Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 131 Attack of Chaos

Not another! Man, chaos just doesn't QUIT. I try so hard to keep it at bay too; I dust and vacuum, clean the dishes, try to keep everything in its proper place, but the entropy just won't stop fucking up my shit! And I don't even have an excuse, because this is an open system and I can exert all my influence on things to put them back the way I want them, so it's not as though I can just say "screw it" and let everything go to hell. I'm culpable in letting it get its adamant way.

Why can't chaos just work for GOOD every once in a while?

Oh yeah! I forgot about this raunchy character stepping in to kick some evil ass. I guess chaos isn't so bad after all, because I LIKE this.

Yami cites the Dark Magic Ritual card Yuugi left for him as the producer of the master of magicians, formed by the union of light and dark. Okay, yeah, if you say so Yami. Seems to me it was just the pervert across from you who painted a picture for his bondage club, but whatever.

He points, shouting that his hands are on Pegasus's throat. Pegasus is too busy staring at the Chaos Magician in horror to call out Yami's threat. He reiterates the steps Yami took to create it; brainwashing the Relinquished and using its hosts as sacrifices in the ritual card. However, he's comforted by the knowledge that the Brain Control will wear off on this turn, and when Relinquished comes back to him he can use it to absorb the Chaos Magician's power. He thinks that Yami can't even beat him when playing to his very limits, while Yami mentally tells Pegasus again how his bond with his friends can't be broken by the Millennium Eye.

Within Yami's head, Jonouchi assures him that as long as they're in there, they won't let Pegasus read his mind. All of them are gathered around Anzu cradling a still recovering Yuugi as she says that he's alright, and so Yami doesn't need to worry. Yami acknowledges his great friends, and they encourage him to just kick Pegasus's ass. He assures them that he will, drawing a card and throwing it on the table face down. Then he plays...

Pegasus is alarmed that somebody actually USES that card, even though he shouldn't be, having seen Yami play it in his duel with Mai. He must have fallen asleep during that part with instructions to his Secret Service Servants to wake him when Yami won.

Yami glares at Pegasus, who looks warily at Yami's face down card. He wonders what it is, since Yami's brain!friends prevented him from seeing it, but smirks when he thinks he has a trump card up his sleeve himself. Hopefully that's not also where Pegasus keeps his phone, because if so he might find quite a number of tweets on his Twitter account demanding apologies from a lot of "overrated" people tomorrow. Yeah, I went there. Fight me.

Pegasus shouts that it's his turn, and that Yami's brainwashing has worn off, returning Relinquished to Pegasus's side of the table. Yami looks kind of bored with Pegasus's declaration, which is probably what has Pegasus second-guessing the obvious next target for Reliquished's powers of absorption. He has a feeling that Yami won't fall for the same trick twice. Even though he has. Many times. Within this very duel.

Instead, he decides to play two face down cards to power up Relinquished even more.

Or a voyeuristic one. Anyone else feel like they're being watched?

As the monstrosity hovers over the field, Pegasus announces that this is the end of the last and greatest match in Duelist Kingdom, in which fate has ordained that Yami be dealt an excruciating defeat. Yami responds that it's not over yet, but Pegasus isn't done running his mouth. He says now that Relinquished has powered up to Thousand-Eyes Restrict, it's power is more than a match for the Chaos Magician, and Kuriboh is nothing more than a worm to it as well. Yami's eyes widen at the notion that Thousand-Eyes could be more powerful than his magician while Pegasus chuckles. Pegasus is convinced that the moment all those bulging eyes currently squinting open all the way up, the enemy will be helpless. Better than being dragged to Hell so you can become a poltergeist, right Mayu?

Crossover!

Yami thinks that despite its polymerized status, the monster before him doesn't have any attack or defense points. He knows it will try to absorb his Chaos Magician to gain its power, but Yami is determined not to let that happen. He made a promise to Yuugi to beat Pegasus with the Black Magic Ritual, after all. Yami shouts at Pegasus that he accepts the challenge, because Pegasus won't be able to make him break his promise to himself. Pegasus chuckles, repeating that this is the end. Yami, however, reaffirms his belief that his monsters can do it.

Actually, maybe Mayu had it a little better...

Pegasus explains that Yami's monsters will be permanently paralyzed in the terrifying gaze of Restrict as long as its eyes are open, because the spell stays in effect forever. Yami is horrified by this, his friends expressing their own dismay within his heart. Yuugi continues to look haggard, probably in no small part due to how Yami continues to fuck up his life for him. Dammit, Yami.

According to Pegasus, all that's left for him to do is activate that central eye looking an awful lot like his own Millennium Eye and suck up his targets into Restrict's gaping maw. The mini Millennium Eye stares at the frozen Kuriboh and Chaos Magician while Yami frets that Chaos Magician will be absorbed once the eye glows.

Again, Pegasus shouts that it's over, just as Yami turns over and activates his special face down card with a growl. Pegasus calls Restrict's attack, Evil Eye, as the extended eye glows brightly. He laughs that the Chaos Magician will just be an organ floating within Retrict now, but Yami says they'll see about that, holding up that card he just activated. Pegasus widens his good eye in shock and question.

The card is Multiply, which produces a whole flock of Kuribohs crowding over and around Chaos Magician. Yami shouts that Pegasus will have to get through the Kuribohs before he can get to Chaos Magician, while Pegasus angrily observes that the swarm protected his real target from the light of the Evil Eye. The Kuribohs' eyes swirl while they float in a daze, and Yami states that since they've been exposed to the Evil Eye, THEY'LL be absorbed into Relinquished. Pegasus is flabbergasted yet again.

You are what you eat, as they say.

Yami chuckles, patronizingly claiming that he's sure the CREATOR OF THIS GAME knows Kuriboh's special ability; that of a land mine that explodes on contact with the enemy. Yami, you have no room to start being all cocky after you've spent so long being such a loser. Humility, boy.

Pegasus is nonetheless sweating at the phrase "land mine", right before each of the little furballs explodes like a shit ton of stress pimples in Relinquished. Yami is down to 100 points with Kuriboh's death, but the smoke rising from the monster's thousand eyes shows that each one of them is destroyed. Pegasus is in a state of shock that Yami managed to sacrifice Kuriboh to blind his monster. That's what you get for putting a thousand weak-points on a monster, Pegasus.

Because the eyes are no longer holding the Chaos Magician in place, it is floating freely. It raises the staff in its hand while Yami asks Pegasus if he's ready.

The moral of the story, kids? Fabulousness wins over nasty eye-monsters every time.

Also six-to-one odds are a little hard to overcome if you're the "one" in the scenario.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? LOVED the pacing. With the pressure off of Yami fretting about his mind being invaded every five seconds, the duel went a lot faster and showed a more even move-for-move on each opponent's side. I'm not sure I buy that the Kuriboh managed to explode so that it JUST targeted the eyes of the creature Pegasus made, or that Yami figured out that this would happen beforehand, but there are a LOT of things I don't really buy about how the card game works within the context of the comic. I think I can ignore it.

That's not to say that there wasn't a few moments within the aforementioned success of the attack that I didn't wonder if the good pacing had taken on the hint of a rush. It definitely seemed that KT was trying to wrap this finale up, because he knew he'd been spending far too much time working on the drama side of things. If he hadn't taken his time on Yami's frustrations at the beginning, he may have been able to make this part seem less hurried. I know I've complained about this a lot already, but the slow-build to Yuugi's intervention in the duel REALLY fucked up the rest of match.

If you want a good comparison to see how this duel SHOULD have been paced, you need not look any further than back to the tabletop RPG arc with Bakura. That was a very well-crafted arc (save for the last few pages which made little to no sense, but I won't get into that again) which always had some action happening in some fashion, and you could always see the protagonists move forward. This one squandered a chapter and a half on needless waffling, like a horse in a race that hangs out in the gate for several moments after the starting shot for no reason.

And if you're betting on that particular horse, your frustration is palpable, no matter how fast it proved to be in its other races.