Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 274 Attack from the Darkness!

What else is new? Attacks from the darkness seem to be quite the regular occurrence these days, so I'm not exactly surprised. I WAS rather excited to see that we're so very close to the end of this tournament, though! Five chapters to go, including this one, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel for the victim of these nighttime punches! Just a little further, and then we get to take a nice, relaxing vacation. To Egypt. 

There isn't much that Slifer could have done before disappearing back into the ether anyway, so it really cost Yami nothing but a Monster Reborn card. Which can stay gone forever for all I care. 

Yami, and what remains of Yuugi's disappearing face, stare speechlessly at other!Marik. While they're having a quiet moment, other!Marik reiterates how Ra is returning to his graveyard on this turn, as it turns to a cloud of digital smoke and crams itself back in his Duel Disk. However, other!Marik asserts that once he plays the spell card in his hand, Yami's life is over. Very unnatural compared to the metaphorical social way in which his life would end when his peers learned an embarrassing secret about him, under normal circumstances. 

Yami glares and other!Marik sneers, both at 700 points, and their situation quite unsustainable. Something's gotta give soon, for sure. And down at the blimp, it looks like a catalyst is on its way. Rishid huffs it down the stairs and onto the island, groaning a little with the effort. 

Yeeeeaaaah, I'm not sure you want to know what he's been up to while you've been conked. I've seen the whole thing and I wish I didn't know.

Back on top of the tower, we get nice neat labels of which monsters are out there and what their stats are. Yami acknowledges that other!Marik's battle phase is finished, but he's nervous because the guy said he would beat Yami this turn. He wonders if other!Marik has one more trick up his sleeve. Indeed, other!Marik apologizes mockingly, and declares his turn isn't over yet. Somehow, Yami is in disbelief, despite the ample warning other!Marik's constantly running mouth gave him. 

Other!Marik repeats that he has a spell card, "Surprise Attack from the Darkness"! I can guess why the first word on that card was left off the title, at least. Still, Yami gapes in disbelief, because the card essentially says other!Marik gets a second battle phase, and therefore a second attack. Other!Marik makes sure to declare this fact as well, high on his wave of luck, if not actual drugs. Jonouchi shakes his fist over his head at other!Marik, complaining that it's not FAIR he gets another battle phase, and betting that the card isn't tournament legal. As if Kaiba's been doing fuck-all to enforce rules during this tournament thus far. In fact, Kaiba continues to quietly glare at the platform, wondering if other!Marik is going to special summon Ra all over again. Not a care in the world as to whether there's a rule prohibiting the use of this card, as expected. 

And he's rewarded for his predictability by other!Marik immediately confirming his suspicions; he is ABSOLUTELY summoning Ra again, slapping it back on his Duel Disk. Yami watches his emergence again, knowing what's coming all too well. Ra pops back into existence in his big shining ball form, other!Marik saying through a huge threatening grin that it hasn't taken a battle form yet. He asks rhetorically what shall be the form of Yami's death, then seems to make a conclusive decision and starts chanting his ancient summoning words. The ball starts to unfold like a Transformer, and Yami notes with clenched teeth that other!Marik's body is dissipating again - he identifies Ra's second form, with which other!Marik will fuse for that one-turn-kill move. Other!Marik chuckles darkly while he disappears, arms crossed over his chest. 

Again, a single eye is left of him on the platform at one measly life point, while Ra roars at Yami. Yuugi optimistically declares to Yami that this is their chance, and Yami actually agrees that it's now or never. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, here you go again. Shocker. 

Not that my lack of enthusiasm matters; he has enough for probably 100 of me. Other!Marik laughs it up while Yami confirms that indeed, monster and player have become one in the same, which means that this is the one moment when other!Marik and Ra can be defeated simultaneously. Other!Marik ecstatically explains that he'll have 6899 attack points when he sacrifices the other monsters to give Ra more power, and thus more than enough to overcome Obelisk and take it and Yami out in one shot. But when he warns Yami to brace himself, Yami grins and says they'll see. This takes other!Marik aback, so Yami takes advantage of other!Marik's rare stunned speechlessness, and says he was waiting for the moment his evil heart took the form of a beast. 

To elaborate, Yami throws out his arm to reveal his face down card, Soul Taker. This just confuses other!Marik, who wonders about Yami sacrificing one of HIS monsters. Yami says that magical effects only work for one turn against gods, and that's when it occurs to other!Marik (with a quite a bit of uneasiness) that Yami may be trying to sacrifice him along with Ra. My question is what that sacrifice is FOR, of course, and I'm sure looking forward to finding out!

Ra is surrounded by the sacrificial whirlwind, as tradition dictates, and other!Marik holds up his arm across his eye like he's caught in a real dust storm. Down below, Kaiba is thinking it's utter INSANITY to sacrifice Ra, but Ishizu understands, considering other!Marik has one life point left, it means the original recipe Marik won't have to die. She's in some serious awe at the execution of this method. Other!Marik's eye is wide inside the whirlwind, and he yells on the way into a vortex above him and Ra.

Jonouchi shouts that Ra is falling into the sky as Honda wonders if Yami got the bastard. But Jonouchi seems pretty convinced that this sacrifice is one way to defeat a god, and congratulates Yami. Too Early. Now I KNOW this isn't going to work. Yami and Yuugi are definitely less sure themselves, staring up into the sky where the sacrifice is STILL in progress, the former sweating. A pinpoint of crackling light sends tendrils of lighting out of the void Ra disappeared inside a moment before, and Yami's eyes widen in response.

SON OF A - - 

It's like when you keep mentioning to a guest who has overstayed their welcome that it's getting REALLY late, and they just. Won't. LEAVE.

Yami observes with no small amount of frustration that Ra has escaped the void, with all the onlookers gaping or grinding their teeth. Except for Kaiba. He just looks mildly perturbed. Other!Marik laughs maniacally, as if he could laugh any other way, asking if Yami really thought a sacrifice effect would work against a god. You know, for a minute there... yeah. Yeah we did. Other!Marik yells that Yami is a fool and that Soul Taker could never have affected him.

He refocuses on his previous intent to sacrifice all his other monsters to give Ra 6899 attack points. Jonouchi worries that this is a LOT of attack points, more than Obelisk, and frets about what happens if that hits Yami, sweating bullets in the process. Meanwhile, other!Marik returns to sneering at Yami's attempt to sacrifice him, telling him to prepare himself for the knife. 

But Yami is smiling, scoffing smugly, even. Other!Marik maintains his grin as he asks what Yami finds so funny, but when Yami retorts with a question of who said he was trying to sacrifice Ra, other!Marik's eyes bulge in alarm. As do mine, because what in the HELL was that whirlwind/void trying an failing to swallow up Ra if it WASN'T targeted at Ra??? What caused that if not Soul Taker? Did the platform just decide to randomly perform a tense but meaningless light show?????

No time for sorely-needed explanations - Yami tells other!Marik to look at his monsters. 

... I really never thought I would EVER be in agreement with other!Marik, but... 

Well, here we are. 

Yami explains, his self-satisfaction practically oozing out of the screen at me, that the God-Slime is nothing more than Revival Jam and Metal Reflect Slime fused together. With the one card, Yami gets to have both of those creatures at once. They make a weird slurping sound as they pull apart from one another. It's kinda gross.

But you know what ISN'T gross? Quite the opposite? Yami tells other!Marik that it wasn't his Soul Taker that caused Ra to disappear into the void, but the visual effect from his own Surprise Attack from the Darkness card! What a relief! Saves me at least two paragraphs worth of rant at the end of this post! THANK YOU YAMI! 

Other!Marik demands to know what Yami expects to accomplish by sacrificing RJ and MRS, and Yami answers that it's to activate Obelisk's greatest ability. 

There has to be a classic murder-grin attached to that last panel! You can't convince me he's not wearing that murder grin! Just pan down!!

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Did... did KT just make an inside joke in the climax of the Battle City arc? It certainly seems like it. I don't know what else to make of the fact that he has a history of misdirecting audiences in ways that look flashy but generally have no good explanation behind them, and then specifically making a point to give THIS chapter's misdirect a rather silly sort of explanation. Especially since weird animation of Ra going into a void and then bursting back out of it doesn't really make a ton of sense in the context of when Surprise Attack from the Darkness was played and what it's supposed to DO. It seemed like a very pointed statement; that KT is aware he has had a problem in the past of misdirection through nonsensical visual means, and he's kind of drawing attention to it now in a "hey, remember this?" kind of way. I'm probably reading way too much into it, though, because this meme pretty much sums up me trying to explain this to my husband earlier:

Whether this was intentional or not is entirely beside the point anyway, because it is HILARIOUS either way. The explanation is tacked onto there like it was an afterthought to Yami, and it doesn't come CLOSE to satisfying additional questions about why it more closely followed Yami's counter-play than other!Marik's card, OR why it resembles a sacrifice animation so much. This no-effort explanation is only marginally better than no explanation whatsoever, but it is BETTER, technically. So I'll take it. 

All of this kind of overshadowed Rishid's impending return, but I AM very interested to see how his presence will affect the match. We know that his unconsciousness brought OUT other!Marik, will the regular Marik come back by default when Rishid is within good-influence distance? Or does other!Marik have too tight of a grip on their body at this point. And does Rishid's weak condition factor into this equation at all? I'm really fascinated to find out.