"You know we support you, but turning off your brain the moment you have to figure something out without using your little cardboard warriors doesn't help. It just makes things worse, dude."
The problem is, I immediately imagined Honda being the one delivering this intervention speech, and we all know no one ever listens to that guy for how often he's just stating the obvious. And so, with a sigh, I realize the future is probably filled to the brim with more of Yami's complete shutting down in protest to having to think outside the bounds of his games, what with a practically zero chance of KT being told that this is not the correct way for him to make his main protagonist seem less like a Mary Sue.
Yami stares speechlessly down at the collapsed Yuugi for a moment before demanding he wake up, shaking his image by the shoulders in their mind hallway. Outside Yuugi's head, Pegasus stares at his sleeping form, saying that the useless roommate that shares Yami's existence couldn't stand the shadow game. Uh, Pegasus, did you forget that it was YUUGI who brought your stupid ass down to 800 points before? But sure, yeah, YUUGI'S the useless one who couldn't figure out how to fight you. Moron.
Pegasus smirks at Yuugi's passed out face, claiming that his soul is dead. Yuugi's friends from the balcony call his name in shock. Jonouchi seems especially floored by the claim that Yuugi's soul is dead, eyes wide and unfocused like he was just punched in the gut. He grits his teeth and refuses to believe it out loud, before shouting at Pegasus to shut his damn mouth. Then he starts calling out to Yuugi to wake up, softly at first, then raising his voice as a tear gathers in his eye.
Honda slams his fist on the railing, groaning that they couldn't do anything to help, and cursing that all they did was stand there. Anzu stares hard at Yuugi's lifeless form with a wide-eyed horrified expression, but that ends soon enough.
Because these characters always seem to think that their forgiveness MEANS something to the villain. Pegasus laughs at this notion, and reminds Yami that now Yuugi is gones, that means they can't do their Mind Shuffle anymore. He asks if Yami intends to keep dueling anyway, and of course Yami says that there's no "game over" for him until his heart stops beating. That's poetic in more ways than one, oddly enough.
Anzu has adopted a calmer look now, and asserts that Yuugi isn't dead yet. Jonouchi looks like he's in a daze next to her, but slightly revitalized at her declaration. Honda cites Pegasus saying that Yuugi's soul died as a weak protest, but Anzu says that once Yuugi told her that as long as his soul lives the other one will live too, because they both exist together or not at all. Jonouchi's face is a little hard to describe, but I'm imagining his wide-eyed slack-jawed expression is relief. Anzu confirms that Yuugi's soul has to still be alive, and Jonouchi's look here is back to jubilant as he shouts out confidently in agreement.
Ever the party-pooper, Honda tells them that it might be on the VERGE of dying, anyway. Jonouchi squeezes his eyes shut and balls up his fist, asking if there's no way they can help him. Anzu considers the notion of sharing their hearts with Yuugi while all the friends continue to stare at the raised stage where Yami continues to face Pegasus.
Pegasus shouts that the game will go on and tells Yami it's his turn. Yami is at just half Pegasus's 800 points and at a disadvantage once more when he draws his next card to glance at it.
Pegasus uses his next turn to absorb the dragon with his Lord of Sacrifices' Dark-Eyes Magic, drawing it into its oversized belly button. The Winged Dragon is now projected outward again, adding its stats to the relinquished's already inflated stats granted by the Dark Magician. The attack points are now at 3900. Yami gasps, now only too aware that Pegasus's monster can absorb more than one foe at a time and its attack power will continue to climb.
And Pegasus doesn't stop there. He next plays Jigen Bakudan, which Yami describes as a living time bomb, because of the clock-like device it sports up front and center. Pegasus informs Yami that his absorption of Yami's monsters wasn't just to increase the power of his own monster, but to complete the sacrifice combo, a phrase that seems to strike some new terror into Yami as he repeats it in his head. As it should, because Pegasus goes on to say that Jigen Bakudan can't be attacked as a bomb-monster, and in two turns will destroy every monster in play. So, even though Pegasus's monster will be destroyed too, Yami will take all the damage from Dark Magician and Winged Dragon going down. Yami knows that since Pegasus's monster doesn't have attack or defense points, it won't subtract from Pegasus's points, but he'll lose 3900 points due to the combining of strength from Dark Magician and Winged Dragon, making him the loser.
Grinning, Pegasus DARES Yami to beat his sacrifice combo, because he still has ONE mind left. Yami groans, looking at the ticking clock face on Jigen Bakudan with its slowly rotating arrow counting down the two turns he has left. He looks back down at his cards desperately.
Suddenly, a voice comes to him, this time Sugoroku's. He's encouraging Yami that he already knows the answer; Yami has to believe in his cards and one other thing. Yami's eyes spring open again as he thinks about this one other thing, though it's not specified. He grows a little smile, silently telling Sugoroku that he knows what that other thing is.
Yami announces he's drawing a card, courage restored. When he looks at it, Pegasus activates his Mind Scan, mentally giggling that it's useless for Yami, because he won't be able to hide the card even in the deepest recesses of his heart. The Mind Scan produces an image of a card's outline over Yami's forehead like usual, but suddenly, a strange silhouette obstructs the details. Pegasus is flabbergasted.
Pegasus flails weirdly in his seat, like he's been PHYSICALLY thrown out of Yami's head, gurgling as he does so. Yami looks aghast that his friends have formed a mental barrier, and actually speaks to them while they speak back. Anzu assures him that his other self is just fine and not to worry, as Honda and Jonouchi let him know they're right by his side, encouraging him to concentrate on beating Pegasus.
Yami holds up his new card with renewed vigor, agreeing with and thanking his friends. Pegasus can't believe these friends of Yami's managed to block the power of his Millennium Eye, but Yami explains that even the Millennium Eye can't break their bond. Awwwww! SWEEEEEEET! They're just giving me diabetes over here.
Declaring he's taking his turn now, Yami plays Mystic Box, which produces two boxes surrounding his Dark Magician and Jigen Bakudan. Pegasus is shocked by the way this is working, but he shouldn't be? Maybe he didn't design the Mystic Box card... He's also flustered that he has no time to counter the move so his shock could be entirely due to that. The Dark Magician escapes from both the relinquished and the box, putting Jigen Bakudan in its place. Even though the swords piercing Jigen Bakudan don't kill it, its now fused with relinquished in the Dark Magician's place.
Pegasus shouts that it doesn't matter, because even if Jigen just destroys Winged Dragon, it means Yami's points drop to zero, so his efforts are futile. He yells that Yami is finished on his next turn regardless, but Pegasus is losing his shit and Yami is looking confident when he draws his next card and says they'll have to see about that. Pegasus gapes.
Until he puts on a grin, proclaiming that it's too late because Jigen Bakudan is going to explode at this very moment, and adding in his head that Jigen can't be destroyed. Yami reaches toward the card Yuugi put face down on the table before he passed out, reminding Pegasus that Yuugi left it for him while he turns it over.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I'm a bit torn, to be honest. On the one hand, the last play was a bit beyond my ability to believe. Yami would have needed to guess EXACTLY what it was that Yuugi put on the table before in order to go to all the trouble of gathering all the necessary components to play it. It's one thing to suggest that a simple trap card needing nothing else but a call for attack to activate would be laid down by Yuugi and used by Yami. It's another thing entirely to suggest that Yami would be able to accurately guess the card with such a complex activation process AND gather all the moving parts for that activation process in such a short period of time. Having a trust in Yuugi isn't the same thing as being psychic.
And trust brings me to the other hand. If you've read some of my prior reviews, you may have seen the one I wrote about Digital Pet Duels, and my tentative parallel between the story told in short form there and the story of the Millennium Puzzle being put together at the beginning of the manga. I questioned if Jonouchi didn't have a more prominent influence on what happened after Yuugi put the puzzle together, if he didn't "exchange" information with Yuugi like their pets did. It was a silly little idea, and I didn't see anything to support it later. Until now.
Of course, the hypothesis as it stood way back in Digital Pet Duels doesn't match up with what I see here. If that were the case, only JONOUCHI would have been in Yami's head, looking after Yuugi and telling Pegasus to get lost all by himself. Bakura CERTAINLY wouldn't have been present because he and Yuugi didn't become friends until long after the puzzle was put together and didn't have the opportunity to handle any of the pieces or the box like Jonouchi, Honda and Anzu did.
But their friendship and unity against Pegasus is definitely supportive of what the puzzle seems to represent at its core. After Shadi went poking around in Yami's head and played with his emotions, they all came to the conclusion that the power of the puzzle WAS the unity between the members of their team, like the pieces of the puzzle coming together to form the pyramid. Each friend has had influence on that object, which allowed their influence to come forward and block Pegasus's eye's powers in turn. It couldn't have been the friends themselves; if Yuugi couldn't stand the heat of the shadow game, THEY certainly wouldn't have been able to, because none of them have so far matched the description of "wizard" as far as I can see.
So, either Anzu, Jonouchi and Honda were each imprinted on the puzzle pieces through contact before it was put together and Bakura was able to project himself using his OWN Millennium Item, OR the puzzle can be influenced by new members of the group even after its been put together. Probably the latter. Occam's Razor and all.
Dark Magician’s “Chaos” forms do tend to look fly as heck. Magician of Black Chaos was only the first — he got a second, non-Ritual version (Dark Magician of Chaos) that actually got banned for a while due to being used in a particularly nasty infinite loop; I think he was only released from the banlist after an edit to his effect. More recently we got:
ReplyDelete-Magician of Chaos (once per turn, can destroy one card on the field if someone activates an effect; and can summon another Chaos monster if sent to graveyard)
-Illusion of Chaos (once per turn, can negate an activated monster effect by going back into your hand and summoning Dark Magician himself from graveyard; also has an effect in-hand that lets you search your deck to add DM or any monster mentioning him to your hand)
-Master of Chaos (lets you revive 1 Light or 1 Dark monster from graveyard, can banish all your opponent’s monsters for the cost of sacrificing a Light and a Dark monster together, lets you fetch a spell from graveyard if he’s destroyed)
Just had to look up each of these cards and their designs (for science), and confirmed, they all look fly as heck. But to be fair, there are very few of these cards that I don't find absolutely stunning in various ways.
DeleteI'm glad that one got banned until its infinite loop was interrupted - I am NO fan of infinite loops in this comic alone, I can't imagine what it would be like trying to play an actual game with them in there.