#vol 169

Kurogane doesn't have time for things like pain tolerance and careful procedures. Not when there are more important things he could be doing. Like looking cool. And being partially shirtless.

[9]

PLEASE REPEAT EVERYTHING I JUST SAID ABOUT FAI HAVING GROWN AND DEVELOPED INTO A MORE WHOLE PERSON WHO CAN LOVE AND RESPECT THE VALUE OF HIS OWN LIFE

THIS PAGE IS THE TRUEST ART I EVER WISHED TO SEE

THIS IS FAI’S BEST AND FINAL FORM

SMILING OUT OF LOVE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT THAT HE WON’T THROW HIS LIFE AWAY ANYMORE – AND – AND – NOT HAVING TO BE TOLD THIS? THIS IS SOMETHING HE’S LEARNED. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT HE KNOWS HIMSELF, ON THE INSIDE, AND CAN ACT ACCORDINGLY.

FAI ISN’T THROWING HIMSELF TO HEAL KUROGANE, FAI IS MAKING A CAREFUL AND EDUCATED CHOICE THAT HE KNOWS HE CAN SAFELY AFFORD AND CONTINUE TO LIVE WITH BY RELYING ON HIS LOVED ONES. AND THAT FRAME WITH ONE OF THEM ON EACH SIDE OF THE FRAME? THEY’RE FINALLY ON THE SAME LEVEL. FAI HAS BECOME WHAT KUROGANE ALWAYS KNEW HE WAS CAPABLE OF: HE HAS SELF LOVE AND VALUE, AND NOW THEY TRULY ARE THE COUNTERPARTS THAT THEY ALWAYS WERE MEANT TO BE. THEY ARE THE MATCHING WHITE AND BLACK OF A PAIR THAT IS FINALLY TOGETHER.

LOOK AT THIS MAN

LOOK AT THIS FAMILY

LOOK AT ALL THE LOVE BEHIND THESE FACES

[8]

EXCUSE ME THIS IS BEAUTIFUL AND IM CRYING

Kurogane paid his arm to keep Fai alive

And Fai paid his magic to replace Kurogane’s missing limb

I’ve done a complete 180 on this entire exchange – both because it wasn’t Free and that the cost was something significant.

There is so much in this gesture I don’t think I could summarise the full weight behind it even if I typed all day.

Fai’s magic was the THING of his past. It’s what stood at the centre of every single thing that happened in his backstory – and it was also his single greatest strength that he could rely on. It was won from suffering and pain and tragedy and, now, it has achieved the two greatest things it ever could; saving the lives of his family from a trap that should have killed them all, and restoring the missing body part of a man who loves him so fiercely he would sacrifice bits of himself to save Fai in return.

Fai’s magic has served every purpose it’s ever going to. Fai is more whole and happy without it than he EVER was with it in the past. Not only is he loved, but he’s not living a lie, or intending to die, or suffering under the weight of his ever looming backstory. Fai was always intending to trade his life away for that of his twin’s, but that’s over now, so the backstory has no chains to keep Fai trapped in sorrow or regret any longer. Fai is a free man, and he doesn’t need his magic as a constant reminder of everything he’s gone through. He’s trading it for something better.

ALSO I am WILD about the fact that with this trade Fai is doing the one thing he could never do with the magic. No matter how hard he tried his magic was only for destruction, not for healing. But now he’s traded it all away to Heal Kurogane of his biggest wound and thus MAKING his magic result in the healing he always wanted it to. Fai MADE his magic become worthy of healing, even though his backstory demanded that it would never amount to that.

[10]

NO

WHAT? 

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

HOW COULD YOU JUST

GIVE US THE MOST AMAZING CHARACTER ARC

AND THEN JUST

THIS

ON THE NEXT PAGE

WITH NO BUILD UP

AND THAT’S IT?

THAT’S THE END OF THE CHAPTER

CLAMP YOU CRIMINALS WHAT HAVE YOU DONE

WHY WOULD YOU GIVE ME SUCH A SOLID AND HEALTHY AND LOVING CHAPTER AND END IT ON

E V I L

[4]

NO

NO HOW DARE YOU

THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE MY HAPPY PLACE

WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?

MOKONA GET AWAY FROM HIM

[7]

CLAMP DID THAT

CLAMP REACHED RIGHT DOWN INTO MY HEART AND PULLED OUT THE ONE THING THEY ABSOLUTELY KNEW WOULD GET ME TO EMBRACE THIS ARM WITH ALL MY HEART

AND YOU KNOW WHAT, YES

YES I LOVE AND ACCEPT THIS

PIFFLE TOMOYO CREATED A NEW ARM FOR KUROGANE

SO WE HAVE TWO TOMOYOS LOVING AND SUPPORTING KUROGANE IN HIS ABILITY TO LOVE AND DEFEND HIS NEW FAMILY

AND I AM SO INCREDIBLY FOR THIS THAT I’M WELLING UP WITH TEARS

Me: Im not sure about this

Piffle, kicking down the door: YOU FOOL

Me, in tears: YOU’RE RIGHT I’VE CHANGED MY MIND THIS IS FANTASTIC

ANDJUST

LOOK AT TOMOYO’S SATISFIED AND LOVING FACE AS SHE WATCHES HIS REACTION

OH THIS IS SO GOOD

[6]

“Sorry it’s naked” is the most iconic thing I have ever seen Fuuma say and I will stand by those words.

The design is quite cool at least. And what do you know, the cross hatching on the parts almost looks like dragon scales wouldn’t you say?

Somehow extremely appropriate, wouldn’t you agree?

Fai? Fai are you listening?

Syaoran’s reaction to this is GOLDEN and ENTIRELY UNNECESSARY so I love it. I adore this.

Fuuma’s offhand comment comes back around like it was an important plot point we should have been paying attention to (even though I had genuinely forgotten about his existence and was very happy about that).

Though, and I don’t mean to sound overly critical when I say this, but Lava Lamp’s reactions don’t ring as true as our original Syaoran’s did. Syaoran was essentially the original Point of View character, so his reactions essentially became our reactions because we learned about the plot at the same time. Every shocking piece of news was equally shocking to both Syaoran AND us in equal measure because we’d followed him from the start, so it made sense and never felt out of place.

Now that we have Lava Lamp in his place it feels strange. I genuinely believe that Lava Lamp would have experienced the same exact emotions as Syaoran so none of this is fake at all – he’s being genuine, and his reaction is the same intensity as it should be. But the CONNECTION between us and Syaoran is not there with Lava Lamp – he was an observer the entire time the exact same way we were, so it’s kind of like seeing an audience member reaction instead of someone we’ve built a long lived bond with. More, the entirety of Lava Lamp’s plotline IS the purely fact that he knows LOTS AND LOTS of important plot information that WE don’t. He has a long and complicated backstory that we aren’t privy to, and we don’t get his inner monologue the same we did had Syaoran’s on occasion. In a purely narrative sense there is a large gap of separation between us and Lava Lamp that shouldn’t be there for his reactions to have the same function that Syaoran’s did.

Do we like Lava Lamp fiercely anyway? Of course! He is a deeply good person fighting for Sakura and [indistinct plot scribbles] and he clearly cares about the rest of the family. But does slipping an exact visual copy of a character into the same narrative space have the same result for scenes like this? Not even slightly!

But this is all meta thoughts and on a character level all I want is for Lava Lamp to relax and be happy and safe in his new family so his reactions are WELCOME.

[5]

Fai’s face is me and I am Fai’s face.

Here we are in the presence of all the best characters possible and FUUMA is the one we get to focus on.

WHAT FUN.

Though he’s clearly got a spooky cybernetic arm for Kurogane so that’s neat.

In a way.

Like.

Ok I have conflicting views about this.

From the chapter title it’s clear Yuuko has sent Fuuma with a new arm for Kurogane but Kurogane only sacrificed his arm like 2-3 chapters ago. The price of saving Fai was HIGH and DRAMATIC and had some weight behind it. It would have been nice to fully explore that and actually feel that cost before just instantly being given a replacement for free.

Most of Kurogane’s arm-less time was unconscious, too, so again we weren’t given any scenarios where the lack of an arm would actually mean anything or have any actual difference.

Saving Fai’s life was almost a freebie, in that sense. He paid the price and was immediately refunded.

But from a character point of view this is good and fantastic and honestly if anyone deserves some good things coming their way it’s these poor suffering characters let’s be honest. It just would have been nice if the narrative had let some of these big Wish Payments really feel like they were actual payments (kind of like Sakura paying all of her luck and then immediately becoming a soulless body, so we didn’t get the chance to notice any difference).

I assume this also means there’s not enough plot left for them to really stretch anything out any further than it has too. Celes was the BIG story beat that wrapped up everything that came before it, and there’s not a lot of chapters left for everything to come together, so Nihon might just be the last world where they gather things together before launching into the last few points of the storyline. And so, Kurogane needs an arm, and we need closure on one of the characters who we were promised we’d see again before this all was over, and so we get Fuuma too.