The point is, kiddos better make up their damn minds and get on with it! I'm low on patience!
Anyway, Jonouchi notes when other!Marik's pod parks on the same level as his own that he's got the same number of points as well, much like Kaiba and Yami have the same points. Kaiba thinks that if this continues, and he keeps focusing his attacks on other!Marik and Jonouchi, he should get exactly what he wants. He makes glarey eyes at Yami to his left, reiterating that Yami should know that what he wants is a battle between his Slifer and Obelisk. I would have guessed entirely different desires, but okay. Yami just looks back at him with an impassive mug.
Jonouchi shouts the beginning of his turn and takes stock of what he has in his hand, which includes not a single monster card. He draws a card, begging *something* to come out of this simple act. He looks at his newly-pulled card with a mild surprise, that his prayers to the duel gods were answered apparently. Jonouchi plays Gear Freed in attack, which looks splendid in dark armor and and a giant blade strapped to its ball-jointed arm.
But at this point Jonouchi pauses, wondering who to attack. He recalls that Yami caused other!Marik and Kaiba to use their trap cards, and that leaves no monsters and an empty field between all of them.
On the other hand that guy who has been doing literally nothing but letting garbage fall out of his mouth since this duel started is practically GLOWING he's so hittable. And just like that, Jonouchi declares with a grin that his target is acquired, and that he's on his way. Gear Freed turns to Kaiba as Jonouchi says he's going for him, and Kaiba suddenly, MIRACULOUSLY, has nothing caustic to say, grunting in his alarm and widening his eyes instead. Yami looks over at Kaiba, thinking that there's no way for Kaiba to escape, and Yami don't you dare pull anything here! Kaiba needs to collect his dues, dammit!
Thankfully, Yami doesn't interfere with Jonouchi asking Gear Freed to chop Kaiba up for him, and Gear Freed lunging to do just that.
As Kaiba's car climbs, Jonouchi shouts up at him that this just proves the "loser dog" can send him straight to the top if he wanted. Sass-Master Jonouchi over here ends his turn on a grin. Yami ponders the fact that Jonouchi targeted Kaiba instead of other!Marik, and wonders if that means Jonouchi ultimately wants to end up matched with other!Marik in the finals. If that's the case, he probably should have tried NOT to end up stuck with other!Marik smack dab in between Kaiba and Yami. Now it's more likely either of them will end up dueling Kaiba or Yami instead.
Instead of making some grand observation, it looks like Yami was just reading the script, because in the very next panel, Jonouchi's thoughts are filled with how there are only 14 hours to beat other!Marik and save Mai left. Other!Marik just glares ahead, slightly cross-eyed. He's keeping a stash of weed on him at all times, I swear.
Kaiba shouts that it's his turn, no doubt both because he's pissy AND because it might be difficult for the people below him to hear at this point. He glares over at other!Marik, clenching his teeth and affirming that other!Marik and "Trash-Boy" are his targets. I guess since Jonouchi reclaimed his dog insults, Kaiba can't use them anymore. Kaiba thinks that if he can get rid of the other two, he can face Yami in his next duel. Sounds like the plot to a Lifetime movie.
Drawing a card violently and holding it up to glare past it dramatically, Kaiba sets two cards face down, then brings Blade Knight out in attack, looking pretty much exactly how you'd expect a knight to look. Don't know why it had to be specified that the knight has a BLADE when that's kind of the default, unless... Does this game have a GUN Knight? Because that's freaking DOPE. Anyway, Kaiba decides he'll deal with Jonouchi later, and announces that his totally normal knight is attacking other!Marik. He looks about as unconcerned as it is possible to be.
Other!Marik summons Dark Jelloid, which is reminiscent of a headless centaur, but instead of a horse's body, it's a tangle of six human-ish limbs growing out from a crooked spine? Also the arms on the torso are vaguely INhuman and clawlike. As usual, other!Marik has provided me with another terrible inhabitant of my nightmares, which take place on a dying or dead planet ever since we all learned that we have a decade before climate change royally fucks us.
Also as usual, other!Marik grins about his monster's special ability, as if there are any he has that don't come with some weird side-benefit. This one's is that once it's been summoned, it can lower any other monster's attack to 800. Looking between all his opponents' monsters, he deliberates over which one to pick for this honor. Go ahead, take a little longer, other!Marik. It's not like literally ALL of you are dying to get to the part where you head to a duel that actually fucking MATTERS or anything. While he ponders away, Kaiba silently hopes for the attack to come at HIM, and for other!Marik to fall into the trap he's set up. Destruction Ring is one of his face down cards, and it would take a significant portion of other!Marik's life points if he were to go for Kaiba. Other!Marik peers at Kaiba out of his periphery and scoffs softly, aware of said trap. I can't tell if he's actually reading Kaiba's mind with Millennium powers or if Kaiba is just that obvious - could be BOTH frankly.
Either way, other!Marik directs a small sadistic smile at the target he decides on instead; he shouts the name of Jonouchi's monster, Gear Freed, while Jonouchi groans and thinks he KNEW it would be him. Other!Marik announces the attack decrease on Gear Freed, and all that attack seems to dissipate from it as a horrified Jonouchi watches.
Jonouchi pulls a Yami, suddenly changing his expression to imply he was bluffing, despite indicating with his very THOUGHTS earlier that he was screwed. He grins and says it's just too bad he disagrees with other!Marik, whose confusion is summed up with an ellipse while Jonouchi reveals a face down card, Shield and Sword. He explains that this switches his monster's attack and defense, leaving other!Marik utterly dumbfounded by the play. Yami grins, exclaiming his excitement, and Kaiba just glowers at the scene.
Gear Freed powers back up to 1600, as Jonouchi expresses his insincere condolences again, declaring he will now attack other!Marik's horror creature. But when he actually shouts for Gear Freed to attack, both other!Marik and he are quite alarmed. Jonouchi's eyes practically POPPING as he yells his disbelief. What's got him in a tizzy? Gear Freed has shrunk down to a tiny size next to him, inexplicably. Yami looks over on his opposite side, to where Kaiba is having a laugh riot.
He's activated his Shrink magic card, which he says decreases Gear Freed's attack by half. Jonouchi is flabbergasted by his new miniature warrior, his hands splayed as though he's not sure what to do with them in this holographic crisis. It's kind of adorable. Other!Marik smirks and commands his Dark Jelloid to finish what it started and pulverize Gear Freed. Instead, it emits some sort of beam from its weird torso mouth, which I assume just vaporizes Gear Freed. Not sure though, because we only see Jonouchi flinching behind a raised arm against the blast, cursing Kaiba. He clenches his teeth, glaring across at Kaiba to silently promise that he will NOT lose.
I don't know man, depending on what you want out of this, losing may be the best thing for you.
As if he wasn't JUST getting his ass handed to him by Jonouchi just a few pages ago, Kaiba begins lecturing him on how all enemies of Kaiba have their uses, and Kaiba is just screwing Jonouchi over to win. Too bad Kaiba's DIALOG can't be useful too.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Not bad pacing this time; I was pleasantly surprised that the chapter title didn't indicate any more agonizing over the big choice of who everyone wanted to face in the next duel. Little ponderings here and there, but nothing that interrupted the flow of the duel, which was going pretty fast for the most part. The players want to get to the next stage of this thing, and it finally shows.
One of the odd things I noted in this chapter was that other!Marik seems to be a little bit of a pushover lately. It's clear that he's way more relaxed than the others for this one, which may be a reflection of his initial apathy toward the situation. He DID say that it didn't matter who he ended up paired with in his next duel... but he also said later that he was going to work to face Yami, since destroying him was LITERALLY his raison d'etre. If that was the case though, you'd think his last attack in this chapter would have been on Yami, to bring him up closer to the area where he could be in the running to duel with him next. Currently they're sitting on opposite ends of the ranks, so it's not exactly ideal for that goal. Perhaps he's gone back to not giving a shit who's against him in the next duel, if he assumes that they're eventually going to be matched up in the final game anyhow, counting on them both to beat their respective opponents before that.
It's a shitty assumption, though, considering how garbage he is at playing right now, though. Either way you see it, other!Marik has been coming across as just less of a threat in this one, and that could overall impact the tension of the arc. If your main villain starts to feel more passive, especially toward the end of his campaign of terror, I'm going to start wondering why our heroes were having such a hard time with him before. Even with Jonouchi alluding to the fact that Mai might die if he's not defeated in the next few hours, other!Marik hasn't done anything recently that really helps to sustain FEAR of him. In fact, his newly-acquired laid-back attitude seems entirely unthreatening, making the times where he gets bested in this chapter stand out that much more.
Especially in contrast to Kaiba, who has shown time and time again how much of a failure he can be at this game, but his energy and confidence carry him so he seems a bit more formidable than he actually is. In fact, he just gets more incompetent as time goes on, and is more incomprehensible the more he talks, to the point that I think he might be having a stroke. If there's one thing we've all learned from certain rich assholes over the years, though, it's that no matter how utterly contrary to reality the things they say and do are, people will still believe that they're successful and smart if they play pretend hard enough.
And Kaiba plays pretend to WIN.
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