D.Gray-Man 193rd Night

An innocent smile...

「 193 – Friend 」The dreaded battle between Kanda and Alma is not far away now as Kanda somehow manages to stay alive after being put to sleep. With his memories still constantly haunting him, how will he react to the sight of what Alma has now become? With the two former friends fighting each other for survival, only one will end up standing.

D.Gray-Man「 ディー・グレイマン 」

...tainted in blood

193rd Night - Friend
Read Online @ MANGASTREAM

Summary: Kanda is slowly falling into oblivion. Just as everything comes to an end, a spark of light appears and the same old memories of a beautiful garden and the mysterious lady conjures up once more. All of the sudden, Kanda jerks himself awake in pain, unaware of how he was able to escape death even though he can feel himself slowly losing control. This intense bout of emotion somehow manages to activate an innocence below him in the chamber, and a single beam of light resembling a sword blasts through his hands and into his grasp. With the innocence now synchronizing with him, he is able to find another source of power to draw strength from.

After gaining control of himself, Kanda stumbles about the laboratory, briefly pondering whether he should destroy it along with everyone inside it. He stumbles upon the body of Marie soon after though, and remembers how he had previously saved him from death. Wondering if Marie had also been an experiment himself, a single drop of blood from Kanda’s wound slips into Marie’s gaping head wound and all of a sudden, he wakes up suddenly with the wound instantly healing itself as he regains consciousness. Not long after, Kanda reluctantly helps Marie to escape the lab through the air vents, as Marie is still weak from the sudden revival. Marie remarks at how calm Kanda is after all this, as he himself admitted that he would have lost his mind. He reasons that it might have something to do with the fact that he has comrades who are willing to help him by his side, which triggers the thought of Alma in Kanda. He now understands why Alma had acted the way he has around him, and vows to find and help Alma escape from the lab along with them.

He soon arrives into the main lab and sees Alma standing in the center. Both of them were happy to see each other but then Kanda realizes that Alma had brutally murdered everyone in sight. Even though Alma is happy to see Kanda well, he reveals that he will still have to kill him in order to save him. He proceeds to attack Kanda and manages to separate him and Marie, taking out his arm in the process. Alma soon realizes that Kanda has also successfully synced with his innocence and goes on to ask why none of the other experiments were waking up, even though he wanted to make new friends. Kanda now realizes that Alma too had recall his past memories, which is why he had killed everyone in the lab.

Alma responds by trying to kill himself but he knows that no matter what he does, we will just regenerate back into his original state. In the midst of the chaos, Kanda gets distracted by the fact that Alma had killed off Marie and in his momentary lapse of concentration, finds himself impaled along with Alma, as Alma wants the two to die together. To Alma’s surprise however, Kanda still wants to live his life, even if he knows that he will be nothing more than a tool to the order. Even if it means destroying his friend, he will not give up and ultimately deals the final blow to a bewildered Alma.

My Thoughts: And there it is, the inevitable battle. It was just as emotional as I thought it would be, although the revelation by Alma that he had to kill Kanda was very chilling. The things that these kids are subjected to at such a young age huh? Alma ultimately succumbed to his initial rage of having everyone killed, which thankfully to Kanda was suppressed when he met Marie and realized the bond he shared with Alma. That’s what makes this fight so tragic. Just when Kanda was fully able to understand what Alma had felt all along, he has no choice but to kill his “one and only”. Guess that’s why Kanda has been so indifferent to everyone he met as he gets older.

And damn, the way each panel was set out in the first few pages were just beautiful. I loved how emotion and intensity were all conveyed through these moments and Hoshino is definitely one of the best in bringing out the emotional qualities of the stories through her drawings. I just can’t get over it. From the hazy memories that triggered Kanda’s revival, to his sudden jerk into live again as well as the scene of Alma standing alone in a pool of corpses and blood, it was all just striking. The Alma scene alone was enough to push this chapter into awesomeness, along with that sad panel of where his innocence was impaling through Edgar. Damn.

This whole emotional breakdown of Alma leads me to believe that he may be a foreshadow of what is to come for Allen if he does eventually fall into the Earl’s grasp. We’ve already seen glimpses of when the 14th takes over his body a couple of chapters ago and with him and Alma having so many similarities already, he might be falling into the same holes. They are both very loyal and very kind-hearted people (with parasitic innocence which may or may not be a catalyst in Alma’s sudden outburst) but with Alma himself losing his mind, Allen might not be too far behind. I was hoping that we got to see some reaction from Allen in this chapter much like we did with 192, but I think we will see it soon with the next chapter. Hopefully he will learn from Kanda’s past, since he might be following the same path soon.

I was surprised that the innocence reacted with Kanda so early in the chapter though. I half-thought that it would be during his fight with Alma but I guess it was more of a reaction to strong feelings of emotions, evident in Alma’s awakening in the last chapter and with Kanda’s revival in this one. Kanda’s sync only proved successful when he realizes that he wants to know more of his past along with the mysterious woman (as well as saving Alma), and Alma’s was born out of his strong desires to save Kanda. That seems to be the theme here, and is much different to my initial theory of the innocence syncing when they finally regain most of their past memories. Then again, it could be argued that the innocence is working out of the two memories of the previous and present bodies.

Anyway, while this chapter seemed quite short to me, it was still a good chapter due to all the emotions on show from both Alma and Kanda. I thought it was done really well, and I just can’t forget about the Alma scene in all the blood. That was definitely memorable and I can’t wait to see the reunion between the two in the present day.