Suffice it to say, when I gave this as the reason I was quitting, the GM tried to reallocate the blame to me, the previous GM, and pretty much every other person but herself. THEN, failing that, she tried to gaslight me by saying that the disrespect she was showing wasn't actually a problem or not happening at all.
Why am I telling you this? Because that, as bad as it was, was not NEARLY as painful as this scanlation.
I'm still going to give this the best shot I can, though. Yami is already looking grim as fuck, talking about how he doesn't want to fight and this wasn't the showdown they (guessing he and Jonouchi?) had expected. Jonouchi giggles again, and Marik's specter of influence looming behind Jonouchi grins, encouraging the boy to kill Yami and be the vessel for his ill-conceived revenge. Yami recognizes that Jonouchi's behavior is under Marik's complete control, and so draws himself up, resolving to fight even though it's not the best thing ever.
Yami thinks that there must still be a red-hot burning heart of a true duelist SOMEWHERE in Jonouchi's thorax, and knows that he has to stoke the flame to wake that guy up.
Possessed!Jonouchi reminds Yami that it's his turn now, the bottom of the panel displaying 4000 life points for him and just 1900 for Yami. Yami sweats, quietly drawing a card and looking at it. He wonders as he puts the card in his hand with its fellows how he's going to wake Jonouchi up. He knows that this duel is designed to require death for either one or both players, but I'm not sure if this is implying that he's also wondering on whether or not he SHOULD wake Jonouchi up. Still, it's a valid question: if someone is likely to be dying in the next few minutes, is it kinder to just let them sleep or do you shake them by the shoulders and make them face their demise? And in fairness, no one ever gave YAMI a choice in all this, given that he's got to be conscious for the whole thing.
Anyway, Yami calls this a "crucial test", though of what, he doesn't say. I'm going to guess it's their friendship, but don't quote me on that. This translation isn't giving me much to go off of.
Meanwhile, Kaiba stands frozen some ways away from the duel, staring at Mokuba kicking and struggling in the grip of one of the Rare Hunters. This ghoul still holds a knife to Mokuba's throat, and advises Kaiba to sit and watch Yami get murdered by his best buddy. Mokuba counters with a plea to leave him to save Yami and Jonouchi. Kaiba, of course, is reluctant either one of these things, but a bit more so for the former, in the process of protesting Mokuba's selfless insistence. He agrees that something should be done, but trails off when it comes to his ability to do it. He mentally urges Yami to hang on, peering out of his periphery at the spectacle.
Jonouchi points a finger at Yami, accusing him of trying to stall for time (despite the fact that Yami's well aware stalling will only get BOTH of them killed), and demands he summon some monsters already. Yami remains silent and actionless, still assessing the situation. He notes Jonouchi's 1500-point monster on the opposite side of the field, and his own Guardna crouching pretty with 2600 defense points. Surveying his hand, Yami knows that he doesn't have anything there that can take down Jonouchi's monster, and ponders holding out in defense for a little while.
Despite this conclusion, Yami slaps a face down card on his duel disk and summons Kuriboh in attack before he ends his turn. Possessed!Jonouchi begins his turn with some confusion, wondering if Yami is having fun with him with that Kuriboh in attack position. He warns Yami that Kuriboh being taken out by Alligator Sword would bring his life points down to nearly zero, asking if this means Yami is committing suicide. Possessed!Jonouchi laughs about the prospect of Yami sacrificing himself to save his shell of a friend.
Yami rejects the notion that he should die, insisting he has to survive. He insists even harder that Jonouchi must survive as well. Possessed!Jonouchi barks a laugh, reiterating to Yami that this duel MUST end in one their deaths, and then announcing an attack. Alligator Sword flies at Kuriboh, sword raised, while the little guy sweats and cringes away. Before it can be sliced, though, Yami reveals his face down card, using it as a shield for Kuriboh. It's Spellbinding Circle (I had to look up the name I'm used to, because this translation undoubtedly has a more literal interpretation of the Japanese name here) and tells it to protect his little fluff-ball. Possessed!Jonouchi is much like regular Jonouchi in his surprise at having overlooked an obvious trap card. Strange that Jonouchi's inner feelings and thoughts are being controlled, and yet he still manages to commit classic Jonouchi mistakes. Maybe Jonouchi was never as unprincipled and doofy as it seemed; maybe he just needs glasses.
It's that Hinotama card again, dropping a big ol' fireball right on top of Yami's poor skull. Yami screams as his life points drop down to 1300, and possessed!Jonouchi brags about his deck's firepower (get it?) being increased by his use of banned cards, making ordinary monsters SO last duel. I don't think Yami is really listening, though, swaying on his feet and groaning. He stutters Jonouchi's name through his pain, asking if possessed!Jonouchi doesn't feel his own pain deep down in his duelist heart. Possessed!Jonouchi scoffs and says that doesn't matter to him.
Yami looks hurt and takes a long pout before he says that his pain doesn't come from possessed!Jonouchi's attack. He yells that it comes from Jonouchi losing that duelist heart he should have cherished. Strangely, Jonouchi's expression is somewhat bemused, but Marik, looking out from the inside, doesn't really notice. He thinks that whatever Yami says is useless, Jonouchi being nothing but a puppet at this point controlled by the hate of another. Jonouchi's face lifts back into a smirk as he repeats that he's going to kill Yami. Yami says Jonouchi's again, but the possessed version ignores him and tells him it's his turn next. Grinding his teeth, Yami is consumed with the question of what he can do to take back Jonouchi's heart. Well you could start by doing spontaneous. That always helps reignite the passion in a cold romance.
But seriously, once Yuugi has Yami's attention, his first observation is that this seems to be the first time Yami has been feeling this much stress. Yami hangs his head and admits it, so Yuugi suggests that he can maybe reduce that stress a bit by letting HIM try to get through to Jonouchi. This seems to make the stress INCREASE on Yami's face, but Yuugi is already trying to explain. He says that Jonouchi accepted a weak guy like him as a friend, saving his life in fires and such, being constant support and help in general. Yuugi thinks it's his turn to save Jonouchi.
Yami protests that this is such a crucial duel. I mean it's super crucial! But Yuugi knows this, and reminds Yami that he was the one who assured poor insecure Yuugi that it was his own doing becoming friends with Jonouchi, and not the Millennium Puzzle's doing. Yami acknowledges this, so Yuugi holds up his Millennium Puzzle, I guess the visualization of it anyway, and says he would like to prove his own relationship with Jonouchi in this duel. Yami is speechless.
Yuugi explains that if he can take back Jonouchi's heart, he can finally say that their friendship is a product of his own. After a long pause, Yami agrees to let Yuugi go out there and do this himself, under the one condition that if it looks like Yuugi is in real danger, he's going right back inside. Okay, mom. Also, have you forgotten you guys share a body again? How does this whole situation not put you both in danger simultaneously regardless of who's on the outside and who's on the inside?
I assume the noise Yuugi makes is in the affirmative, because the panel displays rays of light coming from the puzzle as an indication of transformation, but it's not any form of "yes" I'm familiar with.
Well, FIRST we get a shot of Kaiba looking over his shoulder and gaping at Yuugi's transformation back into the sensitive, mousey personality, because I'm not sure he's seen that before in the middle of a game. THEN we're shown an image of Marik's looming figure behind gaping Jonouchi, nose wrinkled and hackles raised. He's in disbelief that Yami allowed the original mind to play the duel at this juncture, and doesn't think his hatred would be sated if he killed YUUGI instead of Yami.
So, he has Jonouchi point and demand that Yami come back out, claiming that Yuugi isn't his opponent. Yuugi ignores possessed!Jonouchi's request and announces his turn anyway like the boss-ass bitch he is. Looking down at the cards still in his Duel Disk, Yuugi hears Yami's voice telling him that there is a card still in there that is KEY in waking Jonouchi up. The alarm card. Yuugi affirms that he's received the message, and vows to draw that key card. Meanwhile, Jonouchi is inundated with more and more hateful subliminal commands to kill, kill, kill the guy in front of him.
Yuugi draws a card, looks at it critically, and identifies it as the Red Eyes Black Dragon. Yami, backseat duelist that he is, whispers to Yuugi again to tell him this is the card they were discussing before. Yuugi doesn't seem to mind, knowing that this is the very card that has been by Jonouchi's side consistently through most of his duels. It's obvious that Yuugi has to bet it all on THIS card. We go back to Jonouchi to check out the complexities of his strategizing, which is actually just more of Marik telling him to murder Yuugi over and over.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? It was rough parsing what was actually being said here. Judging by the SFX symbols, it looks like this isn't even a Japanese raw, but it was translated into another language altogether and then translated to English from there. Not by a very skilled English-speaker either. I've said before that I have the utmost respect for multilingual people, and am even trying to pick up a couple of extra languages myself, but as useful as these scanlating projects may be on a personal level, it's not all that great when shared with others who are native speakers. Especially not when it's a translation of a translation.
That said, this was an interesting move on Yuugi's part, and not entirely altruistic either. A little selfish, if truth be told, which is very interesting from a character-building standpoint. Yuugi has always expressed doubts and insecurities about his various relationships, which is extremely relatable to me. Hell, I'm 30 years old, and I STILL wonder if my friends actually like me from time to time. When you're a teenager still figuring yourself out, though, the experience of dealing with lingering doubt and unrest around your relationships can be a million times worse.
In reality, conducting a "test" of this sort would hardly be conclusive, but in the story it speaks to just how deeply Yuugi wants to prove to himself that Jonouchi is just as much HIS friend as Yami's. It also indicates how uncomfortable Yuugi is with his passive role, always letting stronger guys like Yami and Jonouchi fight for him, but never feeling like he has the strength to fight for them in return. If his relationship with Jonouchi IS genuine, then he feels guilty for not pulling his weight. There's just layers and layers of misguided attempts to reframe himself in the relationship as worthy of and receiving recognition, and not feeling like dead weight.
That feeling was so much easier for me to relieve yesterday, considering all I had to do was cut the whole job out of my life in two weeks. Makes me grateful that I didn't fall out with anyone I was good friends with here. Or wasn't LITERALLY chained to the position.
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