Listen I gotta share, because it’s so cute and it’s totally one of these things that personally I can only notice during an insomnia phase, a little over a month away from a very important exam. xD
I’m talking about Rin’s confession to Shiemi in ch73 and the awkward moment of adorable confusion that followed. In between though, here’s what I missed till ten hours ago:
The whole scene has Shiemi with her head on Rin’s shoulder, until she moves away and flushes after what he said, but look at what he does next…
He shifts closer, as if leaning in a little while Shiemi goes “? Rin?”, but then he remembers Yukio so he shifts back quickly…
and starts asking about if maybe Shiemi wouldn’t actually prefer Yukio. Then the rest of the chapter goes on.
Anyway, maybe I’m just super late and other fans had already noticed, but I love how a good use of paneling is actually putting in the foreground more unspoken details of that cute scene
(I mean, I’m not sure Shiemi realized what he almost tried), especially since it’s exactly like Rin to get a little carried away.
In the first place, it’s Shiemi acting so nice and close that led to him blurting out his feelings, before almost going for a kiss after she said that she was happy to hear that. He forgot everything for like a minute, because that’s how he is, until Yukio came to mind, since inwardly he doesn’t want to fight with him on this.
The whole scene is just… really like Rin and honestly it’s cute.
Anyway, ch103 is really interesting as a focus on Yuri (16 years old) and Shiro’s (22 years old) dynamic, because we found out it gradually got better over time. I’m now looking forward to how they managed from “awkward confession” (29 years ago) to Yuri still casually flirting with him, like when he brought Shura to her (18 years ago). And if Shiro ever caved, of course.
What’s even more interesting though is that, despite that we already knew “rinka” had a special attachment to Yuri, it’s to the point that now it seems to sense whenever she’s not okay, be it physically (protecting her from Shiro’s wrath) or emotionally (after Shiro rejected her).
And actually I thought maybe that’s why eventually it ended up becoming Satan through possessing a human (Goro) and developing an ego?
Because maybe initially lil “rinka” just wanted to cheer Yuri up, it’s just that developing an ego through possessing a human made him, well, the horrible demon God we met a few times.
Just like Mephisto explained for the rest of them Baals.
Honestly, I think Goro being possessed (the cliffhanger of ch103) was around 29 years ago and, besides a probably huge boom inside Section 13, nothing else happened with him, Satan, or Yuri back then.
My evidence of this is Arthur because he was already born and probably a teenager when the Blue Night happened:
and also in general the Blue Night matches with the twins’ birth 16 years ago:
because that’s when Suguro Tatsuma’s dad, Shima Takezou and Konekomaru’s father all died.
Moving on, I still think that Shiro is possibly the twins’ biological dad, even if how/when while including Satan in the equation is a bit hard to figure out entirely for now (and assuming of course that the Order is not wrong about who hosted Satan between Yuri and the dad). xD
Clearly though, Yuri never stopped loving him and, if Shura was so jealous of Yuri for years, it could be that even as a kid she noticed that Shiro was obviously taken by her too.
Doesn’t mean Shiro ever caved, of course, but I find interesting that he was still a very cold guy when he just got Shura (18 years ago) and yet with Tatsuma…
he seemed less aggressive, more helpful and similar to the man we met as Rin’s foster dad (16/17 years ago). Mentioning this moment btw, I doubt Shiro knew back then whose kid he was supposed to kill with that sword.
Finally, there is Mephisto’s constant warning about the flashback ending “in tragedy”, but Rin already knows that, having never met his mother? So why would Mephy warn him several times? Because something will happen between Shiro & Yuri and Rin should keep in mind that it will end badly anyway?
I don’t know for sure, but for now it does seem like Yuri wouldn’t have minded having a family with Shiro, if ch89 is an indication of anything.
And if Shiro caved at some point (maybe taking care of Shura, a kid, made him realize some stuff, idk), that could explain why he seems genuinely different and less cold when he met Suguro Tatsuma.
Last thing: if Shiro is the twins’ dad, the question is did he ever know? There are plenty of reasons he would not have been able to kill Yuri’s sons, the fact he loved her being the most prominent, but whether he knew or not…
I’m guessing the favor he owed Mephisto, should he yield to a demon (baby demon Rin or possessed-by-Satan!Yuri?), would have forced him to raise the twins as “weapons for the Order” anyway.
What I mean is, if Shiro didn’t know, then Mephisto just had to ask him to raise the twins and then the rest is history. However, if Shiro knew he was the biological dad to Satan’s sons, Mephisto could have forbidden him from ever telling them as a part of that favor.
Because clearly Mephisto is the one who allowed the twins’ existence. It means that whether Shiro wanted to raise them from the beginning or was forced to, he had to obey Mephisto on some stuff no matter what (especially since we don’t know what conditions his Morinas’ contract could have been updated with).
I like Shiro raising the twins out of love for Yuri, it’s really beautiful, but I also like the twist that he might really be their biological dad because, be it for Rin…
or Yukio…
that possible truth is going to be very hard to swallow.
Sorry for the long post, I just can’t wait to find out. 😀
Sorry if someone already made a post on the subject, but I was thinking about the last chapters’ title and, considering that Rin is currently having a journey throughout the past and that Mephy is the one guiding him through it, it’d make sense to consider thatthe numbers in the titles are referring to Time.
The question now is whether this possible time unit refers to the past itself or to the present/current timeline from ch99.
First idea is that it could be referring to the past, because as seen in ch101
and ch102
the number of years seem to match the first number of the titles.
In that case, then I guess the other two numbers of the title can only be referring to weeks (because a year = 365 days or 12 months or 52 weeks), meaning that, for example, the title of ch102 would be “5 years and 35 weeks” from when the flashback started for Rin.
Besides, the titles referring to the time quickly passing by for Rin’s journey would also make sense since Mephy is only showing him the pieces of the past he needs to understand what Mephy wants him to understand.
If not the past though, then the second possibility is that the titles are rather referring to the time passing by in the present/current timeline (the one we left in ch99) while Rin is away.
For example, by the time Rin got to the past in ch100, either 40 minutes or 40 seconds had passed in the present for Shiemi, Izumo, Shura, Yukio, Suguro and co. Similarly, while Rin was witnessing the events of ch101, either 4 hours and 36 minutes or 4 minutes and 36 seconds had passed in the present Rin is from (and same idea for ch102).
This possibility would also make sense because Rin left the present in a real moment of crisis. To quote Neuhaus, even Mephy who is king of time shouldn’t be lazing around despite having just been shot in the head.
So having Rin leaving for some time (and going to the past), no one besides Mephy knowing where he is, before he’s to reappear later in the present timeline (probably at even more crucial moment) could be a part of Mephy’s complex plan too, we never know.
Just some musings. We’ll see if either possibility will still work with future chapters, but keep in mind it could be something else entirely. Time is bound to be a complicated matter with Mephisto. x)
So I came to the conclusion that the titles are definitely about the timeline of the Rin’s journey through the past:
Because we started the flashback “40 years ago” and…
40 years ago – 29 years ago = 11 years ever since the beginning of the flashback.
And it’s actually interesting to notice that the two sets of number for all the titles so far are relating to “40 years ago”!
ch100= 40-0=40 => 0:40
ch101: 40-4=36 => 4:36
ch102: 40-5=35 => 5:35
ch103: 40-11=29 => 11:29
Working well so far, Sensei.
I suppose the flashback will end when the counter reaches 40:0or something. In that case, it could mean that Rin’s journey through the past will go further than just the blue night and Yuri’s death.
So idk about you guys, but initially I was thinking that Rin’s journey would last until the twins’ birth (the blue night in theory) and until we could see how Shiro ended up raising them…
Because we already know this won’t end well for Yuri.
Now though, I JUST SCARED MYSELF because I realized that maybe the “tragedy” Mephisto mentioned might not be only referring to Yuri’s death.
I mean, Mephisto said to Rin that the whole point of showing him (and not Yukio) the past was because:
he has to face and accept the past, because it scares him (and he doesn’t need anyone to tell him it’s not a happy story) + because he needs to know the truth to get Yukio back.
But here I am wondering, are the circumstances of his and Yukio’s birth the only part of the past he “must accept” through this journey?
This flashback is about Yuri and Shiro, so if one goal is to learn about Yuri and accept to face what brought her death, what about…
Shiro’s death too? Because Rin is clearly still tormented about this and he never had the chance to truly face any of it.
The reason I’m thinking it might happen is also because Mephisto once did the following…
…he quoted what Shiro had told Rin all the way back in ch1, before he died.
And I know that Mephy is the King of Time and a real jerk, but still, I wonder if him quoting that moment in particular wouldn’t be because leading Rin back to this precise moment at the end of this journey is something he will do/did already a million times .
Anyway, that’s why I could see it: Rin witnessing how Shiro slowly changed, through Yuri’s death and through raising them,
to become the man he saw as his father… Until that day where he killed himself to make sure Satan wouldn’t get Rin, leaving him and Yukio to Mephisto and Shura instead.
That could make a good/painful ending point for this journey. Double times the pain for Rin of course, because he’ll have to go through his mom’s and (adoptive?) dad’s death, facing the fact that Satan was very probably just trying to get to him (his perfect vessel) both times. T_T
Also Abel Franken, the previous Paladin? Most likely a Samael clone (the German name being a strong hint of this), which is probably why Rin has the feeling he’s seen him somewhere before and Mephy is here like “:D” .
It seems all Paladins are taken amongst the few test subjects from Section 13 who make it Exwire and then Exorcist anyway.
Abel Franken => possibly one of Samael’s clones
Fujimoto Shiro => one of Azazel’s clones
Arthur August Angel => possibly one of Lucifer’s clones, thanks to Mephisto saying he was from Asylum too and to this
And the reason for that is probably because they’re under a Morinas’ contract related to Section 13 already, which makes it easier to moderate the information that’s passed around within the highest members of the Order (the Grigoris, the Paladin, Mephisto and some of the Arc Knights).
That and they’re strong (since they were cloned from the top 3 Baals), so they’re useful.
Angel is actually the only exception since he apparently lost his memories after the Blue Night (I’m highly suspicious of this, but we shall see)
which makes him the only Paladin that’s mostly unaware of many stuff going on within the Order, compared to Shiro or probably even Abel Franken.
But anyway, all that to say that Abel Franken = Samael’s clone. I wonder how awkward it must have been for him to interact with Mephisto LMAO.
midnight-in-town 