"Fab Four."
Makoto's voice was flat.
"Fuck 'em up."
The words barely landed before all four of them broke into those signature grins.
The same expression they'd worn when tearing into Shinichi Kudo. The thrill of a predator locking onto prey. The delight of a cat toying with a mouse. The barely contained eagerness of a pervert finding a new toy.
"Alright!"
The Libido Devil let out a wild howl and charged first.
The Dolphin Devil, Gorilla Devil, and Rabbit Devil followed close behind, their speed tearing four afterimages across the night sky.
But...
Imu wasn't someone they could compare to. Not even close. Not like that half-baked monster-transformed washing machine they'd fought before.
Imu didn't even glance at the charging Fab Four.
A lazy flick of the scepter.
The weapon looked like a grim reaper's scythe. Black shaft threaded with dark crimson veins. The curved blade at the tip caught the firelight and threw back a cold, merciless gleam.
SWISH.
The scythe parted the air.
The sound was light. Almost silent.
But the force behind it...
The Dolphin Devil's smile froze on his face.
His body split clean down the middle. The cut was so precise it could have been done by laser. Upper and lower halves separated in an instant, and he didn't even have time to register it. That grin stayed plastered on his face.
The Gorilla Devil's limbs snapped off simultaneously. He dropped like a chopped stump, hitting the ground straight and stiff.
The Rabbit Devil's head sailed into the air. Her eyes blinked twice before confusion set in.
Three devils, slaughtered in a single stroke.
Not one of them managed to scream.
Only the Libido Devil, whose strength reached Demon-level, sensed the lethal danger the instant the scythe swept. On pure instinct, he crossed his arms in front of his chest.
CLANG.
The scythe struck his forearms with a ringing metallic crash.
He'd blocked it.
But the Libido Devil's expression changed.
A bone-deep cold was spreading from the scythe's blade, creeping up his arms in a mad rush.
CRACKCRACKCRACK.
Ice.
The Libido Devil's arms froze solid in the blink of an eye. Frost crawled toward his shoulders, his chest.
"That move..."
Yu's pupils shrank.
He recognized it.
Saint Nusjuro's Hone-Hone Fruit ability. During their earlier clash, the old man had used a similar technique, freezing the ground with ice to seal the Fab Four's resurrection points.
So Imu could use it too?
The power output dwarfed Saint Nusjuro's by miles.
Beam reacted fastest. He whipped his head toward the rubble where Nusjuro had fallen.
The bald elder was on his knees, both hands braced against the ground, coughing up blood nonstop.
A clear footprint was stamped into the spot where Makoto had kicked his steel heart. Cracks radiated outward from the dent. Metal fragments dribbled from the fissures like sand.
Not dead yet. But getting there.
"Yu."
Makoto's voice cut through.
Just the surname.
But Yu understood instantly.
He raised his right arm. The heavy machine gun's muzzle locked onto the kneeling figure in the ruins.
BANG.
A single shot.
The armor-piercing round punched clean through Saint Nusjuro's chest.
No grazing. No deviation.
Straight through. Dead center. Through the steel heart.
CRACK.
Metal shattering rang crisp and sharp across the night sky.
Saint Nusjuro's face went white as a sheet.
His eyes bulged. Mouth gaping. No sound came out.
Fragments of the steel heart crumbled from his chest, catching the firelight for one last glimmer before dissolving into black ash that scattered on the wind.
"Lord Imu..."
Saint Nusjuro's hand reached out trembling toward Imu.
"Save... please save me..."
His voice was faint as a candle guttering in the wind.
Imu couldn't be bothered to look.
Didn't even move.
Nusjuro's hand hung in the air. Then...
THUD.
His body collapsed.
The life was gone.
On the other side of the battlefield, the cold radiating from Imu's scythe dissipated the same instant.
The Libido Devil seized the opening. His arms convulsed with force.
CRACK.
The ice encasing his body shattered into countless fragments, clattering to the ground like broken glass.
He stumbled back two steps, shaking his fur and shivering.
"Huff huff..."
The Libido Devil rubbed his arms, letting out a shaky breath.
"Cold as hell."
But he wasn't injured.
Because the ice had lost its power source before it could complete the freeze.
...
The spectators had pieced it together.
"He just used the ability of that dead human," Beam called out. "But once that person died, it seems he can't use it anymore."
Beam paused, thinking it over. "It's like the Control Devil's power, isn't it?"
That observation clicked something into place for Makoto too.
Imu's ability did resemble Nayuta's.
Both could form contracts with people and use the contractors' special abilities.
But...
Imu was a budget version at best.
Because Nayuta's control only required her to subjectively perceive the target as a lesser being. No consent needed. As long as she believed it, the success rate was practically one hundred percent.
What conditions Imu needed to form contracts, Makoto wasn't sure. But it was nowhere near that convenient.
...
Imu's second attack came fast on the heels of the first.
The scythe swung again. This time, dark crimson flames ignited along the blade.
One of the Five Elders' abilities. Saint Mars's.
The Libido Devil braced himself, arms crossed in front, ready to tank it.
But before he could even tense his muscles...
A wall of grey-black bone claws materialized out of thin air between them.
BOOM!
The dark crimson flames slammed into the energy barrier and stalled, unable to break through.
Susanoo.
"Boss?"
The Libido Devil turned to look at Makoto.
"Humphry. Fall back."
Makoto's voice was calm.
"You're no match for this one right now."
The Libido Devil blinked, then obediently shuffled behind him.
The other three members of the Fab Four had already regenerated after feasting on the blood pooled on the ground, their bodies restored.
All four took position behind Makoto, eyes fixed on Imu. Not one of them charged forward again.
Makoto regarded Imu with unhurried ease.
His expression was as relaxed as ever. Like an old man taking a stroll through the park who'd spotted a stray cat by the path.
"I'll give you one last chance."
Makoto held up a finger.
"Kneel. Lick my shoes. Let Morgans photograph it. Then I'll let you walk away this time."
"Otherwise..."
His smile stretched into something unhinged.
"I'll show you a pain worse than death."
...
Everyone held their breath.
Then...
BOOM.
Imu's Supreme King Haki erupted with full force.
This wasn't the same "burst" from before. Not even close.
This time, it was real. Unreserved. Eight hundred years of pent-up power released in a single, devastating wave.
The sky itself changed color.
Clouds above were torn to shreds, revealing the dark crimson firmament behind them.
The ground shook violently. Cracks spiderwebbed across Pangaea Castle's surviving walls.
And those buildings swallowed by black flame, the ones with eyes covering every surface, they erupted in piercing shrieks at the same moment.
Countless mouths split open across the walls. Black throats. White teeth. A cacophony of shrill, skin-crawling laughter that made scalps prickle and stomachs turn.
The sound rolled across the night sky, rising and falling in waves. Like every demon in hell crying out at once.
"...King of the World, huh?"
Garp's voice was low. So low only he could hear it.
What he felt in that moment was the instinct of prey standing before an apex predator.
The Five Elders dropped to their knees.
The surviving Holy Knights followed.
Then...
Imu's body began to change.
But this wasn't the single Mythical Zoan transformation the Five Elders had shown.
...
"A Mythical Zoan too?!"
Garp couldn't keep the shock from his voice.
But almost immediately, he realized that wasn't right.
Because whatever Imu was turning into... he'd never seen it before.
Not just in reality. Not in any legend or story either.
It wasn't any known creature.
It was a... chimera.
Imu's body swelled to dozens of meters. Black scales and thick fur covered every inch. A pair of massive wings unfurled from his back, the same wings from Saint Mars's Itsumade form!
Two enormous fangs jutted from his jaws, the tusks of Saint Warcury's Houki form!
Thick spider legs burst from his lower body, the arachnid limbs of Saint Saturn's Gyuki form!
Who knew how many Mythical Zoan traits had been mashed together.
Garp's eyelid twitched.
A monster?
"Figures."
Makoto looked at the stitched-together abomination and laughed.
It reminded him of a cartoon from his past life. Digimon.
There was a Digimon called Kimeramon. A patchwork creature fused from Garurumon, MetalGreymon, Myotismon, and a half-dozen others.
Imu's Mythical Zoan form...
A pirate version of Kimeramon.
"Ugly as hell."
Makoto scoffed.
"Fusing your subordinates' abilities to fight." He shook his head. "Jack of all trades, master of none."
...
Imu ignored the mockery.
A deafening roar tore from that grotesque throat.
"ROAR!"
It sounded like a hundred beasts screaming at once.
The next instant, another torrent of dark crimson flame poured forth. A canopy of fire hanging upside down, cascading down toward Makoto.
Saint Mars's technique again.
But in Imu's hands, the power had multiplied tenfold at minimum.
Hope flickered in the surviving Elders' eyes.
An attack of this magnitude... even five of them together might not have been able to block it.
But...
Facing the sky-blackening flames, Makoto simply reached inside his collar.
His fingers found the cold pull-ring at the center of his chest.
"Gonna need your help again."
His voice was quiet.
"Pochita."
From deep within his heart came the roar of a chainsaw.
Not from outside.
From inside his body.
From the depths of his soul.
BRRR.
The chainsaw's howl exploded inside Makoto. The sound pierced through bone, muscle, and skin, reverberating across the night sky.
Then Makoto pulled the chainsaw's cord.
VRRRRK.
The moment the ring was yanked, his body transformed.
His skull split down the middle, revealing a blade lined with jagged teeth.
The flesh of both hands burst open. Chainsaw blades spun out from his palms, from between his fingers, from every joint.
Chainsaw Man form.
Complete.
Makoto raised his right hand.
The chainsaw screamed.
One swing.
BRRR.
Accompanied by the grinding shriek of a chainsaw carving through matter, the wall of dark crimson fire was split clean down the middle.
Shredded into countless wisps of flame that scattered like petals in the wind.
Imu's pupils contracted.
Chainsaw Man Makoto launched himself forward, materializing instantly before Imu's Mythical Zoan form.
Imu flailed in panic, swinging Saint Saturn's spider legs to counter.
The limbs collided with the chainsaws, screeching with metallic friction.
Dark red pentagram magic circles suddenly flared to life in every direction. Black-crimson tendrils lashed out from within. Makoto's chainsaws carved through them with casual precision, severing each one.
Chainsaw against tentacle.
Dark crimson flame intertwined with Amaterasu's black flames.
On the surface, it looked like an even fight.
The four surviving Elders watched the clash, unable to hold back their reactions.
"What a monster..."
Saint Saturn murmured.
"To think he can fight Lord Imu to this extent."
Saint Warcury nodded, his eyes heavy with dread.
"If we don't eliminate him here, he'll become a catastrophe beyond our control someday."
Saint Mars said nothing. But his expression spoke volumes.
But...
Hearing those words, Yu couldn't help but laugh.
The Libido Devil doubled over, tears streaming.
"Hahahaha! The boss can fight to this extent!"
The Dolphin Devil was bent in half, barely able to breathe.
"Don't tell me you think the boss is going all out?"
The Gorilla Devil grinned wide.
"He hasn't even brought out the Black Saw form yet."
The Rabbit Devil licked her lips.
"He's probably not even using twenty percent of his strength right now."
The faces of the Five Elders turned a sickly shade of green the moment those words registered.