#ch155

It's neat how Crocodile's reintroduction in Impel Down mirrors his first introduction in Alabasta

Both of them aspired to be the strongest. Erza, for revenge. Midnight’s always been alone, so he needed to be stronger so he could protect himself, so he could finally sleep undisturbed without any criticism or abuse. 

Erza isn’t violent at heart, Erza wants a peaceful life of just living well, comfortable, and free. Midnight just wants a place to sleep, he could care less about wars and chaos. Despite both of them no longer resembling who they once were-- they’re both in the end, pacifists at heart.

They’ve just gone too far in the path of strength to turn back again, so they have to live with their strength now. 

Erza enjoys herself as the strongest because she can protect her family, and honestly, I think becoming the guild master would be the greatest resting point of her character arc. She’ll be able to enjoy her safety and freedom from a place of holding down the fort, just like Master Makarov. She can finally have her quiet peace, and only need to fight when truly necessary instead of constantly being put in the very front to endure the hardest hit first. 

As for Midnight, I do hope Crime Sorciere is better handled or fleshed out for anyone other than Jellal, but I like the idea of Midnight on a journey of self-discovery to find out what he truly wants, without Brain’s influence. If he gets any time to truly have a moment of redemption, he can eventually get to a point where he’s actually the spoiled baby brother of the family, and sleep all day because he trusts the other O6 to protect him. It’d just be really sweet to see someone like Angel or Racer ‘excuse you, don’t disturb his sleep??’ and going absolute ham over enemies. 

The way chapter 155 presents things, it looks like Annie, the maid the baron took the previous night, disappeared in the morning. The following day, Ran Mao was taken, but Ran Mao apparently also disappeared the day after that. This makes it sort of one day, one maid.

Jane says “the master liked her... and he might not let go of her for several days.” This is suspicious. Why did the previous maid completely disappear, and Ran Mao was “taken by the master”?

My hot take is that her blood type might be one of the rare ones... “Canopus”, I’d say, or maybe even “Sirius”. So, while maids with other blood types could be taken and discarded of easily, maybe it’s more useful for them to keep a maid with the blood type B or AB alive. (Yes, it would be more useful - you could get more blood, but it’s a higher risk of being discovered)

It would explain why Jane also seems surprised and considering “something” when Mey Rin tells her Ran Mao didn’t return in the morning.

Another hint towards this is what Jane said that the baron is looking for in the girls.. the shape of the soul.

To me, this says “blood type”... or there could be experiments done on the girls’ souls. I’d say blood type is more likely, but I’m keeping the ‘experiments on souls’ option for further discussions, because it’s interesting.

The baron also tells Annie, the maid from the previous night, that she wants to see her naked soul. (panels not included for rating purposes xD). As poetic as that sounds, I think it’s another hint to what they are actually looking for from the girls.

Now, if Ran Mao was actually taken with this objective, collecting blood, the way she looks in this panel has me thinking of some sort of drugs... again.

We know for sure they used some sort of drugs to get people to sleep in order to collect their blood. 

So, if blood is the objective, drugs should be involved here as well.

However... This is Ran Mao we’re talking about. She should have some significant resistance to some drugs, considering she lives with Lau in opium dens. We also don’t know for sure if she’s a human or not.

So yeah... I don’t think Ran Mao should be that affected by whatever drugs they’re using. Instead, I’d love to see that she would play along and pretend to be affected, so she could gather more information.Yes, I’d love to see that.

Other possibilities as for why she didn’t return are that:

2. Mey Rin (who says is her sister at the mansion) seems suspicious, so they didn’t want to kill her. However, in this case, they shouldn’t even have taken her at all, I feel, or at least let her return.

3. Ran Mao actually attacked the baron... A possibility I am not disregarding quite yet. She did say -

And she doesn’t seem to be the best detective, so to say, so she could have attacked him in some way...  However, I feel like Jane would have known something, in this case. So yeah, keep this in mind.

These are the possibilities I thought of for now. The rate at which they are making the maids disappear is quite alarming, though. Annie is already out of the picture. For whatever reason, Ran Mao was also taken. We have yet to see the other maids’ reactions to whatever happened to Ran Mao, but we’ve seen their reaction to Annie’s disappearance.

This is a clever shot, actually. A beautiful portrayal of useless gossiping done by foolish people. Notice how the maids, who are all so different, become identical in this situation.

It is hilarious how, aside from Mey Rin (and Ran Mao? who were already informed that there might be something wrong about the manor), and Jane (who definitely is involved in whatever’s wrong), none of the other maids are suspicious, even in the slightest, that Annie disappeared. Notice that some of the maids have been there longer than the recently hired ones, if the baron(and/or co.) is going through maids at the rate of one per day(~ish), surely they should have noticed something... however, they did not. Instead, they foolishly wish the master would “summon them once.”

Nonetheless, I liked that detail, and I’m interested in the “shape of the soul” bit mentioned by Jane. That could turn out to be interesting.