Kill Six Billion Demons IV: King of Swords (part three)

After a long "bus" trip through Thone, White Chain, Killy, and their prisoner reach their destination. Some other Concordant Knights exchange their formal greetings with White Chain, and take Omun Vash off to his prison cell. From the sound of things, this isn't his first or even second arrest.

Killy asks about Omun Vash's arrest record, and...oh.

For the...

So. This facility is a jail, not a prison. According to the Old Law, suspects can be held for up to one week here before being sent elsewhere to stand trial and receive sentencing. Unfortunately, the entire other half of Throne's criminal justice system has been missing for a very long time. The Concordants enforce the old law to the letter, and are thoroughly of the opinion that they and it are incapable of change despite all evidence to the contrary. So, like all the previous times he's been brought in, Omun Vash will be held for one week, after which they will release him because no one with authority that they'd recognize will have shown up to bring him to trial.

This isn't his third arrest. It probably isn't even his tenth.

Killy is enraged when White Chain explains this to her, and the other angels get judgey about humans with their wild emotions and short sighted biases. Frankly, though, I think Killy's reaction is extremely understated when you think about the implications.

...

Forget about all the harm Vash and his organization do on a daily basis and how ineffective this is at stopping it. That's only the second worst thing about what we just learned.

How many people did Killy have to fight through to get to Vash? Some of those people were superhumanly durable, sure (the insectoid who she punched into the ceiling is later seen picking itself up off the floor), but I don't think all of them were. Possibly not even most of them. So, how many were killed or permanently maimed in that silly Jackie Chan sequence? How much blood was spilled, how many lives - criminal lives, sure, but lives nonetheless - were ruined, to bring Vash to justice?

If the Golden Pearl raid had meant the end of the gang's activities, you could say that it was worth it. More death and suffering prevented in the long run. Except, the only people who were actually taken out of the picture were the replaceable mooks who the desperate conditions of Throne's slums create an infinite supply of. Vash and his real cronies never physically fought. They just sat around in the back room until the minions were depleted and then surrendered. Why fight back and make their deaths a possibility under the Old Law? They're not desperate. They don't have nothing to lose. In a month's time, the Golden Pearl will be back, and nothing will have changed besides a few dozen more people dead or crippled.

Getting back to the Het and the Rakshasa story...in this case, White Chain is acting the part of the Sergeant, not Het. She may have started a redemptive arc back when we got that sidestory in book 2, but she's nowhere close to completing it. In fact, she just said in as many words that she thinks a redemptive arc for her would be against the rules; not just the legal rules, the physical rules. And sure, nobody actually believes that, any more than anyone in Solomon David's capital actually believes that he "saved" those construction workers, but a lot of people including White Chain pretend to believe it.

Frankly, if I were in Killy's position right here, I'd just snipe Omun Vash with a portal blast right on the spot and then tell the angels to come fite me if they're mad about it. I wouldn't even care when they kicked my ass. I'll just be free again in a week anyway.

...

As White Chain leads a fuming Killy away (seriously Killy, are you just going to take this shit? Really? Why can't this be one of those times when you just go fuck-everything-reckless?), the other angels remind White Chain that 2 Michael has given the order for all loyal angels to abandon Throne and regroup in the void desert. The war between Mammon and Mottom is going to boil over and spread soon, and the angels will be divesting from the multiverse until its over; Michael's prediction is that the multiverse itself will finish being destroyed this time, in which case Yisun may reawaken to create something new. They tell White Chain that they'll be heeding Michael's call and leaving soon, and that White Chain should probably do the same. White Chain thanks them for the update, and he and a still trembling-with-rage Killy walk back the way they came.

As soon as they're out of earshot, she tells White Chain that she should go back there and tell those two what's what. White Chain pretends not to know what she's so mad about. Then, Killy accidentally hits a nerve.

I love Killy's expression in the second panel. Like she just realized what's going on with White Chain and gender presentation.

For a long while, White Chain is silent. Looking over the cityscape while Killy waits for her to say something else. White Chain remembers 2 Michael's words from the void, and struggles with them. Well, either it's a memory or Michael is actually manifesting as a gigantic head and lecturing the entire city.

Probably the former, yeah. Unfortunately.

White Chain just turns around and insists that angels uphold the law, and that the law is good. If she didn't uphold the law, what would she even be? Lol, earlier she said that angels upholding the law was as natural for them as breathing is for a human. Now, she's framing it very differently. Can't keep the lies straight. Before Killy can call her on it, White Chain tells her that it's time to get back to her training. While surreptitiously cradling a teacup in her hands where Killy can't see.

Meanwhile, inside the tower, those two angels talk among themselves as they drag Vash to this week's holding cell. The topic of discussion being White Chain. He (as they call her) might be a strange one, but no one can doubt his dedication to the law, or his courage and skill. The reason 82 White Chain has such a high number before "his" name is because no other angel has been so eager to fight in defense of Throne and its laws; every one of those deaths was an honourable one, and their high number is a product of just how many battles White Chain has been in, not of weakness or incompetence. So, even if White Chain does bizarre things like try to train a stupid human in the ways of the Old Law sometimes, from these angels' perspective it's a right that has been earned.

As they put Vash in his cell, a rusty, dead-looking avatar on a storage shelf overhead starts showing signs of life.

Strange design, too. That recessed, nearly-faceless helmet making it look almost decapitated, and with much gaudier (if currently decayed) robes than most Concordants. And, whoever just downloaded themselves into it, they seem to be reacting to mention of White Chain's name.

Hmm. Well, how does the avatar-bonding process work, exactly? I don't think it's been gone into. At this point, I don't think it's as simple as any angel being able to possess any vacant synth at a moment's notice, given how many times White Chain has been forced out of hers and then jumped right back in the instant it was available again. There must be some sort of extended exercise that connects angel to synth. But in any case, this one DOES have someone in it, and seems like it isn't supposed to. That someone could be a new character, or it could be one we've already met; no way to be sure unless we see them emerge in spirit form.

Juggernaut Star or another thorn knight, being uncharacteristically sneaky? The ophan-headed lammasu dude who tried cheering White Chain up when she was disembodied? Hell, it could be Metatron himself for all we know. On the other hand, it could just as likely be a new character altogether. So, we'll see where this goes. Nicely set up little mystery, though; the author making very effective use of earlier-established material to make the reader's mind race.

Killy and White Chain return home. "Home" no longer seems to be that stolen ship, interestingly. Wonder where they've relocated to? Killy is in her bedroom, fixing her makeup in the mirror and thinking about what she sees. It's an obvious bookend to the mirror scene at the end of volume one. Her face has swollen up and then shrunk back into a scarred mess, which it remains today. Her hair has gone completely white, and seems like it will be staying that way; a very bad sign, considering where that came from. She used to think she was too fat, and then too skinny. Once she started adventuring in Throne, she thought she looked too weak; now she's so muscular she finds it almost grotesque. Always too something, or not enough something. However.

On one hand, this feels like a transition allegory, and as that I think it works and is both very true to reality and very positive.

On the other, her seeing the white hair as more "her" is definitely making me nervous. It pretty much confirms that yes, she DID permanently assimilate part of Incubus' personality. That might have some benefits, but it's also going to have some serious downsides.

Well, after finishing her makeup and her internal monologue, she heads downstairs and we get a look at the new living situation. Which...okay, this is just raising more and more questions about secrecy and consequences and suchlike.

To get the cool details addressed first, I love how much this looks like a K6BD Polly Pocket dollhouse or something. The multiple spiral staircases are cool. I love the detail that bedrooms are human-only, since angels and devils don't need to sleep. I'm kind of surprised Cio doesn't want her own private space though, unless the kitchen is just enough for her. Princess, according to the captions, has claimed the living room armchair as his domain, and he eats his daily two pounds of raw beef in or near it. white Chain DOES have her own space; it's the little tearoom/shrine at the bottom.

Interestingly, the goddess the shrine is dedicated to is Ys-Het, the god of watchmen. So, Het is actually a Ys. That means the stories about her being a human police officer in what sounded like the mid demiurgic era were invented long after the fact, or (more likely) originally stories about some other folk hero who eventually got folded into the Ys-Het archetype.

Nyave's bedroom is alleged to be in back somewhere. Probably on the same level as the bathroom, since that's where there's the most unseen space. I'm not sure how the front door is supposed to work, though. Like, you climb up some steps from the street to what looks like the god's ear canal, where it enters at bathroom level, but then there's this...covered shaft...that separates those two spaces and points back down again. So, you go up the stairs to the door, and then down other stairs to get to the lowest floor of the apartment? What the fuck kind of design is that? Well, regardless. They have a special upstairs window designed to accept messenger birds and/or diabolical couriers for mail, not that they ever get any. Those monkeys climbing around the exterior are called dolos. They're presumably an invasive species from one universe or another, and notorious for their ability to eat objects made of leather, ceramics, plastic, you get the picture.

Now, that said...

How can they live in a house? In Throne of all places? It's not like they're taking any pains to hide their identities. Killy is going around telling her name to everyone in the slums she superheroes in. How has Mottom not shown up at their door yet? She literally started a war with Mammon over her attempt to recapture Killy, how the hell would she not have caught up to her by now if this is how she's been living?

Why is Princess still with them, at this point? Wasn't his entire motivation for sticking around the hope that Killy would restore him to ebon status? Has Killy made any moves toward trying to do that at all? Why is she still on the team? This could have any number of perfectly good explanations, ranging from character development to being new BFF's with Cio to promises of political power in the future, but we haven't been told any. Princess has been explored even less than Nyave, and at least with her the motivations are obvious. I feel like the story is just kind of taking Princess for granted without ever having put in the groundwork to get away with that.

Then, there's the under-the-page caption, which - rather than being a quote from some in-universe text - says this:

“There are thirty or so homes of this kind in the god’s corpse. Allison and her compatriots managed to acquire it by spending the last of their guilders robbed from the bank of Mammon. The merchant who they bought it from was understandably furious when the value of the guilder crashed not a few days later due to an enormous, never-ending fountain of them pouring out from Mammon’s ruptured vault. His fury was subsided somewhat when Princess german suplexed one of his bodyguards into a sludge canal.”

How the fuck did the news travel so slowly that they were able to reach that merchant before it did, much less with enough time to spare for them to buy a freaking house? It's not like "Mammon's palace just literally exploded and sent a tidal wave of gold out to crush an entire district of the city" is a slow news day, you know? Everyone in Throne and everyone who's anyone in most of the conquered universes would have heard about this within 24 hours of it happening.

Also...while I can easily imagine Cio, Princess, and (possibly, with the right legal justifications) White Chain cheating a random guy out of his house, I have a little more trouble seeing Killy and Nyave going along with this. I guess there could have been more to the story than this blurb makes it sound, but if so then it's on the story for not communicating this.

The bigger issue is the secrecy from Mottom (and potentially other demiurgi), though. I can easily imagine any number of other ways the gang could come into possession of a skullhouse. I can't imagine any way that they could set up a permanent, readily visible home without any attempt to hide their real names and faces in Throne without getting the hammer dropped on them within the week.

Well. Whatever.

We follow Killy as she proceeds through her morning routine. Makeup. Coffee. Skulltop Tai-Chi while the dolo monkeys eat her unwatched coffee cup. Shopping, interrupted by using some eager local children as weights for an impromptu lifting session. Breakfast. Training session with White Chain. Etc.

Come afternoon, she lunches and then does some afternoon training with Cio. There's a frenzied succession of zoomed-in panels, showing lots of huffing and puffing, sweaty skin against skin over candle-lit bedsheets, etc as Cio shows Killy how to work some real magic with her fingers and tongue.

See, it's funny, because it looked like they were having sex but actually Cio was just teaching her literal magic employing finger movements and vocalizations.

Killy hits a breakthrough today, managing to transmute air into a plum. Of course it would be a plum. Yisun probably left that sitting around in the infrastructure of reality as a default transmutation target just for the lolz. Anyway, Cio eats Killy's plum. Then they have sex.

Cute.


Pause it here for now. I suspect the tournament arc will be starting in the next chapter or so.