Wanna make the future right now? Make fewer hologram machines and start solidifying my right to control my own body, please.
On the OTHER hand, those are romanized sound effects! I never thought I'd be excited by the official translation, but slogging through barely-comprehensible scanlations has me nearly ECSTATIC over mere mediocrity. What can I say? I'm the proverbial dehydrated man in the desert.
Moving along, other!Marik laughs because it's oh-so touching that Yami is getting his ass burnt for his worthless pals. Yami glares over his shoulder and invites other!Marik to rage and hurt him all he wants, promising to send him back to the darkness regardless. Other!Marik doesn't look at all worried by this, chuckling away and encouraging Yami to talk while he can. He's going to get crushed along with the Millennium Puzzle anyway. All kinds of threats being made here tonight, folks. Other!Marik even kicks it up a notch by adding that he'll scatter the pieces of Yami and the puzzle into the void.
Other!Marik laughs some more and gestures to the still ragged Mai as she hangs there in his torture device, claiming that the attack took the rest of her life points and that's "game over" for her. Wait, the attack didn't even get to HER, though? Does it still count as long as it got over to her side of the platform, even if it didn't hit a monster or her along the way? Was YAMI acting as her monster there?
I am more confused by this game than ever before.
But other!Marik gives no shits about my head-scratches and turns to Moar Cards Guy to demand he declare him the winner already. Loudly. Apparently that part is important. Moar Cards Guy hesitates, looking a bit confused too, but lifts his arm anyway and states that the duel is over and Marik Ishtar is the winner. This guy is such a fucking STOOGE.
Other!Marik starts sauntering to the other end of the platform while Jonouchi cradles Yami and Anzu crouches on the other side of him, both frantically asking if he's alright and receiving no answer. Pulling apart the Millennium Rod as he did in the medical room, other!Marik points the blade down at Yami's unconscious form and wonders aloud if he should tear Yami apart right this second. Hey, go ahead, dude. I doubt even THAT will get you into any trouble on this lawless fucking blimp.
Jonouchi starts to call him a rotten something-or-other, but is interrupted by other!Marik's third Eye of Horus shining so bright that it darkens the face behind as though it were backlit. I have no idea how it works, but it looks kind of cool. Other!Marik assures Jonouchi that he's kill Yami in a duel, a Shadow Game (TM) that is befitting of those chosen by Millennium Items. Meanwhile, Jonouchi is freaking a bit because after the eye on other!Marik's forehead flashed, he couldn't move his body. It might just be out of fear, because other!Marik says through a grin at this point that he can kill JONOUCHI whenever he damn-well pleases.
He doesn't please to do so now, apparently, because he just scoffs as he continues on his way, past Anzu glaring at him over Yami, whom she has taken up cradling in Jonuchi's place. She tells him he's done enough about this dangerous guy (I assume silently, but you never know with this comic), and begs him not to hurt himself anymore. Not sure he has much of a choice in the matter, considering he's kind of isolated with the nutcase in an airborne vessel. The people in charge of which refuse to do anything about the health and safety of its passengers. Kaiba is clearly not going to land the blimp for anything but the end of this tournament, so everyone's pretty much stuck.
Other!Marik stands before Mai and says it's time for him to take back his god card. Somehow she's still stuck in his torture device, which should have dispersed after the game was declared over? I don't know, I guess I'll go with it, try to figure this out later. So she's still hanging her head when other!Marik lifts his hand to lift her chin in a creepy show of weird tenderness. This is when the torture device dissolves, as he chuckles that she's lucky she got away from this with her life, but she'll wish she had died here painlessly instead.
PAINLESSLY??? You had her strapped into an elaborate set of thumbscrews that induced pain even though they were illusions, dude! You don't get to act like that would have been a merciful death! Eat shit, man!
But other!Marik does NOT eat shit. He informs Mai that the loser of his Shadow Game (TM) must be penalized, and we all know what THAT means. Mai gapes in horror, and whether it's at the sicko stroking her cheek with his thumb or the memory of what happened to that Superfluous Asshole back in Duelist Kingdom after Yami was through with him, we'll never know. Other!Marik points the Millennium Rod in her face (how's that for innuendo) and announces his plans to go inside her mind to inflict a suitable punishment.
He declares a penalty game and Mai's horrified face is engulfed in light.
He pops back into reality and Mai falls over flat on her face, unconscious. Jonouchi turns to her and yells her name, then turns to other!Marik, asking what the scum did to her NOW. Other!Marik calls Jonouchi a fool, claiming that Mai SOUGHT OUT the darkness, knowing the risks when she fought him. Demonstrably untrue - she had to be informed when the duel already STARTED that she was seeing illusions and in a Game of Darkness (TM), so don't you fucking pretend like she had made an informed decision there, you dick. But no one points this out to him and he continues to spew stupid by insisting that Mai sought the ultimate pain and pleasure within her heart.
At this point he may as well be a Cenobite.
Unlike the Cenobites, though, other!Marik is willing to offer a little hope here. He throws a comment over his shoulder at Jonouchi that he has 24 hours. When Jonouchi's eyes widen at the tidbit, other!Marik says through a smirk that Mai will never regain consciousness unless he's killed in that period. Jonouchi growls at other!Marik's back while the guy walks away, laughing. What a bag of dicks.
Jonouchi considers the vacant-eyed Mai and the passed-out Yami in Anzu's arms, fist clenched. He wonders how much this Marik asshole his going to hurt his friends, and decides that the douchebag has REALLY done it now. He vows that Marik is dead, and he's going to get beaten bad. Other!Marik pauses, AGAIN, to tell Jonouchi to relax, that he'll drown him in darkness as well. Then he FINALLY makes his exit down the stairs with more laughter. On his way, he grins at his clawed palm, thinking about how his power has been released, and it will get stronger the more souls he feeds to the darkness.
Honda gets in on the cradle-action by propping up Mai, calling her name and bidding her to wake up. Shizuka also comes running up, shouting in distress to Mai. Noting that this is bad, Honda describes the severity of Mai's condition, everything from her unconsciousness despite continued breathing, to her open, listless eyes. Jonouchi watches this in a sort of daze, mulling over what other!Marik said about beating him within 24 hours. He asks Mai to wait for him, beginning to make a promise to her.
But then, what's this??? Anzu announces Yami is waking up! His eyes look bleary, but they're not blank like Mai's. Jonouchi hovers over him and Anzu, asking if he's alright, and after a pause he says he's fine. Anzu thanks goodness, then starts lecturing Yami that even if he was trying to save Mai and Jonouchi, he almost killed himself, pleading with him not to do that ever again. Jonouchi agrees, but Yami looks up at him with a little grin and a wink, telling him to speak for himself because he put himself in the path of Ra long before anyone else had a chance to.
Yami turns to Mai and asks how she is, but Jonouchi explains the bad news that she's passed out from Marik's penalty game. She's being hauled away by Ryuji and Honda, each of her arms around their shoulders on either side. Yami growls, thinking that this personality born from Marik's subconscious is a formidable enemy. Yeah, formidable is not the word that I would use, but sure. We'll go with that.
Cut to Kaiba, contemplating Marik and his ability to read the Hieroglyphs on the Ra card he possesses. I guess he stopped paying attention after that part or something. Apparently, "they" say the glyphs contain the secret of Ra's hidden powers, even though it was JUST other!Marik who said it. You'd think a guy so laser-focused on the subject would get the facts straight. Kaiba's popped collar beeps and he pinches it, asking if it's Mokuba. Indeed it is, and he informs his brother that it's going to take a while to interpret the writing on the card they read from the satellite. Kaiba demands that Mokuba tell whomever is handling this little chore to hurry it up, like the impatient brat he is. Mokuba answers in the affirmative with no argument though, and the call ends.
Now assured that someone's working on the research for him, he can concentrate on the next duel, which is finally HIS turn to get up on the platform.
FINALLY whatever comments he has are going to be relevant.
Is it wrong of me to hope he loses? I know he won't, but... come on.
Kaiba stands atop the platform in the roaring wind, coat conspicuously NOT flapping over his stoic head. He thinks about not knowing who his opponent is, considering they've been hiding in their room this whole shit-show of a semi-final. But he mentally scoffs, not really caring who the fuck it is, because he'll crush them all the same. That's the spirit. Yami's still a bit curious as to whom that mystery duelist happens to be, though. SOOOOOOOOOON, my child, soooooooon.
Moar Cards Guy has his ramrod arm up once more, announcing the beginning of the fourth semi-final duel. To his left is Seto Kaiba, and on the right...
Marik's face double-images, splitting between the normal one and other one as they both react to their sister being on stage. The first is expressing shock, while the latter doesn't look too happy. Kaiba asks Ishizu why she's here, as if it's ANY of his business. Hey, Kaiba, you go around questioning anyone ELSE why they're there? Hell, you didn't even give Jonouchi this kind of interrogation, and you were planning to disqualify him earlier. Hmmmmmmm, I wonder what the fucking difference is here???
... I feel like you probably lost your chance to do THAT when you sat around in your room letting Rishid get his ass struck by weird god-lightning, but what do I know?
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Mai just keeps getting the WORST treatment, doesn't she? It was pushing the limits of decency in the past few chapters, but I let it slide because it was also dignified and not something tied to her sex or sexuality like similar stuff in the past. This time, though, I feel it crossed the line, if only JUST. The weird stroke of her cheek other!Marik was doing before the penalty game was creepy enough, but then the mind insects seemed to be targeting Mai's appearance instead of her MIND. There were NO gruesome details, but the fact that they're pouring over her entire body in the illusion seems a little too general a punishment, considering she'll have to sit there and watch her "tender flesh" being stripped away from every part of her.
In the same vein, when asked about why he did this to Mai, other!Marik trots out the same excuse of rapists and abusers of women the world over - she wanted it, was asking for it, knew what she was getting into. I somehow doubt that this would be his answer if he had done this to a male opponent, because he seems to wallow in the fact that he's bad to the bone. I would expect his reasons to be more along the lines of an admission that he just likes to cause suffering, or even that her suffering is greater nourishment for the darkness and his stupid powers that he sacrificed her for, since he's so comfortable with his villainy. But his argument is a specific allusion to the myth that women cause in direct or indirect ways their abuse, and that was more than a little icky to me.
It could have been a metaphor for that, true, but if it is, it's an insensitive one. KT was showing some sensitivity to Mai's will a couple of chapters back, with the character making the deliberate decision to continue on in the face of literal pain because that is what she wanted, despite the desires of others. But her choice is explicitly punished here, and in a very horrific way, so that carries a very distinct message that she was wrong and should have let Yami stop the duel after all. It's a very negative image.
And the mixed messages don't stop with character metaphor, but the mechanics of this damn game. I really wish I knew what to make of other!Marik's win here, because it seems to me that if the attack never got to Mai, it shouldn't have taken life points. But perhaps it doesn't depend on whether the attack gets where it's going here, because it was blocked by forces OUTSIDE the game, and that doesn't count? That's a good explanation, but it does go against the training KT has instilled in me by this point, that the line between the game and reality is almost smudged out by this point. The idea that there is a place OUTSIDE the game at this point seems a little ludicrous to me, but I suppose it's not too much different than everything else in this comic thus far, eh?
Same ol' same ol'.
I think Kaiba's question as to why Ishizu is there is fair, given that she collaborated on the tournament idea with him but never intimated that she'd be participating in it.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but her collaborating on the vague idea of a tournament doesn't functionally preclude her from participating in said tournament when it happens. All in all, it's none of his damn business if she gets in on the action.
DeleteAlso true! Kaiba's just a butt.
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