Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 189 Ultimate Summon!!

I'm sure Yami would like to characterize this as his and Kaiba's ultimate destiny as well. With monsters, trap cards and holograms as far as the eye can see, it must seem like that to him. And the fact that only one of the four of them may survive (maximum two) makes this appear doubly final. Luckily, I'm viewing the whole conflict from a perspective where I DON'T have to wonder who will survive.

Still, I'm interested to see this ultimate summon. Of ultimate destiny.

... The power of your bond with KAIBA?

Yami. Sweetie. Take it from a woman who has a LOT of experience with people (mostly men) pursuing a relationship with her in which she is not interested: YOU ARE BEING CREEPY BY PUSHING THIS SO HARD AND YOU NEED TO BACK THE FUCK UP. I don't even know why you want to be friends with this douchebag so goddamn bad, but you have no CHILL.

In the panel directly following this declaration of a "bond", Kaiba looks like he's in a seething rage, ready to commit some murder. Count to ten, boy, or repeat the mantra that you can put up with this for now. That's what I always did.

Shorty and Tallie grimace across the way, looking sweaty and angry. Shorty assesses the points of his own Guardius, which has 3300, but knows that Valkyrion's points are higher by 200. Kaiba yells at Yami to destroy the monster that took down his Blue Eyes White Dragon, and Yami turns an annoyed glare on him. What, you thought your decree of friendship was enough to stop the guy from being a douchebag anymore? Are you HIGH, Yami?

Kaiba says that teamwork is all well and good, but only blood will pay for that sacrifice, and for the wrath of his dragon. Somebody's going to have to bleed. Yami looks back at their opponents, noting that they have no face down cards, so Kaiba might be right and Valkyrion should be able to defeat the Guardius. But he has a feeling that these stony-faced (not just the masked side, BTW) foes aren't afraid of a possible attack. He wonders if perhaps this hulking Guardius has some hidden ability of which he's not aware.

With a slight smirk, Shorty silently dares Yami to attack him, just like Kaiba suggests. Once he does, Shorty knows Yami is dead.

Man, this kid is impatient. Yami isn't the only one who needs to back the fuck up, it seems.

Yami pulls a card from his hand and announces that he's putting it face down, before he peers at Kaiba out of his periphery and states that they don't have much time. He asks if Kaiba can throw out the need for vengeance right now, because if he can, then Yami can attack. Kaiba snaps at him for clarification, so Yami lectures Kaiba on how strong negative emotions can cloud one's judgement and make one play right into enemy hands. Kaiba, of course, thinks that he's wrong and that battle IS anger, while he looks like he's snarling to boot.

Tsk tsk, Kaiba, you should know better than to argue with the main character by now. Especially when it's obvious that your motivation for battling Yami at some point isn't entirely anger.

Yami insists that he calm down, because being zen and shit is the only way to see their true path to victory. As Kaiba growls with barely contained rage, Yami reiterates yet again the theme of this fucking duel, which is working together as the real solution. Kaiba pays no attention, looking at his hand with something close to anxiety and taking stock there.

He has the god card right in his hand, but he's still stuck on how to summon it while Mask of Restrict is in play, since it requires three sacrifices to be used.

But wait! What's this?

How did you miss that before, dude?

Kaiba actually GASPS and looks over at Yami in disbelief. He had thought Valkyrion was Yami's trump card before, but he questions now whether or not it's not a decoy itself. He considers the possibility the power of unity itself is the real move here. Well, I mean Valkyrion IS made up of three separate monsters, sooooooooooooo...

Kaiba calmly tells Yami to attack again, and after a short pause, Yami smiles and complies. He commands Valkyrion to use its Magnet Saber, and it jumps to do so, lunging toward Guardius. The Magnet Sword is buzzing and crackling with electricity too? I didn't know this was an electromagnet, but I guess that's fine. It's not like the audience could be confused as to how electricity came into play or anything.

Shorty grins, just giddy that Yami fell for it. Even though Valkyrion's sword smashes straight through Guardius and Yami is pretty sure he managed to get it, Shorty informs him that he's super wrong. You see, Guardius has a secret ability! Oooooh! Kaiba is freaked by this reveal, because I guess it didn't occur to him that this was a possibility. He's missing all KINDS of obvious shit today, isn't he? Shorty informs him and Yami that a piece of Guardius's corpse comes detaches and comes back to life after its demise.

And, of course, it's a mask.

Fucking MASKS, man.

Shorty orders his bodyless mask to attach to Valkyrion, and it adheres itself to the magnet monster like a mold with teeth. It's pretty gross. Valkyrion appears behind Shorty now, who needlessly exposits that it belongs to HIS team now, GOT IT? Yeah, he's still doing that.

Kaiba is sweaty and looking pretty freaked now that the only monster on their side is on their enemy's side. Yeah, kind of fucked that shit up, didn't you, Kaiba? Shorty asks our heroes (such as they are) if they can see the vengeful and angry aura of Guardius possessing Valkyrion. I can certainly see it, and it's so EXTRA. Did we really need to turn this thing into a GHOST as well as a horrible abomination. Why don't we just move it into my head permanently, right behind my eyelids so I can see it every time I close my eyes?

That was sarcasm. Please don't do that.

Yami growls in anger as Shorty taunts him with the announcement that it's over for him, since he and Kaiba are all out of monsters. Shorty tells his partner to take out Yami, while he focuses on Kaiba next, still sore about being called a "shrimp" earlier and wanting to get back at him with his own shrimpy cards. Not the way Shorty would describe his own cards, I'm sure, but fuck 'im.

Tallie agrees to lay the murder on Yami and warns him that he's going to die.

Shorty is practically ecstatic when he exclaims that he and Tallie have got Yami by the balls. But Yami turns that elated expression into horrified disbelief when he smugly says that they'll see about that. He advises Shorty on the one thing he should take from this if he takes anything at all, which is that it was anger and vengeance that lost the duel for him in the end. Then he reveals his face down card to be:

Well doesn't Kaiba look cocky for a guy who just a few panels ago appeared to be shitting his pants. But more importantly, I'm finding De-Fusion and oddly succinct card. Where's the whole paragraph describing how all the components are returned to the field? Are you FEELING okay Duel Monsters? Have you taken your verbosity pills today?

He promises to show his opponents god, and I can't help feeling a bit creeped at the expression. Somebody is going to die horribly now. Again, Shorty stutters out a reminder about Mask of Restrict, and asks how he can possibly summon a god card without his sacrifices. Kaiba tells him to read the fine print, because Mask of Restrict only prevents him from sacrificing his OWN monsters, so he's happy to just sacrifice Shorty's instead. He pulls Soul Exchange out of his hand and plays it, a move that surrounds all three magnet warriors with whirlwinds to start off their sacrifices.

Shorty has gotten used to them being on his side of the battle pretty quickly, because he calls them "our" magnet warriors without the slightest hesitation. He wonders if Yami gave them Valkyrion on purpose for the long term goal of summoning Obelisk, a notion that is making his eyes bulge, sweat to pour down his face, and... his nose to run?

Yami is amused by this sniveling, because it's not like the guy is actually going to DIE or anyth- oh... wait...

Kaiba's got his grin back on when he bids his god to descend from the heavens and punish the nonbelievers!!! Shorty's bulging eyes roll up to follow the length of the giant pillar growing from Kaiba's corner of the field. NO! Not like that! Get your minds out of the gutter you perverts!

Although to be fair, that is some pretty intense ecstasy he's displaying here...

This is just INDECENT. Could you put the murder-boner away, Kaiba? Sheesh.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? It had a really good pace to it, which is great because that's something that I've felt KT has struggled with before. He's in the habit of slowing down or stopping action to give an extreme close-up to minor details that aren't very important, but here he managed to avoid that. The action DID stutter a little when Yami was giving Kaiba his lecture regarding anger and vengeance clouding one's judgment, but given that was the theme of the chapter, it was a fair digression, if not a little ham-handed.

Because it's no secret that I'm not a great fan of when Yami gets preachy. I can't think of a time when a lecture from him has come across as anything other than insufferable to some degree, because it mostly just translates as an infallibility of the main character. However, I would be remiss not to mention the fact that this talk with Kaiba about feelings of anger and indignance leading to losses goes WAY back, since those reasons were the basis of Kaiba's own obsession with beating Yami. It's certainly not the WHOLE story, especially by this point, when Kaiba's real objective seems to have evolved into a need to prove himself the best again, facing his greatest obstacle in the process. But Kaiba's anger is the foundation of their current relationship, so I guess this does double as another indication from Yami to him on how he should be careful not to make the same mistakes when they duel again in the future.

There was another small detail that REALLY bugged me about this chapter, though. ONE PANEL in particular, in fact, that really kind of ruined the setup, and subsequently the payoff, of the Valkyrion De-Fusion play. Following Kaiba's revelation that he has Soul Exchange, and that Yami might be using Valkyrion as a decoy after all, he calms down and tells Yami to attack again. Presumably, this shows that Kaiba is aware of the fact that their opponents are anticipating this, and that Guardius's destruction has a way of bringing Valkyrion over to their side. Otherwise, Soul Exchange wouldn't work, requiring the sacrifices used to be those of the opposing team.

So why does Kaiba look so devastated by the fact that Valkyrion has been brought over to Shorty and Tallie's side mid-chapter? It seems to me that he would be stoked by this, because his plan is working. And don't try to tell me he's bluffing; this kid's poker face is about as nonexistent as my patience for people who tailgate me on the highway. I refuse to believe that he suddenly got sly to the point that no one can tell the difference between his fake terror and the real thing.

I mean, that ONE panel actively HURTS every clever thing KT was trying to do for this chapter. It's really kind of sad. Can he just stop doing this to his own work, please?