Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 247 Duel the Lightning!

Just how in the world is someone supposed to duel LIGHTNING? Not only am I sure that if lightning were sentient, it probably wouldn't care a whit about a card game when it can just fry opponents on the spot, but it wouldn't even be able to hold the cards if it did. It would have to get a surrogate to play for it, and have a reliable way of controlling how the surrogate plays so that they don't get all uppity and start playing with their OWN strategy. You gotta have some sort of mind-control going on there, but perhaps not super obvious, the kind that's a leading suggestion.

Oh dammit, I'm describing those fucking Millennium Items, aren't I??

Say what you want about other!Marik, at least he doesn't hide behind manipulation and underhanded garbage. Unlike regular-sized Marik, what you see is what you get, and he doesn't bother with the cloak-and-dagger shit.

While Shizuka frets over her brother and Honda exclaims that Jonouchi is in a cage, as if everyone else can't see that, Yami contemplates the horrible Lava Golem that other!Marik managed to force Jonouchi to summon by using Jonouchi's own monsters. He wonders if this is other!Marik's plan for a brief moment, but concludes that other!Marik would never just give Jonouchi a 3000-point monster, even if it DID cost Jonouchi a couple of other monsters. He figures there has to be some sort of terrible strategy behind this.

Meanwhile, other!Marik laughs and taunts Jonouchi with a mocking request for thanks; he gave Jonouchi quite a powerful monster after all. But then he speculates that Jonouchi is just too frightened to speak, locked up in his cage as he is. Other!Marik acknowledges that there's a certain risk with having Lava Golem as a monster. Even if he hadn't already given it away, I'm sure Jonouchi could have guessed, what with being locked up and prevented from getting away that's part and parcel with the summoning. Also, he's sweating his ass off, grinding his teeth over how hot it is all of a sudden. Again, other!Marik goes over how the Lava Golem's melty body causes 700 points of damage to the player every turn, relishing in the prospect of Jonouchi tasting red hot hell.

I've heard of some weird fetishes, but lava is a new one. For me anyway. I realize this is the internet, so please don't send me lava-porn, because I don't need convincing it exists in this hell-hole.

Well, at least a card game is an easy feat to accomplish in a cage. Granted, he can't flail like they usually do, but I feel like that can be easily omitted with little impact to the match.

Honda JUST seems to have noticed the hefty attack points on the Lava Golem, and asks Yami if it can't be used to attack other!Marik and win, since it DOES seem to be Jonouchi's and all. Hesitantly, Yami admits that other!Marik doesn't have any monsters on his side right now, but he's pretty damn sure that other!Marik wouldn't just hand Jonouchi the means to beat him, and he's preparing a trap. Yami mentally urges Jonouchi to draw the card "Giant Trunade", which would return all spell and trap cards to their respective owners from the field. Jonouchi is on the same wavelength as he draws, hoping against all hope for the hurricane card.

Unfortunately, when he looks at his new card, it's Foolish Burial. He curses internally, noting that he doesn't have any more monster cards as he adds his new spell to his hand. He wonders what to do, contemplating his cards, taking stock of Viser Des still clinging to Panther Warrior, which means other!Marik can't use it to defend. The only problem Jonouchi can see at the moment is other!Marik's face down card. But after only a moment of consideration, Jonouchi thinks that even if it is a trap card, it'll probably go to the graveyard after other!Marik uses it. Yeah, I guess if he were ANYONE ELSE. Regardless of how much of a miscalculation I think this is, Jonouchi decides that he'd rather step into a trap than just let lava drip on him passively.

Well, at least he's aware of the overwhelming risk.

Jonouchi yells at other!Marik that he'll attack with the grotesque pet that was given to him, just like other!Marik wanted. I suppose if you're doing something outwardly stupid, you've got to alert people to the fact that you KNOW it's stupid, to avoid too many accusations that you're a moron. Other!Marik grins, admitting that he thought Jonouchi would be too afraid of his face down card. He begins to smugly say how this decision turned out for Jonouchi before Jonouchi cuts him off to throw his condescending wording back at him. Seems other!Marik's endless prattle is only entertaining to him, but that's the only person he gives two shits about, so he proceeds to tell Jonouchi that his hunch was indeed right.

Wait, what? I was expecting a speech about how impulsive Jonouchi was wrong and stupid and other!Marik was going condemn him to eternal darkness for this sin, but other!Marik has surprised me. He says that his face down card doesn't have a permanent effect, and it won't be around the turn after it's triggered. Eyes narrowed in determination, Jonouchi announces he's going for it, and other!Marik encourages him, revealing the Lava Golem's ultimate attack to be "Golem Volcano" and demanding to hear Jonouchi shout it with another deranged anticipatory expression. Call me crazy, but this isn't inspiring a ton of confidence that Jonouchi is out of the woods.

It's the little acts of rebellion that keep us going, kids. Remember that.

Honda doesn't get it, and stutters Jonouchi's name for the attack, utterly mystified by it. He tries to steer back on the course of blindly supporting Jonouchi, but I'm afraid his poor mind has been derailed. And they call Jonouchi simple. Other!Marik calmly activates his face down card, just like that, thrusting his arm out to introduce "Monster Relief". Jonouchi gapes in confusion while other!Marik explains that with this card, he can make any one monster retreat and special summon another to take its place. Immediately, Yami realizes with alarm that the monster to be targeted is Viser Des. It's the only one available to other!Marik at the moment, so the deduction isn't exactly brilliant, but kudos anyway.

Indeed, other!Marik pulls Viser Des back into his hand in what looks like a slight-of-hand trick his Pandora follower would praise up and down. But then, strangely, he slaps it back on his Duel Disk again.

At least it's not attached to anyone's skull this time around. That's good news. With the rarity of good news these days, I'll take what I can get.

But Jonouchi is of a different mindset, cursing softly and wondering aloud just how other!Marik DID that. Other!Marik doesn't answer, just states smugly that the Lava Golem will now start to melt. A rope of molten rock drips next to Jonouchi, sizzling as he stares with a wild eye, but that's just the closeup. The next panel shows at a distance Jonouchi getting showered in melting Lava Golem drool in his cage, and Jonouchi repeats "HOT" over and over while he sizzles and his life points drop to 2600.

Other!Marik laughs, and reminds Jonouchi that Helpoemer is coming to loot another card from his hand. As if waiting for the cue, the ghostly fingers reach out from Jonouchi's Duel Disk and snatches something new from Jonouchi's palm. Jonouchi, feet propped on the metal cage that HAS to be more hot in the dripping lava than the damn ground for some reason, stutters that his turn is over and curses at other!Marik to hurry his ass up. Other!Marik smirks at him, claiming his turn, and thinking how unseemly Jonouchi's climbing in his cage is. It IS getting rather difficult to argue how clever he has been at this point...

Casually, other!Marik plays another face down card, while he contemplates the one easy way Jonouchi can get rid of that Lava Golem gift of his; a sacrifice. He reasons that Jonouchi must not have any high-level monsters handy at the moment, given he hasn't tried that route yet. Other!Marik can always stop that action dead in its tracks, though, by switching Viser Des from Panther Warrior to Lava Golem. Wait a moment, did he put Viser Des back on Panther Warrior? It was just hovering in front of him before like a weirdly effective shield, so what the hell?

Anyway, other!Marik decides to paralyze Jonouchi for real now, which is a super dick move even for him. I mean, at least let him finish the game he's playing before you rob him of all motor function and the ability to play later! Other!Marik pulls a card from his hand with a flourish, slapping it on his Duel Disk to reveal it's a spell card called Machine Duplication. Jonouchi gapes in disbelief, while other!Marik explains that this card will allow him to summon two additional machine-type monsters, under 500 attack points, of course. Jonouchi shouts a word of question, still in shock I'm sure, but Yami gets it: with grinding teeth, he realizes that other!Marik is going to summon two more Viser Des.

Or is it Viser Deses? Is there a plural for this name?

Just as Yami predicted, other!Marik starts pulling more cards from his deck, telling them he has two more of the sentient vices in his deck, and calls for them to come out as he flails their cards onto his hologram device.

The second worst thing I can think of locking onto me at this point. By a long way, though.

The additional torture devices attach to Lava Golem and Rocket Warrior where their temples MIGHT be if they had such things, but the third one still hangs out at other!Marik's side. I guess Panther Warrior has had its skull crushed quite enough for other!Marik, who laughs that Jonouchi cannot sacrifice a monster now, and will be forced to sit there losing life points every turn without the ability to TOUCH his opponent. He wonders out loud just how much Jonouchi will squeal when all three vices tighten at once, but this just elicits a growl from Jonouchi at the moment. Other!Marik ends his turn here.

Honda gripes that other!Marik's deck is far too good, which I guess is ONE word for playing three of the same cheap OP card at once. He asks if there's anything Jonouchi can do, Shizuka calling to her brother not to give up and Yami looking not too well on either side. Kaiba glares at the spectacle, scoffing about how other!Marik didn't even need to play the god card. Jonouchi hunches over his cards, looking desperate, and Anzu questions Yami just as Honda did - what can Jonouchi do? He doesn't answer, but he's looking intently at Jonouchi now, silently imploring Jonouchi to search his cards, because there has to be a way out. Maybe if he has a bobby pin and a paperclip.

Jonouchi examines the cards in his hand, Graceful Dice on top. He's consumed by the knowledge that the Lava Golem behind him will keep causing him damage every turn if he can't get rid of it, and he'll eventually lose. In addition, he's mentally beating himself up for that promise he made to Yami it doesn't look like he'll be able to keep. But, in true Yu-Gi-Oh style, Jonouchi decides he's not giving up, and he's going to keep believing in his next card.

Which when he draws it, turns out to be Gilford the Lightning. I didn't know lightning could have muscles, but this one DEFINITELY does. Jonouchi is at first a little sullen, because this is an eight-star monster that he can't summon if he can't sacrifice some of his current monsters. When contemplating how he just needs a sacrifice, he seems to have an epiphany, and sees his Graceful Dice card peeking from behind his Gilford card anew. Thinking that there's still a way, he pulls Graceful Dice from his hand.

Hot shit, this kid's getting creative AGAIN! Other!Marik sure doesn't look happy about this either.

Jonouchi has the weird hat angel-baby in the diaper roll its oversized die, trailing a speculation on what will happen if he raises those Viser Des attack points. It rolls right onto the six, which destroys two of the Viser Des. No kidding, they explode and everything. Other!Marik scarcely has time to growl in his irritation before Jonouchi tells him to get ready. He declares his sacrifice of Lava Golem, Panther Warrior and Rocket Warrior, all of which are surrounded in swirls of virtual wind.

Really? It seems to me you should have been paying attention, other!Marik, because there were SIGNS.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? As much as I'm making fun of other!Marik at the end of the recap up there, I am rather surprised about how much KT is making the most of Jonouchi's swan song here. If I weren't so certain that Jonouchi is going to lose for the sake of the story moving forward, I would be biting my nails right now. Even DESPITE the fact that I'm well aware that Jonouchi can't win, I still find myself marveling at how REAL the fight is for the character. He's giving it all he has, getting increasingly creative with what little he's given, to duel as hard as he can, and that makes this weird magical game (on its face) all the more realistic. It may seem like a given to have the characters maintain their effort to maintain tension even when there's a meta knowledge among readers and author that the outcome has to come out a certain way, but I've read a LOT of stories in which the author seems to FORGET that their characters are supposed to be  PEOPLE rather than vehicles for a narrative. So kudos to KT for keeping Jonouchi's energy high, because it's keeping mine high too.

I can't really say the same for other!Marik though. He has moments of emotionality, but it doesn't seem like much more than mild annoyance. I get that he's not really invested in this one, and that's understandable, because much like Kaiba, he has ONE target in this tournament. But you would think the revelation that he'll have to use his god card against Jonouchi after all would be a wake-up call. Maybe induce a bit more of a reaction than a little cocky grin? I don't know, I'm just never much feeling his character, and perhaps it's because he keeps pulling the cheap shots. His creativity and drive just isn't on the level with anyone else, and it's not easy for me to relate.

Then again, his overt pleasure in the shitty, hurtful side of life is kind of enviable these days. I wish I could be so excited about prospect of pain. All I am is angry, though. Angry and tired.