#ifirit

Hein appears in the second half of Volume 2 and his fight carries into the first third of Volume 3. The Warriors of the Wind, along with Desch, enter the Living Woods. There, Desch remembers the town Castle of the Ancients, which is apparently around somewhere. Hein has made his base here and he's not too keen on giving it up. Thus, he uses his fancy ring to call upon Shiva, who multiplies into four different Shivas and fights the Warriors. Special mention to Desch, who calls a bird to attack Hein, not that it stops Hein from commanding Shiva to summon twin ice snakes.

Throughout the battle, Muuchi refuses to give in, even when Shiva freezes his blade solid and breaks it. Muuchi charges at Shiva and gets a new sword by

...Yeah.

Back on the battlefield, Hein is still giving Shiva commands as she attacks the rest of the party, only for Muuchi to test out his new blade by cutting Hein's ring finger off.

Unluckily for Muuchi, Ifirit shows up wielding Tomohawks and Hein is able to escape, leaving Muuchi in Hein's M.C. Escher funhouse with Ifirit. To make matters worse, the rest of the Warriors are defeated and incased in a pillar of ice by Shiva.

Ifirit and Muuchi continue their duel and, after creating a cyclone to throw Ifirit around, Muuchi manages to impress him to the extent that Ifirit no longer attacks.

Naturally, Hein is less than thrilled that his monster is playing nice now, uses the ring to subdue Ifirit and creates a sword to execute him. Muuchi saves Ifirit via a good ol' punch to the face, hard enough to actually knock Hein's hat off.

By this point, the fight has been tame, by this manga's standards. Don't worry though, since this is the point that it all goes off the rails: Hein apparently gets fed up and sucks the energy out of Ifirit and Shiva and takes it for himself, causing him to turn into this horrible horrible thing:

(Credit to FFwiki for this image)

Why yes, that face on his stomach is sentient, how could you tell?

Things look bad for Muuchi by this point as Hein has him on the defensive. This culminates in Hein stabbing Muuchi through his stomach. For a moment, it seems as if Muuchi will die in the fight. However, thinking of Melfi, Doug, Bowie and Desch convinces him to get up. He then takes off his cape and uses it as a makeshift bandage for the wound.

Rather than killing Muuchi physically, Hein takes a different approach; He creates a clone of Muuchi. Said clone does not last long before its face cracks and its head melts in a graphic manner.

This is followed up by a worm monster emerging from Muuchi's chest and attempting to eat him.

Of course, it's all just illusions by Hein, but it's not doing favors for Muuchi's sanity. Luckily for Muuchi, though, Ifirit and Shiva are able to clear his mind. They distract Hein with their weakened forms giving Muuchi enough time to shove his sword into Hein's skull. An explosion rocks the castle, Muuchi is sent falling into a lake, but J saves him. Ifirit and Shiva then take their leave. Spoilers: They'll be back.

Muuchi wakes up to the others, his wound now healed. Desch suddenly regains his memories and proceeds to use the mother tree/living woods (?) to clear up the clouds blocking the surface. Then he fuses with the Mother Tree/Living Woods (?) bidding the Warriors of Light farewell as they're warped to the surface. Unlike his game counterpart, he's truly gone here.

All in all, a pretty crazy chapter. Hein may not have his Barrier Shift, but he makes up for it in a big way. Meanwhile, Desch resembles his game counterpart towards the end.

Doga, Unei and Xande are next, And I hope you didn’t get used to how much of a detailed accurate play-by-play this is because it’s most certainly not happening for the next one. Instead, it’ll probably be just vague summing up of how they are since the ending is probably the most nuts part of this “adaptation” (if one can even call it that by that point).

Next Time:

- Noah appearing on-screen!

- Nudity! (Maybe, depending on whether I’m willing to gamble with Tumblr’s flagging algorithm)

- The scrapped design for Guardian’s summon!

- A special guest appearance by Unei’s in-game design!