Aster (Dark Empath)

Denji’s fight with Fake Chainsaw Man has exposed Denji’s still latent humanity in not wanting to harm innocent people, but also brought his “selfish” or “needier” side to the forefront: “But if I kill them… there’ll be fewer people who like me. I don’t like that”

Now Yoru brings forth her solution for that problem, and now she seems willing to help him fight instead of just wreaking havoc and actively contributing to other people’s misery

Asa brings forth Denji's more compassionate side: Denji brings her food, Asa has a heart to heart with him. But their interactions are coated with melancholy as the world around them is in shambles, and so are their attitudes: “then don't eat it” and “I'm a toxic woman now”. Yet Denji shows he can still be attentive and genuinely interested in her wellbeing.

Yoru's interactions with Denji are electric and full of life. He doesn't have to think much, and he can follow her lead as they have fun. Their montage has markedly romantic imagery. Yoru's attitude comes exactly from the same source as Asa's melancholy: the destroyed city, the people killed, the dire situation. This is what War wants and the element she thrives in. Denji in his spiraling is sharing that high.

Asa grows more despondent as Yoru turns more lively, while the world around them all becomes grim

It's no surprise to me that Denji, after every horrible thing that has happened to him, seems more excited and happier around Yoru's “debauchery”

They both seem the thrill, for different reasons. Denji now can find that in Yoru's company. The way I see it though, his happiness and the implied “romance” are a symptom of his deteriorating view of himself and of the world

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are harbingers of doom. So far, Nayuta is dead. Everything points out to her sister the Death Devil being the culprit: her head was served on a plate, like Fami was. In so doing, Nayuta is now her sister's minion as well and can reappear in the story

Chainsaw Man's ultimate ability erases concepts. It removes all their traces from existence, except for faint memories

Death does not do that. Death might physically remove someone from this world, but it does not erase them

In fact it is through death that a lot of people are remembered. Martyred, even. Heroized. Death might be the end of a personal journey but not necessarily the end of what that living being represents. Death, by the way, often changes our perception of people overnight

Nayuta could control Yoru, presumably by believing herself above her sister. Now Death has cannibalized Famine, enabling Fami's resurrection as her older sister's servant

Then again, she does not seem willing to let Chainsaw Man erase her, which is something explicitly conceptually different from dying in their world

She also does not appear indifferent to life. She's one of the few characters putting in the effort to go to school, have friends, eat, be part of the festival's committee (“If the next Death Devil does not enjoy human culture like me…”) - while also being unabashedly the Death Devil who plans and orders destruction and death

“I can control the starved”, “Fami” told us back then. It was a lie, but only half a lie. Just like Chainsaw Man she eats, but eats as a way of enslaving, that is, controlling those she kills

There's the underlying implication that all devils who serve her, including Falling, have been defeated and eaten by Death. They now “belong” to her, to her realm, to what she embodies

And so we go back to cannibalism as a manner of ownership: so far all Horsemen of the Apocalypse can control, manipulate and weaponize those they consider as “belonging” to them - Makima, Nayuta, Yoru, now the Death Devil

Despite being such an important backstory event, their motivations were never clear beyond a few characters. Makima expressed her admiration for Chainsaw Man at the end of part 1. It is in Yoru’s nature to compete and fight for primacy against Chainsaw Man.

Why, then, did Famine and Death, two of the most mysterious figures in the story, join this fight when, time and again, the narrative shows that the sisters hate, dislike or want to wipe out each other?

The real Death Devil has an obviously good characterization. She fits as a more exoteric, mysterious, imposing figure that is different from other iterations of the personification of Death. All main female characters from CSM carry a lot of originality in them.