What may have happened to Pochita when Denji met him at the start of Chainsaw Man?

Question

I've just caught up to the manga and I don't know if I missed this information or not, but how did Pochita end up in the state he was in at the start of the series? He looked like he had gunshot wounds.

From what I've seen, the Chainsaw Devil is very strong and I assumed that if he was killed in hell, he would end up on earth without injuries so that rules out that he was defeated by the Gun Devil in hell. Which means he was injured while on earth. Not to mention he also seems to be kinder and looks different too. So is Pochita a Fiend formed from the Chainsaw Devil taking over the corpse of a dog? And if so, could fiends make contracts with humans? I thought only devils could do that?

Sorry if this was information provided in the manga. I sometimes read this series just before going to bed so some details might have drifted away from me.

Answer 1

Pretty major spoilers from chapter 84, but

In chapter 87, Makima states that he "disappeared" in a fight with the Four Horsemen and the other Weapon Devils. In chapter 84, we pretty explicitly saw him literally tear through hell, so it's likely that he used the last of his strength while he was fighting the other devils to escape, leading to him collapsing in front of Denji. Edit: I checked again in chapter 84, and it seems like him escaping was due to the hell devil's door still being present, so it's not explained if there are ways of getting out of hell other than dying or through the hell devil

Answer 2

Major spoilers from chapter 87!!!

Pochita isn't a fiend but the chainsaw devil itself. The reason he appears to be a weak chainsaw dog devil at the start is because in chapter 87, Makima reveals that during the battle between her with the Weapon Devils and the Four Horsemen against the chainsaw devil, the chainsaw devil (pochita) managed to escape after being severely wounded and transformed to a "near-death form" (doggy pochita!)