Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 314 The Spirit Beast!!

The little beast running around my house right now certainly has "spirit" in spades. Grimalkin is a micro-panther who defies ALL attempts to wear her out. She wants to play constantly, and to her, playing is biting and scratching, so you can't even sit still when she's got the bug in her - she WILL target your hands and feet. I've got SO many claw-marks all over my legs and arms right now that I can't wear the appropriate summer clothing, which is a bummer, because it's been rather warm lately, and for once I'm not chilly all the time. 

We've got some new toys coming in the mail, though, so hopefully that will redirect her aggressive kitty attacks. 

Not sure the Magus's attacks can be redirected so easily, though. Thief!Bakura might be fucked.

Shada gapes at the Magus, identifying it as Mahado, and trailing in his recollection of his... state of being. Meanwhile, thief!Bakura is grinding his teeth in fury. While it's true that Yami can't summon his gods without the puzzle, the ghost of his dead priest friend is now guarding him. Takes a ghost to get rid of the other ghosts, I guess. 

It takes Yami a moment to recognize Mahado glaring ahead like the stern teacher he once was. The Magus tells his pharaoh to stand, but not out loud, which has Yami alarmed and asking if this voice he's "hearing" is Mahado speaking directly to his heart. The Magus says that the pharaoh's faith has brought him here, which is super funny, because I remember Yami questioning the HELL out of his father's motivations and writhing partly at his agony over the possibility that daddy dearest was involved in some shady shit. 

Regardless, the Magus advises Yami that he will disappear without his will to fight, prompting Yami to lower his eyes and consider his will to fight. He's very confused, and recalling what thief!Bakura said during their first encounter at the palace is NOT helping: that bit about defining "good" as just a loyalty to what the establishment says is right. Right now, Yami is indeed questioning what is "right", wondering if it was "right" to save the kingdom by murdering an entire village, and if THIS is his father's legacy. He's quickly starting to fear that thief!Bakura was telling to truth, a bead of sweat sliding down his cheek in much the way a tear would. Go figure, your dad was a HUMAN BEING in charge of a whole shit-ton of other human beings. Things get messy under those circumstances, friend.

The Magus begins a little soothing soliloquy, talking about how he sensed the evil in the Millennium Ring back when he was alive, learning through the item the origin of it and its siblings; he admits he KNEW of this atrocity before he died, Yami gaping at him in alarm. But he also says that Yami's father did NOT know, another surprise to the shocked Yami. The Magus tells Yami of the time after he became a priest and sealed the ring, when he confronted the prior pharaoh about these origins, telling him the truth he knew. 

Ah, the innocence of calculated ignorance. 

Yami seems a bit more subdued now, thinking on his father with a sad expression. The Magus assures Yami that his father's desire for peace and justice did not waver, and with a sharp look over his shoulder at him, says Yami has inherited this desire. Yami looks back up with new determination, thief!Bakura scowls with hatred, and the Magus warns that the whole country will be plunged into darkness if that guy is allowed to have the Millennium Items. "The country" seems a bit of an understatement to me, but okay. The Magus implies some bad shit will happen if Yami doesn't stand his ass up to thief!Bakura, either way.

Thief!Bakura is still on his offensive, of course, hissing through a strained grin that he'll kill Yami as many times as it takes. He directs his pet ghosts to tear the pharaoh and the magician spirit to shreds, and as they fly toward them, Yami thanks Mahado silently. He's prepared now.

More than most kings do, so we're greatly exceeding the bare minimum now!

Thief!Bakura freaks out that the Magus is returning and destroying his ghosts, while the Magus calmly holds out a staying hand to the oncoming spirits, confident that they're not a match for his magical power. After all, he DOES remind us, he was able to suppress the Millennium Ring's evil. Not to mention his power move of consciously becoming a fucking spirit terminator. Thief!Bakura groans, but then...

He chuckles, asking what about HIS spirit. Yami casts a paranoid glare into his periphery, suddenly afraid that thief!Bakura's well-known spirit beast is here. Yeah, no shit? Thief!Bakura commands his literal partner in crime to him.

I'd ask Yami why he didn't see this coming, but, to be fair, he probably has a couple of unaddressed head-injuries after that fall.

Diabound roars right in Yami's face, and he sweats in response as Shada gapes at him from the background, alarmed. Yami's convinced that it's stronger and more hideous even than when it fought the three gods. Thief!Bakura reminds Yami with relish that he has both ring and puzzle, and he's not JUST trying to collect all the rest to fit them in the tablet. He wants to evolve his spirit beast by absorbing the evil in all those items. Like some sort of demon-osmosis.

Thief!Bakura laughs while Diabound rushes for the Magus and Yami, the latter of which warns the former to look out for Diabound's ability to copy the abilities of those ka it fights. The Magus of course concludes that it must already have his magic, then, and a grinning thief!Bakura confirms this mentally, adding that it's got all those god powers too. He yells at Diabound to go, and commands a Thunder Force shot, which Diabound fires at the Magus. Mahado points his staff at the attack with a small smile, thinking he should have warned thief!Bakura that he TRAINED in the afterworld to increase his arsenal and powers.

Oh SHIIIIIIIT, dude, look who else has some new toys to play with!

Thief!Bakura notes with alarm that the Magus has sucked the attack into a hole in space. That's what... she did...? I don't know if that works here, but I felt like SOME kind of innuendo had to be paid respects. The Magus explains that the afterworld warp ejects the energy from the attack from another point in space, which seems to further surprise thief!Bakura and make him hella nervous. Yami warns Mahado to be careful again, telling him that Diabound can walk through walls to avoid a direct attack. Something of which I'm sure the Magus is already aware. With another little sly smile, the Magus suggests he's altering his plan from this information. 

The vortex opens back up high behind a gaping thief!Bakura, who turns at the sound of the blast emerging from it, exclaiming in disbelief. The shot goes right over his head and crashes into a pillar on his other side. He's cocky about this, chuckling at Yami and the Magus that they missed, but Yami, just as cocky, asks if he really thinks so. The top of the pillar scoots loose from its place on the ceiling as its middle cracks in two, and it begins to fall. Thief!Bakura is horrified again to find the pillar is arcing through the dusty air toward that all-important mold tablet. 

Thief!Bakura screams for Diabound to protect the tablet, and its tail manages to wind around and hold the errant piece of stone before it slams into it. Rather than being relieved, thief!Bakura's eyes look like they're going to pop right out in apoplectic rage. 

Look at this smug bastard, wagging his finger at thief!Bakura. Who's the real king here, hm?

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you're probably able to guess that I'm a fan of the action we got in the latter half of the chapter, scant as it was. More than that, though, I am a fan of the reappearance of Mahado, and the showcasing of how BUSY he's been since he died. I recall being a little sad that we didn't really get the chance to get fully acquainted with him before he was gone, because it hadn't really occurred to me that he would be returning in a CONSCIOUS and deliberate way like he did here. Not only is it great to see that he's clearly still fully himself and not just another ka that Yami could direct, but he's also been actively preparing to return to help out in the fight he PHYSICALLY left before. The devotion he expresses in words is fully backed up in the level of study and practice of his craft he's performed, using his status of "deceased" to his full advantage. Now it's a lot more obvious that Mahado had NOT carelessly thrown away his role in protecting the pharaoh he claimed to love so much, as I had kind of thought before - he'd just put himself in another position from which he could do so, possibly better than before. 

A very strange kind of smart, but smart nonetheless. 

I'm not stoked about the conversation in the first half of the chapter, though. There seems to be a conclusion drawn that because the former pharaoh didn't KNOW about how the Millennium Items were made before, and he felt bad about it when he DID find out, that his part in their creation was negligible or forgivable. I don't necessarily object to a discussion of just how culpable he was with limited or nonexistent knowledge of the process, but I think it's more than fair to state that his level of understanding of the creation of the Millennium Items was a CHOICE. There's no reason to believe that Akhenaden's memory of his broaching the subject to his brother was unreliable, because if it was, we would expect that he would try to make himself seem a bit better than he was, and his brother a bit worse. He seems to present the conversation in such a way as to suggest that going through with the dark alchemy was his own idea and the pharaoh allowed it out of desperation, not even asking what the process is or how it works. 

But that's precisely what bothers me: Akhenamkhanen didn't ASK. The very NAME of the process was ominous enough to raise a few red flags, but he just gritted his teeth and told his brother to get on with it. The fact that he didn't ask so obvious a question in so critical a time suggests to me that he didn't WANT to know. He knew very well that it was bad, that bad things were going to be done in order to make these artifacts, even if he didn't know exactly what. That's a move of calculated ignorance in order to give oneself a level of plausible deniability in the long run, if someone comes in accusing folks of crimes, much like thief!Bakura did. The invasion and defeat of the former pharaoh's country was also a pretty time-sensitive issue, and it wouldn't really be prudent to deliberate on the details of this cure with the clock ticking down like that. A deliberate refusal of reasons to hesitate in making this critical decision is a distinct possibility here too.

This is not to say I don't believe the former pharaoh could have felt bad and became deathly ill because of the enormous burden his shattered ignorance had on him. Nor is it to say that I think he's wholly at fault for the horror of the Millennium Items' creation. But to take the implication of the chapter at face value, that his ignorance made him a victim in this scenario at the end, ignoring the simple fact that he didn't HAVE to be ignorant, is kind of frustrating. I mean, we can say the guy was committed to justice and peace all we want, but he refused on some level to stand up for those values on one VERY notable occasion.

But, I guess that's a better track record than the democratic party here in the States, so...

Happy 4th of July for USians? Who knows, really? I'm not celebrating.