KOS 9-116
Chapter: 9
The Gods showed the first human to YISUN, bringing her in a walnut shell because she was so delicate. They could not believe how small and frail she was. Though she slept quite peacefully, at every breath they quailed and wrung their hands, fearing that she would fall apart at any moment. They crept carefully and cautiously into YISUN’s speaking hall, cradling her and whispering in hushed tones as they gently presented her upon a cushion before the Lord of Songs.
YISUN took one look at her and said, “This is the most dangerous being in existence.”
-Spasms
You go girl! Tear stoney arse down a few pegs!
PREDICTABO!
Honor the Wing With Blood Stained Hands.
TOO EASY!
GOOOOSE!!!
So long, gay White Chain
This battle is over, friends. Prepare for annihilation…
I have a feeling that White Chain is going to lose the number permanently.
All warfare is based upon deception. The fact that angels have forgotten this mantra is a testament to their power, but also, as we see here, the most potent blade to wield against them.
ahhh, the hot black flame. ever tempting, ever consuming, ever changing, ever growing.
The last few images of White Chain’s angelic body emerging from her ash armor are so vivid! They resemble nothing so much as a butterfly emerging from the chrysalis into it’s new existence.
Let’s hope Stoney Arse gets the message.
I’m so fuckin’ Psyched.
Well, as she is NOT saying this while finishing the angel of with a special move, the universal rules of narration and tournament fights say that the angel will still have a comeback, this is far from over!
The alt-text is a lie. Violence is the only universal language – this is a known and absolute truth of the Great Wheel. Hence, violent kung-fu duels is the BEST way to work out any interpersonal issue, since those tend to be founded on poor communication.
Of course it is a Lie. YISUN is the greatest liar there ever was or will be.
Really, I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to work out their personal issues through violent kung fu duels! It seems to be the absolute optimal way to do so, and is highly cathartic as well! Also, exercise is important anyways.
A shallow understanding. To speak is to do violence, to do is to violence, to offer a hand in generosity is to cleave from the world by force a shard of existence that displeases you. To utter a word in comfort is to attempt to tear away a piece of a mind which you find unwelcome.
Hear this secret in plain sight: the duel of words is no lesser in its violence than the duel of fists. All are instruments that Yisun raises against his greatest foe, the one called I.
A radical observation. I enjoyed it.
Even inaction means destroying every future where you might have done something.
Sometimes, they all deserve to die.
Sometimes we must relinquish the future of inaction to the void, in order to pluck a single thread from that multiverse, before the furnace of Time engulfs it.
White Chain also has much to learn.
Verily. Let’s see if that’s realized or not.
Can White Chain learn? It is the nature of angels to be inflexible: they are not human, and their motivations and complications are alien to our experience.
It is the nature of servants to exist according to their nature and never strive. And yet the great wyrm sits at the table with the other seven, ruler of his piece of the seven part world. Even the hard truth of the white and black flames are just another liar told to us by Yisun.
When we forged the Angels, it was to restrain the unrest among the Servants.
We created the Four Orders, but we underestimated the materials they were forged from. Even brother Un-Koss could not fully estimate the power of the Eye and Hand of UN, or the Heart and Tongue of YIS.
When we realized our folly, we named them the Inheritors, for they each inherited the will of our grandfather YISUN.
Devils have no insult more dire than “you can’t even cheat at cards.”
The Cold Flame is feeling the heat
Looks like we got another eleven-cubit-spear being served up!
One was wondering if the Blade of Want was crackling up?, as the Devilskin does seem to have banished the erstwhile doubt that was troubling her mind(s), and be more resolute. Ready to cut the world as she pleases – or maybe just my brother’s ashen vessel as of yet.
My, all this excitement I need a sit-down.
Khadaji was struck by Relámpago, the Enlightenment of the Thunderbolt and was set on the Path that led to the destruction of the Marcus Wall. Seeing the need for Warriors He summoned three and said to each “Move the table that stands in My tavern.”
Mue Bork tore it from the Earth with a shrug. To him was given the daughter of the Man Who Never Missed.
Empty Sleel called forth Ultimate Will and moved the table, though the effort nearly meant his destruction. To him was given the forging of weapons of Black Steel.
Clever Dirisha took up the top of the table and hammered away the bolts which she had weakened the night before. To her was entrusted the Guardianship of the Galaxy’s greatest Treasure.
— Whispered in “The Man Who Never Missed” by the Guru Perry of the 97 Steps
[In regular life Steve Perry is the author of the “Matador” series, probably the best treatment of martial arts in fantasy and science fiction. You should read it]
“If you fight, cheat. If you lose you didn’t cheat hard enough.”
There no such thing as a fair fight..
The First Battle between primordial counterparts YIS and UN comes to mind….
If you’re in a fair fight your tactics suck
Not all fight to win.
The contrasting expressions, between White Chain’s stoic grey ash body and colorful emotive angel body speaks volumes, and I love it. Comes across as a powerful symbol about dissociation, embodiment, and queerness in general.
If that body gets wrecked… I wonder if White Chain might get a new one fashioned. Maybe with some help from wherever the Petal Knights get theirs?
This fight is awesome
Agreed, a heart tearing battle between comrades.
I’ve never seen White Chain so passionate and so beautiful as in these terrible moments. At last the Aeon reveals her fiery spirit.
Ali-Cio is likewise stunning and reminds me of the Dvarapalas – the ferocious temple guardians of Vishnu’s temples. Oh – but Ali-Cio is not yet a guardian, no ! She seeks to Strike the God-King ! Oh Allison what will you become ? Surely you cannot remain a Devil-Warrior forever.
Will you follow the path of Devas or Asuras ?
I love the art but it is taking a bit too long.
Feel free to do it faster.
If a thing is worth having, it’s worth waiting for.
Eyes cannot behold a cake as the mouth tastes it.
That depends on whose eyes they are and most importantly who baked the cake.
“Here, do the glacé cherries seem a bit chewy to you…?”
can’t rush genius.
I wish I could see this animated so badly.
It would be better if animated well, Preem Just.
the shrapnel from white chain’s exploded armor scores Solomon David’s stoic cheek ever so slightly, drawing a nigh imperceptible speck of blood. the crowd is puzzled: does allicio win for delivering the destructive blow, or does white chain win for owning the molecules which drew forth the drop? to settle the dispute, the great Salami calls for his prisoner to be delivered to the podium, so that the boy may be tossed into the air, and whether he lands face up or face down will determine the outcome.
“This boy’s body is the state and the whole of the law. At least until it hits the ground. He’s like Schrödinger’s douchebag or something.”
Poor Zaid.
Hoping the scholar in green takes care of him.
allicio: no! don’t throw him! he’s the whole reason i came here!
gog agog: golly, i guess we could just cut him in half and see who gets the larger piece…
solomon david: i could easily see that going your way, white chain.
white chain: no, YOU’RE gay, dad!
solomon david: no wonder i have this purple motif and impeccable manscaping. thank you for this revelation, prettiest of pretty princesses. you truly are my daughter. i crown you with my kingdom.
he then goes full kronar, puts a carafe on the end of a loaf of bread, and sets off to bzort nadia om into oblivion once and for all.
Pretty sure that’s the most damage Allicio’s done this entire match.
Ruffled a few o that stonyarse’s feathers, rightsome. And they primaries lookin a bit ragged.
So long as those black panties remain intact, they shall have victory.
When describing the paths of life, it is often presented as a turning of a wheel. That view is flawed, in that a wheel may look strong but has an inherent flaw of directionality. It leads one to thinking that what lies ahead is the only path, and so restricts your view of everything around you. Change does not come easily to a wheel, much energy is required to turn from the current direction. The longer one remains in a single direction, the deeper the rut created, and so the greater the shock required to begin a turning.
This is the current state of White Chain, who has yet to hit a mighty rock in the path and begin a change.
Instead, one should aspire to become a sphere, a ball, endlessly round and capable of adapting to whatever new direction is introduced by change. The energy to change may be the same, greater, or even less, but the resiliency of the sphere allows it to better absorb the shocks and continue on by a small sidestep in the path.
This is the current state of Allison, who has taken to several different paths since receiving the Key of Kings. Her state has not always been so open and adapting, easily seen during her early conversations with White Chain, Cio, and others. She is still trying to find her best self, and challenging White Chain like this is one more force acting upon her sense of self.
In short, be the ball, and roll where you may.
Given an excess of force it is quite possible to move a wheel in directions other than that pertaining to its rotation. With skill and practice this action may be performed intentionally, though it is more frequently an undesired consequence of inexperience and overconfidence and often ends in unpleasantness.
I beg you, AL-YS-UN, not to break apart White Chain’s body any further! Instead, turn to your god, the mighty Solomon David. Aim your spear–quickly!– and strike true. His blood is what you desire.
The harder the shell, the longer it takes for the creature inside to break free. Not because of the physical difficulty of escaping, but because it becomes easy to mistake the tough walls for those of a fortress keeping danger out, instead of a prison.l keeping oneself in.
And the shell of an angel is very hard indeed.
Allison’s condemnation in no way rebuts White Chain’s statements.
White Chain: “You’re acting reckless and stupid!”
Allicio: “Yeah, but at least I’m not boring.”
…okay
I interpret Allison’s side more as “Yeah, but your bring an inflexible prick to paralyzed by fear and uncertainty to actually try to do anything.”
Oh and another, more meta point. Being reckless and stupid is not inherently a flaw in the cosmology of this setting. Aesma was YISUN’s favorite and greatest disciple *because* she was reckless and stupid. She frequently did great feats the other gods considered impossible in childish fits of petulant rage because she didn’t stop to consider if it was possible. Mortals are also known as “Aesma’s mistake” but they gave more meaning to creation than anything the other gods made, so much so the gods committed suicide the create the 777,777 universes for mortals to live in.
This is even more so important when you remember, YISUN said everything is a lie, so by definition there cannot be any dogma, for dogma is a claim of absolute truth.
That angels like White Chain, beings of the highest cosmic order have become mired in dogma is the most terrible of ironies.
And actually, it’s very much akin to Assassin’s Creed: “Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”
Recklessly stupid people who act in petulant fits of childish rage are best viewed at great distance, both physically and temporally.
The whole multiverse will have to live with Allicio’s mistakes.
Hmm, sounds like someone with White Chain’s own mentality. Here is a different interpretation:
White Chain: “You’re acting reckless and stupid!”
Allicio: “No, you’re so enamored of the status quo that you can’t determine when it is detrimental to your own health, much less the needs of others, so any variation away from the status quo you see as a personal offense.”
Not as pithy, but perhaps more accurate.
Look at your rewrite.
“No,…”
What you posit Allicio to be saying is not a rebuttal to White Chain’s statement. White Chain may be a stick in the mud, etc. but that doesn’t prevent Allicio from being reckless and stupid. Which, pretty clearly, she is being.
Hm, you are correct that I deleted the rebuttal because it was too wordy. To clarify, here it is: “You view any variation away from the status quo as ‘reckless and stupid’ because it is against the status quo. Actual recklessness or stupidity are inconsequential to your view. In your mind, change is anathema. That’s why you will always be playing catch-up.”
I don’t think Allison, even in the wordy version of your response, would have much of a leg to stand on.
Allison’s plan was to, on the advice of an enemy she doesn’t fully understand, rush into a tournament she didn’t really understand and was woefully unprepared for, to put on a rescue attempt that would generously be described as less than fully baked. This plan was essentially a repeat of the Vault misadventure.
White Chain isn’t arguing for the status quo here, Allison really is being quite reckless.
Less than fully baked.
See, I told you the glacé cherries were a bit chewy!
It doesn’t rebut her point, but if she picks a fight with the person she’s sworn to protect and then immediately loses, it -DOES- make her a hypocrite RE: Reckless stupidity, and proving that is basically the same as winning.
How is that equivalent to winning, exactly?
Ignoring the point of whether or not she’s picked the fight considering that they’re both in a battle royale at this point, how would White Chain’s attempt to beat Allison here be reckless stupidity?
Recall that when this all began, White Chain’s request of Allison was that they leave the tournament and go home. She’s trying to prevent an unprepared Allison from a) hurting any of the bystanders and b) getting super murdered by Solomon David.
But Allicio has/have experienced change and growth; She/they can correct past mistakes. White Chain is imprisoned within and without and neither adapts nor learns. That way lies stasis and death.
Allicio is repeating the same mistakes she made within the vault.
She’s accepted a superficial power grant from an external source, resulting in a temporary physical change and unwarranted self confidence, and she’s using it to hurt a friend.
I’d argue her mistake in the vault was more making a deal with the devil. Here she’s accepting help from a friend. And she didn’t start this fight, it was White Chain whose mind was poisoned by Micheal’s words who did that. It’s not just Allison who’s willingly fighting back again White Chain and calling them out on their bullshit, Cio is siding with Allison here. Admittedly she might be being a little over confident after clearing out the arena of dozens fighters from across the multiverse in a matter of seconds. But she didn’t just thwart White Chains attack because of the raw power from the devil skin form, she just said White Chain is faster and stronger, she recognized a flaw in White Chain’s fighting style and used it against her.
White Chain does have some good points about Allison not thinking things through all the way. Even Allison recognizes and admits to it, but notes she’s trying to get better about it. But White Chain’s plan boils down to “I’m taking you home because I don’t trust you to make your own decisions”. They don’t say anything beyond that. They probably don’t have any idea what to do after that.
What is Cio but a literal devil? What then is the arrangement Allison has made with her but a deal with the devil?
Currently White Chain is using a fighting style that she can’t have taught Allison (the strain it puts on her shell would make that impossible). But Cio, a devil of some renown, would know it from when the Angels used it against devils. So did Allison realize the flaw in the style, or Cio, an external source?
I’m not sure how a vote note to make a bad decision is somehow worse than making a bad decision?
My apologies, I’ve overlooked the bit of dialogue in this comic where one of the pair notices the pattern right here. I was thinking of the line of dialogue where the line was about the familiarity. It might be that the Cio portion of Allicio is the one who recognized the pattern, but the point is much less clear.
Well if you look at the first panel you see where Allicio talks about how the “flurry of blows into a low blow beneath our guard” is the same moves white chain just used on them. So it’s Allison being able to recognize patterns in fighting and pick out a weakness. Which means you were right the first time. Cio is giving power enough for Allison to keep up and not be purely overwhelmed, but Allison is the one who found the pattern and weakness. The main point of this chapter is showing how White Chain’s stagnant viewpoints and lack of trust in her friends is becoming a hinderance to the team and her getting her ass kicked here is giving an opportunity to shed the metaphorical shell of stone around herself so that sbe may change and grow. The foreshadowing has been clear between White Chain’s increased aggression towards her ward after encountering Michael and Metatron, as well as her being so set in her ways as to ignore the senior angel who is undoubtedly her previous teacher. And it’s been established from the start that White Chain’s gender dysphoria is the source of her issues as well, seen if we look back to the first chapeters where White Chain was removed from her body and rejects the notion that her very soul has taken the form of a female woman and how she insists upon being refered to as “he” and “brother”. In conclusion, this fight has been set up to show how a lack of change and acceptance of who you are can lead to immense problems and being overtaken in strength. As such White Chain will fall here so that she may grow anew and begin learning from the start and finally accept who she is and truly learn to love her friends.
Episode 133 of naruto