just to find something else. Surgeries and surgeries to better understand devils were just false excuses, men in white coats and egos too big for their own good, judging that if they kept her locked up all her life, they could avoid the natural catastrophe of having such a powerful demon on earth.
And she doesn't know what she was supposed to be, she only knew what she lacked in her body, and even more importantly, the non-existent soul of a demon like her.
She lacked everything, she was the control devil and she had nothing.
Not even love.
Maybe a hug wouldn't have been so bad once in her life. Blood drips from her cleanly and effectively severed neck, hopefully draining all her life for the next morning. Not even someone tried to look for her when she escaped, even if their purposes were as bad as her chance of living at this moment. It is true that devils do not die easily, so Makima could only flutter her albino eyelashes for months, days and hours, until she died in the cold of the ground. Welcoming her skin as if it were a human or man.
Cold, it feels cold and the hunger of the wind lulls her face, letting her suck in her last breaths through a snub nose too perfect to be human. For the empty feeling that accompanies death concludes in nothing but golden eyes growing emptier and emptier, so much so that the moon, killed by love, is about to cease to shine in them. Having been cast into the world for a single purpose that, sadly, it was unable to fulfill; the control devil finds rest in an empty street, like many of the other hundreds of streets in the city of Tokyo.
It is a fitting end, seeing black, even though her life was always empty and frozen like white.
There, Makima meets him for the first time.
When her last breaths are faint enough for her to stop feeling her fingertips and her ears ring in a whistle, the sound is interrupted by the regular footsteps of some expensive shoes. Something unusual, indeed. There shouldn't be something like that in the low-lying areas of Tokyo, where the only sounds to be heard are the muffled moans of low-grade prostitutes, buried in the screams of drunken men who would spew more garbage into the rotten world of people like them.
Makima turns her head slightly with a blank expression, despite the fact that her neck hurts like a bitch, she's surely going to die and doesn't give a damn.
But when the golden eyes like hers looked her up and down with a slight interest different from what she used to know, and accompanied by a slight smirk on his perfect cheeks, Makima believed that she had found someone like her.
He didn't look like a man who had been incarcerated his whole life, nor did he look like a dirty lab rat lying in the middle of the street. Nor did he look like he had been used his whole life, and anyway, he managed to look like someone who was both empty and full enough to give him something. Gross enough to bend down to his level and touch her cheek with a gentleness no one had ever done. There was no reason to resist, plus it was warm yet strangely cold at the same time. Makima couldn't remember the last time she felt someone's warmth; she probably never had from the beginning.
The man's reddish hair piled up over his eyes in a badly cut fringe, and which somehow seemed completely calculated, a mistake like that. He looked at her warmly and his eyes expressed the only thing she wanted, at least that's how she saw it. He hummed lightly, a thoughtful, comforting sound under the halos of the moon. His perfect features were like a glowing ghost in the night, his voice echoing like a salvation brought from hell itself. Sinful and mesmerizing.
"I will give you purpose, Makima." She looked at him with glazed eyes. Spirals in the shape of golden crystals that could only beg for someone to love her. Hold my hand just a little longer and make me forget.
It's yet another night, and like yet another night; the control devil submits. Insulting her title once more, she lets a man, perhaps younger than her, lift her off the ground and carry her like a feather in the heavy city wind. Makima will feel so soft in his lightly scarred arms that all she can do is nod in response, as if the tone of the gaze upon her will not force her to beg. Get down on her knees, head on the floor and pretend that someone loves her. To love her as if she was a real human being.
"Love me" the low, but youthful voice whispered on the wind, close to her ear. It tickled Makima and she felt its closeness like wanting to vomit. Maybe this was love. And if someone loves her, what right does she have if not to reciprocate? She didn't know what love was supposed to be, she just noticed its lack in her churning insides.
Makima was not someone who went against the wishes of others, day after day she proved her humanity and her lack of freedom. She stoops to humans, even though the man who strode across her face like a predator did not feel like one. She has spent so many years trying to get someone to see her as an object of love, that she can do nothing but give until someone reciprocates.
"Love me and I will give you everything." The boy uses his free hand and slams it against a rusty tin shingle, abandoned in the middle of the street. He shooed away the city mice hiding there and the red, living blood is defiled by the wind and a joyful expression. As if there was no harm at all despite the severity of the wound. "It's a promise." It's a contract, he doesn't say.
The drops of blood fall on the woman's pink lips and run down her throat, it looks like a delicacy and is warm, unlike the hands that carry it and the source of the severed veins. All to make the revelation come alive inside her, bringing her out of the hell she called life. There was a realization in his cold fingers, his blood hot. Apparently that's how he is, he disguises his own disinterest, but he knows well that with his sharp-toothed smile he would be able to devour the world into oblivion. Into emptiness. Leaving the two of them alone in the world, like this moment.
Makima was someone without purpose, empty. So if someone came along and told her everything she wanted to hear, did that make her a bad person? Just take her hand and blind herself like a dog without an owner, obeying without question. No matter if she was fed up of being had, she really didn't matter here because she belonged to someone else now.
"Hug me" Makima whispered in a broken sob, resembling the voice of a little girl crying. She slipped her arms between his neck, buried her fingers in his scarlet hair as she looked into his eyes. She begged for someone to confirm, that maybe, and just maybe, she wasn't so alone after all.
She's sick of being alone, so under the man's embrace, maybe the night wasn't so cold after all.
"You are mine now."
And so, that's how she met Denji.
The sounds of silverware and plates clattering against the expensive ivory tables echoed in time with the drumming in Denji's fingers. who stared at Makima with a strange fascination, while the other could only pause and continue to stare at the clasped hands on the new skirt Denji gave her. That was an innocent gift. But Makima couldn't help but feel a lump in her throat as her nails continued to dig deeper and deeper into the expensive pieces of fabric. She didn't deserve it, and yet she was still here.
Denji gave her another chance and saved her when no one was there. Maybe that's what made her visibly startle the moment a plate of desserts fell in front of her. Makima hated loud noises, but if they came from the food Denji bought her, she didn't see why it would be wrong to be a normal person for once.
"Is this a normal life?" Makima looked up for the first time with teary eyes, and it seemed that the other was squirming with some feeling that Makima wasn't able to decipher behind those yellow eyes.
"What's normal for you?" Denji took a creamy spoonful of the cream dessert in front of him and walked over to feed Makima directly. Like a dog, which should be taken care of by its owner. It's really not that bad.
After tasting real food for the first time in her life, the sweetness slips from her palate, and Makima momentarily forgets the question. It tasted light in her mouth—not artificial, but a little more real. She tightened her throat as she finished her last bite and paused to think about the question. Unlike what many believed, Makima wasn't stupid; no one thought they should even teach her anything. There was no need; she should just lie down in the operating room and wait for the shaking to end, as grimacing and screaming would lead to nothing but a harder blow.
"A normal life... I don't know; I mean, " She ran a delicate hand down her neck in confusion, and at that moment, Makima didn't notice that the boy's gaze only followed the path of her hands. "Probably it's having a family." She said at last with a restrained and innocent sigh.
"Have you ever had a family, Makima?" Denji asks, smiling with a smile that Makima can't figure out if he's joking or serious. He picks up a handkerchief that was lying under the silverware, next to the tiny plate. He leans over to wipe the girl's cake remnants from her mouth, unconsciously touching the back of his knuckles against the girl's now flushed cheek. When he finishes, he carefully folds the paper, using the clean part to wipe away Makima's tears that, until now, she didn't know she was letting fall.
"No, I've never had any family." Makima lowers her gaze to the ground again, her vision terribly blurred and fleeting. She bites her lips and remembers Denji's touch on them; she feels butterflies and a bit of an urge to vomit as well.
"So now you and I will be a family." She lifts her head quickly to look at Denji in awe; she had never met anyone who told her that. "Because, as you know, I had a family once too." His eyes, dancing around the cafeteria with amusement, focused directly on Makimas' like a sinful invitation. "But you want to know what happened to them?"
She merely nodded curiously as her heart beat rapidly; no one had ever told her anything about their life.
"Well," the man leans closer and hums easily. "I killed him," and he only meant one person, one man, specifically.
He lifts her chin delicately, as if Makima would break if he gripped it any tighter.
"It'll just be you and me now," Denji says, watching lazily as Makima's lips tighten, rolling from the pressure. Makima knows that persuasion and intimacy are one card, but they come in different forms.
She has done little more than become familiar with the gaze of men, of human beings. Voracious people, hungry for knowledge, desperate for purpose: they expect nothing and, though they pretend to love her, Makima has never believed them. They all play at seeking something beyond immediate gratification, looking no further than the prize of pleasure, of simply knowing they are better than others. So they will remain, because they are men, because they are human.
Yet why is this man any different? He seems interested, shit, more than anyone has ever been interested in her. Beyond the body, beyond her soul. He's able to wait, because he's the one making Makima wait. He wastes his time with her, though he might as well take what he wants and let her die alone, just as he found her. He treats her like a little treasure, or perhaps a fragile and abandoned pet, which he found on the street and all she needs is love. It's not too far from reality, so it's not unreasonable for her to think that would be okay too.
A golden gleam in his crinkled eyes made her wake up.
"I love you, Makima."
Her wounds die at that simple word.
"Kill them."
A door slams shut.
"Who are you?" Makima lifts her hands upward, trying to find the sharp jaw she had grown accustomed to touching. Her fingers ran over the smooth skin of a seventeen year old boy and she smiled sadly in return. "Denji, has it been you all along?"
She should have received a confident smile in response, even though tears would not allow her to see anything properly. But the hands holding her are again cold, clean and desperately still on her back, holding her again. Is this how it should be? Denji has betrayed her. No, Denji did this.
"You're the one who killed them."
A slice of reality makes her remember Aki and Power. Their scarlet blood streaked across the floor, and even worse, on her now clean hands. She should have done it, that's the right thing to do, because Denji told her.
But he didn't force her.
The rottenness of blood seeps into her nostrils like a memory as she swallows saliva, fearfully guiding the course down her tight windpipe. Denji leans down
and her lips crash against the other's, pink with the blood of a family she could never complete. His tongue runs across her mouth and tastes of nothing but blood. Disgusting and disgusting like blood. Her hands hook around the boy's neck and a gasp comes from her, as human as the other is not. She's never had this kind of intimacy with anyone, and despite the fact that Makima used to fantasize about it while scavenging for food, she never thought it would be this.
She's spent a lifetime searching for this, this kind of love that actually ended up being twisted more than anything. Where there's no space between them and the younger boy's hands encircle her slim, pale waist. Don't leave me so alone.
She opens her eyes and meets the other boy's gaze, covered in his messy red bangs. It gave him a boyish look that his eyes ultimately did not possess. Swallowing her up like a predator did its prey. The famous chainsaw devil was crushing his ruin by destroying the ruin of others. Bringing someone already dead to salvation, only to destroy them again.
"You killed them." He repeats again as he undoes a button, near Makima's cleavage. She killed them? She definitely did. There is no difference between love and destruction, leaving her as someone as guilty as the very man towering over her.
Denji licks her neck, savoring the sound of the frenetic pulse. Whether it is out of fear, hatred, ecstasy or revenge; Makima will never know.
"More." Makima gasps, her back arching and her muscles contracting against the golden hair. She lies like a fan against the pure white sheets. A grimace of need leaves her palpable, and far too vulnerable for someone who has just killed those she considered family.
The trackless hand runs down the expanse of her chest, stealing her breath once again. It hurts to keep her mouth shut out of pure indignation, and it hurts to pretend she's not the one who sought this out first. Makima unbuttoned his perfect white collared shirt without a drop of blood, unlike the sharp teeth that continued to bite chunks of flesh into her neck. The rope of his chainsaw dangles and looks tempting to be pulled. Maybe Makima could finally die with it; she couldn't tell.
Desire and guilt hurt. She cries again.
"Now it's my turn" Denji opens makima's mouth with a thumb, saliva spills against his cheek and he just smiles tenderly in response. Stroking her cheek, he proceeds to briefly lick the smeared thumb. "Kill me. It's an order."
Something cracks inside her.
Makima watches her bare chest, rise and fall with fervor, as the hand that used to run along the curves stop at a specific point. Her heart burns under the memory of the touch. It is her first time being touched in that place with such tenderness. It leaves her nervous, shivering both from the recently heard words and the cold. The bed beneath her is cold, like the floor where Denji first found her. Even her tears feel frozen with blood. It's almost winter in Tokyo and the city knows it as much as her bristling skin. Makima definitely hates the cold.
The ragged breathing, coming from only one person in the room, seem to cut the air with smoke coming out of both mouths, swollen from abuse. She kisses him again, making a move for the first time, her hands moving up quickly to touch up the scarred muscles once more, until they reach both pectorals. She pushes him down and, suddenly, they switch positions.
Denji lets her.
With his scarlet hair in disarray beneath him, against the sheets, he looks down at her with an amused expression. As if he always knows something she doesn't. With his pulse racing, the chain of his chainsaw clattering again and again against the blanket, and his eyes shining as if any of this is normal; Denji looks absolutely human.
Absurdly beautiful.
The boy's thin, bony shoulders press against the bed as makima's aching hands form a collar over his neck. He moves up and down further and further. It's an act, because Denji doesn't even really need to breathe. He just pretends like he always has done.
"Did you even love me at one time?" A salty drop falls on Denji's cheek thanks to gravity. Makima's hands felt more shaky, hesitant for a response.
"Thank you for loving me." He just looks the other way. Makima's heart breaks in two with only one feeling: humiliation.
She tugs on the rope, just enjoying how Denji flinches in surprise. A vulnerable enough reaction that Makima is convinced there is still something human left in that devil heart. He arches his back desperately upward, thrashing his head from the pain of his transformation, dragging the caress of the chainsaws into Makima's skin deeper. Filling holes Makima had forgotten were ever there. The newly regenerated nerves scream in her head from the pain, so much so that she was only able to open her mouth in a choked jade. It must be real, since her legs began to be chopped into pieces so small that they surely could not regenerate, at least not from the chainsawman. Dying, Makima finally understands, is excruciatingly painful. It hurts, but she has endured even worse things that have not killed her. At least this will end it once and for all.
She leans closer, her brain so dizzy she feels drugged like she used to be. She longs to pull her heart out of her chest and hand it on a silver platter to the only one person who is her family. The same one who looks at her with the same shit-eating grin even with his faceless form apparent, egging her on for more.
So she does. She falls to the side of the bed and lets her lower limbs fall stretched out on the increasingly disgusting jumble of intestines and loose flesh in pieces, cut by razor-sharp blades like the gate of hell. Makima plunges her hand with symmetrical nails and rips out its heart with a jerk. It comes out easy and the nerves fly free over his shattered chest.
Everything seems red.
And it burns.
Somehow it's all still the same, Denji opens his mouth waiting for something he always knew should have belonged there. Makima's hands buzz as they squeeze the spongy heart, even a little slippery, over her hands. She feels an absence in her chest that was always there and senses that soon the emptiness will spread to her consciousness forever. Makima uses the last adrenaline instincts that allow her to get closer to the boys' mouth, feeling his regular fangs against her hands as a need to enter deeper. The lack of love only creates more need.
With blood smeared all over Denji's real face, Makima smiles. She's never seen him dirty from anything at all.
"Thank you for letting me love you," she finally says in a brittle whisper, desperate to feel something other than warmth in the blood that forms on her skin, and cold inside her open insides.
Now she has an answer; their dreams were shared. With the same life, the blood around them paralleled what they both sought. Maybe a family, maybe death, maybe love. There was no real response to that.
And with swirling yellow eyes shining with an innocent, childlike smile, Makima contracts her hand to simulate a gun. Which she points directly at the heart that resounded like an engine, rising above the restrained gasp of both of them. And finally, she says:
"Bang!"