Kinda felt like it for a moment. Recently I was chopping cooked Andouille sausage for a jambalaya, and stuck myself real good with the knife. Thankfully, it wasn't deep or wide enough to have to visit the hospital, and stopped bleeding very soon after I bandaged it, so I at least didn't have to spend a fortune getting stitches (#USHealthcareNightmare). However, I do still have some bruising around the area, and a little tingling every once in a while. Hope that's not a bad sign, because my copay went up after re-enrolling in my employer-sponsored health insurance plan. Couldn't possibly have anything to do with the discontinued ACA subsidies or anything.
*Sigh* If ONLY our massively militarized society could afford universal healthcare!
I guess it's better than having these creepy worms, though.
Keiko compares their pursuers to mad dogs, still alarmed over the fact that ONE of them is a teacher. Despite this, she focuses in on how Botan talked to Yusuke, and demands to know where he is and what he's doing, not to mention who BOTAN herself is. Sweating, probably due to both physical exertion and the very hot spotlight Keiko is putting on her, Botan says it'll take some time to explain, promising they'll have a nice long chat over tea when all this is over. She adds that they'll have to weigh their options for escaping in the meantime.
Back inside the school Keiko complains that the phone she's trying to dial out on isn't working, and Botan evenly says that it figures that their zombie stalkers are trying to cut them off. Keiko suggests the faculty lounge, and Botan enthusiastically agrees that other teachers should be able to help. When they arrive, Keiko hardly needs to call out for anyone who might be there, spotting Takenaka sitting with his back to them ahead. Expressing her relief, she approaches him with her hand outstretched, attempting to inform him of all the people on the grounds acting real weird, Iwamoto being one of them.
But she trails off when the silent Takenaka wobbles in his seat a little.
SHIT! He was the ONLY good one!
Both girls recoil in horror at the sight, and Keiko mutters in horror that they're alone. The horror increases when Iwamoto, grumbling through his clenched teeth about killing them, appears behind them. They resume their flight, Botan yelling over her shoulder to stay away. Keiko clamps a hand over her mouth, either to dampen whatever terrified noises are issuing from it, or hold back vomit. Either are a perfectly understandable reaction to this situation.
This same image is on the giant screen behind Suzaku, who smiles and strokes his chin in his apparent amusement. He asks Yusuke what he thinks of Keiko staring in this little horror film he's making, claiming she's got a flair for it. Suzaku admires her "marvelous" expressions, a talent that life-or-death situations bring out as a matter of course.
Yusuke clenches his shaking fists, suggesting that they bring out something ELSE in him.
Also a perfectly understandable reaction in this situation. The kids are valid.
As Suzaku has observed, Yusuke delivers a series of rapid punches that are barely visible, but Suzaku manages to not only fend Yusuke off with blocks, but with one hand, to his alarm. Suzaku also notes that Yusuke is actually LIGHTNING fast, a little hint of where Suzaku's experience is at, I suppose. Both of them seem to be mainly admiring the other's ability in this first stage.
Yusuke throws a punch that sails straight through thin air as Suzaku darts completely away, straight upward as Yusuke perceives shortly enough. He scoffs that Suzaku can't dodge him now, pointer finger starting to glow. Suzaku immediately recognizes this as Yusuke's Reigun as Yusuke yells at him to eat it and fires the shot. The blast heads straight for the hovering Suzaku, and Yusuke thinks it's a bullseye, but Suzaku prepares to meet this shot with a measured yell.
He can block more than just fists, it seems.
The blast glances off path and explodes straight through the domed ceiling of the tower. Suzaku descends from the air, lightning arcing past the giant hole the Reigun made, as he casually tells Yusuke how powerful the blast was. Well no shit. Suzaku admits that a direct hit to him might have done some serious damage, and that it's something he hasn't felt in years; he flaps his arm about as he talks about it still stinging.
Sweating, Yusuke thinks this guy is TOO MUCH, and despairs over how his Reigun failed to blow Suzaku to bits despite all that training from Genkai. Yeah, those whole WEEKS of training that the manga skipped right over should TOTALLY have prepared you for this!
Murg flies over and asks Suzaku if he needs her to hold the whistle for him, but he assures her he's fine. He reckons he's got Yusuke's full measure now, and he should only need one free hand for what he wants to do, especially now that he has direct access to the flashing sky. He looks up at the hole in the ceiling, lightning still arcing past it, and holds up a couple of fingers. Forgot to lick them first, I see. Murg happily gushes about the Fist of Dark Lightning, and wins the prize for saying the chapter title while she warns Yusuke that he's gonna get it now! Huzzah!
The lightning shoots straight down through the hole into Suzaku's fingers. It's not a euphemism.
Says he only needs one hand, proceeds to tuck the whistle under his arm so he can use two.
Suzaku lunges for Yusuke, whether he's ready or not, as he declares, swiping the boy across the face with his outstretched arm. It doesn't even look like a punch, with the index and middle fingers still extended, but I suppose it doesn't need to be. The electricity from Suzaku's hand passes into Yusuke and arcs all across his body, and he SHRIEKS in pain. Yusuke is able to admit in his head that Suzaku just GRAZED him and he feels like he's being fried alive. Electricity doesn't need a LOT of contact, it turns out.
Yusuke collapses on the floor on his face, and Suzaku casually talks about how his protective aura is stronger than expected, and Yusuke is the first human not to die on contact with his lightning attack. As Yusuke pushes himself onto his hands and knees, he thinks it's awfully swell to have the distinction of being the first not to die with a small tap, but he's also sure he's gotta figure out a way to block the next attack before he's barbecued for SURE.
Suzaku compliments Yusuke on his willpower, since he's getting to his feet, but warns him he's only rising to certain death. But he's kind of dedicated to the order of events he's already planned, because he wants to return to Keiko's plight so that he can ensure once SHE dies, then Yusuke does too. Yusuke questions this certainty in Suzaku, saying that Keiko is no pushover, and it'll take way more than this dipshit plot contrived by Suzaku to bring her down. He asserts that it's the same for him as he continues to push himself up.
Sure hope your soles are ACTUAL rubber, kiddo.
Murg clocks that he's trying to use the soles of his shoes to insulate himself against the lightning, and laughs that it's an effort on par with blocking cannon fire with soap bubbles. But Yusuke stands firm in his defense strategy, refusing to listen to her. It DOES sound like something someone would say to discourage ANY level of resistance whatsoever. (Haha, resistance...)
Suzaku placidly says he pities Yusuke, and ALL humans really, so helpless against despair, so susceptible to delusion. Demons, on the other hand, NEVER succumb to delusion, and that was something ELSE we were seeing the Beasts display all throughout this arc. Suzaku promises to release Yusuke from this nightmare of irrationality, like some sort of internet debate bro, and lunges for him again, wishing him goodbye and to rest in peace.
Cut back to the girls at the school, who are cornered at the end of a hallway, their exit cut off by a crowd of insect-zombies. After the acknowledgement that they're trapped, Keiko says that since they're after her, Botan can run and she'll lead the thread away. Botan refuses this offer, vowing to go down swinging before running from these creeps. They're both sweating like crazy. As the insect-zombies advance on them, Keiko says she also planned to go down fighting, and Botan replies it's just the two of them then.
They both look off to the side where a fire extinguisher is hanging on the end of a chain of lockers. Botan asks if Keiko is thinking what she's thinking, and Keiko says she'll distract the zombies.
Separation was a good strategy after all, though brief. While the zombies seize the struggling Keiko, grasping at her limbs and clothing, Botan quickly grabs the fire extinguisher and begins spraying the contents at Keiko's assailants. Somehow, she manages to miss Keiko altogether, covering just the insect-zombies in foam, and urging Keiko to follow her back down the hall and out of their range while they recover from their disorientation. But as she flees, looking behind her to make sure Keiko is on her way, a shadow looms in her path. It's Iwamoto, who grabs her throat and lifts her straight off her feet with one fist, the other still clenched and bleeding. Regardless, he's laughing his ass off at Botan's gurgles as he strangles her.
Keiko calls Botan's name and her open palm sails through the air toward Iwamoto.
Hell yeah, girl, smack him up!
Back at the Demon City Tower, another blast blows through the roof, and the shoes Yusuke was using for protection basically shred into oblivion. And YET, Suzaku is in disbelief in the next panel. Yusuke is blocking him from making contact with a thick aural insulation around his crossed hands. He roars, balls his hands into fists, and delivers a punch, his hands still covered in reiki protection. Suzaku is thrown back quite a distance, and when he skids to a stop on his knee, he exclaims that the shoes were just a blind so he wouldn't notice Yusuke concentrating his aura into a barrier to deflect the lightning.
Yusuke tells Suzaku that his script for that horror film he was talking about earlier SUCKS, and he's demanding a rewrite.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? The thing I appreciated the most was pretty balanced amount of time covering both Yusuke's and Keiko's struggles, giving them roughly equal importance. Keiko isn't just framed here as the object Yusuke is trying to save, and is shown helping Botan just as much as Botan is helping her, and doing her own active defending. I LOVE that Yusuke verbally states that Keiko is no weakling, and Suzaku is going to find it difficult to kill EITHER of them. It suggests that he's not as distracted by her being in danger as Suzaku intended him to be, and therefore is way more engaged in defeating Suzaku than was calculated.
Which hilariously highlights Suzaku's BLANDNESS as a character. His reactions to setbacks and even the furthering of his plans are almost indistinguishable from one another, and overall very neutral. I've commented before about how the faces characters make in this comic are delightfully expressive, and while that has already toned down just a bit, Suzaku doesn't even meet THAT standard of expressiveness. He has NONE of the wacky cartoon color that I've come to associate with this comic, keeping a relatively straight face throughout like an aging beauty queen who's trying to avoid getting wrinkles. It's SO fucking boring.
Is this an indication of how bored YT was in writing Suzaku? Because I know I'm bored READING the guy.
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