Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 262 As a Friend

Oh no, poor Kaiba. He had to end the previous chapter in a PTSD-induced ramble about how his hatred won't subside and he wants desperately to just destroy all his traumatic past, and now Yami is going to break the news that he's friend-zoned too? Kaiba doesn't even LIKE friendship, either, barely even able to wrap his "genius" brain around the concept, so that's going to be a double insult. Imagine your hate-crush coming up to you and telling you the like you as a friend, and you don't even know what that IS.

I do not envy this kid. Not at ALL.

A double-whammy! But surely it couldn't stand up to the triple threat of the fused Sinatras?

Fist raised in a frankly confusing gesture, Yami says he knew Kaiba would use Monster Reborn to get all three Blue Eyes White Dragons back out and for the ultimate dragon between them, so he used Double Magic to steal Kaiba's spell and bring out HIS ultimate monster too. Kaiba admits that this is indeed the case, mighty big of him to do so, but he states the Ultimate Blue Eyes has 4500 attack points and asks if the Dark Magician with a sword can stand up to that. Yami in turn admits that the Dark Paladin only has 2900 attack points, but vagues that it also has Buster Blader's special effect. Because they all have secret powers the minute these kids need them. Kaiba grimaces in worry at the notion. If that sounds like an odd expression to you, you are not wrong.

Yami confirms that the special effect exists, one that increases Dark Paladin's attack power for every dragon out and about. He counts two whole dragons - Red-Eyes and Kaiba's Ultimate Blue Eyes. That powers up Yami's Dark Paladin to a whopping 3900 points. It would be impressive if Kaiba's monster weren't a whole 600 points stronger, but at least it's not an unmanageable gap anymore. 

Kaiba makes a sound like he's stuffing a baked good in his gob that I guess is supposed to be a scoff. He wonders if Yami really thinks he was liable to fall for this, given Yami still has two unknown face down cards hanging out in plain sight on the other end of the platform. This is a guy who has been known not only to ignore face down cards when attacking, but imply worrying at all about what they are is weakness and cowardice, so I don't know why he thinks it's an uncharitable assumption to make now. As Yami glares at him from across the platform, Kaiba says he expects Yami already knows that fusion monsters aren't allowed to attack during the turn they're summoned, so he's good to go with his turn now. Funny how Kaiba managed to explain that little rule even though he thought his opponent was already savvy; it's almost as if there's an audience he's talking to or something...

Yami agrees that it's his turn, draws a card dramatically, as you do, and reiterates silently that his face down Magic Formula card increases his spellcaster's attack by 500 points. Acknowledging that's just a tad too little to defeat Kaiba's dragon, he opts to bet on a new card that I assume he plays face down, because there's no announcement of what it is.

Well, if that wasn't the shortest, least agonized-over turn with the most abrupt end I've ever seen in this whole damn comic! 

Kaiba no doubt realizes he's lifted his hand much too high to actually draw a card, so he lowers it to snatch a card from his Duel Disk like he's ripping stolen property from a thief's hands, and finds it's Absorb Spell. His thumb is in the way, so I can't make out anything about the card's effect except that it's a trap activated when the opponent uses a spell to increase attack points. Ah, dramatic irony. Kaiba does his dorky laugh, plays that card face down with a haughty announcement, then points at Yami and tells him to get ready to be buried along with the detestable past. He suggests Yami make peace with himself, while internally making smug proclamations that he'll surpass everything, become the lone king of duelists, and ascend to a higher plane of being. This kid actually thinks winning this tournament would be a spiritual experience for him. How high can his expectations BE??

Yami says Kaiba's name, again trying to explain to him that even if he manages to beat his hated rival here, he'll only find an endless chain of hatred on the other side of that victory. Patronizing to the MAX, Yami insists that until Kaiba listens to his repeated lectures, he'll never escape the darkness. Kaiba just scoffs and says that hatred and anger give HIM the power to dominate everything, so Yami challenges him to strike with all his hatred if he really thinks that's going to defeat him.
 

Kaiba is both unimpressed with Yami's usage of the title, even though Yami gets a little golf-clap from me, and not impacted at all by the assertion that Yami is his friend, which usually sends him into a fit of pure confusion and pissiness. Then again, there's really no way of telling if Yami said any of that friendly shit about exorcising Kaiba's hate demons out loud or not, as usual. Kaiba DOES grin and wrinkle his nose like a growling dog, though, and permits Yami to say whatever he wants. Heartfelt speeches spoken aloud or not, Kaiba insists he's going to win this thing, RIGHT NOW. He shouts that this is it and commands his ultimate dragon to do an ultimate attack.

Yami grits his teeth as the giant fireball advances, a little bit offset from the dragons' mouths, strangely, so it kind of looks like the attack is heading towards them instead. Anyway, Yami reveals his Magic Formula card as he had planned, but Kaiba retorts with a cheeky grin that he knew Yami would try that. As Yami's eyes grow wide and his jaw locks in alarm, Kaiba flings out his arm and declares the trigger of his Absorb Spell card. In addition to the whole of the card's text being visible now, Kaiba offers another pompous and unnecessary explanation of its effect; transferring the point increase on Yami's monster over to his own. Yami is in utter shock that Ultimate Blue Eyes gets yet another 500 points added to its attack power, but my jaded ass is skeptical as hell that he's ACTUALLY taken off guard this late in the game. 

Kaiba laughs like the maniac he is as his dragon's heads charge up for another laser blast? I'm confused, what happened to the first Ultimate Burst above? Is Kaiba just getting a do-over to retroactively attack with 5000 points instead of 4500? How unfair is THAT?

But I guess when you're up against the magical spirit protagonist, you need all the unfair advantages you can get, to be.... fair. 

Kaiba shouts over the sound of dragon-fire searing through the air that the intended savior Dark Paladin and Jonouchi's Red-Eyes Black Dragon will be shattered into many many pieces. Again, the blast approaches with agonizing slowness, providing an apocalyptic backlighting to Yami and his monsters. It also affords plenty of time for Kaiba to think he's won, but Yami to smile and challenge that idea smugly. How else but with yet another lecture? Blissfully short this time, trailing a statement about the precarious "strength" of piling hatred upon hatred. 

If anyone reading this is genuinely surprised by this development: welcome to the comic and blog, newbie. Don't know why you decided to start your Yu-Gi-Oh experience here, but we'll have you rolling you eyes at this oft-used cheap trick in no time, friend.

Sinatra, Sinatra Jr, and Michael Buble all separate out into their individual dragon selves, and Yami wastes absolutely NO time in noting the increase in dragons on the field from two to four, and the subsequent increase in Dark Paladin's attack to 4900. Kaiba is in full disbelief, but Yami hasn't even finished his clap-back yet. He wants to finish up by playing a spell card from his hand, never mind that I have to question if he's allowed to do that on someone else's turn, called Diffusion Wave Motion. Kaiba does the usual thing of thinking the name of the card in a nervous manner while Yami explains the effect: he pays 1000 of his life points to transform his attack of his spellcaster from a line to a wave, thus wiping out all of Kaiba's monsters at once instead of one at a time. Gotta wrap this sucker up.

So, with only 500 life points left and without any indication that Kaiba's turn is actually OVER yet like is usual, Yami demands that his paladin strike the dragons down. Dark Paladin raises its big spiky blade and conjures a ball of dark crackling energy while Kaiba growls and frets on the other end of the platform and Yami threatens to tear apart his darkness. 

And just like that, dragon steaks. 

Does dragon soup taste anything like turtle soup? Asking for a hungry friend.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? For the conclusion to the penultimate duel in this massive tournament arc, it was extremely predictable. Yami did his impossibly convincing poker face trick again to fake-out the audience, which was all the more disappointing and cheap after we got the real deal earlier in the match. Kaiba getting to fire another shot after he stole Yami's magical power-up was also a bit wonky. Also, once Yami started talking about the Dark Paladin's inherited special effect of gaining attack for every dragon on the field, it was EXTREMELY obvious that the ultimate dragon was getting un-fused by the end of the chapter, so Yami's final move kind of fell flat for me. 

I would LIKE to say I'm moved by Yami's rhetoric about exorcising Kaiba's madness and defeating his hatred and darkness as a fellow duelist and friend, but I'm still totally and completely convinced that Yami is responsible for the more recent issues Kaiba's dealing with. Even if I had by this point forgotten that Kaiba designed his madness-inducing Duel Boxes to closely imitate the experience Yami had given him at the end of their first match, Kaiba reminded me in the previous chapter that to him, Yami is the newest representation of his abominable past that he wants to destroy. That's not coming from nowhere. Yami talks in this chapter like Kaiba's hatred for all the shitty things and people in his past is a result of this self-inflicted well of hatred that has sprung up for no reason. Kaiba absolutely needs to take some initiative in healing himself and his mindset instead of just desperately trying to cut himself off from his traumatic past, granted, but getting his ass beat AGAIN by Yami isn't going to negate his hatred any more than winning would have. Yami, as a key source of some of Kaiba's more recent trauma, needs to take responsibility for that and APOLOGIZE if he's actually interested in helping Kaiba work through the pain like he insists here. You know? Like a FRIEND would do?

I suppose there's always the next chapter for those difficult conversations, but something tells me that the "resolution" to Kaiba's trauma arc is "blah blah blah true duelist friendship stop being a hater magically blah blah blah". That or Kaiba was cured of hatred by their rivalry being solved with fate and a sufficiently honorable fight. 

Does it smell like toxic masculinity in here or what?